Okay, I know that I shouldn't be doing anything other than finishing my other stories, but I wrote this and couldn't resist putting it on here. As this is my first time with a Troy fic, please be gentle in your reviews! Thanks.

This is a quick oneshot from Neoptolemus' point of view - his thoughts on his father and his reputation. I got the idea mostly from Ken Catran's book "Golden Prince". If you like stories about Troy, then read that one. It's very addictive.

Also, the lyrics are from Miserere by The Cat Empire. If you know the song then it kinda makes sense.

Have you ever seen a sound, have you listened to an image

Have you ever touched a thought, have you ever tasted nothing

Have you ever told a lie that was true more than truth

Because truth it had lied all its life when it spoke you?

I glance up at the bare mound. The late afternoon sun behind it shines unbearably bright into my eyes so that I have to look away. This is what remains of my father – this heap of earth, covering the vase that holds his ashes inside.

The ache of my bandaged left arm breaks into my thoughts. It had been slashed open today in the skirmish, so that for a moment I saw the pale bone before the red blood welled up. I had killed the Trojan, and even now I easily recall his face. Tanned, weather-beaten skin with warm eyes that should have been dancing with laughter. Instead they were dark with horror and the knowledge of his own death as my sword passed through his chest.

It was then that I wondered dimly in a far away corner of my mind when I had become accustomed to this, this endless killing. I wondered that even as another man's blood stained my armour and soaked into my skin.

I look again at the mound and hold my gaze for as long as I can before the glare from the sun forces tears to my eyes. I look behind me, up at the distant looming walls of Troy, visible even from so far away. How I hate that city.

Nine years. Nine long years, that city has withstood our armies. Their best warriors killed, their trade cut off and money stripped away, yet still they manage to muster an army and send it against ours. They can't match our numbers, but one soldier fighting to defend his land is worth five soldiers fighting far away from their home.

I had never really known my father. I was seven when he left me, taking most of the men with him. I remember a whispered word, piercing blue eyes looking into my own brown ones and the scent of oil, leather and bronze as he leant over me. Then he was gone, gone as if he had never been.

Now I am here, at the foot of my father's grave. Great Achilles, the god-born warrior of Greece. And I, as his son, have his reputation to meet. Always, I'm measured up to him. I see it in the eyes of everyone – the soldiers, the kings, even the Trojans. I can never equal my father, and it is pointless of me to try.

But I wouldn't be Achilles' son if I didn't. So day after day I kill with my bronze sword, ending lives so that I may face my father's shade in Hades unashamed.

The sudden coolness on my skin surprises me and jolts me out of my thinking. I glance up and wonder why it is suddenly so cold. The blistering sun has sunk below the mound of my father's grave and casts everything around me into a strange, purplish light. I shiver, and wonder if he is here watching me now. Watching me stand in the shade beside his grave as the sun sets, thinking of him and all that he has done. Knowing that I can never be the equal of him.

Always, I am in my father's shadow.