Disclaimer: I don't own characters created by Rick Riordan. This is FanFiction, so I guess that goes without saying...
The final results for the poll are on my page! I have decided to do the piracy story. Thank you all for voting!
29 – XXIX
Theodora's life began the exact opposite of the other two's lives. She was born to a princess in a kingdom in the northern region of Thessaly.
The king had received a prophecy when his only daughter was born that she would bear a child of a chthonic god who would grow to overthrow him.
Of course, knowing the legends, he believed that casting his daughter to the side would end up poorly just as it had for many other kings of other kingdoms, so he let his daughter roam free and believed in her and her choices.
The princess, who never knew these circumstances, was a very boyish girl. She always had an interest in whatever was considered a manly hobby. Once, she even took a bath with a couple of the soldiers under her father's command, though nothing bad happened to her. She drank wine with the guys, and practiced swordplay with the guys. At that point, she was eleven years old. It was then that the king started imposing more feminine things on her.
The one thing that the princess found herself fixated on was a skull ring that he father gave her. It wasn't a particularly dazzling piece of jewellery, but she treasured it dearly. She was eighteen and unmarried when she first met the god Hades.
She had just been taking a night walk alone along the palace's water pool in the courtyard when she saw a man standing, staring at the water in distaste. For some reason, he fascinated her.
She walked up to him and said, "Hello, mister. How are you?"
The man, startled, turned to her and said, with narrowed eyes, "Who are you?"
"The princess," she replied hotly, angered that a man was being so rude to her. But something about his aura told her that in no way was she at a higher rank in power than he. In fact, he radiated power, something that one wouldn't be able to discern at a first glance. "Um, who are you?" she asked timidly.
The man sighed. "I go by many names."
"What may I call you?"
"Hades," he replied.
"Like the god."
"I suppose so," he said bitterly.
The princess, ignorant that she was talking to the actual god, stared up into the night sky. The moon was bright that night, and the sky was cloudless. She smiled faintly, "I've always wondered about Hades. I know that Zeus and Poseidon are very popular gods, as Zeus and Poseidon have had many children. But I wonder about Hades. People say that he is cruel and mean, which I don't necessarily disagree with, but sometimes I wonder if he is just misunderstood."
The man smiled in annoyance. "Trust me, young lady. Hades is very cruel and mean. But that's because his family shunned him from the world simply because he appeared scary. Perhaps if they had accepted him, he wouldn't have been so bitter and cruel to their children."
"That is true," the princess admitted. "I should probably head back to the palace. I don't want to alarm my father."
"Have you figured it out yet?"
The question was sudden. She titled her head in confusion. "Pardon me?"
"That I am Hades?"
Her eyes widened and she put a hand to her mouth. "Oh my gods! Is it truly you, Lord Hades? Please accept my forgiveness. I've always been kind of ignorant to my surroundings. I should really pay attention more, shouldn't I? It has been nice speaking to you, Lord Hades."
He gave her a wary look. "I don't scare you?"
She looked at him. "No, my lord. You may be bitter, but I understand why you feel as such. I, too, do not think it's fair for you to be shunned by your family like that. It would have been wondrous if you had a loving family such as mine. But what brings you out here, my lord?"
"It is winter, is it not? The winter solstice nears, and so does the time I will be able to head to Olympus. Olympus is not far from here. And although the water reminds me of my wretched brother Poseidon, I cannot help but admit that that calmness and serenity of water can sometimes relax my nerves. It lifts the pressure of running the Underworld off my shoulders and I am able to get rid of my worries."
The princess laughed gently. "That is why I take night walks. It helps ease my mind."
The god nodded, unsure of what to do now. It had been such a long time since he had been attracted to a mortal. He figured it would be bad if he fell in love again with some mortal woman he had just met.
"Please, Lord Hades," the princess offered. "Come back as many times as you would like. I am sure my father would be welcome and open to you."
Hades puffed up his chest. "I'm sure he would. After all, I am a god."
In the end, the king never learned of Hades' presence in his kingdom. But it was a year later that his daughter was pregnant. Alarmed, the king went to check the omens for any sign of bad luck. All signs pointed toward the positive end of the spectrum. Feeling his worries ease away, he furiously defended his daughter from accusations of being a slut and a whore. When the beautiful baby girl was born, the king felt overjoyed. There was no way that this girl could possibly be the one to overthrow him.
But when the girl was three years old, she showed the first sign of magical power. She summoned a skeleton warrior, a whole skeleton warrior, and was playing with it. It was a dead hoplite soldier, and it wielded a deadly sharp spear. When the king found out, he immediately sent his guards after the child.
Fearing for young Theodora's life, the princess changed back to her old, tomboyish self and ran off with her child. They fled all the way down through the Peloponnese and settled in a village just outside the city of Pylos, where once the great Nestor ruled, as a happy family of two.
Naturally, being a child of Hades, that happiness didn't last very long.
Theodora found herself shunned by her peers, by children around her age, for being a monster. She resented being a child of Hades and directed her anger toward her father. But as she grew up, she realized that she was better than them and tried to convince herself that it was their problem, not hers. Her anger for Hades quickly transferred onto the kids. And by the age of eight, Theodora was a killer.
"You're a loser!" shouted the lead boy.
"Shut up!" Theodora snarled. "Shut up or I'll kill you!"
"What? You going to use your superpowers? There are ten of us. There is one of you. You can't win if you want to fight."
"I hate you!" Theodora growled, tears forming in her eyes. "Why do you have to be so mean? It isn't my fault that I'm a daughter of Hades!"
"Yeah, but it's your fault that you continue to exist!" the boy snapped. "Go kill yourself. Run yourself through with your sword. That would make everyone in the village happy."
All the kids laughed. Theodora had always been alone. She had always suffered. Her mother had gone from riches to rags. Her mother was always there for her, always kind. Her mother worked so hard for her. But still no one could accept her, just because she was the child of the Lord of the Dead. They hated her, resented her, feared her. They felt threatened by her rather than grateful that they had someone powerful who could help protect them.
The tears streaked down her face. She couldn't muster up the power to retort. She stood there, weeping, as the other kids continued to mock her.
She covered her ears and shouted, "Go away! Go away!"
Someone threw a rock at her, and she fell to the ground. Through her tears, she looked up to see who had thrown it. The lead boy had done it. He was smiling proudly, as if he'd just done a good deed, and the rest of the kids cheered him on. He was holding another stone in his hand. As she took her hands off her ears, he threw the rock. It caught her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her.
The kids laughed and jeered at her.
Her tears of pleading quickly turned to tears of anger. If he threw one more rock…
The boy picked up the biggest rock yet and threw it with all his might. Theodora felt a sudden strength reach her as she dodged the rock and let out an ear-piercing scream. The temperature around her dropped to freezing. All the plants and flowers around her wilted and died as she let all her pain and anger loose. The ground underneath the boy suddenly cracked and opened up, like a chasm to the Underworld, and swallowed the boy. Even after the ground closed up, everyone could hear the echoes of his screams as he fell to his death.
All of her anger dissipated as she ran back toward her house, crying.
Not ten minutes later, her mother was receiving death threats from all the villagers. The parents of the boy shouted at them to leave. Theodora wept as she backed away from her mother.
"Please, Theodora," her mother begged. "Come here. It's fine."
"No, you should just kill me," Theodora wept. "It would be better."
"Don't say that!" her mother snapped hotly. "You are my girl, and it doesn't matter what other people say about you. I love you with all my heart."
"Momma," she croaked. She ran to her and hugged her as tightly as she could. All her grief and sadness were let out in loud sobs. "I'm sorry!"
Later on, her mother invited the boy's parents in and they had a lengthy conversation. Theodora sat in the corner as her mother argued her case. A bunch of the other parents and kids also came in as witnesses and protesters.
"That is no excuse for her to kill him!" the boy's mother shrieked. "That is uncalled for. You have to get rid of her! She is nothing but bad luck. It's all because she's a child of that unruly god Hades. Perhaps if she was a daughter of Zeus, then we wouldn't be cursed with this horrible luck!"
"Hades is a fine god!" snapped her mother. "He is simply misunderstood."
"That's just because you slept with him you whore," the boy's mother snarled.
The boy's father looked at the other kids. "What happened?" he demanded, a fierce look in his eyes.
Theodora felt like curling up in a ball and disappearing.
The kids all looked down.
"What happened?!" he barked, sending a couple of the girls screaming and crying to the parents.
One of the braver boys stepped forward. He swallowed nervously and glanced at Theodora. She recognized him as one of the bystanders, someone who had laughed at her, but didn't really do anything against her. The other guys backed away, giving him dirty looks, as if he was betraying them. He looked back at the boy's father and said, "He was throwing rocks at her. He was calling her mean things. I was too scared to stop him. He made her cry. He said bad things. Then she got angry and screamed really loudly. I could feel her pain. That's what I saw."
A girl spoke up. "That's what I saw too."
"Well it's her fault for being a stupid person!" argued one of the boy's close friends.
An older boy stepped in. "He deserved what he got."
His close friends growled at him and got ready to surround him and attack, but Theodora barked, "Stop!"
All of them froze in fear.
"Fighting won't solve anything!" she said. She turned to the boy's parents. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill him. I just got angry."
The boy's parents sniffed in disdain. The father turned to her mother and said, "You will have to pay for this. We'll discuss terms and conditions tomorrow."
Slowly, everyone left, and Theodora and her mother were left alone.
"Are you in trouble, mom?" asked Theodora.
Her eyes shone with worry, but she put on a brave smile and said, "No, my dear. Now, get some sleep."
For the next two years, Theodora found herself training in swordplay with her mother. Ever since the incident, her mother had become tenser and wearier as each day passed on. The bags under her eyes grew large, and wrinkles of stress began developing on her beautiful face.
One day, after the two years of training, Theodora found her mother packing a small pack.
"Mother?" Theodora asked. "What are you packing?"
Her mother turned to her, fear shining brilliantly in her eyes. "My child, you must leave."
To say she was stunned was an understatement. "Mother, what are you talking about?"
Her mother shoved the pack into her arms. "You must leave tonight."
"What about you?"
"I cannot. It would cause too much suspicion. But if you leave tonight, you will spare the lives of many. In the pack I have prepared a map. As long as you follow the road, you shall find an old acquaintance of mine. He will take you in and continue training you. But promise me something: do not return to this village for another six years. Promise me that, Theodora."
After much hesitation, Theodora finally agreed to her mother's conditions.
She left the village and trained in a village near Athens. After six years, she returned to the village, curious as to her mother's fate. At the edge of the village, she ran into an old face. It was the first boy who had defended her that night eight years ago. He looked much older now, and it was clear that the land he was cultivating was now his.
"Demetrios!" she called.
He turned, and his eyes lit up in recognition. "Theodora?! Is that you? Wow, you've…" He stared at her. "You've matured really well." Then he cocked his head in confusion. "But what is that outfit? And what's with the sword?"
She frowned. "You aren't surprised about me being gone?"
"Well, your mother always told us that you were safe," he said.
"Speaking of my mother, where is she now?" Theodora asked.
Demetrios suddenly looked down. "Um… I really don't think that should be answered."
Theodora's face fell. "Did something happen to her?"
"She was killed," Demetrios said grimly. "Two months after you disappeared."
Theodora froze in shock. "What?"
"I always thought it was kind of cruel, but she deserved it. I mean, you basically killed someone and never received a punishment. It's cruel but fair that you receive punishment for that. I heard that you would be forced to work in the fields. Your mother was forced to work in the fields because of what you did, instead. Two years later, your mother found out they were planning to kidnap you and sell you into slavery, so she forced you to leave. She'd been whipped and beaten on the fields, but her torture this time was excruciatingly painful. She died from her wounds two months later." Then he smiled at her. "But I guess leaving was a good thing, huh? You've developed finely. It came at a price, but at least you're alive."
Theodora felt rage burning in her. She unsheathed her sword and stabbed the man right through the gut. His eyes went wide in surprise. "Theodora?" he croaked.
"You…" Her voice trembled. "I'd rather die for my mother than live without her. I thought… I thought if I left, she would be fine. I thought they would let her free because I was gone. But… if you accept this…"
She tore the black Stygian iron sword from his stomach and left him to bleed out.
Needless to say, she found out that the boy's parents had been responsible for her mother's death, and she razed the village and killed all of its inhabitants except for one, who managed to escape and spread the word about her.
When she turned to the village she'd lived in for the past six years, they kicked her out. Resentment and anger filled her. All she had ever wanted was love and companionship, but even her six years in the village wasn't enough to create any close bonds with anyone. She was always left alone, isolated for being a foreigner. So she relied on crime to help supply her with money.
Developing her stealth and combat skills quickly, she took on mercenary jobs. Coincidentally, the third job she took to kill a rampant king in northern Thessaly to help rebels turned out to be her grandfather. In the end, she received half of the king's jewels and sold them for large amounts of drachmas.
Over the years, she kept herself isolated and distanced herself away from people, so naturally, when she first saw Aniketos and Rhode in the library, her first reaction was surprise. But as she turned to face Aniketos, there was something about him that attracted her. She fell in love at first sight. She had learned how to play coy over the years, but this time it was for real.
A year later, they were dating and had slept together once.
With the leader of the group, Rhode, Theodora felt no competition. It was clear Rhode had no intention of marrying or even sleeping with Aniketos. It was because of that that she looked up to Rhode like an older sister. Rhode often acted like an older sister, and for the first time in her life, she found friends.
Back on that day in the library, she was glad she chose to go with her gut feeling and help them. Their adventures were fun, although dangerous.
"Rhode, watch out behind you!" Theodora shouted.
Spinning with her gleaming bronze sword, Anaklusmos, Rhode slashed the hellhound into dust. With a battle cry, she leaped in to help Aniketos, who was holding off three hellhounds with his shield, Aegis. Its very aura was powerful enough to deter monsters from mauling him. And with Theodora, one of the gifts she had received from the looting of her grandfather's palace was a helmet that her grandfather stole from a son of Hades he killed. It radiated fear and darkness so intense, even the monsters parted for her.
Despite her years of training, Theodora always found herself the weakest when it came to sword combat. Aniketos was a gifted swordsman, and Rhode was incredibly impressive with her gleaming bronze sword, as if it was an extension of her arm. In combat, although Aniketos always prevailed, Rhode put up very good fights. Theodora could barely hold her own against Rhode, and that was saying something, because she rarely lost before meeting these two.
Quickly, she learned that both of her friends were quite the extroverts. Both liked speaking, and although Rhode was reserved, she was nowhere near as shy as Theodora, who despite liking to play coy, found herself blushing whenever she spoke to Aniketos, and attentive as she listened when Rhode spoke. Aniketos held a powerful commanding voice, his voice loud and strong as it should be for a son of Zeus, but when it mattered most, Rhode came out far more decisive and assertive than Aniketos.
Her screams were unrivaled as they battled monsters day in and day out.
When she first joined the group and saw Rhode's and Aniketos' parentages and personalities, she was shocked when she found out that Rhode was the initiator and leader. After a year, however, that was something quite obvious.
Rhode not only showed up big when it counted most, but she knew when to retreat. It was almost as if Rhode could detect the ebb and flow of the battle, like it was water or something like that. She was strategic and smart, even if she didn't always show it. Rhode was also extremely beautiful with dazzling eyes that Theodora felt jealous of.
Rhode's hair went past her shoulders, but they never seemed to get in her way. Ever since Theodora had become a part of the group, she'd cut her ponytail to look more like Rhode. Although she found it uncomfortable at first, she slowly got used to it. After a month or so, she adjusted the hairstyle to her comfort. Instead of hair that grew past her shoulders, she kept her hair shoulder-length, but allowed hair that she normally would have tucked behind her ear to hang freely by the side of her face simply because the hair was about chin-length.
Rhode was also tall, which Theodora felt jealous of. She was the shortest of the group by far. But perhaps because of genetics, she was taller than average height for women. At least she didn't have to stand on the balls of her feet to kiss Aniketos.
Still, Theodora loved Rhode like a sister she'd never had.
"Are you sure the Nemean lion's reincarnated?" Aniketos asked Rhode.
"I'm sure of it! We just have to capture it!"
"How are we going to do that?" Theodora asked her.
She grinned deviously. "Don't worry. I've got a way."
Just as Rhode had predicted, the Nemean lion charged into the battle not a minute later. The three of them quickly cleared the area as they prepared for battle against the lion. Aniketos came in with a slash, which as he predicted, bounced right off the lion's fur. Theodora winced as he was sent flying to the side.
"We have to shoot something in its mouth!" Theodora shouted at Rhode.
"No, we don't!" Rhode was running toward Aniketos. "Give me Aegis!"
"What?"
"Just give your shield to me!"
Aniketos obeyed and tore the straps off his shield. He tossed it to Rhode, who turned and charged in toward the Nemean lion. Theodora saw her pull out a shiny jewel. She could tell that it was laced with magic.
"Méntioum megála térata! Drastiriopoió!" she shouted.
The jewel suddenly disappeared, and Aegis glowed golden. The light suddenly intensified, and Rhode slammed into the Nemean lion as it raked its claws against the blinding shield of Aegis. But unlike what she thought would happen, the Nemean lion was engulfed in the light and disappeared. The light died, and Rhode tucked and rolled as she fell to the ground. Aegis came rolling off her arm as she did so, the metal steaming like it had just been heated.
"What did you… what did you just do?" Aniketos cried out. "My shield!"
Rhode stared at it. "This is what it takes to be noticed, Aniketos. If we want to be heroes, we have to do the unthinkable. And I've found a way."
"What just happened?" Theodora asked in awe. "What have we been doing for the past year?"
Rhode grinned. "It's going to take a while, but this is what I had in mind…"
Thanks for reading. I'm really busy at the moment, so although I put the polls up, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm probably going to stop posting for a while after I finish this story. A small hiatus or something while I recollect my thoughts.
SharkAttack719
