TM: Inheritance
When my father, Skouros, was three years old, some travelers found him playing beside a stream. They never found any signs of his parents or where he'd come from. His only possession other than the clothes on his back was an amulet of greenstone hanging around his neck. With no kin to call his own, my father was passed from family to family and the amulet with him. One day he ran away to join an army and it soon became his way of life.
Skouros eventually became a famous general with a family of his own. A family he neglected. He wasn't that great a father, I can tell you that. He was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was itching to leave again. One day he left and didn't come back. I guess facing death on the battlefield was less frightening than finding a way to feed a wife and kids. I don't think he ever actually called me by my given name. I was always 'boy' to him.
A few years after he abandoned us, Skouros was killed in battle and hailed a great warrior. They couldn't send his body back home, so they sent his amulet instead. My mother gave it to me, probably because she didn't know what else to do with it and I was his only son. I refused to wear it at first, but I always carried it with me. To this day I don't really know why. Maybe because it was the only part of my father that didn't abandon me.
One day, Herc saw me toying with the thing. I did that sometimes. Just took it out of my pouch and ran my hands over it. Most of the time I didn't even realize what I was doing. He asked me what it was and I told him. I also told him why I wasn't ever going to wear the damned thing.
"But it's not your father's now," he said. "It's yours, and whatever you want it to represent."
"What d'ya mean?"
"Make it yours," said Hercules. "Make it a symbol for what you believe in."
That's the day I found a new cord and began to wear it out in the open. I've worn it ever since. Herc's right. It's mine now. It represents who I am. Not Iolaus, the son of Skouros, but Iolaus the hunter, the archer, the warrior. The little guy always in the thick of things, fighting the good fight beside Hercules.