Charis tasted the coppery tang of blood in her mouth, she glared at her opponent, the former Spartan warrior, Captain Marcus stood in front of her. His stance was offensive, yet she could see the imbalance in his right leg, telling of old injuries that had forced him to retire from the active guard. Now he served the city state by training the new warriors, true men of Greece, Spartans. His weakness was usually well hid, many did not even notice the way he faltered with his step, the way his weight bore more to the left, but she did. The blow from his sword pommel caused the blood to pool in her mouth, a fault of her own though it did nothing to slow her. Pain was nothing, a warrior welcomed it, she welcomed it.
She spat the blood from her mouth, her eyes never leaving his. Feinted right, down, then attacked left. The Captain's weakness slowed his reaction time, Charis grinned a crimson stained smile as she saw on his face a knowing look of defeat. Her wooden blade connected soundly with his leg, a crack sounding through the courtyard followed by a dull thud as his knees hit the sand. His body crumpled into the ground and faint clapping could be heard in the distance.
Though Charis' heartbeat raced in her chest, her breath was steady and her face emotionless. Winning was expected, there was no cause for celebration in an act that was normal to a Spartan. She had been taught you fought until you won. Retreat. Surrender. Those words were not known to a Spartan.
"Old friend, your daughter fights well." Charis turned to see Captain Artemis approaching from the shadows of the archway he must have been observing the sparring from. "Maybe she can teach you a thing or two considering that's the fourth time I've seen her beat you this afternoon alone using the same trick." The Captain stopped in front of her father and offered his hand to him.
Her father grasped it and pulled himself up, a grin on his face and in his eyes. "Yes, she has learned well." He turned to face her a silent command for a moment alone with the captain.
Charis nodded, tendrils of honey gold hair escaping the braid she had twined her hair back in sticking to the sweat lining her brow. She was glad to be leaving the men, already bent in discussion, behind her. The tunic tied about her trim waist just above the very short leggings that hung from her hips were covered in all manners of filth from the sparring and training she had done earlier that day. Her mind made up she turned towards the eastern wall, intent on retrieving something less pungent and stained to wear before making her way to the bath houses near the center of the city.
She hadn't made it twenty paces before a familiar voice echoed in the alleyway, "if you look like this I hope the other guy looks worse."
Charis turned, her lifelong childhood friend, Astinos rounded the corner she had just turned from. His tall, lean body was far from the boy she had grown up with, the rigorous training every Spartan gladly endured evident with each step he took. A pale grey cloak was pinned at his shoulder over a dark tunic, covering and then revealing the tanned skin of his bare shoulders with each movement.
"I'll take that as a compliment Spartan." She chided back.
His head tipped back in laughter, dark brown hair fell back from his face with the movement and she found herself laughing along with him. Their companionship was an easy one, though often misunderstood by others who pushed for more from them.
"You smell." His nose wrinkled up and he looked down at her, "and you're positively filthy. What'd you do? Roll around on the sparring floor?"
Charis was tall for a woman, even a Spartan woman, but Astinos always made her feel small. Though he lacked the sheer size many of the older warriors had, his body still coming into itself, he already possessed a presence she knew would make a formidable opponent in the coming years.
"Actually yes I did. But if it secured the victory I don't think I can be faulted for my methods." She threw a sideways glance at him, tossing her hair over her shoulder and continued walking towards her destination, knowing he'd follow.
"Anything to secure victory. I'd expect nothing else m'lady." He winked, knowing she hated when he pulled out formalities when they were alone. She punched him in the arm lightly, though one wouldn't know it given his theatrical reaction. "You wound me! How am I expected to hold my spear tomorrow?" Grasping his upper arm in mock injury but grinning all the while. Astinos, ever the jokester.
"I'm sure you will find a way to manage Spartan, afterall I do recall a certain ethos being ingrained in us since childhood." He laughed once more and Charis only shook her head in silent laughter. "You are nigh near intolerable my friend."
"Yet you still put up with me. All these years later." His boyish grin spread across his face and she knew he was yet to finish his torment of her. "I do recall someone being terribly upset when I was gone for the Agoge. You cannot pretend to be upset with me for very long Charis."
She remembered the moment he was taken, his seventh birthday eleven long years ago. Her best friend had been taken from her and suddenly Sparta seemed a much lonelier place, despite the constant bustle of the city. It was only five days later on her own seventh year of birth, that she was pulled from her trance of misery. For her father declared she too would be trained, as would any Spartan once they turned of age.
So for the 10 years her friend had been trained as a soldier her father had trained her in the same manner. Long limbs grew hardened with muscle, her hands and feet toughened, her back grew strong, and her mind sharp. Charis learned from the beginning how to best serve herself on the battlefield, she saw what most soldiers missed and was skilled at exploiting those weaknesses. What she lacked in size and muscle, she easily made up for in speed and cunning. Charis distracted herself for the 10 years of her friend's absence with becoming the soundest warrior she could, she focused on making her father proud.
But in all those long and hard years, it was one specific day that she remembers clearest.
She had finished training for the day, her muscles sore and a bandage wound tightly below the capped, lean ridge of her shoulder. Her reaction time had been just a breath too slow and had earned herself a nice mark.
A mistake she wouldn't be making again.
Drawing up water from a well just outside of the city gates she watched as two boys, Sethos and Argon, tumbled in a wrestling match. It made her laugh to see the carefree nature these boys played with yet all the while it still clearly evident they were Spartans.
Argon was her half brother, her father having taken a new wife after his first, her mother had died giving birth to her. Agathe had been his one true love, her passing had taken with it a piece of his soul and it pained Charis to watch her father struggle on through life as he had. Finding another whom could restore even a fraction of happiness to his face had been a blessing from the gods, though she would never replace her mother in the eyes of the late Captain, Charis was grateful for Argon's mother.
The other boy, currently pinned down by her brother, was Sethos, Captain Artemis' third son. He was the same age as Argos and the two had grown up thicker than thieves.
Marcus had always joked the god's had made them brothers in arms only lest one mother be cursed with the task of handling them both. The statement held some truth, but Charis never minded keeping an eye on the young boys in her spare moments, they reminded her of her younger years with her own friend, a friend that had been long gone but never forgotten.
Pulling herself from her thoughts Charis yanked the bucket, now filled and sloshing water over the edges, from the well. The weight and movement of the load straining her wounded shoulder though she showed no sign of discomfort, just careful movements so as not to tear the injury open further and have fresh blood staining the bandage.
Spartans may be accustomed to pain but they weren't stupid enough to cause further damage if it could be helped.
The afternoon sun shone down bright and hot off the white limestones fit expertly together in the streets, causing her to squint as she looked up for her charges.
"Argos, Sethos!" She yelled, catching the tussling boys' attention. "Back to the city, com'on."
They pretended to not hear her final words, instead Sethos turned, using Argos' momentary distraction as an opportunity to knock him from his position atop him and the two rolled down the small hillside. Charis, lifting her gaze and muttering a silent prayer to Zeus set the bucket down in preparation to go after the two children.
"Don't they remind you of two other children, who not too long ago were doing the same thing when their parents called them?" A voice, prickling Charis' mind with vague recognition, stopped her before she could move towards the two boys. A man stood shadowed under the archway leading into the city, yet far enough away that she couldn't make out his face.
The uncertainty and inability to place his voice when so much about him seemed so familiar, greatly unnerved her.
He was taller than she was by almost a head, his build lean but powerful. A sword hung from the leather belt strapped around his hips, a grey cloak pinned about his shoulders was blown back revealing a body hewn only under strict training. No identifiable features marked him as belonging to any one city state but there was one thing certain. He was a warrior.
She pulled the long knife from the sheath she kept strapped against her ribs quietly, her senses heightening, searching for any possible clue as to an impending threat.
"Identify yourself soldier. Swiftly and honestly, for this is no ordinary Greek city-state and we do not take kindly to falsities." Her eyes scanned the stranger further, looking for any sign of weakness. He stood, calmly in front of her making no move to approach closer. His hands hung limply at his sides. The blade untouched in its sheath.
"No, this is no ordinary city-state. That much I am very well aware." He laughed, a deep rumbling thing. "Tell me Charis, have I been gone so long that you've forgotten me already?"
Him using her name, and in such a familiar manner shocked her, her blade lowered ever so slightly before watching him take a few steps closer, out of the shadowed archway. His hands raised in a show of peace and his face lightened in a calm but joyful grin. He was unmistakable, she wondered how she couldn't see before.
"Astinos!" The blade fell from her hand, forgotten in the grass of the field as she ran to him and jumped, wrapping her arms around his neck, her feet swinging in the air. She buried her face into his neck and breathed deeply. His scent still so very much the same but different at the same time, more mature yet still Astinos.
"I have missed you greatly." Her words were garbled, her face still pressed into his neck. She could feel dampness threatening to spill from her eyes at the joy of her old friend returning home.
His arms wrapped around her then as he came out of his state of shock at her sudden embrace. Corded muscle of his forearms held her smaller body to his larger one, her feet still suspended of the ground as he pressed his cheek to the top of her head. "And I you Charis, and I you." She felt him breathe in, then out. The hot air brushing across the top of her head, tickling her forehead.
He set her down, his hands resting on her shoulders. She looked him over again, "you've grown", it was a stupid thing to say the obvious but Charis wasn't in full control of her mind at the moment. Too much emotion at her best friend returning to her was surging through her body for any thought to be completely logical.
His laugh, the same musical notes she remembered from childhood, was his response. Hers soon joined his before he responded, "well that does tend to happen over ten long years. I'm glad to see your wit hasn't dulled."
She only laughed harder at this, not noticing when the two children were standing besides her until Argos tugged on the fabric of her chiton.
"Chari," his nickname for her, "who's this? Why are you crying?" Her hand raised to touch the wetness sliding down her face, she hadn't fully realized she had even shed the tears until her brother had mentioned them.
"Yes I'm fine, this is my friend Astinos." She turned to face Sethos, "Sethos, he's your brother."
The young boy's face lit up and he gazed upwards at the Spartan warrior. Adoration completely consuming both the children's faces. Astinos was what they both dreamed of becoming, in their eyes he was their new idol.
Charis looked up to Astinos, his own face was slightly in shock as well, she realized Sethos had been born after he'd left for the Agone but he recovered quickly, bending down on one knee to look his younger brother in the eyes.
"Sethos I am honored to finally meet you." Astinos held his hand out to the boy, a gesture she knew would have the child prattling on for weeks about. He fervently shook the extended hand before exclaiming how he must tell their father and turning the two children raced towards the city leaving Astinos and Charis by the well.
The bucket of water, long forgotten, made its appearance at the edge of Charis' vision and she made to go retrieve it. Astinos' longer stride beat her to it though and he lifted the bucket effortlessly. His eyes traveling to the bandage around her upper arm and filled with worry.
"I'm fine Astinos, just a small training accident. I'll move faster next time." She turned and began her way towards the city gates.
"Training?" Confusion filled his voice. While it was not unheard of for women to train in the ways of battle like the men, though they did not go through the Agoge, they were seldom put in positions of physical injury like the men were.
"Yes, like when we were little. My father trained me himself, I can hold my own against any one of the men in the city regularly."
He laughed again. "Of course you can Chari."
The rest of the way through the city they went back and forth of the happenings the last ten years while they'd been separated, most of the talking was done on Charis' part since the rituals of the Agoge were "less interesting" as Astinos called it. They parted ways, Astinos to continue on to reunite with his family and Charis to her house where Argos was undoubtedly talking her father's ear off about Astinos' return. She smiled again, her best friend was finally home.