Achilles, son of Peleus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heelies) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
epidemiology2016-10-03 10:31 pm
heelies) wrote in epidemiology2016-10-03 10:31 pm
( semi-closed )
CHARACTERS: Achilles and pals
DATE: Shorty after arriving in Perdition's Rest
WARNINGS: Homeric levels of violence and gratuitous man muscles
SUMMARY: Miscellaneous adventures in the days following the crew's arrival. Subjects range from shopping for pants to flaunting gently used sexy clothing to slaughtering bandits.
[Assorted closed threads shall follow. PM me if you wish to plot together!]
DATE: Shorty after arriving in Perdition's Rest
WARNINGS: Homeric levels of violence and gratuitous man muscles
SUMMARY: Miscellaneous adventures in the days following the crew's arrival. Subjects range from shopping for pants to flaunting gently used sexy clothing to slaughtering bandits.
[Assorted closed threads shall follow. PM me if you wish to plot together!]
no subject
where his body gains strength, hers seem zapped of it. she crumples over his form, much lower on the ground than her but still so much larger, so imposing still even covered in his own blood. she recalls how he had looked, curled on his side and hiding behind his shield. he had looked so small, so far away, and the memory of it alone chills her heart.
with her head pressed over his chest, she cries until her shoulders can no longer shake, and her throat burns around each sound. by then, her tears have mingled with his blood to soak through his tunic, smudging the streaks left behind on her cheek where his hand had touched her. she is left gasping for air, feeling it burn in her chest like her fear had, not so long ago. ]
Please, [ she finally gasps out, and her tongue stutters around the words as if in fear of actually voicing them, ] please never do that again...
no subject
As Olivia clings to him, soaking his chest with her tears as the rain would soak the parched earth, he feels weak as he has so rarely felt before. Yet the chilled grip of this feeling he does remember. He had felt it as he watched Deidamia push their son into the world, as he hovered at the nurse's side utterly helpless to quiet the cries clawing from his lover's throat, to lift the burden he had forced upon her. The burden of a life so delicate and small in his hands was one for which he was not prepared, and for the first time in his life he had been terrified.
He had felt it too when Patroclus' body was brought to his hut, the flesh and features so dear to him ruined because of his own unbridled pride, the life he so loved wasted because he would not raise his splendid spear in battle. For all his strength, this too he could not undo: he could only sob over his companion's cold body and pour ashes over his own golden curls, so sure that there remained no beauty in the world.
On the night Neoptolemus was born he had begun to feel trapped by his life upon steep Scyros, and in him burned brighter the desire to win glory, the need to bear proudly his noble name. On the night he lost Patroclus his grief had fed the flames of his fury and whet his hunger for revenge. Now as then, from the disquiet for this weakness that weighs his limbs grows his anger.
His hands withdraw from Olivia's back as he purposes to sit up, his muscles slow for still his body remembers its countless aches and it begs for rest. For this effort he cannot help but grimace.]
It shall not happen again...never again shall you weep over me as you do now.
[In the billowing smoke of his rage he forgets that this is a promise he cannot keep, for he knows that his fate cannot be deferred forever more. Yet his words continue, each one hard and bitter even as his hands gently surround Olivia's.]
For when next I see black-hearted Koltira, I shall challenge him to single combat. He shall not again take me by surprise with tactics so dishonorable, the foul tricks of a coward. By dint of my spear I shall rend his flesh as he has rent mine - I shall repay him in equal measure for the suffering he has caused me, but the death blow I shall not spare him. This fiend has robbed me of my pride, and I shall not be satisfied until I have won it back.
no subject
they flicker and flare in her gut as he gains momentum, remembers his pride and his honor and his anger. she shudders from the force of them, making her hands clutch tight to the ripped pieces of his tunic, trembling where they are beneath his own hands. ]
What... [ she gasps for air and for words, her mind swimming from the assault of his anger, where just moments earlier she had been so secure in her relief. ] What are you saying...?
[ in her shock, in his rage, she can do not much else but gape at him from where she perches at his side, leaning into him where he means to straighten back out, proud and capable. ]
You can't possibly be serious—??
no subject
You would take your husband for a coward? How can I rest while my pride lies wounded, trampled into the dust by this hateful man's heel? Death is vile to men, but so shameful a defeat is no better - not once did I slice his flesh with my sword, not once did the blade drink of his blood. I might well have been a young man green in battle still, not he who is lauded as the best of the Achaeans. What has a man if not his pride? Thus I must challenge Koltira, or else bear this shameful burden forever more.
[Long has he known that here in these far-flung lands, so far from the familiar nations of the Achaeans, his godlike strength is outstripped by men who wield gifts in imitation of godcraft. He had admired Gilgamesh for his golden might, which shone far more glorious than his own, and such radiance he held in awe. Here where the world unfolds ever wider, he finds himself no longer the greatest of warriors.
Yet never before had this truth rattled Achilles so deeply as it does now in the wake of his defeat at Koltira's hands. Such is how the sun must feel when eclipsed. Entwined with his rage and his shame is fear, as difficult to pin down as are the shadows thrown by a flickering candle. What the elf's blade had pried loose is the question of his fate, which always lies embedded in the pit of his stomach: for how much longer can he defer that which the Fates intend?
He makes to stand, but his legs are enfeebled still and he folds to his knees. For this lingering weakness that drapes his weary body like a heavy pall, he lets loose a snarl and strikes his fist against the earth.]
no subject
it is fortunate, then, that he should break away enough from her to bring his fist to the ground. she is granted reprieve to tend to her own body, to bring a hand to her heart where it feels her breath has stopped, to close her eyes against the urge to scream and lash out and cry.
the truly terrifying thing is this: she is not sure the anger is entirely his. ]
Do you value your pride so much that your life becomes second to it?
[ where he has regained his voice and speaks now in low, booming tones, her voice has gotten quieter, more brittle. so brittle in fact that the edges themselves seem sharp, and though she does not raise her voice any higher than she would in quiet company, for he is still no more than a careful reach away from her, there is a steel to her tone that seems to echo and ring. ]
Should I have left you for dead, then? Would that have been the only reprieve from this wound that's out of my reach?
[ and there are her eyes, too — sharp beneath the frayed splay of her fringe, wild and coated in sweat and blood and tears that frame her face. they glitter and glisten like steel, but the glimmer there is from her tears, renewed now as her frustration and desperation mounts.
hadn't she just asked him to spare her such pain again? and yet here he is, proclaiming a desire to threaten that misery so carelessly. ]
Is pride really all you think you have?
no subject
If I cared only for my life, upon steep Scyros I would have remained, never to set sail for well-walled Ilios, forever leery of the war drums. I would have made the daughter of Lycomedes my bride, to take with me back to my dear native land, and in my father's house I would watch my son grow into manhood: such is the life I abandoned, and such is the sort of life I only wish I might share with you yet know I never truly shall.
[For he is as a ripple upon the water, ever moving in the direction in which he is propelled, never to be grasped in one's hand as it slips through the fingers. He had warned her, there beside the river in the untamed wilds of Zeta-12, there in that land where they had dreamed themselves husband and wife, that to love a man such as he cannot be without heartache.]
No, it is my honor for which I fought upon the Dardanian plain, no matter the purpose of the sons of Atreus, and it is my pride for which I turned away the promise of a peaceful life. In this matter I can choose no other path.
[Again he makes to stand, his weary legs protesting their pain, but he is careful, and slow, and determined to rise.]
Leave battle to men, and come help me walk. It would behoove us to linger no longer here in the darkness of night.
[His voice is quieter now, cold and still like ashes left upon the hearth overnight, and in the stillness is revealed his exhaustion.]
no subject
she makes no move to stand, to come simpering to his side at his beckoning. still on her knees, but she looks far from the supplicant woman who'd bawled at his feet not too long ago.
she remembers, of course, the warning he had given her. but then, he had been dappled in sunlight, made beautiful by his own vulnerability. he had been soft in her hands, against her breast, curling into her arms like someone who needed her, and who was she to deny him when words so cold were enveloped in a love so warm?
perhaps it is true, and this is her own fault, the bed she'd chosen to make when she accepted him still, grateful then for just the chance to be allowed at his side, to have the blessing of his love. it was not as if she'd been careless then, for it is the opposite that's the truth — her downfall had been, perhaps, in caring too much. just as now, she cares too much, and with it comes the pain of heart fit to burst from it all. once more there are tears in her eyes, glimmering with the last few rays of sunlight stretching across the endless horizon at his back. ]
I will leave the battle to men when I'm not made to pick up their pieces, [ she answers with a swift tongue, sharper than she had ever known it capable of, but made dull, too, by the thickness of her voice caught around a sob. ]
no subject
In the end it is the tears shining now upon her eyelashes that bring Achilles back to his wife. For him she cries, and he cannot help but remember how Deidamia's countenance had buckled when he told her of his intent to fight in Troy, how she had banged her delicate fists against him as one might pound upon a door hoping that it shall budge. Even then, allured as he was by the call of his glory, he had suspected he never would return to her arms, and this she must have known better than he. He remembers too how the tears had streamed down Patroclus' cheeks the day the hollow ships burned and the Achaeans bled for the pitiless bronze of Trojan spears, and for these tears at last his heart moved.]
Olivia...
[He holds his hand out to her and there in the space between them it waits.]
Will you walk with me back to our bed chamber? Such talk upsets you, this I can plainly see, and thus I shall speak of this matter no further. My body tires, as does my heart - I wish only to bathe and to rest. Will you stand then and join me, as I have pledged to be your husband and you my wife?
[Still the embers of his ire crackle within his heart, but the lengthening shadows of his fatigue begin to overcome even this.]
no subject
it's not that she wishes to fight, for this friction carves gashes into her heart that burn more than any wound she has ever encountered, but she so rarely speaks up that the few times she does, she almost feels it an injustice to drop back down to a whisper again. and she wishes now, more than ever, so desperately to be heard, because for once she does not doubt her words or her conviction.
and his dismissal here hurts, though he certain hears her, she does not think him willing to listen. she has to wonder if perhaps that is the best she can hope for now, or ever, and such a thought leaves her feeling more hollow than she has ever felt before.
finally, a sigh escapes her lips, and her hand reaches up to seek the familiar heat of his own as she brings herself back up to her feet. it is a concession to meet his concession, a silent impasse that will probably rub her raw late at night, when she tries and fails not to think about it. but he tires just as much as she does, and she knows she would not have lasted much longer had they continued. ]
What kind of wife would I be if I didn't, [ she finally answers, though her words sound more like resignation than a promise. ]
no subject
How many times must he learn the lesson that his pride when swollen only wounds those whom he most loves? That his anger is a sword whose devious double-edge may slice his own flesh just as deeply as the flesh of him against whom he raises it?]
My sword and my splendid shield lie there upon the earth - these I cannot leave behind, for if I do the scoundrels who hide here in the wilds shall claim my armaments for trophies.
[So speaking, Achilles struggles to retrieve first his blade from where it had fallen in the struggle. Although his body has healed beneath Olivia's hands, still his weary flesh remembers well how he had been ravaged, and the ache remains in the memory of his muscles as would the night fog linger when morning has just broken. He falters as he bends, he who usually boasts such grace, and he must slap a palm upon the ground to steady himself as his fingers curl around the sword's handle. Laboriously he rises once more and replaces the blade in its scabbard which hangs there along his thigh. All the while his eyes scarcely meet Olivia's]
no subject
she does not look, at least, propriety and her own overwhelming sense of shame drawing her gaze away when his legs buckle, and he holds out a hand to catch himself. she does not stoop down to help him, knowing it would only add an extra knife to the wound should she even make motion to. instead her hand falls over his shoulder, a gentle reassurance of her presence there, before she leans down instead to heft the tarnished shield from the dust. it certainly does not look splendid now, bearing the marks of a fight she can already see so vividly in her mind. but the metal is heavy, and glimmers still in the fading light. a part of her feels as if she has no right to touch it, let alone carry it...
and a larger, louder part of her feels that other part can suck it. ]
We're not too far from the town, [ she lies, and she has never been a very good liar. ] We should be able to make it back before complete nightfall.
[ she holds out her arm for him, slipping it around his torso so she might nestle there against his side; a half-hug, or so she will claim it is, but it will do well to help steady him as he walks.
no subject
My shield is too heavy a burden for you to carry all this way - do not strain yourself so, and therefore allow me to take it.
[So speaking, he holds out his arm that she might assist him in sliding the leather strap over his hand. What she purposes to tow is thirty pounds of wrought metal, ash wood, and ox hide: she cannot possibly sustain so great a load while she must support his great weight too. The thin fabric of her fib he can see through, for he knows how far he had strayed from town when began his clash with Koltira, and he grimaces for this trek that stretches before their weary feet.]
no subject
once done she reclaims her spot at his side, slipping his arm around her shoulders, but though the shield has been transferred, the weight altogether remains the same. still, she presses on, dragging her feet. ]
We'll stop by the bathroom first, [ she says in an otherwise dull tone. feigned casualness for an otherwise heavy situation. ] I assume you'll want to get cleaned.
[ achilles will soon find that he cannot simply have both — either his pride has been stolen, or it is his pride that spurs him on now, for how can something taken from you fuel you forward. if the former, then all he is left with is shame, for shame is pride's cousin, the other side of the rusted coin, the other end of a dirty blade. and if the latter, then what reason does he have for his anger, if his precious pride had not been taken after all.
perhaps he'd been right after all. perhaps the battle is no place for a woman, where common sense might prevail and prevent it from ever beginning. ]
no subject
All this she shall feel like the haze of smoke that lingers even after the fire has been doused, clogging the air with cinders and making acrid what once was sweet.
Thus they limp along, leaning one against the other. His feet feel heavy upon his weary legs, like fruits that burden the branches of a tree, and as the sun sinks into the desert, burnishing the landscape to a vermilion gleam before fading to dusty purple and then extinguishing itself, Achilles finds that more and more he longs only to lie down. His rage shall have to bide its time, fermenting inside his breast to become all the more bitterly potent, festering like a wound that worsens the longer it goes undressed.
At long last, they enter the corridor of buildings that marks the town's main thoroughfare, and soon they arrive at the inn from which they have carved a temporary home. The saloon hums with spirited conversation and glasses clinking, but this warm glow of merriment reaches not into the grim pall that hangs over Achilles and Olivia. They make their way down the narrow hall to the lone bathroom, where sits a copper tub in the corner.
Against the wall Achilles sets his tarnished shield and with it his blade in its leather scabbard. Then gingerly he sets himself upon a wooden stool that beside the tub waits, and he begins to unbind the sandals from his feet.
All the while, there remains little to be said.]
no subject
while between them the air remains thickened with silence and all the words they cannot but probably should say to each other — inside she is a swirling mess of emotions she cannot even begin to pinpoint and quell. she is mindful enough that walking into the space that they shared, the small sanctuary where their little game of pretend has taken root and shape... she knows seeing that would only make those emotions that much more fragile, that much more brittle.
and so this time spent here is a welcome obstruction. so is wandering about the small room, tending to the tub's taps, running her own hands and arms under the water from the sink to clean what she can off of herself. keeping busy, keeping moving. it is almost mechanical how she falls into it, but before long she has run out of things to do, things to keep her away from the man seated paces away. before long, she can do nothing else but finally turn and face him, her expression somber.
unable to look at his face just yet, her eyes instead fall to the movement of his hands. ]
...Do you need help?
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Thus, as he loosens the belt which gathers the torn fabric around his waist, he at last lifts his eyes to her. In his voice glows some faint ember of the warmth that she has known in happier days.]
I shall count myself grateful for your assistance, dear Olivia.
[Stripped now of his soiled clothing, he pushes himself up from the stool upon which he perches. His skin, which glows with the radiance of the sun when clean, is now streaked in the dull orange dust of the desert, and his side is caked in blood. This remains the only evidence for the seam that Koltira had split open with his blade, for thanks to Olivia's healing hands no scar mars the flesh. Yet the shocking color and the sheer amount of skin it stains serve as a grim reminder.]
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—no. his need.
she is at his side before long, reaching for him with steadying and gentle hands. it is a touch that she does not hesitate to keep soft, but with her unable (unwilling?) yet to meet his eyes, to cast that familiar look of concern and love on his face, the touches and gestures themselves may seem almost hollow. as if he were a mere patient to her healing, another body she must tend to and fix.
still, she leads him to that tub without hesitation, and helps ease his body into it even though it remains empty yet. the turning of the tap, then, seems more an afterthought than anything else, and somehow the backwards nature of this process only seems to highlight the backwards nature of their own demeanor.
suddenly they are dancing again, but neither seem sure what steps yet to take, and so their rhythm is off, their harmony compromised. ]
no subject
I did not thank you for sparing me from death's cold grip, and for restoring me to life. In truth...when murderous Koltira did abandon me to the vile gates of death, there I was ready to accept the fate that I have for so long staved off. I thought that I saw Patroclus, dearest of my companions, welcoming me to the Acheron's far shore - and oh, how I longed to take his hands in mine at last.
[In this reverent pause for what shall some day be, he squeezes her hand, and it is joined by its brother to cradle her hand from below.]
Yet then it was you whom I saw in the darkness beneath my eyelids, dear Olivia, like a beacon that fills my heart with hope even in its weariest hour. It was you whom I saw, and I knew I must live yet.
[All the while his gaze too presses into her, as the hands of a potter press into clay that it may become pliable to his will, and he waits for her eyes to return to him. It is not she for whom his anger crackles, after all: he wishes only that his wife should become once more the warm woman who has lent him support in every crucible they together endure.]
no subject
but once skin meets, and the warmth of his words transfers through the warmth of his hand, what dread and wariness she might have felt is washed away as easily as the specks of dirt and sand still lingering about his skin as the tub begins to fill.
true that the events of the day have drained her of energy (in some ways quite literally), but more than anything now what tires her the most is this. just this. this distance, this silence. this sudden gaping cavern of wrong that leaves her feeling empty and terrified.
there is so much more to say. so much more she wishes she could say now, as if this would be her only chance to, riding on a wave of grief and disappointment and frustration. but at the same time, she wonders at the use of it. why speak if the words won't be heard? why push if she will only find herself with a greater cavern to have to cross.
and so she sighs, and with that breath leaves the rest of her willingness to fight. she wants only now to crawl back to the safe space they had built for themselves, that warm bubble where nothing at all seemed able to harm them. ]
So continue to live, [ is all she is willing to say now on the matter. she finally meets his eyes, her unspoken please left there where tears have finished spilling for the night.
slowly, she turns her hand in his, gently squeezing back. ]