It’s… insane. He will never be able to convince the other kings.

But in his chest swells with hope anew, and he embraces his wife and presses kisses to her cheeks.

Their son has stopped crying.

“I will be there soon, my love. I swear.”

"I know you will."

She kisses him one last time. 

"May the gods go with you, or never see you coming."

“Wait. Are you leaving?” He reaches for her, for his son. “Wait– Please, I am not ready yet. Don’t go–”

And his fingers pass through them like smoke, and like smoke they fade into the air at the swipe of his hand.

The last thing he sees is her smile.

The King of Pylos waits for Diameda in her hut.

He does not seem so scary here, surrounded by all the things she can claim as hers. In this place he is a young man – quiet, tired, tall.

There is a change in him. Less anger, more… resignation. His movements are slower as though a deep exhaustion eats away at his bones. The man is not well, but he is not dangerous today.

He turns his head to her when she enters; a tapestry of the Argonauts frames him where he stands.

And he wears something different today. Something plainer, yet fine all the same – white like a funeral shroud.

The only way is forwards. 

She enters, and bows, and goes to him. 

"My love," she murmurs, linking her fingers in his, "what a joy to find you here," she'd wanted a bath and a time to sleep alone, but those thoughts are crushed down in sheer survival reflex, "you look weary - a bath together, perhaps?"

He allows the woman to touch him, gazing at her with tired eyes.

“Let there not be lies between us, Diameda. I know that you do not love me.”

From his cloak he draws out a flower. Small, delicate, freshly plucked from the ground. Its petals are a soft blushing lilac.

There are no flowers in these lands any more – only the deep scarlet poppies that grow where blood falls, and even those are scarce. 

What Ophellios holds is a treasure indeed.

“But we may try.”

Her breath catches in her throat, and for the first time she can't think of what to say fast enough: there's a pause so long that he'll notice. 

Deny it? She would have, once before, and perhaps been believed. He was softer, before, even if he was not so flighty. But now-

"I never realised that you knew," she says quietly, "I never thought - never thought a king would have the power to see the world as I must. Never thought you would understand how - all my life and all I loved would depend on you. But..."

It hurts to speak so. 

It hurts to tear away all the layers of deceit she has built around herself. 

But she is very long practised, in doing things no matter how much they hurt. 

"But - you are wrong, I think. It... It was not for myself only, not for our child either, that I- that I would not leave you that night."

A deep breath: now, or never; and the choice is now.

"The night you... changed."

She takes the flower with a small smile, but does not draw it from his hands; she leaves it there, her small fingers entwined with his own. 

The night I changed.

He does not even flinch at the memory now. The energy to react no longer lives in his spirit. 

With that same resigned look he regards her hand as it laces through his own. She has callouses too, in different places to his own. Both their fingernails are broken. Both are pale.

There had been a time, when he was a boy and his earthly father lived and all had been simple, when he had thought he was in love with her. Perhaps he could fool himself again.

“Will it be a boy?” He asks quietly.

How in the name of all the gods is she supposed to know? 

"I can't be sure," she whispers, "but - I think so. I think... I think I feel it. It will be yours. Your son."

…

“What was your father’s name? I have never once asked you.”

"Katsaros," she whispers - it's no stranger, really, than anything else about her life recently, telling him this, and yet it feels... Strange. 

"He was - only a little farmer. He is long dead." Your soldiers killed him, cut him almost in two, for all that his eyes were too weak to be a warrior. 

He nods.

In his manner, she is reminded of the teenage boy she had known almost a decade ago.

“A king shall bear his name.”

It’s an apology of sorts, she realises. Princes have never been much good at those.

"Oh."

An eternity seems to pass. 

"Thank you. He - thank you. He would have been glad, I think."

Would he? She's not sure she knows, at this remove, what he would have thought. Probably he would not have understood the question very well. 

What is this? What is all of this?

"And... And what of us, my husband? Will you lead me, lead us, back to Pylos?"

He looks down. “I know not what is fated for us. After we are wed, I will send you home to my mother.”

It's all she's ever wanted. 

To escape this war alive - more than that, to have a home, more than that, to be raised up so high and never more have to fear for her life. 

So why is she suddenly so reluctant to go? 

Why does she suddenly, impossibly, feel like she can't leave - cannot possibly walk away? 

"Is that..."

She steels herself. 

"If that is what you will." If.

He sighs. Takes her hand and guides her to be seated.

“Speak plainly, Diameda.”

She really won't be left with even a scrap of secrecy, will she. 

She would much, much, much rather he just ripped all her clothes away - it's so much worse than being naked, being under his gaze like this. 

"I don't want to leave you like this," she confesses when it's too much to bear, "I - you may call me foolish - to leave these plains alive is all I want - but I truly cannot stand to know that you suffer so, still less to be too far away to do anything, anything at all."

He falls quiet at that.

A long time passes, Ophellios seated still like a statue.

Eventually, he confesses something small.

“This is what I know.”

Her fingers cover his. "You did not always know it. In time - you could come to know other things. Your kingdom, your people, your son, your - your queen."

“No, Dia. I was a child when I came here. My entire adult life has been war.”

He nearly chokes on the weight of it.

“I would prefer to die here.”

Her fingers tighten too much on his before she can stop them. 

She never planned for this, but-

"Are you truly so frightened to begin anew?"