Rants and Rambles

Myth Part Two

After ~
The child grew. Antain tried his best to raise her into a kind, intelligent person as the goddess as requested, and though he had no prior experience, he felt like he had done well.

The child, now called Robyn, grew into a curious, inquisitive girl of fourteen years of age. Her red hair seemed to grow even more bright and fiery as she aged. She was small and short for her age, and her already naturally tanned skin only grew darker as she spent more time in the harsh sun of Athens.

Antain had decided early on in his life with Robyn that he was going to be honest with her. As soon as she could understand what he was saying, she told how she was found by Athena, and how she had been given to him.
Robyn knew this, and she was fine with it. She actually appreciated the fact that Antain had been honest with her.

Antain was still working in Athens' blacksmithing shop, but by now he had become talented in metalworking. He sculpted animal and bird figurines with such beauty that people from all over Athens came to the shop to try to buy them.
Even so, Antain thought that his best work was something that he had made for Robyn. He had shaped the metal into tiny, delicate bird figurines. There were twelve of them, all different and intricately formed. There was a crane, a swan, a sparrow, an owl, a heron, a swallow, and a kingfisher. There was a falcon, a hawk, an egret, and an osprey.

And then there was the other bird. Antain wasn't sure what the last bird was, only that it was one he had never seen before. The metal bird had a long, straight, pointed beak, and had tail feathers that extended far behind it. It had a large, iridescent eye, and a rounded head. The bird had a great, puffed out chest, and it was formed with a dark silver metal.

Robyn wasn't sure what had caused her father to make this particular bird that didn't exist. Antain called this bird the robin, after Robyn herself. Robyn hadn't decided what to call the bird. All she knew was that this bird was beautiful and that it was her favorite of all of the little metal birds.

Robyn kept the little birds on her nightstand, and she used them whenever she could, such as when she needed to hold down a piece of parchment because of the wind. Her most common use of them was for a game.

She had invented the board game by herself. It was a simple strategy game where you used the little birds to surround the other player's birds. When you did, the surrounded birds were out of the game, and whoever had the last bird standing won. It was straightforward and uncomplicated, and Robyn won every time she played.

Robyn and Antain's life was simple together. Everything in Athens was quiet and calm.

This was the silence before the storm.

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Every year, just as she had promised, Athena came and visited Antain. This was in order to make sure that the girl she rescued from the woods was being taught the skills of kindness and intelligence, as was the deal between Athena and Antain.

She had visited the same small house on the outskirts of the city thirteen times, once being the time she and Antain met, and the other twelve times being the occasions in which she would check in on Robyn. Athena liked Robyn. Athena enjoyed the fact that the girl was vacuous enough to challenge what the goddess said or did.

On the thirteenth anniversary of the day Robyn was given to Antain, Athena came down from her place on Mount Olympus to confirm that Robyn's intellect, and Robyn herself, was growing at an adequate pace. When the goddess came down, she first walked through the city of Athens, verifying that all was quiet and calm. Once this was done, she started walking to the Vlahakis' house. She let herself into the house.