1.100 [Nikolas Aetos]

The Stark Blade, Nikolas Aetos

Don’t come back. Not until you’ve found something worth sharing – a wife, companions. Your passion.

Niko’s companions had harbored their fair share of doubts and misgivings leading up to the wedding, his wife included among them. They had readied themselves for a fight, gathered up any material advantage they could get their hands on, steeled their hearts and grit their teeth as the Eos braved the Ionian Sea again for the first time in years. And why not? Even Niko had harbored his concerns – and the Scarlet City had treated him well.

There was just something about sailing into the setting sun, further west than any civilized Greek cared to go, and knowing that Damon Aetos was waiting for you on that distant shore. Mortal or Heroic, the prospect unsettled. But Niko was blessed in more ways than one, and the friends he’d made were true. They followed him in spite of their misgivings, and Iphys acquiesced to his destination wedding in the end.

When all was said and done, the surprise wasn’t that things had ended in disaster. It was how they’d fallen apart.

And because of whom.

In some ways, it was easier to take the measure of a man by observing the world in his absence.

The days passed agonizingly slow. The Olympic Games were most of half a year away when Niko and Iphys exchanged their marital rings. Now, there were hardly more than three.

Some days it was like he had never left. The sheets on his bed were the same, the gymnasium was just as rowdy as he remembered it, and the baths were somehow still occupied by the same old men no matter what time of day or night it happened to be. Their evening meals tasted just how he remembered them. He could still name almost every slave and mystiko in the estates. He memorized the new arrivals in the first week.

But other days, it was glaringly apparent that the Rosy Dawn that Lio had left was not the same Rosy Dawn that Niko remembered.

“Niko!”

Thaum heaved an exasperated sigh, but he sheathed his borrowed sword obligingly and stepped back from their afternoon discourse. One of the larger members of their group, and by far the most restless, the fourth rank Hero had taken to the blade in an effort to pass the time. It wasn’t his preferred weapon, which made it fair to challenge anyone and everyone that wore the Rosy Dawn’s attire. According to him, anyway.

Niko inclined his head and extended his own blade in mock salute. The burly Hero waved him off. “Go on, then. I’ll see if anyone is up for a round in the gym.”

“Easy,” Niko chided him. “The only people on your level here are us and my aunts and uncles. You’ll scare everyone off if you keep it up.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you,” Thaum said, looking pointedly over Niko‘s shoulder at the boy sprinting their way.

Myron still had bruises.

“Cousin,” Niko greeted the boy as he skidded across the frozen surface of a river that had been flowing freely only a couple hours ago.

“Is now a good time?” the ten year old asked between panting breaths, his hands on his knees. Knowing him, he had sprinted all the way down the eastern mountain range to get there. Blue eyes darted furtively to Thaum’s retreating back.

Niko smiled and ruffled his cousin’s hair. “I always have time for my cute little cousins.” Myron huffed and smacked his hand away.

“I’m not cute,” he denied cutely. He stood up straight and puffed out his chest. At his tallest, the crown of his head could just barely brush the underside of Niko‘s chest. A difference of five or six hands.

“You’re adorable,” Niko said frankly. His cousin scowled. “If your mother wasn’t so fierce, I’d worry for your purity around the cult’s senior sisters. I bet they offer to trade pointers with you day and night.”

“How did you-?” Myron shook his head, dashing the tangent from the air. A seriousness overtook him, entirely out of place on his cherubic face. “Enough. I’m ready for the next lesson.”

Niko sighed and sat down on the surface of the frozen lake. His youngest cousin mirrored him, legs crossed and back straight.

“You couldn’t have possibly mastered it that quick,” he said, though he had learned in the past few months not to doubt the absurd things his cousins told him. “It took me months to form the first one. Don’t tell me you’ve been staying up through the night again.”

“Okay. I won’t tell you.”

“Cheeky little brat. Show me, then.”

Myron nodded sharply and closed his eyes, a portion of his body relaxing while his pneuma rose in a smooth sublimation.

It was a warm afternoon, and the early signs of spring were in the air. Niko had forgone the scarlet silks of the Rosy Dawn’s Young Aristocrat and instead ventured out in the bronze armor and leathers that had become far more familiar to him in his years spent abroad. A scarlet scarf was the least of what he could get away with to mark his status, and so it was all that he wore. Myron, for his part, wore the white silks and intricate scarlet trimming of a senior member of the cult, though they were ragged and rumpled. Clearly past due for a cleaning.

Niko wondered how long it had been since his cousin had taken a bath. For that matter, he wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten or spoken to his parents. The last time he had slept.

The ten year old inhaled a slow, deep breath, and held it. And held it. Then he opened his eyes, and without exhaling that first breath, he took in a second one.

An impossible feat. The lungs could only take in so much air at a time, after all. But in this case, that first breath hadn’t stopped at the lungs.

Niko‘s cousin hadn’t known what the hunting bird’s breath was only a few short weeks ago. And already he had formed a pneumatic chamber within his body.

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“How long can you hold it for?” he asked, leaning forward.

“As long as I want.”

“You don’t have to exaggerate, cousin,” he told the boy, rapping his knuckles against his forehead. “It’s impressive enough that you managed it at all. Being able to speak while you maintain it is the next step and you’ve already conquered that too. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Just be honest with me.”

“I am being honest,” Myron insisted.

“Is that so?” Well, he supposed he hadn’t been much better at that age. Young and eager to please, even more eager to prove himself. It wouldn’t hurt to humor him. “Enlighten this lowly sophist, then. Why didn’t you maintain it on your way here?”