messageforyou | For refusetofight

For refusetofight

Through the smoky miasma, thick and smelling of conflict and heat and pressure, on the other side is a forest. This one is less garish, less saturated than the rest of Tír na nÓg. Two fae creatures, odd feathered humanoids that resemble crows with cracked and broken beaks, sit at the rocks around a steaming hot spring, soap and strigils beside them.

The fae are seemingly mute, but won't allow Achilles to leave without a thorough wash. The sort that practically scrapes a whole layer of skin off, the sort where they insist on his hair to be cleaned and his nail beds scrubbed. His white tunic is whisked off to be burned, and only once he is deemed fit by the fae attendants to be properly cleaned of the remnants of the Morrígan does one bring the clothes he left behind with Hermes. They're neatly folded, but Hermes' scarf sits on top like a nest, holding Achilles' ring, his bracelet, and the stone with a hole in the middle. The scarf smells distinctly of Hermes, like cleverness and courage and Greece. Almost like Hermes is trying to give Achilles his blessing and support, even when they can't see each other before his trial.

After he's clean and dressed, the bath attendants point in the direction he's meant to walk, a plunge into the dark woods. There's the soft giggling of children within.

In the woods, children from all across time and the world huddle together. A boy holds a fist of straws, and each of the children draw a straw at once. They mumble amongst themselves, checking the straws, and three boys have the shortest one.

"Seems unfair to make him convince Stab," says a girl with messy red braids and two missing teeth.

"If you want a mulligan, you gotta give up treats until the next hunt," a blond boy with gray eyes and a short straw says, waving it in her face. She wrinkles her nose.

"I didn't say I want a mulligan!"

"Then shoo!"

As Achilles approaches, the children with longer straws scatter into the woods, some laughing. Three boys remain. One boy, with pale skin, ragged dirty blond hair and crooked teeth, wearing an oversized sweater and shorts and no shoes and a canvas bag big enough on him to almost drag on the ground. A second boy, skin dark as jet and head shaved, a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck, wearing loose sweatpants and an old linen button-down with sneakers with a check drawn on. A third boy, the smallest of them, maybe close to Lyra's age, looking like one of the people from the far east but with a permanent glower in his face, sitting on the ground and looking a little like he's drowning in the adult-sized jacket draped around him.

The blond boy jumps up on a tree stump to greet Achilles at eye level, putting his hands on his hips and smirking. "Hello, grownup! Here starts your trials! I call being the judge."

"Don't be silly. It's not a court trial." The boy in the button down approaches, holding an aluminum can colored bright red. He pops the tab, a sickly sweet smell rising in the air as the liquid inside hisses, and he holds the can out to Achilles. "My dad said men welcome each other with a beer, but if you get to Birdy she's going to make you drink a lot, so here's a coke instead."

The boy in the button down strategically stands between Achilles and the smallest boy. The smallest boy makes no movement to greet Achilles, instead staying on the ground, glowering at him with dark eyes.

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Achilles relents to what might be the most aggressive bath of his life (or unlife, as it were). There’s no visible residue from his encounter with the Morrígan, at least to his mortal eyes. There is a clinging smell of war, though: blood and fire and something he might one day know as gunpowder.

He’s grateful for his own clothes, and more so for the comfort of Hermes’ scarf. Achilles winds it around his neck in bright, cheery contrast to the calm green of his cloak and tunic. Thank you, magpie. He holds it to his nose and breathes deep before he continues on.

The last time Achilles saw so many children together was after Ares’ assault on the Underworld. Thankfully, these appear to be intact, though it’s difficult to say if they’re shades or simply trapped like Kelly or the three mortals at the crossroads. Is one fate better than the other?

“Thank you, lad.” He accepts the offered can and considers it with owlish curiosity. He can hear a series of tiny pops coming from inside. It is, of course, rude to reject offered libations and Achilles brings the can to his lips—

And stops short of taking a sip. Hermes’ scarf serves as reminder: be careful. Don’t eat or drink anything the fae give you.

Achilles lowers the can and fetches the stone from his pocket to examine the three children. Are they indeed mortal children, or fae masquerading as such?

"Oh, rock!" The blond boy flinches, and the boy in the button-down rushes to undo the buttons of his shirt, but that's all the time they have before Achilles is looking upon them through the stone.

They're dead mortals. Through the stone, their death masks are clear. The blond boy, face bluish and bloody foam flecking his lips and chin. The boy in the button-down, his head split open as if struck with an ax.

But the smallest boy is the worst sight. His injuries are from weapons that couldn't be dreamed of while Achilles was alive. His body is shredded, as if pelted by a thousand tiny rocks, most of the meat missing with flaps of skin dangling off. His legs are gone, only ragged muddy bits of dangling muscle and tendons remaining, and his face is mostly gone as well, only one eye still affixed in his skull as the right have of his face blends into shards of bone and ragged flesh, smeared with mud as what remains of his tongue writhes in his mouth, exposed through the absence of his cheek. He still has all his baby teeth.

The smallest boy shrieks, recoiling, pulling his jacket up and around himself. The boy in the button down turns towards him, finishing off his buttons and opening his shirt to create a curtain between the smallest boy and Achilles.

"Sorry, Stab, I thought he'd just test us with lying or iron," the boy in the button down says sheepishly. "It's okay, you can hide in the jacket if you want."

"Good that you tested us, though," the blond boy says, crossing his arms and looking critically at Achilles. "So you're not as dumb as most grownups that come along."

"The coke is safe," the boy in the button down assures as he looks over his shoulder at Achilles. "We're human. Just wanted to greet you right like my dad taught me."

"And make sure you're not so dumb you can't leave by yourself," the blond boy adds.

Achilles doesn’t linger overlong on any of the three—least of all the smallest. He’s seen plenty of dead children between Ares’ assault and his many years at war and he’ll never grow numb to the sight. It’s enough to verify that the boys aren’t fae.

“Forgive me,” he says, pocketing the stone. “As you say, this realm is dangerous—often not what it seems.”

He takes a polite sip of soda. It’s not like anything he’s ever tasted: sweet as a spoonful of honey while it burns and tingles against his tongue. Something Hermes might enjoy. He suppresses a grimace as he gives an approving nod. “Thank you for the hospitality. Your father is correct; it’s always wise to treat a guest with kindness.”

He offers the can back to the boy in the button-up and asks, “Do you lads know my son? Neoptolemus?”

"We don't use folks' Christian names here--the ones their parents gave 'em." The blond boy seems happy to take point on most of the conversation. He walks around his stump with the confident swagger of a boy pretending at greater power and wisdom than he really has--that is, most little boys. "We use names we give each other, or the fairies give us."

"It's safer that way." The boy in the button-down starts to button his shirt up again, shaking his head at Achilles offering him the can. "Keep it. There's lots more." He buttons all the way up to his collar. "You can call me Scout. This is Stab. We call him that because that's what he does when grownups get too close, so don't do that."

"You can call me Gavroche," the blond boy says, puffing out his chest and shining his nails on his sweater. "And the one you're talking about is called Lamb, like in the Bible. The fairies gave 'im that name."

‘Christian’ and ‘Bible’ mean nothing to Achilles, despite being so perilously close to their origin. He dismisses it as more anachronistic concepts—things that may yet come into focus during his eternity—the same category as typewriters, guns and sequin dresses.

“I have not been named by the fae,” nor does he intend to linger long enough for that to happen, “but should you need to address me, you may call me Podarkes, as my allies once knew me.” Swift-footed, a good a name as any. Usually appended to his given name and very little attached to it, should someone take it from him.

He awkwardly holds the “coke” trying to decide how much of the sickly sweetness he needs to drink to meet the expectations of xenia.

“Lamb … “ Achilles wonders at the name. He would consider it a joke, did he not know the many facets of his son. “An interesting name. It may not seem very fitting, unless you take the time to know him.”

"That's fairy names for you. They're usually mean jokes," Gavroche says. He sits on the edge of the stump, and as he does so, the world blurs and changes around them, the trees turning to tall stone buildings and the grass turning to cobblestone streets. The details are blurred, but Gavroche sits on a wrought iron chair, leaning on a wrought iron table. The building they all are besides smells of fresh bread cooking in the oven.

"I think it's about the lamb of God," Scout says. He doesn't react to the change in scenery, but as he speaks, there's a shift in the air. Times and places overlapping. Gavroche's space smells of bread, and the whiff Scout's words bring to it smells of spices and smoke smothering the scent of blood. There's music playing down the cobblestone road, a party happening, but none of the boys seem to be in any rush to acknowledge it. "Where everyone put the blame for their sins on the lamb, and then the lamb's sacrificed, so it's like no one sinned ever. It's great for everyone except the lamb."

Gavroche wrinkles his nose at Scout. "Is that what they said in church?"

"Did they say something different at yours?" Scout asks, furrowing his brow, as if slightly concerned that he may have recounted things wrong.

"Dunno, didn't go."

The shift in scenery is only of passing interest to Achilles, acknowledged with a few flicked glances; he otherwise keeps his focus trained on the boys and the task at hand.

“Then you know Lamb?” The question is addressed to Scout in particular. The boy’s theory is an interesting one. “You know him well enough to understand the name’s significance?”

And its connection to the singular God spoken with such weight. “This god— is it the same one worshipped by the Hebrews? The god who killed the first-born children of Egypt?”

A god only sated by the blood of the innocent and the destruction of other gods.

"We all know each other." Scout diverts his eyes, pulling on the hem of his shirt. His brow creases, almost like he's in pain. He seems to be the eldest boy, maybe eleven at most, but he looks younger for a moment. "And the queen said he was the first of us who grew up. Most of us were lambs for grownups."

"Not me. I was a wolf." Gavroche chomps at the air, giving little growling noises for effect. But then he shakes the face away, getting back to looking as imperious as a little boy can really be (which isn't much) at Achilles. "Anyway, I don't remember much about God 'cuz Mum didn't believe in him, but there was something about Egypt, I think."

"He sent plagues to Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't let His people go," Scout gently corrects, relaxing a little as the subject veers away. "It's in the book of Exodus."

"Anyway, doesn't matter." Gavroche gives a big, exaggerated shrug. "We're all here because we didn't want God anyway."

"I wanted God. I didn't want to go to hell." Scout sits on the floor next to Stab. Stab remains hidden in his oversized coat. "The pastor said that one of the commandments is Thou Shalt Not Kill, and if you broke any of the commandments, you'd go to hell when you died. But when the war started, he said we had to kill the enemy whenever we could, or we'd go to hell. Either way, I didn't want to go to hell."

The God-of-Everything forbids killing? How do his worshippers conduct war? This new god is endlessly baffling and contradictory. Achilles wants to pose more of his questions, but they could be here for hours and the boys don’t seem particularly confident in their answers.

He settles into a seat on the ground, at a better height for talking to the children. Another polite sip of coke and he places the can beside him.

“You said ‘the first of you?’ By that you mean boys who went to war?” Achilles is positive that Pyrrhus’ survival to adulthood is owed to his divine blood. Though, ironically, that same blood is what cursed him to a life of war in the first place. “For what cause did you lads fight?”

Gavroche seems quite pleased with his place on the wrought iron chair putting him above everyone else. He swings his legs off the edge, smiling as he pulls a small brightly colored paper box from his pocket.

"Kid soldiers," Scout says, looking at the ground as he answers.

"We all fought for different stuff. I fought the krauts when they took over France." Gavroche pulls a colored paper cylinder from the box before pulling out a match, striking it to light the cylinder. It smells like a sour, bitter version of Coyote's peace pipe, and Gravroche takes a deep suck from the end. "And Pétain, the traitor. Hope the worms ate him."

Gavroche waves his cigarette at Scout. "But I was just a spy. Not like Scout's war. Scout did real killing with his dad. Lots of people!"

Scout grimaces, looking vaguely queasy. "I feel weird bragging about it."

"And Stab... we dunno what's going on with Stab, he doesn't talk." Gavroche waves at Stab, still hidden in his coat. Despite the grim topic of conversation, he's as cheerful as if he's recounting a ball game he and his friends played. "Buuuuut we're pretty sure they just sent him and a bunch of other orphans ahead of the army so they could soak up all the ammo and there wouldn't be any left to kill the grownup soldiers behind them."

Achilles doesn’t know krauts or France, but he does know that men who use children as shields are unforgivable cowards. Right up there with the capital-G God who slaughters innocent babes to punish the crimes of their parents.

“Were your kingdoms so lacking in grown men and worthy warriors?” He glances between each of the boys, though he expects no response from Stab. “A king does not go to war if he has no grown men to fight for his cause. My son— Lamb was only taken to fulfill a prophecy.”

His divine strength was only a secondary (if terrifying) benefit, near as Achilles can tell. The Greek generals would have been as pleased if Pyrrhus was a sort of blood sacrifice, fated to die in his first battle.

"Cowards! All our soldiers are cowards!" Gavroche says, pumping an outraged fist in the air, as if he could scold all the army of his home. "One little battle, and they all ran away, and the krauts took over. They put Pétain in charge, and a lot of people said it'd be good because Pétain is one of our war heroes, but Pétain's just let all the krauts kidnap and torture people. They kidnapped some of my friends from school, and took them away, and they probably killed them all. And worse, Pétain's police helps them kidnap and torture people, and they offer extra food and money and cigarettes if we point out neighbors who said bad things about them so they can be kidnapped too."

Scout visibly looks away, content to allow Gavroche to go on a tirade rather than discuss the conflict he himself was part of. And as Gavroche speaks, the stone city they sit in starts to come to life. Shadows of people pass by, their faces covered with paper with a single eyeball painted on. It feels like everyone is watching.

"The Limping Lady came to help us. Mom helped the Limping Lady by moving packages around the city so the krauts didn't see, and I helped by playing where the Limping Lady asked me to play."

One of the shadows has more definition. A woman with a distinctive limp, but an upturned chin and an aura of magnetism around her. Gavroche strongly admired this woman. In the windows, activity flickers, lights turning on and off and people hanging laundry to dry, and each action hums with secret messages, things that can only be understood by the right observers. Gavroche rarely understood the meaning behind the signals, only that they were indeed signals and how they should be passed along. "I'd play, and I'd watch the krauts, and I'd tell her what I saw. Or I'd walk down the street, and I'd see if a friend had put up black stockings on their line or white, and I'd tell someone else what I'd saw so they'd know what to do. The Limping Lady said I was her best man, because all the older ones got distracted and thought with their dicks."

And Gavroche is clearly fiercely proud of that, puffing out his chest. He hadn't been able to brag in life about his important work, so now he'll tell all.

Achilles watches the fresh scene unfold. The messages, the trickery, the subterfuge all carry the suggestion of Hermes’ power. Or maybe the gauzy, flowing scarf around his neck is simply keeping Hermes top of mind.

Do the French and the krauts only worship the one God? Do some of them still make offerings to older deities? That’s not important right now, he chides himself.

“It was your choice to help defy the krauts?” Achilles asks. He’s carefully comparing Gavroche’s experience of war to Pyrrhus’, but it seems the boy has more in common with the besieged (and conquered) Trojans. Gavroche was only doing what young boys are suited to: games and mischief and secrets. Not killing adults two and three times his size.

“And they were proud of you?” he continues. “The Limping Lady? Your mother and father?”

"No dad, didn't have one, but Mom was proud. And so was the Limping Lady."

Up until now, Gavroche's cheer has been unflappable, proud to boast about his heroism in the face of his older countrymen's cowardice. But for the first time, his proud smile flickers. He sucks on his cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke away from everyone else towards the opaque glass window of the building they sit beside.

"Mom was caught moving weapons. We knew what the krauts did to make people talk. The trained their dogs to rape girls, and they torture you until you can't sit or stand without screaming your voice out until you die weeks later. So Mom did what she had to." Gavroche takes another puff of the cigarette before perking up again, quickly rushing by that part of the story. "The Limping Lady set me up with grownups to take care of me, but I didn't need it, I was a big boy already. I was helping to the end, and when they finally caught me, I didn't let them take me away neither, just like Mom. Teaches the krauts to try taking over my home."

He glows with pride. Scout is content to sink into the background, checking on Stab to make sure he's not having a fit under his coat.

It’s obvious the boy is putting on a brave face, the confident swagger of an adult. As if war was a fun game he’d learned to play. Achilles imagines it’s easier than trying to understand a vicious, senseless reality. Gavroche’s attitude is so different from Scout or Stab—he’s increasingly curious to know more about the other two boys.

“I’m sorry you lost your mother and that you died before you were grown. You are a courageous, clever lad.” Achilles twists the shell bracelet on his wrist with a series of soft clicks. “What would you have done if you had survived the war … like Lamb did? What kind of man would you have liked to be?”

He visibly glows with the praise. Despite his proclaimed pride and independence, a child always wants the recognition and approval of grownups.

"I'd be like the Limping Lady." He says it immediately. He's thought of the person he wanted to grow into before. "Folks who died after me said we won the war, and the worst of the krauts ran away and hid so they couldn't be brought to justice. I'd hunt them down. I'd make sure everyone knew what they did, and they'd never get to do it again."

He sees the Limping Lady as a hero. Her shadow, the barest silhouette of a memory, glows with heroic purpose. Brave and smart and steady and tough as nails--all the things Gavroche wanted to grow to be. Her memory allows him to think of himself and his mother as having died heroes' deaths, rather than just more senseless casualties piled upon countless before.

Edited 2025-06-26 22:09 (UTC)

Gavroche reminds him of the Prince when he was a boy. Hungry for all the praise his father never gave him. Both Gavroche and Zagreus had adults to guide them through difficulty.

Pyrrhus did not.

“My son … he killed children. Other children,” he quickly amends. “Lads like you three. Women, too. People who couldn’t defend themselves.” Achilles rubs his palms together and looks at the lingering idea of the Limping Lady, then back to Gavroche. Pyrrhus wasn’t like them. “He wasn’t defending his home or his people. He was sacking a city.”

It begs the question: “Is he no better than a kraut?”

Gavroche doesn't react visibly to the idea of a child like him killing other children. To an adult, a dead child is a tragedy. To a dead child, another dead child is either a casualty or a brave end.

"If all the krauts did was kill us, I wouldn't hate them near so much." He doesn't have the words for it, but what he truly hates them for is for changing the spirit of his home and destroying his image of the people around him. The country that he loved and felt safe and happy in had turned into an evil place of hunger and paranoia, and the neighbors he previously trusted became traitors for extra rations, or even took out petty grievances by making up that someone else was a spy. Gavroche hated the change he saw in the people around him, hated the cowardice he perceived in those he once admired. He hated the anxious feeling of being watched and controlled at all times, the looming threat of traitors and monsters around every corner. Much better to die in a fight like the heroes in the storybooks, so at least someone can die as themselves.

"Besides," Gavroche shrugs, gesturing his cigarette towards Scout. "Scout killed kids and girls, and he's cool."

Scout grimaces, avoiding eye contact. He clearly would have preferred to stay out of the conversation.

Achilles nods solemnly. He knows there are ways to break an enemy’s spirit. Pat’s death was the clearest case of that. Wounds of the soul can be just as, if not more grievous than those of the body—and much more difficult to heal. It seems the krauts had mastered this.

Briefly, he wonders if Pyrrhus’ treatment of the bodies would change Gavroche’s opinion at all, but he decides against mentioning it. Instead, he shifts his position to look at the other two boys.

“May I ask you lads about your wars?” As a show of goodwill, Achilles takes another sip of the coke. It’s not tasting any better. “Scout. You fought along with your father?”

Scout shifts uncomfortably, sucking on his lip and avoiding eye contact.

"I... dunno if I'd call it... fighting."

The world shifts. The cobblestones and stone buildings fade. Gavroche still sits in his wrought iron chair, but now they're on a road paved with asphalt. Lining the road is lush green trees and grass, and in the distance, mountains.

"And... it didn't... it didn't feel like a war, like in the stories." Scout tugs on the edge of his button down shirt. "It was more like... a really long party."

The road comes to life. Shadows of men have set up tables and chairs, a big grill cooking meat, coolers of beers stacked up and cigars shared while a boombox plays music from the 90s. There are even big serving containers of food on the tables, platters to nibble at, games to play.

Gavroche offers a cigarette and a match to Scout. Scout takes both, though his hands shake as he lights the cigarette.

Scout doesn't speak, breathing in the smoke to calm himself, but the shadows speak for him. A car rolls up the road, but has to stop because the party has blocked it. A man approaches the car, demands that the window roll down, and demands the ID of the person inside. The person offers to bribe them to allow them through. The bribe doesn't work, because why take a bribe when you can take everything?

"We'd let them go if they were our people. And we wouldn't if they were the enemy people," Scout says, staring at the ground.

The shadows drag a screaming woman out of the car by the hair. One swings a machete down on the back of her legs. The tendons snap. She can't walk. They drag her into the woods to pile with the others, other people still alive but incapable of escaping.

Achilles understands the simple division between peoples. Centaurs and Lapiths. Athens and Sparta. Greeks and Persians. That’s the root of all war.

What’s strange to witness is the waste. Why ruin the woman’s legs? Why not take her as a slave? If not, why the half-measures? To revel in her torture and suffering? There’s no honor in that. In any of this.

“You’re right. This is not fighting. This is an affront,” Achilles decides immediately. It’s plain to see, but would Pyrrhus have come to the same conclusion?

“You seem to sense it was wrong, lad,” he says gently, as if talking to a pupil. Gavroche was forthcoming with his experience, but Scout is more reserved. “How did you know it, when those around you participate so eagerly? Did others hesitate?”

“Mmm.” Scout still avoids eye contact, nervously tugging on his shirt. Where Gavroche was proud of his work, Scout shrinks from looking straight at it.

“…None of their people ever hurt me. And all of them were running away. They weren’t trying to fight.” He points at the shadow of the party on the road. “We set up on a road that led out of the country. Dad said they don’t deserve to run, and we need to take back all the money and things they stole.” He lets his arm go slack in his lap. “But no one stole anything from me or my family. I went to school with some of them. They never seemed so different.”

Despite the dark shade of his skin, it takes a visibly greenish tint. “We wouldn’t even let them go if they offered to give us everything they had. Why couldn’t we let them go if all we wanted was their things?”

He swallows hard. “I dunno if anyone else felt like me. I was scared to say anything. They offered to let me rape one of the girls my age, and I lied and said I didn’t like girls like that yet. They thought I might be gay, and Dad was the one who told them to let me grow a couple more years and I’d be a man like them, so they didn’t need to try beating the gay out of me.”

Gavroche knew why he was fighting and—it seemed—what the stakes were. Scout is the opposite. There was no justification for this brazen use of power against people who were already compromised by circumstance. It’s viciously opportunistic.

Teasing out Scout’s story feels cruel; he can’t imagine how difficult Stab’s might be.

“You are a child. You did as your guardians bade. You remained true to your heart and your instincts at important moments.” Achilles nods to Stab. “You protect your friend even now. It’s commendable. Some are so lost in violence that they become numb.”

He’s thinking of Pyrrhus, of course. From what Achilles has gathered, that numbness only lifted recently for his family and servants.

Scout shrinks, hugging his knees and looking away. “I dunno if I did the right thing at important moments. I killed a lot of people. And then I let someone go when I was supposed to kill her. So either way, if God wanted me to kill or not, I was going to hell. Because I’m bad.”

His hand shakes as he sucks on his cigarette. The coat Stab hides under shifts. One little hand emerges from the coat… and then sticks a middle finger to the sky.

“Stab’s right,” Gavroche says, gesturing broadly in his direction. “I’d happily tell God where to stick it if he says you’re bad. Fat good he was helping anyone. The Queen’s a better god anyway.”

“You are not bad,” Achilles agrees emphatically, shifting closer.

“Do not seek that god’s approval. It’s a malignant creature, only set on devouring other gods when it isn’t feeding on mortal misery,” Achilles adds with icy seriousness. “Other gods are actually worthy of devotion.”

The Morrígan? Maybe. In spite of all this, she can’t be worse than the God of Everything, can she?

“Lamb and I share divine blood, made for war. He and I killed many people. I had a choice, but he had none.” He turns the can of coke back and forth pensively. The bubbles inside hiss with the movement. “Lamb was more like you, lad. He was trying to survive in a world other men made for him. A world I helped make for him.”

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