From Far Away and Beloved
Chapter 3
Kay was not at Dysnomia's sentencing. It had been too long ago, before she was even thought of, that Dysnomia had answered for her crime, the attempted kidnapping of Persephone from the bony clutches of Aidoneus. Dysnomia was the only one to step forward, the only one of her conspiring sisters to take the punishment. Eternity in Tartarus, banished from the far-reaching arms of her family, alone with the Titans and irredeemable humans. She took her sentence silently, and none of her sisters bothered to show, too consumed with hate for the Olympians (with the exception of the Keres, who had merely forgotten, and the Androktasiai, who declared themselves too busy for the spectacle).
Her silence was her downfall, and as the Titans were freed, and souls redeemed and condemned again, she remained. When she was finally released, she was a mess devoid of 3,000 years of history. She had lost siblings and cousins and years, was hardly recognizable as a Greek, though it was the only language she spoke. The family's decision was over her head. Kay, the modern patriarch, the winner of the Olympian wars, was skipped in the decision, and it went straight to the source, Gaia, who welcomed the girl back with open arms.
Kay can still remember first meeting her cousin, the pale, squinty-eyed girl emerging from the dark of a forgotten room. The house, which was so familiar to her, must have been a labyrinth for the poor girl, and she spent most of her time in in her room (which was painted black, and located in the basement, because even Hell is familiar to a demon), stationed near the door that led to all of the underworlds.
Kay could see Dysnomia falling through the cracks of family members that couldn't fit into the new, modern world, like Prometheus, who shunned his brother's creations and retired to the New World. But she looked like a normal girl. Average height, average build, brown hair, brown eyes (just like her mother). Soft spoken, but still powerful, just a touch was enough to send someone screaming to breaking the simplest law, and every time she was around, Kay found herself jaywalking. She shortened her name to Mia, embodying the modern teenager that her appearance suggested, and started attending school. High school, though different from the one Kay attended herself (public, because she wasn't supposed to go anywhere, just learn something about the world, whatever more a human institution could teach her than her own family).
Mia never hinted at meeting anyone, but Shane, her ex (a coward by all rights, who had kept her quiet during her unfortunate witnessing of Julius Ceasar's assassination, but fucked off for Japan with a shapeshifter as soon as the verdict was announced), told everyone gleefully of the blond human that Mia sat with at lunch. Kay visited to see for herself, conversing with Mia in halting Greek, when the boy came up. He was popular, as shown by the many other humans that stopped by to chat, but he only had eyes for Mia. The two could barely communicate, and relied upon a hybrid of sign language and hastily written words on scraps of paper, but it worked. Mia's English slowly improved, despite her thick accent, and she eventually introduced him to the family (with limited success. Many of the Olympians found it odd, the Titans barely cared, and Mia's siblings simply ignored the boy).
That happiness lasted six months before Tantalus, the twice condemned fool, escaped Tartarus through a small crack in the door, wielding his lakes-worth of water and the trees as weapons, and hauling Mia as a hostage. Jake followed them into another dimension, and Kay followed soon after, with Aethon in tow as punishment for attempting to kill her.
But that's another story entirely.
Her silence was her downfall, and as the Titans were freed, and souls redeemed and condemned again, she remained. When she was finally released, she was a mess devoid of 3,000 years of history. She had lost siblings and cousins and years, was hardly recognizable as a Greek, though it was the only language she spoke. The family's decision was over her head. Kay, the modern patriarch, the winner of the Olympian wars, was skipped in the decision, and it went straight to the source, Gaia, who welcomed the girl back with open arms.
Kay can still remember first meeting her cousin, the pale, squinty-eyed girl emerging from the dark of a forgotten room. The house, which was so familiar to her, must have been a labyrinth for the poor girl, and she spent most of her time in in her room (which was painted black, and located in the basement, because even Hell is familiar to a demon), stationed near the door that led to all of the underworlds.
Kay could see Dysnomia falling through the cracks of family members that couldn't fit into the new, modern world, like Prometheus, who shunned his brother's creations and retired to the New World. But she looked like a normal girl. Average height, average build, brown hair, brown eyes (just like her mother). Soft spoken, but still powerful, just a touch was enough to send someone screaming to breaking the simplest law, and every time she was around, Kay found herself jaywalking. She shortened her name to Mia, embodying the modern teenager that her appearance suggested, and started attending school. High school, though different from the one Kay attended herself (public, because she wasn't supposed to go anywhere, just learn something about the world, whatever more a human institution could teach her than her own family).
Mia never hinted at meeting anyone, but Shane, her ex (a coward by all rights, who had kept her quiet during her unfortunate witnessing of Julius Ceasar's assassination, but fucked off for Japan with a shapeshifter as soon as the verdict was announced), told everyone gleefully of the blond human that Mia sat with at lunch. Kay visited to see for herself, conversing with Mia in halting Greek, when the boy came up. He was popular, as shown by the many other humans that stopped by to chat, but he only had eyes for Mia. The two could barely communicate, and relied upon a hybrid of sign language and hastily written words on scraps of paper, but it worked. Mia's English slowly improved, despite her thick accent, and she eventually introduced him to the family (with limited success. Many of the Olympians found it odd, the Titans barely cared, and Mia's siblings simply ignored the boy).
That happiness lasted six months before Tantalus, the twice condemned fool, escaped Tartarus through a small crack in the door, wielding his lakes-worth of water and the trees as weapons, and hauling Mia as a hostage. Jake followed them into another dimension, and Kay followed soon after, with Aethon in tow as punishment for attempting to kill her.
But that's another story entirely.