Disclaimer: The gods are not mine. Neither is Death Note.
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"Sing, goddess, Achilles' wrath, black and murderous, that pitched ten thousand Greek souls into Hades' dark-"
"That's not how it goes."
"You've never even taken a class on ancient literature. How would you know?"
"Who ruled out the possibility that maybe I just happen to care?"
"Nobody. You care about plenty of things. Video games-"
"Shut the fuck up."
One could correctly say that two boys sat together at the table, but there's a certain dissonance today in the way they're moving. The brighter-looking one, the warmer one, is writing instead of playing games like he usually does, or even making real attempts at conversation with the one in black. He seems hurt, but in a sort of subdued way. Like he can't show the boy in black that he is hurt, or it'll just get worse. Doesn't seem particularly uncharacteristic of either of them, if you assume the hurt, but when they're together the one in stripes is never supposed to be unhappy. It's clear to anyone watching that he'll follow the black-clad one to the ends of the earth, but what's not so clear is why. Neither are easily understood, but that's a given.
It's bizarrely appropriate that the one in black is memorizing the Iliad. They're a kind of Achilles and Patroclus, mirrored so brightly and so painfully-
why?
Beauty like this isn't meant to end in gunfire and cigarette smoke, burning buildings and broken windows. But still, it's something inhuman and almost divine, the glory in their blood spilling- desecrating everything and sanctifying the same.
There's the tears of the goddess for each and every one of mine, and she cries for the same lives lost.
I cry for the loss of love and faith and trust.
I cry for the choice they made.
I cry because they are my children, my hope, my dreams that brought forth a few too many nightmares.
And then, at night, I watch them complete the triad. Tears of the goddess, mother, and at last the child. Maybe I was wrong, maybe this was meant to be broken. Natural order. Rule instead of the exception.
The path to perfection is through suffering. Once you destroy enough, the surface is flawless once again and free at last of even the imperfections you had from the start.
Tell me, where's the line again between all of us? Why is it that we have to share their suffering and feel it doubly because we know they'll feel it too?
Why can't they just be kept safe?
And why did they sign their own death warrant? I know, I know- I'm guilty- I did the same- I'm doing the same-
but I love them.
I don't want them to sabotage themselves, I don't want them broken, I don't want them sacrificed just for Troy! What second Helen would take them from me? The gods are dead. Why are these new ones just the same?
Suffering serves the greater good by burning away the imperfections of a soul. It should never, ever, ever touch those rare innocents.
They have nothing to be destroyed.
There is always a purpose, I know, but why-
The great injustices, the great tragedies, the great art. Humanity. The ability to recognize the injustice of suffering and beauty combined, why it is, what it is-
Maybe.
Or maybe just vulnerability is humanity.
Please forgive me, forgive me everything I've done, I wanted the best, I wanted to save them, I wanted to stop this all and I never wanted this!
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me...