To Argue or Not, That Is the Question

Dark leveled a hard stare across the small table of food. It was a quaint wooden thing, old and slightly warped from too much moisture but it was piled high with delicious looking things. Grapes, cheeses, some cut melons and cured meat cubes. A quiet maid, petite and covered in blue scales brought the spread in and filled two carafes of wine. She didn't look at Dark or anything else, scurrying off quickly as soon as she'd finished setting the table. Poseidon had still been inside his closet and when he returned, Dark hadn't felt the need to mention the maid. He obviously sent for her somehow.

Dark didn't necessarily have a problem with being here under different circumstances because yes, she was starved and yes, it was nice to just take a minute to breathe after the less than ideal few days they'd just had but they had a traitor in their midst and they needed to sort that out quickly. The reality was, she didn't think they had the time to spare here. Not time enough to go for an impromptu swim and then eat snacks peacefully like the last few days hadn't happened. It had already been days since they'd seen Athena and neither of them knew where she'd gone. Had she been at meetings in hell? Had she learned more things to tell Asteria? That bothered Dark, a problem niggling at the back of her mind as she chewed a grape. What should they do about her?

That traitor bitch could potentially be back in the underworld doing things to... her allies? That didn't feel like the correct term. They weren't her friends exactly but they were more than just allies... particularly because she'd now slept with two of them and had plans for some of the others, though she kept those plans to herself. She felt weird about that lack of a term for everyone. Then she felt weird about feeling weird and decided to stop thinking about it altogether.

She swiped another cheese danish from the end of the table nearest Poseidon and cut him with her stare as her eyes swept the room again. They'd already argued for a while after leaving the pool and she wasn't keen on starting another one. The last one had only ended because Poseidon left to change his clothes. It must have been nice to be comfortable and dry, Dark seethed. Some allies they were if he hadn't even considered her. He'd dried off and changed into a white tee shirt and loose cotton pants while she still sat soaked to the bone, though she had managed to shift out of her old training clothes into a cotton tank top and linen shorts.

Dark liked CeeCee's power, she really did. Being able to appear as anything she wanted, whenever she wanted had major perks but the downside? It was all just an illusion. The comfortable clothes she wore didn't hide the uncomfortable feel of being damp under the illusion. Or the gross cling of her old training clothes on her real skin.

Decidedly, the only plus to being damp and a bit sticky, was that the climate on the island was humid and a little too warm. It wouldn't have made much difference what she wore, she'd likely have sweat either way. Dark shrugged, he still should have offered her a towel, especially after they'd had that talk in the cell. Unless he told that kind of thing to everyone which she highly doubted.

"Want a towel?" Poseidon grinned, eyes turning dark rimmed as he took in her tank top, watching it dampen against her chest until the outlines of her breasts were visible. He snatched his eyes back up, losing the grin but not the tension in his eyes. Clearly he wanted to argue some more if only to relieve the awkward silence but she'd rather watch him squirm. She might have decided to leave out a bra from the illusion just for good measure and to torture him with her slightly peaked nipples. Smirking, Dark studied the room and shook her head. She wasn't giving into his goading for a distraction.

This room just outside of the pool had to be his bedroom she assumed. She could tell from the use of it, a room of rumpled sheets and chaotic, personal looking objects. No dust anywhere, as if he really used every inch of its space. The room was gilded in gold, the furniture a collection of garish and imposing wooden pieces that she was positive were impossible to move.

It felt like the kind of place an ancient king would call home, perhaps holding court in some lower level. She supposed she was actually sitting across from an ancient sea king so she shouldn't judge. But it was so different from Hades' modern finery, dripping decadence in some places and utilitarian fierceness in others. This, however, was a room of old, handmade elegance. It was like being thrust back in time to an old age where there were kings reigned above all.

She shifted her gaze to his closet, full of suits and finery. She caught sight of his shoes lined against the floor, shining and clearly handmade. She could also see a navy and gold crown sitting on a pedestal alongside a metal trident in matching colors.

"What does that thing do?" she couldn't help but ask. The trident looked too formidable to ignore.

"Hmmm, curious are we?" he drawled, following her gaze to the beautiful metal object, "I use it to channel myself in battle. Helps boost my attacks. I could use the trident to wash a wave over a hundred soldiers, instead of one or two."

Dark's brows shot up and to her dismay, she could see the gloating in his eyes. He'd impressed her and it made him smug. She schooled her features back into indifference.

"We all have an object like that, you know," he insisted, "Each of the rulers of the realms have something forged by Hephaestus to help amplify our strengths, Hades' is a helmet. The helm of darkness and fuck if it's not an absolute bloodbath every time he wears it." There was a twisted smile in his voice that Dark enjoyed. She wasn't sure what to make of the god who ruled the sea. After all he'd practically dragged her out of the arena to get her to resist the fight Persephone started. She wasn't sure whether he'd be much good in a war but hearing his edge of excitement for battle made her look at him a bit differently.

"Zeus has small swords he throws, calls them thunderbolts. And he channels his lightening current through them," Poseidon tore into a leg of meat, cleaning his fingers with his mouth. Dark tried not to follow it with her eyes when his tongue darted out to clear his lip.

"Hmm, who knew all I had to do was boost your ego and you'd spill all the secrets of the god-kings," she smiled, returning her gaze to the room, "What else will you tell me?"

"What else do you want to know?" his voice was as playful as hers and she realized he enjoyed their banter. Probably enjoyed their arguments too if the earlier one hadn't soured his mood.

"What were you all like as kids?" she leaned back in her seat, tossing a square of cheese into the air and catching it on her tongue. Poseidon shifted in his seat.

"There's nothing particularly nice about our time as children," he promised.

"So you all really are brothers? Not just like 'brothers in arms' or whatever? You all look nothing alike."

"We had different fathers but the same mother. We were all on our own by the time Hades was ten, though, for one reason or another. He's the oldest of course," Poseidon smirked to hide the shadows that crossed his face at the old memory, "Those weren't times that favored anyone on their own, especially kids."

"So not a happy childhood then?" she mumbled, "That explains a bit more about you all. Though Zeus seems to be the most well-adjusted of the three of you."

He snorted, "Please don't ever let him hear you say it. And that's because he was the youngest. The least affected. Hades had it the worst by far but without him, we wouldn't have survived. Though maybe if we hadn't survived, we wouldn't have met Asteria either."

He paused for a beat then added, "Sometimes I wish I'd died on our lands. Died human and simple before the world grew civilized. But alas, here I am, ageless and complicated in a world headed back to dark dawn of man." His voiced edged on a laugh but Dark knew he didn't find any of it funny. Reading his expression, she chose to let the conversation drop and returned her attention to their surroundings. But the more she looked, the more she realized there wasn't a hint of a woman's touch anywhere and yet she felt a woman's touch everywhere. It didn't make any sense.

Each piece of the room felt utterly masculine and personal and yet, there was too much for it to be only a man's room. The décor was fluid, echoing from the pool room to the bedroom. From the gilded starfish to the decorative corals, to the murals on the walls and vines wrapping around the stone bedposts. This room was too cultivated, from the large details to the small, it was all too specific. It was something that had been a labor of love and she doubted it had been Poseidon's.

Her disposition cooled a bit at that. At another reminder of what she'd just realized in the pool room. Of what she was now faced with again as she stared at the large, ornate bed that nearly dwarfed the rest of the room. Cleito had decorated every inch of his home and he probably hadn't changed a thing. Did that mean...

"It's not the same bed," he said quietly, rubbing his hand against his jaw as he tracked her attention, "It's a bit too morbid, even for the gods." Yes, it was. And yet she couldn't put the idea completely out of her head. That there might be personal items of his wife's and that he might have kept them. That he slept in a place she'd put together out of her hopes and dreams, that he *lived* inside her dreams each night he was here. It unsettled her. Not because she felt like she was sitting at a dead woman's table, even though she was, but because she wondered how it made him feel. The idea that he might have been torturing himself with it all these years. Why did that feel like a grain of sand under her skin? Why did that chafe?

Perhaps she should start another argument to clear the air.