The Fire, Part II
Growing up in Dry Wells Athena and Julia had very little cause to interact. They were not friends. Athena was the older of the two, and like all kids she wanted to be seen as mature, and like all kids her efforts were only successful on kids younger than her. Julia for her part grew up believing Athena and her cohort were unimaginably cool and sophisticated, and therefore she feared and avoided them save the rare opportunity or lapse of judgment in which she believed she could impress them. Meanwhile if Athena ever came across Julia it was almost certainly to bully her, so as to emphasize her position in the tribe's social hierarchy and make sure the younger, prettier girl couldn't threaten her status.
Not that Athena was herself popular, even before she lost her husband and her baby. Among the Twisted Hairs girls were supposed to be demure and submissive, they were owned by their father until they were owned by their husband and if they were lucky one day they would be owned by their son. Athena was always a little too loud, a little too willful, a little too much. She had a fire inside her, her mother and father said, a fire that needed to be quenched. A girl should not talk like that, they said. A girl should not have ideas, or opinions. It wasn't right. It was unnatural, they told her. Yet still Athena was convinced of her superiority. She knew what to do, what was right. She just knew, and no one could convince her otherwise, not with words and not with fists. Julia was the same way, but that did nothing to endear her to the younger girl. If anything it inspired her to be more cruel, more callous. She recognized that which made her a pariah in the young girl and it drove her to take extraordinary steps to not just distance herself from it, but also to try and force the girl into the normative behavior as dictated by the tribe that she could not make herself perform. Whether out of pity or pride she did not want the little nameless girl to be like her.
She was only ever nice to Julia once. Sometime after Julia was marked by her grandfather. By that time Athena was already married, already trying for a baby with her husband. It was to be the happiest period of her life, but of course she couldn't know that then. Only in time and with reflection could she see what she'd had, only with the loss of it all could she understand that for a brief, shinning moment she had everything. That's the way it always is.
One morning before it all fell apart she was out gathering yucca leaves to weave a papoose for her firstborn when she came across Julia out on the fringe of the village with a man three times her senior. They were talking, it seemed, and if they hadn't been so startled and nervous when they realized they weren't alone Athena might have thought nothing of it, but as it was the man acted so guilty and Julia so sinister she couldn't help but frown. But that was all she did, frown and walk on. She had chores to do, not indiscreet liaisons to interfere in.
She couldn't let the encounter go, though, and as she gathered her materials her thoughts never strayed far from the man and little Julia. It was well known the child was marked, unfit for womanly duties and to be shunned. She was always pretty as a child but soon she was going to blossom into a young woman. Her grandfather had been sure to cut her off from the tribe before she could fulfill her responsibilities, for reasons that were inscrutable to Athena but were not hers to question. Messing around with her on the outskirts of town had to be against his wishes. There was something else, though, that bothered Athena. She could feel it in her breast, that fire that her elders hated so much. There was something else wrong here, some dark and dreadful menace looming in the back of her mind that she couldn't quite figure out, but which bit her all the same. After she mulled over the man and Julia so much she couldn't focus on what she was doing, she resolved to go back to where she found them.
They were still nearby, having moved a little off more-traveled routes but not so far away they couldn't be found if you were looking for them. Athena crept up silently. They didn't notice her approach.
"Uh, maybe this isn't such a good idea," she heard Julia say in a high, thin voice.
"C'mon, doesn't this feel good?" growled the man. His hand was between her legs, his body looming over hers, enveloping her, "Don't you want to be an adult? This is what adults do."
Julia moaned a nervous little moan. The man's other hand was on the back of her neck, keeping her close to him. Holding her close so she couldn't get away. She trembled, half-dressed. She looked like a child. She was a child.
"If you like that, just wait until-" he breathed in her face until Athena clubbed him in the back with a piece of rebar she'd grabbed for her papoose.
"Don't you have a wife waiting for you at home, Henry," she spat. Up close she realized the man groping little Julia was her uncle.
"What the fuck Athena?" he clutched his back. She'd hit him so hard there was a shallow gash, and he could feel it, "This little whore was trying to fuck me!"
Julia was frozen, eyes wide. She didn't even pull her skirt back up.
"Go home, Henry," Athena told him. She finally dropped her rebar stick, "Go home."
Henry glared into her eyes, stuck his finger under his nose, and inhaled a big whiff as he stomped off. She held his gaze, eyes alight with fire, as furious and strong as she'd ever been. Julia was still frozen to the rock Henry had backed her up against. After he was gone Athena looked at her like down a scope attached to a rifle. The little girl was still half-naked and eyes wide with guilt and fear, and any sort of kindness or sympathy she'd felt for her was gone. The mean older girl annoyed by the childish antics of the younger was back.
"Put your clothes back on, whore," she told her. The child scrambled to comply and then scampered off. Athena told no one about what she saw. That was the first and last time she was kind to Julia.
It was her last opportunity, really. Not much later (all too soon, in fact) her husband died on a raid and shortly after that she lost her baby. Only a little over a year after she bludgeoned her uncle in an ultimately futile attempt to keep him from fucking the young unfortunate Julia she was bedridden with grief and confined to a small tent behind her father's house, until the fateful day the girl Athena had only ever considered a nuisance if she thought about her at all betrayed the Twisted Hairs to the Legion.
A betrayal Athena never forgave her for. From the day she fed all their kin to the Bull all the hate in Athena's heart was reserved exclusively for Julia. There could never be a demon more wicked, a betrayal greater. Not even when the Crazy Horns cast her out could she be angry or hurt that it might take away from the anger and hurt she held for Julia. All the years she spent with the Crazy Horns she was holding onto that hurt and anger. When they exiled her she carried it home. She found good use for it.
At home Julia was waiting for her. When she discovered her enemy in paradise, discovered how thoroughly the devil had infiltrated Hecate's garden that hatred became righteous fury. Traitors do not deserve paradise, and yet there she was, not just chosen by the Goddess but chosen of the chosen. All the hate that Julia deserved from the whole of Ouroboros but from Dark Mother especially filled Athena's heart, filled it near to bursting, and held in check only by commensurate fear. After all, no-one but Athena understood with perfect clarity just what Julia was capable of, the depths of her depravity and cruelty. When Julia held a gun to Athena's temple the Rota Fortunae spun so that it was impossible for Athena to remember there had ever been a time when Julia was afraid of her.
For years Athena lived a half-life in her hate. Her living conditions had never been better. She was afforded all the luxuries of Ouroboros, provided for in a way no others in the wasteland were, amenities out the ass and not just good fruits and sick beats and a soft pillow but community. In Ouroboros Athena was pampered and pet but above all she and those like her were venerated in a way that was impossible in the rest of the west. It didn't matter. The fire had risen up out of her chest and consumed her like the desert fox's fire consumed Dry Wells. There was nothing of the old Athena left. All that remained was hatred.
For years all she could do was keep an eye on the devil that every day betrayed her Goddess. To soak in her hatred while the object of it flaunted her power and her deception in front of her. Every day Julia would parade around Ouroboros in finery, drunk and gay and beautiful. The second most powerful person in Hecate's congregation until the day she killed Hecate and took her place. And all Athena could do was watch and stew and mourn.
Until, finally, she couldn't take it any more. The death of Too Much snapped Athena awake, like a somnambulist woken out of a dream. Julia had to be stopped. This couldn't go on any longer, her madness had taken over Ouroboros and if Athena didn't do anything it would take over the southwest wasteland. It was one thing to live without the Goddess, but to accept Julia as the new god was unbearable. The vision that the High Priestess had for the future of the wasteland could not come to pass. And Athena was the only one who could stop it.
Out of respect to their shared history (and in a lapse of judgment) she confronted Julia directly. One last chance to make her see reason, to end the madness. But the devil was deaf to her pleas. Julia wasn't a child anymore, she was no longer pitiable and she was no longer pathetic. She was death incarnate, a demon who once ripped everything away from her and who was, Athena assumed, ready and waiting to take everything away again. There was no low she wouldn't stoop to, no evil that was beyond her. She scared Athena more than anything in the world, but the fire still burned in Athena's breast. It wouldn't let her get away with destroying everything again. Athena had to stop her. No matter what it took.
Ouroboros was no longer safe for Athena. All her friends in the valley, like Six-Guns or Sunflower, were gone, and all that were left were Sibyls who followed Julia like sheep. It didn't matter. She had to do something. Even if it was dangerous, even if it was stupid, even if it was wrong. There was no evil greater than Julia Aram. Athena had to stop her. That's how she found herself making the journey to the dark heart of evil. That's how she found herself in Flagstaff.
When she arrived in the Legion's capitol she went out of her way to avoid the Golden Children placed among the ranks and instead opted for Legion veterans, hard men whose loyalty to Caesar was above reproach. They assumed she was a runaway slave because of her collar. They acted accordingly, even though she surrendered herself and her laser gun. As they pummeled her face and chest and arms and legs, she played along.
"I surrender, I surrender," she choked out, "I am part of a plot on Caesar, I am trying to kill Caesar, I confess, let me confess."
"Wait, what did she say?" one of the Legionaries turned to his companion, stopping just short of stomping on Athena's ribs again.
"What?" his companion kicked her in the head.
"She said something about a plot," he knelt down and picked her up by her broken slave collar, "What's this about a plot?"
"I confess, I confess," she rambled deliriously, "She wants to make slaves of men. The whole Legion. She wants slaves."
"Goddamnit bitch make a little sense," he growled in her face.
"What's she saying?" his fellow soldier asked.
"I dunno, she's not making sense," he held her face in his hand and demanded, "Tell us about this plot, now."
"No. Take me to your commander. I'll only tell the man who has power in Flagstaff," she said weakly but defiantly. The Legionary sighed.
"Well, what are we gonna do?" his companion asked, "She could just be full of shit."
The veteran Legionary examined Athena's slave collar, the mangled lock and the fizzled explosive. He was a Fredonian once upon a time, and he had fought many battles and captured many slaves in his time with the Legion. He was a hard man who had seen a lot. He could tell Athena wasn't a slave, that her collar was old. He knew there was nowhere for a slave to get the advanced weapon she'd surrendered. It scared him.
"Let's put her in a cell," he foisted her up and he and his companion carried her to one of the Legion's few holding cells. They roughly threw her in and slammed the door behind her. She stayed there, feeling the pain in her body until two different Legionaries came and got her.
"Where are we going," she asked as they dragged her through the filthy, stinking streets of Flagstaff. The two men who held her arms didn't answer. She didn't know how long she'd been in the cell but the sun that had welcomed her to the capitol was gone and darkness had fallen, so that when they finally carried her into Flagstaff's central court she was blinded by the light. They threw her to the ground and she struggled to her feet in front of a massive man with Centurion pauldrons and a Canturion helm.
"I'm told you have something you want to tell me?" he smiled at her, sickly and cruel. She steeled her nerves.
"There is a plot against Caesar," she began. As she described, in detail, the Daughters of Hecate and the Goddess and the new plan her voice grew stronger. As she laid out as much as she knew to the big Centurion on his throne she grew more confident. She told him about the infiltration, the women who had been deceiving the Legion for years and years. About how Caesar was going to die, about how the new Caesar was made-up, wasn't even one of Hecate's Golden Children that she told him had positioned themselves as Legionaries, were right now around them ready to enact the plan. She told him and his court everything. She breathed the fire out her mouth. It was all she could do. Her last attempt to stop Julia from taking over the wasteland.
Unbeknownst to her though, she had successfully intimidated Julia on the promontory. The Rota Fortunae spun once again, just a little bit, and a little bit of fear crept up into the High Priestess. What to Athena seemed like an unstoppable boulder rolling down a mountain and picking up steam was a tenuous, delicate operation that in every second seemed about to fall apart to Julia. The audacity of her dream was outrageous, and Julia herself a paper tiger. Micromanaging every aspect of the plan, pouring over reports, constantly looking to the Sibyls for validation, to tell her it was alright. Demanding that the Sibyls lie to her. Everything she was doing was an enormous risk, and when Athena confronted her about it she was so unsettled she started obsessively following her, tracking everything she did. Athena was sneaky, but she was nothing compared to Julia. She'd never been half as paranoid in her life. When she left Ouroboros for Arizona, Julia was right behind her. Probably to the benefit of her plans, she loosened her iron grip on Operation Apollo and left it behind completely in the hands of the Sibyls to race Athena to Caesar's capitol.
Julia made it to Flagstaff first, disguised herself as a legionary and stationed herself near the centurion in charge, a man named Corram who was so fat he had to walk with assistance and so round he sat in a custom chair as wide as three men. An absolutely embarrassing specimen by Legion standards not just in his mordant obesity but also in the profligate way he conducted himself. He oversaw a decadent court of sex workers and scoundrels to shame even the most degenerate New Californian. Centurion Corram existed as a fat tumor in the center of Caesar's holdings not unlike the fat tumor that existed in the center of his brain. His authority was an oversight, one that Caesar would correct as soon as he had conquered the Mojave, should that ever come to pass. The Daughters meanwhile liked having him there, he was even easier to manipulate than his gross misconduct unbefitting of a Centurion implied. He got away with the circus he'd established in Flagstaff with more than a little help from the Daughters, who made sure that certain Frumentarii reports did not make it to the right hands. One glance at his grotesquely bloated face and any sort of anxiety Julia had felt about her plan being undone were gone. But still she stayed, posting herself on guard like a good, unremarkable Legionary.
It took a day but eventually they did drag Athena into Corram's court in chains. They'd beaten her badly, big purple and black bruises all over her body and her face was all swole up, dried blood from her broken nose ringed her busted lips. Even still she carried herself with pride, stood tall in the court of Flagstaff. Julia couldn't imagine how she'd talked her way into a meeting with anyone with any authority but she did have a manic desperation that lent her words weight. And, naturally, the truth was on her side. There was, in fact, a conspiracy infiltrating the highest corridors of Legion power, a cabal of women seeking to usurp Caesar and a (Julia thought she was a little unfair here) mad, evil woman with the soul of the devil who wanted to control the Legion. Athena gave an impassioned, beautiful plea, did everything in her power to save the Legion from Julia and the Daughters of Hecate.
Corram was not a great friend to the Daughters, he was their useful idiot and he was not privy to their plans. It was in his interest to listen to her, that he might save himself and his Caesar from their machinations. Caesar would have been so impressed he might have spared him crucifixion for making a mockery of the Legion with his personal inequities. Corram could've been the greatest hero the Legion had ever known. But instead he and his court laughed at Athena. They laughed her out of the room. She risked everything, betrayed everyone, threw away her whole life, and they dragged her out and threw her back in a cage before they even finished laughing at her.
In the cage, beaten, bloodied, disgusted with herself for even thinking that her plan could work, Athena found herself in a situation she hadn't been in since she was a child. The difference now, thirty-some years later, is there was nowhere to escape to. There was no more Dry Wells. This was it. She'd failed. Evil reigned supreme and the wasteland was doomed. She clutched her broken slave collar in despair and sobbed. The tears finally extinguished the fire in her breast. She was so broken and hopeless she didn't even look up when the door to her cage opened and someone stepped in. It was Julia.
The High Priestess sat down next to Athena, still disguised as a particularly small and reedy Legionary. They sat together for some time while Athena cried. Julia reached out and gently stroked her hair, and laid her hand reassuringly on her arm. She watched as the older woman bawled and wept and moaned in agony. Julia remembered the day Athena stopped her uncle from molesting her. For the first time in their relationship, she really saw her. For the first time ever, she embraced her. Athena shook. She felt weak in Julia's arms.
"Hmmmmm," Julia reassuringly hummed a tuneless tune into Athena's ear, "Hmmmmmmm."
Athena was reminded of her mother. Only then did she realize what was happening, who was with her. Who was hugging her. She jolted in shock.
"What are you doing here?" she asked the younger woman. She looked up, into Julia's big brown eyes, eyes the color of badlands clay. Her tribe's eyes. Her family's eyes.
Julia could only look sadly back into Athena's own brown eyes. She sighed and stroked her hair, tacky with blood from a gash in her head. Unlike Julia, Athena had kept her hair in the traditional Twisted Hair dreads. Woven in it was a sad story of betrayal and hurt, of anger and loss. As she read it she realized just how much she'd done to ruin Athena's life, how much sin she'd committed against her sister. As she read it she realized she was the only person left in the wasteland who could. Tears began to well in her own eyes.
"It was a good effort, michoo," she told Athena, still stroking her hair. The two women closed their eyes and rested their foreheads against each other, too exhausted to feel anything but love.
"They never would've believed me, would they?" Athena asked.
"No," came the answer, "The idea that any woman could trick these waterbrains... they can't fathom it. Can't allow themselves."
"It's in your hands now, Goddess help you," Athena said, without anger or bitterness but with all grief. For the first time she, too, saw Julia. Saw how small she was, how scared and sad she was, too. Together they were children again, in a way they had never been before. How nice it would've been, Athena thought, if only we'd known.
They stayed like that for as long as they could allow themselves. It was understood that by the morning Athena was to be crucified. Julia did what she was able to make her sister comfortable. She held her, gave her food and water, put a little salve in wounds that would never be allowed to close. They cried together, let tears that wanted shedding for years and years flow. They kissed each others tears away. For the moment there was no-one else in the world, just two women who realized all too late how much they meant to each other. That they were the last of their family, and no-one would ever understand them better than each other, in that moment.
Eventually, the time came. Julia pulled out her kit, and Athena proffered her arm.
"The goddess watches you always," the High Priestess offered as sincerely as she could as she plunged a fatal overdose into Athena's bloodstream. At the mention of Hecate Athena winced. Julia could only offer a guilty, ashamed look.
"I'm going to be with her," Athena said, proudly. She fell back into Julia's arms. The drugs took away all the pain, the dull ache of the Legion's abuse and the long, bitter hurt of everyone else's.
"I'll ask her to forgive you," she told Julia, as she drifted off. Her heartbeat slowed until it came to a stop. Julia held her until she was gone, then felt more alone than she'd ever been in her entire life.