-

"He draws back his string, his posture steady and strong," his mother creates a pose of drawing the string of a bow and pausing, "then, he'd take a breath, and woosh," he opens his palm as if letting go of the invisible string.

"The arrow would fly, true and well, until it hits its target."

He blinks, mouth agape until fingers gently push his jaw up. He takes the hand cradling his chin, "Did that really happen, Mama? H-how could papa do that?"

His mother smiles, soft, tender, and loving, "By eating his vegetables and going to sleep, of course."

He groans out, tilting his body back until he hits the bed, "But I'm not sleepy yet!" He doesn't whine, because he's a big boy now, and big boys don't whine. It's a near thing, though.

Surely, his father never whined, so he mustn't either.

His mother lays himself beside him, their bodies lying on the wrong side of the bed.

"How about a song?" He prompts. Turning to look at him, his mother pulls him close to his chest, "Does my lovely babe want to hear a song?"

"I suppose so."

"All right," his mother's chest rumbles with a thoughtful hum.

Pressing his ear to his mother's chest, he listens to the heart beating beneath muscle and skin, the rhythmic beat a soothing one.

"Papa used to sing this to me."

"He did?"

"Yes," fingers lightly trail down to his face, guiding his eyelids to close, "Now, close your eyes, my light."

"But I don't want to."

"The song is best listened to with closed eyes."

He highly doubts it, still, his mother's patient gaze compels him to do as he's told, a warm palm now covering his face until it moves out of the way to cradle the back of his head instead.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, and strangely, he doesn't recall how the song is sang, but he finds himself feeling heavier within his mother's arms.

-

"Mama?"

"Yes, my babe?"

"What happened to papa?"

"He's away at the moment. He's protecting us. The entire kingdom, in fact."

"He must be really strong, then."

"The strongest, my love."

"Will I be as strong as him?"

"Of course, you will. Do you know why?"

"... Nuh-uh."

"Because you're our son."

-

"Great job, Jason!" His cheek is smushed by a kiss, pressed up against his mother.

The giggle that comes out is unbidden, chest bursting with elation. Despite the heat of his face at the attention.

"My brave boy!" They tumble onto the grass in a heap of laughter.

The axe he'd thrown still sturdily embedded in it's target.

He's lain on his mother's chest, ear pressed to a steady beating heart. And for a moment, he basks in the warmth of the sun and his mother's love, before lifting his head up to look up upon the carved marble standing tall over them.

The garden's verdant leaves are nothing compared the hues the statue is painted with. Intricate brush work depicting flesh and veins, the cloth almost seems life-like with the texture on it.

The expression on the marble's face is unmoved, stern and at times, frightening to look at. Unable to help it, he burrows into his mother's chest to hide. Only turning his head just a bit to get a peek and look at the statue once again.

"When will papa come home?"

The hand on his head stutters, the arm wrapped around his body tightens. "Soon, my babe."

Will his father be as happy when he tells him he's improved upon his throwing? Will his father comb through his hair? Will his father pull him in close as he sleeps between him and his mother?

Will his father be proud?

-

"Your Majesty, please." An advisor sighs, huffing as they run a hand down their face. "This stubbornness must end."

"No." His mother answers, head high and expression resolute.

"Your son will be of age at this point if you do not choose a suitor to take the crown."

"Then my son can take the crown. But I will not have another king in this palace until then."

Another advisor speaks up then, "My Queen, we understand that you'd like to rule. But really, are you equip for suck a task? Strength within politics differs greatly from that of the battlefield."

"Please, my Queen, ruling is more than just your pride or strength—"

"Then it is a blessing that Spartans are known for their intellect, also." His mother looks down at the scrolls spread out upon the table, his words ringing in the silence of the room. "Need I remind you that I have successfully aided in the famine that plagued us. Need I remind you that I have drafted the plans to win against suffering the Trojans have inflicted? Of course I know ruling is more than just pride or strength. Neither of you have sat upon the throne; if there is anyone here who know not of the power and responsibilities it takes to rule, then it is you."

It's quiet, then. So quiet, he didn't want to breathe. He looks down at scrolls, at the words still too big for him grasp, and suddenly he can feel the way the air still resides in the gap between the soles of his feet and the floor.

He thinks the meeting is over, since no one has spoken yet, when suddenly, someone utters, "It is you, also, your Majesty, who had drafted the plans to send our Great King away."

Beside him, he hears his mother suck in a breath. And the air in the room feels colder than it should be. Sunlight washes the room, still, in its glow but it doesn't seem to bring any more warmth.

"Dismissed." His mother announces. The queen doesn't spare second as he scoops his son into his arms and out of the room with his maiden servants rushing to catch up.

-

"Jason!" His mother all but cries, running up to him to take the broken bow away from his grasp. "What are you doing? What happened?" Then, his mother lets go of the bow in favour to cupping his face, rough, calloused thumbs brushing across his cheeks, worried eyes trying to peer through the strands of hair he's trying to hide behind.

"Jason, babe—are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He hisses, letting his mother fuss for a moment more before shaking his head to dislodge the hands cradling his face.

His mother straightens up, and the line between being his mother and being the queen blurs so easily now. He wished he never knew where one could end and one could start.

"Care to tell me what made you break your bow, then?"

He purses his lips into a thin line, bites down on his inner cheek, teeth grit.

"Jason." Fabric flutters and suddenly, his mother is kneeling, looking up at him, pleading, "Babe, I want to know. Please."

"I just—" He casts a quick glare onto the broken bow, snapped in two, holding on simply by the thread still slotted into the grooves on each snapped end. "I don't need it anymore. I-I have the axe you'd given me."

And something about that has his mother's face cracking into sorrow, his eyes sparkling like stars, glimmering like the water's surface.

He tries not to, but he feels guilt. Shame-faced.

"I know," his mother whispers, "I know it may not seem like it, but we must hold out hope." Hands come to take his, and like this, he can feel the little cuts on his mother's skin from the thread work he's taken up.

A shroud to weave as he ruminates on a suitor to choose.

"Your father will come. We haven't heard of his death yet. Kal is strong, the strongest, remember?" His hands are tugged lightly, urged to meet the gaze his mother wants to connect with.

"Jason," he calls, "My light, look at me. Please?"

He doesn't. He doesn't want to. How could his father be a father when all he's known of him are bed time stories? Exaggeration by the people of their city?

Tales of godlike men for children too naive and young to realise the truth.

"Please."

There's a crack in his mother's voice that draws him, slowly, cautious lifting his gaze to see his mother. Tears stream down ruddy cheeks, a quivering smile and lashes clumped with salty tears.

"He loves you, Jason. He does. If you don't believe him, then believe me, hm? I know your father hasn't been the most present figure, but he will be. Do you know why?"

When he doesn't answer, his mother's brows scrunch together, but the smile he sports, shaky as it is, remains. "Because he will find his way home. And when he does, we'll be here to welcome him."

Pulled into an embrace, he readily slumps into his mother's chest, tucking his face into the crook of his neck as he clings to the robes he wears.

"He's proud of you. He will always be proud of you."

"You're lying."

He ignores the whimper, the strained cry his words illicit, and hugs his mother tighter.

-

The man in front of him is nothing like the statue in the gardens.

Where the statue is tall, standing firm and unmoving. This man wears an expression that is world-weary and haunted.

Where the statue sports chin length hair, this man has long and unwashed threads of silver and black.

Where the statue has a pair of striking sea-blue eyes, hardened with determination, this man's gaze is sorrow-filled and regretful.

And yet, he sees who this man could have been, if he hadn't gone to war. He sees who this man has been before disappearing for 20 long years.

He sees who this man used to be, just before he set off to Troy to end a years-long conflict.

For a moment, he stares. He thinks of all the stories, the paintings, the threads with his father's supposed likeness in it. He thinks of the statue, always in the garden.

"Jason?" His voice is rough from disuse, gruff as if he hasn't spoken a proper word in years. There, he sees it.

Longing and regret. It passes through his face—his being. He sees the way his body carries tension, this hesitation present in his posture.

Is he not… The man he should have been? Had he grown wrong somehow?

Was his mother wrong, then? Always claiming that his father is proud of him are falsehoods in truth?

The pain at his side is nothing in comparison to the way he wants to ask 'are you real?' The way he wants to lunge forward and pull him into an embrace.

Instead, he clears his throat, swallowing the ache. "Father?" He croaks, the throbbing of his side striking lightning down his spine.

Arm reach out, the hesitation suddenly gone as he's pulled into a chest.

Smaller than his mother's, but still carry a wide berth. The slightness is nothing but a mirage as the older man easily lifts him up with gentleness.

Their trek through the halls are hollow, painted in bodies and the striking colour of life.

The man, his father, takes turns and walks down the halls that scream of familiarity and ownership.

Eventually, he pushes through the grogginess of losing blood, pulling himself away from his hiding place against the man's neck to look at the room.

It seems like herbs and that strong scent of a salve.

Pattering feet thundering catches both of their attention as a servant appears by the threshold.

"My King, you're—!"

"Fetch me clean water and cloths. My son is wounded."

The servant's eyes travel to him, where he's perched on furs, bleeding and propped up on feathered pillows.

"Of course! Right away." The servant leaves then and they are alone once more.

Out of the window, he can see the stars slowly leaving as Helios start pulling at his chariot, to bring light to the land again.

He watches as the man moves about the room. Wiping himself from the blood and viscera all over him.

He keeps watching, staring, as the man removes his grime and blood-splattered robes, and all he sees are scars.

There's a large bisected jagged line at his right flank that hint at being stabbed by something blunt. His back is littered with smaller cuts and nicks. There's a raised, rounded wound—must be from being shot by an arrow.

There's even hints of burn marks on his limbs.

He wants to ask but he also doesn't.

Instead, all he manages is "I thought you'd be taller."

His father, the man, turns then as swaddles himself in a new set of robes, using a rope to tie it around his waist.

"I'm sorry," the man mumbles. "I stopped growing at 18 Springs."

All he can really give is a nod. But then, the older man's lips, cracked and bleeding a bit from lack of water, adds, "You've got your mother's height."

"Hardly," he grunts when a particular throb has pain shooting down his spine, hindering his breathing. "Mama's still taller—than me."

"Save your strength." The man rushes to him, hands fluttering all over him as if they're afraid to touch. "We'll stitch you up. Don't worry. Just focus on breathing and staying awake."

He swallows as the pillow under his head is arranged to lay him flatter, a pair of shears cutting through the fabric of his outfit.

As best as he can, the man presses cloths against his wound without directly touching him, mumbling under his breath about still being unclean.

Honestly, he doesn't care—if this truly is his father, he doesn't want to wait any longer in touching him, feeling his warmth, to know what it's like to be wrapped in his arms. How different is it from his mother's?

Will it hold resentment? Guilt?

Where his mother's embrace are nothing but love and tenderness, will his father's be—shame, hate, a dream?

Despite the pain, despite the tears streaming down his face, he pushes through and wraps his arms around shaking shoulders.

"I hate you."

"I—"

"Please don't leave."

"Jason... My babe, my light—I'm finally home."

The speak of the things they plan to do once they're crowned King. Talk as if the Queen has chosen a suitor. Boast as if their win is as sure as the sun rises with each morning.

It leaves him with his blood boiling as he listens to them speak, it has his sight turning red, his body taut with restraint to not move.

He should've left.

He knew it. He should have left as soon as he could. He never should have returned.

Perhaps his long journey had been the sign from the gods that he was never supposed to return.

Perhaps killing that baby had been the test—one that he'd failed. And the consequence is 20 long years away from his babe, his son no doubt a man now with years lost to time, away from his lovely wife, his Queen, his life.

Bruce would never take him back, if he knew all he'd done to get here. Bruce wouldn't love a monster, forever stained in the blood of his brothers.

Bruce wouldn't be able to look at him now—the man he once he knew, the man he once married, forever gone.

Getting up to leave, he's stopped as a man's roaring, gruff cackle echoes above the elation of every man present.

"Don't you see the Queen is playing us for fools?!" He slams his cup of ale, spilling the drink, sticky on his hands and the table. Roughly, he stands up and walks up to where the bow is perched, displayed as a reminder of the challenge about to take place tomorrow.

And takes it.

Watching, in the flicking torch-light he notices the sheen of the wood. How polished and cared for it is. Had his wife been maintaining it in his stead?

Had his wife been looking out for his favourite bow, with their promise consuming him every day?

Had Bruce been waiting—Bruce has been waiting. The bow has no signs of wear, no signs of brittleness from disuse over the years.

Warmth grows within his chest as he keeps his gaze upon the bow, gripped by two strange hands.

The man who'd grabbed it scoffs, the crowd's attention taken by him. "The Queen wants us to string some stupid fucking bow? Can't you see this is just another one of his ploys to keep us at bay?

"How long!" He screams as he throws the bow away, the wood clatters on the stone floor, away from sight, "How long as he kept us here, fed with scraps like we're mere dogs! Where's your rage! Your anger! How long have we been waiting, stuck here while the Queen does whatever the fuck he wants! I say we take what's ours."

Interested murmuring consumes the hall, and his stomach drops.

"How'd you propose we do that?"

The man's grin is unnaturally wide, stretching from ear to ear, teeth glinting menacingly in the glow of the fire. "That bastard brat of a prince is coming back tomorrow. I heard he's set to land in the early morning.

"We can ambush him, take him by surprise—cut off any potential usurpers from stopping us. Then, we cut him limb from limb and feed his body to the creatures at sea. No more of that bastard Kal's blood running amok to stop us."

He spots someone nodding their head in agreement, a few are talking about taking their weapons from the armory.

"Screw this damn challenge, I'm not stringing some trick bow." The man walks to the nearest table, smile in place, "I'm going to take the Queen—I'm going to watch him run. I'm going to hold him down while I get a taste—that fucking bitch must be aching for cock at this point."

A whole table cackles with laughter, "Probably touches himself every night all alone. We can change that."

"We can hold him down, make him choke on our cocks—he'd delighted to finally have a man take him to bed again."

"Make him bear our children. He's a good breeder."

"His cunt will be as tight as a virgin."

"Or as loose as a whore's, more like. Probably have his servants fucking him every night in that needy cunt."

"No better than a bitch in heat."

"Make him work for it."

"The feistier, the better!"

"We'll spread his legs wide and open, and have him take three of us, he'll be wide enough after popping out that bastard son."

"Oh, he'll fucking sing!"

The laughter grows louder, the cackles and the jeering. They plan of breaking down the Queen's bedroom door. They speak of shoving the Queen to the floor. They cheer of raping the Queen for all to see—

And the blood in his veins sing with anger. They all speak as if he's dead, talk as if he'll never return. Two decades gone, they smear his name and his blood to boast their own dirt across the life he'd worked so hard for.

They gather as their revelry changes its reason. Their drunken breaths traced with malice, with treason, with hurt and pain.

In all their cheering, jeering glory, they abandon the tables they occupy as they gather around their new-found leader. Their voices overlapping, eager to scheme.

No one notices as the weapons they left disappearing from the reckless places they left it in, no respect for the tools they wield. No honour in the blade they hold.

He takes his bow amidst their planning. They're talking of routes to take, where to hide, how to take over an anchored shipped and take his son by surprise.

His hands move with familiarity. Restringing his bow is child's play. It'd been so long since he'd strung it yet the string easily catches on the groove, the tension easily makes itself known.

The weight of it in his hands is a one that he recalls all too well. And it only takes a breath as he shoots the arrow cleanly across the room, right at the man's throat.

He watches as the man chokes, gurgling on his own blood as it spills down his skin, staining his robes of dark crimson. His hands barely have time to lift before he's falling to the floor in a thud that leaves the room stunned.

The man is wheezing, his blood is pooling, gathering out of his mouth, body convulsing as he tries to take a breath, fingers clawing at his own skin, digging along where the arrow is piercing through his flesh, remnants of sinew clinging to the metal tip.

The whites of his eyes are red, slithering tendrils of blood vessels popping, bursting from the lack of air.

He takes his time as he listens to the man struggling, as a pool of blood gathers, spilling out of his mouth, bubbling from the air he tries to breathe.

"20 years is a time that I will never be able to reverse." The men around the hall all shuffle, taking cautious steps back, "20 years of sorrow, pain, and rage." He stops to stand right next to the body convulsing pathetically on the floor.

The blood seeps into the leather of his footwear, some creep up and touch his skin with its losing warmth.

"20 years, my hands have been stained with blood and battle. Every god, nymph, and monster I have faced just to see my wife and son once more." Gritting his teeth, he raises a foot and stomps it down onto the man's stomach.

"I have endured every single suffering just to come home. And what do I get?" Bending down, he snaps the protruding half of the arrow and stabs it right into the man's eye. "Suitors with plans to kill my son and rape my wife."

He twists the arrow and the incessant gurgling finally, finally stops.

"Run for your lives!"

The men scramble as they take to the hallways, out of the great hall to save their life.

He doesn't hesitate he draws his bow and shoots the men with their backs turned.

He rips the cloak he wears and lets it pool into a blood-soaked spot on the floor as his sword is a steady weight by his waist as he hunts the halls.

"Where're our weapons?!" His head is easy, the torch's light casting heat and shadows across his face. His mouth remains agape as he falls head first with tongue cut by an arrow tip, wood splintering through his throat as his blood pools around him.

"Take cover!"

"Where!?" He cries out with a grunt as a sword pierces through his chest—no armour to protect him, flimsy silken robes cut into shreds as the sword is pulled out, and the back of his knee is sliced.

There's the pattering of panicked footfalls hitting the floor, and he aims down at the running suitor's thigh and listens to him wail as he goes down into a tumble.

-

The wailing echoes. It breaks through the silence of the night. Distantly, he can hear the faint pleas of mercy and peace.

And his heart jumps in his throat. Could it be?

In his impulsivity, he'd reached the bedroom doors, closed and locked. There's a scream that travels followed by a sobbing beg. Could it be?

He wants to open the doors, he wants to run down the halls, he wants to know—

But he keeps his doors locked. He takes his place on the edge of their wedding bed, and lets his back face the door.

His axe hidden beneath the bed, within his reach should he need it.

He doesn't want to hope. Yet he wants to hope.

Instead, he waits.

-

"Old king, please, I-I—m-mercy!"

He laughs in the cowering man's face, snot and tears and piss all over the floor. The man's leg is twisted, bent at an angle as the blood of his fellow suitor is splattered across his frame.

"I showed mercy once." He stabs the man's thigh and listens to him screech in pain, "It led to me watching my own men die." He pulls his sword out and hacks down at the man's hand.

And as the man's mouth parts wide and open, he reaches forward and stabs it through the skull, before twisting the blade vertically and slicing upwards. The man's head splits into two.

A few have been brazen enough to try and plan to ambush him in the darkness of his palace.

They gather, foolishly in one of the halls leading to the gardens, voices lowed into whispers.

"You don't think I know the palace I built with my own two hands?"

They scramble then to try and attack him.

One of them had their stomach sliced open, gutted out and spilling unto the floor with a wet squelch.

One of them charged with a shout that died the moment his head is cut from his own neck.

One of them tries to attack him from behind, wrapping an arm around his neck with a pathetic attempt to choke him out.

He drops his sword with a clatter to the floor. The man lets out a breathy, disbelieved laughter. With the man's attention on the sword on the floor, he holds onto the man's biceps on either side of his neck and drops down to displace their weight, momentum taking the man off guard as he stumbles forward.

Using the motion, he flips the man on his back with a slam, he presses his knees, uses his entire weight to pin the man against the chest and curls his fist into a ball.

He doesn't stop even as the nose breaks and bleeds. He doesn't stop as the eyes turn lidded and black. He doesn't stop the broken teeth burrow into the skin of his knuckles.

He doesn't until the man's skull is cracked open, a splash of red staining his palace floor, soaking into the crevices and grooves of the stone beneath him.

He doesn't stop until the man's heart stops beating.

-

"Our weapons-!"

The armour brims with their blades; their axes and their swords, their shields and their bows. They lay in a discarded heap amongst the ones that the soldiers of the palace use.

"Quick, take your weapons—"

"Do you not find it strange that the King would leave his armour unlocked for us to find?"

"Who the fuck cares? We can finally take him! A single man against all of us—he wouldn't stand a chance—"

-

"M-my King!" The man cries, "Please! I-I was a soldier, y-you tra-trained me! My loyalty lies with you! I beg for your mercy, your Majesty! I can guard your halls—"

He takes the man by the hair and slices his sword right between the top half and bottom half of the suitor's lips. He makes it slow and pain.

He kicks the man's stomach when he struggles, he watches as fearful eyes roll back, he endures the blunt grime-filled nails scratch at his skin and leave welts along his flesh.

He cuts as if he were chopping through fruit. Sawing the sharp blade through muscle and bone.

"No."

-

The sand still clings to his skin as he'd run from the shoreline.

He still reeks of salt water and days-long of travel. But he doesn't care.

The winds were in their favour, carrying them fast along the ocean's surface within a week's worth of travel.

His stomach growls with hunger, and the excitement bubbles. He can picture the shock and joy in his mother's face as he bursts through the halls upon his arrival.

He can smell the meal his mother would make, just for him.

He can taste the iron of blood that floods the air—

There's bodies littering the hall, blood on the walls, along the column pillars, and the lead in a trail of red to the great hall.

Laying on the floor just by the steps of the dais of his parents' thrones is Jax—the bastard's eye rolled to the back of his head and drowning in his own blood.

A broken arrow head is standing, pierced through his left eye.

Good riddance, really. He doesn't feel an ounce of shame as he spits at his rotting face.

Slowly, he takes in the faces of the men that cover the hall's floor and walls—his mother's suitors.

Dead and rotting, bodies growing colder. Some have their arms out stretched as if they crawled away from their assailant.

Their limbs are cut, arrows on their backs, piercing through their skulls, a hand, a leg, a head missing from the bodies it was previously attached to.

He doesn't hesitate as he draws his axe from his hip and follows the trail of dead men.

-

"Look who it is."

"I said, drop your weapons."

The suitors jeer. He's heard wolves that can laugh better than they can.

"You with your tiny little axe think you can take all of us?"

"Maybe if you take us to your mother, we'll let you live long enough to turn into a whore like him-!"

They draw their weapons, "Attack!"

Running out of the armory, he takes to the halls for better space.

One of them comes charging with their sword raised, which he manages to dodge, using the blunt handle of his axe to stab the man's stomach who wheezes from the action.

Another charges at him with a shield, knocking him back into a pillar. It knocks the wind of out him as he leans his weight against the stone and follows the surface to go around it. He manages to strike quick enough and hit the man's back, body pinned to the column.

There's one who swings their mace at him, embedding into the stone with a crack.

He retaliates by taking his axe and cutting the man at the knee, kicking him across the face when the man goes down.

A man with a sword manages to take him by surprise, hacking through his armour and slicing through his flank.

Then his comrade comes and uses a bow to pull his head back, the wood pressing right against his throat, making it difficult to breathe.

One of them forgoes their weapon of choice just to punch him in the face.

"We have you now." Their leader sneers, "The King wouldn't stand a chance against us with you by our side."

His ears are ringing—his warmth spilling from his side, they're lying. They must be.

Then, the leader turns to his fellow suitors, "We'll use him to make the kind stand down."

Gripping his axe, he risks a swing, the blade makes contact with a neck and blood spurts him, hot and sticky on the face.

The man using the bow to choke him procures a knife and presses the tip to his throat. "You little fucking bitch—" Whatever he was about to say ends with a wet cough.

The hold on the bow loosens. One of the suitors still standing takes a step back, and points their sword at him.

"One more step or I'll break the kid's hands."

"Try me." A voice growls.

The sword is raised, only for it to fall with a metallic clang as the man's body hit the floor. His head is cut in half.

Swaying, he falls to his hands on the floor as his own blood soaks through the tunic and leathers he wears, trailing down his waist, to his thigh, pooling where his knees are knelt on the unforgiving floor.

An arrow is shot in front of him as the remaining suitor tries to flee. Body falling with a muffled thud.

He doesn't hear any foot falls approach him but he tries to cling on, blinking away the haze of his vision. He tries to breathe through the pain and ache, he tries not to think about his stomach spilling out of him.

It hurts and he can't let his tears cling to his lashes and dampen his cheeks.

Feet appear in front of him and it takes instinct and fear to make himself move, wielding his axe and crowding himself back.

The man in front of him kneels, hair long and covering his face, beard greying and scruffy. His cheeks are gaunt and his gaze are haunted, but the they soften at the edges as their eyes meet.