(no subject)

[lightstepping.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Peitho & Klymene
WHEN: Wednesday night
WHERE: A Manhattan bar
WHAT: Two Oceanides walk into a bar...
WARNINGS: language, mentions of rape

Peitho had a lot of sisters. Two thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine to be exact, so it was sometimes difficult to actually keep up with them. Some of them she barely knew by much more than name - a complicated matter as well, since Oceanus and Tethys had never been all that creative with names and sometimes three or four of her sisters could share the same name.

But some of those sisters left their marks on Peitho. A few because she loved them and truly thought of them as sisters in the proper emotional sense of that word, but others because there were pains shared between them.

Klymene fell into the second category. When the Titans fell Peitho had been unwed and caught the eye of Hermes. It was fortunate for Peitho that he was as interesting to Hermes as she was to him and that their marriage was one of the few matches of equals in the Greek pantheon. Their union over gave Peitho more power and sway among the new kids who took over.

Not so for Klymene. Poor Klymene who had seen her husband thrown down into the Pit and her sons punished. Poor Klymene who was forced into service to Gods she hated. Peitho did feel a little sorry for her, which was why she brought the drink over and put it before the Titaness sitting at the bar.

Klymene looked up with a questioning expression and then her beautiful face twisted with barely contained rage. Peitho didn't even try to match it. "Hello, sister."

"If we weren't in public," Klymene hissed, "I'd slit your whore throat."

Peitho shook a finger at her. "Now that's hardly polite. I just bought you a drink." She touched Klynene's dark locks. "And we are sisters."

Klymene's hand moved quickly, nails digging into Peitho's wrist hard enough to leave crescent moons of blood behind. "Are we sisters?" Klymene demanded in a dangerous undertone. "Is it a sister who would betray her own kind to marry an usurper? Is it a sister who would stand idly by while her own blood was humiliated by children? A sister who would happily go to bed each night with a man who defiled her sister?"

"You should release my hand, darling," Peitho smiled sweetly. "Unwise to mar my perfect flesh when that said defiler is my trained attack dog."

Klymene stood suddenly and for a moment Peitho really did think she was going to strike her, even here in the middle of a crowded bar. But then she dropped Peitho's wrist. "You are unworthy to even draw breath. We are not sisters." She turned as though to go but then paused, looking at Peitho once more. "The first time one of them forced himself upon me I cried out for your help. You were the only one on the Mountain I thought might come to my aid." The expression on Klymene's face almost hurt Peitho but she ignored such foolish feelings. "But you were already there and you'd found a new sister. I saw you near and tangled in the arms of Styx's winged daughter."

Peitho merely shrugged. "I am what I am," she just told her. "You expect different?"

"I long ago learned to expect nothing from those that whore themselves out to Olympians." And then Klymene slapped her, sudden and unexpected and Peitho felt it rush through her like nettles and fire. She opened and closed her mouth a few times but by the time she gathered her wits again, Klymene was gone and people in the bar were watching her. Peitho gave them a divine forced smile and downed the drink she'd brought for the sister who was not her sister.