Briseis laid on her bed for what seemed like forever. Her black dress trailed off the bed and onto the cool floor. The golden laurel crown was in the middle of the room, on the floor. In a quick fit of anger, she ripped it from her head, the sharp leaves cutting her forehead, and threw it to the ground.
The scent of the pyre continued to float in and out. The night was taking over and soon, the stars littered the pitch black silk that the sky spread upon itself. Clouds floated under the vast expanse, but nothing to bring the rain Briseis prayed for. The flowers in the gardens were slowly dying into the winter months. All that remained were the moonflowers that gave of the faintest smell to the admirer.
Her hand rested between her closed knees, holding tightly to the base of her thigh. Briseis looked over the plains of her bed. Too big for one person to use, but she was royalty; this was normal if not small. She looked to the pillow across from her, bare and desolate. Her fingers ran over the opposing side of the bed.
"He slept on the left side of the bed," she said softly to no one. Tears stung into her sore, red eyes and she blinked them out.
Her thoughts plagued her with horrible thoughts. The whole of Troy knew in who's company Priam found her when she was returned to him. But she didn't care for their pity; it left a sickening taste in her mouth and crushed into her spirit. They assumed her too weak and too naive; she had no chance against the great warrior Achilles.
But they didn't know about the blade against his throat; the way he looked at her when he left the tent; the pain visible as he watched her leave. No one knew these things because they didn't ask and frankly, they didn't care. Briseis was now the focus of every story told to warn people of the dangers of passion and lust.
Briseis, however, wasn't a cautionary tale. She was living proof of transedancy. She rose about the confines of a woman's place in Greek society to freely give herself to a dangerous man. She became his lover not by force, but by choice. And in her mind, she still was his lover, walls and armies aside.
Sliding her black dress off, she pulled on a dark blue robe. The color reminded her of something Achilles wore and comforted her in that way. She stared off her balcony and out onto the pitch black of the beaches. The small fires going there weren't visible from here, but she knew they blazed on.
Closing her eyes, she felt his body next to her's, moving fluidly over her skin. For the first time in her life, she prayed no one would ever ask her how she felt; because she felt the loneliest she ever knew in her life.
Achilles sat staring out onto the ocean. Odysseus' plan would work; Priam had proved to be the most supersitious of men, relying heart and soul on the Gods devine intervention. An 'offering' would be perfect. They would take it without question of its origin. They lost the only source of logic whole and truth to them on the edges of his sword.
Troy was defenseless.
Now he finished making his own plans to perfection. They were simple: find Briseis, take her from Troy, never let her go. It boggled his own selfish mind why he cared so much for someone who was still a girl in most respects. But her face told the story of suffering covered in a forced innocent. The robes were of her choice, but only to maintain her facade.
She destroyed that mask when she took the blade in her hand. If not for his wonderful acting skills, he would have been killed. In a flash, his eyes opened to meet those of someone who the world treated the worst. Everyone loved her, everyone praised her and she hated every bit of it. His blood on her hands would have satisfied her craving for freedom enough for her to return to that world.
Yet instead, he broke through what barrier was left as their lips pressed together. She didn't stop him, shivering at his fingertips tracing her flat belly lightly. The tears she cried as he took away her last impediment to the real world were not from pain, but from release. She squeezed his shoulders, forcing the reality of the destruction of her virginity, the only thing left of worth to them back in the city, to echo through out her mind, body, and soul. She laid back on the bed, eyes open, staring into the infinite blue of his.
In his arms, for the first time, she could be the real person beneath the image.
She couldn't stop her craving for more, encouraging him to take her again with a kiss on his neck and hands pressing on his back. He smiled within, not showing that she was the one in control of this situation. He lost power over her when she moaned in an unknown pleasure. She didn't understand where this came from or how it came upon her, but he was the cause and didn't want to let go anytime soon.
Everytime he took her, another part of her personality revealed itself. She was stubborn and stuck up from her taming in the royal courts. But this melted away into a fiery spirit that was silver-lined with wisdom, cleverness, wit, humour, and beauty he had never seen before. She was still kind and wonderful, but the new traits made Achilles want her more.
Briseis of Troy was the peace he sought all his life.
But his actions lead her to fear and hate him in certain ways. She forced herself not to experience the sensations he always gave her when he returned from killing her cousin. It was very difficult, for in this situation, he wanted to hear her scream with ecstacy. But she shut her mouth, only opening it when he forced his lips upon her's. She lay still, face opposite him, eyes squeezed shut as she destroyed the feeling within her.
He knew she would be better going back to Troy; for now at least.
In a way, it was his way of showing her what they had instore for the no-longer-virgin-priestess of Apollo. His conceided nature said she would hate it once again and willingly return to him on the beaches of her countrymen, murderer of her beloved cousin.
Part of him did it to see how long he could deny himself her company. But as the third night of their separation slowly tolled by, he realized he needed her back. All his life, Achilles was trained to live without: without a father, his mother's guidance, weakness, but mostly peace of mind. Briseis broke that chain; she gave him peace of mind and love more pure than anything in the world.
But he knew why he did it: she needed the company of those who have known her again. Her cousin, a man she considered her brother, was dead and it was only right she have her family to mourn with. He knew that only then would she realize what she had been doing to herself her entire of her life. The denial, the masqerade, the endless parade of made up personalities, pleasures, pains, hates, loves, hopes, dreams, ideas: she would tire of it fast.
In the four days he had her in his arms, an inexperienced girl who satisfied him overwhelming in his need for companionship and lust for the sins of the flesh, he knew her better than the people that knew her from the moment she entered the world.
He now prayed that this would mean that when the time came, Briseis would leave the broken world of Troy behind for his world.