Fanfic: A Little Problem - Chapter 3
Title: A Little Problem (Chapter 3)
Author: Yassandra
Fandom: Atlantis
Pairing/characters: Jason/Ariadne, Pythagoras/Icarus, Hercules, Cassandra
Rating: G
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Not mine. BBC and Urban Myth Films own them.
Word count: 25317 (This chapter - 4856)
Summary: A routine mission away from the Argo goes awry when Hercules makes a mistake and triggers a curse. Now he's left with a little problem - well, two little problems really...
A/N Written for round six of the Small Fandoms Bang, and also for Hurt/Comfort Bingo for the 'de-age' prompt.
Chapter 3 - Nobody's Father
All in all, Hercules thought Ariadne had taken the news rather well. True, she kept throwing hard looks in his direction, but once she had been convinced that they were telling the truth about Jason and Pythagoras being turned into children, she had swooped into action. Before any of them had really known what was going on, she had the two little boys sitting at the table and eating some cakes (although Hercules wasn't entirely sure where she had managed to rustle up cakes from).
Now she was sitting at the table, listening intently to Pythagoras wittering on about something or other while they were waiting for Cassandra to come back from the local town. Jason had once again retreated into silence nibbling on the cake that Ariadne had handed him and watching the beautiful girl with huge eyes. Hercules couldn't help noticing he had cake crumbs around his mouth and, as the big man watched, he kept sniffing.
Hercules rolled his eyes and grabbed a cloth from the table, descending on the boy and holding the cloth in front of his nose.
"Blow," he instructed firmly.
Jason obliged him.
Hercules took the opportunity to wipe the child's sticky face and hands at the same time and turned back away from the table to find Icarus watching him with an amused expression.
"What?" the burly wrestler demanded.
"You do know that you make a good father, don't you?" Icarus murmured.
"Don't be ridiculous," Hercules scoffed. "I am not anyone's father. I've always been careful about that."
Before either of them could say any more though, Cassandra entered the room. She looked from Hercules to the two little boys and back again.
"You touched something when I warned you not to," she said flatly.
"What makes you think it was me?" Hercules protested.
Cassandra raised her eyebrows and stared at him. For a moment she looked so much like the old Oracle that Hercules nearly shuddered.
She's a seer, he reminded himself. Of course she knows the truth.
He looked across the room and saw the two little boys watching the conversation curiously. Without even really thinking about it, he reached into a pouch at his belt and withdrew an elderly set of knucklebones. He turned to the boys with a smile.
"Why don't you go out in the fresh air and play with these?" he asked. "You don't want to be cooped up in here with a load of dull adults."
Jason frowned.
"What are they?" he asked.
"Knucklebones of course," Pythagoras replied before Hercules could speak.
"Do you know how to play with them?" the bulky wrestler asked the blonde child.
"Of course," Pythagoras answered. "I have tried teaching Arcas but he is too little. He cannot seem to learn."
"Well how about you teach Jason the game then?" Hercules rumbled. "Go on. Go out and play."
Once the boys had left the cabin, he turned back to the other adults in the room.
"What do we do now?" Ariadne asked Cassandra, getting straight to the point. "They cannot stay like this. There must be a way to help them."
Cassandra blinked owlishly at her but did not speak. Instead she fetched a metal bowl and set it on the floor, filling it with water from a large jug. She knelt in front of it and began to pray, crushing petals that she withdrew from a bag into the water; focussing her vision. Her eyes became distant and her whole body began to shake as she stared into the water.
"What is it?" Icarus asked her. "What do you see? Is there a way to return Pythagoras and Jason to normal?"
"You have offended Aphrodite and it is to her that you must make amends," Cassandra said. "You must journey to Palea Paphos; to the Sanctuary of Aphrodite on Cyprus. There, near where the Goddess arose from the waves, you must go to the grove and make your offering at the altar. Only then will Aphrodite consent to remove her curse."
"Cyprus," Ariadne said, glaring at Hercules. "Which is in the opposite direction to Colchis from where we are right now and will take us weeks to get to." She shook her head in annoyance.
"So we head to Cyprus then," Icarus murmured.
"It would seem so," Ariadne retorted. "But there are things we must do first."
She marched into the room that she shared with Jason and came back bearing a couple of blankets, some shears and a needle and thread. Over the couple of months they had lived in the forest together, Hercules had learned that the young Queen was surprisingly adept at sewing and now she began to cut out the blankets and join the pieces that she cut together with small even stitches.
"What are you doing?" the burly wrestler asked.
"Neither of them can go around for weeks wearing only an adult sized tunic," Ariadne declared. "And you," she added, pointing the shears at Hercules almost aggressively, "are going to go to the market in the town just over those dunes first thing in the morning and buy them some shoes that fit." She paused. "Actually," she added, "I think that I will go with you. If I left you to your own devices you would probably forget what you had gone there to buy and spend all the money on pies!"
Hercules felt that was distinctly unfair but it didn't seem worth antagonising Ariadne any further by arguing. He did, however, clear his throat, knowing that what he was about to say would probably upset both the young Queen and Icarus.
"I was thinking about sleeping arrangements," he muttered. "I think that both the boys will need to share my room."
"What?" Icarus demanded.
"No!" Ariadne exclaimed at the same time. "Jason is my husband."
"Exactly," Hercules growled. He held up one meaty hand to forestall any further protests. "Just think about it," he said to Ariadne. "On any normal day Jason is your husband, but right now he's only about eight years old. He doesn't need a wife at the moment, he needs a mother… and if you step into that role, what do you think it will be like when he returns to his proper age?" He looked at Icarus. "And that goes for both of you," he added. "I know how much Pythagoras loves you… what he feels for you… and I would bet that you feel the same way about him. You cannot be his parent if you want to go back to being his lover when everything gets back to normal."
Icarus grimaced and turned to Ariadne.
"Much as I hate to admit it, he is right," he murmured.
Ariadne looked at him steadily.
"I know," she stated. "But that does not mean I have to like it." She turned to look thoughtfully at the doors to both the room she normally shared with Jason and Hercules' smaller quarters. "You will use our room until this curse has been lifted," she decided. "I can sleep in your room well enough." She raised an eyebrow at Hercules. "I will not have any argument on this."
"And you won't get one," Hercules replied. "We may not like what has happened, but it has happened. So let's just make the best of it and work at getting those boys back to normal as soon as possible."
The agora was hot and dusty. Hercules had to admit that shopping with young children was not the most pleasant experience he had ever had. Both boys were quite obviously bored and between Pythagoras' incessant curiosity and Jason dragging his feet and sighing loudly, their large friend was about ready to tear what little was left of his hair out.
Unfortunately, Ariadne showed no signs of cutting her shopping expedition short so he was stuck, trailing after her with the two children in tow. They hadn't actually found any shoes that would fit either child yet and Ariadne had proclaimed that a pair that 'almost fit' were just not good enough. There was no shoemaker in town, they had been told, so they were stuck moving from stall to stall in the hope that someone would have what they needed.
"Hercules?" Pythagoras said as they walked past stalls selling bread and cheese and all the other staples of life.
"Yes?" Hercules replied.
"Where are we going when we leave here?"
Hercules smiled indulgently.
"We are going to Cyprus," he told the little blonde.
Pythagoras' blue eyes grew huge.
"Cyprus?" he squeaked. "Cyprus is a long way from Samos… Is it very big there? Biton, the son of Crattipus, the merchant who lives in the big house in my village, said that his father once went as far as Lesbos and it was huge. Is Cyprus as big as Lesbos?"
"Bigger I am told," Hercules replied absently, still looking at the different stalls to try to find the shoes they needed to buy.
"Bigger?" Pythagoras said, his eyes growing even larger. "And we are going there? I will have such an adventure to tell everyone about when I get back to Samos. Why are we going to Cyprus? Is there something there that you need?"
"Yes," Hercules answered. "There is something that we need to do there."
"And will we be going back to Samos after that?" Pythagoras asked.
"Mmm," Hercules replied, not actually wanting to lie to the child but not wanting to upset him either.
Ariadne had forged ahead of them while they were talking. Now she came back with a determined expression.
"Come along," she said. "I have been speaking with a stallholder around the corner and he believes he has just the thing we are looking for." She peered around Hercules with a frown. "Where is Jason?" she asked.
Hercules felt his blood run cold. He turned around in a circle, eyes desperately scanning the marketplace they were in. Finally, he saw his other small charge not all that far from where they were standing, but what Jason was about to do frightened him even more. The boy was staring at a sleeping two-headed lizard with wonder written on his face and was reaching out to pet it. Hercules raced across the agora faster than he would have believed he could move and grabbed the child's hand back from where it was about to touch one of the heads.
"What in the name of the Gods do you think you are doing?" he yelled at Jason. "Don't you have any idea how dangerous that thing is? It is a hydra! It could have your hand off."
He dragged Jason back beyond the range of the lizard and put both hands firmly on the boy's shoulders.
"And don't you remember what I said to you yesterday about running off?" he demanded, giving the child a small shake. "Do you have any idea how frightened I was when I saw you near that thing? And in this marketplace you could easily have been lost."
His heart softened as he saw tears welling up in the little boy's eyes and he crouched down next to Jason and wrapped his arms around him.
"It's alright," he rumbled, far more gently than before. "I didn't mean to shout… but you frightened me. You need to stay close to me. I do not want to lose you."
Jason nodded, biting his lip.
"I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to wander off. I stopped to look and then you were all gone."
"It's over now," Hercules replied. "But you must stay with me… even if you do see something that you want to look at. All you have to do is ask if you want to stop to look at something."
"What was that thing?" Jason asked. "It had two heads."
"Of course it did," Hercules answered. "It was a hydra." He pulled back and looked at Jason with a frown. "Haven't you ever seen a hydra before?"
The brunette child shook his head.
"No," he said. "It looked like something out of one of my story books."
Hercules' frown deepened. Surely a hydra wasn't that unusual that the child would never have seen one before? He had sometimes speculated in the past that, since he apparently knew so little about everyday life, Jason must have been raised by a hermit that couldn't speak, but now he wondered anew: just where had the boy grown up?
"Can I ask you something?" Jason murmured hesitantly, as they move back across the agora to re-join Ariadne and Pythagoras, his hand now firmly clasped in Hercules'.
"Yes," Hercules replied.
"Is your name really Hercules?"
The burly wrestler frowned deeply.
"Of course it is," he responded. "Why?"
"Because there's a Hercules in a film I watched and in some of my books but he's not like you," Jason replied innocently. "He's a hero and he's really, really strong and brave. He's like the son of this God… and he's really young and good looking."
Hercules' frown deepened. He didn't know what a film was but the rest of Jason's meaning had come through clearly enough.
"Well I may not be the Hercules that you have read about but I am called Hercules," he said, "and there are those who tell stories of my exploits and call me a hero."
"Okay," Jason answered. "I was just wondering."
By the time they had finished with the stallholder that Ariadne was talking about, both boys had shoes that fit them. The clothes she had sewn for them from the cut up blankets fitted them well enough (especially remarkable considering she hadn't really stopped to measure either boy properly), helped by the belts Hercules had made from some strips of plaited leather he had pinched from one of the crew and tied around their waists.
Now that their main purpose for being in the market was done, Ariadne relaxed and smiled at Hercules.
"I was thinking that we might look for some things to keep these two entertained on the journey," she said softly, "and perhaps for a small treat."
Hercules raised an eyebrow.
"Can we afford it?" he murmured.
It was a valid question. They did not, after all, have a great deal of money with them on the voyage - although Pythagoras had been able to earn a little (or at least get paid in goods) by providing medical aid to some of the more remote settlements they had arrived at and Ariadne had sold a lot of the jewellery she had been wearing when they had fled Atlantis quite early on. Add to that a few mercenary or guarding jobs that Jason had taken on for a variety of people they had come across, and they were surviving with a little left over for emergencies.
"It is not a problem," Ariadne replied. "Our funds are not low and I was not thinking of anything too extravagant."
By the time they returned to the boat, Hercules was carrying a basket containing parchment, ink and several styli, wax tablets, a counting board and a ruler. There was also a new set of knucklebones and some spheria (which Jason kept inexplicably referring to as 'marbles') and a pente grammai board made of terracotta. Hercules noted with a smile that they were all things that could continue to be used after the boys were returned to their usual ages. It appeared that Ariadne was far more practical than he would have given her credit for being.
Back in the central room on the ship, he watched the young Queen sitting with the two boys and teaching them to play pente grammai (something he was a little surprised that Pythagoras didn't already know). Ariadne would make a good mother someday, he decided. He poured himself a cup of wine and thought back over the trip to the market with a sigh. Somehow he suspected this was going to be a long journey.
It had already been a trying morning and it wasn't actually that long after breakfast. To be fair, Hercules was not at his best in the morning on any usual day and had perhaps consumed a little more wine than he had been intending to last night. Did that mean, though, that the children had to be extra noisy? They could have had a bit more consideration for his sore head after all.
As it was, so far he had fielded a long list of questions from the ever curious Pythagoras (and how was Hercules supposed to know why the sky was blue and what a siren ate for breakfast?) and broken up an impromptu game of something that Jason called 'tag', which as far as Hercules could see was a simplified version of ostrakinda (but without the team element) and involved an inordinate amount of shouting and running around (which certainly shouldn't have been happening indoors).
He had chased the boys out onto deck to get some fresh air at that point.
At least the crew had accepted what had happened and seemed willing to keep an eye on the children when they were up on deck. It gave Hercules a well-earned respite from their apparently boundless energy.
As if thinking about them had summoned them though, Pythagoras bounced into the room followed by his slightly smaller friend.
"Hercules. Hercules… Come and see. Come and see," he said urgently.
"What is it?" Hercules growled, disgruntled that his peace had been disrupted again so soon.
"I saw a mermaid!" Pythagoras declared, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Jason thought it was a dolphin but I know it was a mermaid."
"It was a dolphin," Jason protested to no-one in particular. "There's no such thing as a mermaid anyway."
"There is too!" Pythagoras rounded on his friend. "There are lots of stories and lots of people have seen them."
"Have you ever seen a mermaid?" Jason asked Hercules curiously.
"No," Hercules admitted. "But that does not mean that they do not exist," he added seeing Pythagoras' crestfallen look. "I have seen many strange things and heard many strange tales over the years… and I have seen creatures that no-one believed existed standing there as large as life."
"Like what?" Jason asked.
"Well," Hercules replied with a grin. "I have seen a Kynikos… one of the hounds who protect the Goddess Hekate." He knew that there was no chance of either boy remembering the 'rabid dog incident' as they had come to call it, given that they seemed to have no real tangible memories of their adult lives at all.
"Really?" Jason said sceptically, frowning as though he thought Hercules was laughing at him.
"Really," Hercules confirmed. "And my father plucked a tooth from the foaming jaws of Cerberus himself; the beast who guards the underworld. He used to tell me the story of how he came to face that monster when I was no older than you are."
"Maybe he was making it up," Jason suggested.
"Well if he was making it up, where did this come from?" Hercules asked, producing a giant tooth from the pouch on his belt. Jason had recovered the trinket for him from Circe when he had made his deal with her and Hercules had carried it with him ever since, unwilling to let it out of his sight again.
The child's eyes grew huge and he reached out to touch the tooth gently.
"How did he do it?" he asked.
Hercules smiled and put the tooth back into the pouch, carefully pulling the strings closed and tying them securely.
"Would you like me to tell you the story?" he rumbled.
Jason nodded eagerly.
"Well, how about I tell you before bed tonight?" Hercules asked. "Give you something to look forwards to."
Jason nodded again.
"Yes please," he said quietly.
Hercules patted the boy on the shoulder. He had noticed over the past few days, that neither child really asked for anything for themselves but would be almost disturbingly grateful if you offered them anything. It made him a little sad.
"Right," he said. "We'll do that later then. Now let's go and look at Pythagoras' mermaid."
Supper was some kind of stew. Jason peered at it suspiciously and poked at it with his spoon. He wasn't entirely sure what was in it but it didn't taste like the food from back home; none of the food here did. These people didn't seem to eat potatoes for a start and some of their meat tasted funny (Hercules had told him it was goat. Jason wished he hadn't asked).
"Don't you like it?" Ariadne asked gently.
Jason ducked his head and tried to avoid the scrutiny of the adults in the room.
"It's nice," he said, quickly swallowing a mouthful.
It didn't taste too bad, he decided, and at least taking a mouthful had made Ariadne smile. He liked making her smile. She was very pretty and seemed very kind. In fact, so far everyone here had been very kind (even if he still wasn't entirely sure where 'here' was) and he really didn't want to screw things up and risk being sent back; he'd been sent back too many times already.
He ate what he could manage and sat back quietly, legs swinging where they didn't reach the floor, and let the conversation flow around him. It was nice and he was rapidly becoming attached to these people - even if there was still a chance that they wouldn't want to keep him forever.
Finally supper was over and everyone dispersed to their early evening tasks. Hercules poured himself a cup of wine and sat back, watching the two boys without either of them being aware of it. He could see that Ariadne was doing the same while sewing. It was interesting that right from the start neither of the children had attempted to go out after dark and had (by and large) accepted it whenever Hercules had decreed that it was time to go to bed. One or the other of them might occasionally try to bargain for a later bedtime but once the burly wrestler indicated that this was not a matter for discussion, they generally gave up pretty quickly.
Right now, they were both settled at the table quietly. On other evenings they had played pente grammai or knucklebones at the table, but tonight they both seemed engrossed in individual activities that involved pieces of parchment and, in Pythagoras' case, the counting board. It was interesting, actually, seeing their basic personality traits that had clearly carried through to adulthood coming out in them as children.
There were differences though. This version of Pythagoras was far more carefree than his adult counterpart (something that Hercules was inordinately grateful for) even if he did still have an odd fascination with mathematics and a burning desire for knowledge; Jason, on the other hand, seemed a lot more sensitive - quieter somehow - although Hercules was beginning to wonder just how much of his normal adult behaviour was an act; a protective shell that he hid behind.
Wondering exactly what his young charges were doing, Hercules carefully put down his wine and quietly stepped over to them.
As he had expected from the presence of the counting board, Pythagoras appeared to be doing something mathematical - although the calculations he was attempting seemed far too complicated for a child his age. As Hercules came close, he looked up with a bright and enthusiastic smile. Hercules was suddenly very much afraid that he intended to launch into a discussion about mathematics - far from his favourite subject. In desperation, he turned to look at Jason.
Jason, Hercules noticed with a frown, had apparently acquired a small piece of charcoal from somewhere. The burly wrestler suspected that he had been given it by one of the crew - the usually hard-bitten sailors seemed to dote on both boys after all. He had his head down and his free arm wrapped protectively around the parchment he was working on, obscuring it from view, as he made quick strokes with the charcoal. He appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that Hercules had drawn near, and also to his blackened fingers and the dark smudge along one cheekbone. Hercules couldn't help grinning at the sight.
"What are you up to?" he asked softly.
Jason visibly jumped. He raised his head to turn startled eyes on Hercules.
"Nothing," he said anxiously. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."
Hercules frowned at the child's reaction.
"I didn't say you were doing anything wrong," he pointed out gently, drawing a stool over and sitting down on it so that he wasn't looming over the boys. "I was just interested."
"He was drawing," Pythagoras piped up. "He keeps drawing. Acaeus gave him some charcoal to draw with."
Hercules raised an eyebrow in surprise. Acaeus was the helmsman on the Argo and was generally a sour man with little time for anyone.
"What were you drawing?" he asked.
Jason bit his lip.
"Nothing much," he mumbled.
"Can I see?" Hercules requested.
Jason turned the parchment over and shook his head, not quite looking at the burly wrestler. Out of the corner of his eye, Hercules could see Ariadne watching the situation with a frown marring her beautiful features.
"It's alright," he said kindly. "It is not a problem."
He looked at the two children critically, taking in Pythagoras' ink-stained fingers and the fact that Jason seemed to have covered himself in charcoal with a rueful smile.
"It's bedtime," he announced. "Go on. Go and wash your faces and hands… properly mind… and I'll tell you the story of my Father and Cerberus like I promised to."
Both Jason and Pythagoras scrambled to get up from the table and do what Hercules had asked. At the door though, Jason hesitated and looked back at the piece of parchment he had left turned over on the table. Hercules followed his eyes and smiled.
"No one will look if you don't want them to, I promise," he said. "Tell you what, let's fold this up and put it in the chest over there where it will be safe, alright?"
Jason smiled and nodded eagerly. Hercules returned his smile. He picked up the drawing without looking at it and put it in the chest as he had suggested.
"Go on now, Trouble," he said softly.
By the time he and Ariadne had tidied up a little - putting away all the things the boys had been using - and he had made his way into the bedroom, the two children had washed themselves and got into bed, where they were eagerly awaiting Hercules' arrival. Hercules smiled broadly and got onto the bed, allowing the children to snuggle in on either side.
"Now," he rumbled. "Where should I begin?"
"At the beginning," Pythagoras giggled.
"Of course," Hercules replied. "Cerberus is the beast that guards the entrance to Hades, the underworld. He is a giant dog with three heads and each head has vicious, foaming jaws and sharp teeth…"
Back out in the main room, Icarus had returned from a short walk on the shore where they had beached. He sat and chatted to Ariadne for a while until Cassandra joined them, fresh from her religious observances.
"Hercules is taking his time tonight," Icarus mentioned.
"He was going to tell them a story," Ariadne replied. She looked at the door to the bedroom. "He is very good with them," she added with a sigh. "It is a shame that he and Medusa were not together for long enough to have children. He would have made a good father."
"I didn't know Medusa," Icarus admitted. "What was she like?"
Ariadne grimaced.
"I have to admit that I did not really know her properly myself," she answered. "She worked in the Palace kitchens and our paths rarely crossed. I knew her through Jason and through Korinna, my maid, that is all. Everything Hercules and Pythagoras have said about her… I wish I had known her better. I think I would have liked her. She gave her life for mine and it seems… wrong that I did not know her as well as I would have liked."
They lapsed into silence for a moment, each caught up in silent regrets about what had happened since Pasiphae had stolen the throne. Presently, Icarus roused himself.
"I will just go and check that Hercules is alright," he said.
He moved across the room and opened the door to the chamber that Hercules was sharing with the two boys. In the doorway, he stopped and smiled warmly.
Hercules was fast asleep on the bed with the two children nestled into his sides. Icarus shook his head fondly and slipped into the room on silent feet. He carefully shook out a blanket he found on top of a low chest and gently draped it over the slumbering wrestler and the boys. Then he turned and left the room, pulling the door closed as quietly as he could and leaving Hercules and his charges to sleep undisturbed.
Author: Yassandra
Fandom: Atlantis
Pairing/characters: Jason/Ariadne, Pythagoras/Icarus, Hercules, Cassandra
Rating: G
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Not mine. BBC and Urban Myth Films own them.
Word count: 25317 (This chapter - 4856)
Summary: A routine mission away from the Argo goes awry when Hercules makes a mistake and triggers a curse. Now he's left with a little problem - well, two little problems really...
A/N Written for round six of the Small Fandoms Bang, and also for Hurt/Comfort Bingo for the 'de-age' prompt.
Chapter 3 - Nobody's Father
All in all, Hercules thought Ariadne had taken the news rather well. True, she kept throwing hard looks in his direction, but once she had been convinced that they were telling the truth about Jason and Pythagoras being turned into children, she had swooped into action. Before any of them had really known what was going on, she had the two little boys sitting at the table and eating some cakes (although Hercules wasn't entirely sure where she had managed to rustle up cakes from).
Now she was sitting at the table, listening intently to Pythagoras wittering on about something or other while they were waiting for Cassandra to come back from the local town. Jason had once again retreated into silence nibbling on the cake that Ariadne had handed him and watching the beautiful girl with huge eyes. Hercules couldn't help noticing he had cake crumbs around his mouth and, as the big man watched, he kept sniffing.
Hercules rolled his eyes and grabbed a cloth from the table, descending on the boy and holding the cloth in front of his nose.
"Blow," he instructed firmly.
Jason obliged him.
Hercules took the opportunity to wipe the child's sticky face and hands at the same time and turned back away from the table to find Icarus watching him with an amused expression.
"What?" the burly wrestler demanded.
"You do know that you make a good father, don't you?" Icarus murmured.
"Don't be ridiculous," Hercules scoffed. "I am not anyone's father. I've always been careful about that."
Before either of them could say any more though, Cassandra entered the room. She looked from Hercules to the two little boys and back again.
"You touched something when I warned you not to," she said flatly.
"What makes you think it was me?" Hercules protested.
Cassandra raised her eyebrows and stared at him. For a moment she looked so much like the old Oracle that Hercules nearly shuddered.
She's a seer, he reminded himself. Of course she knows the truth.
He looked across the room and saw the two little boys watching the conversation curiously. Without even really thinking about it, he reached into a pouch at his belt and withdrew an elderly set of knucklebones. He turned to the boys with a smile.
"Why don't you go out in the fresh air and play with these?" he asked. "You don't want to be cooped up in here with a load of dull adults."
Jason frowned.
"What are they?" he asked.
"Knucklebones of course," Pythagoras replied before Hercules could speak.
"Do you know how to play with them?" the bulky wrestler asked the blonde child.
"Of course," Pythagoras answered. "I have tried teaching Arcas but he is too little. He cannot seem to learn."
"Well how about you teach Jason the game then?" Hercules rumbled. "Go on. Go out and play."
Once the boys had left the cabin, he turned back to the other adults in the room.
"What do we do now?" Ariadne asked Cassandra, getting straight to the point. "They cannot stay like this. There must be a way to help them."
Cassandra blinked owlishly at her but did not speak. Instead she fetched a metal bowl and set it on the floor, filling it with water from a large jug. She knelt in front of it and began to pray, crushing petals that she withdrew from a bag into the water; focussing her vision. Her eyes became distant and her whole body began to shake as she stared into the water.
"What is it?" Icarus asked her. "What do you see? Is there a way to return Pythagoras and Jason to normal?"
"You have offended Aphrodite and it is to her that you must make amends," Cassandra said. "You must journey to Palea Paphos; to the Sanctuary of Aphrodite on Cyprus. There, near where the Goddess arose from the waves, you must go to the grove and make your offering at the altar. Only then will Aphrodite consent to remove her curse."
"Cyprus," Ariadne said, glaring at Hercules. "Which is in the opposite direction to Colchis from where we are right now and will take us weeks to get to." She shook her head in annoyance.
"So we head to Cyprus then," Icarus murmured.
"It would seem so," Ariadne retorted. "But there are things we must do first."
She marched into the room that she shared with Jason and came back bearing a couple of blankets, some shears and a needle and thread. Over the couple of months they had lived in the forest together, Hercules had learned that the young Queen was surprisingly adept at sewing and now she began to cut out the blankets and join the pieces that she cut together with small even stitches.
"What are you doing?" the burly wrestler asked.
"Neither of them can go around for weeks wearing only an adult sized tunic," Ariadne declared. "And you," she added, pointing the shears at Hercules almost aggressively, "are going to go to the market in the town just over those dunes first thing in the morning and buy them some shoes that fit." She paused. "Actually," she added, "I think that I will go with you. If I left you to your own devices you would probably forget what you had gone there to buy and spend all the money on pies!"
Hercules felt that was distinctly unfair but it didn't seem worth antagonising Ariadne any further by arguing. He did, however, clear his throat, knowing that what he was about to say would probably upset both the young Queen and Icarus.
"I was thinking about sleeping arrangements," he muttered. "I think that both the boys will need to share my room."
"What?" Icarus demanded.
"No!" Ariadne exclaimed at the same time. "Jason is my husband."
"Exactly," Hercules growled. He held up one meaty hand to forestall any further protests. "Just think about it," he said to Ariadne. "On any normal day Jason is your husband, but right now he's only about eight years old. He doesn't need a wife at the moment, he needs a mother… and if you step into that role, what do you think it will be like when he returns to his proper age?" He looked at Icarus. "And that goes for both of you," he added. "I know how much Pythagoras loves you… what he feels for you… and I would bet that you feel the same way about him. You cannot be his parent if you want to go back to being his lover when everything gets back to normal."
Icarus grimaced and turned to Ariadne.
"Much as I hate to admit it, he is right," he murmured.
Ariadne looked at him steadily.
"I know," she stated. "But that does not mean I have to like it." She turned to look thoughtfully at the doors to both the room she normally shared with Jason and Hercules' smaller quarters. "You will use our room until this curse has been lifted," she decided. "I can sleep in your room well enough." She raised an eyebrow at Hercules. "I will not have any argument on this."
"And you won't get one," Hercules replied. "We may not like what has happened, but it has happened. So let's just make the best of it and work at getting those boys back to normal as soon as possible."
The agora was hot and dusty. Hercules had to admit that shopping with young children was not the most pleasant experience he had ever had. Both boys were quite obviously bored and between Pythagoras' incessant curiosity and Jason dragging his feet and sighing loudly, their large friend was about ready to tear what little was left of his hair out.
Unfortunately, Ariadne showed no signs of cutting her shopping expedition short so he was stuck, trailing after her with the two children in tow. They hadn't actually found any shoes that would fit either child yet and Ariadne had proclaimed that a pair that 'almost fit' were just not good enough. There was no shoemaker in town, they had been told, so they were stuck moving from stall to stall in the hope that someone would have what they needed.
"Hercules?" Pythagoras said as they walked past stalls selling bread and cheese and all the other staples of life.
"Yes?" Hercules replied.
"Where are we going when we leave here?"
Hercules smiled indulgently.
"We are going to Cyprus," he told the little blonde.
Pythagoras' blue eyes grew huge.
"Cyprus?" he squeaked. "Cyprus is a long way from Samos… Is it very big there? Biton, the son of Crattipus, the merchant who lives in the big house in my village, said that his father once went as far as Lesbos and it was huge. Is Cyprus as big as Lesbos?"
"Bigger I am told," Hercules replied absently, still looking at the different stalls to try to find the shoes they needed to buy.
"Bigger?" Pythagoras said, his eyes growing even larger. "And we are going there? I will have such an adventure to tell everyone about when I get back to Samos. Why are we going to Cyprus? Is there something there that you need?"
"Yes," Hercules answered. "There is something that we need to do there."
"And will we be going back to Samos after that?" Pythagoras asked.
"Mmm," Hercules replied, not actually wanting to lie to the child but not wanting to upset him either.
Ariadne had forged ahead of them while they were talking. Now she came back with a determined expression.
"Come along," she said. "I have been speaking with a stallholder around the corner and he believes he has just the thing we are looking for." She peered around Hercules with a frown. "Where is Jason?" she asked.
Hercules felt his blood run cold. He turned around in a circle, eyes desperately scanning the marketplace they were in. Finally, he saw his other small charge not all that far from where they were standing, but what Jason was about to do frightened him even more. The boy was staring at a sleeping two-headed lizard with wonder written on his face and was reaching out to pet it. Hercules raced across the agora faster than he would have believed he could move and grabbed the child's hand back from where it was about to touch one of the heads.
"What in the name of the Gods do you think you are doing?" he yelled at Jason. "Don't you have any idea how dangerous that thing is? It is a hydra! It could have your hand off."
He dragged Jason back beyond the range of the lizard and put both hands firmly on the boy's shoulders.
"And don't you remember what I said to you yesterday about running off?" he demanded, giving the child a small shake. "Do you have any idea how frightened I was when I saw you near that thing? And in this marketplace you could easily have been lost."
His heart softened as he saw tears welling up in the little boy's eyes and he crouched down next to Jason and wrapped his arms around him.
"It's alright," he rumbled, far more gently than before. "I didn't mean to shout… but you frightened me. You need to stay close to me. I do not want to lose you."
Jason nodded, biting his lip.
"I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to wander off. I stopped to look and then you were all gone."
"It's over now," Hercules replied. "But you must stay with me… even if you do see something that you want to look at. All you have to do is ask if you want to stop to look at something."
"What was that thing?" Jason asked. "It had two heads."
"Of course it did," Hercules answered. "It was a hydra." He pulled back and looked at Jason with a frown. "Haven't you ever seen a hydra before?"
The brunette child shook his head.
"No," he said. "It looked like something out of one of my story books."
Hercules' frown deepened. Surely a hydra wasn't that unusual that the child would never have seen one before? He had sometimes speculated in the past that, since he apparently knew so little about everyday life, Jason must have been raised by a hermit that couldn't speak, but now he wondered anew: just where had the boy grown up?
"Can I ask you something?" Jason murmured hesitantly, as they move back across the agora to re-join Ariadne and Pythagoras, his hand now firmly clasped in Hercules'.
"Yes," Hercules replied.
"Is your name really Hercules?"
The burly wrestler frowned deeply.
"Of course it is," he responded. "Why?"
"Because there's a Hercules in a film I watched and in some of my books but he's not like you," Jason replied innocently. "He's a hero and he's really, really strong and brave. He's like the son of this God… and he's really young and good looking."
Hercules' frown deepened. He didn't know what a film was but the rest of Jason's meaning had come through clearly enough.
"Well I may not be the Hercules that you have read about but I am called Hercules," he said, "and there are those who tell stories of my exploits and call me a hero."
"Okay," Jason answered. "I was just wondering."
By the time they had finished with the stallholder that Ariadne was talking about, both boys had shoes that fit them. The clothes she had sewn for them from the cut up blankets fitted them well enough (especially remarkable considering she hadn't really stopped to measure either boy properly), helped by the belts Hercules had made from some strips of plaited leather he had pinched from one of the crew and tied around their waists.
Now that their main purpose for being in the market was done, Ariadne relaxed and smiled at Hercules.
"I was thinking that we might look for some things to keep these two entertained on the journey," she said softly, "and perhaps for a small treat."
Hercules raised an eyebrow.
"Can we afford it?" he murmured.
It was a valid question. They did not, after all, have a great deal of money with them on the voyage - although Pythagoras had been able to earn a little (or at least get paid in goods) by providing medical aid to some of the more remote settlements they had arrived at and Ariadne had sold a lot of the jewellery she had been wearing when they had fled Atlantis quite early on. Add to that a few mercenary or guarding jobs that Jason had taken on for a variety of people they had come across, and they were surviving with a little left over for emergencies.
"It is not a problem," Ariadne replied. "Our funds are not low and I was not thinking of anything too extravagant."
By the time they returned to the boat, Hercules was carrying a basket containing parchment, ink and several styli, wax tablets, a counting board and a ruler. There was also a new set of knucklebones and some spheria (which Jason kept inexplicably referring to as 'marbles') and a pente grammai board made of terracotta. Hercules noted with a smile that they were all things that could continue to be used after the boys were returned to their usual ages. It appeared that Ariadne was far more practical than he would have given her credit for being.
Back in the central room on the ship, he watched the young Queen sitting with the two boys and teaching them to play pente grammai (something he was a little surprised that Pythagoras didn't already know). Ariadne would make a good mother someday, he decided. He poured himself a cup of wine and thought back over the trip to the market with a sigh. Somehow he suspected this was going to be a long journey.
It had already been a trying morning and it wasn't actually that long after breakfast. To be fair, Hercules was not at his best in the morning on any usual day and had perhaps consumed a little more wine than he had been intending to last night. Did that mean, though, that the children had to be extra noisy? They could have had a bit more consideration for his sore head after all.
As it was, so far he had fielded a long list of questions from the ever curious Pythagoras (and how was Hercules supposed to know why the sky was blue and what a siren ate for breakfast?) and broken up an impromptu game of something that Jason called 'tag', which as far as Hercules could see was a simplified version of ostrakinda (but without the team element) and involved an inordinate amount of shouting and running around (which certainly shouldn't have been happening indoors).
He had chased the boys out onto deck to get some fresh air at that point.
At least the crew had accepted what had happened and seemed willing to keep an eye on the children when they were up on deck. It gave Hercules a well-earned respite from their apparently boundless energy.
As if thinking about them had summoned them though, Pythagoras bounced into the room followed by his slightly smaller friend.
"Hercules. Hercules… Come and see. Come and see," he said urgently.
"What is it?" Hercules growled, disgruntled that his peace had been disrupted again so soon.
"I saw a mermaid!" Pythagoras declared, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Jason thought it was a dolphin but I know it was a mermaid."
"It was a dolphin," Jason protested to no-one in particular. "There's no such thing as a mermaid anyway."
"There is too!" Pythagoras rounded on his friend. "There are lots of stories and lots of people have seen them."
"Have you ever seen a mermaid?" Jason asked Hercules curiously.
"No," Hercules admitted. "But that does not mean that they do not exist," he added seeing Pythagoras' crestfallen look. "I have seen many strange things and heard many strange tales over the years… and I have seen creatures that no-one believed existed standing there as large as life."
"Like what?" Jason asked.
"Well," Hercules replied with a grin. "I have seen a Kynikos… one of the hounds who protect the Goddess Hekate." He knew that there was no chance of either boy remembering the 'rabid dog incident' as they had come to call it, given that they seemed to have no real tangible memories of their adult lives at all.
"Really?" Jason said sceptically, frowning as though he thought Hercules was laughing at him.
"Really," Hercules confirmed. "And my father plucked a tooth from the foaming jaws of Cerberus himself; the beast who guards the underworld. He used to tell me the story of how he came to face that monster when I was no older than you are."
"Maybe he was making it up," Jason suggested.
"Well if he was making it up, where did this come from?" Hercules asked, producing a giant tooth from the pouch on his belt. Jason had recovered the trinket for him from Circe when he had made his deal with her and Hercules had carried it with him ever since, unwilling to let it out of his sight again.
The child's eyes grew huge and he reached out to touch the tooth gently.
"How did he do it?" he asked.
Hercules smiled and put the tooth back into the pouch, carefully pulling the strings closed and tying them securely.
"Would you like me to tell you the story?" he rumbled.
Jason nodded eagerly.
"Well, how about I tell you before bed tonight?" Hercules asked. "Give you something to look forwards to."
Jason nodded again.
"Yes please," he said quietly.
Hercules patted the boy on the shoulder. He had noticed over the past few days, that neither child really asked for anything for themselves but would be almost disturbingly grateful if you offered them anything. It made him a little sad.
"Right," he said. "We'll do that later then. Now let's go and look at Pythagoras' mermaid."
Supper was some kind of stew. Jason peered at it suspiciously and poked at it with his spoon. He wasn't entirely sure what was in it but it didn't taste like the food from back home; none of the food here did. These people didn't seem to eat potatoes for a start and some of their meat tasted funny (Hercules had told him it was goat. Jason wished he hadn't asked).
"Don't you like it?" Ariadne asked gently.
Jason ducked his head and tried to avoid the scrutiny of the adults in the room.
"It's nice," he said, quickly swallowing a mouthful.
It didn't taste too bad, he decided, and at least taking a mouthful had made Ariadne smile. He liked making her smile. She was very pretty and seemed very kind. In fact, so far everyone here had been very kind (even if he still wasn't entirely sure where 'here' was) and he really didn't want to screw things up and risk being sent back; he'd been sent back too many times already.
He ate what he could manage and sat back quietly, legs swinging where they didn't reach the floor, and let the conversation flow around him. It was nice and he was rapidly becoming attached to these people - even if there was still a chance that they wouldn't want to keep him forever.
Finally supper was over and everyone dispersed to their early evening tasks. Hercules poured himself a cup of wine and sat back, watching the two boys without either of them being aware of it. He could see that Ariadne was doing the same while sewing. It was interesting that right from the start neither of the children had attempted to go out after dark and had (by and large) accepted it whenever Hercules had decreed that it was time to go to bed. One or the other of them might occasionally try to bargain for a later bedtime but once the burly wrestler indicated that this was not a matter for discussion, they generally gave up pretty quickly.
Right now, they were both settled at the table quietly. On other evenings they had played pente grammai or knucklebones at the table, but tonight they both seemed engrossed in individual activities that involved pieces of parchment and, in Pythagoras' case, the counting board. It was interesting, actually, seeing their basic personality traits that had clearly carried through to adulthood coming out in them as children.
There were differences though. This version of Pythagoras was far more carefree than his adult counterpart (something that Hercules was inordinately grateful for) even if he did still have an odd fascination with mathematics and a burning desire for knowledge; Jason, on the other hand, seemed a lot more sensitive - quieter somehow - although Hercules was beginning to wonder just how much of his normal adult behaviour was an act; a protective shell that he hid behind.
Wondering exactly what his young charges were doing, Hercules carefully put down his wine and quietly stepped over to them.
As he had expected from the presence of the counting board, Pythagoras appeared to be doing something mathematical - although the calculations he was attempting seemed far too complicated for a child his age. As Hercules came close, he looked up with a bright and enthusiastic smile. Hercules was suddenly very much afraid that he intended to launch into a discussion about mathematics - far from his favourite subject. In desperation, he turned to look at Jason.
Jason, Hercules noticed with a frown, had apparently acquired a small piece of charcoal from somewhere. The burly wrestler suspected that he had been given it by one of the crew - the usually hard-bitten sailors seemed to dote on both boys after all. He had his head down and his free arm wrapped protectively around the parchment he was working on, obscuring it from view, as he made quick strokes with the charcoal. He appeared to be completely oblivious to the fact that Hercules had drawn near, and also to his blackened fingers and the dark smudge along one cheekbone. Hercules couldn't help grinning at the sight.
"What are you up to?" he asked softly.
Jason visibly jumped. He raised his head to turn startled eyes on Hercules.
"Nothing," he said anxiously. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."
Hercules frowned at the child's reaction.
"I didn't say you were doing anything wrong," he pointed out gently, drawing a stool over and sitting down on it so that he wasn't looming over the boys. "I was just interested."
"He was drawing," Pythagoras piped up. "He keeps drawing. Acaeus gave him some charcoal to draw with."
Hercules raised an eyebrow in surprise. Acaeus was the helmsman on the Argo and was generally a sour man with little time for anyone.
"What were you drawing?" he asked.
Jason bit his lip.
"Nothing much," he mumbled.
"Can I see?" Hercules requested.
Jason turned the parchment over and shook his head, not quite looking at the burly wrestler. Out of the corner of his eye, Hercules could see Ariadne watching the situation with a frown marring her beautiful features.
"It's alright," he said kindly. "It is not a problem."
He looked at the two children critically, taking in Pythagoras' ink-stained fingers and the fact that Jason seemed to have covered himself in charcoal with a rueful smile.
"It's bedtime," he announced. "Go on. Go and wash your faces and hands… properly mind… and I'll tell you the story of my Father and Cerberus like I promised to."
Both Jason and Pythagoras scrambled to get up from the table and do what Hercules had asked. At the door though, Jason hesitated and looked back at the piece of parchment he had left turned over on the table. Hercules followed his eyes and smiled.
"No one will look if you don't want them to, I promise," he said. "Tell you what, let's fold this up and put it in the chest over there where it will be safe, alright?"
Jason smiled and nodded eagerly. Hercules returned his smile. He picked up the drawing without looking at it and put it in the chest as he had suggested.
"Go on now, Trouble," he said softly.
By the time he and Ariadne had tidied up a little - putting away all the things the boys had been using - and he had made his way into the bedroom, the two children had washed themselves and got into bed, where they were eagerly awaiting Hercules' arrival. Hercules smiled broadly and got onto the bed, allowing the children to snuggle in on either side.
"Now," he rumbled. "Where should I begin?"
"At the beginning," Pythagoras giggled.
"Of course," Hercules replied. "Cerberus is the beast that guards the entrance to Hades, the underworld. He is a giant dog with three heads and each head has vicious, foaming jaws and sharp teeth…"
Back out in the main room, Icarus had returned from a short walk on the shore where they had beached. He sat and chatted to Ariadne for a while until Cassandra joined them, fresh from her religious observances.
"Hercules is taking his time tonight," Icarus mentioned.
"He was going to tell them a story," Ariadne replied. She looked at the door to the bedroom. "He is very good with them," she added with a sigh. "It is a shame that he and Medusa were not together for long enough to have children. He would have made a good father."
"I didn't know Medusa," Icarus admitted. "What was she like?"
Ariadne grimaced.
"I have to admit that I did not really know her properly myself," she answered. "She worked in the Palace kitchens and our paths rarely crossed. I knew her through Jason and through Korinna, my maid, that is all. Everything Hercules and Pythagoras have said about her… I wish I had known her better. I think I would have liked her. She gave her life for mine and it seems… wrong that I did not know her as well as I would have liked."
They lapsed into silence for a moment, each caught up in silent regrets about what had happened since Pasiphae had stolen the throne. Presently, Icarus roused himself.
"I will just go and check that Hercules is alright," he said.
He moved across the room and opened the door to the chamber that Hercules was sharing with the two boys. In the doorway, he stopped and smiled warmly.
Hercules was fast asleep on the bed with the two children nestled into his sides. Icarus shook his head fondly and slipped into the room on silent feet. He carefully shook out a blanket he found on top of a low chest and gently draped it over the slumbering wrestler and the boys. Then he turned and left the room, pulling the door closed as quietly as he could and leaving Hercules and his charges to sleep undisturbed.