Delphi V by Kizzykat

The Pine Cone

The priests ushered Alexander out of the stadium and began to lead the way through the pine trees down the mountainside. Alexander questioned them briefly on the numbers of visitors, more to set them at ease than out of interest. Then he noticed that Hephaestion was lagging behind and, excusing himself to the priests, dropped back to wait for him, the ever watchful bodyguards slowing up as well, but keeping a discreet distance ahead, placing themselves between Alexander and the priests.

"What's wrong?" Alexander said to Hephaestion with a smile. "Have you pulled a muscle?"

Hephaestion looked up from his day-dreaming. "No," he said with a touch of injured dignity. "Here," he said, and held out a large closed pine cone to Alexander.

Alexander looked at it with a bemused smile. "What am I to do with this?"

With a touch of embarrassment, Hephaestion said, "It's a keepsake."

"Oh. Thank you," Alexander said, turning the damp pine cone about to inspect it.

"It looks dead now," Hephaestion said, "but bring it into the warmth and it will open to the light."

"I know they do that," Alexander said, smiling. "Then they shed their seeds."

"They keep for years," Hephaestion added. "My mother has three she keeps on her dressing table in a wooden bowl. She brought them from her father's house when she married. Sometimes she takes them out and remembers."

Alexander looked up at Hephaestion and smiled, knowing there was a reason for this, and waited for it to emerge.

Hephaestion's clear blue eyes met Alexander's warm brown ones and held them. "They are sort of immortal, Alexander," he said. "And I thought, if you took a piece of Delphi's immortality away with you, the god would remember his prophecy."

Alexander regarded Hephaistion for a long moment as a smile spread across his face. He held up the pine cone. "This will be my pledge, Hephaestion," he said, his smile glinting with quick humour, "that we will outdo all the heroes of old and that our names will be remembered for a thousand lifetimes."

Hephaestion looked at Alexander, offended at being laughed at. "Give it back," he said, holding out his hand, "if you think it's childish."

Alexander laughed playfully. "No," he said, smiling as he held the pine cone protectively against his chest. "I shall have it dipped in gold."

"Pig," Hephaestion said, thumping Alexander's arm. "Stop laughing at me."

Alexander shied away, laughing and rubbing his arm. "I swear I'm not laughing at you," he said. "I'm laughing because you make me feel good. You make me feel happy, Hephaestion. You make me believe in Plato's ideals of Truth and Beauty."

Hephaestion went red to the ears in mortified embarrassment. He ducked his head and started to walk past Alexander down the mountainside.

Alexander, after a moment's doubt, flung himself at Hephaestion's back, wrapping his arms about Hephaestion's shoulders.

"Do I make you happy?" he asked, his voice bubbling with certainty and mirth against Hephaestion's neck.

Hephaestion was forced to stand still with Alexander's weight on his back or risk tumbling down the mountainside. "No," he said, not in the least mollified by Alexander's humour.

Alexander stiffened. "No?" he said in mock ferocity, letting Hephaestion go and turning him around with a strong, urgent grip.

They looked at each other, their eyes on a level, barely two hand's length apart. Unblinking, Hephaestion met Alexander's eyes, his own eyes round with solemnity.

"No, Alexander," he said quietly. "We are different people. We love differently. To you, I am your soul-mate – I hope - the sharer of your own thoughts and dreams, the echo of your hopes. To me, you are my whole world. Everything I am comes from you." Alexander drew a breath to speak, but Hephaestion forestalled him. "If, like Patroclus, I were to die before you, Alexander, I know it would hurt you terribly. Something would die inside you, but it would heal, leaving you scarred, but able to soldier on. If you were to die before me, I would simply cease to exist. I would have no reason to live. I would be nothing without you. And I don't know which is more terrible."

For a long moment, Alexander stared at Hephaestion, a bright sheen in his eyes. Suddenly he clutched Hephaestion to him ferociously.

"Don't talk like that," he whispered fiercely against Hephaestion's ear. "Who cares if we die young, so long as we live every day with honour and glory? We will have eternity to be together, so long as we live to be worthy of hearing our praises sung, worthy of having our lives emulated."

Hephaestion drew back from Alexander and looked at him, a small smile on his lips.

"I don't want to live to be an old man, Alexander, living on memories of my glory days," he said. "I want you to have eternal glory, and I want to share that with you, even if it means we die young. I just don't want you to be hurt when I die before you. I don't want my death to condemn you to an early death too."

"Stop this, Hephaestion," Alexander said, his voice pained and hard. "Our future is not written in stone. In all likelihood we will both die a soldier's death, a hard death, a death worth dying for glory, but we may well have a good twenty years before then. That is a lifetime. We could have grown sons by then. Or we could die tomorrow. All that matters is that we make it count: that we make every day worth remembering."

Hephaestion smiled at Alexander, a soft and gentle smile. "I'm not afraid of dying, Alexander," he said. "Because I know you'll be there."

"Always," Alexander said, a lump in his throat. Suddenly he cleared his voice. "See," he said, pretending to glare at Hephaestion, "now you've made me get all sentimental with your silly pine cone."

Hephaestion chuckled. "Give it back then," he said.

"No," Alexander said, catching Hephaestion's hand in his as they began to walk downslope again. "I shall keep it forever, and we'll see if it lives longer than I do."

"It will," Hephaestion said, smiling broadly.

"Fatalist."

"Better than being a dreamer of impossible dreams," Hephaestion said airily.

"Pig. Don't insult my ambitions."

"As if I'd dare," Hephaestion said in mock horror.

"Oh, so I'm a tyrant as well?" Alexander exclaimed. "Do you hear that, Leonnatus?" Alexander said as they caught up with the bodyguards. "Hephaestion calls me a tyrant."

Leonnatus and the other bodyguards grinned. "Definitely a hanging matter," he said.

"Come," Alexander said cheerfully. "I want to drink from the Castalia spring. Perhaps it will grant me wisdom." He looked at Hephaestion and smiled, knowing his heart was in safe keeping for eternity.