COMPLEMENTARY [GxG]

Chapter 7 | Xochiquétzal & the Chaos Queen

I breathe a sigh of relief when I find my house empty. None of my family is home, which means I won't need to explain Eris' presence. Her group of bodyguards also came with us, though, and are waiting outside now. They're surely going to tell Iker where Eris is at. Our painting session could be cut short at any minute, so we need to be quick for this to work.

There's no way I'm letting her into my room. I usually paint outside in the backyard, so that's where I make her wait while I get painting supplies.

I still can't believe she's here. I'm almost embarrassed—my house is so small compared to hers, and the only reason it's not a mess is because my dad's a bit of an obsessive cleaner.

We sit in the shade of the porch, and Eris takes out a blunt.

"You are not smoking while we paint," I say.

"I always paint when I'm high," she says. "It's my thing."

"Not here. Not now." I've had enough of Fitz getting high all the time, now I need to deal with Eris, too?

"Just two hits!"

And then she lights up.

"Not in my house," I say. I lean forward and take the blunt right out of her hands and put it out on the ground.

"Bitch!" she exclaims. "That was the last of my stash."

"You can have it back once we're done painting."

"Bruh, not even my mother is this uptight."

"Probably because she didn't raise you right."

Eris looks me up and down. "Who the fuck are you to judge how I was raised?"

"Based on what I've seen from your family, there's definitely a lot lacking."

She stands up, attempting to look intimidating while she stares me down. "Am I here to be insulted, or am I here to paint? Pick one."

I look over our supplies. "Let's paint, then." 

The first thing I do is tell her, in detail, everything I have planned for the painting. Since the theme is "light and dark", doing something that works with the contrasts between shadows and light would be an excellent idea. I usually hate Eris' style of landscape paintings, but it could actually work if I add in a touch of the abstract and surreal.

I tell her about my idea: a desert landscape. The sun will be at the top of the painting, and its rays will shine out onto the world. Everything the sun's rays will be light, illuminated, day. Everything in between the rays of sun will be dark, blanketed by the night. It's day and night in one painting, light and dark juxtaposed side by side.

"How about this," Eris interrupts, just as I'm getting to the thematic significance of the painting, one of the most important parts. "We do a self portrait. Half the face is me. Half the face is you. I'm light, you're dark."

"Why do I have to be dark?" I snap. "Because I'm Black?"

"Nah," she drawls. "You're just the yin to my yang."

I burst out laughing—a rare sound coming from me, since as Fitz always says, I'm always so serious. "I'm not the anything to your anything. And why am I the yin? Why am I the evil one?"

She shrugs. "You're Persephone. Queen of the Underworld. It's a given."

"Oh, don't come at me with Greek mythology. I have nothing to do with that myth."

I can't stand the fact my dad named me after a Greek goddess. Not that I have anything against the Greeks, but we have nothing to do with their culture. I would've preferred something more like us. Something West African. Though being Canadians, any connection our ancestors had to West Africa is pretty much lost.