MAIN TITLE: The Keeper of Fate
WARNINGS: See first chapter for warnings.
NOTES: Thanks to Apollo06, Neela4232, angel2u, WinterDreamers.x, chaSing b0b, nickiR0x, Hope and love and Alyssa Horan for reviewing this chapter!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the PJO series. Rick Riordan does.
Chapter 19: I Piss Off the Goddess of Pink
The dracaena thrusts her javelin at me and I drop to my knees, at the same time bringing my sword up to knock her weapon away. She hisses, her forked tongue poking out through her painted lips, and attempts to stab me again. I roll out of the way, somehow not impaling myself on my own sword. I come up kneeling, my left hand shooting out to grasp the dracaena's lance. I yank her forward with all my might, right into the path of the point of my sword. The light fades from her yellow eyes and she explodes into golden dust. Luckily for me, I thought ahead and closed my mouth a few seconds ago.
As I brush off my jeans, a smug grin plays across on my face. I turn to Clarisse just in time to see another monster fly past me. A second dracaena hits the wall and crumbles to the ground. As Clarisse advances, the demon feebly tries to slither away on her two bronze and green snake legs, but it's too late. The demigod daughter of Ares jabs her spear through a gap in the dracaena's armour. Vaguely, I wonder where the heck the dracaena got armour in the first place, but I don't have time to worry about that now. After all, there are two more–
"Aww, man!" I complain, staring at the two piles of monster dust on the opposite side of the room. "Did you have to kill all three? Couldn't you have left me one?"
"And miss the satisfaction of watching you sulk because I killed more monsters than you did?" Clarisse smirks, wiping Lamer–sorry, I meant Maimer–on her cargo pants. "No way."
I grumble to myself under my breath but eventually decide to let it go. There are more important things to worry about. Like getting out of this room, for example. See, the dracaenae sort of chased us into this circular room, which unfortunately happened to be a dead-end, and then, even more unfortunately, the doorway sealed itself.
The Labyrinth has a crap sense of humour. Seems to think imprisoning us with monsters that want to rip out our intestines is funny. Well, too bad for the Labyrinth, but the dracaenae weren't that much of a challenge for us (and by 'us' I mostly mean 'Clarisse'). The problem now is that there's no exit.
"All right," Clarisse sighs, "what the Hades do we do now?"
"No clue. You see the mark anywhere?"
"Nope. A maze that thinks for itself and is constantly changing. What a stupid idea." Clarisse scowls.
Immediately, the ceiling starts to tremble, causing pebbles to rain down on our heads. I glance upward nervously, at the same time reprimanding the brunette girl. "Cla-risse! Don't insult it! You'll make it mad!"
"Oh, like you weren't thinking exactly the same thing!"
"Yeah, but at least I have enough sense to not say it!"
"Please, you really think the Labyrinth can hear you? That's crazy! It's not a living thing–" She's interrupted by more pebbles showering her.
"Oh really? Well I think it's pretty clear, Clarisse, that the Labyrinth does not appreciate your comments."
"Look, does it really matter? We're still stuck in here either way. Being nice to the Labyrinth isn't going to help at all."
"We'll see about that." I turn away from her and stare up at the ceiling awkwardly. "So, uh, Mr. Labyrinth, sir, if you're not busy or whatever, I was wondering if maybe you could make a door appear? Preferably the same one we came in through?"
There's no response. Stupid Labyrinth. And I even acted all polite and everything.
"Well that was helpful," Clarisse says sarcastically.
"Yeah, yeah, no need to rub it in–"
Without warning, a section of the wall starts to melt away, a narrow doorway taking its place.
Clarisse glares at me. "Don't even–"
I interrupt her, almost singing the words: "I told you so!"
"Shut up, Dess." She scowls. "I notice the Labyrinth made the doorway appear on the side of the room opposite the side you wanted it to appear on."
"Huh." I blink. "You're right. Maybe the Labyrinth is really a girl and I offended it by calling it 'sir'."
Clarisse rolls her eyes. "Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's it."
"How about you drop the sarcasm and get out of here instead?" I suggest, already halfway to the door. "Preferably before the Labyrinth changes its mind and decides to close our only exit."
"Dess, that's the best idea you've had all week."
Later that night, after Clarisse has gathered firewood and I've set it on fire using my pocket blowtorch (I knew that thing would come in handy!), I rummage through my backpack and pull out the dagger I brought with me. I draw little triangles in the dirt, half hoping one of them will somehow turn into Daedalus' mark and reveal a way out of this place.
I hate it here. Seven years is way too long to spend in the Labyrinth.
Okay, you caught me; it hasn't really been that long. Seven years, seven days… I get them confused sometimes, okay? It's not my fault. Honestly, sometimes it feels like it really has been seven years.
I glance down at my dagger, feeling very glad that I can't see my reflection in it. I probably look like shit. My hair is tangled and knotted, a complete and total mess. My arms (I'm wearing my filthy, torn, orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt) are covered in bruises, scrapes, and cuts. My face probably looks just as bad as Clarisse's does; and believe me, Clarisse's face looks bad. It's coated in sweat and grime. We came across a clean, underground stream a couple of days ago, and we took turns bathing in it, but it didn't really do much.
I miss the showers at camp. Sometimes I even miss them more than the food. …Okay, I take that back. I will always value food over hygiene. I brought so much food with me in my backpack, but we've already eaten half of it. So now we have to ration it. Pfft. What a silly concept. Rationing food. Who does that?
No, I'm just kidding, I know a lot of people do that. Actually, I'm not really finding cutting back on food to be that difficult. I'm sort of used to it, thanks to my witch of a mother. And yes, I was thinking of a word other than witch, but I felt like I should start censoring my internal thoughts just in case you're particularly impressionable. Honestly, the things I do for you…
You know what's worse than the lack of showers and the lack of food combined? The lack of good entertainment. I was never really fond of the whole 'find-and-destroy-monsters-before-they-find-and-destroy-you' thing, but, like I said, I've been down here for an entire week, and let me tell you, this place is dead boring. There's absolutely nothing to do but fight monsters.
I should've brought my tools with me, but I figured they'd be too heavy. I still have my blowtorch, of course, but setting little bits of paper that I happen to find everywhere on fire and throwing them at Clarisse gets dull after a while. Plus, last time I did that she got mad and punched me in the face, and she's got a great right hook. It really hurt.
So now I'm reduced to fighting monsters for fun. My only other source of mild entertainment is reminiscing with Clarisse about all the pranks we pulled on Cheryl. Actually, now that I think about it, I miss Cheryl. I didn't think I would, but I do. I miss a lot of people. My brothers, Tyson, Annabeth, Chiron, Isabel, Thalia, the Stolls, and hell (the not swearing in my head thing just isn't working out for me, sorry), I even miss Grover.
That's how I know I've hit rock bottom. I mean, I know I was worried about him when he was trapped in that Cyclops's cave, but there's a difference between being worried about someone whose life is danger and missing someone.
Gods, I hate this place. Sometimes, when I'm fighting off evil giant beetles or wandering down corridors only to wind up right back where I started, I wonder how long it will be before my mind starts going just like Chris' did. How long it will be before I start going insane.
Sometimes I wonder if I already have.
"That's nauseating."
"That's sad."
Clarisse and I stare down at the dying rat in disgust, though we have different reasons for being disgusted. I just find it disturbing to watch an extremely thin rat weakly scratching at a package of macaroni and cheese (the Kraft Dinner kind), trying to open it. Clarisse just finds it pathetic.
"You think we should give it some food?" I ask Clarisse.
I don't really want to, but… If this was a puppy or a kitten or a bunny or anything even remotely cute, I wouldn't hesitate to give it food. And that's shallow. All that time I spent fighting with my mother, trying to convince her that beauty isn't everything… I might as well practice what I preach. I already have tons of reasons to call myself a hypocrite. I don't need any more.
"Uh, no." Clarisse makes a face. "That thing is pathetic." See? I told you.
I ignore her and dig into my bag. I find a small strawberry and toss it to the rat. It approaches wearily, sniffing at the fruit. I try to will myself to feel pity for it, but it's just so ugly. Tentatively, the rat nudges the strawberry with its paw as if worried the red fruit might explode. Finally it seems to decide the thing is safe, and it starts nibbling at the strawberry. The next second it's greedily tearing off piece after piece of the fruit, and then I don't even have to work at feeling sorry for it. It was clearly starving.
I turn back to Clarisse and find that her face has softened just a little. She's nowhere near heartless, after all. She knows what compassion is.
"Let's go," I say. As we continue down the passageway, Clarisse looks back at the rat.
"I hope it finds its way out of here someday," she says quietly.
"I hope so, too."
We turn a corner, and this corridor is so radically different than the previous one that I stumble for a second. The other hallway was like the inside of a sewer, the ground mucky and the walls made out of red bricks. There was garbage everywhere. The ceiling was so low that Clarisse had to bend her neck just so she didn't accidentally hit her head.
But here… The ceiling is far above us; the floor and walls are smooth and the colour of gold. It doesn't really look like a corridor at all. It looks like an enormous, empty room.
"Holy crap." Clarisse sucks in a huge breath, shocked.
"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap..."
The echoes startle me, but not nearly as much as the voice that comes from behind me: "If you're going to interrupt my date, couldn't you at least say something more meaningful than just 'Holy crap'?"
Clarisse and I spin around simultaneously. Standing there in a striking crimson dress is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, with flowing sandy blond hair and eyes that are a bright shade of forget-me-not blue. I'm so distracted by the woman and how familiar she looks that it's not until the man speaks that I even notice him.
"Seriously, we were just getting to the best part. You get outta here, Clarisse, and take the daughter of that deformed, grotesque blacksmith with you."
Anger snaps me out of whatever trance the beautiful woman put me in. I glare at the huge man dressed in biker clothing and combat boots, somehow not registering the fact that this guy is obviously dangerous and could probably snap me in half like a twig if he wanted to.
"Who the hell are you to talk about my dad that way?" I snarl back, even though I pretty much agree with him.
"Dess!" Clarisse looks incredibly alarmed. "Shut up, this is–"
"I don't care who he is!" I snap at her. "He's even ruder than I am! He's a jerk!"
The biker guy gives me a cruel smile. "What was your first clue?"
"Your repulsive haircut, actually," I sneer at him. "And those awful shades."
"Dess, don't–"
"Not the best insult ever," the man says, completely ignoring the fact that Clarisse was talking, "but I suppose you're not that bad for Ugly's kid. You definitely don't look anything like him."
The woman beside him clears her throat.
"She's got nothin' on you of course, babe. Don't even know why you're worried."
"Oh, I'm not." She giggles, and her laughter sounds like bells ringing. "I was just wondering when you were going to introduce me."
"Clarisse knows who we are. Why don't you introduce us to the punk?"
I glance at Clarisse. Why would she know who they are? Why does the man know her? And why does she look so damn nervous?
"Dess," Clarisse begins, her voice wary, "this is my father, Ares, and his girlfriend Aphrodite."
Oh. That's why.
"Oh. Uh, I'm really, um, sorry, Lord Ares, Lady Aphrodite," I stammer, even though I'm really not sorry at all. I still remember Apollo's visit three years ago; apologizing is always the safest option when it comes to gods and goddesses.
Ares just shrugs his shoulders.
"That's all right." The goddess flashes a stunning smile at me. "It's only to be expected. Your father was never the politest person, after all. Rather uncivilized. It's hardly your fault that you inherited that from him."
Through gritted teeth, I answer, "Of course, my lady. Thank you for your generosity in pardoning me." But inside I'm thinking, Well maybe you'd find my father a bit more polite, you witch, if you didn't sleep with everything that moves.
I guess my tone doesn't sound that grateful, or maybe the expression on my face reflects my internal thoughts, because Aphrodite's smile cools a little. It looks a lot less beautiful when it's not genuine.
"Oh, you're welcome, sweetie," she replies, still with that same, benevolent yet cold smile.
"Right," Clarisse says, "well, we don't want to disrupt your date any further, so we'll just go–" She tugs on my arm.
"Oh, no, that won't do," Aphrodite says. "I've been meaning to pay you a visit Dess; I want to talk to you about something. Your timing is very inconvenient, of course, but that can't be helped."
"Oh, I'm sure this conversation could wait. I mean, you're busy deities, you have more important things to do than talk to insignificant demigods, right?" I laugh apprehensively, praying that she'll agree and let me leave.
"Well you're right about that, but I would rather not inconvenience myself further by putting off our talk to later. You're here now, I'm here now, we'll talk now." Her tone leaves no room for argument.
I cast an anxious glance at Clarisse, who is peeking at her father out of the corner of her eye and looking even more frightened than I feel. But she still gives me a reassuring pat on the back.
"Of– Of course, my lady."
I follow her to the far end of the corridor, or room, or whatever it is. She presses her hand against the wall lightly and a door with elaborate carvings of roses appears. She gestures for me to turn the equally fancy handle, and I obey because, hello, she has the power to incinerate me if she so chooses.
I pull the door open, and as we step into the room my immediate reaction is to gag.
So. Much. Pink.
The walls, the carpet, the window curtains (why is there even a window in here in the first place? The Labyrinth is an underground maze!), the frame of the giant mirror, the frames of the pictures hanging on the wall, the flowers in the pictures, the table, the vase on the table, the flowers in the vase, the couch, the bed…even the chandelier is pink. My brain is practically overloading from all the pink. This is the most ridiculous room I've ever seen in my life.
As she shuts the door behind us, Aphrodite says, "Isn't this room just wonderful?"
"Uh, yeah," I say, lying through my teeth, "it's amazing. Very, um, pretty."
"I know, isn't it?" She smiles even wider, but this time her smile is warm and real and absolutely dazzling. "That other room actually belonged to Echo, you know, that nymph who was in love with Narcissus? I always liked Narcissus, that man was gorgeous.
"But anyways, Echo died years and years ago–or at least every part of her faded except for her voice–, and Ares and I decided that she wouldn't mind us borrowing her room for our little date. But silly me!" She smiles indulgently at her reflection in the mirror. "We're not here to discuss the origins of this room. Why don't you take a seat on the couch, dear? This could be a while. No use standing and tiring your legs."
Recognizing that I have no choice, I accept her invitation. As I plop down onto the couch, I marvel at how soft the seat cushion is. I guess that's to make up for how hideous it is.
"So," she beams at me, sitting down next to me, "I'm sure you know what we're here to talk about–"
"Uh, no, I don't, actually," I interrupt her.
She frowns a little. "Why, I though it would be obvious! We're here to talk about Luke, of course!"
All my muscles tense. The second she says Luke's name, it occurs to me why her appearance seemed so familiar to me. She looked like a female version of Luke. But even as I think this, I realize that her appearance is changing–her hair shifting from brown to black to red, shortening and lengthening, curling and straightening; her eyes transforming from green to black to brown, widening and narrowing, her iris' growing and shrinking; and her skin, turning from peach to Mediterranean to milky-white, dotted with freckles one second and the next unblemished, rosy cheeks and then no rosy cheeks.
But what bothers me the most is that no matter how many times her appearance changes, her hair colour always returns to blond, her eye colour to blue, her skin tone to tan.
"Lady Aphrodite," I say, trying to infuse respect into every syllable, "why does your appearance keep changing?"
"You can't figure it out for yourself, a smart girl like you?" She smiles again.
I nearly snort at that. I've been accused of a lot of things. Being smart isn't one of them.
"Uh, no, I can't."
"Sweetheart, I'm the goddess of beauty. I become whatever you think is most beautiful," she explains, as if this were obvious (which it probably was, but you know how I get sometimes; I'm slow). With a patronizing smile, she adds, "Many girls see pictures of supermodels in magazines, and when they see me I take on the appearance of the model they find most attractive. Only much, much prettier. Or they see boys they like. You love Luke and find him attractive, and so my appearance keeps returning to a close match of his."
"I hate to burst your bubble, but you're wrong about that last part," I inform her. "I don't love Luke. I used to, but I don't anymore."
"Ah. So now you've gotten straight to the heart of the problem." She smiles sympathetically and I lean in a little closer, expecting her to say something about how it's okay to fall out of love with creepy, murderous traitors. Instead she says, "You're in denial!"
I recoil slightly. "Excuse me, what did you just say?"
She sighs with exaggerated impatience. "Keep up, dear. You're in love with Luke, but you've deluded yourself into thinking you're over him."
"Uh, I think you're the deluded one, Lady Aphrodite." Her (totally and completely unfounded) accusation bothers me so much that I throw caution to the winds and drop my politeness.
"Well of course you do, sweetie, you're in denial."
"I'm not!"
"You certainly sound overly defensive for someone who's not in denial."
"I do not! You're misinterpreting my tone!"
"Mm-hmm. Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey."
I push myself to my feet. "I don't have to take this from you. I'm out of here."
As I stride over the door, she says in a casual voice, "Of course, I understand why you're so upset. If you truly don't want to discuss this, then who am I to stop you?" She lets out a tragic sigh. "I just thought you might like to know why you're still in love with him."
I freeze with my hand on the doorknob. "What?"
"Oh, well I was going to tell you, but you so obviously don't want to talk about this–"
"Tell me."
"But darling, I thought you didn't love him anymore? What use could you possibly have for my mistaken little theory?"
"Well, I don't love him anymore. But, you know, if I did–which I don't– But hypothetically–" I trip over my words, my hand still frozen on the doorknob. "Why would I still love him? If I did. Even though I don't."
"Come sit down again, and I'll tell you," the goddess of love promises, patting the space beside her on the couch.
I hesitate for a moment, torn, and then I think, Oh, what the hell. What harm could it possibly do?
I walk over to her and sink slowly onto the cushion.
"Okay. So spill. If I did still love him–and I don't–, then why would that be? Because you shot me with some sort of love arrow, like you did to all those people in the myths? Or because–" I don't get to finish my question, because at that moment Aphrodite bursts out laughing.
"Oh, you don't really believe all those stories, do you? I don't really force people to fall in love!"
I raise an eyebrow at her skeptically. "Really? You, the goddess of love, have never made people fall in love?"
"First of all, Dess, I don't use arrows." She shakes her head at my stupidity. "That's my son, Eros. Or Cupid, as he is more commonly known. And secondly, Dess–I don't make people fall in love. I can make people become obsessed with others, I can make them become infatuated with others–but never, ever can I make someone fall in love."
She looks me straight in the eye and says quietly, "Love is not something you can force on people. All those people in the myths, who I supposedly got into trouble–they were either infatuated or they honestly, truly loved each other. They're people who would have fallen in love of their own accord, if only they were given the opportunity. And that's what I do. I give people the opportunity. So you can throw away that ridiculous idea you have in your head–that I've been somehow manipulating your thoughts and forcing you to stay in love with Luke. Because the only person doing that to you is you."
"But you said you had a theory about why I still love him!" She smiles triumphantly and I hastily add, "Even though I don't! I don't love him!"
"Really, darling, this denial thing is only hurting you in the end. The sooner you can accept that you're not over him, the sooner you'll get over him."
"For the hundredth time, I DON'T LOVE HIM! I hate him!"
"And that, my sweet, is the problem."
"What?"
"You're still in love with him because you hate him," she explains, as if she believes her words actually make sense. "There's a very fine line between love and hate. And in most situations, the only way you can truly hate someone is if you love them. Those feelings are connected. You can't let go of one unless you let go of both. So by stubbornly holding onto your hatred of him, you're forcing yourself to stay in love with him."
For a moment I sit there in stunned silence. Then I choke out, "That's crazy."
"Is it?" She raises an eyebrow. "Haven't you ever heard anyone say that indifference, not hate, is the opposite of love? You care too much. If you want to stop loving him, than you have to stop caring. You have to stop hating him."
Very quietly, I ask, "What if I don't know how?"
She smiles at me kindly, and suddenly she somehow looks even more beautiful than she did before. "Then I guess you'll have to learn. And I'm sure you'll find that it won't be as difficult as you think it is."
"Really? You think so?"
"Of course."
"You're being awfully nice to someone who's covered in filth."
"Yes, well, I'm trying to avoid those horrid stereotypes of evil stepmothers who make their stepdaughters lives absolutely miserable. We're not all that bad."
My mouth falls open in shock.
"What, don't tell me you never realized that the fact that I'm married to your father means I'm your stepmother?"
"Well, um–"
"And that means my children, the ones you find so shallow and materialistic, are your stepsiblings."
"No they're not! They can't be!" I protest, because if I start believing that then I will never again be able to watch Beckendorf gawking at Silena without throwing up my lunch.
Aphrodite misunderstands my reasoning. "Of all the nerve!" She glares at me. "I go to all this trouble to help you with your love life, and you're still mean to my children!"
"No, no, I was just–"
She rises from her seat and says dramatically, "Don't even try to make excuses! You know, Dess, when I like a person I make their love life very, very difficult. I fill it with torment and uncertainty."
Somehow, I manage to squeak out, "And, um, what do you do when you don't like someone?"
She gives me an icy look and an eerie smile. They don't really match. "Well I guess you'll find out, won't you?"
She sweeps out of the room without another word. I stare at the doorway she vanished through for a second, and then slump back against the sofa cushions.
"Fuck my life."
Author's Note: That's the only time you'll ever see the F-word in this story, I promise. Hopefully Aphrodite didn't seem OOC, and I'm sorry Ares wasn't there for very long. I just figured he wouldn't really give a damn about Dess other than to insult her a bit, and watch her get mad and would be more focused on talking to (threatening) Clarisse.
Reviews are appreciated.