nanananananana
It’s hot in Mieza - too hot, without the cool breeze off the water like in Pella, and at midday, Macedon’s noble youth should be lazing in the shade or playing in the river, carefree as only privileged sons of nobility can be. But not here, not just east of the village proper, in this uncovered, open-air ditch that’s passing as a theater. No, this collection of boys sent from the families of Pella and Athens that could spare their sons are here instead, baking in the heat that stubbornly clings to fall.
They are a sight to behold: washed faces and clean white chitons, sitting with rapt attention as they listen to their teacher.
Well, some of them, anyway.
Most are nodding off, staring into space, sweating uncomfortably - one boy seems fascinated by a fly that hovers lazily about nearby, another is deeply involved worrying the threads at a corner of his wrap. Of those truly paying attention, only some of them have eyes for the subject at hand; the rest are staring at one gold-haired thirteen year old, waiting for him to argue again.
Arguing, however, is not what Alexander would say he’s engaging in. It’s debate - debate that is encouraged in learned men. Passivity, he debated just earlier, is a woeful trait in the face of learning. If you see a flaw, or have a question, to merely accept this thing as fact instead of using your voice, are you not a coward, doubting yourself? Prove your point or be taught; do not lie down for other men. That is not hubris, that is a tragedy.
Of course, this debate came on the heels of several others, some of which Alexander has conceded gracefully, and some of which he still privately disagrees on. By now, he can feel the gaze of the other students boring into the back and sides of his head. Every so often he sharply turns his gaze to try and catch them at it - sometimes they’ll already be looking away, innocently staring at something else, or sometimes they’ll startle and blush and snap their heads in another direction. They’re getting better at it, but so is he. It’s a game he’s played before - being the prince, the glorified, omen-born son of King Phillip, he is used to the stares, even if he doesn’t like them, in a typically stubborn thirteen year old fashion.
He can feel it again, that sixth-sense sensation of being watched. He waits, counting down in his head, feigning absolute distraction with the lesson. It’s an art of timing and movement. It has to be perfect, not too strained or rushed, not too slow, or you’ll never catch them in the act.
Now.
The initial burst of petty triumph at catching the other boy with his gaze openly on him is stifled in flustered surprise when he doesn’t look away. Brown eyes regard his blue ones, calm and curious. Alexander’s surely seen him before, though it’s only been a few days since they arrived in Mieza, and he doesn’t know all his fellow students yet. This other boy is taller than he is, and a little more filled out, already - maybe older. His brown hair is half-tucked behind his ears, like he put it there and hasn’t bothered to fix it; but it’s his expression that holds Alexander. It’s not awed or star-struck or even appraising, it’s just- thoughtful.
An odd sensation overcomes the young prince, and he wonders if he is being regarded with such gentle curiosity because of his words, and not his station. He’s really very pretty, Alexander thinks, though maybe it’s just his eyes, which he still hasn’t looked away from. Neither of them have looked away, in fact, and it’s just as he’s wondering how long they’ve been sta--
“ALEXANDER. HEPHAESTION.”
He startles forward, not anticipating the roar from Aristotle and the accompanying clack! of his staff against the stone floor. The old scholar glares down at him, at the end of his rope with interruptions and distractions.
“I suppose the two of you know all about matter causation and can just carry on where I’ve stopped, then,” he declares, eying them each heavily in turn.
Twin mumbles of “no, sir, sorry”, are the only response, and after a lengthy pause in which Aristotle waits to see if either boy is going to carry on with anything, he lets out frustrated huff of air and moves on, continuing with the lesson.
As soon as he dares, Alexander looks back over, hoping to catch his eye again. He does, and they smile at each other, quick and excited and shy all at once. Hephaestion, he thinks, and the day seems less long and less dull already.
*
“ALEXANDER!”
Always so much yelling, he sighs inwardly. One could always tell when Philip was about the castle from the way he stomped around everywhere, roaring. The map room was blessedly peaceful prior, Alexander with Ptolemy and Nearchus, discussing Byzantium and the impending march. Only just sixteen, Alexander will be staying home in Pella as regent, but Macedonia’s military effort can’t help but capture him.
“Yes, father?”
Philip storms into the room (and it’s not that Alexander finds his father to be crude; a storm is an impressive force of nature, after all) and begins to speak, but stills when he sees what his son is up to. Half-expecting to be lectured about meddling with war affairs, Alexander straightens his posture, but the reprimand never comes. Philip begins again, back on track:
“You sent Callixena back to Thessaly.”
Oh. This.
By some miracle, Alexander manages not to look too longsuffering. “I did,” he admits. “Is there a problem?” (Of course there’s a problem.)
“OF COURSE THERE’S A PROBLEM!”
Behind him, Alexander knows that his two friends are holding very, very still and attempting to remain apparently invisible to the King. They’re older than Alexander; Ptolemy by over ten years, but the prince remains their intellectual equal (to his credit, versus theirs). They know from long years of court experience that it’s best to avoid Philip’s direct attention, even if he likes you.
“You and mother gave her to me,” Alexander states calmly, refusing to be ruffled by the subject despite its constant ability to irritate him. “If you wished for me not to operate under my own counsel as to the designs of my gifts, perhaps you should have only paid for a night, and not her life.”
“Don’t you dare use-- what?”
Alexander blinks. “What?”
“Olympias told me she paid for a week.”
“…No, mother purchased her from the court in Thessaly. She uprooted entirely.” He watches his father with a carefully schooled expression of innocence and mild concern; the gears in Philip’s head are whirring with precision, and his face suddenly morphs into a scowl.
“That witch,” he snaps, “Does she know how much that costs? GODS ABOVE, boy, I knew you wouldn’t keep her for more than a godsdamned night! A week was already pushing it! Tell me you at least humored your mother and figured out how to fuck her once.”
There’s a choking noise from behind him, but Alexander doesn’t dare turn around. Philip’s gaze darts over his shoulder.
“These dates,” Ptolemy explains, only sounding slightly strained, and Alexander can hear the sound of him slapping Nearchus over-enthusiastically on the back, “They’re seasons a little strongly--” He smacks Nearchus again, masking the other man’s laughter.
Philip looks back at Alexander, still frowning, thankfully dissuaded from killing anybody in the room.
“Callixena was completely lovely,” he tells his father blithely, “And her reputation no longer needs to proceed her; I shouldn’t speak of things now private.”
(So, no, he didn’t.)
“What do you mean? Her reputation? She’s a whore.”
Alexander doesn’t flinch, but there’s something inside of him that feels disappointed at the reaction. “No,” he says, carefully, “She’s a woman. And she’s in love with an artist, a man back in Thessaly. I gave her to him.” … He didn’t, actually, he paid her debts and sent her back home to her lover, but Philip doesn’t need to know more money than Olympias has already blown has been spent on this woman.
Philip throws up his hands. “You’re impossible, boy,” he growls. “Don’t come to me when your mother finds out. You’ll be lucky she doesn’t try to drag you to bed herself with how she’s losing her mind over you on this matter..”
Alexander blanches at that, but Philip is already whirling about and storming back out into the hallway. “Wh--”
Ptolemy slings his arms around Alexander’s shoulders from behind, laughing. Nearchus has lost it by now, too. “By Hera, you’d better find a girl, Alexander,” he says, and there’s incredulous sympathy in his voice. “Marry the maid, if you have to.”
“Well it’s not like Olympias is bad-looking, at least,” Nearchus comments, and Alexander shoves Ptolemy off and goes to stuff the older boy’s head in the water basin.
*
He is eighteen, and he has been exiled. His father, whose life he saved, whose campaign he glorified and raised through winning tactics and his own blood, has cast him out of his own kingdom. Here in Illyria he’s treated like the royal he is, but only because the Illyrian king hates Philip. Alexander knows that these tribes are waiting for him to ascend, so that they can break free or at least be subservient to a man less uncivilized.
It’s dark; outside beneath the star-drenched sky, fires burn in the courtyard, but flames only decorate the edges of the opulent quarters that were hurried together for Macedon’s golden prince. He isn’t angry, not anymore. He’s not even sure that he can qualify what he feels as hurt. It’s just a nagging, muddy sadness that lurks around him, more cloying than temple incense. The body in his arms moves - warm and liquid-fire, a contrast to the chill within him - until he feels one hand smooth over his face. He opens his eyes in the dark and Hephaestion kisses him, deep and grounding, like he can drain the sadness from him by will alone. Alexander closes his eyes again, and decides to let him.
*
“I can’t believe you’ve been exiled again.”
“Technically…”
“I can’t believe you’ve gotten us exiled, is that better?”
“Accurate, yes.”
Harpalus rolls his eyes, taking the entire affair with the inexplicable good humor that draw Alexander to him to begin with. Erigyius is less thrilled, being married, but Ptolemy and Nearchus are already plotting military fantasies wildly - this will split the army, truly, and so much of Greece already supports Alexander. If the exile lasts, they say, he can raise an army in Dodona and take Pella easily. He is already so loved.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to listen to you anymore, Ptolemy,” Alexander says, flippant. “You’re the one who got me into this mess.”
“Oh?” he peeks his head back in the room. “To be fair, your mother started it.”
“You agreed!”
“Since when do you let anybody make your decisions for you?”
“Well.” He sighs, rolling his shoulders. “Perhaps my sympathetic affection got the better of me.”
Ptolemy flounders. “You haven’t even met the girl! How can you want to marry her, truly, Alexander?”
“Oh, I don’t mean affection like that. But who’d want to marry Arrhidaeus?”
“You are a godsdamned fury sometimes,” Harpalus cries over Ptolemy’s laughter, and claps him on the shoulder. A moment later Lanike rushes in to warn them that Olympias is coming, and they scatter, leaving Alexander to deal with his deposed mother by himself.
*
He feels no shame that his first act is not to recall his friends from exile; Alexander, King of Macedon, has responsibilities to his country - to his throne. He sends Olympias away and speaks quietly, quickly. There is no need to linger. Outside he hears a vassal speaking (desperately) on behalf of the third brother of Lyncestis. He’ll spare him, Alexander thinks. But not his brothers, and not his own cousin. They look too often towards Philips - his - station. He isn’t sorry about Amyntas. He needn’t be.
He knows that he’ll have to order Caranus’s death. A child. Maybe it’s better this way; he hasn’t even known life. He will exile Eurydice, he decides, with her daughter. It’s the best that he can give her - surely his mother will make an attempt on her life, but perhaps he can protect her. Perhaps his half sister, Europa, can stay here in Pella with the only family she will have left.
When Olympias has the three of them burned alive in his name, his heart breaks, and he never goes to her again.