messageforyou | For refusetofight

For refusetofight

It's not long after Anthesteria that the vulture arrives. It has the same rattling rusty call, the same ugly plucked red head. It finds Achilles wherever he is in the Underworld, and it bears a message written on parchment.

Told you need to hear about human minds!

Happy to chat :) Meet me at the mouth of the Styx

Bring an adult mortal with as little divine blood as you can, who you don't mind hearing what we have to discuss

- P

Prometheus has set up outside the Temple of Styx. It'd be rude for him to invade Hades' realm. Rude--how interesting to consider through the lens of his work, knowing that it's a territorial response. Gods are just as humans, just as animals. They dislike it when those who don't belong wander in their territory.

He looks a sight better than he did when Achilles last saw him, but still not particularly good. His salt and pepper hair is pulled back, his beard now trimmed neatly, and his clothes not quite so ragged (though they're still streaked with clay). His hands are still too thin, gnarled like tree roots with bulging arthritic knuckles, and his joints are swollen and muscles withered.

His chiton is pulled up and clasped so that the scarring over his liver isn't visible anymore, and he might look to all the world as an elderly, arthritic man, if it weren't for his shadow. It spills out behind him, cast by the campfire he's built, and it is so large that it fills the whole clearing.

He's boiling water over the fire. He has a bag full of things, sitting by his side. A cheetah, his newest creation, lies languidly over his legs, keeping his joints warm and keeping pressure on them to cease their aching momentarily.

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“I’m not disappointed in you, only by the circumstances and the men who led you astray,” Achilles explains softly, nodding to both Neoptolemus and Pyrrhus in turn.

Achilles has done his best to be honest thus far, but he absolutely can’t tell his son about Lyra—not yet—so he simply says, “Someone gave me a fresh perspective on the matter. Someone I cannot yet name.”

He leaves it at that and soldiers ahead:

“Meeting you in the flesh—that is what made you real and whole to me—but the words we exchanged at Athens were too few.” And Hermes was clamping Neoptolemus’ worst tendencies, but he doesn’t say that aloud. “I was hungry to know more about you, lad, and so I took the other road open to shades: dreams.”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Pyrrhus keeps babbling, clinging to his father. The dream shudders. Neoptolemus wants to grab his younger self and slam his head into the table until his nose breaks. Neoptolemus hates him for how pathetic he sounds. Neoptolemus wants to destroy this piece, wants to choke the little boy until he stops pleading, and the colors around him sharpen in dark contrasts with his self-destructive impulse, the desire to beat the weakness out of himself.

Pyrrhus feels the danger radiating from Neoptolemus. He hides his face in his father's neck, cowering, like perhaps his father can protect his son from a lifelong habit of hurting himself to choke out his own vulnerabilities.

But the king isn't passionate like Neoptolemus, or sympathetic like Pyrrhus. He's suspicious and mistrustful, unwilling to so easily accept that a good thing suddenly would happen. He narrows his eyes at Achilles, the first flicker of emotion from the king.

"After everything, you don't deem me worthy of the truth?" The king huffs, then waves dismissively, like it doesn't really matter. It does matter, but not to the king. That's for his younger pieces. The king is best suited for coldly pushing away any threat, and his father's affection bears the clear and present threat of later being taken away. Where Neoptolemus craves his father's pride and Pyrrhus craves his love, the king is ready to push him away because not having any of it in the first place is less destructive than having it and losing it. "Well, now you know more. I am a real person who didn't cease to exist in Skyros, or in Troy, for that matter. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

Achilles turns his body to put himself between Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus, or at least block Pyrrhus’ view of his more violent aspect. “Please be still, both of you. There’s no cause for panic or anger.”

He frowns at the king’s tone, but he isn’t going to budge when it comes to Lyra. He isn’t going to risk her safety, or break the promise he made to Hermes. “You will know the truth someday. Until then, know that there is another person who cares deeply for you.”

Achilles considers the long list of questions he has for his son—all of them deep and existential—but then he remembers Lyra’s eager questions about her brother … and in truth, he wouldn’t mind knowing the answers himself. These are the little details he would know if he’d had the chance to raise his son.

He finally cocks his head and asks, “Which color do you like best? And … is there an animal you’re particularly fond of?”

The king is ready for something prying and perhaps even insulting, something that claws into the painful and personal--which is probably why the colors around him brighten, caught off guard at the question. It's surprising enough that the younger aspects pause their sturm and drang, and for the first time since the dream started, all three aspects glance at each other in something other than contempt. Their collective surprise seems to have, for the moment, completely diffused the conflict that had been brewing.

"...I like green," Pyrrhus offers after the different pieces share a surprised hesitation. "Not bright grass green, but the kind of green the sea looks like when the day is just a little cloudy."

"It's best when the foam is white and blends with the sand," Neoptolemus adds quietly.

"I don't have any particular affection for animals," the king says.

"Liar," Neoptolemus adds less quietly.

"I like seals," Pyrrhus corrects, relaxing in his father's embrace and leaning back to grin at his face. There's a memory here. The smell of salt and sea, perched on a rock and watching his favorite animals go by. "I always have. They look very funny when they move on land."

Pyrrhus remembers, and it colors the war tent. The seals wubba-wubbaing along the beach, sand sticking to their wet skin, and it always made him laugh no matter how bad his day was. They must know that he has a little sea in him too, because they don't run when he approaches. When he touches their noses, they squish their whole heads back, and that makes him laugh even harder than their flopping. Sometimes, now that he's a grownup, he still pokes seal noses to see them squish back. Just as long as only Molossus is watching, of course.

Lyra gave her father a valuable tool, whether she intended to or not. The tension loosens, as if a taut, nervous thread was snipped. Achilles smiles fondly at Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus’ eager responses. He laughs at the memory of bouncing seals that blooms into the dream.

Pyrrhus’ grin instantly reminds him of Lyra. A shame this gentle, enthusiastic boy is buried so deep behind calloused layers; Achilles’ two children would have so much in common.

The king remains carefully detached, but Achilles keeps going. The two other aspects of his son are plenty receptive to the change of topic. “I love all the beautiful greens the sea has to offer. And so many of its creatures. Octopi in particular. Clever, playful little beasts.”

Achilles hums and bounces Pyrrhus thoughtfully in his arms. “What about food? What would you gladly eat every single day?”

"Figs," Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus say at the exact same time. The king looks off to the side pensively, crossing his arms, unwilling to trust this strange turn but not desiring to stop it either. He remembers his mother grumbling about how messily he ate his figs as she scrubbed his cheeks with a wet napkin. He remembers doing the same thing to Molossus, his chubby face puckered in displeasure as he's forced to sit still long enough for his father to wipe the smeared fig off his chin.

"Figs are the best," Pyrrhus says. Pyrrhus, of all the pieces, seems the most excited to share these small, mundane things. Perhaps because it's his father asking. Perhaps because so few people have ever been interested enough to ask before. "Sometimes Erasmos makes figs with pomegranate seeds and grilled feta on bread and it's so good. Erasmos is the best at cooking."

There's another memory associated with that. He took Erasmos as a slave because he belonged to a warrior who died to him in his battle to conquer Epirus. Erasmos was hunchbacked and in great pain from too many years of hard toil, so Neoptolemus only assigned light household tasks to him. This was apparently a novelty, as Erasmos was unfailingly loyal for it. Neoptolemus spent many chilly winter days sitting by the oven as Erasmos cooked, his careful wrinkled hands putting together the best meals as he hummed. When Neoptolemus bought Lykos for his writing ability, Lykos begged that Neoptolemus purchase his four-year-old daughter, Galene, as well, since he was terrified that she'd be sold to the brothel if no one bought her for housework. Since Pergamus had only died less than a year prior, Neoptolemus couldn't help but be moved to pity and bought the girl, and instead of having her wander unsupervised around the city, he asked Erasmos to teach her how to cook. Neoptolemus has many fond memories of idly making bracelets from shells he finds on the beach, sitting by the warmth of the fire and listening to Erasmos instruct Galene.

Galene has repaid the generosity tenfold, of course. She's Molossus' favorite playmate. She's practically a woman grown now, but she will still squat on the floor and jump like a frog with Molossus to entertain him. She wears many of the bracelets Neoptolemus makes, since he has few people to give them to and no interest in keeping them once they're finished, and they rattle on her arms as she jumps.

"Do you have a favorite food?" Pyrrhus asks eagerly, eyes bright.

“Truly, we share the same blood,” Achilles laughs, teeth flashing. “I love figs, too. The fresh ones, mind, not dried. No, never dried.”

It’s easy to forget that all three of these aspects constitute the same man. Pyrrhus is nested under a layer of Neoptolemus, Neoptolemus is contained by the king. Like the heartwood of a tree sealed by countless rings of sapwood and a rough bark over it all.

This core is what still allows his son to show gratitude to Erasmos, or generosity to Lykos and Galene. Pyrrhus gathers a semblance of a family around himself, even if most of his blood relations are gone.

He removes the cloth from Pyrrhus’ forehead—it seems his headache has abated. “Would that I could try Erasmos’ cooking.”

Achilles studies Pyrrhus’ sincere face, still soft and round. He wonders if he can tease out more of what his son truly wants from life. “If the gods were to grant you one wish, lad, what would you ask for?”

"Don't answer that," the king says sharply, suddenly all protective thorns and razor edges, like the brambles around the rose.

"How can I answer? I don't know," Neoptolemus snaps, bristling at the king's sudden intensity, bristling at the king telling them what to do.

But Pyrrhus doesn't react to the king, or to Neoptolemus. His bright eyes grow sad as he looks at his father's face. He knows what they want. He knows what they want so ardently that they've buried it deep in their heart where they can't hear it anymore, and the gnawing pain of the yearning can't hurt as much.

"I want my family," he says. "I want them like everyone else has."

He wants a living mother and father, together, who he can serve and confide in and love. He wants Pergamus and Amphialus. He wants them to be alive and healthy and guiding Molossus as his big brothers. He wants his sons to have a mother who loves them like Deidamia loved Pyrrhus. He wants his grandparents and aunts to love him rather than tolerate him. He wants to have people who he trusts to hold him when he weeps like he trusted his mother... and there's no one he trusts with that, not even Aspasia, for all her fearsome loyalty.

He can tolerate the headaches, the tablets, the incessant day to day struggles. He just wants what he sees everyone else have, and what the Fates took away from him.

Achilles wraps Pyrrhus in an embrace. He knows that yearning: for a peaceful home, a happy family. Fate took that from him, too.

“Oh, Pyrrhus,” he whispers against the top of the boy’s head. His eyes flick upwards, though, at the king and Neoptolemus. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone wants love. To care for others, and to be cared for in turn.”

I want my family. It’s such an achingly simple thing. Not glory, fame, power, riches. It’s the same lesson that Achilles learned: nothing is more valuable than the people he loves.

“I wish I had been wise enough to leave Troy. To gather you and your mother and return to Phthia.” Achilles was immortalized in song, but was that worth the cost? How many lives were ruined in that pursuit? “Truly, I would have rather spent ten years learning you love the color green and seals and figs than camped on that wretched shore.”

Pyrrhus wraps his arms tightly around his father's neck and buries his face in his shoulder to hide his sudden tears. Like perhaps if he clings hard enough, he can bring his father back to life.

Neoptolemus' eyes suddenly are red. He crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling moodily rather than responding.

The king pinches the bridge of his nose and puts a hand on his hip, furrowing his brow like he's trying to fend off a headache.

"What's the point of this?" the king asks before taking a deep, huffing breath. "You're dead. So is Mom, so is Pergamus, so is Amphialus, so is most of the family. What does wishing do but upset them?" He gestures broadly at Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus, as if he's wholly apart from them and not one piece of the same whole.

“Neither should you carry on as if none of it ever happened,” he retorts. “Grief is a wound that festers if it’s covered before it’s bled clean.”

Pyrrhus’ tears soak through his chiton and Achilles blinks at the sting in his own eyes. “You lost a father, I lost my chance to raise a son. In truth, I haven’t fully grieved that myself.”

A tear slips down Achilles’ cheek and emotion tightens his throat. It was easy to hide behind disappointment and anger at stories of his son’s deeds, to hold his own sadness at arm’s length. Now that he’s glimpsed his son’s suffering—the tender boy twisted and scarred by war—there’s no avoiding it.

The words hit sharp, because they know what it's like to be denied the chance to raise a son. Pergamus, swollen and stiff with the snakebite clear on his arm. Amphialus, so small and cold and still a little bluish, held under his father's chiton in a desperate attempt to warm him to life as he rasps his first breaths. The grief makes the dream shake.

But it also shakes loose something else, something only the king is willing to face. Pergamus and Amphialus was taken from him. Achilles chose to leave.

"You call this carrying on like nothing happened?" the king isn't so calm anymore. His eyes are red with unshed tears. The grief tears at every piece of the whole. "I dedicated my life to your memory. To the memory of all of you. And now you come to me and say that none of what I did was what you wanted, that you want a gentle and wise son with a happy family, and everything I suffered for you was a disappointment."

"Don't talk to him like that!" Neoptolemus bristles, ready to defend his father, but in this the king is more powerful. His presence fills the war tent, pulling it back from the memories of their dead children, their dead mother, of seals and the color green, and it pushes Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus away forcefully, their bodies present but losing more and more definition.

"Did you ever think of my disappointment, father?" the king snaps, sweeping his hand to throw the wax tablets to the floor. All the plans are useless anyway, useless as the thoughts of a broken head. "Did you ever think how it might have felt to wait for years, hoping every boat I saw on the horizon was yours? Did you ever think about how frightening it was to go to war at my age, or how hard it was to teach myself how to be a man, or how fucking hard I worked to honor your memory? Did you ever think how it might feel to wait thirty damned years just to have you show up because someone else, someone apparently more important than your son, said you should, and just hear you tell me my choices are foolish and I should do something else instead? When, oh, apparently you didn't know fuck all about those choices since the ones I made when I was ten?"

The fading blotchy colors of Pyrrhus holds onto his father as tight as he can, but his voice is fading as he says, "Stop being angry, you can't be angry, he'll go away again, stop it!"

Achilles nods his head soberly. He knows this rage well: it’s the fury that accompanies immense grief. This is as much a part of bleeding the wound as Pyrrhus’ tears.

“Thank you for your honesty, lad. I can’t argue any of your points and I won’t defend my actions. You’re correct; no amount of wishing will change our past. All I want is to meet you here where you are.” He waves a hand at the billowing war tent and the clinging vestiges of Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus. “You’ve endured greater losses than I and still stand strong. That much is abundantly clear. If you achieve nothing else, I will still be proud.”

He glances between Pyrrhus and the king. “If my visits are a balm, I will return in the ways death allows. And if the sight of me causes you too much suffering, I will leave you be. You need only ask.”

None of them know how to cope with being faced with kindness and understanding in the midst of their rage. They expect rejection, they expect fear, they expect anger, they expect disgust. For a moment the dream trembles with how much the king wants Achilles to fight back, wants the bitter and painful familiarity of violence and rejection, but it's not coming.

The messy dream cracks. Blotchy, painted flashes of loss. Odysseus sitting Pyrrhus down to gently tell him his father is dead. Kneeling at his father's tomb on the shore of Troy. Kneeling at his mother's deathbed, holding her hand. Walking out of Lycomedes' palace, hoping that perhaps one, any one, of his family members might call him back. The last shouting match with Peleus before leaving Phthia. His nails bleeding as he claws the earth, digging Pergamus' grave. Amphialus' cold little body, cradled against his bare skin, like he could will warmth back into him.

The dream compresses, shaking with the pressure of grief, and then the king screams. He screams, picking up something from the table and throwing it against the wall.

The something isn't defined, but it breaks very spectacularly, splintering and shattering into sharp glittering bits that flash colors from across the emotional spectrum. Grief. Love. Fear. Every little piece skittering on the floor in patterns of longing so deeply for connection and fearing so much the possibility of opening up to it to then lose it once more, but longing so intensely for a relationship with his father.

He's had enough of losing people. If he loses one more person, he thinks he'll throw himself into the sea.

The world asserts itself, but now they're not in a war tent. Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus are gone, tucked into some other part of the dream. They're now on a beach. One with glittering sand and water that shimmers with the backs of seals swimming in the distance.

The king slouches on the sand and just holds his head in his hands, spent. Unable to even speak from how his outburst has exhausted him.

Through all of it, Achilles’ face remains the same: a sympathetic furrow to his brow, mouth drawn flat. He might as well be watching himself destroy his shelter at Troy. Even the anguished scream could be the very same that erupted from his own chest when he laid eyes on Patroclus’ lifeless body.

But Pyrrhus has experienced that agony four times over—and with no one to hold and reassure him. No one to help him carry that immense weight.

Maybe Achilles can change that for once, if only on this dreaming beach. He sinks down in the sand beside his son and loops an arm firmly around his shoulders. “You carry a heavy burden. I see how tired you are.”

He lets out a steadying exhale. “You’ve no reason to trust me, but I hope you’ll try, lad. I want to help.”

Gods, but he's so tired. And he's so unused to people being able to withstand being present for his rages. Only Aspasia ever seems truly comfortable when he's angry. Distantly on the water, there's a memory of her sweeping up the shattered remains of pottery he destroyed in a fit of rage, then bringing him an amphora of wine and pouring him a cup and somehow just knowing when he's ready for her to say, My ears are big enough for listening if you've use for them, my lord.

The king take a moment before leaning into the embrace. It's hesitant. Like he's testing if it can hold his weight.

"Don't get my hopes up if you're going to leave again. If you do, I..."

He trails off, because the king deals with concrete threats and consequences, and there's nothing he'd even want to threaten his father with. The truth is that he'd probably just shatter into nothing if his father loses interest in him after everything else. Find a way to kill himself so his body can never be laid to rest, and he'll never have to go to the Underworld and face anyone ever again.

The hesitation doesn’t surprise Achilles. Patroclus was the same; early on, he wasn’t used to casual affection and flinched at every touch. Even something as casual as a hand on his arm. It surprised Achilles then, but he’d grown up with Peleus’ hugs and tickles and kisses on the head and hair ruffles …

“I won’t leave you waiting again. You have my word.” Achilles invites Pyrrhus’ head against his shoulder. He knows now that there’s a small part of him still hungry for this kind of comfort. “I’m a shade, Pyrrhus, but there are dreams. There are rituals of summoning. There are ways to exchange messages.”

Achilles gingerly strokes his son’s hair, as his father once did to soothe him. “I want to know more about you and Molossus. About your household and your kingdom. Your joys and triumphs—as well as your fears and worries.”

The king--Neoptolemus--Pyrrhus--he hesitates a moment longer. Then he relents, gingerly resting his head on his father's shoulder, and letting out a slow, deep sigh.

All the pieces are present. They don't appear as separate. But they're here.

"I'm not really sure what there is to say about me that's worth knowing," he says honestly. He grasps for something, anything, to share. The sand beneath them blooms with seashells and twine. He picks a shell up, turning it in his hands.

"...Philoctetes taught me how to make bracelets and necklaces from seashells. He said he taught himself while he was stranded in Lemnos. It's something nice to do with my hands."

Philoctetes was kind to him. The memory colors the ocean. Philoctetes whispering to Odysseus when he didn't think Pyrrhus could hear, "That's a child, Odysseus. What are you doing?" He remembers Philoctetes finding him by Achilles' tomb, and showing him how to put together the seashells to make jewelry, joking that maybe one day Pyrrhus would make some to impress a lady love.

Philoctetes had distanced himself after Odysseus discovered Pyrrhus with Briseis' body. At the time Pyrrhus didn't understand why, but in retrospect, he sees that his quick transition into killing others must have been chilling to all the other Greeks. Even so, it was lonely on the shores of Troy without anyone willing to be tender.

“Don’t fret about what’s worth knowing,” he says with a gentle laugh. “When Molossus is a man grown, you’ll be eager to hear everything about his life, no matter how big or small.”

Achilles watches the shell in Pyrrhus’ hands, the shifting memory, like a mirage over the sea. It galls him that the Greeks were so eager to take his son, only to show him fear and revulsion. Would their own young sons fare any better when faced by death and violence?

Once Pyrrhus won their war, they tossed him aside and only told tales of his brutality—even to Achilles, to Peleus, to the family he so desperately wanted. Achilles swallows back his anger.

“I gave you a token, but I have none from you.” He pauses a moment, hesitant to ask yet another thing of his son. “When you wake, will you make me one of your bracelets? Perhaps two—one for your mother as well? Place it at a shrine to Lord Hermes and offer a prayer. It will find its way to me.”

He blinks in surprise. He hadn't expected his little hobby of making shell jewelry would really be worthy of note, let alone a request. But...

"If that's what you want, they'll be the finest bracelets I've ever made."

Which isn't very fine, in his own opinion. He thinks the bracelets are only pretty for the shells rather than any real work he puts into it. But if his father wants them, then he won't deny him. Galene has always said that the ones that rattle are the best ones, so maybe he can make those. He knows his mother would adore anything he made, but if one is to make it to her, he wants it to be the best kind.

He picks up a piece of twine and starts to knot it to string it on the shell. As if he can make the bracelet now and give it to his father, when really, it's just something to do with his hands when he's feeling so unsure. He's not used to reaching out for connection and having someone else reach out in turn, and it's soothing to have something familiar to do with his hands, even in a dream.

"...Were there things you liked to do to stay busy? When you weren't fighting?" Hobbies? Soothing tasks? His mother had told him little, and in retrospect, he suspects it was because she knew little.

“I loved playing the lyre,” Achilles answers without hesitation.

For a moment, he watches Pyrrhus work the dream shells. He’s become more aware of body language since spending time with Hermes. It reminds him of Hermes’ (and Lyra’s) tendency to rock back and forth. That need to move their bodies in some way or another. Maybe music was Achilles’ own means of doing that.

“I learned the lyre when I was a boy and it’s always brought me great comfort when I was away from home. I would sing the deeds of gods and heroes, or pluck meandering songs after dinner …”

Achilles pinches a shell from the sand and examines it. For as poor as Pyrrhus’ memory is, it holds its shape well. They must be important to him. He offers it up as a fine candidate for the necklace.

“I also loved swimming— Ah! And spear fishing.” Spoken like the son of a nereid. “I often find myself missing the sea.”

The lyre? It seems like such a gentle hobby for the man who's loomed so large over Pyrrhus' life. But he's learning a lot of new things about his father, and perhaps this version is better than the one he's used to abuse himself with for years.

He accepts the shell offered by Achilles, huffing a soft noise at the comment of the sea. His hands move easily to string the shell along with the others, tying little knots to space them out properly.

"I'm like that too. If I'm far from the sea for too long, it feels like my skin gets too tight." Thetis stopped speaking to him, but his blood never forgot where it came from. "One day, I'd like to hear you play the lyre. I sang sometimes with Mom, but I haven't for a long time." Since she died. He just never saw much reason to sing when she wasn't singing with him.

But he doesn't want to dwell on his mother's death, though it's hard to avoid his thoughts going to the death of loved ones when sitting next to his very first loss. He peeks at Achilles from between his lashes, through the corner of his eye.

"Galene makes instruments from the bracelets. They rattle when she moves with them on, so she's started a game where she and Molossus make music together." The memories that glitter of Galene on the ocean are fond. Pyrrhus never saw reason to mistreat his slaves--he doesn't even handle punishments, leaving those to Aspasia, since it'd be too easy for him to kill someone if he chose to raise his hand--so Galene never knew a master who hurt her. The ocean glitters with memories of her growing from a little girl to a child to a woman, eagerly showing her work, laughing at her own jokes. Even once when she fell down on the rocky seashore, and Pyrrhus had to climb down a sheer cliff face to grab her since he was the only one confident scaling the slippery rocks.

"Galene is one of my servants. I freed her and her father some years ago and they chose to stay in my service." It seemed like an easy decision to make to Pyrrhus. If he promises and follows through on freeing slaves who work loyally for him, then they'll be loyal and won't poison his food, like that one Aspasia killed did. And it only seems fair to reward good work to him. "She acts like Molossus' big sister. He loves her dearly."

“Yes, that’s a fine way to put it. Our skin needs the saltwater, it seems.” Achilles is disappointed that his mother gave up on her grandson so quickly, but he can imagine why: her love for her own son was a miracle. Once she dared care so deeply, she suffered for it. Pyrrhus would only bring more of the same heartbreak. Her divine legacy would only be used for war.

“Next time,” he claps a hand on Pyrrhus’ knee, “I will bring a lyre and sing you some of Orpheus’ own songs—though I’m a poor substitute for his fine voice and practiced hand.”

Observing Pyrrhus’ fondness for Galene, Achilles almost—almost—dares to hope that he would show Lyra the same. “From what I’ve glimpsed of your servants … they all seem quite happy. You have people who take care of you, and you care for them in turn. I’m pleased to see it, lad.”

Pyrrhus smiles at the promise of hearing his father play and sing. It doesn't even matter that he's promising the work of the most famous musician of Greece--he just wants to hear his father sing it.

"They treat me like I'm remarkable, but I think they just had really mediocre men as masters before." Pyrrhus shrugs, because it's that obvious to him. "I can't think of something more stupid than treating people who handle my food and home poorly."

And what's there to gain? Despite his reputation, Pyrrhus has never felt pleasure in cruelty. He has nothing to prove, no need to show the world that he can push around people his own size, much less ones who can't push back. He did that when he was ten.

"I think people who abuse their slaves and servants just want to prove to themselves they can be warriors if someone ties their opponent's arms behind their back." Pyrrhus lets out a derisive huff. He finds it a little pathetic, actually. The ocean shimmers with the memory of Aspasia's former master, Euthymios. The man cried when Pyrrhus came for him. Sweaty, snotty tears, pleading for his life, promising that he'd let Neoptolemus keep Aspasia, he wouldn't even ask for money in return, he even offered to give Neoptolemus one of Euthymios' own sons by his wife to replace Pergamus.

Even if he hadn't thrown away what Pyrrhus had lost, Pyrrhus would have killed him for the contemptuous display.

“You made a reasoned choice. Most masters would lazily accept that slaves are their property to do with as they please. No better than animals.” Achilles waves a hand dismissively. Peleus treated their slaves and servants well enough, but still held them at arm’s length. He also wasn’t above taking a slave to his bed when the mood took him. Other Greeks made very good use of their spoils at Troy: slaves kept the camps clean and functioning and, well, appetites satisfied.

“Any of us could have been born to different circumstances. Even I—an alleged hero—died and became a servant of the House of Hades, a god as my master. Circumstances can change swiftly.”

Achilles smiles and his eyes glitter with pride. "All that truly matters is that you made their lives better. You treat them as you would be treated, were you in the same position."

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