#aegialeus

And some headcanons I have for them

Specifically:

Aegialeus: it’s likely that he was born late, if we go by Statius’s Thebaid where Adrastus was mentioned to be “lacked male issue” by the time he married his daughters to Polyneices and Tydeus respectively (Thebaid book 1, 390–394). Had to say, this reason makes sense to explain why Adrastus wanted to marry off his daughters so eagerly. If so then Aegialeus was likely born after the time of the double marriage, and still old enough to beget a son before he went for war. Would he be at the age of eight by the time the first Theban War took place? (Might be younger though, since there’s Achilles as an example…)

Alcmaeon: he would be old enough to take heed of his father’s orders for vengeance, but not old enough to do that until about ten years later. Perhaps we may go with Orestes parallel and consider him to be around ten when the Seven went against Thebes, so he’d have the vengeance in his 20’s?

Diomedes: so I actually failed to identify any source for that statement on the wiki page for Diomedes. Nevertheless, Diomedes being younger than the rest of the group makes sense for BOTH the thing about people around him constantly reminding him of the his father and the war in Thebes AND the parallel of him being younger than most of the other Achaean chieftains by the time of the Trojan War.

Sthenelus: older than Diomedes, for sure. Old enough to father a son or two a few years before the Trojan War took place—if Cometes was real, that is (if not, then Cylarabes having died without an issue probably means he could be born at any time which does not help with our calculation). Let’s say, he might be at least eighteen when he begot Cometes, and Cometes being…well, eighteen? When he consorted with Aegialeia (you see, another thing that’s so fricked up is the age difference. If Aegialeia was a daughter of Aegialeus then maybe this makes some…sense—but she would be too young for Diomedes in that case; but if she’s a daughter of Adrastus then…it’s straight up two generations between Cometes and Aegialeia which is just…ugh. Welp another reason why I don’t acknowledge this wicked version of Aegialeia’s story). We don’t actually know the time gap between the Epigoni campaign and the Trojan War (again, that claim on Diomedes’s wiki page is unsourced), but if it’s five to ten years then Sthenelus would be ranging from 16 to 21 when he went for Thebes.

Thersandros: he might be older than Diomedes or about the same age—putting his age between Aegialeus’s and Diomedes’s just in case.

Promachus: his father Parthenopaeus was young. Like, the youngest among the Seven against Thebes. Still, he was old enough to father a son before he left for war (again, let’s say it’s eighteen for the sake of calculation), and we don’t really know when he did that. Let’s say the age when Parthenopaeus left for war ranges from 18 to 23: then Promachus would be around 10 to 15? Again being the youngest, perhaps?

Can’t really decide the age for Amphilochus, Euryalus, Polydorus, Medon simply based on their lineage…

He left your mother in the care of the man he appointed as ruler, unknowing that she was pregnant with you and your twin sister. She gives birth to you at the sea-shore, while she is on her way to the temple, to pray for a safe delivery of her twins.

That gift is granted. The woman tell you the tale often, how your mother delivered you on the beach, with only her servants at her side. They wrapped the both of you in linen they carried with them and while some of the women rushed back to the city to inform the palace, she held you and nursed you, attended by her servants and you soon peacefully fell asleep in your mothers arms with the seas lullaby as she gathered strength to return to the city with her baby twins. She names you after the place you were born at: "sea-shore". Aegialeus and Aegialia.

You are allowed to stay in the palace with your twin sister and your mother, and the new king is treating you fairly, but the two of you never quite fit in, your father was a stranger, the people often still treat you as such...and then your mother dies, struck by Apollos arrows and her bodys fagilty. Her wish had been to bring you to your father when you were old enough and the politics in his kingdom more secure. But when she dies, the land your father rules is at war with Thebes. That is not what your mother wanted, but with her gone the man who housed you all his life sends you to your father, not keen on keeping a potential rival to the throne within his halls. Your sister remains home, for now.

When you reach the palace in Argos you find an old man. He's mourning. It's your father, who, upon seeing you and hearing you out takes you in as his son without question. Yet the whole land is grieving.

You don't know the men were who died, though you hear their stories, but you join your newly found father for the funeral of the men. The wailing and funeral pyres remind you of your mothers and the ache in your chest scorches your soul.

Seeing the man, who treated you more fatherly in those few weeks than the man who raised you all your life, mourning as you are, enrages you, and you step forth to join the oath of the sons to avenge their fathers.

Later, you bring your twin sister to the kingdom of your father and you are raised loved in his house. Your new home. And you grow into the role as heir for the kingdom and become half brother, half father figure to these other kids who swore the oath with you, though many of them are your age.....these people, who you didn't even know before you found them mourning as they lost their fathers, and you found yours. They become family, and you know that you are willing to go for war with them and die, even though the weight of the oath is surging up at you like a tidal wave and the grasps of fate are closing around you like a noose.

*its funny how this sentence can apply to like at least three different Epigoni

So what If he loved the kid

And tries his best because the kid loves him so much and tells him that every day

But he struggles to give him more than what the kid asks for and expects

After a long day he'll comfort the kid, look after him, protect him, guide him, joke with him

But it always feels like its work, work he never asked for, work that most days barely gives him any energy to figure out his own issues and it ends up disregulating him

He loves the kid

He wishes he wouldn't have to play parent

.....i considered this for Stheneleus but most of it fits even better to Aegialeus tbh