Mousai's POV
Swaying, swaying and tumbling. I can feel all of it. My mind, my blood, my bones. All of it tipping around inside of me like liquid. "Find out who I am? Learn who I am?" I question to myself while curling my nails into my skull.
I feel myself uncontrollably grin as I continue to follow Persephone's trail of flowers she's left behind for me, the only thing I've stopped questioning myself on as my imagination's beginning to turn on me. "Oracion this, Oracion that. Mousai this, Mousai that." I'm sick of it all.
'Are you sure about that?' A voice asks me.
"As sure as I can be." I reassure the sinking feeling I have within me.
Grabbing my face within my fingers I can't help but scream...shriek and bellow from the depths of my stomach. "I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT! I CAN'T DO IT!" I claw the flesh off my face, ripping out strands of my hair and snapping my own fingers with my other hands. "WAKE UP!" I scream to no one.
"AHAHAHAHA" Throwing one foot in front of the other as I try to get closer to Hades' palace.
'What's your name?' It asks again. Whispering...practically begging for an answer from nobody but myself.
I fall to the floor, my broken hand the only thing stopping my chest from connecting to the cold purplish stone beneath me. "MOUSAI!" I scream back. "MOUSAI! MOUSAI! I'M MOUSAI!" I scream while imagining my own broken body as the stone suddenly turns into a reflective surface, one presenting exactly what I'm imagining.
My thoughts slow as I fully take in the bloodied mess that I've turned myself into. Running a hand through my hair I feel it glow under my touch, "Give back what I've lost." I chant to the falling pieces I've ripped out. Imagining myself in a better light, one with untorn flesh, hair and unbroken bones.
I watch as it all comes back to me. This gift that Oracion's unintentionally bestowing upon me...one that abides by logic, my own logic, something that I'm able to comprehend. 'Persephone mentioned how she was surprised the god eating flower stopped under her command, was that because of me?' I think to myself.
Even then, I can't help but squint just barely above my head. The two moons still there, but only visible if you knew what you were looking for. "Who are you?" I ask the reflection, noticing something that tightens my heart a little bit. Its lips didn't move with my own.
After a delay, it finally responds. "Who are you?" She asks back with a grin, cracking the stone and causing it to tumble back down the steep trail.
'Palace...get to the palace. That's all I need to do'. I look up, "Not as fast as Hermes, not as untraceable as Oracion. But a speed that would get me to that palace." Feeling weight being added to my legs as I suddenly feel energy overwhelm me, pushing and practically launching me across the floor, inches from scraping my chin across the stone.
Literal steam pumping itself off my skin as I desperately gasp for air, rushing back to my feet and scratching at my throat as if I was buried alive. "H-" I try screaming but there's nobody here...nobody here at all.
Until a sudden cold grasp tugs one of my arms in a particular direction, sliding on a bracelet made up of a lumen green and pitch black beads. "Ones of ruin. One that is surely to delay the inevitable demise that awaits peacefully for you." A statue lacking the features of a man, but most definitely attempting to mimic some sort of human begins to speak to me.
"The ruination that can seal gods within flesh. A harnessed strength in the limitation of stone. Is that expression one that exudes calmness? I would like very much to practice such things." His calm voice explains whilst bowing to me.
The previous strain I had just felt, all my worries were lifted from me...just like that. Oxygen is gathering within me as it should and my head feels as one.
An audible 𝘱𝘰𝘱 resonates to the ground however as one bead rolls down the steep road behind me.
"Is that horror? Fear? What is this new expression?" The figure made of stone leans his featureless face towards me. "Fear not as the beads are adjusting to one such entity that is you. One who hears the voices of wills of unmatched imagination."
"Wh-what?" I stutter out.
Another one slides behind him, grasping my hand and encouraging me to follow them through the large stone gates, "We Graves are surely graced by your presence. Please do forgive our poor appearances for we wish to be flesh just as you." A feminine voice emanating from this one as she gently strokes my hand from the middle of my arm.
"Please do come in." She utters, near enough dragging me across the floor as politely as she can.
"Wait-please." I try to shake her grip off my wrist but her head sharply turns towards me. Unable to tell where she could be staring at me from, I look all over the stone globe but I can't see any noticeable eyes.
Her voice remaining the same but something's...wrong, "Is something the problem? You would like to view our performance, would you not?" She lets go of my hand, bowing slightly and showing off her chiselled dress that's a part of her body.
She twirls around me as three others join her in a circular motion, spinning with unexplainable physics as all their dresses remain stiff from their stone based bodies.
"Our clothing is a part of us." One hums.
"We broke our bodies." Another sings.
"We chipped our faces." Another's head turns to me eventually, showing off her sadistic grin chiselled into rock.
"All in the name of flesh and blood." The last one finishes as they all suddenly stop, two pulling my arms along while the other two push my back towards a large stone stage where a long delicate silk like curtain covers the front.
"Wai-" I try to ask questions but they roughly sit me down, turning the 'heads' of all the Graves around me. "Shhhhh" they aggressively shush me. Dark flames around me begin to absorb the surrounding light, darkening the environment as the flames themselves become lighter with an inner white glow.
Through the silk curtain comes through a Grave. Her dress styled body coloured a violent purple unlike the rest, "Alone I was born. Alone I shall be. One coloured by existence. One dulled by scales." She chants whilst slowly arching her hands behind her head, twirling around the stage while facing the sky. "Time heals. Time rots. Time forgets." She reaches into a sparking black flame, allowing it to spiral across her body.
"Power is what I have. Power is what need. Power is what they shall see." The black flame swirls into her joints, bursting off both of her arms as they flick out along the cobble stage. Burning into a monstrosity that burns ever dark. The crackles occasionally even sounding like a Beast's huff.
"I asked. I begged. I screamed." Her legs break, "But none could hear", shattering pebbles along the cobble stage once more as flames engulf them. Swallowing all like a Storm.
Leaving her torso and globe in place as she now sits in place, surrounded by the two flames.
"Remember who birthed you. Remember who thought of you. Remember me." Her head rolls off the shoulders as the torso catches aflame. Leaving the singular orb left to ponder on its own as the fire Serpentines around the others.
Clapping ensues as they all begin to cry out and cheer for the performance, throwing stone roses along the stage that break in two with each crashing fall they take. Taking this opportunity to sneak out, I try to subtly shuffle between them.
My escape only stopped once a hand gently grasps my wrist from behind, startling me as I flip back but nothing's there. The cheers? Gone. The roses? Gone. All of the tens of Graves that sat here beside me...no longer here.
However the one thing remains within the circle of flame. The head of the preforming Grave.
I walk up to it, noticing the whole thing beginning to twitch and crack away a small hole. I spin it around, putting my eye to the hole and attempting to glimpse in. Only to find something staring back at me with equal interest. An eye of pure gold, chiselling more of itself bit by bit as I drop the globe back onto the floor, cracking it open and only speeding up the pace.
"I hate you." The globe seethes through its new set of teeth.
"I hate you." It begins rising.
"I hate you." Slamming itself back onto the ground.
"I hate you." Only to rise again, and slam once again.
It spins around to face me directly. Its perfectly sculpted face a perfect copy of my own...even down to my singular golden eye. "HAHAHAAHAHA I HATE YOU!"
"WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?!" I shout back at it.
"I HATE YOU!" It repeats
We scream and we scream until I can no longer feel my own mouth moving, "I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN THIS WAY!." Am I saying these words?
I feel my eye radiate with a gleaming gold as pain shrieks through my entire body, "WHO DO YOU THINK I AM!?"
"I DIDN'T ASK TO BE A GOD!" I boom through the darkened hall.
I scratch and I scratch, my scalp bleeding into my vision as I crumple to the ground where I lay drenched in my own crimson. "IT ALL JUST HURTS HAHAHA! IT HURTS SO MUCH HAHAHAHA!" I stare up into the ceiling of the Underworld, swirling the blood all around me. "YOU WANT ME TO FEEL SOMETHING DON'T YOU!? MY PATHETIC SISTER WHO WOULD HIDE BEHIND PERFECTION! HAHAHAHA"
I tear out my hair, leaving nails behind in my own scalp as I bleed into a gold maelstrom of chaos and beauty, swirling and swirling with no particular direction in mind. "PERFECTION! BLESSED! GIFTED! ALL OF IT-I GIVE UP ALL OF IT-"
"Mousai." A hand gently finds itself across my wrist.
Dropping rains of gold upon myself and the individuals standing behind me. "Don't touch me." I flick away Zagreus' hand, coddling myself into a fetus position as I lay within the warm liquid bed I made for myself.
"Did you not follow the trail of flowers I had laid out for you?" Persephone's voice calls out.
I find the energy to stand on my two feet, blinking to be just in front of Persephone. With one moment my hand being tightly gripped to my side, and another with a bundled up fist across her face.
"I...was...fine...until I fell...down there." I point to the depths of Tartarus.
Persephone looks back at me, pissed but surprisingly not revengeful as she only continues to ask more questions while cleaning off her bloodied cheek. "Tartarus?"
"The city...that was down there." I explain.
"Mousai there is no city down there." Zagerus tries to hold me in reassurance but I don't want it. I don't want anyone touching me.
"THERE'S A CITY DOWN THERE!" I screech from the depths of my lungs, tired of not being heard.
"-and what did you see down there?" A rich voice comes from behind the grand doors of Hades' palace, the source of the voice being the man himself.
"A cage." I answer as he looks behind me with his eyebrow raised.
"There's no such thing within my Underworld, Mousai." He tries to correct me whilst walking past my shaky frame. Reaching for one of the Graves to remove the bracelet from one of their hands. "It appears you were bestowed a gift, do take care of it this time." He slips it back onto my wrist.
"The-" I try to find my voice.
"They were showing you things? The Graves cannot move, nor can they talk." He explains, placing a hand on my shoulder. "However, they can understand." He snickers a little bit, making me shake off the bracelet in rage.
"YOU THINK I WOULD BE MAKING THIS UP!?" I feel my skin peeling away as my body attempts to shift into something more...something greater.
"You would dare challenge me in my own home?" He slyly replies, standing ahead of Persephone and Zagreus as their gaze begins to rise along with my height.
"IF THAT'S WHAT THE STARS ARE DEMANDING OF ME!" Something bigger...stronger...something better than flesh and bone. My limbs crack at the thought, forcing themselves to contain a power beyond an immortal's imagination. Through all these centuries I've been alive, never have I ever thought of something so impossible-so unobtainable by any physical gaze. 'Make. Me. Like. Them. Make me like those two beasts who pretend to be god.'
"Nimue-" Hades whispers.
That singular name causing me to stop all thoughts as all the sound bouncing around my head halts. The voices? Gone. The whispers? Gone. The scratching? Gone. All of it stopped for what feels like eons. "How do yo-" The words fading to nothingness along with my vision, for Hades no longer stood in front of me.
In fact. Nobody stood in front of me. As all that remained within my sight was darkness.