#my fic: the breaking
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A chapter in which Kyra commits a crime punishable by death.
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They come to me in ones and twos: children without family, children living on the city streets or in the forested outskirts, children who've heard stories of a wondrous palace in a valley below the great statue of Artemis, where there's always food to eat and a safe, dry bed.
They come to me while spring marches on, the ones and twos adding up to thirty or so, the number fluctuating whenever an older youth finds the rules of my house too much to bear and chooses to leave. I'm not surprised when Hemera becomes one of them. I give those who depart a sack full of supplies and the promise that my doors will remain open if they ever change their minds. I'm not building a prison.
That intention clashes with Echekleia's desire to rebuild the crumbling wall enclosing the villa's grounds. We argue over it while meeting with Melitta in my study. It's the first hot day of the year, and our tempers have risen with the heat.
"Walls can be blown up," I say while I pace beside my desk. Melitta winces. She wasn't there to witness the hideout's doors reduced to splinters, but she'd lived through the results.
#ya know how i've complained that dialogue is my weakness?#writing this chapter was exposure therapy#my fic: the breaking
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A chapter in which Kyra makes plans to be seen and heard.
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The day the oaks on the hillsides begin to turn gold, the foreman overseeing construction declares that the villa's new roof could withstand a deluge from Poseidon himself. Though the walls inside have yet to be covered with plaster, I direct my household to move in. None of us will have to spend the rainy season in a tent.
I place my bedroll in a set of chambers overlooking the new courtyard, while Melitta and the rest of the staff spread their pallets and blankets throughout the villa's empty rooms. Situated around a central atrium are a handful of guest chambers, a receiving room and study, a library—once the carpenters build shelves in what used to be the andron—and a kitchen, dining hall, and pantry. And each one of those rooms will need to be furnished, outfitted according to its need, and decorated with wall hangings, vases, statues... More of my coin poured into the hands of merchants and artisans around the island.
Melitta is quick to crack jokes about the kyria who sleeps on the floor of her own house. But there's wisdom hidden in her jibes. For the sake of appearances, I hire a bedmaker first.
Several days later, my chambers smell of freshly sawn oak and I flop onto a mattress worthy of a palace, sighing with pleasure as I stretch across a vast, comfortable softness that's mine, all mine. Once I'm done furnishing this house, it'll rival any in the Silver Islands—
"My bed was bigger."
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A chapter in which Kyra returns home to Mykonos and doesn't give a damn about what anyone thinks of it—she's got drachmae now.
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Mykonos was a prosperous island when I left it five years ago, but judging by all the empty berths at the docks and the number of laborers standing around aimlessly, the tides of good fortune appear to have gone out. The few merchants selling wares in the agora are guarded by stone-faced misthioi, and when I ask Gelon about the grim mood, she shrugs and says, "Greed never changes."
A flippant answer, tinged with resignation, and while Gelon goes to arrange a meeting with Barnabas, I peruse the message board for clues that might reveal the unseen hands strangling this island. There are plenty of postings: guards wanted to protect a merchant ship on a run to Skyros, guards wanted for the quarry east of the city, guards wanted to secure a villa nearby. The board's other half is covered with one pirate bounty after another, and I overhear misthioi grumbling about low pay and the risk of ending up in a slave collar if these damned raids didn't stop. Even the heart of the Aegean isn't safe from the pirate plague.
That evening, Gelon takes me to a grimy kapeleion near the docks, one I remember from my rebellion days. Business is slow. Three men are gathered around a table by the door and two others sit at the long communal table that runs the length of the room. No one looks up from their cups as we pass. We sit in a corner, our backs to the wall.
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A chapter in which Kyra flirts, fights, and finds out what's hidden behind that doorway on Thera.
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The stories were right about Thera: its waters are infested with pirates, their black sails prowling the seas like packs of wolves. But Captain Gelon's ship is a nimble little pentekonter, and when I ask if she's worried about being attacked, she says, "Fuck no! My Gyke's the fastest ship this side of Piraeus." We swiftly pull away from any pirates who try to get too close.
Thera is a black, crescent-shaped scab upon the sea. Ruined buildings perch atop its bluffs and crumble down its slopes, and when the currents sweep us around its northern headland and into a wide and shallow bay, a larger complex of ruins beckons us further. A palace? A city? Whatever it was, it had buildings that stood three—even four—levels tall, their stone walls covered in plaster painted in bright reds, blues, and yellows. The rooftops that haven't collapsed are edged with decorations that look like large rounded teeth.
The Gyke comes to a stop against a half-collapsed stone pier, and when the mooring ropes are secure, Gelon and I stand at the ship's railing and watch the crew set up camp under the eaves of a nearby ruin.
"You're welcome to bunk with me below deck," she says, but when I answer with a raised eyebrow, she throws her head back and laughs. "In separate bunks. Aphrodite's tits, you think I'm trying to wriggle under your chiton this soon? I like to get to know a woman better before I put the make on her."
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A chapter in which Kyra's curiosity leads her away from the life she's built on Samos.
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Sefthas helps me bring you home, on a felucca borrowed from one of the villagers. I never made you feel welcome here, but it was your home too, in the end. I don't think you'd want to begin your journey to the Underworld among strangers.
The sun slips behind a band of dark clouds near the horizon while Sefthas and I carry you onto the beach. He keeps sneaking me concerned looks—looks that I ignore. I have a task to do and can't waver from that focus. Not yet.
He lingers awkwardly, and I have to persuade him to leave, convince him that I'll be fine, really, on my own. I can handle this, I'm sure, and I promise to call on him in Kazania if I need anything, anything at all.
Once his felucca disappears around the cape, I kneel beside you and strip away your tunic, feeling a twinge of loss when I can't find your shark tooth necklace. Another casualty of the battle. I fetch buckets and rags, clean the blood from your skin and anoint you with oil. I gather armloads of wood from the woodshed and carry them down to the sand and build you a pyre. I'm surprised to find I'm strong enough to lift you upon it, but perhaps I shouldn't be. You never ate enough while you were here to fill out the hollows in your cheeks.
I don't know if you would have wanted me to follow Athenian or Spartan customs, so I combine some of both, weaving a wreath like the Athenians favor from the pine boughs sacred to the Spartans. And in the gathering darkness, while lightning flashes and thunder rumbles in from the distant sea, I place an obol on your lips and light the pyre with a torch. You said you were ready to be judged, and I've done everything I can to help you on your journey.
#samos was starting to feel a lil claustrophobic#but it's not easy getting around Hellas in the 430's BCE...#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra
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A chapter in which cracks in a foundation become too much for it to bear its own weight.
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After the incident at the bathing pool, your hands stay clean of blood—visible or otherwise. But you retreat within yourself, your shoulders hunching under an unseen burden of your own making, and outside the hut you're careful to keep your distance. You hardly speak and I don't make up for the lack. Perhaps some more space between us will do us good.
My view of the future used to be clear—the hut and the barn, the goats on the mountain, the turn of the seasons and the endless sweep of waves in the cove—but your gloom has obscured it. I have no idea how my fate will run through yours.
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A chapter in which fraying threads begin to snap.
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I don't forget the dead, but there's a shift in the currents between us. We graze the goats on the mountain, we make cheese and sell it at market, and when we're together, we banter, almost like friends.
"If that's you being quiet, we'll have nothing to hunt but trampled grass," I say, as the sound of the branch you've carelessly snapped cuts through a forest filled with the golden light of sunset. We're searching for deer on the ridge above the stream.
"You've only yourself to blame for bringing me," you say. "I'm no hunter. I could be relaxing on the beach right now."
Since you arrived at my farmstead, you've never relaxed on the beach, not once. "Sure you would. You'd be kicking back, getting sand in your underclothes and eating from a big bowl of grapes we don't have."
"Better than slogging through this." You lift your foot from the soggy green moss along the stream bank we've been following, and wiggle wet and muddy toes in an equally wet and muddy sandal.
"I didn't know you were so... dainty."
"Hardly," you say. "I just prefer to stay out of the muck unnecessarily."
"Unnecessarily? We need the meat, since you won't let me cull the—"
"You need the meat because you eat everything in sight. It's a mystery where you put all of it."
I wave you quiet. "Make yourself useful by looking for deer sign, will you? The sooner we bring one down, the sooner you get to relax."
#kyra also says “RIP to Atlantis but I'm different”#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which Kassandra's past comes to light.
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On the morning of the longest day of summer, I take the tally stick I use to track the moon and the passing time, unwrap its thread, and wind it around the next notch in line. "It's the day of longest light," I say.
At the table, you put down the chunk of bread you've been holding more than eating, and gaze up at me warily. "So it is."
"There'll be a festival in Kazania, and I've never been. We should go."
"Absolutely not."
"Why?" The tally stick goes back on the shelf, and I go to sit beside you.
The look you give me says I should know the answer, but I'm enjoying the thought of you squirming within a crowd too much to let you off so easily. "The children will be there," I say, reaching for the bread left in the basket.
Pink blooms across your cheeks. "I've no interest in visiting with children," you say stiffly.
"Then how about playing with them?"
"No."
"Why not? You've enjoyed that when we've gone to market." I dip a morsel of bread into the dish of olive oil, thinking while I chew. You're still not eating much. The bread I make, the oil I buy—our meals are plain and simple fare, spiced with hard work. Nothing we eat here compares to the delicacies that graced your table in Athens.
Your stoic facade wavers. "I don't..." you begin, but then you fold your arms and say, "I don't need to enjoy myself."
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A chapter in which Kassandra reveals what was stolen from her long ago.
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Market day. We've been up since dawn, packing bundles of cheese into damp clay pots to keep the heat out. Our satchels bulge and sag with the weight. The morning milk-pots have been overflowing with milk from dams who've spent all spring feasting on rain-kissed greens. And the dams aren't the only ones happy: the rest of the herd's in fine spirits now that you're the one watching them on the mountain every day.
The walk to Kazania is easy, but I'm glad to find a spot of shade under a myrtle tree near the message board, where the air is slightly cooler and holds a resinous, spicy scent. While I pull pots from the satchels, you hover around me, glowering at the people passing by until I wave you away in exasperation. "Go and wander, will you?"
"But you'd be alone. And unarmed."
A challenge lurks in your words, an opening salvo in what's become a game between us: spotting potential weapons within close reach. "I could clobber you with this pot," I say, nudging it with the toe of my sandal. "It would keep you from scaring away the customers."
"Cheese for sale, seasoned with shards of clay," you say, smirking as you stride off for the docks. After several trips to market together, this, too, has become part of our routine: I shoo you away, you disappear into the village to wait. How you pass the time is a mystery, but it's better than your awkward glowering. You don't like the things I do to make a sale, the inane chatter, the haggling to seal the deal. Maybe you don't like that I become someone else.
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A chapter in which a farmstead in the middle of nowhere still isn't safe from roving predators.
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Spring drips along in strings of soggy days. The incessant rain leaves the goats restless and grumpy in their stalls, and the sun only appears as a tease. I should be grumpy too, hobbling around with a bad ankle, forced to rely on your help. But we've reached a truce of sorts. I've learned to coexist with you.
We're not friends. I don't know what we are. You give me space when I need it, and I don't claw at you with my words. Somehow, we even manage a few conversations that aren't about the goats or the weather.
It's a fragile peace, balanced on the edge of my mood. Your name changes from moment to moment. A careless remark delivered like a command? Deimos. A curious question about some task I'm doing? Kassandra. And whenever you're Deimos, I must hold back my rage, lest it cut you, me, and everything else between us.
You're figuring out how to be someone else. Maybe that's what the gods want: for me to give you a place to do that. Hopefully you'll have better luck at it than I did.
Weeks pass. The rain tapers off to a mere drizzle, and one morning, after we've finished the milking, I point out a yearling and say, "I need you to help me slaughter this wether today."
#even an unarmed kassandra is not to be trifled with#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which Kyra finds the words "thank you" just out of reach.
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The sound of an axe bangs through the yard on a cool, grey morning. Above me, the clouds are a carpet of dappled wool, and I frown as I study them, tasting rain and salt. I check my satchel—an old barley sack tied to a leather strap—and sling it over my shoulder, then walk around the barn to the woodshed, my footsteps competing with the axe's rhythmic thock.
You pause mid-swing, then swivel the axehead down so it rests on the chopping block. In your hands, an axe moves with fluid grace—not the abrupt and brutish hacking I expected from you. Though your foes these days are logs instead of men, you fell them just as easily.
Woodchips cling to your hair, and you drag a calloused hand across your brow, leaving a streak of dirt and sweat behind. "Heading out? You'll be back at sundown, then?"
"Before, I hope." I glance up at the sky. "Might rain, but if the clouds break up, you can take the herd to the Black Forest."
That makes you grin. You like herding the goats, which is why I don't let you do it very often. You get to do things like muck the barn, carry water, and fill this woodshed with split logs so they can season long enough to become next winter's firewood. I don't have to scrounge for driftwood or fallen tree limbs anymore. Not with you around.
#writerly self-doubt is a pernicious gremlin#never has a story made me doubt my ability like this one#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#kyssandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which Kyra tries to adjust to having Kassandra around.
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I've learned to enjoy the silence and stillness of solitude in the years I've worked this farmstead on my own. But now I must share my sanctuary with someone I despise. I must figure out what to do with you.
What do I do with someone who only knows an axe by the way it chops into a skull, who's never stirred a pot or swept a floor, who's spent a lifetime being waited upon by slaves? I've no need for the skills you're good at, waging war and hurting people, and with your knee as it is you're limited in the labor you can do. But you will help me, by the gods, even if it's only the simplest of tasks. You're another mouth to feed, and I've little to spare and no time to waste. I start in on my list of chores as soon as we return from the path on the ridge.
Inside the hut, I set pots of milk by the fire, hand you a wooden spoon, and show you how to stir the milk so it doesn't scorch. Your brows knit in concentration, and while you focus on the task, I gather squares of finely woven linen, the cured stomach of a stillborn goat-kid, and the small jar of starter for cheese-making.
Only when I begin to pour the steaming milk into one large bowl do you realize what I'm doing. "That cheese we've been eating... It's yours. You made it."
I make an mmmhmm sound and keep pouring.
"You will show—" You wince at the look I give you and try again. "Will you show me how?"
#i apologize in advance#for twisting a certain beloved trope#but i couldn't fucking resist#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#kyssandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which Kyra struggles to keep her anger under control while Deimos recuperates enough to leave.
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Now that your fever has broken, you spend the day deep in slumber, catching up on the rest you didn't get in delirium. The hut thrums with the threat of your presence. I keep my eyes on you and a hand near my knife whenever I have to be inside.
It's dark when I return from closing up the barn. You're still asleep, and stay asleep even as I put together a meal of chickpeas mashed with fennel and a pinch of salt, eaten with a handful of dried figs and the last chunk of bread. I wash the bowl when I'm done, tidy up the shelf of dishes and tools, then bring the whetstone down and begin sharpening my knife.
My arm moves, the blade slides and hisses for a long while, but then a quiet sigh from the bed pulls me out of rhythm. Your head turns, slowly, in time to watch me test the blade's edge against my thumbnail. Sharp enough to cut to the bone if I need it to. I set the knife aside and bend down to the pot warming on the hearth. Fragrant steam rises when I tip its liquid into a clay cup, the sharp scent of laurel slicing through the earthier willow bark. Your eyes follow me as I bring the cup to the bed.
"I mean you no harm," you say, sitting up to receive it. Our fingers don't touch. You cradle the cup in your palms, hunching over with your face within its vapors.
"If you truly meant that, you wouldn't be here." I sit on the bench, my guts boiling, and heat rises through the caverns within me, chest, mouth, the space behind my eyes where the pressure likes to build. I pick up the whetstone and manage not to hurl it. "How did you know where I was?"
#hoo boy i remember this chapter being fun to write#the simmering anger! the dialogue! that scene at the end!#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which the hand of xenia rests heavily on Kyra's shoulder.
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The gods are fickle. The gods are cruel. And yet there is one law they all agree on, the one that can't be broken.
Xenia.
Visitors must be welcomed with hospitality. A simple law, as such things go. But does xenia apply to an old enemy who appears on the doorstep?
I hunt around the hut until I find my knife, and hold it ready as I creep back to the doorway. You're still unconscious. My skin prickles with the memory of your hands on my body, a sharp heat that flares into hate. I grip the knife tighter and think about what I could do to you, think of your throat opening, your blood darkening the dirt.
I could kill you.
But then again, you could have killed me.
My knife hand waits. You could have killed me, but instead, you freed me from slavery. You gave me the means to buy this farmstead. You left me alone to live my life—until now. Why are you here?
#oh yeah deimos is back—and she brought the Furies with her#my fic: the breaking#deimos!kassandra#kyssandra#ac odyssey
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A chapter in which Kyra learns that you can't go home again.
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I take the papyrus that contains my freedom, the purse full of drachmae and jewels, and go home.
Mykonos has changed in five years. The salt-stained docks creak under the weight of people and cargo, and the agora has spilled into the surrounding streets, its merchants offering honeyed wine, jewelry, and cosmetics. Such luxuries used to be rare. The city has prospered now that Podarkes is gone, just as I always hoped it would.
But within the crowd, eyes blink with the shock of recognition when they see me. Faces curdle. Whispers chase after me, take root in my chest, squeeze tight. I've been too drunk on freedom to think about what I left behind to ferment. Stupid. I should've anticipated this, should've prepared myself for it. Should've is a bitterly familiar taste in my mouth.
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A chapter in which Kyra's fate rests in the hands of the woman she doesn't love.
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Sleep forsakes the damned. What good is slumber when the Underworld is filled with the eternally awake? Restlessly, I drift across the long hours of night, trapped in the grey mists between Erebos and the earth. Restlessly, I twist in bedsheets that entangle my limbs. You've abandoned me here to await my fate.
When daylight begins to seep through the window slats, I rise and go to the bath. I'm not above finding comfort in the routine of washing and getting dressed. I fill the tub, light the braziers under it, and have a good long soak. My younger self would have called me a fool to see it. I've grown attached to the luxury of being clean and warm even while knowing such things are so easily taken away.
In the dressing room, I choose a chiton whose blue reminds me of the tranquil lagoons I used to swim in as a girl, but the linen clings to my damp skin and my fingers fumble at the buttons on the sleeves. Steady. Steady, now.
My heart flutters like a bird fallen from the nest. What are you doing, wherever you are? What are you thinking? What are you deciding?
I can't control the beat of my heart, but I can do something about my ignorance.
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