I'd Like to Believe
Chapter 7: I Only Need Your Name to Call the Reason Why I Fought
A/N: Yup, still don't own MPAS. After this, only two more chapters. THIS COULD BE MY FIRST COMPLETED FIC.
Warnings: Death, blood, eye damage, and that glorious single non-sexual use of the f-word alloted to PG 13 movies. Happy days oh happy days.
The pillars of the temple had been replaced with statues, and the hall carried on for miles.
To Charis's right, the statues were old faces from lost years. Her grandparents. Her teacher. Classmates who grew apart and went off to war and never returned, or had died in their beds giving birth.
Then the helot woman. And the elder she had killed. And beside him...
She could feel the bile rising in her throat. Before her, nestled among sculptures of Agamemnon and Cassandra and Iphigenia and so many others, Hieronymos stood, damaged shield dangling loosely from one arm, and a tiny bundle in his other. The little stone infant gazed at her with blank eyes, clean white stone, but she could almost convince herself that she could see her reflection in the glassy orbs. Charis didn't even try to stop herself; she reached out, laid the knuckles of one hand across the tiny memory's cheek.
Her husband, and her baby, crumbled to dust under her touch.
She lept back, horrified, and a noise from the far left reached her ears. She turned back, and started sidestepping down the hall, scanning the monuments carefully. Paris. Hector. Achilles. Polyxena. Clytemnestra. She started walking faster; Polyborus, Andromache, Astyanax, Menelaus, Helen.
She started to run, face turned to watch these frozen figures as she went.
Talthybius Odysseus Penelope Ajax Polymestor Neoptolemus Hermoine Acamas.
Eventually, the familiar names faded, replaced by shining young faces, children of a generation not in existence yet. Some looked vaguely familiar, some were complete strangers.
Faster now. She was sprinting, and now the faces were alien, but some names stood out. Hadn't she only heard them days before? A man with a hammer and a brush, Leonardo. A stately man with the confidence of a leader, Washington. A man with a sword who seemed to lunge at her, Robespierre. Every now and then, these strange people with their strange name surfaced in a sea of faces she didn't know, but the world saw fit to honor in such a temple...
She stopped so abruptly she nearly fell flat. A few yards away, observing a statue and talking to a small pup, was Peabody.
She stepped forward. "Mr. Peabody?"
He turned to look at her with a quizzical glance, and his little pup (but his boy is a human, he told me his boy is human, that's the whole reason he's here-) hid behind him in fright. The older dog looked her up and down, then frowned. "Yes?"
"It's...It's me. Charis." She stepped forward, arm twitching with need to reach out, but hesitating, as if she feared they too would crumble.
"I'm sorry, have we met?"
She flinched like she had been hit. "I'm Charis. I helped you. You know me."
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't recall a Charis."
Her voice was tremulous now, urgent. "But you know me, I'm your friend Peabody, you KNOW me!"
He gestured down the hall, back to where she started. "Then why aren't you here?"
With that, Peabody took his pup's hand, and started walking away. Charis shook her head, panicking, and ran after him. "PLEASE, YOU KNOW ME!"
When her hand hit the dog's head, he and his son turned to stone.
Charis almost felt herself freeze as well. All she could do was stand there, surrounded by statues that had turned their head to see the chaos. Peabody had turned to look over his shoulder, glasses missing, fur roughed up and scraped, with an eyebrow cocked curiously. The puppy peeked back at her from behind his father's arm.
His eyes were real.
His eyes were hazel brown, like her little baby's.
From the open roof, bloodied and muddied peacock feathers began to rain.
Charis's arm petrified, and crumbled into dust.
And she began to scream, as hairline cracks split up from her feet to her scalp. She literally fell apart, under the unfamiliar gaze of those worth remembering.
"Charis."
Her shrieks of terror remained locked away in her nightmare, and her eyes opened slowly. She sat up, and glanced through the pillars of the temple. The sun was higher than she expected; she had slept most of the morning. Peabody nudged her shoulder again. "Polymestor is approaching. He's brought guards."
She stood and stretched, yawning. "They won't be a problem. The women of Troy have thirsted for revenge since the siege. If they can't get it from the Achaeans, they'll get it from another hostile party."
"Do you plan to help?"
She retrieved her dagger from the base of Apollo's statue, tucking it under her peplos. "Does it matter? Either way, it's just another dead man in the city."
Peabody sighed. Charming. "This should be a sight to behold, then."
She managed a weary smile, and for a second the same bright, headstrong Charis who carried him up a cliff waved from the sparkle in her eye. "Just don't spoil the outcome for me, alright?"
As the two passed the build site of the new WABAC, Peabody allowed himself some enthusiasm. The shell had been built and reinforced many times over, the fat and soup thrusters were installed, and the spinning mechanism was almost complete. He'd be home soon.
He could apologize to his boy within hours.
Charis couldn't help but smile when she saw his eyes light up. "We can be useful when we want to be."
Peabody raised an eyebrow at her. "Some of you more than others."
She waved off, like she was slapping the compliment out of the air. "Oh, sure. Until a bunch of lazy fools think they can take a break to ENJOY THE SHOW."
He turned back to the structure in time to see several men hastily return to their tools and tasks, and he sighed. "If Polymestor notices there's an actual audience he'll know something's up."
"Exactly. And if that happens, I'm sure Zeus's fury would be A SIGHT TO BEHOLD."
The men flinched when she raised her voice, and she chuckled. The pair continued on, and Charis leaned down to whisper to Peabody. "This is fun. They're normally just terrified I'll kick their lineage clean off. Now we have the fear of gods on our side."
"Amen, Charis. Amen."
They reached the slave camp before long, and made an attempt to blend in with the other women of Troy. Another woman handed Charis a Greek shield, and she polished it with a fury, while Peabody leaned against a nearby rock and made casual conversation with some of the other ladies. If they weren't a talking dog and a brightly dressed Spartan woman, they would've been invisible.
Agamemnon arrived at the camp shortly, with the Thracian king and his guard in tow. While Polymestor feigned sympathetic looks at the women (who shot dirty glares and mouthed curses when his back was turned), Agamemnon made eye contact with Charis. She kept to her task without pause, but she gave him the slightest hint of a nod. The game was afoot. As he passed, the duo noticed a few lingering stares, and overheard a comment about "literal Trojan dogs" and a "whore who has already accepted her new home". For once, it was Charis who had to shoot Peabody a warning glare; god forbid his growling got loud enough to cause a scene.
Hecuba emerged from her tent, still carrying herself with the grace and demeanor of her destroyed nobility. Polymestor nearly tripped over himself to greet her, as his guard formed a half-circle around the tent. The queen could've been an actress in modern times; she never once flinched upon contact with the hands that murdered her little boy, and her smile felt as warm and gentle as any other. She gestured into her tent, and he moved past her to step inside.
His guard was so intently watching the queen that they hadn't noticed the women of the camp slowly moving to surround them.
They didn't notice Peabody standing beside Charis, herself ready to strike, with his arm outraised, nor did they see him drop it, or hear his quiet stomp.
They did notice as Hecuba slid both razors from her sleeves into her palms.
Before they could move, or even shout, they noticed the blades sliding across their throats.
With one swift, fluid motion, every one of the Thracian royal guard was dead at the feet of the Trojan women. Charis kneeled down to remove the helmet of her victim, and shook her head. "His oldest son. Moron."
Inside the tent, the screaming started. Each woman quickly grabbed the arms of their personal corpse and dragged them back, forming a circle of justice. As they settled into their spot, Polymestor crawled forth from the tent flaps, screeching and wailing. His eyes had been replaced by cavities of blood, and he flopped and struggled like a stranded fish. He reached the edge of the circle, and Charis stuck her foot out to rest against his forehead and stop him. He instinctively lifted his face; had he still eyes, he would've met the frightening sight of a cool-faced Charis, flanked by a slightly disturbed Agamemnon, a disgusted Peabody, and the stonefaced Trojan women.
Charis shook her head, and spat at the blinded king's shoulder. "Gods," she murmured coldly, "you're dumb."
Charis idly wiped away the blood on the blade of her dagger, checking her reflection and adjusting her feather. "'Dispatching a Trojan threat before it's time?' Goddamned moron. He came in here playing up sympathy to their plight and thought he'd be believed."
Peabody pointedly avoided looking at the bloodied grounds, and had to raise his voice slightly over the sound of Polymestor screaming as he was dragged away. "True. It's possible he was trying to manipulate Agamemnon; as far as he knows, he's just as eager to find and kill the baby prince as the rest of the men."
"Hm." Charis was visibly pained by the reminder that they were no closer to saving the child, and likely had no way to at all. Peabody opened his mouth to apologize, but he was interrupted by shouts from within Hecuba's tent.
"Cassandra is gone! Cassandra has gone!"
The two stared at each other, blinked, then scrambled over to the commotion. As they did, they noticed that one of the Achaean horses, tether nearby, had vanished. Some of the men had come down from the WABAC project, and were now raising hell that a princess was missing.
When the duo reached the tent, they heard Agamemnon sigh. "Awwwwww, she could've been my favorite wiiiiiife."
Charis elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and Peabody circled the tent. Small footprints emerged from the back, leading to the horses, the circling back around the camp and heading off into the distance.
"How...this isn't supposed to..."
Charis joined him, gaping at the trail. "Do any of your stories mention a failed escape attempt?"
"No!" Peabody exclaimed in surprise, "Cassandra was supposed to marry Agamemnon and return home to Sparta!"
Something clicked in Peabody's brain; a memory of an old Legend, a footnote in a mythology book, suddenly came to mind. "Unless..."
Charis whipped her head in his direction. "Unless?"
He blinked, then smiled.
The wood landed on the fire with a soft fwuuumpth, and the splintered shield went up in seconds. Charis watched as her husband's final memento crumbled into ashes, and the ghost of a dream hissed in the back of her mind. She flinched, shook it out, and wiped at her eyes. Sharp smoke and sharper heartbreak forced a few tears out, and she tried to hold back. Saying she loved Hieronymos was a touch too far, but he had, at the very least, been a good husband. He was friendly to her, and never once made any move to impede her self-declared destiny. He had provided her a beautiful child, and both had been stolen from her too soon, afforded no dignity.
For this, Charis allowed herself to weep for a moment.
Until she heard the screams of a woman, and the wails of a frightened child.
Her blood froze in her veins.
They had found the baby.
The scene atop the western wall of the city was gut-wrenching. Several soldiers held back a shrieking Princess Andromache, who struggled to reach her child. The baby itself squirmed in the arms of Talthybius, who himself appeared horrified, but helpless to resist with a sword pressed against his back. Charis charged forward with the fury of an insulted lioness, and a group of men waiting by the entrance grabbed her, receiving scratched faces for their troubles, but holding tight.
"YOU WILL NOT KILL THIS CHILD. I WILL NOT PERMIT IT."
Ajax spat at her feet, glaring. "You'll do nothing! This is our way; this is to ensure our future! Would you have him return in twenty years, and ravage our lands in revenge?"
She growled, pulling against her captors even harder. "YOU RECEIVED NO PERMISSION FROM THE GOD'S FOR THIS, WHEN PEABODY HEARS THE COMMOTION HE WILL CALL DOWN-"
A loud booming noise from outside the city caught everyone's attention. Some of the men visibly shrank back, afraid that her threats were valid. Several sparks flashed up into the sky, but with one final, thunderous bang, all was silent.
Charis stared off at the distance, as the other men moved to check the source of commotion.
"...Peabody?"
Some of the men began shouting. "The Chariot is gone! He's returned to Olympus!"
Ajax turned, cruelly smirking at the stunned Charis. "Seems the child's life was of no concern. The sacrifice of Polyxena was his duty to stop; not this. Don't you understand, Charis? The boy's life was never in your hands."
Talthybius called from the edge, still trying to placate the upset child. "Don't make her watch, please. Not her, don't make her see this."
Ajax shook his head, waving the men holding her off. "Take her away. She'd probably sprout wings to fly after the damned thing."
The men dragged her back, meeting no resistance. She still gazed off into the build site, as if waiting for Peabody to return. Ajax returned to Talthybius, clamping a hand on his shoulder (the herald shuddered, as if his hand were a snake). "For our future, Talthybius. What is this child's life worth, compared to ours?"
He hesitated, refusing to respond. Ajax rolled his eyes, and reached for the baby. "Fine then, if you've become such a woman, I'll-"
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!"
Charis came barreling towards Ajax in one last desperate attempt to rescue to baby. Several soldiers tackled her, but she still powered through in a blinded rage. Ajax, tired of distractions, drew his dagger and held it against her neck as she reached him. She stopped, but growled and spat at him. Talthybius began shouting. "Don't hurt her, Ajax!"
The soldier snapped his head towards the reluctant man. "Then do what must be done, Talthybius!"
The man closed his eyes, shaking. When he opened them, he refused to look at Astyanax or Andromache, instead making eye contact with Charis. "Forgive. Please, please forgive me."
Charis started trembling, as her friend turned, silhouetted by the sinking sun. "No. No no nononoTALTHYBIUS DON'T-"
With a cry of terror, the child left his hands, and plummeted down the side of his city's walls.
Andromache fainted, and Charis screamed so loud the guards at her side dropped her and covered their ears. She fell face first, and panted like a disturbed horse against the floor.
They dropped the baby. And once again, she could do nothing.