Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 300 belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.
When he was thirteen, Apollo Far Striker sent him a dream.
He understood little of it. There had been a tower, a battle, and people whose features and dress were stranger than anything he had ever seen. They had spoken in a language he did not know, and the fighting had been desperate and merciless. Then the air had rent apart with a noise and a light that was like hearing and seeing pain, and evil had come into the world through that wound space.
The one thing he had seen clearly, the one thing that he remembered about that dream that did not fade and could not be forgotten, was her.
Her hair was more gold than gold. Her eyes were greener than the Egyptians' malachite.
He would remember her falling for the rest of his life.
When he woke, he lay sweating in his bedroll, unnoticed by the other boys as they slept. But he was not alone in the dark, for Apollo Loxias whispered in his ear.