[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!
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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!