Chapter Text
It is said that the Groves of Persephone lie due East of the Elysian Fields. It is there, across the River Lethe, where Achilles lies amidst the fig trees and wallows in his grief. He does not eat. He simply lies there, day after day, and wonders if perhaps, in a time to come, he might juggle for Patroclus again.
The Dryads who tend to their Lady's orchards have long since ceased their wariness of the man. Instead, they eye him with pity as he stares blankly at the stalactites that span the ceilings of Hades' realm, his fingers constantly moving as though strumming the strings on a lyre no one else can see.
Achilles waits.
He waits. And waits. And waits.
Time loses meaning in the Underworld, and all Achilles knows is that he is alone. He contemplates if this will be his eternity and if perhaps, in truth, these are the Fields of Punishment. An afterlife laden with endless heartache and regret.
And then, one day, his mourning is interrupted by the sudden fluttering of a butterfly's wings.
Anteros, the god introduces himself, son of Aphrodite and Ares, brother of Eros.
Gods are not meant to interfere with the dealings of mortals, and yet, this is my domain, he tells Achilles. They dare not punish me, nor you, for I am simply doing my duty, and then he shares what he knows.
It is said that every mirror in Hades' palace shattered upon the echoes of Achilles' wail.
Anteros takes the grieving man's hands in his, presses a small glass object to his palm, and weaves a blessing so absolute that it settles under Achilles' skin like a second armor. He leans in, and with the softest of breaths disguised by a kiss on the cheek, he tells Achilles what he must do.
For the first time since arriving in this accursed afterlife, a sprig of hope blooms in his chest. There is a flutter of wings, and then he is alone again, but Achilles rises, and with a firm grip on the gifted crystal vial, he begins to walk west, towards the Pool of Mnemosyne and to his salvation from this eternal nightmare.
Achilles curses his mother for her bitterness and her resentment. He curses the Moirai for spouting their ruinous prophecy. He curses the judges of the dead for Patroclus' fate. But most of all, he curses himself for choosing glory and condemning them both to a tragic, early death.
Because of him, they are a realm apart—Achilles making his pilgrimage to the waters of memory across the Underworld, while Patroclus, dipped in the river Lethe, lives and breathes, reborn on earth, strikingly alone.
With Anteros' blessing sitting just beneath his skin and the blessing of the Styx below that, he slips past the blood-spattered being, which holds only a spear, guarding the pool of water. He fills the vial to the brim, and it is barely enough for a single mouthful, but it will be enough to return Patroclus' memories in full. Achilles leaves in the same manner of stealth in which he arrived, and it is then he faces the difficult decision on which his entire escape is contingent.
Several paths lay before him: He may attempt to hide away as the ferry to the Underworld makes its return trip and pray Charon does not notice him. He could appeal to the judges of the dead and hope they allow him rebirth without bathing in the Lethe. Or, if he happens upon Lady Persephone, he might beg for her sympathy and ask her to speak with her husband.
He ruminates endlessly all the ways each of those plans would likely fail as he gazes out across the Underworld. He can make out the flames of the river Phlegethon in one direction. The Asphodel Fields in the other. Achilles' eyes flicker over the entrance of Tartarus in the distance, and a freezing shudder overtakes him. He looks away.
He looks back.
The cliffs surrounding it are jagged. They are tall. Taller than any other structures in the Underworld. Tall enough that they reach the very ceiling.
An idea takes root. An insane, deranged idea. But an idea nonetheless.
Achilles is not insane, nor is he deranged. He is something far worse: He is desperate, and he is in love.
He wonders, distantly, if it's possible to kill something that's already dead as he walks back to the pool of water and the being guarding it. His answer comes in the form of gold dust and ownership of a bronze-tipped spear.
Then, Achilles begins his walk to the cliffs that overlook Tartarus.
He has never known fear like this before. The closer he gets, the louder the trumpets sing their warnings in his ears. It is deafening. He sweats as though it's a scorching summer's day, yet the freezing air sinks under his flesh and stiffens his bones until he aches and shivers with every step.
Achilles forces himself forward. For Patroclus, he says aloud, it is for Patroclus.
And truly, it is. Achilles' fear does not stem from the prospect of death. Nor is it from the thought of falling into Tartarus. Pure and simple, he fears for Patroclus. A long time ago, just before the war began, Achilles made a simple promise as they lay together in the darkness of their tent: I will be there. He does not intend to go back on his word.
As he walks, he tears into the upper half of his chiton, ripping off and tying together fabric sections until he has a small pouch for the vial to hang around his neck. The spear is shortened, cleanly broken in half across his knee. He prepares for the impossible.
Slowly, he gets closer. He breathes the stench of fear into his lungs. He thinks of Patroclus. He breathes out. Closer still. In life, Patroclus found him time and time again, following as though he could see Achilles' every footstep, clear as day, on the ground before him. Now, it's Achilles' turn to, against all odds, find his Beloved so that they may be reunited in life once again.
Achilles does not know how long he walks until he reaches the cliffs, nor does he care to. The mouth of Tartarus is further still—Close enough to feel its terror, though not close enough to fall in.
He does not hesitate. He knows how much more difficult it will be if he does.
Achilles holds the broken spear between his teeth, puts his hands on a pair of protruding rocks, and then he begins to climb.
He pretends it is Mount Pelion. He is thirteen again, and Patroclus is just behind him. It's dark because the sun has not risen yet, not because he is on the outskirts of the Underworld. They are climbing to watch as Apollo rides his chariot over the eastern horizon to bring them the dawn.
Apollo. He remembers what he'd been told of Apollo's role in his lover's death. He remembers Patroclus' shroud. He remembers the scent of smoke as his body turned to ash on the pyre.
The rock one foot stands on breaks loose, but his hands hold their grips, steady and strong. He will not fall. He will not break his promise.
Achilles keeps climbing.
The higher he gets, the fewer notches exist for him to grab onto, so he begins to use his spear. He stabs it into cracks and soft spots he finds, uses it to pull himself up, catches the best holds, and then does it again.
He stops thinking. All that exists is him and the cliff he scales.
The skin on his hands has long since broken, and his shoes are in utter disrepair, but Achilles pays no mind. He is oblivious to the crimson trail he leaves in his wake, to the pain that should have him crying out. It is only when his palms are so slicked with blood that he cannot climb away from his ledge that he tears once again into his chiton and carefully wraps his hands.
Patroclus would have done a better job. He keeps climbing.
Stone crumbles and falls every time he wrests his spear from the cliff. He keeps climbing.
His breath labors, and the air seems to thin. He keeps climbing.
The suffocating fear of Tartarus has all but disappeared, Achilles realizes. His lips pull back into a snarling, unhinged facsimile of a grin. Strength spreads through his bones. He keeps climbing.
He does not slow. He does not think. And it is only when the crown of his head is nearly pierced by a hanging stalactite that he stops, looks up, and sees the ceiling of the Underworld an arm's length away.
There is a small ledge to his left, just big enough to support him. Achilles stands still for a moment and then, with all his strength, begins to batter the pikes above his head. He doesn't stop until blood runs in rivulets down both arms and the ceiling is flat. And even then, it is only to wipe his hands dry and grab ahold of the bronze-tipped spear he carries.
Achilles breathes, prays to Kratos and Nike, to Tyche, for fortune, as well, and then he drives his spear a quarter of the way into the stone above him. He exhales and then twists sharply before pulling the weapon out. He does it again. And again. And again. Until he's carved out a large half-circle against the cliffside, deep enough that the end of his spear can do no more damage to the ceiling.
He reaches out to feel the inside of the chiseled stone. It is solid. Sturdy. It will not crumble, or so he prays. Achilles puts the spear's length back between his teeth—It tastes of blood—and again, he begins to climb.
Maneuvering himself so his back rests along the carved-out stone and his feet flat on the cliff's side, Achilles again takes hold of his spear, and with as much force as he can muster, he begins chipping away at the rock above him. It is slow work, but every strike brings him closer to the surface, to Patroclus.
Achilles knows not if the Underworld truly lies below the surface of the living world or if he's been marooned in an entirely different realm, and this is all there is.
He is determined, and he is desperate, and he is in love, and so the matter of where it resides is of no consequence to Achilles because Patroclus holds half of his heart, and Achilles has already crossed the entire Underworld; he has scaled the cliffs of Tartarus, and gods be damned, he has not made it this far just to be held back by the trivial laws their domains are governed by.
The passing of time there has always been strange, and so Achilles has no way of knowing how long he works, but he digs at an angle, and eventually, all light seeps from his cavern. The Underworld, once directly below him, has fallen from view.
Achilles is alone. He is cold, and he is tired. The sound of his spear hitting the stone above echoes through him. Any sane mortal would have given up by now. But the blessing of Anteros hums beneath his skin. He feels it like a rope around his chest, pulling him in the direction he knows he must dig.
He does not know how long it's been, perhaps a day or perhaps millennia. He may be the son of a goddess, but there comes a time when even divine children grow weak. His bones are weary. His hands are raw and bleeding under the makeshift bandages, and his feet soon follow with the loss of both shoes. A thirst builds on the back of his tongue, and there's a sharp ringing in his ears.
It is mindless digging, following the direction of that rightness in his chest. Achilles loses himself to the routine, retreating so deeply into his memories of Patroclus that he does not realize when his spear begins to mute. Only when a wave of warmth (Welcome, Demigod. You are safe) washes over him and pulls him back does he notice the quiet.
There is no stone left to break. The walls are not cold. In fact, they are warm and soft and crumble beneath his touch. His toes dig into the soil that surrounds him, and he laughs.
Achilles laughs and laughs; later on, he won't recall precisely when the tears began to flow, only that they did. The joyous laughter yields itself to the great, heavy sobs from his chest.
He's tired and yearns to rest, but he's so close.
By now, he is kneeling, crawling forwards and up, trying to protect his face from the dirt and rocks that fall around him. They stick to his tear-marred face, and he is forced to close his eyes for fear of being blinded. He's heard of men being buried alive and how it is a slow, painful death as the soil suffocates them.
He won't become like them because he has something to live for.
The earth becomes softer and softer, molding around his body and into the empty space surrounding him. It weighs down heavily, making him slow. His tunnel has disappeared behind him, filled in by soil. There is no way back. Only forwards. Only up.
His muscles ache like never before while he drags himself through the dirt, struggling not to cough as it fills his mouth. His lungs.
Patroclus, he reminds himself. If not for yourself, survive for Patroclus.
He's in pain. He can't breathe. Achilles' entire world is made of him, his spear, and the memory of his Beloved. It is encased within a tomb of heavy earth that he must bear on his shoulders.
But the weight of the tomb lessens.
Pinpricks of grey dance behind his closed eyes. His chest aches, and he can barely breathe. But Achilles keeps digging, and once more, the weight reduces.
He does not know how much longer he can survive without breath in his lungs, and so he lies and tells himself there is no agony in his chest, his muscles, his heart. He simply reaches up and pushes the dirt out of his path, again and again, without rest.
And then—
Sunlight.
His hand breaks free of its earthly confines, and sunlight dances across his face. His other hand, still holding the spear, pushes past the layer of grass, and Achilles pulls himself up, euphoric as the air, burning, rushes into his lungs.
His chest meets the gentle flowing breeze. His waist. One knee touches the grass. Then the other. And then, he's free.
Achilles wipes the dirt from his eyes. Then, finally, they crack open, and even the pain of the abrupt shift from total darkness is not enough to keep him from glaring directly into the sun; at that moment, he feels he is the most powerful man alive.
Apollo himself could not strike me down.
It is then, however, that his exhaustion returns to him. His reprieve from pain and fatigue is over, renewing itself ten-fold. From the corner of his eye, Achilles sees movement. He hears shouts.
Then, his body gives in, and there is nothing but familiar darkness.