The Fragile

Yeah, so we found Carmen and almost killed her.

I don't know how things went on the front end of the concert, but I was waiting by one of the back doors. Somehow she got convinced to come out that way, and I got a text from Gunnar that she was en route. So when she showed her little crazyface I hopped over and put a hand over her mouth. I wanted to subdue her, so I reached around in my head for the darker part of all that healing shit I do. Her body kinda blossomed into bruises.
Then Kas rifle butted her. Almost killed her. I should have just let Kas hotwire the van, like she seemed to want to do. I was just afraid that a delay would give Carmen some advantage over us. I didn't want her talking, or moving, until we were ready for her.

Anyway. I kept her from dying.
We stripped her of her relics and got her on our little plane. Oh yeah, we uh... we borrowed a plane. I think we plan to take it back.
Harlan did... something to her. Carmen thinks she's in love with him, now. It's kinda gross. I mean, he's not a bad looking guy, if you're into ridiculously pretty blondes with severe attitude problems. Harlan's technically better looking than Gunnar.
Okay, Harlan's the best looking guy in the Band. He also just happens to act like a jerk a lot of the time, and it's really fucking painfully obvious to everyone who isn't Carmen that he thinks she's got cooties or something. It's kinda cruel.
We got her into an interrogation room at the airport after that. Gunnar stayed with the plane. Nate and Brendan had gone in to talk to her. Brendan laid a geas on her, but made it really clear that the choice was hers whether or not to follow it. He was very... well, I guess "kind" is the word I want. Yeah. He was kind about it.

Then I wanted to talk to her. I thought maybe the Band might be a little uneasy about this prospect, considering how well the last intimate conversation I had with a Scion went. I left my relics outside, just to prove to Carmen that I didn't mean her any harm.
Well, no more harm than I could do with my bare hands. Seriously though, I didn't want to hurt her. It just kinda happened.
"Carmen," I started slowly and respectfully. I kept my voice soft. Didn't want her to think I was yelling at her. "I know what it's like to wanna watch the whole world burn." I poured a lot of myself into that sentence, and more of myself into the next. I wanted her to know that I understood.
"But more importantly, I know how fucking disappointing it is when you get what you want and it's not at all like you thought it would be." I leaned toward her a little, looking her in the eyes. "Here. I'll show you."

And then, that thing I can do where I'm in Gunnar's head, I did it to her. Only it wasn't my voice I wanted her to hear. It was my memories. The really painful ones, the ones I keep locked away and try not to think about too hard. I wanted her to feel the things I had felt.

I started with watching my mom die. All of those memories, from when I was thirteen and first learned what the word "cancer" meant, I distilled them. I focused on the times I visited my mom in the hospital, skeleton-thin and barely able to fucking move, let alone paint or laugh or talk like she used to. I distilled all of that, five years of watching someone die and sitting by their bedside as it happened, into something brief. I didn't need to drag that out, it was just the preface. I just wanted her to understand what came next.
I showed her the funeral, the coffin, the headstone. The empty house. Then the day I joined the army, the training I mastered just because I could, the pointless medals I earned for marksmanship and combat, and how little it helped. I kept that short too, it felt to me like the blink of an eye. Then I skipped to the important part: the night I tried to lay down and die. I fucked that up, too.

I started with the mission: my team and I, finding the civilians. Calling in for orders. We were told to guard them, women and children. Days of no sound but dirt beneath our boots and explosions and gunfire in the rapidly diminishing distance. The bombs and the guns kept getting closer. Nighttime, where one of the guys who spoke Arabic translated for us and we got to know our charges. They were sweet women and sweet kids, kids who said they wanted to be good guys like us and protect people.
And the last day, the crying child. Nightfall. The kid is still crying. He's getting sick. It's getting dark, and it's getting cold.
The guys relax, as much as anyone can in this situation. They're exhausted. Tomorrow this all ends. Some of the guys are going home. Spouses, kids and all of that waiting for them on the other side of the world.
And the quiet splinters. The door bursts. There are shouts, foreign. Angry. There are gunshots and grunts. I'm on the floor. I've got eight bullets in my side. I had never been shot before that day. It fucking hurts. It feels a little like burning from the inside out. Molten pain tearing through your insides.

I can still look around, and I see all nine of my comrades all dead. Men and women I loved. People I trusted. An officer named Alma gurgled next to me. I think she was reaching for me. I think it was quick for most of them, at least.

Then they lined up the kids. The littlest one isn't crying anymore.
He's screaming instead. His eyes are wide. Big brown pools, and they keep looking at me because I am the good guy. I'm the strong one. I'm the one who is supposed to save him.

But I don't.

I can't.

Maybe I just won't.

The mercenaries rifle butt him in the chest. Something cracks. His breath sounds wet. He keeps crying strangled cries before they shoot him in the head. He lands on the floor with a soft thump. All the force of a wet towel, and with the same type of schlooping sound.
The rest of the kids fall in pretty much the same way. Eight more gunshots, one for each little life I watch end. Each body lands with open, empty eyes. Looking at me. I can't help them.
I can't look away anymore, either. I can't lift my head far enough off the ground. I can feel something warm and wet, sticky and salty on my cheek. Tears, some of it. But not most of it. The rest is blood, pooling on the dirt under the side of my face. Mine.
The women are wailing now for their children. They get grabbed by their hair by the men, lined up next to their dead children. The men strip them.
Their bodies were beautiful. I remember thinking that. The men didn't care about that, though. They raped the women. They heard me whimper when the women stopped screaming. They thought it was funny, the way I cried. It amused them to see my tears. So they did it again.
Then they lined the women up. The women were quivering and their voices were wrecked.
Then the men fired their weapons. One shot for each body. Some in the back, some in the chest. Some in the head. Six more bodies on the dirty floor. At least some were looking away when they fell.
Those gunshots seemed so much louder. I jerked at each one. It made everything hurt.
There was another sound underneath the thunderclap of gunfire. It was tiny. It was a sobbing. It didn't sound human, even. It sounded pathetic. Like a small, terrified and wounded animal.
It was me. In that moment I wasn't even human anymore. I was something wrong and broken.
They heard me crying and they laughed. Then they kicked me in the ribs, hard. Something snapped. Two ribs.
They listened to the little strangled sound and the wet gurgling of my breath around the snot and blood I had clogging up my nose. They laughed again. One of them took out a lighter and flicked his thumb with a snapping sound. He ignited the clothing of some of the kids. They set the house on fire and they left me there to burn with it.
I kept praying that I would go unconscious. I prayed that I would bleed to death, or burn to death. I wanted it to stop. I wanted blackness to come, but it didn't. All through the night I could still hear. And smell. And feel. The bodies popped and cracked in the fire.
I still can't forget the sound of a child's eyeball popping from the heat of the flames. I still can't forget the way they smelled as they burned.

Carmen probably won't forget it either.
She was crying when it ended. Tears had been streaming down her face for a while, it looked like. When I let her mind go she started holding her head and sobbing.

Turns out I spent over an hour in there with her. I didn't mean for it to be that long, and I'm sorry I had to do that to her. I didn't even want those memories in my head, but it was all I could think of to help her, and it was so much better that she just watched it happening to someone else than having to live through it herself.
It was the kindest thing I could think of.

The nicest thing I could think to do was show her what it really looks like, what it really feels like, to really see people in pain. To know that you are completely broken and defeated and that all you want is to watch the world burn before you die.
So I showed her the tears sliding down my cheeks, my mangled and shaking body laying broken in the fire, and just how damned pitiful I looked.

I may not like the kid much, but I'll be damned if I wasn't going to help save her.
It's like my mom used to try to tell me: You watch over people, Laurel. You take care of them. You protect the people you love, but protect the people you hate, too. They tend to need it more.

"fragile
she doesn't see her beauty
she tries to get away
sometimes
it's just that nothing seems worth saving
i can't watch her slip away

i won't let you fall apart

she reads the minds of all the people as they pass her by
hoping someone can see
if i could fix myself i'd -
but it's too late for me

i won't let you fall apart
i won't let you fall apart
i won't let you fall apart
i won't let you fall apart...

...it's something i have to do
i was there, too
before everything else
i was like you"
Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile

Most of the Time

Alright, so we flew into DC and met up with the others. Bast had something to say to Kass. Don't really know what that was about. I should probably talk to the Cat Lady sometime, and see what Bast thinks about my idea to take Azzeza to Du'at, being Azzeza's mother and all.


Speaking of, I brought that up to Gunnar on the plane ride over. Du'at, the whole, "I might not come back if I go do this" part of it, I mean. He, uh... well, he's a good guy. Kinda the best, actually. I didn't even have to give him the spiel. The spiel in question is the one where I pour my little heart out about just how much like a piece of shit I feel about having failed this kid since before I ever met her.


Seriously. She was fucking dead when I met her. They'd killed her the day before. And since then I've been just a step behind taking care of her. I've been letting my job with the Band interfere with my job as a mother - and let's face it, the Order bunch are all pretty much my kids, now. Even Susan. But anyway... First we dealt with taking Brigitte to New Orleans and then we went and fought Caleb and defended Mag Mell, then I took the time to run off and get married, then I had to go and get pregnant, which meant then I had to start dealing with putting Marie back in working order and somewhere in the midst of all of that this little ghost of a child has been patiently waiting for it to be convenient for me to remember that I made her a promise.


I have been neglecting this little dead girl, and I almost lost her soul to Erebus because of it. And most of the time, it didn't bother me. I had gotten to where I didn't even think about the sweet little brown-haired ghost that was supposed to have been haunting my house. I didn't think anything of it when she disappeared, when I should have run after her as soon as I heard she hadn't been around. But most of the time, she's at the back of my mind.


I don't think I can keep putting this off, anymore. The underworlds are in danger of closing, which means I may never get the chance to take her where she belongs, where she deserves to be. Plus, I don't even know what to do with all of the bits to Humpty Dumpty once I get them all together. Isis may know, except I'd have to go to Du'at to talk to her. But that's really secondary. I feel like the place is pulling at me, telling me I need to go because if I don't go soon I may lose the chance forever. I feel like it's something I'm supposed to do, like maybe that's the whole reason she had to die in the first place because maybe there's something there I'm supposed to see.

Dammit. This faith shit is difficult. You have to be a little crazy to be someone who believes that everything happens for a reason. I guess I qualify. But then you start to go a little crazier trying to find the reasons behind everything. Why that bird sang. Why that flower bloomed when it did. Why that crazy bitch turned Nate's own gun on him, and why everyone was surprised when I took the shot. There's a reason I killed her. It's what I was supposed to do, and it's not just because I'm still a little bit messed up. I can't help but feel there is something I'm supposed to learn from all of this resurrection bullshit. Something I wouldn't have learned any other way. Something I have to work for, some lesson I have to earn. Something I have to go get lost in the desert to find.

I told Gunnar we could talk more about it later. Basically I just said that when I go, Amanda has warned me I may never come back.
I don't buy it, just for the record.
If there's a way out, any way out, any way I can get back to my husband and my babies and my friends, I will find it. Come Hel or the Drowned Road.

I guess I just didn't want to surprise Gunnar with the "oh and by the way, there's the smallest possibility that this place will consume my soul and I may never come back," or worse, not tell him at all and have him hear it from someone else. Besides that we didn't talk a whole lot on the plane ride. I've been working on the blueprints for the temple to give to the kids in Germany and he's been working on learning just about every fucking language in the world. Seriously. I can't keep track of what he speaks anymore. It's all Sanskrit to me, anyway. I've told myself not to be surprised if, just for fun, he picks up Klingon.

Anyway, back to DC. Oh, apparently there are rules. For being a god. Or the kid of gods. Something like that. Twenty of them. Apparently only some of the gods really care about them enough to share. I think the rest of the gods are pirates, in the sort of "these are more like guidelines" type of sense. Some of them make sense, I guess. Some of them are just kinda "Well, no shit," type of statements.

Don't make things go extinct.
Don't be a dick (well, all creatures have the right to light and darkness. Same difference).
Don't bring anyone back from the dead (unless her mommy says it's okay).
Humans don't need to know how to control the weather. That kind of thing.
As far as rules go, they're alright. So, yeah, Kas, or Nate, one of them learned about that from another godkid.

And here's the short version of what else happened to the others while Gunnar and I were busy in the Garden:
They discovered "Canopus" was being used to try to create supersoldiers. It wasn't really Canopus. It was Donald Jackson, somehow converted into some weird snake thing.
They fixed this by setting part of the CIA on fire.
Harlan almost died. Again. Guy is about as resilient as a slightly aged grape. Well, that and supernatural venom is a bitch. I vaguely remember seeing Gunnar get poisoned by the thing when we fought the real deal. The one he and Jack threw off the roof.

So, yeah, we hurried a little to join up with them. After we got there though they were pretty much alright. Kass does a pretty good job of taking care of them all, and I usually feel like I'm leaving them in good hands when she's around, these days. Most of the time. I mean, she can't do everything I do, and she can't do it as easily, but she's good with basic first aid and "Here, let's cut open your femoral artery to bleed some of that poison out of you, and holy fuck, stop dying, Harlan" type treatments.

We hung around long enough for Dorthen to get there and hand off to him Marie's body. He is still really cantankerous. I guess only having one arm will do that to you. I thought about trying to sympathize with him, telling him about how I lost my arm, except there's the part where I just grew it back and I don't have to try all that hard to imagine the scowly face he'd make, staring at my obviously-not-lost appendage.

Oh, the body. Nate was kind enough to bring Marie's body back to the States, since Gunnar and I were headed not-to-the-States. Oh yeah, Tyr brought the body to us in the airport when Brendan, Gunnar and I were heading off to check on the kids in Australia. Can't remember if I mentioned that anywhere. I guess Hel heard my prayer before the gate closed. Or whatever happened. Tyr made it sound like she would really have liked to have delivered the body to me. Either way, I'm just grateful Hel was actually really helpful. I never know what to expect from the god-types.

Anyway, I don't remember how we decided to go about it, but somehow we decided that we were going after Carmen in California. I don't even remember how we knew she was in California. Something about a performance? I don't know. Either way, we headed for Victorville, which was kind of a massive tent city, and I think someone talked the police into helping us find her. Kas and I pretended to be French movie stars for some reason. Then Gunnar and I fought crime, and I keep doing everything but keeping my promises, and what bothers me the most is that it hadn't even bothered me, most of the time.

"Most of the time
I’m clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path, I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever I stumble upon
I don’t even notice she’s gone
Most of the time

Most of the time
It’s well understood
Most of the time
I wouldn’t change it if I could
I can make it all match up, I can hold my own
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone
I can survive, I can endure
And I don’t even think about her
Most of the time

Most of the time
My head is on straight
Most of the time
I’m strong enough not to hate
I don’t build up illusion ’til it makes me sick
I ain’t afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind
Don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time

Most of the time
She ain’t even in my mind
I wouldn’t know her if I saw her
She’s that far behind
Most of the time
I can’t even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her

Most of the time
I’m halfway content
Most of the time
I know exactly where it went
I don’t cheat on myself, I don’t run and hide
Hide from the feelings that are buried inside
I don’t compromise and I don’t pretend
I don’t even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time..."
Bob Dylan, Most of the Time

Know Your Rights

"Number 3
You have the right to free
Speech as long as you're not
Dumb enough to actually try it...

You have the right to remain silent
You are warned that anything you say
Can and will be taken down
And used as evidence against you..."
The Clash, Know Your Rights

Alright, so if I remember it correctly, we get out of the Garden and there are police everywhere. I guess it was suspicious when we just kinda disappeared after the ruckus Dad caused, and the local law enforcement decided now was the best possible time to come do their job.
They start asking questions and some of the people were a little concerned about me not having an arm anymore. I think someone said something about us having really great effects, and how it really looked like my arm was gone and it really looked like my skin was made of gold. I think that was when Gunnar and I kinda glanced at one another, deciding this was kind of a fortuitous setup for the type of thing we had talked about doing back in the Henge.
And hey, this way we didn't have to actually schedule anything and worry about not showing up if some Titan Avatar opted to screw with us. Looking like flakes to all of our potential adoring fans and future followers would kinda suck.
So I turned to the crowd and was like, "No, my skin is actually gold. Here, touch it." And, "Yeah, that arm is really gone. But I'll be fine. Um... Trust me, I'm the Doctor." And then I thought for a second, and figured now was the time to test my hypothesis. So I said, "I kinda need it back, now," or something like that. And then I had an arm again. It was rather straightforward, which was nice.

And then one of the officers started asking us to come to the station with him, and I was even nice enough to ride in the officer's car with him instead of being a jerk about it and insisting that I ride with Gunnar. Or not go at all. But no, I was trying to be a helpful and honest demigod, and it would have gotten me knocked unconscious if these guys had had a clue what they were dealing with.

We get to the station, they offer us drinks. Gunnar wants coffee, I want booze. I asked for vodka, repeatedly. Maybe I shouldn't have been so pushy about it, but fuck it, I did say please.
They decided to use it as an opportunity to drug me. I don't know exactly what was in it, but I drank a significant portion of the bottle before Gunnar took over, told me not to drink anymore, and finished it off himself. The officers seemed to think that Gunnar was going to need a medic. I guess they missed the part where I said "I'm the Doctor." Though, if I had been placed in this situation a year ago... well, there still wouldn't have been a problem because I've been seeing those aura things since med school and still would have known Gunnar was fine. Anyway, my point is that they were just trying to do their jobs. And their jobs were apparently to be jerks.
I also guess "Please get me some vodka, here's a really convincing look at my cleavage that you've been staring at anyway," translates to, "Yes I am completely agreeing to you trying to drug me, officer even though all I've done is agree to come to your station and answer your bullshit questions."

Those bullshit questions included stuff about who my dad was, which I told him: "No, that was really Apollo."
"Right... last name?"
Guess he wasn't impressed when I shrugged and said, "Pythias?"
And I tried to assure him that yes, we were the children of gods and yes, the gods were coming back to earth and no, he didn't believe any of it.
I showed him Sibyl. He thought I was crazy and about to start shooting the place up, so I set her down and told the guy that if he made a move for her, he would regret it. Hell, I even pulled Mercy out of thin air, showing him how the tattoo reappeared when I put her away. And I told him if I was crazy, so was he because at least he was having the same damn hallucinations.

He said something that sounded like an attempt to confiscate my fucking relics, which was met with a resounding "Hell no" from me. And I'm pretty sure that's when we got tired of this shit.
Gunnar lit up like a... I dunno, something bright. All glowy and adamant that we were leaving now.

Anyway, with all of that bullshit over, Gunnar finally took the time to eat one of those apples. It worked. Like, the years melted off of him and I had MY Gunnar back. Not that the other guy was by any means a total stranger, just... I dunno. It's hard to explain. It's like going off to college and you and your best friend from high school go to different states and then meet up four years later and you're still on the same page and you can still talk about the same stuff, you're just speaking different languages now. It was like that. Kinda.
He was Gunnar, but he was different. He got older, more mature but I... really didn't. He kinda left me behind. He spoke differently and he looked rougher (and I'm shallow for even mentioning it, but dammit, I'm shallow. I missed the way he looked before) and yeah he was a little sweeter and a bit more charming but... well, he wasn't my Gunnar. If I'd wanted someone who was sweeter and more charming, I would have married that guy instead.
But I wanted Gunnar. I wanted the guy with the crazy grin, the guy who shot the Devil's son and blew up dragons and while the guy who stole Tesla's spindle was still Gunnar and I love him no matter what... I just missed the guy I married. The guy who swears as much as I do and loves the Cubs.
I missed his black hair and bright eyes and energy and didn't even realize how much until he was standing in front of me again.
So yeah, police debacle and all, I'm calling this one a win.

I still can't believe they tried to roofie me. I'm pretty sure that's not technically legal.
Mortals are dicks.

Who Wants to Live Forever?

I love Gunnar. I would give my left arm to see him strong and healthy and happy and normal.
Literally.
Like, he wanted his youth back so I fed my arm to a hungry, hundred-headed dragon to help him get it. I would have given more. Well, technically the plan was for me to give the same arm, over and over for about a month, to make him immortal.
And I don't mean the standard "we're going to be gods and live forever" type of immortality. I mean the "not even fucking Ragnarok is going to kill him" type of immortal. I was kinda psyched about that idea, the more I thought about it. But Gunnar didn't think me being away from the World for a month was such a good idea.
Right. Um, beginnings time.

So, we parted ways with Brendan back at the airport in Australia. He was Ireland bound to do I'm-Not-Really-Going-To-Think-Too-Hard-About-What. Gunnar, Never and I continued on the Greece to get Gunnar the mother of all facelifts.
We went to one of the temples of Hera, and just in case this journal of mine ever gets hijacked I don't think I'm gonna spell out which one. If I ever forget I can just ask Gunnar. Or Nevermore, who consistently reminds me how much better his memory is than mine and become a snarky motherfucker since no one but me and Bruce Willis can see him.
Anyway, the temple is apparently a pretty big tourist attraction and there were a bunch of tourists there. I guess we counted toward that number, too, we were just doing a different type of sight-seeing.
I don't remember it perfectly cuz I don't remember anything perfectly, so fuck off if I'm wrong about it, but I'm pretty sure we attracted some attention. That kinda happens when I walk around anywhere. But then Gunnar and I got the idea that maybe this wasn't such a bad place to show off, just a little, so we chatted up some of the people around us about how we are both kind of awesome.
Somewhere in there it hit me that maybe Gunnar and I should have some idea what we were up against, so I pulled out Sibyl, sat my happy ass down and was going to make with the prophesying. There's a problem with doing things like that at a tourist attraction. The problem is that Sibyl is still a big-ass, solid marble six-shooter, and I was pointing it at my head while I was surrounded by tourists. I had some old woman telling me that I was so young and so pretty and that I shouldn't throw my life away. I guess that's what she calls "giving up pretty much everything to protect mankind." I kinda rolled my eyes at her, grinned, unloaded the gun and did the trance thing.
Gunnar looked a little disappointed when I came to. I guess that means I didn't have any seizures like last time, if Nate was right and not just talking crazy. I still think I would probably know about something like that.
I don't think I saw anything incredibly useful. There was Gunnar, talking to a dragon. I couldn't hear everything that they were talking about. Something that was coming. A date, an event, a really confusing metaphor that my brain needs to learn to represent in a more understandable symbolic fashion because seriously, fuck this interpretation shit.
Then I think it shifted and I was holding hands with Gunnar, and there were like... a bajillion dragons flying around in the air. Okay, maybe not that many. But a lot. Half a bajillion.
Then... okay, it's hard to describe. It's like I was busy looking at one thing and someone standing behind me grabbed my head and turned it and made me focus on something else. And I heard Atropos, one of the Fates, say to me, "It's still happening." And I saw six hands, instead of seven like there had been before, grabbing at the Earth. Darkness, and all that jazz. Nothing new and insightful there, aside from one less hand which might have been helpful if I could tell who the fuck any of the hands belonged to in the first place.
So, all in all, not very fucking helpful.
In hindsight, I probably should have paid attention to... well, everything. What the hands looked like - male, female or other. Nationalities, to see if maybe my weird brain was trying to tell me something about lineage. And everything about all of those dragons. Aside from holding hands, I couldn't really tell what Gunnar and I were doing, like where we were standing and whether we seemed to be bothered by the fact that there were so many creatures that sound just like our ancestral enemies just whizzing about. And I couldn't tell if Gunnar looked any younger, so I couldn't be sure our plan was going to work or that we were going to survive the encounter with this hundred-headed dragon. I guess on the bright side, if we were dead we were still with one another. So, there's that, I guess.
You know, I remember when the thought of dying used to piss me off and make me all emo. Frolicking through these underworlds I guess I've gotten used to dead people. Funny. Now I'm just not so worried about where being one of Apollo's kids is an automatic death sentence. There are worse things to be than dead.
Speaking of Apollo, he showed up. Like, I had just finished sharing all the details of my vague and unhelpful prophecy with Gunnar, and we were reaching through the portal thing into the Garden and then poof, there was my dad holding onto us for a second. Not like as Hal or any other skin he decided to wear that day. My dad. Fucking Apollo and his motherfucking Sun Chariot showed up. He hopped out and all the tourists started taking pictures and videos and Dad still looked all wrong and won't tell me what's up with that, but did tell me that the Aesir were cut off and, like there was a fucking echo in here, "It's still happening."
It would be... fucking phenomenal if someone could be bothered to tell me what "IT" is. I'm not gonna hold my breath.
I told him, yeah, I knew about the "still happening" bit, that Atropos had just told me. Dad said he figured Gunnar would want to know, and then with some weird emphasis he said that he figured I would want to know. It sounded weird, and intense and foreshadowy, but my dad is a god of prophecy and I guess I should just expect that kind of shit.
Prophecy, for the record, is turning out to be a far fucking cry from "here's a simple and straightforward clue about what you need to know about the shit you're about to face. Here is a map and a list of your enemy's weaknesses and here is where you will lose your car keys." Instead it's a hell of a lot more like, "here is a puzzle piece, and when you find the other 18 million pieces, you will put them all together, and the image it will make is your Aunt Esther's shoe."
And that was it. He rode off into the sunset, literally. People applauded, which I encouraged the hell out of. I told them they'd better fucking applaud, that guy was my dad and he was risking his ass on a daily fucking basis for the safety of humanity. I should probably work on swearing less when I'm being recorded, now that I think about it. That shit gets around the internet fast.

Anyway, we get our asses into the Garden. I think. It was dark, and there was something cold and damp and stony right in our way. There was a little crack, and I could hear some water. Gunnar stood up on my shoulders to look through the crack, which I don't remember being all that helpful, then Nevermore flew through things which wasn't all that helpful either. He said there was a lot of rock in the way, and a small cavern, and then some more rock, then finally I asked Gunnar for a draught of that viking brew he's got on him and got ready to move the world out of my fucking way. The viking mead, by the way, was de-fucking-licious. I have missed being able to drink, even if people are trying to poison me. I'll get there, that comes after the Garden.
So I push the stone thing out of the way and let Gunnar slip through. I held it there for a little bit before my arms started getting tired, but I could still hear Gunnar talking to me. I did some clambering around on the rock, seeing if maybe I could squeeze through up top. Not so much.
Then I heard Gunnar talking to someone else. Three someone elses. Female, about to jump my husband, and I don't mean for his lunch money. And I heard Nevermore, having a shit fit:
"GUNNAR!!! GunnarGunnar Gunnar Gunnar, Gunnar, Gunnar, it don't matter whether you mean to or not. You touch that trollop and Laurel will get angry. You won't like her when she's angry, mate."
"NO! No no no no nonononono! Why are you letting her kiss you?!"
"I got yer back, Laurel! Get away from 'im, you fucking harlot! I'll peck your eyes out! ...Bollocks, I can't touch her eyes."
"Viking, why the bloody fuck aren't you listening to me?? Oi, Laurel, he just kissed someone who wasn't you! I mean... You probably know it wasn't you, because you're not out here, but... Laurel!!"

I took Mercy to the rock in front of me, taking a minute or so to tunnel my way out from behind the... impediment. Nevermore wasn't even done squawking by the time I stood behind my husband, hefted the axe in my hands and cleared my throat.
Gunnar Jesus Alexander Miguel Esparza, I wanted to say, What the fuck are you doing?
But I didn't. I didn't say anything because it wasn't his fault. I kinda know the trick they were pulling on him. Thing is, I've got my own tricks and mine are better because I'm his fucking wife.
The three women looked at me and took a few steps back. Gunnar just looked at me, like I was the most beautiful and interesting thing he'd ever seen. This is, for the record, the only time I've ever done something like that to him or even in front of him. He'd missed every other show, somehow. I couldn't help but smile, satisfied, at the way he looked at me. I guess I'm a little bit the jealous type. Who knew? Meh, go talk to that siren about it.
Once I had Gunnar's attention the Garden Hookers started backing off, so I turned off the charm. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think really hard about introducing them to the sharper bits of my axe, but word is this is Hera's turf and we were probably going to piss her off enough by taking the apples in the first place. We headed over to the big apple tree Gunnar had spotted, traipsing through some flowers to get to the dragon with a hundred heads. It was kinda like a vacation, fruit picking and flower fields and the like. Well, except for the Garden Hookers and Ladon and the coughing fits.
The coughing fits were because oh fuck, the flowers were poppies. Divine poppies. Like that scene in The Wzard of Oz, but different. We were kinda breathing opium. It hit Gunnar kinda hard a time or two, like he was breathing poison. Well, I guess he kinda was. He bent over once, coughing like he was about to lose a lung until I patted him on the back and made it better. I guess I can cure poison, which is good to know. Probably only works on the low-grade stuff. Well, if you can call divine-poppy-pollen "low grade."
When we got up to the tree we apparently already had the dragon's attention. Gunnar asked it a riddle, something about a woodchuck, I tried not to think about it too hard. Some of the heads were interested in it. Some of them were not, and started talking to me. I think the plan was basically to get all the heads distracted so Gunnar could go apple-picking, so I worked on being distracting.
Cartwheels in a poppy field, that was my strategy. It worked... kinda.
And by kinda I mean it irritated the dragon. Some of its heads kept asking why I was moving and not staying still. I told it I was fidgety.
At least I was smart about annoying the dragon, and turned my skin to gold shortly after we started chatting it up. It riposted by attacking me with seven of its hundred heads. Of the seven attacks, one actually drew blood. Then it looked at me like I tasted kinda yummy so I decided we should play the Most Dangerous Game of Fetch.
I hefted my axe in my right arm, held my left arm out to my side and cut my left arm off. I then set my axe down and threw my left arm far enough away that the interested dragon had to run off after it. Gunnar then hopped up into the tree and I was about ready to play the "mission accomplished" music. Enter Garden Hookers who ruined fucking everything.
"Hey Ladon," one of the bitches named Whofuckingcares shouted. "They're stealing your apples..."
I guess Nevermore was worried about the look on my face - which he later described to me as "pure murderous rage" - and started talking about "anger management" and "Don't piss off your grandmother." And now he calls me "Little Miss Murderface." But seriously, the bitches would have deserved it. Trying to mess with my husband and then when I was nice enough to not plant an axe in their face - plant, get it? Cuz we were in a garden, haha - they go and screw everything up.
Anyway, Ladon was then kinda pissed. I guess Hera has said that no one is supposed to have all twelve of the apples - which is exactly the number that we wanted, and so Ladon's witty retort was to poke his head into the tree and gobble one of them up. I wondered very briefly if cutting him open to get it back would work. It wouldn't, for the record.
So the dragon with a hundred heads turns to us and ready to snack-on-a-bitch. We started playing different versions of "Let's Make a Deal," all of which seemed to involve me getting eaten, and I was okay with that. I was pretty sure - ninety-nine percent sure - I would be fine.
But yeah, Ladon was like, "You can leave with the other eleven apples if you leave her," to Gunnar.
And Gunnar was like, "Don't think so," to the dragon.
But I was like, "Well hang on a second... If I stay can I eat one of the apples? Cuz I'd get hungry but I'd totally be willing to stay for like, a month and let you keep eating my arm every couple of days because godsdamn apples have got to get old after like a millennium."
And Gunnar was like, "Fuck no."

His problem, as I understand it, was not so much that I would be feeding myself to the dragon, nor that I would be doing it just for him. It was more that I would gone for a month, and not so much that I would be away from him - which was the part that I thought would be particularly full of suckitude - but that he didn't seem confident that the world could hold itself together while I was away. Kinda sweet, even if I didn't quite think my absence would bring about the apocalypse.
Anyway, he had a point. Bad shit happens when we're away. Though, bad shit happens when we're looking, too, we just get more of a say in what to do about it. So we took option A, leave now and with the five apples we'd gotten and glare the fuck out of the Hesperides on the way out.

He's not immortal, but... Well, fuck it. Who wants to live forever, anyway?
Oh wait.
Me.

"There's no time for us
There's no place for us
What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever....?
There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to love forever?
When love must die
But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever 
Forever is our today
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever? Forever is our today 
Who waits forever anyway?"
Queen, Who Wants to Live Forever?