Theseus watched her sleep for a moment, it was night now. But his guilt did not ease, he wasn’t sure why his people had been eaten by the beast, but seeing how she wept over its body, cooing at it and promising to find it in the Underworld when it was her time…
He looked to the sea, hearing the waves against the shore. He stood and walked a distance away from the camp, going into the treeline. He wandered for some time, Ariadne’s thread felt heavy in his pocket.
“What am I to do?” He muttered hopelessly, sitting on a rock. He looked to the sky again, “gods above, please help me. I cannot abandon her now, but I know if she comes to Athens she may feel as if she has been.”
It was quiet, nothing but the sounds of distant waves and crickets chirping in the night. He put his head in his hands, tears welling in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” A voice suddenly called, he leapt up, searching for the source of the voice, then he spotted a bull, sat calmly under a tree, sitting above perched on a branch, was an owl.
“Lady Athena? Father? What are you doing here?” He muttered, turning to face them. They both said nothing for a moment.
“You feel guilty over killing the Minotaur?” Athena inquiried, but it didn’t feel like a question. He nodded, looking down.
“It-... He may have been a beast, but… the way she cried over it and prayed that Hades would allow it some peace,” he said quietly, his voice feeling too small.
She sighed, but it sounded almost endeared by his plight. “And now, you wish to abandon the princess?” She mused, though she sounded unhappy.
“Not out of cruelty, please believe me my lady.” He said quickly, “I do not want to get rid of her as if she’s some kind of reminder, I know… everytime she looks at me, she may smile but her eyes are full of sadness, she is grieving and… And I don’t know how to help her.”
That seemed to surprise both of them. Poseidon stood, the bull was almost as tall as Theseus, making him feel slightly intimated.
“My son, you truly think that she would be better off elsewhere?” He asked, as if unsure. Did they think he was that prideful and rude? That he would abandon a woman for less? Had it been a different situation, he would’ve scoffed in his face, but instead, he just nodded quietly.
“Very well. I will see what I can do.” Athena hummed, spreading her wings and taking flight into the night. He watched her before turning back to his father. But a bull no longer faced him, instead he had turned back to his godly form.
“Can you… Whatever happens, father. Tell her that I am not trying to be cruel, and that-” His father cut him off with a hand on his shoulder and hugged him tightly.
“I know, my boy. I know.” He said softly, “tomorrow, when you prepare to leave, you mustn’t take her. If the crew asks, say you were ordered to by me. But not for them to worry, because I have a divine path for her to take.”
Theseus hesitated, but nodded against his shoulder. “I will father. I will.”