Trust My Instincts [Greek myth AU, Pheres, PG]
Title: Trust My Instincts
Fandom: Greek Myth AU
Characters: Pheres + Memeros + Medea/Zagreus + Jason + mentions of Zagreus' family.
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Hearts_blood
for prompt 59. Through a Child's Eyes. I apologize for this containing only incidental bits of Medea/Zagreus. <<
Summary: His very first memory.
His very first memory, at three years old, is of his father walking away in disgust after he managed to levitate a pot inside the courtyard.
He starts to run after the man but falls, starts to crawl over the warm stones but then realizes that his knee is bruised and bleeding. He wails then, a wail that only a child could produce and a wail that should send all adults scuttling to his aid… But his father just keeps walking.
Instead it is his brother, two years older and just as ignored as he will be, who finds him snotty and sobbing. “Mama!” Mermeros yells, and kneels by his snivelling brother with kind eyes and welcoming arms.
“Why does daddy hate magic, mama?” Pheres asks mama later, when she’s kissed his knee better and patched it up. She simply looks down and doesn’t answer. His father is nowhere to be seen.
Later he thinks that he should’ve known the future from the start.
--
He is five when he father leaves, when the man walks out laughing cruelly as mama stays at the table with her hands covering her eyes.
“Mama…?”
Mermeros grab his arm. Drags him upstairs before mama’s pretty eyes can lift and flash helpless tears at them. His drag is rough but Pheres goes with it; stumbling on every step and wondering all the way.
“Is daddy coming back?” he asks later, as they sit on the roof and watch the stars; completely ignorant of what mama is doing below.
Memeros remains silent for a long while before answering. Seven now, thin and pale, he seems far wiser than Pheres ever could be “…Do we want him to?”
Pheres opens his mouth… And then shuts it again and stares up at the stars, stares up at the night ‘til the tears seem buried deeper than they ever have been, ‘til every speck of confusion is banished to lurk within.
Memeros is far, far wiser.
--
At seven years old he walks through the woods, leaves rustling in his path. He does not fancy himself a wild thing and does not dare to hunt, he does not play in these woods with other boys and he does not desecrate the sanctity of nature with huts.
No, he comes here to listen
To run through the forest, dogs sometimes beside him and prancing naturally through the trees. To roll in the mulch and feel the beat of the earth beneath his cheek. To see the life that flowers through everything, as ordained by Gaia and her almost queenly granddaughter long, long ago.
To splash through the rivers, and get his legs wet right up to the thigh. To bury his hands in the cold waters and come up holding stones that glitter as finely as jewels. To sprawl on the bank and fancy that he could almost hear the river singing, in such a happy way.
To skip around trees, bark rough and wondrous under his fingertips. To clamber up them ‘til he can touch their leaves, and dapple his cheeks with such dancing sunlight. To press his cheek to them and think, just for a few moments, that he can hear them whisper ancient tales of a dark land before the shining new…
“Can you hear them?”
To listen, and jerk back as his mama’s strange visitor appears from the trees with an awkward sort of smile.
“I’m sorry,” he, Lord Ouroboros who mama so admires, smiles at Pheres’ expression - and stays where he is with his hands calmly outstretched, “I just thought…”
“Sometimes,” he answers very quietly, after a very quick look around for anybody who, unlikely as it seems, will snatch the news up and take it to Jason’s disappointed ears “…Can you?”
“No, no. I’m afraid not,” Lord Ouroboros seems very awkward, as if he’s not quite used to dealing with those younger than him but is perfectly prepared to force his way through if needs be, “snakes, on the other hand…”
That day they sit in the dappled and warm sunlight, tree whispering at Pheres’ back, and Lord Ouroboros tells him happily of the charming of snakes.
--
The most embarrassing moment of his life, at nine years of age, comes when he tiptoes downstairs to try some spell on a lamp and finds Lord Ouroboros and mama deep in a passionate kiss.
He darts back behind the door. Waits until they’ve stopped and have started low, amused conversation instead. And then shoots back upstairs before the conversation is ended again, heading straight for the room he shares with Mermeros with all the speed of a anxious cheetah.
“He’ll be a good father,” is the only thing that Mermeros will say, peering over his scroll with mature eyes for a boy of but eleven years of age, “kind, smart, attentive… You like him, don’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“Well then,” Mermeros settles back, scroll raising to cover his mother’s blessed eyes in a dismissive manner, “what are you worried about?”
Jason, crosses his mind for but a moment. But he represses it and tries to fall asleep, able to think only of his father’s disapproving sneer right up ‘til dawn rises fresh and rosy in the sky.
--
He is eleven when mama and Zagreus marry in the courtyard of their home where he one bruised his knee. He smiles all the way through the celebrations, half genuinely, and all through his mama and stepfather’s first dance. And then snaps when they’re caught up with each other and drags his older brother into a secretive alcove as a woman who must be Makaria drifts past.
“A god,” he murmurs frenziedly, hair sticking up despite a nice nymph’s best attempts, “he’s actually a god.”
“Yes,” Mermeros, now thirteen and dressed up in his very best clothes, seems entirely unaffected by the news and its implications, “so is mama, now. Unless that’ll be done after the wedding-“
“Gods,” Pheres is still fixed on one frenzied matter, his hair is almost bristling with it, “we’ll be gods.”
“High opinion of ourselves, haven’t-“ Mermeros sees the look on Pheres’ face; stops halfway through with the level of tact that he’s always possessed in a deep and innate way.
“I can’t be a god,” he eventually starts, half shaking with the revelation and the noise of the celebrations just outside their hiding place, “I’m just a sorcerer, just a boy who can levitate pots. Who would ever allow me into-?”
“Mama’s a sorceress.”
“…Yes.”
“Yes,” Mermeros echoes, and grabs his arm with narrowed eyes and a keen sense for when distraction is needed, “come, perhaps we should try some of the food.”
Pheres thinks furiously all the way, even as he’s chewing upon a chicken.
--
At thirteen years old the grand Jason returns after his lovely princess kicks him out. He, being always self obsessed, expected mama to have been pining for him and the news of her marriage led to much hissing, yelling and curses that almost offended the ear.
Jason comes across his son when he’s taking his leave, Pheres sitting in a kitchen and absently levitating a pot out of sheer stress. The man pauses for a moment, lets that old sneer flicker across his face as Pheres almost considers shrinking away.
“Must you be like your mother?”
“Better than being like you,” Pheres murmurs defiantly, and watches the door slam as Jason storms angrily away.
He shakes until Zagreus finds him later, then silently shakes into the table as his stepfather tells him stories of Olympus ‘til he finally manages to calm.
--
The first heroic thing he does, at fifteen years old and confused about most things, is to save a little girl from a falling branch in the middle of the forest.
“Move!” He yells at her, holding up the branch with an outstretched hand and a focused mind. She immediately obeys, with wide eyes, and runs to find a mother who will later almost smother Pheres with a basket of grain before he manages to get away.
“My son,” mama smiles proudly, little Akakios curious ion her arms, “the saviour of those who need saving.”
Pheres hangs his head.
“I’m proud of you,” Zagreus nods, a fond hand on his back and a fond note to his serpentine smile.
Pheres looks away.
“You’ll make a good god,” Mermeros nods over yet another scroll, and somehow manages to catch his arm before he can flee and hide and bang his head against a wall, “you’ll help people instead of lurking in the forest all day.”
Can you help people with magic…?
--
He is seventeen when it’s decided that it’s time for them to ascend. Immediately they’re whisked away, with little ceremony, to stand at the top of golden Olympus with all the gods and goddesses around him. He sees halved Melinoe next to her blacksmith husband, he sees dark Hades standing solemn next to the grain-mother, he sees blissful Makaria next to a loud redhead, he sees queen Kore drifting towards them with arms outstretched…
He lasts five seconds before he flees, out of the ceremony and into the nearest piece of nature that he can find.
Mama is the one to find him, as she usually is, the one to grab his pacing wrists and sit them down on a nearby bench until he stops shaking and loses the urge to jump off Olympus and have done with it.
“Jason influences you about as much as he influences me,” she sighs, clasping his hands and staring intensely into his face.
“Really?”
“Not at all,” and she smiles, as her equally magical son sits in the garden and thinks so, so deeply.
--
At nineteen he is a god, and still rather magical.
At nineteen he helps people; and the magic doesn’t slow him a single, sneering step.
Fandom: Greek Myth AU
Characters: Pheres + Memeros + Medea/Zagreus + Jason + mentions of Zagreus' family.
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Hearts_blood
for prompt 59. Through a Child's Eyes. I apologize for this containing only incidental bits of Medea/Zagreus. <<
Summary: His very first memory.
His very first memory, at three years old, is of his father walking away in disgust after he managed to levitate a pot inside the courtyard.
He starts to run after the man but falls, starts to crawl over the warm stones but then realizes that his knee is bruised and bleeding. He wails then, a wail that only a child could produce and a wail that should send all adults scuttling to his aid… But his father just keeps walking.
Instead it is his brother, two years older and just as ignored as he will be, who finds him snotty and sobbing. “Mama!” Mermeros yells, and kneels by his snivelling brother with kind eyes and welcoming arms.
“Why does daddy hate magic, mama?” Pheres asks mama later, when she’s kissed his knee better and patched it up. She simply looks down and doesn’t answer. His father is nowhere to be seen.
Later he thinks that he should’ve known the future from the start.
--
He is five when he father leaves, when the man walks out laughing cruelly as mama stays at the table with her hands covering her eyes.
“Mama…?”
Mermeros grab his arm. Drags him upstairs before mama’s pretty eyes can lift and flash helpless tears at them. His drag is rough but Pheres goes with it; stumbling on every step and wondering all the way.
“Is daddy coming back?” he asks later, as they sit on the roof and watch the stars; completely ignorant of what mama is doing below.
Memeros remains silent for a long while before answering. Seven now, thin and pale, he seems far wiser than Pheres ever could be “…Do we want him to?”
Pheres opens his mouth… And then shuts it again and stares up at the stars, stares up at the night ‘til the tears seem buried deeper than they ever have been, ‘til every speck of confusion is banished to lurk within.
Memeros is far, far wiser.
--
At seven years old he walks through the woods, leaves rustling in his path. He does not fancy himself a wild thing and does not dare to hunt, he does not play in these woods with other boys and he does not desecrate the sanctity of nature with huts.
No, he comes here to listen
To run through the forest, dogs sometimes beside him and prancing naturally through the trees. To roll in the mulch and feel the beat of the earth beneath his cheek. To see the life that flowers through everything, as ordained by Gaia and her almost queenly granddaughter long, long ago.
To splash through the rivers, and get his legs wet right up to the thigh. To bury his hands in the cold waters and come up holding stones that glitter as finely as jewels. To sprawl on the bank and fancy that he could almost hear the river singing, in such a happy way.
To skip around trees, bark rough and wondrous under his fingertips. To clamber up them ‘til he can touch their leaves, and dapple his cheeks with such dancing sunlight. To press his cheek to them and think, just for a few moments, that he can hear them whisper ancient tales of a dark land before the shining new…
“Can you hear them?”
To listen, and jerk back as his mama’s strange visitor appears from the trees with an awkward sort of smile.
“I’m sorry,” he, Lord Ouroboros who mama so admires, smiles at Pheres’ expression - and stays where he is with his hands calmly outstretched, “I just thought…”
“Sometimes,” he answers very quietly, after a very quick look around for anybody who, unlikely as it seems, will snatch the news up and take it to Jason’s disappointed ears “…Can you?”
“No, no. I’m afraid not,” Lord Ouroboros seems very awkward, as if he’s not quite used to dealing with those younger than him but is perfectly prepared to force his way through if needs be, “snakes, on the other hand…”
That day they sit in the dappled and warm sunlight, tree whispering at Pheres’ back, and Lord Ouroboros tells him happily of the charming of snakes.
--
The most embarrassing moment of his life, at nine years of age, comes when he tiptoes downstairs to try some spell on a lamp and finds Lord Ouroboros and mama deep in a passionate kiss.
He darts back behind the door. Waits until they’ve stopped and have started low, amused conversation instead. And then shoots back upstairs before the conversation is ended again, heading straight for the room he shares with Mermeros with all the speed of a anxious cheetah.
“He’ll be a good father,” is the only thing that Mermeros will say, peering over his scroll with mature eyes for a boy of but eleven years of age, “kind, smart, attentive… You like him, don’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“Well then,” Mermeros settles back, scroll raising to cover his mother’s blessed eyes in a dismissive manner, “what are you worried about?”
Jason, crosses his mind for but a moment. But he represses it and tries to fall asleep, able to think only of his father’s disapproving sneer right up ‘til dawn rises fresh and rosy in the sky.
--
He is eleven when mama and Zagreus marry in the courtyard of their home where he one bruised his knee. He smiles all the way through the celebrations, half genuinely, and all through his mama and stepfather’s first dance. And then snaps when they’re caught up with each other and drags his older brother into a secretive alcove as a woman who must be Makaria drifts past.
“A god,” he murmurs frenziedly, hair sticking up despite a nice nymph’s best attempts, “he’s actually a god.”
“Yes,” Mermeros, now thirteen and dressed up in his very best clothes, seems entirely unaffected by the news and its implications, “so is mama, now. Unless that’ll be done after the wedding-“
“Gods,” Pheres is still fixed on one frenzied matter, his hair is almost bristling with it, “we’ll be gods.”
“High opinion of ourselves, haven’t-“ Mermeros sees the look on Pheres’ face; stops halfway through with the level of tact that he’s always possessed in a deep and innate way.
“I can’t be a god,” he eventually starts, half shaking with the revelation and the noise of the celebrations just outside their hiding place, “I’m just a sorcerer, just a boy who can levitate pots. Who would ever allow me into-?”
“Mama’s a sorceress.”
“…Yes.”
“Yes,” Mermeros echoes, and grabs his arm with narrowed eyes and a keen sense for when distraction is needed, “come, perhaps we should try some of the food.”
Pheres thinks furiously all the way, even as he’s chewing upon a chicken.
--
At thirteen years old the grand Jason returns after his lovely princess kicks him out. He, being always self obsessed, expected mama to have been pining for him and the news of her marriage led to much hissing, yelling and curses that almost offended the ear.
Jason comes across his son when he’s taking his leave, Pheres sitting in a kitchen and absently levitating a pot out of sheer stress. The man pauses for a moment, lets that old sneer flicker across his face as Pheres almost considers shrinking away.
“Must you be like your mother?”
“Better than being like you,” Pheres murmurs defiantly, and watches the door slam as Jason storms angrily away.
He shakes until Zagreus finds him later, then silently shakes into the table as his stepfather tells him stories of Olympus ‘til he finally manages to calm.
--
The first heroic thing he does, at fifteen years old and confused about most things, is to save a little girl from a falling branch in the middle of the forest.
“Move!” He yells at her, holding up the branch with an outstretched hand and a focused mind. She immediately obeys, with wide eyes, and runs to find a mother who will later almost smother Pheres with a basket of grain before he manages to get away.
“My son,” mama smiles proudly, little Akakios curious ion her arms, “the saviour of those who need saving.”
Pheres hangs his head.
“I’m proud of you,” Zagreus nods, a fond hand on his back and a fond note to his serpentine smile.
Pheres looks away.
“You’ll make a good god,” Mermeros nods over yet another scroll, and somehow manages to catch his arm before he can flee and hide and bang his head against a wall, “you’ll help people instead of lurking in the forest all day.”
Can you help people with magic…?
--
He is seventeen when it’s decided that it’s time for them to ascend. Immediately they’re whisked away, with little ceremony, to stand at the top of golden Olympus with all the gods and goddesses around him. He sees halved Melinoe next to her blacksmith husband, he sees dark Hades standing solemn next to the grain-mother, he sees blissful Makaria next to a loud redhead, he sees queen Kore drifting towards them with arms outstretched…
He lasts five seconds before he flees, out of the ceremony and into the nearest piece of nature that he can find.
Mama is the one to find him, as she usually is, the one to grab his pacing wrists and sit them down on a nearby bench until he stops shaking and loses the urge to jump off Olympus and have done with it.
“Jason influences you about as much as he influences me,” she sighs, clasping his hands and staring intensely into his face.
“Really?”
“Not at all,” and she smiles, as her equally magical son sits in the garden and thinks so, so deeply.
--
At nineteen he is a god, and still rather magical.
At nineteen he helps people; and the magic doesn’t slow him a single, sneering step.