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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"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?”

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."

Patroclus crouches to keep his balance on the dislodged hunk of earth, feeling very much like an ant under the baleful gaze a giant. Grimly, he wonders how exactly this form of the Morrígan is better to deal with.

As ever, Achilles’ feet are sure and steady, and he takes a backwards step to grab Pat’s upper arm. His mother is similarly confident in her stance, even as she begins to bristle; she knows how quickly a mortal mind can shatter when shown the infinite breadth of the divine. There are few ways to damage a shade, but this is one of them.

“If that is what you wish, show me, but I will not allow you to harm these mortals.” Thetis shoves both men from the rising handful of earth with the force of a crashing wave. This takes Achilles by surprise, knocking him off balance; he barely maintains his grip on Patroclus as they stumble over the crumbling edge.

The goddess makes no attempt to grab the shades from the air before the hit the ground. Both edges of the Morrígan's lips turn upward, though it's hard to see how sincere the smile is when her eyes are covered. "This will not harm them. Confuse, perhaps. But not harm."

She keeps shifting. Her elbow rises from the sea, only to dig into the earth as she props her weight on it, her head high as she lifts the handful of dirt level to her chin, tipping her face as if looking at Thetis.

"I was not born on Gaia like you, little sea creature. I arrived from very far away, a long, long time ago."

There's a jerk in the air, just as there was when transitioning from Troy to ruin, but backwards this time. There's a blur of color, of smell, of sound, the light returning to the world and the shore warping and the plants and animals and sky changing so fast that it's spinning.

And then it stops abruptly. What is around them now is completely alien. The sky is black, the sun fully visible as a ball of fire and the stars completely visible across, but no moon anywhere to speak of. Things are moving in the sky, comets and meteors, zipping past. But the earth--it's nothing but dry, rocky ground, not a trace of life, not even a trace of water. And everything feels lighter than it should, like if one jumped hard enough, they could fly off the ground entirely.

There's also no air, and it's freezing cold. The cold, airless void pulls on one's skin and hair, making it swell, as if trying to expand a person to fit the emptiness. The airless void boils the water without heat in Thetis, trying to turn it to vapor, but the Morrígan makes a sharp gesture with a flaming nail. Air returns, at least immediately around each creature, and the stretching, boiling effect of the void is gone.

"This is Gaia when I met her," the Morrígan says, sweeping her hand out at the barren wasteland. "This is her, new and pristine. Do you know what had to happen to create the Gaia you know?"

She only holds Thetis, but the question is addressed to all three of them. She knows none of them are likely to know, but she's giving them a chance to guess anyway.

As they recover from the fall, Patroclus is momentarily baffled by Thetis’ decision—until he compares the Morrígan’s apparent power to Apollo’s. If he could so easily inflict prophetic madness, what could this goddess do? Achilles similarly understands; Hermes has shown him glimpses of his true being, and only with great care.

He doesn’t trust the Morrígan to take any care with them.

Thetis spares the mortals from answering the question. She would be happy if they didn’t speak to the Morrígan ever again. Would that they would abandon this errand as folly, but she knows her son. He can’t retreat.

“Gaia was born of Chaos, along with the underworld and love.” It’s probably not the answer the Morrígan wants, but it’s the history she knows. “And from Gaia came the sky, the sea, and the mountains.”

The Morrígan hums softly. Sound doesn't carry very well here in the emptiness before time. "Chaos created many things, and those many things led to Gaia. And many creations just like her. Most of them do not amount to anything at all. They remain barren rocks, floating in nothing."

The Morrígan raises her hand and gestures to the alien void above them. "Gaia only became what she is through cataclysm."

And then something rises on the horizon. It almost looks like a moon, but significantly larger. And getting larger. And larger. Too fast. It's coming right towards them.

The other barren rock, almost equal in Gaia's size, crashes down. Dust clouds fly upwards, the ground cracks to reveal red veins of magma, and the thunderous impact spreads through the land and would throw any creature right off of it or bury them in the burning hot fallout.

The Morrígan casually slips one massive finger underneath the mortal shades on the ground, lifting them up before they fall into a splitting crevice of lava. A piece of Gaia breaks off, glowing hot in the sky, and is battered until it forms a familiar circular white shape.

More rocks fall from the air. Each one, world-ending if there had been any life. The ground splits apart in apocalyptic rivers of lava, the dust flying in the air creating a thick, gray blanket that traps heat and leaves the air feeling acidic. And the heat would vaporize anything living--hotter than fire, hotter than fire, hotter than anything that exists in the time of Achilles and Patroclus. Hot enough to make any living man to disappear in a puff of steam and ash in moments.

"She was in agony. Agony that makes most creatures of her kind split apart to batter other stronger-willed creations. But she endured. She endured for ages you are too young to comprehend, little sea creature. She endured not because there was no way to escape, but because she had the strength to survive and the tenacity to become something more after the suffering."

The Morrígan’s tiny audience watches this display with the awe it’s due. Achilles gathers Patroclus close; as if he could guard against planetary calamity with a simple embrace.

Thetis has witnessed numerous disasters in her life: Gaia shuddering and writhing, massive waves carving off entire swaths of her land, volcanoes erupting below the sea to form new lands in turn. She knows Gaia is restless, even as mortals conceive of the earth as solid and enduring.

The scale of this upheaval is shocking, but at the same time it brings to mind something familiar: the violence of birth. The terrible agony of a body bringing forth new life.

Once the cataclysm settles into its aftermath, once the moon finds its stumbling orbit, Thetis waves her arm at the scene stretching before them. “This is you? You shaped Gaia?”

"There were others. But yes. I was the one who delivered calamity to Gaia." The Morrígan smiles out at the churning, writhing land. "She was the one who chose to grow from it, rather than shatter."

Another sharp change in time. Blurs of sights and sounds and smells. They're back to the dark, cold, desolate beach they started. Gently, the Morrígan lowers the shades, giving them a chance to hop off her fingertip onto the ground.

"Gods aren't as permanent as we like to think ourselves. I've seen many little gods and goddesses just like you extinguish because they could not conceive of changing. If you were so inflexible, do you think you'd look upon how you spent your time and be satisfied?"

The Morrígan doesn't wait for an answer. Instead, she lowers the handful of land that Thetis stands upon, gently putting it back in the hole it was pulled from.

"I love Neoptolemus and others like him because calamity touched them before they were ready, and they grew through it into something strong and beautiful that never could be made without their struggles. In their survival, they achieve what many gods far greater than them in power could not. Other gods may not see their value, but I do, and I cherish them."

“I doubt my grandson would be satisfied with his own life,” Thetis muses. “He survived the crucible, bending himself to the expectations of other men, only to emerge with no sense of himself.”

The shades are more than happy to return to solid ground and once he’s satisfied Patroclus is settled, Achilles steps forward again to glower defiantly at the Morrígan. Following his mother’s train of thought, he frowns.

“And what will you do with him now that he’s part of your collection?” Achilles demands with obvious exasperation. “In Greece, he had a kingdom, a family, a household that relied upon him. This was the hard-earned reward for his growth. Is he happy here, or do you continue to subject him to the calamity that you hold in such high esteem?”

The Morrígan doesn't rush to respond. Instead, she settles back down, slipping most of her body into the sea so that she can comfortably rest her head on the ground again.

"Stubborn, stubborn hero," she says softly, allowing her flaming nails to relax on the sand. She's not going to entertain his questions intended to make her reflect on herself or justify her actions to him. She knows why she does what she does, she has answered the questions she's decided matter, and she doesn't care to get distracted from the heart of why they are here. "So fixated on convincing me to give you what you can't have, that it doesn't occur to you to ask what you can have."

But she doesn't sound annoyed, really. She has more patience for the foolishness of mortals than of gods. Being angry at a mortal for being foolish is like being angry at an infant for crying. And besides, she much prefers the foolishness of a mortal fighting too hard for what they want than not fighting at all.

"Neoptolemus will never see his wife and son again. His son will grow into a man, have a son of his own, and perish without ever seeing his father again. If you try to force otherwise, you will fail and Neoptolemus will die, doomed to lonely misery." The corner of her lips upturns. "But, should you play your hand well, he can return home one day to reunite with his wife and meet his daughter. And perhaps, even, have a chance to raise his grandson."

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