So, I am not seeing this exercise's futility. But in the name of subservient duty, I will try.

I am here because of a promise: The Pact. One I felt compelled to do and partake, despite the cost, to better the world of my beloved. Although I should never be blessed to or even considered worthy to see him again, I, Achilles, signed my soul away: eternal service in the House of the Lord of the Dead to allow Patro…. him…I can't even bring myself to write his name right now…him to live in the realm of the heroes: Elysium.

I had been told by the Master to relax my recent frustration and anger: that deals we had made were rarer than heroic deification. I should be grateful that we did what we did and that I was not suffering in exchange. Others, said he, would have sacrificed their own places in Asphodel and exchanged for seats in Tartarus for their own beloved. This was an unprecedented exchange: Elysium for him? And no demotion in return, but a job? "You should be grateful, kissing my feet in gratuitous supplication for elevating a man so beneath you," he said. That statement made me doubly angry: once for being told to be grateful for my own personal hell and secondly: the underestimation of the greatest person I ever known. But I bit my tongue.

Eventually I unbit it. And unplugged the dams of emotion that piled up within me.

It was hell. Literal hell in hell. What I did for love? I did what I had to do. Everything. He was worth…no, he was…is… everything.

That is what I did whenever I was given a…break, they call it. Whenever I was "off-shift?" I went to the lounging area but even then, there was an iota of publicity I could not accept to show emotion. Also, the godless bulbs of perdition did not help. The spectral chef mocked me: cutting onions. Mocking me and my suppressed tears. He wanted me to cry over those plants, those which tortured me whilst alive. Onions, one of the cursed plants of the Underworld. It plagues me even in death. The stench mocked me: tempting me to cry and pour my tears out. To my own public shame. Instead of crying over the loss of my joy.

Outside the lounging area and outside of work, I kept to myself: these were not friends: they were gods, not men. A Fury, an obsessive body-less floating monster, Night, Sleep, and Death themselves, a monstrous dog…why would they enjoy me? Why should I enjoy them? All sources of joy were extinguished from my life. And the rest of existence is a perpetual separation.

There was a garden at the east end of the house. I figured its isolation would be an oasis for me. Hidden enough for me to unplug the dam and release the tears. I spent many hours lying on the ground, pouring out and wailing to the wine dark sky…. earth… about the uselessness of my life…after-life. I then returned to work, suppressing the emotion again, and the cycle began anew. This truly was Hell.

The Queen summoned me shortly after I had come back to work one day. She saw me, she said, while picking pomegranates, the other plant the Underworld grows. They were not my preferred food source, but they were not onions at the very least. She heard my tears and moans. Although she could not amend the perfidious Pact, she noted, she could help me alleviate the stress. I am supposed to have classes from her and learn how to…regulate emotion? She kept using words and concepts that were not clear Greek: the knowledge of the gods far surpasses the mortals' knowledge. She gave me scrolls of parchment and some styli and writing materials. She said it was optional to do, but she wanted me to write down my life: write about my love, my hate, my rage, my passions.

"Write your story and emotions: your story is the link between your flesh and your soul. Controlling the link will tame the physical and strengthen the ephemeral."

She also gave a small bottle of…nectar.

"Don't tell the King, but I do have a small supply. Here: sip slowly. It'll calm you."

I sipped myself some: all my favorite tastes rolled over my tongue at once: the taste of his skin, the taste of figs and grapes, the taste of salt, the taste of berries. The tears flowed again at this nostalgia, but the Queen stood by. Patted my shoulder. There we were: the greatest of all the Greeks crying, sipping the drink of immortals, while the Queen of the Underworld consoled him. I caught her tearing up as well. I shared the nectar back, and she drank.

"My apologies, Achilles. Depression is a plague that makes all lower. I too have those I miss and decisions I regret. To resolution and acceptance."

She cleared her face, toasted the bottle, downed some more, and left a bit of nectar left.

"If you ever need me, please reach out. I am an ear, and I detest the idea of royalty being so distant from their subjects. If it were my choice, I'd live in a little house in a field, and have everyone visit my gardens as they saw fit."

She looked to the materials again.

"A deep breath and these materials over time can do so much more than a sip of nectar. Nectar erases what is there but it never lasts forever. Ironic, since those who drink it do. Perhaps the gods last forever because they do not carry the pains and sufferings they endure, only the good."

She arose and turned towards me again at the door.

"Achilles, I am here if you need me. And please, write."

Since this exercise is open ended, I shall start from the beginning. From the day we met to his and my d…anyways.

My story has been sung before: from bards' mouths to kings' courts and farmers to their kids. It has never been told from my own hand.

But before I tell my tale, I want to make clear that I do not regret taking the Pact nor can I, since what we do for love makes us better and noble. A noble act enlarges even the smallest man.

I am Achilles, and this is my story.