Achilles, Achilles, Achilles come down // DNF (dreamnotfound)

Today of all days see - part 1

This is not a love story.

Reducing it to only a love story would make it lose its essence and fail to grasp its importance.

It is, in fact, a story about love. A love so strong that it built countries, destroyed cities and then rebuilt them. A love that has no name, that fails to fall into any of the existent definitions of the term. Not romantic, but nor platonic.

This is a story about a god who lost everything that ever represented his own self just to gain everything that would represent his new self. A god who fell for innocence, foolishness, small hands and red mushrooms, and traded everything for them.

This was before names had a meaning or a reason. This was when happiness came in form of a human picking poisonous mushrooms by the side of a path covered in white and purple heathers, mushrooms so poisonous that could kill a horse and all it would take was a small bite. And while he would pick them, a god hidden in a tree would do wonders by separating the poison from the mushrooms while giggling whenever he saw the man coming back again and again.

It didn't start with fireworks or beautiful songs played on the background. Nor did it start under the beautiful night sky filled with so many stars that one could just wonder if that was how infinity looked like. No, it was nothing spectacular. Better said, it was anything but spectacular. It was as mundane as this kind of story could be, so mundane and yet so extraordinary.

One day, carrying with him nothing but a basket, a human stepped under a tree. He lied down on the green grass and closed his eyes. Through the deep shadow of the tree, rays of light were gently touching his body here and there.

It was such a unique image that even the god of dreams, while being on a branch of that very tree, had to take a small grasp of air and hold his breath as to not disturb the human.

The god felt like he was intruding on someone else's peace, but he found himself in a position where he could do nothing but gaze at the human. He didn't want to disturb him, but at the same time he couldn't imagine leaving.

He would normally avoid humans as much as possible. They found importance in everything, yet they failed to understand what life truly meant. They were doomed to live a life as short as a bush of flowers, but in their stupidity they still tried to make the best out of it. Humans were beautiful, but beauty was dangerous, beauty could make a god lose their mind and, eventually, lose everything.

But this human seemed different. He placed with unusual care his basket between the branching roots of the tree, humming a little song. He rested his head on the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes.

A strange feeling warmed the god's chest. A feeling that was hard to name and even harder to describe in simple words. He felt that way before, it was when the goddess of life created roses eons before. Upon seeing those colorful roses and filling his lungs with their calming scent he felt like he belonged there, kneeing in the mud smelling the flowers for an eternity and even more. A new-found feeling arose in his very soul, the desperate need to protect the bushes. Unlike him, they were bound to die like everything surrounding him. He was trapped into immortality's cage while every mundane yet beautiful thing he loved was bound to wither away and be forgotten.

That's what he felt when he looked at that human. The sadness of losing him who was yet to be his.

And what could damage the soul more than knowing that mere feelings, no matter how great they seem, are not enough to keep someone alive forever?

That thought crippled his soul and hurt his heart. But he still refused to cease his gazing as his fascination was bigger than his fears.

He thought for a short moment if he wanted that human to be his new bush of roses. For some strange reasons that even he couldn't understand, his soul was yearning for it.

His eyes followed the human's every move. If possible, he wanted to remember everything, from the way he frowned when the light was too strong to the way he played with the dust underneath his feet. Somehow that human reminded him of himself when he was still in love with every single thing that existed, before that bush of roses withered away.

The god watched the human till the sun begun to set, painting the sky in beautiful shades of yellow and orange. The human rose from his place, gently patted the tree's roots and left.

The following days the human came back, sat under the cooling shadow of the tree and rested till it was time for the sun to set. And every single day, without fail, the god would be there, up in the tree, spying on that human.

One day, while the human was deeply asleep, the god of dreams wanted to do the only thing he swore he wouldn't, he wanted to climb down from his tree and take a closer look at the human's face.

If he was careful enough, the human would never find out about this incident. If he was careful enough, the human would never be aware of the existence of gods. If he was careful enough, the human would never know that there was a god who was fascinated by his very own existence, a god who wanted to befriend him. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

For the first time, he climbed down from the tree in the presence of the human. He knew that if he took a closer look at the human's face, he would never be able to escape the cobweb of yearning to be close to him, to talk to him.

His feet took him towards the human, but his brain said no. He took another step towards the human, he could see his body and his mouth, the rest of his face being covered by the trunk of the tree.

Then, suddenly, he turned back and walked away.

He heard a little noise from behind, maybe it was a squirrel or the wind brushing the leaves.

"Who are you?" he heard a confused voice.

He froze. He was unable to move even the tiniest muscle from his body. Even breathing alone felt like fire.

"Who are you?" the voice asked once again, a little louder.

°°°
As the chapter was way too long, I had to make some changes and post it in 3 parts. This way is easier to keep track to what's going on.

Thank you for reading ans I hope it's not that bad written.

You can also find this work on ao3 (username: longing_for_angst)