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"They will sing about you too, you know?"
He laughed at that, tossing his dark curls back against the wall. They were seated in the window sill of their room at the palace and Achilles was observing him in the moonlight. His lyre lay on his stomach. He strummed it idly.
"I am hardly hero enough to warrant ballads, my prince," he answered with a smirk. His leg slipped out the window and he swung it playfully, to and fro.
"Neither am I, not at the moment. But we will be," Achilles explained. His leg kept swinging, flexible in ways that only Achilles would ever know.
His body was already more powerful than it looked - though slender, his olive skin stretched taught over defined muscle. Achilles looked at the way the silver moonlight hit his collarbone and imagined his chest, his arms and legs growing bigger with the efforts of war.
Sensing his gaze, Patroclus draped an arm across his chest. He was easily embarrassed in some moments. Were it not night Achilles was sure his ears would be dark red. “You are the one who is destined for glory, Achilles. Lest you forget, as a soldier, I am decent at best. I do not foresee any great feats in battle for me."
"As a healer then," Achilles suggested. He began playing the lyre with more purpose, plucking out something of a melody. This conversation, quietly spoken over the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, inspired him.
"How many bards sing of healers?" Patroclus responded, half-teasing.
Achilles ignored his goading in favour of plucking out delicate notes. In truth, he believed in Patroclus enough that he could see him finding fame as a soldier or healer or in whatsoever he chose. He thought Patroclus was the best man he'd ever met, perhaps in all Achaea. He would surely be remembered in some way.
"What about your beauty?" he asked, smiling. Patroclus laughed again, a golden sound. "The bards sing of beautiful women they have encountered, do they not?"
"Of course, but I doubt if my countenance would strike such passion into any bard," he said with a roll of the eyes.
"You strike such a passion in me," Achilles said. His eyes drifted wistfully to the heavens. He plucked his lyre, finding the melody forming more clearly. "I shall be the bard to sing songs of you, of us. I'll play my lyre so loudly it will reach all the islands and echo through all of Persia. Mothers will sing of us to their sons, and they to their sons, and so on. On and on our songs shall go, for generations.."
He could almost, almost hear the words. A verse for his nimble hands, a verse for the way his hair curled at his nape. An entire ballad for the way his eyes lit up with humor, the wrinkles at the corner of his lips when he smiled. The thoughts formed, but they didn’t form coherent lyrics. He hummed a tune in time to his song, and grinned softly. "What do you think?"
Patroclus' eyes had widened as if to take more of Achilles in. His lips had slipped apart and his eyes were lit bright, glimmering with the light of the moon. He'd liked it, Achilles could see that much, but he still waited for an answer.
Finally Patroclus let out a breath, the corner of his mouth slipped into a grin. Those wrinkles. More verses, perhaps. "Play it again."