#would kyra be seen as a criminal or a hero for killing deimos?

[semperintrepida]

spartanrenegade on AO3 asked an intriguing question regarding the events in chapter 13 of The Breaking. To paraphrase:

What if Kyra's arrow actually killed Deimos during her demonstration of loyalty? What would Kyra do then?

It's an AU of my AU! And after I got done cackling over the mental image of Deimos being brought to such an abrupt end, I started giving it some thought.

What follows is a rough narrative summary of how this story would go if Kyra killed Deimos right then and there. (Writing a narrative summary, aka narrative outline or plot treatment, lets you sketch out ideas without fully committing to them. It's also helpful when you're stuck in a narrative and need to explore ways to get un-stuck!)

~~

Deimos is dead. The reality of it takes a while to set in, shock giving way to a creeping sense of elation. "Some god you turned out to be." Deimos is dead, but Kyra doesn't want to stick around for the aftermath. Rejoicing can wait.

Kyra relieves dearly departed Deimos of her coin purse and belt-knife, gathers the bow and the quivers of arrows, and returns to Epiphron. Kyra knows little of this part of Attika, but she knows which way is Athens, and once her gear is secured to Epiphron's saddle, she rides away from the city, further into the hills.

She spends the next several days hidden high among the scrub oaks, hunting for food, a huntress in her element. Far below, she can see a major road, and she spends plenty of time watching squads of soldiers come and go. Deimos's disappearance has been noticed.

Kyra herself notices a number of travel-worn pilgrims journeying on the road. There's a sanctuary nearby, and that gives her a course of action. She continues following the road from above, and when she comes across an estate with a farm and olive grove, she trades Epiphron and her cloak for drachmae and a new himation. Time to play a new role.

Falling in with a group of well-dressed pilgrims, Kyra spins a tale of a runaway horse and being separated from her party. Thanks to her time in Athens, she makes a convincing highborn woman—even when the group of pilgrims encounters a troop of soldiers asking questions.

The sanctuary up ahead is Elusis: home of the great Mysteries. (Lots of opportunity for resonance here: the Elusinian cult is one of Persephone and Demeter.) Upon arriving, Kyra becomes an initiate, and is now safe as long as she remains on the sanctuary grounds. However, there's a complication: those with blood-guilt are forbidden from becoming initiates, and now Kyra finds herself having to live another lie, this time before the gods themselves.

The climax of this sequence is Kyra's participation in the Mystery's rituals, when she must face her guilt head-on. (For such a small body, she holds a lot of guilt, so, so much guilt.)

She leaves the sanctuary. She travels to the port city of Nisaia in Megaris, where she sells the adamantine necklace for a small fortune in drachmae. And with that fortune, she buys passage on a merchant ship headed for Mykonos, and home, and a chance to rebuild her life...