So we've seen the Campions on their honeymoon in Greece, in the modern age—now let's see what newylwed life was like for them, back in the B.C. days...

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Scene 9: First Night

2020 B.C. 

She was his wife. Granted, till today, she’d had no knowledge of married life, what it was supposed to be like.

But she had not expected this. She had not thought that marriage meant beholding one’s beloved from afar, throughout the night. Longing for a look, a touch, a kiss—she’d witnessed kisses, among others in this camp, watching lovers locking lips. She knew not whether there was any purpose to the gesture. Yet regardless, she knew that she wanted it.

After taking her as his bride, and claiming quite the dowry along with her hand, Perseus had led his band of bandits far away from the city of King Cepheus. Lachesis had walked by his side for a while, but none of their time together had been spent alone. His many followers and comrades had kept congratulating him on his new wife and new wealth, wishing to hear the story of how he’d bested the monstrous Cetus, asking where he was leading them next. She had found that Perseus—or rather, Rider, as he was most often called—was a man of few words, with a preference to provide answers through actions.

As evening fell, at Rider’s command, the company had stopped to set up camp in a vast empty grassland. Lachesis had watched the ease and speed with which these people pitched their tents, dug into their stores of food and supplies to start a fire and prepare a scrumptious supper. They seemed so comfortable, so content, with this way of life, guided always by their gallant leader. By her husband, Rider.

She was his wife, seated beside him through the night… yet all the while she felt so distant. The entire camp was smiling, celebrating his heroic triumph at the seacliffs, his newly acquired riches. And his marriage.

Of all present, Rider himself seemed least happy about it.

Least of all except for a certain scantily clad blonde, who spent all of suppertime glaring incessantly at Rider’s wife with a downright freakish fire in her eyes. So fierce was her stare that part of Lachesis was glad when a kindly old woman approached, to usher the new bride to her tent for the night.

Lachesis tilted her head. “My tent? I have my own?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” the woman clarified. “Your husband’s.”

“Oh.”

“He will be joining you shortly, I am sure,” the woman assured her. “Make yourself comfortable in the meantime, my lady.”

“Please, you may… you may just call me Lachesis.”

“Lachesis?” the woman echoed, grey brows raised. “The same name as the goddess—one of the three Fates?”

“Yes. The same,” Lachesis affirmed as they entered the tent.

“Ah, how lovely. Your parents must be true believers in the divine, to have chosen such a name. I hope it won’t displease you to find that the same cannot be said of Rider.”

Lachesis tilted her head once again. “How do you mean?”

The woman paused and bit her lip. “His soul is not the most… devout. He scorns the gods and all forces beyond this world.”

“Oh!” Lachesis gasped, utterly unprepared for that. “That is so…”

“Sad? Yes, it is. Some in this camp do believe, and thankfully he doesn’t hold that against us. None of us dares to ask about the reasons underlying his own views, though. Only those closest to him know.”

“Closest?”

“His mentor, Dictys, and his long-time companion, Chrysaor. Have you met them yet?”

Lachesis’s head bobbed in a shallow nod. “Briefly.”

“Well, no doubt you’ll be getting to know them better soon, now that you’re Rider’s bride,” the woman reckoned. “In any case, I should probably take my leave now. Let you prepare for tonight.”

“Tonight? What happens tonight?”

“It… it will be your first night as man and wife.”

Another nod, even shallower and more timid this time. “Yes.”

The woman narrowed her eyes into a tight squint, canting her head at a curious slant. “From what land do you hail, love?”

Lachesis shifted. “Someplace faraway.”

“Must be far indeed, given your unfamiliarity with the most basic of traditions. Here, dear—let me enlighten you,” the woman offered, stepping slightly closer to the newlywed wife, so as to speak in something of a whisper. “There are some things that a lady must expect when she becomes a wife. In particular on the first night…”

And so she educated Lachesis with a delicately worded overview, before excusing herself. Leaving a bewildered young bride behind.

Later that night—much later than Lachesis would’ve liked—she could feel her husband’s presence just outside. She held her breath.

But then she saw someone following him. Even just by the silhouette, Lachesis recognized the figure as the batty-eyed blonde. Heated conversation ensued, all of which she could hear from within the tent.

“I cannot believe you would do this to me. To yourself.”

Rider’s shadow turned to regard his accuser. “Do what, exactly?”

“Go off and get fucking married. Have you lost all sense? A man like you was never meant to be a husband. It’s against your way of life.”

“It seems that you’re the one who’s lost all sense because you’re jealous of my wife.”

“Gods, yes, I’m jealous, Rider. The jealousy is killing me. It feels like years since last you shared my bed—if I must wait any longer for your touch, I swear one day I’ll wake up dead.”

Rider’s voice remained steady and calm, in response to her fury. “That truly doesn’t sound healthy. Please seek comfort elsewhere.”

“How dare you spurn me like this? First you had to go and fall in love with that feisty captive of yours, and now she’s disappeared, and all of a sudden you’ve taken up some other slut as your fucking wife?”

“The only slut I see is standing right in front of me.”

“Gods, Rider…!”

“Look. The gods aren’t listening. Whatever gods there are don’t give a damn about your desperate need for cock. I don’t mean to be cruel. But I have learned since last we lay together that there is much more to life than lust. You would do well to learn the same. There are men in this camp who could care for you, if only you would let them.”

The impassioned blonde paused. “But not you? Not the man I want?”

“I care in that I want you to find happiness and purpose in this life. But I can’t be the man to provide it. I am sorry.”

An audible huff of hot air. “Sorry for what, exactly?”

“For far too many things,” Rider replied, with a long sigh before saying more. “Now go. Sleep well. And please—don’t wake up dead. The fires of desire may burn strong, but they are not worth dying for.”

“Then what is?”

An even longer sigh. “You’ll know it when you find it. Goodnight.”

After a brief silence, punctuated with patently unhappy footfalls as his former lover stomped off, Rider entered the tent.

Met the gaze of his wife. “I am sorry for the… disturbance.”

Lachesis smiled, just at the sight of him. “Oh, it’s quite all right.”

The smile was not returned. “You heard? My words, and hers?”

Her head lifted and sank in the heaviest nod.

“That is well. Then I won’t have to say them again.”

“What do you…”

“I trust that you understand why I wed you,” he stated simply, still standing by the entrance to the tent. “That it was to protect you from an undeserved fate, from the cruelty of a hateful royal family.”

“And to take a great sum of their riches, along with my hand.”

“That came as a happy coincidence, yes. But worthless in itself. I only chose to go through with the marriage once I knew that they would otherwise harm you,” he explained in earnest. “I do hope you know that?”

“I do,” she asserted, her answer only half untrue. “But why would you care, whatever harm befalls me? Why should I be your charge?”

Rider paused. “Fate put you in my path. To save. And so I have.”

“I thought you don’t believe in fate.”

The blue bay of his eyes deepened with a wordless blink.

Lachesis bit her lip uncomfortably. “I am sorry…”

“No, no, it’s… it’s quite all right,” he promptly forgave, lowering his gaze. “At any rate, the night is late. Why don’t you get some sleep.”

The blue sky of her eyes widened, blinking up at him. “And you?”

“I will sleep soon.”

A part of her knew better than to ask this. A part of her did not. “But you will lie with me, won’t you? Isn’t that what husbands do?”

His deep gaze froze and darkened, at those words. “You said you had heard. You must know that my heart lies…”

“Someplace faraway,” she murmured. It somehow hurt less, to finish the sentence herself. To acknowledge aloud that Rider was in love with some feisty former captive of his—whose name Lachesis could all too easily surmise, no matter how hard she might try to deny it—rather than to hear her husband say the same. “Right. Well… goodnight.”

He forced a faint, heartbreaking shadow of a smile. “Goodnight.”

Lachesis laid to rest, shedding a silent tear. Still awake when Rider finally settled into bed awhile later, his broad back facing her, his very skin a barrier. So close and yet so distant.

So this was their first night. He hadn’t even asked her name.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

... anyone else shed a tear, feel some feels? :/

P.S. Dedication to @BetweenTheDimensions, bronze medalist in the Voters' Choice division of the Fateful Olympics fanfiction contest, for the terrific fanfic "Threads" :D

Next scene, we'll see what's happening with Cloe in modern-day Greece...

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