AN: Firts of all, thank you to allthose that have favorited, followed and reviewed this story. I would like to warn you about something: This story was meant to tell moments between Achilles and Briseis, so there is going to be a lot of dialogue between them, or scenes with only them in it. I want to try to fill that space from when they met to when he was willing to die for her with something that justifies that kind of intensity... there is a plot, but mostly, it's a character piece. You'll get to know them as they get to know each other.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling. That was it.

I hope you like!

OOO

To know you

"When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense."
― Kahlil Gibran

Briseis had been reluctant to get out of the tent that day. She eyes her discarded white robe, so carelessly thrown away that her heart ached at the sight of it, but it was not in regret. She refused to regret anything. The very exercise of it was futile.

So she got up to look for the blue dress Achilles had given to her that first night and pulled the silken sheets around herself to cover.

(Why should she do that? She had no modesty to cover anymore, her snippy conscience told her – in fact her every moment reminded her of it. She was achy in places she had not even known she could hurt…)

"Oh shut up!" she hissed so low that the words were barely understandable even to her own ears. She was being so silly, letting herself be ruled by conventions that meant nothing here. War was a different realm. It had nothing to do with the life she had always known… and that life - Briseis closed her eyes and took a deep steadying breath – that life was gone and she was never getting it back again.

All she had ever know was lost to her.

… so what did she have to lose anymore?

Having the reality of war shoved in her face as it had happened last night had almost broken her… it had made her lose all hope, stripped her from all she had been before and given her something else: the present. A present that was finite – with a man who was so confusing and complex that thinking about him for too long made her hurt on the inside. But Briseis also had something else, something she had always had and that nobody could take away from her: she had always thought of it as a curse, but now it felt more like a comforting gift, a sharp knife wrapped in silk - she knew exactly when and how she was going to die.

It would not be too long now. And if that before had felt like a doom, now it was soothing… in a way.

Before that knowledge had been the cause of sharp focus and dedication, it had been the source of an unconditional, unlimited, desperate love for life, a need to live as fully and acutely as possible. But now…

Now with that definite knowledge came a liberating (if somewhat foreign) sensation of… not really caring about anything very much.

There had been a strange freedom in abandoning consideration of any and all consequences. Briseis had realized she did not have to fight, she did not even really want to. Why should she? In the face of the coldness and utter desolation of the underworld… who would care? Not even she did.

With everything taken from her, deciding to give herself over was really the only way of asserting ownership of the only thing she had left: herself.

There had been more than only a tinge of self-destructive desire in that decision, but what did it matter? And there it is again, the utter hopelessness that had made her abandon all logic. Briseis knew it must mean something was not quite right with her, but… she could not find it in her to care about that either.

She did not feel anything really.

But she'd felt… she'd felt with him something with him that had taken her back from the edge of oblivion she had been standing on. She had been expecting him to finally push her over, break her. She had been wanting to be broken and destroyed… Another shade of ruin was what Briseis had expected, but he'd taken what she'd so freely given and shaped it into something unfamiliar, something for which she had no name.

Her knowledge was so very painfully limited – limited only to him really. She had no comparison. Instinctively she knew that what he had done was what all men did with women in their beds… and yet, seeing that he was like no other man, perhaps Briseis was not being too naïve in thinking that how he had touched her and kissed her was not usual either.

Every time he had touched her, it had been the closest to perfection she had ever known. And even though all you could expect out of perfection were tiny little moments of it, it had happened over and over again: smooth moments with every touch, like tiny pearls on a string, close together and apart from everything else, wrapped in their own flawlessness, living off it.

Each instant with him lived on its own of a light so sweet that Briseis did not want to pollute them in any way by trying to understand them. That very action – rationalizing them - would bring them into reality, would make them part of this world and Briseis would rather not do that. She'd rather keep those moments in a world apart, where they could exists and be pure, the way she wanted them to be.

In this world, they would have to be moments between a Greek soldier and a fallen Trojan priestess, moments of betrayal either from one side or the other. In this world, those moments would have been nothing more than what habitually happened between a master and his slave… In this world, the waking world, she would have hated herself for making more of her actions than simple physicality, despised her own feebleness of heart. She would have loathed herself for being that weak, that stupid.

But alone, in their own perfect existence… her memories could be something beautiful, something she could treasure.

Briseis could do that, she could built her own reality, pretend that this tent was a world apart from everything else, from life itself. In this fantastic realm, beautiful things could exists without anyone's permission or blessing. There, wrapped and protected, affection did not need names. She could wrap it up and hide it inside her, revisit it sometimes, perhaps between sleep and awakening, when it would not hurt to feel again…

But she could never hang on to them, never revisit them in the light of day. Because under the harsh light of the truth and reality it would have been sad - even scornful, some might think - that the only man who had ever made Briseis know what it meant to desire as a woman could, was her captor and didn't even think of her as more than a toy.

The tiny smile of her face was wistful: this was just one more thing that really didn't matter… so she did not think on it anymore.

Briseis found the blue dress and put it on. She smoothed her hands down the soft cotton.

Nothing matters here, she told herself again. Repeated it and willed it to be true.

Here is nowhere…

Briseis straightened her spine, composed her face and combed her fingers through her curls to try to tame them (her maidens had always had trouble smoothing down those curls. He liked to tangle his hands in them…) But before she exited in the sun she had to practice walking until she was able to do it without feeling any discomfort. Briseis almost laughed. How many surprises did she still have in her? Surely, the way she was going, the next one would prove fatal.

"What are you doing?"

Briseis turned so fast that her feet caught in the sand and she almost fell, but she caught her balance in time. His question had been softly spoken, not meaning to startle her, but then again it had not been his fault that she had been so distracted.

(Or perhaps it had been, depending on how one chose to look at it.)

He was casually leaning against the tent's entrance, arms crossed over his chest and looking at her with mild curiosity. Stepping into his tent to find her walking in wide circles with her hands spread out at the sides as if to keep balance must have been a strange sight.

Briseis denied herself any emotions in regard to seeing him again. She knew she was being childish, as if simply closing her eyes at them would make all the bad things go away… she was not a child, no. At this point, she was simply desperate for at least some measure of control over her own existence.

"I'm walking." Briseis answered simply, not answering at all, as if what she was doing was the most natural thing on earth and he was coarse for asking.

"Patrocles seems to be under the impression that you promised to watch him train today." His tone so smooth, and he knew that he had disregarded her non-answer entirely, on the very simple grounds that it took a lot more craft than that to avoid his questions. Her meek effort did not even deserve acknowledgment (and Briseis could have resented him for it, but, she realized, she would have probably done the same thing.) She did however, narrow her eyes at him, wondering if he was callous or simply dull in the mind for not understanding her… situation.

Perhaps it was both, she thought snippily, turning the other way so that she might hide her expression.

"I did and I will see your cousin shortly." Briseis murmured flatly, feeing her cheeks heat and continuing her careful steps.

She never saw the understanding dawn in his eyes and the way his face slackened for a moment in surprise before he gathered himself and rolled his eyes at her almost childish behaviour. The moment she came within his reach, Achilles put one arm under her knees and the other around her middle and lifted her.

Briseis didn't struggle, but she did yelp. His skin under her right palm felt hot to the touch, as if he had a fever. But it seemed more likely that she was the one with the heightened perceptions.

"You should have been taught better than to try and walk the discomfort off. It doesn't work that way." he said as put her down on the furs that she'd slept on for days. He sat himself close to her… very close. Still, it was all Briseis could do not to roll her eyes at him and not point out that she had been too young before to be taught such things and that when her time to be taught had come, she had already chosen to be a servant of Apollo…

He sat there with her, watching her as she scrambled for a comfortable way to sit and then finally decided to gather her limbs and sit cross-legged. His eyes weighted heavily on her and she wished she knew what he was thinking.

"What?" She finally asked, narrowing her eyes at him, not being able to stand the silence any longer. His smile grew.

"You're very shy this morning."

The cheek of the man!

"And you're as callous as always." Briseis snapped back, hesitation forgotten.

His smile stretched wider and he came closer, fingers coming up to push away the curls over her eyes, a gesture that to her was almost an invitation – though Briseis could not quite be sure into what he was inviting her… His eyes were searching as he took her in, as if he was trying to read into her the same way she seemed to try read into him. And just that simply Achilles made all the sadness that clung to her no matter what her resolutions, fall away. She was in her dreamland again. She was free to feel, because when he was near and looking at her as if he cared, as if they were not in the middle of a war and not enemies, he could make all else fade away. Everything but this felt unreal - it was not there.

This was not life.

This was a stolen moment with a man that was not Achilles the Destroyer, who liked to kiss a girl that was not Briseis, Princess of the Golden City.

Here – in this place that was Nowhere – it was safe to feel…

"I cannot give you an answer if I don't know the question." He said gently, leaning forward so close that they were mere inches apart. He was looking at her so closely that Briseis should have felt uncomfortable… but she did not. There was a strange measure of precarious trust she held towards him.

She finally trusted him not to hurt her – at least not in the physical way. But this time, she truly did not understand his meaning.

"I did not ask anything." Briseis found herself whispering. It was strange to speak, with his lips so close, when all she wanted to do was – strangely – kiss them.

"No, but your eyes are so full of questions. What is it that you want to know?"

The way she immediately looked away from him told him more than she could ever have. She did have questions and she did not want to ask them. She did not even want to be caught having them, which was strange, at odds with the perception of Briseis Achilles hd so far gathered.

Before, when he was nothing but a brute and an enemy, when for all she knew he could have killed her for the wrong look, she had been determined to tell him exactly what was on her mind. She'd been bold and fierce, never even made the smallest reservation. Now, when she surely knew that he would never harm a hair on her head, she hesitated. She hid.

But not for long though. Her eyes came back to his and this time there was even a hint of humour there, though for some reason it tasted sour, as if she was not opening up but hiding behind that strange expression.

"The things I was thinking of would bore you. I doubt you would have the slightest interest for them."

He cocked an eyebrow.

"Perhaps we should test your knowledge of me, if you think it so wide and vast. Go on, you have my leave to bore me."

Briseis narrowed her eyes at him, knowing irony when it was thrown at her and not appreciating him in the least for it… but then she rolled her eyes and the faintest smile curled one corner of her round mouth… and just then, he understood what was so different about her now:

She did not know how not to be his enemy.

As her enemy, even though very much dangerous, he had been predictable (and she had not shied from pricking him, not even in the face of violence). She had known what to expect – or at least she'd though she did – and had acted in the manner most befitting her judgment.

Now that he had proven not to be the man she had thought him to be… she was lost, she did not know how to pace herself around him, what to expect from him. Did not know how to be close to him, the way it would be easier for her perhaps, if he were not Greek and she was not a captive in his camp.

Captive…

It sounded a strange word to him now, it fit her ill.

"If you must know… I was think of how little I know of you. Of your life, who you are. Why you are the way you are." Briseis did not know what to expect from him as she spoke her mind and decided in that moment she would stop caring about that as well.

What was supposed to happen would happen, and she did not want to keep measuring herself as if she was walking on glass – it was tiring. She knew he would not act unkindly and that was baffling in itself. Achilles was a man capable of kindness, much deeper kindness than men she'd known her whole life really. Men that did not have his kind of reputation for being soulless.

Barely a fortnight with him and life and the people in it had become so much more complicated.

But all Achilles had for her was an answer to her observation. "And why do you want to know that? It is fundamentally trivial why I am the way I am. What matters is who I am today, not who I was another day when you did not know me."

She eyed him thoughtfully, warm brown eyes fixed on his, wheels inside that pretty head turning.

"Perhaps it is so…" She whispered and looked down, to where his hand was.

She reached for it, took his palm him hers and traced the veins that ran back and forth under his skin. The skin of his palm, of his fingers felt strange: so utterly alien, unlike her smoothness… and yet so suddenly familiar she felt her face heat at the memory of it.

When her eyes met his again, they were firm and he could almost feel the strength of the argument in them. That characteristic defined her, Achilles realized: she always thought three steps ahead, never spoke if she did not know exactly what to say.

She would have made a good strategist.

"Do you believe in destiny Achilles?" Briseis asked.

The question caught him unaware, perhaps because it was so close to his thoughts of late. He stayed a few moments, thinking.

"I have never liked the idea of not being in control of my own existence."

Her smile was soft, as if she understood his meaning perfectly.

"That is not an answer… but it's the point exactly, isn't it." She tilted her head a little, looking at him and through him at the same time, trying so very hard to see him. "And it's why, I think, you speak with such distain of the gods. You like to think that everything begins with a choice that is only yours to make."

She did not say so, but her eyes seemed to ask: 'am I wrong?', so Achilles nodded imperceptibly, affirming her words and at the same time edging her to go on.

"But how can you make a choice, how can that choice truly be yours if you don't know yourself? And how can you know yourself if you do not understand what has made you the way you are?"

She traced the veins of his hand as she spoke, and the feather light touches were endearing and distracting – but what she was speaking of was also very interesting.

"I disagree. Everything that has made me the way I am is part of me, whether I know it or not does not matter. I have complete possession of my mind and heart even when I cannot understand the reasons for it. It's the same with my body: I am still alive even when I am asleep. My heart still beats, my mind still welcomes dreams. Life does not stop at the understanding of man. It's farther, stretches wider. It is so with man himself."

She looked at him for a long moment after that and there was something in her eyes, some kind of fascination that he had not seen there before. It was strange indeed that someone should look at him that way because of the words he spoke. Cunning games or words had always been Odysseus' forte, sweet phrases for the ears of the young girls were his cousins' favorite playtime. Achilles had never been known for either… but then again, that was because nobody had truly had the pleasure of getting him to speak more than three sentences in a row.

Unlike most men, the warrior stayed silent when he had nothing to say: one of the very first lessons his father had taught him and one he had never forgotten.

"That sounds very reasonable." Briseis said slowly, as if trying the words on for fitting. "… And the natural consequence of that line of thinking is that no matter what we do, we are still the fools of the unknown. That knowing the reason why - why things happen, why we act the way we do - does not make the least bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. Our lives are going to pan out the same way and our destinies still swallow us no matter what…"

Achilles frowned as she spoke. Briseis of Troy seemed to think of destiny as a dark pit, while he thought of it as a vast stretch of forever. She had a notion, it seemed to Achilles, that her life would be conquered by some dark force, while he longed to conquer eternity itself with the strength of his own existence.

What was she afraid of, he kept asking himself.

And then he remembered who she was, and where… and realized that there was a reason for her thinking of her fate as dark and tragic: after all, it had brought her here…

It was easy to forget that she was a prisoner, because after all, he was not the one bearing the weight of the chains. Achilles was sure he would not have been so fast to forget it, had it been him in her position. Even though he had not done anything to cause her harm himself, she was still very far from the life she knew. Quite possibly, she even hated him for it…

Achilles looked into her eyes, and a sadness took him. No there was no hatred for him there. She looked upon him with a strange tenderness now, half veiled, as if she was afraid of it. As if she could not admit to it, even within the confines of her own head and heart.

Perhaps he would never make it inside her heart…

And why should he?

There was a bite of something that stung, somewhere beneath his ribs, and he suddenly hated this war and everyone in it. Why could his all-seeing mother not have told him of her existence before this? Maybe then, she would not feel this way about being in his company.

Her hand came up and the back of her fingers touched his cheek. Immediately his eyes fund hers – it was as if she'd called him aloud.

It was the first time she dared to touch his face so freely.

"You were gone." She said softly. "Quite far away inside your own head, I think."

Achilles took her small hand and kissed the inside of her soft palm. It surprised her, he saw it. And at the heel of her smile there was that hint of trepidation that never left.

"The word 'destiny' is just another word for a life yet unlived, Briseis. It's easier to say a destiny is woven for all of us than to admit to the fear that grips men's hearts in the face of the uninterrupted flow of time into forever. I feel I make my own destiny, it comes to me in the form of choices I make."

But she frowned, as if she did not understand… or disagreed. She never gave up, it seemed, not even in arguments.

"How is it a choice when you only have one path to walk on? Is it really your choice if it has been preordained you will make it, your path if the gods set you up so you could walk it?" Briseis pointed out.

"That line of thinking is circular. I know only what I know – the rest is of no consequence, until I know that as well. And even though every choice is dictated by the nature of the man that makes it - and is therefore in some measure predictable, as is the path of said man's life – everything always begins with choice, as you well said."

His words hung between them, and Briseis would have liked to snatch them out of the air and observe them, see through them, into the truth they held. She wished she could see the world the way he saw it. It seemed such a free way to live, his way.

She on the other hand, had always been prisoner of a destiny that was proving much too inescapable. The very fact that she was here with him proved it.

Everything begins with choice, he said.

"And yet here I am…" She whispered, and it was clear to him that those words were not meant for him, but Achilles heard them just the same.

And he would have liked to say that those words had no impact in him farther than the irritation they caused, her ungratefulness for the kindness shown by him… but something held him back. The truth was too plain to ignore. It was still etched on the cuts on her face, on the bruises on her body, the yellow marks where rough hands had hit and grabbed.

He could not resent her for hating her prison, even if the bars were golden and the jailer gentle.

But still he asked her… even though it did not really sound like a question.

(He spoke so slowly, so low, that Achilles had no idea what he had wanted to say – because what he ended up saying was nothing like he had heard it in his head.)

"Is that so bad, being here with me?"

Her eyes snapped to him, wide and startled. There was some strong emotion there, and though it was restrained, she did not keep the truth of it from him.

"No." She said softly, though fixing her eyes not on his, but rather somewhere on his shoulder, hoping he understood her meaning.

"No, being with you is not so bad at all."

(and she was shocked what came out of her mouth – because of the truth of it)

He comprehended the meaning of her words instantly, the words settling inside him, (where that truth he'd bound underneath his ribs pulsed and stretched)… while all the other words, those unsaid, fell around the two of them like rain. The evidence of words unspoken was between them and the reality of it all around them, in his very being here, in Trojan shores where he did not belong.

Being with him was not bad, no; but being here… That, he knew was another matter.

He brushed her hair away from her face - ever so radical it was, ever at odds with the calmness with which she followed his movements. But her eyes were too alive to be efficient in the art of deceit. They betrayed her in the purest way, ironically bringing her feelings more sharply in relief against the utter stillness of her features.

"We had a very poor introduction you and I." Achilles said to her and the smile that curved her lips was amused, even though the melancholy had not drained from her eyes. "I think you would have liked me better had you known me in a different time, or perhaps a different place."

And even as he said it, he wished it so, that he'd met her on the beaches of Larissa - or anywhere, it did not matter. Anywhere else but here, like this… But her hand came up to wrap around his wrist and she turned her head, to brush her lips against his palm as he had done (because all she knew of this kind of affection she had learned from him and it felt natural to imitate him for she knew no other way of expression. It would take time for her to learn her own ways of love well enough to be comfortable with them… time Achilles did not have.)

Her eyes lowered for a moment in a manner Achilles had learned to understand preceded her most daring statements. She always drew into herself to gather her thoughts. She did not want to be influenced, she wanted her words clear precise and her own and Achilles knew he'd been right in his first instinct about her: this was not a human being that could be robbed of anything. Her most preserved possession lied farther away than any man could ever reach: deep in the recess off her mind, it was there where she treasured her soul.

"Is it strange that I like knowing you here?" Her words were whispered against his palm and Achilles did not know how to answer at first, because he was struck speechless. Yes, it was strange. He did not say so, but his confusion showed, because she hastily explained.

"In what other circumstances would we be able to know each other as we do now? Had we met within proper customs, you would have thought me an airhead girl with not two thoughts of value to rub together, because of course, I would not have had any chance to speak to you to prove you different… while I would have thought you no better than the countless men I'd been presented to before, who eyed me as one does a possession and would have despised you for it. And neither of us would have been the wiser."

His crooked smile gave way to words that she knew were going to be on some level provocative.

"I seem to remember you giving certain preconceived notions about me. I found a way to change your mind even under the pressures of war, I think I would have been able to do so in more civil circumstances." Achilles said as his lips curved in an easy smirk. One of her brows raised up at him eloquently.

"You have you fair share of prejudices too, Achilles who has never in his 28 years met a noblewoman able to doing anything useful." Her voice deepened as she spoke those last words, trying to imitate his voice and manner and Achilles had the urge to laugh as his words were repeated back to him.

"Those are fact I have unveiled by careful exploration." He said smiling crookedly; she frowned at his implication and threw a grape at him.

(which e deftly caught, brought to his mouth to bite off one half and offered her the other… her hesitation lasted only a fraction, before she leaned in and took the grape from his fingers with her lips. The calmness of her was a laugh in his face, because she was so unaffected when he felt the storm inside him heave and pound… In that moment he wanted nothing more than to bring her to the same brick he was standing, make her plead for him, beg only in the most delicious ways – but her words distracted him again!)

"Besides, mine weren't exactly 'preconceived notions': I was reacting under extreme circumstances. Fear and reality shaped those notions." Briseis added as if nothing had interrupted her trail of thought…

He thought back at the first time he'd laid his eyes on her. She had been terrified of him, shaking, but he better remembered the pride of her, the insolence.

"I don't remember the fear as well as I remember defiance and a fiery wish for death, the first time you saw me."

Briseis was taken aback. He'd seen right through her that time. And she had been so sure that he would have never guessed her insolence as anything more than what it seemed…

But now she knew better.

"I wanted you to kill me in anger before you had the chance to do anything else to me." She murmured without looking at him. The silence didn't stretch long, but it was suddenly heavy. She knew it was his thoughts that made it so, because of all the ways he knew she had been wrong.

Blood-soaked thoughts had a way of stiffening a conversation, Briseis noted almost absentmindedly.

"Shows how little you know about war and then men in it, sweet Briseis."

But his tone was so mild that the tension broke instantly. And though she could not read his expression as he twirled her hair around his fingers, his hands were gentle, mindful.

"The kind of man you feared would have killed you a thousand ways before granting you your wish. A lesser man would have done it out of spite."

She could not help but think of Agamemnon, those dreadful hours spent in his watch, under his roof… and then with his men.

Oh yes, she had been educated by war in the ways of men.

But not all men were the same. Some could surprise you, even with all the odds against them. Briseis looked at him, at the pale bronze of his skin, taught and smooth, the gold of his hair, the depth of his eyes and usually hard line of his lips (but not now!)

No, not all men were the same.

"A lesser man, yes. But you are better than the man I thought you to be." She said so softly that she thought he might not have heard, but his eyes were quick to find her face, to read her. She wanted in that moment to go closer to him, to touch his face and run a hand though his hair… gather those hidden pearls of perfection – her feelings - against her and feel them again, just for a little while.

He seemed to sense her thoughts without even a word of explanation. He soaked out her very mood and it changed his as if she'd commanded him (such a ludicrous notion!) but before either of them could act on their sensations, a strange rumble startled her out of the moment.

(it broke so easily she could almost despair. This world she'd created out of nothing but her own desire to preserve herself was as fragile as castles of sand)

"What is this noise?" She asked looking around the tent and reminding him of a startled bird. He hesitated a little before answering.

"That is the sound of an army of men marching to your city's steps." He said grimly and her eyes widened. Her whole frame went rigid as if she was carved out of stone. Reality had a peculiar way of making itself know. That fragile bubble Briseis had created shattered under those thousand pairs of feet that crushed Troy's dirt this morning.

She thought of the walls of her city, of her cousins and of Hector… and of the scorched earth of Troy that would soon feed with the blood of its enemies… and its sons.

Sometimes, Briseis thought, there is no cavity deep enough to hide the hurt, or hide from it - not even in a heart as big as hers.

o

"I long to alleviate the evil,
but I cannot
And I too suffer. "

Bertrand Russell

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TBC:::