So this is a story that came about because it took me six hours (EACH) of playing both characters to decide which one I wanted to go with (I eventually decided on Kassandra for the record, because apparently she's canon? Which is why she has slightly more POV time here than Alexios).
Anyway, I like both of them, I wanted to write both of them, so here we are! And just to be super extremely clear about where the spoilers are because I know this is a new game, you should have seen three flashbacks before reading this.
-/-
Ikaros has a mind of his own. He always has, ever since he first landed next to Kassandra on the night—
On that night.
It's a little ironic, maybe, that the bird everyone knows her by is still a total mystery to her. Kassandra doesn't know why Ikaros has fixed himself on following her, doesn't know why or how she can… see, as he does, through his eyes. And in particular, she doesn't know where it is he goes when he's not with her. There are days, sometimes whole weeks, when Ikaros is gone. Just gone! He always comes back in the end, usually just when she's given up on him.
When she was younger, Kassandra used to be glad when he was gone. He reminded her of things she was still learning how to forget. Now, with all those memories safely buried in the past, locked far away where they don't get in the way anymore, she's starting to actually miss Ikaros when he's gone. And with that, it's really starting to bother her that she still doesn't know why or where he's going.
Her first clue comes when she realizes that someone else has been training Ikaros when he's gone. It's almost an accidental realization, and it comes one hot summer afternoon when she's not even thinking of Ikaros. She's with Phoibe, trading tall stories in the vague shade of Kassandra's roof, because it's simply too hot to go anywhere or do anything.
Kassandra has her arm out in front of her, gesturing as she talks, hiding a smile while Phoibe rolls with laughter. And then Ikaros comes to her, lands on her arm, and gives her a look that says quite clearly that he's expecting a reward for coming to her like this, on command, even if she doesn't realize she's given the command.
"Who taught you to do that?" she asks, because Ikaros has never done this before—he usually likes to stay near but not with her, a little distance away.
There are times when Kassandra swears she knows what the eagle is thinking, but this is evidently not one of those times. Ikaros only gives her a hard, skeptical look, then flies away with an aggravated screech. Kassandra watches him, nonplussed, until Phoibe breaks the silence.
"Do you think," she says. "That if I'm really nice to Ikaros, Zeus might send me an eagle too?"
Kassandra doesn't answer.
"Kassandra?" Phoibe prompts.
She snaps herself out of it, shaking her head. "Never mind, Phoibe."
"So no eagle for me?" Phoibe asks, in the voice of someone that has already given up any rational hope of life getting better, and is left with nothing but prayers.
"Phoibe," Kassandra says, like she has a hundred times before. "You know he's just a bird." But as she says it, she's… doubting. Just a bird, yes, but a bird that lets her see more than she should, and now a bird with secrets.
-/-
Alexios has never thought to wonder where Ikaros goes when he vanishes for days at a time. He's a bird, and not even a trained one at that. Well, not really trained, anyway. Alexios has been trying, but so far all he's managed to do is teach the eagle to land on his arm. He's too stubborn for anything else.
And anyway, if Ikaros wants to disappear for days at a time, then why shouldn't he? He assumes Ikaros is out hunting, or whatever else it is that birds do. He never thinks to question this until Ikaros comes back one day with a message for him. Alexios is with Markos, trying to stay interested as the older man explains his latest scheme. Mostly, Alexios is just waiting for Markos to get to the point where he explains why they (meaning, Alexios) need to do something (meaning, kill/steal/fight) to benefit them (meaning, Markos). He already knows he'll do whatever Markos asks, because there's just nothing else to do on this tiny backwater island, and no one else to work for after so many years making enemies on Markos's behalf.
"Alexios!" Markos says, with all his usual enthusiasm, interrupting his chain of thought. "Your bird brought a message.
"What?" Alexios hasn't even noticed Ikaros is back—he's been gone close to three days, but he's been gone much longer in the past. He knows the eagle will come back when he's good and ready. "A message?"
Markos points, and sure enough when Alexios holds out an arm for Ikaros to land on, the eagle is holding one leg awkwardly because of the tube tied tightly to it. Not too large or too heavy for Ikaros to fly, but if he's outraged expression is anything to go on he's definitely annoyed by it. When Alexios unties the message tube, Ikaros digs his claws into his arm and then flies off in a huff. He doesn't go far—Alexios is still vaguely aware of his presence, like a weight in the back of his mind, when Ikaros settles in the branches of a nearby tree.
"What does it say?" Markos asks, as Alexios unfolds the note.
Alexios takes the time to read, squinting at the cramped writing, before answering. "It's from someone claiming that Ikaros belongs to her," he says at last. "And she wants to know who I am." His expression darkens, just a fraction. "Who I am? Who is she?"
"Well, she must have said," Markos points out. "Or you wouldn't know she's a she, would you?"
"It's signed Kassandra," Alexios says. "I don't know any Kassandra, do you?" The name itself is like a knife to the gut, of course. He's never going to forget the sound of his sister's screaming cries as she was dropped off the edge of the cliff, and he's never been able to hear her name without a part of him going back to that night. He's never told Markos though, never told anyone, and through sheer determination he stops his voice from shaking now.
"No," Markos says. Alexios can tell he's getting bored of the conversation, which means he's decided he can't make any money off of it. Still, he does ask, "Are you going to write back?"
"No," Alexios says. Then, "Yes. I… think I will."
If nothing else, Alexios feels like he needs to set this unknown Kassandra straight. If she thinks she owns Ikaros, she's in for a rude awakening—Ikaros is his own creature, and he doesn't belong to anyone.
As Markos starts up talking again, winding his way with painful slowness toward the point, Alexios can't help feeling a little bit jealous of that freedom.
-/-
The next time Kassandra sees Ikaros, the eagle has a new note and a long suffering expression that means he's accepted his new role as messenger, but with ill grace. She feeds him a scrap of food, which mollifies him somewhat before he flies away. Kassandra is smiling when she unfurls the note.
She is not smiling when she reads it.
And when she storms into Markos's home five minutes later, she is downright angry. "Is this true?" she asks, thrusting the paper in his face. "Have you been working with a misthios called Alexios?" She isn't sure which idea scares her more. That Markos has been lying to her—and if he's lying about this, then what else could he be lying about—or that someone out there knows this much about her. They're taunting her, showing her they know all about her, about the man she works for, even about her dead baby brother. They'd signed with Alexios's name.
Come see Markos on Kephallonia, the message had said. Everyone knows him, and I work for him—he can point you to me. And there at the end, the name Alexios.
"No," Markos says. "No, Kassandra, I—"
She's not in the mood for him right now. "Markos, I swear, if you're not telling the truth I will hurt you. You know I can."
"Kassandra!" Genuine alarm now. Maybe he believes she actually would hurt him, or maybe he's just not used to seeing her this angry. "You know I don't know this Alexios. You know everyone I know!"
Kassandra forces herself to breathe. It's true. She does. She's collected debts on Markos's behalf from more or less every person he's ever met. She shakes her head hard and backs down. "Fine, Markos," she says. "I believe you. But I need to know—" A pause. An idea occurs to her. "I need to find out who sent this.
"How are you going to do that?"
But Kassandra doesn't answer. Her idea is growing, and by the time she's tracked down Phoibe and brought her back home, the idea has evolved into more than that. It is now a Very Bad Plan.
"Kassandra, what are you doing?" Phoibe asks, when they are safely inside. "What's wrong?"
She must look so much more intense than she means to. She doesn't want to scare her. "Phoibe," Kassandra says. "Listen, you know who you're always asking about Ikaros?"
Excitement flares in Phoibe's eyes. "But you always say he's just an eagle," she says, leaning forward like she already knows what Kassandra is going to say, and she is so, so ready for it.
"Well, he's not from Zeus," Kassandra says. "But."
Phoibe nods. "But?" she asks eagerly.
"But…" She hates giving Phoibe this hope, because she knows this isn't how the world works. Hope… isn't something a girl on her own in Kephallonia should allow herself to have. Kassandra has never told anyone else that she can see what Ikaros sees, because they'll think she's crazy. But she's never told Phoibe, because she knows Phoibe will believe her. "When I send Ikaros out ahead of me to scout—you've seen me do that, right?"
"Yes," Phoibe says.
"I do that because I can see what he sees," Kassandra says slowly. "He lets me look through his eyes."
Phoibe's eyes are now so wide they look like they're about to fall out of her head. "You—fly?" she asks.
"Sort of," Kassandra says. "It's close enough."
"And you never told me!" Phoibe says. Kassandra can't tell if she's impressed or annoyed.
"I'm telling you now," Kassandra says. "Because—Phoibe, I need your help."
Which drains the annoyance right out of Phoibe. "With what?" she asks.
Ah. Now this is going to be the hard part. Kassandra isn't going to tell Phoibe how terrifying it is for someone else to know her brother's name, or why she needs to find out how they learned it. "Ikaros has been flying off to see someone else," she says, which is part of the truth at least. "I need to find out who it is."
"Someone's taking your eagle away?"
"Ikaros is his own creature, Phoibe," Kassandra says. The note Ikaros had brought her had said that, too, and she agrees with the letter writer about that much, at least. "I don't own him. But… I do want to know where he's been going, at least. So I'm going to go with Ikaros the next time he leaves. So I can see this person myself, through Ikaros. When I do that, I won't be able to focus on things here, or protect myself. I don't know how long I'll be, so I need you to keep other people away from here. Just in case."
"I can do that," Phoibe says excitedly. "This is so great, Kassandra!"
Kassandra smiles thinly. She doesn't think so. But Phoibe doesn't know about Alexios, and maybe she would feel differently if it was the name of one of her dead parents signed to that note—
She feels terrible about the thought as soon as she has it. "Thank you for helping," she says. "I couldn't do this without you, Phoibe. Really."
Phoibe puffs herself up with pride.
"And don't tell anyone," Kassandra adds.
"I won't," Phoibe says. "I promise."
And then, with a sense of dramatic timing that just seems absolutely typical of him, Ikaros flies in through the open window and lands on Kassandra's forearm. "Is this your way of telling me you're ready to go?" she asks the eagle, raising her eyebrows.
Ikaros screeches in response, which Kassandra interprets as a yes. She takes a deep breath, and makes herself comfortable. She lies down on the floor, trying not to feel awkward about Phoibe just watching her. Sometimes Ikaros is gone for days, and she has no idea how long this is going to take. She closes her eyes, focuses on Ikaros, and lets her awareness of her own body fade to close to nothing.
Ikaros flaps his wings a few times to get them out of the window and into the open air, then spreads them out lazily to soar along with a breeze. Kassandra watches the familiar landscape spread out below her, letting Ikaros take control. He screeches again, a long and almost joyful sound, and then starts to fly higher. Kassandra tries to rack where they're going, but then they pass through a sort of golden haze that reminds Kassandra in a weird way of her spear. It's not entirely—not entirely visible, almost not entirely real, but when they come out of it eventually, she's completely lost track.
Then Ikaros stars to fly downward again. Kassandra isn't sure what she's expecting, but it's not for Ikaros to just… fly home again. A sweeping sort of disappointment runs through her, but before she can even think of leaving Ikaros and going back to her own mind, she notices something.
There's a man on her roof, sitting in the shade, with one leg stretched out in front of him as he cleans an unimpressive sword. He looks so comfortable and completely at home there, that Kassandra's first, outraged reaction of what is he doing at my house is replaced almost immediately with an odd feeling of not belonging there herself.
Ikaros flies low, and without stopping or slowing he streaks straight through the open window to the room where Kassandra herself is lying.
Isn't lying.
Is lying. She knows she's still there, she's still vaguely aware of her body and she knows it hasn't been moved. And yet… here is Ikaros, flying down to the exact space where Kassandra knows she is still lying and yet, somehow, it's empty. Ikaros lands and stands there, cleaning his feathers, as if to show off to Kassandra just how badly she's failing to understand what's going on.
She can't stop herself from feeling slightly exasperated by this. There are times when Ikaros is just the most irritating person she knows, even if technically he's not a person at all. Kassandra feels her body, wherever it is, take a deep breath, and she forces her mind to focus. So there's… two versions of the same place. And in one of them she's lying on the floor with Phoibe watching over her, and in the other one, a stranger is sitting on the roof like he owns the place.
This is insane.
It's not that much long after she reaches this (probably obvious to him) conclusion that Ikaros gets tired of his preening and flies back outside. He goes straight to the man still sitting on the roof, who makes a faint clicking noise with his tongue and holds his arm out expectantly. When Ikaros lands on it, Kassandra realizes that this must be the man that trained him to do that, and also therefore the man who wrote to her and signed his name Alexios.
"There you are," the man—Alexios—says. He runs a finger over Ikaros's head, smoothing his feathers. "Markos has another job for us." His voice holds the same flat tone Kassandra uses when Markos has been more than usually annoying, a tone that implies he must know him well. Only—Markos had said he didn't know an Alexios.
But what if, a voice in the back of her mind whispers. What if, there are two of Markos the same way you are and aren't lying inside this house right now?
The thought is ridiculous at first, but then the realization hits her like a blow to the head. There can be two of Markos. There can be two of everything. Ikaros has flown her into another world.
-/-
It's a little while, more than a week in fact, before Alexios hears from Kassandra again. He's almost stopped looking when finally Ikaros comes to him with the new message. He lands on his shoulder and starts to immediately and impatiently wave one leg in front of his face.
"What's wrong with Ikaros?" Phoibe asks. She's sitting on a low, crumbling wall and eating most of Alexios's lunch. Alexios had grumbled a little at first, just for the record, but he has a strong suspicion that she hasn't eaten in a while.
"Nothing's wrong with Ikaros," he says, slipping the message tube off before she can see it.
"He looks like he's trying to dance," Phoibe says doubtfully.
"Maybe he wants my lunch," Alexios says.
"I think you mean my lunch," Phoibe says, but she holds some food up for Ikaros. She's distracted enough that Alexios feels safe unfolding Kassandra's message and reading it there and then. It's short and to the point, but… odd.
If you can do what I think you can, go with Ikaros the next time he leaves. -Kassandra
It takes him a little while to figure it out, because there's no way she could be talking about—there's no way she could know how he sees what Ikaros sees. But the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. If he wants to find out who Kassandra is—which he does, he is thoroughly curious now—why not see her for himself, through Ikaros?
He considers this for a few more seconds, turning the rolled up message over and over between his fingers. Then he turns to Phoibe and says, "I need your help with something."
And Phoibe, it turns out, is more than happy to help him out once he's explained about Ikaros, and how he needs someone to watch over him while he's with the eagle. If anything, Ikaros is the one that needs a little bit of convincing. Alexios has to bribe him with half a smoked fish before Ikaros will agree to go anywhere with him.
He's half expecting something to go wrong, because after all these days—weeks now, really—of wondering who she is, it can't be this easy, can it? But nothing goes wrong as he lays down and focuses on Ikaros, as the eagle takes off, flying higher and higher, as he starts to fly downward again…
Kassandra (he assumes it's Kassandra, because all this is starting to have an almost story like feel. Not quite real, just… real enough) is waiting for Ikaros, sitting on a large, flat rock on one of Kephallonia's quieter beaches. Barely a scrap of sand really, bordered by cliffs and too much effort for most people to get to. It's quiet.
"Did you bring him with you?" Kassandra asks, as Ikaros lands on her arm. Alexios can't help feeling slightly hurt at this—petty, maybe, but he's never seen Ikaros come to anyone but him before. He won't even got to Phoibe, or Markos, and he knows them well by now. Then the pettiness passes, and the full impact of her words hit him. Did you bring him with you. She's asking about him.
Ikaros looks her right in the eye and makes a soft noise. He seems almost tired, or sad, and Kassandra gives him a sad smile in return.
"Well," she says. "Let's see." And then she tips her head back, and goes very still. Alexios waits, not quite sure what's supposed to happen next, until he feels something new brush against his mind. It's… close to what he feels with Ikaros when he's watching the world through the eagle's eyes, but too human to be Ikaros.
Alexios, the presence says, and it clicks.
Kassandra? he answers. Back in the place where he'd left his body, he can feel a slight smile tugging at his expression. He hadn't expected this at all.
I thought this might work, she says, as Ikaros—clearly uninterested in the two human minds riding alongside him—flaps his wings and takes flight.
Alexios watches the world roll out below them like a map, then finally says, Why? I've never met anyone else that could do this before.
I tried it before, Kassandra explains. And I saw you, living my life.
Your life? Alexios asks. What does that mean?
She explains, briefly. How they live in the same place, know the same people, have the same friends—how she'd realized they live in two separate worlds, mirror images of each other. Alexios doesn't have a hard time believing her. In an odd way, it makes sense from what he's seen. And in an odder way, he can feel that she's telling the truth, or at least that she believes she is.
At last, he says, I have… had. I had a baby sister named Kassandra.
She's quiet for a while before saying, I had a baby brother called Alexios. He died.
An understanding passes between them, that they are not quite the same, but in some way that doesn't fully make sense they are.
We should… he's not quite sure how to say it. Kassandra, this Kassandra, isn't his sister. His sister had died, along with her brother, but this Kassandra is here, and alive, and she understands in a way that no one else ever could. Do this again.
Definitely, Kassandra says.
Between them, Ikaros gives a long screech, and goes into a dive.
-/-
I am 92% sure there's going to be more of this, because I can already see a few later scenes in the game where I would love to see misthios-Alexios and misthios-Kassandra interact. I'll put spoiler warnings at the top of each chapter.
ALSO: if anyone has played through the end of sequence 3 as Alexios, please let me know. I need to know if a name is the same in both playthroughs before I can get the next chapter written.
