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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This was exactly what Patroclus was afraid of. Now the full brunt of the goddess’ gaze is on him—he can feel it behind her wings—and ignoring her probably isn’t an option.

“I’ve nothing to say. I came here for his sake.” Pat nods in the direction Achilles disappeared. He pauses for the length of a breath. After the agony that Mimir showed him, he can’t help but ache for Neoptolemus. In some ways, he has more in common with the lad than Achilles. So he adds, “… And for his son.”

Thetis tilts her head, mildly surprised. She wasn’t sure what Patroclus made of Achilles’ son (in truth, she didn’t care), but that admission is still unexpected. Usually mortals are jealous creatures who want their lover’s full attention. Surely a creature as unremarkable as Patroclus would be no different.

"Hmm. A long, arduous journey to stand at a lover's side while he seeks his son." If the Morrígan notices Patroclus' discomfort, she clearly doesn't care. Or maybe she's just used to people being uncomfortable when she's in a singular body.

"You stand before a being older and more powerful than anything else you've seen. Have you no requests? Nor questions?" She scratches a long, flaming finger in the sand. The flames glow in the glass that forms around them. "If you fear I will harm you for what you have to say, I will not. It takes more than that to anger me."

It's hard for her to get too irritated at humans. They're so small, so quick to grow and die. They can't gain any of the wisdom or perspective of someone who lasts long enough to see the greater cycles of life they live within.

Pat watches the glass boil up and harden from the sand. He can feel the heat against his shade, as if he were standing at a forge.

“I didn’t make the journey in pursuit of your knowledge and I have no interest in striking a deal.” Gods never offer anything for free, of that much he’s absolutely certain. There’s always a price. “Are you skeptical of my motives? Is it so strange to help someone you love?”

He has the distinct feeling he’s about to be needled with questions. While Thetis listens and watches him, no less. It truly is a testament to his love for Achilles.

"Skeptical? No. Curious? Yes."

Her lips turn upwards in a small smile. It's not particularly sharp nor particularly soft, more... slightly amused. Although it's hard to judge her sincerity without seeing her eyes.

"My life is long and winding, and the end of it a longer time from now yet. If one loses their curiosity, they stagnate, and I've never liked stagnation. It is not every day that a man rises from the dead to visit me, and asks nothing."

She absently carves a glass spiral in the sand. "You'll indulge my curiosity, won't you?"

Curiosity doesn’t sound any better. Patroclus doesn’t like being observed by the gods like some idle amusement in their impossibly long lives. He’s spent enough time on the stage at Troy, manipulated by the Olympians.

“It sounds as if you have questions for me. Ask me what you will, and I’ll answer truly,” Patroclus says, the exhaustion apparent in his voice. “I am no demigod, no hero. Don’t expect to be delighted by such stories of valor and bravery.”

Thetis merely stands watch, the tide pooling around her feet as if it were inexorably drawn there. She expects very little from Patroclus, as she always has; Achilles’ interest in such an unremarkable mortal has only continued to baffle her. No doubt the Morrígan will find him equally banal.

The Morrígan's lips turn further upward, as if something about his answer is funny.

"You may exceed your own expectations. What most humans think of as valor and bravery is not what I think of them as." She stretches one arm forward, as if to lean more against the ground. It drags a deep crevice in the sand. "The stories of demigods and heroes tend to be quite predictable. I've heard enough of them."

She hums a soft huff of air, smelling of wood smoke and forges. "In truth, I tend to find heroes tedious. Usually born with such strong blood that they accomplish things with ease, and then celebrate themselves as extraordinary when they do the bare minimum their blood makes them capable of." And that's the antithesis of what she is. What is worth celebrating about a creature born able to move mountains, when they move a single mountain and are worshiped all the rest of their days? She's much more interested in the creature born barely able to move pebbles, fighting and learning and growing until they can move a rock. "But your blood is pure from Prometheus' clay. And yet you are here, speaking to me."

Her feathers fluff, kicking up a soft breeze.

"Tell me of something you labored for, little shade. Something you are proud of. I would like to hear."

Thetis’ lips press thin at the obvious disdain for her son and this surprising interest in a lesser creature, but she watches Patroclus with cool interest. What could he possibly be proud of?

Patroclus is clearly struggling to find an answer. Yes, he killed Sarpedon—he scarcely remembers how, the battle was such panicked chaos—but what does it matter? He died shortly after and set Achilles on his destructive path. That’s no source of pride.

Instead, he reflects on the many days spent treating the wounded beside Machaon and Podalirius. Pat rubs his palms together and recalls his first major victory. “I set a man’s broken leg and it mended clean and whole. He was able to walk and fight again.”

Her lips tug further, finally reaching a smile that seems warm, not sharp or amused or enigmatic.

"Impressive. Most humans have neither the skill to set a bone so well nor the stomach to learn." To learn, a human must fight through their urge to cringe from a fellow's pain, to endure the feeling of shifting bone and flesh under their hands as a compatriot screams, to trust their hands are steady enough to do the work, and to remain patient and attentive as the bone heals. And most of all, they must have the temerity to fail, to see the consequences of their failure, and try again nonetheless. That learning process is the struggle of growth, a facet of that base, constructive violence that creates her.

"There is a time beyond you, when humans can not only set bones, but sew severed limbs back to their stumps, and the patients can heal whole." There's visions rolling in the smoke of her nails and the steam of the water behind her. They're hard to make out, but there's people. Many people.

"One of the shades I keep lost both her hands, and they sewed them back on. But she had to work tirelessly to learn how to use them once more, lest they heal poorly." The visions take more shape. Someone sitting at a table. There are blocks on the table. They are struggling to pick up the blocks and build a meager castle, their grip and dexterity little better than a toddler's. "She swore that she would work so hard that she could write effortlessly once more. And she did. It took years of determination through frustration and despair. But she wanted it, so she did the work."

The visions overlap. The awkward building of blocks. The painfully awkward squeezing and turning of clay in hand. The long, careful process of practicing painting within lines someone else created. There are tears, there are moments of screaming despair, dark holes of anguish where the person is convinced they will never reach their goal, and yet throughout it all there are still the slow, frustrating activities, working to regain what was lost.

"Tell me of something you persisted through despair for, little shade," she says softly. "Something you doubted you could ever have, but you worked for anyway."

For once, Patroclus is genuinely curious about what the Morrígan has to show him. In the future, mortals kill one another with greater efficiency—that much is inevitable—but this is the first time he’s seen a glimpse of hope. He watches the woman’s struggle and can’t help but share her despair and triumph.

And then the Morrígan makes another request.

“My father’s love. I was not the son he wanted.” He spent his entire childhood in pursuit of his father’s approval—pushing himself to meet impossible standards—but he never ran the fastest at footraces, never threw as far or as accurately, never pinned his opponents in wrestling matches. After a while, his father barred him from participating in games at all to avoid further embarrassment. It was probably a blessing when Pat gave his father cause to banish him.

“I finally won it, I suppose, but only by winning a hero’s favor.” Cleaning wounds and mending bones would mean nothing. Glory and honor were the only currency that could buy his father’s pride.

Pat snorts and rolls his eyes. “And he must have been proud to learn I killed a son of Zeus.”

As he speaks, the visions keep going. The woman's shape screams and cries in frustration, but she keeps working. The first time she fully paints within the lines, she cheers too loudly, but no one minds and they cheer with her. The first time someone says something rude to her on the street and she's able to make a rude gesture without thinking of it, she laughs and does a little dance of joy, and the rude person thinks she's making fun of him. The first time she holds a pen and scratches out a legible sentence, she collapses against a wall and laughs and sobs and screams in joy and relief, pumping her fists in the air. Just as her struggle suffuses the Morrígan, so too does that sweet triumph of succeeding.

She hums softly at Patroclus' story of his father. She gently scratches a glass spiral in the ground.

"I'm too long lived to understand why humans value what they do with the short time they have. I knew your father, though not your mortal one. Prometheus." Her smile stays warm, almost fond as she reminisces. "When he set about creating you, I warned him that if he did, you would one day break his heart. And he asked me if there's a reason to have a heart at all, if one never allows it to break."

She flicks her nail very carefully in Patroclus' direction, clearly conscious of not accidentally splashing him with flaming debris. "Do you think so? That it'd be worth having a heart if it doesn't break?"

“Prometheus is a much better father than my own,” Patroclus mutters under his breath. And quite probably one of the only gods Pat will tolerate.

“You should have asked him that question,” Pat jerks his head in the direction of Achilles’ exit. “He enjoys ruminating on the nature of love and the wounds it inflicts.”

Indeed, Achilles is more romantic, more poetic than he’ll ever be. Maybe because Achilles grew up surrounded by so much love. His heart is raw and tender. To Pat, affection is still a novelty, largely undeserved; barely a balm for the thick lattice of scars on his own heart.

“What do you think?” At a guess, Pat assumes the Morrígan finds great pleasure watching people struggle through the pain of heartbreak. “Is there such a thing as a heart that can’t be broken? Are love and loss not inextricably bound?”

"I prefer to hear answers from those to whom life has not been kind," the Morrígan says. She rests her flaming nails carefully on the sand. Pools of glass form around them.

"There are many hearts that have never broken. They remain pristine, from birth to death, because their owners are too precious to ever risk them." She angles her head a little bit up at the sky, as if looking at it through her wings tightly pressed against her eyes. "There are so many gods like Gaia. Gods that could hold so much wonder if they endured the agony she has. But they do not, because they would prefer a life unlived than a life that includes pain."

She tips her head back a little bit, as if to look at Thetis and Patroclus once more. "Nothing is permanent. One day, Gaia shall die and be consumed, and so will I. As will all others. And from our destruction, new things will form. New gods, new life. Those who passively swaddle themselves in safety and allow themselves to be passengers in their own lives shall be no different, and they shall have existed without living."

Whether the Morrígan intends it or not, Thetis hears a note of accusation in that response. She can’t deny there’s truth in it; for a time she worked hard for Achilles’ immortality. First, the rituals when he was a babe, and when those failed, she tried to secure his legend and perhaps his apotheosis.

Why? Because his death would break her heart. It did break her heart. Such that she couldn’t stand to look at Neoptolemus. Such that she’s too deeply scarred to love either of her mortal grandchildren.

The goddess shifts, her hair drifts in an invisible current. Just enough to catch Patroclus’ eye. "My life was not kind, it's true, but it could have been much worse. I may never have known love at all."

If the Morrígan notices Thetis' offense, she doesn't acknowledge it. Instead, she listens to Patroclus. Listens, and stays smiling. Warm, like a distant relative listening to a child tell them about their year.

"True. You may have." She lets out a soft breath. It smells like a bonfire. Far less bitter and acrid than when Achilles was confronting her.

"I know what you need, something you yourself do not know." She lets her hands rest on the ground. She's not fidgety or agitated, just peacefully watchful. "I will give it to you, if you agree to do a task for me. It is not a task you will enjoy, but it is one you will be glad to have done."

For a moment, the Morrígan almost reminds him of Prometheus—a little bit adoring. But Prometheus doesn’t abduct the humans he finds interesting. Not as far as Pat knows. (He would end up with a lot of stolen mortals if that were the case. Prometheus is much less discriminating.)

Pat knows what he needs: purpose. Something to occupy his eternity. Or, if Epimetheus is to be believed, some kind of corrective tincture for his chronically bad mood. Or … maybe another dog?

Yes, he’s positive another dog would make him feel better.

“First tell me the task. Then I will decide if the knowledge is worth the effort.”

The corner of her mouth tugs. Her smile takes the slightest amused quality.

"Seek your mother out and speak to her. She rests in Asphodel. She's a simple woman, but not so simple that she does not wonder and worry about her only son, and not so simple that she doesn't wish to know what became of him."

Her feathers rustle. It sounds like wind rushing through leaves.

"Swear to do this when you return to Hades, and I shall give you this thing you I know you to need."

Edited 2025-06-26 22:00 (UTC)

It sounds like a simple task, but guilt and old wounds make it a daunting proposition. When he was a boy, Patroclus didn’t fully comprehend his mother’s limitations. He remembers seeking her for comfort. She mutely held him like a child might hold a doll, but she had no calming words for him. No assurances of love. He resented her for it.

Pat found more comfort among the goats and horses and dogs.

It wasn’t until Pat was older that he realized how ill-suited she was to the role of wife and mother. Her simplicity was an affliction&mash;either from birth or after suffering illness or injury. Her family was probably eager to marry her off. His father all but ignored her after she gave him a (disappointing) son.

Patroclus’ anger at her was unwarranted, he now knows; he can’t imagine how lonely and miserable her life was after he left. He never said good-bye. (How did she die?) That shame has sat heavy at the back of his mind, stacked amid the clutter of his grief.

“You have my word,” he finally agrees, even as he’s afraid she’ll only meet him with blank confusion. “I will find her.”

The Morrígan never asks for the impossible, but she never asks for the easy, either. She's still smiling as she says, "And in exchange, I grant to you what you need."

She moves her hands. They tilt upward, cupping around Thetis and Patroclus, closing around them like a child capturing an insect.

"I grant you hope."

Her hands close, and in that darkness, transportation to another time and place, as if observing a dream that one cannot intervene in. It's based in a time that, long ago, Apollo primarily drew from for his psychic attack against Patroclus.

A group of young adults sit in a loose circle in a brightly lit room, flopped on beanbags and couches with notecards notebooks and a long problem set on a whiteboard. College students, working on prepping for a test together. Mixed sexes and genders and appearances. One of them brings in cupcakes, grinning proudly as he passes them out, assuring one that there are no nuts inside, and asking another if she should be checking her blood sugar before eating one.

"Pass me the serotonin plush, I neeeeeed it," a woman with a pierced eyebrow whines. A man with green hair tosses a wool stuffie that resembles honeycomb in her direction, and she catches it, giving it a hug.

Each of the people in this room would have died before reaching this age had they lived in Patroclus' time. Olivia, the woman with the pierced eyebrow, has a disorder of the blood that would have caused her to fall into a coma and die when she was eight, but now she only must wear a small patch on her arm with a needle. Olivia will go on to found an organization that distributes this medicine to the poor and destitute around the world.

Liam, the man with the green hair, would have died when he was four. It would have been blamed on choking, when in reality he simply has a reaction to eating nuts. Now he carries a syringe to save him in case he eats nuts, but otherwise lives his life as anyone else. He will go on to become a doctor that specializes in caring for the elderly.

Brian, the man who made the cupcakes, would have taken his life when he was fourteen due to a disorder of the brain. Now he only swallows two pills every morning and lives a normal life. He will go on to open an animal sanctuary for wild animals too injured to survive in the wilderness.

Charlotte, a woman grumbling over her note cards, would have died of polio before she reached the age of ten. But she, like every other person in the room, had received preventative care while an infant, and it made her immune to the virus. She will go on to become a lawyer specializing in managing child welfare. Such is a similar story for every person in the room.

Every person in the room has only ever experienced the death of a grandparent. Not a parent, not a sibling, not a friend. Medicine has advanced so far that women rarely die in childbirth, and a child not reaching adulthood is a shocking abnormality. All the people here have all of their teeth, all of their limbs, full function of every sense, and the suffering of their ancestors is so far away that they don't even think any of their health and good fortune remarkable.

This is the Morrígan's gift: knowledge, irrefutable knowledge, that for all the suffering and terror of the future, there will also one day be equal prosperity and enlightenment. A day when death is a rare event, and crippling degenerative disease even rarer. A day when women need no marriage to support themselves and can make their own way, a day when everyday people gain an education greater than ancient kings did, a day when children are saved from cruel parents, a day where all the suffering Patroclus witnessed in life is uncommon. A future that is beautiful, even for all the horrors it holds.

This future couldn’t be more different from the one Apollo inflicted upon him. He’d made it seem as if war and suffering were perfected into a terrible art form, to the exclusion of everything else. Pat’s ten years at Troy were only an inevitable step towards this future of constant violence.

But this scene is tranquil, jovial. This easy companionship rings true, even in his own time. That, it seems, doesn’t change.

Though it’s strange to see women treated as equals and all of them—men and women both—focused on scholarly pursuits. He wishes he could be with all of these miraculous survivors, content, kind and thoughtful.

“None of them will go to war?” Pat asks at a whisper, as if they might hear him.

"None," whispers the Morrígan's voice. Their lives will not be without adversity--they will face dark times in life, times affected by painful relationships and disease and misfortune, but war will only ever be a distant thing. Something to read about in foreign news and history books.

The door opens. Amy (would have died of pox when she was six, but pox has been eradicated and she will go on to use animals to give therapy and teach social skills to children from difficult homes) peeks in with a notepad and a pencil.

"Hey guys, getting pizza, what toppings do you want?"

"Anchovies!" says Brian.

"No," says Amy. "Anything else?"

"Pineapple!" says Liam.

"Double no." Amy turns around with a dramatic flourish of her pencil. "You're all getting cheese and pepperoni!"

Everyone in the room laughs. Liam gives Amy a thumbs up as she goes, grinning. Charlotte takes a cupcake without looking up from her note cards, still grumbling softly.

"Hey, hey, I think I might have figured out problem three, who else finished it?" says a man with painted nails working on the floor. This summons a couple people, bent over his page and muttering, comparing notes.

All this is their normal. And none worry about war or famine. They're safe, they're healthy, and they're flourishing.

Prometheus should see this, Pat thinks. How delighted would the titan be? Or does he already know that his strange, flawed creations will flourish in time? Maybe he designed humans this way intentionally.

“When?” Pat blurts. There’s a notable spark of energy in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “When will mortals live like this?”

Thetis has also been watching the students’ antics with her own mild curiosity. She can’t imagine how gods and humans could drift so far apart. Usually they’re in lock-step where it comes to values. Is this because Zeus and Hera were deposed and Athena rose to power? Men come to treat women with respect, as equals?

Thetis dares to derive her own tiny morsel of hope from this vision. If not for herself, then maybe for her son’s descendants.

“Many, many generations after you. Little by little shall life improve, and then all at once.”

Charlotte starts to doze, eyes drifting shut. Liam smiles before shrugging off his cardigan to lay on top of her, and everyone else allows her to sleep. At least until pizza arrives.

The vision fades, but there’s the lingering warmth and camaraderie of young scholars at peace. The Morrígan parts her hands, revealing the cold beach once more, the greasy black snow and her glowing green chest wound.

“Humanity must go through its own struggles to achieve this. You shall flourish more and more upon the cumulative efforts and work of generations. Never perfect, always improving, to your very end.” She rests her hands back on the sand. “And now you know, little shade.”

A staunchly pessimistic part of Pat can’t help but wonder what that very end looks like. Is this here—where they’re standing—the aftermath? He winces at how easily the grim thought arrives. His mind is so chronically fixated on darkness.

He clings to the lingering warmth of that safe, easy future instead. He holds it close like the cloak he left with Kelly and thinks of the way Hermes transformed her fear into awe. Maybe this is what gods are truly meant to do: reframe mortal understanding, for better or worse.

“This is why Neoptolemus should return, isn’t it?” Patroclus ventures. “He can still contribute to this shared struggle.”

The Morrígan’s smile is slightly amused and enigmatic as she says, “He already has. More than you know.”

She lets out a soft puff of air. It smells like gunpowder and woodsmoke.

“And you have contributed yourself more than you know. More than you will ever know. The ripples of your life will carry far into the future. One day, perhaps you will see the waves they become.”

She relaxes her hands on the sand. Her flaming nails melt the snow around them.

“This is true of all who fought at Troy. The impact of the war will be greater than any of you know. And one day, you may look upon the ripples it has, and you may think it was worth the pain and blood.”

Patroclus doubts that. What could the group of happy scholars hope to gain from an ancient battle, fought over a stolen wife? Maybe they would sit around and laugh at how stupid men were in the past. That’s the best he can hope for—that they learn from those mistakes.

Thetis’ posture straightens ever-so-slightly. She’s more inclined to believe the Morrígan—at least where it concerns Achilles. Her son didn’t sack Troy, but he still fought magnificently. She’s positive future mortals will praise his tenacity and heroism while the rest of his unworthy peers fade from memory.

Pat watches the snow melt and steam around the goddess’ fingers for a moment before his eyes wander back to the mound on which Troy once stood. “When will we know if he has succeeded?”

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