※
“Jason. You...”
When they returned to the Argo ship with the bird taken from the old man Phineus and set sail again, Caineis was still standing quietly at the prow, staring blankly at Jason as he watched the sea with a sharp gaze.
He really was an extraordinary man, no matter how many times she thought about it.
At their first meeting, she had already known he was no ordinary person when he saw through her disguise, but what had truly astonished her was how he treated her after he officially discovered that she was disguised as a man.
Normally, children their age would expose the disguise to their other friends or ask her why she was doing it. Caineis could even say with certainty that she would have done the same.
But Jason had done neither. He hadn’t exposed her, either. He had simply treated her as he always did, without any distance at all.
When she could no longer suppress her curiosity and grabbed Jason to ask him about it, his answer left a deep impression on her.
“So what if you were disguising yourself as a man? So what if I found out you were a woman? That doesn’t make you not Caineis. You are you, [Caineis].”
At that moment, it felt as though lightning had struck her head. So that was it. Even if I disguise myself as a man, even if I use the alias Caineus, even if I play around with men, I am always still ‘me.’ I am always Caineis.
Because she knew from the start that Jason possessed a way of thinking completely unlike that of this Greece, she understood all too well that his words were not a sarcastic jab saying disguises were useless, but a sincere acknowledgment that even if she changed her appearance and her name, he was still looking straight at her as she was. His words were pure, unclouded truth.
“He’s an amazing one, isn’t he? Caineus.”
“Nestor, Peleus.”
While she was staring blankly at Jason, Nestor, who had entered Chiron’s tutelage around the same time as her, spoke to her. Beside Nestor stood Peleus, who always wore a gentle smile.
Even these two, who had spent more time with Jason than she had, had not noticed her true sex, yet he had seen through it at first glance and even learned her real name. Just how much discernment did he possess?
Of course, here it was because Jason’s possessed soul remembered all of that information, but a being of this world like Caineis had no way of knowing that.
“Yeah. That guy really is unusual.”
She turned her gaze back to Jason, then shifted it to Acastus, who was sending him fervent, admiring looks.
“That guy’s father was the one who sent Jason here, right?”
“Huh? Ah, yes, so I heard.”
When Peleus, also turning his gaze in the direction Caineis was looking, answered her question, her expression twisted slightly in displeasure.
“Honestly, I don’t understand why Jason accepted that guy as a member of the crew.”
“Well, Jason has always gone beyond what we think.”
He must have had some outrageous plan beyond our imagination, so he brought him aboard.
Nestor replied to Caineis’s complaint, as if recalling Jason’s reaction when Acastus had come before the expedition set out. He hadn’t heard what the two had said to each other, but he remembered Jason laughing loudly at the end.
Just then, Jason realized that Harpies were following him from far off in the sky, and he was climbing from the prow where he had been seated up to the mast.
And Heracles, Hylas, Iolaus, and Theseus watched him with reverence. They watched the man who gave precisely the right orders to everyone, the man whose speeches moved everyone’s hearts, the man who listened to everyone’s complaints and never missed an opportunity to resolve them, the man who, when members of the expedition made mistakes, pointed out those mistakes properly and grew cold with righteous anger.
And the man who nurtured the weak, who guided the strong—those who knew only how to wield power—so that they would use that power in the right direction.
“Jason had the aura of a strong man from the very beginning. Not just a strong man in terms of power, but one whose mind, soul, and body were all harmoniously strong.”
“Exactly. Even when I openly ignored him at first, he still came up to me instead. He showed me, back when I was only fixated on outward strength, what it meant to be someone with inner strength.”
It was probably something only Theseus and Heracles, who had watched Jason since he was a child, could truly understand. But even from the fragments Jason had shown aboard the ship and along the route, Hylas and Iolaus could understand enough.
And the Dioscuri siblings and the Boreads climbed to the top of the mast and watched Jason, who seemed to be summoning the Harpies, with expressions they could not quite put into words, clicking their tongues in admiration.
To think he could see not only beings in human form, but also beings in beastly form, as the same kind of life. They were certain that this would be difficult for even demigods like themselves, for humans without divine blood, and even for the gods above.
What the gods themselves found difficult and did not want to do, he did without a second thought, as if it were only natural—as if the ones who did not do it were the ones at fault.
“No matter how many times I see it, that guy is amazing in all sorts of ways.”
“He really is. It’s very difficult to treat even those kinds of beings without prejudice, and something no one wants to do.”
As the Dioscuri siblings clicked their tongues and shook their heads, the Boreads brothers called out to them.
“...You two have spent a long time with that man, so you must know a lot about him?”
“We know more than someone who doesn’t know him at all, at least.”
“We’ve known that man for a long time too, but we don’t know much about his personal life.”
Part of that was because they simply had no interest in such things and never asked, but Jason himself also never spoke about his private life, nor revealed anything about it at all.
Just...
“He was the first human I truly liked the moment we met, I suppose.”
When the Dioscuri siblings were young, the reason they played pranks on the children who came under Chiron was their own way of judging them.
A way of understanding a person’s nature by watching how they reacted to the prank.
But Jason was someone they did not need to test with pranks to understand. At first glance, just from the aura he gave off, they could tell he was a good person.
“Hmm, I see...”
“What are you curious about?”
“No, it’s just...”
““It feels like you’re making a prophecy under the name of prediction.””
At the Boreads brothers’ words, as if sensing something, the Dioscuri siblings’ expressions stiffened for a moment.
Asclepius and Atalanta looked at Jason with exasperation, while Orpheus and Meleager watched him as he gently stroked the Harpy wing extended toward him, with expressions that seemed to ask how a human could possibly be like that.
“Honestly, that guy... he doesn’t even know the feelings of a doctor worrying about his body, sigh.”
Whenever Asclepius looked at Jason—who stood at the very front to lead everyone, at the very back to support everyone, and in the very center to connect everyone—his heart would sink.
He moved more than any sailor, thought more than any crew member, and spoke more than any hero.
The way he did nothing but actions that would inevitably drain both physical and mental strength made Asclepius want to shout, as a doctor, that he must never do such things. No human body could possibly accomplish all of that.
And yet Jason did it. No, he went beyond simply doing it—he accomplished it perfectly.
At that moment, it felt to Asclepius as though lightning had struck his head. So even heroes with divine blood, and even he himself, found such things difficult, yet a mere human could do that. A human could achieve that much.
And yet, as a friend and as a doctor, he worried about Jason terribly. Because Jason was someone who had never once spoken about himself.
“That guy has always been like that. He’s the one who reaches out first to those cast aside by the group.”
When he sighed and spoke, Atalanta took over.
“That doesn’t mean he neglects his own people, either. He takes care of his own while drawing others in as well.”
That was Jason’s strength and his specialty. He and she alike, and everyone who had watched Jason since childhood, would surely agree.
People, monsters, beasts, demigods, beings who belonged somewhere and beings who did not. He had the ability to make them all end up belonging to him.
Those who hated Jason, those who found him unpleasant, those who felt uncomfortable around him, those who envied him, those who despised him. All of them were drawn into his sphere in the end.
Wasn’t it the same even now? Who could possibly treat that Harpy so familiarly? Even though she was a divine beast of Zeus.
As for Orpheus, he thought Jason was so astonishing that he could not help but marvel at how he was able to harmonize so many beings with nothing but his bare hands, when Orpheus himself could not unite everyone without his lyre.
Meleager, even though he had grown up in the same, or rather even better, environment than Jason, had no confidence that he could lead so many people, command so many heroes with such strong personalities, and make them all follow his orders in perfect unison.
As someone in the same position, Jason was like a teacher instructing him. As someone who would walk the same road, he was like a predecessor always one step ahead.
All the sailors followed him, admired him, and all the heroes looked up to him with reverence and awe.
Of course, as human beings, as living beings in this world, there were quite a few who felt resistance toward Jason. For bringing women into the expedition and onto the Argo ship as crew, and for repeatedly blocking their chances to satisfy their desires together during the long voyage, aboard ship, and on Lemnos Island.
But even these people did not object to Jason’s abilities. He was simply too outstanding. Too clearly, the truth of the present situation was visible in him.
And those who held such complaints could not force their way against Jason recklessly.
Because what he did was right. Because what he said was the correct doctrine.
Because they knew it all too well themselves.
They could not possibly raise any objection.
Above all, he was strong. He had shown himself capable of standing his ground even against Heracles, the man called a Great Hero, so no one could treat him lightly, and the fact that Heracles, the Great Hero whom they all revered as an idol, acknowledged Jason and sided with him also played a part.
Then, as if he had discovered something, Jason hurriedly sent the Harpies up into the sky and began descending quickly from the mast.
“Lower the sails! And everyone, get to your stations and prepare to row!!”
Before long, the sailors’ eyes also caught sight of the twin rock isles, the mouth of the strait leading into the Black Sea.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register