Moira
Streaks of light covered the night sky, and they spread out in all directions, with some of them landing in Greece, others landing in Western Europe, and even some traveling deep into Asia, Africa, and Australia. On the other side of things, these streaks continued all the way across the ocean, one poor bastard landing in northern Canada, while the rest rained down on the midwestern US and the middle of the Amazon Basin. An over performing streak landed in northern Arizona, and another 1 landed deep inside the middle of the Californian wilderness, and the very last 2 landed in LA and San Francisco, respectively.
The dream refocused on a brand new impact crater in Arizona, where a very disheveled Nike was currently pulling herself out of it.
"Okay. So victory in this instance… would be finding civilization. Small goals for the win." With that, she picked a direction randomly and started walking, albeit with a minor limp.
Many minutes later, she found herself on the side of a large and hot road. By this point, she was feeling somewhat tired and also more than a little thirsty. However, she thought that at least she had narrowed down her search to two directions. Though, technically both were correct, she just needed to hope that the one she picked was the shorter of the two directions.
She grabbed a random rod she had found and allowed it to fall as it would, and she began walking in that direction. Her limp was now more pronounced, but she was more assured than ever of reaching her goal. Occasionally, vehicles would come flying past and she would give way for them, but she would not even try to flag them down. Finally, one pulled over in front of her, and when she drew level with their window, they struck up a conversation with her.
"Hey, can we help you ma'am?" They asked.
Nike responded in greek. "Do you two know the way back to civilization?"
"Carl, do you understand a word of what she is saying?"
"No, Thea, I don't think I do."
"Sorry. Do you two know the way back to civilization?" She tried once more in a heavily accented English.
"Umm. We are on our way to Flagstaff. We can give you a ride if you would like?" Thea offered, ignoring Carl's protests.
Nike was tempted to politely turn down her offer, but in all honesty she had no idea how many leagues she was from her goal and her left leg had begun to hurt in a way that could not be ignored. When she looked down, she noticed blisters forming on her feet inside her sandals.
"I would much appreciate your kindness, if you are willing."
Soon enough she had loaded herself up into the backseat of a stranger's car, and she relished the chance to rest her feet. The motion of the car soon lulled her to sleep, and she remained blissfully unconscious all the way to Flagstaff.
Rather than following her on her journey, Moira's dream refocused on the forests of northern California, where Artemis had somehow already prepared a sling and hunted 6 squirrels, 2 rabbits, and a small deer. She appeared to be greatly favoring her right arm, making it somewhat difficult for her to use her sling, and after hunting the deer, she created some strange device which allowed her to drag it all the way back to her camp, where she already had a fairly credible shelter and a small supply of water.
She heard some odd chanting, and following it led to a small cult, apparently worshiping a tiny idol of herself.
"Oh great Goddess Artemis, grant your blessings upon this hunt, and may it bring us prosperity. May the glory of our hunt be your glory, and the feral beauty of it reflect upon you like the light of the fullest moon."
Okay, so she had stumbled upon some weirdos. All she had to do was not get their attention…and the power of their prayer infused her body, and for a moment, her moonsilver eyes glowed as brightly as the full moon, and they all noticed her presence. Some of them immediately dropped to the ground in a position of deep worship, others were paralyzed in fear, and the rest screamed and ran for it, as her unmistakable appearance inspired deep fear within her would-be worshipers.
Within a few more moments, they had all run off, and she made her way back to her camp.
Unfortunately, a black bear had had a similar idea, and so she was forced to encourage it to go elsewhere, and received a few minor wounds for her efforts. Soon, she allowed her wounds and her exhaustion to pull her into unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, the weaksauce cultists spread that tale far and wide, to any who would hear it.
Again the focus of the dream shifted, and soon Moira was watching Athena, apparently in a high level board meeting, make a presentation on share values and some other weird shit that was boring as hell to Moira. The meeting finally drew to a close, and everyone besides her left, leaving her sagging with exhaustion. Based on the way she was carrying herself, she had clearly suffered a head injury and potentially bruised or dislocated a rib or two.
An out of breath man walked in, and whispered some information to her. She responded with a stern, "Are you sure?" Which was answered with a vigorous nod. In the end, the man left.
Athena pulled up a very different screen, which had a map of the western US. There were 4 locations highlighted, one in LA, one in Arizona, one in Northern California, and one in San Francisco. There were some notes, but she erased them with some speed and replaced them with 4 simple labels. The one in LA was labeled with her own name. The one in Arizona was labeled after Nike. The one in San Francisco was labeled 'Hera'. Finally, with a certain amount of triumph, she labeled the one in northern California "Artemis". She also put the words "confirmed sighting" afterwards.
She made a couple phone calls, and no doubt quite a lot of manpower was on the other end, because within 2 hours she got a call back.
"We found her." was the first thing she heard.
She sagged in relief, but pretended to maintain a stern persona over the phone.
"Alright, bring her back here. If she resists, tell her it's direct orders from her favorite half-sister."
The call soon ended, and Athena was left to herself. She slammed her fist down on the conference table so hard that both the table and her fist made ominous cracking noises. "YES!"
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the Queen of the Gods herself did indeed crawl out of the crater there, in a rather famous neighborhood. Unfortunately, she had an audience for this feat. Also unfortunately, she had somehow held onto her wine glass and was holding it in the air triumphantly.
"Ha! Look, I didn't even spill a drop." She boasted in Greek.
A woman who was standing there frowned upon seeing this and asked in English, "Hey, Are you alright ma'am?"
Hera quickly realized the problem, and responded in English. "Look! I managed to spill not even a drop of my wine! I am of course doing great as long as I have my wine!"
"Alright ma'am. It looks like you need more help than I can give you, so I called some of my friends. Is that alright with you?"
Hera grunted noncommittally, then she downed her wine glass in a single go. For some reason, this left her far more intoxicated than normal. She waited for her glass to fill with wine once more, but she waited until the ambulance came to pick her up and it never happened.
"Ma'am, we are just going to bring you to the hospital to get you checked out for injuries, okay?" The EMT asked.
"Can I bring this?" She held up the wine glass.
"Yeah fine, whatever."
Later on, in the hospital, the doctor told her she had broken her collarbone and nearly shattered one of her wrists, and the only reason she wasn't in excruciating pain right now was her level of intoxication which was absolutely dangerous if left untreated. For the first time in centuries, someone directly and frankly confronted Hera with the fact that she had a problem.
She was less than cooperative after this visit, but after being left to her own devices for hours, she recognized that she had been staring at her wineglass for hours, hoping against hope that it would fill once more.
Upon realizing this, she was more receptive when a representative from a drug counseling and rehabilitation center sought her out. It helped that rather than directly blaming her for anything, they talked about how she might be avoiding confronting trauma or abuse in her home life, and that they would provide her with a therapist so she could hopefully begin to develop more healthy coping mechanisms while at the same time confronting the issues in her life she had desperately been avoiding facing. They would also provide her with a place to heal and a support group, so she didn't have to make this journey alone.
The very fact that a group of mortals were talking to her like this and she couldn't deny their arguments is what sent her over the edge. She ended up agreeing to everything, and then she cried herself to sleep once she was left alone.
The dream shifted once more, but rather than follow any of the gods or goddesses, Moira was confronted face to face with the Warrior.
"How long do you plan on letting yourself be weak? You may wear the face and form of a child, but you and I both know that you are not a child. Your training of the witch has been lax so far, and that too is dangerous." The Warrior paused for a moment.
"I hope the events of tonight show you that even though you are not at war, you should still train as though you are, otherwise you might lose everything you hold dear. You have been listening to your wife poison your mind about training, and appeasing her at every turn. However, the time to appease her is over. You are the Weapon, and you will continue to be confronted with incidents that you are meant to solve, whether or not you are ready for them."
"You may believe, and Yulia may even believe, that it is a kindness to let you heal and grow at your own pace, but in truth, this is the greatest cruelty. You should know better than everyone that you won't heal from the things that afflict you, and your only hope is to outgrow them. Likewise, your enemies will not patiently wait for you to gather your strength at the pitiful rate you have been doing so."
"I have taken the liberty of using all the blood you absorbed today to repair your internal injuries and strengthen your body. When you awaken, you need to stop training as mortals do, and begin honing my Weapon."
"I have shown you these things, because these goddesses will eventually come into your life, and you will have more in common with them than you think. However, if you do not grow stronger, you will not only be unable to protect them, you will also be unable to even protect yourself."
"Your sense of time is also laughable. You know that some time has elapsed, and you started with 2 years, but you still think of the time you have remaining as just shy of two years. Let me help you out further. You have 1 year, 10 months, 11 days, and 6 hours to forge yourself into a Weapon that can stand on your own. Time will not wait for you. Continue cultivating, and finding new ways to grow stronger, but do not neglect your weapons training, as your muscle memory for them is nonexistent at this time, and experience alone cannot win battles."
Moira wasn't allowed to respond before reality went into a deep acid trip spiral, and when she had finally recovered from it, she found herself awake…in a hospital room.
"Ah, fuck. Again?"