The Children // ASSASSINS CREED ODYSSEY // DEIMOS

C6: The Promise

It took Laelaps four days to convince Eos that she should go seek out Melaina – who, evidently, had not really taken Deimos' further orders to continue her search for the girl the farmer had seen.

Yes, she'd been walking around Attika, searching, but it had actually been for Eos herself and not the one Deimos wanted her to look for - even if they were the same person.

For those first couple of days, Eos had continued with her plan. To act like a sort of ghost that Melaina would see and then she would not but, eventually, Eos saw what Laelaps was trying to tell her with his disembowelled rats that he liked to bring to her and then crush the skulls of.

There was something else on Melaina's mind that this plan would only further hurt. Her mind had always been a little crushed in places, the eye had made sure of that but, never in the way that Laelaps was trying to show to her now.

Melaina didn't need a ghost. She needed something real.

Except, standing by that door, in the dead of night – after Laelaps had dragged her and almost ripped her arm off in the process – Eos forgot what it was she could say.

Melaina could do any number of things.

Attack. Cry. Scream. Hug her.

All of them. None of them.

Trying to ignore the pain in her arm - which the lycaon had probably grabbed a little too hard because it was now bleeding profusely through the peice of material she'd had to rip from her robes - and had also started to make her feel that touch little light headed, Eos thought back to that morning.

Laelaps had been off somewhere, she'd assumed watching Deimos at Fort Phyle and, she'd followed Melaina through the square. She hadn't meant to be seen at all, she'd promised Laelaps to leave the plan be but, somehow, she'd caught Melaina's eye by mistake for just a moment, saw her both frieghtened and relieved before she was able to disappear in to the crowd - leaving Melaina to stand there, and only for Eos to freeze herself when she saw Deimos and one of his men headed in her direction.

He had actually seen her, in the corner of his eye, Eos seen him stop, seen him go to turn his head but, she dodged around some Athenians and found herself sat down behind some pots. There had been nowhere to go. If he'd came over and not told himself he was going insane... hell, she didn't know what would have happened. Although, it may have saved her from the pain in her arm.

Still, Laelaps, who was here now, had assured her – in his own way – that Deimos was sat in Fort Phyle, on Kallinos chair, staring at some sort of letter he'd got from a mercenary not long before.

Deimos, who was also subsequently regretting having killed that old farmer – if only to have some sort of proof that the girl who'd came here actually existed.

For all they knew, the farmer was some crack-pot old fool who'd only been seeing things. Even if he had tortured all sorts of useless secrets out of him. It didn't mean that the man hadn't believed it enough to see something that wasn't there.

And, the blacksmith; with his wild little story of the girl who'd got his sword back for him – with dark hair, dark eyes and sun-kissed skin – which a fair amount of most Greek woman were also described as – and the ultimately dreadful feeling that he was being watched, was just as useless as the farmer. People would do all sorts to make some drachmae, especially in times of war.

And Ogarneos.

Well, it hadn't taken long for the bounty hunters to collect their payment.

Which did leave Kallinos' many whores but, none of them were in any position to pay a large enough sum of drachmae to slaughter a whole fort and, Kallinos' little Leanna had cried so much about it, Deimos had almost felt sick at the sight of the puffy eyed pig.