Athena's appearance came so quickly that it completely caught Tia off guard.
He had assumed he would need to bleed for a while before he could summon one of the Twelve Olympians—a third-generation god of Greece.
If that was the case, then he had severely underestimated just how much he mattered in Athena's eyes.
Even something as simple as him letting blood was enough to make her heart tighten. Perhaps that meant the request to follow would also be granted without much resistance.
Probably...
"Athena."
Tia softly called the goddess by name. His ruby-red eyes met the owl's sapphire gaze head-on.
Perhaps from a trace of maidenly shyness, or perhaps because she was not used to being looked at so directly, Athena—the virgin goddess—felt a sudden heat rise within her.
Then the owl perched on Tia's shoulder seemed almost as if it had been scorched. Its feathers, smooth a moment ago, puffed out abruptly, then drew back in tight again, while it awkwardly fussed over its tail feathers as if unsure what to do with itself.
Its sharp beak parted slightly, and when it spoke, the words came haltingly.
"W-what is it...?"
Athena seemed to feel a little uncomfortable. The next instant, a radiance as dazzling as the sun flared once more, and the goddess in flowing white appeared again before Tia.
"If you only wanted to chat, I could accompany you whenever you liked."
The nervousness from earlier vanished at once, leaving behind only her usual freewheeling ease.
Athena sat atop the flowerbed in the courtyard, her long white robe hiding the thighs that ought to have been visible. Holding her staff, she looked down at Tia from above.
That abrupt emotional shift left Tia somewhat surprised, but it did not interfere with the request he meant to make.
[You begin recounting to Athena that carefully embellished version of the "truth," casting yourself as a hot-blooded youth whose loss of control had become the cause of war between two nations.]
[You tell her that, because the envoys from Orchomenus had spoken with intolerable insolence, you personally mutilated them—splitting their features and severing their limbs.]
[Athena is deeply shocked. She does not believe you are the sort of person who would commit such brutality.]
[She turns her far-seeing gaze toward the burial site you mentioned, and there, beneath the soil, she indeed sees the stacked remains of dismembered envoys—the "death-row stand-ins" King Creon had prepared in advance to help with your plan.]
[You tell her that you had no other choice.]
[Those Orchomenians were not only arrogant and overbearing, but had also freely seized local girls, abusing the prestige of their previous victory to do as they pleased on foreign soil.]
[Worse still, they even discussed embarrassing stories about the gods—especially arguing that Athena was inferior in strength to Poseidon.]
[As a righteous man devoted to the goddess Athena, you simply could not endure it any longer, and so you took it upon yourself to punish them.]
[At this, Athena feels a flash of anger.]
[You can sense the atmosphere around you change; even the straight descent of the midday sun begins to make your demigod body ache.]
[But as the goddess of war and wisdom, she quickly regains herself. At once she spots the flaw in the story: why would mere mortals from Orchomenus suddenly begin discussing matters between gods?]
[Her anger vanishes just as suddenly.]
[Of course, the little game between the two of you is not going to end over something like that. So she simply chooses to continue playing along.]
[Athena feigns anger and presses you for more details about the incident, and you answer each question with perfect sincerity.]
[Eventually, the conversation turns to the matter of the coming war.]
"So you mean to say that the Kingdom of Thebes is going to war with Orchomenus again?"
Athena's voice regained that divine resonance that seemed to echo in the air.
She knew perfectly well how withered Thebes had become after that nightmare of a defeat, and with such a disparity in strength, the word war sounded less like conflict and more like suicide.
"It was my idea."
Tia met Athena's gaze directly.
"Hmm... You intend to face an entire kingdom by yourself?"
Athena stopped spinning the staff in her hand.
Wisdom had already given her the answer.
The one before her had no intention of sacrificing the soldiers of Thebes. Rather, he meant to use his own strength alone, on this land of the Age of Gods, to forcibly overturn the law of the strong devouring the weak and seize everything Orchomenus possessed.
Was that possible?
That did not matter.
Possibility was only one fragment of what the future might hold, and as the goddess of war and wisdom, the thing Athena loved most in this life was the quality called heroism.
Resolve. Kindness. Charisma. The ability to lead others and gather companions of like mind.
And above all, the brilliance of charging headlong at a problem that by all rights should have been impossible.
"So then, little one—what is it you want me to do?"
[You successfully capture Athena's interest, and in that instant you let out an inward sigh of relief.]
[You tell Athena what you want: in this war, you need her to provide you with support in the form of equipment.]
[She hesitates for a moment, then agrees almost immediately.]
[But if she is going to give you what you need, what, in turn, will she receive from the deal?]
[Athena asks for payment in return.]
[You think it over briefly, then decide to offer her the lion skin in your hands, still saturated with the lingering aura of Dionysus.]
[Athena merely lets out a soft laugh and does not take it.]
[She smiles. She thinks you are adorable.]
[After a moment's consideration, she formally decides that the price shall be this—]
[From this moment onward, in every trial to come, you must bring her the most perfect result. No matter how difficult it may be, no matter how hard the choice may prove, you must always give the perfect answer.]
[You accept at once without the slightest hesitation. Exchanging a fragment of the future for protection in the present feels like an absurdly profitable bargain.]
"Then I'll be going now, little one."
Her white robe fluttered gently in the breeze, and beneath Athena's radiance, even the noonday sun seemed to lose its burning heat.
Clearly, she was preparing to return to Olympus.
"Then, in the name of Athena, I promise you this: in your war against Orchomenus, I shall grant you a sword of peerless sharpness, arrows that pierce all things, armor that nothing can break, and a cloak that shall never know defeat."
Suspended in the air, she reached out with fingers pale and slender as carved jade and lightly brushed the tip of your nose.
Then she leaned close and whispered into your ear:
"I have high hopes for you, little one."
Athena vanished.
She dissolved before Tia's eyes like a bubble breaking apart into nothing.
That goddess remained just as she had been before—mischievous, indulgent, seeming at once to cherish him and to calculate around him.
Tia let out a long breath, savoring the brief stillness.
Then he picked up the bucket full of divine blood and began wondering what ought to be done with it.
But first, he had to speak with his mother about the matter of traveling to Mount Pelion to study.
-------
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