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As ever, thank you to everyone reading and supporting this story.

WARNING: This chapter's content deals with marital rape and domestic violence.

Note: A reviewer called my attention to an anachronism in my original version of this chapter, so here it is again without the anachronism. Thanks, Annemone Lee!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Your bird has been slumbering for a while, seemingly spent after its wild courtship flight. It returned to my windowsill, smoothed its feathers and turned to look out over the sea, leaving me to go through my memories of our first and rather peaceful three years together. But now it starts and spins around again, staring at me with its unblinking amber eyes. It looks fierce, ready to fight. Never backing down, taking no prisoners. Making no concessions, not to anybody, not even to the ones closest to its heart – well, I suppose even eagles have a heart – not even to itself.

It knows what's coming. How everything we had built went crashing down, leaving us both struggling not to lose ourselves in a sea of tears and pain.

O – O - O

"This looks a bit like the cove by my mother's house", you said, the faintest hint of nostalgia in your voice.

The sea was calmer now, the surf kissing the sand softly, almost tenderly, like a pacified lover. You were laying on your back on the sand, one arm nestling me. I had cuddled up against you, with my head on your shoulder. The moonlight smoothed your fiery colours, lending your skin the sleek glow of polished white marble. I ran the tips of my fingers along your chest and stomach, thinking to myself that if it weren't for the warmth radiating from your body, your flesh was so hard you'd feel like marble as well.

"She lives by the sea?", I asked. You nodded, without speaking. After a pause, I added: "Is that why people say she's a nymph? I mean, she isn't really one, is she?" I felt a little silly, but I'd always been curious about that crazy legend that had grown around you.

You laughed heartily.

"A nymph? No. Admittedly, she looks like one – you know, very beautiful and delicate, almost ethereal. But she's very much human, and by no means as delicate as she seems."

"Yes, I thought it was some kind of wild rumour to explain your superior skills in battle. But..."

You squeezed me a little tighter. "A night like this is so magical it makes us feel that everything is possible, doesn't it?", you said. "The sea, the moonlit sky, the quiet… it's like being face to face with infinity itself."

I looked up, surprised. You gave me an apologetic half-smile, as if you found it somewhat shameful to give in to any kind of poetic feelings, and went on to explain:

"I don't think the rumour started because of my fighting skills, though. They probably fuel it, make it more believable in a way, but they're not the real reason for it."

"How did it start then?", I asked, sincerely intrigued.

The corners of your lips tugged upward in true amusement.

"You know how people say that one child or another was sired by some god? Zeus, or Hermes, or some other godhead? Usually in new dynasties, who's hold on power isn't very strong yet, particularly when the child in question is born of an unwed mother or doesn't bear the remotest resemblance to its mother's husband?"

I chuckled. "That's a very Greek thing, isn't it? Actually – please don't be angry! – there used to be a lot of dirty jokes around these parts about the talent of Greek royals for producing demigods. But your father was already king and son of king, wasn't he? And your parents were married."

"Yes, he was and they were. But those rumours can be just as handy when a high ranking man wants to marry a girl from a lower class."

I moved to look at your face: "You mean your mother was a commoner who married the king?"

"Very much so. A low class commoner, at that. Not even a merchant's daughter. She came from a family of simple fishermen."

I was staring at you in wonder, the details of the legend suddenly falling into place. "A daughter of Nereus… Of course, the ancient god of the sea."

You nodded: "Stands for her fisherman father."

"And all those mentions of an unequal marriage that are also part of the story…", I went on.

"Unequal, but the other way around", you confirmed. "Mind you, my mother is extremely proud of her background and can actually sound like she was the one who married beneath her. Which, of course, she did, in a way."

"How do you mean? If he was the king and she a mere fisherman's daughter?"

You shrugged. "She was young and beautiful, full of life and dreams. He was way too old for her, with little to no enthusiasm left, his adventurous spirit already far in the past and all his dreams pretty much fulfilled except for one."

"Oh", I said. "I see. What was the unfulfilled dream?"

"Having a male heir." You sounded strangely sombre when you said that. I hesitated, knowing that you didn't like dwelling in your family problems, but then I asked anyway:

"Why did they break up? You told me you were three when they did, but you never said why."

You sighed.

"Remember when I told you my parents' marriage had been horrible? Well, it was. Much worse than yours, believe it or not." You pushed gently at my head, so it was resting on your shoulder again, and went on, looking at the silver trail of the moonlight on the water: "My father was a widower. His first wife was in fact the heiress to Phtia's kingdom. My father was king, yes, but of his tribe – the Myrmidons. The country belonged to his wife. So his first marriage was basically political: the king of the tribe marries the princess of the land, thus forming a powerful royal couple. It wasn't an affair of the heart for either of them. I have no idea whether they eventually grew to be fond of each other, whether there was any kind of affection, whether they were happy or miserable or neither. I only know that they had two daughters, my half-sisters, and that, when his first wife died, my father managed to retain power both over the kingdom and his original tribe. He had become the unquestioned king of Phtia and so he remains to this day."

You paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and resumed your tale:

"So Peleus had pretty much everything he had ever wanted. The only thing he lacked was a son. He pondered remarrying, but he wasn't too keen on the idea of going through the trouble and huge expenses of negotiating a betrothal with another royal all over again. One day he saw my mother in a festival in honour of the local patron gods of fishermen, an important occasion that warranted the king's presence. She was one of the maidens who sang and danced in the sacred ceremonies. He saw her and was downright smitten. Like I said, she's a very beautiful woman, graceful and rather fiery. Still is, really. He talked a bit with her, liked what he heard as much as what he saw, and decided it would be a great idea to throw social considerations to the winds and make his second marriage a matter of pleasure instead of politics. As tradition would have it, he didn't go to her to propose, he went to her father."

"And her father, of course, couldn't be happier for the chance of marrying his daughter off to the king himself", I said bitterly, remembering my own family's reaction to Mynes' bid for me.

"Obviously. Nobody even thought to ask Thetis how she felt about marrying a man who was over twenty years her senior."

"How old was she?", I asked.

"Sixteen, I think. Seventeen at the most. I don't know for sure."

"And he?"

"In his late thirties. They had absolutely nothing in common. Not a thing. When they told her she was to become the king's wife, she declined the honour. Her family were shocked out of their minds at what they considered her folly and told her to be reasonable. She insisted she didn't want to marry Peleus, they told her to cut the crap and do what she was told. She pleaded, begged, cried, tried to run away. All to no avail."

"Of course", I commented, even more dryly than before, the leaden weight of my own memories crushing my chest.

"Indeed", you agreed. "When the wedding day arrived, they dressed her up in their best finery – which, by then, was regal enough after the bride price Peleus had paid for her – and took her to the palace."

Your voice became hoarse, the emotions you were trying to keep in check seeping through to the surface.

"After the banquet, came the time to consummate the marriage. The bride and groom were accompanied by all the guests to the door of the nuptial bedchamber, to the merry sound of music and song."

I shivered. "It's the most intolerably stupid of all intolerably stupid customs", I snarled, surprised at how raw my anger still was, even after my life had changed so much. "To be forced to consummate a marriage with a crowd waiting next door for the groom to come out and show off the blood stained sheet."

You stroked my hair. "I couldn't agree more. It's not horrible just for the woman, it must be a hell of a pressure also for the man."

"I can guess what's coming next", I muttered.

"I don't think so", you said. "Not really." You took another deep breath and went on:

"When the two of them were alone, for the first time ever, she told him that she didn't want that marriage, that she admired and respected him very much, but she wanted to remain a humble fisherman's daughter, living simply and free. And she begged him to let her go and choose someone else, with a more suitable background, to bestow the honour of being his wife. She told me she had been preparing her speech for days, so she managed to come across rather polite and articulate."

You shifted in the sand to look into my eyes:

"Now, my father isn't a bad man. Not really. Like many men before him, and probably just as many after him, he thought she was just being shy, as a virgin was prone to be, and that it was all really nerves and everything would be fine soon enough." You looked away again and I realized your hands were shaking almost imperceptibly. "He tried to cajole her into bed. She said no. He became more insistent. She refused. He tried to hold her, she pushed him away, he grabbed her, she fought him, he held on, she screamed."

You fell silent. I remained quiet as well, letting you take your time. After a while, you started speaking again:

"Like I said, Peleus isn't all bad. He realized she was serious about not wanting him and decided to respect her wish. He wasn't happy, of course. I mean, being rejected is never exactly a nice experience and he really wasn't expecting it from that theoretically humble girl. Still, he straightened his clothes, walked out of the room, called her relatives apart and told them that the girl had made it abundantly clear that she didn't want to be his wife, so it was best to just call the whole thing off and forget all about the sorry story."

"I bet the relatives said she was just a stupid brainless idiot and they would talk sense into her?", I guessed.

You shook your head. "No. They did much worse. They said Peleus should not forget who he was, and whether he wanted his own people to think he was going soft. Then one of her uncles, or cousins, or whatever, suggested, rather mockingly, that the way a real man would go about a situation like that was simply to grab the girl by the hair and let her struggle away until she got all the fight out of her system."

I sat up abruptly, appalled. "One of her own relatives advised him to do that to her?"

"Loud and clear. Doing his bloody best to make Peleus feel he'd become the laughing stock of all of Phtia if he allowed his sweet little bride to defy him like that."

I felt tears dripping down my cheeks. "And he followed the guy's advice", I whispered.

You nodded. "He marched straight back into the nuptial chamber, grabbed her hair and went ahead with it. She screamed and begged, cried and fought, bit and clawed at him, but eventually she couldn't stand the pain in her scalp anymore." Your voice was hard, and became even harder when you added: "That's how I was conceived. Through a brutal, ruthless rape."

There was a long silence. I couldn't think of anything to say. What words could possibly soothe the horror of knowing something like that? I tried to hug you, but you held me away.

"That's why you were so decent to me", I said at last. "Why you keep your men on such a tight leash even when they're sacking a city."

You nodded. "I couldn't force a woman if I wanted to. I've seen it happen, or rather, I've seen it begin to happen and by now there isn't one man in this army who doesn't know it's better, for his own good, not to attempt anything of the kind within earshot of me."

There was another pause. Then you went on to finish your story:

"She never forgave him, of course. It was unforgivable. He tried to make it up to her later on, but there was no way they could have any kind of relationship after a beginning like that. I remember them fighting, when I was still very little. It was really terrible. You could feel the hatred as if it were a huge solid stone wall closing in from all directions. Sometimes she'd attack him physically and he'd strike back. One day I snapped, jumped on his back and started punching him. My own father. He threw me off so hard I went flying across the room and landed sprawled on the floor on the far corner. Then he rushed over to me, terribly worried that he had hurt me, but I was too desperate to care. I just started crying and yelling at them both, I don't think I even knew what I was saying. But it turned out to be a good thing. They realized they weren't only destroying each other, they were destroying me as well. They decided to separate. She moved to a cottage by the sea, in Peleus' land – she never spoke to her family again – close enough that she could come see me, but far enough from him that their paths rarely ever crossed. It was Phoenix who took care of me then. A few months later, shortly before I turned four, I was sent to Chiron's." You smiled thinly. "I had a pretty happy childhood from then on."

You fell silent. My brain was a whirlwind. I felt an overwhelming desire to hold you, to offer comfort to the child you had been. A little boy confronted with hatred and violence where there should have been love and respect. But you were a grown man now. The little boy had learned to survive on his own and to trust only himself, and maybe a very select few who had proven themselves trustworthy time and time again.

There was no going back. The grown man could not be comforted for the broken hearted little boy that was no more.

O – O – O

A.N.: If there ever was a mythic retelling of brutal marital rape, that's the story of Thetis and Peleus. I had originally planned to tell it earlier on in this story – after Achilles tells Briseis that he knows a great deal about unhappy arranged marriages. But then I felt it would become distracting in that particular part of the plot and decided to go back to it later on. It was important for me to include it though, because I think his parents' tragic marriage is key to understanding Achilles. Now seemed like the right time to pick it up, so there it is. Hope you didn't find it too brutal.

The rest – Thetis as a fisheman's daughter – well, that's just my take on the whole sea-nymph, daughter of Nereus legend. :)