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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Neoptolemus’ pain clings to Pat like a suffocating miasma, but it begins to dissipate, Pat assumes, as the river’s water loses its effect and the piercing insight settles into simple knowledge. It feels as if the cloak he left with Kelly has draped back around him. He feels steadier with each step—with no notion that Hermes might have anything to do with it.

Their new surroundings bring to mind the worst parts of Hades’ realm. The places where shades go to suffer. Patroclus looks grim, but Achilles’ face remains as steely and serious as the day he faced Hector in battle.

“Yes, I would sooner negotiate with her whole self. No trickery,” Achilles confirms, unfastening the clasp on his cloak.

“Remember to beware her eyes,” Thetis reminds him, unwinding the fabric from her son’s shoulders.

“Who will accompany Achilles?” Patroclus asks anxiously. He can’t abide the idea of sending him unarmed and alone. Not when he has that look on his face. “May I join him?”

"Any or all of you could accompany him. It's your decision," Lugh says, leaning on his spear and looking up at the gate. His expression isn't grim, exactly, but it's solemn. There's an old, serious air about the land.

And it seems contagious, because Hermes' face is solemn as well as he holds his arms out to take Achilles' clothes. "I can't go without possibly dragging Olympus into things." He nods to Patroclus and Thetis, a serious furrow to his brow. "But I think it'd be a good idea for either of you to go with him. Or both. Maybe the two of you together would stand a chance of stopping him from losing his temper and doing something stupid."

Hermes gives a Look to Achilles. He tries not to look too pleading in front of Lugh. "Please don't lose your temper and do something stupid. You still have people to return to back home." It goes unsaid in front of Lugh, but Hermes can't bear the thought of losing Achilles, nor telling Lyra that her mortal father is gone and Zagreus that his father-figure is far out of reach.

“You have so little faith in me,” Achilles huffs, swatting a tunic from one of the tree boughs and tugging it over his head. His irritation only lends credence to Hermes’ concerns.

“I— … we know your heart, Achilles. Your anger already simmers.” Patroclus has already made up his mind. He follows suit, exchanging his clothes for a tunic. In the process, Kelly’s Swiss Army knife gives him a moment’s pause. He’s not sure how any of the odd little tools could possibly assist them in negotiations with a goddess, but Kelly said it might be helpful somehow. “We can bring nothing?”

Meanwhile, Thetis gives Lugh a glance and foregoes a change of clothing in favor of an animal form: with a flap of wings she shifts herself into an osprey and alights on her son’s shoulder. She still doesn’t fully trust Patroclus, a simple mortal, to keep Achilles safe in this endeavor.

"Nothing," Lugh says, sounding firm for the first time this whole adventure. "Anything you take into her presence will be destroyed, and you will need to be washed and purified before leaving Tír na nÓg. To do anything else would be potentially catastrophic."

Hermes has never dealt with the Morrígan when she wasn't broken into pieces, so he's not sure why being in her presence would be so destructive, but he knows that Lugh is not one to lie. It just makes him more nervous about this whole thing.

He steps forward towards Achilles. "You should give me your jewelry, too," he says softly. He knows there's only one article of jewelry Achilles wears. He lowers his voice, keeping it soft as he says, "Please. Please be careful."

Patroclus gives a relenting nod and returns the tool to his belt pouch before offering the whole bundle of clothes to Hermes. He wishes he could at least take the cold iron, assuming the Morrígan is thwarted by some simple ore.

Achilles’ face softens ever so slightly at Hermes’ entreaty. He pulls Hephaestus’ ring from his finger and Pyrrhus’ shell bracelet from his wrist. Both of these are placed reverently in Hermes’ palm. Achilles folds Hermes’ fingers over the keepsakes and presses a soft kiss to his knuckles. “I will not fail, magpie.”

He knows it’s not what Hermes wants to hear. Thetis puffs her feathers and flexes her talons as if to echo the sentiment—or assure Hermes that she’ll remain vigilant.

It's not what Hermes wants to hear, but it's something. He dares to step close and bump his forehead gently against Achilles', closing his eyes and sighing softly.

Then he steps back, back to awareness of their company, and takes their gathered clothes and possessions and tucks them into his messenger's bag. It doesn't look like it all should fit, but it does effortlessly.

"I'm trusting you all to come back in one piece," he says. "Take care of each other."

The gates creek open of their own accord, opening the way to what looks like a churning gray void. Lugh steps back, nodding at the adventurers solemnly. "When you're ready, walk through the gate, and keep walking. You'll know when you've come upon her."

Thetis gives her head a jerking shake and clacks her beak. Hermes should know enough bird expression to understand what it means: Of course she’ll look after her son. What kind of mother do you take her for, Hermes?

Patroclus likewise gives a confirming nod. He doesn’t know how to deal with foreign goddesses—or any gods, for that matter—but he knows how to deal with his lover’s anger and hubris well enough.

Achilles turns to pass the gates and Pat falls into step beside him. He takes his hand in a firm grip, both to steel himself to enter the void and to steady Achilles. Stay focused. Don’t let anger get the better of you.

With each step, the two mortals and goddess-as-osprey are gradually eveloped by the thick, grey miasma.

The miasma is too thick to see anything through. Or hear, really. It smells like burning. Burning funeral pyres, gunsmoke, the subtle scent of melting sand into glass, coal smoke, the heat of the forge, oil smoke, fresh sawdust, the burn of grinding animal hooves, the dust of black powder. It's thick, like something great exploded into a fine mist, and now tiny bits of rock and concrete and wood and metal stick fast to the inside of one's throat and lungs, cloying, ready to drown from within.

And then the miasma dissipates. It's nowhere to be seen now. Instead, they stand on a familiar beach--the beach before Troy, the tents of the war camp softly flapping in the wind, the sky soft in predawn. It's like a stolen moment in time during the war, after everyone was asleep and before anyone had woken, the trembling peace and quiet of before the sunrise.

But Troy's gates are open. A familiar figure, or at least familiar from a distance, stands there, her hand resting against one of the doors swung open. The cause of the war, Helen, draped in finery and her face hidden by a veil, stands watching.

This isn't all of the goddess. Just a third. But the third still looks regal, her face concealed and yet held high.

"You came a long way for me," she says softly as they approach.

The fog clears like a drawn curtain and it should have been a relief, but peaceful as it is, the vision of Troy isn’t more welcome. Not for Achilles, Patroclus, or Thetis.

As they approach the gates of Troy, Pat renews his grip on Achilles’ hand. All the details of this gate are burned into his memory for eternity—as surely as Apollo’s strange and terrible visions.

Achilles returns the squeeze, but is quickly distracted by his mother:

That is her, Thetis confirms in a whispered thought to her son. The feathers on her head rise; she can sense the scale of the goddess’ power beyond this single, deceptive form.

“That is so, Lady Morrígan.” Achilles says with stiff formality, doing his best to tamp down the anger that’s run hot since speaking with the old man at the crossroads. “You have taken someone dear to me. You have taken him from his family. And as his father, I will retrieve him.”

Remember what you were told, Thetis urges, nipping Achilles’ ear.

“I see only part of you. I would speak to your as a whole.” Achilles can’t bring himself to be polite to this goddess. Not when she had the nerve to steal Pyrrhus away.

"You wish to speak to me in my entirety?" If anything, the goddess sounds mildly amused by Achilles' audacity. Helen looks up at the sky, the veil still concealing her face. "Then this location will suffice. But it will need to be a different time."

Then she's gone. Thousands of years blink past. The walls of Troy degrade and wear away to nothing. The peaks and hills across the horizon ripple, growing and smoothing. The beach is eaten away, the shoreline shifting. No more are there tents or warriors or the barest evidence there had ever been a conflict.

And then it's black. Black and cold.

There's an acrid smell in the air. Black snow falls from the sky, and there's already a layer on the ground, black and oily and far thicker than any meager snow that had ever fallen on Troy during the war. The waves at the shore stink, pushing more trash on the beach with every swell. It must be nighttime, for the land is as dark as a moonless, starless night.

The ground shakes. The shoreline begins to retreat.

Thetis will likely be able to feel it coming before it does--if Prometheus and Epimetheus were elephants, this is a leviathan.

One hand bursts from the sea, large enough to scoop the entire city of Troy in its palm. It digs long, talon-like nails into the earth. The nails begin to breathe white smoke, and then spit fire, dragging trenches into the dirt and casting the barren wintery wasteland in a hellish glow.

And then she rises.

An endless expanse of naked skin. As she pulls herself up, the shoreline diminishes further and further, leaving streaks of gray and black debris with the trash. Her head passes the clouds, tearing through them for a moment to allow a brilliant ray of sun through, daytime shining bright momentarily in the sunless world.

Above her naked breast, there's a cavern carved deep where her heart should be. It's lined with green rocks and ore veins, glowing a bright vivid green that has no place in nature.

And then she descends. Her hands smooth on the ground, nails still spitting fire, and she lowers herself down. Her head is below the clouds once more, and the sunlight is smothered. The sources of light are her fiery nails, her glowing wound, and her hair, hair bright and orange and plasma. Like it were cut from the surface of the sun, bright red flares peel off it intermittently, giving the impression of curls, and as she lowers herself, the spikes of plasma touch on the seawater. It boils and steams with every contact, throwing a sheet of steam behind her and warming the cold wasteland.

Her head gets close to the ground. Now, her face is visible. Three sets of wings, blacker than night, seeming to consume any light that touches them, grow from her temples and now are spread to cover her eyes.

She rests her cheek down on the sand. As parts of her hair touch the shore, the ground glows red and melts to glass. Even bowed down like this, even with most of her body still submerged in the sea, she's so large as to hide the horizon.

(If Achilles pays close attention, he might notice a strong resemblance between her and Freya. But where Freya was beautiful as a storm, the Morrígan is the storm.)

The corners of her lips upturn in a smile.

"Let us speak," she says.

Edited 2025-05-23 16:10 (UTC)

As all memory of Troy disappears beneath their feet, as the goddess emerges in her forbidding entirety, Achilles draws Patroclus into a protective embrace. He should not have accompanied me. She’ll take him too.

Patroclus balls his fists around Achilles’ tunic. He feels echoes of Apollo’s visions of the future within the goddess. War, destruction, decay. He can’t bear to look at her. Instead, he focuses on Achilles’ face, his profile etched in the darkness by the Morrígan’s red, fiery glow.

Thetis sees the Morrígan’s face begin to emerge and she raises a protective wing to shield the mortals’ view. She keeps it raised even after the dark wings stretch into place. Thetis doesn’t trust the Morrígan to keep her own eyes covered.

What does a being of this magnitude want with one small life? Achilles’ righteous anger returns, evaporating all awe and fear. Patroclus can see the familiar shift in his lover’s face. “Mind your anger,” he hisses into Achilles’ ear.

You cannot speak to her as you would to the Olympians, Thetis adds, digging her talons deep enough to pierce Achilles skin. She is closer to a primordial. Chaos, Chronos. Treat her as such.

Achilles closes his eyes as he considers this counsel. He tries to imagine what Hermes would add to it. This is a negotiation. He’ll get nowhere by making furious demands like a hero-prince.

He cautiously lowers Thetis’ wing and says: “As I said, goddess, I have come to reclaim my son, Neoptolemus, from your service. I am prepared to negotiate for his return. I ask: what is your price?”

Edited 2025-05-25 18:01 (UTC)

"Hmmm." She breathes a soft sigh. Her breath is a warm breeze that melts the black snow before it falls, smelling of gunsmoke and burning phosphorus. "How can we start a conversation with something like the value of your son?"

The feathers on her wings rustle with slight movement. With their size, it sounds like the wind through trees.

"I see two dead humans, and a sea creature shaped like a bird." Her voice is smooth, calm. Deliberately softened, if Thetis pays attention. Without softening, her voice could be painful to hear, especially for the humans. "Would you all come to my home and not even introduce yourselves?"

Though she's pointing out a breach of manners, she doesn't sound annoyed. More like a gentle prompt of an adult to a child, reminding them of something they're not expected to remember quite yet.

Thetis shrugs her wings and raises the feathers in her crest in threat. The Morrígan’s tone sounds as if it’s meant to cajole them into carelessness. If they hadn’t been warned, this negotiation would be over very quickly and the Morrígan would add a few more names to her collection.

Remember. Names are currency here, she reminds Achilles.

“Our names are not yours to have,” he says, chin raised in defiance. “We are two dead mortals, yes. Veterans of a long war, whose shades now belong to Lord Hades. And this is my mother, a goddess of the sea …

“Let us speak of my son, whose name you took.”

Her great lips turn up further in a smile. She lets out a mildly amused huff. It's a warm breeze that makes the sand blow.

"Neoptolemus." Her voice is still soft, still incongruously gentle when compared to her magnitude. "I would have hoped you would have learned about making assumptions based on stories and first impressions from him. But perhaps you need more lessons."

She's very still. She seems aware of how every small motion of hers can disrupt the world around her, so she remains still and calm.

"You come here assuming I'm your enemy, stealing your son away for amusement. But I am not. I saved him." As she breathes, her chest expands and contracts, throwing the strange green glow up against the sand and black snow in alien ways. "He was fated to die when he reached Epirus. He was to be so angry that he'd curse Apollo, and Apollo was to strike him down. And in his despair, Neoptolemus was to throw himself into the Lethe before reaching Erebus, destroying what was left of his soul. I thought it a terrible waste, someone as special as him to be lost."

And in that, she sounds sincere. She does think that Neoptolemus is special, something precious to save. And she does think it would have been a tragedy for him to be destroyed.

Patroclus feels Achilles tense as if squaring up for a fight. The planes of his face set hard as unyielding stone. The Morrígan’s calm is likely feeding his anger. Pat finds Achilles’ clenched fist and coaxes it open between both his own palms. “This isn’t a fight.”

She intends to test you, Thetis warns.

Achilles closes his eyes and focuses on his mother’s weight on his shoulder. On Pat’s hands pressed to his. They’ve chosen to join him here, to put themselves under the scrutiny of this terrible goddess.

His eyes open.

“Was he offered a choice? Did you tell him of the fate from which he was spared?” He pauses, swallowing. “I have often burdened him with my will, my expectations. As have many others, again and again. How are you different, goddess?”

She chuckles. It's soft, but it still causes the earth to tremble, the sea to splash. When she speaks, it's with the amused and indulgent warmth of a teacher to a child that asked a silly question. "I'm different because I can see the future. If a child reaches towards fire, do you not pull them back?"

And humans are infants to her. Tiny creatures that can't possibly know all that she does, know all the things that will harm them should they reach. Like children wanting to grab hold of jellyfish, or dogs pleading for chicken bones that will splinter and tear the inside of their throats. Or even an ant, wandering in the path of a upcoming splash of water, and gently plucked from danger and given a crumb before being left next to its colony. Acts of kindness that disorient and confuse and frustrate, that can never be fully appreciated, but are done all the same.

"Asking him the question would only hasten his fit of temper, and doom himself and those on his ship. He is injured, and limited in making decisions when emotional that he would stand by when calm. I took him from tragedy, for he would not be able to take himself."

Her smile softens at the edges, returning to something closer to neutral. "You wish to take him home and reunite him with his wife and son. There is no future that happens. He is fated to never see his son alive again, and if he returns to Greece before his son is dead, the Morai will cut his thread themselves. They already tampered with Fate to terrible effect, and they will tamper no further for a mortal no god in Greece cares for." No god in Greece, and she doesn't hesitate to include his own grandmother in that number. The gods in Greece find Neoptolemus repulsive, a creature to be forgotten as soon as possible. Not the Morrígan, however. She thinks it's worth the effort to deliver him from a tragic fate.

“I do not believe you,” Achilles blurts. Patroclus winces, but he’s not surprised. This is not what Achilles wants to hear, so he’ll reject it. “My son is not a child. He’s a man, capable of his own choices. Give him a chance to make them.”

Thetis shifts her weight back and forth. What the Morrígan says has a note of truth. Fate is not to be meddled with. If Achilles succeeds, he might deliver Neoptolemus to his death. She doesn’t feel strongly about her grandson, but she knows his loss will cause her son suffering. This may not end how you would like, Achilles.

Thetis’ words go unheeded. Achilles continues, “Summon Neoptolemus. Allow me to speak with him. If I convince him to return with me, will you release him?”

“For what purpose? To send him to die, to stay in an afterlife full of men repulsed by what they built him to be?”

One of her great flaming nails drags in the sand. It spits fire, digging long trenches, a slight gesture towards Patroclus and Thetis.

“You are here due to the love others have for you, not for him. A divine lover struck a deal out of love for you, a mortal lover followed out of devotion to you, a divine mother came out of concern for your safety. You ride here on the back of adoration. Would any one of these people have cared at all if not for your sake?”

She lets out another breath. She’d still calm, placid, but this time her breath is hotter and smells of burning hair. “He’s the first of his kind. And here, he is among the rest that flow through time, all the children forged as tools of war. It’s so convenient for others when they die in the process, silent martyrs to be pitied. So inconvenient when they grow, and gods and men must face what they created.”

For the first time, there’s a touch of something other than calm in her voice. Contempt. Visions swirl in the smoke that comes from her nails, in the steam thrown by the sea as her hair touches it, visions of little children holding weapons, children with wide eyes taking apart corpses on battlefields, the adults around them cringing and condemning them as monsters before sending them back into fighting as cheap fodder. The Morrígan doesn’t condemn the fighting, no, nor the children’s involvement. She condemns those who forge fighters for their own purpose, then reject them for being exactly as they were made to be.

“What about you, little sea creature?” Her flaming nail digs deeper into the sand. The eternal fire spitting from it splashes on the ground, thick gobs that burn forever. “Surely you have thoughts on your grandson’s fate.”

Thetis pushes off of Achilles’ shoulder and the osprey’s form stretches and flows downward like a column of water and reforms as a woman. She wears a short white tunic to match the mortals, but her exposed skin has a watery refraction. Her hair still clings like coils like kelp. A little sea creature.

“He was ruined by other mortals and their wars, just as my son. Unlike his father, Neoptolemus did not die.” Thetis’ tone is matter-of-fact. “Death would have been a kindness. It may yet be—I have seen how mortals bound to this realm waste away.”

Achilles isn’t surprised by this answer, but he’s still hurt by it. He releases Patroclus and steps clear of both of his companions. “Their feelings about him do not change my love.”

His voice grows ragged, either from emotion or the smoke that chokes the air. “It does not change that his wife and son love him. Had he any choice, Neoptolemus would not have left them behind. He would not abandon his son the way I once abandoned him.”

"No, he would not." The Morrígan's voice gentles. Her breath changes to smell like a blacksmith's forge, a crucible of melting glass. "But he has no choice. His son will grow into a man, have a son of his own, and die before they meet again. The only chance he has of reuniting with his wife is after his son's death."

The visions fade from the steam. Now it's more vague impressions. Impressions of war, of clear cut fields, of struggle and work and endless pressure.

"Tell me, little sea creature," she says, her voice becoming neutral once more as she addresses Thetis. Apparently, she has less sympathy for the goddess than Achilles, if she has any sympathy for either at all. "Tell me how your son and grandson are ruined. I wish to hear it from your mouth."

She has no intention of letting any of these three leave without being put on the spot, clearly. She's left Patroclus alone for now, but as she slowly scratches a trench into the sand, a small fidget that seems enormous with her size, she scratches a semi-circle around the three of them, as if gathering them closer.

The Morrígan’s view of the future of Achilles’ bloodline matches Apollo’s, but Achilles still won’t allow himself to believe it. “And you?” he snaps. “Is plucking him from his homeland not meddling with his fate?”

Contrary to her son, Thetis maintains her calm in the face of the Morrígan’s power. She’s prostrated herself many times before bigger, stronger gods and made peace with the fact that she can be used and broken and destroyed nearly as easily as a mortal.

“Humans only see divine blood as a weapon for their wars.” She suffered the indignity of lying with a mortal man, and the only good to come of it—Achilles—was taken from her. Thetis won’t say it here, but Patroclus has always been an accomplice in that crime. “My son and Neoptolemus were both used by lesser, weaker men, tricked into fighting their absurd battles. Both of their mortal lives have been wasted and Neoptolemus’ mind has been broken.”

The Morrígan has told Achilles the truth of his son's fate, and all that's left is for him to accept it. With that in mind, she ignores his anger and pointed question, instead paying attention to the goddess speaking.

"Adversity--being used, injured, killed--that has ruined them in your estimation." She sighs. The wind it kicks up is greater than a breeze, enough to blow the hair from one's face. "Disappointing, but not unexpected of a sea creature."

Her body shifts in the water. The surf sloshes against the sand, every tiny movement enough to create waves. "Your kind has a bad habit of luxuriating in the ocean, mistaking stagnation for perfection. And when adversity comes to you, you look to more powerful gods to remove it for you. And if they don't, you simply suffer and wait for the adversity to go away or for it to consume you. So convinced of your superiority to those who struggle, and so utterly helpless when it's your turn."

Her words are condemning, but her voice is more... bored? Like she's making a dry observation, something clear and obvious to her to the point of tedium. It's a pattern she's seen in many sea goddesses. And why not? Being born in the ocean means one doesn't even need to learn how to swim before the current is moving them about. They don't have to even put in the effort to stand from the start like the creatures of the land. Many women stolen from the sea by mortal men have prayed to the Morrígan for her assistance, but she won't help anyone who doesn't even try to help themselves first.

"It's no surprise you see the scars of struggle and mistake them for ruination. Your kind often don't even know how to fight against adversity."

“That is not true.” Thetis’ voice finally betrays some indignation at the accusation. “I am no stranger to adversity.”

The sea water displaced by the Morrígan’s movements churns around Thetis’ feet like a small storm. Her lips and brow set in the same way as her son’s. Achilles’ fists ball again, offended on his mother’s behalf.

“I was bound by a mortal and taken as his wife,” Thetis argues. If not for the prophecy, she might have had a divine husband and children who would not die to time or injury or illness. For all the pains Zeus took, Achilles still had a hand in deposing him. “I did everything in my power to protect my son, to grant him immortality.”

The heat of the Morrígan’s breath brings to mind a forge … and her foster son. “I cared for Hephaestus when he was cast from Olympus, broken and lame, until Zeus and Hera would allow his return.”

The Morrígan hums again. She doesn't seem offended at all that the goddess before her is bristling. "You were bound by a mortal and taken as his wife against your will. And I'm sure once he slept, you took off his head and fed it to the fish? Or when mortals came for your son, you drowned them in the sea? Surely, if any raised a hand against your foster son again, you fought them?"

The corner of the Morrígan's lip tugs upward. It's hard to tell if she's deliberately goading Thetis, if she's amusing herself, or if she's making a point. Either way, she seems... pleased with the reaction she's getting?

"Or do you lie down and let bad times roll over you like so many waves, and hope they may cease?" Her scratching against the ground stills. It makes the white light of her burning nails steady. The greens, reds, and whites of the light from her hair, chest, and nails cause a strange effect on the ground and the steam. "Your son and grandson have had a fraction of your time, but they've made their lives their own. Have you?"

Thetis did dream of those things. She would have liked to see the cold, bloated corpses of those mortals picked apart by hungry fish. But they were the Olympians’ favorite playthings. If those heroes were to die, it would not be by a lesser sea goddess’ hands. Certainly not in retaliation for her rape, or kidnapping her son.

What kind of retaliation would she suffer for such a thing? How would Achilles suffer?

For that same reason, the suggestion of raising her hand against Zeus and Hera is completely absurd.

“You are a goddess of war. I understand that it is your nature to value struggle above all else. You are like Ares in that regard.” Thetis cocks her head in a pantomime of curiosity. “Shall I attack any mortal or god who crosses me? Will that make my life worthy?”

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject