Title: Apples: Prologue.
Author: too_beauty – Marielina.
Pairing: Alexander and Hephaestion.
Disclaimer: I don't know the people involved; they belong to history and to themselves. No harm intended, everything is product of my imagination.
Beta: Myr.
There are things that are a constant in somebody's life; in the case of Hephaestion they were the apples, just a simple and red fruit.
In Pella, everybody knows that the Amyntoros family roots were very ancient; somebody said that they could be tracked back till the times of the great heroes; somebody said that their threads of life were interwoven with the ones of Patroclus; others said the Amyntoros men were a gift to humankind from Aphrodite herself and that their eyes were the symbol of the goddess. Nobody could explain how those magnificent cerulean eyes were attached to the most remarkable frame, which also held the quickest mind.
The first Amyntoros- Hephaestion's great grandfather – who set foot in Pella in historical times was a warrior, the best ever seen, but when his battle wounds made him stop fighting, he was rewarded with a large farm with land and woods; the land was so magnificent that it had its own stream.
This Amyntoros had a great passion for horses so he started breeding them, especially war stallions, and they were so fine and strong that people from all over Greece came to his farm to buy them; among them were the Macedonian Kings.
One very cold winter night, an old lady knocked at his door asking for asylum. The old Amyntoros let her enter and provided food and a warm bed. He excused himself because of the poor food he was offering her and explained that his beloved wife had passed away that autumn leaving him alone with three small boys. After a nice conversation, they went to sleep.
The next morning, the woman was about to leave when the former warrior offered her a skin cloak and leather boots to protect her from the cold. The old lady thanked him because she knew how difficult it had been for him to get rid of things that had belonged to his wife.
The old lady asked Amyntoros if she could see his children; he called for them and she took a leather pouch she was wearing around her neck, and opening, she took four tiny seeds – one for each boy and one for the father – and told them to go near their stream and plant those seeds thirty steps one from the other.
"What is this, my lady?" the youngest son asked.
"This is the seed of your life tree; it will provide you with everything you need at the precise time. Do the same with your own boys, when you become a man one day," she replied.
Saying that, she went away, and while she was walking, a big smile could be seen on Aphrodite's face.
The four Amyntoros immediately went to the stream and planted their seeds and within a few months, four strong apple trees blossomed with very beautiful white flowers. Each of them gave birth to some more and since then, the farm also was famous due to its apple trees.
What furthermore was a constant in the Amyntoros lives was that their women only carried boys in their wombs; all of them with auburn hair and cerulean eyes, slim frames and quick minds, lively and loyal.
When the old Amyntoros died, his apple tree went dry, and one hundred years later, the most remarkable Amyntoros was born.