Chapter 4: Realization and Training(1)

The suprising horror of realizing his name was Helenos—the male version of the woman who launched the biggest, most expensive boat party in history—lasted exactly three days.

The moment the truth clicked—that he was stuck in the mythical, bronze-age version of Ancient Greece, and his face was the main geopolitical asset—Dodo’s brain short-circuited.

He spent seventy-two (or at least he thought it was seventy-two) hours staring at the marble floor, completely silent. Leda thought he was meditating on his divine heritage. Clytemnestra thought he was finally learning to be a man.

I am not meditating, Dodo internally raged, still seven years old but with the frustration of a man who just lost a decade's worth of hard work. I am trying to find the ‘Exit to Main Menu’ button, which appears to be missing from this entire reality.

***

Leda was usually found near her desk, stressing over scrolls that smelled faintly of goat cheese and bad governance. He would approach her when she was deep in concentration.

One afternoon, Leda was arguing with Elara about grain stores. She pinched the bridge of her nose. The air around her was tight with worry.

Helenos walked up. He did not speak. He simply put his small hands on Leda’s shoulders and leaned his full weight onto her.

Leda gasped. She stiffened completely, unused to unplanned contact. "Helenos. What is this?"

He did not answer. He just held the hug. He rubbed his cheek against the heavy gold embroidery of her tunic.

Leda stayed rigid for maybe ten seconds. Then, slowly, her shoulders dropped. She put one hand on his back and squeezed. It was a firm, desperate squeeze.

"You are worried, Mother," Helenos said, using the exact soft, comforting tone he had heard in old family dramas. "Worry is bad for your ruling focus."

Leda’s eyes welled up. "I'm worried about everything, my son."

"Worry is useless," Helenos declared, quoting a loading screen tip from an old Dating Sim. Just hug me. It’s a known stress reliever. System, write that down. ‘Helenos Hug Protocol.’

Elara, standing nearby, blinked once. Leda, however, chuckled. A small, dry, stressed sound, but a chuckle.

"You're too cute," Leda murmured, kissing his hair. "A boy of your importance should not act that way."

***

He replaced his polite silence with noise. He would chase the dogs in the courtyard, forcing Leda to scream for the guards to retrieve him before he got "dirty." He would ask deliberately ignorant questions about statecraft, proving he was useless as a political advisor.

Leda threw her hands up in frustration. "Oh, the gods give me strength! You must be quiet! Stop acting like an ignorant peasant! You are a prince!"

But the anger never lasted. It was always followed by that soft, protective squeeze. His incompetence, Dodo thought, made her protective instinct flare, cementing her bond to him as a flawed but beloved family member, not a perfect, disposable asset.

Clytemnestra, at ten, was a problem of a different nature. Her love was possessive. She wanted him perfect, preserved, and hers. Physical contact was a violation of her vigilant control.

Helenos found her in her favorite spot: a quiet, shadowed window alcove where she practiced knot work with thick rope, likely planning future escape routes or elaborate traps. She was always focused, her energy coiled tight.

He approached her quietly. He had rehearsed the action. No hesitation.

He walked up and delivered a full-body, unannounced hug, wrapping his small arms around her waist and resting his head on her tunic.

Clytemnestra froze instantly. The heavy rope dropped from her hands onto the stone floor with a dull thud. Her entire spine locked. She inhaled sharply and held the breath.

"Helenos. What are you doing?" she asked, her voice low and tense, a note of actual panic in it.

"Hugging," he replied simply, rubbing his cheek against her tunic. "It’s good for preventing stress fractures, Clyt. And for, you know, being good siblings."

He stayed there. Unmoving. Waiting. He knew this was the most high-risk action in the entire plan. Clytemnestra could react with violence, with panic, or with retreat.

She did none of the above. She remained motionless for a long, agonizing minute. Then, slowly, tentatively, she shifted one arm. She placed her hand on his back. Her fingers trembled slightly before gripping the fabric of his tunic.

It was awkward.

"My name is Clytemnestra," she whispered, a command that lacked its usual force. "Do not call me Clyt."

"But Clyt is easy," Helenos argued, pulling away with a bright, satisfied smile.

She didn’t lock me in a chest.

He began using the nickname constantly.

"Clyt, why are those visiting women staring at me like I owe them money?"

"Clyt, the bread is terrible today. Can you talk to the kitchen staff?"

He replaced his earlier, quiet obedience with constant, light harassment, all disguised as familial love. He was attempting to normalize their relationship, pulling it out of the sacred space of "asset preservation" and into the mundane world of "annoying siblings."

His goal was to prove he was a complex, irritating brother, too much trouble and too closely bonded to be shipped off in a diplomatic pouch.

The plan was working. He was no longer a beautiful trophy in the eyes of his family; he was a liability who required constant management, yet provided high emotional returns.

Then, the outside world intruded. The very threat his new role was designed to stop.

A messenger arrived from the formidable Queen Hippolyte of Elis. Hippolyte, a major power, sent a scroll written on tanned hide. Leda received it in the central receiving hall. Helenos, supposed to be in his study enduring a useless lesson on constellations, hovered near the columns. Clytemnestra stood guard, her arms crossed, her eyes narrowed.

Leda read the scroll quickly. Her face lost its color.

"The audacity," Leda hissed, crumpling the parchment in her hand. "She offers a significant price. Thirty warships and a lifetime supply of Corinthian bronze. In exchange for… our son."

Clytemnestra gasped. She moved instantly to Leda’s side. "Mother, no! She cannot have him! He is ours!"

"She frames it as an alliance," Leda said, her voice shaking. "She claims Helenos would be honored as the ultimate consort in her court. She says his face would solidify a dynasty."

Clytemnestra grabbed Leda’s arm. "You cannot even consider this! If you trade him, she will rule the seas, and we will be nothing! He is our power! Our only source of future claim!"

The argument was sharp, desperate, and loud. Helenos watched, his internal Dodo screaming: Abort! Abort! The transaction is pending!

He had to disrupt the negotiation. He had to remind them that he was a person, not a price tag. But he had to do it without sounding intelligent or aware of the stakes.

Helenos walked slowly toward them, dragging a long, heavy tapestry tassel behind him.

"Mother? Clyt?" he asked, tilting his head with a practiced, innocent confusion. "What is a 'warship'? Is that a kind of really, really big, slow boat?"

Leda stopped arguing. She turned to Helenos, her face a mask of exhausted exasperation. "Helenos... Ha... they are large boats with sharp points."

"Oh," Helenos continued, his voice perfectly guileless. "Are the sharp points easy to fall off of? I hate falling off things. And the bronze. What is the bronze for? Can I use the bronze to build a really big, complicated mud oven?"

Clytemnestra stared at him, her possessive fury momentarily replaced by raw bewilderment. He was making them look ridiculous.

Leda sighed, a sound of profound surrender. She looked from the priceless perfection of her son’s face to the embarrassing idiocy of his question. Thirty warships were a great price. But the idea of explaining him—of having the Queen of Elis discover that the ultimate prize was mostly obsessed with building a mud oven—was simply too much.

"Elara," Leda commanded, throwing the crumpled scroll onto the floor. "Tell the Queen’s messenger that the arrangement is not suitable. Tell her the prince is… too young for alliance. And tell her that he requires constant, specialized attention."

Leda took Helenos’s hand and led him away. Her grip was firm, but her touch was now protective in a more familial way. She saw him less as an asset and more as an adorable, irritating problem that only she could manage.

The constant performance was exhausting. He hated having to pretend he didn't know the difference between a siege engine and a garden hoe. He hated that Clytemnestra could realize his "cuteness" was a carefully crafted lie.

But the act was working. His persistent, slightly moronic charm was creating an internal parental protection.

They were starting to see him as theirs, not just as the prize. He was convinced he could use sheer, stubborn, deliberate idiocy to rewrite the myth.

.