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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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The memory is grotesque at first glance, but Achilles forces himself to watch it, unflinching. Pyrrhus doesn’t handle the head in the obscene, gloating way that a conquering warrior might—the boy’s manner suggests he could just as well be handling a creature he found on the beach, or a long-abandoned bee hive. Achilles sees the way Pyrrhus compares the head’s anatomy to his own.

At that age, it’s a child’s prerogative to learn and understand the world. Achilles’ abundant curiosity was satisfied on idyllic Mount Pelion, under Chiron’s patient tutelage. Pyrrhus’ wide eyes only had a burning and blood-soaked city to feast on. “You can’t be blamed for your ignorance, lad. No one was thoughtful enough to teach you.”

Achilles pauses and the waves breathe in his silence. He’s trying to put into words Prometheus’ explanation of the brain—one he barely understood himself.

“As to your wounds …” he begins slowly, “when you were at Troy, did you ever see the contents of a man’s broken skull? The soft flesh inside?”

Pyrrhus isn't used to being given grace. Usually, people just assume the worst of him. He's always taken that for granted, and it rarely bothers him, but it makes this gentle dismissal of his childhood ignorance novel. The dream wobbles for a moment, echoing with slight confusion at the feeling of being given any benefit of the doubt.

It settles again at the question about anatomy.

"Yes, I did."

The ocean flashes with memories. Briseis and her cracked skull. A prince's head exploding like overripe fruit when Pyrrhus bashed it into a wall with his shield. A bleeding, oozing Greek whimpering on a grass mat with his head broken open and the healer saying there's nothing to be done--Odysseus taking Pyrrhus by the shoulder and guiding him away from the healer's tent, chiding him for staring and telling him to feed the horses instead.

"They said it was the brain, but they didn't tell me much about it. The healers had more important things to do than answer my questions. So I tried to satisfy my curiosity in ways that I can now see must have been very disturbing to everyone else."

And Pyrrhus was a curious child. It made sense to him that the healers and surgeons were too busy tending to the wounded. He'd thought to satisfy his curiosity by poking and prodding enemy dead, but Teucer made it extremely clear that that wasn't considered an acceptable alternative.

“Yes, the brain. It’s a very delicate thing, responsible for our thoughts and emotions and memories. It’s protected by the skull like a shell.” He plucks a shell from the sand, imagining the soft, vulnerable creature that was once inside.

“But the flesh can be jostled against the walls of that shell.” Achilles grimaces. His instincts as a tutor tell him he’s not explaining this well and he digs for a better description. “Now, imagine ripe fruit carried in a wooden crate—how bruised it becomes when handled roughly on its way to the market …

”The brain can suffer the same bruises when the head takes a blow. Thrown from a chariot, tackled to the ground, bashed with a shield …” Achilles quietly wishes Prometheus would return and describe this in proper detail. “A young brain—one that’s still growing—is especially vulnerable.”

Pyrrhus thinks of himself as slow and stupid, but he isn't. He catches on to what his father is saying quickly. In Troy, with his only educational enrichment the bodies of enemies and smoking remains of a city, he learned what the inside of a head looks like. The grayish liquid that oozes out, the gelatinous organ within. He'd even seen some brains that looked different than others, brains with pockmarks and strange colors and lumps, but he hadn't been able to investigate very much before someone saw him and scolded him like a puppy that got into the larder.

The images flash in the ocean. His childlike curiosity helped commit it somewhat to memory, though it's hard to remember much of the time between the battle of Troy and Mom guiding him to write things down. He remembers the wrinkled organs, the strange deviations he sometimes spotted. He remembers one brain with a hard lump growing from it almost the size of his fist, stiff as a diamond within the gelatinous tissue around it.

His own hand comes up to slowly draw his fingers along the curve of his skull, as if he can find evidence from the outside of strange deviations in his own brain. Almost like he did once upon a time when he was a child and he found a head.

"...You're saying something hit my head. And it's affected my ability to remember."

It's a weird thought, a physical injury so thoroughly attacking the mind. He's numb to the news, unsure of how to react. For so long, he thought this was just the product of an angry god. Knowing that it was just an injury, a preventable, mundane injury...

"...They probably could have made me a helmet if someone started work when Odysseus went to pick me up."

He doesn't know how to feel. He's known for a while that the Greeks assumed he'd die in Troy and were surprised, even disturbed when he didn't. But knowing that their assumptions about him may have led to this lifetime of pain and struggle he's faced... He feels used, and it's a rotten, vulnerable feeling, one he doesn't want to face. He wonders why so few cared enough to even try to do right by him.

Achilles wonders if Pyrrhus might have become a talented surgeon if his curiosities were properly indulged. He could have studied under Machaon and Podalirius, absorbed their prodigious knowledge to mend wounds rather than inflict them.

There were so many other lives his son could have led, but this is the one the Fates gave him.

“The Greeks had many talented smiths at their disposal. They could easily have made you a full set of armor.“ A simple thing could have spared him a lifetime of pain. It disturbs him that men he considered his friends, his comrades in arms, showed his son such little courtesy. “But they did not.”

Achilles gently takes his son’s face, cups it in either of his hands. He sees himself in the weary lines around Pyrrhus’ brow. Tired marks that spell out the conviction that he wasted his life and failed the people he loved. “You’re not broken, lad. You’re not a monster. Take any boy of ten years and throw him in the midst of war with no armor, no preparation and he would emerge just the same.”

Pyrrhus has never really allowed himself to wonder at how he was treated on the shores of Troy, and now the thoughts churn on the waves of the ocean, coloring the sea foam. It had started alright, with the Greeks making an effort to make sure he was settled and even inviting him to drink with them while they reminisced about his father. But things took a turn, and it seemed like most of them were happy to assume that someone else was seeing to him even when evidence proved the contrary. Maybe they were too weary after ten years of war to rouse the kind of care needed for another man's son. Maybe they were too disturbed by how swiftly and easily he took to violence. Maybe they were too eager at seeing the end of the war in sight to slow down and make sure Pyrrhus himself was okay. By the end of the war, it seemed all of them had forgotten about him as quickly as they could.

Maybe they just didn't like him. Pyrrhus knows that no one except his mother ever really enjoyed his company, and he's never really had friends of his own class, so maybe he's just fundamentally unlikable among his peers.

But the thoughts subside as his father takes his face. He's not used to this tenderness. He can't bear to contradict his father, but he feels broken. Like he was some tool recklessly used by impatient hands and snapped apart, and while new tools can be made, he's left only with himself and the pieces. It's not the sort of thing he'd normally say--it's too vulnerable to describe himself like that out loud--but it's written in the colors of his thoughts.

But instead of saying any of that, he loops his arms around his father, leaning in and just hugging him tight.

"Next time you see Odysseus, tell him to go fuck himself for me," Pyrrhus says.

“Oh, I have a great many things to tell Odysseus.” And the other veterans of Troy. Achilles sees the unspoken feelings surrounding his son and returns the embrace. His arms hold firm and reassuring in the hopes that Pyrrhus will remember when he wakes.

Will he recall any of this? Dreams are fleeting and Pyrrhus’ memory is already so poor. “Give me your word, Pyrrhus. Promise you’ll write this dream down on your tablets when you wake. Don’t forget what I’ve told you.”

Achilles pets Pyrrhus’ hair in long, soothing strokes. “And if you do … well, I’ll come tell you again. As many times as it takes.”

He releases a long sigh, disappointed at himself for being no better than his fellow Greeks—dismissing his own son as a brutal monster, conveniently forgetting Pyrrhus was nothing but a boy. Now Achilles knows much of his revulsion was directed at himself. At his own brutal legacy carried on well past his death.

Achilles presses a kiss to the crown of Pyrrhus’ head. “I love you, lad, and I want nothing more than your happiness.”

The spiderweb holding the fragile mind together glimmers. The words Dad loves you glitters with the understated beauty of freshly fallen snow in the sun. Pyrrhus lets out a soft sigh, like he's been holding his breath for thirty years, and he digs his fingers in his father's cloak. All three pieces of him are hugging Achilles all at once--the suspicious and meticulous king, the passionate and moody Neoptolemus, the caring and sensitive Pyrrhus.

"I love you too, Dad," he says, like he's been waiting his whole life to say it. "I'll write down everything I can. But come back anyway and tell me again. Just in case."

All he's ever wanted is his father's love and approval. And now that he has it, he wants more. He wants a lifetime, or as much as the Fates can spare him.

There's a shift of something large in the dream, like a creature moving underwater and creating its own current. Pyrrhus doesn't notice it. But it disrupts the colors ever so slightly. Prometheus is present, silently asking if it's time for Pyrrhus to wake.

“Of course I’ll return. I want to hear more about your life, and I’ll tell you more tales of my own.”

Visiting the dream was a very clever idea. How long would it have otherwise taken Achilles to reveal all these important facets of his son? He can’t imagine Pyrrhus would ever admit to the vulnerable core who still craves love and safety.

Achilles senses Prometheus’ return and the unspoken question. Yes, I believe he’s ready, he offers in response. I’ve learned a great deal.

He gives his son another squeeze, tight enough that his emotions leach through the bounds of his shade: warm fondness, fierce protectiveness, and an undercurrent of grief. “I’m pleased to finally know you, Pyrrhus.”

Pyrrhus hugs his father just as tight, like perhaps he can bring him back from the dead and into the waking world if he just holds strong enough. He buries his face in his father's neck, and like a warm sigh, he wakes up.

The dream dissolves around them. So does Pyrrhus, so does all the pieces of him and his cracked mind. Prometheus is there again, ichor dripping from the wound at his liver, and he gives Achilles an encouraging smile.

"You did very well," he says warmly. It does his own heart good to see his creations loving each other. "It will take time for him to heal. But the more secure he feels in your love for him, the less threatening he might find competition for it."

Which means that the more unconditionally loved Pyrrhus feels by his father, the less danger he poses when he one day learns of his sister.

Prometheus would like to take the moment to focus on Achilles' achievement and give him a second to breathe and process, but despite his smile, there's a furrow in his brow. He's troubled by something.

Achilles’ senses swim at the sudden shift, and for a moment, the repeated words that built Pyrrhus’ dream are burned like an afterimage in the empty void. Mom loved you. Dad loved you. Pergamus was real and alive. Amphialus was real and alive. Molossus is real and alive …

A few blinks and the words are gone. Achilles’ eyes instead follow the trail of ichor to Prometheus. He rocks up to his feet to stand beside the Titan, shaking non-existent sand from his cloak and chiton—then feeling a little foolish for it.

“I couldn’t have done it without your insight. I’m grateful, Lord Prometheus.” It helps that the god models such warm, unconditional love for his mortal children, no matter how perfect or flawed; it put Achilles in a mind to show his own son that much more grace.

But Prometheus’ poorly disguised worry immediately has him on edge. Achilles cocks his head. “You disappeared for quite some time. Is something the matter?”

"All you needed was a little guidance, dear boy."

Prometheus was hoping to give Achilles more time to breathe, but he's always been poor at disguising his concern, or so his wife says. His brow creases further, crossing his arms.

"Your son thinks he saw his mother on the shores of Athens."

He projects an image forward, a cleaned up, mostly clarified version of Neoptolemus' memory. It helps that the moment struck him as important enough to write down afterwards, even with the shock of his father's visit. Sailing a ship to Athens' docks, a familiar wailing, looking over the side of the boat to see Deidamia sobbing openly as she washes her son's bloody armor in the ocean. A blink, repositioning himself to get a better view, but she's gone again, replaced by servants chattering with each other as they wash wine-stained fabric in the ocean. He'd thought he was seeing things until he reflected on it later.

"That wasn't his mother," Prometheus says grimly. "That was someone else, someone of divine origin. But I don't know enough about what's happened since I went to the mountain to say who it is."

He was imprisoned before he learned how any of the old gods would interact with his newest creations, and there have been many tens of thousands of years for new gods to be born and flourish. But he doesn't think any god that appears as a man's weeping mother washing his bloody armor has good tidings to share.

Achilles frowns at the memory, trying to glean some clue from it. The Furies might have business with Pyrrhus—but this vision feels too subtle.

“Zeus and Hera’s retreat to the stars has left things in disarray, as you can well imagine.” But while Athena and Hermes have been doing their best to settle Greece, there are looming threats beyond their borders. (Ironically, Achilles might know more about the divine state of affairs than Prometheus himself.) “And a new god is causing trouble to the south, while the northern gods are still clamoring for the end of the world.”

Could the vision be the God of Everything? But why would it bother? Could it be Loki, seeking revenge? But that would mean breaking a binding oath. (Not that Loki would particularly care.)

“I doubt foreign gods would have any business with Pyrrhus. It must be one of our own. Perhaps someone who took umbrage with his conduct at Troy.”

Prometheus hums, impressed. Yes, Achilles definitely knows more about current divine affairs than he does.

"If by the gods of the north, you mean the Aesir, I don't think it's any of them. They have a... chilly influence." Prometheus brings up a much more vivid part of the memory--the smell. Something bright and verdant, and entirely foreign to Greece. The smell sticks fast in Pyrrhus' memory, penetrating through the damage to his brain like a burrowing insect. "This doesn't feel like them."

If Achilles recalls, it smells like Freya, or Freyr. Or a geas. Prometheus scratches his chin, frowning. "If you know about the Aesir, does the term 'Tuatha Dé Danann' mean anything to you?"

Even if he didn’t remember the strange words exactly, he knows their foreign sound. He doesn’t try to pronounce the name himself, but says, “Yes, Odin’s queen and her brother—those are their people.”

And now that Prometheus has enhanced the memory and drawn the connection, it’s obvious. Still, Achilles shakes his head in disbelief.

“But that makes no sense at all. Pyrrhus has had no contact with them.” At least none that Achilles is aware of. And as far as he knows, neither he nor Hermes caused Freya or Freyr any insult during the incident at Valhalla and Folkvangr. “Unless, perhaps, this god appeared to other mortals and their interest is in Greece at large, not just my son.”

That makes more sense. Loki ventured into Greece because he knew the Olympians were vulnerable after Zeus’ deposition. Another opportunistic god might well do the same.

"I wouldn't venture to guess at motive, myself. They're a strange bunch over there," Prometheus says, shaking his head as if shaking off an insect with a grimace. "Strange. And very infrequently friendly when it comes to my creations."

"But Hermes would know better than either of us. It's part of his job to keep abreast of divine foreign politics." Prometheus scratches his chin, frowning as he looks away from the memory and towards the void. "I wonder if I could call his attention for a moment. He's not too terribly busy, is he? Certainly not so busy that he can't divide his attention for a moment."

Prometheus isn't really one to respect other gods' work when one of his precious creations is in need.

He’s not too terribly busy, is he? Achilles winces. Hermes is very busy. More so than ever. He’s Athena’s right hand. He’s keeping an eye on numerous threats both domestic and foreign. He’s a psychopomp, messenger, and father besides.

Achilles pinches the bridge of his nose. Hermes will divide his attention immediately, particularly if it involves him, but he hates to heap another concern on the pile. Hermes has already given him so much help with Pyrrhus.

Keeping this from him would be a mistake, though. What if this god is a broader threat to Greece?

Achilles relents with an exhale and a nod. “Hermes is perpetually busy, but he’ll want to know about this, my lord.”

Prometheus gives a cheerful hum, mostly because he was already planning on calling on Hermes whether Achilles agreed he was busy or not. There's a tug in the void, like a pulled string. There's resistance at the end. And then the void fills with an orange glow, Hermes emerging fluttering like a particularly stressed out bee.

"What? What? What do you need?" he says to Prometheus before spotting Achilles. He's momentarily surprised, but does tip over in midair to press a quick kiss to Achilles' cheek. "Hello there, darling, fancy seeing you in dreams again."

"Little Pyrrhus saw his mother washing his bloody armor at the shore, and I think it's someone from the Tuatha Dé Danann. What do you think, Hermes?" Prometheus says, blithely breezing by Hermes' clear stress.

"Bloody armor?" Hermes only turns his head towards the memory for only a moment before he says, "That's the Morrígan."

"What?" Prometheus seems genuinely surprised. "No, it can't be her. She can't shrink that small."

"She started splitting herself into three so it was easier to interact with everyone else, and one piece will manifest as warrior's mothers to wash their bloody armor as they go to battle to mark them as fated to die--wait wait wait." Hermes' mouth was just running, and his brain has only just caught up with the implications of what he's said. "What is she doing in Greece? And what does she want with Neoptolemus?"

Achilles shoots Hermes an apologetic look and says a quick, “Sorry to disturb you, love.”

He listens to the two gods discuss the matter, but his focus narrows to only one piece of it: to mark them as fated to die. His otherwise still shade’s heart twists in his chest.

“He can’t die. Not yet,” he blurts, as if Hermes or Prometheus have any say in this matter. But this isn’t the first portent of his son’s doom: Apollo showed him as much in his first journey through a dream. Achilles had hoped it was only a cruel vision, intended to hurt him, but …

Achilles shakes his head. “You must be mistaken. Why would a god from the north bother with a Greek mortal?”

Hermes' face twists in sympathy. He doesn't relish suddenly being pulled from his business to accidentally break it to Achilles that his son has divine eyes on his imminent death.

"I don't know. The Morrígan is... well, she's unpredictable."

"She's one of those gods who can see the future," Prometheus supplies. "But not like Apollo. More like the Fates. Sometimes she's motivated by forces greater than we know, and sometimes it's pure pettiness."

"She marked him as fated to die in an upcoming battle, so Orestes must have been fated to kill him if he carried on to capture Hermione," Hermes says, resting a comforting hand on his lover's shoulder. "But you turned him back. Maybe that will satisfy her."

Achilles lays his hand over Hermes’, ready to cling tight to that explanation. “Yes, of course,” he agrees forcefully, persuading himself. “He was on that fool’s errand before I warned him against it.”

And if that’s the case, he spoke with Pyrrhus just in time. The Fates granted father and son a second chance, the Morrígan be damned.

“This god … this Morrígan. She was mistaken.” Achilles looks hopefully between Hermes and Prometheus. “There’s no need to worry. Pyrrhus will pick his battles with more care. I’ll make sure of it.”

His son will live a longer life than he did. Achilles is determined to make it so.

Hermes pets Achilles' hair with his free hand and presses a kiss to the crown of his head. He knows that Achilles' relationship with his son is complicated at best, but he's also not shocked at all that he wants his son to live a full life.

"That's all that particular omen means. That a warrior will die in the battle he's going to. If he doesn't go to that battle, then he doesn't die." Hermes is eager to latch onto the explanation too, but he's wary. He furrows his brow. "I'll ask Iris to send a message to Athena about the Morrígan sighted on our shores. It's not common for her to wander outside of her own land."

And the fact that she is worries Hermes. She's not as prone to picking fights as Loki is, but if she does choose to pick a fight, it'd be much harder to win.

"But in the meantime... let me know if you see anything else out of place. She usually splits herself into three girls--the maiden, the mother, and the crone. Which maiden, mother, or crone she appears as depends on who's viewing her, since usually they'll project an image of the important women in their life who fit those archetypes. Don't approach her if you think you see her, alright, darling? Just tell me."

Hermes is agitated, not just by being pulled away from his work but by the news. But he's doing his best to keep a lid on it. Prometheus looks troubled as well, humming softly as he furrows his brow, scratching his chin.

His relationship with his son has gotten even more complex after this journey into Pyrrhus’ dream and the thought of losing anyone he cares about makes him tense. Achilles looks for comfort in Hermes’ touch, leaning into him.

“Then Pyrrhus is safe,” he says firmly. “When next we speak, I’ll advise him to stay out of battle.” Though he can’t imagine Pyrrhus will heed that advice any better than Achilles himself did.

“I doubt I will see her. A god of fate has little use for me. My thread is already cut.” Achilles grasps the hand at his shoulder and meets Hermes’ eyes, beseeching. “But if I write a warning to my son, can I ask you to deliver it?”

It will take some doing to figure out how to convey that warning. Watch for maidens, mothers, and crones doesn’t feel like actionable advice.

Hermes is already swamped with work, but he can't bear the desperate look in Achilles' eyes. This is tearing his lover up, and Hermes can't just let Achilles languish stressing about his son when he can do something.

"I'll make sure it's delivered to him," Hermes says, gently bumping their temples together. He takes a moment to glance between Achilles and Prometheus, picking up the context clues.

"Did you visit him in his dreams?" That wasn't what Hermes expected when he asked Prometheus to advise about whatever sickness had seized Neoptolemus' mind. "How... did that go?"

Hermes wants to know, but he also worries that Achilles has put himself through something that'll leave him in anguish when Hermes can't spend a lot of time taking care of him.

“Thank you, love. It would put my mind at ease.” He presses a kiss to Hermes’ cheekbone.

“The visit went far better than I expected,” Achilles says with a tired smile and a nod to the Titan. “It was most clever of you to suggest a dream, Lord Prometheus.”

His report begins matter-of-factly: “We visited one of his servants who viewed him favorably. Pyrrhus treats her well and she’s grateful for it—and fiercely protective of him.”

Achilles rubs a hand along his jaw, his emotions beginning to churn again. Sadness and anger and regret begin plucking at his tone. “And Pyrrhus himself … the poor lad. He’s suffered far more than I ever imagined. They didn’t prepare him for war.”

His teeth set and his eyes smolder with an old, familiar rage. “By the Styx, Hermes, the bastards didn’t even give the boy armor or a helmet.”

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