Disclaimer: Troy is not mine.
A/N: Achilles is thinking in first person.
I watch you stride out to me across the sand, leaving behind your city's cool walls to face me in the sun's brutal glare. You do not flinch to see the spear in my hand, nor do you utter vain threats and curses that reveal your weakness. Instead, you parley with me as though we are equals. You, crown prince of Troy, and I, leader of the Myrmidons, the greatest warrior to ever live—equals. I am the man to carry the greatest amount of grief ever given to humans because I am half god and feel everything more acutely: my rage, my joy, my grief. Yes, my grief especially. It overwhelms me in great waves, greater than the black sail that I hang on my ship, greater than the sand we are standing on, greater than the walls of your city that raise up behind you, blocking you out because you have done your duty by answering my call.
Are you ready, prince of Troy? Are you ready to die? You know you will and so do your king and your city. I warned you when we met for the first time at the temple of Apollo that you would meet me again in battle, and I wish now that I had gone out to fight instead of the boy, my boy that I loved, my Patroclus.
You did not even know his name, did not even inquire of my men after the boy you killed. Instead you ran, because you knew I would come for you. You went to hold your wife and your son one last time, didn't you? You have just come from them, given them your last words, bid them hold strong, whispered lies of comfort into their ears.
Did you tell them your fate? Or did they already know it as you did when we first met?
Equals, you and I, prince of Troy? You are angry that I have rejected your parley—I do not fear the underworld. I have visited it nearly every night in my sleep. And now I will sleep there every night for you have taken the sun that would save me from its dark. I have you to thank for that, prince of Troy.
You leave behind your city's cool shade and face me in the sun. I am in the dark, despite the light glaring off the sand, because Patroclus is in the underworld. Tonight you will be in the underworld. And I will join you there soon. Because my heart, my sun, is already resting there.