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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"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?”

“You will not know until you have left Tír na nÓg.”

She spreads her hands, resting them on their sides and creating a path towards the mound of what was once Troy.

“You may go now, if you wish, little shade and little sea creature. Your guides will await you after you have purified yourself of my miasma. But you may stay if that is what you prefer, and speak with me longer. A long life whets the appetite for conversation.”

The Morrígan almost sounds disappointed. Maybe even a little lonely. Or Pat is just projecting on her. He’s not sure gods can feel those things the same way mortals do. If she was truly upset, she has the power to hold them here and talk indefinitely.

“Thank you,” Pat says with a bow. Because he is grateful that the goddess indulged Achilles’ clumsy negotiations and for the hopeful vision. “I’ll seek my mother in Asphodel, as you asked.”

Thetis only gives a polite bow in obligatory deference before she moves for the offered path. She feels no sympathy for the goddess. The Morrígan is like a blue whale to Thetis’ tiny krill; she could swallow her up on a whim. Thetis needs to know her son hasn’t said or done anything foolish that might bind him to this realm as surely as Neoptolemus.

If the Morrígan feels any type of way about them leaving, her face doesn’t betray it. She maintains an enigmatic smile, slightly tilting her chin towards the mound.

“Thank you for the interesting conversation, little shade. And you, little sea creature. Go in peace.”

Through the thick miasma, there is a steaming hot spring and two fae creatures that resemble humanoid crows, bearing soap and strigils. There is no passage beyond them without a bath.

Pat gives another awkward nod and a muttered farewell, like a child might offer a grandparent they barely know, before following Thetis along the path.

When he arrives at the spring, Thetis is in the middle of repelling the creatures’ attempts to bathe her. “I need no assistance,” she hisses, the spring water churning at her feet. She stabs a finger at Patroclus. “See to the mortal. He will not be so fastidious.”

Patroclus is used to the barrage of insults, and if he can help divert the fae servants’ attention, so be it. He silently turns his back to the goddess and shucks off his contaminated tunic.

One of the crow fae breaks away, approaching Patroclus with soap and a strigil like the grim reaper. But the second stays with Thetis, clicking its broken beak impatiently.

"Fastidious, fastidious," it croaks, mimicking Thetis as a crow might mimic a person. It will not be so easily dissuaded from its sacred duty.

The one with Patroclus, on the other hand, seems happy to work with a more pliable victim. It takes his tunic, bringing it far away to a deep pit with sour smoke curling out of it. The fae drops the tunic into the pit, and then is quickly approaching Patroclus once more with soap and a determined gleam in its beady black eyes.

Likewise, Thetis isn’t about to back down in this test of wills. (Achilles comes by his stubbornness honestly.) She won’t be touched by any creature—mortal or immortal, fae or otherwise—with the exception, it seems, of certain granddaughters.

Her power here is somewhat weakened, but she lashes the crow with a whip of spring water with enough force to knock it prone. Thetis takes the strigil for herself and tosses her tunic to the creature in what she considers a fair exchange.

Patroclus doesn’t trust these creatures anymore than Thetis, but he knows she has much better reasons to guard her privacy. Even if she hates him, Pat feels some obligation to help the goddess—for Achilles’ sake, at least. He reaches to grab the corner of her discarded tunic and holds it out of the crows’ reach. Not so pliable now!

The crow fae falls on its back. It squawks its outrage, doubly so when the tunic is yanked away. Both the crow fae fluff out their feathers in outrage and squawk, leaping at Patroclus to get the tunic.

"Fastidious! Fastidious!" one squawks, climbing on Patroclus' back to nab the offending tunic. The other crow fae takes a lock of Patroclus' hair in its beak and pulls it like an angry animal. They will not be negligent in their duties! They will nip and grab and scrub as needed! Do not test them, for they will scrub off an extra layer of skin in retaliation!

Thetis sinks into her side of the spring and begins scrubbing the miasma from herself in relative peace. If she recognizes Patroclus’ act of chivalry for what it is, she doesn’t show it.

Pat balls up the tunic and throws it into the trees where it snags on a bough and billows in the breeze. That should buy some time, assuming these crow fae are flightless.

“Fine. Do what you must,” he snaps, tugging his hair free. They can take as many layers of him as they like; he’s a shade, after all.

One of the crow fae squawks in outrage, flapping its broken and clipped wings before scrambling to the tree to get climbing towards the tunic. The remaining fae keeps clacking its beak in disapproval, pushing Patroclus into the hot spring. It gets the soap and aggressively rubs it into a lather over his skin.

It doesn't spare any bit of him. There's no delicacy, no concern for modesty, no embarrassment, the crow fae will have this man clean. Clawed fingers even get into the folds of the ear and creases of the knees and between the toes. Cleanliness is this fae's quest, and it's going to complete it whether anyone likes it or not.

Pat’s satisfied with that outcome. He keeps himself faced away from Thetis while he allows the crow to do its terrible, thorough work. Surely they could just kill him and his shade would form clean and anew in the Styx after a while … ? He’d much prefer that to this scrubbing.

Thetis honors the importance of stripping away the miasma with equally rigorous cleaning, but she can’t reach her own back and shoulders. Grudgingly, she turns to the disappointing mortal; she trusts him more than these fae.

“Patroclus. I need your assistance,” she says curtly, tapping the strigil on his shoulder.

After a moment’s wordless hesitance, he takes the tool and begins scrubbing the goddess’ offered shoulders and back. Her flesh is a cool, fish belly white that has the pearlescent sheen of tiny scales or the inside of an abalone shell. Pat could swear Achilles’ skin had the same mesmerizing quality in certain light.

The fae sent after Thetis' tunic is clacking and croaking out what's surely bird swears as it tries to claw its way up the tree. The one working on Patroclus doesn't seem to object to him helping the goddess at all, but it's not taking the moment to stop its sacred work. Oh no, after the scrubbing, it has its strigil, and it's practically stripping a layer of skin off Patroclus as it vigorously scrapes away suds and dirt.

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End it here?