Web of Intrigue-ing Romance

(OOC Note: I was getting sick during this session so the details are going to be a bit foggy.)

So, we all met on Lexi's balcony the next morning and she laid out what was eating at her. Basically, the wedding is a big freakin' mess. It's hard to make sense of it without Lexi's illustration, but let me see if I can lay it out.

Harmonia and Nikolas are to be married. Nikolas loves Harmonia, but Harmonia loves Victor and Victor loves Harmonia. Aphrodite used her powers to make Harmonia and Donnie fall in love. A girl named Briggette is in love with Donnie, but Donnie doesn't know to make a move, while another girl named Marie loves Donnie but he has no feelings for her (and needs to be told the bad news). To complicate things, Aphrodite wants HER match to happen, while Hera is pleased with Harmonia and Nikolas getting together. So there's Divine egos behind things, which makes the situation all the more difficult.

So, we decided to clear our heads and do some shopping.

Which turned into something else.

Weird creatures with giant snakes like they were attack dogs started roaming the city. We started to fight the one closest to us, taking out one of the snakes while one of them put a dent in my armor (thank goodness for that extra layer Leonidas gave me).

I guess the vacation is officially over.

More Thoughts on the Band

I've got a bit of downtime right now, nothings happened since last night. So, I figure I'll talk a bit more about the band. The good and the bad.

Andrew: He's still something of a mystery to me, I haven't had a lot of conversations with him. He's very much the brain of our little group, coming up with the plans and strategies. I hesitate to call him aloof, though that may just be my experience with him.

Lexi: My fellow Greek. She's still sweet as candy. If Andrew is the brain, she's the heart. She really only wants everyone to get along. She's still far to meek, though. She needs some confidence boosters, or something, then she'd be able to really wield her beauty like a weapon.

Hal: Since I did some body analogies above, I might as well keep that going. Hal would be our body, I guess. I can take a beating, sure, but I get the feeling that, between the two of us, I'd give out first. My only real problem with him is that, when he decides he's in the right, he's impossible to reason with.

Kennedy: She's our eyes. This girl is badass walking. That whole debacle in Germany? That was some intense stuff and she handled it like a pro. I do wish she'd relax and let her hair down, from time to time. She's just always so... focused... intense. Yeah.

Claire: My sweet (and sour) Claire. She's the group's... um... hands? She builds and breaks stuff, so I guess that works. She's quickly becoming the love of my life and I've found that vulnerable heart under that prickly exterior. She worries about me a lot. Sometimes, though, she needs to get a better handle on her tendency to (or advocate for) shoot first and ask questions later.

What part am I? I'm the weapon that the arms swing, of course. ;)

Black Sheep's Arrival

My conversation with Harmonia got interrupted by the sounds of horse whinnying and Lexi's shouting. Which reminded me what I was originally going after when I got side-tracked. Well, when we got there... it wasn't the sight I was expecting.

The Centaurs had grabbed a hold of Andrew and were in the process of carrying him off... instead of Lexi. A stare-down happened and we managed to get them to release Andrew without undue bloodshed. I only stayed my ax because we're in someone else's place.

The party resumed with minimal fuss and that's when Eris showed up. Claire and I dug her greek/punk fusion, but then she opened her damn mouth. Oh, she's a bitch who likes to cause trouble. I overheard something about the Centaurs being because of her. Then, when Lexi tried to smooth things over, she started taking jabs at her. I made a snide comment, but generally let Lexi handle things. Which got smoothed over so well, I ended up making a pass at Eris. In retrospect, that was pretty weird of me.

Things settled back in and I chatted up this cute scion of Susano-o, named Yukiko. Then important people started arriving. Hera arrived, Aphrodite made her grand appearance (I thought I knew what hotness was, having been around Lexi, but wow.... I mean... wow....), then Apollo and Artemis arrived. I was giddy to see Artemis for the first time!

Claire and I went over to speak with her when she made a point of not mingling, instead opting to chat with the nerieds out in the pool. Claire and I sat down to chat, though it seemed like Claire had more questions than I did. Claire had seen Artemis in her visions at the Temple and was confirming that it was really a manifestation of her insecurity.

We chatted some more and Artemis warned us that we should avoid getting involved in Aphrodite's affairs/schemes. She didn't appreciate my joke about getting involved "even for a couple of hours". It was just a joke. You think I'm going to roll around in bed with my friend's mom? Seriously? You go for a cousin or maybe a really hot sibling, but never a mom!

Some Vacation and a Wedding

Important things happened, then a lot of wandering around happened, then more important stuff happened. This'll probably get wordy.

We got shown to Asgard for a big ceremony as Thoth and Odin put their plans into action. It wasn't what I was expecting. I don't even know WHAT I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. Y'see Thoth and Odin enacted some big godly-super-mojo (Andrew explained it as becoming Avatars) and Thoth let himself be bound to the Zvran, the Titan of Time as it's dominant Avatar.

Y'see the Titans are vast embodiments of whatever they are the Titan of. So vast, they're more like an infinitely big world unto themselves. They create Avatars, which represent concepts of their "element", and the most powerful Avatar drives the Titan's personality. So, with Thoth now Zvran's dominant Avatar, fimbulvintr is indefinitely held at bay. Andrew's been pretty shaken up by this, I hope he's coping well.

Now, while in Asgard, I sought out Brynhildr. I wanted to know if my vision was real or if I still had a chance with her. Things... didn't turn out as I'd envisioned. I really should have known better, it seems stupid, in retrospect... *sigh* The bare-bones of it is that Bryn will be bound only to whoever finds the ring Andvarinaut and that person alone. The decree of Fate is such that there'll be no room in that relationship for anyone else. It hurt, having to give up. I worry that someone unworthy will find the ring and Bryn will be bound to them.

So, during the next couple of months, I spent more time with Claire. It reminded me how much I've come to care about her and that it was selfish of me to think I could balance two women in my life. Going on real dates that don't involve end of the world scenarios was a refreshing change of pace.

I also took a trip to Greece, just to see the motherland, you know. That's where something amazing happened. I was playing tourist and seeing Thermopolae, where the 300 Spartans and their allies stood against Xerxes' invading army. I was visited by a vision of the long-dead king: Leonidas. He told me he was proud to see another Greek fight back against the Persians and led me to a very well hidden cave. The cave turned out to be a tomb and inside I found Leonidas' armor. He bit me wear it with honor.

The other thing I had been doing was trying to help MIST get it's infrastructure back online. I'm not letting this alliance of pantheons fall apart, just because the Yazata got a bug up their collective ass. It's going to take a lot of doing, but I think we can make this work. Andrew's been working on expanding their libraries and archives. He's also looking for ways to cleanse the last of my taint.

Then came the wedding. (I love weddings, drinks all around!)

We all got our invites and went to this coastal city in Greece. Funny, having just been there, right? An envoy met up with us (and it was great seeing everyone gathered together) and led us to where the villa where the wedding party was being held. It was in a small Terra Incognita and it had been commissioned by Aphrodite. And the place was gorgeous.

I made the offhand comment that I'd like to have a place like that, and Claire said it would be subject to her approval. Then we bantered about moving in together. The way we banter like that, you know it means it's going to happen! *squee!*

So we met one of Lexi's half-siblings. A fellow by the name of Donnie Rhodes. He was a pretty cool guy, it felt like I'd known him all my life, real easy to get along with. Then Lexi made an entrance that made everyone in the room gawk (Claire asided to me that we should drag her into a bedroom. I quipped that I thought we were done looking for a third person. Heh.).

So we got to chatting and Hal took a swim (and it looked like he was going to get ganged up on by the nymphs in the pool). Kennedy let me and Claire know that a bunch of the centaurs who were gawking at Lexi had disappeared. Centaurs, like satyrs, have a poor (or good) reputation for randy rowdyness and I got worried for Lexi's safety.

My search for her got interrupted when I (literally) bumped into the bride, Hermonia, the adopted daughter of Hera (I haven't met the groom yet, a son of Ares). So, we got to talking and my ego got padded a bit. Apparently the story of my victory over Tishtrya has been making the rounds. She pointed out her friend Victor at the grill, who wanted to hear the story.

Then Claire ran off towards Donnie, who I only then noticed had a gun leveled at Victor.