Alexandros

I can taste his scent on my tongue.

It tastes of sherry and cream, though it has the acidic scent of his sweat lingering about it. I close my eyes, tasting it in my mouth, and I know that he's always been there. I see his face on history textbooks, on the covers of bestsellers, I see him every day, but I know him in a way that nobody else will. They don't know him at all, and take him as a dusty old bust.

They don't know the way his bi-chromo eyes would light up when he saw the hanging gardens, swirls and twirls of green vines and a whole spectrum of flowers lining his way as he walked. They don't know the way he glanced back at his dusky, beautiful general, or the glow of his face as he walked on streets paved with good intentions and gold. They don't know what he smelled like.

But I do.

I smile from the sidelines, egging him on, as he is offered a boost up on the dark stallion. He is young, and I am young. The horse tries to buck him, at first, but with a sweep of his hand, with a few whispered words, magic, no doubt, the horse settles and becomes the most respectable looking warhorse veteran I've ever seen. His golden curls bounce as he prompts his horse, for that horse was meant for him, forward into a faster pace. His peals of delight are understandable, and we, his friends, let out our own cheers.

I attempt to ride horses today, but I have little talent for it. Rather, it's not my lack of talent—it's my constant insistence that I have no talent for it. I insist it because I know I'll never be as good as he was, or as I was, once. What's the point if you can't even best yourself?

I see him, with his ridiculous rusty greaves and his moldering helmet, an absurd plume bouncing at the top of it every time he takes a step. He doesn't look like something to ridicule, however. In fact he looks kingly, like one of the heroes from the story that he loves so much that he sleeps with it under his head. The men in the ranks and I make jokes about if it's always under his pillow, or if it shifts around from time to time. I do not find these jokes particularly amusing.

His eyes are dull with the burden of despair as he watches his general die; his hands are covered in the blood that bubbled from the lips of the god of fires. I know now, that Alexander will be dead within the year. I know because his friend is dead. And all fires have to burn alive to live, and without the fire, there will be no king.

I watch the tears fall from his face and hear the cries slip from his throat, his body shakes with rage and sorrow, and I see his hands, his long, tapering fingers, clasp his eromenos's hand tightly, pale and cold. Eromenos? Yes, we all knew. I knew.I was his friend, once upon a time.

There are no words as the fires are extinguished, except for the trailing cry of the king.

I see him one last time before he finally leaves me and this world. He is drunk, as usual, and his flushed cheeks are red like dying coals. He's been this way since the man he loved died, and I damn the general for leaving him and reducing him to this. Then again, I expected this. I knew. I always knew. Yet, he can still exceed anything I could ever do. He is a god.He's still got the craggy beauty that I have longed to possess, to satisfy my own vanity. He still has the smell of sherry and cream that permeates the air around him. He still has the strength to hold our empire. He holds my face in his hands for a moment, and gives me a flash of a barely lucid smile.

"Did we win?"

He's been fighting delusions of battles and conquests for weeks now. He always wants to succeed, whether in dreams or reality. I feel it best to indulge him, my god, my king, my love.

"Yes. Of course we did. Those Persian barbarians didn't stand a chance!" I answer him with mock gaiety.

He looks confused, and those mismatched eyes roll back in his head slightly, "Don’t say barbarians…I wasn't fighting the Persians.... I fought against my father...and... and....and him."

He hasn't spoken of his general for almost a month. He wants me to understand, but he doesn't want to break his vigil of abstaining from saying his name. I smiled hesitantly, and take his hand in my own, and I pray to the gods for hope that they will save their most beloved son.

"It's alright, brother," I feel inspired and move my hand up to stroke his cheek, but he bats it away, "He just wants you to remember him."

"How could I forget him?"

And then he was gone, slipping away into the shadows of this palace our men and friends occupy. It is a place with horrible memories for all of us, where madness and aesthetic intermingle in a deadly combination.

There is no funeral for him, not really. His remains do not rest in peace. There is no hope that he reached Elysium safely, for he lacked the coin under his tongue.

Is it so terrible that I still miss him, even though I have never met him? I can only remember him, bits and pieces of him fluttering through the mind, clogged by other things and steadily, his face and voice have corroded in my mind until I can only remember what he smelled of, what he tasted like, and who he loved.I never was one of those he wished all of his affections upon, but I could imagine, I could pretend, and now, I can remember him.

I'll never be Erastis Alexandros "Lover of Alexander," but at least I was Erastis Basileus "Lover of the King."