I dream of his death often in those early weeks.
It would have been easier, I think, if I had not been privy to the prophecy. I would have accompanied him all the same, even if he had not asked. I had no desire to go to Troy, but I would have followed him anywhere: to the ends of the earth, to the highest peak or the lowest depths. If anyone had tried to stop me, even his mother, I would not have backed down without a fight.
You do not give things up so easily now as you once did, Chiron had said. It is Achilles, I think to myself, who has changed me. No, I know it is. It is Achilles, with his bright hair and his flashing eyes and his fair skin. Achilles, with his lilting voice and soft touches and golden smiles. Achilles, with his strength and his courage and his unfailing honesty. He has made me brave where once, as my father had said, I had been cowardly.
Nobody, nothing can separate us. It will be this way always: Achilles and I, and just let the Fates try to take him from me.
We can defy them.
It is dangerous even to think of it, unwise to challenge the immortal beings who preside over all. Still, I think: so long as Hector lives, Achilles cannot die. Even if his death is unavoidable (and deep down, I know this to be true), it can at least be postponed.
For a while yet, he will remain mine.
No matter what happens, I will not leave him. Though the thought of what is to come fills me with a certain dread, I have made my choice. I choose Achilles, and only Achilles.
He would do the same for me, I know. If you have to go, you know I will go with you. The words had been a comfort, but had I known then what I knew now, I would have begged him to stay behind. It is hypocritical of me, perhaps. Nonetheless, I would have pleaded and wept and done all that I could think to do to convince him to let me go alone. I was merely ordinary and no songs would be sung of my deeds. I had no skill with a spear, no chance of survival in a war against the greatest heroes of Troy. Had Achilles followed me, he would have been following me to my death, and in the process, sealing his own fate.
I care little for my own life, but to imagine those green eyes cold and unseeing makes bile rise in my throat. There is so much life in him. He is like the sunshine personified, so godlike that even now, when I have slept beside him many a night, it never fails to surprise me just how beautiful he really is.
Deidamia's words to me that day had stung, but there had been truth in them. I am not handsome, nor exceedingly clever, and I will never be a warrior. It makes little sense that someone like Achilles could love me, and yet, I do not doubt that he does. It makes me love him all the more.
What will he look like in death? I often wonder, as I lie awake in our tent. He sleeps peacefully beside me. It is as though the prophecy, which weighs so heavily on my mind, has already been forgotten by he who should care most. Will his light diminish? Will he be as any other man? Or, even when his soul has departed, will the corpse retain the brilliance which I have come to relate with him?
How will I bear it, I think, when I have lost him? How long shall I go on before my grief drives me into the darkness after him?
I dream of his death often in those early weeks.
I wake in gasps, bolt upright into the coolness of our tent, and I rub my cheeks to find my skin wet with tears. His name is on my lips, and for a moment, I panic and believe that my dream was no dream. He is gone, and I am alone.
He is gone, and all things swift and bright and beautiful have gone with him. He is gone, and my chest feels hollow, as though his phantom has reached inside it, pulled out my still-beating heart, and crushed it into dust.
That is alright, I think.
I do not intend to live when he is gone.
Patroclus. The voice registers, but whether it comes from a spirit or a man of flesh, I have not yet worked out. Patroclus… It speaks again, gentler this time, and I feel warm fingers against my cheek. They are not mine, and I slowly return to myself.
"Patroclus," comes his voice once more. Achilles, I try to say, but my breath is still coming in gasps, my chest heaving with dry sobs. I had not realized, and I burn with shame when I think of how I have woken him with my foolishness.
He is not gone. Not yet.
Soon. How soon, I do not know. I wish I did.
He has pulled me against him. His touch is soft, as though he fears that to hold too tightly might break me. "Patroclus…" It is comforting somehow, to hear him speak my name with that peculiar way he has, separating the syllables as no one else does. He is better at words than I am. He always has been, and he is saying everything and nothing all at once.
I bury my face against his bare chest, feeling his fingers delve into my hair. "Patroclus. Patroclus. Patroclus."
It is all he says, and it is enough. It is enough to know that he is here, that he has not yet been taken from me.
Name one hero who was happy.
I think of that morning, and my mind races. There has to be someone, someone who had been happy. Someone to give us hope that this terrible prophecy might not come to pass or, if it does, that the gods might show some mercy to aristos achaion and his companion.
I'm going to be the first.
He had been so sure of himself. I drank in every word as though it were the finest wine, and I believed. If anyone, surely, deserved the happiness the gods so rarely offered to their heroes, it was my Achilles.
Swear it.
Why me?
Because you're the reason. Swear it.
"Patroclus," Achilles says again, and his voice has dropped to little more than a whisper. I think that he is trying not to weep. I want to withdraw from the warmth of his arms, to look at his face and confirm my suspicion. I do not. I nestle deeper into his embrace and I hesitate before asking the question that is tugging at my lips, the same question that I have asked myself often enough. We do not hide from one another. We never have. If I ask it, he will answer. He will try, at least, for the question is difficult and I will not blame him if he cannot find the words to reply.
"What will be left for me," I say, and my voice is hoarse from crying, "when you are -?"
The word sticks on my tongue, but he knows what I meant to say. How could he not? I feel him tense but his hold on me does not diminish. Although I cannot see him, I no longer doubt that he was trying to hold back his own tears.
I can feel them dripping into my hair.
I am sorry that I asked. I have pained him, and for the sake of a childish question that I have already answered a hundred times over: nothing. Nothing will be left for me without him. I am no one, if not the companion of Achilles. Everything I am is because of him, and when he is gone, it is only fitting that I follow.
I know that he knows what I intend to do, although I have never openly spoken of it. I am tortured by the thought of his death; I would not wish for him to be tortured by thoughts of mine.
Still, he is not a fool. He knows.
"I am sorry," he says at last. It is not a proper answer, but it is enough. "Patroclus. Patroclus. Patroclus." His lips are brushed to my hair, and the only word that passes through them for the rest of the night is my name.
We do not sleep. We hold one another, and I think: give us more time. If this must end, I would be grateful to have even a second longer with him. Please. Give us more time.