messageforyou | For refusetofight

For refusetofight

It's not long after Anthesteria that the vulture arrives. It has the same rattling rusty call, the same ugly plucked red head. It finds Achilles wherever he is in the Underworld, and it bears a message written on parchment.

Told you need to hear about human minds!

Happy to chat :) Meet me at the mouth of the Styx

Bring an adult mortal with as little divine blood as you can, who you don't mind hearing what we have to discuss

- P

Prometheus has set up outside the Temple of Styx. It'd be rude for him to invade Hades' realm. Rude--how interesting to consider through the lens of his work, knowing that it's a territorial response. Gods are just as humans, just as animals. They dislike it when those who don't belong wander in their territory.

He looks a sight better than he did when Achilles last saw him, but still not particularly good. His salt and pepper hair is pulled back, his beard now trimmed neatly, and his clothes not quite so ragged (though they're still streaked with clay). His hands are still too thin, gnarled like tree roots with bulging arthritic knuckles, and his joints are swollen and muscles withered.

His chiton is pulled up and clasped so that the scarring over his liver isn't visible anymore, and he might look to all the world as an elderly, arthritic man, if it weren't for his shadow. It spills out behind him, cast by the campfire he's built, and it is so large that it fills the whole clearing.

He's boiling water over the fire. He has a bag full of things, sitting by his side. A cheetah, his newest creation, lies languidly over his legs, keeping his joints warm and keeping pressure on them to cease their aching momentarily.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“A moment’s impatience didn’t cause Pergamus’ death. The Fates take the lives of many children. They saw fit to cut his life short, and so it was.” Aspasia’s image lingers, and Achilles is struck by how fondly Neoptolemus’ dream renders the woman. “But they also gave you comfort in your grief.”

Achilles steps closer again and grasps Neoptolemus’ hand, firm and reassuring. “And now— now you are a kind and attentive father to Molossus.”

He can feel the bumps, the callouses on his son’s hands from his many hours of writing. There’s a very good chance Pyrrhus has written more than Achilles has—in life or death. Has Pyrrhus’ constant reflection eased his grief, or made it worse?

“Pyrrhus, lad, you lost so much. So much more than I.“ He lost his childhood, his father, his mother, two children. “And yet you still stand. In that, you’ve surpassed me.”

He could care less about ending the siege on Troy. That foolish war was inflicted on the both of them. What’s come after is far more important.

Aspasia's image in his mind has more colors of respect than his memories of Odysseus or Philoctetes. There's fond admiration there. Neoptolemus is pretty sure that Aspasia could go toe-to-toe with any warrior in Troy and prove braver, for all her physical frailty in comparison. And perhaps that's more worthy of respect than being able to swing a sword well.

Neoptolemus doesn't respond at first to his father holding his hand. He just keeps staring, numbly, forward.

But having his father, the looming shadow over his life he's used for self-abuse and comfort both, say that he's surpassed him?

His eyes grow red. And then they overflow. He doesn't make noises like his younger self, still safely cradled by their father. But he does squeeze his father's hand in his, and lean against his side, letting the tears fall silently.

The whole world of the dream sighs, as if letting out a long-held breath. The words giving structure to the world don't seem so rigid, the colors don't seem quite so overwhelming. The bedroom melts away, and the palace grows to become something closer to reality, closer to the one built by Neoptolemus in Epirus. There's a third part of the man in the dream, working tirelessly somewhere out of sight, and only now that his most pained and volatile parts are soothed can he be sensed.

Achilles shifts to meet Neoptolemus’ weight and squeezes his hand tighter. He relaxes as the dream settles into a more coherent shape.

“I know you were trying to protect him,” he says gently, nodding his head to young, tender Pyrrhus. “I don’t fault you for that, but … will you treat him with more kindness? … It won’t come easily, but will you try?”

Achilles hooks a knuckle under Pyrrhus’ chin to coax him away from his chest. “And you, lad. Will you be patient? Will you forgive him? He was doing what he thought was best.”

Whether through injury or experience, these parts of his son have fractured. Can they be mended? It’s allowed him to survive thus far, but how much longer? Will the next tragedy finally shatter him completely?

The boys look at each other like Achilles has just asked them to eat rotten eggs. The contempt Neoptolemus has for the part of himself that still desperately wants the love, affection, and protection of a parental figure, and the fear he has of opening up enough to allow people in just to be rejected and shattered and alone again.

"They're both going to lock me in a room again as soon as you're gone," Pyrrhus says, glaring at Neoptolemus.

"You'll take us all down if we don't," Neoptolemus accuses. The fragility of this mind hasn't escaped his notice. They can't have a dumb little boy pleading for his dead mommy and daddy running around making the whole thing worse. Neoptolemus huffs, glaring, but averts his eyes and squeezes Achilles' hand.

"...I can try to be nicer." He can try. That much, he can do.

From what he can tell, Pyrrhus is the one who allowed them to open up to Aspasia and save them from self-destructive grief. Asking him to listen to his instincts for love and comfort is probably too much to ask. Trying to be nice seems like the best he can hope for from this aspect of Neoptolemus.

Achilles has been so occupied by his son’s dream, he very nearly forgot about Prometheus. He spares a quick glance around to make sure the titan is still there before he turns to Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus.

“I believe one more person lives in this palace who I should speak with. Would the two of you please help me find him?”

Prometheus has deliberately made himself easy to forget. He's faded somewhat into the dream, blurry with splotches of color, purely because he can tell how important it is for Pyrrhus to have this catharsis with his father. But he's still there, and he gives Achilles an encouraging smile, as if to say, You're doing great. Prometheus can tell that Achilles has seen the value in these different estranged parts of his son and the purposes they serve, even if they don't.

Pyrrhus points down the hall. "He's there."

Neoptolemus pulls Achilles by the hand. "We'll take you to him."

Down the hall, there's a new room. It's a blurry cross between a throne room and a war tent, the sort that tacticians and kings would talk over a battle map inside late into the night. But on the table that would normally hold a map, there's sprawling plans for how to tackle not an enemy, but different goals. Everything Achilles asked for: gentle husband, wise king, kind father are accounted for with different listed sub-tasks for reaching each goal (though 'wise king' has a few question marks, clearly confusing). Some of the plans are vague. Some of them are as detailed as the most tedious paperwork in the House of Hades, with every sub-task having a written paragraph describing what is needed to satisfactorily complete it. All of them are written with the grim exacting effort of battle plans.

And over the table with all the plans, there's the King of Epirus, a grown man as he appears on the outside. Unlike his younger pieces, this part doesn't leap to greet his father. He's moving stones to mark different parts of his lists, clearly using a system that he's long since honed to mark out his priorities.

"Why are you here?" the king asks, only glancing up briefly from his work. The younger pieces have all the feelings, all the rage and love and tenderness and grief. This piece has shrugged away those things, and instead manages all the complexities of carrying on as a functional adult with a land to rule, a house to manage, and an invisible but crippling illness.

Pyrrhus hugs Achilles' neck tighter and glares at his oldest counterpart. "Don't be rude to Dad," he says, and for once Neoptolemus seems to be in agreement, muttering something insulting and vulgar under his breath. The king ignores both of them.

Achilles gives Prometheus a nod in acknowledgement. He’s thankful that they visited Aspasia first; her perspective set him up for success. It feels like slow progress, though, and there’s still the looming threat that he could slip up.

The new room is familiar—Achilles spent a good part of his life in similar, surrounded by clever and not-so-clever men arguing for hours over how to end an impossible siege. He wonders what the day was like when his empty seat was filled by a ten-year-old boy. He imagines young Pyrrhus absurdly surrounded by princes and kings: the likes of haughty Agamemnon, wizened Nestor, cunning Odysseus, powerful Diomedes … They’re as much to blame as Achilles for his son’s tragic state.

“I’ve come here to learn who you are.” Achilles ignores the cold reception and walks slowly around the table, scrutinizing the king’s exhaustive strategy. It looks about as difficult as sacking Troy and likely to take thrice as long.

“And to correct a mistake.” He stops at the king’s side and quietly adjusts Pyrrhus’ weight in his arms. “One of many I’ve made.”

"Hmm." The king hums in acknowledgement, like he's hearing a message from a general rather than talking to his long gone father. Neoptolemus rolls his eyes, pulling up a chair to sit in and frown at the king. Pyrrhus clings to his father, unwilling to let go even a fraction of the long craved affection from him.

The king pushes his carefully crafted lists aside for now, pulling forward a blank wax tablet. The stylus now writes without his hand, as if he's written so much that he no longer needs hands to do it.

"I'm interested to hear what mistake you think you're correcting." The king watches the stylus move on its own, crafting a space to record Achilles' answers. "And what you believe you've learned about me so far."

There's tension between all three parts of the whole, like it's uncomfortable for them to be in the same room. His tenderness, his ferocity, and his carefully built meticulous functionality don't mesh well, and the forces that split them to pieces in the first place hums in how the room shifts uncomfortably.

Like Aspasia said, her master looks burdened. This part of Pyrrhus could be a challenge. At least the first two could still show some emotion.

“When we spoke in Athens, I didn’t yet know enough about you,” Achilles says, rubbing young Pyrrhus’ back. Aspasia’s words drift back to him: you’ve done nothing to deserve being called his father. It’s true. “And I had no right so make so many demands of you. Certainly not when you were already well on your way to completing them …

“Where to begin?” Achilles taps a finger on the words wise king and then gestures to the wax tablet. “You know yourself and you avoid making rash decisions. You give yourself time to reflect. That is the way of a wise king.”

Maybe that wasn’t true of his retaliation against Aspasia’s master, but Achilles can’t deny there’s a part of himself who would have done the very same to secure justice for someone he cared about.

"Mmm."

All of the king's reactions seem a hair slower than someone else's might be, like he needs a moment to chew on what he's heard before responding. He watches the stylus record Achilles' answer with all the dispassion of one of Hades' scribes.

"'Time to reflect' is a word," Neoptolemus spits. Pyrrhus' head rises from his father's shoulder, pressing a finger to his lips as he glares at Neoptolemus.

"Shhh! Don't make him not like us!"

There's another memory. Neoptolemus at Phthia. All his grief and despair turned to rage, needing a direction. He'd picked Epirus, despite his grandfather's protests. He wanted land to conquer, and Epirus was the most strategically placed, sitting between Greece and the rest of the north. A servant saw all his tablets, could read a fraction of all the simple things he had to write down, all the stupid things that he couldn't hold onto without the words. The servant thought he was out of earshot when he whispered to another, "It's such a pity that Lord Peleus has such a slow, simple boy for a grandson."

Neoptolemus had grabbed the servant by the jaw and slammed his head against the wall. His teeth fell to the ground like scattered pearls. The servant couldn't talk after that with his broken jaw. Peleus was furious, and Neoptolemus was too embarrassed by his tablets to admit to the true insult, so he simply said the servant had insulted his honor instead. He'd rather be thought of as too proud than stupid.

There's a colorful smear to the memory. A luminescent orange, like Hermes' feathers. The start of the 'people sense' he gifted. In retrospect, Neoptolemus understands why his grandfather was so angry. He would have been angry too in Peleus' place. But in the moment, it just felt like more rejection, another family member who didn't want him, and Neoptolemus had felt justified in rejecting his grandfather in turn. And Neoptolemus always hid his tablets after that, always hid them from anyone who could possibly read them and know how soft in the head he really is.

"I don't know if it can be called wisdom that I take so long to make decisions," the king says, still paying more attention to his stylus than the memory. "I don't have many options."

Achilles hushes the two younger versions, as if the three were separate sons entirely.

The memory furrows Achilles’ brow and sets his mouth in a line. The tragedy he sees there—other than the servant’s injury—is that Neoptolemus didn’t feel safe confiding in his grandfather. Achilles knows Peleus would not treat the boy’s reliance on the tablets with ridicule. But how was Neoptolemus to know that?

Achilles exhales gently, with the patience of a mentor.

“It would be much easier to make a decision on impulse. And many men do.” Paris stole Helen away from Sparta. Agamemnon took Briseis. And it’s not just men—how many gods make rash decisions? But Achilles himself is in no place to cast aspersions. “I’ve made a great many decisions in the moment that caused untold pain and suffering.“

Achilles rests a hand on the king’s shoulder. “That you choose the harder path—that you wait—speaks well of your character. There’s no shame in that, or in bolstering your memory with tablet and stylus. It makes me proud that you’ve arrived at a clever, meticulous solution.”

The younger versions hush as Achilles requests. But just as he did before, the king glosses over the praise he's given, instead skipping to the part that seems undeserved.

"I'm not the one who thought of the solution," he says, still staring at the stylus rather than his father, even as his shoulder's touched.

A memory. Returning to Skyros had been an exercise in frustration and humiliation. He couldn't seem to remember basic things he ought to, even when he'd only been told the day before. He'd thought that war would make him a man, with all the confidence and valor that brings, but he'd never felt more like a helpless little boy flailing against all these limitations he didn't understand.

Deidamia was the one who took out the wax tablet. If you're having trouble remembering, why don't you write it down while you still remember?

It was a struggle. She put him in her lap like he was still a baby, and she kissed her head and gave him gentle prompts when his hand hesitated, the thoughts all knotted up in his head. She made a ritual of it every night, bringing figs (his favorite) to his bedroom and asking him questions about his day so he could write down the answers. She never made him feel stupid. If anything, writing in the tablets felt joyful, something to let him talk to his mother every day about the little details of his life, a bonding ritual to reestablish his sense of normalcy after Troy. Until she got sick.

The dream shudders. Even without talking, the different feelings of the two younger pieces seep through. They don't understand why they keep deflecting the praise they've so wanted since they were children. They don't understand why it's so hard to accept it when Achilles says that they're wise, or resilient, or that there's nothing wrong with the tablets. He said he's proud. Shouldn't they be happy he's proud? They are, but they're also scared, like if they let themselves accept what they want most then it'll suddenly disappear and everything in them will break again.

“It doesn’t matter. Better yet, this honors your mother’s memory. She didn’t want you to be ashamed for doing what you need.”

It’s becoming very clear that Deidamia might have been one of the only good aspects of Pyrrhus’ life. It’s possible he only survived this long with her love and care. Achilles is grateful to her for that; she deserved a better husband as much as Pyrrhus deserved a better father. He resolves to tell her as much when he finds her in Asphodel.

“None of this is your fault, lad. You were taken to war far too soon and it left a mark upon you. In truth, it leaves its mark upon all men, but you were only a child and so it left you with much deeper scars.” It’s devastating to compare the child in his arms to the king he’s become. “I’m to blame for that, as much as the other Achaean commanders who brought you to fill my place.”

The king watches the stylus write as Achilles speaks. He drums his fingers on the table. He doesn't respond for a while, as if he needs to wait for the stylus to finish writing.

He remembers Odysseus coming to Skyros. Seeing the ship over the horizon, Pyrrhus had been excited, hopeful that his father had perhaps come home. When Odysseus stepped off the boat, he didn't even know if he was his father or not.

Odysseus was gentle when he delivered the news. He sat down with Pyrrhus to tell him that his father was never going to come home. He was never going to have his long-awaited reunion, he was never going to be able to show off how he'd grown, he was never going to know him because the Trojans killed him. Pyrrhus expected his mother to cry, but she didn't. Pyrrhus tried very hard not to cry. Odysseus had gently tip his chin up to tell him that he was a man now, and men can't cry until the work is done, and he had to come to Troy to avenge his father.

His mother practically leapt upon Odysseus, ready to scratch his eyes out. Lycomedes had to have servants hold her back. At the time, Pyrrhus thought he was the one making the choice, being a man and following Odysseus to honor his lost father. In retrospect, he sees that he was manipulated, because Odysseus cared more about finishing the war and going home to Ithaca than he cared about the safety of someone else's child. And in retrospect, he sees that Lycomedes held Deidamia back not because he respected Pyrrhus' right to choose, but because he knew what horrors the Greek fleet could drop on Skyros if they were blamed for them losing the war.

The king keeps drumming his fingers, not speaking. His silence stretches.

"Shhhh, it was my choice, I decided to go," Pyrrhus asserts, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut like he's trying to block out a monster.

But the king knows better. The only adult who cared about him was powerless, and to all the others, he was a tool to use and throw away.

"Shut up, shut up," Neoptolemus covers his ears too and screws his eyes shut, lashing out to kick the king's shin. The king doesn't react. "Shut up!"

The colors that make the space grow darker. The churn with rejection, with loneliness, with resentment that's been buried so deep because unearthing it means accepting the dire reality of his past, of all the ways he was failed and all the ways he didn't deserve to be.

"You never really answered why, after all this time, you only decided to come back now," the king says, voice strangely calm despite the environment. "And why didn't Mom come from the shore to talk to me?"

He hadn't been sure, but now he is. He'd seen her as he docked in Athens. The air had smelled verdant, like a glade he'd never seen, and he could have sworn she was sobbing at the shore and washing his bloody armor. But then she was gone when he blinked.

Achilles remembers watching his own father return after a week or more away. He adored his father and his time away always felt like an eternity. What would it have been like to wait ten years, only to learn that his father had died?

And Odysseus was the one to deliver the news. Achilles used to respect him for his intelligence, but now he's not so sure what he'll do when he sees the man next. Did Odysseus think Achilles would never learn of this? Maybe the risk of Achilles' rage was a small price to pay to finally sack Troy.

He sets aside his pique to cock his head at the mention of Deidamia. "During Anthesteria, the border of the Underworld grows thin enough for some shades to walk among the living, but I'm afraid I can't account for your mother. Perhaps you were only afforded a glimpse of each other through the veil."

Explaining himself takes a long moment. At least as long as it takes Neoptolemus to process, and Achilles wishes he had a few hours to scrawl ideas on a tablet. But he doesn't.

"As for myself, I had my duties to the House of Hades for many years. I've told you as much. When I finally found myself in Elysium, in the company of veterans of the war, they told me of your deeds."

He pauses, pensively coiling his fingers in Pyrrhus' hair. "In truth, I was disappointed to hear what became of King Priam and Hector's infant son ... and many more who died by your hand. I foolishly thought this was a failure on your part ...

"The war taught me many hard lessons, but I see now—there was no one to teach you those lessons. Likely no one else had learned them. You were at the mercy of the likes of Odysseus, who wanted the war to end in victory, whatever the cost."

Achilles reaches out to gently turn the king's chin to face him, a partial gesture of formal entreaty. "Forgive me, lad. I've collected many regrets in life, and chief among them is that I took far too long to meet you. To understand all that you've endured and form my own opinion of the man you've become."

Prometheus, still trying to do his best to be forgettable for the moment, perks at the mention of Deidamia visiting, brow furrowing. He withdraws into the colors to investigate... something. But his presence can still be felt, if Achilles chooses to feel for it.

But there's more to pay attention to than an old Titan. The details of the world around them grow blurrier, harder to distinguish the more worked up the dreamer is.

Neoptolemus only hears I was disappointed. He only hears This was a failure. The colors around him streak with rejection, the same colors of Peleus and Lycomedes and Thetis, and he slams his hand on the table that barely exists anymore. "I did it for you!" He tries to sound angry, but his voice cracks.

Pyrrhus is colored with fear. Fear of his father's disappointment, fear that Neoptolemus' anger will drive him away once more, fear that Neoptolemus' rage and shouting and violence will cost them any scrap of affection they can have just like it did with Peleus. He clings tight to Achilles, wrapping his arms and legs around his father as tight as he can. "I'm sorry, I'll be better, just tell me how to be better, I'm sorry we're not really mad I'm sorry--"

But the king heard Achilles in his entirety. He impatiently waves dismissively at his younger parts' reactions. He allows Achilles to guide his head, but when he looks at his father, his eyes are nothing but cold practicality. Neoptolemus and Pyrrhus can shoulder all their collective rage and grief and insecurities. It's the king's responsibility to be sensible.

"You didn't answer the question," the king says. "That's why you didn't come back then. That's not why you chose to come back now."

“I’m not disappointed in you, only by the circumstances and the men who led you astray,” Achilles explains softly, nodding to both Neoptolemus and Pyrrhus in turn.

Achilles has done his best to be honest thus far, but he absolutely can’t tell his son about Lyra—not yet—so he simply says, “Someone gave me a fresh perspective on the matter. Someone I cannot yet name.”

He leaves it at that and soldiers ahead:

“Meeting you in the flesh—that is what made you real and whole to me—but the words we exchanged at Athens were too few.” And Hermes was clamping Neoptolemus’ worst tendencies, but he doesn’t say that aloud. “I was hungry to know more about you, lad, and so I took the other road open to shades: dreams.”

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Pyrrhus keeps babbling, clinging to his father. The dream shudders. Neoptolemus wants to grab his younger self and slam his head into the table until his nose breaks. Neoptolemus hates him for how pathetic he sounds. Neoptolemus wants to destroy this piece, wants to choke the little boy until he stops pleading, and the colors around him sharpen in dark contrasts with his self-destructive impulse, the desire to beat the weakness out of himself.

Pyrrhus feels the danger radiating from Neoptolemus. He hides his face in his father's neck, cowering, like perhaps his father can protect his son from a lifelong habit of hurting himself to choke out his own vulnerabilities.

But the king isn't passionate like Neoptolemus, or sympathetic like Pyrrhus. He's suspicious and mistrustful, unwilling to so easily accept that a good thing suddenly would happen. He narrows his eyes at Achilles, the first flicker of emotion from the king.

"After everything, you don't deem me worthy of the truth?" The king huffs, then waves dismissively, like it doesn't really matter. It does matter, but not to the king. That's for his younger pieces. The king is best suited for coldly pushing away any threat, and his father's affection bears the clear and present threat of later being taken away. Where Neoptolemus craves his father's pride and Pyrrhus craves his love, the king is ready to push him away because not having any of it in the first place is less destructive than having it and losing it. "Well, now you know more. I am a real person who didn't cease to exist in Skyros, or in Troy, for that matter. Is there anything else you would like to know?"

Achilles turns his body to put himself between Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus, or at least block Pyrrhus’ view of his more violent aspect. “Please be still, both of you. There’s no cause for panic or anger.”

He frowns at the king’s tone, but he isn’t going to budge when it comes to Lyra. He isn’t going to risk her safety, or break the promise he made to Hermes. “You will know the truth someday. Until then, know that there is another person who cares deeply for you.”

Achilles considers the long list of questions he has for his son—all of them deep and existential—but then he remembers Lyra’s eager questions about her brother … and in truth, he wouldn’t mind knowing the answers himself. These are the little details he would know if he’d had the chance to raise his son.

He finally cocks his head and asks, “Which color do you like best? And … is there an animal you’re particularly fond of?”

The king is ready for something prying and perhaps even insulting, something that claws into the painful and personal--which is probably why the colors around him brighten, caught off guard at the question. It's surprising enough that the younger aspects pause their sturm and drang, and for the first time since the dream started, all three aspects glance at each other in something other than contempt. Their collective surprise seems to have, for the moment, completely diffused the conflict that had been brewing.

"...I like green," Pyrrhus offers after the different pieces share a surprised hesitation. "Not bright grass green, but the kind of green the sea looks like when the day is just a little cloudy."

"It's best when the foam is white and blends with the sand," Neoptolemus adds quietly.

"I don't have any particular affection for animals," the king says.

"Liar," Neoptolemus adds less quietly.

"I like seals," Pyrrhus corrects, relaxing in his father's embrace and leaning back to grin at his face. There's a memory here. The smell of salt and sea, perched on a rock and watching his favorite animals go by. "I always have. They look very funny when they move on land."

Pyrrhus remembers, and it colors the war tent. The seals wubba-wubbaing along the beach, sand sticking to their wet skin, and it always made him laugh no matter how bad his day was. They must know that he has a little sea in him too, because they don't run when he approaches. When he touches their noses, they squish their whole heads back, and that makes him laugh even harder than their flopping. Sometimes, now that he's a grownup, he still pokes seal noses to see them squish back. Just as long as only Molossus is watching, of course.

Lyra gave her father a valuable tool, whether she intended to or not. The tension loosens, as if a taut, nervous thread was snipped. Achilles smiles fondly at Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus’ eager responses. He laughs at the memory of bouncing seals that blooms into the dream.

Pyrrhus’ grin instantly reminds him of Lyra. A shame this gentle, enthusiastic boy is buried so deep behind calloused layers; Achilles’ two children would have so much in common.

The king remains carefully detached, but Achilles keeps going. The two other aspects of his son are plenty receptive to the change of topic. “I love all the beautiful greens the sea has to offer. And so many of its creatures. Octopi in particular. Clever, playful little beasts.”

Achilles hums and bounces Pyrrhus thoughtfully in his arms. “What about food? What would you gladly eat every single day?”

"Figs," Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus say at the exact same time. The king looks off to the side pensively, crossing his arms, unwilling to trust this strange turn but not desiring to stop it either. He remembers his mother grumbling about how messily he ate his figs as she scrubbed his cheeks with a wet napkin. He remembers doing the same thing to Molossus, his chubby face puckered in displeasure as he's forced to sit still long enough for his father to wipe the smeared fig off his chin.

"Figs are the best," Pyrrhus says. Pyrrhus, of all the pieces, seems the most excited to share these small, mundane things. Perhaps because it's his father asking. Perhaps because so few people have ever been interested enough to ask before. "Sometimes Erasmos makes figs with pomegranate seeds and grilled feta on bread and it's so good. Erasmos is the best at cooking."

There's another memory associated with that. He took Erasmos as a slave because he belonged to a warrior who died to him in his battle to conquer Epirus. Erasmos was hunchbacked and in great pain from too many years of hard toil, so Neoptolemus only assigned light household tasks to him. This was apparently a novelty, as Erasmos was unfailingly loyal for it. Neoptolemus spent many chilly winter days sitting by the oven as Erasmos cooked, his careful wrinkled hands putting together the best meals as he hummed. When Neoptolemus bought Lykos for his writing ability, Lykos begged that Neoptolemus purchase his four-year-old daughter, Galene, as well, since he was terrified that she'd be sold to the brothel if no one bought her for housework. Since Pergamus had only died less than a year prior, Neoptolemus couldn't help but be moved to pity and bought the girl, and instead of having her wander unsupervised around the city, he asked Erasmos to teach her how to cook. Neoptolemus has many fond memories of idly making bracelets from shells he finds on the beach, sitting by the warmth of the fire and listening to Erasmos instruct Galene.

Galene has repaid the generosity tenfold, of course. She's Molossus' favorite playmate. She's practically a woman grown now, but she will still squat on the floor and jump like a frog with Molossus to entertain him. She wears many of the bracelets Neoptolemus makes, since he has few people to give them to and no interest in keeping them once they're finished, and they rattle on her arms as she jumps.

"Do you have a favorite food?" Pyrrhus asks eagerly, eyes bright.

“Truly, we share the same blood,” Achilles laughs, teeth flashing. “I love figs, too. The fresh ones, mind, not dried. No, never dried.”

It’s easy to forget that all three of these aspects constitute the same man. Pyrrhus is nested under a layer of Neoptolemus, Neoptolemus is contained by the king. Like the heartwood of a tree sealed by countless rings of sapwood and a rough bark over it all.

This core is what still allows his son to show gratitude to Erasmos, or generosity to Lykos and Galene. Pyrrhus gathers a semblance of a family around himself, even if most of his blood relations are gone.

He removes the cloth from Pyrrhus’ forehead—it seems his headache has abated. “Would that I could try Erasmos’ cooking.”

Achilles studies Pyrrhus’ sincere face, still soft and round. He wonders if he can tease out more of what his son truly wants from life. “If the gods were to grant you one wish, lad, what would you ask for?”

"Don't answer that," the king says sharply, suddenly all protective thorns and razor edges, like the brambles around the rose.

"How can I answer? I don't know," Neoptolemus snaps, bristling at the king's sudden intensity, bristling at the king telling them what to do.

But Pyrrhus doesn't react to the king, or to Neoptolemus. His bright eyes grow sad as he looks at his father's face. He knows what they want. He knows what they want so ardently that they've buried it deep in their heart where they can't hear it anymore, and the gnawing pain of the yearning can't hurt as much.

"I want my family," he says. "I want them like everyone else has."

He wants a living mother and father, together, who he can serve and confide in and love. He wants Pergamus and Amphialus. He wants them to be alive and healthy and guiding Molossus as his big brothers. He wants his sons to have a mother who loves them like Deidamia loved Pyrrhus. He wants his grandparents and aunts to love him rather than tolerate him. He wants to have people who he trusts to hold him when he weeps like he trusted his mother... and there's no one he trusts with that, not even Aspasia, for all her fearsome loyalty.

He can tolerate the headaches, the tablets, the incessant day to day struggles. He just wants what he sees everyone else have, and what the Fates took away from him.

Achilles wraps Pyrrhus in an embrace. He knows that yearning: for a peaceful home, a happy family. Fate took that from him, too.

“Oh, Pyrrhus,” he whispers against the top of the boy’s head. His eyes flick upwards, though, at the king and Neoptolemus. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone wants love. To care for others, and to be cared for in turn.”

I want my family. It’s such an achingly simple thing. Not glory, fame, power, riches. It’s the same lesson that Achilles learned: nothing is more valuable than the people he loves.

“I wish I had been wise enough to leave Troy. To gather you and your mother and return to Phthia.” Achilles was immortalized in song, but was that worth the cost? How many lives were ruined in that pursuit? “Truly, I would have rather spent ten years learning you love the color green and seals and figs than camped on that wretched shore.”

For refusetofight

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject