Bouquet

(C) Intelligent Systems and Nintendo

-0-

Planting Dragon Teeth: Convolvulus, York and Lancaster Rose, Snowdrop
(bonds formed during war make for interesting friendships)

As the fog cloaked the camp, Pent read his correspondence with help from the dimming light of his lantern. As befitting a man of some military discipline, he patiently endured the reports Raike had sent him, although he had to admit that he received more pleasure reading them now than he did when he was at home. He supposed this was out of some nostalgia for that place, though he could not call it a real longing for home quite yet--it had only been two months since he was first sent out here, and with his duties and concerns he hadn't really given himself the time to miss Reglay.

After the last word of the last report, he put it aside and very calmly reached for Louise's missive, the one thing he had been wanting to read ever since he had seen it arrive with his mail. They had developed a strict schedule of replies; he would send a letter, and it would take a week to reach Reglay. She would respond, and her answering letter would take a week to arrive to him. While he admired his new steward's rigid discipline in sending weekly reports without prompting, he far preferred Louise's more whimsical retellings of her time in his home, from her journeys out of the castle to the pastries she was learning to make--I understand that you care little for overly sweet cakes, my lord, but I do hope you'll indulge me by trying some once you return home, he read, half-smiling at the thought. In his mind he was already composing a reply--You remember well, but I would be remiss if I forgot to add that the cake you made at the conclusion of our joined birthdays as being fairly mild. Knowing this, I would be happy to try whatever you put in front of me--and his smile widened. It was the truth, of course, but he knew the sentiment would make her happy and he already looked forward to her response to that.

Now, if only they were sitting beside each other right now, and could immediately speak and make replies as they thought them instead of having to wait two weeks to return to a conversation too light and mild to be stretched out indefinitely, that would be ideal.

The pleasant uptick in his mood dimmed as he read her account of tea with the daughters of some viscount he could barely remember; she always wrote in what seemed to be a light, airy mood, but reading between the lines revealed that she had not had a good time. Given that the passage was only a few lines long when normally she liked to go into detail about this or that, and suddenly he felt apprehensive. This was exacerbated by the fact that he couldn't travel back home as if he were merely vacationing in the summer manor in southern Reglay or at his townhouse in Aquleia, leaving him with a feeling of disquiet even as Louise herself went on to discuss her exploration of the castle town incognito alongside her sister-maid. Any response he could make would be two weeks delayed, and the incident had already occurred two weeks prior; a reaction a month late might as well never have been executed in the first place.

He had made his choice, independent of what feelings he held for her. He could not regret it now.

When he finished with her letter, he carefully folded it and placed it aside on his little working table, knowing that no one would dare enter his tent. His commander and vice-commander--though he wished he no longer had to call them such, not after discovering what they considered to be brilliant Etrurian tactics--would be leaving for the weekly supply run tomorrow, leaving him with at least a couple days of fresh air. He never thought he would enjoy being a sole leader until he had come here, and perhaps that was a good thing.

Mood thus stabilized, he went to bed after dousing his lantern and fell asleep easily enough, dreaming of seas of gold and spirits that flamed bright lavender as they spoke about profiteroles and petites madeleines and éclairs.

He woke up feeling a little out of sorts, but who wouldn't with dreams like that?

-0-

"Captain!"

Pent turned, somewhat alarmed that anyone would call him with such a sense of urgency in their voice. The thought of a battle looming in the very near future gripped him, though the fact that he was the head command for the time being actually relieved him of his greatest concern, that he would have to stand down again for no good reason at all and leave their allies in the lurch. But it seemed to have nothing to do with fighting at all; there was only a young man with wild brown hair, probably no older than Pent himself, running to him with hands upraised as if the young man were invisible otherwise.

"Yes, what is it?" Pent asked when the young man was close enough to hear without making it necessary to raise his voice. They were already drawing looks as it was, especially when the other man bent over in apparent exhaustion once he reached Pent.

"Whew...I hate running...anyway." Straightening up, the young man pointed over his shoulder towards the direction he had run from. "Captain, we need one more person to help us set up a tent over there."

Pent tried not to frown at this. "I would think all the tents were already in place."

"Uh, well, it kind of was, but it tipped over just now a little bit..."

"A little bit?"

The young man blushed. "A lot, okay? Nestor and I got it upright, but we need someone tall like you to fix it up right from the inside. So..."

"All right, I'll assist you."

After he said this, Pent noticed how much the other man brightened up in response--somehow, he had the feeling that uplift in mood would last until he inquired as to how the tent managed to tip over, as there wasn't even a breeze since the morning fog had cleared. However, he figured he could be lenient so long as he was unable to observe a rise in tent collapses. Without a word, they came to the site of the fallen tent, where an older man--perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, in Pent's estimation--was pounding stakes into the rocky ground. This Nestor, if Pent was correct, looked surprised when he noticed them approaching.

"Thomas," Nestor said with the same tone of disapproval Pent had once heard quite often during his school days--aimed at other students, of course, "you shouldn't trouble the captain with a trifling matter like this."

"But the captain was the only person who didn't start laughing and walk away!" Thomas protested, to which the older man stared without any mercy in his eyes or the cast of his angular features. At this point, Pent decided to intercede, if only on behalf of the tent.

"You needn't worry about it. This sort of work is important, too." Nodding towards the flattened tent, Pent asked, "What do you need me to do?"

"The frame on the inside of the tent will need to be adjusted. Thankfully, this is an unused tent, but it may see use in the coming weeks." Pent could only raise an eyebrow at these words; he hadn't any idea that new soldiers would be arriving soon, but perhaps this Nestor had stayed with this campaign long enough to know these things. After driving the last stake through, Nestor stood up, running one hand through his dark blond hair. "I appreciate your willingness to help, Captain."

"Don't mention it," Pent said with a smile. "Let's begin."

-0-

"I want a report from that woman about her squad's recent activities," was the order Pent received from his commander during the lull between letter and reply, and he had to admit that being given an order in such a rude and unsatisfying way did not improve his mood any. It was the kind of order that improved nothing by it being spoken: not the commander, who was disrespectful; not the commanded, who felt disrespected; not the last who would be ordered by proxy, because Commander Leto was certainly not seeking improvement from any Etrurian and had made that very clear by now.

So ordered, Pent approached the pegasus knight compound, adjacent to the Etrurian camp while at the same time completely separated from it. How this had been managed without solid brick or stone walls he hadn't any idea, but he'd never heard of any Etrurian lingering by the boundary of a simple wooden fence or, for that matter, even attempting to talk to any of the pegasus knights. The feeling between the two camps was as frosty as any of the winters he had spent as a fosterling child in his grandfather's home, up north near the Ilian border. As he had not sufficiently developed his magical abilities at that time, Pent could still remember well the sting of winter winds and the dull numbness that set into the skin and sunk deep into the flesh, though they were from a distant time. For this reason alone, even now that neither cold nor hot weather bothered him to such an extreme degree, he still kept away from overly cold weather.

If only he could keep from entering overly cold situations as well, he thought with some bitterness.

By the simple gate there was a pegasus knight, who looked impossibly young to be carrying a lance with her as she demurely stood in place; her bobbed dark blue hair, coupled with her round, pale face, gave her a childish appearance that, he imagined, not even the heat of the battle could change. Louise, for all her bright smiles and effortless charm, could affect a womanly boldness in her throes of determination that were far beyond her purported fifteen years of life. When the young girl noticed him, her eyes lit up and a smile touched her lips before she visibly shook her head and became serious. "Good day to you, Captain," she greeted.

"Good day. May I speak with your commander?"

The young girl lowered her gaze. "Ah...um, I can do that. W-wait here." When she turned around and walked away, Pent couldn't help but think that he had just gotten her into trouble, a thought that soured his mood further. However much he didn't care for his own commander's feelings regarding the pegasus knights, he had to admit that Commander Leto was just as problematic.

He had not waited long before a figure began strolling towards him from within the light fog that was beginning to swirl around the tents, and soon he saw that it wasn't Commander Leto but one of her two vice-commanders. Her gray-purple hair was tied back in an elaborate braid and the look in her brown eyes was considerably kinder than any stare he had ever received from her commander's black eyes. She raised a hand as she drew near. "Captain, it's a pleasure to see you," she said with all the formality he had received from nobility back home.

"Pardon," he started, though he was wondering why he would even mention this, "but I'm here to receive a report from your commander about the recent movements of--"

"Yes, absolutely. I'm here to provide that."

Pausing at the unexpected interruption, Pent waited a moment before he said, "If I may inquire, why did she send you?"

A slight smile touched her lips, though the vice-commander's eyes no longer held their kindness. "Am I inadequate?"

"No, absolutely not," he hurried to soothe her. "Just...your commander seems like the type of person who would prefer to stand up to people whenever possible."

"Are you saying she's combative, Captain?"

"Only that she is very straightforward."

The gray-haired pegasus knight nodded slightly, wrinkles creasing her brow as she frowned. "I did not want to fulfill this part of the order I was given, but as you seem interested in knowing my commander's reasons, please let me do so now. My commander has told me to inform you that she does not wish to breathe the same air as a feckless, hypocritical teenage boy with the spine of a worm. You're like any other noble, with their pretty words and no guts to follow them through." She paused, then gave him a pitying look. "I had to alter some of that, but the meaning is the same."

"...Ah, I see." Pent exhaled through his nose, then looked down. He found that he was not angry at the words--he was not angry at all. That was why he could say, with complete sincerity, "I can't defend myself from those words. She isn't wrong to think that of me."

"Yes, but..." The vice-commander shook her head. "Can you really accept that? Don't you have any pride as a man?"

He looked at her, somewhat surprised at the heat behind her words. "It isn't the pride that I lack, but the conviction to bestow truth to my words. For that, I deeply apologize to your commander."

"Understood." Smiling now, she stretched out her hand. "My name is Gracia of Argos. As the first vice-commander of the second wing of the Pegasus Knights Brigade and newly-appointed liaison to your army, it's nice to meet you. Though our armies may have bad blood between them, we should do our best to get along."

"Pent, of Reglay. It's a pleasure to meet you as well." He took her hand, and something about the strength of her grip reminded him so keenly of Louise that the resulting weight of nostalgia nearly knocked the senses out of him. It was approaching late summer, and the wait for a new reply always made him somewhat disconsolate.

But, he reasoned as he let go of Gracia's hand, making new friends should ease that edge somewhat. Hopefully.

-0-

"Captain!"

Pent turned his head; the voice calling for him had sounded vaguely familiar. He was proved correct moments later when he saw one of the archers, a young man with wild, light brown hair, waving from where he sat with some other soldiers. It was lunchtime and Pent had his hands full with a plate of food, intending to take it back to his tent and work on his reply to Louise, but it would be rude of him to simply ignore or avoid someone calling specifically for him. He waited until the young man was near, all the while trying to remember where he had last seen him. "Thomas, correct?" he murmured aloud at a hazy memory from weeks ago.

"You remember me?" Thomas said, smiling widely and without reservation. "Great! Do you want to eat with us?"

Louise's letter, or improved army cohesion? It was a terrible choice, and Pent noticed that, the longer he hesitated, the more Thomas' smile began to waver. Forgive me, Louise, Pent thought before he nodded at the other man. "Sure."

Thomas grinned. "All right! Come this way, Captain!"

Bemused, Pent followed him, weaving around other groups of soldiers. Lunch was a great socializing period here, perhaps even moreso than at his old academy, because their command was adept at giving them busy work or training, and even more adept at punishment for any lack of discipline observed. Certainly that was fine, and to some extent expected, but Pent disliked that his commander preferred that Pent carry out the discipline, which in turn made him quite unpopular. This was why he usually ate in his tent.

But there was no escaping today, not even with the promise of Louise's letter, as he sighted the group Thomas had indicated before. There was that other man Pent vaguely remembered assisting, Nestor, as well as some others of various ages--most of them were as young as himself or Thomas, and a scant couple perhaps older than Nestor. It was that man who was first to see them, and first to speak these words: "Do you have to keep annoying the captain?"

"What? I'm not annoying him!" Thomas burst out at the same time Pent said, "No, I'm not annoyed." Thomas looked at him with wide eyes, then jabbed a finger towards him while exclaiming, "See, I told you!"

One of the other soldiers looked up from his bowl of stew and arched an eyebrow. "Oh, it's Captain Punishment. I'm just eating here, not doing anything wrong."

As much as he wanted to refute the man's claim regarding that nickname--no more appreciated than Commander Leto's--Pent knew that he had to accept certain realities regarding his actions; "I was commanded to do so," was not an effective defense by any means. His commander had made sure he understood that his duties to the army included overseeing 'offenders'--rather an arbitrary title from the way Pent had watched Commander Michael single out his victims--as they were forced to do laborious menial work better suited for a group of men, rather than a handful of them forced to complete it in a shockingly short amount of time. Pent especially hated that he could do nothing to ease their burden, forced only to watch as those being punished worked themselves to exhaustion. To do nothing but carry out his orders with perfect deference--as a noble, as a human being, that was not his way. He had to do it now, and that was why he was a...how was it put to him, a 'feckless, spineless so-and-so' and such?

(He would not let himself remember the actual insult; knowing that they were a censored version of the real thing left him feeling...troubled, at best. It goes without saying that he had omitted the incident when it came time to reply to Louise once again.)

"Leave him alone," said another soldier, giving him a brief apologetic look before redirecting his attention back to the other man. "We all know it's because of the commander. He was doing this with the other captains, too."

The first soldier looked up from his bowl. "So he's just the commander's bitch, then? That makes it better?"

Pent was not going to dignify that with an answer.

"Hey, stop it," Thomas interceded. "Remember what Nestor always says about 'acting in a manner that brings dignity to your position." Everyone scoffed at this, save for Pent and Nestor, the latter appearing a little put out at the reference. "Ah, speaking of dignity. Captain, you're a noble, right?"

It was no great secret, unlike the record of the crime his father and former steward committed. Pent inclined his head in agreement. "I am."

Thomas opened his mouth, but another young man spoke before he could get a word out. "Oh? You can't be that special if you got sent here. Maybe a second or third son?"

"Probably a bastard," the soldier with an apparent grudge muttered. Someone whistled in response. Pent smiled thinly.

"Hardly."

"Can I talk?" Thomas yelled, to which suspicious murmurs rose. After glaring until everyone quieted, he faced Pent. "I need to know which noble family has the hibiscus insignia. They're a military family, right? Who is it?"

"Well." There were a couple facts that stood out to Pent, but Thomas seemed too agitated to listen to a full explanation regarding the arcane symbolism inherent to heraldry. He considered, then said, "Noble families who have earned a title through exemplary military service are represented by a depiction of a tree, not a flower. That is limited to nobility who have been granted their titles due to other factors. As for the symbol itself...I'm not aware of any family that uses a...hibiscus, was it? Is that a foreign flower?"

"It's a tropical flower from the southern islands, but they've thrived in my county since before my grandpa's time."

"If it's common there, then is this family your local lord?"

Thomas shook his head. "No, I...I guess I'll explain. I'm from the western part of Etruria, right next to the rivers. I'm better with a bow than a fishing rod, so I used to go out hunting. Birds, the occasional doe or boar...my family's pretty big and Dad's got something wrong with his left arm so he can't work metal anymore, so since I'm the oldest I'd taken up the duties of providing for my family.

"One day, I went out with a couple friends to hunt up some game. This was before winter, so I was looking to take home something big. We traveled for days into another county, and we got into this forest. I sighted this huge boar and got separated from my friends chasing after it. When I finally shot it down..." He furrowed his brow, hair hanging over his face as he lowered his head. "I got arrested for stealing because the entire forest belonged to some big-shot noble, got sentenced to sixteen months of punishment, and sent here."

"You've been here since January, and it's already almost September now," said one of the soldiers. "Hang in there. You'll survive yet." Pent watched as Thomas tried to smile, although he could detect the stress in the young man's eyes.

How despicable, Pent thought. Arrested and burdened with such a terrible sentence for simply trying to feed his family? I don't understand this at all. I would have thought the king to be better than this...

Then, he realized that his thoughts were all wrong. A commoner like Thomas would never have had his case heard by the king. He had most likely had his fate left entirely in the hands of the noble who had accused him of the crime, this house of the hibiscus with considerable pull with a high-ranking military official. Something came to mind, and Pent hastened to share it. "Of course, if an established noble family has a member enter the military, the insignia would not change," he said.

"So then? Who is it?" To these questions, Pent could only shake his head.

"There are many noble sons who have positions in the military."

Thomas looked dejected, as did many of their audience. After some moments of mostly silence, where everyone had found time to focus on their food again, one of the group asked, "So, what about you, Captain? What's your crime?"

"Debauchery!" someone cried out before Pent could speak, prompting laughter. To this, he could only offer a weak smile and a shake of his head.

"Well, it has to be something good if you got sent all the way out here," someone else reasoned.

"Would you believe," Pent started, "that I'm merely accepting a punishment in the place of someone else?" This only gave an excuse for louder, more raucous laughter. Sighing inwardly, Pent returned to his cooling stew, noticing Nestor's piercing stare during the glance he gave to the crowd around him. But when he gave himself to his curious impulse and studied the older soldier, the other man had already lowered his head to his bowl and would not look up for anything at all.

-0-

It was already past the requisite two weeks of enforced waiting, and Pent had fully intended to distract himself as best as he could during the interval before this unexpected delay. The mail had arrived on time, so the problem was on Louise's end--a fact that made him even more anxious the more he dwelt upon it. It was no surprise that he dwelt upon it often, because all he had here was time.

"Is my report too boring for you?"

"No, not at all," Pent said automatically, glancing at Gracia's face before looking away. They were seated outside a tent in the pegasus knight area of the camp despite the lingering chill in the air; he had no interest in doing anything that would urge rumors into blooming, so to suggest going inside was out of the question.

A soft chuckle drew his attention back to her. "My report bores me. You already know about the skirmish last week, and since then we've not sighted any trouble. There, let's talk about something more interesting."

He smiled. "What would you like to discuss?"

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Pent studied her for a moment, trying to ascertain from her expression why she would ever broach that sort of topic. There was interest on her face, as well as a subtle amusement dancing in her brown eyes. "I'm engaged to marry," he answered slowly.

"An arranged marriage?"

"Not quite." It wouldn't do to explain the particulars, and his feelings now were--well, he had hardly the words to do them justice. When he was able to see Louise again, maybe then he could examine them without their distance enhancing their past with the tantalizing haze of nostalgia.

Grinning, Gracia shook her head. "I think I lost the bet, then."

"Pardon me?"

"We bet on what sort of 'romantic entanglement' you had, if any." She looked at him, her expression that of clear amusement. "None of us thought you were willingly engaged, though someone did think you were married already."

He wasn't so sure he was very amused by this. "And what was your supposition?"

"I thought...well, I thought you had no one at all."

"Do I seem so lonely?"

There was a slight pinkness to her pale face. "Not that, but just very self-possessed. Like you don't need anyone at all."

This was so far away from what Louise had assumed about him before their first meeting that Pent was momentarily stunned. "I am human, and humans are social beings," he responded. "Certainly even someone like myself would find comfort in another person."

"I've offended you, haven't I?" Waving a hand, she smiled at him. "Let's change the subject."

"How long have you been a pegasus knight?"

"Officially? Since I was eleven. I entered the third wing when I was sixteen, and became vice-commander there at eighteen. After my commander retired, I decided to work under the legendary Black Swan rather than embarrass myself in taking over my former commander's position." Perhaps his confusion was reflected on his face, for Gracia smiled widely at him. "That's Commander Leto's sobriquet. All the best pegasus knights have them."

Pent nodded. "I see. And what is yours?"

She laughed, a sudden burst of joy under the cloudy skies. "Well, that was smooth! I'm honored! But no, I'm not good enough to have one, and anyway I can't imagine what anyone would call me. 'The Lavender Death'?"

"Lavender?"

She held up a loose lock of her gray hair. "See? This is lavender."

The vivid color of Louise's eyes still haunted him at night, but he tried to be kind. "I see."

"The Black Swan...that's not such a bad name. It's intimidating, yet complimentary. But I always loved my first commander's name the best." Tucking back her hair behind one ear, then the other, Gracia smiled. "'Cyclone Amaranth.' It was perfect for her."

"What is an 'amaranth'?" Pent asked.

"A flower. You'll notice, if you ever get the chance, that many Ilian women have names of flowers, or things like 'Flora.'" Her smile tapered. "Her name means 'eternity,' but she quit long before she could have become a legend. She was going to be the next flightleader, the head of the entire Pegasus Knight Brigade, before she reached her twentieth birthday. I'd watch her on the battlefield dominating our enemies with but a single swing of her lance..." In her light eyes, there was a sorrowful look that made Pent uneasy to see it. He wanted to comfort her, but had no idea where to begin--what would be all right for him to do.

"You said she retired," was all he could think to say. Gracia nodded, head lowered.

"She received a small injury, a nick to her thigh by an arrow, and suddenly it was as if she realized her own mortality. She--I wouldn't call her a coward, I'd never say that, but she began to avoid battle until she suddenly retired and left to work in the pegasus knight office in Aquleia." Gracia's lips were one thin line. "She only talked to our general about it. She never even said a word to me."

Distinctly uncomfortable now, Pent said nothing at all. After a moment, Gracia seemed to notice, for she suddenly straightened up in her seat, something bright and vicious animating her delicate facial features.

"Never mind that! I won't call her a coward, but if I ever see her again, I'll call her a fool! We're told in training that, every time a pegasus knight falls from her pegasus, a hundred Ilians die. She may not have ever fallen from her pegasus, but she fell in her heart. That's even worse than dying! The day she left, I told myself that I'd never fall, not from my Melonie and never in my heart." She stood, drawing herself to her full height as she looked down at him. "You have to understand that too, Pent! Your pride and your conviction are what make you you. They're what build your integrity and make you a person worth following. You won't make your fiancée proud so long as you accept Commander Leto's words without even raising one word of objection!"

As Gracia was usually calm, this sudden ferocity was a shock to Pent, one that he took--he felt--surprisingly well. Spurred by the sudden emotional outpouring from her side, he said, "I haven't received a reply from her recently. It worries me. I can hardly inspire pride in her if I can't even contact her, correct?"

"...Um, that's..." Slumping down into her seat, Gracia seemed to have lost her fire. Her forearms lay limply in her lap as a troubled look crossed her face. "I don't know about the relationship you two share, if you're both truly devoted to each other or there's a sense of obligation, but if you're sincere about wanting to change then it shouldn't matter if you can talk to her or not. I'd think you'd always want to be the best man you can be, even when she's not watching."

"Ah," Pent said, suddenly embarrassed and unable to fully suppress it as his face grew warm. "I'm something of a fool, aren't I?"

Gracia smiled kindly, in such a way that seemed she was without judgment or pity, and he could not help but think that her name truly suited her.

-0-

It was in the middle of October when Louise's next letter arrived. It took every ounce of willpower he had to not open the thick envelope right there in front of the ferryman, but perhaps military life had taught him well in that aspect as well. Though, he still opened it before Raike's weekly report, just this once. Her letter was full of stories of her time spent back in her home county in time for the next archery tournament, how her paternal aunt and uncle and cousins had arrived in order to fully close the question regarding the inheritance of her father's lands. She wrote of days spent riding with her cousins and aunt, her awkwardness around the uncle she barely knew, and how it felt to practice archery alongside her aunt, who had first taught her to open her heart to that martial art. She apologized often about the lateness of her reply, how she wanted to collect enough material to last him for some time without boring him too quickly.

He read the letter twice beside the flickering light of his lantern, poring over every word written in that interesting hand where every letter that could accept circles and loops did, so that in the end her writing looked positively effervescent. In particularly animated passages he could almost catch the bright tones of her voice, high and cheerful and always backed with a smile.

But, he could only read the letter so many times before its effect began to fade. When it did, he set it down. Later, he would try to recapture that feeling, where warmth and lightness reigned over his normal frame of mind.

With a feeling of resignation, he realized that he was being overly obsessive. Here was her letter; she was fine. Knowing that, he had no need to dwell on it any further--but he did. The letter had been read twice over, so he would have to write a reply. And then, the long wait again. That long wait, which no matter how much he filled it with work and growing friendships, was still ever present, ever there. Irony, he thought, hateful irony.

I was never lonelier than after I had met you.

-end-

I find it kind of funny that Pent's stories end up shorter than Louise's; his narration is more straightforward than her's, both in style and content, and his only goal at the moment is to just survive, no matter his ethical concerns regarding a number of topics. I enjoy writing both, and in fact the difference in their narrative structures and goals make writing every story in this series very exciting and challenging. I hope you feel the same way when you read these stories! The next story will be out on 4/5.

'Planting Dragon Teeth': Are you familiar with the Greek myth regarding the founding of Thebes? Cadmus, its founder, was banished from his home to look for his sister, who had been carried off by Zeus. Along the way he ended up fighting, and killing, a serpentine dragon sacred to Ares (which would eventually cause him to be transformed into a serpent at the end of his life). The goddess Athena instructed him to take the dragon's teeth and plant them; when he did so, fully armored men rose from the ground and immediately began fighting each other until only a few were left. These few helped him build Thebes and became ancestors of the Thebian nobles. It may be a little roundabout, like the last story's title, but it does make sense, right?