#tm.

                                   𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐆𝐍𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐄𝐒.

— NAME : odysseus.

— AGE : 30s.

— GENDER : m/nb.

— FACE : utp.

They say the loss most keenly felt is that of pride. You wouldn't know; often, you doubt ever having had a trace of it. Pride implies stability, it implies the luxury of a grounding stone, one to raise your edifice of hubris on. For the warriors you are surrounded by, these self-errected temples are all—name is all. Their ancestors' deeds, whom they slayed & whom they saved, engulf the present. As if history never existed: everything happens over and over. Glory is relieved, revenge is recounted. When you were hired in Agamemnon's retinue, you thought you would go mad with boredom at these privileged fools. Yet you know it is these myths they spin that lend them faith & credibility, and ensure other men follow them. You, an orphan from the slums of Mycenae, were given no such thing. No lineage or epithet for the son of nobody. Pride is a bauble—what you have is better. Let other men slaughter one another over imagined insults & golden women. You have wits, vision, relentless zeal. You have a plan, and Sparta is where it starts.

                                                    𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

✹ AGAMEMNON  —  They picked you up from the edge of civilization, melted you down like broken blades. They needed your ingenuity, your sleight of hand at shaping profit from disaster. At first, you joined them because you thought they were going to break the pattern, that tedious chorus of heroics & wealth; you thought they could swallow the world whole and spit it out reborn. Now you realize you were only right about the second part.

✹ PENELOPE  —  A winded breath, air knocked out of lungs and spooled into the sunset. You never had enough time together, and now here she is, a runaway under Tyndareus' protection. For her, you worry you might abandon everything you worked for: supporting Agamemnon, counciling him into Sparta, stirring hell behind the curtains until the vaults of heaven itself open. But without this victory, what are you worth to her ?

✹ HERMES  —  Rumors have it you are their offspring, begotten on a woman so clever she outmatched them twice over. There might be as much truth as political slander to that. The God certainly never claimed you. And even if they had—the patron deity of thieves granting your purpose ? No mortal would trust you. There would be no future either way. Still, sometimes you long for them to seek you out, give a meaning to all this.

✹ CIRCE  —  You caught a glance not meant for you, nor any mortal eyes. The first moment you saw them was vicious—something infernal seizing you in its grip. All your life, you courted the unexplainable. You start thinking there are mysteries best left subdued.

                                       𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐘𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐒.

— NAME : achilles.

— AGE : 18-20.

— GENDER : m/nb.

— FACE : utp.

You heard it whispered, how your mother annointed you with ambrosia & threw you into the fire. Her wish was to burn away what is mortal in her son, let only godliness remain. It's a nice bedtime story. Even as a child you recognized how useful it will prove in the future, instilling fear where it had to, reverence where it served. Yet Thetis would never get close to a flame. Neither, really, would she hold you long enough for it. She used to suffer horribly at the mere sight of smoke, the sensation of human touch—her skin would crackle and fester like boils. By the time she abandoned you, you understood the ghastly necessity that moved her. For a while, there was nothing inside you except that hollow understanding; a charm swallowing up ambition, eagerness, joy. Your father thought, thus ends the prophecy of great Achilles. And around that time, Patroclus rode into Thessaly—they reached you by land, not by sea, never again the sea. They rooted you into earth itself, an arrow of bronze pinning down your spirit. You grew around that arrow, that stake. You were not yet sixteen when you rose to take command of the Myrmidons, Patroclus at your shoulder; you were not yet eighteen when you joined Agamemenon to plunder the world. Your mother beseeched, wailed it will be your end. You thought she understood the bargain. What is mortal in you is the best part; what is mortal in you is of Patroclus.

                                                    𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

✹ PATROCLUS  —  You cannot recall which one of you had the idea to bring the Myrmidons to Mycenae, bathe them all in treasure & triumph. Then again, it is difficult to trace these things, these forgotten splinters of individuality ; where their plan ends and yours begins, where your fingers become your own again, which sighs belong to you, to them. The threads of life, the marrows of your bodies, were braided together long ago.

✹ THETIS  —  From all the prophecies that loomed about you, this sealed you mother's fate: Achilles, the child who will surpass their father. She used to sneer, a raw, ugly thing, marring her beauty like a war-wound, and add, the easiest deed of all. You loved her with every bone, but how this disdain hurt ! Whatever was made of man, born of man, she loathed ;desire, weakness, need. You worry you inherited that more than you admit.

✹ ARES  —  You would need an abacus, you reckon, to tally all the Gods you angered. After Apollo ( who, honestly, should learn how to lose a match ) Ares is merely the next addition. Something about slighting their daughter, Penthesilea ? You dimly remember a spar with the Queen of Amazons, that eternal patron of underdogs, who bade you keep the peace in Sparta. It's said you laughed in their face; truly, you might have.

✹ BRISEIS  —  On the voyage to Sparta, one of your best warriors, Ajax, caught ill. It is no happenstance people called you the sharp-edged healer, whose spear point butchers as well as mends. But since Apollo withdraw their favor, you require a better hand. Briseis was there, a slip of a dress in the Trojan envoy, invisible but for her brilliance. Ajax was cured in a day. If you had such a sword, you think, you could put it to very good use.