Phobia ☤ Alexios

eight: perikles' symposium

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"DON'T RUN OFF," Irene tells him. "I'll only be a moment." She returns garbed in loose robes of kyanos and cream, golden cuffs around her wrists, and dark hair pulled away from her face and tucked into a gold diadem. A far cry from how she looked upon their initial meeting on the beaches of Samos.

Alexios is speechless –she is ethereal, and he truly believes she is a princess or perhaps even Aphrodite disguised as a mortal. Irene motions him toward the entrance of Perikles' villa. The guards standing vigilant lower their heads as the princess passes but their gazes follow the mercenary trailing behind her with intense apprehension. "Alexios! It's you!" A girl exclaims, darting forward to wrap her arms around his legs.

"Phoibe?" He's sure his eyes are playing a trick on him. She looks up at him grinning.

"You said you weren't coming back to Kephallonia, so I decided to leave too." The way Phoibe says it makes it seem like the most obvious decision.

"I said I wouldn't be coming back," he reminds her, "but I don't remember saying you should leave too." Kephallonia was her home and with the Cyclops gone, it was safer than a place like Athens. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" He asks, doubting she'd been able to make it across the Aegean on her own by legitimate means.

The girl glances around her friend, finally noticing a strange but pretty face smiling at her. "Who is she?" Phoibe asks. If her attire is anything to go by, then she must be important –like Aspasia.

"This is Irene," Alexios answers, knowing she was only trying to avoid his questions. Sighing, he rises –he'll get answers out of her some other time.

"I'm here to get you ready," Phoibe remarks, remembering why Aspasia had sent out from the study. "I have to make sure you leave all your weapons and change clothes," she tells him.

He looks down at his armor. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

Irene steps around him and pokes the dark leather cuirass. "Phoibe is right," she remarks. "Athenians tend to be more trusting of people who don't look like they're about to stab them." Alexios puffs out his chest –indignant. She would have offered him one of Zephyr's chitons, but her brother did not have the height or breadth of a warrior.

The Eagle Bearer glances between Phoibe and the princess swallowing his pride and comfort. "Fine," Alexios concedes. Pleased with his decision, Irene leaves to join the symposiasts.

Phoibe smirks. "I like her," she tells Alexios, noticing his gaze still lingers on the woman. "Don't worry," Phoibe says, "I have just the outfit for you."

Alexios clears his throat and Irene turns. His armor and weapons are gone, replaced by a blue chiton fastened at the shoulders with bronze fibulae. Phoibe did well in choosing the ensemble –the color brings out gold flecks in his dark eyes. "You look the part," she tells him, smoothing out a wrinkle in the fabric on his chest.

"I don't feel it," he admits glancing around the courtyard –unable to remember a time when he had felt so vulnerable. He'd feel better if Phoibe let him keep just one of his knives.

Irene thinks it strange to see a near-legendary warrior so intimidated by a group of poets and playwrights. "Don't tell me the Eagle Bearer is frightened of a few Athenian aristocrats," she teases.

He holds his hands out, caught off-guard by the missing weight of a blade or bow. "I am unarmed in this fight."

She smiles, taking a cup of watered wine as one of the servants passes by. "Don't think of it as fight," Irene tells him, taking a drink of the dry vintage, "it's more like a dance." One must learn how to navigate around the symposiasts. Aristophanes enjoys dry wine. Euripides will only speak freely when intoxicated. Protagoras will avoid Sokrates like the plague. Perikles never participates in his symposiums. It is precarious a dance she learned at a young age.