refusetofight | For @messageforyou

For @messageforyou

Thetis wings slow circles above the shore in the shape of a humble gull. Of all the many shapes she could take, this is the most unremarkable to mortals. They’re a common nuisance, curious and daring.

This isn’t the first time Thetis has watched her unexpected granddaughter play on the shore. She’s been a seal, watching from the safety of the surf, a keen-eyed osprey roosting at the top of a tree. In animal shape, her emotions are no less turbulent.

The girl’s hair shines like flax in the sun as she delights in the waves and warm sand. Thetis might as well be watching a memory: those peaceful, lazy days with her son, bookended by the pain of his conception and the grief of his death.

Every time she visits, she promises herself that this will be the last. The same as she did with Neoptolemus. But she finds herself gripped by guilt. She could have saved her grandson from the vile mortals who would use him like they used Achilles. She could have hidden him away again, perhaps this time in her father’s realm. But what would be the use? They would still find him. Neoptolemus is still mortal. He would still die.

What do the Fates have planned for this child? Lord Hermes’ divinity shines bright within her. She’ll be coveted by mortals, yes, but not as a weapon—as a beautiful lover and mother to powerful sons. Thetis knows the special agony of that life.

But for now, Lyra is a happy child, delighting in a beautiful day. Thetis pulls her wings in to stoop lower until she can hear the girl’s laughter on the breeze. Lower still and she can see her smile. Against her better judgement, the aching protest of her old wounds, she finally lights on the sand a few yards away.

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There's an answering tug on the other end of Thetis' tether. Someone pulling steadily, closing the distance between them. Don't panic, the binding seems to say, calm and gently amused. Just keep pulling.

The floor thrums with the bass in the music.

Watch out, you might just go under...

Your Friend waves À̵̼c̵̝͠h̴͈͊í̶͍l̵̡̚l̷͍̃e̶̦̕s̶̲͑ and Ṗ̴̱a̵̭̋t̷̥̅ṛ̴̎o̶̻͐c̵͔̿ĺ̵͖u̸̜̍s̵̼̈́ inside. "Yeah, relax. You can think inside. If you're not having too much fun!" Your Friend makes devil horns with its hands, giggling. Your Friend's glowing lipstick and eyeshadow makes for spots of strange faces in the strobe, like the only thing that's real without the lights on are its lips and eyes.

So if you must falter, be wise.

There's another sharp tug at both their wrists. Sharp enough to hurt. There's a sense of tearing, of glamour being ripped like gauze.

This is Kelly's memory. A night that changed the course of her life. The vagaries of the details, the soft edges that the land smoothed to make it easier to fit new people, melt away. The club snaps into its remembered shape, small and humid but brimming with light and music. Your Friend wasn't there, it was Sasha. Kelly took a tab of acid before arriving to the party, and Sasha gave her a hit of molly. All Your Friends weren't there. They're strangers. All of them, strangers.

Kelly is behind Achilles and Patroclus now, kneeling on the wet street. The world hums with her memory. The memory of how rough the asphalt was under her knees, how much she needed to feel the fine layer of oil on the puddles of the street, pulling off all her clothes so she could feel. And then looking up and seeing the corpse of the sky, and the face of God.

It's visible now in the memory. The open wounds and scars of the sky, the body of Ouranos laid bare to mortal eyes. And the eyes. Eyes. Eyes across the night, eyes in the condensation trails of planes, eyes on the buildings, on the ground, everywhere, everywhere, God is just eyes eyes eyes e̶̡͇͚͙̠̥̔̄̊̋̊̒̎͋y̷̛͚͔͕͔̋̂̆͊̊͆̄̀ë̸͕̻̻̘̱̘̱̳́͜s̷͈̞̩̝͚̯̬͖̯̗͈͈̟̖̀̄̋̌͗̌̎̆̇̔̈́͑͗͠͝ͅ e̵̢̢̛̹͖̳̩̋̽̄̈̃́̔̈́͗́͒̈́͐̆̉͑̈́͋͋̏̓̾͑̾̓̓̓͒̓̕͝͝͝y̸̛̛̮̜̺͙͖̻̻̏͊̔̈́̆̓̑̈́̽̆͗̏͋̃́̓̿͛͂͂̂̇̇̿̋̂̔̒͗͆̾̎̕͘ȩ̶̛̛̛͔̼̤͔̻̜̥̖̜͈̀̎̉͊͊̓̇̐͋̾̊̅͝͝͝s̴̤͍̘͔̦̰͇̖̳̿̒̎̀ ȩ̶̳̭̗̖̯̜̪̪̘̘͕̣̹͎̪͔͈͙̬̣̜̈́̂̒̌̊͒̅̾͆́̈̔̄̏̑̌̃̀̐̋̎̈́̑̈̍́̋̊͝͠͠y̷̡̧̧̧̛̛͙̥̗̺̺͕̹͇̩̣̜̹̣̰̞͉͉̬̱͎͒̽̔͐̔̀̐́̍̏͛̏͗̒̽̓̓̔͊̈́̂͊̄͐̇̉͑̚͘͘̕͘̕͠͝͠͠ͅͅe̶̢̢̛̖̳̦͚̦̘̯̩͉͚̖͔͚̟͔͍̖̞̞͇͖̥͙̻̗͓̭̜͔̪̻̳̪̼̳̠̽͒͑̈͂̿̌̐̈s̷̡̨̢̡̛̛͍̻̙͈͎̝͈̪̝͈͔͙͍̫̳̪͕̲̲̟̠̹͈̰̳̺͉͕̈́̾̍̈́̒̾̅͘̚̕͜͜͝

Kelly, naked and wet and incapable of feeling the cold, turns her face towards Achilles and Patroclus. Running mascara turn her tear tracks into macabre pantomime.

"I'm scared," she says softly, hugging herself.

Edited 2025-04-18 05:27 (UTC)

It’s like being torn from a dream into … well, another dream. Nightmare isn’t right, but the misery is oppressive. Achilles drops the cup and the pill as quickly as if they were venomous creatures clutched in his hands. Pat follows suit.

The weak plea turns them both around. Patroclus takes a few blinking moments to sort out his senses—what’s real, what’s false, what’s dangerous—before he comprehends the simple fact that this woman needs help. He unclasps his cloak and uses it to gingerly cover the woman’s nakedness. “Are you hurt? Can you stand?”

Achilles scans the surroundings, noting the all-too-familiar sky, then recalls the token in his pocket. He withdraws the river stone and holds it to his eye to perform the sweep again, lingering on Kelly.

“Leave the mortal be, Patroclus. There’s nothing to be done,” Thetis says from the club’s door. Silently, she continues to reel in the tether, leading Lugh back. “We need to find Lord Hermes and Lugh, then be on our way.”

Upon closer inspection, Kelly is trembling, and her pupils are blown so wide it almost makes her eyes black. She's hyper-aware of the feeling of cloth draping across her shoulders. Hyper-aware, too, of the slight dips and curves of Patroclus' veins and sinew as she rests a steadying hand on his wrist. This is her memory, and it sings with her impressions of the world right now. Touch is the strongest sense she has presently, magnified beyond normal mortal experience. The tip of her finger finds the divot between the two bones at Patroclus' wrist connecting to his hand. The familiarity of standard anatomy seems to steady her for a moment.

"The world is so much bigger than I thought," she says, voice soft. Her fear is mixed with awe and wonder, trembling before the things she sees. She sounds on the edge of sobbing. "It's so much bigger than either of us."

As Achilles sweeps the stone around, he'll see that the space around them isn't quite... all there. Simultaneously real and not, a layer of spiderweb built parallel to more and more layers of webbing, each one a delicately altered pocket of memory that was so vivid for the owner that it could serve as the foundation of an entire cage. Humans are trapped in each layer, and Kelly sits at the center of this one, still so very human in the hole of the stone. She has the strange, fragile quality of someone who isn't dead, but wouldn't likely last very long if released back to the land of the living either.

There's pressure on all three tethered wrists. It's trying to pull through each gauzy layer of webbing, through all the sticky memories and enchantment.

As if sensing it, Kelly clutches Patroclus' hand, eyes wide. "Please don't go," she begs.

Pat takes the woman’s hand and scrutinizes her face. A fever, maybe. Or she’s been poisoned by the fae. Is this what would happen to Achilles if he managed to swallow those offerings?

“Come.” Pat gathers the cloak modestly around Kelly and loops an arm around her waist to help her up from the wet filth of the street. “Don’t fret. Let’s get you dry, my dear.”

Achilles pockets the stone. It revealed that this place is Hermes warned—a bit like Elysium, or maybe like the dream realm. He grimaces in sympathy and begins gathering what he assumes are Kelly’s discarded clothes.

Thetis feels the two other gods drawing nearer, thank the Fates. Achilles and Patroclus’ hearts are far too soft for her liking. “There’s no saving her.”

“She deserves a moment’s comfort, at least,” Achilles says, hushed and harsh. He knows his mother has little interest in mortals, but she could show a little tact.

As Patroclus examines Kelly closer, he may notice that her skin is unusually hot, but she doesn't seem to notice, and there's no sign of sweating or panting to cool herself down. It's feverish, but without the awareness of any discomfort associated with fevers.

The cloak around her is a different fabric than she's used to. Sturdier. Rougher. Warm. It scratches her bare skin. She feels the pressure of the man's arm around her waist. The scrape of asphalt on her knees and feet as she shakily stands. The asphalt is slick with the remains of rain, and a thin layer of oil, the build up of so much exhaust.

Neon lights shine on the puddles. There's still a party happening at the club, thrumming, but not with the same supernatural pull it had before. It's a memory now, enchanting in the mundane way parties are to young people.

The clothes Achilles picks up are clubbing clothes. A sequinned mini-dress, perfect for reflecting all the lights in the party. She must have undergarments somewhere, probably, but they're not with the dress.

Kelly turns, eyes still wide, and just rests her face in the crook of Patroclus' neck. There's no self-consciousness in the gesture, no sense of how inappropriate it might be to tuck herself so intimately against a strange man. She just wants to feel his skin, and her face is the most sensitive. He smells like loam and moss. Like secret lakes in underground caves. Like safety.

"The universe is so big," she mumbles. "I don't understand. It's so big."

The memory communicates what she can't. Kelly had been raised Catholic, religious observances held only in ostentatious or boring buildings, administered by boring old people, with a doctrine that never made any sense to her, where she was expected to tell all her secrets to a boring old man who'd judge her for them and say how she ought to punish herself. She stopped going to church as soon as she was out of her parents' house. But now for the first time, she's having a spiritual experience, and she doesn't know what to do but to tremble and weep at its enormity, at how unlike anything she imagined it ever was. The world has fallen out from under her feet, and now she grapples with the nothing she understands.

The memory bends. Gentler, this time, not quite so manipulatively. Just the wrist tethers tightening, enough space being created to allow more outsiders inside of this pocket of the world.

Edited 2025-04-20 05:55 (UTC)

Patroclus wonders what this woman was like before she became trapped here—when she wasn’t sick and lost and terrified. Does her family miss her? She reminds him of the countless women the Greeks enslaved as their geras. Who benefits from her misery?

He doesn’t balk at her closeness, but it does make him more aware of her worrying fever. This, combined with the intensity her awe, makes him worry she might be dying. When the familiar boundaries of his own mortal flesh were gone, the enormity of existence made itself terrifyingly obvious.

“It is,” he agrees soothingly. “It’s not something we’re made to understand.” Patroclus maneuvers Kelly under a bus shelter, if only to shield her from the oppressive vastness of the sky.

Achilles watches, the strange dress held loosely in his fist. His empathy heats into a simmering rage at this injustice. “What keeps her here?” he asks Thetis. “Is it here with us? Can you summon it?”

“No.” Thetis shakes her head sternly. She knows that righteous anger in her son’s voice. “This realm belongs to something far larger and more powerful than I am. Something that must not be trifled with.”

Kelly allows him to move her, grateful. She's not in the right mind to question a strange man caring for her, but she is in the right mind to appreciate the safety for what it is. And this man feels like safety. She slides her arms around his waist, giving him a tight hug, aware of his skin, aware of the sturdiness of his clothes. She clings to him, a thread of human connection to anchor her in the enormity of the universe. With how big everything is, suddenly that human connection seems so much more important, the only thing that serves to give meaning to the vastness.

"It's not what church said," she murmurs against his neck. "It's not at all like church said. Did we hurt the sky?"

The world twists just slightly... and then Hermes and Lugh emerge from nothingness. Hermes zips forward immediately, flitting between Patroclus and Achilles but mostly focusing on Achilles, his anxiety clear in the fact he can't seem to stop from flying and hovering.

"No one ate or drank anything, right? Nothing? At all? Even a little?"

Lugh, meanwhile, looks unbothered as he looks around. He touches his spear against the ground "Yes, apologies for wrecking all your hard work." This portion of the spiderweb knits back together. The club is alluring again. Your Friend is at the entrance, sucking on a lollipop as it stares reproachfully at Lugh.

"Oh, don't give me that. You'll have your fun, just not with these ones," Lugh says, waving off the glare Your Friend gives him.

Thetis matches Your Friend’s glare with one of her own, cold and dark as the deep abyss.

“No, I don’t think we hurt the sky.” Mortals didn’t, anyway. Pat keeps an arm around Kelly’s shoulders and allows her to keep clinging as long as she needs; there’s no telling when she might meet another human again. At least, one of sound mind an an ounce of empathy.

Achilles loosely catches Hermes’ wrist when he zips near. “No, magpie. We’re all safe,” Achilles says quickly, but his brow is still furrowed as he nods in Kelly’s direction. “But for this young woman.”

He leans in close and lowers his voice. “I know— I know you said we would encounter people like her. But … is there anything at all to be done?”

Hermes still hovers like a bee, too worked up to properly touch down, but he does stop zipping when Achilles catches his wrist. He leans in to listen to what his lover has to say, and glances over at the young woman clinging to Patroclus. His eyes soften.

"Oh, darling. She's not the worst off you may see." Hermes very much wants to keep Achilles and Patroclus from seeing the worst of the worst, but he can't guarantee it, and he can't pretend it's not there.

He forces his wings to stop fluttering, forcing his feet to touch the ground again.

"But I can make her more comfortable."

He presses a brief kiss to Achilles' fingers before letting his hand go, putting on a friendly smile as he approaches Patroclus and Kelly, all the gently friendliness one might hope for in a psychopomp.

"May I?" Hermes raises an inviting hand towards Kelly. She shifts her face a little, her cheek dragging on Patroclus' neck, staring at the incomprehensible. Just as she sees the sky for what it is, just as she sees the face of God, she sees the face of this one too. The dizzying abstractions, the vastness of connections and so many things she never thought hard on. Her breath quickens, her grip on Patroclus tightening.

Hermes' smile gentles. "I won't hurt you. I promise."

Achilles breathes his thanks as Hermes draws away. He wishes there was something he could do himself—would that he could take a blade to the creeping spider’s silk that binds these tiny prisons together and usher this woman to her freedom.

At his approach, Patroclus raises his focus from Kelly to Hermes. His eyes are flinty, but more protective than mistrustful. He knows Hermes’ capacities as a psychopomp, and maybe that’s what he intends? Some deep wounds and wasting illnesses simply can’t be mended. Living only guarantees more agony. Death is the only way she can know peace.

“He’s right. He won’t hurt you.” Pat sees how her eyes reel and he finds her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Look at me if it’s more comfortable.”

She turns her eyes back to Patroclus, nodding, breathing heavily and unblinking. Yes, yes, it's more comfortable to look at him. "I like you," she manages. He's nice. He's gentle. He's safe.

She lets her free hand go, holding it out to the dizzying whirl of abstractions beyond her, and Hermes takes it gently.

And then there's just a little... nudge.

It smears the entire memory. A touch of creeping curiosity. The seed of learning something new. The world is so big, how frightening shifts to how exciting.

Kelly loosens her grip on Patroclus. She turns her gaze up to the sky, and as her eyes widen, the trembling fear melts away into thrilling awe. Past the bloated scars of the sky, she sees the stars. Endless, beautiful stars, cradles of creation, so many stories that the world will end before she knows a fraction. And the stars are so much greater than any eyes, any scars, anything here on the ground.

She lets out a trembling breath. She sobs, but it's more of a laugh this time, her lips turning up into a smile as her eyes start to stream once more.

"Look. Look. Do you see?" She squeezes Patroclus' hand, pointing up at the sky, at the endless vastness beyond their tiny pinprick existence. "It's beautiful."

Hermes lets her go, smiling as he backs away. Yes, this memory should be much more comfortable for her now.

Patroclus is used to this—being the steady one. Achilles inspired people, but people came to Pat for comfort. Someone who would listen quietly, even if he came off as a little grumpy about it at times. Pat doesn’t hate it when he can help people like this woman, or Briseis, or even Zagreus.

He sees the shift in Kelly’s face and feels her body relax. Pat relaxes in kind, now that her pain and confusion is lifted … and Hermes’ mercy didn’t involve easing the woman into death.

“I see it. I do,” he confirms with a smile. He’s less enamored with the stars than she is, but pleased all the same. “Will you be alright now? My friends and I need to find someone we’ve lost.”

Kelly squeezes Patroclus' hand affectionately, like he's a lifelong friend. And he is, isn't he? This moment seems to stretch out infinitely, and he's standing by her during it.

"Who did you lose?"

A flicker of awareness. A shift. This is a memory Kelly has, but it wasn't the last thing she remembers from Before. After this night, she quit business school and took all the inheritance from her grandmother to find answers. The people who she would have dismissed as insane or quacks earlier in life told her that she had traces of Sybil in her, just enough divine blood to see Truth every once in a while. She hadn't believed them, really, and she went to Ireland to find answers. But that was long ago.

She tears her eyes from the stars. She looks at the man beside her. At his sad, get gentle eyes. So much kindness, borne of knowing pain. It almost makes her want to cry.

"Tell me. Maybe I can help you."

“His son.” Pat nods his head towards Achilles. “Neoptolemus … or Pyrrhus, to some.”

“Have you seen him?” Achilles eagerly chimes in. “He—” A pause, as he considers Kelly’s sequin dress, still limply glittering in his hand like fish scales. And about as wet.

Where or maybe when the woman is from is still beyond him. It’s a wonder they can understand one another, but maybe that’s an effect of this place. Or part of Lugh’s assistance. “Pyrrhus would have been dressed like us.“

“We’ve journeyed from Greece, if you know it?” Pat adds, taking his cloak pin to gently secure the cloth at her collar.

"Big name. Neo like the Matrix?" she says, allowing Patroclus to pin the cloak before leaning against him again, draping her arm around him. She can't seem to really stop touching him, not for any interest in him but because she's just so fixated on feeling. Why don't people pay more attention to touch? Human skin feels so nice. And so does cloth. Fabric. All sorts of things feel nice to touch.

But she turns her eyes to the stars. If Achilles and Patroclus pay close attention, they may notice that the stars look almost completely different than the ones they're used to in Greece.

"I know Greece. Went with my friends one summer. Don't know how they managed before cars--got out of breath just walking from the beach to that big temple everyone likes." The Parthenon. But the name quite escapes her right now. But oh, they're looking for someone, the pretty man's son, how sorry for him to go missing.

Kelly tips her eyes up to the stars. They swim. It's hard to tell if that's because they're actually moving, or the memory is from a woman not quite in her right mind.

"There's a blond man dressed like you. Curly hair like yours too," she mumbles, her words starting to slur as her eyes unfocus, still pointed at the sky. "He's part of the Wild Hunt."

Lugh, previously happy to just observe this exchange, perks suddenly. Hermes' feathers fluff in surprise before smoothing again. "It means the Morrígan keeps him in her hunting retinue. It foretells war when it appears in the mortal world," Hermes supplies, furrowing his brow. Oh, he doesn't want to think about the Morrígan picking him as one of her favorites. That means she'll drive a harder bargain.

Achilles feels a sudden, irrational tug of jealousy at the way Kelly touches Patroclus, and just as quickly feels ashamed. The woman is a tortured prisoner, not a rival lover.

Patroclus doesn’t dissuade Kelly, though, and guides her hands to more appropriate places if they absently wander too far. Her state of mind doesn’t seem to register boundaries right now.

Her words about Greece cause little sparks of memory—not his memory precisely, but the visions Apollo struck him with. Times, places, concepts far beyond his understanding. Among them is a “car,” sleek and shiny and fast. “Summer” too, in the way Kelly seems to think of it: a time for youthful freedom and travel.

Achilles looks from Kelly to Hermes, to Lugh. “Where can we find her hunting party? Does this change our plan?”

Kelly is indeed not able to register boundaries at the moment, but she’s very easy to guide and redirect. At one point she catches a lock of Pat’s hair between her fingers, and she rubs it contemplatively, just as fascinated by the texture of his hair against the pads of her fingers as anything else.

Lugh rests his spear on the ground, his eyes turning upwards as he considers. “Your choice. She has no claim to his body. You could take him and walk out.”

Hermes furrows his brow, pinning his wings tight against his skull. He looks down, frowning. “Lugh, what name does the Morrígan own?”

“Neoptolemus, King of Epirus,” Lugh says immediately.

Hermes takes a deep breath before looking at Achilles. He crosses his arms, eyes soft. “He still owns the name ‘Pyrrhus.’ If we take him, he’ll have that much. But anything of him that was part of the names he lost will be trapped here. Memories, skills, relationships, all of it. His shade would be split, and he’d never recover what he lost.”

“Shades can grow back,” Lugh says with a dismissive wave. “We could have him return as a child. Have him stay with a relative and grow up again. He’d make new parts to replace the old. And it’d be much easier for us all.” Lugh smiles at Achilles, but it’s a detached smile. One that is happy to allow Achilles to make his choices, whether to the benefit or detriment of others. “No need to risk your name or risk talking to her. No need for anyone you brought here to risk anything more. It’s the safest option.”

It takes a moment to process this information—or, indeed, to understand it at all. Names have a certain power and value to them, but surely they can’t be taken? Nor could they uproot a person’s being?

If it’s true, though, isn’t this an opportunity? A second chance? Shedding ‘Neoptolemus’ could spare Pyrrhus from all of his pain and suffering—of Troy, of his rejection and loss and abandonment.

But that would only leave a fraction of his son. Would Pyrrhus alone remember Ophelia and Molossus? Would he love them the same way? His family is a hard-earned treasure.

Achilles closes his eyes and scrubs a hand over his face. Behind his lids, he can see Pyrrhus, bloody and betrayed on the deck of the trireme. You never had a son. And I never had a father.

No, it’s not his place to decide which—if any—parts of his son are worth cleaving away and which are worth saving.

“This is not a decision I can make for him.” His eyes open, calm and resolved. “I will bring him back whole or not at all.”

Lugh nods. Hermes' wings relax. He hadn't wanted to say it in mixed company, but he was sure that Achilles would regret it if he split Pyrrhus from himself.

"Very well. Then we ought to make our way to river, hmm?" Lugh gestures out of the memory, which at the moment just seems like a black void. "If you're finished with the young lady, that is?"

"Oh!" Kelly is roused from her pensive hair touching. She lets Patroclus go, wobbling. "Wait, before you go..."

She wobbles to the curb of the sidewalk. Dropped carelessly there is a purse, shiny and pink. She clicks it open, swaying as she digs through it. "Not a tampon, not chapstick, not my keys... here!"

She holds out what looks like a a weird red metal bar with a cross and shield stamped on. She offers it to Patroclus, smiling. It shines in the neon lights, polished like the finest silver without any sign of tarnish.

"Take this. It's saved me from a lot of jams, and maybe it'll save your friend's son too. I don't need it anymore."

This place has subjected him a lot of perplexing things and here’s yet another. Patroclus takes the offering—some kind of amulet?—and turns it over in his hands with unguarded curiosity. Apollo’s madness-inducing knowledge isn’t of any help here beyond a stray word: “Swiss.”

“Thank you,” Pat says with a grateful nod. He adjusts the woolen fabric around her shoulders. “I’m sorry to leave you here, but my cloak is yours to keep. I hope it brings you comfort.”

Achilles drapes Kelly’s dress over the back of a bench, should she need it again. It doesn’t look as comfortable as Pat’s cloak, though. “Thank you for your help,” he echoes, before turning to Lugh and the void beyond the memory. His mother is already waiting at the edge, anxious to be on their way.

"Thanks. It's warm." Kelly smiles, then goes on her tiptoes to kiss Pat on the cheek. She leaves a red lipstick mark. Behind her, the club's music changes to a more upbeat tune.

Lugh gestures for everyone to follow him, and Kelly waves, holding the cloak cozy and close. "Bye! Good luck finding your son!"

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young!

And then Lugh and Hermes pull them out of the memory. It's like slipping through a tight tunnel, out of a pocket and into the open air. Suddenly, there's no Kelly, no club, no music--just a fork in the woods. Woods that seem almost too vivid, like all the colors are more saturated than they ought to be, and the air is thick with a verdant smell. It's twilight, casting a moody glow over the sky, and at the three roads crossing each other, there are three humans facing away from each other.

One is a white-haired man with closely cropped hair and a bushy mustache wearing a tweed suit, sitting at a desk and typing noisily on a typewriter, a stack of freshly printed pages on one side and blank papers on the other.

The second is a young man wearing a red doublet with puffy sleeves and tights, long brown hair pulled in a loose ponytail as he delicately paints an illuminated page on a desk with an angled stand like an easel. His work station is covered in different inks and quills and a stack of parchment already illuminated.

The third is a woman with a half shaven head and bright blue and green hair, bobbing in a tight T-shirt and jeans as she works at a desk with incomprehensible contraptions.

All three people are affixed to the ground, roots and wood growing around their legs until they're half tree and person, but they don't seem to mind, absorbed as they are in their work. The typist are swallowed up to the waist by the tree, but the woman is only swallowed to the calves, moving and bobbing at her work station.

"The land has a way of changing where things are," Lugh says as way of explanation. "So it's always best to consult those who live at crossroads before making your way to a goal."

Pat isn’t used to the idea of kisses leaving lipstick, so that will definitely stay on his cheek, entirely unnoticed, until Achilles can’t stand it anymore.

The mortal Greeks and Thetis are all relieved to leave the thump of bass and the smell of wet pavement behind. The forest is more to their liking, even with its garish palette.

First, Achilles takes in each of the three humans through the hole in the river stone. The older man’s contraption reminds him of something out of Hephaestus’ workshop and the woman looks like she would be more at home in the memory they just left behind. The man at the desk is the only one performing a task Achilles recognizes, even if he’s still dressed strangely.

This is reason enough to address the scribe first. He pockets the stone and steps up to the desk. “Forgive the interruption, my friend, but we could use your assistance.”

The river stone reveals a reality that's similar, but less polished than what's visible to the naked eye. The trees growing up their legs have torn through the flesh and bone. If they were to be separated, it could only be through amputation. Their bodies through the stone are withered, atrophied from an unknown amount off time without food or drink or movement, leaving them skeletal and wispy. All three are alive, but only because the land keeps them alive.

Tiny humanoid creatures, invisible to the naked eye, scurry across the humans' desks or bodies. One giggles as it pulls the pages of the typist's pages out of order. Another sits on its belly, kicking its legs in the air as it watches the artist paint. Yet another dangles playfully from the musician's hair, climbing it like rope.

The artist glances up from the page he's painting, putting a brush aside and picking one with a thinner tip. He delicately dips the bristles in a pot of vivid blue paint. "God bless you, stranger."

"Stop blessing people when they talk to you," the typist grunts impatiently, slamming away at his machine. "You sound like a fanatic."

"Oh mind your own business, he's not hurting anyone," the musician says, keeping her eyes on her work. "...But Andreas, it does make you sound a little pompous. Maybe hello instead?"

The artist--Andreas--sighs through his nose in the resigned way of someone who knows he's stuck with current company and has had this exchange many times. "How may I be of service, stranger?"

Hermes, for his part, is fascinated. He starts hovering, zipping between the different craftspeople, peering over their shoulders at their work, feathers fluffed with curious delight.

Blessings are a perfectly valid greeting to Achilles. The singular ‘god’ throws Achilles, but he’s not sure if he simply misheard.

“May the gods bless you as well, my friend,” he says, clasping his hands behind his back. Hermes’ sudden joy sets him at ease, even knowing what the stone revealed about the truth of the situation.

“I understand that this land is mutable … but we seek two things within it. The first is the river of knowledge, and the second is my son, who I’ve learned is among the Morrígan’s hunting party.” Achilles pauses, admiring Andreas’ work for a moment. He’s never seen text treated so lavishly. “Anything you—or your compatriots—know about either of those goals is greatly appreciated.”

The plural 'gods' throws Andreas for a moment, but the musician spares him from responding immediately.

"Oh, did they steal your son and replace him with a changeling?" The musician does her best to twist to face Achilles, or as well as she can with her feet fused to the ground. "You need to take the changeling and throw it into a fire. And do it fast, or else they'll cut your son's thumbs off and keep him as a pet."

"They only do that to babes and toddlers," the typist says, not even bothering with trying to turn to face anyone he's speaking to. "No one's bringing toddlers to a hunting party."

"How would I know?" The musician scowls at the typist's back, but it's the sort of scowl worn by someone used to this kind of friction. The banter has familiar equilibrium to it. "When I come from, no one hunts except weirdos who think it's fun to kill animals and put their heads on walls."

"They do hunt when I come from, and no one brings a child who is too small to know where they are," Andreas says patiently, readjusting himself as best he can to allow Achilles to see his work. It's always nice to have his art appreciated. "They'd scare the game crying, and who could hunt if they're thinking of cleaning and feeding them?"

"ANYWAY!" The musician shakes herself off, trying to remember the original question. "Yeah, the mouth of the river is down my road this time. You got a description of your son?"

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