epidemiology | ( closed ) everyone's a building burning

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( closed ) everyone's a building burning

CHARACTERS: Achilles, Patroclus, Olivia
DATE: After the fire
WARNINGS: Nothing right now
SUMMARY: A little bit of this, a little bit of th at.

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[The sun sits high in the vault of the sky ere his gaze settles upon the son of Menoetius, Patroclus, dearest of his companions. Like two celestial bodies that drift through space until one inevitably falls into the other's orbit, each tends to his business amid the cooling ashes and charred bones of what once was the saloon, the company in its whole working together to ensure that all are safe and that there shall be shelter from the chill touch of winter which now grips this land, until at last the glinting of sunlight upon armor catches Achilles' attention. His heart too catches inside his chest, at once still like those rare winter mornings atop Mount Pelion when the grass was mortified with frost, and then beating ever faster.

Well does he remember who last rightfully clad himself in the stalwart armor of Peleus. So too does he remember the apprehension that had tugged at his heart to gaze upon the broad back of Patroclus as he led the Myrmidons onward when he himself would not, and the hatred that had later howled within the hollow cavity of his chest upon seeing his father's armor boasted by murderous Hector as a spoil of war.

At present there unfurls hope, tentative and tender like the shoots that begin to emerge from earth that once has been scorched. Achilles finds a path through the throngs of people, his feet quickening along with his heart, and as he draws nearer he dares to dream that his companions arms shall not waver and vanish like smoke when he reaches out to embrace him.]

Patroclus, pleasure of my heart - have you left off wanting to give chase to the Trojans across Dardanus' plain? In your wisdom have you heeded my advice after all, that you might return safely to me? When last I saw you, I thought it must have been a dream granted by some god or another who must know of how my heart aches for you still.

[For once they had grown too tired for stories, they lapsed into the well-worn silence of one another's embraces, and Patroclus had smelled of home - then he had woken up not in his canopied bed back in Oska, but in Peridition's Rest, and in his arms lay Olivia, who smelled not of the tangy sea. He now has arrived before Patroclus and hesitates not one moment to reach for him, to greedily tug his friend's hands into his grasp.]

Yet here you are before me once more! How glad an oversight of the Fates this is, that you have been delivered from Hades' gates and brought to these far-flung lands instead!

[ First there had been confusion, waking up in an unfamiliar bed, a dreamlike haze, a day lost to memory except for Achilles. And Patroclus had been held in his arms, had laid on his shoulder, had breathed him in and wept on him and laid with him to rest. He had woken up alone and unmoving, tracing the grass where it lay flat, a lasting imprint. And then as the days went on, he thought perhaps he had rolled over in his sleep, given a gift of a kiss-sweet dream, and put his heart to rest on the matter.

Then there was the fire, and through the sweat and soot and filth, he had tried to evacuate the tavern as best he could, and now stands around the camp ferrying supplies, pushing off a well-needed wash for "later", always later as more people filter in and more needs to be added to their stores.

He thinks that perhaps he is imagining things when he hears his name spoken, when he hears Achilles' voice. And then he looks over and stops right where he is, knits his brows as if giving it some thought. He had felt so real last time, as well. As real as this. ]

How could it be that my spirit pass to Hades, when it is you who sees fit to haunt him whose life's thread is all but cut? Once already, I have suffered imagining you like this only to lose you again. I know this, that you have much left before you must join me cross the river Styx, and even I have not yet paid my toll to the ferryman, and thus it can only be true that we are both alive. But do not deceive my heart this time, Achilles, and leave me bereft of your embrace as rose-colored dawn makes disappear the night.

[ He reaches out with trepidation and touches the bracelet of horsehair. It could not be a dream, if he is having the same one again. As his fingers close around Achilles' arm, he pulls himself in and allows himself to collapse against Achilles' form. ]

It is not the Fates that brought me here, and instead ALISTAIR! Though if our reunion is brought about by their cohort, dearest friend, then I say to that we owe them a debt.

[How strange it is that when encompassed in Patroclus' radiance he feels all at once that he is the youth who in the verdant wilds of Mount Pelion fancied himself a great king; and so too is he the young man whose breast swelled with the sails of the ships when from Pthia the Myrmidons set sail for Troy the young man whose eyes were keen upon the horizon beyond which he would find the glory that was promised him. Yet so too does he feel the length of these years, and he feels that he is the old man that neither of them shall ever become. Achilles feels the full reach of a man's life compressed into so small a space, folded within his bones, for that is how rich his love is.

Yet in love he cannot help but sway to cupidity, ever yearning for more. Gladly does he accept Patroclus in his embrace, pressing his lips to his friend's cheek and murmuring these words against his skin where curves the jaw into the neck.]

So glorious a turn of chance could hardly be wrought by mortal hands. Moreover, if ever I have deceived your dear heart, such was my last intention, and if ever I must leave your side, it shall be by no choice of my own. This I vow upon my worthy name, and upon the truest love that ever man has held in his bosom. O, that men might be granted second chances! Into your lips is breathed new life, which never shall I take for granted. Thus I am loath to so much as turn my eyes from you, lest I lose forever my chance to take pleasure in gazing upon your comely features - lest you never return to me, as once I was made to suffer.

[At last he draws back but releases not his friend from the circle of his arms. His eyes dance over him in delight, fluttering as do bees that seek the next flower upon which to land and of whose nectar to partake, and his grin is bright upon his countenance.]

Still you are clad in noble Peleus' cuirass. Come now, let us settle into this camp which now must suffice for our home. Have you a tent erected, or have all of your labors gone toward aiding others?

[For all the familiarity he may possess in this far-flung land, for all the essence of their shared home he effuses, Achilles is clad not in the garb of the Achaeans but rather in that of the wild-eyed Qorral. Where the chiton might usually drape his shoulders and flow down from his waist, instead is found a red flannel shirt and denim, with his feet bound not in sandals but boots. All of this is stained with soot, as is his skin and his golden hair, a testament to the trial through which they had all toiled.]

[ He had not even known initially that it was a tavern that was on fire, and only now does he know that the crew was supposed to be staying in it. He had some idea of the kind of people in this land, but he had not known it would be quite like this. Still, because of his distractions earlier in the morning and all throughout the day, he has been too distracted to put together much of anything. ]

No.

I have no tent as such, but if there is any room in yours I would be grateful if there is space for me.

[ He does notice that Achilles is dressed oddly, such strange clothes as Patroclus has not taken account of yet. He smiles when he notices, reaches out to touch Achilles' collar. He likes the fabric, it's soft and fine, perfect for Achilles. ]

From a distance you appear as a local, so naturally do these clothes fit upon your form.

[ And then he looks over his shoulder, briefly, at the camp. It seems to be fine and there is no urgency, so he does not try to coerce Achilles to return with him for another run. ]

If it pleases you, I will not order you to look away nor let go my hand, however then I must ask your company to a river, so that we may bathe ourselves clean of the ash and sweat left by the fire.

[ He means to swipe a bit of dirt off Achilles' cheeks, but really just smears it around a little more. ]

[As Patroclus brushes his fingers against his shirt collar and smudges his thumb over his sooty cheeks, these shows of affection that are quiet as the night sky yet just as surely possess a certain presence, all the while Achilles' countenance crinkles from grinning. This seems to him like a dream still, to have a precious piece of home here in his hands. Yet the clarity of this moment assures him that the gauzy veil of sleep drapes not his eyes: Patroclus' heartbeat, which echoes in the veins strung through his wrist, insists this is so.]

Always shall there be a place for you in whatever dwelling I claim for my home - and wherever I make my bed, so too shall you find a bed upon which to lie, my dearest friend. As for where we might find a stream in which to wash our weary limbs, I have been in this land but a short while yet I know rather well its form and features.

[So speaking, his eyes part with Patroclus to survey their surroundings. The distant hills are dotted with narrow trees that together thicken into a wood, one of the few scattered about this landscape whose bones want for water, and toward this he tilts his head.]

A brook runs through the grove there - its waters are shallow even now during what the wild-eyed Qorral proclaim the wet season, yet this shall have to suffice. The bitter cold that hangs in the air is greater cause for worry, so it seems to me. As we have no means of heating the water we shall have to make haste. How I wish I could show you instead the lavish bath which until lately stood in the inn where once we made our beds - with but the turn of a knob, out would pour water hot enough to wreathe itself in steam!

[ When Patroclus breaks from Achilles and turns, it's only to walk in the direction he's pointed out. With hand still clasped firmly in Achilles' like they were boys, he has not a single care occupying his mind over what another might think seeing them, two fully-grown men walking together in this way. His heart is again not only quenched but welling, beating furious as a war-drum.

He had not bade Achilles promise to stay the last time they met. He had not thought that through, having been preoccupied with the relief of the gods' magnanimity for both of their sins. Achilles, suffering from hubris, suffering from anger, the very undoing that caused the war in the first place, and Patroclus, suffering from apathy, so long did he wait until it was too late to aid his friends, so long did he stay listening to lyre-strumming. How generous the gods, how benevolent the fates.

And now he has Achilles' word, he can't help but to feel a little cheerful. ]

How luxurious it would be to have tamed a hotspring, even here the likes of which are undoubtedly rare. But gladly too would I bathe in chilly waters that no other was possible, if in doing so meant we would have need to keep the other warm.

[ He did wonder why they built the town away from the forest. He does wonder still, if it is safe to venture this way. Achilles has always embraced danger, after all. ]

[He is grateful for the weight of Patroclus' hand, which presses still into his own palm and warms him against the chill which shrouds the land. This he is not yet ready to relinquish, and thus he cares little that they ought to have long ago shucked such childish acts as snakes shuck their old skin upon outgrowing it. Side by side they leave the camp behind, as if they are once more wild-hearted boys seeking in the bosom of the woods the nooks in which they might secret themselves away.]

Then these mine arms I shall happily lend, that together we might banish the cold that threatens to overcome us. Well should you know that what is mine is yours too.

[Whether his embrace, his heart, or his imperfect soul. Ere they depart from the fledgling campsite, he plucks a blanket from a cart of the supplies which townsfolk have cobbled together in a show of good will, and this he playfully throws around Patroclus' shoulders before tugging his hand into his grasp once more.]

Here - that we may dry ourselves when we are done bathing.

[Before long the land slopes gently downward and the low-lying brush yields to scrawny trees that cluster around the serpentine stream where it wends through the rocky earth. There upon a flat rock that juts into a bend of the languid waters, he sets to prying from his feet the sturdy leather boots and woolen socks: truly he feels most comfortable with his swift feet bare, no matter the bite of the breeze that at present brings the trees to bristle.]

[ Patroclus unlaces himself from the armor that once belonged to Achilles; he had grown brave seeing from the corner of his eyes a glint of the bronze, the gleaming gauntlets. And so, even when he knew that it was himself donning the armor, he had been overindulgent in confidence. For a good day he was unstoppable, and for a long moment he was not.

When he strips himself bare, they are just a shell that Hector would pluck from him as a child does wings of a fly.

He turns instead to Achilles, taking him by the arm, dipping his feet into the stream. Where he is skin and where he is soot is laid out in sharp relief, and the water is shockingly cold but gentle as velvet. Patroclus thinks to himself that perhaps they might try to avoid another bath tomorrow, as their teeth still might be chattering violently from this one.

He shivers but moves deeper inward, eventually stopping in the middle where it was deepest. ]

What enemies are there of the Audentes? I fear the fire is only the beginning.

[ And you know how Patroclus is with fire. ]

They demand we be weakened out here in the cold.

[His fingers, the deftness of which Patroclus knows well having listened to his lyre and swayed to the rhythm of his love, swiftly undo the buttons of his shirt and the fastenings of his pants, peeling away the layers of his foreign dress to leave him bare and shivering. When he turns to his companion his gaze lingers over his soot-stained skin, and loosened from his memory is the image of that selfsame flesh ruined by blood and choked by dirt. His heart turns cold at once in his breast as if the breeze now drifts through the slats of his rib cage. As Patroclus leads him into the frigid waters, Achilles tries to think instead on the ardent nights and languid afternoons during which they let themselves forget that anyone outside of their world of two might exist, and he let himself drink in the beauty of his friend's nude form as one might revel in the sweet wine squeezed from Dionysus' vines.

At its deepest point the water embraces their waists, and the stream's idle current pushes against their legs. Achilles draws close to Patroclus, at once careless in how he allows their bodies to brush one against the other, yet at the same time wholly conscious of the way their thighs bump together and his chest shadows its brother, wherein beats the other half of his heart.

As he makes his answer, he dips his hands into the current to first dissolve the soot that clings to his fingers. Already the water's chill penetrates him to the bone, as sharp as the pitiless bronze of an arrowhead, and his broad shoulders shudder.]

I know little of the politics that hold sway in the house of ALASTAIR, nor of the allies and enemies this crew might have gathered in the days before I joined its ranks. The enemy of the wild-eyed Qorral, however, are those whom are called the Deemers, a clan of self-exiles who worship a false god.

[His hands now draw water over his arms, and his trembling palms drag too over the braided muscles of Patroclus' arms.]

[ It's always about politics and religion, isn't it? He wonders how the Trojan War would have gone if not for the pact they had made to Helen, if not every man had thought of all the suitors that he would be the one chosen. If Menelaus was not the victor, perhaps Agamemnon would not be at the helm-- and in all sense of the word, there would be no war had Patroclus taken Helen to wife. He would have sent a messenger and ransom, would have made sacrifice to the gods if they did not obey these rules of civilized conduct. But there would be no war.

And that would not be as the Fates intended. ]

I will ask not what business the house of ALASTAIR has with the wild-eyed Qorral, but what do the Deemers seek? Is this kind of arson some ritual by which to please their false god?

[ That seems savage and barbaric to him, but he's unaware of the fact that he might seem the same to someone else. He thinks instead of the warm summer sun, hazy nights laid out in a war tent when he presses his cheek into the crook of Achilles' neck as he does now, sliding arms around his waist as if in reclamation of Achilles from the water's embrace. ]

And what of the gods receiving the Qorral's prayers? Are they not fit to dismiss this false idol?

[ It does seem that the gods in these parts keep requiring the help of a people who are mostly uninvolved in the first place. He circles his thumbs over Achilles' arm, sloughing away the dirt and the soot. He thinks to himself that they were chosen for these missions in the same way that they were chosen for the War, because they were so willing to go when soldiers were needed. How long will they be here? Another ten years? Twenty? ]

[In the sharp cold of the stream, whose waters cut his bones, Patroclus' arms are a gentle buffer, his breath a warm affirmation of the life poured back into the once-empty vessel of his body. As Achilles washes the soot from his dear friend's chest with fingers numb and quaking, his memory pulls back to way that the women had so reverently cleaned Patroclus' flesh in preparation for his pyre; and when his hand passes over that dear head of curls he recalls bearing the weight of it to where all would burn away but for that which no mortal hands can grasp.

He shivers then, but not wholly for the water's chill.]

The savage Deemers seek salvation - such were the words upon their own babbling lips when in the forgotten town of Boneyard Junction our army clashed with theirs. It seems that for the sake of pleasing their false god and earning his favor, they wish to dig down into the belly of the life-giving earth, but why this is so I cannot say. Nor can I say what cause they may have for reducing to cinders the house in which we lately stayed, if truly it is they who have committed this crime.

As for the gods to whom the Qorral are suppliants, I know of only the sun god who over their native land reigns supreme. Perhaps they too suffer the selfsame plight as do we, straying so far from the sight of their gods that their prayers go unheard.

[Even the immortal gods have limits: just as they must abide by the paths that Fate sets before each man, allowing the course of each to unfold as has been decreed, so too might they be contained by borders carved in the blackness between the stars, beyond which even they can neither see nor hear. The kingdoms of gods are wider than those of men, but even these are not without end. For this discomfiting thought he feels small and set astray - thus he leans into Patroclus all the more with hands still carefully working.]

Edited 2016-11-23 05:12 (UTC)

[ He thinks that ALISTAIR ought to host some sort of meeting as he has not yet been privy to attend to one of those, sitting in a war tent around a table making concrete plans. That might have been what the tavern was for, he does not know, but especially since they are from even greater and more diverse lands than all the Danaans were, he questions why they do not have nightly discussions.

It concerns him greatly how they are meant to work as a team but he has not even heard of most of their company, that he is unable to recall one by their face and region, of their fathers, of their famous deeds. How then is he meant to serve with them efficiently? He has no understanding of their capabilities or even of their limitations and possibilities. Against an enemy so well-oiled as the Deemers, so connected, they appear like children attempting to mimic a soldiers' formation.

Heaving a great sigh, he continues to wash the soot of Achilles' body and paying special attention not to tangle his locks. So often had he combed his fingers through it that he did not anticipate the knot of nostalgia unfurling warmly in his heart. ]

Should we not allow them to dig into the Earth if that is what they wish? What concern is it of the Qorral, if it is not their land on which the Deemers work? This planet is no small one, I see not why they should quarrel over this.

[The ends of his golden curls sway close to the water's surface as would the supple limbs of a willow tree. All is as it once was, as Patroclus would remember: for while Achilles had cut the long locks in mourning for his companion, the thread of whose life had been so cruelly cut short, that upon the pyre would burn too a piece of his own body, in the long months that have since passed his hair has grown to reach down his back once more.]

Those of ALASTAIR have declared that should the Deemers pursue their goal a heavy fate shall fall upon this land and all who dwell here. Their counsel proved to be prudent in the land of the Nalawi, and thus I am inclined to take seriously the prophecies they consult.

[His fingers now tremble along the ridge of Patroclus' collarbone and up the strong curve of his neck to wipe at his dusty cheeks.]

It seems that the wild-eyed Qorral and the god-hating Deemers long maintained a truce until just lately. For the politics of this race of men, however, I care little. Although the Qorral seem as strangers to the laws of hospitality that almighty Zeus protects, they have welcomed this company nonetheless, while the Deemers have raised arms against us in thirst for blood upon which to slake their pitiless hearts. Thus it is plain to me where our loyalties ought to lie.

[His hands fall back to his friend's shoulders, and there they lightly squeeze.]

Come now - I fear that a moment more spent in this current, and the extremities of my flesh shall be convinced to float free that they might escape this unwearying cold!

[It is later in the afternoon, when the calamity has calmed and the snow has settled in a thick pall over the orange dust of the desert, that Achilles calls upon Olivia. Since they were startled from their bed by foreboding carried along by the fast spreading smoke, and they fled with what possessions they could salvage, he has scarce seen her but for in snatches as she lends her aid where she can. He in the meantime has fashioned for them their own corner of the sprawling encampment. So too has he found time to wash his soot-sullied skin at last, but his hair holds the sharp smell of smoke still.]

Lovely-haired Olivia, I bring news which is as sudden as it is glad. Have you any wounded to tend to still, or have your unwearying hands found rest at last? I wish to see you as soon as I might.

[For news of such weight is difficult to hold for long, just as a stone that grows ever heavier the longer it remains in a man's grasp.]

[ it had been a long, long day. long enough that the sun has begun its descent again, still hanging high in the sky but low enough now to remind them all that time cares not for their losses and woes, and will continue to pass as it normally does. between now and the last wound she's healed, she has been able to steal a few minutes of rest. still in her chiton, the front of it still damp with lucina's tears, skin and cloth lightly dusted with the soot and ash of a fire long since subdued. her rest did not provide her with any time to clean up, to really recollect herself, and yet her heart soars and her expression brightens upon seeing achilles appear before her, even if it were a mere holograph. ]

Oh, Achilles, there you are... [ she breathes a sigh of relief upon seeing him, knowing he had been fine, of course (because he had to have been, she would not allow herself to think he could have been anything less than) but it is still a great comfort to see and hear it for herself.

his question prompts her to cast a glance around, her backdrop still of the small triage she and the other healers have managed to set up in the midst of all the chaos and panic. many have already been treated and moved on. those remaining were well into much-deserved rest. ]

No, I'm all finished here, I think.

[ there is a bone-deep tiredness that hangs heavy her words, but when she looks to him again, it's clear she has remembered to yearn for the comfort of his embrace once more. this yearning is enough to even make her forget her curiosity. she hears his words, of course, knows there is something he wishes to share with her. normally she would delight in his excitement, take cue from it and follow along. but in this moment she forgets to, thinking instead of the warmth found in his arms, and the moment again when she might be able to stop and breathe and lie against him. ]

Where are you?

[His countenance too is burnished bright with joy for the sight of her, and for the happy strangeness of chance that here has befallen him. Long has been the day indeed, begun before the sun had even brushed its fingers across the black cover of the horizon, yet there are places enough in which his heart may find respite.]

I have fashioned for us a tent on the western edge of this encampment, beside where grow the low-lying shrubs. Follow the sun in its retreat as it purposes to sink into the distant desert, and you shall find me.

[There follows a brief pause, for while the words are ready to leap from his tongue like birds fluttering in flight, he must think of how best to deliver this news. How can one be braced for that which is so unforeseen as the reversal of death itself, that which is so startling as a slain man made whole once more from the ashes?]

I have with me a guest who wishes to meet you, dear Olivia, and I too wish for you to meet him. For he is my dearest companion, Patroclus of Menoetius' stock, he whom I have known since we were boys in my father's noble house, and he whose murder upon the pitiless bronze of Priam's son I once avenged. I understand not how Fate might be defied in so grand a fashion, yet I can speak only of what mine own eyes have beheld and what mine own arms have confirmed. Such is the happy news I wish to share with you.

[Yet even in his present felicity he is not wholly ignorant to how this revelation may hurt her gentle heart. In the back cavern of his thoughts hangs the memory of how her jealousy had swollen just to hear him speak of the love he once held for Deidamia in the distant days of his youth: such a recollection as this seems only a passing cloud across the brilliant sky of his bliss however. The love a man shares with his wife and the love he shares with a brother in arms are of separate strands, and he scarcely sees how these might tangle. Had he not shared his bed with Briseis while taking pleasure still in Patroclus' sweet embrace? And Briseis had complained nothing of it.

But nor had she ever spoken a word to him of her family, the father he had slaughtered nor the husband from whom he had stolen her, the lost lives whom she lamented but never in front of him.]

[ in her mind and in her heart, she has already begun to make a nest in that tent he so proudly speaks of. in her mind and in her heart, she recalls the tent they had shared last, huddled together for warmth while their charges of a past planet slumbered on, a veritable family made safe from the elements. already, she has begun to think of how she might dress that tent, arrange the few keepsakes they have managed to save in a little corner where she might look upon them every following morning, how to best cushion the ground so that the planet's winter might not prove too much of an inconvenience.

her mind has ways of getting ahead of her, and this moment is no exception. where she would often begrudge such an imagination, for so often it prevents her from fully absorbing all that is around her in that moment, right now she finds herself wishing she could have lost herself to those dreams, for the reality before her now may as well have been a nightmare.

patroclus.

the warmth in achilles' voice is like ice water down her back. the light in his eyes like the snuffing out of a flame. he smiles at her so proudly, looking the happiest she has seen him since she'd found him near-death — no... perhaps the happiest she has seen him ever — and where she would normally delight in his joy she can only feel the sharp pinch of a needle against her heart, like the first word of a threat.

patroclus, he says. a name she has heard spilled from his lips many times before, but in past tense, always in past tense. patroclus, his companion. patroclus, his childhood friend. patroclus, his brother in arms and fellow warrior, patroclus, pleasure of his heart, patroclus patroclus patroclus—

back from the dead. here with them now. with him.

happy news?

—except. of course. of course it is happy news. (is it?) here is a man once dead, now back to life, a second chance. (at what?) a joyous occasion. (i want to throw up.) a miracle. (against all laws.) a cause for thanks and celebration. (but what about me—)

—et. he wants them to meet. ]

I...

[ she doesn't want to. please, please don't make her. ]

I'll be there soon.

Edited 2016-11-12 20:49 (UTC)

[The name indeed he utters always in the way one speaks of memories, but the man who bears this name he never once left there in the past where such memories unfurled: for how could he leave behind him who possesses the other half of his imperfect soul?

Not once has it struck him that Olivia might be mistaken in this matter, for while his love is hers in the fullest thrust, in his heart remains Patroclus too, immortal there as he could not be in his own flesh, as everlasting as the stars which shine down from the vault of the sky on even the darkest of nights to offer guidance to men. She herself had said so once, with her knees bumping against his and her hand pressed tenderly against his chest where beats his heart: I'm right here. So is he.

Yet he hears now how her voice folds up small like the petals of a flower that languishes in the shade, and he sees how the warmth drains from her countenance like blood seeping from sliced flesh. His own features become lined with concern that for the moment overshadows his ebullience.]

Olivia, pleasure of my heart - what troubles you? How your visage pales like the face of the moon that from the night sky shines down! Is it that you tire from all this toil? Then that is all the more reason for you to hasten to my side, that you may sooner rest your weary limbs.

[The warm nest that fast vanishes from her fancy, collapsing upon itself as the saloon had done in the blistering belly of the fire, still welcomes them both in his estimation. His arms, from which she had risen too soon at the behest of the invading smoke, are ready for her return.]

Edited 2016-11-12 22:28 (UTC)

[ he calls her out so boldly that she is not even granted a moment to hide in fake dignity. he questions her now leaving no time for her to gather her strength, no opportunity to pick up what pieces of her heart have already begun to shatter.

for hers is a heart that can never not be full. and hers is a love that loves so wholly. just as it has never occurred to achilles that she might not understand a heart that has space for two, nor has it ever occurred to olivia that he might not love like she does — with every fiber of her being, with no room left for even herself.

it had been fine, before, when she shared that space with a ghost. how is she meant to measure up to a man who is more than just a memory now?

she tries at least, quite desperately, to take cue from his words, his tone. he has always been so very compelling when he speaks, and so very easily do the waves of his intent sweep her away like some meager little sailboat, a victim of the elements.

pleasure of my heart, he says, and she feels her limbs grow a little steadier. hasten to my side, he appeals, and soon she begins to remember how to walk again.

perhaps, she begins to think (a small, traitorous voice in the back of her mind), perhaps she had been mistaken. perhaps she had overreacted. the past is the past, and the present he has found here has become, or so his words have repeatedly insisted, a new reason to strive forward. it was you, he once told her, not too long ago when another death had threatened to tear them apart. it was you whom i saw, and i knew i must live yet.

perhaps, she thinks, she hopes. perhaps it will all be okay after all. ]

It's — nothing... [ she thinks, she hopes. ] T-Towards the West, you said...? I'm on my way.

[ and then she ends the call, robbing him, now, of his own moment. ]

Edited 2016-11-12 22:44 (UTC)

[Theirs has always been a love characterized by movement, with she the grain that bobs and sways beneath the suggestion of the wind when it passes over the plains, she the moon that draws toward its radiant bosom the wine-dark waves of the sea. When together they are never still, their hands ever hungry for reassurance that the other is there, their hips moving together to sing the raw music composed upon the instruments of their bodies, their chests softly sinking and swelling through the night as they slumber.

Such is the dance in which they share, as she had once so appropriately called it.

And it has always been she who seemed to search for reasons to step out of the rhythm which he first set all those many moons ago when Fate had crossed his path with hers. There in the verdant hush of the forest surrounding Oska she had turned from him, for his love had come so suddenly, and she thought herself unworthy of a prince's adoration - and with hands warm and words gentle like dew upon petals, he had promised that he would teach her of her own worth. There in the damp pall of the jungle upon Zeta-12 she had tried once more to slip from his grasp, for she wished not to be his weakness nor his cowardice - and he had taken her knee in supplication and ordered her not to go, insisted that she was his happiness too. In the silence that was left in the wake of black-hearted Koltira's frenzy, which left him before death's grim gates, which too left his pride bruised and his heart howling for reprisal, she had refused to lift her eyes to him - and he had thanked her for restoring the life to his limbs, for giving him reason to live.

Always he has managed to weave the words that shall ensnare her. Always he has tempted her closer, until the beating of his heart drowns out the doubts that whisper inside her own bosom, for better or for worse: for while some doubts hinder the heart, others are in place to protect it.

When Olivia draws near at last, a fire is crackling upon the hearth he has fashioned from the stones strewn about the desert. Arranged within the circle of the glow the flames shall cast when falls night are a few more stones upon which they might sit. Just beyond the fire stands the tent he had built from what supplies the wild-eyed Qorral could share. Although mean in appearance, these new accommodations are sturdy enough to suffice, and cozy enough to keep them warm through the bitter winter.

From one of the stone seats rises Achilles to greet her with a grin brilliant upon his lips.]

Now at last may my heart be at rest, for you have returned to me at the close of this long day, dear Olivia.

[As he speaks these words he clasps his hands around hers and shepherds her within reach of the fire's warmth. There beside where he had sat waits Patroclus, whose identity is made all the more evident by the manner in which he is clad: it is clear that he hails from the same dear native land as Achilles. The peculiar irony at present is that Achilles alone wears the garb favored by the Qorral, bundled too in an overcoat he had acquired that he might better stave off the cold. How he now laments the fine-woven cloak he had abandoned to burn in the saloon!]

Gentle-hearted Patroclus - here is the woman whom I love as though she were no less than mine own true wife. While by my side she has stayed, I have found joy such that I once thought I mightn't ever again hold in my heart.

[ The sheer new-ness, culture shock of everything hasn't quite settled yet with him, and so he's not sure what he was expecting when he had imagined Olivia. When she appears in the tent, she is both not at all how he had thought and then again exactly as he had pictured, since now he can't even recall what amorphous form she took in his mind. ]

Olivia!

[ The sides of his eyes crinkle with happiness as he smiles widely, making his way over from where he's situated by the fire as he is ill-dressed for this mission. He has hung up the armor but it is warm in this tent, he was fixing for the three of them something to eat but it isn't ready. ]

Beloved of Achilles, he who talks of you endlessly. I see now plainly that the compliments to your visage were not made in exaggeration!

[ He draws nearer, and if she does not pull away, he will softly and assuringly caress her cheek as a welcoming gesture. It is not his house for him to welcome her into, but he feels that since there is no one else, this is his duty. ]

Come now, let me fetch us wine that we may discuss important matters in comfort, like a recounting of how you came to meet.

[ Turning away only to do just that, he quickly sets about his work and though the tent is small, he makes a small attempt to create couches for them to repose upon. The actual important matters can come later, he thinks, like a discussion of their marriage. They can sacrifice to the gods that exist here. Plenty of the crew can bear witness, and Patroclus himself would make case to the gods when they return home. ]

[ they both welcome her so warmly, so happily, that olivia suddenly wonders why she'd been so worried in the first place. one glance at their smiles — they way they both dote on her, and acknowledge the mutual love between her and achilles — and she instantly feels quite silly for having reacted as she had. how confused achilles must have been, to see her heart shatter so visibly when all along it had been for naught!

her relief must be palpable by the time she steps into the circle of achilles' arms, her hands curling almost desperately in his. still, she smiles, taking cue from the ones they shine down upon her, and though there is still a bit of her nerves left frayed (rustling briefly at the unexpectedly intimate touch of patroclus' hand on her cheek), she remains otherwise positive (perhaps even resolutely so), seeing how that her hope has been validated. ]

H-How we met...? Oh gosh, it seems so long ago...

[ nearly eight months it's been, hasn't it? though it would be ten for her, given her two-month stay back on the shores of nalawi. she can hardly believe it has been so long, though in truth their relationship hadn't fully blossomed until two months after that. it seems almost surreal now to think about, like some whirlwind she cannot quite effectively grasp, even as she stands here now holding achilles' hand like some sort of anchor.

she hesitates, if only out of respect. though the love the two men had shared has apparently been put to rest, she feels no compulsion to reopen any wounds that may still be tender or vulnerable with insensitivity. thus she turns to achilles for assistance, trusting the man would know what parts of their story would and would not injure. ]

[He misunderstands her hesitation for the shyness which usually drapes her shoulders like a shawl: thus as he guides Olivia to her provisional seat and settles in beside her, eagerly does he commence the tale woven from his recollections. While Patroclus tends to the matter of the wine, jugs of which had been salvaged from the wreckage and allotted to the shanty-dwellers that they might better handle the bitter cold, Achilles follows him with his eyes.]

How long ago it seems indeed, so full have been the days passed in one another's company since then.

[His gaze now dips toward Olivia, as if sharing in a secret, ere returning to his companion.]

It was upon the rain-wrecked shores of Nalawi that first we met. This was the land over which watched Nalanni who delights in volcanoes, of whose wretched fate I have told you, dear Patroclus. For the troubles which plagued the cloven-footed Nalawi, I called for supplications to be made that the goddess might listen and offer her benison once more. Yet it was not the way of this meek race to burn in offering the rich fat of thigh bones nor to pour upon the altar blood spilt of oxen's throats, and thus my counsel was met with malaise.

[His hand is warm upon Olivia's wrist, her forearm, cradling her elbow with affection indolent.]

And who in the assembly spoke up but for this gentle-hearted woman, whose strange beauty made me wonder if this was not a goddess divine approaching? Indeed, it was Olivia who allayed the agitation which did stir within my breast for these altogether unfamiliar circumstances - always have I found her every word and touch to be as a balm that may sooth even the severest of wounds.

[ To be sure, he is a little worried, for Olivia appears to him shy, a little nervous, a little subdued. Those are not qualities that he would have thought Achilles would choose, but he holds back judgment understanding that she has never met Achilles' family before. Perhaps she merely wants to make a good impression! And by the end of Achilles' retelling, his doubts are alleviated. Surely she must be very brave and influential to have swayed Achilles' heart and bent his ear. Even Patroclus had his troubles doing so when Achilles was in a mood.

He sets before them some wine, which he mixes with very little water, fixing it for them as he would hosting a person most important. And then he takes his own seat somewhere beside Achilles, making himself comfortable in the warm tent wearing his chiton loose, pose softly reclined. This is home. And as far as he is concerned, Olivia is family. ]

It is well you should have been present to allay Achilles' thoughts when those most impassioned turn to flames. To have availed yourself to care for Achilles and his household alike, I oblige myself to you, fair-haired Olivia.

Do you find it pleasing, thereupon, to be as lady of this house?

[ It is not really a house, it is just a tent, but eventually it will be a house. They have a lease on life to grow old, and Patroclus just wishes to ensure they have the means to do so properly. How disgraceful would it be for him not to aid in this matter? ]

[ slowly, surely, she begins to notice.

it is the little things first — the easy, casual way patroclus moves about the small but cozy space. the way he handles the wine, the drinkingware, the ready way he makes himself at home in this space, reclining and relaxing as if it were his own.

it makes her brow furrow, but a glance towards achilles provides her no clues, no answers. indeed, the man smiles and beams as if this were the norm, and for the first time since arriving she begins to feel the faint pricklings of uncertainty, like the other two were engaged in a dance she has not yet had the chance to learn.

quietly, but perhaps not all that discreetly, she begins to look around the space. in the whirlwind of emotions and greeting upon her arrival, she never really granted herself the moment to look, and now she is finally seeing it all. it is small and meager, but considering their circumstances it is a great find and a great build. there, on the floor just a little to the left of where they sit, are two blankets laid out beside each other, clearly meant to be places for sleep.

two...?

belatedly, she realizes she has been addressed, and her eyes snap back towards the other male as if she'd been caught. pink begins to creep up to her cheeks, and her breathing quickens to match her heartbeat. ]

L-Lady? [ her mind scrambles to catch up to the conversation, but she answers reflexively, before really thinking about it. ] Um — yes. Yes, I am... very happy.

[ isn't she? ]

Edited 2016-11-17 12:43 (UTC)

[Although he has learned by slow degrees the patterns of her heart, he misjudges her demeanor once more: he sees in her dazed answer the uncertainty of a peasant's daughter lifted suddenly to so noble a position, meek still beneath the mantle of the status in which his love has draped her, and doubtful still of her worth although he holds her so dear. Thus his fingers enclose around hers to press the heft of his promise into her.]

What need is there for these doubts that linger in your heart? Come now, dear Olivia, be not so shy, although it is true that you meet now for the first time he who is as a brother to me despite being not of Peleus' blood nor of Thetis'.

[His eyes then dance merrily back to Patroclus as always they tend to do, and he takes up a cup of the offered wine.]

Indeed, although her heritage is but humble, look how brightly she is burnished by the well-woven chiton I have given her. Is her beauty not noble in itself? Thus I would be proud to bring her before Peleus in his esteemed house - alas, that this shall remain forever a fleeting dream that I cannot help but entertain even so.

[Here in this modest tent unfolds the sort of warm welcome he had envisioned when first he dressed Olivia in the fine indigo garment, his fancies made all the more poignant by the ache for his dear native land which swelled sharp inside his breast. The shadow of homesickness passes over his words, but this is only as lasting as the shadows thrown by the sun when drifts a cloud into its path. For here beside him is the one who embodies his home, no matter the distance that stretches between his feet and Phthia's familiar shores.

Perhaps it is this unparalleled joy that blinds him now to the other who waits faithful by his side, the one into whom he has settled as man does the familiar furnishings of his house, to which he returns at the end of each weary day, the one who has grown into his home as he travels from land to land in these far-flung fields of stars.]

Edited 2016-11-18 04:30 (UTC)

[ He did find the garment to be reminiscent of home, and should have guessed that it was a gift from Achilles. It is wine-dark as the sea, and a color dye of such rarity he had naturally assumed she was noble in birth, rich in dowry. He is not annoyed by this news, Peleus' stores are not wanting. Peleus himself would not care for such things as a bride price, having known that his son was likely not to give him grandsons in the first place. And so a grin creeps onto his face, a suggestion onto his tongue. ]

Do not allow yourself to become dissuaded, my friend.

[ He assumes that is also why Olivia is nervous-- perhaps she feels threatened that Patroclus is judging her as a viable wife for Achilles. After all, she seems very much to love him, and do honor by him. Patroclus is one for rules and proprieties, but in these matters he cares very little for class politics. His smile is still as warm as wine-flushed cheeks, growing wider yet as he shares his idea. After all, he too had given up hopes of this being able to occur-- that they had to leave their home and their planet and their very Fates behind in order for Achilles to settle down is neither surprising nor remarkable to Patroclus. ]

Lawless as this place may seem, they are yet a civilization marked by ceremony. If you should so wish, I would search their rites of marriage, and beseech ALISTAIR for its recognition of your union. Assuredly they would be pleased, and so will be our gods in our return. I think a second wedding should be no great burden, should one be demanded by those who sit upon Olympus. I do not think they will be offended.

[ Ah yes, he was definitely waiting to make this proposition, he can hardly contain himself. He knows for certain that this match would be well-made, and if either are unsatisfied with this world's religion, Patroclus is prepared to ask again on the next. One of the worlds in these endless possibility of stars must be satisfactory to both of them, and he is prepared to find it! ]

[ sitting here in this quiet tent, surrounded by men whose words remind her more of her home's old stories than her own home, olivia cannot help but feel even more remarkably out of place. the chiton she wears is dirty, covered in soot like the rest of her from a hard day's work, yet only now does she begin to feel how the cloth, fine as it is, scratches at her skin, its pins poking into her sides. she struggles to listen, to keep up with their words, and while moments ago she might have delighted and been relieved to hear such blessings from the once-late lover of her current husband — now olivia only finds herself struggling to keep afloat amidst a sea of her own confusion and dread.

rights of marriage, patroclus says. a recognition of their union.

her eyes flutter to achilles in a wild burst of panic, brows drawing as the air around the little tent suddenly seems to grow thin. ]

But we — already...

[ her words taper off into quiet uncertainty. it is true — they performed no such ceremony, exchanged no such trinkets that would normally mark such a union.

but they had exchanged vows. numerous times, a promise of dedication and love and happiness, in words and in gesture, in the way they called each other wife and husband and made homes for themselves wherever they went. wasn't that enough? shouldn't it have been enough? ]

I'm sorry I... I don't think I understand... [ she glances between the two men now, and suddenly she can on longer feel any warmth from their smiles. where before they had been like beacons to soothe her flailing heart to calm they now seem too distant, unreachable.

achilles' hand is gentle and warm around hers, and yet she feels numb to his gestures. it is the sudden spike of fear elicited from that that prompts her to turn to him, to grip his hand in return and seek out her answers. but in the last moment, the words die on her lips and her questions become silent. she knows, if she were to ask, he would be quick to reassure her. as he's always done, as he's always been so very talented in doing. before, she had been content to let his words soothe her, for they were so lovely, crafted so perfectly. in this moment, she finds she cannot be sated by his words alone.

and so she looks deeper. she quiets her breath, and calms her heart. she reaches out to him where simple hands and words cannot reach, and peers deep into the heart she has grown to know so well... or so she thought, anyway, for what she finds there is more startling than the news of patroclus' return, or her very own future daughter's appearance.

suddenly, she is on her feet, nearly knocking over the cup of wine that she'd settled beside it. ]

I — I'm sorry — I have to leave, p-please excuse me—

[ wrenching herself from achilles' grasp, she tears out of the cozy little tent, suddenly removed now of all warmth and air. ]

[Once more the hollow ships are burning, and once more Achilles takes heed too late.

He had once told Olivia that while in service to ALASTAIR he remained he intended not to take a wife, for any wife of his would soon a widow be. He felt the shadow of his fate looming over him, waiting to claim him in his next breath, and he woke up each day knowing it could be his last: how long would stretch the tether from the moment to which his fate was staked, the moment that he pried vengeance from murderous Hector? Yet selfishly he had indulged in this final joy, for he could resist love's pull no more than the tides might reject the persuasion of the moon, and soon this warning was buried beneath promises so sweet to hear.

Thus no ceremony had formalized their union, but the time they passed together has bound their hearts all the more tightly. Achilles never has been one to lend only half his heart toward any cause: he tosses himself bodily, as if from a cliff below which the seafoam beckons. To see her take up the mantle of motherhood in the ever-shifting landscapes of Zeta-12, he had fallen all the faster, and in the breath-stealing rush he had wondered what it might be like to see her fair arms laden not with the alien creatures with whose care they were tasked, but with their own beautiful child.

This gauzy dream, which had long begun to wither neath the harsh glare of reality, wreathes him once more upon encouragement from Patroclus, whose counsel he values second only to Peleus. With his dear companion by his side, through means which no mortal might adequately explain, he feels that he might defy the Fates a while longer.

His eyes merry and his throat warm from the sweet burn of the cactus wine, he turns to see how Olivia takes this suggestion. Where he anticipates joy, veiled in soft demureness yet shining out brightly nonetheless, he sees only confusion drawn around her to make her appear so very small. This confusion bleeds now into his own countenance.]

Olivia, pleasure of my heart - what is this you are saying?

[He is given no chance to speak further ere she tears from his grasp to flee from the tent which they have not yet shaped into their home. He casts Patroclus a fleeting look, as if there he might find some answer to his own wife's strange behavior, but soon he is setting down his cup and springing to his feet that he might pursue Olivia.]

Wait! For what must you go from my side?

[With her gift of sight, with which she may peer into not the minds of gods but the hearts of men, she sees the truth more plainly than ever Achilles might bear it in words: for within his heart, his love for her burns as steady and sure as the fire upon a rich man's hearth, where its crackling belly is kept fat by kindling. Yet there too burns his love for Patroclus, as brilliant as the sun which fire only hopes to imitate, and as blinding to gaze upon too.]

Edited (kills typos) 2016-11-19 18:32 (UTC)

[ she gets no more than twenty feet away from the encampment before her natural grace fails her, and her feet stumble along sand and snow and rock. somehow she manages to catch herself in time, but it had all been far from graceful. in truth, it is only this misstep that has her lingering, for had she had achilles' swiftness of feet, she would have been far out past the outskirts of town, running till her legs and lungs burned with the same intensity of her tears, already feeling white-down down her cheeks.

it takes her all of a second to trip, half of that to regain her footing, and another second more to turn back towards him, still so very weak to the sound of his own voice. he implores her to wait, and so she does, but she takes care to keep that distance between them, fearful of how her heart might burst should he get close enough.

she had felt it, of course. far more potent than his rage, which had once debilitated her too. the love that she had just minutes ago foolishly thought to be buried along with that man's body, now resurrected and revived just as he stands before them both.

or is it, perhaps, that that love had never truly died at all? like a flower cut through its roots but kept safe and secure in a pot of meager soil, finding cause again to bloom and thrive now that its sun has returned. ]

I... I don't understand... What — What is all this? [ she struggles to breathe, to keep her wits about her. but olivia had always been a creature of emotion, driven to extremes at even the slightest bit of prompting. she is a woman who would burst into tears at the sight of a lone strawberry on a place, or be driven to overwhelming euphoria to just be in the presence of a bright, full moon. here, now, she feels she is suffocating from such emotions, this strange hodgepodge of love and loss and overwhelming uncertainty and fear.

what does it mean, a part of her mind cries, but the other only laughs and says, you know what it means. ]

Why did you bring him here?

[For all her haste she cannot outrun a man whose fleet feet keep pace with a team of horses, and thus he soon makes disappear the distance between them. Her wish for space, that she might breathe without suffocating on his potent presence, this he tramples by reaching for her trembling hands and drawing her toward him, as carelessly as man might tread upon the flowers that crouch in the field through which he passes. His grip is gentle yet imploring as his eyes press into her and his words too.]

What mean you by such a question? Among all men there is none whom I love more dearly than the son of Menoetius - to me he is no less kin than mine own father. Am I to cast him out when he has just today come to this strange land and has no hearth but mine own by which to warm himself and make his bed? Had you but asked, I would have welcomed your daughter to share in whatever humble den we claim for our home, no matter that she is of another man's seed. Almighty Zeus, the protector of guests, demands that hospitality be given to strangers, but it ought to be ever more self-evident that man must provide for his family by any means he can.

[In this moment she seems a stranger in his eyes, just as she had on the night when she retrieved him from death's grim gates, when Koltira's glowing blade had rent his flesh but his own pride had carved a chasm between her and himself, which could be closed by neither his words nor hers. And so they had ceased speaking of it altogether, she in the hope that they would together fall back into place, and he in the belief that a wife would always worry after her husband but could not deter him from the path set before his feet. They had thus endured.

Yet now he is brought back to that howling silence in which he felt that he could not reach her. Away from the warmth of the tent he had built for them, even his broad shoulders draw inward to ward off the pervasive chill whose fingers seize him now that he runs no longer.]

Will you tell me why fall these tears down your fair cheeks?

Edited 2016-11-20 00:45 (UTC)

Kin?

[ the word (pitched here so high that nearby alien coyote would surely have stopped to get a look) is repeated so incredulously that it may as well have been foreign to her, like the grecian words left unsupported by the broken magitech back in oska. then, her sorrows had come from an uncontrollable catalyst, but the divide created there between them had only urged them both to work even harder to meet in the middle.

then, the divide had made them worlds away. here, she can't even tell if they're in the same universe anymore.

because she knows what she felt. she knows the depths of the love he so carelessly lays to rest there, out in the open, knows having waded through her own waters herself. she knows the flames that burns in his chest and in his veins like the embers firestorms he ignites within her own body and while her heart is heavy and full with the miles-wide, miles-deep love she feels for her family, both future and past, she knows that that love is not even within the same realm of what she'd found there in his heart when she'd gone looking. ]

Wh.. What exactly does "kin" mean to you?

[That she leaves his questions unanswered begins to wear through his patience, the fabric of which is so thin. Like sand in which is left the marks of ships' prows, his brow furrows in bemusement, and like rocks that jut from the shore, his words are sharp upon his lips.]

For what do you ask such senseless questions? Does kin not hold the same meaning for me as it would any man? Has ever the word been uttered for any other than those in whom a man's loyalty lies above all else?

[His voice strains to soften, and his hand rises to her cheek to cradle it as he has so many times before, with the intent both to comfort her and to hold her gaze steady upon him. His thumb brushes across the warm trail of her tears to interrupt their steady trickle.]

Come now - how am I to know what stirs you to such distress if you will not name it? It is glad tidings that our love has received blessing from one whose opinion I so esteem, yet you act as a child who runs for her mother's skirts while she cries. Have I not said before that whatever cares weigh upon your heart you may share with me, that the burden might be halved?

[When she feels far from him as she does now, always has he drawn her back with with his words and his touch, which are as the gentle breeze beneath with bob the crowns of ash trees - and thus he waits for her to sway into him.]

[ and just as his patience wears thin over her evasion, so too does she find the cold grip of dread tighten its hold around her throat over his.

loyalty, he says, in a voice thick with sincerity, and she wants to laugh. instead she jerks away from his touch, taking a hasty step back on snow that nearly has her sliding down to her knees again, but she manages her balance much more successfully than she does her spiking emotions. loyalty, he says, and she is tempted again to ask him what he think that word means.

his words again as so sweet, so gentle. he stands before her emanating this irresistible warmth, made only more tempting by the chill that hangs heavy in the winter air, but she is wary of that temptation, worried to lose herself again to the comfort and complacency he so readily offers her, the very same she's indulged in too many times before.

it is easy now, though, to drown such words in the torrent of emotions she'd felt off of him, the emotions she still continues to sense from him, unchanging even as his frustrations grow, even as her own distress becomes evident. if his words were a flame and she, a lonely, desperate moth, then his emotions now become the daylight that reveals all to her, providing now a context that burns too much and scares her away. ]

That's not... [ and of course, he was always so much better with words, where she would often stumble over them as if they were her own feet, frozen and heavy from fright and failure. ] You don't love him like you would love kin... Or —

Or me.

Edited 2016-11-20 16:11 (UTC)

[As when dawn reaches its rosy fingers across the sky to reveal to man all to which he was blind during the night, so too does recognition strike Achilles. In his ebullience, just as in his rage, he had thought only of himself and assumed that all around him would bend to his selfsame wants. Yet now he sees that he was wrong. Well does he remember the jealousy that had burned in her bosom upon his recounting of the years passed upon Scyros, but then she had borne this fire for another woman: that his love for Patroclus might sear her heart in this same way had not occurred to him, for men and women are such separate matters.]

Olivia... Patroclus is my kin - we were boys together in my father's house, and later under the tutelage of Chiron upon Mount Pelion. He is my brother in arms, who lent himself in loyal service to me when for Ilios I set sail in the fleet of fifty ships granted by Peleus. For nine long years we let rage our spears across Dardanus' plain and tended to the wounds of our comrades the Myrmidons as well as one another's. For these same nine years we took pride in the treasures we pried from the bloody jaws of battle. Through all of these trials and triumphs he has stayed steady by my side.

Yet you speak true, for such words cannot hope to describe all that he is to me, just as it would be inadequate to call a storm that which rends the heavens in twain to unleash a torrent of rain and a fury of thunder hurled by Zeus almighty. Truly Patroclus is my second self, inside whose breast beats half of my heart. This I burned upon his funeral pyre, and this I poured into the golden urn alongside his precious ashes.

[He can see how each truth he inflicts upon her flays her flesh and rends her tender heart, yet he cannot still his tongue. Out here, where the world is shrouded in a pall of snow, the silence is made palpable, but he strives nonetheless to reach her with his words.]

Indeed, I believed that never again would I love nor feel my heart fill with joy - for how can a broken vessel hold any water? I had only my fate to look forward to, that I might meet the shade of my dear companion upon the Acheron's far shore. Yet then I was blown off course, and thus we collided as perhaps we never were meant to do.

[Perhaps in the beginning she has served as a distraction, someone lovely and warm in whose fleeting company he could delight while still he staved off the end of mortality. Then slowly and all at once this had changed: although she could not replace the missing half of his heart, she had patched what remained of it and so gave it use once more. At present he takes a step nearer, his hands purposing to take hold of hers once more.]

You are my wife, dear Olivia - I love you no less today than I did yesterday.

[ there is a numbness creeping upon her unlike any she had ever felt before. she can count the number of times she'd fallen in love on one hand, and each had gone and passed like the setting sun. each time her heart had broken, but as the world continued to spin and the sun continued to rise, she had learned, too, to spin and rise again. and though each love is different, and she knows as well as anyone that one can never truly compare to the other, she had never once thought it possible to hold two loves at once, when her heart at times feels unable to contain even just the one. here again she feels her heart breaking, but a part of her is beginning to wonder if it had not already been doing so in these past few weeks, where here now the final pieces seem to splinter off, leaving behind a hollowness that threatens to consume.

achilles, too, had been a lovely distraction. a balm to soothe her aching heart, when another among them had left her broken and healing. he was perfect in every which way, delighting her with affection, spoiling her with attention. he was the exact combination of everything she had been too ashamed to ever ask for in another, and that large, selfish part of her indulged where a wiser woman might have stepped back to better assess it all.

perhaps she only has herself to blame. perhaps if she had been stronger, smarter, less selfish — perhaps she could have spared them both. ]

But still, you love him more...

[ her words now are not confused, not edged with the sharpness of accusation. now they are quiet and cold, like the winter dessert around them.

half my heart, he said. my second self.

there remains between them a foot or two of empty space, breached only by his hands hoping to meet hers. but her limbs feel heavy, and her heart heavier still. she cannot bring herself to reach out and take what she no longer feels is hers. ]

What is a wife to you, Achilles? [ it seems now all she can ask for is clarification, enlightenment. but never before had she thought that their views did not align, or that he might consider one to be mutually exclusive from the other.

she realizes her mistake now, of course, and though a large part of her already knows... still she seeks to hear it, woven with the words she has thus far become so susceptible to. ]

Edited 2016-11-20 17:39 (UTC)

[They are once more shivering wet and cold in the verdant hush of the forest surrounding Oska, and he cannot adequately explain to her the heft of his love nor the customs inside which his heart is accustomed to operating. So too are they are one more in their shared chamber in the castle, dancing wordlessly in one another's embrace to stitch shut the silence as their disparate tongues could not. Then they had relied on touch where words had failed, but now she will not allow him this comfort: between them the air grows ever more brittle and his hands fall empty by his sides.

Achilles, she calls him - not her lord, nor her love, nor her song. Uttered thus his name is a hard bud unwilling to bloom.

It is once more all of the mornings he had awakened to find her gone from his bed, when first she had been granted a glimpse of the path Fate had set for her, the woman she would become and the family she would have without him. It is the night she had brought her daughter before him, and the night she had lent herself as a crutch that he might hobble back to town with his wounds mended but his pride mangled still. Between them he feels every fracture that ever has run through their hearts, each compounding the other to split ever wider until there remains naught but what is broken.]

A man requires a wife that he might find comfort in her embrace and support in her words. By his side she is faithful and obedient, and if the gods so bless their union she shall bear for him strong sons and beautiful daughters. All this you have given me but for children of our own - dare I dream that still we might have time to make this so?

[He steps forward again, but this time it is not her hands for which he reaches, but her hair, that which he had fallen in love with first. His fingers trace over one of the soft strands, as he has done so many times before, never failing to delight in how fine it feels beneath his touch. He rues now how in the calamity of the fire he had missed his chance to watch her comb her hair and fix it into braids, as has grown into a part of his own morning routine in the home they had here begun to make, the home that now is little more than ashes and ruined timbers.]

I know how your heart aches, but is it not enough that I love you? No matter my love for Patroclus, he cannot be my wife - for this task, there exists only you.

Edited (one day i'll stop hecking up) 2016-11-20 20:33 (UTC)

[ once more he reaches for her, and this time she does not shy away. in truth, his movement allows for her a distraction that she might look elsewhere than the intensity of passion that burns in his eyes, the very same stare that would always make her so weak in the knees. she watches as his fingers dance over a lock of her hair, unbraided and fallen from the haphazard bun she'd hastily piled on top of her head since that morning's chaos. similar strands fall all around her face, in pastel rivulets down the length of her back, like the leaves of autumn that signal an end to spingtime and summer. it is a touch she is able to tolerate, for she feels nothing but a ghost of the touches she would often crave.

in her ears, his words ring like distant church bells, a sound that must have once been meant to be placating and welcoming, now somber and dull with obligation.

comfort, he says. comfort in her embrace, support in her words. obedient.

faithful.

when she finally speaks again, it is with the slow uncertainty of someone who is clearly struggling to understand, yet with a guarded hesitation of someone who also realizes she may not want to. ]

So I am... your wife, [ she says, and never before has a word uttered by her mouth sounded so despicable before, ] while he is... your soulmate.

[ there is a hollow pang in her chest that threatens to weaken her knees in another way. her mind swims and her breathing grows thing with this revelation, and still, somehow, she finds the ability to continue to speak. ]

And you mean now to — to have us both?

[His fingers tangle deep in her hair, brushing now against the curve of her skull, no longer a mere shadow of his affection, for entwined with her hesitation grows his desperation to keep her in his grasp. They are once more dancing by the flickering light of a dozen bonfires upon the shores of Nalawi, and once more entangled in one another's embrace atop his cloak where it unfurls over the grass. Thank the gods for your stubbornness, she had said, and he answered, Are you now glad that you gave into the desires of your heart? They are once more curled together in the cramped tent which housed them all across Zeta-12; and in his grand bed in Oska, surrounded by the trinkets with which she had given the space the feeling of home; and in the bed they had left for the last time this morning, in which they usually lingered well after the sun has risen. She is dancing, and he alone is her enchanted audience; she is weaving flowers through his hair and laughing for the absurdity of such a thing; she is clinging to him fiercely and crying not because he had been lost but because he is alive, and her tears streak through the dust which the collapsed cavern did pour upon him, so like a cleansing rain they are.

And through all of this, she is radiant. Through all of this, she is his.

All these moments he feels slip through his fingers like the silky strands of her hair. In the pit of his stomach grows apprehension for her words which are as embers dulling upon the hearth, and at once he wonders if when she turns to go he will be able to draw her back this time.]

I know not how I can live any other way. I can leave off loving you no more than I can leave off loving him - what doctor has yet invented the tool precise enough that I might choose which pieces of my heart to excise and which to keep?

[Such is his selfishness, which long has shadowed his every step. This too he cannot let go of.]

[ had it really only been four months since their fateful union? four and some change, if one were to count her extra two there upon the shores of nalawi where she'd been left to sit and daydream of their times together, the gentle and heated moments they'd so tenderly shared in the first exciting few steps of their dance. sixteen weeks hardly seemed like enough to encompass all that they'd gone through, the very definition of a whirlwind romance that had started off so perfectly, the only suitable ending would be that it not have one at all.

thrice their fates had threatened to divide them, and each time they held onto each other with more fervor and more desperation than the last. there by the quiet stream of zeta-12 where he confessed himself a man made weak by her love, the temptation of which drew him further from his glory, and thus from his own inevitable death. next still when she cried into the press of their palms upon his knee, and his soothing words reassured her that her future has yet arrived to snatch her love away from him and onto another man. and finally when the living embodiment of that future love arrived here, flesh and bone, they had both swallowed down the grim reminder with warm acceptance and more determination than ever to enjoy the time they have been blessed with now.

this again he might feel yet another test to the strength of their love, and yet another more for them to conquer together under the shield of their blissful and blatant disregard of fate, but for all her perceptiveness olivia cannot see where these moments might be similar. never before had he asked her to share that honored mantle of his. never before had she felt herself bereft of his whole heart. ]

I-I don't understand, I...

[ at last her body remembers how to cry again, and suddenly her vision blurs as her eyes well up once more. the realization of the destination of this conversation has begun to hit her, full force, and her body has grown too weak to fend for itself. ]

I would — I would never ask this o-of you, I—

[ surely he knows. surely he knows how selfish a creature she is as well? how much she needs for him to be hers, only hers, just as much as he once declared into the night just outside that once-standing saloon how desperately he wished to prove she were his and only his. she knows he knows, having felt that very same despair and grief and rage at just the thought of another laying hands and lips and heart where there should only be hers.

how, then? ]

How can you ask this of me?

[He watches her crumble apart like the beaten face of a sea cliff that submits at last to the persistent pressure of the waves that day by day have worn it down and wedged into its faults to crack them open ever wider - and just as man is helpless to halt nature's intentions, so too does he feel helpless to hold her together. He has only his hand in her hair, and the other now upon her waist, where always it has seemed to fit just so.

Presently Achilles realizes that never before has he been so frightened by the prospect of losing anyone apart from Patroclus. Long has he worried that his father would reach the end of his life, the news of which he would receive on foreign shores flung so far from his dear native land, from where he cannot see even the faint glow of the funeral pyre - yet Peleus had lived a full and honorable life, and thus his time was due to come. Achilles would grieve but he would then straighten his shoulders and move forward, for he was no longer a boy tethered to his father's side.

Briseis he had lamented when wide-ruling Agamemnon had stolen the girl from his bed, but his quarrel with the son of Atreus stemmed not from the fear that his spear-bride might never return to his embrace, but rather from the fury over his wounded pride. Deidamia he had left behind as easily as his fifty ships had left behind their wakes as their prows carved the wine-dark waves, frightened more by the threat of his fading glory than by the loss of his fledgling family.

Yet now looms the same presentiment to overshadow his heart as once it had when burned the beaked ships and he waited outside his tent for the glinting of armor that would signal Patroclus' return. No such signal ever came. So too might he wait in vain for some sign that Olivia's heart shall turn, that she shall acquiesce to his will.]

Will you not be faithful by my side as you have vowed by granting that I may call you my wife, and I your husband? What would you have me do, Olivia? Am I to hide the love that lives within my breast? Am I to deny that which is most true inside my heart?

[His voice cracks upon the jagged edge of his agony as the hull of a ship would crack upon the rocks that jut from the shoreline. How strange it is that something that was meant to bring joy can summon with it such sorrow, just as the shadow cast by a candle is inextricable from its flickering light. How strange it is too that his heart can be at once so swollen with not just one love but two, yet so hollow for all this.]

[ where his words had once been the calming song to soothe her ailing heart, they now strike her where it hurts the most, far deeper than her healer's hands can reach. his plea here, his attempt at an appeal — it stings worse than any injury she's ever acquired, and she recoils from the brunt of it with so much force that he might as well have struck her himself. ]

Faithful?

[ her voice pitches once more in her disbelief, weighted only by her extreme flaring of indignation. she is at once incredulous and disappointed, pained and alarmed. ]

You.. You want me to be faithful? While you—?

[ her words cut off, her hands flinging back towards the camp he had carefully created for them, wherein a home that should have been just theirs waits a man who has already achieved what she sees now was never meant to be hers. for while patroclus fills the hollow half of achilles' heart, she realizes all along she'd only meant to be the cradle that supports it.

is this the life she's meant to have? is this the kind of love she deserves? one of loneliness and afterthoughts, of staring at the backs of giants who remain just a little too out of her reach.

twice before she thought she could be fine with it. that she would not mind, so long as he was happy, to remain the the harbor to his sailing ship, left behind to do little more than sit and wait and be content.

but his love has made her even more selfish, bolstered a belief that she might not only be worth more, but deserved more, and to suddenly have that ripped out from her hands feels so incredibly cruel. she thought, for a moment there, that that feeling might finally be hers to keep. ]

No...

[ she takes a step back, and snow crunches beneath her feet. her hands reach out, not towards him, but against him, like a shield that shivers delicately in the winter wind. ]

I can't...

[ another step back, and then another, and slowly but surely each one after that grows steadier, more determined. she looks at him, just one last time, and tries to remember how happy he had made her. how happy yet they could have been.

somehow it only makes this hurt more. ]

...I won't.

[ there is some sweet sort of irony here, that through his love she has finally learned to speak up for what she wants... yet what she wants, he cannot give. ]

I'm sorry.

[ and she is, too, for all of it, for none of it, for her strength and her weakness and his love and his loves and all the things she is now turning her back to and running from. ]

[As Olivia pulls away from him, his lips part that he might sway her once more.

He wants to tell her of how he needs both her love and Patroclus' to hold steady his heart. Man requires the sun that he may live, for without its light he is lost in the thick shroud of darkness through which he cannot see, and from the barren soil no fruits are borne upon which he can sate his hunger. Yet so too does he require a hearth to which to return at the day's close, upon which dances a hearty fire that keeps him warm and wreathes him in comfort. How is he meant to endure absent either?

He wants to tell her too of how he loves her as never he has loved a woman. This he learned as their love unfolded like a flower that as it blooms reveals more of its petals: for while he had loved Deidamia, and Briseis, and other girls whom he had taken to bed, these were as strangers when compared to Olivia. Each had been someone whom he was with, but never something he was a part of. Each was someone whom he lay beside but to whose heart he never listened closely while his own beat so fiercely.

Yet his tongue in this moment is a dullard of a smith, in whose forge no tools of any utility are shaped, and in the silence she turns and flees.

On the night when appeared Lucina, that emissary of a far future, that portent of a life beyond their too ephemeral embrace, they had later lain together, Olivia and he. Then his name had broken upon her lips in the way that the blessed blood spilled of oxen's throats is poured upon an altar, as if to promise that such reverence was reserved for him alone, and in this love Achilles had exulted.

There is nothing he might say now to breathe into her heart the same feeling, the feeling that he is hers alone to love, for such a feeling is naught but a lie when behind him waits Patroclus, now more than mere ashes sealed within an urn, more than a memory that beats within his breast. When he tries her name nonetheless, it is weak as it unfurls from his tongue. In the sterile silence of the snow, its flight seems cut short.]

Olivia!

[On she runs, and were he to give chase he would easily catch her. Yet what can he say that she might return with him to what he had hoped to make into their home? What more can he say when already he has exhausted all his words?]

Olivia, wait!

[While she fades ever smaller, his swift feet stay frozen like tree trunks rooted in the earth. Left upon his palm is the soft memory of her hip, and in his fingers the ghost of her hair where once he stroked it. Achilles does not watch her vanish from his sight, for he turns and goes to his tent. Like the wine-dark waves when lashed by wind he moves, and his grief is plain upon his countenance as would be the imprint of lightning where it strikes against the storm-bruised sky.]

[ Patroclus drowns out the noise with his thoughts, pacing in their small tent that Olivia should be upset with Achilles and he knows not why. After all, she had wanted to be married! He knew that for sure, one did not simply refuse a marriage by a Prince of Phthia, a commander of armies, a worlds-renowned hero as Achilles is. Surely she is angry at something else, he thinks. The idea of marriage on another planet, or perhaps she is insulted by the idea of a brideprice. Perhaps on her world, the groom's family lavishes the bride in gifts. That can be arranged-- Patroclus can assist Achilles in retrieving gifts until she is sated.

He is in the middle of plotting when Achilles returns to their tent, ego bruised and looking crestfallen. His face, in mirror to his friend's, contorts and disfigures itself into a pained expression. He makes his way over to Achilles, raises hands to his shoulders in a steadying position. ]

You could not sway Olivia?

[ Worried as he is, he is even more worried still. Perhaps Patroclus should have acted as mediator, stepped in between them to sugar Achilles' words which are sometimes prone to bend under his moods. ]

Tell me this, what is it that her heart desires? I shall help you to find it, and we shall together persuade her return to your house. I meant her no insult, but I fear her wrath is a cause of my misunderstanding. I will find her and make amends, if only you will first enlighten me as to what grievous thing I have said.

[As a man would hold fast to the ruined timbers of his ship that he might spare himself from drowning, so too does Achilles clasp his companion's hand there where it rests upon his shoulder. The tears that have gathered in his eyes at last grow too heavy for his eyelashes to hold, and so they fall as rain would burst from a storm-swollen cloud. Patroclus speaks and all the while he shakes his head, mired still in disbelief: never has it been he who is left behind in his lover's wake.]

It shall not be enough - no matter how fully swells my love for her, it shall never be enough while still you hold my heart too. This she has made quite plain. It matters not that I love her as ever man has loved his wife, nor that I have cherished her more each day since first we lay together upon the shores of Nalawi. All the moments we have shared in one another's company are now as nothing to her, worth no more than the soot upon the hearth!

[For in her words, he loves Patroclus more. In his thinking he cannot love one more and another less, for no fair comparison can be drawn between the two, just as man cannot declare whether bread or wine is best when he requires both to sustain himself. The two loves that beat within his breast are of separate strains, the love one has for his wife and the love one has for his brother in arms, his second self. He cannot say how it is that both may nestle side by side; he knows only that this is so.]

What Olivia desires is that I harbor only her within my heart. Thus no love-sweet words shall ever persuade her. Death itself, which conquers even the best of men and kidnaps them into the house of Hades, had not the strength to take away my love for you. Just as I have loved you even after you were cast through death's hated gates, so shall I love you after I too have gone by that same grim path. Nor would I choose to leave off loving you if I could, as this would make a traitor of me.

[His words pour forth like the spray of the sea, the froth formed of its waves as upon the rocks they crash, carrying all at once his anguish, his confusion, his indignation.]

[ Patroclus does not understand, even as Achilles recounts for him this story, even as he watches his tears roll fat down his cheek. He thinks that perhaps Achilles has gone a bit mad in his grief, as what he is saying makes very little sense. Whoever heard of a woman so jealous to refuse her husband to love anyone else, even a Therapon who could not rightfully usurp her position and who would not even want to? Why else would he be so excited, marrying her off to Achilles as he is? ]

Do you not find this explanation unreasonable as I?

[ He brushes the tears away from Achilles' face, hand tracing down his arm and finally settling Achilles' into his palms, threading their fingers the way they fit best as two threads on a loom. ]

Surely there must be some other, and this merely a facade. How could she hope to control your heart when it is not something that can be contained even by its owner? It is an absurd notion, Achilles, you must ask her what truly strikes doubt in her mind for you.

[ He squeezes Achilles' hands then, and thinks of other things that might be the matter. After all, Achilles has a large heart with room and appetite for many, and if Patroclus felt any guilt for being the party standing in between the marriage, it's dissipated into a fine mist at the notion that Achilles would not just so easily love another after the wedding. So readily indeed is he struck by Eros' arrows that Patroclus would be unsurprised to find a whole quiver with Achilles' name engraved on the side. ]

Will you not give her chase? This is of utmost importance, Achilles.

[Weighed down by sorrow as a branch is burdened by fruits, his gaze falls to the floor beside the humble hearth, where remains the cup from which Olivia had only begun to sip. What few possessions they had together managed to salvage from the blaze sit bundled beside his god-burnished armor and shield, there in the corner opposite the beds he had fashioned. All appears ready to welcome her home - some shade of home - waiting for her to pass once more through the tent's entrance as Achilles fears she never shall.

Again he shakes his head, and his fingers tighten in his friend's.]

What other reason could there be? Just yesterday all was well, and ere sleep shrouded our eyes for the night we lay together as is the way between man and wife. What more has changed between then and now, but for your return to my side? Is it the prospect of living in this hut that turns her from my arms, now that the house in which once we were guests has turned to cinders? No, this cannot be, for she and I have together shared meaner dwellings than this.

[He breathes in a breath as sharp as the jagged rocks that jut forth from the sea. His nostrils fill with the reminder of the meal that Patroclus still prepares, but where before his heart swelled with contentment for the new house he would settle, it now sinks in despair.]

I have neither appetite for supper, nor thirst for wine - for a man as wretched as I, no pleasure shall come of these. I had thought this night would be one of thanksgiving, yet now my joy has turned to grief, and I find myself as shocked as the farmer whose crops waste to seed at once. How swiftly man's fortune turns!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( closed ) everyone's a building burning

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this got fairly gay

it's always fairly gay

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omg this got too long kasjdla WILL ADDRESS IT IN NEXT TAG

out of control

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gently welcomes you back from vacation