Briseis woke groggily in the middle of the night. It was dark, and she could see Helen had fallen asleep beside her. She was vaguely aware that something was meant to be wrong, but couldn't quite work out what it was, and so just shrugged the feeling off.
She was feeling better than she had in a long time, and looked around the dark camp bemusedly. There was a cool breeze, and Briseis sat up, letting her hair be ruffled in it, and the sweat on her forehead to cool and dry.
Suddenly she was aware that she was not alone, and smiled as she lifted her head to the shadows.
"Hello Achilles," she said calmly.
"Hello love," he grinned, coming out from where he was hidden at the edges of the camp and walking towards her.
"You never called me love when you were alive," Briseis commented, turning her head to one side.
He sat beside her and kissed her gently.
"You wouldn't be having regrets, would you, great warrior?" Briseis teased him gently. "Mighty Achilles, silenced by a slave girl!" she said in mock awe when he did not reply, repeating words the two of them had heard so long ago.
"Not a slave girl," Achilles said firmly, holding her chin up with one hand. "Never a slave girl."
"A guest?" Briseis asked cheekily, and Achilles laughed.
"Perhaps. Yes, a guest," he smiled down at her, and Briseis was filled with a strange kind of peace."
"Come with me," he said, caressing her cheek slightly with one hand.
"With you?" Briseis asked in confusion. "But you go where no living man or woman can follow."
"Yes," Achilles did not dispute her words. "But come with me all the same."
Briseis cast a troubled glance at the sleeping form of Helen. "But my kin, Helen, Andromache…"
"It seems I have to ask you if you would leave Troy for me," Achilles said, and Briseis smiled gently, remembering a night when she lay in her arms and first realised she loved him.
"Troy is gone," she said sadly.
"No. Troy will always live as long as there are men to tell its story. Come with me, love, leave Troy for me."
Briseis suddenly smiled up at her lover. "For you," I would go to Hades itself."
"I do not ask you to Hades but to Elysium," Achilles said as he rose. He reached out, and took her small, thin hands in his rough ones.
Briseis smiled trustingly up at him and let herself be pulled to her feet by him. In one swift, smooth action he lifted her up, and held her in his arms. Briseis laughed, and kissed him, before he began to carry her away from the Trojan camp.
Briseis looked back over Achilles' shoulder, and saw her body lying, still asleep beside Helen. She looked inquiringly at Achilles, but he just laughed and kissed her again. Briseis snuggled down into his arms as he led her into the shadows that surrounded the firelight of the Trojan encampment.
But as Achilles walked, the darkness seemed to get lighter and lighter, until the shadows turned to a silver curtain of glass, which rolled back to reveal white shores and green lands, and Briseis could smell a sweet scent in the air, and then there was sunlight on her face, warming her, and offering her hope and contentment.
Briseis looked up at Achilles and he was laughing, and she was laughing too, for the pain and the sorrow melted away, and she became the beautiful, untroubled woman that had first loved Achilles. He kissed her, and the memories of all the grief and suffering she had known drained away, and there was nothing but him, and her, and an unending world of love and contentment.