Heart of a Spartan

Dreamland

It comes back to Pythia that night, after having cried herself to sleep, the events of the day rush through her dreamscape and Leon's words repeat like a broken record. She listens to him crying and him begging for her to life. It makes her heart ache and her neck tingle, like a ghost touch, where he had gripped her neck. She would cry, but she was all cried out. Instead she sits where she stood and continues to watch the events play over and over.

Apollo finds her like that long after the the time he had been expecting her. Usually, Pythia was the first to enter their dream realm, but today, it was Apollo who had come meet the other. He expands the dream mist so that it reaches the frozen Pythia. Reaching out he easily picks the listless Oracle up and into his arm, and retreats into the comfort of their shared dream realm.

Pythia looks away from the white walls where the previous days events continue to play, and instead looks up to Apollo without really seeing him. But Pythia knows its him, knows in the way his skin is cool and from the familiar way she fits in Apollo's arm. Curling towards him, Pythia hides her face.

"He's nothing like what I had imagined him to be," Pythia croaks out. "I always imagined him to be this stone cold killer, with eyes the colour of stormy seas. Instead, he's just a- well, he's like a toy soldier. And- and he doesn't show it, but he's broken on the inside too. He's just a broken little toy soldier." The last part is just above a whisper.

"He is everything he needs to be, broken or otherwise," Apollo replies.

"Will I break him more? Have I already?"

Apollo doesn't respond and they walk in silence until they reach the chaise, then Apollo settles himself and Pythia against its plush cushions. Pythia moves until she is in her preferred position, with her head low enough on Apollo's lap that in his upright position he can still reach down easily and brush through Pythia's hair. Apollo knows what Pythia is doing, and even complies to Pythia's silent demand. She has been through a lot in a short amount of time. All of Pythia's mixed feelings regarding the Heir, all the things she had planned to say, then having met the real deal and only have her every expectations blown away? It was probably a little shock to her system.

"Little Oracle," Apollo calls and genlty rouses Pythia from her dozing, "regarding the Heir, I must tell you more- no, I must show you more." Pythia whines when Apollo stops brushing through her hair. "Pythia, listen to me child." So Pythia sits up, and becomes the active listener that Apollo expects her to be. "300 souls is the sacrifice required, just as the Spartan King walked his men to Hell's Gate, so must the Heir. For each soul is precious material to build the link between the worlds. And at the heart of it all-," Apollo paused for a second, it baffled Pythia. Apollo never paused, not once in all her time knowing him.

"What is there? What is needed?"

"A Piece of the Heir himself." That was it? Just a piece of himself?

"So, like a limb or like himself entirely?"

"Something of equal value to that of his soul."

"His brain?" Pythia asked with a nauseated expression, imagining a road with a bloody brain randomly in the middle. Apollo shook his head and peered down at her with his golden eyes, a look of almost disbelief at Pythia's poor thinking. Which hey! She was only human, she wasn't the All-Knowing-And-Powerful-God. 

"It must have celestial properties, it's that which makes a person who they are and what gifted clay bodies with life."

"So not his heart?"

"Maybe." A groan came from Pythia.

"Does the heart have celestial properties?" Pythia asked with a pinched expression.