Explanation: Just a note, friends: Paris and Helen always seemed a little too perfect to me. I want to believe in their love, but I find myself wondering at the selfishness of two people that would risk the world without getting to know one another at all. I think that tends to be a superficial part of the legend. For my own satisfaction, I'm putting down in writing where I think the fissures in their love might have appeared.
This scene is in Helen's point of view.


Three days ago, they had boarded the ship. Three days ago, she had seen a storm gather on the face of Hector and understood the meaning of anger. Three days ago, she had last seen the tropical shore of her home as they moved away from Sparta, and this night, as she laid crushed in Paris' careless embrace, she wondered at the days. Only three. Three had passed still, and they had been three glorious days in the surf with Paris, filled with days of relaxing among the salty surf, bathed in the scent of brine, and nighttimes of desperate lovemaking, honest and beautiful, as they clutched one another close and tasted one another's tears. But she had seen a different Paris too. She had seen the young Paris, the restless child Paris who chafed at Hector's bonds, and the confidence in her voyage had dimmed. When the waves pounded against the ship, she felt the rocking deep inside of her. It reverberated inside of her, grinding against her body as she slid in the hammock, and her face was slammed against the mesh of the canvas. Beside her, Paris slept deeply and easily, and she watched the serenity of his features with exasperation. Damn some people for being used to sea travel. As for herself, she could manage no such ease of spirit. Her heart rattled inside her chest as frequently as the rollicking waves, and sleep stubbornly refused to make the journey back to rescue her peace of mind. With slender fingers, she lightly pushed herself up in the makeshift bed, and the blankets slipped from her legs. Helen of Sparta was worried about the future.
Am I even Helen of Sparta now? She asked herself numbly as she curled up in the space their bed afforded her, with her legs looped underneath her rear and her tense body slid in between her locked arms so that she enclosed herself in a prison of her own devising. Nay, I can't be. But am I of Troy? What will Paris' mind be in a few weeks, after he tires of one woman in his bed? Helen of Sparta. It doesn't sound right. She was a woman in a cage, and her feathers molted from the need for freedom until she was dying alone in the corner of the enclosure. But Helen of Troy is equally chained, and she must bear the embarrassment of knowing she entered those chains herself. No, then. I am simply Helen, of no place, linked to none. Helen.

Three days ago, they had boarded the ship. Three days ago, she had seen a storm gather on the face of Hector and understood the meaning of anger. Three days ago, she had last seen the tropical shore of her home as they moved away from Sparta, and this night, as she laid crushed in Paris' careless embrace, she wondered at the days. Only three. Three had passed still, and they had been three glorious days in the surf with Paris, filled with days of relaxing among the salty surf, bathed in the scent of brine, and nighttimes of desperate lovemaking, honest and beautiful, as they clutched one another close and tasted one another's tears. But she had seen a different Paris too. She had seen the young Paris, the restless child Paris who chafed at Hector's bonds, and the confidence in her voyage had dimmed. When the waves pounded against the ship, she felt the rocking deep inside of her. It reverberated inside of her, grinding against her body as she slid in the hammock, and her face was slammed against the mesh of the canvas. Beside her, Paris slept deeply and easily, and she watched the serenity of his features with exasperation. Damn some people for being used to sea travel. As for herself, she could manage no such ease of spirit. Her heart rattled inside her chest as frequently as the rollicking waves, and sleep stubbornly refused to make the journey back to rescue her peace of mind. With slender fingers, she lightly pushed herself up in the makeshift bed, and the blankets slipped from her legs. Helen of Sparta was worried about the future. She asked herself numbly as she curled up in the space their bed afforded her, with her legs looped underneath her rear and her tense body slid in between her locked arms so that she enclosed herself in a prison of her own devising.

With gentle fingers, she reached over to smooth back the hair of her lover. His features were mussed by the darkness. He looked cherubic there, infantile and young, as he nuzzled beneath her probing touch. Despite the quest of her gentle hand down the ridges of his face, his eyes remained still in sleep. Encouraged by his silence, she spoke aloud, even as her eyes became distant and her voice wearied of talking. Any sound to fill this distant midnight hour would be treasured.
"So young, my love," she noted aloud in the faintest whisper with a touch of sadness and an edge of disbelief to her rising voice. In the darkness, she was as shadowed as he, and her white fingers crept from the blackness to wrap his curls around her yearning fingers. "How did you ensnare my heart, Paris? You proved a deft thief, for I do love you." The question was a helpless one, escaping with an exhalation of breath, and she looked at him with a combination of stunned disbelief and helpless self-incrimination. So help her, she knew the folly of this voyage. She was not like he. She understood the consequences and that it would unleash destruction. Sadness, too, painted her features. He looked young there. The young were spoiled and thoughtless… None more so than the beloved Prince of Troy with the ruddy curls and the rosy cheeks.
"Are you old enough to appreciate the gift, or will you spurn it like so much else? I love you so, Paris," resignation was birthed now, uneasy but accepted, and she finished with a single invocation. "Apollo help us both for this dangerous game we play." As she was sitting there, the darkness came in all around her, and she became aware of the lateness of the night. Back in Sparta, she had become used to the silence. She had determined things, small noises, from which to derive comfort in the bed that was too big and in the palace that was still unfamiliar and foreign when she awoke to the stillness of the middle of the night, when even the sky slept in exhaustion. When she awoke, crying aloud for companionship, she had merely listened for the sound of the maid, rustling in the corridor, and it had soothed her. Other noises, like the rustling of the guards outside as the crunched through sand, had reassured her and calmed her, and the chirping of the early morn birds had used their songs to lull her back into slumber. But here, she had no such basis of familiarity for her nighttime musings. Save for Paris' soft inhalations, the room bore the felt the loneliness of death. The lushness of the night sky, filled with so many sparkling stars woven into its velvet fabric, could not be felt inside this cloistered berth. Here, she had only Paris, and he moved with the stillness of a corpse. Biting her lip, she fought to keep from screaming aloud.

I am Helen. Simply Helen. I do not need a man for companionship. I am not invisible here, as I was there. I can stay the night alone, she asserted boldly to herself, but the howling of the wind seemed to call a defiant retort. Laughter was ushered in on the breeze, mocking and jeering, as though doubting her stamina in this farce. The ship creaked and whistled against the sloshing of the waves, and Paris slept on through it all. Through it all, they made a steady crawl away from Sparta, and panic seized her. The wind asked emphatic questions to her disobedient ears, and she found she could not answer them.
Does he love you, woman of Sparta? The wind whistled its query with eyes that danced with mischief.
He claims so nightly!
But does he really love you, Helen of Sparta? This man does not even awaken at feeling your body leave his arms. Does he really love you?
I believe so. I do.
Then, Helen of Sparta, why do you spend the night alone? The wind inquired, and then it was gone. The nighttime was silent, and she found her own thoughts to be loud enough to remove this small comfort.

Suddenly frightened, her knees buckled against the warmth of their blankets. She wanted warmth and reassurance. She wanted him to look at her and hold her and to kiss back her tears and show his adoration, that she might feel at ease with the distance being gained between her homeland and her future. Slowly, her hand reached out to his bare chest, made visible by the coverlet cast aside. Tawny and muscled in the darkness, he resembled nothing so much as a feline cub, lazy and dangerous, but thoughtlessly so, without knowing the ferocity of his dangling paw. Gently, in supplication, she knelt by his side and slung one leg over his rising stomach. Straddling him, her eyes gleamed with heat; her face was flushed with the triumph of conquest and she tightened the hold of her long legs around his prostrate ribs. Still he did not awaken. Desperate to see his piercing, loving eyes beam at hers, and desperate to feel that he existed, that their love was true, she leaned forward. Her rainfall of curls escaped from its casual knot and fell forward to slide and scrabble across her backside, where the ocher color was a direct contrast to the pale beauty of her skin. Even here, as she pressed emphatic fingertips, light and demanded, to the hollow of his neck, she was transparent. As whimsical and fleeting as a butterfly, her beauty was transparent and fragile. The milky lightness to her skin was somehow vulnerable as she waited there, bare on top of him, for him to respond. When even this method proved too elusive to grasp his attention, she bent down to press feverish kisses, demanding and determined all over his skin: against the tautness of his torso, now tight underneath her bucking knees, against the flushed color of his throat, now seized and waiting, against the tightness of his cheeks and the fluttering lids of his eyes, even as his lashes tickled the breadth of her dry, hungry lips.
Paris awoke fully then. He awoke to grasp her close to him, and feel the weight of his ardor against his hungry lips, where he sucked her tongue between her teeth in promise. Helen had not awoken him for pleasure, but she found his touch and the promise of his ardor to be a ready substitute for the loneliness that beat inside her chest. Deeply, she returned the kiss, and their commingled lips were bold with the coppery taste of blood as they connected.
"I was lonely," she explained sheepishly against the hotness of his lips as his hands traveled downwards to clutch her back and peel the blanket from her legs. He seemed to pay no attention to her response. Wickedly, with a dazed heat to his eyes that beckoned for her own submission, he ran his fingers through the hair and knotted it around his closing fist, pulling her down with the determination of his grip. She looked up at him in surprise as he entered her, for there was a harshness in his movements that was unlike his previously gentle adoration. And even as she moaned with the pleasure of his movements, she recoiled from the way he seemed to want to dominate her, and her eyes blurred as she drew back. Paris paid no attention. His fingers were a vise on her neck, and he pressed them into her with brutal efficiency. Drawing himself out of her, he waited, poised above her, as he addressed her.
"Tell me, my love, what you are doing here," he breathed against her skin, but his eyes glowed as he waited.
"Paris?" she asked then, confused and startled.
"I hear them, you know. I hear how the say in the daylight that Hector is better and stronger, and that I do nothing for Troy," his words were garbled and quick against her skin, and he spoke with a queer light infusing his eyes as he hurled the comments forth. "But I am the one with the most beautiful woman- me! Tell me, Helen, why you are with me. I desire you to answer. You prince wants you to answer, darling. And you are no longer queen. You no longer command me. I can make you do as I wish. And I desire you to tell me."
Pinned underneath him, she explored his gaze helplessly. It was ruthless.

Why did I go with you? She considered the question, and many memories came to mind as swift answers. Carefully, with her head drooped into her chest and her hair sliding unbound over her shoulders, she clutched her arms in shame as she gave the answer. It slid forth from the depths of her with a vehemence she did not expect, and her eyes sparkled with rage at the recollection. I went with you because…

"I went with you because no matter how shamed and crazed I felt by the exploitation of my husband's fingers, I was always afraid of the times when he would leave me again, alone, for the bed of another. I was without dignity before you, Paris, my love.
"I was his minion and his slave, and I liked it because it bought me a pat on the head as his cur. You see, he saw me as his dog," the feeling left her breath quickening in gasps. "I left Sparta because I had no life before. My only chance for escape there was through death, and I have not yet resigned myself to the domain of my immortal brethren for happiness. I went with you because Menelaus coarsened me. Every time he took me maddened me more; I felt like I was going to break apart from the shame of being used so.
'But I hated most that I dreaded when he would remove himself from me, limp and forgotten, and when I would become the invisible queen again.
"Any risk of love with you, Paris, is better than living with that kind of humiliation," she threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed his brow. "The worst kind of humiliation. The knowledge that you would gladly cosset the one you hate most and endure his rape, just if it meant a benevolent word or a public gesture."

But she knew it was an explanation he would never desire, not now. This was a different Paris she saw. This was a Paris that was consumed with his own vanity, as a child is, as a prince is. This was the insecure Paris he had guarded from her view before, as he murmured his precise, moving words of endearment. This was the Paris she had won. Helen began to feel sick.
"Helen? Why did you come with me? Are you not going to answer?"His demands fell upon her ears relentlessly,and she saw the similar impatience filterthrough his eyes again. Coldly, he tightened his grip on her thin, fluted shoulders, and his nailspierced her skin.Golden curls spilled down her shoulders. As she had so often with Menelaus, she used them as protection. They fell down around her now when she bent her head forward to forestall in answer. She put trembling hands to her eyes, and the white slimness of her palms, like winter and the barren wasteland of the north, covered the darkness of her gaze. For a moment, she rocked there on her heels, blankets woven around her naked body, as she listened to his insistent, petulant query.

"Why, my love? Need you ask? It is because you swept me off of my feet. Because you are the greatest prince in Troy, and because I worship you, darling, as you deserve."

"It is as I thought," he remarked airily then as he slammed back into her, forcing a cry from her startled throat. "You women are all the same, aren't you, my love? That's what they all say to me when they are in my arms. For all your pretty colors, you are just like the rest."
Helen looked at him. She breathed in the perfume to his skin, and she felt the sweat cool on her body from the heat of their passion. And she knew only one thing. So was he.
He fell asleep beside her, stroking her hair and pressing apologetic kisses to her brow. His murmurings of love were the same, as always, conciliatory and admiring, and she wondered which was the true Paris: the gilded one she saw now or the panicked coward she had held in her arms.