New Kid on the Block

[soter_dot_com]

There weren't many times when Soter wasn't busy. Mankind had exploded all over the place and no matter where they went or what they did, they always seemed to want to hurt each other. The cities were the busiest, of course. Muggings, rapes, good old fashioned robberies with a gunmetal twist... There was always something for him to do, and there was

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[moirae_dot_com]

Cloey had returned from Barcelona with a bit of a trudge in her step. She decided to walk back to her brownstone from the courtyard of the Greek Quarter rather than go straight back there, mostly because she now knew (even if she didn't remember) that it was a little... messy there. Her chiton had been exchanged for a pair of jeans, an orange t-shirt, and a navy blue hoodie with a tiny Eeyore over the left breast. Her hair was pulled up into two braids starting high at the back of her head, and she was looking down as she walked.

She wasn't feeling particularly lovely, but Soter's presence came as a surprise. Looking up, she offered him a smile, though she wasn't quite so exuberant as usual. Not that he'd know the difference - she knew him, but she was fairly certain he didn't know her.

"Oh, hello, Soter," she greeted him, then offered him a hug of welcome, squeezing with proper enthusiasm, but not quite leaping at him the way she might have.

"It's nice to see you. What brings you up here?"

[soter_dot_com]

First the girl nearly ran him over in her distraction, then she hugged him like an anacoda. He had absolutely no idea who she was, but she apparently knew him. The second thing he noticed about her was that she seemed really young. And the third thing was that even her smile seemed sad. There was that faint shrink-wrapper look to her eyes, and he wondered if she'd been crying recently.

He returned her hug almost immediately, his embrace providing a great deal of warmth and comfort. It was part of what he did, after all, and she - whoever she was - looked like she could use it. He'd forgotten that sometimes gods and goddesses needed saving, too.

"Hello, um. It's good to see you too. I came because I hadn't been up here in a while," Understatement of the last two millenia. "And I wanted to see how it was. I... I'm sorry. Miss...?"

[moirae_dot_com]

Oh, he was a good hugger.

Cloey hugged all different kinds of people, and therefore, had experience all different kinds of hugs. And Soter?

This was top quality hugging.

Without even really realizing it, she'd settled in. All the crying and the aching and the hurting and the sadness and the guilt and the pain had done their work, and she'd accepted it. But now she was tired and sad and didn't have a place to go yet - because the house needed fixing - so this? This was good.

"Oh, you don't know me," she said, blinking up at him. Then she realize that she was hugging him a whole lot, which probably seemed to him a weird thing for her to do because he didn't know her. So she pulled away, albeit reluctantly, and explained.

"I'm Clotho. Cloey. Clo. I'm the youngest of the Fates - the Maiden."

She wriggled her fingers at him. "I'm the Spinner... I know everybody."

She paused.

"Sorry about the hugging bit... it's been sort of a stressful few days."

[soter_dot_com]

"Clotho, of course! I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I don't think I've ever seen you outside the temple before. Things change, I guess, huh

[moirae_dot_com]

Cloey had been staring at the remote intently. The remote at the temple she'd shared with Khesis and Attie had been lost almost from the instant they'd acquired it - they found it periodically, but it basically consisted of numbers, channel up, and channel down. They changed the channel most usually by force of will, and the same went for messing with the VCR tape. This was one of those crazy ones, with a million buttons that all looked almost exactly the same

[soter_dot_com]

She made her smile more than he had in quite some time. Watching her bounce around in his recliner over what was smirkable at best... there was something just adorable about it. Wow, she could really squeal on high notes, though. He shook his head and took a drink from the bottle in his hand as she pondered the idea of a pet

[wisdom_dot_com]

Athena did her best to not invade on the pair, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The Wisdom Goddess cleared her throat in the company of the two, head bowed respectfully in hopes to not gain too much flack for her intrusion. With her hands clasped in front of her, Athena waited patiently to be noticed. When she finally had their attention, her grey eyes fell to Clotho with a seriousness she had never wished to hold.

“I am sorry to invade your privacy, but I am afraid that urgent matters at hand have brought me here.” Athena explained apologetically, “Thanatos has sent me, Clotho. We need your help.”

Almost uneasily, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and spared Soter a glance before addressing the Fate with the message the Death God had ordained her with. Athena brushed her dark hair from her face and then sighed; she did not desire to broadcast Hades condition - so she shared a private thought with the Fate.

’Hades is very ill, Clotho. Something bad has happened and if we cannot get you to help…he

[moirae_dot_com]

Clotho's eyes widened, her hand clapped over her mouth, and she blushed harder when Soter spewed his beer. When he sat on the arm of her recliner, she looked up at him cautiously, her cheeks still tinged with pink, even as he spoke gently to her, and touched her hair. He was making her all wobbly inside, because he was so, so, so cute, and so, so, so lovely. She swallowed it, but it caught in her throat and kept her from being able to speak. So instead, she nodded at him, because he was exactly right again, but then