"Are you sure?" Marcus insisted. Pythia nodded and rolled her eyes, he had been asking her since the end of the day bell rang. This meant that Pythia would have to meet with Leon, or face Leon's wrath.
"Yes Marcus. It's just a little show around, not a showdown." At least she was hoping it wouldn't be, Apollo never mentioned her death. Apollo always said that Oracles all die at their promised time, but that never specified if they would die during the prophecies.
"I just don't like you being with that guy. I mean, did you see the way he kept glaring at me? I have big brother rights! I get to do the glaring and the posturing, not some pea-brain jock," Marcus pouted. It made Pythia smile, her brother loved waving his older sibling status when ever he could.
"Big brother? Please Marcus, only by a couple of minutes," Pythia scoffed, but couldn't help her smile from growing. This age old argument never failed to amuse her.
"Those are the most important minutes of my life Pyth, they are the ones that dictated that I am to be the older brother that does all those cool big brother things," he boasted.
"Cool big brother things?"
"Like being captain of a sports team, getting my drivers license first, doting on my little sister while still getting to tease her mercilessly, and warding off guys. Pyth there is a whole manual to being a big brother." He was bluffing his butt off, but Pythia let him. She always did.
"Well I guess you've done quite well so far, accept for the drivers license, since you still have your learners." Pythia laughed, but it was cut short when a pillow hit her face making her yelp.
"Only a month away, I basically have it." Marcus sniffed.
"Anyway, I have to go or he'll think I left," Pythia said finally and rose from the cot.
"You don't have to," Marcus muttered, the air turned tense. Turning to look at him Pythia noticed how his normally warm honey eyes seemed hard. It made her unsure about deciding not telling him the whole truth.
"I'm not one to leave people waiting. It won't take long, Marc. Just wait for me at home, okay?" Pythia begged. She only turned her back on him once he nodded.
"Six. If you're not home by then I will come looking, so you best be on time," Marcus demanded.
"I'll see you then," Pythia promised.
--------------------------------------------------------
Leon had been waiting just outside of the nurse's room for Pythia, so of course he heard the whole conversation between the siblings.
"Twins then?" he thought when the siblings were taking about Marcus being born first, "Makes sense, with their matching honey hair and eyes, it was almost freaky the way they looked so alike but were different genders."Just as he had thought this Pythia came out of the nurse's room and those wide honey eyes were on him. She gasped silently and jumped back when she saw who was waiting for her.
"I thought you might have forgotten about me, so I decided I would come get you." He said it with a fake innocent smile, but Pythia knew better because what he really meant was that he wasn't going to even give her the option of backing out. His eyes said everything that his body didn't.
"Sorry, I was just- With my brother- Sorry, let's just go," she stammered over her words nervously and started to lead him further from her brother. He was scaring her, that much anyone could tell, she was biting her lip and her hands were shaking slightly. Leon smirked and continued to follow her silently while she would occasionally point places out to him.
When Leon could no longer hear anyone near them he pulled Pythia into an empty class room that was thankfully still open. The second he pulled her he placed a hand over her mouth and muted her shocked yell. He leaned against the door and listened again for people, when he heard nothing he released Pythia.
"What are you doing?!" she exclaimed backing away from him and into a desk. Leon grabbed Pythia's arm to stop her from toppling over, but released her quickly once she was steady.
"I can't talk to you with common folk around, and I get the feeling that you also think the same." Pythia nods hesitantly. "Good, that means we are on the same page about some things, lets be the same with all our other matters." Leon was hinting heavily about the prophecy and Pythia sat on the desk with a sigh. There was going to be no easy way out of this.
"You can just say prophecy, you dragged me in here so no one could hear, so quit being so secretive and get on with it,"so I can go home she doesn't say.
"I want details. You didn't tell me everything did you? You're obviously leaving pieces out, and I intend to find them out by any means," he insinuates.
"I don't know what else to tell you, honestly, everything is subject to change."
"Then I'll tell you what I want," Leon says sharply and Pythia just nods hesitantly. "What was my first kill?" This was a affective way to tell weather or not the Oracle was bogus or not.
"A boy, I don't know his age, just that his hair was black like a ravens wing and eyes were the color of spring moss. You killed him with your bare hands, and watched the light from his eyes dim." Pythia had her eyes closed so she could bring the picture to the front of her mind and frowned at the grim scene, but then opened them when she remembered the last bit. "Oh! Also his last words to you were 'Zephyros killed Hyacinthus to keep him from Apollo, I wanted to be your Zephyros' or something like that. Apollo doesn't add audio to his stories, and when he actually showed the scene to me I still had to lip read," Pythia adds.
"Do you know his name?" Leon commands his voice to be calm while his mind races.
"No," she replays with a shake of her head. "I've always called him Zephyros."
"His name was Alexander, he trained with me when I was young. I killed him when he tried to kill me," Leon kept to the basics, so as not to reveal how close Pythia had gotten to stepping on one of his mental landmines.
"Are you sure that he was trying to kill you? I mean I remember Apollo telling me that you were trained to fight with all kinds of weapons and it wasn't simple sparing, it was extreme and it bordered on death match, couldn't it have been an accident?" Pythia asked. She knew that was a pointless question to ask. She's been hearing and watching this scene for years. There was never a doubt, it was murder.
"Alexander attacked with the intent of killing, I attacked with the same intent. The difference is I won, he lost." Leon was like a blank slate, Pythia was unable to read him.
"But, it was unfair. You have the strength of Hercules on your side, you would heal if you got hurt, but if you attack a normal person you could kill them easily. Of course you would win if you attacked with killing intent." Pythia was baffled. If Alexander was Leon's sparing parnter, then shouldn't he have known better?
"He still could have won. If he was faster," Leon grumbled and turned cold eyes to her and then took off his shirt. Leon pointed to a faded scar that ran from his collar bone to just below his heart, and although is was faded, the scar was relatively large and jagged, it looked painful. Pythia flinched and looked away from it to another on Leon's bicep that was just a small line, but it has Pythia's heart pausing for a second, her iris' blown so wide that her eyes looked mostly black, then her head flares up like when Leon first touched her, it causes for her to groan in pain as the corners of her mind to darken. Then it's just like a picture film that is reflected in the Black.
------------
A boy with curly hair was laying on the ground, teeth gritted and eyes focused on the knife that was now resting just above his heart, he was yelling something at a black haired boy. Pythia knows that the one struggling is Leon, and after all these years, she can finally put a name to the black haired boy, Alexander. Alexander above is crying, but his hold on he knife is deadly. There's blood on the blade that belongs to Leon, but it's like Leon doesn't feel it.
Alexander says something that upsets Leon and suddenly the knife is embedded in Leon's arm and then Alexander is knocked to the ground with a punch. Like screens from a flip book, Pythia watches as the knife is pulled out and tossed away and then Leon is on Alexander. Leon starts with punches that Alexander is able to block for the most part, but then Alexander says something that further angers Leon and just in a flash Leon has flipped them over so he's on top and has his hands wrapped around Alexander's neck.
Then the point of view changes and suddenly Pythia is the one looking up at Leon. His cold Steele eyes are on her and so are his hands. They tighten and it sends her into a panic and she desperately tries to claw his hands away. She tries to call his name to get him to stop but he doesn't, she feels tears burn down her cheeks, the tightening doesn't stop, and Pythia feels any hope she had drain. So she stops, and mouths something. Above her, she watches Leon's face twist into an unfamiliar emotion, and he mouths to her:
'I didn't want to share you with the Gods. Zephyros killed Hyacinthus to keep him from Apollo, I wanted to be your Zephyros.'
There's a ringing in her ear. That gets louder and louder. And before a white flash takes her, she sees a unique picture. Leon is crying and holding her limp body.
"Please! Hades! Give her back! Give me Pyth-"
-------------
"Pythia!" Leon yells while shaking her. His face looks both confused and guarded.
"What?" She asks. confused as to why he's yelling so loud. Her throat feels sore, and it's scratchy.
"I thought you were having a vision at first, so I wasn't going to do anything, but then you started scratching at your neck. It's bleeding, didn't you feel that?" Leon is being guarded, he's been told to never interfere with an Oracles visions, but the way she kept clawing at her neck was like she was aiming to gorge out her neck.
Pythia puts her fingers to her neck and pulls them away only to see blood coating them. It frightens her, never in her life has a vision been so violent, nor has she ever been a part of the vision.
"I don't- I've never-" she stutters, still quaking from the vision and from the pain. "It felt like you were trying to kill me," she cries. Leon drops his arms from around her and retreats, his face looked slightly horrified. Pythia sags to the floor. Her mind racing over everything, from being a spectator, to being directly incorporated in the vision, to the ending of where she saw Leon crying. Apollo has never showed her that before. "You were crying!" She gasps out in disbelief, it had been the first time she had seen the Heir being human. Leon freezes completely, his eyes are wide with slight panic.
"How did you-" he starts.
"I am the Oracle of Delphi," she interrupts and just for that second her voice is steady and confident. "It's my job to know, to see, and to tell everything I witness."
"Then you saw it all then?"
"I saw the beginning, I saw him cut you, and then I saw you kill him - well me - but it was supposed to be him." Her stutter was back and so was her confusion, the last part didn't belong with the rest, it was as if she witnessed a repeat but with two different people.
"I wasn't crying, it was sweat." Leon wants to smack himself, why the hell was he so desperate to deny the truth? It was what he wanted.
"Bullshit! Eyes don't produce sweat. They make tears, which is what you had. You were crying, why? Murder's don't feel guilty for the ones they kill."
"Girls shouldn't swear, it's unbecoming." Leon accuses, so that he can hide the pain he felt at being called a murderer. It was true, he knows, but hearing it come from Pythia made Leon feel shameful about it.
"And boys shouldn't cry because they're boys. But here we are, rebelling against the status quo. Now, why were you crying? Why did you call out my name at the end? You didn't know me then," Pythia bombards Leon with questions. And Leon is speechless, his thoughts and memories are drowning him, he wants to tell her to stop before she steps on one of his landmines. Pythia doesn't know that, because she keeps pressing. "I've never seen that before, in fact there would be no way for me to. I see the future and coming events, not the past. So, then you probably weren't crying. I mean there's no way the Heir would cry. You were made to be a murderer, you were destined to murder thousands to pave the way for the Gods." For a split second Pythia saw emotion spark light in Leon's eyes. It looked like boiling anger, and all the questions and accusations dissappeared, Pythia became meek again. She moved from sitting in front of the desk to standing behind it in seconds, instinct going crazy and demanding that she run. This caused for Leon to go from borderline losing-it to emotionless again.
"I did kill Alexander, I did cry. I regret to inform you, Oracle, but even I am human. Regardless of whether or not I am the Heir. I bleed, I cry, I loose my temper. I am human, too. Try to remember for next time." Leon forewarns. He wanted to yell more, he wanted to hurt her the way her words hurt him, he wanted to tell her that at the time he was scared. He wanted to do all those things, but instead he became void. "Anyway, we wasted too much time when you blacked out. Any longer and that annoying brother of yours will probably have the whole town after me." Leon moves to the door to leave. He twists the door handle and comes face to face with a surprised Marcus. Leon is surprised too, but quickly hides any emotion and pushes past Marcus.
"Woah! Don't say excuse me or anything, jerk" Marcus grumbles at Leon's retreating back. When he faces Pythia he instantly becomes worried but it turns to anger quickly and heads towards Pythia. "Pyth? Pythia, what's wrong? Why are you bleeding? Was it that asshole? I'll ring his fricking neck-" Marcus stops when Pythia's shaking hands quickly clamp onto his forearm. "Pythia? Hey, talk to me. Because I will kill that guy if he hurt you. I swear to god, I'll kill him with my barehands." Those words make her shaking worse, because he would kill Leon for her. And that thought alone makes her realize something, when someone hurts the ones you love, you would do anything to seek revenge. Even if that meant murder.
" No, it was me. It's my fault. I scratched myself. And- and I made Leon mad." Pythia bursts into tears and starts to hyperventalate. She was such an insensitive idiot. So focused on only the images that Apollo gave her, that she had forgotten that despite all the things Leon has done and will do, that under it all, he was just a kid. Like her and her brother. Just as human. "Marcus, what do I do?" she pleads.
" You don't have to do anything. He's an asshole, just leave him be," Marcus tells her. This makes Pythia cry more. Marcus can see that what ever happened before must have been serious, Pythia is acting like she's being sent off to the executioner. For a second Marcus looks reluctant to say anything, because in all truth he was hoping that Leon would ignore Pythia. That way, Marcus wouldn't have to deal with a boy trying to weasel his way into her life. Into their life. But upon seeing her completely distraught face, he changes his mind with put-upon sigh. "Apologize," he says simply. Pythia whips around to face him with a disbelieving look.
"Did you not see his face?"she wails. "It was a look of utter hate and he will never forgive me. What I said-" she cuts herself short. She doesn't want any of her family to know about her life as a Oracle, "It was rude- and almost cruel- and entirely true, but I still shouldn't have said anything." Pythia sobs.
"Still. Apologize." Marcus starts digging through his bag. And for a second he thanks the Gods for always keeping his bag on him. He pulls out his travel first aid kit that keeps especially for Pythia, and then starts to work work of the scratches she has on her neck. Up close he can tell that the scratches weren't made by Leon, a quick glance down to her hands tells Marcus that she did indeed make them herself, if the crusted blood under her nails was anything to go by. He starts with cleansing the scratches before he wraps them with gauze and secures them in place. Pythia just stood in place and let Marcus do his thing while silently crying. Marcus was always the one that ended up patching her up when her black outs caused her any bodily harm. Usually it was just scratches and bruising, all just minor accidents. When he finishes he tightly wraps her in a tight hug and lets Pythia cry everything out.
She stopped crying after a long while and was now only calming down her breathing.
"It will ease your mind if you do. But Pyth, once you do, I want you to tell him that you will have nothing to do with him anymore," Marcus demanded.
Pythia didn't say anything. In fact, she just froze completely. She was never one to go against Marcus' demands, but how could she tell him that the only reason why Leon was talking to her in the first place was because both Leon and Pythia's fates crossed, that this has already been predetermined long before she was born. That there was no way for her to run away, Leon had finally found her, she knew he would never let her go until he got what he came for.
"Marcus, I'm so sorry."