Achilles
13 Years Before

     Moonlight beat down on the wooden timbers of the ship as Achilles scoured the deck with a stone. The gentle motion of the ship had a lulling effect which most of the men below deck were enjoying with a well earned rest. Even when weather was fair there was very little idle time for the sailors, especially if the winds were favorable.

    Achilles looked into the water below his hands and scowled. The boy muttered a curse as he rubbed the sandstone along the planks. Usually, scrubbing the deck was a task done soon after the dawn, not a night task, Achilles was being punished for napping on his shift. The boy had never been on a boat before and the combination of the waves rocking the boat, and the rhythmic sound of the oars dipping in and out of the water, caused the child to nod off when he was supposed to be inventorying the supplies. Perhaps, if the boy had thought the task was more important, he wouldn't have curled up beside a barrel of mead to be found an hour later snoring.

    The captain woke Achilles with a kick to the ribs and declared since Achilles already had his rest, then he would stay wake until after dinner the next day, doing whatever work the officers saw fit. The boy's hands were red and chapped from hours of work, and his eyes grew tired. The gentle swish of the water muddled his head.

    Snap! "Ahhh!" Achilles' eyes snapped open as the sting woke him.

    "Get up!" The officer snapped his whip again on the boy's back. "You've rested enough."

    It was the fifth stripe Achilles had gotten and the moon wasn't even high. "This is ridiculous," Achilles protested. "The men will just have to do this again in the morning."

    "Yes, and you will be among them." The officer making sure the boy got his just desserts coiled his whip back to his waist. "Get back to work. If the deck isn't finished before the captain wakes, you won't get a morning meal."

    "It's idiotic! I was only asleep for an hour and the inventory was already done when everything was loaded on the ship."

    "That was three days ago. Our records need to be current. Get back to work or I'll whip you again. I don't get to sleep until you've finished and I'll get meaner the longer it takes you."

    Achilles took the sandstone and dipped it into his bucket of sud, stinging his hands and bringing some tears to his eyes. Achilles had begged Chiron to get him out of this but the centaur wouldn't help him, something about needing character but Achilles wasn't listening too much after his tutor told him to suck it up. Patroclus, not being a Myrmidon and unknown to the crew, held no sway with the men, though he got more respect than Achilles did, which only made the boy angrier. Patroclus may be from the royal family but it was a distant relation and he wasn't the heir like Achilles was.

    Achilles fought to keep tears from falling, he wouldn't cry in front of this unfair taskmaster. When Achilles reached the halfway point of the deck, a shimmer of gold appeared before him. At first he thought he'd fallen asleep again, and pinched himself but all that got him was a welt on his arm. Achilles turned his face away from the shimmer and shot a worried glance at the man keeping tabs on him.

    The bastard's asleep! He was sprawled out on the deck with his arm over his eyes and muttering about a some girl. Achilles' face turned red and screwed up in a grimace as he picked up his bucket with every intention of dumping it over the man's head, but a gentle voice stopped him. A voice he recognized immediately, it was his mother.

    "Achilles."

    "Why are you here?" Achilles couldn't help the ire in his tone.

    His mother chose to ignore the disrespect. "I come with a gift."

    Achilles' ire turned to excitement. In the stories, demigods were often given gifts before their great quests. Perseus was given a helmet of invisibility, a shield, and a sword before he went to slay Medusa. During his twelve labors, Heracles was given bronze clappers to fight a monstrous flock of birds. Even Orpheus was given a lyre by his father Apollo, though Orpheus failed his mission in the end and later died in disgrace.

    "Mother, I am honored." Achilles bowed before Thetis. The boy held out his hands, while wearing a huge grin, expecting to be presented with a sword or bow.

    Instead there was a small flash of golden light in Thetis' hand. What matieralized wasn't what he expected. In fact, it wasn't useful at all. Thetis held a scallop seashell. "What is that?"

    "I suppose you could call it a thread of destiny given form."

    "Alright" Achilles stood. "What does it do?"

    "It will guide you to the woman destined to be your wife."

    "What? I don't want that."

    Thetis sighed. "You always were a willful child. That's my fault, I suppose. The abrupt changeable nature of the sea is too much in your blood and you've never learned to govern it."

    "The Princess Helen is destined to be my wife. I sail to Athens to win her heart and rescue her from the evil plot of Theseus."

    Thetis sighed. "Achilles, I don't know for certain who is meant to be your bride, but I can tell you one thing for certain, Helen will never be your wife."

    "Are you forbidding me to woe her?"

    "You would never be able to win her heart. Helen is a cruel girl and she has long been promised to another."

    "Her beauty is legendary. Cruelty couldn't exist in such a fair form."

    Thetis shook her head. "Beauty is often more cruel than ugliness, and once her beauty fades as it must in all mortals, all that's left will be a bitter woman forever a thorn to those around her. It matters not how fair her form appears to the eyes of man, she is not for you."

    "Then who is?"

    "I'm not certain. The fates told me long ago-" Thetis stopped herself.

    "What of the fates?"

    "I've said too much." Thetis broke the shell in her hands. "When your woman enters the sea, I will feel it and send half this shell to her as a token. The other half is for you."

    Achilles took the shell from his mother. Swirling lines of orange and red along with golden sparkles decorated the shell. It was beautiful but useless.

    As if sensing his thoughts his mother said, "You are still displeased."

    "I thank you for the gift, mother. Though I was hoping for something to help me in Athens."

    "Ask one boon of me, my son. Perhaps I will be able to grant it."

    Achilles' mind flashed with a seemingly endless supply of weapons or magical items. It would help him in the fight, and bring him renown if he battled with a weapon to rival all others on the field. But then his mother's words came back to him. Helen wasn't for him? Helen's abduction was proof she was most the most beautiful woman who drew breath. Even though she was only a little older than he was, Helen had captured the eye of a king and rumors had long swirled of her beauty before that. Helen would be wasted on a man like Theseus, past his prime with only a handful of years left.

    "I want a way to find Helen, that is what I ask of you."

    Thetis grimaced. "Ask me something else."

    "No, I want Helen. I must see her for myself and at present we don't know where she's being kept. We are reasonably sure she's not in the city itself, but we have no further idea where she could be."

    "Fine. If you must have the will of the sea beaten out of you, so be it. But I will, in turn, ask something of you."

    "Name it."

    "When you return from Athens, I want to you come with me to my ocean grotto."

    "I can't breathe underwater, mother."

    "The powers you've inherited from me have proven themselves to be strong. You should have at least one additional form you can morph into. I will teach you how."

    The excitement that'd been lacking in the presentation of the seashell finally arrived. For years the boy wished he could visit his mother's home under the sea. Thetis told many tales of the beauty under the ocean, it seemed to Achilles a crime he could never go there. "Of course, I would love to visit your true home."

    The love for her son in Thetis' eyes mixed with something else. Something that made the rest of Thetis' expression hard, and sorrowful. For a moment it made the boy afraid. But then he let the feeling pass.

    "When you reach Athens I will send you a sign which will lead you to the girl. No one else will be able to see it."

    "Thank you, mother."

    Thetis disappeared without a word in a shimmer of golden light. Though he still wasn't enthusiastic about the seashell his mother had given him, Achilles knew his reaction had been deeply ungrateful. Though he planned to make Helen his wife no matter what Thetis said, it would be rude to cast off her gift like it was nothing. The boy found a spare piece of twine and threaded it through a small hole at the back of the shell, turning it into a necklace. The shell was cool against his skin.

    Snap! "Ouch," Achilles winced as another blow landed on his back.

    "Back to work, you worthless boy!"