A terrible day for rain.

Everyone was busy in the Empire's capital. The people were just getting their sacks of fruits and vegetables as the soldier began their inspections around the city square. Gray clouds drifted above Constantinople, the proud, pristine white buildings looked like washed-out steel with the shrouded sunlight.

Despite the heavy, humid feeling around the capital, one person seemed to be rejoicing. Herakles. The son of the once two greatest empires in the world was now a handsome, seventeen-year-old young man. He was enthralled by his newest hunt that day: a large stag back in the mountains of his mother. Now, he traveled back to Constantinople to show his mother what he had done that day. The mere thought of showing his kill to his mother just made him excited and had him hurry back to the capital...

"Mother...?" A young man gently entered the chambers. Enter Alexander, the personification of the Byzantine Empire. Alexander was the youngest child of Greece and Rome, but he was more powerful than his brothers Lovino and Herakles. The Byzantine Empire was at its peak during those years. And of course, his emperors wanted no hindrances to their plans...

Aglaia was on the chair overlooking the city square. Underneath all the bejeweled accessories and gilded silk clothing she was wearing, the personified Ancient Greece looked sallow and skinny. Her cheeks did not have their usual pinkish glow. Her eyes were held by pouches of dark circles. She was horribly sick. Even her son could not bear to look at her for just a minute. Even so, the young woman reached for Alexander's face, rather blindly as her sight was already filmed with an invisible veil. She smiled, through the pain, in her heart and in her body.

"My little Alexander~" She murmured with an energy of feather. Even if it was weak, he could feel the warmth in her bone-dry voice. Her skinny hands felt his face. Very briefly, life came back to her skin. Alexander held her frail hand tightly.

"Alexander... Has Herakles come home?" she asked, coughing up afterwards. A sentence could only expend so much energy.

He did not answer her for a long minute. "He will be here, Mother. I promise..." He spoke softly.

Aglaia turned and looked at the window. It looked like a large, glowing square from her eyes. She just smiled again.

Alexander wiped the sheen of sweat off her forehead with his palm. "Do you want me to carry you?"

Aglaia barely shook her head. "No... No need, my little child... Mama is too weak... Cannot even stand..."

Her revelations struck serrated knives into his heart. But he smiled and tried to joke their way out of the predicament.

"You do not want your little baby to carry you? Come on, Ma. You need fresh air..."

But Aglaia seemed to be far away. She was just staring at the family portrait. A mosaic with her, Rome, Romano, Herakles, and Alexander. She smiled and lifted her hand, as if she was trying to reach for the portrait on the wall. Then she gasped in pain; the momentary feeling of happiness replaced by a sharp, brittle noise of her spine. Her teal eyes were wide. She could not scream even if she wanted to. Alexander held her tightly but his eyes showed no shock. More of pity. More of regret. He knew what was happening...

"What... What are you doing!?" Herakles tried to stop the soldiers from trampling the scholars and scribes. They were moving at the command of the Emperor Justinian, who just closed the Academy, the last artifact of the Antiquity.

Herakles knew that the Academy was the only thing that kept his mother alive. Without it...

"No, no, no! Stop that! No! Don't! Don't you dare desecrate this place!" Herakles panicked and kicked angrily at the Byzantine guards. He desperately hugged one of the pillars of the building. "Mother will die! MOTHER WILL DIE!"

The guards only snickered and pulled him away from the area. "What do you mean 'mother', little rat? This piece of brick junk is the reason Byzantine still won't progress! To hell with the olden times!"

The soldier's words rang clear in his mind. Anger boiled inside Herakles, propelling him to punch the soldiers who came at him. Unprepared, the soldiers staggered but then their anger quadrupled against his. They punched and kicked him right there on the ground.

"CRAZY COLONIAL! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!" They taunted, leaving the bloodied young man on the hot afternoon ground.

For a moment there was only silence. Heat radiated into his skin, transpiring sweat from every pore of his body. His eye was shut close. His hands were swollen. Herakles groaned as he rolled over to face the blazing sun.

"Mother..." Herakles looked up and saw his haloed mother. No sallow cheeks. No dull lips. No sickly body. Just the healthy, divinely beautiful woman he always looked up to. It drifted away from him, the lovely image of his mother he so desperately wanted to again, until it disappeared into the forest.

"Mother... Mother needs me..." Herakles tried to get up and almost fell down, if not for the tree he had wrapped his arms around. One long hum from its bark and a face appeared next to him. A dryad.

"She's waiting for you. You must hurry!"

His shut eye opened. Both of his teal eyes were burning, filled with determination. Even if it would take him crawling and running, he would could come back to her...

Aglaia opened her eyes but it was just as useful as they were closed. She tried to blink the blindness away but everything was just covered in a thick, black gossamer.

"Alexander? Are you there, my child?"

No one answered. For a moment she felt panic. She called out again. "Alexander!"

"Mother." Finally he called back. But he was not in her reach. Alexander blended with the shadows of the room, away from his well-lit mother. He was standing on the dark corner, eyes red from crying.

"Thank the gods, you are still here, my dear..." It was so obvious she felt relieved. Tears were welling up her eyes now. "I thought you were gone." She tried to walk to where she pinpointed his voice but she just crumpled to the ground.

"Mother!" He exclaimed, letting go of the dagger he was hiding from her.

He cradled his head with his hand while his other held onto hers tightly. "Oh Mother... Please do not do that again! You are... You are weak!"

She weakly dismissed his plea. "Hush. I am your mother. I will be strong for you even if my body is not. I will stay strong for all of you!"

The sudden change in her voice terrified Alexander. He shook his head in reply. "Mother... Mother, let me take care of you..." His hand caressed her cheek gently but it was held once again by her bony digits.

"Oh, my dear... You are young. I do not want to be a burden to youćƒ¼" She gasped. The pain grew hotter and hotter inside her. "Where... Where are your brothers?"

"They would be here... Mother... Mother, let me take care of you..." He repeated once again. He was kissing her hand, as passionate as a child could to his mother. Just then, she felt the warm tears streaming down his face.

"Why... Why are you crying, kukla? Is something wrong?"

"Mother, I am so sorry!" He finally broke down, hugging the confused woman and sinking her frail body into his chest. "Mother... Mother, forgive me..."

There she felt it. The blunt point of the silver knife against her back. One second, she felt shocked. Almost betrayed. But it dawned on her. She just smiled against his chest.

Her own son. The son she had promised to protect. Her own son wanted to save her. To save her from pain and despair. Tears had found their way out of her eyes as well.

"Alexander, take care of your brothers... Tell them... Tell them I am so... so sorry..." Sobs joined her weak whispers. They moaned in unison, moaned for the coming dread.

"Take care of them for me..."

Aglaia looked up. She pressed her face close to his. She was smiling. Smiling but crying. "I am so sorry, my dear... I cannot see you grow older... I cannot see you grow old with your brothers..." she coughed once again.

"Mama is tired..." She continued. "Your Papa... I will see him again..." She exhaled and closed her eyes. "Please make me see him again, my dear..."

Alexander just looked at her. For once, he finally understood how cruel the gods could be. The irony of saving his mother. To save her was to kill her. His hand the dagger in its hold once again. The point pressed against Aglaia's back.

"Take me to... Take me to your father, my dear... Take me to him... I miss him so much..." She silently begged, patting his hair weakly.

The Academy was in ruins. All the scholars were forced out of the last treasure of the Antiquity. The last of her legacy. A knife, laced with fresh blood, stained the expensive Persian rug.

Alexander held the lifeless body of his mother. He walked down the corridors of the palace, his vision swimming from the tears. Tears that stained his mother's clothing. Tears that diluted the blood on her clothing. The blood in his hands. They stained the trail of his footsteps outside the palace.

Herakles met his brother at the steps of the palace. He had completely forgotten about the stag that he just hunted. He was as still as the dead woman in her brother's arms until he realized...

"Mother... Mother!" Herakles hurried, pushing Alexander away and resting the still-warm corpse in his arms. The young man repeated her name, calling her again and again.

"NO! MOTHER! COME BACK TO ME MOTHER, NO! HADES BRING HER BACK TO ME! NO! MOTHER NO!"

Up above Olympus, Zeus's thunderbolts grumbled. The wailing arias of the two siblings finally filled the air.

And in the distance, the lonely howl of a wolf reverberated deep in the forests of Italy, mourning with the rain that poured down the skies.