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Prompt: the iliad, hektor/andromache, twin high maintenance machines / i am going to make it through this year if it kills me
“I can do it if you can,” she tells him, kissing his bare shoulder before she helps him strap on his chest plate, his vambraces, all the bits and pieces of war that take him from her soft, vulnerable husband, still warm from their bed, to Prince Hektor, war leader of Troy, a fearsome creature out of the nightmares of Greeks; and so she does, standing along the walls all through the day, tracking the dust of his chariot.
“I can do it if you can,” Hektor tells her, the strength of his arms wrapped around her, the iron bar of them settled between breasts and belly, helping her to bear down, to push through her body’s resistance, to fight her own war to bring their son into the world, her back braced against the implacable, immoveable wall of his chest, his support, his love.
“I can do it if you can,” they whisper to each other on that last, terrible day, the sunrise red and bloody above Troy’s slanted walls, their baby screaming, the women of his mother’s household wailing, the fury of Achilles’ shouts rising even to this level of the city, all of the clamor for one moment fading away; fading away, and then rushing back all at once, a tide Andromache can do nothing but close her eyes against, and hold her breath.