I watch as they bring my cold, bloodstained corpse to you.
I hear you scream, seeing you reach for the sword no longer at your side, for you had given it to me, to slit your own throat before you realized it was no longer there.
I watch as you collapse to your knees, screaming in agony as you cradle my body tightly in your embrace.
I watch as you break, drowning in grief.
How I wish to call out your name and say that I am here as your cry out mine while tears cascade down your face.
I am here, Achilles.
I cry silently without tears, as my soul aches and bleeds for you. I try to embrace you, but my arms pass through you.
I am only air, a lingering soul, an incorporeal existence.
Achilles.
Achilles.
I whisper your name, reaching out to you but you do not see, you do not hear.
I see the rage, the grief and vengeance as you place my corpse on the pyre and my body burns to ash.
I am still here.
You tell the men to mix our ashes and bury us together once you die.
I can do nothing to stop you from hunting down Hector and slaying him.
I am forced to watch as Paris' arrow strikes true, by Apollo's guidance, and pierces through your heart.
I watch you smile as you fall to the earth, welcoming death and lying so still.
Achilles.
Achilles.
My other half, my heart. I am still here. I beg the others to give us peace together. I haunt their dreams but my pleas go unheard as I watch them erect your tombstone with your name, Achilles, already carved into it.
I am here, without you. A lingering soul full of memories of you, of us.
How I miss you, Achilles.
The Greeks set sail, leaving the island and it seems I will never know peace with you, Achilles.
I cannot be by your side after all…
Time passes, though I do not know how much, when your mother comes to stand before your tombstone. I have not felt such hatred for her in such a long time.
She gazes at the scenes of your tomb, all there is, is death. She reaches as though to touch them but I cannot allow it, cannot bear for her to do so.
Thetis, I say.
She jerks back, flinching and vanishing.
She returns later. Thetis. She does not react to my calling her name, only stands and stares at your tomb in silence, with my soul standing by your tomb, I study her for a moment.
Thetis.
Thetis. I am buried here within your son's grave. Our ashes are buried together.
She doesn't respond.
Everyday she comes. I watch her sit at the tombs base.
I wish I could make her leave but I cannot.
But I can still hate her if nothing else.
I tell her of how she ruined you, ruined her son, for how you will be remembered - for killing. For killing Troilus, for killing Hector. Cruel deeds committed by you in your grief after my death.
She is immovable, like a statue. Still as stone.
Though such deeds seem to, and may pass as virtue among you gods, but how is there glory in killing? Where is the glory in taking a life? We are mortal and have short lives, we struggle to live longer and we die effortlessly. You would rather have Achilles be like his son Pyrrhus? Let the stories of Achilles be something more, something better.
"What more do you speak of?" She asks.
I am not afraid of her. What can she do now, when I am already dead?
Let Achilles be remembered for returning Hector's body to his father, Priam, for that is something to be remembered.
She is silent for a while. "And what else?"
His beautiful, amazing voice, and his stunning, splendid skill with the lyre.
She seems to wait.
How he took the girls to spare them, taking them away so they would not suffer in the hands of another king.
"That was you."
Curious, I ask her why she is not with Pyrrhus.
A flicker of something passed through her eyes. "Because Pyrrhus is dead."
She told me how he was killed by Agamemnon's son for stealing and ravishing his bride.
And he is the son you preferred over Achilles?
Her thinned as something passed through her eyes once more.
She asks me if I have no more memories to give, to show.
I am only made of memories now, and nothing else.
"Speak them then."
I nearly refuse your mother. But my ache and yearning for you is far stronger. I do not want to speak of anything dead or divine.
I want you to live, Achilles. I want you to live on and be remembered well.
It is strange at first. I am so used to keeping you away from her and only for myself.
The memories of us well up like trickling river streams, faster than I could hold them back.
The memories come not as words, but images, dreams.
I show your mother everything, leaving nothing out.
The way your hair looked under a blazing sun, your face when you ran. A bundle of memories surging forward, crowding with moments of happiness.
Thetis closes her eyes. She sees them, she listens, and she remembers you alongside me.
I asked her why she did not go to you, and she told me she could not go where you were. The underworld, beneath the earth.
I conjure up more memories of you, of the boy I once knew (which seemed so long ago now), and love.
The memories come and come and I relish the memories of your smile, I relish in the one of me wrapped in your warm, golden arms and all my fears gone. I relish in the sound of your strong beating heart beneath my ear. I adore and savor the ecompassing love and happiness of that moment, of that memory I hold forever dear to my heart and soul.
Your mother listens and remembers you through my memories of you.
While the sun sets over the sea, Thetis is silent beside me.
I have told her and showed her all and spared her nothing of us. Of you.
She speaks once again, voice low and breaking when she said she could not make you a god.
And I tell her, but it was you that made him, gave life to him, to your son.
She does not answer me for a long time, just simply sitting still with her eyes glimmering with the last bit of the dying light of the sky that lingered.
"I've done it." She told me.
I do not understand what she means, until I see your tomb and see the marks she has made on the stone.
Achilles, it reads and next to it - beside it, is my name. Patroclus.
"He waits for you, now go." She says softly.
Finally…
Achilles, I am coming.
Achilles, I am coming to you.
Wait for me.
"Patroclus!"
"Patroclus!"
I hear your voice before my eyes set on your beautiful figure. I'd recognize you anywhere.
You had been waiting for me all along, waiting for me all this time.
I stare and stare at the figure before me. You.
All I see is you. I see the relief, love and joy in your eyes when you look at me and smile. So brilliant, so beautiful. My heart, my love.
My Achilles.
Oh, how I have missed you so much.
"Achilles," I cry out, voice breaking. I am wrapped into your warm embrace and I hold onto you tightly, and I never want to let go. You kiss my forehead, my cheeks, my eyelids and hold me tightly. You chant my name over and over, voice full of relief and wonder, brimming with happiness.
You ask me, 'how?'
And I answer, 'Curtesy of your mother. The only kindness she has ever shown me, for your sake.'
"I am here now, Achilles," My voice trembles and cracks as I cling to you, pressed against your warm skin, savoring your warmth, your touch. Your love.
I cry, breaking down as you say, 'I love you' over and over, and I finally can know peace, with you by my side, knowing we'll be together for eternity. I am whole again. No longer wandering, no longer lost and lingering.
'I love you.'
"I love you, Achilles," I chant and gasp for breath between the kisses you bestow upon my lips passionately, lovingly and scorching like the sun. I return each kiss with fervor until the kisses simmer, turning gentle and we part only an inch to stare into each others eyes and grin and press our foreheads against each other as we continue to embace.
With you finally in my grasp, we are no longer apart, I feel peace, I feel whole again. I will not take this for granted. I will cherish our eternity together, always.
I swear it, Achilles. My love, my heart. Achilles.
I hold you as tightly as your holding onto me, content to stay in your embrace, at peace.
Finally.
Finally in your arms, by your side -
I'm home.
In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.
