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i called for you until it was nothing but a dying breath, rasping in a throat stripped bare and bloody by sorrow. i called for you, the syllables slurring together in a way i never liked. i hated when people did that to your beautiful name, made it one sound, acting as if it wasn’t something to be celebrated to its fullest extent. dearest patroclus, dearest, beloved, beautiful, brave patroclus.
brave. my brave patroclus. i heard you screaming, tearing a battle cry out of yourself so fierce it would rattle the bravest man. i heard the cries of my name, soldiers calling out for you, for me, for a vision of the aristos achaion that never should have been. i let this happen to you, and the burden of being left alive when you’ve been wronged in such a way will destroy me in itself. will you wait for me? will you forgive me?
i wouldn’t grant myself the same grace, but you’ve always been a better man than i. i trust you to wait. i’d trust you to wait for me for the rest of time, if i had to. fortunately, you won’t have to wait as long, patroclus, as i’m surely already halfway there. there is not a lot of me left, it escaped me when i first laid eyes on your lifeless body. even in death, you are something to behold.
this never should have come to pass. perhaps you would feel that there’s no patroclus without achilles, as i feel. there’s no achilles without you. it’s a comfort knowing i haven’t long yet, just as prophecied. i’ll be with you soon.
hector will suffer the death of a thousand men, and i, a million.