τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.
στάζει δ᾽ ἔν θ᾽ ὕπνῳ πρὸ καρδίας
180μνησιπήμων πόνος: καὶ παρ᾽ ἄ-
κοντας ἦλθε σωφρονεῖν.
δαιμόνων δέ που χάρις βίαιος
σέλμα σεμνὸν ἡμένων.
"Trouble, with its memories of pain, drips in our hearts as we try to sleep, so men against their will learn to practice moderation. Favours come to us from gods seated on their solemn thrones—such grace is harsh and violent."

- Αἰσχύλος (Aeschylus)

Chapter Four

If this was death, he'd been lied to.

It wasn't the unbinding of his soul from his bones; no violent separation, as if a blade had sliced his mortal tethers. It wasn't stormy gales of pain clashing him on jagged, patient rocks. He wasn't left broken nor abandoned, sinking to whatever depths waited, welcoming all doomed to die; not an unwilling captive marching to his final resting place. He wasn't seeing vicious beings of revenge, their leers wide and their patience worn, gruesomely thrilled at his arrival. He wasn't greeted with bloody banners or eternal shackles.

But neither was it an ease of his aches. There was no reprieve, no cleansing, no end or new beginning. There was no open embrace of Elysium to soothe the pains of the mighty. He felt no drenches of clarity, nor even faint spurts, no relief or peace drawing him in. There was no dusting of light on battered skin. No gentle touches from hands of grace to fix gaping wounds; no kisses of truth on blustered lips. There were no celebrations or cheers.

Of course, he was grateful he wasn't being thrust into savage retribution for whatever he'd done in his life—but he felt a little scammed.

If this was death, it was nothing new. It was stagnant. Painful, yes, but it was the same pain he'd woken to on the beach. Nothing had changed; he still ached, he still suffered, he still felt charred and bruised. He was adrift in the pitch-dark waters of his mind, unable to find shore, and that was it. Sure, he wasn't drowning, but he wasn't flying or floating either. He was just... treading water.

Damn them, damn it all, damn Thanatos himself, if this was it—

By gods, he thought, death was not worth dying for.

Frustrated, he'd had enough. Bobbing in uncertain tides somewhere deep within him, full of fury he didn't know how to label, poisoning the water with stubborn resentment—no, this couldn't be death. This couldn't be it. He had no idea which direction to swim in that would lead him to shore, where to go to exit the waters and stand on his feet, but he wouldn't simply wait for something to happen. He would... he would...

He lost focus as something else requested his attention. It wrapped his priorities around its bent finger and tugged him close; he noticed something odd. If he strained his eyes, his ears, and his instincts, he could feel a tremor in the tides that held him. Something was pulsing, ever so subtly throbbing, quaking the water he treaded, originating fathoms below. Something was traveling from drop to drop, spreading as it went. It was—it was—

Pain.

It was pain. He was sure of it. Satisfied, he ducked his head down and swam towards it.

"Stop that!" a voice reprimanded. It arced around him like lightning does when welcomed by the sea's currents; born from a similar haze with no clear borders. It was nowhere, yet everywhere, nothing in between; he couldn't tell exactly where it started. "Enough!"

He swam harder, deeper, angrier. He knew anger. The more he welcomed it, the more he realized he knew it too well. It laughed as it welcomed him back.

"Gods, you're already trampling my nerves, and you're not even awake," the voice muttered. There was a hollow lilt to the words, betraying a light tone that bemused him, weakening the fury. He... he knew that voice. His mind was too soggy for him to pinpoint it, but he'd heard it before, he was sure of it.

He kept fighting his way down. The darkness surged around him, pressure clinging to him as if to stuck to his skin, pricking and pushing. It yanked and pounded watery fists on his already bruised skin; it pulled him tight in a choking embrace and asked him to stay forever, because oh, how it adored him. Then, suddenly, it exploded. He felt himself pulled every which way. He flexed every muscle, every morsel of himself rippling in pain, embracing how it shook him and forced him to feel—

It was still.

Still, and quiet, and empty.

And when he opened his eyes, he was greeted by stone.

The first thought to settle was that of a tomb meant to hold him, that'd he woken from one isolation and entered another form of it. There was nothing more lonely than a decaying body in the earth, so long as one didn't count the waiting worms, but neither was there anything as lonely as the stone encasement of a sealed cradle or crypt.

But it wasn't. He hadn't been buried or laid to rest in stone. Or, at least, not the stone of tombs.

Above him, the rock was dimpled and glistening. It flooded with warm light, slick with an inherent dampness, looking as if a blind artist had wielded a chisel without care. Somewhere, a fire was going; he heard its mild crackles and pops, the source of the creeping smell of ash and the washing light. Would the rest of his body burn now, too? Or was it a pyre, not for his flesh, but what was left of his honor, his legacy? His final shroud? He twitched, body aching. His very mind writhed in agony. He could feel something unpleasant, like his very soul had been pulled out of place then released, but hadn't quite settled back where it should. Was this death, instead?

He blinked.

Except no dead man blinked.

He was awake. He hadn't died. No funeral was needed just yet.

He twitched again, pleased at the torturous prickling of his hands, his feet, his legs; grateful, no matter how much it pained him when sparks danced on every sliver of skin.

"Stop!" the voice hissed again. With still no true venom in the tone, it sounded more like exhaustion or, dare he say it, concern. How unusual.

"Stop moving, you crow-headed, lump of—!"

A hand clasped around his ankle. He jumped at the touch, then immediately groaned at the corresponding jolt of pain that echoed from his toes to his teeth. He had to take a beat to recover, but curiosity chanted in his ear; he had to look who it was. He rolled his neck, lifting his head to squint through the fog—and there she was.

He remembered her name.

Amalfi.

She'd apparently leapt back from kneeling beside him; her touch had flown off at his protest. One small hand now splayed on her chest, while the other clutched a bloody cloth by her side. Her eyes were wide.

Relief surprised him. It erupted somewhere within the sulking waters that'd lost him, and he had to swallow it back. He almost choked on the taste, so unexpected, so foreign, so wrong. He had no reason to feel relief; not at his survival, not at the sight of her, not at any of this. There was no reason at all.

"You're awake!" Amalfi breathily exclaimed. Her gaze was hard to read in the faintly throbbing light. He saw her hand tighten on the cloth; both her skin and the tool were smeared with red shades of him. She grimaced, murmuring, "No wonder you were squirming so much."

He opened his mouth to speak. He dropped his jaw to demand his whereabouts, to ready his tongue and order delivery of her knowledge, but he couldn't. Instead, he abruptly found himself flung once more into the depths of insatiable coughs. Asclepius, help him, he was tired of coughing! They wracked his body, he suspected much like the waves that'd rolled him in the surf, tumbling him until he was slapped on the beach like round didrachm were slapped on palms when purchasing. His frame could get no respite from being folded and roughly handled.

Amalfi scrambled out of sight. His head was already swimming, but the lack of breath made the dizziness intensify. For all he knew he could've been floating through clouds or falling from Olympus. He could hardly focus on Amalfi when she knelt beside him again, though she helped him to steady, gently bracing his head and pulling him up. She was bearing a cup of water; he could have kissed her for it! She was patient and sure, though he shook and struggled. He gladly drank, cracked lips spreading to accept relief on a parched tongue—gods, he hated his helplessness. At least, at the flood, his spasms eventually eased to a twinge in his chest.

Amalfi pulled the cup away. He cleared his throat to try again.

"Thank you," he said. He flinched at the croak that'd withered off his tongue, gods was that really him? A cacophony of scraped blades on stones, the merciless hammering of metals, the agonized screams from enemy ranks as the ruthless culled them—they'd all sound better than whatever had just clawed from his throat.

Amalfi looked troubled. Her eyes traveled down the length of him, and she nibbled on a tongue she kept free of word. He didn't want to know how he looked to her; he was sure it was much worse than some vague tint of concern. If he looked how he felt, he pitied her for being exposed to the sight.

How he felt...

Well, his head was a mess. Nothing felt right. Everything ached, the kind of ache that ground teeth on his guts and gnawed at his pulse. His spine was in clunky pieces, his pelvis was compacted smaller than it should be, his ribs had been pried apart and shoved back in. His guts had been squished and squelched; his nerves felt like they'd been shocked, apparently with an amount of bolts that was incompatible with life, considering his agony. He felt like death had loved him and left him. As soon as he realized the full extent of the pain, the injuries, as soon as he saw his vulnerability reveal itself with an unsettling grin in his psyche—he shoved it down, so far he couldn't retrieve it if he tried. Weakness was fatal. Success was a given; survival was not.

Which was an odd thought, especially one that came so automatically. He wasn't sure where it came from...

No, he didn't know. He would ignore it. He had no time for stray nonsense.

Taking Amalfi's silence as opportunity instead, ignoring her anxious eyes while she peered at his injuries, he tried to take in his surroundings. But turning his head took effort. Using his spine took effort. Gods, breathing took effort; he rattled and throbbed. His eyes were full of slow protests, frantically disagreeing to the notion of adjusting, his vision was stubbornly fragmented and fuzzy as a goat's rear. He wanted to scream his impatience. He wanted to bellow curses until something changed, until someone understood and fixed it, but he figured the sound of it might kill them all. His voice sounded worse than a squawking harpy's, perhaps closer if said fowl woman was half-strangled by someone unable to finish the job. So instead he sighed, trying not to return to coughs, and summoned the strength to look around.

They were in a cave of some sort. It was a small grotto that echoed; the opening was dark, draped closed by night. Only the slightest trickle of a slim moon fell in, and it dissipated at flame's first touch, shadows clearly content to paint the walls. The fire pit was tucked further back. It was small but contained, and it braved the dark enough to help illuminate the space in some way. By Hephaestus, he cursed in thought. Between the beckons of heat and the pile of wools he rested on, he felt feverish and ill. And it was only getting worse; he felt sweaty and hot and thoroughly uncomfortable. Before, Amalfi's hands had been winter's soft touch on him, relief thin but welcomed by scorched fields; the faint breath of frost on a burning man's lips. He would welcome her chill again, however small against the flames.

Yet, Amalfi moved away—too soon, he thought—when she was done with her evaluation, and sat back on her heels, putting the cloth down. She sucked in a breath while examining him with those earthy eyes. "How are you feeling?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that. He really wasn't, but he decided on honesty. His mind couldn't conjure much else.

"Burnt," he rasped with a jerk of his chin.

He winced again at the scrape of sore threads, his voice still so raw. It felt like a fool had stumbled on some broken lyre, seeing its strings frayed and undone, but had tied them together as if to pry music from it. Plucking agonizing notes, the fool's fingers wrongly proud as they curled, playing insistently as if it was symphonic, the music gruesome and tortured—believe him, there were some things better left to their ending.

In the faint play of the fire, he thought he saw a twitch of Amalfi's lip at his bluntness. Yes, he decided. He would accept her hands back on him. He was examining her now as much as she'd examined him. He surely appreciated beauty, the fine touches, the simple luxuries afforded when little else was; his mind was shattered, yet somehow still whole enough to stir some wonder. He didn't blink as he met her unwavering gaze. Shadows played on her sharp features, and he watched them. It made her seem even more otherworldly, less mortal, more like—

"What is your name?" she asked suddenly, disrupting him.

Silence stretched.

And stretched.

And stretched.

The answer should have come immediately. Gods, the answer should have come at all—but the waters of his mind weren't revealing anything from their depths.

His tongue waited, empty. What was his name?

Panic clotted in his lungs, unstopped. What was his name?

He choked on his silence, uncured. What was his name? Who was he?

What was his name?

He tried to sit up, gasping when pain thundered down every fiber of his being, twisting him like rope and knotting him tight. Amalfi lunged forward, holding him firm as she forced him back down.

"Stop," she commanded. Her gaze was strong as she watched him swell with upheaval, and he envied it. Fear was sloshing in his chest; gods, it would drown him.

What was his name?

"Breathe," she ordered. She was even stronger this time, though he reeled from the startling presence of the unknown. It took up too much space. His mind remained at a loss; he was searching empty crates for an answer he didn't have in stock.

"Breathe."

Didn't she understand? He knew she could see the panic across him, it tattooed his very skin like the godly warriors he'd seen across the warmer oceans—what warriors? The image was gone as soon as it landed, but the panic was not.

"Breathe," she whispered.

Somehow, ever so gradually despite the violence of his anxiety, he found himself obeying the insistent hero of his life—or at least, the hero of what life he remembered. He slowed at Amalfi's commands, surprised; her unwavering orders fully wrenched him back down.

He was trying to regain his footing, but couldn't. Struggling to find some semblance of study ground to stand on, to find something to hold onto, something to focus on as the rest warped and wilted. But there was nothing. He was an empty vessel slumped on plush furs, no basis of self to claim as his, nothing to lug forward, nothing for her to view. No name to offer for her waiting lips to hold.

So for a moment, they stayed.

He stared at the strange woman, feeling her hands on his chest that kept him still, as she gazed back with shades of thin intrigue. From her look, she was pondering definitions of words he'd never heard before, forging her way on paths he'd never seen. She didn't back down. Even as he felt himself lose to the wrapping tendrils of fear—the prognosis of losing was another thing that seemed new to him regardless of memory—Amalfi refused. Her cold grip, eyes full of something he wasn't sure how to define, her frame much smaller than his. She didn't back down. His brain rolled like a dog, vertigo spilled like a sacrifice, the grotto seemed more like a tomb again—but finally, he was still.

What was his name?

He searched for answers, but he had nothing to find, even with everything to look for.

Amalfi had found something, however; he saw how she held clarity, or at least some scrap of it up to the light with a careful touch. Her voice was quiet as she surmised, "You don't know your name, do you?"

For yet another moment longer, for another few seconds to hide in, he let silence hang heavy between them. It would take all of his strained might to admit his weakness. It would take strength he hated to use to clutter together the few letters that would change both of them, to present it to her as a final answer. Truth was foul as it passed his teeth. Sour. Bitter. Wrong, though honest.

"No."

"Do you remember anything?" Her eyes still flicked between his, still hard, still waiting. He felt sick again. "Where you came from? What happened; how you ended on the beach? Anything?"

In his mind, the waves were now calm in their emptiness. He felt anything but. He felt he was drowning.

"No," he answered again.

Amalfi nodded. Her expression was still unreadable, but promises slipped easily from her tongue. "Rest," she advised. "You're safe here."

He didn't know if he believed her. He didn't know her; he certainly didn't trust her. But what were his options? He couldn't sit, let alone stand, nor could he defend himself; curse it all, he could hardly breathe without issue.

He tilted his head again, looking at the entrance to the cave and wondering how far he'd make it if he tried. Would his moaning flesh support him? Would his rotting legs at least attempt to carry him? He tried not to think of how infected he was with something acrid—something like death, something like endings, something like demise—even as it ran amok in his veins. He tried not to lose what composure she'd forced upon him, but his body suddenly tensed. His teeth ground at the pain, but he ignored it, staring at the grotto's opening and the horrors the moon draped upon.

Something had melted from the shadows of night.

"Run," he grunted, curving his spine to pull his shoulders from the pelts. His hands flexed, clawing at his empty hip, but he found nothing, even his thigh was blank of sheath. By Nyx's touch, he was truly defenseless!

Amalfi's head snapped up at his warning. He expected her to launch back into action again, to scream and fall back, to do something at the sight; he expected blood from her, or from him, or from it. Yet, to his surprise, she relaxed. The beast prowled towards them. It was both shaped and colored like a fox, but it was unnaturally large, and immensely unsettling. Personally, he wouldn't have relaxed.

"Rest," the enigmatic woman advised again, turning back. "That is only Aes. He will not bring harm unless I command it, or until given reason to."

She paused, mottled eyes meeting his when she added, "No reasons have been given yet."

He heard the warning. He'd be daft not to. But something made him feel he would've laughed at any thought of threat in the past. That in whatever life he'd held before the beach, he wouldn't have so much as blinked in pause at the sight of a challenge—yet, something else told him he'd never been as vulnerable as he was now. Something warned him: his sureness of self was no longer warranted, despite his instinctual faith. He couldn't remember a self to be sure of. These wounds, these gaps in his memory, these weaknesses... even without his past to consult, he knew they were something he'd never been burdened with before. Not like this.

He didn't move. Only his eyes turned to the creature, but Amalfi pressed his chest again. Her hands were small but unyielding as they splayed across him. "Rest."

He didn't want to. He was still on guard at the sight of a beast blocking the only way out, mentally left adrift in the blank spaces of an unknown self, spinning in pain. But the fox stopped near the entrance and sat. Its bronze eyes were unnerving amongst its ruddy copper fur. It flicked an ear at him, rumbling with a growl; it showed too much disdain for a creature supposedly unable of it as it glared at him.

Then, it turned to watch outside, and it didn't look back.

He didn't feel very restful. He didn't feel very relaxed or peaceful at all. But Amalfi was relentless. She kept him down in his weak state, voice low as she pushed him off the conscious edge, and he felt his eyes beginning to fall shut. His wounds had sapped his already diminished reservoirs of energy; his injuries had greedily nibbled the crumbs of awareness he'd scrounged for. The foggy hands of slumber were skimming up his back, wrapping his head in a clammy embrace, and dragging him down to waiting waters.

What was his name?

"Rest," she whispered.

The last thing he remembered was Amalfi, picking up the cloth again and reaching for his bloody leg.