The thing - Deimos - looked at Aphrodite for a moment, narrowing his blue, fiery eyes until they were nothing but sharp slits of blue and flame. "Mother." He said, and the way that the word rolled off of his tongue was so cold, so empty that Aaron could not imagine that the bountiful goddess of beauty was this thing's real mother. The contempt he held for her was evident in his voice, it was too great. The snakes at the thing's feet let out a long, deep hiss, and each of the snake's head turned towards Eva. A few of them separated from their tangled, Gordian mess at Deimos' feet and slithered up to Eva. The snakes curiously slithered over her feet, twisting amongst her legs. They let out a low, deep hissing - a snake sound that seemed to come from deep within their scaly throats. The creatures then returned to the hem of their master's robes. The thing turned its flaming eyes upon Eva, studying her for a moment. The millipedes in his hair began to slither down his next, down beneath his robes and onto his arms. Aaron realized that the bugs were merely entangled in what was actually a head of curly, dark brown hair, similar in colour and consistency to his own. The millipedes entangled around his clawed hands, twisting and writhing as the snakes did around his feet. The millipedes intermingled with the maggots that pierced the man's knuckle points, devouring them, blood from engorged rot-worms bursting from the wounds, dripping down his hands. Aaron felt uncomfortably reminded of his own blood, his own wounds. The thing finally addressed Eva, but as he did, a chill went through Aaron, a crawling and sickening sensation down the base of his spine. He could not help but feel thankful that the thing - his father, he supposed - was not addressing him in such a manner. His tone had been cold, yes, but not as cold as his greeting towards Eva; "I see my sister has finally joined us." Each word was said sharply, with contempt.
The god of Terror glanced with his flaming eyes towards the goddess of Healing. "His blood is bad." He repeated once again, his voice resonating from his lips. He glanced down towards Aaron ; a much smaller specimen to be sure. The thing flicked its hand towards Aaron, sending blood splattering across his pale, blemished face. It trickled down his chin, and Aaron wiped it away with one of his bloodstained hands - forgetting for the moment that he would only smear more blood across his face. He looked as if he had been painted with a mad artist's brush, at this point, a mad artist who only used red. He did not like the way that Deimos was looking at him, now. There was a sick look on his face, a tension in his deep, dark eyesockets about his eyes and around his mouth. It was the look of a man who did not have equals, a man who always saw animals and meat instead of people. It reminded Aaron - strangely - of his reflection in his surgical tools, when performing an autopsy. He knew that doctors had a high percentage of sociopaths within the profession. It was because, after a time, you no longer saw your patients as people. They were meat, with subtle imperfections and flaws in their bodies that caused problems within their more valuable cuts; nothing more, no less. The man continued his justification to the goddess of Healing, "I know you can feel it, niece. He needs to be bled, and bled soon." His blue eyes flickered in his face, alight with flame.
The god of terror turned to his father, and drifted over to him, propelled by his twisting tendrils of snakes. The god gave Aphrodite a long, hard stare, studying her curves and lines in a way that did not seem friendly, but instead, seemed quite predatory. His hands dripped along the clouds, much like his son's had, when he had been bleeding. What did Deimos mean? Did he mean that his blood was something wrong, something unusual? Was this not something that was anticipated from the child of a god? Aaron couldn't be certain. He still didn't know who his mother was, so whatever information he had was patchy, at best. Aaron glanced side-along to Bob, and began to rub at his wrists, watching flakes of dried blood flick off of his hands. Aaron, taking advantage of his father's distraction toward the other gods, began to move towards Seraphinn, giving Bob a look that seemed to convey a desire for him to retreat along with him - a pleading sort of look. Now, feeling safer at the side of the tranquil, sleepy girl, Aaron felt a wave of relief cross over him. No longer feeling paralyzed due to the appearance of his father, the young student began to tremble anew, locked in a state of anxiety minor enough that an old standby ; he started to pick at his fingers again, carefully this time, to only pull away skin, to make sure that he didn't pierce the skin with one of his trembling nails. But his nails were ragged and skin was thin. He ripped away at his skin, only for blood to spurt up from his knucklebones.
Disgusted that he had let this happen again - Aaron flicked his fingers, trying in vain to get the bleeding to stop. The gesture was oddly similar the gesture that his father had made - the family resemblance was obvious to all, except for perhaps Aaron himself. The blood splattered -- more than what should have come out from his hands. It spewed across the side of his arm, first, blending into the fabric of his already sodden sweater. But the rest of it made angry red splotches on Seraphinn's white flesh, white dress - some of it smeared into her hair. Even if she had made the quick - and not at all languid- action of depending herself from the splatter, her arms would take the full force of the splatter of blood. Deimos' creatures seemed to notice this within a heartbeat of the event occurring. Bah-Dumb. The millipedes lifted their eyeless faces, the remaining maggots turned their suckering mouths, the snakes twisted their unblinking eyes, as if on a pivot, to stare at Seraphinn. They began to slither away from Deimos's body, untangling from his body, and moving, moving with haste, towards the blood-stained girl. Aaron could only watch in horror, as his hands continued to drip.
Deimos, for his part ; smiled. It was a sick smile - the smile of a man taking great pleasure in watching a boy being disemboweled. Aaron knew that smile, the smile that he had seen in textbooks that defined sociopathy. The smile did not quite meet his fiery blue eyes, and he folded his arms across his dark blue robes. "Father." He said coldly, meeting his father's eyes with his pale, flickering ones. Rats crawled out from the folds of his robes, squeaking and twisting - their tails were all knotted together. "Mediocrity will not triumph where Greatness has failed. If Zeus could not hold them back, these children will not." Deimos tilted his head to glance at his son. His smile, faded, rapidly. As if it had never been there at all. "The son is the shadow of the father."
