The Fates (Book II)

6.9 - First Night

So we've seen the Campions on their honeymoon in Greece, in the modern age—now let's see what newylwed life was like for them, back in the B.C. days...

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Scene 9: First Night

2020 B.C. 

She was his wife. Granted, till today, she’d had no knowledge of married life, what it was supposed to be like.

But she had not expected this. She had not thought that marriage meant beholding one’s beloved from afar, throughout the night. Longing for a look, a touch, a kiss—she’d witnessed kisses, among others in this camp, watching lovers locking lips. She knew not whether there was any purpose to the gesture. Yet regardless, she knew that she wanted it.

After taking her as his bride, and claiming quite the dowry along with her hand, Perseus had led his band of bandits far away from the city of King Cepheus. Lachesis had walked by his side for a while, but none of their time together had been spent alone. His many followers and comrades had kept congratulating him on his new wife and new wealth, wishing to hear the story of how he’d bested the monstrous Cetus, asking where he was leading them next. She had found that Perseus—or rather, Rider, as he was most often called—was a man of few words, with a preference to provide answers through actions.

As evening fell, at Rider’s command, the company had stopped to set up camp in a vast empty grassland. Lachesis had watched the ease and speed with which these people pitched their tents, dug into their stores of food and supplies to start a fire and prepare a scrumptious supper. They seemed so comfortable, so content, with this way of life, guided always by their gallant leader. By her husband, Rider.

She was his wife, seated beside him through the night… yet all the while she felt so distant. The entire camp was smiling, celebrating his heroic triumph at the seacliffs, his newly acquired riches. And his marriage.

Of all present, Rider himself seemed least happy about it.

Least of all except for a certain scantily clad blonde, who spent all of suppertime glaring incessantly at Rider’s wife with a downright freakish fire in her eyes. So fierce was her stare that part of Lachesis was glad when a kindly old woman approached, to usher the new bride to her tent for the night.

Lachesis tilted her head. “My tent? I have my own?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” the woman clarified. “Your husband’s.”

“Oh.”

“He will be joining you shortly, I am sure,” the woman assured her. “Make yourself comfortable in the meantime, my lady.”

“Please, you may… you may just call me Lachesis.”

“Lachesis?” the woman echoed, grey brows raised. “The same name as the goddess—one of the three Fates?”

“Yes. The same,” Lachesis affirmed as they entered the tent.

“Ah, how lovely. Your parents must be true believers in the divine, to have chosen such a name. I hope it won’t displease you to find that the same cannot be said of Rider.”

Lachesis tilted her head once again. “How do you mean?”

The woman paused and bit her lip. “His soul is not the most… devout. He scorns the gods and all forces beyond this world.”

“Oh!” Lachesis gasped, utterly unprepared for that. “That is so…”

“Sad? Yes, it is. Some in this camp do believe, and thankfully he doesn’t hold that against us. None of us dares to ask about the reasons underlying his own views, though. Only those closest to him know.”