P E N T H E S I L E I A
- Dim Aldebaran -
I.
Plasma dripped off him, the color and consistency of tangerine pulp. Victory had a certain acidic taste.
Before him, a nightmare awoke and became a dream: she was not the archvillain who had tried to take his life minutes before, rather, a fallen genius, paradise lost. Her eyes flickered, and began to burn once more.
"Is she conscious?" Root asked.
Holly punched her; her head flew back and hit the ground with a sharp thud. "Nope," she said innocently. "Out cold."
He winced, despite himself.
Was that really necessary? he meant to say—but then he remembered the plasma, a slow seep of radiation into his veins. "Could somebody spray me?" he gasped.
Holly obliged: he was enveloped in antiradiation foam as well as laughter. He tasted victory again and it was sweet this time, for he was laughing, laughing at himself, laughing with others.
He forgot the child-like figure on the floor, her dark hair spread around her like the night unwoven.
II.
There were tears in Holly's eyes as she told him to sleep; she thought this would be the end of it all. She didn't know him very well, evidently.
She could have, he found himself thinking—but the time for such thoughts was past now.
He could see out of the haze even as he fell deeper into it: and as he fell he saw that child on the floor, broken, black-haired and black-hearted, breathing the slow breaths of meditation.
Oh, he thought, finally recognizing them for what they were. She'll be back.
But then the haze enveloped him fully, and the child disappeared.
III.
Butler had thrown them off a three-story balcony: but he was used to such unexpected rescues.
He was also used to flashes of blue light, even if he didn't know it. The memory lurked in the haze, rushing up to meet him with the ground below.
He felt dim recognition nonetheless as he watched the blue lightning follow them down: he knew who had sent it, though he didn't know that either: he didn't know of the child falling back onto the floor, her dark hair flying.
There was a haze below, and it enveloped him in a cloud of pain.
This time, the child remained: her eyes opened in his dreams and they blazed with vengeance.
IV.
The crying face before him was a face from the fog, one phantom of many. She had made him safe, whoever she was—Holly? "What are we going to do?"
"She's back," he could only echo—but what was he saying? He couldn't remember. It was a dark monster, moving in the haze below.
A thought seeped upwards from the haze: She will come from me.
Artemis Fowl is never wrong.
Her eyes were the eyes from his dream, that inferno of terrible revenge. He couldn't bear the sight of them: he yearned to return to the haze, where nothing could echo in that silence of silences, where he would not see those terrifying eyes.
His quips sufficed for that purpose; with a twist of that moon-pale face she ordered him shot and carried away.
V.
And again—it was almost familiar, these escapes. They lurked in the haze and dared to look up: they recognized their kin.
It had been close—and at every turn he had heard that quartz-clear voice, seen those flashing sapphire eyes, seen that jet-black hair, smiling that ruby smile on every screen—she wanted him to see her in all her glory, and he could not help but wonder if revenge was the real reason.
He was tumbled into Butler's arms, then onto a cot. He felt the medpacks slapped onto him as he slowly drifted down, his feet slipping gently into the haze, his torso, and then, his face: the haze took him and he could only wonder if escape was too familiar now, maybe, this time, he should have been the defeated, and her, the victor. It was only fair.
But Fowl was not fair. He wondered if he would defeat her again so she would fall again, her hair whirling black ribbons as she fell down, down, down, as he fell now—
VI.
And, hours later, Foaly brought out the Atlantean wine and they celebrated, fairy and human alike. And wine—wine eroded the mind, eroded until all but the most terrible of thoughts were washed away.
It seemed almost cruel, how they had spun her downfall.
—no, how he had spun her downfall and helped them weave it, how he had cast it over her eyes as they forced defeat down her throat.
Full-bodied defeat was a potent thing even to taste; yet how she must be drinking it in as she fled. Did it slog down her mind, already planning vengeance, did it drown her in its swirling depths even as she struggled to breathe?
It was a cruel thing; he remembered the broken child she had been, flung upon the floor, forever hated and unwanted—how many other defeats had she drunk in, how many times had she risen once more?
There would be no phoenix this time, rising from the ashes with its burning eyes. She would drown within herself and die.
He thought of her dark hair, whirled around her like the threads of a nebula, and thought of how she must have been, before, before the defeats had made her drunk with that dreaded hangover of vengeance.
VII.
Holly told him over the phone, how she had killed herself in Howler's Peak a day ago. Her tone was grim, but relieved as she relayed the news; it was not difficult to match and pretend.
As they said their goodbyes, she added one other bit of news: "It's your eighteenth birthday today, isn't it?"
"Oh," he said, and hung up: he had never hated birthdays before.
VIII.
The form besides him on the bed was a new, but temporary delight. He would be gone by the morning.
But he wouldn't leave yet; he turned and watched her breasts rise and fall, barely made chaste by the sheets. Her face was twisted away with him, as if afraid of his piercing gaze, and her lips agape, sweetly so. Her neck had jewel-like love bites, ruby and sapphire and amethyst; she would remember last night even if he didn't.
He sat up in the bed and reached for his slacks—but turned. She lay there, her hair strewn across the white pillows as fine spidersilk the shade of the night beyond.
Memory struck his mind in a cruel twist; he reached out and turned her face towards him, half-hoping but half-knowing.
It wasn't fair.
There was a gun in his slacks.
He pointed it at the woman, and—then, himself.
His hand shook.
Her breathing was petal-soft.
There was a shot, and she awoke with a scream.
IX.
He fell—fell, not drifted slowly down as he had so many times before. There was only gray, roiling around him as a storm.
And then, then, his feet touched bottom.
He blinked. He had never reached the bottom of the haze before.
He was on a narrow spit of land, gray, gray as the clouds above and the fog around. And—around this, water, gray water.
The Styx, he thought, and laughed; it was oddly hollow at this end of the world, small and dead as a bird in winter.
There was a smudge of darkness in the fog—somehow, he knew what it was, who it bore.
He couldn't wait for Charon's boat to slip ashore; a lifetime had been too long. He ran into the gray waters, uncaringly letting them slosh over his loafers. He cried out her name; and heard an answering call.
:i:
This is edition 1.3, with fixies from myself, White Lily and Slime Frog, all marvelous people.
Notes: Penthesileia was this Amazonian queen in the Trojan war that Achilles had this thing for, even though they were on opposite sides and he had already slept with a bazillion women. She could kick Achilles' b-u-t-t on most occasions, but eventually he killed her, and, er, committed necrophilia. Hence the weird title.
This is my new!randomlyinspired!crimchallenge for Dec-Jan. I was going to do it, then I wasn't, and now I am again because I was Inspired, with a capital 'I'. CC muchly desired, since the Inspiration cut it a little close.
Oh, credits: the Inspiration came from arguing with Sorry about Achilles in The Iliad since she likes him and I think he's a self-righteous prick. Then I was pondering my Labors for the Hercules Challenge, and I thought: Ooh! OpalArtemis! PenthesileiaAchilles! (I'm explaining all this useful stuff 'cause I always want to know how people get their Inspiration, and I get Annoyed when they Don't Explain.)