@storylived // achilles starter call. (for andromache)
There had been a time when the defeat of Troy could be anticipated. He knew he would never live to see the walls fall. The prophesy left no confusion; he would soon be dead. But the belief in his coming glory, immortal and unending, made Achilles brave enough to look to the future without fear. Now though, there was only drudgery — the fall of one body after another, senseless and meaningless to Achilles, who mourned that one vital, unbearable death. Patroclus! Killing Hector had been momentary relief from his pain, but even this was not truly happiness. It was satisfaction, the final vent to a RAGE that would not abate and the sealed promise of his own, swiftly circling death.
It is only meager appeasement (and that in increasingly diminishing returns) that he felt as he dragged Hector’s body around the gates of the city for all to see — that he feels now, regarding the bloodied, scraped lump lying unceremoniously in the corner of his tent. One death cannot fill the hole left by another, he has learned.
“What daring brought you down to the ships, all alone, to face me? You have a heart of iron,” he acknowledges, but does not stand to greet the woman before him. His tone is curt, but not uncivil. “I will not hurt a woman, nor a traveler under Hermes’ eye. His wife, then? Know you any Greek to beg with?”
