cian hadn’t really left his cabin since coming back from saving moros. technically it had been less than twenty-four hours, but without sleep time dragged on like an eternity. when he did finally collapse, it hadn’t been restful — not in the slightest. he still saw her every time he closed his eyes, still felt her blades when he moved, the mark above his heart throbbing like a reminder he didn’t need. not that scars ever worried him, but failure carved into skin was another matter.
at least he’d managed to pull on a pair of sweats and drag himself to the showers. he was just drying off when a knock came at the cabin door. victor wouldn’t be knocking. ziggy had already brought cookies. so… who? sluggish, still heavy-limbed, it took him a moment to cross the room, but when he pulled the door open, face half-way covered by a shirt he hastily pulled on and saw the face on the other side, a smile tugged at him before he could stop it — faint, tired, but carrying a glint of the joy he thought he’d left behind.
“hey… didn’t think i’d see you here.” his voice came softer than usual, but warm. he stepped back, opening the door wider. “c’mon in, if you’ve time.”
both brothers drunk from the dionysus wine, they were trying to keep the other from falling over as they made their way back to their cabin to sleep it off. arthur had to lean against the outer wall as ezequiel tried to find the key and putting it in.
"i don't know why we need to stop the party just yet, brother." arthur said, the himation he wore for the wedding was barely clinging to his body as he stumbled into the living room where the shield had been put earlier that day. beautiful up close, arthur couldn't wait to study it further. "you know how much i love you, ezequiel?" he leaned forward, wrapping an arm around the other athena heir. "i don't think i tell you that enough." he leaned forward, his grey eyes glued on those lips he'd been thinking about all day.
@ezfontes
location: amphitheatre
notes: post path thingie!!
cian found him at the edge of the amphitheater, where the last of the late light spilled gold across the stone steps. the air still smelled faintly of ash and old magic — traces of some earlier practice, maybe — but it was quieter now, softer.
he paused, thumb brushing the edge of his palm in a small, grounding habit he’d kept since he'd had this strange dream. still learning to sit with silence, to let it settle without needing to fill it. but something in him tugged toward ezequiel anyway — that same low, steady pull that had only grown harder to ignore. “hey,” he offered, voice gentle as sea-foam. his hair was still a little messy from training; a few stubborn curls clung to his forehead. “been a while, hasn’t it?”
he hesitated, then took a slow breath, stepping closer, his weight balanced just so. “you had one of those dreams too, right?” he asked — softer now, almost careful, though curiosity threaded the words. his eyes searched ezequiel’s face, catching the corners of light and shadow. “the kind that don’t quite let go, even after you wake.” a small, lopsided smile broke through — a touch self-conscious, but honest. “can’t say i’m the same lad i was before it. not completely, anyway.”
he lifted his gaze again, braver this time. “and you? how’re you holding up?”
at first, the dream is silent. it’s not peaceful, it’s hollow.
ezequiel finds himself standing in a vast marble atrium beneath a glass domed roof, surrounded by glass cases. this is a museum of war, impossibily large and imposing. artifacts float in geometric alignment—spears, swords, shields, coins, bones, names carved in obsidian slabs.
but when he reads each label, he only sees:
UNKNOWN.
DATE: FORGOTTEN.
ORIGIN: LOST.
he walks the aisle, fuelled by curiosity, to see if every slab reads the same. his fingers trail over over glass, pinpricks of recognition flicker in his mind. this is a museum of curated erasure.
he finds himself in the center of the room and stops. there he sees a pedestal bathed in golden light and, atop it, a bronze shield, tarnished and cracked. it calls to him, somewhere deep in his soul. he steps forward and admires it. it’s shaped like a full moon before an eclipse, at first glance it’s unremarkable, but the devil is in the details.
he gets closer to stare at it—and a face stares back.
it’s not his reflection in tarnished bronze, it’s not a war hero’s visage, but that of a young man. younger than ezequiel, hi face carved lightly in the curve of the shield—barely visible, as if time has rubbed it away. he stares and he can see it in the eyes of the man: grief, beautiful and raw.
a surge of knowledge rushes through ezequiel like fire through every synapse. the pattern of the carving, the alloy of the metal, the dents in the bronze. he knows this piece. not from books, but from bloodlines, from the heartsong in his veins, from the memory regained.
“he wore another’s armor,” a voice whispers, as if standing behind him—his mother’s, the goddess athena, and it echoes through the marbled museum like a cold wind. “through his death, a god wept loud enough to wake olympus.”
a pregnant pause fills the room, a held breath waiting to be released. “but we do not tell that story. we left him unclaimed, unnamed, forgotten.”
above the glass dome of the atrium, lightning scatters across the sky, followed by a boom of thunder. the lights flicker, the glass cases shake, and ezequiel can see every obsidian marker, every unknown label, begins to rewrite itself. the etches are scribbles, barely legible, as if remembering is enough to deny the falsehood of these histories.
“if you want to remember—if you want to honor what was buried—take the shield. but know this: once you see him, you cannot unsee the truth that we tried to hide.”
the shield is glowing now, a soft and sorrowful light, but there’s glass that stands between him and it.
behind him, he can hear echoing footsteps, fast and approaching, and the sound of alarms rings. something is coming, something that guards the lie.
quickly, ezequiel presses his hands to the glass—
and finds himself sitting upright in his bed, back at camp.
for a moment, there’s confusion. a dream? so vivid, so life like. when he brings a hand to comb through his hair, he can see flecks of tarnished bronze on his fingertips, as if his fingertips had stroked along the shield that was before him. around him, every book spine that shows itself looks as if the name has been erased from history, like he knows too much and the books won’t show him more.
but he knows where he must go, where this shield is waiting.
the metropolitan museum of art.
arms and armor wing, room 371.
beneath a glass case with an obsidian label that reads: unknown mycenaean.
but to the son of athena, it is not unknown and now, perhaps, he will never let him be forgotten again.
the only places arthur really wanted to be at the moment were either the library or locked away in the athena cabin. everything they had gone through in indiana had really stuck with the professor, the feeling that he was being erased from existence... and the fear that still crept from facing a goddess who was now fully aware of who arthur was? now that was terrifying to think about.
lounging in his bed, ezequiel was laying with him and arthur had his head in the others lap as he stared up at the ceiling. it was moments like this that arthur was glad to know he wasn't alone in this world, anymore. he had those like ez who cared about him.
"i've come face to face with a titan twice now." he aimlessly said, more thinking out loud. "all of this is starting to feel real now."
Most of his free time since arriving at camp had been spent either in the library, the Hecate cabin with Merrick, or his own cabin with his new half brother. They were both college professors, but perhaps that should have been expected when your mother was the goddess of wisdom herself. The cabin itself was beautiful and it was easy for Arthur to get lost within his side of it, enriched with an organized chaos of books everywhere.
It was the middle of the night when Arthur's mind seemed to be the most awake, that thirst for knowledge was stronger when the rest of the world seemed to be asleep. Curled by the fire in his bedroom, the Athena heir found a first edition in his own library and was reading it when he heard a knock at the door and his brother's face peaked in.
