Chapter Text
You were running before you understood why.
It started with a few shouts of warning from the other side of the fields. Your chiton had been drawn to your knees, cinched high so you could navigate easily without the bristles of wheat catching on the wool of your skirts. With your scythe, you slashed through the waist-high wheat grass. It was harvest season. Though everyone in the village pretended to be overwhelmed with all the work needing to be done, the mood of all was high.
Even as the days grew shorter with winter approaching, the weather was pleasant. Mornings and evenings were cold, but the afternoons were sunny and warm. You were happy. As happy as a girl of nineteen in a small village could be.
But then there were a few shouts, far in the horizon.
The fields beyond your village stretch for two thousand paces. From where you stand, it is difficult to see anything except for fields and fields of rolling wheatgrass and barley. You put a hand to your forehead, but you can’t discern anything except for the heads of a dozen other women scattered in the fields around you. All are looking towards the sound of the shouting.
A few people at the periphery of the horizon scatter, running in your direction, and they are joined immediately by others. More from curiosity than skepticism, you stay in place. You see nothing yet. But the shouts become audible as the running villagers near you. They are waving for you to turn and flee, too.
“Greeks!”
You run.
Though you aren’t a good fighter, you keep your scythe in hand, in case you’ll need a weapon. You run awkwardly, though, with your cinched chiton confining your knees and bulky scythe weighing you down. You quickly fall behind the other women fleeing the onslaught of soldiers.
Even as you run, you hear how the shouts of warning are replaced by the shouts of men fighting.
Your village has been spared any trouble from the Greek invasion, but it’s not a half-day’s journey from the beaches where the enemy ships landed. If they are sieging the great city of Troy, they’ll soon run low on supplies. And with desperate armies come raiders.
Over nighttime firelight, the men have planned for weeks how they might resist or fight back against any soldiers who come to loot their livestock and feedstores.
But your people are farmers, not fighters. They have no weapons nor military skill. Though the most overconfident of the village men try to boast of their strength and mettle, it’s obvious that any attackers will have the advantage.
Still clutching your scythe, you are running at full speed when you hear the sound of horses scattering the wheat behind you. Whoever these soldiers are, they’re faster and more prepared than you are.
Your lungs and legs ache from running so hard and fast, and you can’t move any further. A hearty worker, you can stand in the hot sun all day, but you are not built for sprinting.
You turn to fight back, raising your scythe to cut down a marauder as you would cut down any fields of wheat. The rider on horseback is before you, though, perhaps fifty paces away and gaining fast. Around him, dozens of other foreign raiders are shouting to one another.
Standing firm, you try to focus, holding aloft your weapon like a pikeman facing down a charging army. Your hands are shaking from nerves, but you try to be brave.
But you’re too distracted to notice the other men who have dismounted, fighting hand-to-hand with some defending men of the village.
One of them grabs you from behind, effortlessly wrestling the makeshift weapon from your hands and tackling you to the ground. Pushing your face down with one hand, he grabs your weapon and tosses it away. It disappears somewhere into the tall fields. Even with his weight atop you, you kick your legs underneath him, flail your hands, but he is easily twice your size. He is a sturdy warrior, a hulking man.
For a naïve minute you think that if you show your docility and quiet the thrashing of your body, then surely he’ll let you go. Perhaps he’ll understand that you’re no threat—just a peasant farmer.
But as you subdue your protesting limbs, you only feel him tighten his grip. His breath is heavy and hot against your neck as he holds you in place, his legs clenched around your back. He is sitting atop you, refusing to let you up.
With his free hand, he fumbles for your hitched chiton, tugging it higher to expose you fully. He pushes your head down, and you feel yourself practically inhaling the silt of the ground underneath.
Your eyes widen as you understand what he has planned. Perhaps he’s a gentleman in his home country, but the Greeks see your women as little more than whores for their taking. He’ll do as he pleases with you; he’ll use your body with abandon.
But then there is a rustling, the sound of a shouted conversation, and the man’s weight suddenly lifts off you as he stands up.
Perhaps the people of your village repelled the attackers or perhaps he’s been punished by some superior. Is it possible that some kindness exists among even these invaders?
Still laying, you roll over on the ground and look up to see your savior. Be him a Greek or an Anatolian, you’d be grateful enough to offer a thanks.
The men are arguing, both of them Greek. You don’t understand their language, but the tone is an unmistakable lecture. Neither looks at you, but one of them finally grumbles and departs.
You lock eyes with the new arrival. He is dressed finely, his linen tunic and breastplate are fashioned well. Nobility of some sort is obvious. He has removed his helmet, so you can see his face fully. He is perhaps a decade your senior, and he has a small beard under a clever mouth. Perhaps if he wasn’t your enemy, he’d be handsome.
His lips part as he sees you, as though he’s a starving man sitting newly before a feast. There is a look on his face which you have never before seen anybody wear, and he blanches as though he stands before some ghost. He is holding a sword in his hand, and he sheaths it without taking his gaze away from you.
You haven’t moved from your spot, and you are still splayed on the wheatfields with your chiton hitched around your waist. You pull it down to cover yourself. Perhaps you should be embarrassed, but your heart is still pounding with energy and chaos. You want to thank him for his help—thank him for saving you—but you don’t know the words.
But then he moves down, kneels before you. His eyes are frantic.
Moving like a madman, he tackles you. His armor is against your chest, and his sheath clangs at your sides. Pinning you down, he forces his lips against yours and kisses you like he’s drinking of your very essence. You try to scream, but his mouth mashes so tightly that only your low grunts of protest are audible. He forces his tongue between your lips, between your teeth. His eyes are closed, like he imagines something.
You try to fight, but he holds tight hands against your wrists to push you down. His waist is against yours, and you feel him harden, feel the length of the cock which now pushes against the fabric of your chiton.
He reaches his hands down in order to pull your skirts up higher. You try to keep your legs closed, but he puts a heavy palm in between your thighs and wrenches your them open. In your mouth, you feel his breath catch as he drags a finger across your soft flesh. He pulls his lips away, panting. He gasps against your neck.
Eyes closed, he groans as he says a word, a name. "Penelope."
You don’t recognize it. He’s obviously lost in his past somewhere.
You try to push him away, your hands reaching to his plated chest as though to slap him. But he is armored and invulnerable against all attackers—even women whom he has seized in fields. The protesting punches of your hands do nothing but hurt your own wrists
He spits in his hand, brings it down, shoves two hard fingers inside you.
You try to kick him, but he only seizes the opportunity to spread your legs wider, to open you for the greedy head of his thick cock.
And then you feel the invasion, the pressure of that hardness which has pressed against you as though in warning. He groans as he enters you. You are only half-slicked with his spit, and he is struggling against your body's momentary resistance. He thrusts hard to fully push himself in, not relenting even with your gasps of surprised pain.
You let out a cry, which is no longer muffled by his lips. Audible around you, you suddenly become aware of the sound of dozens of cries from women being taken in the fields. Atop them, dozens of soldiers who grunt, groan, moan. Men rutting away their frustrations, taking the spoils of war in the Anatolian wheatgrass.
You’ve had lovers before. Young village boys who courted you awkwardly and then came after only a few nervous seconds of thrusting. They were mediocre bedmates; there was no nuance to them.
But they were inexperienced youth. You’ve never been taken by a man before. And certainly never a man who looked at you with such desperation.
He is raw. His pounding is heavy, needy, eager. His cock is thick, and it spreads you open. Tears of indignity crinkle at the edges of your eyes. You’ve never been fucked like this before. Against the flesh of your neck, he is grunting—the sound is something guttural and desperate. An animal with an animal’s urges.
Even if you know it won’t do any good, you let out another cry. This man is taking away your will, stripping you of your autonomy, violating you in the most debasing manner.
But even as he holds open your legs, fucks himself hard into you, there is an animalistic want to him, something that transcends the physical. He is needy for you. Not just for a body into which he can thrust himself—he is needy for you.
His breath comes shallow now, even as his cock enters you harder and deeper. Your body aches, used with little preparation and now being fucked with unrelenting pounding and sheer desperation.
He comes inside you with a final thrust, so heavy that it shakes you. Finally, his cock slows its attack. You feel his come leaking from inside, spilling down your thighs as he pulls out of you. The pressure of him leaves you aching, your body no longer clenched tightly around him.
His hand parts from your thighs; they’ve clutched your flesh so tightly that you’ll certainly find bruises there tomorrow.
Pulling away, he stands and looks down at you.
You think he’s done with you, that he’ll leave you now so he can finish with his conquest of your territory.
But instead, moving with the deft strength of a warrior, he reaches down to hoist you over your shoulder. He is strong, carrying you like you weigh no more than a heavy sack.
You aren’t going to be free. He intends to take you with him.