As I walked home I was a wear of everything and nothing. I knew I was being fallowed but I no longer cared. The sooner my death found me, the sooner my troubles would end. But thoughts like that brought me up short. I was a fighter, not a quitter. What would happen to my girls if I just gave up like that? What about all of my charges? I couldn't leave them. Going down swinging was one thing, just giving up though that was not in me to do. It never had been before and it would not be now.
I stopped walking and placed my hand on the handle of the short sward I always kept at my side. It had been a gift from the man who had saved me. It was made of pure sliver and would kill anything or anyone. I had taken great care to keep it in perfect working order. It was sharp enough to cut through a human body in two swings. It was also etched with the symbols of Poseidon. Not that I cared about that part much.
I settled in to my stance. I spread my feet, shifted my weight and I was ready. This is what I had been doing for more of my life than I wanted to think about. The thing fallowing me was closing the distance between us now. No doughs that it was sure I knew it was there now. But I was ready for a fight. All my anger from earlier came back to fuel my cold calculated rage. I felt the air shift and ducked out of the way a moment before the blade would have bit into my neck. I used that same movement to pull my sward from it's sheath, as I stood up right again with the one who had attacked me now in front of me. I held my sward to the back of the neck of one of the Atlanteans. The same one that had saved me before. Why did he do this though?
"You must have a wish to die a head of your people. But I am more than happy to usher you on to the next world. Even if I do own you a life." I said giving over fully to the murderous side of me that I usually kept in a tightly sealed box buried deep, deep inside. I gave over to it wholly. I knew there was no one around that I cared about so why shouldn't let my darker side out to play. But I wasn't about to just kill this little worm; no I wanted a fight. My opiate turned using the time I had given him to take a look at me. But he spoke as he turned too.
"I should have known it was you. Though I wasn't sure until I saw the blade I gave you that day... Your eyes are different now. More like that night when I first met you. But please I offer my life to you if you will just give my King and Captain a chance. I beg of you to take what you want and help us." The solider said. I was disappointed to be sure but I saw he was sincere.
"Maric, what are you doing?" I heard Addison's voice yelling. I looked into the eyes of the man before me, Maric. Now at least I knew his name. I saw that he really was willing to die if that would mean I would help his King and his people. On one thing my darker side and I could agree. We only kill those that deserved to die. This man, Maric, didn't deserve to die. I would not be the instrument of his demise.
"He doesn't deserve such loyalty. My decision stands. I will not take your life. I may be Darkness incarnate but even I have standards. Not many of them but I do have them." I said. I felt that the whole party, including my father was standing around me. I looked at Addison and my father. He was still bleeding but to his credit he wasn't letting it slow him down at all. Addison took a step back. I spoke to my father.
"You should take the young would be King back to his people so they might judge him for what he has done. I'm off to find someone worth killing." I said my father did not say anything though Aidan was standing in my way. I looked into his eyes and there was fear there yet he wouldn't move out of my way. My grip on my blade tightened. If he wouldn't move by his own will than I would force him. But as I went to raise my arm to strike, I was unable to move.
"Coyrah NO!" My father's voice reverberated down the empty street.
I knew I was always under threat of an attack. That's why I lived in the old abandon part of the city. Not one to get hurt or be collateral damage when my enemies came in for a fight. I had learned my lesson on that the hard way and explaining to the cops that I didn't kill my roommate or neighbor was something I really only needed to do once. That had happened when I was 15 and was on my own fully. Then started the more shadier shit I had done. But my father and the party were all just standing there staring at me like they were waiting for me to apologize. That was never going to happen.
"Then tell your Favorite Children to move the fuck aside and release me." I said.
I couldn't help it. These men may not have been born of my father but he treated them better than he did me. He treated them the way a father should. He loved them the way a father should. They were not his children, I was yet they knew him and had his love. I was a tool, a weapon, a means to an end he had meant to use to save his favorites. Little did he know I had found out a month ago, after he spoke to me for the first and last time, what the cost would be for what he and they wanted from me. In point of fact, they were demanding my life for theirs.
"Please Coyrah listen to reason." Father said. But no one had moved and he had not released me. So I shot another barb at him. I wasn't even sure why I was still calling him father. He never had been and he never would be the father I had wished for so many times as a little girl. Time to hurt him if that was even possible.
"Listen to reason you say. Tell me Father do your favorites know the cost that must be payed for what they ask? I do, and I am not willing to pay. This world already has enough ungrateful, self-important, selfish sons of bitches in it. You could say I'm doing them and me a favor by letting your presses Atlantis die." I said and I turned on my father then. "Had you sent someone more humble than I might have been persuaded to pay that price; but if this is their King and Captain than, they don't deserve my life." I said.
As I watched I saw it play on all their faces. On the Atlantean's faces it was confusion then realization that, they had come here to ask me to save them which meant my death but had given me nothing good; no good reason to give up my life for theirs. On my father's face I saw anger and maybe pain but most of all, rage.
"Who told you this?" He said. Which was all the conformation I needed. I wanted to cry for all the pain that welled up in me at this. But I could not let these bastards see me weak like that.
"No one, told me anything. I found the answers in a book. But YOU just provided me with the proof. I AM DONE!" I said. I removed from my packet the letter he had written to me and my zippo. I had kept the letter always with me because I wanted to believe that he really did love me. But now I could see I really was nothing to him and I never would be so he should be nothing to me either. I was a smoker from time to time and I was feeling that tonight was going to be a night when I was more than happy to smoke a whole fucking pack. I sheathed my blade and took the letter in one hand and opened the zippo with the other. I set the letter a blaze and dropped its smoldering self on the ground.
"As I said in the bar Poseidon. YOU LIED! Take your favorites and LEAVE, because I will NEVER give you my life. I may die at the hand of something else but I will NEVER be your slave again. None of you are worth my life." I said. Poseidon had released me or at least as long as I wasn't trying to harm any of his favorites, he let me go. Though he was just watching the burning letter on the ground. I walked away I needed a cigarette and a drink. I was almost to the next corner when I heard someone running up behind me. I was just managing to keep my shit together. I so didn't want company.
"We're not you know." Aidan's voice said as he got closer. He was lucky my darker entrenches were pushing for me to drink the pain away rather than fight it away.
"Not what? Worth saving? Obviously. Not worth my life? With that I couldn't agree more." I said though I never stopped walking.
"We're not his favorites. The rest, well of cores I believe our people are worth saving though at the cost of your life, I'm not sure. But there must be another way." Aidan said. I had quite had enough at this point. I turned on him then.
"You lot are his favorites. You know him, I have in my whole fucking life had one conversation with him and that letter you all watched me burn, Nothing else, NOTHING! He promised me I would be protected and safe, once you lot found me and I raised Atlantis as I was meant to. What he left out was the fine fucking print. I, the strongest born daughter of Poseidon must die at his hand, my life willingly given over in sacrifice for Atlantis to rise once more from the sea. So tell me again, how are you not his favorites? I have had to fight my whole Gods damned fucking life ALONE. Something none of you would understand. Then finding out that my own so called fucking father wants nothing more than to kill me so a whole fucking race of people, that the world has written off as ledged can be brought back up to the surface. You know nothing of the shite existence I have forced to endure with no family and no one who gave two fucks about me. Only to have more selfish fucks demand that I kill myself for their gain. JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE ALREADY!" I said. I felt a tear escaped my eye. I looked away and brushed it away. I started walking again. I really needed a drink or maybe just the bottle and my cigarettes. I walked alone having lost Aidan after my speech about Poseidon. I had not lied though. That was what made it so hard when Poseidon had confirmed what I had read to be true.
"You know, you don't have all the answers. There could be a loop hole that you don't know anything about." Artemis said. As she appeared beside me. She walked at my side. I knew there were tears on my face but I didn't care. I was not afraid to let Artemis see me like this mainly because I was still under her protection. She was after all the Goddess of Children and Virgin women. Sad to say I was still a member of the latter group. Though to be honest I was never really apart of the former. Being alone in the world at a young age was something to rob one of being a child truly.
"Unless you know something that was not written in the hundreds of books littering my flat right now than I disagree. I have read everything with regards to the prophecy of Atlantis rising. They all say the same thing. Only the strongest born Daughter of Poseidon can rise Atlantis and only at the cost of her own life. Giving her life over to Poseidon and Atlantis is the only way to save Atlantis." I said. My voice never giving away how hurt I was over the fact that the only parent I had just wanted to kill me. Not Protect me, not keep me safe as he had said. He wanted my life nothing more.
"Coyrah, those books don't hold all the answers." Artemis said we were standing at my building now. Though I owned the whole block it wasn't great the way I got it but I did. That was all some of that shadier shite that I did when I was 15. I got into working with the Mob. I was a mechanic, they gave me part money and part land as payment so that way no one could trace it and it gave me some place to call my own. The Boss wasn't really that bad, I would still do the odd job for him when he asked. But he knew that I was out. I wouldn't say I had gone strait but I was closer than I had been then. But because I owned the whole damn block I would move buildings every so often but this one was my favorite. It was historical. It was one of those buildings that you could just tell had been built before the turn of the 20th century. It was beautiful no matter what though, in the classical sense it would never appeal to those modern types. They pissed me off as much as the Atlanteans had.
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