All hail yours truly, I've actually completed a story! Considering I have an extremely short attention span, this is a tremendous feat as I didn't actually have to do it. I do realise that it's quite a bit shorter than the other two chapters, but this was actually all I could think of that would make sense coming out of the mouth of someone who has just witnessed the worst massacre he's ever seen. If you like it, review and boost my self-esteem, and if you don't, review and tell me why. Wine Dark Sea
And now it's all over. Finished. Ten years of blood, sweat and tears finally at an end. We've been waiting a decade for this moment, and now that it's come, I don't know if this is the price to pay for victory. Can I live with this on my conscience for the rest of my life? I came to Troy hoping to earn undying fame, and I have it. I will live forever on the lips of men, as a liar, a cheat, a cruel, sly man who watched one of the finest cities on Earth fall into the dust, as the man who persuaded the Trojans to bring the horse into their city. I don't think I would care if it hadn't been for the slaughter. On the battlefield, you don't seem to think about it. All the people you fight are nameless, faceless warriors who you never knew and never will know, but in their own homes, they are real people. You can't put it out of your mind that these men are like you. They have wives, sweethearts, children, parents, siblings. And now they're dead. Almost all of them are in the Kingdom of Hades, be they old men or babies. But I don't want to think about the carnage. I don't ever want to remember that night again.
The women of Troy – those that didn't take their own lives, weren't slaughtered or burnt alive in their own houses – are on the beach, preparing to sail to a new land. The air is filled with the sounds of their mourning. I don't want to look at them. Out of sight, out of mind...
Instead, I look out across the sea, as I have done many times before. When I looked across the waves, I would imagine myself coming home, loaded with treasures. I would walk from the port and enter my father's house. He would see how well I had done, would have heard of my exploits already, and would praise me as being the very best of his sons and stop complaining about how similar I am to by grandfather. This was my dream, the one that kept me fighting. Odysseus didn't dream of fame and wealth. He dreamt of Penelope, Telemachus, his father, Laertes and his mother, Anticlea, and of Ithaca. He didn't want to die without being able to see the things most precious to him first. That was one of the few things so different about the two of us. I thirsted for fame, wanted only to be acknowledged, and he just wanted to be left in peace with those he loved.
The Ithacans are ready to sail. They've been ready for days, but they still didn't leave. I'm not going with them, which is a pity. There's no better place to wind up my cousin than on a ship, but that's not the reason Odysseus won't let me come. Every prophecy about Troy was true, so now he's worried that the ones about him will be. That was his main excuse for trying to dodge coming. Every oracle he questioned said the same thing: 'If you go to Troy, you will not see home for twenty years. You will return alone, unrecognised and in rags.'
"If I'm not going to get home for another ten years, Sinon, I want someone to tell Penelope what happened here. Would you do it? She'd take your word for it, even though you are a damned liar. Tell her I love her, and will love her till the end of time."
I hope for his sake that the oracles are wrong this time. Ten years almost killed him, so imagine what another ten would do! I agreed, of course. I'll inform Cousin Penelope, if Odysseus doesn't get there first.
His twelve, red-cheeked ships are now sailing away from the city that we destroyed and heading home. That night dispelled our many petty arguments and defined our differences. I remain on the beach, watching his fleet – small in comparison to those of richer kings disappear over the horizon – chasing the chariot of the sun into the west. "Follow the sunset, cousin," I whisper. "Let it be a safe and speedy return."