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The green meadows of Elysium stretched out to the stony horizon, beautiful and still and unchanging.
Beside the forgotten warrior’s well-trodden glade, the cloudy waters of the Lethe flowed in their soft eddies, forever offering eternal forgetfulness.
Somehow, he could never bring himself to take that offer. Maybe he knew it was his proper place to languish here, eternally separated from his lover. He had never liked cheats and layabouts in life, neither of them had, and he would not become one here.
It was so damned quiet here. That was the worst of it, he had decided one day-or-night long ago. On the surface, in life, if he and- if he had chosen to while away some hours of the day in a pleasant glade like this, there would have been the hum and chitter of insects in the grass, the rush of the wind in the trees, the sound of their voices as they discussed some matter of combat or philosophy.
Here, even the river was silent. The only sounds that reached his ears were the distant clang of infernal weapons as the heroic shades fought amongst themselves to capture some imagined glory, again and again, as if battle was the only passion in their lives or deaths, and not something done for the sake of a cause, for the sake of an imagined future better than the present, for the honor and life of those you loved.
The warrior snorted to himself. He might be lonely here, but at least he wasn’t one of them, fighting uselessly and endlessly for no prize but death after death after death. For their part, they had long since stopped cajoling him to join, and simply left him in his glade, left him to his fruitless yearning and doubting.
He had lost count of how long he had spent here in silence, with nothing to distract him from his thoughts, from his regrets.
Except, recently…
That fire-footed boy had come charging through here, intent on some quest of his own, and despite his haste, he had spoken to him. The warrior had thought to send him on his way, remove this last disturbance to his solemn afterlife. But there had been something different about him, some spark the shades lacked, and so the warrior had offered him a prize from his endless pile of useless things the shades had given him long ago, when he had still deigned to fight them. Maybe he could make use of it on his quest to the surface. More likely, he would simply fall to some sword or trap or beast before he came anywhere close. But if he was determined to try, there would be no stopping him. He might as well have some aid.
The boy thanked the warrior earnestly for his gift. And then he’d come again, and again, and called him by name, and was never dissuaded no matter how many times he fell, no matter how many times Patroclus told him each of their yearnings was as hopeless as the other. Threads torn from the Fates’ weaving and tossed aside to rot in the dirt. Or never woven in the first place, however much they might have once imagined they were.
But then the boy spoke of his teacher, and for the first time Patroclus doubted the cynicism he’d thought as solid as the rock on which he sat. What did he truly know of fate? This boy had been trained by the best, and he bore the blessings of the gods above and below.
And then. Long after he’d lost track of the number of times the boy had passed through his glade, freely offering greetings and bottles of nectar, after he’d dared to let his thoughts linger again on his lost love, something changed.
It came like a whisper through the still grass. The sound of a power that mere shades could not wield or control even those who shifted from spot to spot to stab their enemies in the back like cowards. Someone arriving from a far-distant part of Hades’s realm.
He turned his head. Had the boy claimed another measure of his father’s vast powers? Perhaps it would aid in his escape.
But it was not the fire-footed boy he saw standing there across the river.
He stood, at first not daring to believe it, fearing it another cruel torture, or some illusion of the rushing river’s haze. But his love stood there, tall and proud and real, just as he’d been in life.
He stood, and for a moment that was all he could do, stand rooted to the spot as if his feet had turned to stone. But then Achilles crossed the bridge and strode across the grass and stood there before him.
“Pat,” he said, and then, “The contract. He managed to break it,” and there was no need to say who it was who had freed them to be together again. “I’m sorry. I thought you didn’t want to see me again. I only meant to keep you safe.”
There would be time enough for words later. Patroclus tugged him into a tight embrace. He was warm, not with life but with the fires of Tartarus, but it was enough.
He was there.