Pittacos could hardly believe what had just happened to him. Here he was, sitting in shock on a stone bench in the Agora, accepted into a school for nascent deities. Then there was the fact he TALKED to two monsters, both of which were FRIENDLY. Well, they were more friendly after Maron Panotptes charged him to “test his mettle.” Pitt chalked it up to the endless drills rather than any sort of real courage that he fell into a defensive stance behind his shield. After Maron had clearly tried to work him up and Theuras simply asked him all sorts of questions about battle and its conduct, they told him he was accepted into the Lyceum. Apparently the whole reason he wasn’t inside its walls right now was because the shade they have for introductions was banished. Whatever that meant. Temporarily he was assured.

  As the sun hung low in the sky and night crept into town, Pittacos figured he would show up to the Lyceum tomorrow long before the sun rose. It was unlikely he would get any sleep. He was far, far too wired.

  Though I guess I haven’t slept much since I got here. Funny, I figured not having to worry about something dead crawling in through my windows would help with the insomnia.

  The young man was shaken out of his thoughts by his shield crashing to the ground. It was a truly tremendous sound relative to the hum of the Agora. All at once the market stalls seemed to fall silent. He could feel a whole market of eyes on him as he fumbled with the awkward piece of iron. He was deeply embarrassed and dropping the shield all over again embarrassed him once more. By the time he hefted the disc and strapped it to his leg, he could feel his helmet warming from his red face.

  Oh Zeus, please just kill me.

  Zeus in fact did not kill him. But perhaps Androdamos was listening as a reprieve came through the Lyceum doors. A slightly befuddled satyr stepped through the portal. He closed the doors behind himself slowly and ran his hand from the bridge of his nose all the way over his head. Pitt stood and tried to walk over to him, forgetting that his shield was attached firmly to his limb. The resulting clamour drew the attention of the satyr, who walked over.

  “Hey man.” Said Eoren calmly.

  “Ah, hey. One sec.” Replied Pitt, electing to simply take off his entire greave rather than disentangling it from the knot of leather he had somehow created.

  “So, did you get in?” Pittacos said after standing back up.

  “Yeah, you?”

  “Yep, kinda surprised I did actually.”

  “Were you waiting for me or…?”

  “Well yeah, I wanted to thank you. I waited in line like five times and then you came around and now I’m an official aspirant now. So uh, thank you.”

  “Ack, no problem besides-.” Eoren said, before realizing that maybe telling the potential god of war that he essentially tricked him into applying could be a poor idea.”

  “-it’s better to make friends early in these sorts of things eh?” He finished, a little lamely in his opinion. Though, if Pitt thought so he did an excellent job hiding it under a nod of understanding.

  Eoren sat down beside the warrior and a silence fell between them. The satyr watched the sun go down while Pittacos worked on disentangling his shield. A cool breeze blew down from Mount Olympus. After the chaos of his trial, the hum and buzz of the market was a soothing normality. The satyr leaned back onto the bench and stared up at the darkening sky. The stars were just coming out.

  “Was that your first couple of monsters as well?” Said Eoren.

  “Hm? No.” Replied Pitt.

  “Figures, a big, bold god of war such as yourself would have seen some before.”

  The pair slipped into silence once more. Pittacos finally separated the wayward piece of armour and his shield. After he affixed the greave to his leg and set the shield down flat on the masonry, he leaned back and took a deep breath.

  “Wait, those two were the first monsters you’ve seen? I thought satyrs could step into a trees hollow and step out on the other side of Graece? Wouldn’t you have seen at least one?” Questioned Pittacos.

  “Gods I wish. Nah, that's just really powerful dryads. I’ve lived in Athens for quite a bit of my life and a satyr grove. Most monsters don’t tend to come around the biggest cities and we had our own ways of deterring them.”

  Pitt traced the constellation Ursa with his eyes.

  A silence bloomed between them. The market sounds wound down. The distant sound of cicadas, that omnipresent countryside melody, filtered through the alleyways.

  “Welp, I’m going home.” He said, after noting how low the sun was getting. He picked up and brushed off his shield, slinging it over his shoulder afterwards. He started moving towards one of the myriad side streets that branched off of the Agora. But he paused.

  “Hey!” He called back at the satyr, who sat up to look at him better.

  “You had a travelling pack when you got into line, do you have a place to stay?”

  The satyr blinked and thought for a moment.

  Arbus or whoever probably won’t accept a couple hours payment for the measly amount of apples I could juice before bed. And I don’t know if the brothels will let you stay the night here.

  “No.” He called back.

  “Well, I have way more space than I need where I stay, you’re welcome to sleep there.”

  The satyr smiled and walked over to the warrior. The pair made their way out of the Agora. The construction had stopped a little earlier, which made the dark streets quiet enough for their footsteps to echo slightly. While the houses being constructed were not the finest Eoren had seen, they looked sturdy and mostly uniform. They passed a mother scolding her three children for getting home so late, an Astynomoi with a wax tablet in hand and a pair of drunk men leaning on each other on some grand journey. Eoren noted gleefully that the official didn’t even spare the drunk men a second glance, so they were unlikely to give him much trouble if he drank too much. Which was no mean feat, being a satyr and all.

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  The gentle light of the small fires people used to light their homes filtered out into the street. This meant that by the time they got to Pitt’s house, when the moon was starting to peek over the roofs, the streets were not dark enough to be foreboding. A pleasant walk to an apparently quite decent second story house.

  “Grow up here?”

  “Nah, Mesopotamos.”

  Eoren thought for a moment.

  “That's pretty far away, how did you wind up with a nice place like this?”

  “My dad bought it for me.”

  They walked up the steps and Pitt pulled out a large wooden key.

  “Ooo, rich kid.” Said the satyr mockingly. Pittacos half laughed and then looked intensely at Eoren.

  “Please don’t call me that, I got barely enough allowance to feed myself, I gotta work just to keep my armour from rusting off.”

  The satyr put up his hands in surrender and said “Okay man. No problem.”

  The pair walked into the main room of the building, which looked like a kitchen and living room. It was a structure made of good quality, light brown clay brick, with nice, straight wooden beams supporting its roof. On their right was a good sized oven with a hearty stack of wood beside it. Drying herbs hung from a wooden dowel suspended from the ceiling and a collection of pots and amphora held Pitt’s presumably meagre rations. Straight ahead was another door, which led to a bedroom. To their left was the living room. A single kline sat opposite of two simple low backed chairs, between which was a chest. Judging from the dirty plates and a half full pitcher of water resting on it, the chest served as a sort of coffee table.

  “Nice place.” Commented Eoren.

  “Thank, sorry for the mess, I do try to keep it cleaner usually.” Said Pitt, gesturing to the dirty dishes, which Eoren noted were the only things in this room not spick and span. As Pitt went to clean up, Eoren took a closer look through the kitchen. Good amount of utensils, a very well taken care of frying pan and pot. Mostly local herbs, but a fair amount looked to Eoren’s eyes as distinctly foreign to this area. Indeed, though he was far from the master of nature as he often bragged, he recognized some of those non local herbs. The smell of these herbs was nostalgic and familiar to Eoren. It reminded him of his mothers and aunt's kitchens.

  “Hey, is this rock leaf? And is this coriander?” He asked Pitt, who had walked past the satyr and was washing the dishes.

  “Hm? Yep. Brought it from home. My mom made me pack a big bundle of herbs. I got lots more than just the stuff on the rack here. It was a bit of a pain really.”

  “Oh, so your mom made you bring a whole bunch of herbs so you could impress all the pretty boys and girls that you bring back?”

  Pittacos went a little red at this.

  “No, dick, it's because I use them. You know, to make food taste good?” Pitt retorted.

  “Prove it.”

  Pitt set the dish he was washing on the counter beside him and turned to face Eoren. After fixing the satyr with a stare, he nodded firmly and then went to work. He fished a pair of live lobsters out of an amphora. He then set them down on a cutting board on the counter. From a rack behind him he plucked a bronze knife. He fixed a serious look on the knife, inspecting his edge. He tested the edge with the thumb on the hand which held it and scratched his faceplate the way one would scratch their beard. Satisfied, he gave it a theatrical twirl and came back to the counter.

  “How long you been traveling?” He asked Eoren, gripping one of the lobsters firmly.

  “Bout six months.”

  “Well, Eoren, this is going to be the -best- meal you’ve had in twelve.”

  He punctuated this by swiftly killing the lobster. Afterwards he was a flurry of motion, finishing the other one and setting two pots of water to boil. In a pan he put butter and herbs, being far from stingy with each. In one pot went the lobsters to cook and in the other went some rice. A great deal of focus showed on his face, even under the helmet he was still inexplicably wearing. In fact he was still wearing his full suit of iron.

  Suddenly Pittacos was far from the clumsy, shield dropping impression Eoren had gotten. He moved with grace and purpose. He danced from one end of the kitchen to the other putting spices here and stirring there. The lobster reddened merrily and the wonderful smell of sizzling fat and spice filled the home. Pittacos’s hands moved like a blur and he seldom stayed in one place for more than a moment.

  “Are you going to take your armour off? I mean, I know the horns make me look scary, but I’m really quite a sweetheart.” It hurt Eoren a little to do anything that might break the warrior out of his trance but he was devilishly curious.

  “No. Old habit.”

  He didn’t pause at all or elaborate further. A swift motion here and a quick step there and in no time the meal was complete. It comprised a hefty ladleful of richly flavoured rice supporting a bright red lobster which shimmered with butter. It made Eoren acutely aware of how he had eaten exactly one apple today. As Pittacos brought it over to the living room to eat, Eoren chirped up;

  “Well, I concede it looks good, but any fool can make something look good. Taste is the real contest here.”

  The pair sat down across from each other. Pitt took a bite of his rice and nodded thoughtfully as he chewed it. Then he looked through narrowed eyes at Eoren, who was eyeing a piece of lobster meat skewered on his table knife.

  “Go on, prove I don’t know how to use all my fancy herbs.”

  Eoren popped the piece of meat into his mouth.

  “Buddy, the minute you're ready to get married, I’m going to be first in line.” He said, his voice theatrically flat. Pitt scoffed.

  “Glad to see my cooking has impressed the random satyr.” He took a bite of his food. “Or should I say my husband, as he’s my first and only suitor.”

  The pair laughed lightly at this.

  “Imagine explaining that to a priest!” Eoren sat up straight, imitating the stiff armoured posture of Pitt. “Yes I’d like to be married to this satyr. Why, you ask? Oh, well, he up and proposed to me after a bite of my lobster! No, of course that isn’t an entendre.”

  The pair laughed heartily at this.

  “Fuck the priest! Imagine my parents!” Said Pitt between gasps for air.

  This made Eoren lean far back into his chair with laughter.

  “Greetings Patriarch and Matriarch Micythoi,” Pitt imitated horns with his fingers on his forehead. “I’ve come to marry your son. How long have we known each other? Oh about a day I suppose.” His hands dropped back to his plate. “You just might have enough time to escape while my father throttles me and my mother is stunned by the horror that her son didn’t marry one of the six girls in the village.”

  The pair almost fell out of their chairs from their fits of laughter. The rest of the evening passed in much the same way. A spark of friendship kindled that night, in that little house filled with easy camaraderie. On Eorens part, Pitt was just stiff enough to be interesting. On Pitt's part, Eoren had such a radically different life than him. This and their senses of humor lined up creepily well. Many a joke was shared, much rice was ate and when they finally felt their eventful day catch up to them, they retired to sofa and bedroom respectively. Even once the lights were all out and both of them were settled, the conversation didn’t die. It did eventually, but rather than die it would be more accurate to say it just tapered out.

  As the satyr and warrior were just about asleep, Eoren piped up.

  “Hey, didn’t you say that you only got into line twice the first time we met?” Said Eoren.

  “No, no, you're just remembering it wrong.”

  A silence.

  “Hey man, I just realized something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I never asked your name.”

  Eoren chuckled into his pillow. “I guess you didn’t. My name's Eoren, you?”

  “Pittacos. Pittacos Micythus if you want to kiss up.”

  “Will I get more lobster if I do?”

  The pair laughed airily, then closed their eyes. While Eoren was happy to have found someone fun, Pitt was happy for another reason all together. He was happy to have made his first friend.