A/N: Written for a-partofthenarrative's Once Upon Another Time Project. This fic is dedicated to my wonderful and ever-supportive phriend (and fellow Pharoga shipper XD) Flippedeclipse who introduced me to "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller. I hope you enjoy this story, which has been a real labor of love for me. :')

This will be a two-parter!

Content Warning: Non-graphic depictions of attempted rape/sexual assault and violence.

The walls of Troy stood tall and mighty, magnificent structures said to be blessed by the god Apollo himself. Nadir looked upon the city from afar, deep in thought. Inside those walls, there were many innocent men, women, and children. Souls whose lives would be cut short.

All for a battle between two kings.

As a child, he never would've imagined that he would be looking upon the impenetrable city, standing alongside the full force of the Greek army and fighting for a country he was not even born in. Truthfully, Nadir can barely remember his home in Persia now.

Whatever hurt and anger and regret he had once felt after his exile had long since ebbed away. He is a man now, and it was time to push the pains of his boyhood out of his mind. Once, he had wished that he could've done things differently, but he no longer entertained those thoughts.

After all, if he had never escaped to Greece, he would never have met Erik.

…

Nadir had grown up in a palace, a sheltered but stifled existence. As the fifth son of the Shah, he had all the comforts and luxuries that money could buy. All he truly wanted, however, was to be the kind of man that would make his father proud.

Unlike his older brothers, he preferred the company of books to swords. As the other boys practiced their fighting skills and play-acted at being legendary warriors, he would always spend his time reading and day-dreaming, studying the many plants and flowers in his mother's garden. Much to his father's dismay.

He did not get along with his brothers, especially not Alborz, the Shah's favorite son. Nadir always thought his older half-brother was an arrogant, air-headed brute. But his father loved the boy because of his strength and skill in combat.

Yes, Nadir had lived a charmed yet somehow empty life… until a single moment changed everything.

He had only been thirteen when he started noticing Rookheeya. She was a sweet, kind girl, the daughter of one of the Sultana's servants. The girl had been his friend, the only one in the entire palace who seemed to truly understand him. They would sneak into the garden together and play. He would read her favorite books and listen as she told him stories in turn.

Upon Rookheeya's thirteenth birthday, Nadir noticed that she had grown taller, her beautiful black hair had grown longer, and every day, she had started looking less like the girl he knew and more like a woman, a flower only now starting to bloom.

In many subtle ways, she let him know that she wished to be one of his wives one day. He felt it in the way she gazed at him tenderly and held his hand as they walked through the garden.

Nadir wasn't sure if he loved her in the way she hoped, but he thought, perhaps, being married to his best friend would not be the worst fate in the world.

Unfortunately, Alborz had noticed the changes in her as well.

One night, Nadir had been reading quietly in his room when he heard something out in the halls.

The distinct sound of a body being slammed onto the cold, hard floor. A low, masculine groan.

Since Nadir had four older brothers, these noises were not unfamiliar to him. He was aware of what often went on in his siblings' rooms at night. Many servant girls, after all, would feel honored to be bedded by one of the princes.

But what he heard next disturbed him to the core.

"Please. I do not want to. I do not want to…" A crying, pleading, familiar voice drew Nadir to run out of his room.

Upon seeing Alborz towering over Rookheeya, ripping her skirts as she wriggled away from him, the fury of a thousand suns arose within Nadir. He had never liked violence but his anger overpowered his entire being.

He pushed his brother off of her, slamming his fist onto the other boy's jaw. Alborz, being older and stronger, recovered from his shock quickly and was able to pin Nadir to the floor, landing punches on his face and chest. With all the strength he could muster, Nadir pushed Alborz off and ran away to the gardens. The other boy followed.

What happened next has somehow been excised from Nadir's memory. As if his mind were trying to shield him from something he does not wish to remember. Sometimes, he can see vivid images, little reminders that what happened in the garden had been real and not a terrible nightmare as he had hoped.

A large rock. His brother's lifeless body on the ground. The once-green grass bathed in red.

These images were all he remembered of that night, and, try as he might, he could not recall how it happened. He could not even remember if he felt saddened by his brother's death. The moments before and after this scene blurred in his mind, leaving him numb with exhaustion.

The Shah had commanded for Nadir's execution the next day. His mother cried and pleaded for mercy. "Shadow of God, spare my son's life. He is only a boy, only a boy…"

Rookheeya had begged for Nadir's pardon as well, stating that he had only been defending her. But the Shah did not value the purity of one servant girl over the life of his favored son.

Nadir was locked in a cold, dark dungeon the entire day.

Upon nightfall, his mother and Rookheeya found a way to open his cell and instructed him to leave Persia, to seek refuge in a faraway land where the wrath of the Shah cannot find him. He could not stop his tears as he embraced the two women and then walked away from the palace.

Away from the only home he had ever known.

.

Nadir does not remember how long he had been traveling, scrounging for food and shelter, relying only on the occasional kindness of strangers to keep him alive. He was a prince, not used to having to fend for himself.

Much like a sailor lost in the open seas, he did not know where he was going and only let the waves of Fate determine his destination. And after what seemed like an eternity of solitude and living only for survival, he finally found a reprieve one day.

His thirst had been unbearable and, luckily, he found a river along the path he was following. As he splashed some of the cool water on his face and drank all he could, he heard something echoing through the trees.

It was music. Strange, wonderful, beautiful music.

Enchanted by the sound, so different from the songs back in his homeland, he followed the melodies to its source. There, sitting in the grass, he saw a boy, plucking at a lyre, face upturned as if praying to the heavens.

The boy was thin, pale, and tall, wearing a dark blue tunic and a similarly colored piece of cloth on his face. Nadir had never seen such a skeletal form on anyone. He should have been frightened by the strange sight and yet, where most would find disgust or even horror, he saw only beauty.

How those spidery fingers plucked at the lyre, coaxing such magnificent sounds from the instrument. How his dark hair reminded him of a starless night sky. How the boy's peculiar yellow eyes gleamed like sunshine.

Nadir had many memories, some he would recall even to the present, some lost, faded as the winds of time flew by. But he would never forget this moment, of the first time he saw the strange, masked boy and his golden lyre.

As soon as the song was over, the boy turned to face him, seeming to look straight through him, analytical, discerning. Nadir did not know what to say, whether he should break the silence at all. Instead, he stares back, flushed yet defiant. Princely pride seemingly unforgotten despite his time as a vagrant.

"You are not from here," the boy said. There was no malice in his tone, only a statement of observation.

Nadir nodded. He could only recognize some of the boy's foreign words, those he had learned from his travels, but he understood the gist of the statement.

The boy stared at him again, seeming to consider his options. Nadir tried not to flinch from the intensity of his gaze.

Soon, the boy stood, clutching the lyre in his left arm. He nodded vaguely toward Nadir, never taking his eyes off him as he walked away from the stream and further into the woods.

It felt like an invitation. And what else could a barely surviving foreign prince do but follow?

.

They lived at the foot of a mountain (Mount Pelion, Nadir was later told); two boys-not quite men yet-who relied on no one except each other. On the first few days of their unusual arrangement, silence was their only companion. They would communicate only through points and stares and hand gestures.

Together, they would harvest the sweetest fruits from the trees and drink from the water of the streams. Everything then was simple, idyllic.

Soon, they would learn to speak each other's language, sounding out simple syllables that turned to words and turned to sentences and turned to conversations. Nadir had difficulty learning Greek at first but was soon able to speak it fluently, though he was never able to soften the accent instilled in him from his mother tongue. The boy, on the other hand, was quick to master Farsi, and Nadir felt both jealousy and awe at his skill.

"What is your name?" The boy had asked in Nadir's language as practice.

"My name is Nadir," he replied in Greek, "what is yours?"

"I do not have one," was the boy's terse reply.

Nadir furrowed his brow. "Surely, you do. Everyone has a name."

For the first time since they met, the boy seemed unconfident, unsure. "My mother gave me one and she said it would foretell my destiny. But it is a destiny I do not want, so I rejected it."

Somehow, Nadir understood what the boy meant. He was not blind to the fact that his father had named him "Nadir," a word which meant "lowest point" and his brother "Alborz" was "the highest one." If he were told that his name would be his destiny, then he would have also rejected it, just as this boy has.

An idea formed in Nadir's mind, "Perhaps, you could give yourself a new name. Something that matches the destiny you want for yourself."

For a time, the other boy only looked at him, but then a slight smile appeared on his thin, misshapen lips. "My name is Erik."

It meant "eternal king" and Nadir knew that this would be the boy's future.

.

They taught each other everything they knew, and Erik knew a lot. He told Nadir that he had been trained by the Great Centaur Chiron, the being who had trained legendary Greek heroes like Heracles and Jason. Nadir would watch Erik often as he practiced his sword-fighting, how he moved so elegantly, fleet-footed and ever-graceful.

But nothing compared to the way he looked whenever he played his lyre. Nadir preferred to see him this way, immersed in his music, instead of imagining him flaying others with a sword.

Nadir, in turn, taught him about all the plants, herbs, and flowers surrounding them-which ones were poisonous, which could be eaten, which could be used for medicine.

They rarely spoke of their respective pasts, learning only bits and pieces of the other's history. In the seclusion afforded to them by the mountains, it did not matter who they were.

Here, they are only Nadir and Erik. And it was enough.

Time had become irrelevant in their little paradise; it was something both knew existed but neither ever really paid attention to. In Nadir's eyes, the only definitive sign of the years that had passed were the changes he noticed on Erik's form-his once thin frame now broadening, a wider chest and shoulders. Though he was still quite lean, muscles had started taking shape in those graceful arms. His voice-the very same voice that had always been beautiful to Nadir's ears-had deepened, becoming even more elegant, blooming like ripened fruit.

Nadir did not feel much different, but as he looked upon his reflection in the waters, he was surprised to see that he had changed too. He had more hair now on his face, chest, arms, legs, and elsewhere. A flush crept into his face when his mind strayed and he wondered if Erik had hair there too.

The years had changed much but it had not diminished the strange pull Nadir felt toward Erik.

Erik was not the easiest person to get along with, often moody and temperamental, sometimes needing plenty of time alone to think and play his music. But Nadir was drawn to him anyway as if Erik were the moon and he were the ocean. They would argue and make up, berate each other while willingly risking life and limb for the other.

Their connection was a graceful dance, a push and pull of the tides.

And Nadir could no longer ignore the forbidden emotions that had borne fruit within him, the shame he felt as he touched himself at night, imagining that pale, skeletal fingers were the ones stroking him instead of his own hand.

He would hide far away from where Erik slept, but, upon returning, the other man would often ask him where he went. If Erik saw through his flushed cheeks and half-hearted lies, he never said so. But even Nadir could not pretend to ignore the intensity in those golden eyes.

.

One night, as they lay on the grass, gazing at the stars, Erik was the one to break the silence.

"Do you know why I wear a mask?"

Nadir did not know how to reply. He had often wondered why Erik never took off the mask in front of him. Though he was hurt that he had never even seen the face of the one he loved so dearly, he figured that there was a significant reason for his coverings.

"You don't have to tell me if you do not wish to" was all he could say.

The masked man smiled. "I would not bring it up if I didn't want to talk about it."

Nadir turned his body to the side, facing Erik. "Why then?"

Erik continued gazing up at the stars. "Before I was born, my mother spoke to an oracle. She was told that she would give birth to a son who would be greater than his father, greater than any warrior in all of Greece… Imagine her disappointment when she looked at the face of her newborn child and saw nothing of the beautiful boy she had imagined."

"What does it look like... your face, I mean?"

A small grin formed on Erik's thin, misshapen lips. "Horrible."

Nadir inched closer to him, feeling the warmth spread through his body. "It doesn't matter. There is more to you than your face."

At this statement, Erik only frowned. "Who am I then? If I am not fated to be a great warrior or even handsome like my poor mother had hoped, then who am I meant to be? I must have been created for a reason. The Fates must have kept me alive for some purpose. If not for the fulfillment of a prophecy, then what? Who am I?"

And on that night, the stars aligned just perfectly. Nadir knew the answer and the Fates seemed to nod their blessing. He pulled Erik closer to him, gently squeezing his shoulder.

"You are mine."

Suddenly, Erik's lips were upon him, still tasting of the fig they had just shared. Nadir eagerly returned the kiss, hungrily drinking him in. Their hands wandered, exploring every inch of flesh that they could reach. Nadir does not remember which of them took his chiton off first, but as soon as they were exposed to each other's fervent gaze, it didn't matter.

Erik had told him of the Moirai, the Fates, goddesses who assign destinies to each living being upon birth. They determined the fate of every mortal, each life a single thread that could be ended or preserved by the sharp shears of time.

Though Nadir believed in an entirely different God than the ones Erik put his faith in, he conceded that maybe the Fates were not so bad. If they wove his and Erik's threads together, forever entwining them in a delicate tapestry, then all of the hardships that came before and may come after will have been worth it.

Erik's body was upon his now, and Nadir arched closer, desperate for his touch. Together, they found the perfect rhythm, grasping at each other's length as the sky above them joined in their chorus.

And when it was finished, they lay next to each other, drunk on their love, sticky with sweat and the remnants of their satisfaction.

If Nadir could live in that moment forever, he would have done so.

Alas, the Fates had woven a complex thread. One that was burdened with many knots.