Another warning! There will be mention of mass infant murder. If you are religious or have read the book of Exodus, you know about what I speak of.

Also another warning of Lemon flavored pie that has been poorly baked. Still not good at it.

Unknown: Age of Perseus

A Freed Slave

Eurydite felt happy to be back in Argos after three weeks of being in Athens. She walked through her home three days after returning as the sun reached the highest point in the sky. She was happy to be home, but at the same time she was very saddened as her daughter became closed off from her. Ever since that night, Antiope had distanced herself from Eurydite and when returning home she had stayed in her room.

She knew it wasnt just the truth that bothered Antiope, but when Lycus told her of Maia, she had stopped talking. She refused to talk to anyone and the few times a day Eurydite would check on her daughter during the day, she would find the girl curled up on the bed either staring out the window or sleeping holding on to her father's cape. Somehow Eurydite understood a little of what Antiope felt.

Knowing of her own relationship with her father, she knew that when Ares saved Antiope from something terrible, she had started to idolize him. Eurydite could relate as she had done this at some point with Hades. She still idolized Hades in some strange way, but how could she not? The same went for Antiope and Ares.

"Mother?" Lycus caught her sttention as he came into the common room of the house while she stood there thinking. She looked to her son who had just come in looking like an honor guard.

"I was just thinking about your sister." She said to him with a sad smile. It always seemed their family, what ever it may be now, was always tragic in some way and now she knew Antiope was the target of fate. "She still hasn't spoken a word to us."

"Give it time, Mother. I'm sure she will come around." Lycus said as if he truly knew his sister, but honestly he barely knew her. She was timid and soft, completely opposit from his own character. He was a warrior with little understanding of women to begin with. "I think." Eurydite saw his worried expression and walked to him, putting a hand on his clean shaven face. He was still a boy in her eyes.

"You haven't been around Antiope long enough to know how stubborn she can be. When she hurts, she hurts deeply and its very hard to get her up from her pain." She dropped her hand from Lycus face as she looked at his uniform. "Draco let you join then?"

"Yes. I figured I could make myself useful. I have never not had anything to do and idleness drives me insane." Lycus told her with a smile as she adjusted his pins.

"It suits you." She moved her fingers down to smooth out the salmon colored chiton underneath the leather. "Draco is a good commander so listen to him well. He has been around demigods since he was a boy, so he knows what you are capable of, Lycus."

"You taught him how to use a sword?" Lycus asked her as she nodded upon remembering years ago when she had first met Draco.

"I taught him the basics. The rest was Solon and many years of service." Eurydite smiled at her son before moving to exit the room. "I need to go to the palace. Would you escort me there?" She grabbed a red shawl and wrapped it around herself, the color of her grey sleeveless gown making it brighter.

"Of course, Mother." Lycus said as she led him from the house and through the garden. He opened the gate for her and they both walked through it on to the street. "I had every king offer me something after the games. Women, wealth, a leadership position in their armies, but after being a soldier slave for so long, none of that mattered to me more than the right of chosing for myself." He said as they walked the street to the palace. He saw the sea clearly from where his mother's home was and cherished the view.

"Egypt was harsh on you?" His mother asked him, but he couldn't give a clear answer. If she would see the scars on his body she would never forgive herself.

"When I was a boy, they didn't care if you were young or weak. They would train you hard and if you couldn't keep up, you were whipped and then you were forced to train harder." Sometimes he could still feel the lash of a whip on his back or the feeling of fingers grabbing his hair and beating him with a rod. He was tolerant to pain, maybe because he was a demigod, but he was still human even if just a little bit. "Sometimes we all went without food or water until the weak ones died. The rest of us were forced to drag their bodies out to the river and watch the crocodiles eat them. We were told it would make us stronger." He explained as his mother listened silently knowing she was blaming herself. "A thousand boys between the ages of four and ten rounded up, by the time I was seven, there were only fifty of us that survived. Then more boys were brought in and everything started over again, only I was older and one of the best, so I was the one to carry out the sentance."

"And their king didn't care?" Eurydite asked her son as she knew so many kings did what they could for power.

"Pharoah is a God to the Egyptians. He is the mortal form of their God, Amun, but I know he is just a man. Whatever he wants, he does for his people and because they believe he is Amun." Lycus explianed how the Egyptians worshiped their pharoah. "Because only Amun can enslave a foreign goddess." He looked at her when saying the words and she understood who he spoke of as they got to the palace steps.

"I don't blame her." Eurydite couldn't blame her sister for what happened when she blamed herself. It seemed over the last sixteen years of peace she had become softer and passive to everything. Even her own faults and she supposed it was because she had learned to pick out her own faults. If her father saw her now she was sure he would look on her sadly at what she had become.

"Mother, you can not blame yourself either. What happened to me and to you happened then and its over now. I'm no longer a slave to Egypt, but free to chose my own life and do what I want." He stopped and put his hands on her shoulders to make her understand hopefully. "Being a slave, made to kill and enslave others, wasn't enjoyable. It was torture. The one thing that made me keep going was the thought of meeting you again." She could see the haunted look in his eyes.

"What did you see?" She asked him. He had seen something terrible in order for that look to be there.

"They call themselves Hebrews and worship a God that I have never heard of before, but they are many and they are slaves." He licked his lips and took his hands from her shoulders as he looked down. Eurydite put her hand on her son's arm to comfort him. The horrors of Egypt were many it seemed. "Ten years ago, Pharoah sent his army to Pythom, where all the Hebrews were kept. As a way to harden us up, we went too witness what was to take place there. One by one male children under the age of four were ripped from their mother's arms and slaughtered in front of them. I can still remember the howls and screams of agony. That night we were forced to do something I will not say to you." To many this would be an unspeakable horror in Greece, but in Eygpt, the Gods demanded it.

"Now I understand why Melinoe stays in Egypt." All those innocent children murdered because a man had too much power and thought himself a God. "I understand."

"I know of many other things, but I won't tell them to you here." Lycus said to her as he began to walk away from her as she followed a step behind as the doors to the palace opened.

As Eurydite walked through the halls following her son, she could not even begin to comprehend what he had witnessed during his time in that miserable place. If something like that were to happen here, then she knew exactly where that king would end up and perhaps that Pharoah would end up chained to the icy walls of the Cocytus as a giant. She did not know. However, Eurydite's thoughts stopped when she saw Andromeda coming around the corner with a sad smile.

"Andromeda?" The girl saw Eurydite and ran to her, embracing her in a tight hug. The princess looked up at her best friend's mother who treated her better than her own mother.

"Eurydite, where is Antiope?" Eurydite looked to her son and nodded for him to leave as she let go of the princess.

"I will see you at diner, Mother." Lycus said before walking away to meet with Draco. Eurydite looked down at the girl she had helped to raise in some way and moved a lock of dark hair out of the girls face.

"She is in her room and still refuses to come out." Andromeda looked at Eurydite with sad eyes. She had already tried to get Antiope to talk to her during the ride home, but her friend just stared ahead as she held on to that fur lined cape. "What about you?"

"I was just going to see her. I miss her terribly." Andromeda said sadly as she looked down to her feet.

"I think she misses you too, but she is dealing with something that she has to come out of on her own. We can not force her and we can not help her." Eurydite new Ares was probably the only one who could get Antiope to come out of her room, but the question was if he wanted to. She knew him differently than the rest of the world and she knew he treated her better than he ever did any of his other consorts in the past. Its possible that he may feel the same of Antiope as he did his other children, but there was a chance he would love Antiope more. "Come to diner tonight if you can." Eurydite told the princess as she put a hand on her shoulder.

"I can't. My parents are having another party." If Cepheus would spend more time feeding and caring for his people instead of throwing parties then maybe the Gods would be more graceful. " I habe to go get ready now. Will you be there?" The princess asked the demigoddess and got a shake of the head as an answer.

"I must stay with Antiope. Lycus will be there after diner for sure. Make him feel welcome." Eurydite said with a smile as Andromeda turned to walk away. "Give your parents my regards."

After diner that night, Eurydite found herself alone on the patio looking out at the sea as the waxing moon rose into the sky. The breeze was warm and she almost felt like she was being embraced by it. Then she realized she was being embraced from behind as she could smell his scent as he became real. She leaned against him as she began to tear up.

"You're alive." Ares said with a strained voice as he was struggling with his emotions as he held her. He had one hand on her stomach and the otheron her hip as he kissed the side of her head. "They dragged me away from you. Kept me away." She turned around in his arms and looked up to see his face. He looked just as broken as she had been, but there was an anger in his eyes that was unlike anything she had ever seen in him.

"Don't talk." She reached up to kiss him putting her hand on his cheek and feeling the texture of his beard. She missed everything about him from his touch to the way he felt inside her and she ached for it. "Take me to bed." She pulled away and looked up at him again before he picked her up and walked into her room from the patio. They made quick work of eachother's clothes as they lay scattered about on the floor while the two of them were in bed.

He had begun to kiss every inch of her body as he had missed every bit of her. He started on her face then down her neck as his fingers played with her sensitive areas making her toes curl and making her produce little gasps of pleasure. He made to kissing on her neck and made his way down to between her breasts, which had changed since he had last seen her.

Ares smiled against her skin as she grabbed his head as he got lower and lower. She gasped as he went as low as he could while gripping her hips and one of her hands reached up to grip the headboard of the bed while the other was gripping into his hair. She almost cried out when she remembered Antiope was in the room next door so she struggled to keep her voice quiet as she reached her high.

When she came down from whatever high she was in, he crawled up to lay next to her and pulled her to him as he laid on his side and grabbed her behind the knee to lift her leg to hook it around his hip as he entered her and rolled her to her back not soon after. Eurydite smiled as he looked at her and then kissed her.

Ares watched her sleep once again after their love making. Eurydite was wrapped up tightly in his arms and he wondered if she had changed any. He was sure she did since she finally had a chance to raise another child. Her body had certainly changed and he knew it well enough to notice the slight stretch marks on her hips from pregnancy and the way her breasts felt when he touched them. He had missed her more than he had ever missed anyone or anything. It scared him really. For the first time ever, he was afraid of something. He was afraid of losing Eurydite and not only her but their children too.

Maybe he was becoming too human now, but if that was the price to pay for loving Eurydite, then so be it. He would do anything to keep her with him forever, anything. Even if it meant losing his status as a God. Or losing his power. He laid there listening to his beloved breathe as he held her and when her breathing changed he knew she was awake.

"Don't ever leave me again." Eurydite said sleepily as she grabbed hold of his forearm and held on to it. "I will chain you here if I have to."

"Hmm...Id like to see you try." He said smiling as he closed his eyes and put his cheek to rest behind her ear. "I'm already chained to you." He lifted his head to kiss the back of her head and then let go of her to get up.

"Where are you going?" Eurydite grabbed his wrist as he made to stand and he looked over to see thst she had rolled on to her stomach.

"I'm going to see about my cape." He said with a serious look in his eyes as she let him go he picked up his chiton from the floor and put it on before leaning over the bed to kiss Eurydite. "I'll be back." He told her before walking out of the room and down the stairs to Antiope's room.

When he walked in she was laying on her side and seemed to be sleeping, but he saw her slight freezing up as he walked to her bed. Just like Ares thought, she was awake and clutching on to his cape as if it were a lifeline. He walked around the bed and looked down at her before he kneeled before her. She looked at him blankly as he put his hand on top of her head to caress her hair, which was tangled and messy. She was hurting. He grabbed the hand that was holding his cape tightly and held it.

"Antiope." As soon as he spoke her name some life had come back into her eyes and they moved to look on his face and she held some recognition as her eyes met his. "You can not stay in this dark place forever."

"Maybe I want to." She whispered out and he squeezed her hand. She was broken because she had learned what men can do and will do. She had also learned that he would be there for her in some way. "Maybe its peaceful there."

"No place dark is peacful, just silent and deafening at the same time." Ares knew what he spoke of because he had been in that dark place for over sixteen years. "After a while, you will yell and scream to be let out, but no one will hear you because you went too far." She blinked at him and then tears came to her eyes as she realized who was talking to her.

"Father?" She asked as she started to cry. She had waited years to learn about her father and when she finally knew the truth she had been terrified that she was just another abandoned demigod, but when he had answered her cries for help as men began to touch her, she was no longer terrified. She was thankful that he had come.

"Yes." He looked at her closer this time as she cried. She looked just like her mother but she had his eyes and his stubborn streak. Otherwise she wouldn't be refusing to talk or eat this long. Ares took his hand from her head to wipe her tears away as gently as he could. "I'm here. Whenever you need me." He let of her hand and stood up before leaning down to kiss her on the top of the head. "Keep that as long as you need it." He gestured to his cape that she held on to before he left her to return to Eurydite.

Ares had many children, some of them he even liked while most of his children didn't seem to care to much about him. The children he had with mortal women were long dead and he had mourned them in his own way, but Lycus and Antiope were different. Because of their mother. He truly loved their mother.

Ares the God of War was willing to burn the world down for his wife, the half mortal daughter of Hades.

Okay, now, here is my problem, I can either go straight to the beginning of Clash in the next chapter, or do the next chapter about what happened with Draco's daughter...I will probably decide as soon as I get started on it and then erase then start again.

Fact: As mentioned in the time line, upon doing a bit of research on Egypt, many religious people and deists believe that the Exodus took place in the Rameses era of Egypt and this was around the same time as the Mycenean era of Greece began ie...Perseus' beginning.