Most Beloved By Far
Synopsis:
Achilles dreams in the midst of war. It's not a pleasant one
"It is unlike me to fail— the godhood in my blood makes it so— but losing you is greater than any platoon falling in front of me.
It is not by the cries of my men nor the silence of defeat that I falter. It is by your heartbeat I breathe, as though it is my own. And when your heartbeat left this world, it carried me with it.
I love, I love, I loved, and so I grieve— I grieve, I grieve until the skies open and the gods hear me.
I grieve so that my grief may turn into a rage unbridled.
It is the softness of your gaze I miss, the meaning to bring to all I was and all I did. And your hands, sure and skilled and loving. And your wit, unmatched to all who stand within our ranks. Gods, it is difficult not to miss every part of you that I know.
Without you I am all that I should have been; in battle, victorious. But without you, I believe I am no longer the same person you had loved before.
So tell me, I beg, I beg: what brings you here?"
Voice shaking, heart bare, and eyes raw. It was a manner unbefitting a great man, a warrior. If it were not futile, the ghost would have held him. But the ghost was not cruel. They will have their time for that soon enough.
"Bury me, Achilles."
The sky bled crimson that morning.