This is the beginning of a longer story. It is a retelling of Persephone, but with steampunk elements.
Content warning: Violence
“You can’t do this!”
Strong hands grasp my arms and waist, rendering me useless as Percy is dragged away. Her slight frame and blonde curls disappear behind the throng of bodies that block my path to her.
A shadow looms. Eurynomos. “We are all in agreement. Now settle down and don’t make a scene.” By “we,” he means a handful of community elders, in a conversation that neither I nor Percy were privy to, nor the other half of leadership who I know would have side with me, who would have stopped them as I was currently failing to do.
His blue-gray eyes are devoid of any remorse, and he has the audacity to actually smile – smile – at me. I want to smack that condescending grin off his senile face and curse him to the depths of Hades. But I can’t, literally, because two men are holding my hands behind my back, restraining me from doing just that… among other things. Eurynomos turns his back to me, walking down the stairs.
“Eurynomos! Stop!”
The community leader ignores me, instead joining the rest of his minions on the airship, the largest of the fleet and the only one left here after the others were sent off to help with the war in the north. The crew raises the sails, preparing for flight. Eurynomos ties my little sister to mainmast on the deck by her wrists. She looks up and says something, but whatever she says is promptly drowned out as gigantic engines whirl to life.
I will NOT let Eurynomos’ fear destroy my sister.
In one last attempt to board the ship, I kick behind me to where I hope is the location of a kneecap. My foot doesn’t connect but instead sails through the air behind me, sending my weight forward. The brief loosening of the grip on my arms is quickly replaced by a squeezing of my chest and a breathlessness as I feel the other man lift me up off my feet, which is wholly unfair for a grown man to use his weight to overpower a malnourished seventeen-year-old girl.
Regardless, I kick my feet in the air wildly. The man is undeterred, his arms holding fast. I let my body go limp and watch as the large wooden hull rises in front of me. It blasts me with a whoosh of air. And with that, it blows away any hope of grabbing Percy and escaping into the surrounding forest, at least before I do anything drastic or dangerous. Now, I have no choice.
As soon as my feet touch the ground again, I yank my arms free. To Hades with them all. Time to be drastic. I will not sit here helplessly as they force my sister into using her power. The last time she used her foresight, she saw our own mother’s death. And despite our race back home nine months ago, we could not prevent the disaster from happening. Percy was so innocent then. Now, she wakes up screaming every morning, reliving our mother’s murder over and over again. I have never felt so utterly helpless in those moments right after she wakes, holding her and whispering in her ear that she is okay until she brings herself back into the world of the living. I cannot imagine what another episode would do to her, what horrors she might see.
I don’t care how scared Eurynomos is the war, of being called in the last draft; forcing my sister to use her power is not okay.
I run up the trail that circumnavigates the mountain, my desperation fueling my legs. I wrap my skarpa around my mouth and nose to protect my lungs from the dust. I breathe deeply through the sheer material, imagining the air relieving my burning muscles from the run.
We should have left when we had the chance.
I knew the risks with staying in one place for too long. But Percy wanted to stay. And I was too relieved at the respite, of finally having warm meals brought to me, not going hungry when I failed in my hunts, that for the first time in nine months, I relented. And so, we stayed.
I was a fool.
... To be continued ...