Hermes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
messageforyou) wrote2025-06-15 01:56 pm
messageforyou) wrote2025-06-15 01:56 pm
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.
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.
no subject
“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?”
no subject
“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.”
no subject
“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.
no subject
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?”
no subject
“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.