ASTRIDES THE WARRIOR

Many battles ago, in the great city of Athens, there was an army of great fighters. One in particular: Astrides. He was one of their greatest fighters, respected by all. Everyone looked up to him, every single person in Athens wanted to be like him. No one was known not to want to be like Astrides.

He would do anything he could for his city: he would kill all the evil beasts, he would protect the civilians and would never forget to sacrifice offerings to the gods. They would give him good luck for the day. The gods he could never get off his mind were Athena and Ares: the war gods.

One day Astrides came across a man seeking help, for an evil beast had been eating his plants. Astrides felt bad for the man and went to his farm to check it out, when he got there he soon saw the hideous beast. But he stood by his word and helped the old man. The battle was long and hard but he soon defeated the monstrosity.

He got tired of helping people and not getting a reward as he had worked so hard to kill the beasts. Then a thought came to him: Why don’t I just charge them for each time I protect them?  And then he did. A few days later he was a very wealthy man and was bored, but then he looked around him and saw he was great at what he did and thought he was a god and never prayed or sacrificed offerings to the gods of Olympus.

The very next day Astrides went to have a meal and saw his fellow  warriors, one came up to him full of rage. There was blood splattered all over his armour, you could tell he had just come back from battle and hadn’t bothered to clean his armour. He was growling at Astrides: he was furious.

“Hah! You want an autograph from the god of war?” Astrides chuckled in the mans face.

“You’re a disgrace,” He puffed.

“You’re no god…”  He yelled, smashing a cup before leaving, Astrides just laughed at him and scoffed  his meal down.

A few weeks later he had  helped out a group of civilians but they refused to pay him, he then let it pass and had the same thing happen again. He got so angry that he lead the evil beasts into Athens to threaten the civilians that had not paid him after he had protected them.

Athena, the grey eyed goddess, was angry at what Astrides was doing and controlled the beasts to go and kill Astrides. Astrides was surprised by what was happening and knew Athena had taken her revenge. He remembered the old times when it was him killing the beasts not them killing him.