Tales of Destiny

Danae watched the door the foreign man who had called himself the King of Explorers had walked through long after he had left.

The kapaleia was quiet. Few had the courage to come and drink when a man with such a heavy legend was about. He was surely a hero of his own strange land, marked and forged by his gods as only the greatest heroes were. As was common in those heroes, his flaw was pride. He spoke to her like a child. It was not a cruel arrogance but a… condescension. She was an interesting object to him, to be studied and cataloged, but not respected.

He was like the tyrants of the eastern islands, who came swaggering to the lands of the great god of the woods and ways between, judging the people of Arcadia simple and their gods weak.

Danae tipped back the cup in her hand, draining the remains of the wine. This, at least, was good. Paion’s wine was the best. Standing, she swayed for a moment. She wasn’t half as drunk as she’d put on, but the wine had made her head fuzzy. She knocked thrice on the counter as she passed it, letting the owner know the danger had passed. Her hooves clopped on the tiled floor as she ducked under the doorframe and squinted up at the afternoon light.

She put on an easy grin for her fellow citizens who looked her way. She might not be a legend like that man or her grandfather, but she was a hero, and people looked to her for her guidance. She towered a head and a half over most of her fellows, but they were used to her and her kin, and so, she found her way down the winding polis street without trouble.

Ah, but that man had stirred her memories. She’d been so busy with her training and her deed-doing that she hadn’t thought of grandfather’s stories in ages.

Pausing there in the street, she looked up at the artificial mountain, their acropolis, and grandfather’s masterwork. The immense blocks of stone had been wrought from the little island which had once sat off the southern coast, the fits and joints of the rock needing no mortar to hold. It was an immense mound with only a single entrance, and it rose from the surrounding landscape in a natural seeming way, overgrown with moss and grass and trees.

Most polei built their citadels on a hilltop. Theirs was the hill. There was a reason grandfather had been made a citizen after all.

She called grandfather a legend, but that wasn’t right. His Way had been different. Few knew his name. Fewer still his face. No god blessed his blood, and no mighty foes fell in his name. He was a mason, and when the trickster king of Lerna had come, he had not fought in the way of heroes and legends, but as a builder.

All the tricks in the world had not served to break their stout walls built by his hand. She had lied to the man a bit, but it was the same lie her kin told everyone. Grandfather had not died of poison, but of grief.

He had lived longer than most of his kin, but the yearning for the blessed isle had taken him all the same. He had never recovered from grandmother's passing. She and her father had held his hands as he lay in bed, singing a song in the tongue of his homeland until at last, he went back to the stone.

“Danae!” The call of her name shook her from her contemplation of the acropolis.

She grinned down at the speaker as he came to her, wrapping a muscular arm around his slender shoulders. “Kyros! Back already from your consultation with the oracle?”

Her husband grinned up at her, the shimmering curls of his blonde hair gleaming in the light of the setting sun. “How could I do anything but hurry back when I hear my wife is in an audience with some foreign despot?”

She laughed, squeezing him more tightly in her one-armed embrace. He grumbled good-naturedly at being pressed into her side. “Is that what you heard? Not a despot. For all that he called himself the King of Explorers, he didn’t carry himself like a king or a tyrant. A hero, certainly though. It was peaceful enough.”

“You worry my heart even more. An unattached hero is much worse than a king.” Kyros ducked out of her grasp.

She grinned and followed after him as they resumed walking down the street.

“Pfah, you worry too much, my husband. Do you not trust my strong arm?” Danae asked.

“It is not the strength of your arms I doubt,” Kyros shot back.

Danae pursed her lips. It was true that she was only a hero, not a legend, let alone a true demigod. Her eyes flicked back up to the acropolis again. She was not her grandfather, who could carve whole islands into blocks and carry them back on his shoulders alone. She wondered sometimes just what the truth of her blood was. He had always complained of feeling so drawn and weak.

What did they call the gods in the land beyond Dun Scaith? She knew so little, just the stories of a sad and dying man. Why had a man as gentle as her grandfather been cast out by the High King of the Night?

Some days, she wished that she had chosen to be initiated into the Cult of Ways. Perhaps then, she might have been able to reach the glimmering silver shores that hung in her mind, shrouded in mist.

“Danae, are you sure you are well?” Kyros asked, snapping her out of her thoughts again.

“I’m fine, you worrier,” she dismissed. She had chosen to be a warrior. She didn’t have the patience to be a priestess. “The foreigner wanted to talk about grandfather. I’m feeling a little lost in memory.”

He nodded, some of the tension bleeding from him as he looked her over with concern. They were nearing the city gates now, and Danae found herself wishing earnestly to be home, looking out over the fields of their farm. For all the crowds of the polei proper, she felt terribly alone.

She did not truly belong here with these little folk and this pale and tepid land and colorless sky. What was she even doing in pretending? She wielded her weapons without purpose, took up a role that fit least ill, and failed to master even that.

The blessed isle she had never seen gleamed like the finest silver in her thoughts. The voices of her ancestors called from beyond the gray land where shadows lay.

She felt a warmth and looked down to see her husband holding her hand. The dull gray at the edge of her vision retreated at the sight of the gleaming yellow hair, sun-darkened skin, and the rich dyes of his tunic, purchased with the wealth they had made together. The warmth of his hand mattered the most, driving back the cold, empty feeling that a part of her was missing.

It had been, but now, he was right here.

“That is why I worry.” He frowned, and she had to restrain the urge to kiss him then and there.

Danae clapped a hand on his head, and he scowled at her as she ruffled his hair. “It has passed, my husband. I might have ill dreams this night, but I’ll be with you in the morning.”

“Do not make light of your ailings, my wife.” Kyros sighed as they left the city, descending the winding road which led down to the farmlands beyond.

“I’ll make an effort.” She locked her fingers between his as they walked. “Oh, did you get an answer from the oracle?”

Her husband’s perpetually concerned expression softened, a slight smile gracing his lips. “The best time will be on the next night of the harvest moon.”

“Well,” Danae chuckled, bumping her hip against his side. “We’ll have to keep trying till morning comes then, won’t we?”

She didn’t need such dreams, dreams of what was never hers. There were more than enough here. Let fools incapable of contentment chase the dream of paradise.