Chapter 10 Memories
"You look so pretty!" Helen gushed. No it is not the same Helen who caused the Trojan war. This Helen is Victor's wife.
"Helen. I look like a wannabe Aphrodite. Can we tone it down a little bit?" Athena asked.
"Are you sure?" Helen asked.
"This hair style seems more suited for fashion or a wedding." She replied.
"Great I'll keep that in mind whenever you decide to get married." Helen responded and changed Athena's hairstyle to something more simple to tone down.
"Better?" She asked.
"Yes, thank you. For helping me get ready and helping me find a dress." Athena replied.
"Not a problem, I've heard much about you from Victor I have been wanting to meet you and when he told me that you needed help with getting ready for the ball I had to take advantage." She replied with a smile. Athena gave a small smile in return and looked at her reflection in the pail of water nearby. Her wavy hair hung down around her shoulders freely instead of back in the braid she always kept it in. Her bangs were braided and pulled back around her head to the back. She wore a simple but elegant black and white dress with an orange drape that had a dark blue swirl design on it.
Helen wore her dark red hair half up and curly with a dark green dress and a silver and red drape.
"Come on! Kozmotis and Victor are probably waiting! I can't wait to meet him, he'll be in awe when he sees how pretty you look. Not that you aren't pretty anyways but still." Helen said, while pulling Athena out of the house to the plaza where they agreed to meet Victor and Kozmotis. As Helen had predicted the two were already there facing away from the two girls as they approached.
Helen took her husbands hand and the two young men turned around.
"Are you two ready? Would have thought you could have helped Helen learn how to be ready faster." Victor said to Athena.
"Excuse me but it was not my fault, Athena did not like the first hairstyle." Helen replied.
"Why not?" Kozmotis asked her.
"She says she looked like a wannabe Aphrodite. Or suited for a wedding." Helen replied.
"Well it's true." Athena replied with a shrug.
"Well let's not waste more time." Victor said and started walking with Helen.
"You look lovely Athena." Kozmotis said to her and held out his arm. She smiled, a blush crossing her face and took his arm as the two followed.
Athena felt very much out of place at the ball and she could tell that she wasn't the only one. Many of the common women and men seemed to feel out of place but were having fun none the less.
"Would you care to dance?" Kozmotis asked Athena holding out a hand. She smiled and took it as they joined others in dancing.
"I am honestly surprised that you dance." Kozmotis commented.
"I haven't in a long time but even an odd person such as myself does enjoy more normal things from time to time." Athena replied as they continued to dance to the song that was playing, they rarely spoke, just danced and enjoyed each other's company.
It seemed that no time at all passed by before the song slowly ended and the two found themselves looking into each others eyes. On impulse they both moved closer, eyes closing and shared a tender kiss.
What are you going to do? Moon asked Athena.
"Something stupid and crazy." Athena replied.
Will it work?
"Yes...most likely...maybe...hopefully." She answered and flew off before her friend could try to talk her out of it. She waved her wand and a ball, similar to North's globe appeared.
"Find Pitch Black, I have a message for him." She commanded and gave the message before tossing the ball into the air and whacked it with a magical tennis racket that appeared in her hand. It went flying with a stream of orange and purple sparkly magic flying behind it and disappeared from sight.
The ball dove into the a hole and rolled to a stop at Pitch's feet and started bouncing until it was at his shoulder level and floated there, starting to glow orange and project an image of Athena above.
He stared at the image questioningly.
"I see it found you without any problems. I think we need to talk. No tricks, no violence, just a peaceful chat." Athena said.
"Why?" Pitch asked.
"You're missing memories. I think I know a way that can help you get some of them back." She replied.
A part of Pitch desperately wanted to believe that what she said was true, after all he did know her in his human life. But another part, the part that the fearlings had a tight grip on started to protest.
"What makes you think I care?" Pitch demanded.
"I know you do. Besides you said so yourself." She responded.
After a few minutes of internal struggle he replied, "Fine. When and where?"
"Do you remember the river, the third time we met?" She questioned.
A brief image appeared in his mind, "Yes."
"There. Tomorrow night at midnight for that time zone. Remember no tricks, no violence, just peaceful chatting." She responded.
"I look forward to it." He responded with a creepy smile that put Athena on edge but she wasn't going to back down. She cut the transmission and the ball fell to the floor, lifeless. Pitch picked it up and studied it. It was now an ordinary bouncy ball.
Athena kept up with the time the rest of the night and the next day while flying around the world doing her job and would visit small children when they got scared and would give them candy or help them find their parents. That was the only time she was seen was when she masqueraded as a human and directly helped as long as she was dressed up. She could never be seen as herself, but it didn't bother her much. She got use to it after her grandchildren passed away.
"Athena!" She immediately recognized the voice to be Jack's and turned her head as he caught up, riding the wind.
"You had mentioned the other week that you knew something about my family." He said.
"Um, yeah, I just thought that you and Jamie would like to know that you're related. Well Jamie is a descendant of your sister so distantly related." She responded.
"I thought you said that you only keep up with your descendants?" He said confused and then put it together, "Wait. If you know that Jamie is one of my descendants then does that mean we're your descendants?"
"You are correct." Athena replied.
"And...we're Pitch's descendants too. Oh my god that is a weird thought." He answered.
"Not that Pitch is aware of this." She pointed out.
"But Jamie is one of my family's descendants! That's so cool I have to go tell him!" Jack said and did a flip through the air.
"You have fun with that." Athena answered.
"You have to come with me! You can show us our family tree right?" He asked.
"I can but not right now. I have to go meet someone." She responded.
"Who?" Jack questioned.
Athena hesitated, but decided that she should maintain trust with the other Guardians so at least one of them should know what she was going to do.
"I'm going to go meet with Pitch. Now before you start questioning I'm going to see if I can help him get the rest of his memories back. Maybe if he had all of his memories then, it'll be able to...I don't know help loosen the hold the fearlings have on him. If it doesn't work, well then it wouldn't really make any difference anyways, he'd understand comments I make at least." She replied.
"That is both stupid and crazy...good luck." He remarked.
"Glad to see you're not freaking out." She commented.
"You'll do it anyways and besides you can take care of yourself. Don't forget to show us our family tree, I want to see who my sister married." Jack said before sailing off on the wind. Athena checked the time and headed off as well towards Europe, where the island Athens use to reside. She landed outside the cave where she spent a lot of time working on projects and for a long time had been her home. She then headed to the river, it had gotten wider and deeper over the years but was generally the same besides that.
"You're late." The familiar smooth voice said, sitting on a rock nearby.
Athena checked the time and said, "By two minutes; sorry I had some news to tell a relative."
"Relative?"
"Jack Frost. One of our descendants." She responded.
"Our?" Pitch questioned.
"Yes. You came here to learn about your human life. You won't believe it but we were married...technically we still are." She responded.
"You're right I don't believe that because it's absurd." He responded.
"Oh is it? I found that you had dropped this. Been keeping it safe for you. You'll recognize the girl on it, that's Katherine. She was also on that tapestry I made of us, our family. Inside the locket is your wedding ring. I have one too. One of the random little things we have in common is that we don't like wearing rings all the time so we kept them in the lockets and wore or carried those instead and wore our rings whenever we felt like it." Athena said and held up a locket with a picture of their daughter on it. Athena pulled hers out from under her jacket.
A flash of recognition appeared on Pitch's face as he reached out for the locket. Athena closed the distance and put it in his hand. He studied it for a minute or so before popping it open and let the ring drop out and into his hand. On the inside was a smaller picture. A wedding picture, originally had been painted, of himself with Athena who had the same picture inside her locket as well. Their friends Victor and Helen made the lockets for them as wedding presents and Helen added the image of Katherine after she got older.
"Us? Married? How did that happen?" Pitch asked with an amused laugh. Athena use to love Pitch's laugh but nowadays it sounded dark and sadistic.
"In all honestly that was something neither of us really understood. I suppose we were just alike and different enough to make it work." Athena responded.
"You think this silly locket will help me remember?" He asked.
"I hoped it might help." She replied.
"Anything else you want to tell me? You think 'might help'?" He questioned.
"Actually yes. I didn't know very much about your past before we met. But I did also find this when I found the locket...after you became Pitch Black. I admit that I did read it. Maybe if you read it you might gain some more memories." Athena pulled out a thick journal, Pitch's military journal. She handed it over to him and watched him as he opened it and flipped through it and closed it again.
"Is that all?" He questioned.
"Yes I suppose for now. Have a nice night." Athena responded turning away but then noticed that Pitch had disappeared followed by a laugh, which of course was never good. She did a 360 degree turn, listening for sounds but heard nothing.
Swoosh!
"Yeek!" Athena squeaked and ducked in time to miss her head being sliced off, although the blade did cut some strands of hair.
"Hey what happened to no weapons?" She demanded before jumping out of the way.
"You ended the little meeting so terms for it are off as well." Pitch responded.
"Oh whatever. I don't have time for a fight. Ta, ta." Athena responded with a little wave and allowed a portal to pull her through.
She sat at the top of a high tree, staring at her own locket.
It didn't work. I couldn't even tell if he actually remembered anything. She thought sadly and let out a sigh. A little tooth fairy stopped and floated before her with a questioning expression.
"Hey little tooth fairy. How are you tonight?" Athena asked and held up her hand for the little fairy to sit on. The fairy smiled and returned with her questioning expression again.
"Oh, I'm okay, just a little disappointed that a plan didn't work as well as I'd hoped." Athena responded with a shrug. The little fairy stared at her blankly.
"It's nothing to worry about. I'd get that tooth back to the palace so it can be put away safely." Athena said and held out her hand as the little fairy gave a wave and flew off.
"Oh my gods they're so adorable I'm gonna die!" Athena gushed. She had rarely seen the baby fairies and never up close so she had to gush about it.
hello all: Yes I know the ending was a little odd, my sister already told me. It wasn't supposed to be any kind of cliffhanger or anything like that I just wanted to bring the fairies in a little since they kind of come and go all night it's not really a surprise to see some every so often if you're also flying around at night. But yeah sorry for taking so long on this chapter, school has started back, uhh -.- but it looks like I'll have some good classes, but I might also have a good amount of work, for now I only have 3 since one of them, the room it's in is under construction so it won't be starting until February (yay!).
But yeeaaahhh...I believe I have 2 OC's and a character idea (so that's 3). I am willing to take more if anyone is interested.
Thank you to Mikomi121: For the idea; , and Phantom of the Black Pearl: for the OC's
I am off to bed so goodnight all!