Athena x Nike

#66 * Mental Prison

For once I didn't base it off of the song that's added. It's just there to kind of help set the scene. Idk I felt like it fit so yeah, enjoy!

- Athena

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Nike's pov:

The injuries changed her. Not just physically, but mentally too.

She's harder on herself, on me, on Alexia... I watched as my wife let her dory sweep through the air and aim to cut our teenage daughter's thigh.

Luckely Alexia managed to jump back and only just blocked the next attack with her twin blades crossed.

"Sloppy!" Athena barked for the fifteenth time that afternoon.

"Again!"

Alexia flinched at her loud voice.

For hours now they'd been doing the same sweeps and blocks. The only thing my wife was accomplishing was ruining her close relationship with her daughter.

I've told her that multiple times by now, but she didn't want to listen. It seemed ever since the revenge spirits got to her in Tartarus she became even more thick headed.

I watched as Athena slammed the shaft of her dory into Alexia's crossed blades. Of course a seventeen year old can't measure up to the strength of a goddess. Alexia fell on her back with a thud.

Athena was about to aim the tip of her dory at our daughter's neck, but I didn't like that thought of that, so I stepped in between the two.

"I think that's enough for the day." I said.

"I doubt she caught the concept."

My wife's words were cold and distant.

"I doubt you still care about the concept." I responded in the same tone.

I turned around to hold out a hand for Alexia to take. My daughter took it and I pulled her up.

"Why don't you go wash up darling?" I asked her and showed a small smile.

With a grateful look in her eyes Alexia nodded and left the arena.

Athena's pov:

After Alexia left, so did me and Nike. I flashed myself to our room and my wife followed close behind. Underneath her steady and stern gaze I took a towel and walked over to the sink.

Once I stood in front of the mirror I stared at myself for a second. Anger rose in me as I studied the scars the revenge spirits had left on my body.

One scar trailed across my right eye, temporarily blinding it. Another cut across my lips and down to my chin.

They should've healed by now. At least if they had been normal wounds they would have. According to Apollo, who took care of the wounds, they had drenched their claws in a certain type of poison making the wounds and scars last longer.

My back, stomach and legs were full of the same scars. Once they had their fun the spirits had left me to suffer. If not for Ares of all gods I'd still be in that horrid place people call Tartarus.

I snapped myself away from my thoughts and splashed some water in my face.

"What was that?" Nike asked out of the blue.

Her voice was deadly calm, rid of all warmth and love it usually holds. It made chills go down my spine and made my heart beat a thousand miles an hour.

"I believe that was training." I stated.

I heard a low, almost inaudible growl escape my wife's troath.

"That was no longer training." She spat.

"No? How is she suppsosed to get better if I don't challenge her?" I asked, not bothering to raise my voice.

I knew Nike was right. I just wasn't ready to admit it. I wasn't ready to face my mistakes just yet.

"Challening her? Try killing her."

Okay, that one hit a little too close to home.

"I would never!" I shouted, twisting around and meeting her eyes.

The warm hazel colored eyes had replaced themselves with orbs of pure gold, set ablaze with anger and hurt.

"So why are you so hard on her? She's a seventeen year old girl, not one of your immortal soldiers."

"Isn't that what she wanted to be?" I asked, turning back towards the mirror.

Then Nike asked the question that pulled out the dagger she had just stabbed into my chest. The question that left me bleeding.

"Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

In the mirror I saw the gold fade from her eyes. It was replaced with tears as she sank down and sat on the bed behind her. I saw a single tear drip down her cheek and drip down into the skirt of her dress.

My jaw clenched and my entire body tensed, making me painfully aware of it's injuries. But right now it weren't the injuries that hurt the most. It was that single tear dripping down my wife's face.

Alexia's pov:

I passed my moms's room to go to my own.

"I would never!" I heard mom yell.

"She's not one of your immortal soldiers!" I heard my other mom shout back.

I leaned closer to the door and placed my ear against it.

"Isn't that what she wanted?"

I felt my lungs exploding. I was nothing more than a private with incomplete training in her eyes wasn't I?

Silence followed in the bedroom. Then mom asked a question. I almost didn't hear it.

"Who are you and what have you done to my wife?"

I stepped away from the door. My heart was pounding in my chest, racing, as if it were trying to catch up with my thoughts.

I wish I could unhear what I had just heard. I wish I could forget what they just said.

I stumbled back from the door, my back meeting the opposite wall. I slid down. What even happened to mom? No one had ever bothered to tell me. Only that she got injured on a mission.

Nike's pov:

I heard Athena sigh.

Beyond that sigh I heard the eternal battle raging inside her. It was becoming incredibly loud.

She stepped away from the mirror and towards me. Her gaze was hard. When she stood in front of me, she sunk to her knees.

"I know that what I did isn't fair. Not to you, not to Alexia, not to me." She started.

"I know I should've been stronger and resisted the urge to take out my suffering on the two of you. I know I should've been better to you." She said, her gaze still as hard, but her words vulnerable beyond imagination.

"I was-... Am too proud to admit that I can't do this alone. I pray that you, my angel, picks up the signs I leave. When in reality I should just tell you."

Tears brimmed her eyes, but her pride refused to let them fall.

"You're not the only one who doesn't recognize me, because I don't recognize me either." Athena finally admitted.