YOUR MOUTH IS POISON

Her attention to Raisa is drawn only by the ebony woman?s voice, panicked-stricken gaze searching over her love for a moment as if searching for defect. When finding none she surges forth, head seeking to bury into the dark woman?s neck, an anchor in all of this chaos. Yes, she?s okay. She?s yet to be afflicted, but her little ones are not. ?Our children?Hephaestus, Andromeda, Nemesis?.they?re?.they?ve been damned, Raisa. The gods are damning me,? she tells her love, sobbing quietly. She can?t breathe, she can?t breathe, she feels afraid and panicked. How does she right this? She cannot think of living without her children in this world, cannot bare to imagine their little forms taken from her before their time.

?I don?t know what to do,? she laments. Raisa is here, Raisa is safe, but Virgil?s heart knows only fear and panic. This is not the same as when she?d been torn apart by the bear she?d protected Olympus from; at least then she knew, with time, she?d recover. She knows not if her children, and by proxy herself, can recover from this. She knows not what to do. And her mind refuses to clear up for a moment to allow her to think.