Of Bravery and Cowardice

The last thing Peg remembers is the grip around her neck and the heat tearing through her belly. And then, darkness.
 
When she next blinks, she is laying on a plush velvet sofa, the pain gone, and the soft sound of a guitar playing nearby.
 
She wakes with a start, hands going to her neck and stomach. She sits up, looking around.
 
"That was stupid," Nick says from his place in an armchair nearby. It's a dark, grand sitting room, but Nick looks completely out of place in his slacks and suspenders. "Brave, though. Brave, but stupid.”
 
She quirks a smile. She is clearly disoriented from the getting killed, but trying to gather herself. "Your place makes you look like a confidant." She manages after a moment.
 
"Rude," he replies. "This isn't normally how I'd meet you, but..." His eyes narrow, wisps of black smoke at the edges. "We're going to have company in a minute.”
 
She sits up a little more, eyes narrowing a bit. "Are we?”
 
"Unfortunately.”
 
"Ah..." She straightens, setting herself for whatever is coming next. "Well. In case I don't get a chance then... thanks.”
 
He gives her a sideways glance and a wink, and then the guitar turns into a scythe, his casual clothes turning into elegant garb of all black, something rich and regal.
 
She watches him transform with an expression that is a mix of curiosity, pride, and sadness.
 
A moment later, the door opens, and in strides probably the last person Peg wants to see right now. Tanith looks terrifying, regal and commanding and so, so dripping with malice. "Good evening, Nicky, Peg.”
 
Peg groans. Somehow she wasn't expecting this. Aloysius was. But she really, truly wasn't. "Tanith. You are looking especially...a lot.”
 
"And you, my darling, are dead," she grins in absolute wicked delight.
 
"Tanith," Nick greets coldly. "Have a seat.”
 
"That does seem to be what happens when one has their throat and entrails ripped out, yes." She returns, somehow still finding Tanith weirdly comforting.
 
Tanith drapes herself into a chair, kicking her feet over the side. "I love that you think your interference means anything here, Nicodemus. She belongs to me.”
 
Peg clicks her tongue. "I thought we had covered that I am neither possession nor plaything.”
 
"Oh, that's all well and good while you're alive, of course," Tanith drawls. "But now you're not.”
 
Nick just glares at his aunt. "You have no claim on her.”
 
"Oh, come now, Tanith darling, where's the fun in that?" Peg counters, relaxing into her seat.
 
Tanith smiles, all sharp teeth and malice. "Her soul is closest to my domain, Nicky. You cannot deny my claim.”
 
Peg tilts her head looking at Tanith and then, finally, to Nicodemus who she has rather been avoiding looking at. She looks back to Tanith. "Closest how, Tanith? Closer to you, as a person, than anyone else? That I will grant because who else have you been willing to share even a moment with? But if you think my soul is cruel, then I am afraid you have not been paying attention.”
 
"Have I not?" Tanith asks, tilting her head. "You can deny it all you want, little manticore.”
 
She shrugs, smiling. "Violence, danger, pain...yes. Those are all a part of me. They always will be. Depravity, even, perhaps? But not cruelty. Not like my mother or the hag who pretended to be my aunt. Not like a goddess who had a child with someone she detests and then left that child to suffer under that unbelievable cruelty. In fact, do you know what, that isn't even why I'm not like you. Do you know why you can't have me, Tanith? It's because you're a fucking coward. Too weak to protect your son from true cruelty. Too weak even to hit Akmon in the fucking face, which fuck me, even he did," she gestures at Nicodemus. "Can't even talk about Morwen. You are a coward Tanith and I may be a lot of gods be damned fucking things, but I am not that.”
 
Tanith pulls a face like she's swallowed an entire lemon.
 
Nick just bursts into laughter, sharp and biting. "Oh, she's got your number, doesn't she?" he smirks.
 
Peg just waits, looking levelly back at Tanith. She said what she needed to.
 
The goddess rises in a flash of shadow and flame and fury, grabbing Peg by the neck and slamming her to the couch. "You wretched little--" she snarls.
 
Nick moves in an instant, the scythe coming up to rest against Tanith's throat. "Let her go.”
 
Peg looks back up at her, eyes full of fire. "Do you know why I'm not afraid of you, Tanith?”
 
"Shut up shut up--" she snarls, her form starting to twist and blur at the edges, bleeding into smoke the color of a fresh bruise, a sickly purple-crimson.
 
She blinks a little, shooting a quick look to Nick before looking back at the blurring, twisting form of Tanith. "Because you are all the petty, scared, nobility that I have known all my life, clinging desperately to the power you think you have. You are my mother, broken and empty, beating me because I am full of life you can't imagine. And," she smirks at Nicodemus, the God of Death, defending her life "because when you care about people, they have your back.”
 
Tanith roars in fury, her form warping further until she is a nightmare, a twisted vision of everything dark and violent and cruel in the world. "*You -will- be mine, Margarete Jaeger," she snarls, acid pouring from her mouth to sizzle against the couch. "Just wait and see." And then she cackles madly, dissolving into a puddle of vitriol.
 
"Well. That...was disgusting." She says, staring at the acidic puddle the remains. "I would replace that sofa, if I were you.”
 
Nick blinks a few times, the black smoke fading from his eyes. "Yeah. You okay?”
 
The question hits her visibly. It isn't that the bravado of moments ago was all an act. It's just that Tanith isn't what scares her. She turns to Nick, tears suddenly filling her eyes. She grabs his shoulders. "Do I get to go home?”
 
"Whoa, whoa," he says, the scythe vanishing so he can catch her arms gently. "That's up to you, Peg.”
 
"Take me home, Nick. He's waiting for me. I promised. By his side. I need... I need to be by his side, Nick." Tears pour down her face. "That's where I'm okay.”
 
He clicks his tongue, wrapping her in a gentle hug for a moment. "He's already calling for you," he says quietly.
 
She hugs him back a brief moment. "I am never going to forget this." Something about her tone comes across as both a deeply sincere thank you and something of a threat.
 
"That fight is not over,' he replies, his voice echoing for a moment before it softens. "But I've got your back, as best I can.”
 
"I'm not afraid of her." She says evenly, wiping the tears from her eyes. "And neither I nor you is alone.”
 
"No," he agrees. "We're not. Alright, get out of here. I'll see you around.”
 
She hugs him again, tightly for a brief moment before letting go. "Dinner. With your boys. Change your sofa. It wasn't a good look for you anyway." She winks.
 
He laughs, showing her to a black door set in the wall -- when he opens it, there's just darkness beyond. "Dinner," he agrees. "Oh, by the way, ran into Red at the park, he looks good. See you later, Peg." And then before she can respond, he shoves her through the door.
 
Rude words are drowned out as she's shoved through the door.