The man blinked against the dawn beyond his eyelids, the flesh warmed to an orange glow. Achilles cracked open his eyes, which he only just remembered closing against the flash of steel, a glinting arrowhead in the afternoon sun. There wasn't supposed to be flesh, after the arrow. Only, finally, relief. His knees had given out before the tip had dug into his bare back, would have missed his heart, had they not. He'd closed his eyes, a smile on his face, a name on his lips. That had been it.

There had been more, after that, he knew. He'd watched, apart, alone, his body hoisted upon the shoulders of soldiers, returned to the beach, and burned. Servant girls had gathered his ashes when his mother would not. A gold urn came to mind when he fished for it, but only slowly, languidly, honey between his ears which still rang with the war cries of men, dying around him, on his blade. There was blood on his chest, sticky still to the touch, warmed by his skin which should not be. He looked down, finding himself lit by flames, the firelight licking greedily at the red stains across his skin. He was still wearing his torn tunic, wet with a mixture of blood, some his own, some not. The frayed corners were crusted in mud from the battlefield where he had fallen, his knees and hands stained by the earth. He reached for more, dragging at the unwilling dredges of his memories which seemed caught somewhere else. A desperation lodge itself in his chest, level with the gaping wound between his ribs. He needed to know.

He searched the haze following his fall, the dream drenched edges of his mind. Had there been other ashes on the urn? Had there been another name on the grave?

'Though you can no longer die, you may still choke,' came a gravely warning to his left. Achilles did not start. He'd known the man was there, along the edges of his still thrumming senses, simply palling in comparison to the growing panic mounting in his throat. He closed his eyes, finding them again illuminated by the flames beyond, painting a sunset across his gaze. He searched for a modicum of the composure which had left him the moment he'd seen the dark curls tumbling from beneath the sheet on the stretcher. He went to swallow, finding the taste of gold in his mouth. Achilles pulled the coin from beneath his tongue, and faced Charon.

'Has a man come through?' he asked, surprising himself by the broken quality of his voice, a quiet plea breathing in the spaces between his words. He did not care, no longer. There had been pride once. Hubris had been the word used. Now there was only a sharp pain behind his sternum. His eyes searched the burning orbs of the ferrymen from beneath his ratted cloak.

'Many men come through. I hear you're having one of your wars,' he answered, jutting his chin over Achilles shoulder, back into the darkness beyond. Achilles did not look. He knew there was nothing but a wall of stone, one which would not yield beneath his touch, or his fists.

'We are.'

'Well, there you go. People coming in all the time, mostly men. Still in their armour usually—'

'A breast plate,' Achilles's voice shook, 'black, with a phoenix carved in gold.' His knuckles blanched around the coin in his fist, the metal edge digging into the skin of his palm, but not painfully. A strange numbness radiated up his arm instead.

'It is not my place to remember such things. There are many of you.'

'He was speared through the stomach,' he stated firmly, swallowing thickly, 'his hair is dark and falls too long, into his eyes. He has a scar, along the inside of his left arm,' the words tumbled out then, unbidden, raw even to his own ears, 'he fell into a ravine, when we were children. On Pelion. It looks like a constellation. Orion.' Charon held out a hand darkened by soot and soil. The translucent skin beneath looks like bone fragments caught in the mess. Achilles stopped, his chest heaving without having moved a single foot.

'If you wished me to remember all of them, you wouldn't send so many.' He seemed pleased with his answer, a practised tone in his delivery. Achilles's eyes flashed. He wondered if news of his defeat of the river god had travelled as far as the underworld yet.

'What is your place then?' He sneered, but the words left his lips flat, the same numbness travelling from his hand to his chest. Achilles sunk into the fear cradled in his lungs, refusing to be consumed by the growing emptiness. Stories spoke of the souls of the dead, roaming without purpose. They lost their menos, their phrenes. Achilles could part with his strength, but his wit was to be undone by one man alone. Not even the deft fingers of Hades could tear it from him. Not yet.

'I row,' answered Charon simply, motioning to the rowboat bobbing behind him. He was holding an oar in one dirt-crusted hand, and held out the other, fingers unfurling into claws. Achilles blinked, but handed the man his coin. Charon pocketed it, and stepped into the boat, using the oar to steady himself. He looked back at Achilles, still standing on the bank, bloodied and broken. 'Come.'

Achilles wrapped himself around the memory of another's ashes, beside his, pretended he could feel them sifting together. He went.