Chapter 1.119 [An Unkindness]

Chapter 1.119 [An Unkindness]

“A raven carries tribulation in its talons. It has ever been so, since the last of the bright birds brought the sun god word of his lover’s infidelity and were scorched black by his grief.

“One midnight messenger is tragedy enough. Any more than that is nothing but a curse. After a certain point, a pile of tragedies becomes its own cruel comedy.

“A gathering of ravens is nothing less than-”

An Unkindness

The city of Olympia, known to some as the Sanctuary and others as the Half-Step, is stirring from its four year slumber. The one hundred and ninety-ninth Olympic Games are in their starting motions.

The final day has come for the competitors to stake their claims on the chance to compete for Olympic glory. The sun is risen, and once it falls in fullness into night, the gates of the Olympic Stadium will close. Any would-be champions still outside of it after that point will have to wait another four years to try again.

Once this final night falls, the Heroes of the one hundred and ninety-ninth Olympic Games will spend a month in the shadow of the Champions that came before them. Thirty days and thirty nights they will spend in the pit, readying themselves however they can for the bouts that lay ahead.

There are ten events in total, each of them with its own gauntlet of heats and elimination brackets. Three sets of three, and one above the rest.

The marathon, first and most beloved of the games, is a journey around the stadium track that can and has killed those that strove to conquer it in the past. After that will come the sprints, where the distance between triumph and defeat is, at times, measured by the width of a single hair. The chariot races are third and final of the lot, and perhaps the most exciting of the three.

After the races come the tests of skill and precision. The discus, the javelin, and the ball. Distance and finesse are required in equal measures to prevail in any of the three.

The martial games require no explanation. Wrestling, boxing, and the blade each speak for themselves.

And of course, standing above them all is the king of close quarters. Pankration.

In just one more month, the names of an era will all be gathered in the city of Olympia to see the crowning of new glory. Over these next thirty days, the citizens of the city will revel in the attention of the Free Mediterranean. The aristocrats and scholars of mystery faith will join them in their anticipation and their festivals, and the far-flung dignitaries from the furthest reaches of the world will stage their own unofficial competition - a competition to see which of their relics and exotic treasures is most impressive to the sons and daughters of Greece.

Starting tonight, every day for the next thirty days will be a grand celebration.

At the end of the month, the stadium gates will open to those afforded a seat. The Olympic Flame will be lit up in the First Champion’s marble heart, and by its light the best athletes of the era will compete for one of only ten Olympic olive crowns.

If, and only if, one among them defies every expectation, takes every single glory for themselves, the Half-Step City will be made witness to something far greater than a ceremony of mortal honors.

If one amongst the lot can do the work of ten, the free world will be graced by the birth of a new Champion.

West of Olympia and across the Ionian, the Rosy Dawn Cult of Greater Mysteries is coming alive in a very different way. Rather than the rekindling of a dormant flame, this is more like the agitation of a colossal hive of bees.

When the Young Miss comes sprinting up the brick road that connects the Rosy Dawn to the Scarlet City in the valley below, she draws more than a few curious eyes. When she barrels through any initiate that dares to be standing in her way, it strikes the hearts of all those around her with alarm. The Young Miss is infamously frigid towards the less sensible men of the cult, but even after the Young Aristocrat’s mad flight from the city she has never been cruel. That she runs into them at all is a sign of uncommon thoughtlessness. That she doesn’t stop to help them to their feet is entirely unlike her.

When Chryse Aetos’ eldest daughter sprints the full distance of the Rosy Dawn’s estates and leaps without hesitation off the other side of the eastern mountain range, her fellow mystikos have no choice but to follow her.

The spectacle draws even the eyes of a few of the cult’s own Philosophers, scholars granted a place of prominence within the cult similar to the Young Miss’ own. But though a few of them order their nearby juniors to accompany the Young Miss in whatever she’s pursuing, none of them care urgently enough to follow her themselves.

Only minutes later, they feel the sting of fierce regret when the fastest of the mystikos to follow Lydia Aetos over the edge come scrambling back up the mountain screaming themselves hoarse.

“The Young Miss has gone mad! Lydia Aetos has consigned herself to the sea!”

Her grief has been known to them all from the moment the Young Aristocrat deserted his family and left the girl behind. But grief is one thing. This? This is entirely another.

The scholars cast aside their tablets and scrolls while the warriors sheathe their blades and spring from their sparring circles. Soon enough, the entire sprawling network of estates are in an uproar. Slaves, citizens, and philosophers alike are caught up in the press. Most race down to the beaches and leap into the waves to search for the Young Miss. Others make for the city. Some retreat into tight corners and huddled groups within the halls, whispering amongst themselves about what has happened and what is to come.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.

What will become of the Young Miss, and perhaps more importantly - no, without a doubt more importantly, what will become of them when the eastern mountain range cracks open once again?

What are they to do when Fotios and Chryse Aetos emerge from behind closed doors and discover their daughter had taken her own life?

They receive an omen of that ill fate when the Young Miss’ brother and sister are drawn out of their rooms.

The young men and women of the cult that are gathered at the docks, those unable or unwilling to dive into the Ionian themselves, can only turn their heads away to hide their own helpless tears while a young Rena Aetos collapses to her knees at the edge of the beach and wails in abject despair.

When the flighty middle child of Fotios’ trio of children discovers what’s taken place, he goes searching through the cult. And when he finds what he’s looking for, a wise man in the realm of philosophers, he asks him if he’d seen his sister crest the mountain. His eyes are not wet with tears when he does it. He is not weak with grief like his younger sister.

However, when the honored philosopher admits to seeing her pass, and upon further prompting admits he’d sent his students after the Young Miss rather than disrupt his work to follow her himself, the fair and flighty Castor draws his blade and runs the wise man’s writing hand through. When the philosopher screams and tumbles off his seat, turning tail and running from his junior, Fotios’ fairweather son vaults the marble bench and pursues him. Shouting obscenities all the while.

No matter how hard the elders of the cult try to get through to those behind closed doors, they cannot budge the mountain stone nor pierce it with their cries. The pillars of the Aetos’ family, along with their nephew and his guests, might as well be in another world entirely. Once sealed beneath the eastern mountain range, no one but the kyrios can hope to disrupt them. Alas, Damon Aetos was the first of them to close his doors.

The chaos spreads down either side of the mountain, spilling out over the beaches and fields as well as the Scarlet City itself. The elder philosophers are forced to split their attention between scouring the Ionian for the Young Miss and managing the chaos atop the mountain. They hardly have time to address the people of the city. In the Rosy Dawn’s absence, the Burning Dusk sends its own cultivators down to appease the citizenry.

It is almost a cruelty when the mountain heart cracks open in the Rosy Dawn’s central pavilion, and Nikolas Aetos comes marching out along with his aunts and uncles and Heroic companions.

They could have remained down there for weeks longer, if not months. Yet they emerge at the peak of the hysteria. Soon enough after the incident that Heron Aetos is still breathless from his race down and back from the beaches when he explains it to them in a rush. Soon enough that Rena Aetos is still sobbing fresh tears while her senior sisters try and fail to comfort her. Soon enough that Castor Aetos still has breath left in his lungs and heat left in his heart to chase the Sophic bystanders through the Rosy Dawn’s estates, bleeding them with his blade and battering their egos.

The pillars emerge sooner than any of them had expected.

But too late all the same.

Every awoken soul on the island feels it when Lydia’s parents are told the news. The sensation is muted by the Tyrant’s hand, its full impact mitigated such that it only knocks them off their feet and sears their eyes blind for a moment.

They feel it once again when Stavros and Raisa Aetos discover their youngest son is nowhere to be found.

The Hero of the Scything Squall is first to answer the call.

The initiates of the Howling Wind Cult have always skirted the line of the Father’s first and firmest mandate. Every cultivator knows the heavens are off-limits to a mortal man, no matter his allegiance. Flight is the providence of gods and beasts alone. The sons and daughters of the Hurricane Heights understand this, and so they do everything they can to defy this divine mandate without drawing tribulation’s eye.

The greatest of them are successful. For a time. The Hero of the Scything Squall is one of their best, but he has no illusions as to his ultimate fate. Lightning clips every wing eventually.

But for now, he soars.

If only, just for a moment, the young Griffon had been truthful, each of them is certain as stone that they would have made it before everything fell apart.

The raven’s unlikely alliance boils up the mountain in the wake of the scything squall’s passing. The portions of the mountain not maintained by a living Tyrant’s will are ravaged by his passing. The winds tear trees out by their roots, rip the tiles off the roofs of the communal buildings closest to the path, and send dozens of Raging Heaven initiates tumbling nearly clear off the mountain.

It is a hero’s privilege to come and go and do as they please, but this is a special brand of disregard. Cultivators bearing the mark of Howling Wind stream up the mountain first. But not far behind are members of the Broken Tide, Waning Wax, and Scattered Foam.

In crowds of green, blue, yellow, and fuschia, philosophers race up the mountain to see what has been done. The commands of their elders drive them forward. Whatever is happening, it is happening out of their sight. For those with a vested interest in the actions of the raven, this is unacceptable.

They are not the only ones to send forth prying eyes. Members of the Raging Heaven with no ties to any of the other factions pour out onto the path in bewilderment as their peers race by. And although the sun is risen, the shadows in the groves and mountain crevices are alive with the shifting cloaks of crows.

No one knows what the hero of the scything squall was chasing. Everyone has their own idea of what it could be.

Not one of them is even close.

It’s only natural that a gathering of four factions would draw the attention of the other four on the mountain. It’s even more natural that a gathering of so many prideful cultivators from opposing cities, such a riotous confluence of cultivators that have spent the last several months of their lives jumping at every shadow, would collide at the slightest provocation.

It hardly takes a spark. Some of them trip and stumble as they scramble for the peak. Some are shoved while others are plainly insulted in the mayhem of the press. Spit in the face of a rival, blood in a junior’s mouth.

Up and down the mountain paths carved into Kaukoso mons, in pockets of two and three that spread like runaway flames, the crowds pursuing the hero of the scything squall devolve into brawls that spill over the primary paths and into the groves, the bath houses, and even the quarters of those not yet involved.

Elders with heroes at hand send them out to put the riot to rest. At first, it seems like it will work. After all, even an army of philosophers would be nothing to a single determined hero. They pierce through the crowds with ease and break up fights without fear of harm, scattering and reforming crowds like happy hounds.

This lasts all the way until a heroine from the Brazen Aegis takes issue with the force a hero from the Broken Tide uses to break up a dispute involving her juniors.

The words exchanged are short and ugly. The heroic souls were each born of the coast, but on opposing sides. They hate each other more than any other faction possibly could. When they clash, there is no higher power present to break their fight apart.

The amethyst veins that wind throughout the mountain burn brighter than a flame.

The Gadfly hurls Solus so viciously from the cave that if he had been a normal weight, he would have flown clear off the side of the mountain. As it is, he drops like a boulder and crashes through the mountain path like it’s finely ground sand.

The rosy hands of dawn halt him in his tracks. The son of Rome hacks and spits bloody phlegm and glares up the mountain with bloodshot eyes.

Five heroic cultivators fan out around him, the young Griffon a bracing hand at his back. They stand wary but as one while the Gadfly stalks down the mountain.

He stops ten feet short of them, matching Solus glare for glare. Then, without breaking that contact, he addresses the six behind the son of Rome.

“Have any of you ever been to war? Step forward if so.”

Sol bares his teeth in naked defiance and forces himself to one knee. Pankration hands grip his shoulders tightly. Griffon looms behind his back, holding him steady.

Above their heads, the immortal storm crown rages.

Only one of them steps forward. Anastasia holds her head high.

Socrates raises his eyes from Sol’s for just a moment, meeting the caustic queen’s gaze. There is no visible change. No clash of pneuma that any of them can feel. The heroine’s legs simply give way and send her to her knees. Her eyes fly open like a cornered cat’s.

The Gadfly turns his glare back on Solus, and goes on.

“There are evils in this world,” he says with quiet anger. “Demons in the hearts of every man. We pursue excellence within ourselves to overcome those evils. We strive to better the worlds within ourselves, to battle those demons in our hearts, so that we can do the same for the world outside ourselves.

“For a time, we’ve managed that. For centuries before any one of you were born, we have been at peace. But do not for a second think that we have won.”

Socrates steps forward and Anastasia flinches back from him. He doesn’t spare her a glance. His eyes remain locked on Solus’.

“You have not seen the evils that result when Tyrants go to war,” he asserts. “You think that you can fathom it but you can not. The suggestion of it would turn your legs to mush. It would bring tears to your eyes. As it should.”

The Gadfly finally breaks his glare with the Son of Rome, ceasing his onslaught of the same lived experience that had driven the Heroine to her knees. His eyes turn away in disgust.

“Only one of you has any idea at all what could come of this crisis of succession and it’s the one railing hardest against the efforts of his elders - the one among you with least of all to lose.”

“I’m trying to fix this,” Solus says in a voice like salted gravel.

“The brew is bad.” The philosopher sounds almost tired. “I don’t know where we erred, but it hardly matters now. Polyzalus wouldn’t let it touch his wife’s lips even if it was good. A dozen times I’ve tried to convince him and a dozen times I’ve been denied. He doesn’t trust it. He doesn’t trust you. A thousand cups of nectar won’t change that. I’ve told you this again and again, and yet still you refuse to listen.”

“You told the girl you had a cure,” Griffon accuses.

“I was wrong. I lied. Pick whichever suits you best.”

The Gadfly steps past them, down the mountain, and in moments he is gone.

Solus rises slowly to his feet. An eagle’s weak cry completes the image, and Sorea swoops down on unsteady wings to land upon his shoulder. The virtuous beast’s talons scrape against his bronze breastplate as the wounded eagle fights for purchase. Solus steadies the bird with one hand and reaches down to Anastasia with the other, pulling the Heroine to her feet when she takes it.

“Solus,” Jason ventures first. “What-?”

The Son of Rome cuts him short.

“Scythas has the nectar.”

He looks back and Griffon sees that storm there in his eyes.

“Where?” Kyno asks, though all of them suspect already.

Two lowly sophists and five Heroic souls plunge up into the mystery phenomenon of the Raging Heaven’s immortal storm crown, in search of their wayward eighth and the bounty in his stolen furnace.

A cup of scarlet glory.