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When Destiny Walked the LabrynthPrologue“I am the son of water and air!” proclaimed the slight, dark-haired boy. His patched tunic was overly long, hanging below his bony knees. He waved his wooden herding staff menacingly, and it being heavy, somewhat uncontrollably, over his head. Around him, several tan and black goats looked up and bleated appreciatively, or perhaps indifferently -- it was rather hard to tell. A number stared at him warily the horizontal pupils of their eyes dull, before they finally resumed gnawing at the sparse hill vegetation. A couple even scurried further away, their hooves scattering small stones behind them. Theseus sat down hard on an exposed rock and, chin in hands, resumed his daydreaming. Told he was approximately ten summers old, Theseus looked even younger. He was skinny with delicate, almost feminine, features. His sleepy dark eyes looked huge in his finely boned face and were framed with impossibly long black lashes. His black hair was only slightly wavy, not tangley-curly like most of the other children who lived on the small fishing island of Paros. For all that Theseus knew, he really was a child of water and air. As a very young boy he was found living marginally all by himself in the dank, treacherous alleyways of the mainland port city, Eluseis. The Kretin trader who took pity on the filthy and starving youngster tried to find his family, but no one seemed to know where he had come from or whom his meter or uncles might be. None of the dockhands, fisherfolk, and assorted transients seemed all that interested in finding out, either; “times are hard”, they muttered, turning away . All Theseus himself remembered clearly was his name - Minos Theseus. About 4 or 5 years old when rescued, he said he’d been surviving mostly by handouts or the occasional theft of a coin purse if he chanced upon an unwary sailor. He’d been too ashamed to admit to anything else. The trader, who had a toddler of her own and did not wish to bring another young child along the trading routes with her, took the boy to her sisters and meter who lived in the rural hills of Troezen, upon lonely Paros. Though life was undeniably easier with his adoptive family - he knew he’d be fed regularly anyway - young Theseus grew restless and bored with the placid life of a herder. There was a saying in the islands that once one got the sea in their blood they’d never be content in one harbor and Theseus supposed that since he had been found by the docks, it was likely that he’d somehow gotten sea water in his blood. He imagined the salty water coursing through his body and it sent chills of excitement down his back. He even slashed open his forearm with a borrowed bronze dagger once, hoping to prove he indeed had sea water rather than blood in his veins, but to his disappointment, the fluid was just as red as anyone else’s. When he tasted it though, he knew by the saltiness that he had been right all along – seawater! “Some day”, Theseus said aloud, “I will leave this island and travel. I will go to Sparta and Eluseis and even Athena! I will be a hero just like Heracles - no, even more famous than Heracles!” Excitedly he jumped to his feet and began waving the stout wooden staff about again. Several goats started and ran off. “I am a hero, goats! I am all-powerful, more than even Heracles! Do you hear me? You must bow to a Hero!” And when the closest goat stupidly refused to fall to its knees in reverence to all-powerful Theseus, the boy clubbed it hard on the head until it did. Copyright by the Kassandra Sojourner ~ All rights reserved |
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