She returned to the small room just off of Thelios’s where she’d been more fully introduced to his sister, and found a fresh platter of fruit, bread and cheese. She picked up a date, stared at it contemplatively, and then dropped it back onto the platter with a sigh.
“Damn stomach. Why won’t you behave?” She groused, glaring at the offending platter.
“What’s that?” She jumped with a start and a gasp and whirled to find Thelios emerging from his room.
“Ah, nothing.”
He wandered over and took a handful of the rejected dates.
She looked up at him speculatively and squinted. “You changed again.”
“Yes.”
“A little smaller?”
“Just a little.” He smiled, and she smiled back… then she frowned. “What is it?” he asked, watching her curiously.
“I… ah… never mind… it’s none of my business I guess.”
“Well, why don’t you let me determine that?”
“You won’t be offended?”
He cocked a disbelieving brow at her, and she grinned sheepishly.
“Alright, you’re right.” she took a breath and went for it. “Are you ever going to tell me what’s going on? I mean, why we are here… and this thing with names… also, why am I here… clearly I hold no candle to these others and am only a weakness, if last night proved anything. If I can’t even keep my mouth shut about that one thing you’ve–though it might help if…” He held up a stalling hand and she slowly sucked in her breath to stem her words, though her thoughts kept rushing on ahead in her mind in a veritable torrent. He walked over to the wide throne-like chair and sat, spreading his knees and laying his arms along the rests as he had before and subsequently making it look even more so.
His face didn’t reveal anything, but it looked stern. Finally he beckoned her over. She hesitated briefly, wondering if she’d finally crossed a line in some way, but she didn’t linger long enough to make him repeat the gesture. When she reached him he extended a hand and pulled her down onto one knee, a little like he had the night before, though the connotations were different this time.
“I feel like I’m going to get a talking to” She jested with a levity she didn’t quite feel. He smiled wryly.
“I only want you nearer to me so that my voice doesn’t need to carry.” He gestured around the room, “Walls having ears, and such.” She nodded, flushing slightly at the reminder of her mistake from the night before, however unintentional. But, he was going to tell her, and that was a step in the right direction. She took a breath and steeled herself.
“Let’s move backward shall we.” She raised a brow at him this time, but didn’t interrupt. “First of all, or I should say last of all… I have no problem gagging you as I fuck you,” He smirked at her and she felt her face turned all shades of red, “so I don’t really see that as a problem or a weakness… and it’s also the answer to why you’re here as well… fucking you that is, not the gagging…. that’s just an interesting byproduct of our circumstances and your inability to control what comes out of your mouth when you orgasm.”
“I’m sorry about that.” She whispered roughly.
“Don’t be, listening to you scream as you cum one of my favorite parts. You’ve always done that, you know.”
She shook her head. “I honestly don’t notice it. I’m… distracted I guess.” She answered thickly, her voice catching.
He paused to watch her face, looking amused. “Am I embarrassing you?”
She could only nod, not being quite able to make her throat unclosed itself just at that moment.
He grinned wider. “Good. That’s a sweet shade of pink, and it suits you.”
She cleared her throat. “Well… ah… now that we’ve covered That…”
He laughed.
“Fine, yes, moving on.” He grew suddenly serious and forced her gaze back up to meet his with a finger along her jaw. “As far as trying to measure up to anyone, don’t. You’re here to keep me company, and because I’d rather have you with me than sitting alone back at home… you’re not here to be part of…” he waved off towards the courtyard without breaking her gaze, “that nonsense. Understood?”
She nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure she did. He seemed to know that and continued. “I don’t want you to be involved in any of their games or contests or what ever ridiculous infantile bullshit they come up with in their pathetic attempts at one-upmanship. I’m only here because I’m stuck with them. This is business and nothing else. Yes.” She nodded again.
He didn’t want or expect her to compete. Not shocking really. It wouldn’t turn out well anyway, and would be embarrassing and pointless. And it was sort of silly when you thought about it, despite its glamorous appearance… and he was anything but silly. Devilish… yes, playful even, but by no means excessively so. She nodded again to confirm to herself his lack of silliness and their abundance of it and he let out a satisfied grunt as if he’d been watching the progression of her thoughts along with her.
“Now… about what’s going on.” His voice lowered again and she leaned in so that he could speak as softly as he desired, the result of which was that he leaned in as well and brushed his lips against her temple before continuing. “It was one of the oracles. Not the human ones like those at Delphi, but one of ours. One of the gorgons, in fact. It appears someone pulled an Odysseus on the poor, foolish creature and managed to get their hands on the methods to a sacred form of magic… one that uses names. It was a secret passed on from the Goddess of magic to her closest followers. ”
“Wait,” she paused him by placing a hand on his broad chest, “pulled an Odysseus?”
He smiled wryly. “Yes, that’s what we call it when some ‘hero’ type pulls a fast one on one of us ‘monster’ types. It’s embarrassing really. And patently unfair. When we win, no one writes a story about it.” She must have been gaping at him because he paused and grinned. “There really isn’t much of a difference between us. All of us are usually the grand children, and great grand children of Gods, or the product of some human/ not so human encounter. They just happen to look more human than we do.” He paused and looked away, then around the room. “Of course we here are of a particular lineage… one that seems to have gotten buggered this time around.” He glanced back down at her. “My father, you see, was the intended recipient of the spell, but he’s too old for that sort of thing to be used against him by anything less than a full blooded god… and they have little reason to. He’s in the service of one as it is.”
“And he has many children, your father?”
“Enough.”
She waited, but he merely sat and brooded, staring off into the distance. Vague… always so damnably vague. If he wouldn’t tell her anything, how was she supposed to know what was growing inside of her, or whether he’d be happy about it? “Oh?” She prompted.
He grunted again in confirmation; it was one of his, that’s-all-I’m-going-to-say grunts. So much for that, she thought, then veered toward another tack. “And your mother?”