Thesus had spent the day after leaving the archontikó Drakos wandering the city. He didn’t know what he had expected to find when he walked in the door to his home… but he had imagined a much better reception than the one he had received. Tythra had said barely four words to him, and all of them were revolved around making him leave the property.

Was it that she didn’t recognise him? The years hadn’t been kind to Thesus - though he maintained his strong build from years of manual labour, his face had probably changes somewhat drastically. Truth be told he hadn’t spent much time staring at his face in a looking glass so he had no idea what he looked like now. Tythra herself had changed - the wrinkles on her face were to be expected, but she was still beautiful, still the wife he remembered.

Wife. What a strange thought. They had spent most of their marriage apart, and if that other girl was anything to go by, there was a strong possibility that Tythra had remarried. If he was presumed dead, he wondered how long it had taken Tythra to take another husband. The girl must have been around four-and-ten. Maybe a little older. Tythra was a princess after all, things were expected of her, and if her husband was presumed dead, he supposed it would be natural for another marriage to be arranged for her.

It was now the day after his disastrous homecoming, and Thesus had spent the rest of his coin on alcohol. It was awful stuff, in his opinion, but he had not consumed alcoholic beverages in sixteen years, so anything was better than nothing. He wasn’t drinking to forget, nor even to drown his sorrows. Regardless, he had drank himself into oblivion last night, and was feeling the worse for wear today as a result. He had woken up with the plan to go back to his home and present himself once again. But he knew Tythra (or thought he did), and he knew that he had to wait for her to come around. He prayed to the Gods that she would come around.

In the mean time, he had run out of coin and needed to find some form of work to simply survive. That’s where he found himself, down by the harbour in Colchis in search of employment. There were always little bits and bobs to be done in places like this: an hour’s work for a meal, a day’s labour to replenish his empty pockets, it wasn’t particularly gainful employment, but it would keep him alive, and keep him busy. And he wasn’t above it - after sixteen years of servitude, he was not proud. He would find for where he could, and he would do it well and without complaint.

He had found work on a small merchant’s galley, shifting boxes of trading goods from the deck of the harbour onto the boat. There were about a dozen men like him, all working together to move the boxes aboard the ship. He heaved another on board, with the help of another man, between the two of them it was certainly easier than if he had tried alone. Placing the box on top of another, he straightened up and rubbed his hands together to rid himself of any loose splinters from the move. By chance, he looked down upon the dock and saw a familiar face.

It wasn’t a face that he remembered from his time sixteen years ago. She was too young for that. But he remembered everything about the day before, from every imperfection on his wife’s face, to the visages of the two girls who had come running into the room at Tythra’s shouting. Down, standing on the edge of the harbour, was the other girl, the younger one, whom Thesus could only assume was her daughter by another marriage. He stared at her. “Give me a few minutes,” Thesus murmured to the other worker, and he rounded the boat and disembarked, approaching the girl.