The Children // ASSASSINS CREED ODYSSEY // DEIMOS

C8: The Mother

Three weeks.

Three weeks with no word of Chrysis, no sightings of Asphodel, no sign of the Adrestia.

Three weeks of doing odd-jobs for midwives, scouting followers of Ares, talking to that little girl.

Which, hadn't completely been in vain. As well as the little girl getting her in to the bath house for a wash and, delivering her some clean robes; she had also known Asphodel, had seen her, spoke to her, told her how she had been taken sick. The little girl didn't know the details, only that she'd been taken in to the guest house – which Eos had searched every corner of and found nothing.

She hadn't talked to the priests about it but, the late nights spent outside their quarters had only laid bare their regrets and some half-assed stories about the ways in which they would heal those that came to them. She could see now why Hippokrates and the priests didn't get on.

But, those three weeks had also brought something else. Which, out of everything, bothered her the most.

No Laelaps.

Eos was sure that by now Deimos would have decided what way it was he was headed. Laelaps only had to know, he didn't have to follow him... as long as it was in the opposite direction... as long as Melaina was safe...

Unless... Melaina wasn't safe... unless something terrible had happened to him...

Eos had forgotten how lonely it was without him – how wary everything in the world was.

The amount of times she'd followed that little girl – if only to make sure that the words they shared didn't find their way in to anyone else's ears, how many times she'd been back to Dolops, only to find him trudging around his farm, as if he'd completely forgotten their conversation.

If she'd had Laelaps, he would have done it for her. Would have been able to let her know if someone wasn't telling a truth or holding something back. She had some sort of sense to it but, the lycaon would always be there, his sixth sense just needing to confirm what it is she felt.

She'd forgotten how helpless she felt without him. How useless she really was.

All-of-which had made her only the more desperate.

Desperate enough to bed that Spartan she'd insulted because she'd overheard them talking about Asphodel. It was either him or the Captain and she'd almost wondered if the Captain would have been more fun.

It had been an experience that had left her very unsatisfied but, at least now she knew that before Asphodel had taken sick, she'd been jittery and jumpy as she'd gone about her duties – she'd been like it for a while – and then, one night, she'd just snapped, started screaming about some voice in her head and then... nothing. The priests who had attended her were now gone and the rumour among the guards man was that the little flower had ran away with them.

When Eos had mentioned it to the little girl, she'd shrugged as she wrapped up a moany mans foot and said that she didn't really know who the priests were – that they were from across the sea but, they hadn't disappeared, they'd moved on. Needed elsewhere in the Greek world.

*

By the end of the fourth week, Eos finally saw the Adrestia heading towards her. When she wasn't following around priests or delivering letters to guards about the birth of their babies – one of which she'd awkwardly delivered to one particular Spartan guard just the day before – she was sat near the docks, waiting.

The sun was going down when the Adrestia finally docked but, she'd watched as the dock hand went up to them with his little book, ruffling through the pages to take out the folded letter. Kassandra had taken it from him, despite his complaints that it was the blind eye'd man and not her, smiled and nodded, as if there was something on there and then, passed it over to Barnabas. The old sea captain had scratched his head as he'd turned it over.