Achilles, son of Peleus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heelies) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
epidemiology2016-12-06 10:11 pm
heelies) wrote in epidemiology2016-12-06 10:11 pm
Entry tags:
( closed ) a lifelong walk to the same exact spot
CHARACTERS: Achilles and Koltira, others later
DATE: Following this post
WARNINGS: Homeric levels of violence
SUMMARY: Something like this, probably.
[When Koltira answers his challenge at last, the sun is midway through its descent, and from this oblique angle it casts its light upon Achilles' glinting armor and gold-crested helmet, setting him aglow with all the resplendence of a funeral pyre. Outside of the town, away from the encampment, he waits with spear stoutly poised, its butt struck against the hard earth and its pitiless bronze head pointing toward the heavens.
Although he is flung so far from the keen eyes of the gods, those immortals who upon steep Olympus dwell, he has offered supplications that he might receive their benison nevertheless. The throats of what game can be found in the thin groves of this land, these he and Patroclus have slit to let flow the blood in honor of the immortals, and their thigh bones and rich fat they have burned, so that with the smoke rose his fervent prayers that bright-eyed Athena would breath strength into his limbs and guide his spear true.
He is a man made sharply aware of the specter of death, whose shadow has long cast over him as would a funeral pall over a body. It is not out of ignorance that he challenges Koltira, nor arrogance such that makes a man think himself indestructible: well does he know he might fall in this duel. If Koltira should revoke his mercy, if Fate should reclaim him, if the healers should fail in their godlike gifts, then he is lost from the country of the living. He does not wish to die, but nor does he wish to bear the weight of his wounded pride which has only swollen worse for all the days it has gone untended: thus, no matter the outcome, the son of Peleus tells himself that he shall accept it.]
DATE: Following this post
WARNINGS: Homeric levels of violence
SUMMARY: Something like this, probably.
[When Koltira answers his challenge at last, the sun is midway through its descent, and from this oblique angle it casts its light upon Achilles' glinting armor and gold-crested helmet, setting him aglow with all the resplendence of a funeral pyre. Outside of the town, away from the encampment, he waits with spear stoutly poised, its butt struck against the hard earth and its pitiless bronze head pointing toward the heavens.
Although he is flung so far from the keen eyes of the gods, those immortals who upon steep Olympus dwell, he has offered supplications that he might receive their benison nevertheless. The throats of what game can be found in the thin groves of this land, these he and Patroclus have slit to let flow the blood in honor of the immortals, and their thigh bones and rich fat they have burned, so that with the smoke rose his fervent prayers that bright-eyed Athena would breath strength into his limbs and guide his spear true.
He is a man made sharply aware of the specter of death, whose shadow has long cast over him as would a funeral pall over a body. It is not out of ignorance that he challenges Koltira, nor arrogance such that makes a man think himself indestructible: well does he know he might fall in this duel. If Koltira should revoke his mercy, if Fate should reclaim him, if the healers should fail in their godlike gifts, then he is lost from the country of the living. He does not wish to die, but nor does he wish to bear the weight of his wounded pride which has only swollen worse for all the days it has gone untended: thus, no matter the outcome, the son of Peleus tells himself that he shall accept it.]