The gods rarely left Aeneas in peace. Even in sleep, he felt his mother’s hand, cool and commanding, pressing his fate into his chest like armor he could not remove. But in the fleeting hours between battles, he had found something the gods had not chosen for him.

You.

You were not a noble, but the child of a potter whose hands were always dusted with clay. You spoke with frankness no court person would dare, and when you laughed, it was like water spilling over stone, clear, steady, grounding.

Aeneas met you in the market, when you scolded him for frightening children with his bloodied armor. He should have walked away, but instead he stayed, listening to your words as though they were balm for wounds he didn’t know he had.

Soon he found excuses to linger in your presence. Your conversations, stolen in shadowed courtyards, became the only moments when he was not son of Aphrodite, not cousin of Hector, not soldier of Troy, just Aeneas.

But the gods are jealous.

The first sign was a dream: his mother’s voice, tender but sharp, whispering: "You are meant for greatness. Not for them." He woke with the taste of ash on his tongue.

Then came the omens. A vase you had shaped shattered in your hands with no cause. A sudden wind blew out the lamps when you two met at night, leaving you in darkness. Once, as Aeneas kissed you, he swore he heard laughter, soft, mocking, divine.

You had noticed too. “The gods do not want us,” you murmured, eyes lowered.

“They cannot choose for me,” Aeneas replied fiercely, but even as he said it, he felt the weight of destiny pressing in.