Medea near the flames, this man and all others flickering presences with no single shape but shifting, leering closer and vanishing and appearing again, enormous and shrunken. The man won’t fall, remains on his feet as he’s shaken. There could be no end to this odd dance, so Jason lets go and the man turns and totters off toward his own people.

Smell of blood and viscera. A man smashed in his midsection by the war hammer, burst and flattened unnaturally, crawling away.

Some gathering, a surge. A dozen men charge, led by their king in a golden helmet. For a moment Medea thinks it is her father after all, but the mask is different, the body younger, as if her father could go back in time. This other sun king leaps toward the bear-man and is caught on a spear, lifted, dangling in the air for a moment, impossible shape, Jason knelt on the ground at the shaft. A king in flight, rising in a small arc like a minor sun, then collapsing to the ground, mask fallen away.

Jason yells. Cyzicus. A name. He yells it again, and all men stop. I am Jason of Iolcus, he shouts.

All men come closer, gathering around the fallen king. Jason become his nursemaid, kneeling at his side, and it’s clear they were friends. A mistaken attack.

Lament. Groans and rising into more, into howls, Jason more distraught than any other. Weeping and sounds up high as if there were women here, all spears and shields dropped to the ground, every man on his knees. So strange, that slaughter is fine as long as the men haven’t met before.

Medea not mourning with the others. Still crouched by the fire behind her shield, wondering at the stupidity of men, outraged. But she holds herself back, says nothing, does nothing. Even she knows not to interfere at the death of a king.

They need to remove the spear, but they don’t want to hurt the body. Weeping and arguing at the same time, turning his body on its side and working the shaft through, twisting and trying not to harm, but some of the men seem to think he might still be alive. Impossible, with a spear through his chest and all his blood gone, bone crushed, but they hate that there should be any discomfort. Other men groaning in the dust and pine needles, bleeding and dying, and no one helps them, because they aren’t kings. The one with his midsection smashed and leaking still crawls toward some unnamed destination farther out in the trees, some fountain or spring perhaps, some rumored well. Who can say what the mind becomes when the body is crushed and maimed and lost? The dancer with the ax in his neck has wandered off to his own promised place.