Right Down the Line

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If Hades had pressed her down it would have been impossible for her to push him off. For her to waste her precious reserves, the energy that she had left, to scramble away from him - Hades smirked, his eyes narrowing on her ruddy form as it went straight into his forest. “It's like you want to be caught, Tadpole.” Running into Winterheart was a fool's move, especially when the King himself was after you. Who knew it's depths better?

He gave her a few seconds. “-Three, four, five. You'd better not let me catch you,” He called it out after her before he gave chase. How many times had she scrambled up the staircase, set to push through his bedroom, into the study, only for him to catch a slender ankle at his desk and then - he growled. The memories blurred a bit, his jaws snapping as he pushed through the brambles and turned, pivoting as she did, only to goade her further.
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 Perhaps that was what she wanted.

 She pressed herself, her exhausted body feeding off adrenaline, that familiar electric thrill coursing through her veins. Darting through gnarled trees and sodden leaf-litter, her tongue lolled, drunk on the rush. 

 She felt a rumble by her flank, a snap of teeth and skittered away, turning sharply towards the heart of his territory. He was herding her further into his home. “And what do you plan to do once you've caught me?” She asked, the question tossed over her shoulder and into the wind.

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 Minthe had fallen into the hands of a ravenous king. Though familiar with his appetites, she couldn't help the small twist of fear that coiled tight in the base of her belly. There was power in provocation, but what good were such wiles if she could not tame the monster her own goading created?

 She took a step back, pressing herself against the sheer rock. “Hades...what will your pack think? What will your queen think?”

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^^There was the slightest break of her facade, not knowing the way that a year in this body might have affected him. He had been poised and just a hint under deranged when it came to himself but now? How was she to know? Maybe this form had given him the feral edge that years in the Underworld had softened. His claws dug into the earth as he held himself back, tongue dragging slowly across his toothy grin.

“Like you'd care.” Hades taunted, because hadn't Minthe already expressed just how little she thought of the Queen? Surely Persephone would see him as a tyrant - shameful, dirty, and weak. And he was all those things, wasn't he? “Do you think that they've forgotten who I am so quickly? They told stories of me, of me stealing their children away for my own amusement - how little will it change what they think of me to take you?”


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 It was a blow so low-aimed it left her reeling. As turbulent as their relationship was, he had always been the one to lead her away from her insecurities, a light post against the shadows of her self-loathing. Now he called her property. Now he called her nothing. A thing no one would miss.

 Minthe launched herself at him, teeth snapping, scrabbling as she bit down hard against his scruff. “Bastard.”

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She had misunderstood him. It wasn't a mark on her - it was him. He was no better than the tyrant that stole from families and friends alike. He was a monster, the type that children feared and the type that would invoke other titles purely so that they didn't bring his wrath. He was feared by the mortals, detested by the immortals, it didn't matter what he did. So when she spun on him with all the fire in her, he braced for her attack, snarling.

There was of course the risk that they'd draw attention to themselves, but, he didn't think much of it at the moment. Instead, he whipped his head to try and grab her, pulling at her. “You're mine.” He hissed it out, because hadn't she said it - no one else was so broken as to be a better match for each other.

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 Their size difference alone was enough to put her at a disadvantage. Weak, skeletal limbs clambered for purchase but there was none against the hulking King. She yelped when he grabbed her, his jaws pulling her down with enough force that her head cracked against the ground. 

 Vision rimmed with black, she blinked up at the infamous god, trying and failing to get up, humiliated that all it had taken was a single blow. “Like father like son.”

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It was all it took for her to say it before he felt the shame rippled across him. Here she was, back on the ground before him, and he could only feel the spaces where her teeth had found purchase. They stung but nowhere near like her words did. Kronos had been told he would be overthrown, and if Rhea had managed to keep him from his father, maybe things would have been different. Maybe he would have been different.

Somewhere deep in his mind there was the cackling, venom-barbed laugh of the Mad Titan. You'll never escape me, Aidoneus.

“Lets see if you fair any better than I did in captivity.” He spat, the darkness near consuming in his eyes then.


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