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"What... Did he mean, 'You know where to go?'"
The girl who had once called that place, that peaceful prison of beauty, that frivolous life where her sole purpose was attending to flowers, home, would perhaps have trembled under the hard tone of Perseus Jackson. But that girl was four thousand years dead, with only her name and face remaining as the Lieutenant of the Hunt.
She had been reminiscing too much in their week long quest, quiet moments as the ghostly images of her long life drifted out from her memories for the first time in millennia. Raising the silver arrow clutched in her right hand, she pointed it towards the Garden that still tugged at her very essence gently, even though she had not been to this city in five years, let alone the Garden. "Mount Tamalpais, currently home to the Garden of the Hesperides. The Garden of my Sisters."
The breath she drew was disciplined, but only because she knew it would be nervous otherwise. "I must go home."
"But.. I thought you could only enter the Garden at Sundown?" Thalia's confused comment shot a blade of ice up her spine, and Zoë wheeled to the left, staring out over the sea with horror at the immense form of Apollo's sun chariot, well and truly sunk beneath the horizon.
"Pankataratos glàmon!" Swearing loudly, and ignoring how the sky rumbled dangerously at her expletive, Zoë stared hopelessly as the light of day drifted further and further away and was replaced by the cool hopelessness of night. It was far too late for any of them to make it to the Garden, even if going alone was not a doomed folly. The Oracle had condemned them to working together on this accursed quest - Campers and Hunters combined shall prevail - she could not simply leave the two campers whom remained, behind.
"So.. What now? We've missed the chance to enter?" Perseus's question shaped a displeased line out of her lips.
"Not so. I had wished to free my Lady this evening, but this distraction hath waylaid such plan. We must search for shelter for the evening, enter my Sisters' Garden tomorrow evening. It shall cut the margin narrow, Lady Artemis will attend the Winter Solstice without time to prepare, but she shall be present. I swear mine own life on it." Again the sky rumbled overhead, this time not with a dangerous warning, but instead almost a solemn growl. What difference did her oath make, however? She would be dead before dawn on the Solstice regardless.
But where would they go? T'was not as if she could take them to Camp Jupiter - regardless of the importance of the quest, they would be smote by the Gods for even the simple risk of reigniting the conflict between the Roman and Greek aspects. It was doubtless solely because of their quest for Lady Artemis that they had been allowed to get this close to Camp Jupiter. Even still... She could go alone, seek aid from the Roman demigods. She was known as Lady Diana's right hand amongst them, and their sense of duty would not allow them to refuse.
It would chafe at her pride, but such was unimportant for a dead girl.
"Hang on... I think I still have that..." Thalia furiously rummaged in her backpack, drawing Zoë from her planning, and she watched with bemusement as the daughter of Zeus dug through her disorganised pack for almost a minute, before triumphantly withdrawing a scrap of paper. "There is someone in the city who can help us. Doctor Fredrick Chase. Annabeth's father."
The way a storm of emotions flickered across Perseus' face was worrying enough, but Zoë had long since learned to trust her own judgement over the emotions of others. Reaching out, she carefully took the scrap of paper from Thalia's hand and glanced at the address, before returning it and lifting her head up, taking a short dash and planting herself atop some stall, using the new vantage point to scan their surroundings for landmarks she remembered. The Golden Gate bridge was obvious, but Crissy Field and the Palace of Fine Arts both sitting to her southeast, allowed her to gather exactly where she was.
"Thine address is in Pacific Heights. If we move now, we can make it before five thirty." Thalia and Perseus stared at her for several seconds, before Perseus spoke in a confused tone.
"Zoë, that's like.. Three miles. It took us two hours to walk here from the Embarcadero building!" She made no attempt to stop the frustrated huff that escaped her.
"Lady Artemis' Hunters could have sprinted such in a fraction of the time. Our hunt for Nereus slowed our progress. Thou shall make the journey comfortably, before the chill sets in. Come, let us go." Turning on her heel and dropping back to the pier level, Zoë resisted her instinctual urge to settle into a sprint for the address, instead settling into a painfully slow jog that the two demigods just about managed to maintain. Whilst she hadn't been lying about the Hunters capacity to make the two-hour trip in a handful of minutes, such was not possible in an area so devoid of nature as San Francisco.
If only Virginia were here...
Not for the first time the thought crossed her mind, lingering only for a handful of seconds, before she gripped it and cast it back down. Zoë had chosen to leave the Hunter behind because she knew exactly what would happen if she had brought the first daughter of English America on this journey with her, no matter how much she had pleaded with Zoë to let her come. The Quest was a death sentence for the Hunters. Zoë had entered knowing she would die, the last line of the prophecy was doomed to be about her, and she would not run from her fate, but it was the second line, one lost in the land without rain, that would condemn another of their party to death.
The Hephaestus Councillor, Beckendorf, was well intentioned, suggesting that they steer clear of the desert, but was also foolish as to assume that the quest could cross the entire continent to San Francisco in adequate time, without going straight through any of the lands that met that description. And as a result of the urgency, her newest sister, Bianca di Angelo, had died.
She had been wrong, in hind sight. Not two, but three children of the Eldest Gods had been on their quest. And as a result of their carelessness, another had perished painfully young.
The others had not figured it out, but in short order the young boy would realise his parentage and the legacy that brought. Zoë had not realised Bianca's heritage before, but after the events of their encounter with the Spartoi, such had become obvious to her, as had the fact that Bianca would not last long in the Hunt, even had she survived. The daughter of the God of the Underworld, a member of the Hunt of the Goddess of Childbirth - t'would have torn at her nature unbearably.
Nay, t'was Zoë's quest to go on. She had chosen Bianca and Phoebe, but the fates had stepped in to remove Phoebe from the equation, leaving only an inexperienced Hunter and a dead girl walking. It was clear, then, that they were to be the sacrifice for the quest - to fulfil the blood toll. With two potential children of the prophecy accompanying, for she was not so foolish as to recognise Jackson would not follow, their survivals would be near certain.
Bianca had died bravely, at least. A hero, another sister for Elysium.
Zoë was under no illusions as to how unprepared she was to face her father. She would die afraid and alone, unlike all the sisters she had buried before her. Parthenos in the ninth century, cut shoulder to hip by a cyclops; Miranda in ten-ninety-nine at Jerusalem, cut down by a dozen men trying to save as many innocents from the brutality of the First Crusade; Daphne in the eighteen-thirties, slain by Orion like so many of her sisters in that terrible confrontation in the Black Forest. All of them had faced their deaths bravely, she could only hope to emulate them.
Though, she mused as she deftly leapt onto the hood of a parked car and leapt across a street full of traffic, weaving the mist around her as if it were a cloak, were Virginia here, conversation with Camp Jupiter would be far easier.
Recalling the number upon the scrap of paper that Thalia had produced, Zoë drew her gaze to the number sitting above the awning of the porch of the house to her right on the steep hill. Sparing a glance back down the half-bloods who struggled to keep up, Zoë focused on the number. 2815. Stepping further up the hill, she checked the next houses number.
2811.
A moment of hesitation, before her lips parted in muted realisation as she stared at 2811 with subtle amusement and surprise. Clever Goddess. As was to be expected.
"You... Haah... Found it?" The noise of two sets of footsteps approaching drew her gaze right, and Thalia's out of breath voice swiftly followed her arrival. At the question, Zoë gave a soft hum, before pointing at the house before her.
"This is 2811. We are seeking 2813. Tell thee, what do you notice?" The two half-bloods glanced in near sync left and right, before Thalia's tone almost wobbled into the air, audibly confused.
"It's... Not here?" Perseus interjected on Zoë's behalf.
"It's the Mist again, right?" At his guess, the Hunter nodded.
"Aye. Expertly woven, by a true Master of her craft." Closing her eyes and bowing her head for a second, Zoë focused her mind and prayed.
Lady Athena, please allow us to enter the home of the Chase family. Their aid is paramount to the success of the quest for thy Daughter.
As she opened her eyes, Zoë found herself standing before a house that she had not comprehended was there before, the silver number '2813' glowing softly underneath a statue of an Owl. Painted a soft blue, the three-story home was glowing not with the magical light as the numbers were, but with the warmth of a home at Yule time. Despite herself, the ghost of a small smile danced across her lips for just a moment.
And then the reminder that she would not see another Yuletide returned, and the smile soured.
Fixing her lips into a line, Zoë reached behind her to the two half-bloods and clasped their hands, pulling them across the threshold of the Mist protection, drawing surprised gasps from both as they took in the house, and she released their hands swiftly. "2813. Come, lest you wish to remain in the cold."
Ascending the steps with haste, Zoë rapped on the front door, and honed senses allowed her to hear as conversation momentarily trailed off, before a muffled voice made a remark and a pair of footsteps came down the stairs, just as the footsteps of Perseus and Thalia came up the stairs behind her. Stepping back from the door, Zoë rested her right hand on her hip, a casual enough display, at least until one considered the hunting knife she had resting on the small of her back beneath her coat, the handle of which rested a twitch away from her right hand.
The door opened, revealing a middle-aged man with blonde hair. A brief examination revealed that, whilst he was wearing a somewhat mismanaged suit, one of the buttons done up wrong, leaving him with a mismatched collar, he was also still in relatively good shape for a mortal of his age. What caught her eye was the pilots cap in his right hand, goggles included, the ensemble throwing Zoë's memories a century into the past. Her momentary hesitation allowed for the man to ask his own question. "Oh! Are you here about my delivery?"
"Uh.. No sir." Perseus answered for them, but before the man could get anything else in, Zoë interjected.
"Doctor Chase? We are here about thy daughter, Annabeth." Her words sobered the man immediately, and he tensed.
"What happened? Is she...?" A moment of hesitation struck her. T'was one aspect of the cycle of life and death that she bore no familiarity towards. Only a handful of Hunters had anything more than the least desire to remain in contact with their families, such was the reality of the girls that Artemis collected around her. When one of their number was killed, they mourned together, as a family, not as individuals.
"Alive. But in great danger." Thalia spoke up, stepping in front of Zoë and giving her a disapproving side eye. Though the animosity between them had certainly lessened, Thalia clearly still did not like her, doubtless not helped by Zoë's caution. Lowering her arm from her hip seemed to satisfy Thalia, who turned to meed Dr Chase's gaze. "I.. Don't know if you remember me, but-"
"You're Thalia, I remember you from... It would have been 2000." The daughter of Zeus seemed to go still for several seconds, before nodding slowly, which seemed to encourage the man to continue. "If you have managed to turn up on my door, then you have either managed to overcome Athena, or she had allowed you entry. Either way, I welcome you to my home. Come up to my office, we can talk there."
Dutifully the two half-bloods filed in, but Zoë hesitated only long enough to murmur her thanks to Athena once again before crossing the threshold of the building and being immediately beset by the scent of baking that failed to cover up a far more primordial smell. It was the smell of a library, of what she could best describe as wisdom itself, knowledge contained within the confines of a building. It was similar to being around the Goddess herself.
Dr Chase gave her a momentary look, before glancing around for several seconds. Eventually, realisation seemed to come to him, and he gave a small noise of realisation. "You can sense it too? I suppose it comes from being attuned to her ways, although you don't strike me as much of an Athena child or devotee."
"I am attuned to the Old Ways far more than thee, or the friends of thy daughter." Flicking her eyes around the lower floor of the house, her ears noted several things. The kitchen was occupied by a single person, probably a female adult judging by the soft humming and the space between their footsteps, whilst there were two children in the front room playing with something loudly. Perseus and Thalia were at two different points on the straight staircase, staring down at her and Dr Chase as she glanced around the house.
"Fredrick? Do we have guests?" An Asian woman appeared from around the corner of the kitchen, prompting both Perseus and Thalia to poke their heads over the railing and look at her. Dr Chase cleared his throat.
"They are here about Annabeth, dear." The woman, Dr Chase's wife, she presumed, made a noise of subdued realisation. "We'll go to my office."
"I'll bring some refreshments up." With that, the women moved back into the kitchen, and Dr Chase beckoned them upstairs to the third floor, and into the office at the back of the house, which drew a soft exclamation of awe from Perseus.
"Woah..."
She had to admit; she too was impressed by the scene before them. In the office that filled the back quarter of the third floor sat an immense war table that was filled with miniature soldiers and landships that triggered yet more memories from a hundred years prior. Amidst a memory of screams and explosions, Dr Chase gave a proud noise and followed her into the room, plucking a spare Sopwith Camel from a side bench and holding up for display even as Zoë frowned at the table as she set her pack by the door.
"Ah! Yes, I've been writing a paper on the use of Sopwith Camels at the-"
"Third battle of Ypres. Passchendaele, latter half of 1917." Zoë finished for him with a hint of solemnity in her tone, stalking around the table with a practiced eye, following the map as her mind recalled the muddy mess of shell holes and blood that she had seen from above. Something was wrong with the scene, some slight error that she recognised in a moment after a short hesitation, staring down at the carnage of Passchendaele, eerily silent now without those men crying for their loved ones in some muddy shell hole, and gave soft noise of surprise. "The German lines are wrong. They were further from the river. They also extended into Polygon Wood, not around it."
"You.. How do you know that?" Glancing up from where she was tracing the frontlines she remembered with her finger, Zoë responded to the man's incredulous question with a grimace, unhearing of anything other than the cries of the dead for another moment longer than she had ever wished to.
"I was there. Lady Artemis wished to demonstrate to us the worst of the horror and futility of man's war. Half a million men shed blood for a half mile. There were worse slaughters, more pointless ones, but if this was the face of victory, then how could anyone consider themselves the victors?" Dr Chase's expression was momentarily mournful and solemn, the same solemnity she had seen the faces of so many men and women whom had reflected upon the horrors of the war that Zoë had borne personal witness to. But a moment later his eyes widened in visible interest.
"The Camels! How many were there? What formations did they fly in?" At his sudden outburst of interest Zoë momentarily started backwards, before the Doctor caught his breath for just a fraction of a second and shifted tangents. "And the trenches! Where did they go? What axis did they take? Were they concrete reinforced, or just dugouts?"
"Doctor Chase, please." Thalia's voice intercut, just a little desperate and stressed, perhaps even concerned if the worried look Thalia gave Zoë was anything to go off. "We could use your help."
"Of course, my dear, I'm sorry." Turning around and pushing his glasses back up his face, Dr Chase cleared his throat. "What was it you were telling me about Annabeth?"
As Thalia and Perseus relayed their story to Dr Chase, Zoë turned back to the battlefield and drew an arrow from the quiver over her shoulder, carefully tracing the correct trench line into the diorama by using the blade of her arrow to part the terrain. Whilst she was no modeller, such a task was tantamount to impossible when one lived the life of a Hunter of Artemis, she was more than capable of correcting the trenches with a memory well-honed by several millennia of life.
To correct a small error in a trench line was the least she could have done those who had died for them.
It was several minutes later that Zoë perked her head up at approaching footsteps, which seemed to draw the collective attention to the doorway of the office, which remained empty as she knew it would. Instead, the noise of the stairs gently creaking filled the air as Mrs Chase ascended them with a tray of sandwiches, baked goods and refreshments that Zoë could smell a mile off, let alone from just down a staircase.
It was one of the litany of reasons the Hunters rarely strayed towards suburban settings. Their senses, all tuned to pick up the most miniscule of noises, scents and sights, ran haywire in the modern world, providing an informational overload that consistently made inhabiting these areas nightmarish and dangerous. She would have to practice her breathing exercises that evening, try and shut out the worst of the headache she would be nursing for the upcoming day.
"Here you go, dears. Some refreshments. Will you be staying for dinner?" A glance was shared between the trio of questers, and Thalia cleared her throat awkwardly.
"I.. Was going to get to that. Dr Chase, would it trouble your family if we stayed the night? The next step of our quest, the final step of our quest requires us to enter.. A garden at sundown." Mrs Chase blinked, momentarily thrown by the comment, but Doctor Chase was silent for several seconds, clearly lost in deep thought. And then just as he had before, he burst into a cry of realisation.
"Oh! The Garden of the Hesperides?" Whilst Thalia and Perseus took the comment as their turn to look surprised, Zoë stiffened just a little, tucking her right hand around her back and onto the handle of the knife that her body was screaming at her to use. Dr Chase continued, blissfully unaware of the landmine he had just stepped upon. "If only I could see it - but if you're seeking us out, then it cannot be too far.."
"Mount Tamalpais." Cursing silently internally as Perseus answered the mortal without thinking, Zoë abruptly interjected.
"Tis not a place for thee. Though mortals cannot enter, t'would be ill advised to venture even close. Monsters are known to not discriminate between mortal and demigod." Leaning back to rest herself on the lip of a desk filled with stacks of papers and books seemingly from every year between now and a hundred years ago, Zoë crossed her arms and fixed Dr Chase with a look. "Neither would one take mine own sisters lightly. We predate the Gods, and if they possess even a fraction of the strength that I remember of them, they would break no sweat in cutting you down. If they did not delight in dancing thee to thine own demise first, that is."
"You're... A Hesperide?" At the question, Zoë nodded once.
"Indeed." Once again, before she could even utter another word, Dr Chase had jumped in.
"Do you mind me asking, which of the myths is correct? What are your sisters’ names? Who were your parents?" At the last one, Zoë unavoidably flinched abruptly and her lip curled. T'was bad enough that this man was prying into her own history that she would soon have to confront, but now she was learning that her family had been forgotten by time? T'was an offence she did not knew she would take before now.
"I have no sisters but the Hunt. Those whom I share the last of my immortal blood with cast me out after I aided... A hero." Herakles, the word spat in the privacy of her mind drew a sneer to her expression that had both mortals starting back, as if her acerbic tone hadn't done that alone. "Hesperia, Arethusa, Erytheia and Aegle share my blood. My Father..."
Despite herself, she cast a worried glance off in the direction of the tug at her essence, at the mountain and the Titan who no longer held the weight of the sky upon his back. A nervous waver in her voice was poorly drowned by false confidence. "I cannot say. Names have power, even uttered by mortals."
"I... See." Dr Chase was silent for several moments, before clearing his throat through the uncomfortable silence. "Well! I'm sure we can accommodate you overnight. Matthew and Bobby can share a room for one evening; Percy can sleep in the others room. Thalia, will you be alright in Annabeth's room? She hasn't used it in many years, but we.. Try to keep it ready."
The almost downtrodden tone the man spoke with was indicative of the many problems with demigod families. They inherently drove apart loved ones as the simple presence of a demigod could attract monsters in droves. It had already occurred to her that even with the protections set up by Athena, the presence of two demigod children of the Big Three, plus her own presence, would almost certainly bleed through the barriers. The question remained if her Father wished to face her at her best, or if he wished to wear the questers down during the night.
Dr Chase cleared his throat. "Miss Nightshade, would you-"
"I will remain awake." The man blinked; indeed, they all blinked at her owlishly. Had she not so much discipline, she might have chuckled at the pun she had made unintentionally. "One must take vigil. I am most well suited to the night; I shall rest during the day. We have no need to leave before the late afternoon tomorrow, and this city has never interested me in any of my visits."
A thought came to mind, and the ghost of a smile danced across her lips. "Though my Lady did find one man curious here. An Emperor of this country."
Perseus and Thalia blinked again, cluelessly, but Dr Chase gave a laugh. "Emperor Norton, no doubt?"
"Indeed. An... Odd man, admittedly, but one ahead of his time." Zoë was silent for several seconds before straightening herself upright and nodding. T'was her turn to pay the toll. "Now, what didst thee wish to know about Passchendaele?"
It was early, far too early for anyone else to be awake reasonably.
But Zoë had kept her vigil throughout the night, and as it turned out she had been entirely justified in doing so. Twice she had made her way out from the house and shot down monsters who had walked the streets at night. Empousai were bad enough, but what was worse was that Zoë could not tell if they had genuinely been scouts of the General, or if they had simply prowled the streets at night searching for prey.
Cities were truly the worst. In the wilderness, it was little wondering if the monster you had come across had sought you out.
She had shot out the nearest street lights after the second Empousai had wandered down the hill and into her firing line, the darkness and mist concealing her even in the bright glow of the moon as it blazed down upon her. The soft light of her Mistress fed into her and heightened her senses just as much as it quelled her nerves, aided in no small part by the houses enchantments. They had been how Zoë had heard the moment there was movement upstairs. It had roused her from her meditative state, from the breathing exercises that controlled the overload of information that she had been cataloguing with every breath, and she had crept up the stairs with knife in hand, coming to a halt on the cusp of the first floor landing.
Dr Chase hadn't even realised she was there until he had almost run into her and she had spoken softly, scaring him nearly entirely out of his skin. The good Doctor had, by his own admission, been unable to sleep particularly well, given the knowledge that his daughter was prisoner of the enemy, and so had come downstairs seeking something to calm his nerves, forgetting momentarily the Huntress who stood guard over his house.
She had no intention of informing him of the monsters that wandered the streets at night - that the combined auras of two children of the eldest gods and a titaness had only drawn two to the creatures was impressive, but telling him such would doubtless rend his family apart even more than it had already. Annabeth, as little as Zoë knew her, deserved to have the option to return home, if nought else.
"Would you like something to drink, Miss Nightshade? Tea? Coffee?" Glancing to her side, Zoë caught sight of Doctor Chase peering around corner of the doorway to the kitchen, hair slightly frazzled. Her reflexive denial died on her lips as she instead gave a small nod.
"Black tea, please. No sugar." The man gave a small nod as he parroted her order back to her, before disappearing back around the corner of the kitchen, leaving Zoë to return to her vigil as the soft noises of a kettle boiling and crockery clinking filled the air. It could not have been for long, but Zoë allowed herself to bask in the last slivers of the moons glow as it slowly sunk towards the horizon.
The noise of her tea being set down pulled her from her distraction, offering quiet thanks to the man who sat in one of the wing chairs in the living room, clutching his own cup. The somewhat floral scent in the air indicated that the tea in front of her was probably a Pekoe, with the slight bitter aroma told her that the man was drinking coffee.
Carefully lifting the hot mug into her hands, a closer sniff helped her narrow it down. Floral, but with a hint of grape, her tea was Darjeeling, with the dark liquid telling her that he had forgone both sugar and milk, as asked. Most importantly, it told her that he hadn't interfered with it in any way.
One had to be certain.
Plucking the teabag from the cup using the small label that read 'Darjeeling', Zoë deposited it upon the saucer and inhaled deeply, allowing the warm aroma of the tea to fill her head. It was calming, not quite to the level of the tea ceremonies that Virginia so loved from the far east, but it soothed her troubles nerves in that moment.
Taking a small sip of the steaming liquid, Zoë clutched the mug gently in her hands as she tucked herself into the bay window and turned to face the man seated opposite, himself lost in thought. Whilst she was quite contented to remain in silence, it was Doctor Chase who posed to her a tired question that had been clearly eating at the man.
"Do you.. Think Annabeth will be alright?" Her lips pursed as she went to answer, before the man continued just a little further. "Be.. Honest with me please."
"Prophecies are usually right." Zoë gave a small hum as she sipped her tea, unsure of how to continue as weighed her options. "This prophecy speaks of only one further death, and given the wording, it is extremely unlikely to be thy daughter's."
"You.. Have lost someone already?" Dr Chase's voice was quiet - horrified almost - as he looked at her with worry on his face. Instead of sidestepping or placating as Perseus or Thalia may have, Zoë gave only a solemn nod - t'was the least she could afford her short-lived sister.
"Another Huntress. I brought her on this quest to prove herself, and instead I bear responsibility for her death." Zoë glanced over her shoulder, up at the few visible stars as they slowly disappeared into the lightening sky. "T'was her first quest. The Great Prophecy is soon to pass, 'tis why there are so many demigods passing these days."
"I can't help but feel even more lost, Miss Nightshade." Dr Chase sighed and Zoë's lips worked their way into a tired smile.
"Many have devoted entire lives to deciphering a single prophecy, to be lost is not unusual." Pausing to take a long sip of her tea, Zoë gave a small hum and simplified her heavy thoughts. "Thy daughter should be safe. The prophecy speaks not of her."
"Then who?" The man's words gave Zoë pause, the mug still raised part of the way to her mouth. Instead of lowering it, Zoë went back for a deeper sip and set the mug down, expression taunt as teeth pressed against each other.
"Myown."
Dr Chase was silent for several seconds, frozen in shock with his coffee half raised to his mouth, before he lowered the mug and stared at her for a short while. When he spoke, his voice was torn between disbelief and quiet respect. "You took this quest believing it would likely lead to your death?"
"Nay. I took it knowing t'would." Shaking her head slowly, Zoë stared into the amber tea. "T'was always to be. The prophecy mine, 'tis not something one could decline. If I had tried, t'would have been to cast aside my duty, not that the Fates would allow it to be. My Lady is atop the mount, holding my father's burden upon her back, with thy daughter as a prisoner. T'was always my fate to be upon the mountain, to force my father back under the sky and to fall in doing so."
".. It seems some things are constant between our worlds." The strangely profound remark from Dr Chase caught her momentarily off guard as the man leant back into his chair, clasping his mug of coffee for warmth, though not taking a sip. At her expression, bathed still in the light of the moon that twisted impossibly through the window to bathe her in its rays, he elaborated. "Those men you spoke of earlier, at Passchendaele. They too received their quests and marched off to their certain deaths. They took their orders and went off to do their duty to the people they swore themselves to."
Any other Huntress might have twisted her face up at the insinuation, but Zoë offered only a small nod as she ignored the screams. "An apt comparison."
"It's perhaps the ultimate act of bravery." Dr Chase's words were somewhat wistful, but also notably a distinct compliment. A thousand lifetimes of experience had long since immunised her to such flattery, but a moments inspection told her that it wasn't aimed at her - instead it seemed to be an almost melancholic remark, like nineteenth century poetry about a sailors wish to die at sea.
The C, the C, the open C.
It was also wrong.
There was nothing brave about what she was doing. If anything, it felt more like giving up the ghost at the final moment, allowing herself to be ushered off stage unceremoniously before the finale. Perseus or Thalia, one of them would be the child of the Great Prophecy - too many things were coming to a head too frequently for it to not be the unravelling of the seventy years of peace. And here she was, sworn Lieutenant of the Hunt who had done her duty for four thousand years.
And the fates were brushing her aside to make way for someone else.
If she had been a lesser person, a lesser descendant of the Gods with an ego and something to prove, she might have grown bitter with the Fates over such, bitter enough to listen to the whispers of the Crooked One. But she remembered the world under the Titan Lord, remembered its turmoil and chaos, and she was not so easily swayed from the duty she had sworn herself to for thousands of years.
She would walk to her fate with sword drawn and bow in hand, knowing full well she would fall at her father's hand. She had no qualms about her death - she would not seek it, but she would welcome that which she had evaded for so long, as she had sworn to herself she would.
It was just the impossible task of letting go of that which she had sworn not to that she was caught upon.
A reinforcing sip of tea fortified frayed nerves as guilty words spilled from her mouth. She was as good as dead anyway, would be dead before any who might take offence be able to punish her for her transgressions.
"Do you love thy wife, Doctor Chase?"
"Of course." There was quiet comfort in the ease with which the man answered her question, the almost simple, yet reverent tone with which he affirmed his words. "Athena may have given me Annabeth, and I love my daughter with all my heart. But Chen chose to start a life with me, and I can't help but love her with all my heart."
"The Gods are intentionally unobtainable." The remark came easily, a tired phrase that Zoë had explained to many a young Huntress, starry eyed and naïve. "Tis not their nature to exist in a single place, to be true to a single person. Some are better than others, but few ever linger, fewer still grow truly attached. Mortal lives are a blink of the eye to them, thirty years an insignificant time. Many have held grudges for thousands of years, to cherish something for only a handful of decades.."
"I… see. That’s.. Not entirely discomforting." Dr Chase stared deep into his coffee, steam curling and twisting as he breathed quietly. Several quiet moments passed as the man quietly contemplated, before he took a long sip of his coffee and set it on the table quietly. "It.. Is interesting, in a way. That there is a pattern, a discernible trend. That even Athena might fall into a trend that Aphrodite or Hephaestus might."
"I can see why she would choose thee, thou art curious for a mortal." Zoë gave a small noise of amusement, sipping her own tea before setting it back down as the warmth of the beverage tingled her mouth. "If she bore no offence, she would likely find it interesting. The Gods are rarely self-aware enough to appreciate such insights, however."
"Doesn't take a professor to figure that out." Dr Chase gave a tired smile, before sipping his coffee again, pausing only to take an inhale of the scent once again. It was then, after Dr Chase had set his own cup down, had swallowed his coffee, that Zoë released the burden she had carried for fifty years.
"Tis ironic, truly. That one should find it appropriate to criticise Athena despite mine own sins." Dr Chase's startled look, confused and yet almost recognising her meaning despite clearly disbelieving what he was hearing, spurred her on. She had no doubt that Athena would have been listening, how could she not with a conversation such as theirs. "I.. Seek to confess something, if thou art amenable."
"Of course. Please, speak freely." The words were out of the man's mouth seemingly before his brain had clocked what she had uttered, even as Zoë chuckled at the words in her mind. Speak freely, such a pitfall that phrase had been throughout the years.
"I hath foreswore my oath to my Goddess. Betrayed the trust she had in me. And now I betray my beloved in order to meet my death." The words were.. Oddly easy to utter. She had never been one for hesitant stutters; a schoolgirl she was not. But for such a confession to come so easily..
"You.. Broke your oath?" Dr Chase's words were disbelieving, not that she could blame him. T'would be unheard of for a Huntress to break her oath and escape the wrath of Diana, let alone Artemis; and scarcely would it be believable that it should be her Lieutenant.
"To foreswear romantic attachment." Zoë quietly agreed, bowing her head deeply, not looking at Dr Chase as she spoke. "I have betrayed my sister-in-arms. Worse - I hath led another sister astray in my weakness."
"Good lord.." The quiet exclamation was little comfort, even as it brought a memory of amusement to her mind; but one that was dampened by the quiet laughter of her wife, ringing melodically in her mind. "I… are you sure you want to share this? With me, I mean.."
"I do not have the luxury of seeing the morn' after this, nor do I wish to… allow my story to fade." She had to bite back a bitter laugh. Four thousand years of service, and t'was her fate to die at her father's hand. Her life had seen the rise and fall of a hundred empires, had seen countless heroes and legends, and yet, t'was the fate of all stories to end, and to be forgotten. "Tis a selfish wish, one knows."
"It is entirely natural, Miss Nightshade." Dr Chase paused a second as he thought. "It is to be human. To wish to leave a mark on the world - is it not our wish to be remembered by those who love us? Humanity strives towards little more than an attempt to be remembered long after our deaths."
"Thou speaketh not to a human. I am a Nymph, a nature spirit, plainly. Mine is a story that is not meant to end. Yet I am cast out, severed from my source, an endless cycle broken." The words were as bitter as they were neutral, set in stone by discipline and contempt for what an unbroken cycle would entail, words that left her mouth as soon as she drew a breath. "I would have it no other way, not if it meant abandoning all that I was."
"I… See." Dr Chase hesitated a moment, before lifting his coffee and taking a long sip before lowering it to the table slowly, with a sigh. "I do apologise, I just.. Have somewhat of a hard time processing all of this. I knew the world that Annabeth lived in was.. So much greater than what I knew, but it's something else entirely attempting to comprehend how complex even one person's life could be."
The words were strangely profound, such that Zoë paused for several long moments to linger on them. The reverent way that he handled even her convictions would have made many Huntresses hesitate out of suspicion, or even scorn him outright, but Zoë had encountered his type before. The Philosopher, the Scholar, the Learned Man or Woman who sought little more than to understand what had come before them, to chronical the annals of history and the world before their time. They were, for the most part, harmless; drawing only the ire of those who sought to use the past for their own present gain.
The last centuries had born many such men and women.
And so, she indulged him a little further, baring her mind and sharing the tale that she had sat on for four hundred and four years. "I should.. Wish to be selfish, Doctor. To share the tale of the girl whom I hath betrayed my Lady, and dare I utter the suggestion, my friend, for."
"Of course. Please, Miss Nightshade, speak freely." Those words inspired not a heartbeat of dread or dark amusement at the damning phrase, but instead a smile strangely genuine and true. Raising her right hand, Zoë curled her fingers over the base her neck, within the collar of her shirt and through the Mist that she had weaved every time she sought to gaze upon her beloved in her absence. The same Mist that she had weaved a dozen times in a third as many days as she had led their dwindling quest across the country. Coiling her fingers around the silver chain left warm by her body, Zoë carefully brought it over her head, brushing her hair aside and bringing the object that bared the extent of her betrayal into view.
Simple silver that it may have been, such an accessory was almost unheard of for a Huntress - not even her Lieutenants circlet came close; it signified rank, experience and authority, it was not some superfluous decoration. Hanging from the chain was a moon charm, one in full phase displaying the majesty and power of her Goddess. Beneath that, woven under another layer of Mist was the mark of her gentle sin.
Hanging from a short chain on the longer one was a locket, clasped shut firmly by magik forgotten to those who had not lived before the death of the old ways, and behind it, a simple silver band with an inlaid moonstone. A brush of her thumb across the sharp corner of the locket's clasp drew only a prick of pain and a drop of blood, but it was enough for the lock to pop open, releasing the small photograph from the confines of the silver locket that should have been too small for even it.
It still caught her breath every time she looked at it, the smile of the two girls in the photo, carefree and radiant, forever immortalised in a single moment of love. Zoë still had the bandaid on her forehead over her right eye, whereas the other girl's blouse hid almost all of the bruising that had marred the top of her right shoulder for weeks where the mortal policeman's baton had slammed down.
The smile on her lips grew without control, and Zoë was unwilling to reign it in, relishing in the freedom that she had, now unburdened by the consequences of her gentle sin, what with the clock on her life ticking ever closer to midnight. With a final breath, Zoë pushed beyond the point of no return, carefully placing the photo upon the table for Doctor Chase to examine as she spoke. "I.. Did not make the decision lightly, to betray my oath, to break my promise to forswear emotional attachments. I was not the first Huntress to meet her love in the Hunt, nor was I the first to betray our Lady and the oath we swore… I scorned my sisters who failed to uphold their oaths; how ironic that the Fates saw fitting to afflict me with the same failing."
Bitter laughter bubbled up from within as Zoë shook her head gently, before taking a breath and continuing. "I married my wife on the first of July, 1969 in New York. T'was our task to track a den of Empousai that were preying on New York's immigrants and social outcasts. The Gods had little control over the city in that time, and the Hunt was the only group who had the skills to affect any change."
Dr Chase was silent for a moment, visibly trying to remember something with a frown, before he blinked owlishly. ".. July of '69… wait, was that not..?"
"The Stonewall Riots. Mortal police cared little about the gay community, or indeed anyone who was not of Western European descent, which was why the Empousai were able to operate so freely. The mortals, however, long had grown tired of the treatment; had endured enough, and began a riot that Virginia and I were caught up in. The Mist does not work so well when mortals expect one to be armed, or otherwise a threat." A small huff of indignation slipped out as a sharp exhale. "T'was brutal. Senseless. Virginia hath always had a strong sense of justice, misguided as it may have been as some points. She beat three police officers within an inch of their lives."
The half-truth sat almost uncomfortably on her tongue, holding off on mentioning that she had beaten the fourth after he had struck Virginia with the baton. That the mortal would have never walked properly again was not her concern; t'was comeuppance, justice from a time forgotten.
"Well. I cannot say I'm terribly fond of such violence, but there is a reason I am a scholar, not a fighter. I will say that I shed no tears for the police of the 1960s, nor much for the police of the present." A dark look flashed across the man's face, barely a flicker of a shadow, but it was enough for Zoë to notice. She had not kept up with the world's news, t'was not a major concern of hers as mortals rarely suffered such colossal paradigm shifts as to affect even the immortal world. The last time she had noticed one was in the 1970s, when the Hunt had passed anti-war protests in New York. Before then, it had been the Second World War.
The 20th century had been a terrible time to be immortal.
"You.. Mentioned her name. Virginia, no?" Dr Chase's voice brought her back to reality, prompting her to nod once, curtly.
"Virginia Dare. A true huntress, even before joining the Hunt. Slew three of Lyacon's finest at sixteen." The words seemed to jolt Dr Chase, just as she knew they would. A small smile crept to her lips, light amusement dancing across her mind. "Speak your questions to her. She will doubtless follow my trail here as part of her trial of worth. I wish instead to tell my own tale, of the woman that I met in 1603…"
The words came easily, flowing from her tongue as she recounted how interest turned into respect, slowly thawing into care, admiration and ultimately that forbidden love. The love that had almost splintered under morality as they had stood surrounded by the debauchery of the 1920s, the love that had wavered in the face of mortal depravity and cruelty in eight years of world spanning war, and the love that had ultimately hardened into a bond that neither of them dared to explain in the face of mortal violence.
The words came, the moon went, and the sun took its place as Zoë Nightshade shared the story of her love as the final sun rose on her life.