#glimmerofgold

[glimmerofgold]

[glimmerofgold]

Aphrodite, hear me

@patrochillesweek 2021 - Day 2: Deities

Aphrodite,

hear me,

for only you can understand

how terribly it pains me

to let go of his cold hand.

Hermes,

won't you guide me

to where my love has gone?

For it's only with him near me

that I can carry on.

Demeter,

let me tell you

that it takes more than grain

to sustain a soldier

on this loathsome plain.

Hera,

surely you know

how dear he was to me.

A bond as strong as ours

would make any man feel free.

Poseidon,

you bear witness

to how my sorrow grows.

How many tears I'm shedding

only the ocean knows.

Dionysus,

please help me,

won't you numb my pain?

For without him here to guide me,

how could I possibly stay sane?

Athena,

it's too late now,

it's all been said and done,

I wish you'd shown me sooner

that I'd already won.

Artemis,

forgive me,

condone my feral rage.

If there's one thing I've never been

then that one thing is sage.

Ares,

give me courage,

for you're the one to blame,

that I have lost my love here

to another's game.

Hephaestus,

now I beg you

to reverse what you have done

and take from me this armor,

my need for it has gone.

Zeus,

will you not strike me?

Release me from my grief.

If even you won't help me,

how can I find relief?

Apollo,

please have mercy.

I have nothing left to say.

Won't you guide an arrow

and send me on my way?

[Find me on ao3]

[glimmerofgold]

@patrochillesweek 2022 - Day 1: This and This and This

Vows

This. A shy tongue loosening, unfolding secret after secret for only him to hear. Spilling laughter so bright it sounds like music to his ears, more beautiful than even the best lyre could produce. The boy across from him now is hardly reminiscent of the one who first came to the palace not so long ago, only speaking when prompted to.

This. Lips curling into a smile, a grin replacing the permanent frown that pierced his heart before. It softens his features, he notes, makes his eyes sparkle in that mesmerizing way that leaves him all but defenseless. His mother tells him he will be invincible one day - he knows this will be the exception, always.

This. Tentative touches, few at first and then more and more as time passes. The lacing of fingers as they race each other along the shore. The steady grab of a wrist as they brave a particularly high rock together. The soft sensation of Patroclus' cheek pressed to his shoulder as they sleep, causing his heart to flutter in a way he didn't know was possible.

This. Oaths of never leaving each other's side, of things always remaining this way, of a friendship that will last forever.

This. Unspoken hopes of more that he does not dare admit aloud in fear of cracking the fragile surface of what they've built. Silence that carries all the vows he cannot speak, not yet.

This. A promise whispered to the stars: I will never leave him. Not for long.

He intends to keep it.

[glimmerofgold]

All The Fire Bright

Ten years of war, and countless lives have been lost. A whole lifetime by each other's sides, and countless secrets have been shared between two young men. Except for one that could easily change everything.

Patroclus has followed Achilles across land and sea to be with him, and yet he has never found the courage to bare his heart to him fully. Now that the end creeps nearer, however, it becomes increasingly more difficult to keep the truth to himself.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[glimmerofgold]

[Reference: Athena of Velletri]

[glimmerofgold]

@patrochillesweek 2022 - Day 5: Past Mistakes

Regret

Some say grief is the hardest of emotions to bear, with its icy claws clutching at your heart, with its dark curtain of ache suffocating any light left in the world. It tends to creep up on you, that kind of pain, tends to hit you when least you expect it only to swallow you whole all at once. He's caught glimpses of it before - on his comrades' faces as they bid their friends farewell for the last time, in his mother's eyes when she spoke of his fate. None of it has prepared him for how it would feel to hold his lover's lifeless body and experience it himself. He is tempted to say they are correct, that this is the worst of it, but he knows there is yet more lurking around the corner, sneaking up on him in the black of night.

Love, that's another one. Love so glorious that it seems to give your heart wings, allows it to soar high and higher still. But when does love ever end well? He's seen many hearts break in his life, and yet he was foolish enough to think his own safe. He should have known better. After all, who hasn't heard of what happens when you fly too close to the sun? His heart hasn't been his own to care for in a while now, and with Patroclus' death it too fell, crashed to the ground violently, lost to him forever. Love, he knows now, is as painful as it is divine. And yet he would not miss it.

The third contender: fear. This, even now, is almost laughable to him. Perhaps, he thinks, it is fear that is the cause of all his misery - the fear of a short life not well spent, the fear of being forgotten, the fear of honor lost. The fear, secretly, of giving in to destiny. Yet, as miserable an emotion it may be, it is easy to fear, for a child as much as for the bravest of all men. And fear can be resolved - either it turns true, or is proven false, but rarely does it last forever.

Regret, however, is a different story. This, more than any other feeling, has shaken him to the core. At night, when his lover's absence is the most unbearable, when the bed feels the coldest, he can hear it whispering into his ear, a sing-song voice taunting him with one single question: what if? Two words, and yet they change his whole world beyond repair, more so than fear, more so than love, more so - even - than grief. Their cruelty lies in the fact that he knows the answer, does not even need to think about it twice. What if the war never happened? What if he hadn't brought them to Troy? What if he hadn't withdrawn from the fight? What if he had gone in his lover's stead that fateful day? He knows full well, and so does the voice inside his head, a voice that sounds suspiciously like his Patroclus. I would still be here, it says, safe and sound and, most importantly, alive.

This, then, he cannot bear, this is what slowly rips him apart from the place where his heart is supposed to be. He knows it is fruitless to even try and fight it, that once regret has taken up your being it clings to you like honey, bittersweet. To see the world as it could have been and be unable to change it, this undoubtedly is the cruelest of emotions, one he is certain he will take to his grave and, perhaps, beyond.

[glimmerofgold]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Reviving this little work of mine - hopefully for real this time. Chapter one has been majorly revised, and chapter two is in the works and will hopefully be posted within the next week!

[glimmerofgold]

This and This and This.

The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller