~ For a friend ~
Eleftheria i thanatos (Ελευθερία ή θάνατος) means "Freedom or death" and is the national motto of Greece.
Dear Brother
Prologue
Like a veiled jewel, the miniature island, ringed by azure waters as far as the eye could see, sparkled beneath its thin coat of morning mist. Cyprus slept; all was still, nary a birdcall breaking the serene air. But on the northernmost beach footprints trailed through the glittering sand, and if one were to follow them to their source he would find it to be a robust armored man standing upon the lonely shore, his burnished metal coat reflecting the glow of the dawn.
He stood with the air of a man viewing his home for the last time. Beyond him, on the shifting blue line separating the Aegean from Greek skies, bobbed several brown specks - ships. Without having to squint he knew they were part of his navy, the same solemn fleet present at every battle, every victory, every loss.
He saw them, their inhabitants, and his own fate clearly as the sun.
"Eleftheria," he said absently to himself, as he had so many years prior, and all the years before that, all cloaked by war and oppression and the desire - no, the need - to fight for something greater than he could name. Now was no different. Except that the stakes were higher, and he would have to leave more behind.
Strangely, despite the weight on his shoulders, he was tempted to sit once more on the sand, allow the spirits of the past to envelop him in all their bygone glory. He thought he could hear them still, his guardians - Athens and Sparta arguing as they had for centuries, Corinth trying to calm them down, Thebes talking to herself with her dreamy voice, the same voice that used to lull him to sleep at night - all of them part of him, all of them spurring him on, consciously and unconsciously, toward this next violent phase of his life.
He missed them.
But he couldn't afford to stay, couldn't afford to linger on this island where the past met present and dreams met reality. And yet he couldn't bear to leave the one closest companion he had left in this life.
"Greece!" a small voice shouted, the voice he'd been hoping and fearing to hear ever since last evening. With it came the first solitary seagull-cry. "Greece - " And bare feet flew across the sand as a dusty willowy little boy tumbled into the older man's leg. "Brother Greece, you're up early! What're you doing out here?"
Greece had stilled at the first sound of the child's approach. But he recovered just in time and turned to meet his younger brother with a smile in place. As he smoothed the boy's tangled brown locks out of his eyes, an unknown pain gripped his heart; this was youth, this was innocence, and he couldn't tarnish it.
"Nothing much, Cyprus," he said haltingly. "I'm... I'm just going on a little trip."
The tiny Cypriot's face fell. "When will you be back?"
"Soon. I can't say when. Just stay here and wait for me, all right?" Greece's words stuck in his throat. "You'll have Aphrodite and Poseidon for company, and everyone else. You won't be alone. Everything will be okay."
"But I don't want you to leave," murmured Cyprus, huge brown eyes solemn and downcast, voice half-disbelieving. "It's not the same if you're not here. It's not."
Then Greece couldn't help himself, and did what he'd been wanting to do for so long. He pulled the small boy close, inhaling the fresh scent of juniper from Cyprus's hair, and felt his brother's arms wind around his neck in a responding embrace. He checked the tremor in his breathing and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, the most truthful two words he had said for a week. "I'm so sorry, Cyprus."
"It's okay." Cyprus drew away, tears faintly visible in his eyes, but his expression was resolute. "I'll wait for you, Brother Greece. Until you come back. I will."
"There's a good boy." Greece patted the boy's hair. "And here - I have something for you."
Cyprus watched in wonder and reached out to accept the golden chain Greece had unclasped from his neck. On it hung a tiny carving, shining in the morning light, of a dove with an olive branch.
"It's beautiful," said the Cypriot softly.
"And it's yours now." Greece closed Cyprus's hand around the necklace, strong tanned fingers enveloping paler fragile ones. "Keep it - to remember me by. While I'm gone."
For a moment Cyprus looked down at their joined hands, then gazed back up at Greece, his eyes filled with emotion as well as knowledge.
"I won't forget you, Greece. No matter how long you're gone. Don't forget me either, okay?"
"How could I?"
It was true. He never really forgot the young hopeful face, the uplifted brown eyes, the small solemn smile that made Cyprus look older than he really was. But Greece had to tuck away the vision when he found himself standing at the prow of a warship, the isle's sandy shores having vanished into a horizon of pure blue. Until the rocky beaches of his own country appeared once more in the distance, until the ring of ships met another not unlike itself, until the air began to choke with smoke and flames and the shouts of mortal men.
And his memory of Cyprus faded into some far corner of his mind, until he could feel it no longer in the heat of war.