Girl from the House of Irvine

(Pt. 10)

I don’t know why, but I feel free right now. I’m weighed down by more responsibility than I have ever felt in my life, but I feel free. Like I can do anything. I have burdens, lots and lots of burdens…twenty-six, I think, is the exact number of people I’m dealing with who are counting on me to lead them to safety; but, right now, I feel like I’m finally doing something with my life that I can be proud of. And, that’s such an amazing feeling, that it almost makes me happy. Almost makes me want to smile. Figuratively, okay, there’s a God breathing down my neck with every step I take; if I wanted to look at it that way; but, I don’t want to look at it that way, so I’m not going to.

Besides, all this talk of the Gods’ will is driving me crazy. What exactly is stopping everyone from doing what they want to do, I wonder? Fear? Fear of the unknown, perhaps? Are we all afraid of what walking out on our own will do to us? Are we all too chicken-shit scared to demand why we even have to be in this mess?

Probably.

I know it’s getting hard for me to remain sensible.

One of the most vital things I have to remember is that the culture I’m in right now is based around religion. People don’t have the luxury of questioning their faith here; they either die because a God willed it to be so, or they live because of how true their devotion to that God was. There isn’t an in between. There’s no room for some 21st Century pseudo-scholar girl to come in with her hand raised. If I want to survive in this place-and I do, so I will-then I have to remember the fact that I am no longer in control; it’s really hard to do, because I’m used to exercising my own free will.

I’ve had twenty years worth of experience exercising my own free will.

I kind of planned on exercising my own free will until the day I died.

Seriously, what is stopping me from just running away from this entire thing? Will Apollo physicallyprevent me from moving? I’m really curious. So far, all I’ve felt in the way of His admonishment is this burn on my forehead. The burning hurts, but unless my head starts to catch fire, I think there’s a chance that I’m still captain of my own body.

…See, there’s a chance. This is where my sense comes in. There’s a chance; but, am I going to test that chance? No. Not right now, and probably not ever.

Not until I get sent back home, at least; which makes the point moot.

But, back to feeling free. I have a purpose here, and, it alludes me as to why I specifically, me, Lilia Caoimhe,have a purpose here; or what Apollo expects from me exactly-why I have to be a tool in the first place if this war is just going to be fought by the Gods is something I am still trying to figure out-, but, if I just take this thing day by day, issue by issue, I think I’ll be alright.

So, we’re going to Adramyttium. It was decided hours ago.

Tawa and I are supposedly leading the way; or Tawa is, because I wouldn’t know the first thing about where the fuck we’re going. I would get us lost for sure, I know that much. I can’t find myself out of a paper bag in most situations; so for me to navigate a terrain that’s been made completely unfamiliar to me just by the simple fact that I’m millennia out of my time, is something that I’m not going to be able to do.

The sun is high in the sky, and we’ve been hiking for most of the day. I’m sweating. My make-shift underwear is horrendously uncomfortable and with every step I take, it’s chafing me around my nether regions all the more. My legs feel so sore from hugging trees and running that I would gladly chop them off if it only meant that I got to collapse onto the ground and not move for a moment. It would be an understatement to say that everyone is tired and wants to rest. I’m not really holding the grumblings against anyone, mind. I’m complaining, too, obviously; even though I’m keeping those complaints locked firmly inside my head.

We’re a group made up mostly of women, and we’re in the scary wilderness right now; our security has just been taken away from us in the form of a brutal massacre-ing of all our men; so honestly, yea, I’d say these other women have a right to act like bitches if they want to; if it’s going to help relieve some of the tension inside of them.

But, Apollo is it annoying.

Whine, whine, whine. Everyone wants to whine!

Compared to the women, the children’s complaints are like sweet music to my ears.

‘Would you like to sing a song now, Lilia?’

It appears people have been actually singing.

‘We are all interested to hear about your kingdom,’ Tawa continued, her voice sounding weary. ‘And, it would serve to take our minds off of death for a span. Would you, please? Grace us with your voice?’

For the past minute or so, I hadn’t been paying much attention to anything except my own thoughts. I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve missed out on the soft humming coming from behind me, because, it’s been very soft; it is a nice change from all the other sounds, though. ‘How long has this been going on?’ I asked Tawa. A much better change from trying to block out Bahar’s increasingly insane muttering at my back.

‘Not long,’ Tawa answered. ‘A couple women started it to calm their children down, but it seems it has escalated into a mass sharing of memories. I’m certain since you yourself are a princess and come from the royal court you have many songs of your own you can sing. Would you share them with us? The children would love to hear them, I think.’

‘Well…’

‘Perhaps we should stop so we can all hear,’ Tawa suggested loudly, completely missing the hesitant note in my voice and getting everyone’s attention.

Tawa started looking around for a suitable resting spot everyone could fit around in, and I swallowed the words I wanted to say to her. I did not want to sing. Unless Apollo was going to magically send me an ancient ballad via mind-link, I had nothing to share with these people. I looked at the sky. The day was nice, for all it had been marred by the sight of blood and dead bodies.

‘Are you sure we should be doing that?’ I asked Tawa nervously. ‘How much farther do we have to travel, do you know?’

Tawa shook her head. ‘I cannot be sure. Only for trading have we gone to the other cities, and those times have been few. This journey is easier done with a man, I must admit. Men need the knowledge of travel much more than we women do. We will find it though. You should fear not.’

I still feared. We had been in and out of various woods for more than an hour and I had a feeling the sea wasn’t that far off, because of the increase in wind we had been experiencing recently, and because of the downward slope of the land; we were nearing Poseidon’s lair, Adramyttium might be close, and I wondered what would get thrown at us next. Maybe it would be better to set up camp now and start again tomorrow.

‘Do you have an estimate, though?’ I asked. ‘Should we be making a camp for the night-?’

‘We should,’ Tawa said, nodding. ‘I believe we will have to, if only to scare off the wolves.’

My heart ticked in reaction to the word. ‘Wolves do not sound pleasant,’ I said. ‘…What else should we be expecting to ward off?’

‘Do not worry,’ Tawa said mysteriously. ‘Your God will protect us. We will keep everything back with the light of our fire and your skill with the bow.’

I have no skill, I thought. My patron God is an archer.

‘So, we will make camp here, then?’ I asked; examining the small glen we had just come upon. My foot stopped its descent in surprise, and I stared at the place before me, a little in awe.

Now…I don’t want to be obnoxious about this, because I am tired, and I do want to sit down and forget for a while, but, isn’t a glen a really obvious place to form a camp? Especially a camp made up of women and children refugees-two types of people notoriously known for not being able to keep quiet? I’m certain we’re not the only people who’ve found this little area; just because of how beautiful it looks.

And it does look beautiful.

It looks like a nymph’s paradise, if I want to be poetic; with a clear pool and a waterfall, surrounded on one side by bushes of what look like edible fruit…this just makes me more wary. And, I’m tired of feeling wary.

It’d be really, really great if this was just some cool, private glen that we were standing in, untouched by human hands; but the very fact that we’ve come across this place at all means that it’s been seen before.

I don’t know if these women are informed enough to care, but I’d rather make our camp in a place that no one knows about; how that’s possible, I don’t know. ‘Are you certain we should camp here?’ I asked Tawa; the delighted cries of the children and other women upon finally being able to take a rest did not go unnoticed by my ears; but I have to voice a token objection. ‘It looks too…magical,’ I stated.

‘Magical?’ Tawa repeated curiously.

‘Mythical,’ I added. ‘Beautiful. Too beautiful to be anything else but a house for the Gods.’

‘I see now why your feet have led us here,’ Tawa said, nodding. ‘Your heart knew that we would find our rest.’

I shook my head, not accepting that piece of information, because I knew it to be grossly false. ‘I’ve been following you,’ I replied with conviction. ‘Maybe you are the one who deserves a mark,’ I said.

Tawa frowned. ‘Do not jest of such things.’

‘I am not jesting,’ I said. ‘I know, however, that I did not lead us here, because I do not know the area at all.’ I grinned cynically. ‘Have you been hearing voices, Tawa?’ I asked. ‘In your head? …God-like voices? Have you seen a burning bush, recently?’

Tawa stared at me. ‘Your words confuse me, sometimes, Lilia,’ she said. ‘I must admit that I cannot always follow them.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘It happens. But, I swear that I do not know where I’m going. You’re my guide in this, Tawa, not some…invisible hand who pushes at my feet to get them to move. I push at my feet. And my feet follow you.’

‘I would not let the other women hear me say that if I were you, princess,’ Tawa said stiffly. I think she calls me ‘princess’ to remind me that I have to act like one. ‘I fear we have all had the most sorrow-filled day. …This is not the time to be questioning our path,’ Tawa finished. ‘Especially concerning you.’

‘Right,’ I said; slightly confused. ‘…Should we gather some kindling, then?’ I asked, gesturing at some twigs on the ground. ‘We should post a watch, as well, I think. If we’re to spend the night here…’ I looked around at the glen again. I couldn’t help looking around. The moss at my feet was as soft as chicken-down and the air around me felt like it was singing. ‘We should be prepared.’

Tawa nodded. ‘Do not think that you have gotten out of sharing your voice with us, princess,’ Tawa informed me. ‘We will put some food in our stomachs and then we shall share our stories, and make this night as merry as it can be. If you are up to it, I fear we will need more than berries and clear water to sustain us and hold our strength. We will need meat. Do you know how to set a trap to catch a hare?’

The only time I have ever seen a trap being set to catch a hare was when I saw a Simpson’s episode three years ago. And, the scene didn’t turn out too well for Homer’s hungry belly, I will tell you. ‘Yes,’ I fibbed confidently. ‘I know how to do it. I’ll have some caught in no time.’

‘Very good,’ Tawa said.

---

The women are sleeping, and I am wide awake. I have a full belly and my voice is a little hoarse from talking for two hours about my supposed kingdom and how magnificent it is. I somehow got out of singing, but I’m not going to put it past Tawa, or Laux even, to demand a song in the future.

Right now, though, all I keep thinking about is the possibility of wolves; and how, even if only one came-though that’s unlikely, because wolves travel in packs-, I would be hard-pressed to defend myself.

I have a bow and arrows, but, Apollo, these night sounds…

Nature is not so peaceful when every insect chirp could be the prelude to a killer swarm of bigger predators. I once read a book where a girl was being attacked by a hungry wolf; the girl survived the fight by strangling the wolf to death. I remember reading that passage at the time and pumping my fist in the air and thinking, ‘yes! …Awesome! You go girl!’

Now, I want to kick the writer of that story in the twat for making me believe that such a thing could be done and that a girl could survive when she’s being attacked by wolves.

A girl can’t survive something like that.

How the fuck am I supposed to protect these people if I can’t even strangle a wolf to death? I can only die once, and I’m not ready to die at all.

‘Psst. Princess. Psst.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Have you missed me?’

‘You are in such big trouble,’ I stated, moving to displace the body of a small child who had snuggled up to me in her sleep; I set down my bow as well, and then stood up to face the direction the Sun God’s voice had been coming from. ‘…You don’t even know. …Or you do, since you’re all-knowing,’ I corrected; actually starting to glare at Him. ‘Which begs the question: why?’

‘Ah, you would like to know, I think.’

‘Yes!’

‘Now, now, don’t lose your temper. You’ll wake up the children.’

‘Have you not put a sleeping spell on them?’ I asked nastily. I noticed then, that the insects had stopped their chirping. ‘…Have you put a sleeping spell on everything?’ I asked. ‘Why am I always the one who never gets to sleep?’

‘Have thoughts of me been keeping you awake?’ Apollo inquired. I still couldn’t see His form. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but it is kind of annoying. Apollo moved closer. If the Sun God wanted to make no noise, He could, so the sound of shuffling feet is probably only for my benefit. ‘You have dark circles around your eyes,’ Apollo observed. ‘It’s quite unattractive.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You know how your opinion matters to me.’

‘Oh, but doesn’t it?’

I looked at what I could see through the light of the moon at the moss by my feet. ‘Should it?’

‘Yes, it should,’ Apollo said, His voice now right by my ear. I flinched. ‘You are my patroness. Everything I think should matter to you.’

‘Why don’t you find another one?’ I asked curiously. ‘There have to be thousands of girls.’

Apollo’s invisible shoulder brushed mine in what felt like an elegant shrug. ‘I chose you.’

‘Does no one else interest you?’ I asked Him; the air around me. ‘You just said I’m unattractive-.’

‘You don’t have to be attractive to take my interest,’ Apollo confided. I stubbornly held in my laughter. ‘Your mind could interest me.’

‘…Does it?’

‘At times,’ Apollo admitted. ‘You are funny in the way you think. What was this talk about only dying once, a while ago?’

‘What?’ That particular thought hadn’t even been completed for Apollo to have heard it.

‘Your thoughts,’ Apollo said, tapping me on the forehead. ‘They are very loud sometimes; especially that time. Would you truly die a separate death for each of these women? They are strangers to you, are they not?’

‘They’re still people,’ I said.

‘Are you not a person?’

‘I, apparently, and through no fault of my own, have a God for a protector.’

Apollo gave me a second tap on the forehead, only this one was much harder, and I almost took a step back in reaction to the hit. ‘I am many things,’ Apollo said. ‘But I only help people who help themselves; so tell me, dear one, how does that work in my favor if you would sacrifice yourself so uselessly?’

‘Just save my life,’ I replied, glibly. ‘I won’t have to die then, ever.’

Apollo chuckled. ‘Oh, you will die,’ he stated, sending chills to run rabid all over my body. ‘But, not now. Not for a while.’

‘I don’t want to know,’ I told Him. ‘And…you’re confusing me. If you know when I’ll die, then-’

‘You actually admit to a weakness?’ Apollo interrupted me.

I blinked, and then shrugged elegantly myself. ‘What can I say?’ I asked Apollo sarcastically. ‘You make me-.’

‘I make you weak?’ Apollo breathed against my mouth, finishing my thought for me. He chuckled again. I didn’t know if I was so nervous because Apollo’s mouth was close to my own, or because Apollo’s mouth was close to my own and the last time I had seen Apollo, the Sun God had been borrowing the body of an old man.

‘N-no,’ I said.

‘I make you weak,’ Apollo sing-songed.

‘…Y-yes, well, y-you’re a God,’ I replied, almost crossing my eyes in an effort to locate Apollo’s lips and approximate their distance to mine. I could see nothing. ‘It w-was bound to h-happen.’

‘I don’t like weak mortals,’ Apollo said. I felt Him brush at my eyes with His fingertips, and I closed them on reflex. ‘Weak mortals do not a happy God make.’

‘G-Gods are notoriously unhappy,’ I whispered.

I felt a spark of something hot shoot through my body when Apollo’s lips claimed mine in a kiss. I’ve never felt any kind of spark before. I used to think I was asexual.

‘Stop thinking,’ Apollo muttered. He moved His lips down to my throat and started laving at it.

‘Whoa.’

I could feel Apollo smiling against my skin.

I thought of Deniz and how he had died for me today, and forced myself to stop reacting; a second later, Apollo lifted his head. ‘You will tell me,’ He said in a calm voice, ‘what ails you, because I want to hear you speak it with your own words.’

‘…I h-have a husband,’ I said, looking straight ahead of me. I felt very odd making out with someone I couldn’t see, too. Said someone being a God, notwithstanding. ‘I d-don’t want to b-be d-doing this right now.’

Apollo stepped back. ‘I notice you did not say that you should not be doing this,’ He mused. ‘Only that you do not want to. Yet, I know you want to, because I can feel your heart beating like a lover’s would.’

‘I don’t want to more than I want to,’ I said, gaining courage. ‘Th-that should be enough, I’m sorry.’

‘It is not.’

‘Ah…w-well, it should be,’ I repeated. ‘I d-don’t understand why y-you would want to be k-kissing me anyway.’

‘Do Gods need a reason?’

‘Am I about to be raped?’ I asked Him. ‘I don’t want to be raped. Leave me alone.’

‘So skittish,’ Apollo replied quietly. ‘Like a newborn colt.’

‘Do you rape colts?’

‘I rape no one.’

‘I, uh, beg to differ,’ I said.

‘Silence!’

‘No!’ It was really not helping my nerves any that I didn’t know what the fuck to do. ‘Please,’ I besieged. ‘I really don’t want to be touched. I don’t think it’s right, first of all, and second of all, I can’t even see you, so I don’t know if I’m being punished by being forced to kiss an old man.’

‘If you were born in this era, you would not be so loose with your tongue,’ Apollo admonished.

‘Better than being loose with my favors,’ I shot back.

Apollo roared with laughter. ‘You! You have virtue, now? You, who throw your body around with no care for the feelings of others? That is rich with hypocrisy.’

‘What should feelings matter to you?’ I asked, beyond embarrassed; my mind nestled somewhere in the land of the people who lack a common sense. ‘You’re a God. You don’t concern yourself with other people’s feelings unless they somehow are a benefit to you!’

‘Why should I concern myself with mortals unless they would be a benefit to me?’ Apollo questioned. ‘Mortals are insignificant unless a God grants a distinction to them. The daily life of a single mortal man does not affect me. The feelings of one man do not change the world on their own. It is the Gods who grant power to mortal men and the Gods who take power away when it is used poorly. Mortal men are dying from the first breath of air they take into their bodies, darling. Why should I concern myself with a dying man unless that dying man can interest me? You sneer at me for my arrogance, but you forget that as a God, mortal comparisons for feelings have no place with me. I am a God. I rule. That is what I do.’

‘Well, pshaw.’

Apollo took a step forward and, ignoring my whimper, dragged me back into his body. ‘I will give you time to get over this fear you have of me,’ Apollo said fiercely, into my ear. ‘And this absurd belief that you owe allegiance to a boy who you yourself begged me not to give you to. And, then I will come back, and all will be well with us.’

‘Uh…’

‘Shh.’

The howls of the wolves woke me out of my fitful slumber. I looked around our camp with the dazed, frantic eyes of a person who has just dreamed she’s been making out with a God only to wake up and find that reality is something else entirely; something wholly dangerous.

Wolves. I feel like I’m in Lord of the Rings. I can’t believe I feel asleep on my own watch.

I set the child who had been previously sleeping against my shoulder away of me, and then shook my mother-in-law awake. ‘Tawa!’ I cried. Now, more than ever, Tawa was like an anchor to me. ‘Tawa! You must rise! There are wolves!’

‘Wha-!’

‘There are wolves!’ I screamed into her bleary-eyed face. ‘Wolves! Do you understand?! We must move!’ Due to my shouting, the other women were finally starting to stir, as well. Good. ‘Everyone, wake up!’ I called around the camp, getting up myself, and stringing my bow. ‘We have wolves! We need to form a huddle. Do not panic, but move in an orderly fashion! Go!’

‘Oh, no!’ Bahar wailed mournfully, covering her eyes with balled up fists; several of the other women picked up her tune and started their own crying. I felt like smacking people. No one should be crying yet. Did someone have an arm gnawed off? No. So, no one should be crying yet.

‘Bahar!’ I yelled. ‘Stop encouraging their fears!’

‘Do you have a plan, O Great Warrior?’ She mocked, looking at me through her fingers. ‘Will you rescue us from certain death again?’

‘I will if you will let me,’ I answered, surprising Bahar with my seriousness. ‘Now, grab the children and form a circle around them.’

…Long night.

I had a long night ahead of me.

With no target for my future shots in sight, my fingers momentarily brushed against my bee-stung lips. They felt bruised. Interesting.