Otherworld

Sos Eta Hannibal [Hannibal]

But it was different.

Hannibal didn't fall. Merely took two steps back, watching, waiting, loathing. Menoetius hesitated, staring into his brother's mismatched eyes. The eerie cold blue he'd inherited from their father, and the milky white that he'd given his brother as punishment for giving himself a name. He could feel the hatred boiling off Hannibal in waves and it sent a sick thrill through him. As the god of anger, he thrived on the negative emotions behind it. Betrayal, pain, and especially hatred.

"You're feeding me, you know," Menoetius sneered, making Hannibal take a step back when he took one forward, "All that hatred? You're pouring it into me." Hannibal said nothing, just watched Menoetius with a steady glare. He knew very well what Menoetius was trying to do. He was using that manipulative tone of his to get Hannibal to back down, but Hannibal wouldn't fall for it. Not this time. Seconds away from ripping his sword out and planning to plunge it into Menoetius's lying mouth, the moment was interrupted when the tent flap opened and Iapetus made his presence known with a heavy weight of power in the tent that almost knocked both brothers onto their knees.

"Enough," Iapetus snarled at them both, "You can bitch fight later. Right now, we have Atlantean ranks piling up against us. Get your asses out there." Menoetius cast Hannibal a deadly glare before stalking out of the tent. Hannibal shook his head, lifted his hand off his sword and went to go with him to the field when Iapetus caught him by the elbow and reeled him back. Hannibal clenched his teeth as Iapetus blocked his path like an everlasting shadow of misery and terror.

Oh, the dreams Hannibal had of ripping the titan's throat open and bathing in his blood. This monster had been the bastard who raped his mother, the one who resulted in her obscene hatred for the bastard son she refused to mother. No, instead, the Atlantean goddess Lea threw Hannibal at Iapetus as punishment for defiling her. And now Hannibal was stuck with yet another stuck up asshole god spitting in his face and daring him to fight back, but Hannibal knew better. As powerful as he was, he couldn't stand up to Iapetus.

Not with that damned flame of hope inside him that one day, Iapetus would see him as more than a bastard child.

"You are not to step foot on Atlantean soil," Iapetus warned, making Hannibal narrow his eyes ever so slightly, but slightly enough to anger Iapetus, who delivered a sharp backhand to Hannibal's face before he grabbed the hybrid god by the front of his uniform, "If I find out you so much as glanced in the direction of Atlantis, I will do things to you that will make what your brothers have done a walk through a flowery field, do you fucking understand me, hybrid?" Hannibal merely gave him a short nod and Iapetus roughly released him, stepping aside.

"Then get out there and continue the battle. Maybe once this is all over, I'll consider giving you a bedroom again." Iapetus said mockingly. Hannibal resisted the urge to flinch as he left the tent and proceeded to make his way toward the troops that were beginning to march toward the small peninsula that jutted out toward Atlantis. This was the closest they'd gotten to the land, and even though Iapetus had warned against it, Hannibal couldn't resist staring out at the gigantic land mass that had been his birthplace. And up until recently, he'd only ever spoken Atlantean. He had difficulties learning Greek, and even now, there were words that confused him, even if they were close to Atlantean.

While the troops around him roared and whooped excitedly for the chance to cut down Atlanteans, Hannibal stood on the shoreline, staring out at the land. The salty sea wind whipped his hair around his face, his cape fluttering behind him, and the scent of spices managed to ride the breeze and blow gently in Hannibal's face.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and in one moment of utter peace, he wondered briefly what it would have been like had he had a normal life. What would it be like to actually sit down to dinner with other people? To be able to speak to his parents on friendly terms? To have his own bedroom? To have brothers who weren't constantly trying to murder him?