(no subject)

[perfect_enigma]

Pollux had been born a twin. The opposite side of a coin. There had been other siblings and family, but no one could break them apart. They had followed their course. Rising up as sons of a king. Taking up the arms of their fathers and uncles and following them to the inevitable battle. It didn’t matter with who. There was always someone to fight. They’d risen there too, becoming famous as tacticians and soldiers. Until they’d pushed too far.

Someone had found where there command was and under the cover of night three jumpers came soaring down with their bombs, aimed precisely over them and let them drop. There was only chaos. Screams of men dying slowly as they slowly bled out through the rest of the night. The lucky ones had died immediately.

Someone managed to find some lights, someone else managed to organize those who were unhurt or at least minimally hurt. The injured had to be seen to first but there was so many and many were lost despite best efforts. It wasn’t until morning that any real efforts of control could be made.

In the chaos, no one noticed when or how a young man went missing. His brother was found within a few hours, half his face destroyed, with damage all along his arm and to his back. He was placed on the first transport back to the capital immediately, where the doctors might have a chance of replacing bone with metal, an eye with glass. It was his only chance to have a real life again.

No one noticed his brother was gone for another two days when the site was finally cleared completely. The dead were identified and sent to their homes. The list of the missing wasn’t long. Some people were found in the woods, having ran after the initial panic. Others were disoriented and claimed they thought they were running to camp. As the days went on, the search expanded wider and wider but still that one name remained a nagging worry.

Pollux lay unconscious through all this, taken from one surgery to another for days and days. No one knew if he would make it or if both boys had been lost. When he finally woke it was with one of his sisters at his side. He wasn’t aware of much those first few weeks. Somewhere in there he knew he was told that his brother was missing but he’d been too tired. Too drugged to do much.

After he was released from the hospital he had to learn his life over. The eye of glass and metal didn’t work like his old one had. It saw everything and he had to learn how to filter it himself. But he learned. He learned how to walk and then run, how to fire a gun and see distances. There were scars on his face from the damage first from the bomb then the surgeries so he had the leather piece fitted to hide it all. Through it all he waited for any word at the very least but time kept on passing and still there was nothing. People started to assume he was dead somewhere. Maybe a bomb had landed directly on him and incinerated him, torn him into pieces too small to identify. No one wanted to say if that was the truth then Pollux would be just as dead.

Finally he couldn’t wait anymore. He went to his father and told him, explained it all. How it hurt to be alone and the pain that still seemed to fill him constantly. He still had nightmares full of darkness and explosions. He would never be fit as a leader, to take his father’s place one day. So he did the next best thing. Pollux left. His plan was simple, get to Troy, a city renowned for its market. A true international metropolis, even more than Olymps. People could get to the island nation of Troy much easier then the city of the mountaintop.

Helen had gone with him to keep him company and spy on him equally. They were guests of the court. She spent more time with a young princeling of the city then watching him thankfully. It gave Pollux the chances he needed to sneak into the marketplace on his own, to put out feelers with some of the seedier parts of society. Word kept on leading him back to the castle, to Priam’s own twins. Pollux ignored the advice for awhile, finding it hard to believe that two royal children would be so connected to Troy’s underside.

Until Helenus found him in a small café where Pollux had stopped for a drink. The young man slid uninvited into a seat at the same table and waved over the waitress. Pollux glared at him suspiciously but didn’t want to risk being allowed to stay at the palace by telling him to fuck off. So he waited. The waitress brought over a drink for him and then left them alone.

“You won’t find him here.” Helenus said softly. In the few times Pollux had been close to him in the past it had always been with his sister, they had identical sharp blue eyes that were haunting when side by side. Pollux was quickly learning they were just as haunting when it was only one of them.

“How do you know?” Pollux had made no secret of what he was after. It was his methods that he preferred to keep secret.

“You don’t think we would have done something if a prince had shown up in our city?” He quirked an eyebrow but his smile was teasing.

“A city isn’t isolated. Someone could have word of him from elsewhere.” Pollux said defensively.

“Good point.” He took a long sip of his drink and sank back into the seat. “But not valid. Sitting around and waiting does not seem like a very Dioscuri trait.”

“What do you know about my family?” Pollux snapped, hand tightening around his glass.

Helenus smirked and just took another swallow, letting the cup linger at his lips before it was set down once more with a soft clink. “I know you have two sisters, Helen and Clytemnestra. I know Helen is to be married to Menelaus of Sparakon despite how comfortable she is in my younger brother’s bed. I know your twin brother disappeared after a Thessalian bombing three years ago and you lost your eye and your pinky finger.” He leaned forward and folded his hands neatly. “I know you’re looking for him now. And if you’re anything like me and Cassandra, you would do anything to find him.” His eyes met with Pollux’s and bore into his, wouldn’t let go.

“Yea. I’d do anything.” Pollux said softly, looking away. Out into the street. “How’d you know the bombing was Thessalian?”

“Educated guess.” When Pollux glanced back, Helenus was grinning smugly. “They have one of the best air fleets on the continent. Shrapnel recovered resembled their bombs. And they mobilized a small team about a week before.”

“You’re intelligence for your father?”

“Kind of. Between me and Cass we just make sure we know as much as possible about what’s going on. Cass is better. I’m just a reporter because no one wants to believe a girl.” There was a flash in his eyes, and Pollux realized he was upset for his sister. That she needed him as a go-between. “Which is one reason why I’m here and not her.”

Pollux could accept that. Helenus was obviously well informed, though he still wasn’t sure how he and his sister had become so ingratiated with the underworld that average people knew to go to them. “Then what advice do you have reporter?”

“Look elsewhere. There’s a ship in port now that I think you’ll fit in with perfectly.”

“What kind of ship?”

Helenus grinned and stood, fishing out a few coins from his pocket. Pollux didn’t need to be an expert to know they were each worth more then their small meal. “Come on.” Helenus jerked his head as the coins hit the table with a soft clink. The waitress was immediately there to scoop them up.

“My lord-“

“Give them to your madam.” Helenus smiled warmly at her. “And don’t call me lord. I’m here enough to be Helenus.” She blushed and nodded, obviously catching herself before it became a bow. Helenus started to walk away, expecting Pollux to follow and to his annoyance, he did. The young man had made himself just interesting enough that Pollux had to know more. “I owed the owner some money. She’s a good listener.” Helenus explained when they were a short ways from the café. “If you need to know something in a hurry, café owners and prostitutes are your best bets.”

“You get your information from café owners and whores?”

Helenus grinned and shrugged. “Have you ever gotten a straight answer from a general?” They didn’t say much as they walked together. Almost no one seemed to recognize the prince and he spoke politely to anyone who said anything to him. Helenus would occasionally point things out. He obviously knew the city inside out and when Pollux called him on it, Helenus explained he and Cassandra used to play all over. “We’re two of a million or something. No one really noticed when we disappeared.”

Helenus was a bit less sure of himself through the port. It was a constant rearranging mess. Almost a small moveable city. The port area had its own smaller marketplace that specialized in parts and thieves. People hung around looking for work. Small restaurants and bars had followed the marketplace in. There were no police, no rules. As long as the fights didn’t spill past the port gates, the guards didn’t care about what went on inside. Helenus went straight to one of the bars. He was met with even less difference here then on the streets. Though he did get a few nods, and he caught someone’s hand and came away with a small coin purse. Finally he reached one table that three people were closely gathered around and knocked on the wooden surface to get their attention.

“Your lordship.”

Helenus’ lips twisted in a grimace. “Your highness.” He retorted, Pollux immediately looked at the motley group in a new light. Now he could see it in the way the two men held themselves. They had had a courtly upbringing though it was now hidden under old clothes and grease. Helenus freed two chairs from another table and dragged them over. “I have someone for you.”

“I’m not looking for anyone.” The man who had spoken originally said.

“Yea but he is.”

The man eyed Pollux, lingering at the fake eye down to the hands he kept shoved deep in his pockets. “Jason.” He said and held out a hand.

Pollux took it. “Pollux. I wasn’t quite told what the hell is going on.”

“You’re a tactician, one of those born-leader types.” Helenus said. “You know you need help Jason.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.” Jason said just at Pollux snapped ‘what’ very sharply at Helenus.

“Helenus is a little bit of a know it all.” The woman at the table leaned over and whispered loudly. She smirked and sat back when Helenus glared at her.

“You also need to get laid.” Helenus added with a smirk which sent Jason’s two crewmates into snickers. “Tell them what you’re looking for Pollux.” He nudged.

Pollux considered walking out on all this. He wasn’t about to be volunteered to work on someone’s ship. “My brother.” He heard himself saying. “Castor Dioscuri.”

The third person at the table whistled between his teeth. “That’d make you Polydeuces?”

“I said that.”

“No. You said Pollux.”

Pollux rolled his eyes hopelessly. “I don’t see why I’m here.”

“We go all over the continent looking for work. We’re a bit of a…mercenary group. Anything that pays well. We’ve got a royal patron or two as well.” Jason said thoughtfully, leaning in and Pollux mimicked him without thinking about it. “Helenus is right. Three is a bit too few for the Argonau. I need someone who’s more of an exo. Keep up with day to day things so we don’t run out of food or something.”

“Again.”

“If you do that for me, we’ll make it a point to take any detours you need to look for your brother. So long as they don’t interfere with a job.” He added quickly.

“I can’t just decide like this.”

“We’re gone in three days.”

They sat and talked for awhile so Pollux could get to know the small crew. Atalanta and Meleager and Jason. Helenus hung back now, letting them talk and in three days he left Troy with them.