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I sit on a hill, observing the battle. I play a song on my lyre that I have been composing for Patroclus. It will be ready for him by sunset.As I am watching the battle, searching for Patroclus, chaos starts. A king must have fallen. I will get Patroclus to tell me later.I hear the footsteps and panting before the person arrives. It is Automedon, he looks frightened and flushed. “Achilles. Patroclus... he's.. he's been struck down.. he is still on the—” he pants. I cannot hear the end of his sentence because I have already taken off.I run faster than I ever have before.A soldier tells me that Hector did it, before I push him out of my way.I arrive to the battlefield and find Patroclus lying there, his breaths shallow. He does not look up at me, only slightly opening his beautiful grey eyes. “Patroclus!” I shout, falling to his side. “Hold on. We will get you back.”Patroclus looks at me. He tries to speak but only a choked gasp comes out. “Do not speak. Save your strength.” I say.I examine his wound. It looks like a spear to the stomach. It is fatal. I should know, I have killed countless men this way. Patroclus knows too. He has seen enough men die by a wound like this.
He is not meant to die.
I look at him, and he is crying. He has only cried twice—now thrice in the years I have known him. And I have been the reason of both.I realise I am crying too, “Chilles,” he says. He calls me this after waking up, sometimes. When he is tired. He splutters and blood comes out of his mouth. “Do not cry, my love. Please.” he weakly whispers. I am ashamed. I should be comforting him, not the other way around. But I do not know how to comfort. I was made to kill.His breathing becomes laboured and I am sticky with his blood. It will not stop bleeding, no matter how much pressure I apply. I silently wonder if this is how the lovers of the men I have killed felt. I am holding him in my arms, with his head in the crook of my neck. His pulse is slow. I try not to pay attention that my lifeline is fading.
He is not meant to die.
“Patroclus..” I whisper, my voice breaking. It never breaks. “You will be okay. We will get you stitched up. Please,” I hold down a sob. He will not see me like this. “Please, hold on. I will bring you to the camp. It will be okay.” He does not reply. His grip on me loosens and I cannot feel his soft breaths, or his pattering pulse anymore. My world shatters.
He is dead.
I scream. My mother can hear my screams, they shake the floor of the sea. She will know he is dead.I try to shake him awake. He does not wake up. Not even a stir, or a complaint that I am being too loud.My hands go to my head, and pull. Golden hair falls onto his chest. The pain is dull. I keep pulling. I have never known loss before, yet now I am crushed under it's horrible weight. Grief was an alien concept to me, and I find myself drowning in it.I have caused so many deaths, but none haunt me like this—none cut as deeply as losing the one I loved love more than life itself. Whom I treasure above all.I should have died before him. He was meant to live, become old and wither without me. “The best of the Myrmidons will die,” my mother said. I am foolish to only realise who she meant now. How did I not know?The only words I utter are his name, until my voice is raw. Then I scream it again. My vocal chords scream and beg me to stop, but I will not. I won't deny him anything again. Even if it kills me. I would kill myself over and over if it revived him.
Hector is going to die.
I carry his body back to our tent. I only half-return. When he died, I died with him. I am just a husk, waiting for death to arrive and end my suffering.I leave him on our shared cot, under the furs we shared just hours ago. The others dare not to disturb me. They can feel my grief radiating throughout the camp.I kneel next to him, holding his hand. Except this hand is not hot and lively. It is swollen and stiff. This is not Patroclus. Patroclus would have squeezed back. He would have whispered to me that things were going to be fine, and I would believe him.Tears glide off my cheeks, mixing with the blood and dirt that covers him. Hector will pay.Memories of our childhood flooded back; our games, wrestling, racing, petty squabbles and hunting. I shouldn't have gone to Troy. We would have been happy.I whisper the stories back to him, hoping, that wherever he is, he can hear me. And maybe he is smiling at them like I am.I hope that maybe he'll open his eyes and tell me I forgot something, while smirking and he will recite what I missed off by heart.My sorrow begins to burn into rage, a raging fire that will never be satisfied. Tomorrow, I will kill Hector. I grieve like a god. I think about when Chiron told us about gods with their mortal lovers. Is this how they felt? I will act like the weapon I have been raised to become. I will be known for my wrath and rage in battle, not for the things Patroclus has seen me as. They are only for his eyes.The sun is setting and I am cleaning his wounds. I try not to look at the massive one at his navel for too long. I wrap each one of his wounds carefully, like Chiron had taught us. I feel like a mother caring for her hurt child. The whole time I spend cleaning and dressing his wounds, my tears don't stop.This Patroclus is cold. Patroclus was never cold. He was always burning hot. Now his body is just a mockery of the actual Patroclus. I lay beside him, holding him like he used to hold me, and when I close my eyes I can imagine that he is holding me back. Maybe he is.