Silanos was not glad when the distant landmass had become visible. Whilst he was sick to death of the gods forsaken ship, to see Egypt...well it meant that this was really happening.

He’d never felt more out of place in all his life. Certainly not a soldier like these men he was surrounded by , not a Lord,not even a Valaoritis. Even in this stint of servitude under the Crown Prince, Sil had never stopped feeling like himself. Not until they’d left Taengea.

Now he was..what? Some nameless, faceless runabout who would be sure to die the moment faced with an actual enemy? Vangelis had not stopped drilling him on his work with the sword, and there had been improvement but two weeks was not enough to make up for the years of training the other men had over him. And whilst Sil had tried to mind his temper he felt restless, like his skin was too small for him and he might just burst out of it. That same sort of tetchiness that he knew more from when he’d gone without sleep too long, only he slept. If nothing else the amount of work he was doing had seen his sleep patterns fall into..well some kind of pattern for the first time in what felt like for-fucking-ever.

He was sure that would be seen as some sort of victory by those who knew him, but it just felt even more like he was being crushed into a shape that wasn’t his own. What would even be left at the end of this?

The land grew nearer too quickly for his liking, and Silanos fidgeted, half-expecting they would be met by a hail of arrows or a pack of savages on the very beaches they were to land upon. His palms were sweaty, and he wiped them off on the short tunic, picked anxiously at the wrapping on his wrist.

When their ship drew close to the sands, he couldn’t have been more suprised when the King called for him, nor more dismayed. Since the unfortunate vomiting incident, Sil had been careful to keep out of the man’s way and over the past weeks he felt he’d at least got a measure of Vangelis and his -admittedly not very varied- moods. That’s who he was supposed to be going with, not King Tython. But he could hardly refuse, and so though he shot a confused glance toward the Crown Prince, Silanos followed the King as the man stepped nimbly down into the shallows to wade ashore.

He just caught himself before he pulled a face at the man’s request. There were literally hundreds of soldiers and to get a list Sil was going to has to speak with the Captains. At least two of whom he was not on good terms with.

But it wasn’t like he was given much choice in the matter. His confidence in the fact that the King did not like him was pretty secure, and Silanos didn’t want to give him any excuse to find fault, so he nodded and gave a respectful affirmative before trudging off to find a tablet and stylus that could be used to record the information the King wanted. Idly, he wondered if the man would like him to sketch a portrait too but the thought stayed firmly in his head rather than be asked as some smart mouthed question as it might have been with someone with less ability to see his head separated from his body.

By the time he’d returned, the King and several of the officers had gathered in the shallows and Sil quietly noted down those he recognised and glowered at those he didn’t for making his life more complicated. Should the Taengean be King? Or Lord? Or was he reduced to no name. The stylus pressed a little too hard into the clay and Sil asked the tall man to his left his name.

Valerius was just about sick the being on the ship when land finally came into view. He’d made this voyage to Egypt twice before, during the last war with the people of this gods forsaken desert. Val hated Egypt – loathed it really – though he had enjoyed killing the fuckers ten years ago. At least there was something to look forward to. The captain turned to one of his lieutenants, the man that had clearly been marked as his second in command of the Golden Shields of Arcaneas, and ordered him to have the men ready to deboard the ship as soon as the anchor had been dropped. He knew his men would need to find their land legs after weeks on the rolling sea, and they had a camp to get setup before nightfall. Valerius remembered the scramble to set camp when he’d been a young soldier, the unsteadiness of the legs after so long at sea. He had made the mistake of not stretching his weary muscles those years ago and had not enjoyed the terribly sore arms he’d been left with after that first day of joined battle. Being of a primarily peltast heavy unit, one did not want to miss a mark because he forgot to properly stretch. The captain shook his head at the memory as he stood at the prow of the ship, watching the beach draw nearer. Egypt.

Val was one of the first to disembark the ship, circling a hand in the air above his head with fingers pointed towards the sky – a signal to his lieutenants to get the men moving faster. Trusting in their ability to follow his command, for he’d trained them well, Valerius did not even look back as he started down the beach to the place the King of Colchis was awaiting the chief officers’ presence. His men knew their orders, unload ship, stretch, set camp, then run through routines with all the weapons they’d brought with them (while the Golden Shields continued to have a peltast focus for over half the unit, Valerius was sure to make sure all his men knew how to use any weapon they could get their hands on in the heat of battle). He had more important things to contend with, for there were battle plans to discuss and finalize, as there was with any war campaign. The proud captain held his head high and his shoulder back as he approached the gathering group. He stopped a few feet from the monarch and bowed low in fealty to the man that commanded them all. ”Your Majesty.” A simple greeting yet, full of the respect the leader of their great kingdom deserved. Valerius straightened to his full height once more, his left hand coming to rest comfortably atop the hilt of his long sword strapped to his waist – while he was not wearing a helmet, he was bedecked in a mid-weight armor that allowed for much of the protection that the typical hoplite armor offered, but also allowed for the easier range of motion that a peltast needed to throw their javelins the distance that would be demanded of them. He remained silent as the rest of the military leaders gathered, and waited further instruction from King Tython.

At least until the man that came to stand next to him spoke up, asking him his name. Val turned his head to regard the man, but upon seeing him with the clay and stylus, he realized why he was asking such a thing. He was taking roll of who was to be among the camp. Security was a serious thing in times of war. Valerius turned to face him more fully, some recognition coming into his eyes and he dipped his head in greeting. Wasn’t this Lord Silanos? While Valerius had never officially met the man, he did know of him. After all, he was friends with his older brother – one of the only people that Val truly considered a friend. ”Captain Valerius of Arcaneas.” he said in answer to Silanos’ question of his identity.

Invaders. Vermin, scurrying along the pharaoh’s shores. The Taengean army fought them on their own land, as if to defend from incursion, yet that made them invaders. Akhem marveled at the irony of their viciousness. The pharaoh’s warriors had succeeded in disrupting the enemy’s formation, but they continued to regroup. It would take time to round up all of the losers and declare victory. Akhem continued to strike, targeting the Greek nearest him. This one was weak, he noted joyfully. While many of the enemy soldiers posed as much of a threat as his fellow warriors, this one had a softness to him. When struck, he flinched back. Where had the Taengeans found this one, Akhem wondered? No such warrior (if he could even be called a warrior) would have been allowed on the pharaoh’s side of the battlefield.

The army needed a plan. Akhem had not yet heard new orders, though, so he trusted in the standing ones. He would continue fighting against the Taengean army until commanded to do otherwise. Where was he most needed? He did not know. Without further information, he would assume that hee was needed most here. His duty was not to consider the broader strategic picture. He had never understood such abstract matters. The moment-to-moment tactical situation was his province. He continued to strike, making short work of the Greek in front of him. He almost paused to count, but there would be plenty of time after the war was won to boast of his kills to his comrades.

Not only was the Taengean force full of weak, pathetic excuses for fighters, but it was also small. Egypt had furnished her best for the effort, but Taengea had clearly spared its best- perhaps they remained back home, waiting for the Egyptians to besiege them before defending. Akhem had long suspected that foreign gods and gentler weather made for weaker citizens; Taengea was proof enough of that. He was hardly unique among the Egyptian forces for his dedication to the roar of battle.
While attacking his next target, Akhem guarded him jealously. Although Akhem respected his fellow soldiers, he took a certain pride in his own accomplishments. When others tried to steal his potential glory, he made them regret it. At least in the heat of battle, they would likely be too occupied to get in his way. Akhem had the enemy combatants to himself, where it mattered. His quarry was in sight, and they would not escape unharmed.

Now that they had pushed back against the assault, Akhem began to feel over-confident; just then, the orders he had finally been awaiting came. There was another contingent of Taengeans approaching. He had never been a strategic thinker or a wise leader; his focus narrowed to a tiny pinprick, the soldier at the other end of his blade. Nothing else captured his awareness quite like defeating a worthy combatant. Despite the increase in opposing numbers, the battle at large seemed easy enough to win. He would take pride in his one-on-one contests until someone notified him that the situation had changed. Akhem followed orders, and fought against the latest Taengean arrivals.

After spending two weeks at sea, Timaeus was so grateful to be back on land though it wasn’t for any reason that would be obvious to the other men he disembarked with. Timaeus loved being at sea. He loved the chance to relive his younger days as an adventurer, trawling the high seas in search of adventure. The first two weeks of their month-long journey to Egypt had been a dream come true. The last two though? Those had been Hades frozen over.

As soon as his feet hit the Egyptian sand, Timaeus felt that he could finally breathe again as he was no longer trapped on a tiny boat, having nothing to occupy his time than smuggled wine and the crushing guilt of what he had done in Taengea. He had disowned his brother. His own flesh and blood. The very same boy Tim had done literally everything to protect had been cast aside like an unwanted kitten. On the boat, he had been trapped by his regrets, unable to express them in a safe way, and unable to distract himself. Now that he was off the vessel, Timaeus knew that this weight would be lifted off his shoulders as there were no endless piles of work to be done. It was a more than welcome distraction and the first matter of business was meeting with the King. That was simple enough, especially as his comrades Steph and Val were also being summoned to the same meeting.

Or least it had seemed to be that way until Timaeus had caught sight of the brother he had disowned present at this same meeting.

His feelings about Silanos were conflicted to say the very least. Even though the anger over what had transpired in Taengea was still there… this boy was his brother. This was the same kid that Timaeus saved from that wild horse and pushed into the snow. No matter how much things changed nowadays those memories were still in Timaeus, bringing forth that instinctive call within him to forget that this boy was no longer his brother and cross the distance to him. It would be so easy. Timaeus could sling his arm over his younger brother’s shoulder, crack some joke about the grunt work Sil was doing, They would laugh, and then it would be as if nothing ever happened. In an instant, everything could be normal again and Timaeus could have his brother again. It would be so easy too. Timaeus never wrote his decree down. There was no record of the disownment. Just one kind word from the Baron and it could be like everything was alright.

But everything wasnt’t alright.

Silanos was not the same boy that Timaeus recalled so fondly from the days before his younger brother had run away to Taengea. Back then his brother had been reckless, but he wouldn’t have kissed two princesses. Silanos had been moderately reasonable -- just like Tim had been at his age. That was the Silanos that Timaeus had missed so fiercely in the two weeks he had to reckon with the choices that he had made. The Silanos across the way was not that same boy. This Silanos was the one who would get shitfaced drunk and then not even remember the debts he’d incurred in Timaeus’s name. This Sil was the one who was fine with risking the family’s noble status so he could get a quick kiss from a Kotas. The boy he remembered had been his little brother, the pain in his ass when he had been a Captain. The man he was looking at now was a slave to Prince Vangelis. The memories Tim had and the actions Silanos had taken were irreconcilable. A part of Timaeus would always be his big brother, but for the sake of everything their ancestors had built, he couldn’t let that overlap with the part of him that was also the Baron of Eubocris.

So, even though it killed him inside and took every fiber of his being to not run and hug Sil… to not break down and apologize for the terrible things that Timaeus had done to him… he turned his back on his little brother and trailed after the commander that Timaeus was meant to be advising. The former military Captain found his place on the opposite side of Stephanos, quietly using the Commander as a barrier between himself and the brother he disowned. Valerius was also nearby, but Timaeus couldn’t look at his friend as he had noticed that Silanos had stepped forward to speak to the Captain. He had to turn his head away and act as if he wasn’t gritting his teeth, struggling to keep his own tongue in his cheek so he wouldn’t call out to the boy. Neither man knew what Timaeus had done during the brief day that they had been ashore. Commander Stephanos had made it more than clear already that the Colchian and the Taengean were not friends, so Tim would have no reason to confess his regret to him. He had come close with Valerius, but the hefty weight of guilt had been too much to make him form the words. Timaeus knew that disowning Silanos had been the best decision for both of them, but it still felt like some horrible sin that he couldn’t dare to breathe it aloud. Not yet at least.

Coming face to face with the King, Timaeus sunk into the customary low bow one that Tython’s rank required as well a quiet word of greeting. Once this was done, he stepped back, allowing others to do the same and fill the room with chatter if they so wished. Timaeus knew that his role in this war was to support Stephanos. That required stepping back and listening for now. The others in the room could be the louder voices for now. As Timaeus glanced around the room, he could tell that there would be no shortage of those that morning.

Especially as his eyes leveled with Sir Damocles. For a brief moment, there was an angry flame in Timaeus’s eyes as he noted the way that the Captain sauntered into the war room. The Baron might have held a lot of guilt and regret regarding what happened with Silanos, but those emotions were confined to the sadness that came with losing a brother. Damocles was the one that Timaeus was angry with and the one that Timaeus blamed for causing the mess that led to this in the first place. The sheer amount of disrespect that Damocles had shown to him over the years made him impossible to deal with -- let alone strike a negotiation that could have absolved the debt that Silanos owed the Drakos militant. If their pride had not gotten in the way, this could have amicably, but it didn’t. Now Timaeus didn’t have a brother and Damocles had been stiffed out of his repayment as it was not Tim’s debt to cough up. The Captain from the North, of course, couldn’t know what had happened prior to Timaeus sending his missive just before the ships left -- But the Eubocrisian could certainly blame him for it.

However, that was all it could be right now. A wave of silent anger, stewing over the history of disrespect that Damocles had shown to him. Timaeus knew that one day he’d have his proper revenge and it would be so sweet that it would taste better than a thousand jars of honey. Until then, there was work to be done and Timaeus would be damned before he had any sort of emotional outburst in front of the king in either regard to his brother or the captain. Instead, he kept his eyes on the King, waiting for this order of business to get underway so the real work could begin. After all, Tim needed a distraction from all his personal turmoil, and the promise of getting to skewer a few Egyptians seemed to be just exactly what the doctor ordered.

Now it was just a matter of getting to that point.

In battle, the situation often turned on invisible slings and arrows. The gods played as much of a role as any mortal- not more, Yiannis thought, although he only knew what his tutors had taught him. Perhaps the gods simply watched, entertained, as mortals fought to their deaths. Somehow, he doubted that. No. They admired bravery, courage, determination, kindness, generosity, mercy, loyalty…the gods valued what their mortals valued. Yiannis knew his own ideals and virtues did not accord perfectly with what those of his family. Sometimes, in his father, Yiannis recognized some essential similarity between them- but his father was a proper warrior. Unlike his brothers, Yiannis did not hew to traditional Kotas ideals and virtues. He had forged his own path. Yet, in battle, none of that mattered one iota. What mattered was victory. That much, he and his brothers could agree on.

Yiannis commanded his force ably, albeit not enthusiastically. The role of a commander was stifling next to that of a captain. He reminisced often about his time leading a small, elite group of soldiers under his aegis. His convoluted plans had not always succeeded, but he had never failed so badly that they could not steal a triumph in the end. Now, as commander of a larger force, Yiannis worked alongside his father and brother- alongside others, too: Stephanos of Mikaelidas, Maleos of Eubocris, and Nike of Acaris. His job here was simpler, and all the more boring for it. War ought not to bore, he thought. He ought to feel his heart pounding, pulse racing- but he supposed he should be grateful. He would live to see tomorrow; not all of their allies and comrades would.

His father delivered orders. Yiannis obeyed. Although their forces fought under several different commanders, they were united in purpose. His role was to muster their archers. A shame that he felt at loose ends; what was there for him to do, with Phaedra serving the more important role? Commanders were not the true decision-makers on the battlefield, no matter what they liked to tell themselves. Yiannis shook the thoughts from his head. He would lead them, as that was his duty. Any concerns he had about the nature of war, strategy, and command were much too heady for the heat of battle. As Phaedra ordered the soldiers to form up, he straightened. They needed his leadership. He had a rousing speech and suggested tactics to offer, if only he could call upon them in this moment of need.

Just as Yiannis prepared to speak to his contingent, though, he noticed the approaching form of Ionas. He listened respectfully as the boy spoke; there was little time to insist on protocol when stakes were this high, he had always found. The news was not good. Yiannis scanned the group in the distance, haggard and awaiting- orders? Gratitude? Yiannis appreciated their bravery, then, if they had outlasted the Egyptians when no other Taengeans had. How could they have defeated their allies so soundly? Yiannis had not thought the Egyptians capable of withstanding their retaliation. Perhaps some of them had clung to life, only to die slowly, alone, on the blood-drenched sands. Yiannis prayed for their swift demise at Apollo’s arrowpoint.

As for what they ought to do next- if the Egyptians could defeat the Taengeans, then they might need to adapt their plans. If their king had fallen…Yiannis did not want to imagine how these poor men felt. He did not have the capacity to consider their position. He needed to serve the Colchians- his people. Still…they had received this news well in time to make good use of it. Perhaps they could misdirect and confuse the Egyptians, imply that they had greater numbers than they did. If the Phalanx had failed, they would need to try a different kind of strategy. Yiannis looked at Tython. They would need to reconsider their initial plan. Cleverness would win the day here, not a simple show of force. His gaze returned to the boy.

“Thank you for bringing us the news,” he said, offering a slightly pained smile. Yiannis could not pretend joy at hearing of lost allies and difficult odds, but he thought the soldier needed some assurance that his work was appreciated. “You have done well- you all have. You believe you escaped unnoticed by the Egyptian forces?”

Restless did not even begin to describe Zosime of Lyncaea. She’d been about ready to toss someone clear off the boat if they did not reach the next port soon, sick and tired of being kept in close quarters with limited resources. It’d made her snappish and short-tempered, which was not unlike her. At the call of land sighted, she had been one of the first to the decks -- squinting against the sun to peer at the horizon. She hated the red sands of Egypt and did not look forward to fighting in them again, but it would be nice to have something to take out her pent up energy on besides the poor souls that were technically her brothers in arms.

She had quickly gone about her duties as the unofficial second of the Molossian Wolves, helping offload the ships as needed with both her direction and her own power. There was no such thing as a job too low when one was in the midst of a war, the needs of all prevailing over the sensibilities of one. They worked together, preparing themselves for the Gods knew what. She wondered for a split second if either of the war gods -- @ares or @athena -- had decided to show them favor. She supposed they were about to find out. She’d made specific prayers to Ares, but now she wished she’d done the same for Athena -- praying for more wisdom in battle than brute strength. Too late for regrets now.

There was a stirring feeling of fear in her chest, an anxious ache that seemed to blossom and grow without much help. It wouldn’t keep her from fighting, if anything she would fight twice as hard if only to see her family again. Her mind shifted back to the present when Phaedra called her name, and the woman lifted her head from her own preparations. Eager, Zosime nodded her head at the order she was given. ”I’ve got it.” She said, bounding up onto her feet and with a bark of an order at another of the unit -- she went to do as she was bidden.

It didn’t take long, and when she found her way back it was closer to the noble side of things. The King had gathered up the ranking officers and was speaking, but that didn’t keep her from getting closer. She knew a few faces here. Phaedra was the obvious one, being her commanding officer, but she recognized Stephanos of Mikaelidas too. She flashed him a smile and a wink, before skirting quietly around the outside of the small formation. She saw Silanos of Eubocris too, although he got a much more lukewarm acknowledgement. She nodded in his direction, knowing that now wasn’t the time to be stirring up old trouble.

She eventually found her way quietly to Phaedra’s side, taking up a slightly defensive position at the woman’s back. Part of it was just being a good soldier, the other was just plain nosiness on her part. She wanted to hear what was coming down the pipeline as much as anyone else.