Physical

P for now but may open after a few posts

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 It'd been quite a while since Poseidon had ventured into the caverns that lie beneath Winterheart. The weather had grown cold, making the pools and strange rivers that ran in the underground unsuitable for swimming, even for him. The moon had grown to a crescent, hidden that evening by lazy fogs, occasionally stepping forth to glow upon their thinned and frosted forest.
 Finding his way into the entrance, Poseidon was not subtle about his evening stroll, humming a tune to himself that had been stuck in his head for days. He couldn't remember where he'd heard it, or even if he'd heard it, like so many things in the new world.
 Stomping about in the caverns, the light-up worms dangled above him, not even offering so much as a slow clap as his wonky voice bounced from wall to dark wall.
 At a certain point, on the second repetition of the song, he began to blurt out in a booming (and quite melodic) voice,
 “BAP BAP. DAT DAT DAT DAT. BABY KEEP ON DANCING LIKE YOU AIN'T GOTTA CHOICE. SO DATDAT. DAT DAT. LET'S GET PHYSICAL!!” It was so loud, as this was often his diaphragm practice zone, that several fish disappeared from toward the surface of the water that ran close by, spooked by the vibration alone.
 He did not expect to see anyone down here.
 He certainly didn't expect to see her.

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 Her life had become a series of unexpected catastrophes, the tragedy rounding the corner worse than being the Pantheon's prisoner. 

 She knew his voice. Knew that smell, all low tide and sea fungus, even if the form he took now was wholly unfamiliar. 

 He yowled out a noxious tune, making her head throb with every reverberated note. Glowering at him, Minthe rose and greeted the god with a straight tail and raised hackles. 

 “You sing as bad as you smell.”

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 Poseidon didn't recognize her. Not even remotely. Mostly because he'd known her by, well, décolletage and furious toxicity, but he was entirely at a loss as to why a stranger was lying in the gutters of his home.
 He stood fast, and she did too, all spiked up and messy with cluttered muck. Poseidon blinked.
 He smacked his lips, making an awkward sideways face, looking toward the river, wondering if she'd swam up and somehow found herself stuck here. It was her words that hinted at an old memory. For the moment, he ignored it.
 “And you look like hot garbage! Welcome to paradise!” His tail wagged and his ears perked playfully, licking his nose as he made a broad gesture with his nose at the worms. “I'm Poseidon, and I'll be your escort this evening.” He wiggled a brow, having no idea that it had been his brother who'd put her down here.

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 “I wouldn't look so disheveled if your brother hadn't kidnapped me and dragged me down here to rot!” She snarled back, flashing teeth. Hades had created his own version of the underworld in these caves - the worms that undulated along the ceiling electric blue, a natural neon that made the moist walls shine with cold, unwelcome light. 

 “I know who you are.” And yet it seemed her identity had not transferred into the water god's memory. “Pity the barnacles in your brain have made you too stupid to recognize me.”

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 Poseidon, who had been poised to help a stranger found her way out of these confusing caverns, was utterly stunned by her response. So much that it took him several seconds to fully comprehend what she had just said. In the mean time, his eyes were dinner plates, and his mouth looked like he was imitating a whale shark.
 “He what?” Poseidon snarled, finding himself curling his lip and narrowing his eyes, but not at her. For a moment, he had to consider everything and try to figure out if she was telling the truth, but it didn't seem like she had any reason to lie to him. Even a joke wasn't worth that kind of a statement, and she didn't like him enough to make him squirm.
 She didn't like him.
“Minthe..?”
 Shaking his head, he furrowed his brow and looked away, evidently doing more math in his head. “Why would.. this doesn't make any sense.” He determined, and immediately after, moved closer toward her and very seriously stared at her. “Are you okay?”

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 Somewhere in the seaweed of his mind two scallop shells clacked together, inspiring him to think. 

 His shock was palpable, and Minthe dared to see a flicker of concern in his widened eyes. The crimson woman sneered at his pity, bristling further still. Since when did Poseidon have his head out of his own algae-encrusted ass long enough to care what happened to her - a lowly river nymph? 

 “I hit my head.” It still hurt, but she knew it would heal. Minthe weighed the power she had now, her ability to paint Hades as a cruel captor versus how much his brother was willing to believe. She sighed.

 “He overpowered me. Took me down here. He's feeding me, and he hasn't hurt me, but...” She shrugged, her wavering voice icing over it was cold and clear. “Why the hell do you care?”

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 He expected nothing from her, and nothing she gave. She had hit her head. She said it. He ran through his mind what little he knew. She seemed fine, or at least fine enough to be as much as an asshole as his vague remembrance, so Poseidon called for no one.
 In fact, as he thought about it, he realized their healer was @Persephone and, being tied to his brother, must have known that she was down here.
 Poseidon moved closer to her, but stayed a healthy distance. He knew well a wolf would bite without its head.
 “Because it isn't right,” he answered, almost angrily. He could say nothing to his brother. His brother knew all, and Ampritrite was elsewhere. Poseidon looked at her, intent on his actions. He moved toward her such that they were mere feet apart.
 “I don't care what he did. You need to get away from this shit.” he answered her. Then, he shifted to her side
 “I am heading toward the sea. Do you want to come with me?”

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 She let out a laugh as hollow as the cave she was stuck in. Since when had any god, let alone one of the three, stooped to help a nymph? 

 Minthe was long-familiar with upper management. They treated morality like a malleable thing. Posideon would push and pull his pity into place, but all Minthe saw in his offer was trickery, some search for leverage. 

 “Of course I don't want to come with you. Why would I trade one shitty brother for another? When have you ever given me a reason to trust you?” Stick with the devil you know.

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 She laughed at him.
 The emergency mode he had entered dissipated. He had been ready to fight for her to get her into a situation that was better. Normally, it was true, he was happy to just sit and watch his brother do whatever the hell he wanted, moral or not, without consequence. But in this place, Poseidon felt trapped. His wife no longer was his wife and did not love him. There was nothing for him here without family. He did not like to watch his brother have his soul eaten alive by a woman that, frankly, he did not fully trust.
 “Fair,” he said simply, getting up from near her with a deep, troubled frown.
 “It's not like you have to stay with me, though. It was an out, not a damn marriage commitment,” he snarked, flipping his tail in annoyance. It wasn't as though she had asked for help. But there had been something about her eyes that begged it. He must have misinterpreted.
 “So you're just gonna stay down here and what, be his slutty side nymph?” He hissed, angry suddenly that she'd made such a fool out of him. He sighed in a huff, turning away from her.

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 They were frightfully good at niggling, the trio of dickish dictators. She wasn't like Thetis. She wouldn't scrape and squabble for scraps. Minthe wasn't a side anything. 

 The once-river nymph turned to look at the once-god. They looked so different, all portioned and fluffed. “While I know it's hard for your micro-misogynist brain to comprehend, I'm not his mistress. He'd have to have a mate to have a mistress, and from what he told me all they do is rule together. She's his co-worker, nothing more.”

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 Poseidon made a face at her sheer lack of wisdom. Poseidon himself had never been considered the "wise" one of the bunch, but he wasn't as easily fooled as the rest of them clearly thought he was. As she declared that @Persephone was no more than a "colleague" of @Hades, he rolled his head to one side, tilting it until his ears flopped over as he gave the dumbest "you're a fucking moron" expression known to wolfkind.
 All he could do was laugh. “H'okay,” he mocked, practically cackling in her face. It was so obvious that the pair were a pair that he questioned her sanity. Then again, Minthe had never been sane.
 “So then, you're going to me his slutty —” and here he wished he could still make air quotes, but kept a pause and intonation of his voice instead “— primary — piece? Right. Well, you have fun down here pretending.”
 He'd taken a moment to turn back to her to say all of this, but after feeling like he might have the last word (doubtful, given her aptitude for it), he turned away from her again.
 Poseidon was not usually this cruel. Yet Minthe, who had for so long kept his brother chained to his own toxicity, had managed to creep past his fun-loving facade.

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 Poseidon was as subtle as the Mt. Vesuvius chin-zit she used to get before her period. He thought she was a stupid river nymph - and a jealous one at that. 

 Her lip lifted in a snarl, teeth flashing as she replied even as he began to turn away. “I'm not going to be his anything. I don't want to be his anything.” 

 But in the cave she remained.

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