"Here is a perfect example of the lacking divine."

Though Aea's attention was planted firmly on the crowd below, there was only one set of ears that could have been gifted the statement to begin with.

"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."

She turned her head and flicked her eyes upon her golden-haired cousin. "Unless they punish offences that will be committed in the future or have been in the past. Or perhaps they are just bored."

The sun beat heavily upon the hard clay roofs in the levels below, tiered streets clotted with the yellows and browns of the hungry poor. There were more out today than yesterday, but the streets of the upper levels were relatively free of bodies, thank the Gods.

Aea's arms folded upon the stone balcony and she watched the far crowd. They were only standing, and if it were not such a strange sight then they might have appeared to be harmlessly socializing. But the streets of Midas were rarely full of strangers picking up conversation at random. Perhaps in Taengea, but Colchis? No, not in the land of stone men.

Behind, just inside the open archway of the balcony, the princess rested in her soft bed. Surrounded by herbs and well-wishing gifts, she was nonetheless unable to fully enjoy the trinkets and sweet smells gracing her chambers during her bedrest.

Aea was dressed in the usual attire expected of her position and the lack of movement they expected today--a white peplos. Nothing extravagant, but it was clean and she often found herself admiring the soft shift of cloth along her legs rather than the blazing beat of the sun.

Agogos perched upon the handrail, quiet and still. He'd been growing fat as of late. Plenty of pigeons and rats to gnaw on in the city. Aea idly stroked his beak and his chest expanded in a heavy exhale.

"Apollo is real though, isn't he?" She murmured to her obsidian companion, "Such a handsome God. Why, were I a dove, I would swoon."

Having enough of her attention, Agogos snipped at her fingers and a small huff of amusement blew past her lips. "And still such scorn for my adoration. How orthodox."

Though outside carried an eerie sort of quiet, it broke upon a sudden shout. Far enough away to be of no concern, yet close enough to catch her attention and panicked enough to fill her belly with apprehension. She could see nothing from the avenue below. Her distraction vanished and after a breath, she turned to her cousin.

"I think we should prepare in case something happens. There are only so many guards." She glanced over her shoulder at Asia and turned back to Kaia. "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."

Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but her caution was far more acute than her trust in the competency of the guard. Only a fool relied on bulk security.

Seconds later, the cause of the cry made itself known as a figure flew into the street and landed on their back, bleeding from the arm. Aea squinted and leaned over the railing, her lip curling when the bristles of a black and white plumed helmet came into view. A large captain accompanied by large soldiers drew his large sword against a rather unarmed man.

She watched the proceedings quietly, and when she'd had enough, she turned away and pressed her lower back into the stone. The city had poised on a thin string of tension for a week, the palace swelled on a held apprehensive breath, and Aea wished more than anything to be well away from the city.

She was on edge. Tense. Frustrated. Asia's fluctuating health didn't help; one day she was fine and the next she could barely wake. And now Kaia was pregnant. Aea would rather a calamity strike now rather than wait smugly as she twisted her hands and startled at the smallest hint of movement.

"Captain Aea of Molossia. It has a pretty ring to it, I think. Brings to mind chopped appendages and disembowelment."

And she could not say this to anyone else save for Kaia because anyone else would laugh and think her a childish idiot. It was only childish if one did not commit fully. It was only childish if one wasn't prepared to bleed out for it.

She was young only in her mortal shell, her spirit aged thrice her lifetime. Like the acolytes of Artemis, she forsook all pleasures of the flesh and gave herself to her new patron. Ares didn't ask for her celibacy, but she swore it to him all the same. When she cut away the possibility for marriage and children and whoring, the only use she had left was the one thing everyone tried their very best to keep from her for no other reason than asinine traditions steeped in illogical pride.

But if she was only useful for one thing, then people had no choice but to move aside lest she run the risk of standing around doing not much of anything. And if there was one thing Colchis demanded, it was the utilization of every warm body upon her hard soil.

War was the only thing she was made for, and if she did not have it then she would die in the gutter trying to get it some other way. It was not for the glory or bloodlust, but because she did not like things being kept from her and because those who freely partook in it were either incompetent or cruel without reason. Colchis deserved better than that.

Little boys cut from the same cloth as she and Kaia had a choice. Crime, the military, economics, the gladiator ring, they could do it if they pushed. They could choose to die in service to others or serving themselves, but they had the choice. As for the little girls like she and Kaia, they grew into women at the end of a noose, the belly of a whorehouse, or traded to wicked men for the price of a goat, and that was all that was afforded to them.

And Aea hated that.

Now that she had to live within it, this imposition was no longer theoretical but tangible. Now, not only did she hate it, but she did not accept it.

She didn't know why the bones fell as they did, only that she was to follow their cast to the very end and hope it was enough to make sure men like Hektos of Nethisa could not rob children of a future, men like Alexandros of Irakles could not hold title of protector even as he damned his people, men like Panos of Marikas could not weigh a nation of the vulnerable against a verbal offence to his family's pride, and men like the captain marching toward the royal palace could not lord as tyrant over those without the means to protect themselves.

It was not a wish, it was a goal, and it was not steeped in some noble cause. Only rage and disgust peppered with the selfishness of a mortal tool denied her purpose. Wickedness suited her, and though she might do good works, she was not a good creature. Only a thing to execute what must be done. A sword was neither honorable nor malicious. It simply was.

She glanced along the street and expected to see a marching guard attending to the situation, but she did not. Unsurprising. The watch were at strategic posts and the palace guards were not leaving theirs. The man on the ground crawled back on his elbows and Aea pushed away from the balcony with a ferocious scowl.

“I’m going down. Get your bow on the balcony in case I get stabbed.”

It was the work of a few moments to breeze from Asia’s room to her own, where her weapons lay in wait for her summons.

__________

The hard avenue clapped quietly neath her sandals, her peplos sailed round her legs in the wind she stirred in her stride, and her hands swung freely at her sides. Two xiphos rested at both hips, six well-loved daggers strung in a smile along the leather between them, a bow saddled at her back and a quiver of arrows jockeying beside them.

The noble captain and his muscle-bound lackey stood in a loose formation and the man she believed to be pray to this duo of hounds was now on his feet and far away from the strike of the soldiers' drawn sword.

Nay, the man bleeding about the arm seemed to only be a victim of the two miserable wolves clutching at precious grain and facing down a well-armed promise of death for it.

Her miscalculation realized, Aea did not stop walking. Instead, she moved faster, her hands gliding from a swing to rest round the pommels of her swords.

The thieves, hearing new company, startled and backed toward the house. Upon spotting her, the fear did not drain from their eyes. Frightened enough by the captain that they froze and did not think to immediately push past a woman and escape? These men were not thieves, else they'd steal at night or think better on their toes. These men were just hungry merchants or dockworks. Or they bore grudge against the man of this house.

Aea came to a stop at the corner of the house and looked from the frightened freemen to the two soldiers walling them in. Her gaze wandered away from the tense collection to the surrounding streets. Mostly empty, but she knew ears pressed behind shuttered windows and locked doors. Those that were out and about watched the proceedings with morbid curiosity. The well-off, kin and kith of the man being robbed. They would not take kindly to letting the would-be thieves escape justice.

Her eyes wandered back to the fearful men. "Were your rations not sufficient today?"

One of them dropped his sack. The other shook his head, in answer to her question or a lack of ability to speak, she didn't know. Didn't matter.

Her attention moved back to the ones who bore blades and fixed upon their swords, her gaze darting along their gleaming edges before roving to the leader to better drill into his eyes. "Well Captain, do you think you can manage an arrest without bleeding these citizens or do you need some assistance?"