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[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

Date: August 10, evening
Status: Public (complete)
Setting: Mostly basement
Summary: The sphinx moves in



Sphix wasn’t sure how much time she had left before they would catch her, but she suspected they would find her sooner or later. If her little feint in that store had worked, probably at least a short while later.

The sphinx sighed and let her brown suitcase slip from her grip. She sat down on a rock and rubbed her feet. She was tired of running, and her throat felt like it was full of road dust. Too bad she hadn’t thought about buying a bottle of water while she had had the change. Getting the hair dye had been her first priority, though, and once she found a place where she could apply it, she would be as blond as an Olympian. Speaking of whom…

Sphix scratched her neck and got up again. The itch was barely noticeable, but she hadn’t felt it for a long, long time. Back then, she had been near Mount Olympus, and she suspected the itching had something to do with the nearness of gods and goddesses. Why there would be any here was a mystery to her, but she intended to find out. Hopefully Hades was around; she would ask about her uncle if she met him. She couldn’t think of a reason why any of the Olympians would treat her too kindly, but her uncle was different. And he had never got tired when she had been singing. That counted for something, too.

By nightfall the sphinx reached the building that, as far as she could tell, was the source of her uneasiness. Well. Now she would just have to make her way inside. She gave the front door a quick glance, but decided against using it. She didn’t want to risk running right into someone she didn’t get along with, not until she knew what was going on.

The sphinx glanced through one of the basement windows and, seeing only a dusty corridor and closed doors, shattered the glass with a kick. She dropped inside (managing to cut her finger in the process) and tested a door handle. Alas, the door refused to budge. Her mouth twisted into a grimace. Just her luck.

It took a few more tries before she found a door that wasn’t either locked or stuck. Soon she was standing in a small storage room that was half full with crates, piles of paper and some moth-eaten sheets and curtains. There were even cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. Sphix smiled. It was almost perfect. She had missed places like this.

It took some time, but eventually she managed to get the room furnished to her liking. She wiped sweat off her forehead and sat down on the rather nest-looking bed made out of old paper and cloth. Sphix lifted the brown suitcase on her lap and clicked it open. A bath was clearly in order, for while she did not enjoy getting herself wet, she enjoyed being dirty even less. She only hoped she had remembered to pack her towel.

It turned out that she had, indeed, remembered the towel, but her night shift was nowhere to be found, so the she settled for a dark red dress instead. The sphinx took out some other things she would need – such us the hair dye and her dinner, tightly wrapped in a plastic bag – and then put the suitcase away.

She paused outside her door to block it with the excess crates she had hauled on the corridor earlier. Then she arranged her towel, dress and hair dye – the packing claimed it was red, but she knew better – on her arms and set off to find a place where she could tidy herself up.

Comments

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Apollo had decided to go for a short walk before bed, as he hadn't familiarised himself with the manor's layout quite yet. Deciding to go downwards to see where things were kept (just in case he ended up as the manor's doctor or an emergency came up), he came across someone who felt as old as he, and from the same place. Still, hecouldn't put a finger on who or how or why. Seeing that she was searching for a bathroom, howver, he smiled kindly.

"Hello," he said softly, so as not to startle her too badly--he was a very large man, after all. "Are you new here?"

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

The sphinx jumped and dropped her things. She hadn’t wanted to be noticed, not this soon. She took a few steps back, eyeing the man up and down. She felt she should know him. He was an Olympian, she was sure of it… But he was not Zeus or Hades, and certainly not Hera, and after that it didn’t really matter. She had been right, though. There were gods here.

“I might be”, she said. Her muscles tensed, ready to carry her to safety in case he tried something.

“Who are you? And what are you Olympians doing here?” They had to be planning something. She hoped they would not make a habit of travelling. It would be difficult to avoid Hera if she didn’t stay in Greece like she was supposed to.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Apollo blinked at the behavior. Were all the women in the manor so terribly defensive? He held back a sigh of frustration.

"I could ask the same of you, dear," he said quietly, keeping a tight hold on his temper. "Would you like to come up and use my bathroom, or would you rather just continue pretending I'm here to makeyour life miserable and we'll go our separate ways?"

There, he hadn't even raised his voice. Honestly, who was she to snap at him like he'd raised a hand to her??

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

He wasn’t answering her questions. Sphix wanted to twitch her tail in irritation, but she didn’t have one at the moment. How would he react if she just turned into her traditional sphinx form? Not too well, she suspected. Apparently he did not recognise her – she was rumoured to be dead, so it was not a surprise – and it suited her just fine to keep things that way. At least until she knew who he was.

“Your bathroom?” she asked. It was an alluring thought, but it was a god’s bathroom. The bathroom of an unknown Olympian. “Maybe I would. In case it isn’t enchanted in any way. Or cursed. Or have a nymph living in it. And…” She paused, but she did have to make sure. “And provided Hera isn’t around. She is here somewhere, isn’t she?”

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Her paranoia and utter self-absorbedness was beginning to irk him, but he calmed a little when she mentioned Hera.

"Only Hermes and I are here," he said, feeling sympathy for her, whoever she was. Maybe she'd stop being so imperial once she knew Hera was nowhere nearby. Honestly, didn't she know most of them were pretty much sleeping? "Who are you? I'm Apollo." He said the last as a peace offering.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

“Apollo?” She felt she should have guessed that. Who else could he have been, really? “The Muses spoke highly of you, the last time we met.” She could probably trust Apollo, at least to some extent. More than she could trust Hera, in any case. And he had answered one of her questions, so it was only fair she answered one of his.

“I’m Sphix”, she said. “Daughter of Orthrus and Chimera. Niece of Cerberus.” The sphinx sighed. If Hades wasn’t here, it was unlikely her uncle would be, either. She shook her head. “Now… about that bath?”

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

At the mention of the muses, he smiled as though at an old flame.* At her sigh, he tilted his head with a look of soft sympathy.

"I'm sorry that none of your family is here. I know how lonely it is to be away from them." He turned, motioning her to follow him, and led her back upstairs and down the halls to his and Hermes' room.

Stopping outside the door, he put a finger to his lips. "Hermes is sleeping right now," he said in a low voice, "Please don't wake him." Taking out his key, he softly opened the door and padded quietly across the floor to the bathroom. He showed her where the shampoo and conditioner were, as well as getting out a washcloth for her.

"Take your time," he said with a kind smile. "I'll be in the bedroom reading."

_________________

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

The sphinx could have said that she hadn’t really expected any of her family besides Cerberus to be here in the first place, the reason being that most of them were dead. She didn’t, though; they had been sent to Hades a long time ago, and she hadn’t been very close with most of them to begin with. So, instead of speaking she picked up the things she had dropped and followed Apollo.

When she had been left alone Sphix eyed the bathroom suspiciously. There were no nymphs to be seen, but the place could still be enchanted. The Olympian hadn’t said that it wasn’t. Sphix hesitated for a long moment. Finally she shrugged. What would he gain by turning her into something? What could anyone turn her into that she couldn’t deal with, for that matter? Better not to worry about non-existent curses, she decided, turning the hair colour packet around in her hands. She had enough things to deal with even without imaginary threats.

It took well over an hour for Sphix to get her hair dyed and bathe – and, since she remembered what Apollo had said about being quiet, she didn’t even sing. When she was finally finished she opened the door and stepped out as silently as she could.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

In the queen-size bed (http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod170010&navCount=6) lay a slender youth, cocooned in the fluffy duvet. A plush turtle sat on the nightstand, and two small snakes lay curled on each other around the toy. The only thing that belied they were not natural serpents was that their eyes actually closed.

The only light came from the window seat, where Apollo had twitched open the curtains a bit to read by the outside light. He looked up when she came out, blinking a bit at the dye as he removed his reading glasses. Briefly he wondered if she'd left a mess, and hoped not.

"Feeling better?" he asked with a smile, voice soft.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

“Cleaner”, she said. She was less thirsty, too, but that hardly needed mentioning. She had left the bathroom relatively clean, if not in entirely pristine condition. She did appreciate untidiness for the ambience it created, but Apollo’s bathroom was not a place for it. Besides, it could bring ill luck to leave potentially enchanted (or cursed) bathrooms in poor condition.

Not seeing any convenient place to sit, Sphix leaned against a wall.
“So. Just you and Hermes here? I would have thought there were others, the way this place makes me feel.” She scratched her arm. The itching was starting to get a bit annoying.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

"Currently the only Greeks are in this room, and Morpheus. There is a whole flock of Christians, as well as one or two Asgardians. Others too, but I'm not at all sure what they are." He marked the page in his book and closed it, putting his glasses back in their case. "Come, sit." He shifted slightly to make room on the windowseat.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

That could explain the itching, Sphix thought. She took the offered seat. She had walked a long way today, and she felt her feet could use the rest.

“Why are all those people here?” she asked. It had to be something important. In her experience, different kind of beings didn’t mix very well.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

"This is a hostel," he said simply. "If you need safety, shelter, you come here."

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

Safety. That was exactly what she needed right now. She hadn’t been looking for this place, though. She hadn’t known it existed. Had all those other people known? Had they just one day decided: ‘It looks a bit dangerous living here, so let’s go to that big hostel that is safe’? The sphinx gave the Olympian a glance. His words raised more questions than they answered.

“Why would you two need safety?” she asked, nodding her head towards the sleeping Hermes. They were Olympians. They were – or used to be, at any rate – powerful. What would they fear so much that it forced them to seek shelter?

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Apollo sighed. "You really have been out of the loop..." he said, looking out the window with some wistfulness. "Gods recieve power from their faithful. We have very little faithful anymore, and there are plenty of pantheons who want pagan 'heathens' like us dead. Besides," he ended on a more cheerful note, "We can be ourselves here. No pretending to be mortal or anything."

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

Sphix shrugged. She was well familiar with how the gods got their powers, being herself from a family of chthonic figures. The sphinx had never bothered to give it much thought. She herself just did what she had always done: travelled and asked questions… and killed, occasionally. Sphix did ponder on a lot of things, but why she did what she did was not one of them.

“Be ourselves?” she repeated after a moment of silence. Her lips curled into an amused smile. “So, supposing I would walk around the place having the body of a lion and some wings, no one would so much as blink?”

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Ah. No wonder she expected everything for nothing. "You could do that, yes. However, you should introduce yourself to Adam first, at the very least. And the rule is 'harm none'," he added with a wry smirk.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

“Well, I can manage not to harm anyone. I think.” She probably could, if she set her mind to it. Provided no one tried to provoke her. Or challenge her into a riddle contest. Or just be generally irritating.

“Who is this Adam, then? Someone important?” She had never even heard about him, but then, lots of things had happened since she had last been in touch with someone of her kind.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

"This is his estate," Apollo answered. Just then, Hermes shifted and cried out; Apollo went to his brother's side quickly, sitting by the side of the bed and gently pulling the blankets down to stroke the silvery-blond curls until the messenger calmed.

"Sorry," he said to the Sphinx quietly.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

The sphinx stood up, too, and moved closer to the bed. She eyed the sleeping god curiously. He was beautiful, she supposed. Olympians usually were. She couldn’t fathom why one of them would have bad dreams, though. The only dreams she ever remembered having had been about food. Admittedly, some of them had been slightly disturbing. Perhaps Hermes, too, had eaten something he should not have, and the dinner had come back to haunt his dreams?

Sphix stretched her arms. It didn’t matter, really. Hermes was the only one who knew his dreams – only one present, anyway – and thinking about food had only served to make her hungry.

“Maybe I will see this Adam person, then”, she said to Apollo. “Not right now, though. Right now I want something to eat.” She took a few steps towards the door. Then she stopped and hesitated. She hated to give food away, but he had granted her the use of his bathroom and might get a bit testy if she didn’t offer something back. She could recall some of the Olympians being a bit picky about what they ate, though, so with any luck he would refuse.

“I have meat in my room, in case you want some”, she said. “It is raw, though. And several days old.” It was beginning to smell, too. She should probably finish it soon.

[not-helios.livejournal.com]

Swallowing a laugh, Apollo settled for a polite smile. "No thank you, mistress Sphinx." He'd never spoken to the Sphinx before--it was a surprise that she could speak other than riddles. Still, it explained her odd behavior--the monsters were always rather...off...even when they were part human.

[theban-sphinx.livejournal.com]

The sphinx nodded her head in a brief goodbye. Then she slipped out of the room and made her way through the corridors. The route was a bit longer than she remembered, and she did take a few false turns, but eventually she reached her lair in the basement.

After she had eaten she curled into her nest bed and closed her eyes. She would have to think about the things Apollo had said, but she could do that later. Right now all she wanted was some rest.