Secretive - Bucky Barnes

29 || Worlds Shifting || 🔪

Evolving the final plan ended in several parts on everyone's account. While James will be at the compound very soon and has to find someone to fix up Alastair's body to the point of functioning once his soul returned, I have to steal his corpse from the stone sarcophagus he was buried in and deliver it to him. Then, I very quickly have to get back to Hell with the bandaged body, and have Persephone put the soul back in like the filling of a croissant. She, on her behalf, will see to distract Hades enough so that we go unnoticed during the entire mission.

James has already vanished from the boat, taking the very first chance that was offered to him to leave whatever level of Hell we are on. I, on my part, am not that trusting of the little marble balls Persephone handed each of us. Apparently, much like in Percy Jackson, we have to crush them and just intensely think about the place we want to go. And boom, next second, we're there. The only difference is that we don't necessarily have to stomp on them; they're more sensitive than they look, and bursting them in my hand will be much like breaking an egg.

»You're not the trusting kind, are you?« Persephone asks, her voice having settled onto a calm, careful bottom. It's almost like she's trying to bond with me and have me joining her side of the story outside of our deal, or at least, starting to attempt this.

»Are you?« I ask back, glancing up from the little, perfectly round ball in my right hand. It's cool to the touch, white with streaks the colour of stone, and there's not a single indentation, nor bump anywhere on it's surface. It's, like so many other things around and about me, inhuman.

»There's a little more in the saying I quoted earlier,« she starts, taking a break to ensure herself she's really going through with that question, »and I always wondered how much is true about it.«

»I thought you were something like an atheist when it comes to tales.« To say that to a literal Goddess is the highest of irony I will ever achieve in my life.

»You already proved me wrong with the other parts of it.« She says quietly, the image of the luring, seducing beauty coming out of the claws of Hell vanishing. It's a little twisted maybe, but she seems more like a young woman in an arranged marriage, desperate to find a way out of a life she never wished for herself. Nothing more. Nothing less.

When I nod, she continues. »She's not created to be the Destroyer of Gods, but the Destroyer of Worlds; she who will bring revolution with just a couple of words.«

»I get the feeling you Greeks like to glorify simple things. Why not just say that I can bend anyone to my will? 's that too scary for y'all's minds?« I grunt in dry laughter, but it sounds empty.

Persephone doesn't let herself be distracted by my comment. »So, pray she will never pay you a visit; for her no torture is illicit. Will you be good, will you be nice; she'll not be seen but by handing out your price. But will you be bad, will you be evil; she will come and she will be lethal.«

»Nice. I'm like Santa Claus with much less presents and much more death.«

»My question is,« she continues but can't hold back the little twitch of the corner of her mouth on this one, »Do you consider yourself to be any of this? Punishing the evil and blessing the good? A moral compass of sorts?«

»You know,« I say, letting my gaze roam about the River Styx, about the collection of blood we're having a boat tour on like it was sightseeing, »I was told I was created as the ultimate weapon. Now you tell me of some ancient tale that declares me as the judge of good and bad. Something doesn't mix up between these two, so one of you is lying.« I can feel her shape shift in the corner of my eye, yet don't turn to face her. »Or there's some third variable I don't know about. But I don't care. Maybe I truly am nothing more than what I was meant to be, and people like to decorate my story to help grow their children into the societally accepted moral beliefs. I don't have any nerves to think about that.«