Smth smth theban cycle smth smth
Imagine your kings brother is marching against your city. Your home. The soil that gave birth to your father.
The king calls you to defend it, it's your duty. And while you're not sure who to blame more for the war - the king, or his brother - you'd willingly die if it meant the city, with it's walls in need of repairs, and it's history of tragedy will not be sacked. If it meant the people you love and the stories you grew up with will remain untouched.
So you stand in the front lines after the negotiations failed and the allies of the kings brother make their move against your city. They wreck harvoc. Your comrades die in masses on your side taken down by a single man who cuts through your ranks like a boar ravaging a newly plowed field, a man surely blessed by one of the gods.
You know he needs to be stopped or else your city will lie defeated before sunset. But you see the rage burning in the mans eyes. Savagery, as he slaughters man after man without restraint. You hear his voice roaring over the field with threats and mocks, and though you see him covered in wounds he seems unslowed, unstoppable. Like a god undying. He nearly kills you with a throw of his spear then. You dodge it, barely. White-faced you see a man you grew up with fall into the blood soaked mud besides you, his stare is empty, sightless. The spear you dodged hit him instead. You take the spear, watching as the enemy moves on to his next victims and begins cutting them down. Divine wrath brought down on your city and you wonder what your people did to deserve it. In your heart you know. In your heart you claim it unfair. Then the boar-like man turns away from you for a moment as he picks up another spear and you make your move, quickly. Your brothers are somewhere on the battlefield. You need to stop the man before he reaches them. You throw the spear with all the force you can muster.
It finds its mark, sinking deep into the flesh of the man, another wound with blood gushing out of it. But this time the man collapses with the spear still lodged in his side. You know that you succeeded. You stopped the slaughter. There's still hope for victory now. Relief washes over you but it lasts merely a moment as the dying man lifts his head, comrades rushing to his side. And terror grips your heart as you behold his expression. Despite the lifeblood gushing out of him his fury has not ebbed. No, now his fury only seems to have been roused like a blazing star as his eyes search for the man who threw the spear that brought him down. You want to fall back behind the lines. Hide among the masses because your are terrified of this man, who appears more beast than human, dying though he was.
Your heart sinks then as you hear your name called out. A cry of triumph with your name on their lips. No. Another comrade calls your name, and another. A cacophony of hoarse voice painting a target on your back as you see the boars eyes land on you and recognition blazes in them. Even though he should be bereft of all streng he grips the spear and yanks it out of his side. His eyes fixated on you and though you want to turn and run from this divine wrath you are glued to the ground. Standing still and staring. The man changes his grip on the spear. Before you can move he throws it. You feel yourself hit the ground then. Pain erupting in your chest and you gasp and cough blood as agony takes over your mind.
You blink and hear the clash of swords rise up again. Battlecries of your comrades going quiet as you hear that cursed mans bellowing voice one last time. He calls for your head to be brought to him. Somehow you hear it and you try to get up but a spear is pieced through your chest and you cant move. All you can do is blink and take useless breaths against the agony of ensured death. Fear has long since settled in your bones.
There are hands on you then, pulling you up and dragging you away. You can't stop it. You cough blood and blink against the blurriness in your vision and you can make out the man leaned against his shield, blood still gushing out of his side, looking pale. For a moment you can muster pride for your feat. Then you hear the words again, a raw declaration. The head. The hands that held you up let go. You fall, with no strength left to hold yourself up or stop the impact. You feel bronze on your skin then. And then nothing.
A blessing to not witness what happens next. Though at least you can take satisfaction that you took any chance of a blessed existence after death from your enemy, as he takes your head, no longer set on your shoulders and reaches for your brain.
For another decade your city will stand. Thebes will stand.
Your brothers will kill the other leaders remaining of the enemy and the Seven will fail.
The king and his brother will kill each other in mutual fratricide.
Tydeus has lost the favour of his goddess.
And it won't be until his son has grown up to take revenge that the walls of your city will fall.
Your name is Melanippus, son of Astacus, and you killed Tydeus, son of Oeneus, boar-like devourer of atë and bringer of beastly fury.
