refusetofight: (Guard duty)
Achilles, Best of the Greeks ([personal profile] refusetofight) wrote2025-02-08 09:11 am

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.
messageforyou: (Little side eye)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-19 10:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
messageforyou: (Droopy wings)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-21 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
"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."
messageforyou: (Small sincere smile)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-21 02:37 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
messageforyou: (Tender affection)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-23 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
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.
messageforyou: (Game face)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-23 01:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"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)
messageforyou: (Artful nudity)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-25 06:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
messageforyou: (Tender affection)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-27 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
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.
messageforyou: (Small sincere smile)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-28 07:19 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
messageforyou: (The nice god can also be mean)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-29 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
“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.”
messageforyou: (Grinning downward)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-05-31 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
messageforyou: (Artful nudity)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-06-01 04:06 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
messageforyou: (Bedroom eyes)

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-06-02 05:47 am (UTC)(link)
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?"
messageforyou: (>:))

[personal profile] messageforyou 2025-06-03 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)
The Morrígan chuckles. It's a genuine one, like Thetis said something funny, and the wind kicks up and the sand slides and shifts with the motion.

"Do not ask me if you're worthy. In my estimation, Neoptolemus is greater than any of the three creatures before me." She smiles down at Thetis. It's not a cruel smile, but it's not a kind one, either. "I did not ask if your life is worthy. I asked if it is yours."

Those giant hands flatten against the land, and she begins to push herself upwards. The sea sloshes like bathwater, the ground trembling. "You think I am a goddess of war, but that's a crude human summary of me. War requires life to exist. I am something before life." Her hand lifts, and then her flaming nails plunge into the sand. The ground under Thetis, Patroclus, and Achilles shifts. She's scooping up the land under them, lifting them from the ground. "I will show you what I am. We will see if you can comprehend it."

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End it here?

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