His life was a privileged one. His life was something he bled for. He endured the hands of his custodian, walked the cold hallways of the place that would become his home every evening, his soul hallowed little by little with each rise of the new moon, floated as a phantom until he became one in truth. He killed. He maimed. He did things he would speak of to no soul, broke minds and bodies and fed on their screams just to sustain his existence, did it so much it almost cracked his sanity. Just to get here.

That is what he told himself in times such as these. Inconvenient times when he could be doing a number of things. Instances where he had to sacrifice his valuable attention on the altar of some other thing outside of House Thanasi.

The people hungered. No, the people starved.

All because Colchis readily relied upon their neighbors to sustain her. They should have devoured foolish Taengea decades before, and yet they stayed their hand. Now, they beheld the result of soft kings.

The Kotas praised their peace, held it as a beacon of purity, piety, and salvation. Colchis could not suckle at the teat of goodwill. Colchis was a land of mud and blood, of men and women bred for war and cunning and all manner of greatness—what Colchis needed was the ability to sustain herself.

Dionysios hoped the Kotas savored the dull taste of their concord upon their simple tongues.

He stood in the common square with a reitune of guards draped in rich red—blood—and deepest pitch—knowledge—a great table stretched between himself and the tremendous crowd gathered. They pushed, they snarled, they grabbed what they could carry from the table and dashed away, hunkering over their goods lest someone steal it away.

Andromedus, an older lieutenant who held rank in The Hounds of Death for more years than any other, stepped out of the block formation long enough to lean toward Dionysios. “My Lord, I beseech you. They are getting too restless.”

This again.

“I will observe my people.” Dionysios' voice, though quiet, wrapped around his will as thick and final as cooled magma. Let the other simpering cowards stay locked in their manors and behind stone walls, the people would see the Thanasi standing with them, offering up all of their stores, starving with them.

In truth, he’d struck plenty of accords in the half century of his activities. In a way, Dionysios knew this day would eventually strike—disaster always eventually befell them when the Gods decided they had plenty enough good fortune and needed humility instead.

As a result of his own foresight, Dionysios could hand out four season’s worth of flax, wheat, and corn without denting his concern. The public needn’t know that, all they needed was sustenance. They would see how well the Thanasi cared for Colchis, and perhaps that would help negate whatever indecencies his surly children would be caught doing during the winter months when their boredom spread through Megaris as a blight.

And then, it happened. So suddenly Dionysios did not realize anything happened at all until he was no longer surrounded on all sides by black and red, but by brown and yellow. There was just enough time for him to frown before pain lashed around his left arm, then his right. One moment he stared at the masses before him, and the next, only blots and blurs of brown, tan, beige, dirt, mud, and gnashing piss-hued teeth took up the entirety of his world. HIs ears crowded with too much noise and a ringing clanged through the canals of his skull.

That pain in his arm spread to his back, struck between his aged shoulders as sharp and sudden as a thunderbolt from Zeus’ mighty fist. His vision cleared, his head snapped to the side, the ringing thinned, and he heard a cursed cacophony so vile it scraped against his teeth and threatened to barge down his throat to pull bile from his bowels.

“Witch!” They screamed. Dozens of talons clawed at his wrists, elbows, triceps, yanking him left then right then too many directions to know. Dionysios opened his mouth to shout a command for the vultures to cease, but his neck was seized and then he could not breathe nor shout nor scream.

So this was how it ended.

Dionysios mouthed words, a prayer to Lord Hades to keep his soul close, a plead with the fates to hurry their star-bright shears. His heart beat too swiftly, the sensation in his limbs dulling. He couldn’t breathe. Then his vision filled with black and red. Blood and oblivion? No

Andromedus roared, sunlight struck his raised steel. Someone screamed. Then many. The talons released Dionysios and he stumbled back, his world turning and his mind racing to catch up with the movement.

“Take him!” Andromedus howled. “Get him out”

More talons upon Dionysios, the toxic stench of man-sweat clogging his nose and dripping down his throat until he tasted putrid Colchian salt. Andromedus became smaller and smaller, and that was when Dionysios realized he was being dragged away. The last thing he saw of the lieutenant was his broad back and his close cap of greying hair before the crowd dragged him down like a man drowning at sea.

Dionysios could taste blood, but he’d tasted it plenty of times and didn’t care to whom it belonged. He lost his staff in the fray. He hadn’t removed its contents, a foolish mistake but one he would remedy as soon as this was over—it was far too recognizable to get far.

He turned in his guards’ grips, flipped and tangled their limbs. Somebody pushed something into his hands. Linen. He looked down. An epiblema. He didn’t question it, simply wrapped it around his head and the lower half of his face until it squeezed him as tight as a hungry python. He passed buildings, his guards holding him under his pits and running. His feet no longer slapped the ground with his own steps but dragged through the dirt with theirs. Everywhere, there were people. Everywhere, there were eyes.

“Fools!” He wheezed, “Your uniforms!”

Too late. A line of commoners blockaded the street, columns of the hungry and unwashed. They spotted the red and black, saw Dionysios dangling between his guards, and they came. Oh, how they came.

As one mass, they surged in a wave of linen and sun-whipped skin.

Dionysios wheezed when something flew into his stomach, strong and swift as a maul. He tried to keep his wits about him, knew to keep his head low and slide through the bodies as the viper swam through grass. And so he did. He fought against the current and when he emerged from the wall of flesh and decay and misery, he didn’t know how he still stood. Dionysios pressed his palm against a stone wall and froze, grunting when something pushed against his shoulder and flattened him to the stone.

Everywhere, there were people. He’d been walking just a moment ago, carts and carts piled with foodstuffs for the people. Where...where had he gone? Where were his guards? “Andromedus!” He called, his voice muffled by an epiblema he did not remember draping. “Andromedus!?”

He kept his hand against the wall of a home or shop, he didn’t know and didn’t care which. His free hand pressed to his ribs, thrumming with warm pain that might soon flare with agony. He called for his lieutenant again and again, but nobody came. The air filled with fear, anger, screams, snarls. Dionysios winced and released his ribs to press his fingers to his forehead.

“Here! Over here!” Dionysios turned just in time to catch a flash of a woman’s face before she gripped the front of his muted grey chiton and yanked him under an archway. The bright sun disappeared, the door slammed, and suddenly he could breathe.

A house. He was in a small, square house. A middle-aged woman, round in the middle and frayed in her dress, stood blinking at him. He blinked back. Oh, she would be rewarded, yes she would.

She frowned, opened her mouth, and suddenly the door banged open and she screamed. Dionysios smelled oil. A pair of too-large arms, scarred and scabbed, wrapped around his middle from behind and hefted him until Dionysios’ feet kicked frantically at the air. Flame billowed past him, a wooden torch turning head-over-tail before clacking against the woman's wall. Something crashed, something caught, and the fire ate everything.

“Halt! Leave her be! Get back!”

Suddenly the arms squeezing him, pulling him, vanished. Dionysios clutched at his chest and stumbled aside, catching upon something solid. He looked up.

No.

Of course. A Kotas was here, now, divine comedy so sharp it rattled through Dionysios’ chest and struck a sharp stucco against his heart, sending yet another crack through the brittle thing.

“Your majesty.” His voice sounded thin and wispy, even to his ears. Gods his body ached. Gods he wanted to kill this overgrown cub that stood before him like Achilles himself. Oh, he would be smug later—he would never show it, though. Bear he was, but he was a Colchian bear.

He would go about his days and weeks and months without the first twitch upon his face, but in the privacy of his chambers, far later than the rest of the world, he would sit in a bath of candlelight. His head would be filled with all manner of numbers and letters and duties and things to see to. He would come across a tax receipt from the Thanasi account, and he would smile when he remembered the mighty black cobra, stooped and clutching at his chest. He would smile wider when he remembered it was himself who played savior.

Dionysios used to stand in the shadows of the Midas streets and stare at the window of the boy’s room, imagining all the ways he might make the stony creature scream. He would watch that window, just an old man in a chlamys and dirty rags, and he would not move until the snuff of the fire. Sometimes it burned until daylight, and Dionysios’ rage would burn along with it.

Tonight, that fire would not go out. The young bear would not be able to stop grinning till the morning came. Then, he would dress, he would step across the threshold of his chambers, and his smile would disappear as if it had never existed.

A line of scarlet cut across the prince from head to hip. Someone missed his throat. Dionysios attempted to raise the garment under his nostrils when a spark of recognition flashed in the boy’s eyes. It was not his proudest moment, but no man should be shamed for cleverness and so Dionysios squared his shoulders and curled his lip, glancing the princeling from the cliff of his nose.

On the streets, slaughtering his people, he was a sight from childhood tales meant to conjure nightmares. Large and imposing was his frame, red he was speckled, and armed he most certainly was. Dionysios wondered if the prince knew how very barbaric he appeared. Mayhaps he could even slip behind the lines of their Northern ‘enemy’ if he was not so foolishly proud.

The woman beside Dionysios suddenly crumbled into hysterics and he snatched his hand away when she grabbed hold and attempted to yank him with her.

Turning his attention to the price once more, the elder opened his mouth to snip something particularly withering to such a damn fool question. Aid? No, not the elderly royal stumbling in the middle of riot. That would be preposterous.

Yet the words died upon Dionysios’ tongue as soon as they were birthed. The prince was on the streets, slaughtering slave and carousing citizen alike. The youngest Kotas boy was no doubt somewhere close to remain safely in the eldest’s shadow. The middle one was off at war, and Zanon was either nearby or at the palace.

But Evras and Dion were not. No, they’d taken leave only last week to visit somewhere far from here. It was as if the Gods had constructed this portrait of perfection. This might be the singular chance he had to execute his will before the Fates severed his mortal ribbon.

If the queen and the princess were to tragically perish in the riot, why, the prince would be inconsolable. Dionysios remembered well the way Vangelis adored his mother as a child, and he doted on the youngest Kotas in his own way. He would be unresponsive in his grief, slow to action, and most importantly, unconcerned with the world around him. It would be the perfect opportunity to slip an assassin into his household, or perhaps move some of Dionysios’ unlawful goods. Perhaps both.

“Of course not,” Dionysios snapped, brandishing a weathered hand in the general direction of the riotous chaos about them. “I am neither injured nor needing of aid. Midas requires attending to her lesions, not I. Go see to her.”

Hopefully the boy was intelligent enough to see an old man was perfectly capable of blending into the general population and wasting soldiers on him would prove more dangerous for Dionysios. Hopefully he was not so intelligent he would intuit that letting Dionysios alone would be more dangerous for his family.

Chance was not something Dionysios dealt in. The Gods would see fit for him to succeed or they would not, but no God would look on him favorably for inaction. It was not impossible for the prince to insist Dionysios leave escorted—all the better to make sure he did not execute his will. A crafting was needed. 

The sounds about them were deafening. The roar of the crowd, the heavy crackle and billowing cough of the fires, the wild tempo that shoot the earth under the heels of the mob. Dionysios swung his eyes to the left and pinned upon a grouping of men breaking down a the door of an abode. He sneered at them, curling his lip as if catching something foul on the wind, and one of them caught his eye moments later. 

A competition waged between them for all of a breath and then, like the mad beast he was, the man pulled two of his fellows with him and galloped right for Dionysios. And the prince. 

One, armed with a long rope that ended in a large, brutal knot swung his makeshift weapon. The hemp serpent struck the air and like a whip, it came down upon the prince. So did the other two men. The woman who had thus far done not much else besides dissolve suddenly stood straight and ran, stumbling against the twist of her own feet. 

With the prince occupied for a few more moments, Dionysios quickly vanished behind her, moving as fast as he could. He disappeared among so many bodies, the dust of the earth swallowing him whole. Dionysios was shoved, bumped, and jostled, but he did not let it deter him. He would go where the violence was greatest and redirect this ragged army. For the good of Colchis.

_____

He walked ever long into the foulness of the streets. Mud, blood, shit, and innards strung the houses and avenues as if a giant frenzy of festive maenads had journeyed through the city. Dionysios was not in the lower quarters or near the mines—the slaves had already made it well past that and into the citizen residences. 

"The Kotas!" He grabbed a man that tried running past him, his fingers sinking into the peasant's arm, "The Kotas did this! They have stored all the food in their manor and keep it even now for themselves!" 

The man, wide-eyed and likely barely aware of any tongue of man, ripped his arm away and kept moving. So Dionysios grabbed another who flew past, catching her like a sparrow. "The Kotas!" He rasped, "They did this!" 

He would not make himself a public target by standing loudly in their midsts to proclaim his accusation. Instead, he would stir their discord and sink back into the shadows once they began to believe the thoughts he gave them were their own all along. 

The world was dark. Pitch black with smatterings of sound and light had been Athanasia's company for far too long. In Athenia she had seemed to acquire a stomach ache that seemed to get worse by the day, two weeks into the trip home, she was near catatonic and her world vanished into nothing. Blackness surrounded her like a cocoon. All sights and sounds stopped, the feelings all but vanished. Her only companion was pain, like Ares decided that she needed to be reforged within Hephaistos' forge. Burning her with fire and lightning till even breathing seemed to hurt. For a moment, she wondered if this would be how she died. Not on a battlefield or of old age, but some unknown malady from the gods that no one could seem to save her from.

Thoughts of giving in to the fire and lightning tempted her, teasing of the freedom from all the pain that surrounded her being, the world she knew was now gone. Flashes of fuzzy faces flitted through her memory. Some of Aea, sitting there and talking with her. Some of Kaia, appearing to be holding her hand. Sadly, Asia could not feel it. Strangely some looked like Thea and seemed to frequent her dreams often. Family as well. It looked like their mouths moved, but she could not hear anything in the small glimpses she was allowed. Did she actually die?

Everything seemed to hurt while she was surrounded in nothing but darkness. Pain and then nothing at all. Was she dead? Was Lord Thanatos coming to claim her soul and take her to the underworld? Would everything hurt this much? Sound started to return, giving Athanasia little bits of the world outside.

Athanasia had no idea on how much time had passed or what day it may be or even if it was night or day. Slowly, as the sounds started to return, she could hear her family speaking to her while she was asleep. Her father and mother visited often, moments of softly spoken words demanding that she open her eyes. Athanasia wanted nothing more than to obey, to show that she was there and could hear them, but her eyes did not listen. Listening to everyone around her, she often wanted to pull Aea into a hug and scream that she was listening to the many stories she told her and that she was there. To let Kaia know that she would never have to worry about her future and that she would never have to worry about raising her kid alone. That she would help out as much as she could. She could hear Vangelis next to her bed, his voice almost sounding like it belonged to a stranger. Asia heard their whispers and wished for her to wake up. Knew that somehow she was opening her eyes but Athanasia could not recall any of those moments.

Time passed further, Athanasia could feel the soft fabric under her fingertips again, escaping the pain that burned through her world for what felt like an eternity since she turned into her own mind to hide from the pain. She could feel when her head was moved and the drink given to her, could feel her throat swallowing reflexively.

Tears slipped free from beneath her lashes, she could feel them leave trails that disappeared into her hair. So close, she was so close to resurfacing in the world again, fighting the tides of sleep and the fiery forge of pain that had wrapped around her for longer than she could even fathom.

Soft sounds of wind shifting through Colchis filtered into her world in a soft hush, faint from the distance they streamed in, mixing with Aea’s voice. She sounded far away, but Athanasia could still hear her if she focused hard enough. ‘Here is a perfect example of the lacking divine. I've always found the most inconsistent part of belief planted in who or what gets the Gods' favor on any given day. Take for example Colchis. How is it possible for them to be displeased with absolutely everyone? Infants that have done nothing, priests that live only for them, invalids who can't offer offense? If they existed, they should be displeased with the majority, and if their power is so great, they should be able to punish just them. Even now, I'm speaking heresy, and yet I've a full belly, but the slaves who believe in them all days must eat their perished brothers. It's illogical.’ It was hard to find fault in her logic, that was for certain. A small huff could be heard escaping through Asia’s nose, like a laugh, even as she appeared to still be sleeping. The smallest uplift of the corner of her mouth hinted that she might be starting to awaken. The fire receded some, enough that it felt like she was finally able to breathe air instead of flames.

Athanasia listened carefully as she focused on wiggling her fingers. ‘Unless they punish offenses that will be committed in the future or have been in the past. Or perhaps they are just bored.’ Like a tether, Asia struggled to open her eyes as she focused on Aea’s voice. It sounded like she was talking to someone, but Athanasia was unable to hear who it was. ‘Apollo is real though, isn't he? Such a handsome God. Why, were I a dove, I would swoon. And still such scorn for my adoration. How orthodox.’ There was a visual, not that Asia could blame her. It was rumored that Apollo was indeed very handsome. Was she actually talking to Apollo or something?

Listening quietly, she had been willing herself to move around or wiggle, something to come back to the world she missed so much. Slowly, she opened her eyes just as a loud shout could be heard. ‘I think we should prepare in case something happens. There are only so many guards. We'll need to get her in some of my old clothes should the worst occur. Yours are too long. There's a cave in the Midas woodlands that will be safe. We can rub blood on her to make her look injured and the crowds shouldn't harry us. I'll carry her.’ Asia could hear the authoritative tone that Aea used, squinting against the light that filtered in. She could hear the movement around the room, but at the moment she was happy that she got her eyes to listen while fully being in control. ‘Captain Aea of Molossia. It has a pretty ring to it, I think. Brings to mind chopped appendages and disembowelment.’

Athanasia smile grew slowly, “General.” Her voice sounded like she spoke softly through gravel, her voice hoarse from disuse, making her cough before she could add in anything else. Did they hear her? It felt like she used her voice, it hurt to use it again, a sign she was sure now that she was alive and not part of the dead. ‘I’m going down. Get your bow on the balcony in case I get stabbed.’ As Kaia worked to get Aea’s old clothes on her, Asia tried her best to help as she worked to move her arms and legs where Kaia was pulling her to. It felt like everything was moving slowly, like she was underwater and yet trying to walk like she would on land. Asia sent a silent prayer to Ares for Aea’s safety.

*Please, Lord Ares, if my family the Kotas mean ANYTHING to you. Bring Aea back safe to me. Keep my family safe. Aea and Kaia are part of the Kotas too!*

It seemed like Ares was in a benevolent mood and listened to Asia’s silent plea, keeping those she valued safe as Aea rushed back in. Asia’s eyes found Aea’s ice blue ones, ‘Are you well enough to move? I’ll carry you if you aren’t.’ Athanasia gripped Kaia’s hand as she struggled to lift herself up. For the first time in years, she felt weak as her muscles shook with the excursion and pain. “I.. will.. try.” Asia’s voice did not sound like her own, even as she tried to clear it repeatedly till she almost made herself breathless. “What… happened?”

Watching as Aea and Kaia got ready to leave, feeling loads better when Kaia grabbed what looked to be Asia’s favorite dagger, the rings from her family, and her bow, along with all of their prized possessions. Athanasia reached under her pillow and grabbed the small rock that she had stolen from Elias. “Please.. put.. this with.. the others..” She held out the rock to Kaia and smiled when it went right next to the things her brothers and father got her. “Thank you.” Once everything that was needed and irreplaceable was gathered, Aea was talking Asia onto her feet. ‘Think of it like an adventure. I may even compose a song after everything calms. Athenasia the Fleet-Footed.’ The comforting smiles helped even as Asia’s unused muscles protested the sudden movement, but she would try. Leaning hard against Aea, they made their way out to escape the growing chaos outside.

Looking around, sounds of people fighting just on the other side of the door and the light hurt Asia’s eyes to the point that she was solely relying on Aea and Kaia to guide her through. These two, whom she had grown close with and bonded with, had become her most trusted companions. Everything was terrifying for Asia to wake up in the world surrounded in violence. Aea started to speak, ‘We need to—’ just as Asia’s door busted in with a loud crash that caused her to shriek in surprise.

Athanasia could hear Aea draw her blades just as the guard stared at her like he was contemplating just throwing her over his shoulder and leaving. “You may not do whatever it is you think you are doing. Nor will you attack my family. You may guide us to safety, but you will not do whatever it is you think you will be doing.” Asia’s voice was firm even in its gravelliness as she struggled to speak, the energy she used just to be firm was taking a visible toll on her to where she sagged against Kaia’s shoulder even as she fought to find her feet again. “Sorry Kaia. I am trying not to lean on you so hard.” Looking over at Aea, she was leaving her personal guard to decide on what they should do or who they should trust, laying her head against Kaia’s shoulder as they decided what to do.

Truly, it would have taken a moron to have not seen this coming— Laurentius was no stranger to the pain and hunger the slaves bared, his stomach had been empty for days just like theirs, the ungodly noises that rumbled from his gut had long passed as nothing came to suffice. Everyone was in the same boat, (except the nobles of course,) so why everyone wasn’t out there making an assault on the wealthy was beyond his understanding.

When the screams and chants started Lars had been at a sleepover with a young lady, her name long gone and over his head, but the taste of her lips still lush in his mouth. While she had slept by his side, with thin cotton blankets draped over her hourglass form, Lars had remained awake exhausted and starved. He was hoping he’d get paid, if not in money than at least food, but it seemed their family too had little to nothing worth sparing.

Laying naked and hopeless, he was planning to slip out the door, or window, either would do. But the screams… Then the bangs! It jolted his whole body into sitting up right, as it did with woman beside him.

“You should go—“

She ushered, gently pushing at his shoulder for him to leave the bed, something which he was already doing.

Stretching over to pick up his garments, he began fixing on his tunic in a rush, leaving it to be a haphazard mess as he snatched up his satchel afterwards. The clanks of metal chimed as the bag moved over and resting against his shoulder. Fixing on his leather sandals last, he gave the woman one more waiting glance before calmly asking,

“So… Nothing?”

Her silence, and inability to meet his gaze was telling enough, and with that he slipped out the front door.

Taking afoot into the lively streets of slaves pushing by and scrapping with one another over whatever scraps they could find, Lars quickly slinked off as he dodged through against the crowds movement, his initial plan was to get back to his brothers forge, seek safety with them. But, as he saw women and children still cuffed and being trampled by the stampede, Lars quickly made way to their desperate pleas.

“It’s okay! I can get you out of this!” He shouted over at the trembling slaves as he crouched to their level, picking up the shackles he manoeuvred to the locks before taking out his picks and tension wrenches from his satchel. The set had been tools he’d picked up from the blackmarket, the skill practiced and learnt for these exact moments. Each shackle released with a click followed by a clunk, releasing the weighted steel from the slaves ankle’s. Mother’s picked up their children and soon fled, desperately seeking ways away from the violence as their freedom was given.

As Lars worked to ensure all of their freedom, he was kicked and shoved about, even toppled over aside a few times. As his picks scattered across the floor he dextrously reached out and grabbed at the metal picks before his fingers could be stomped on. Refusing to simply leave these people be to get trampled by the crowd, it took him a good hour till finally seeing succession.

Now only left to make haste himself, just as the military were beginning to move in like a tsunami. Soldiers flushed out the streets, purging the volatile with their swords, a threat ever looming and threatening to reach him soon. Not wanting to be on the pointy end of their swords, Lars quickly gathered his equipment before sprinting on ahead the only route he could take, the Upper Levels of Colchis.

Meeting up with the crowds that rallied outside the royals housing, this was the last place he wanted to be, but the only route he could take. Being shoved and pushed about by the angry mob, Lars tried looking for places he could scale, and possibly break into. Just somewhere to hold up and hide for the night, at least until the slaughter was over.