For Bob and Gloria.

ACT I

Chapter 1

On a Pale Horse

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

-Cary Grant

From the start, we are judged.

It has been said that one Spartan is as good as seven regular men. Our defeat at the siege of Thermopylae is a good example. Our 300 Spartans (and a few hundred other Greek soldiers, and the idiot Phocians, whom I refuse to consider part of our home in any way) were about 1,200 strong. Xerxes' army was 2.5 million strong.

Yes, I say defeat. We fell on the third day, and the Persians made it through the pass, though our men made sure it was a pyrrhic victory.

Even with this defeat, my home's reputation surpassed it.

From the start, we are judged. Only if we are deemed fit to live do we survive our births. I was judged fit.

Had I been deemed unfit, I would have been left in the wild to die. Such is life in Sparta.

When we reach our seventh year, so begins the agoge.

From the start, we are judged.

The lessons? Brutal. The instructors? Unforgiving. There is only one way to prove yourself as a Spartan: Fight. We must first learn to do so.

One of the things I remember about the agoge is the scarcity of food. I do not mean it was only me that was malnourished. Do not interpret it as such. No trainee is well fed. We accustom ourselves to pain in this way, and also learn one other important survival skill: Thievery.

It was not uncommon for a trainee to sneak out and steal more food, and if we were caught, we were punished.

We were punished not for the theft, but for being caught, as previously mentioned.

I lived for seven years among my Spartan brethren, and was trained as such.

I feel it is extremely disrespectful, however, to go too far into the training I received every day, as in depth discussion of our training to outsiders is frowned upon. That being said, this is not the story of the agoge.

This story begins at the end, with yours truly dying in the sun. I'd been bitten by a wolf several weeks prior, while attempting to steal a meal for myself.

The technique I'd developed in order to get myself food was simple, and it worked on trial and error. I made sure to keep my feet low when I stepped, and move lightly. I would travel with all the speed of a snail at times, and I would keep myself small.

Do not think for a minute that I was very good at stealing. I'd been caught my fair share of times and received the punishment as befitting one that offended so.

The night I'd encountered the wolf, I was very hungry, though not careless. I remained paranoid throughout most of my trips, but it was always even worse if my belly growled. I felt as though the entirety of Greece could hear it. My fears were always misplaced, of course. Most Spartans I feared being caught by were older than I was, and as consequence, the elasticity of youth had left them. Specifically, their eyes and ears.

This does not mean they were all blind and deaf. I mean they were old. Don't tell them I said that.

However, fear of being caught when sneaking around always makes one feel as though the world is privy to all their movements. It's worse when you're barely eight years old. Having said that, I felt justified in sneaking to the trees, where I'd long since found cherry trees and apples growing. It was safer since I wasn't stealing from anybody in particular. Just the entirety of Greece.

I say again, I was eight.

As I was picking at the berries and eating them in a nearby bush, I became aware of footsteps in the nearby grass. Before I could even think of what the source might be, there was a low growl. The steps advanced on my hidden form.

The beast was frail, as if it were close to death. At the time, I thought it was simply starving. I'd seen wolves before, but they almost always stayed far away from us. They never ventured into town unless they were sick or starving. I did not know it was mad.

For a brief moment we locked eyes. Mine betrayed evaporating fear, as part of my mind worried this beast was an instructor. The wolf's eyes held nothing. No anger, no happiness, no fear, no sadness- they were devoid of all emotion. This wolf didn't look like it had any sense of self.

I slid back away from the creature as I began to think of what I could do for myself. The wolf advanced menacingly.

Running was out of the question. First of all, the wolf would catch me- I'd been recovering from an ankle injury I sustained while training. Second of all, I would be caught by my people and punished. Third, even if I got away from the wolf, if I told someone that there was a wolf in the vicinity, I would be questioned as to how I knew that. If I withheld the information, I might be found out later, and that would be a far worse punishment.

I knew that, though at the time I was unremarkable at weapon play, I excelled at the use of one tool in our arsenal: Pankration.

Pankration is a combination of boxing and wrestling. It's used as a sport and a defensive measure where I am from. We Spartans are so good at it that we're banned from competing in out of city-state competitions.

As I was only eight years old, it was not reasonable to think that I could beat a healthy wolf in a fight. This creature, however, looked to be quite near death. I wondered just how brittle its bones were.

When it lunged at me, it knocked me onto my back and tried to tear into my throat. I punched it in the neck, but it didn't seem to react other than being jarred. The attack it launched on me did not meet my throat. Instead, my punch caused it to rip a chunk out of my breast. It was not a life threatening would, however. I could bandage it later, and pass off the bandaged wound as due to training.

When it pulled back to try to tear my throat out again, I managed to catch it. I held firm its maw with my right hand and put my left on the back of its head, and I jerked it to the side until it fell lifeless upon me.

It took little effort to push the wolf off of me so I could return to my bed, but first I had a wound to tend to.

I could not go to the others with the wound. It would raise questions I would not want raised unless I fixed it by my own hand. Once I escaped, I hunted down a few herbs that would help prevent illness. For some reason, however, they did not work.

My first symptoms took several weeks to show. First, there was fever. Then, I wasn't stealing food so much anymore. I had no appetite. It was not so long after that before I had the frailty of the beast that wounded me so long ago.

By the time I'd become skin and bone, however, I was not myself. I have brief recollections of a great fear of water. I was never afraid of it before, but now? Any hint of the stuff caused great fear to blossom within me, which often led to more punishments due to my acting out.

I also recall having tantrums over the most mundane things. Normally I would not bother, for fear of my punishment.

As for my demise, the events as I recall them are here:

What I do understand is what my mentor helped me to understand: I'd been in a fight with a fellow student, for we were training with weapon play through use of wooden swords. My blows had landed with such ferocity that I could very well have beaten the boy to death if the instructors did not intervene. One pulled me aside and demanded my weapon.

By that time, everybody had known of my irrational fear of water. Nobody ever pressed it, however, because it wasn't getting me punished. It was my acting out that did.

When I refused to relinquish my weapon, the instructor held forth a bladder full of water. I recall screaming myself hoarse, and slowly backing away from him. The sword in my grip was held so firm, my knuckles were white.

I screamed and screamed until I couldn't anymore, and he tried to pour the liquid onto my head as some sort of joke.

Let's just say I took it the wrong way. The wooden sword smacked hard into his knee, and I struck upwards at him. However this man was much larger than me. He raised his palm to me and grabbed the sword, yanking it from my grip. The force of the pull sent me forward into his waist, where he grabbed the scruff of my shirt with his free hand.

I pulled free a short blade from a sheath on his leg and buried it in his gut, or so I thought at first. I quickly became aware that I completely missed him and instead hit the bladder of water.

Raising a hand against an instructor was not such a horrible offense. Every Spartan wants to do that, and so if I'd only tried to hit him with my fist, I probably would have gotten a light punishment.

Attempting to murder a superior, though? That warrants death. I still had grip on his short blade and lunged it at him in madness. He dodged away with ease and took up a shield and spear to better defend himself. I knew better than to try and seperate him from the shield. Spartans either come back with their shields or on them.

"Are you sure you want this, Mia Tuk?"

By then, I could bear to say no rational word in any tongue that I know. Saliva had built up in my mouth and I struggled to continue spitting the foam like substance free. The short blade clattered uselessly against his shield.

It was my fatal error.

It was quick. He shoved his shield into my torso with great force, and swiftly pulled it up into my neck. The attack sent my head up to stare at the clouds long enough for him to draw his spear across my throat.

It didn't hurt very much. I pulled my head back down to leer at him, prepared to continue my attack, but my neck felt wet, and my breath hitched. I tried and tried but failed. I could not catch my breath.

I weakly fell to my knees, my hand investigating the wound on my throat. I coughed, blood spilling from it as well as my lips.

The instructor eyed me with no pity or hatred. He simply watched. I fell backwards, coughed again, and all was dark.

End of Chapter

1,867 words. So it begins.

This is going to be a very long story. Having said that, I will be taking brief recesses in certain areas. I will be separating parts of the story into an act structure for this reason. These recesses will not be more than a week or two, though the next update may take longer, depending on the chapter length.

Let me know what you guys think as this story unfolds. I always love hearing what you have to say!

Next chapter covers our late Spartan friend observing his own body, with a special guest. Please help me welcome Kevin Spacey. *claps*

...So, yeah, next chapter won't be too long. Can't really talk much about it without risking spoilers.