Last Notes of a Symphony || Song of Achilles Oneshots

2- Eternal Waters

Patroclus and Achilles, reunited in Death.

-'"But you, Patroclus," Achilles' voice drops to a mere whisper, as his body tilts nearer to my own. I smile softly at the way he speaks my name- unchanged, after all this time. Pat-ro-clus. Each syllable sharp, and deliberate. "You are all hero."

I lean into the touch, and for a while, we are just two boys- not heroes, not exiles, not princes- and we could be alive, and mortal again; by the banks of any Earthly river.'-

***

The banks of the Styx are black- a dark so complete it seems to swallow what little light clings desperately to its last, fraying threads of life down here- and they are warm. Strangely so. Like all the scolding heat that lurks beneath the flanks of some Earthly volcano; yet the caress of lava's touch cannot burn us. 

We, the both of us, are distantly aware of its embrace, but the fiery flames of it never surge up to lick at us. And so we sit, in a companionable silence that settles firmly but not unpleasantly over my soul- like a feather blanket after a bracing storm.

So had been all that was Earthly to us- a storm. 

The whirling of crescent-moon blades; the glint of a blazing sun on sweat-coated, gleaming armour- this had been our lightning. 

The pounding of the waves; the clawing, deafening screams of the dying and the victorious- this had been our thunder. 

Now, the sonorous roar of the sea has swept us up in a tsunami, and spat us out again, in this place of dark and fire and heat.

The tips of our toes are inches from brushing the surface of the water- where shadows swirl in the current- inches from shattering that dark mirror. 

But we do not dare touch it. 

Hands lie on the bank between us, fingers knitted with mine and knuckles brushing against a second set- one is pale, slender fingered and callused from gripping the damp leather of a hilt, from stringing a bow and plucking at a lyre- the other is bronze, and plumper, the pads soft and vulnerable like the paws of a keening puppy. This last is mine. 

I do not mind the difference between them; though I do notice it, as a well trained eye will notice most things, and toss away those of little importance. Both hands are similar in the most vital way; in that they both bare scars, and are cloaked in shards of our history. 

History is woven into every bone in our bodies. 

We are all made of history, now.

The curve of my neck cranes around to set eyes on my companion- eyes that never tire of drinking in the sight of him, of basking in the infrequent threads of contact strung between painted irises. 

Achilles' other hand, the one not clasped in mine, does not lie idle, as my own does. It juggles with the air, fingers flexing and stretching. I watch the lurking muscles beneath the surface of his skin shift, and then settle, with every sweep of his arm. My mind casts back like some blinded, fumbling fisherman, and seizes upon a memory.

A summer's day; the sun beating down on the backs of our necks; the earth crowing its youth as we did our own- for we are much grown now, than we are in my mind's eye. 

Achilles had been juggling figs, and laughing at how my eyes widened, pupils blowing out with awe as I watched, hypnotised by his simple movements. Whenever I attempted to mirror his tricks, the fruit was battered into sticky pieces on the stone flags- so that only the wild beasts would snap them up.

Perhaps this same shard of history is haunting him still, and it floods out of him and spurs his muscles to action. Though it is a sorry shade- a mere, pale ghost of what he once was. What we both were. But even what we once were- our once Earthly selves- is fading. Mortality seems like a distant dream- one of strange lands and bright lights and pleasant warmths. But it was so brief, so overwhelmingly insignificant.