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Chapter Text

Spartan Royal Family

Helen, Princess of Sparta: Helen, Daughter of Tyndareus and Leda of Sparta. The most desirable woman in the world, with hair red like a sunset's luster, eyes the color of clear skies, and a deep beauty akin to Aphrodite's. If ever there was perfection on the green plains of Gaia, it was Helen of Sparta. Helen, sweet, evenly tempered, well-meaning, naive, as she was beautiful Helen. Helen, who always tries to bridge the gaps between her conflict-loving family and always looks at the world with equal parts fascination and fear. The world looks back at Helen. Fate hangs heavy on her; however unprepared Helen is for it.

Clytemnestra, Princess of Sparta: Clytemnestra, Daughter of Tyndareus and Leda of Sparta. Stern, utterly tenacious in everything. Clytemnestra is hard where others are soft, firm where they are pliable. Argumentative, brash, a fiercely protective swan who looks over her kin with keen, dark eyes. She has thick curls of black hair, a straight nose, arched brows, and a sharp bow to her upper lip. Her shoulders are slightly muscled from Spartan girl sports, her skin tanned and faintly freckled from days in the sun, her voice strong enough to carry down hills. Clytemnestra is every bit an eldest daughter, for better or for worse.

Penelope, Princess of Sparta: Penelope, Daughter of Icarius and Periobea of Sparta. Clever, clever, clever. Though outwardly awkward, lanky, and bony, Penelope of Sparta is nothing if not clever. She got all the odd nymph parts of her mother without the glowing beauty to bring it all together: the pale skin, the wide brown eyes like pebbles, the scalloped edges to her ears, the smell of river grass. From her father, Penelope got a rather stubborn nose and that rather stubborn mind. She likes puzzles, little poems, and can weave like a spider. She also carries a strange affection for ducks, the birds that saved her life as a child after her father tried to kill her. Penelope longs very deeply; you can see it in her eyes.

Tyndareus, King of Sparta: One of two Kings of Sparta. A stern sort of king, with a constantly furrowed brow, a square jaw, curls of dark hair, and a fierce curl to his lip. Tyndareus is the muscle of Sparta's kings, the militaristic mind. He grows older, but his muscles remain the same.

Icarius, King of Sparta: One of two Kings of Sparta. A clever sort of king, the king who deals with the trades, the alliances, the politics of it all. He has a slim sort of face, a lanky runner's build, with sharp little eyes that prick you when he looks. He softens them for Penelope and Penelope only, though that doting softness is usually mixed with a faint guilt.

Asterodia, Queen of Sparta: One of two Queens of Sparta, wife of Icarius She is an outgoing sort of woman, a warm contrast to her snippy, intelligent husband. She is grounded firmly in reality, with a warm face, dark hair always braided, and bright stars for eyes. Asterodia, though reasonable, never lost that girlish mischief.

Leda, Queen of Sparta: One of two Queens of Sparta, wife of Tyndareus. Exceptionally beautiful, yes, but not more so than her daughter, Helen. Leda is a slight thing; quiet, reclusive, peaking her head out to the world only on the rarest of occasions. She has a pale face, dark eyes, a long, elegant neck like a swan, and straight dark hair that curves in at the end like a tapered feather. She always looks a little bit startled.

Pollux & Castor, Princes of Sparta: The sons of Tyndareus. Pollux is fiery, bright, reddish-blonde with blue eyes and a voice that crackles like lightning when he yells (and he does yell a fair bit). The other, Castor, is more grounded, as stern as his father, with a handsome sort of face (he yells very rarely). Despite their opposite natures, Castor and Pollux are seldom seen apart from each other, connected like twin stars in the sky.

Perilaos, Prince of Sparta: The second eldest child of Icarius, not that Icarius ever seems to notice. Perilaos is very much like his father, except for the painfully obvious ways in which he chases the praise of his older male cousins. Though clever, with Icarius's sharp sort of eyes and slim face, Perilaos's cleverness is often interrupted by a deep sort of doubt spawned from his father's neglect.

Other Children of Icarius: Thoon, Laodice, Amasichus, Imeusimus, Elatus, Aletes… Truly, Icarius has lost track of all the children he has. All of them look like Asterodia. All except little Iphthime, perhaps the only one he likes besides Penelope, with her dark hair and scalloped-edged ears and brown eyes like river pebbles…she does not look a thing like Asterodia.

Other Children of Tyndareus: Timandra, Phoebe, and Philone. Each is an odd mix of Leda's slightness and Tyndareus's sternness, to different degrees. The House of Tyndareus seems blessed with daughters upon daughters. Not that Tyndareus particularly minds, though it often earns him pitying glances. At least he has Clytemnestra to keep them all in line.

Retainers of the House

Melantho, Maid of Sparta: A quick, clever sort of girl. Melantho is young and always eager for excitement, something her Lady Penelope offers her endlessly. Melantho is also exceptionally talented in listening, with keen sort of ears and eyes and braids curling up at the ends as though interested in the conversation. She always manages to have things a maid should not have, little jewelry and bits that make her feel special and pretty.

Epiphanes, General of Sparta: A member of Sparta's highest council, a trusted man of the military. Epiphanes stands tall, eyes ahead, and always means every word he speaks. His hair is curly, blonde, and well-kept, his eyes brown and straightforward.

Athanasios, Stable Boy of Sparta: A lowly stable boy, a servant, a slave, though you don't see it on that fox-like face he has. He relies on what little charm and good looks he has to get by. He always keeps an eye out for Lady Clytemnestra, and Clytemnestra keeps an eye out for him, but only when either feels particularly bored.

Gods, Nymphs, and the Divine

Hera: Wife of Zeus. Hera takes great pleasure in watching the Ladies of Sparta, occasionally meddling in their affairs when she can do so without attracting the eyes of her husband. The Ladies of Sparta are women, future queens, and future wives. As Goddess of all those things, Hera cannot help but feel obligated to them in a way. And maybe, perhaps, she sees glimpses of herself within such girls... She even harbors some affection for Helen, though reluctantly.

Athena: Daughter Of Zeus, Goddess of Wisdom. Athena is no stranger to mortal-meddling herself, though she does so with the utmost discretion and caution. Of course, everything she does is a small part of something larger, though what exactly she wishes to achieve with the Ladies of Sparta is known only to her.

Zeus: God King, Thunder Bringer, Mighty Zeus in all his glory. Zeus sees all. His eyes are as ever-stretching as the sky, and Sparta does not escape his gaze. Not that he meddles directly, not as his wife or favorite daughter tend to do, but do not be mistaken; his favor is far more valuable to one than his displeasure, a fact that applies even to his demigod children down in Sparta.

Hermes: Son of Zeus, the trickiest of the gods. Hermes brings messages, good, bad, and middle of the road. When it comes to Sparta, his messages mainly consist of relays of information to his father, often to the detriment of his step-mother and sister's plans (though often to Hermes' own delight). It is quite funny to watch them get all frustrated, trying to be sneaky like are. Fools, really. No one is more sneaky than Hermes.

Periobea: A river nymph, living in the Eurotas River with her sisters. Periobea is like most nymphs; utterly beautiful, a little giggly, and with something of a jealous streak in her. Years ago, she captured the heart of Icarius of Sparta, enrapturing him with her greenish eyes and long dark hair like a river current, and never really seemed to let him go. However, Periobea much prefers frolicking in the river to being with a mortal man or her half-mortal daughter Penelope.

Chapter Text

“She must come…” Penelope murmured. Her eyes stared up to the sky, relentless. Waiting, waiting, waiting. “She swore to me she would, she must.”

“Penelope.” Clytemnestra sighed, rubbing her hands over her sister Helen’s perfect shoulders to keep the warmth there. She leaned back to avoid the spray of the Eurotas, the lively bubbling of the river as it moved over river rocks. “She is not coming. We've been here for hours.”

“I must have miscalculated then,” Penelope added quickly. Her dark eyes still followed the clouds. "I must have heard her wrong. She said midday. Is it not midday? It looks very in the middle of the day to me."

Her words intermingled with the flowing of the river, sending them down past the bank with the current. Down, down, down…

Waiting.

“You are far too clever to ever do that,” Helen mused as she batted away her sister’s hands. “I am fine! Why must you baby me all the time?!”

“My gods, you practically are a baby.” Clytemnestra glowered at her, the kind of look a Spartan Princess could only get away with when surrounded by her confidantes. And that is what they had been since the day they were born.

Clytemnestra and Helen were proud-born daughters of Tyndareus, King of Sparta. Or that was what was said; what was announced when they were presented before anyone. Helen and Clytemnestra, Daughters of Tyndareus, Proud King of Sparta. When hidden behind their veils of modesty, obscured, it was almost easy to believe. But it was harder to accept when they stood as they were now, bare-faced and being sprayed by river water. Though Clytemnestra shared the slope of Tyndareus’s nose, the dark intensity of his eyes, and the strength of his jaw, her sister was quite different. No sharpness. No strength. Just pure, ethereal beauty. Warm, rose-gilded hair framing a face as soft as clouds, with eyes blue like skies after thunderstorms. The eldest sister and the youngest sister, different as could be.

Penelope, daughter of Tyndareus’s brother King Icarius, was a mix of both of them. With a grounded mortality like Clytemnestra, with dark hair done in braids, and a long nose (one her cousins would jokingly flick and call her “duck-bill"). But once you looked close enough, you could see hints of divinity. In the highness of her ivory cheeks, or the brown of her river agate eyes. Or maybe the way she smelled, faintly earthy, like submerged grass.

“Penelope, stop this. It’s cold, it’s getting late—” Clytemnestra sighed, placing her hands on her hips. “Cease this! Before you catch some dreadful illness and are ridden to your bed.” Clytemnestra carried the usual demand in her tone, her hands shoving back the strands of hair that slipped out from their nest on her head.

When Leda, wife of Tyndareus, laid the miraculous swan eggs that bore her children, Clytemnestra was the first to peek her head out from the broken eggshell. She was the first to let her cries ring through the palace of Sparta, and so it made her the responsible one. The one to watch the rest. It was a responsibility she resented at times, but who else was to do it? “Come along.”

“Well, perhaps we can just wait a moment longer…Penelope said she would come,” Helen noted in her usual timbre, rich and sweet like hot honey. She wrung her perfect hands and leaned further on her sandaled feet to gaze at her cousin. “She will, Penelope. I am sure of it.” Helen smiled, showing perfect teeth behind perfect lips. She was the last hatched, the precious youngest. That made her the one to be watched.

“Mother said she would…” Penelope barely heard them. Her eyes were too busy, cast down into the bubbling river. It was there she had come from, and she knew somewhere, maybe further down the river, or maybe just hiding within it with the other naiads, her mother resided.

Many years ago, from that river on which Sparta resided on the bank, came her mother, and in her arms a bundle. When presented to Icarius, he stared upon it in horror.

“It’s pale! Sickly! Ugly! Not soft and pink like the children of my wife, not divine like the children of my brother. Away with it, and away with you!”

Periboea, daughter of the river, merely cast her sharp glare upon him and thrust the wiggling lump into his arms. “It is not as though I want it! It stinks of you, of mortals! It belongs here. The river hardly wants it." With that, she melted back into the waves.

Enraged and disgusted, Icarius flung the child off the mountain cliffs of the Taygetus. Just as his regret crept forth later in the night, he was met with the wiggling bundle atop the backs of ducks. Saved, flown back onto Spartan land. He held the child and wept. “I am so sorry. Never shall I do such a thing to you, my dear child, my Penelope. Never will you want for anything.”

But Penelope did want. She wanted her. To see her.

She had to come. She swore it last she was here. She must—

“Duck,” Clytemnestra softened her tone as she spoke, taking a step forward to rest a hand on Penelope's shoulder, thin and bony as it was. “You know I cannot let you stay here this late. Your father is expecting you, and so is my own. It’s time to leave.”

A frown formed on Helen’s face, though even her frown was beautiful. She stepped closer to the bank of the river, propping herself up on her toes to peer down at the fresh water. Nothing, not a thing. “Penelope, why won't she come?”

The question was enough to earn a glare from Clytemnestra, the silent “shut up” Helen was used to receiving, usually followed by a; “Helen, is your head full of air?” or “Where Aphrodite blesses you, Athena leaves you to rot, Helen.” Helen wished Clytemnestra were kinder sometimes, not so…brash. She merely asked a question she did not know, and she did not know why that was so bad. Besides, seeing Penelope frown made her frown in turn. She never wished for that. Helen wished to fix that if she could.

“Come along.” Clytemnestra guided Penelope by the shoulder, her grip firm and sure as she spun her around to face back up the hill. “She is not worth it anyway, Penelope. Anyone who would rather frolic in the river than be with you seems quite stupid to me. Don’t you think?”

Penelope nodded, though her face was still clouded by its perpetual worry.

“Helen!” Clytemnestra yelled over her shoulder, “Come along!”

Helen cast one look over the fast-flowing water of Sparta's river, her frown still present. Penelope had said she would come, so why wouldn’t she?

“HELEN!” Clytemnestra yelled. If she were born a man, Ares would have favored her by her battle cry alone. But she wasn’t, so its only purpose was to rein in her sister.

“Coming!” She tore her gaze from it.

~~~~~

Dinner was as it always was. Clytemnestra scolded Castor and Pollux, her other egg-born brothers, as they grabbed eagerly for bread and grapes. Servants whirled around with filled plates. Tyndareus sat and leaned back in his chair, sipping wine as his brother fussed over Penelope. Icarius fixed her hair and rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks as though to warm them, as his plate remained untouched due to his constant fiddling and fixing.

Helen had sat in her usual chair, ate her usual food, and received her usual stares, though she did not feel as usual. What had happened still gnawed at her, even as she was ready to be tucked into her bed later that night.

“Come.” Clytemnestra wagged a finger at her as she sat on the floor, “Let’s brush out that hair.”

Penelope sat in the window, dark hair cascading down her back like water as she gazed outside.

“I…I am going to go pray to the gods. Before I sleep, sister.” Helen nodded as she rose, chiton swirling around her feet. Clytemnestra snorted.

“Helen, you can do that here. Now come on, let me brush it out."

“Oh, um…no. I would like to go by myself.”

Clytemnestra gave her a look, dark brown eyes narrowing into suspicious little slits. Sometimes it amazed Helen just how suspicious they could be, both of them. Penelope with her endless cleverness and Clytemnestra with her cunning. Perhaps Athena truly did leave her behind.

“Oh, what? Have you taken a lover or something?” Clytemnestra finally asked bluntly, tilting her head to the side as she set down her brush.

“Wha—No! Clytemnestra, I have not!” Helen insisted. It would have been impossible to do so, even if she wished to. Men of the palace were strictly forbidden from even stealing glances at her, and for good reason. Helen had found that her beauty often made their heads swirl, their pupils swell with a hunger that they could not keep to themselves. “It’s for the best to keep them at bay, daughter. A hungry man will do what he must to feed himself,” Tyndareus had said.

“Mm. Then why are you so eager to be rid of the Duck and I?” Clytemnestra smiled that cat smile, eyes still narrowed. She was known to sneak out at times and meet with a servant boy or two. She never got caught. Again, cunning.

"N-no reason!" Helen swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Let her go, Clytemnestra.” Penelope’s voice, though still gloomy, was as reasonable as ever. “Just be safe, Helen. Be quick.” Her ivory fingers traveled over the stones around the window.

“Oh, fine, Helen. Go—” Clytemnestra waved her off, though her brush was snatched up to point at Penelope. “You then. Time to groom some feathers.”

~~~~~

Helen kept her steps light, her hands feeling along the walls as she weaved through halls and went through towering archways. She knew if her father could see her, he would be very disappointed, disgusted even. “Sneaking around? For someone to gaze upon you?” It was the one rule she had to follow: stay safely inside. Inside, in the presence of her sister and cousin, she was safe. Anywhere else, she was not.

But this was important, important enough for her to break such a rule. Helen slipped into the courtyard, letting the cool wind brush back her hair and tickle her ears. A storm was coming. Storms always made her nervous, as nervous as her mother. Helen was not as smart as Penelope or Clytemnestra, but she still noticed the flinch Leda would give every time lightning lit up the sky.

Helen drew her chiton around her legs before kneeling upon the ground. She wished she had wine or something to pour libation at least. Maybe a portion of the meat she had eaten for dinner, she should have kept it to sacrifice. But no. Helen of Sparta was well and truly empty-handed.

She clasped her hands tightly and squeezed her blue eyes shut. As she prayed, the sky crackled with lightning.

“Message?”

When Helen’s head shot back up, she thought for a moment her perfect soul would leap out of her perfect body, travel right down to Hades before she even knew what happened to her. She was skittish even around men she knew, but strange, unusual ones standing before her in the rain set her even more on edge.

His hair was soft and blonde, not all that different from her own. It swept up like down feathers around his face, which was sharp and impish with eyes so light Helen could see no irises. She did not like how he eyed her, how his lips were stretched into a smirk as his arms were crossed over his chest. When she glanced at the rest of him, down the slender form of his body, she found his foot tapping against the stones. Tap, tap, tap.

“Who…are you?”

“I collect messages. You have one, Helen of Sparta?” He tilted his head to the side, like a bird admiring a gleaming object. There was something almost birdlike about him.

“Oh, um…Well, I was hoping that…” Helen thought back to the recesses of her mind, to the tutors who would sit in the middle of their room, trying to yell and gain the attention of the girls over Penelope and Clytemnestra kicking and play-fighting on the floor. She did not remember much of what they said, but enough. “You are…I know you! You are Her-”

“Ah.” He held up a finger, “Let’s not speak of it, hemitheos. You’re lucky I came at all, but your call was—” he stopped as he looked at her, eyes narrowing like a falcon swooping for a fish. “My. You really are as they say, aren’t you? Beautiful, I mean.”

Such words used to make her blush and turn away, giggling to Clytemnestra as her sister rolled her eyes. But they had no such effect anymore. She heard them too often.

“I suppose. Now…I wish for Penelope’s mother to arrive, to see her. Periboea, naiad of Eurotas River?”

“The only one who could make her do such a thing is the God King.” He chuckled at her words, shaking his head as though they were stupid, “Believe me. You could never make the divine do something they do not wish to.”

“Well, then, tell my father to ask her.” Helen rarely thought of the Thunder Bringer as her father. It only flashed in her mind during the storms, a hint of a reminder. Tyndareus was her father by everything but blood, but the sheen of her soul was undeniably divine.

The god gave her a look. “That is what you wish? Ask him?” He chuckled again, light and airy like flight, though there was a bitterness chasing his words. “I don't know…He has too many children to bow to all their requests, Helen of Sparta.” His empty voids of eyes inspected her again, and his feet carried him closer as though he rode the air. “No matter how lovely you are, and however generous he is." 

Helen swallowed the lump in her throat. Gods made her nervous; they'd make anyone a little nervous. They were bright and gleaming, so much so that it overwhelmed you a little. Like being surrounded by lovely things to the point of overstimulation. But her love for her cousin made her jaw set regally, her eyes train ahead in a way that made his brows furrow. “I am Helen of Sparta, and I ask him for nothing…or, very little, at least. I do not ask him to bend the clouds or come down to me himself. I ask…merely,” she forced herself to breathe, “that he speaks one word with Periboea, that she comes to the surface for merely an afternoon. That is my message.”

She would have held his gaze for longer if it had not made her blood feel like it was boiling in her body. Above, the storm crackled, and it made her chest seize. When Helen looked up, just barely, she caught his smile.

“Then I shall carry it,” He said. His voice was back to its lightness. “Perhaps you carry more of him than we thought you did, Helen of Troy.” One of his hands rose up and brushed the soft high of her cheek like the kiss of the wind. “My father carries his own message for you…” His voice seemed to drop low, silky like a thief speaking of spoils. “Be vigilant, won't you? Watchful. You escape no eyes, I fear. Not anyone's.” His hand dropped to his side, and his strong jaw tilted up to the sky. “Nervous, Helen?”

She swallowed. Her skin seemed to prickle where a god had brushed her. His words carried a warning that did not seem to be his own, but was merely a message. A delivery from another.

“Helen of…what did you call me?” She finally asked. Her brows furrowed.

He laughed it off.

“Ah…excuse me. I’ve been spending too much time with the Fates.” He shook his head again, as though to force the thoughts that resided in them away. “Goodnight, Helen.”

He melted into the wind, as the howling of air took on his laugh.

Gods always made Helen nervous. Perhaps because she knew they were one of the only things above herself.

When she arrived back, Penelope's hair had already been combed, tied back in a fish tail. She smiled when she saw Helen, though Clytemnestra groaned. “Helen. You’re getting the floor wet.”

“Sorry,” she smiled apologetically as she went to discard the damp chiton.

“You should be. Do you know how hard it is to comb out wet hair?” Clytemnestra sighed. “I hope it was worth it.”

Helen’s heart still raced, but Penelope’s soft smile was enough.

“Very worth it.” She nodded, her perfect hair of golden red shifting with her perfect head.

Chapter Text

Crack!

Boom!

Clytemnestra groaned, shoving her pillow over her head. With every crack of lightning or harsh boom of thunder, she heard a whimper from across the room. A pitiful, small little thing that, if it belonged to anyone else, would have caused her to shush them. But no—she was the first hatched, expected to be the keeper of the nest.

Clytemnestra pushed herself onto her elbows and peered into the inky darkness of the chambers she shared with her sister and cousin.

“Helen? Helen!” She hissed a whisper, letting it drift through the night. Quiet enough to grab Helen's attention, but not loud enough to wake Penelope. Clytemnestra swore her cousin could hear a pin drop, even as she was fast asleep, exploring the depths of her dreams with Hypnos covering her eyes.

She was only met with a pitiful whimper, a small assurance that Helen was 'fine'.

Clytemnestra knew better.

Since their hatching, Helen had always glowed with a light Clytemnestra did not have. The nursemaid who scooped her up from the broken eggshells nearly dropped Helen upon seeing her. Not because she was some abomination of feather and flesh, something that their mother had feared since their conception, but because even then, there was not a flaw upon her. She was divine, whether Tyndareus announced it as official before his people or not. Yet the crashes from the sky always made her shiver and snivel and whimper. Helen, unlike others with divinity in them, never had a love for all that. The loudness and the crashing and the mighty roars of greatness never called to her.

Clytemnestra sighed and shifted her arm to lift the sheets. “Come here, Helen.” It was softer than she usually spoke. Perhaps just out of fear of waking Penelope, or perhaps something else. Clytemnestra showed softness for very little. Where their mother was soft, often quiet, lovely as a rose like Helen, Clytemnestra prided herself on being hard, firm, and resolute…but there was something in seeing Helen’s discomfort that broke that stone-heart a bit. The instincts of a firstborn.

Clytemnestra watched the form of Helen, how it curled in on itself as it crept through the darkness, creeping on the tips of her toes. She slipped under the cotton, and Clytemnestra ducked her head underneath to be with her.

“Are you alright?” She asked. Her eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, so she saw only flashes of movement, the faint darkened shadow that was Helen, with her shoulders tensed in a familiar silhouette.

“I do not like the storm,” Helen confessed shakily. There were many things she disliked, as her leash was kept short. It had to be when she was perhaps the fairest woman to ever be. A slice of divinity gifted to the rest of the world. But being hidden behind walls made the world outside of them quite frightening.

“I know…” Clytemnestra said slowly. “I do not either.” That was a lie. She said it in a sad attempt to make her feel better, but all it did was make another crash hit the Earth. Helen nearly leapt out of her skin. She probably would have, if Clytemnestra’s hands hadn’t clamped onto her shoulders to ground her. “Breathe, Helen. Slowly. Come on, it's just lightning…”

“What if he's displeased?” Her whisper was panicked, uttered quickly from between trembling lips. Never had Clytemnestra seen her so frightened. Besides the time she had turned a corner and seen a man of the palace speaking to her, inching closer until Clytemnestra informed him he was “well close enough”. Clytemnestra’s gaze could make men falter as much as her sister’s, but for very different reasons.

"Who?" 

"My father!"

“He is not, you've not done anything,” Clytemnestra reassured slowly, though it was not a promise she could keep. Favor the gods was…well, it could switch as quickly as the winds could. Though Helen had not done anything. If anything, she was blessed; beautiful as she was… "You haven't done anything, have you?"

“I asked him for a favor,” Helen confessed softly. Even though the shadows obscured her, Clytemnestra could sense her growing pale. “I asked him…to speak with Penelope’s mother, just to ensure she arrived to see her—”

Clytemnestra processed her words, hands still gripping her shoulders tightly.

"Did he keep his word?" She asked.

"I just requested it…I didn't even pour libation, Clytemnestra!" Helen groaned, her head slumping forward. "I just asked like a fool, and now I am sure he is displeased with me…I've never had anyone displeased with me."

“Helen," Clytemnestra sighed. "Don't stress yourself. It's fine, I'm sure. It's just rain…rain is important. And besides, we are safe as long as we are together, aren’t we? And am I not here now?”

“You are….” Helen whispered. “Nessie?”

“Mhm?” Clytemnestra combed back Helen’s reddish hair. It was an action she had done a million times since childhood, though Helen’s hair always bounced back to their perfect, golden waves that framed her face.

“Have you ever asked him for anything? Our father?”

Clytemnestra made a face at her words.

“...Tyndareus is my father, Helen.”

Helen’s perfect brow furrowed.

“No,” she said slowly, “you are my sister. And I am a hemitheos. So you are too.”

Hemitheos. Half divine, half mortal.

“No, Helen,” Clytemnestra sighed. She had never explained it to her sister, for she thought she just knew. It was wrong of her to assume. “You are divine; I am not.”

“No…” Helen reiterated, and she shook her head. “If I am divine, then you must be too. We are sisters! We were born from the same eggs!”

“It does not work like that, Helen.” Clytemnestra was unsure exactly how it worked, but it was not that. She didn't have a divine bone in her body. Divinity shone through the skin like sunshine, and when Clytemnestra looked at herself, all she saw was dull, dull, dull. Even Penelope had a bit of that glimmer. “Look at me. We are not the same.”

“Well, of course not.” Helen frowned. “I mean, we don't look the same. You look like mother, but you are still very beautiful! She was the most beautiful woman in the world before I was born. We’re still very similar, just a little different."  

A little.

Clytemnestra held back a laugh. She wondered again, for the hundredth time, if Helen’s beautiful head was filled with nothing but storm clouds. Her, calling Clytemnestra beautiful? She almost pointed out the irony of it before the blanket shifted above them.

Once more, Helen jumped like a startled cat. Clytemnestra wrapped her arms around her shoulders to steady her, as she gazed into Penelope’s drowsy face.

“Hello, Penelope.”

“You are loud.” She groaned, sleep practically making her slur. “Why are you loud?” Her words were directed to Helen, her eyes narrowed in a sleepy glare.

“Oh, sorry,” Helen smiled apologetically. She shifted aside, allowing room for Penelope to clamor inside with them. Her lanky limbs moved drowsily with sleep before folding in her lap under the safety of the blanket. She yawned.

“Why are we hiding?” She let her head slump onto Helen’s shoulder, eyes fluttering shut and open again as they tried to choose between sleep and consciousness.

“Helen was being a baby,” Clytemnestra answered.

“I was not!” Helen yelled sharply. The lightning crashed again, making her squeal.

“Point proven.”

“Helen, don’t worry about the lightning. I would worry more about the river flooding us out all the way to the ocean—” Penelope yawned mid-existential tangent, “Sea King willing.”

“Or…” Clytemnestra allowed a smirk to stretch over her lips, “A terrible earthquake!” Her fingers leaped to action, tickling relentlessly into Helen’s side as she shrieked with laughter. It was the only time she seemed imperfect in her composure, heaving breaths while her face turned red. She was always ticklish.

“No! Stop! This is not—” Helen let out a snort of laughter, trying to slap away the hands. “Clytemnestra, that is not funny!”

“Well, I find it funny.” Penelope rubbed her eyes with her wrist, leaning aside as though she wished not to be caught up in the torture of Helen of Sparta.

The next strike of lightning that came, Helen did not flinch, nor cower. She laughed.