It didn't take a genius to figure out Alyssa's shift in attitude and preferred isolation from the rest of Spartacus. From what Marek and James saw, despite knowing her in a short space of time that she was a cheerful and caring person. Now, since arriving at the hotel, she'd appear every day at meal times, everyone saw her red eyes but said nothing and Alyssa would speak monosyllabically and nod or give sad smiles. While the Ctesius attended to her needs and kept her presentable to the other residents, godlings and rebels, you couldn't help but wonder what she'd be like if she didn't have someone waiting on her hand and foot. James, as tactless as he was, didn't notice the depth of the situation until Marek pointed it out. The sun godling only tackled the subject of Alyssa after the main body of their conversation had faded away.
"Have you seen Alyssa at all today?" he said. Marek was cleaning his bow that had somehow fell into mud and dulled Cassandra's golden glow. At that moment, James had chosen to break the surface of the water, "What'cha say?"
"Alyssa," Marek repeated through gritted teeth. "Have you seen her?"
"No," the blond replied and pulled himself out of the water. "Why?"
Marek clenched Cassandra's glowing frame until his knuckles turned white, if Cassandra wasn't made of its particular metal, then somewhere down the road Cassandra would break in the foreseeable future from his intense grip.
"Okay, Little Mermaid, she's upset and has been upset since we got here," Marek snapped, "Or have you had your head up your arse?"
"Then why didn't you talk to her?"
A long silence passed between the two of them. Marek's brow knitted in confusion, then anger with a scowl.
"Sh-sh shut up," Marek snapped, "You didn't notice it all! You don't have any bargaining chips here."
Another few minutes of silence, before the sea godling had an idea manifest in his head. James smiled that big goofy smile that made Marek want to punch him, for the next minute James chided and teased him about being unable to talk to girls. Marek answered and denied every one of James’ statements, despite the red colour on his cheeks. James leapt up and down like a trained dolphin, making splashes. They didn’t stop until they heard a familiar clopping sound and both had settled down once Chiron came into their line of sight.
“Are you alright, godlings?” Chiron asked. The relationship between them had grown over the few weeks so that it now resembled the relationship between a teacher and his students.
“Yeah fine, Chiron,” James replied giving a slight wave. (Chiron was the only person James didn’t give a nickname too - even if he was a good humoured, James remained hesitant around the palomino centaur).
“Where’s Alyssa?”
“Actually we were taking about her,” Marek said, putting Cassandra aside.
“Nothing bad I hope,” Chiron said, looking to the sky to notice it darkening from rosy red to purplish blue. “It’s getting dark, go get Alyssa from her room, dinner will be on shortly.”
He nodded before returning to his walk. Marek grabbed his bow and walked in the opposite direction.
“Hey!” James called, and he scampered out of the water. “Where are you going?”
“I am going to see Alyssa.”
“Why?”
“Are you thick?” Marek snapped, he turned on his heel. His green eyes narrowed and James took a step back. “Look, something is wrong, we know it, Chiron knows it,” Marek jabbed James’ chest with the bow’s limb to emphasis each point. “Everyone knows it! And we pretty much were-“
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Theoi : Rising (SUPER EDITING)
Teen Fiction* Under reconstruction/editing/hiatus * When something ancient stirs, it takes something ancient to fight back. The gods of Olympus were destroyed be a being known as the Nothing and it's followers who were corruptions of former godlings. The sorcer...
