The Villain of Ancient Greece

Something’s not right...

Lorne quietly stepped back, pushing the centaur sage beside him to the front.

”I also brought Teacher Horse along as a guest. He helped out quite a bit today.”

”No problem! Anyone is welcome!”

”Come in, come in! All of you!”

Hestia and Circe didn’t raise a single objection, grabbing Chiron at the front and yanking him straight through the door.

Although Lorne still had a nagging feeling that something was off, seeing Teacher Horse, who had been shoved to the front to test the waters, emerge completely unharmed, he relaxed just a little and carefully followed them inside.

The moment he stepped through the door, a bright hearthfire danced in the furnace, and the rich, savory aroma of food hit him square in the face.

”All of this... did you two make it?”

Lorne stared at the lavish spread covering the entire table, his eyes flickering with hesitation.

Hestia and Circe froze at the question, instinctively glancing toward the kitchen.

”Why, of course. To prepare tonight’s dinner, from selecting the ingredients all the way to the cooking itself, every single step was done by our own hands.”

From the kitchen, Athena emerged wearing an apron, carrying a pot of mushroom soup, then set it down and announced this with no small measure of pride.

On either side of her, Hestia and Circe nodded like pecking hens, and immediately began pulling out chairs, pressing both arrivals down into their seats, and eagerly thrusting utensils into their hands.

”Come on now, eat! Everyone eat! Don’t be shy!”

Witnessing this scene of such warm, harmonious enthusiasm, and taking note of a certain someone who had taken on the role of cook today, Lorne quietly set his fork down.

However, Athena, noticing this, immediately pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, thoughtfully stuffing the fork back into his hand with a bright, beaming smile.

”You’ve been drifting around out there for so long. You’ve finally made it back. What’s there to be shy about?”

”I’ve been eating rough out there lately. My stomach hasn’t been in great shape.”

A stiff smile squeezed its way onto Lorne’s face.

He placed the fork back along the rim of his plate, then looked over toward Hestia and Circe, who appeared to be working very hard at reducing their own presence to zero, with a perfectly crafted expression of confusion.

”Why are you two just standing there? Sit down. You worked so hard to prepare all this food. You should be the first ones to taste it.

My elders and my lord are both here. What kind of reasoning would have me touching my utensils before them?”

So saying, he acted with great righteousness, grabbing his chief goddess and his teacher, dragging them to the table, pressing them firmly into seats, and thoughtfully setting out a full set of utensils before each of them.

In an instant, Hestia and Circe, who had been forcibly dragged into the situation, turned their furious glares upon a certain disloyal, treacherous wretch.

’You’ve done it now, Lorne. You’ve dragged us down with you!’

”It’s just a simple meal. What’s all the fuss about?”

Seeing that no one at the table had made a move toward the food, Athena’s amethyst eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

She raised an elegant eyebrow and spoke with a teasing smile.

”Don’t worry. There’s no poison in anything. It was all made by everyone’s own hands.”

’That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!’

Lorne kept his composure on the surface while screaming internally.

If the people across from him had truly lost their minds and actually poisoned the food, he’d at least have a legitimate excuse to run away, follow Chiron out for a stomach pump and medical treatment.

But if this was a wholeheartedly prepared ”home-cooked meal with love,” then that was something he absolutely needed to guard against.

They’d somehow managed to blow up the kitchen seventeen or eighteen times just making dinner.

Who knew what had ended up going into it?

’Surely it wasn’t that the food they made was so explosively delicious it literally caused explosions?’

And besides, Hestia and Circe were at least passable.

They could more or less cook.

But what in the world was Athena doing in the kitchen? She’s more practiced at hacking people apart than cutting vegetables, isn’t she?

And now even Hestia and Circe were steering clear of the stuff on the table as though their lives depended on it.

Didn’t that prove all the more that these dishes, which looked and smelled perfectly appetizing, were hiding some enormous trap?

Seeing the atmosphere grow rather strained, and noticing that Athena’s expression was gradually darkening, Lorne squeezed out a smile, then hurriedly speared a piece of meatloaf with his fork, and transferred it directly to Chiron’s plate.

”Teacher Horse, thank you for everything today. Go ahead and see how this tastes.”

”Oh, of course. Thank you.”

The good-natured old man, utterly oblivious to the delicate atmosphere swirling around him, offered his thanks and forked up the meatloaf from his plate, bringing it to his mouth.

Then, under the collective gaze of the table, some expectant, some pained, some simply curious, the centaur sage’s hand gave a sudden tremor.

The fork clattered from his fingers and landed with a clang in his plate.

His pupils went glassy and unfocused, and his body went rigid in his chair.

Like a mechanical doll that had lost its soul, he crashed.

Lorne waved his hand back and forth in front of Chiron’s face, his voice of concern steadily climbing in pitch.

”Teacher Horse! Teacher Horse! Are you alright?! Don’t scare me like this!”

At last, the roused Chiron’s eyes slowly gathered focus again and murmured faintly. ”I... I think I saw Asclepius standing on the far bank of a river, waving at me...”

”...”

All three of them fell into simultaneous silence.

Their gazes drifted from the plate of golden-brown, crispy meatloaf on the table, and settled wordlessly upon a certain Goddess of Wisdom sitting across from them.

Athena avoided the eyes of Hestia, Circe, and Lorne alike, cleared her throat softly and slid a plate of green vegetables over to replace the meatloaf.

”Perhaps... Teacher Chiron is more accustomed to a vegetarian diet.”

”Oh, let me try...”

Chiron raised his hand mechanically, like a marionette responding to its strings, and delivered two slices of vegetables into his mouth.

Instantly, the centaur sage shuddered as though struck by lightning, his gaze growing even more vacant.

”Strange... Asclepius is saying he’s not over there anymore, and to come ba... THUD!”

He never finished the sentence.

Chiron could hold on no longer.

His eyes went dark, and he pitched face-first straight into his dinner plate.

”Hssss...”

Hestia and Circe watched this unfold, both drawing in a sharp, unified breath of horror.

The looks they turned on Athena were nothing short of terrified.

One bite and he was hallucinating the River Styx and waving spirits.

Two bites and the man was completely gone...

’Good heavens. Was this food, or was it poison?’

’Even actual poison doesn’t hit this hard, does it?!’

If they remembered correctly, Chiron was a divine being blessed with immortality.

When the future hero Heracles was chasing down a band of centaur outlaws, he accidentally wounded his own teacher, using the very arrows Chiron had once gifted him.

One of those arrows, soaked in the blood of the Lernaean Hydra, passed clean through a centaur bandit’s body and struck Chiron in the throat.

And yet, by virtue of his immortality, Chiron grimly weathered the Hydra’s venom, a poison that had killed countless Greek heroes, and gone on living, hale and vigorous, for a great long while.

It was only when the agony of that poison became truly unbearable that he voluntarily surrendered his immortality, and only then did he finally, definitively, laid down and died.

’He could withstand the venom of the Lernaean Hydra, and two bites of a vegetable dish put him flat on the floor?’

Lorne stared at Teacher Horse collapsed beside him, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

He immediately manufactured an expression of deep concern and moved to support him.

”Teacher Horse, hang in there! I’ll get you to treatment right away!”

”We’ll help too!”

Hestia and Circe rose to their feet as one, the very picture of warm-hearted generosity.

But before the three of them could haul Chiron up and make their escape from this chamber of horrors,

Athena’s palm came down on the table.

BANG!

With a dull, resonant impact, golden light patterns rippled outward across the surface.

The centaur who had just buried his face in his dinner plate jolted violently, then shot upright, stiff and mechanical, gazing blankly around the room.

”I... what happened to me?”

”A home visit,” Athena replied with a gentle smile.

”And then?”

”We’re... having dinner...” Lorne answered quietly, trying to jog Teacher Horse’ memory.

”Right, dinner!”

Chiron nodded earnestly, immediately scooped up his fork, speared several slices of green vegetables, and shoved them into his mouth again.

THUD.

Less than three seconds after waking up, the centaur sage face-planted back into his dinner plate.

”He’s probably full and wants to sleep. Let’s not disturb Teacher Chiron for now.”

Athena smiled serenely in explanation, then turned her gaze, full of expectation, toward the three survivors still remaining at the table.

”Now then. You all, try some of the food.”

”...”

The three of them went deathly silent, their hearts running cold, and unanimously began scooting their chairs backward.

Seeing everyone being so thoroughly uncooperative, the Goddess of Wisdom, who had personally stepped into the kitchen today, found her expression growing visibly strained.

”Fine, fine. None of you want to eat, is that it? If you don’t eat, then none of you are getting...”

”Something smells incredible! What is that?”

”You’re sneaking good food without telling us!”

At precisely the moment Athena was about to erupt, two small figures with purple fur, who had been passing through the corridor, stopped in their tracks and shoved the door open, thrusting their indignant little heads inside.

(End of Chapter)