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
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?
no subject
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.]
no subject
—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. ]