#yuriliad

[glossc1]

btw homer spoke to me directly and told me to draw iliad yuri

[sapocipo]

I am going to make some one sided Hera x Aphrodite propaganda because even tho I praise Aphrodite's emotionally manipulative schemes her brain kinda short circuits whenever Hera asks her something

-Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.25 ff & 82 - 290 (trans. Rieu) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.)

In the Argonautica Aphrodite was hurt for 1 millisecond before giving in Hera and Athena's request. Hera also holds her hand and gives her parenting advise...

-THE ILIAD BOOK 14, TRANSLATED BY A. T. MURRAY

"Yes queen, whatever you say queen"-Aphrodite Hera didn't even had to bribe Aphrodite for her to help her. Aphrodite folded so quickly. Girl you two are fighting in opposites sides of the war, Hera literally helped the guy that stabbed you, can't you see she will sleep with Zeus to help the Achaeans?

-AENEID BOOK 4, TRANSLATED BY H. R. FAIRCLOUGH

This one is the most baffling to me. WHY VENUS WHY! Goodness sake, if you know Juno is manipulating you why are you walking straight into her trap? Go help your son get to Italy! Is Juno saying "Let's us rule these people together" enough for you to forget she was hunting your son down just a few seconds ago?? (Anyways this post is more humorous then anything, don't take it seriously)

[orpheus-has-lyreizz]

can we have woman Paris again?

ask and i shall deliver

[achillesisnotcomingdown]

"what's ur favourite lesbian centric media ?"

"the Iliad by homer"

"???"

"'???"

[littlesparklight]

Yuriliad part twenty one! Hektor dies...

It was only two days later that Fate decided to prove it was indeed too early to hope.

Much, much too early to hope.

"Hektor, Hektor! My son! My Hektor!"

Hecuba's screams rang in Paris' ears, and in the edge of her vision, her mother's veil drifted towards the stone of the wall's top where they all stood, watching Achilles strip Hektor bare, watching the Achaeans now be bold enough to creep up, craven scavengers as they were, to deal injuries when Hektor could no longer defend himself.

Her father, somewhere to her right beyond Helen, was moaning like a wounded bull. He was talking but whether it was that none of that made sense or she simply couldn't hear him, Paris didn't know.

"Helen---" Her tongue tripped over itself, too thick. Her throat twisted shut as wet heat pressed against that unintentional dam.

"I know. I know," Helen whispered, arm tightening around her.

"My child, I am nothing! Why should I live now---"

Paris shut her ears to her mother's wailing. Couldn't stand to hear it as nausea rose up and she sobbed. What would they do now? Without Hektor… And Achilles wasn't even leaving Hektor behind for them, no! Instead he was--- How could he just string him up like that? He had no grace or honour at all.

And how many of her brothers, of the rest of the great warriors still in the army, would fall attempting to avenge Hektor? Paris stared down at her brother's bleeding body, punctured through in so many places, and could see that they would all kill themselves, like that. They couldn't kill Achilles. But who even could, if not Hektor?

"Alexandra."

Her name struck her like a bell even when the god had only murmured it. Apaliunas leaned in over her, large, gracefully long-fingered hands closing around her shoulders. His shadow alone was heavy, and his presence, hovering right over her shoulder, bent like a bird of prey, was a mountain. They were both watching as Achilles mounted his chariot, ready to drive off. With Hektor tried to the same chariot, to be dragged along.

"I will tend to him, soon. But listen to me, Paris; you have been an archer out of need while tending your flocks as a slave of the king. Now, when opportunity arises, become an archer out of need once more, now in defense of your fallen brothers as a daughter of that same king. Wherever you decide to strike, I will be there to aid you."

"Yes."

God, yes. She didn't even need to think about it, the agreement spilling out of her before she knew she'd spoken, a prayer and a plea. Yes, yes, and once again and always yes - Hektor had always been kind, even in his awkward, half-confused affection to deal with a little sister who wasn't just a sister but had had a life he understood nothing about.

"I'll do whatever I need to," she promised, words sharply raw on her tongue, and against her ear, she could feel the corner of Apaliunas' mouth curve up in a smile.

"And none other can do it," the god proclaimed, but it wasn't, in truth, encouragement.

It was condemnation and denial; it was the ugly truth. For all the others, her brothers, noble and righteously angry and grieving as they might be, would attempt what Hektor had. And like Hektor, they would all fail. For if Hektor couldn't take fleet-footed Achilles, how could any of the rest of them? If she didn't act, they'd each go to their death, one after the other, in the attempt to avenge not just Hektor and Troilos' deaths, but their cruel, shameless treatment.

In the next moment, as if he'd never been there, Apaliunas was gone and Alexandra staggered.

"Are you all r--- who was it? Aphrodite?" Helen's arm tightened around her as she looked over, but worry cleared into sharp-eyed understanding; whatever it was she was seeing, even now that Apaliunas was already gone she could tell a god had been here.

Behind her and Helen, there came a scream, wounded-animal shriek choked off into silence. Andromache. Poor, poor Andromache.

Out on the plain, the burning sunlight bent around Hektor's form, shimmering as summer heat in the distance. But that wasn't it - Paris was sure of it. Apaliunas had said he'd protect her brother's corpse. She was weeping again, and sniffled, attempting to wipe away her tears. New ones followed, though these were half relief alongside the grief. She looked up at Helen with something of a smile on her lips.

"Apollo," she murmured, though it was unnecessary when the wailing was so loud around them. No one else would hear, perhaps not even if she yelled. "I'm going to kill him. I promise you, I am going to kill him."

Helen stared down at her, and her face hardened and her lips thinned, a light like the flare of her divine father's thunderbolts in her eyes. "Good."

[glossc1]

WIP of girl paris and menelaus.. yuri iliad will be real

[littlesparklight]

Yuriliad part seventeen; Achilles kills Troilos, revealing growing cracks.

If all this had to happen at all, surely this was better, unless Helen was a man. But Paris wasn't sure she was fond of that idea. An idea that was only a flight of fancy, more distant than even the most high-flying bird in the sky above.

It wasn't like there'd been some way to avoid it.

That was what Paris told herself, anyway - had to tell herself - as the Achaeans dug themselves in by the bay across the river, as the days after their arrival turned into weeks and months and years. She couldn't understand how they had the will or patience for it, though Helen was undoubtedly worth it. The men, at least thought so; she'd heard them talk. Helen, and the insult the King of Sparta had levelled against the royal family when extending a claim on her as a concubine, had them fighting.

But those were men, armed and armoured, who stood on the walls to meet the Achaeans' attempt at breaching those same walls. If fighting had to be happening at all, men were who ought to be in danger of being killed. And yet---

"Troilos! Troilos!"

She was going to be ill. Paris stared as Hektor slowly walked across the courtyard, cradling the slender, headless - headless! - body of Hecuba's next to youngest son over the wailing shrieks of their mother, and a hysterical Polyxena. Aeneas after him held something small in his arms, wrapped up in a bloody cloak, and she was - she was going to be ill.

Staggering a few steps away from the doorway, she got no further before she threw up, fight it as she might. Her hair seemed to be everywhere and she couldn't throw up here. Her stomach heaved. Cool, soft fingers brushed her temple, her throat, and caught her hair, and Paris gave up.

Thirteen. Troilos had only just reached thirteen, golden as the sun and his divine father. The youngest Priam allowed any boy up on the walls was several years older, but he preferred they had reached their second decade.

"I--- I don't understand." Paris heaved through the words, each syllable threatening her rebelling insides to turn themselves inside out once again, but there was nothing less. Coughing, she turned to Helen. "Why… why did he murder the child, instead of taking both him and Polyxena for ransom, like he did with Isos and Antiphos earlier?"

"I don't know," Helen said, her large eyes dark and gleaming. She was paler than usual, and so her neatly bound-up hair looked even darker than its rich, dark-brown already was. "I don't know."

Taking a shuddering breath, she turned around and took the cup Elektra gave her, handing it to Paris. "Drink. It'll clean your mouth."

Paris drank, for that seemed easiest, simplest to do, while the courtyard filled with wailing.

So, so much wailing.

It seemed almost insulting that the Achaeans agreed to a truce of twelve days for Troilos' burial, but at least that meant their little brother could be buried as he ought, though he shouldn't be dead at all.

Worse was watching as the pyre was lit in the morning on the tenth day. Not because it was one of the final steps to the irrevocable loss, but rather because---

"Look at her. Barely even weeping, and she knew him almost as well as the rest of us!" Lysianassa, huddled up next to Aristomache along with Henicea behind them.

"Maybe she's pleased," Aristomache muttered, tone biting enough to be meant to carry.

"No!" Henicea cried, half a teary wobble, half an edge of sick fascination with this accusation.

Beside her, Helen grew stiff.

"But don't you see, one has to wonder why she would follow Alexandra here - it doesn't make sense, no matter how beautiful she might be, when Helen herself is more so! But she gave a fine excuse to her husband and all those Achaean princes, and you know Troilos would've been able to stand next to Hektor, if he had only gained a few more years, given whose son he is."

Paris wound her arm tight around Helen's, stepping closer to her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, turning her head to frown at Aristomache, who only huffed, pretty little nose curling, but did fall silent. "They shouldn't be saying such things."

It wasn't fair - her sisters and sisters-in-law glared at her, to be sure, darker stares than anything Paris had seen, even from Kassandra before all this, but no one said anything. Not to her, whether to her face or in her hearing, anyway. They saved it all for Helen, though she had been the one who eagerly follow Aphrodite's direction that took her to Kythira and Sparta. Not that there had been anything else to do, but she had wanted it, and she could not stop wanting it. Couldn't stop wanting Helen. Would miss her like she'd been emptied out if Helen was taken over to the Achaean camp if Hektor and her father should change their minds.

But they hadn't, not yet. Not even now, with Troilos' body wrapped in soft, deepest purple while the flames rose higher and slowly consumed the funeral pyre.

"They're grieving, and rightly so," Helen said quietly, wound tight as a bronze spring the smith has carefully constructed, yet the tension is so great in the thin metal wire it undo his fine work if care isn't taken. "I hardly put up any protest in the face of your words, those glancing eyes of yours. And I should have."

"Helen---"

"Hush." Helen's hand on hers, where she was clutching the soft meat of her lower arm, was biting in its grip. But firm. "I should have. But I didn't."

[littlesparklight]

Taking a break from The Long Years for Femslash February! We'll see how far I get with this f/f Helen/Paris Trojan war AU through this month, but either way I'll (try to) post a snippet every day.

It'll be tagged with yuriliad lol

"Father!" In a cloud of curls half-draped and tied back, adorned with the flash of much jewellery, came one of the king's few daughters by his first-rank wife bursting into the room. "I'm to marry!"

"You… are?" Priam asked, looking up from where he'd been bent in conference with her oldest brother, the two of them seated by the window. "Alexandra, didn't you say just a few years ago - when I first brought that prospect up - that you would rather dedicate yourself to service the goddess in music?"

Paris beamed, far too happy to care, and even less be embarrassed by, the slight reproach in the question, otherwise filled with gentle humour. Her parents were ever indulgent since she'd been found and brought back, and this time she had much reason to once again be so. It could hardly even be called indulgence when the blessed immortals were involved, anyway. More like proper reverence - particularly so when her own lady had been among the goddesses come before her.

"Yes," Paris agreed, head cocked and twisting a lock around a finger, still smiling. She simply couldn't stop. "But when the lady of love, even golden Aphrodite has gifted me love and a union, how could I refuse? One does not cast away the glorious gifts of the gods, none which are for the asking and only in their grace given."

Almost, her smile threatened to falter, remembering the oppressive air of the garden, the glares of the other two who had come with strong Argeiphontes - thankfully, Hektor shifted forward as he turned fully around in his seat, frowning while at the same time his eyebrows arched, commanding all attention. He was so amusing, the way he almost always had this slightly pinched expression on his face and then it fought to stay there while another battled for its rightful place. Paris was rather sure it wasn't just that her darling oldest brother took to his responsibilities with even more fervour and attention than they probably quite needed when their father was hale and sound of both mind and heart. He was, and as far as she knew, always had been, quite a serious soul, even when younger.

It was always such a struggle to make him relax.

"That doesn't sound as if you mean the usual manner the blessings of the goddess come, aside from those the goddess gave you since birth," Hektor said, almost warily and still pulled between frowning and that arched, inquiring look. Curious despite himself, yet not believing this wasn't the usual over-exuberance he thought she was inundated with.

And perhaps Paris did nothing to dispel that impression when she laughed brightly, shaking her head.

"I was in the garden practising for the Purulli festival," she said as she sat down on the stool left near her father and brother's chairs. "When the air turned all bright and the herald of Zeus piḫaššaššiš came before me, leading three goddesses - even the lady of heaven herself, and Maliya, the armoured daughter of the Father of Gods and Men, and lastly, the lady of love, golden Aphrodite.

"The son of Maia gave me a golden apple, and told me it was - at my discretion - to be gifted to the most beautiful of the three stood before me, by order of the lord of Olympos, even Zeus himself."

Paris touched her heart, smiling at her father and brother. She'd contemplated waiting to tell all, but there seemed little way of convincing them to let her go where she would need to without revealing this. She might well be allowed to journey to both Cyprus and Kythera, holy places to the goddess that she had asked before to visit. She wouldn't be sent on her own, however, and without the cooperation of at least her father or Hektor, and then whoever who might be sent with her, Paris knew she might fail in convincing the latter to go somewhere it hadn't been agreed-upon that she was to go.

Better to tell all, then, so even if she had to attempt convincing somewhere, her brother and father would both know why she had done so when she came before them after coming home.

"Alexandra…" Her father rubbed the bridge of his nose, a line deeper than the others carving itself down from the left side of his mouth. Hektor had the beginnings of a similar line already, which was rather charming but in her opinion was surely much too early. He was only half-way to thirty, as of yet. "Did anyone else see this?"

"The gods show themselves only to those they will, Father," Hektor pointed out before she had to do so, but he sounded exhausted. Eyes narrowed, he looked to her. "Were you dreaming?"

"I think I would know if I was sleep, Hektor!" Paris cried, clapping her hands together. "And there were a few other women in the garden, for it's a very pleasant day, but not close, and they saw and heard nothing, for I saw them beyond the Deathless Ones and they never looked our way."

Her father and brother sighed as if joined to one body and soul, and Paris hid a smile behind her hand - badly, for Hektor glowered at her. Batting her lashes, Paris suppressed a giggle when he groaned, shaking his head.

"And then, sister?"

"And then, I gave the apple to the lady of love and beauty, for who else could it belong to - and she awarded me with a gift, the promise of love and union with the most beautiful woman in the world," Paris said brightly, back straight and a light in her heart, on her tongue.

"That would be… unusual," her father said, eyeing her with a knowing weight in his eyes, the bright, intense colour of a shallow sea in summer - a colour she shared with him.

"What else could be more fitting, in a judgement over beauty among goddesses?" Paris said, cocking her head and shrugging lightly, a small smile pulling at her lips.

She knew very well what he was thinking about, though he had only rumours and supposition to go on, overheard conversations from people who thought they knew what they'd seen and could not keep their mouths shut. Not that they were wrong, as such, to whisper she had slept with every priestess and other female temple worker in the sacred district. Not that she had, not all of them, but she had begged her father to be allowed to dedicate her time to her music and her goddess over a marriage, even if she could have continued both those vocation while married, for a reason.

But he would not voice such suspicions, even less the uglier rumours that were little more than accusations, and Paris sat calmly on the stool, knowing she had the goddess on her side in this.