[Haiku]

Hands shake as I hold

A future lost to shadows

"I'm just a man," I plead

So...

Zeus wanted the boy dead. The infant. The one the prophecy said would grow up to destroy everything we'd fought for.

And he wanted me to do it.

I remember standing there, looking down at this tiny, helpless thing. He didn't know who I was. Didn't know his father had died by my sword, that his city was burning because of a horse I built. He just... looked at me. Like I was supposed to protect him.

And I thought about my son. Telemachus. Barely a year old. Waiting for me at home with Penelope.

What kind of father would I be if I killed another man's child?

What kind of king would I be if I didn't?

I begged the heavens. I asked them — what makes a man? Is it mercy? Is it strength? Is it doing what's necessary, even when it tears you apart inside?

They didn't answer.

They never do.

Let me show you what it felt like.

---

[Haiku]

Hands shake as I hold

A future lost to shadows

"I'm just a man," I plead

---

That's what I told myself. I'm just a man.

Not a monster. Not a god. Just a man trying to get home to his family.

But here's the thing about choices — they don't disappear once you make them. They follow you. They haunt you. They crawl under your skin and whisper to you in the dark.

I dropped the boy from the walls.

And I told myself it was fate.

I told myself the gods made me do it.

I told myself I was just a man.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, a question was already forming — one I wouldn't be able to answer for a very long time:

If you do something monstrous... does it make you a monster?

Poseidon seemed to think so.

And he was about to make sure I never forgot it.

Epic the musical: The TROJAN SAGA.