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
“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.
no subject
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 subject
“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?”
no subject
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?”