Disclaimer- All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Author's Note:

Hey all. Sorry for being MIA; I'll tell you why in the ending author's note. (does happy dance) It feels so good to be posting again…

Luv

Creatress

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Persephone's Crown

Chapter 8 – Confidante and Counselor

Holly's eyebrows shot up. "Twenty Questions?" she echoed. When Artemis nodded stoically, she frowned a little. "So… What? We ask one another twenty questions?"

Artemis smirked. "The title would imply that, wouldn't it?" When Holly scowled, his smile grew and he sat back. "I'm thinking of something," he announced. "You guess what it is."

"What?" Holly asked, puzzled.

"You may ask me twenty polar questions, and I'll answer them. You guess what I'm thinking of based on the answers," Artemis summarized. Before Holly could react, he held up a finger. "But this is only the practice round, so I'll pick something easy." When Holly only stared at him, he raised an eyebrow. "Go!" he barked.

Holly started, not at the order, but at the ancient, unforgiveable magic, that made her obey. "Is it in this room?" she stammered.

"Yes." Artemis neither blinked nor looked away from her eyes.

Holly held his gaze, instincts kicking in. She had no need to look about the room, either; she'd memorized it when she first awoke in this place. "Is it furniture?"

"No."

"Reading material of some sort?"

It was the faintest twitch of his left hand, the fingers there momentarily curling a little, that gave Artemis away a little. When Holly's gaze dropped to it before snapping up to meet his eyes again, he furrowed his eyebrows. He spoke, his answer sure, yet careful. "Yes."

It occurred to Holly that Artemis hadn't looked away to check. "It's me."

Artemis quirked a shoulder, looking unimpressed. "Very good; you've conquered the practice level."

Holly leaned away a little, as if getting away from Artemis meant the same as avoiding the game. "I'm not playing games with you."

Artemis' cryptic smirk contrasted sharply with his disappointed tone. "Oh, why not?" he asked, sounding sullen. "Games are fun."

Holly could have laughed. "No doubt."

"Why not?" Artemis asked again, frowning a little.

Holly gave him a look that a girl might give a robber who'd asked permission to steal her purse. It was amused and sarcastic, yet still managed to come across as offended. "You think I don't know that you have some sick, twisted underlying purpose?"

"No," Artemis said, slowly. "I know you think that. But why would you?"

Holly shook her head. "You never do anything for fun. You never do anything without it having some point or another behind it. Which, by the way, is pretty sad."

Artemis chuckled, and even his laugh sounded measured. "How long have you known me, Holly?"

Holly's eyes flashed. "Apparently, we met years ago."

Artemis suddenly sat up, looking serious. "No, Holly, you need to get the story straight. We met one year before the day I kidnapped you."

Holly's tone was as dry as her smile when she responded. "So accurate with dates," she murmured. "You're going to make some girl very happy when you grow up."

"When we're both - " Artemis stopped midsentence. It was meant to be a scathing remark, said with no other intent than to hurt her. But it seemed like such an incredibly childish thing to say. 'When we're both grown up.' Holly looked away to the open window – the window, always the window – and Artemis took the opportunity to rub at his temple for a second. "Get the story straight," he finally repeated.

"What is the story?"

Artemis looked at Holly through narrowed eyes. "Neither Butler nor Juliet have told you?"

Holly shook her head, turning back to him. "So who was I?" she asked, her tone quiet, but casual.

Artemis suddenly found it hard to hold her gaze. Her eyes were huge; how hadn't he noticed before. A wry thought suddenly struck him that maybe it was because they were always narrowed whenever she looked at him. Sighing through his nose, Artemis blinked against a sudden headache, which suddenly disappeared as soon as it came as a thought struck him. Sitting up a little, he met Holly's gaze. "You tell me."

Holly cocked her head and frowned, looking a bit like an annoyed kitten about to whip out her claws. "What?"

Artemis remained neutrally passive, but there was an note of curiousity in his voice. "Tell me who you were. Are."

Holly's eyebrows furrowed. "Why?" she asked. "Can't we just make something up?"

Artemis shook his head, his lips twisting into a dry little smile. "It would be easier for us both – well, for you, in any case, if the lies had a thread of truth to them."

Holly stuck out her lower lip in a pout. "Oh, and you're just looking out for my best interests, aren't you?" She wiped away an imaginary tear before her face hardened. "Right."

Artemis opened his mouth to tell her off, before quickly remembering the rather long list of psychologists he himself had dealt with in the past. Then, a name flashed before his mind of a psychologist he'd neither seen nor talked to, but only knew by mention in an interesting file – Cummulus.

The thought occurred to Artemis that he and Holly weren't so different; neither of them liked dealing with people who wanted to psychoanalyze them. It was just the way that they handled their problems was different… But then again, a person's means could tell one a lot about them, and Artemis suddenly realized that Holly was watching him carefully. "Yes?" he asked.

Holly didn't reply right away and she straightened her back before she finally spoke. "If it would be easier for me if the lies had some truth to them, I would need to know about you, too."

Artemis froze for a second, then he smiled slowly, but thinly. "You deflect," he muttered, a note of approval buried deep beneath an overt amount of condescension. He suddenly felt as sorry as he did for Cumulus as he did for all of his own counselors. He sighed, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender. "What would you like to know?"

Holly's eyebrows shot up. "Well," she murmured, thoughtfully. A look of curiousity washed over her face. "Why are you such a bastard?"

Artemis folded his hands on the edge of the table before him. "And here I was expecting you to ask me what my favourite colour is," he said, sarcastically.

"Gold."

"No."

"Lie."

"Never."

"What's with your parents?"

Artemis froze. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.

Holly quirked a shoulder. "Somehow, I think that the reason she was sick and the reason that you are a cold, heartless arse are related." When she saw that Artemis didn't react, she licked her lips and tried again. "Why are you going to Russia?"

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Foaly wasn't too surprised when, whilst rinsing out his coffee mug, he happened to look up through his kitchen window just in time to see a huge patch of the front yard explode. A fountain of grass and dirt rained down around Mulch, who stood, with his knees slightly bent and his arms out, in a completely unnecessary Greatest-Entrance-Ever pose.

"Idiot," Foaly muttered when Mulch started walking. He shot to the front door and opened it just as the dwarf was raising his hand to knock. "Get in here." After pushing Mulch in, Foaly stopped for a second to glance around at the neighbouring houses, making sure that they were still dark. He closed the door to round on his – Frond forgive him – partner in crime.

"Calm yourself, Troy ol' boy," Mulch sang, wandering off toward the kitchen. He swatted at a few specks of dirt still hanging off his worn, pleather jacket. "Your hedge fences are high, and anyway, most of your neighbours are too deaf and too blind to notice their own farts, let alone notice little old me."

Foaly entered the kitchen to see that Mulch was pouring himself a cup of coffee, and gave him a disgusted, yet intrigued look. "Firstly, don't call me Troy. Secondly, how does being blind affect how you notice your farts?"

Mulch finished the cup in gulp and started pouring a second. "It doesn't. But, I'm a dwarf, so everything I say needs to be gas-related."

"Of course." Foaly went back to the sink to look out the window, frowning at the damage done to his yard. It would take some high-tech beauty products for lawns, coupled with magic to completely clean the mess up. Even if the shifted dirt was cleaned away and the grass was grown again, there would be a mark where Mulch tunneled under. A dwarf's presence (and all the chemicals related) tended to leave marks. Foaly looked closer at the damaged area, taking in the circle, and suddenly thought back to a course he took on Mud Men. "You know what I just realized?" he asked.

"What?" came Mulch's uninterested drawl.

"Every time you do that above ground and no one treats it, Mud Men come along and think it was caused fairies dancing on the spot."

Mulch almost choked on his coffee as he laughed. "Oh, they got one half-right," he remarked. "Good for them."

Foaly rubbed at his temple, his caffeine-high already starting to fall. "Come, my smelly little stuntman," he said. He grabbed the scruff on Mulch's collar as he started out of the kitchen and raised his voice to be heard over Mulch's complaining. "We have about twenty minutes to clean up the dwarf tracks before the Paper Pixie comes by."

Unable to argue about someone seeing him, Mulch just muttered viciously about "shooting himself in the foot." Catching the rake Foaly threw at him, Mulch turned and started to work, actually thankful to have an excuse not to meet the centaur's eyes as he approached one of the more delicate reasons for his visit. "So… Speaking of pixies… I heard your ex's technology's – HEY!" Mulch jumped when a clump of dirt and grass hit his back.

"Actually, I think I just made you cleaner. Go me," Foaly said. He didn't look up from his raking, and for a second, there was silence. "She's not my ex."

Mulch snorted as he went back to work. "So you're still seeing her?"

"No," Foaly snapped. He sighed, angrily. "What about Opal?"

"Still on a first-name basis, I see."

"Mulch!"

"Fine, fine," Mulch said, giving up. "My, you're cranky in the morning. Anyway, I heard her company's having some financial… Mysteries on their hands."

"Mysteries?" Foaly echoed. He glanced at Mulch's back. "What are you talking about?"

Mulch grinned, toothily. "So the law enforcers haven't heard of this yet? I guess we, the accused, get news in advance. A lot of her shareholders have started bellyaching about – oh, and a select few of the smarter ones have started hiring PIs to investigate – disappearing money. Gold goes into the R&D department, and never comes out."

Foaly straightened, thinking. "The company's journal wouldn't match the R&D's ledgers," he hypothesized. He frowned, thinking. "Embezzlement?"

"Who knows?" Mulch asked, shrugging.

"Why are you telling me this?" Foaly asked, moving towards the rather tall garage door. "A few accountants would be able to sort this out."

"I heard you found a few guns the other day," Mulch recalled. The sound of the garage door drew his attention away from his raking, and the dwarf smirked at the vehicle inside.

Whenever centaurs needed to drive, they drove RCs. The manufacturer, who had a very untalented marketing team, had named the vehicles the "reverse chariots." The vehicles were the sizes of buses, as centaurs were the only creatures, other than trolls, in the Underworld who were as tall as humans. Needless to say, RCs did a number on the traffic every morning, causing problems in different, rather imaginative, ways. Foaly's own was very, very beat up, and Mulch was never able to tell if gray was its colour or if the paint had completely come off.

"Hey, do you go in early every morning because you're afraid that people would see that hunk of metal and sue you when their retinas burn?" Mulch asked.

Foaly picked up a plastic, cylindrical container before he started to close the garage door. "Keep talking, dwarf; I'm going spray liquid fertilizer into your mouth."

Mulch made a face and stepped back. There were a few things even he wouldn't swallow.

Foaly suddenly looked somber as he started working. "About those guns… You know we're going to bring our good friend below ground today," he said, lowly. His eyes shifted as he scanned the dark houses again. Deaf or blind, some of his neighbours were conservative and fearful enough to sense the Mud Man's name being uttered in their deepest sleep; a good half of his neighbourhood loathed Holly, for more than one reason.

"It's only you and Root who will…?"

"There's always a risk of someone from the Council dropping in," Foaly muttered, shaking his head. "We just need to make sure he doesn't blabber about Holly during the questioning."

"Never mind Holly; they can't do anything about her," Mulch cut in. "What if he says something about us?"

Foaly chuckled, drily. "Forget 'us.' They're already after you; it's me I'm worried about."

"Nice." Mulch looked like he was about to add something, but stopped when he saw the look on Foaly's face.

Foaly was staring at the dark houses of his neighbours, their silhouettes against the fake twilight giving him an idea.

xXxXx

"My father never told me much about his businesses, but, of course, I was able to figure out from a young age what was happening." Artemis was staring at his hands, internally starting a little when he felt them tremble the slightest bit. He tightened them and even managed a small smirk. "Truth be told…" He sighed a little, as if confessing some sin. He looked up at Holly and was pleased to see that she looked as stoic as she had earlier. "It immensely irritates me when people try to be sympathetic." He glanced around the room. "We didn't spend much time together when he was here. Most days, I barely notice that he's gone. There's only one constant reminder."

"Your mother's illness." It wasn't a guess.

"Correct," Artemis said. "I suppose she tries to… Balance everything. She's always at some charity event or another; she is obsessed with trying to cancel out everything my father does." He paused for a second, his slightly narrowed eyes dropping to his hands again. "She loves him, though."

"Are you afraid she'll relapse?"

Artemis suddenly stiffened, and his hands stopped shaking of their own accord. When he looked back up at Holly, she saw that he was smiling darkly. "No," he lied, smoothly.

Holly, immediately detecting it, rolled her eyes. "That can't have been easy for you." She raised her eyebrows, fixing him with an accusing gaze. "I can believe what you told me, can't I?"

"Why wouldn't you?" Artemis asked with a shrug, as he reached for a napkin.

"I think I heard I similar sob story before…" Holly mulled, thoughtfully. "Or maybe I read it somewhere."

"Fairy novels, too?" Artemis snorted. "I am bad because my father's a criminal and my mother's unavailable. After breakfast, I'm going to cause a slight inconvenience to all the world's heroes by taking out every phone booth in Ireland. After all, they can't come after me if they've got nowhere to change."

Holly didn't look amused. "That is incredibly unfunny," she said, drily. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Why phone booths?"

"Never mind. I told you, Holly," Artemis said, smiling wryly. "Fiction is always a little easier with a bit of fact."

Holly narrowed her eyes. "So every kid with unconventional parents is going to grow up and try to take over the world? I beg to differ."

"No," Artemis stated. "In any case, I'm not going to argue about the classics with you. We haven't even read the same ones." He held up a finger to silence her when she opened her mouth to respond. "We were talking about life stories earlier, remember?" His comforting smile did nothing to disguise the curiousity in his eyes. "I've shown you mine. Now, you show me yours."

Holly snarled, but a deal was a deal. "Fine," she muttered. However, before she could begin, a slight haze out the window caught her eye. The sky outside was light blue and flawless, except for that one spot where it…

Alarm bells went off in Artemis' head when he suddenly noticed that Holly wasn't looking at him. He whipped toward the window in time to see the curtains fly up as a figure suddenly appeared on the sill.

Then, there was darkness.

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A/n

Hey everyone. So sorry for the absence, once again. If anyone wants to see one of the reasons, it's because of this blog:

http:// www . tdottech. blogspot. com. It's a blog we've been working on for school. If you want to hear me whine about… Well, many things, just go there and look up posts by . It's all written in a kind of Why Hartemis Shouldn't Happen type tone, so… Yeah.

Next chapter:

Root interviews Arty.

Foaly talks to Opal and Calbaline

Butler and Holly set out to… Well, you'll see.

Don't worry though – as midterms are now drawing to a close, I'll be updating more often.

Review! It feels so good to be back.