Chapter Text
As a god, you are promised a great many things. As a human you receive the same number of promises, but they are promises of opposite worth. As a demigod, you are promised nothing. A demigod could receive the best of both worlds, the worst, or perhaps a mix of both. My mother promised me a place with the gods, and my father promised me my mothers’ ignorance.
My mother, for the most part, was correct. By seven I could challenge the wind to a race, by eight I could lift a spear twice the size of myself, and by nine I had run out of imaginary enemies to defeat. The one thing I had not received was love. When I was younger, I had loved and loved, and it had not been enough. So instead, I trained in secret, and jested to a crowd, but that warm feeling I would work so hard for would disappear so quickly. My mother’s love did not exist, the love of the boys’ was but temporary, and to my father’s love I was indifferent.
Love is a human’s flaw. And how human I was, to suffer so much when I did not receive it.
Speed granted me loneliness, strength left others jealous, precision went unobserved. My mother would say soon, soon, and I would believe her, and then the next summer would arrive, and I would still be fighting for smiles and praise in the meal hall. The feeling never lasted.
Shortly after I turned ten, I learned of Orpheus. His weapon of choice was a lyre, the instrument of Apollo, and though his strength, speed, and precision didn’t match that of the gods, just a stroke of his fingers on the strings of his lyre could cause the world to fall in love with him.
I thought, that’s who I want to be. That’s how I will be loved.
I told my father I would like to learn, and unquestionably, he conceded. He commissioned someone to construct it from only the finest of materials, and he had Phoinix oversee my lessons. Yet, it was not enough. The boys did not seem interested in listening, and when I went to play it, they would instead ask for stories or shows of strength. When I presented it to my mother, after weeks of tireless practice under the stars, she seemed deaf to its tones.
Soon, she would say, soon.
Never.
Two seasons had passed since my tenth birthday, and I had taken to spending most days in my room. Years ago, I would have spent hours in the ocean, hoping to stall time before the ice began to set in weeks later, or climbing the creaking trees, who’s leaves now resembled the myriad of sunset. But no longer was I so filled with love.
It was an unexceptional day, in my mind, and I had spent the best part of it lying silent in my room. My lyre lay forgotten across my stomach, but its weight was a soothing comfort. A shuffling sounded from down the hall. When the footfalls fell silent beside me, I let my head drop to the side.
If I had not heard the boy walk in, I may have thought him to be a statue. He stood with such rigidity that I could not help but examine him for any movement. There was none. Only the faint, shaky breaths from his parted mouth assured me of his existence.
I yawned. That warm feeling was back, but the boy was not smiling. “What’s your name?”
The boy snapped his mouth closed. His expression remained indifferent, but his jaw was wound tightly shut.
I spoke louder, hoping this time he would answer.
“What’s your name?”
The boy didn’t open his mouth at first, then, as if coming to a realisation, “Patroclus.”
Honour of the father. A flash of a forgotten memory appeared – stars and freckles and nut-brown skin – but it evaporated just as quickly.
I rolled, hoping to get a better look at the statue of a boy. His ebony locks curled tightly along his brow, licking like storm-whipped waves at his eyelids. And his eyes… I went to look closer, but my own strand of colourless hair fell to block my gaze. I blew it away. The boy was looking at the ground, now.
“My name is Achilles.”
The boy tilted his chin in acknowledgment. I wondered what it would be like if he smiled. He looked back up and I challenged him to hold my gaze. Then, as if the last five years had been an awful dream, I relived that moment. Those stars. I felt the world slow, as if all the storms went silent and I was sailing across the constellations. I was unable to stifle my next yawn.
My brain, now fuzzy and drunk on relaxation, scrambled for something to say.
“Welcome to Phthia.”
The boy blinked and walked out. Those were not the right words. I wanted the stars to return. But it was too late and by the time I looked up, he was long out the door.
Weeks passed slowly, and it felt an eternity before I next spoke to the ebony haired boy. Still, even in my solitude I could not rid his gaze from my mind. At nights I would venture out further than usual, climb higher than before, and stare into the shining sky – wishing that instead it was sat right before me.
Sometimes, when my mind had run out of anything useful to think, I would simply say his name aloud.
Patroclus.
Pat-tro-clus.
The name was like honey on my tongue, sweet and smooth. I thought I would rather like to have a reason to speak it more.
During supper, I would try to catch his eyes as often as possible. The boys, laughing and praising before me, were nothing compared to the feeling that erupted when my gaze caught his across the room. I moved closer, a few times, hoping to accelerate this staring game.
In the fourth week my patience was that of a mountain lion, and I rashly decided to move to Patroclus’ own table. When he first noticed me, a skittish glint shone in his eyes, like that of a startled animal. After a blink, though, the glint disappeared and he sat down, jaw clenched and eyes pointed assiduously downwards.
By the end of supper, he had not looked back up. It seemed that, by moving closer, I had achieved the opposite of what I intended. Still, I was determined. When I didn’t move, even after the plates had been cleared, he finally looked up, though half lidded. This was not enough.
I reached for the figs in front of me. Surely this would get his attention. With a light toss of my wrist, I flicked them into the air, one, two, three. Soon there were five. Around me the boys hooted and hollered, but still his eyes did not light up. More.
I glanced to him, brazenly staring now, and said ‘Catch.’
He caught it. More importantly, though, he matched my gaze. His eyes widened in surprise and this time I caught perfect sight of them. This time I was close enough to see all the stars in them brighten, to see that his iris wasn’t black, but instead a deep, fiery brown, like the smouldering coals from a dying fire.
I was looking too much.
His eyes were still locked onto mine and suddenly I remembered the boys around me and how they must have noticed my staring – they must have – and I pulled my gaze from Patroclus’ and returned the figs to the table. The warmth would not disappear. I bit into the fig, hoping the cool juice would freeze the fire in my chest. It did not.
My gaze was trained on my hand now, the half-eaten fig dripping down my fingers. I could not think. I could not breathe. I got up and left.
As I rushed down the halls, I willed the warmth to leave my chest. It felt so good, but it was not right. I thought, this is what you wanted Achilles, this was that feeling you were craving, but it was not right because it was not him who had been smiling at me. It was not him worshiping and cheering like the other boys and the feeling did not make sense.
My mother’s words burnt through my mind. Love is a human’s flaw.
But it was not me who had been trying to love, in fact it was entirely the opposite.
Why did I love the stars so much? It would be so much easier to just hate them instead.
I could not process anything, that night. Nor the night following, or any after that. It was as if everything had been turned upside down but me. Time lost its meaning as I floated through moments, wanting one second to study the stars in Patroclus’ eyes, and the next wanting nothing to do with him. Whether I would eat in the hall was a question for the moment, and many times I would instead take supper in my room.
During one such evening, after finishing my supper earlier than usual, I crept from my room in source of some entertainment. I had discarded of my lyre days before, my motivation to play strangely thin, and had resorted to eavesdropping as a new hobby. Tonight, the doors to the throne room were ajar, and craving any form of distraction, I hid beside the crack. Within, my father seemed in deep conversation with the Master. I had not spoken more than a few words to him, though he had lived on the grounds for many years. He had offered, early on, to oversee my training, but my mother had forbidden it.
“-it is about the newer boy, Patroclus.”
I did not hear my father answer, but I did not need to see to know he nodded, signalled for the Master to continue. I did not want him to continue. I did not want to hear about Patroclus. I already did not know what to think.
“He has not been attending the morning drills and I would like to see him punished.”
No, I thought. I did not want to risk it, risk seeing the pain that would fill his eyes, burn away the stars, and leave nothing left. Punishment could sometimes leave one dull, empty, I had seen it before. I did not want to risk losing such beauty.
“And so he shall” my father answered, voice unwavering, as if he had said the same hundreds of times before. He had. “If the boy cannot provide an adequate excuse, I will see that he receives satisfactory discipline.”
I did not need to hear the rest.
That night, sleep evaded me. Like so many nights before, I did not risk venturing out to sleep under the sky. I was too afraid of what I would feel. Like so many nights before, I pushed my face into my pillow and tried to sleep. Like so many nights before, it did not work.
The next morning, I tried not to lose patience. I forced myself to sit, to eat breakfast, to bid my father a good morning. I washed, and dressed, and willed my breath to slow. When the Master finally began his lessons, only then did I begin to search.
I combed through every room, every corner of the dormitories, every inch of the kitchens. I could not find him. It was only when time wore thin, when I was worried they may have found him before I, that I checked the last storeroom.
I opened the door quietly, in hopes to not alert any workers of my presence in case they too were looking for him. At first, I did not know what to do. He was sitting in a corner, his knees pulled tight to his chest, gaze far away. Fear struck my body as I looked into his eyes, but the warmth overpowered it. That same warmth, again. I did not understand it. Instead, I tried pushing it away, remembering my urgency.
“I heard you were here” I spoke, willing my voice to sound steady.
He looked up and our eyes locked. Oh, to hate the stars.
“I have been looking for you. You have not been going to morning drills.”
I felt like a son, again, like a prince. I felt as if I were sitting beside my father, reciting perfect words like the perfect heir, detached, expressionless. I realised, in this moment, that I did not know, not really, how to talk to others. It was actions, always actions. When I spoke words, they were never mine.
“How do you know? You aren’t there.” His voice bristled with defiance, but behind it all I could hear was fear.
“The master noticed, and spoke to my father.” I wanted to comfort him, I wanted to tell him not to be scared. That I would work it out. I did not know how.
“And he sent you.”
“No, I came on my own.” I kept my gaze locked on his. He was not scared, I was mistaken. He was annoyed. He did not want to believe me. “I overhead them speaking,” I continued, “I have come to see if you are ill.”
He did not answer. I watched him carefully, still standing above him. His jaw was tight with fury. I did not understand why he was angry. Was I not trying to help?
“My father is considering punishment” I said, but I knew that he was already aware of this. What I did not understand is why it did not seem to worry him.
“You are not ill.” I did not know what else to say. I could not help if he did not want it. But I wanted to help, needed to.
“No” he replied, his voice strong. He seemed unaffected. How?
“Then that will not serve as your excuse.”
“What?”
“Your excuse for where you have been. So, you will not be punished. What will you say?”
Please say something.
“I don’t know.”
I was grasping at the air, now. “You must say something.” Anything.
“You are the prince” he snapped.
I did not know how that would help. “So?”
“So speak to your father, and say I was with you. He will excuse it.”
His confidence shattered my own. I was not this brave. I was not this defiant.
“I do not like to lie” I said, yet it was not the full truth. Ever since he had arrived, I had done more lying than ever before.
“Then take me with you to your lessons,” he stated, matter-of-factly, “So it won’t be a lie.”
I could not fault that. Not matter how hard I tried, that was a perfect plan. Yet, I was instilled with a nauseating type of fear. I had never felt that before. I thought of how this meant I would have to spend more time around him, and I did not know if I could handle that. Someone would find out. That someone could be my mother. But strangely, I found that I did not want to care. Who was she to tell me what to do? I focused on the stars. They outshone her. They outshone everything.
And so it was decided.
“Come.”
“Where?” Patroclus asked, hesitantly.
“To my lyre lesson. So, as you say, it will not be a lie. After, we will speak with my father.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Why not?” I could not say, why wait. I could not show my fear.
After days of omission, I picked up my lyre. To my shock, Patroclus had never played. I thought that he would be perfect for it, and I found myself looking at his fingers. They were long, thin. He could play, if he wanted. But he did not.
In the silence, I began to play. I kept my eyes at the strings, just as I had during the walk to the room, just as I had since I made my decision. If I looked up when he stood so close beside me, I was worried I would not be able to look away.
“It is beautiful” he said. Your stars are beautiful, I did not say.
Instead, “My father gave it to me.” Then, “You can hold it, if you like.”
He stiffened. “No.”
I looked up. He was looking at the lyre. Had I said something wrong? What was I to say?
Then Phoinix walked in and I had to tear away my gaze. I do not remember the rest, just that as I played, the stars shone like suns, and I felt so warm I thought I might fall asleep there and then. It was then that I understood that warmth. It was how I felt when I was younger, before the world began to ask so much of me. It was the cure all feeling that washed away my fears, evaporated my tears. It was the feeling I sought from the sea, and the sand, and the stars, when I knew my parents could not do the same. I recognized it, yet I could not remember its name.
The warmth did not dissipate, when I left the room. Like Patroclus, it followed me down the halls. By the time I reached the bronze doors separating me from my father, I had come to a decision.
“Wait here” I said to Patroclus, before taking a deep breath, and entering the audience chambers.
I was not worried, though I ought to be. I did not know what my father would say, how he would react. Yet, like before, I did not care. The warmth persisted and with it, my strength. No longer did they control me.