A/N: Hello everyone! So this is my first fic ever here (and in English more in general), so be kind to me haha. Ancient Greece AU because my history professor is a great teacher and I got inspired by her beautiful lessons. Also, this fic got inspired by Panic! at the Disco's song Far too young to die, so maybe listen to it for a better experience. R&R. Enjoy!
far too young
"Do you promise to accomplish any mission delegated to you by your citizens and to accomplish any duty, no matter what happens?" The general eyed the young man and woman with a look which expressed a certain disgust. His cold eyes froze the atmosphere that, from solemn as it had to be, it had become nearly agonising because of him.
Jason looked at Reyna before answering. He observed her vacuum gaze, her clenched jaw, the perfect curve her half-closed lips painted on her face and her eyes sparkling because of the pride she was carrying on her shoulders.
"We promise" the two young people stated in unison, hands placed on the crown they would share as the former monarchs had.
The general nodded softly, maybe reluctant to the idea of two teenagers being more important than him and being able to give him orders. "With the blessing of the gods," he said then, "I name you diarchs of Sparta. May you lead our city in harmony."
The crowd exploded into a roar of fake approval which anyway leaked a certain lack of confidence. "How could you hand a task like that to two inexperienced?" the most stubborn men and women yelled, "We're in the hands of two no-goods!"
Jason and Reyna set proudly on their thrones, while people kept hailing them. The young man recognised some of the comrades he had always shared positive and negative experiences with, since the trainings in the army camp. Leo and Calypso, his wife, stood in the front row and, radiant, crying out his name, encouraging him. Over there, Dakota was pushing anyone who was standing in his way to get closer to the new king and queen, both his acquaintances, while Piper stood peacefully at the end of the parade, and she was smiling at him shyly.
As the crowd began to get bored and people left as quickly as they had showed up, Reyna waved her hand to Jason to make him follow her into the royal palace, in which, for many years, both kings' families lived next to their sovereign. The young man eyed his friends affectionately for one last time; then, reluctantly, he closed the door behind himself.
"We're alone" Reyna announced, turning her back on him. Her long dark braid leaned on her back, straight as always. She stood in her broad shoulders and held her head up. The golden armour covering her vestments seemed to be made for her, fitting her that much.
Jason stared at one of the candles in the room: the flame waved in time with the imperceptible breezes of air coming from nowhere but the outside. If there hadn't been that movement, the young man would have thought he was in a room without oxygen. Only a little window brightened up the environment, while the heavy curtains and tapestries hung on the wall burdened the atmosphere, making her almost claustrophobic.
Reyna sighed, maybe giving up on the idea that he would answer. She turned around to observe him. Her black eyes that looked like they wanted to penetrate him, reaching his soul and ripping it in a heartbeat. She kept her hands together, her fingers intertwined, as if she wanted him to understand that whole situation was a net, a trap he'd better get away from. "We can talk now."
This time, Jason didn't hesitate to answer. "Do you really want to? A long time ago you told me there was nothing left to say, can't you remember?" The young man tried to push away from his mind pictures that portrayed him a few years younger, naive and inexperienced, tenderly brushing Reyna's hand.
"It's been years, Jason." The girl rolled her eyes. Did she think it was stupid for him to still feel bad for that? When he knew he had to work maybe for years with his old flame, the boy had really considered the idea of refusing, betraying his father - that had been waiting such a thing for his son for years and years - and running off to Athens, where Percy could have welcomed him. Yet, he could have never betrayed his country like that, the place where he was born and where he'd grown up and become a warrior, so he had accepted. "And it's not about that we should talk about."
"I know" he whispered, almost hoping she would not hear. He touched the back of his neck in a spontaneous gesture, right where she had hurt him during the crypteia, the final test young Spartans had to pass to become adults, with a weapon she had probably taken from a helot she had already killed, and where, now, a big reddish scar stood out. "And I also know we've not been chosen for our past. We've gained this place. We've completed all the tests."
The young woman chuckled. "I'm afraid we have been chosen because our people fear that something bad might happen to the former kings' families. This is a test too and they will keep us here as long as we survive" she explained, her voice almost breaking. "Haven't you thought about that? They would have never given this place to a woman, if they had the possibility not to do so. And neither to a child." She moved towards one of the walls as she studies the tapestry that had been hung on it maybe decades before, a picture showing the murder of a rebel slave at the hands of a high-ranking spartan citizen.
"And haven't you ever thought that, maybe, our people have only chosen us for our qualities? Reyna, we were the best at the army camp and we've fought side by side for years. Everybody knows we can move well together and that we are great warriors and strategists" he replied, almost offended by the girl's words. It couldn't be true, right?
Reyna shook her head vigorously, her dark strands of hair waving on each side of her face. "You know Athens and Thebes are at our throat, and Cretes is snapping at our feet. We- we have enemies from all the sides and friends nowhere. This is a death sentence." She sighed, taking a step towards him. "Jason," she called him, "our heads will be the first to fly."
"And do you really think there's nothing we could do to... save us?" he asked as, trying to look as natural as possible, he took off his heavy golden armour, putting it down, next to dozens of swords and shields that, from that point forward, would be theirs. He looked up to meet Reyna's pitch-coloured look, who was looking at him with a mixture of compassion and disgust.
She shook her head. "We can only hope to defeat our adversaries before they kill us. And that is highly unlikely - Thebes has become really important lately and its army has strengthened more and more. We have to put the security of the city first, can't you understand?"
Jason took a step towards her, curious and disappointed by her pessimism at the same time. "But Spartan hoplites are the most powerful warriors throughout Greece. I'm sure our enemies are at a disadvantage as regards the army." Jason said. Among the many things that had been taught to him before the crypteia, Spartan military force was one of the most important ones: Jason should be happy to live in this city - he had been lucky -, as it was the most powerful throughout Greece. Sparta could rule and win over anything.
"That myth was dispelled years ago, Jason," Reyna replied, getting closer in turn, "when Pelopidas and Epaminondas defeated us." She was getting closer every word she said, and, at the end of the sentence, there was only one or two steps between her and Jason. Jason was almost able to hear her heartbeat, from there. "We are not immortals."
The young man winced when, with a fluid movement, Reyna took his hand, holding it in hers, as they once did every day. She's not forgotten. "Yet" he insisted, "I've seen you do impossible things. You- You led one of the most difficult battles in the history, Reyna. You helped to treat all the wounded. You didn't sleep for days to take care of our people. You are one of the best leaders I've ever met. I- Can't you remember?"
Reyna went stiff and dropped his hand. "I thought we had talked about forgetting those days" she murmured, looking away and blushing a bit. Jason blushed too, because he knew that what she had said was true. Years before, when they had said goodbye by necessity, they had agreed on the fact that they would never think about their history anymore, that it was over and that, even though it had been nice to spend all those years together, they should have married who their families had already decided. Jason was a pure-blooded Spartiate, while Reyna's father was a slave and she was the love child of one of the most important families in the city - never could they be together.
"Have you forgotten?" he asked, the knot getting tighter and tighter every passing second. The young woman raised her head, looked in his eyes for a moment and then, almost timidly, shook her head no. Jason nodded at that gesture. "Neither I have" he sighed. And how could he? The nights he had spent with her had been the best nights of his entire life. "We're far too young to die. I won't let them kill us."
"I really hope we'll find a way." The girl's eyes showed the same fervour they had years before, when, without a tear, she had complied with the tests that had led her to her adulthood. Jason knew Reyna was a warrior - he had always known - and that she would not surrender to anything. When he had met her, they were nothing but children, yet, after almost sixteen years, she hadn't changed at all: the same determination in her eyes, the same will, the same strength, the one able to influence anyone who was faced with her.
The young man brushed with his fingertips his blonde hair which, until that moment, was hidden under the helm that, after so much time, he had learned to hold. "We will" he claimed and, for a moment, he believed it: he and Reyna, the woman he had long ago learned to love, would fight together for one last and decisive time, with confidence, courage and loyalty, those qualities they had been taught to be the fundamental ones; they would defeat their enemy and they would gain the confidence of their country. Jason's body trembled in an urge of euphoria, electricity going through him to his guts. "We've always handled it. We're not alone."
"You're always been really optimistic" she responded, suppressing the shy smile that was showing up on her face. Jason wondered why she was doing so - Reyna was beautiful when she was smiling, her features softening and her look brightening in affection instead of anger or thirst for revenge.
The young man nodded. "That's true" he admitted, smiling slightly, "Since I was a child. Maybe because the people I was encircled by have always made me believe in myself, and made me believe that the more I grown up, the more I'd become mature, better."
"I guess you still believe it."
"I believe there have been some experiences that have changed me for the better, yeah" he answered, sincerely, "That there have been some people that have made me mature." Jason took another step towards Reyna, taking her hands in his just like she had right before. He squeezed them as hard as he could while, with his thumb, he was drawing little circles on the back of her hands. We have not forgotten. He got even closer, their faces brushing. Jason was able to distinguish the girl's pupil from her iris, from there, and he was able to see the colour of his own eyes, a celestial light blue, reflected into the dark holes hers were. "I- I miss you, Reyna."
His partner stared at him without fear, still, waiting for any sign from him before doing anything. "We have both changed, Jason. I don't know if it could work again."
The atmosphere was cold and suffocating at the same time. You could hear every single movement of the young man and woman, body against body, every single particle of theirs trying to escape that situation that took them back to their first kiss, to their first night together and to their first I love you. Still, neither of them wanted to leave; neither wanted to interrupt that magic moment in which old feelings and senses were coming back vehemently, destroying everything existing at that time.
Jason pressed his face against Reyna's, making their noses brush. He was even able to sense the flavour of her lips, a bittersweet he knew even too well, and to feel the smell of her silky skin, that smelled like roses and blood.
"Give me one last kiss" he whispered.