Achaea

Selene’s diamond-studded sapphire cloak slowly began to fade as Sleep enchanted her with his heavy slumber, his son Morpheus filling her head with the romantic illusions of her desire. As the lovelorn crickets ceased their undying serenade to the supreme Goddess of the Night, Apollo sailed his chariot of golden flame across the ink-blackened sky, summoning the Lord Sun to rise once more. At this, Helios’ restless arms stretched toward his sister Eos, beckoning her to bring forth the eternal genesis. As the rosy dawn shimmered in the shadow of the vanishing Night, the Lord Sun settled onto his everlasting canvas, bleeding forth an array of colors which shone through out the land like a veil of summer rain. Helios’ flaming, whip-like arms touched every corner of the mother earth Gaia, allowing no living being to escape his call--including Alessa.
         
         Alessa sprawled longingly betwixt the linen sheets of her kline, her stormy grey-blue eyes opening slightly as the sparkling morning light trickled through the stone-washed roof of her ancient villa. Slowly, the beams of radiance entwined themselves with her sumptuous figure, tingeing her deep mahogany tresses a passionate red. She moaned softly, stirring impatiently as the smoldering heat warmed her body like a lover’s yearning caress.

Sleep, like every other person in her life, had deserted Alessa, and her dreams--her sweet, sweet dreams--had eluded her once more. She dreamt of Lysander again for the second fortnight night in a row. Her dream was one of a life long since passed, a life long since forgotten. It was not simply a whimsical vision conjured by Hypnos, but rather a divine memory from long ago: blurred yet distinct all at once.

She saw Lysander as he was at a child of six winters: smiling, playful, and innocent--unconcerned with the strife and perils of the world. She saw them playing Greeks and Trojans in the shadowed region of their lush courtyard, their flowing chiffon robes dancing as gaily as Pan in the ardent pursuit of some woodland nymph. As Alessa’s double-edged xiphos struck her brother’s bronze blade, Aeolus, master of the sacred winds Anemoi, rushed forth their mother‘s piercing cry. At once, the two youths dropped their warring playthings and ran like the swift-footed Achilles to their giver’s side. They found their sobbing Hera crumpled and broken, clinging to the battle-worn shield of their father Andros, spilling the jeweled tokens of the weak upon their earthen soil. They beseeched their mother to speak to them, to cast her doting eyes upon them, to cease her vocal pain, but alas she would not. As her ever steadfast handmaidens swept her resolutely from the now fertile earth, their mother, Adrasteia, hurled the bloodied, treacherous armor from her side, cursing the House of the Dead for their unjust robbery.

A younger Alessa, who had only witnessed eleven winters passed, lifted the heavy bronze plate with an unaccustomed, grave consciousness upon her countenance, staining her naïve fingers a violent sanguine. She saw her younger brother standing in an obscure corner of the stone-walled villa, confusion and then realization crossing his chaste features. He ran to her then, clinging to her with a fierceness anew, his Spartan blood flowing full of pride forcing him to hold back latent tears.


When their warring Spartan, loved by Ares, had returned home at long last from the sparkling shores of Ilium, the girl forbade her brother from attending the prothesis, fearing that her beloved’s chaste soul would be blackened by the sight of their father’s mutilated corpse. Neither did she allow him to attend the ekphora nor the interment of the brave Achaean for this selfsame reason.

         Alessa turned over in the draping covers onto her back, ruminating on all which had passed since that ill-fated morn. A shattered breath escaped Alessa’s fair lips as she thought on this. Five lingering winters had passed since her brother‘s deployment, and as the divine mother Hera had guided Alessa into the fruitful bounds of womanhood, the war god Ares had guided Alessa’s playful younger brother into the cold, hardened arms of strife and the iron-clad form of a warring Achaean.
         
         For how long would the white shores of Ilium withhold the belligerent feet of ten thousand weary Achaean soldiers? For how long should her beloved Lysander avoid Charon’s dreaded ferry across the burning river Styx? Her heart ached at that final thought. This war had cost her everything: her father, her mother, her childhood, her happiness. Her heart could not bear the burden of losing another dear to her.
         
         Turning her tear-brightened eyes to the sky, a prayer escaped her tired, swollen lips, “Athena, goddess of war and strategy, noble friend of man, please…watch over my brother. He is all that I have left in this lone wretched world. You yourself are a sister. Know you not my beating heart as your own? Guard him, Pallas. Defend him.”          
         
         These final, faint whispered words shuddered through Alessa’s body as they escaped her lips, returning to her mind the events of days passed. The Athenians so profoundly believed that women had but two purposes in their existence: to breed stalwart warriors of Athens and to honor her master‘s name. For this reason, the men sent their slaves or even themselves to the festive agora in place of their chattel.

         However, she possessed no kinsman to toil in the fields or to trek through the peril-fraught passes of the land in order to vend the fruits of her labor. No, she was alone. She bore Helios’ burden on her fair alabaster skin. She trudged through mud-riddled paths to vend wares in the agora… ‘Twas she who felt his violation as his lewd eyes stripped her of her honor. ‘Twas she who endured his tongue as he cursed her womanhood. And ‘twas she who felt the sting of the demon’s hands as they bit mercilessly into her flesh.

         This day, she feared, would not be unlike the day before. Nevertheless, she possessed proud Spartan blood flowing through her being as her warring Achaean had. Did not her sire instruct her, as he did her brother, how to use the afeared xiphos in battle to maim her adversary with mortal wound? Did not he convey to her in which way to disable her rival, son of Ares or daughter of Aphrodite? Did not her Messenenian mother, whilst in the Warring State, send her forth to learn the ruling ways of strong Spartan women?

         
Yes, she reflected, I am a woman born of Spartan blood, raised by the Spartan Code. I am not the wife of any calculating Athenian or the chattel of any sleek-tongued haggler. I am a woman, a child of the Earth herself.

         Swiftly, suddenly, Alessa’s proud being raised itself to its fullest form and cast itself away from the olive-carved Kline. As a warrior marches resolutely to the front lines of his enemy’s mighty encampment, fearless and burning with the desire to unleash the full force of Hell, so did Alessa march as she made way for the adjacent compartment in the villa which held her wares.

         Let no man or woman cross my path as mine enemy from this day hence, or I shall wreak a raging vengeance upon them as the stormy-eyed goddess hearkens to her Aegis and sharp-edged blade in the midst of bloody war!
         
         With this, Alessa, donning a flowing chiton which mirrored Artemis’ chastity is color, strode forward to the sinful agora, her shoulders thrust back and her stormy grey-blue eyes set onward to the task set before her. Among the items which she had placed in her cart were: poppies, honey, olives, grapes, wool, and armor from which, subsequent to laboring assiduously in the fields, she wrought through her glistening sweat in her forge akin to the crafty Hephaestus.

         Helios had taken his place at the highest point of Zeus’ domain when Alessa had at last arrived at the agora. The marketplace’s desert-like soil swirled and danced in the rays of the parched air as the consumers shoved one another or dashed off in haste to meet a promising merchant. Alessa arranged her wares and produce clear of the other purveyors, situated where the encompassing mud-brick residences would provide her with refuge from punishing sting of Hyperion. Her well-muscled arms and sinewy legs came in opposition with the remainder of her voluptuous form, for as she displayed the beauty of her craft, her draping chiton clung to every womanly curve she possessed. This spectacle of the sensual Atalanta brought forth the attention of several passersby. A spectacle in which Alessa had foreseen and one in which she had intended.

         As she stood behind her market’s stand assembling the vibrant, ripe fruits and shimmering blades with her fair yet calloused hands, a band of five dark haired, steely-eyed men strode towards her. Their bronzed faces were handsome yet furrowed with what seemed to be a cross of unwarranted disapprobation and false infuriation, emanating a mischievous aura akin to the likes of Ares or Strife.

         He was there, as well. His hair was black as raven-night and his eyes as cold as Hades’ heart. His taunting gaze met hers and inquired as to whether she possessed any pomegranates, for he wished to purchase them for his wife who was with child. The long haired Spartan arched a single brow in deep suspicion, and, yet, she turned her back to them in order to procure a few seasoned pomegranates from her coarse satchel. As her fingers grasped the unfortunate fruit, however, violent hands stole around the girth of her slender waist as a sudden jerk forced her backwards, the violators’ pusillanimous hands stifling her stunned cry. The raven-haired villain forced Alessa down behind the stand, her exposed back bleeding from the vicious chafing against the sandy soil. The other four rogues formed a barrier in front of him, concealing their companion’s shameful disgrace while serving as his eyes at present for curious passersby.

         The shameless scoundrel restrained Alessa’s clawing hands with his own, pinning them above her head. With a single scarred hand over her teeth guarding lips, he whispered in her ear, “Didst I not tell thee woman that thou shouldst not journey here ever more? Didst thou not learn it well when over didst I turn thou cart of cargo yester-morn or mornings passed?”

         Alessa’s brows furrowed in unbounded ire, abhorrence imbedding itself with the core of her being as the raven-haired demon pressed himself more so against her form.

         “Thou art but a woman,” he continued at length with a hissing sneer. “Of what right possesses a woman to venture out of her master’s holding and make way for his agora? Prithee, speak!” His vile digits tightened over her on the last exclamation, and, almost as suddenly, relaxed. He removed his prim hand from her lips, raking it over her body till he met the butchered end of her now earthen toned chiton.

         “Wouldst thou have me disclose to you why I might vend my wares in this wicked
agora--” the snake struck her, “--full of wicked men?” Alessa breathed calmly as the raven-haired bastard drove his polluted hand up her torn chiton.

         “Pray, tell,” he snarled ferociously, like the bull-horned beast of the labyrinth.

         “Because,” she exhaled evenly, “I shouldst be able to do this!”

         Gathering her strength, Alessa swiftly moved her sinewy legs apart and then suddenly rammed them together, crushing the raven-haired beast’s hand between her. As he attempted to remove his fragmented hand from her, she brought her brawny Spartan arm to his jaw, shattering his forked-tongue’s cave.

         The four rogues became suddenly conscious of that which was occurring around them and rushed to their comrade’s aid, falling over each other in their haste. Alessa, quicker than they, grasped two razor-edged xiphos newly wrought, and as two of the rouges approached her in their irrational aggression, she struck them down sans a single word of caution, moving with all the agility of a battle-hardened Achaean soldier. The other two aids, in their false bravado, abandoned their raven-haired cohort to his own fate, fleeing from the agora with great indignity and shame.

         The snake slithered along his belly, hissing all the while, to seize Alessa’s sandaled feet in mercy; however, she had none for which to bestow upon him. He beseeched her to have pity on him for he was simply a man, and men, when driven wild with lust, may perform heinous crimes. Alessa, reflecting on the truth of this statement, directed the foul creature to the center of the agora where they stood encompassed by the traders, haggles, and vendors.

         Silence consumed the air with an intensity that was nearly palpable. She stood above the kneeling villain, shoulders back and legs parted in a stance of power and dominance. Her eyes were like an electric storm now, emanating strength and rage, and her long mahogany tresses transformed into a vibrant blood red by the power Helios’ brilliant rays, flowing freely by Aeolus’ favor.

         “Thou wouldst ask of me clemency when thou didst force thineself upon me?” Alessa softly breathed. Dost thou deny this grievance?”

         With cold, gleaming eyes akin to the black polished gems of the House of Hades, the villain snarled,
“Nay.”

         “Then, son of Athens,” she whispered coldly, indifferently, “put forth thine arm before me.”

         With eyes widened and fraught with fear, as though he were Panic himself, the raven-haired scoundrel put out his arm before Alessa and closed his eyes fiercely shut. However, when a few lingering moments passed and he found that nothing had occurred, he opened his eyes and swiftly turned his head toward Alessa. In that moment, Alessa brought forth the full rage of the War Goddess herself, and severed the beast’s foul limb from his polluted body, staining the deprived soil a pool of crimson red.

         “So that thou wouldst never again bring harm to another being,” Alessa spat. “Go now and tell all the world of what has transpired here today. Tell them that Alessa, daughter of Andros and Adrasteia, severed thine arm as retribution for thine foul sin. Tell all who inquire to the loss of thine treasured appendage that t’was a Spartan who did do so. And tell every man, woman, and child that ‘twas a woman who slew thine companions and rained pity upon thy soul. Go, now, filthy beast!”

         As her last words sounded throughout the rumoring winds, Alessa’s sinewy leg, marred with the faint red marks of the villain‘s lust, thrust him to the ground in his own pool of life, and strode toward her disheveled stand with that proud Spartan saunter, that sensuous siren call echoing in her every step.