OPHELIA

  THE OLD MAN, previously speechless and pale, stammers for words, "Apologies my King, they have never behaved in such ways before." His face is flush with the shame of his daughters, his knuckles white, clenched so tightly as to prevent blood flow and I imagine they want nothing more than to wrap around our throats. Still, he continues, otherwise unperturbed, "I can only excuse them by having such a long carriage journey with little rest. As I'm sure you know, we mortals tire easy, my King. I beg you grant us mercy for the weakness of our human condition."

There it was again, we mortals, our human condition, as if this beast is something other.
The air itself seems to ripple with fear at the feet of Spartan King, quivering like the space above a flame as something I have never seen before comes over him; a terrifying mockery of piety. And I am reminded once more in his movements, every one slow and deliberate as the last, that his man claims to be a God, and with every passing second I find myself starting to believe him.

The weakness of our human condition. If this man is human, no weakness ails him. He is the perfect portrait of undivided strength if ever there was one, boundless with weaving lengths of tightly bound muscle and sinew.

  A crooked cruelty homes itself in the snarl of his tongue, "Perhaps I may take them." He muses, a thick hand stroking at a chin that is handsome and strong, "Though rest assured Onasis, that your spawn are no gift, instead, I find them an insult. They are no more than the thousand others."

He leans forward upon the throne, something otherworldly about the shape of him, something that hints at humanity but does not quite arrive there.
He cocks his head towards the head of his guard, "What do you think Sir Deimos? Shall I keep them? — A curse to those three men who worse ail me?" His face darkens, anarchy working its way into the harsh lines of it. "Or are they not worth such a fate — I could cast their bones upon the rocks, I'm certain they would make a feast fit for crows."

He watches us after that, searching for a weakness he knows he will find. I hope that whatever he searches for evades him in my face at least, though I cannot guard against the emotions of my volatile sisters.

The soldier casts a glance upon us, we three females draped in silk and bathed in jewels, a silly sight to behind. I feel like a sacred bull dressed in ceremonials for slaughter.
Tilting my chin upwards, I steady my heaving shoulders, becoming the feminine grace Pala always taught us to be.

He looks a while, greedy and unabashed, he looks until he is drunk on the sight of us, then says, "Work them, my King. Our mortal slaves expire fast, there is always cry for more."
As he talks he comes closer, stalking and circling us, sizing our worth like livestock at an auction. Through his helmet, I notice that his eyes are grey as slate, a peculiar colour, especially when in contrast to the golden King's.

  "So I say work them," Says Sir Deimos, "Just as mortal women should, may they labour until their tongues humble and their bodies break." He says the latter with a sideward glance at my newfound rebel sisters. If only they knew, I think.

  The King's laugh rips through the cavern, shaking the bones of the earth we stand upon. "Look at them, they have never known a day of work in their lives." The sound is bittersweet. I feel its rattle in the pit of my stomach, and all the other aching, waking places I should not.

  The soft caress of the torchlight, flickering across his Grecian features, does little to dull the tragic wickedness that finds a sanctity there.
His eyes are scrutinising. Piercing and cruel and somehow, painful. A face so perfect it pains to look upon.

  Looking at the Spartan King is like staring into the sun. Never able to be looked at directly, and blinding to those who try, and yet, there is nothing more beautiful than the sun. And when it's gone we pray for the moment of its return.

  It's almost strange, how he holds my worth in his palms, how one word from this foreign King could mean the difference between piety and purgatory. And yet still, he weighs it like it is little more than grain.

"Hold out your hand, girl." He says suddenly; with a scarcely contained snarl, already knowing what he will find. It takes me a second too long to realise he is talking to me. My hands are damp with nervous sweat and I have to fight the urge to dry them on the crimson silk of my dress.

He means to humiliate me, I know, I am not foolish enough to believe him capable — let alone willing — of anything but hellish intent. Nonetheless, I lift my hand, palm down.

"Turn it over." He orders and I do. Obedient as a dog to its master.

Love lines and lifelines are all that is to be found. My skin is smooth, tellingly unblemished. Without calluses or scars like those men in the mines, or the women who wash clothes at the river for pittance. Shame finds a home in my chest, burrs itself deeply and doesn't let go. It's not my fault, or so I tell myself. I never asked to be born this way — to be born here— to this family.

The Spartan King sits back; satisfied in his small victory, "They'd die in a day if laboured."

"Only one way to find out." The soldier answers, and even though his face is shielded I do not have to see it to imagine the smirk. Dog, I curse him silently in my mind as it is the only place safe to do so. I curse them all.

" — Sir Deimos," When my father finally braves, it feels like a lifetime since the last he last spoke.
How long have we been standing here on display? How long has he allowed us to make fools of ourselves?
There are million unanswered questions, each and every attacking me from a different angle.

Before us, the King did not speak, not even a word of affirmation to those deemed worthy and not a word against to those he did not.
A deathly sickness knots itself about my chest, suffocating the scream that threatens to surface in my throat and says, what do you want with us?

   "I've heard you have quite the appetite for the fallible, — it is only that your personal taste for mortal women is said to be unparalleled. Would you say that is a fair assertion?"
Sir Demios does not answer, though his silence is far from comforting. Nonetheless, my father continues, "Why don't you take one — or two — or all three if it so pleases you? If only to try, consorts of sorts perhaps, and when you tire you may return them or send them into exile if they offend you. They will be bound by service to you."

The soldier cocks his head, attention gained, though I cannot bring myself to turn his way. "Maybe I will. After all, they are not so entirely awful to behold."
My face is fixed firmly upon that of the Spartan King, who in a moment stares straight back; unabashed in a way that only a King should be. His tawny eyes narrow, like that of a snake assessing where best to strike and I find myself transfixed, unable to look away even if I had wanted to.
  When he speaks, it is not to me, but even so his words are arrows and I am the target. "Take your pick Sir Demios, I have no interest in such dull creatures."

  The soldier reanimates, the command given, his leash loosened. He stalks. First circling Andromeda, with her tall slender figure and whetted features. As taught, her gaze is downcast, submissive as all women should be. Does this please him, I wonder?
  Perhaps not, for a moment later he moves to the second sister, coming far closer than any male should. His fingers ensnare a lock of her raven hair, coiling it around a war-worn index like a snake to a branch. Ascella is the embodiment of woman, her hips full as her breasts, swollen with overflowing feminine fertility. Her face is soft, like that of a flower, no harsh edges, nothing to catch yourself upon.

  In a singular fluid movement my sister breaths a small sigh of relief, as she too, is abandoned. Behind me, Sir Deimos' armour shifts with a gunmetal sound, low and brimming with bass. The tang scent of copper and freshly turned earth forces its way through my senses, not entirely unpleasant but also not at all welcome.
Then he stands before me, our eyes locked in some hideous challenge. Unlike my sisters, I shall not cower.
  I was right, some small part of me dares to say, they are grey.

  Then beneath his helmet, I see the shadow of lip curled upwards, "You."

***
QOTD-What do we think of Sir Demios and his intentions? Good or bad? — that is, if such mortality even exists in this world...