Kairos

Fin.

This place was different.

The state, the houses, the people - everything was different than what he knew.

Sparta had been a dark place. A place where kids didn't have a childhood and where soldiers could never feel safe. Where fighting and killing were skills boys learned at a young age, where the war was always present.

Jongin had been no different. Coming from a rich family in the high class was even more of a reason he had been pushed to train and fight for their state. Because it's dishonoring for a man to not act like one when there's a war happening, that's what his father always used to say. Jongin had only been seven when he was sent to the barracks, completely torn from his family so he could turn into who he was.

Into the brave soldier that fought in countless wars.

And survived.

Maybe he had to make a more generous offering to Tyche next time he went to the temples. Because there was no way he could have been standing here now had he not been blessed by the goddess of fortune and luck.

He had survived all these years to see a truce between Sparta and Athens. He had survived to see the day where he had been welcomed in Athens as an equal.

And it was so, so different.

In Sparta, there was the military, weaponries and soldiers walking around the polis freely.

Here, in Athens, there was art, there was poetry and music, sculptures. Peace.

He and many other men from Sparta had been welcomed. Over the course of time some of them, including Jongin, had even become bouletai , serving in the council of 500 as equals to the citizens of Athens.

It had been a couple full years since Jongin had first started living here, but there were still things that surprised him every day. The lifestyle of Sparta that had been so deeply etched into him was slowly starting to fade, he was starting to feel more free.

The heavy chest armor he used to wear eventually turned into a chiton, his interests expanded because of the variety of arts Athens had to offer.

He started to settle here. He was no poor man, he could afford buying a house. He could afford buying himself lands outside the polis and slaves to work on them. He could afford to buy imported foods from faraway lands that not many people could enjoy.

He had everything he had ever wanted - he had a life of his own now that he wasn't just one of the many hoplites in a phalanx .

He had the respect of his fellow citizens now, he had their admiration as well - not every day could they see a man who had seen the battlefields with his own eyes.

At only twenty, Jongin had experienced a lot more than many of them.

Life had been good.

The grounds had been fruitful, the harvests had been plentiful.

Everything was going great.

Jongin had always thought it would last.

But it didn't. Not when the truce was broken and Sparta declared another war on Athens.

Jongin should have known, he had grown up with these men, he knew how they think and act. He should have expected this.

But Gods, he didn't.

He was only reminded of the darkness of this world when his fellow citizens in Athens started avoiding him on the street, when men would whisper as he was passing by, because he was still one of them.