Work Text:
People have many different masks. One for their friends, one for their enemies, one for their lovers and so on and so forth. Some beautiful, others truly terrifying.
That’s what I thought when I looked at Achilles face now, how it wasn’t but a broken mask anymore. A mask I couldn’t recognize, even after all these years. My beloved Achilles, once illuminated by the goodness of his own heart, was starting to fade away and a cruel man was starting to take his place. How could this be the same boy who played my mother’s lyre with such care and grace? That boy would have never let Briseis be taken away, nevermind let his people be massacred by the trojans. That boy hadn’t been a killer; and as foolish as it was to be upset about such a thing during the longest war of our lives, still I cried for that boy and at the same time I felt relief with every man who died by his sword for it meant he’d return back home to me for one more night.
But now, standing in front of him in the dim candle light, my own mask securely in place, there was no time for foolish tears or memories of days long past.
“Then at least let me go in your place. Let me wear your armor, they won’t be able to tell the difference. And if you say no I will go anyways…”
A crack in his mask, he did not expect these words to leave my lips. Surprise, followed by fear and then resolve flash in his eyes. Achilles lowers his head and turns away from me, burying his head in his hands. But at last he accepts, and my last words to him are the promise to return, to come back home, to him. With a prayer to the gods and a kiss to my beloved I leave his side, unsure of the fate lying ahead of me and with Achilles spear gripped tightly in my hands. I feel his gaze lingering on me for a long time as we leave the camp grounds, the bright morning sun reflecting brightly off my polished helmed, carefully masking my face and the not-green eyes. I look back to him and raise my hand.
The helmet flies off my head and for the first time I feel truly naked. Over my head the burning sun and the face of a god, laughing at my attempts to climb the impenetrable walls of Troy. The world around me fades away into the background, all I can see and hear is Achilles in the sky above me. He is 16 again and reaching out for me, seeing me as I am, the only one who ever has. So I try again and again to reach him, climb up to touch him. But there’s no one to touch up there. My vision blurs and at once I am back, in the middle of the raging battle. Where is Automedon with the carriage?
In the middle of this chaos a figure strides towards me, spear raised ready to strike. Hector.
There is no mercy in his eyes when his weapon pierces me and the last thing I can see is my own face in the golden reflection of his breastplate.
Not much is remembered of me after my death, and when Achilles follows me there is barely anything reminding the world of my brief existence. And as I watch from my place in the not-here-but-not-there, I see how little is remembered of him as well. They sing about a glorious hero who battles many enemies in the name of the Greek, or about the man who dared Agamemnon. Even in the afterlife Achilles wears his different masks with Pride; and when even Pyrrhus will be forgotten, face cracked and statues torn apart, I will lie with Achilles, peacefully at last.