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Far away from Troy	By : Carmela Category: Fairy Tales, Fables, Folklore, Legends, and Myth > Myths Views: 5468 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the book(s) that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Far away from Troy
- 1
Title: Far away from Troy (sequel to Memory of Troy) 1/2 Paris POV
Type: FP Slash. Some het implied.
Author: Carmela. don_ombligo@yahoo.es
Rating: Strong R or NC-17.
Pairing: Achilles/Paris
Warning: mild masochism, some violence (this is a war!), some het implied (but not too much), semi non-con in next chapter (as in Memory of Troy).
Disclaimer: Is it really necessary to say they belong to Homer? Well, anyway I think every one of us does own them a little bit, too...
Beta: Larien, my dear, lovely Larien. Thanks a lot!
Notes: A little attempt to understand poor Paris…
Summary: Paris remembers how he met Achilles.
Reviews: of course. Good or bad, I'll love it. Really.

FAR AWAY FROM TROY.

Many stories about him I had already heard when I first saw Achilles. It was nearly three years since Greeks had come to fight us. Sons of the Trojan land perished day after day under sword, fire orger,ger, while our enemies themselves were becoming weaker and more exhausted. The bronze of weapons and helmets, became more and more damaged with every blow, and the blows grew more erratic. The reason for the war was forgotten a long time ago, nearly since war began. But men continued going to their deaths for honour, for revenge, for loyalty or because that was the sole thing they had been brought up to do. That was the view my eyes took in when I saw him that morning. I was leaning out of the battlements, hoping for an enemy’s accurate arrow to kill me, or for someone among my own people to throw me down the walls, since I was incapable of setting foot upon the battlefield I feared so much. Almost as much as I feared going to my chamber to face Helen.

She was a queen and they called her Helen. Except for that, there is not much I can say about her, for I avoided that sombre woman since the very day the gods bound her to my fate, or rather, mine to hers. Beautiful she was, indeed, but frozen and implacable, as a woman who would not have a single doubt before taking a whole nation to death in order to assure her name be remembered. ‘Helen’ said Aphrodite, ‘Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world’ I heard from those divine l and and for me it was enough. With the goddess of love by my side I would return to the land I was born in, to the palace that belonged to me, from whom I was exiled, and finally, I would be honoured as a prince, obeyed by everyone, worshiped as the most graceful man; god-like Paris, that was what I would be titled. If Aphrodite wanted to name this glory Helen, then Helen would I name it, and Helen would be mine -the label of my royalty, my crown, and far was I from knowing how heavy this crown could become on my brow. My dear Aphrodite, I gave you a golden apple, you gave me a poisoned one. Everything had been arranged to destroy the age of heroes.

Her fingers playing with the golden apple as if she didn’t care, she was leaving. We exchanged a smile of understanding, of non-understanding, how we would realise later!-. Before she left, I blew her a kiss. I liked that goddess so young and pretty, so caring towards me, so alike to myself. In my mind, gods were not very different from me. They were cheerful, me too, beautiful, so was I. Grief and remorse never knitted their brows, nor did enthusiasm tense their nostrils either. Life resembled a light hearted game, pleasant, but not too much; funny, but not too much; thrilling, but not so much to die for. They played it as dilettantes, just like I did, by that time. Quite often I had found Zeus getting dressed hastily after seducing some mortal maiden in a coppice. Yet, although vaguely, I knew, or thought I knew, they could also be cruel and horrific. That man may call himself fortunate who never had a god’s hate, nor his favour: friendship from gods seldom falls on a mortal without tears for him. I would not become aware of that until some years later though, when Troy was a long way away, and my meadows much longer.

So, I had been audience for Zeus’ love pursuits, and it was my hand that decided who was the fairest one, among three goddess, beautiful the three of them. I took my time, savouring it, feeling their breath taken away while they stood perfectly naked in front of my eyes, each of them longing to be the chosen one, so eager. Most of men die without having ever heard the sound of an immortal voice, whereas I listened to three goddesses begging me for an apple. But among gods, Apollo was the one which I grew to know better.

He who slew the Python, and who steered the sun, was during my entire childhood the only company I enjoyed. He visited me often, whether in human shape, or turned into some animal. He made me a bow from a black poplar’s branch, and taught me how to use it. In the summer he led me through the narrowest paths in the forest to the fresher springs, and when winter was upon us, he found the safest shelter, hugging me tight if the chill made me shiver. And since I was a child, he lulled me to sleep, telling me stories about a distant reign that one-day would be mine. I learned to desire Troy, and for a very long time, I desired it above everything else. His divine words gave shape to things I could only imagine: splendid clothes, refined foods, a golden crown for me, and women. When I became a lad, and flesh claimed his tribute, leaving me restless and confused, Apollo showed me what women were.

In the same way we went hunting together and kept my herds, when the right moment came, he held my hand and led me to a hillock. Two young girls were embroidering white clothes in the sunshine, not sensing our presence among bushes. Behind me, Apollo whispered huskily in my ears, telling me what to do and trying to encourage me, but the feeling of his breath in my hair was all I understood before we jumped on them. Not for a single moment did I stop watching my mate, who seemed to be such a seasoned lover, judging by the sighs of the lass beneath him, and by the enjoyment in his eyes, that reflected my gaze. The mocking, amused face of the girl at my feet, the intensity of desire in a teenager’s blood, and Apollo’s heat merged into mine, gave me boldness enough to do my task. My heart drummed into my chest until the end -which rather came quickly. The son of Zeus had not averted his eyes from me, and a hint of amazement and enjoyment in them made me become conceited by my achievement. We curled one in each other’s arms for a while, laughing and panting, oblivious to the girls by our side. When we left, the white cloths lay forgotten in the grass.

The number of the women I had met was equally forgotten by the time in which they required me to be the arbitrator in an odd quarrel. That story has been sung over and over, and always leads to Troy.
*****
First time I saw Achilles, it was a long time after the Achaian ships reached our coastline, bringing heroes of resonant names chosen for an evil doom, which even in days to come may be a song in the ears of men that shall be born thereafter. In those first days of the war, I used to fight and the cry of battle still inflamed me. It all soon disappeared; another hateful war I fought inside my chest, not even knowing who my enemy was (Achaians? Trojans? Gods? Fate? Myself?) Only when Hector rebuked me with scornful words did I find myself measured, and being not beyond measure, I took up my spear, my shield, and marched towards death (mine, someone else’s, it did not matter).

Then, one day, I saw him. And since that day I completely forgot what peace was, whether I had ever known it.

Peace. How different from peace it was, that emptiness I began to feel within those sweet, nice bodies which I took half-heartedly! Three or four times, the girl in front of me understood my distress, and gently caressed my cheek and my hair, while I wept bitterly curled up by her side. In that maid (was it always the same girl, or were they different ones?) mentmentarily found the warmness of a mother, although she was as young as me, or younger, almost certainly a virgin, relieved of me not being able to rape her. The thought of never having wept like that in my own mother’s lap, nor having had a father, and the yearning for something I didn’t even know, made me cry with no hope of comfort. As for the in in Apollo’s arms which used to follow, that did not bring calm to me, and to him, it stole what little peace he had.
My blood was a young heifer that tossed and turned, and could not see that there was a fair warrior who would come from the north to subdue her. One moment I was flustering and agitated, the next faded away. I was being consumed, as a virgin in need for a wedding night, by desire and by heat. Dark rings framing my eyes revealed too many dawns of wasting my spirit in furtive substitutes of pleasures that I hardly could understand. Apollo observed me in that mood for hours, and, aware that I was destined to be the prince who would win Helen and lose Troy, and together with Troy the whole lineage of heroes, he merely swallowed hard, never parting his eyes from me. Now, I have been taught that gods obeyed fate too. That a proud god, as irascible as Apollo, accustomed to take whatever and whoever he wanted, abided by fate as much as any mortal man. Troy would fall, so would I, and the fair myrmidonian that I would meet someday. My corpse would burn sealed and on the funeral pyre there would simply remain a pile of ashes: illustrious, untouched ashes. Cold and barren. Apollo had no power to avoid what had been planned before time was created. It should be a bitter lump that which he swallowed, with feverish lips and eyes fixed on me.
*****
So many stories about him I had already heard when I first saw Achilles. Stories that had been told to me by Trojan women in the intimacy of their chambers, while they were spinning or weaving or combing their hair one to each other. I preferred much better their lewd giggles and the warmness of their company than the harshness of men. And men did not like either, that young, languorous man, so delicate and different from themselves. Despite that, they respected the prince that he was, and they admired the beauty that he was, despite that, they did all desire him. I had stopped frequenting men’s company, at the same time I started avoiding Helen’s; gradually, yet constantly. From the distance that the passage of time gives me now, I can clearly see that any of those men could have been a better husband for Helen than I was, and a better prince for Troy. Not that they could have saved it, since its fate was to fall. But they would have lost it in a proper manner, with the dignity of acts and of bearing that I could not pretend to have or do. Because all of that, I preferred to spend my days with common women who showed me pity and told me amazing things about those dauntless men by whose side I felt so odd and distinct. Listening to their high-pitched voices I learned that men with a spot in their cheek are indefatigable lovers, and that a red beard signified those who agreed to make love beneath their wives. I also learned that fair-hairen lon love desperately until the last drop of life drains from their marrow. A growing, burning rapture fulfilled my heart, and I brazenly asked them, anxious to hear more and more about love and its corners. The young girls joked and played with me, as if I were a shy, innocent sister; but I preferred the naughty wisdom of those women who were not too old, neither too young, for whom there were still some spring seasons in their life to use and enjoy, who knew time was a traitor and were ready to savour the last bites of the banquet. They understood the bitter aftertaste of my lonely daybreaks. Quite often I have rested my head in some lap, my cheek caressed by the warmness of a breast, and they have stroked my curls, and told me:
- Woe is that beauty of yours, Paris, which is going to die not having felt that lust that comes when pain abates! That crazy tickling turning your skin goo goose-bumps when the back of your neck is scratched by manly stubble! The strength of other arms holding you tight, grabbing your hands, your hips! The thoughtless licks all over you, my prince, the frenzied shoves deflowering your body! And a concerned tone in a deep tone, asking you if he did hurt you!
After hours in their chambers, listening to those tales of women in ecstasies and wonderment, I had to go back again to my royal demeanour, my arrogance, my solitude. Back to respect.
I was a golden apple without a hand to give myself to.
*****
Sweat made his body shine. Sweat, and also the amazement I gazed at him with, when I first saw Achilles. I remembered what those women had told me, half answering my anxious questions, half teasing me to ask them more and more… That’s how I learned that boy who Achilles so stubbornly protected from their enemies’ beatings was Patroklo. Women told me (in a whispering voice) it was said both of them slept in the same tent, and that they were so close friends that each of them were there fighting against Troy so that the other would not meet death alone. Paris the coward, Paris the treacherous, not boloughough to take part in the war he had started, he, I would neither hesitate to fight for my beloved. The word drove its sharp sting straight into my heart.
From that moment, my fantasies began to take the shape of that well-muscled body, larger than mine, whose embrace I presumed so protective, and I began to take the heat of fever in my lips not used to refusal. I devised a thousand different encounters with that man: First, he was a lost traveller who I found while I was getting water from the spring so that me and my mother could wash the floor of our shack. Then, he was a famous king’s son, and I his humble servant who untied his sandals, kneeling at his feet. When in my dreams Achilles eyed me up and down, my mind and tongue mixed up and I could but give way to that full of authority smile that was enough for me to know what should be done. And done it was, always it was, in every dream. It is truth that my idea about what should be done was hazy, but despite it (or precisely because of it) I did, without doubts or complains, racked with joy and wildly reacting to the slightest caress of his skin on my skin. The end was invariable: love words, kissing, and cuddling. Or the most alike thing I could imagine, since all of that was completely unfamiliar to me.
Every morning I woke up alone, in sweat and crimson cheeks, and rushed to the battlements, and there I stayed until the light of the sunset faded and men stopped fighting. I had always tried carefully to avoid the revolting moment in which survivors brought corpses into the citadel. The vision of those mutilated limbs and the stench of the blood made me sick. Now I usually forgot about it, engrossed in the memory of that feral and beautiful creature, and stayed there, at a lookout, until someone realized the prince was not with Helen. More often than not I missed dinner.
One morning I woke up and went to my lookout, but I did not see Achilles. He did not appear in the battlefield that day, or the next one, or the others that came… Heartache had me overwhelmed: what was the reason for so much death and sorrow if I could not see Achilles anymore? Days of uncertainty high up in a tower, fevered nights in bed, that was what my life had been turned into. My wed fed father and my weary mother began to fear I would not see next autumn. The whole people of Troy, ruined because of me, could not detest me, and it saddened them to see their charming prince ebbing away in the full bloom of youth. Music, nor poets cheered me up, nor did delicacies, so hard to find in a city under siege.

But he came back, noble as always, captivating as ever, and my heart skipped a beat at the moment I saw him. Those who have loved unselfishly, not holding up any hope of being loved in return, may understand the happiness I felt as I made out his unmistakable figure in the distance that day. The same day he slew my brother Hector. Three days and three nights he dragged Hector’s body around the walls; after that, he allowed my father to return with the corpse so that we could honour our hero with tears and flames.
“Then, it is war”, I thought. Men killed and died while I watched from the highest watchtower; It withwith a sharp pain in my soul that I realised it. But I have to confess I was less desolated by my brother’s death than by the still inconceivable idea of Achilles killing, being a warrior, willingly taking part in horror and destruction, and letting Hector’s blood stain his chest so perfectly, his tights so firm. I kil killed some men too, but it had been easy, unreal; I felt nothing at all. Now, Hector had been killed by Achilles, and the fact confronted me that this man, nearly as young as who who my eyes desperately searched every morning, was a warrior and had came Troy to cast my crown into the mire, and me into my own blood.
Hector’s remains before me, Helen words full of bile, Trojan men’s eyes upon me; those were all warnings that impelled me to fight. And so, I brandished my sword and headed for the battlefield, determined to kill or die, what would please best those bored and ruthless gods. But in all fairness, the gravity on my face was not enough to hide the truth from myself: that my brother’s slayer was the reason for me to be armed like a warrior and willing to be killed. So, when I crossed the Skaian Gates with the dignity of a prince who complies with his doom, I was really deserting the gods and their whims, deserting my fate, and desterting Troy.
I fought for a day that was as long as an age of the world. Blood from bodies without nataintained me, pleas of young, breaking voices I disregarded. But those voices also beat me hard. In that way Achilles saw me for the first time: covered in blood (mine, theirs), filled with awe and revulsion, and terrified. A lost boy in other people’s war.
Sometimes, back in the meadows, wolves that came to devastate my herds stopped and bowed their jaws before me, licking my feet submissively. Sometimes, some of these wolves had a familiar aura over their heads, an aura I knew too well to ignore it was a god, Apollo, whom I received a reverence. And I was used to it. But I sensed no reverence in that man’s way of looking at me -me, who had secretly looked at him in such rapture! He came closer. I could see now that face I had barely guessed from the battlements, and crazily desired to kiss. But there wasn’t the slightest hint of the respect that is owed to a prince in the way his predatory eyes ran over the length of my frame, showing off quite frankly what his mind was made up to: to check how much it can be torn, a made-only for kisses body like mine was. What a heartbreaking destiny, to be killed by the one I wanted to be kissed by!
The last traces of a warrior that remained in my heart wanted badly to kill him in the worst of the ways, so that I could spread my chest and my face with his blood, and enter Troy as a victorious hero. Or at least to confront him and take a heroic death, whatever it may be what I had been destined to many ages before my birth. And I carried on thinking the same, even when he threw my sword away from us, I not putting up any resistance, not trying to conceal what could never be hidden, when my own hands took off my brazen armour voluntarily. ‘Troy, Troy’ I thought, unable once and forever of doing anything for a city and a glory that I could not feel were mine. And when Achilles strong hands ripped my tunic off me, I detested and feared him, but much less than I feared and detested both Troy and Helen. In fact, had I not dreamt of him making me his? -Delightful way of saying it, and the simple sound aroused me. Did I, moreover, not spread my legs, slightly, yes, just slightly, yet still unmistakably, while that engraved by war body came closer to mine? All of those unmentionable acts I had accomplished, and furthermore I had been envious of Patroklo because they were his; his was the exquisite task of appeasing Achilles’ warlike wrath. These were my honours, those laurels I deserved.
Thus, the blond warrior that I had foolishly loved in my fantasies would rape me now just to sully me some more before casting my corpse to the dogs or abandoning it as carrion so that Trojan vultures would taste the entrails of a prince. And in the morning, every Trojan man would discover my blemish, and they would bury me hurriedly and without mourners, so that, soon, I would be a disgraced name to whisper in silence about.

Another step, and now I could smell his acrid perspiration of heroism. Blinking, I strove to swallow the lump that had suddenly come into my throat (was Apollo’s lump so difficult to swallow?).
It was not love what he was going to make to me, but disdain and insult, as he pressed his fingers against my parted lips, his trembling fingers warm as I never imagined they could be, not in all my daydreams of boy that every night embraced his own body. It was not love, I knew, yet it was so similar to love! And love was what made my lips slightly part, quivering in emotion, inflamed by the contact of the man I dreamt of night and day. So I licked them.

My wishes being so imprecise and naïve, and myself not having anyone whom I could ask about, I knew nothing of men’s love. But I guessed what was coming. I felt him taking possession of the most intimate part of my body, a hidden, pink and creamy fold, touched only by myself during long, lonely insomnias that I filled with imaginary hard bodies of lust and marble (so much alike to him), and with imagined kisses. But in my dreams I never went so far. His well-greaved legs parted mine to discover the entrance to my body. And there it was: a pink, virginal opening, too tiny even to my own finger. A certain animal lay there, scared and wild, possibly a sweet cub in need of caresses, already endowed with sharp canines greedy for tasting blood. My insides were its den: darkness and velvet, blackness and pinkish flesh had protected it during too many nights. The shy touches I gave it alone in my bed without Helen disturbed its sleep. Now his liar was open to my tormentor’s leisure and the little beast throbbed anxious to get more.

More. My knuckles, sank in the earth, were a mess of blood. My tights were lacerated under his greaves. Too well I knew that Achilles was doing it in order to degrade me, and that it was my duty to hate him. And still I wanted more. When I finally felt him entering me I had to clench my teeth to avoid screaming, the pain was so intense. He did it with a slow, yet steady movement, leading me to the edge of ache and betrayed illusions until I could do naught but burst into tears; tears that I wished to swallow, as they ploughed down my face and fell into the ground. I broke into silent sobs when he grasped my hair and pulled back my head making sure I didn’t miss a single one of his roars. The harshness of his breath would have made me shiver, if I wouldn’t have been already trembling like a leaf, trying to concentrate my feeble strengths in concealing corncorners of my eyes, filled with tears again. It was not pain, the reason of my tears: spoiled I was, but strong, and ready to take what a lover could give me. And it was not shame: ashamed I was, much, but the idea of lifting my eyes to the towers of Troy to find the whole of the people to whom I was a prince, and Priam king, my father, watching me exposed, raw, on all fours while our enemy besmirched me that way, oh, that was so disturbing I nearly could have… But no. I kept weeping. I wept because he was not going to ask me if it did hurt on the way to a bed where he would gently put me, and because then he would not come to me with white cloths in his hands to clean that sore, abused bud still violently pulsing, or dry my sweaty temples, or bring me some fresh milk as if I were a first-time mother. For that, all I did was weep in silence till the end.
Beyond the end, in fact, because he collapsed onto me and his face came to rest so close to mine that he could have kissed me, if he had wanted to. Those yearning lips of mine would have refused him nothing. But the kiss did not come, and I opened my eyes to see Achilles’ gaze fixed on someone else who stood there facing us. The auburn locks made Achilles believe it was Cassandra, my unfortunate sister, but no disguise could fool me when the one standing there was Apollo. My childhood friend didn’t say a word, astonishment and spite bounding his divine tongue, so skilful in the past to tell me stories… He disappeared, and we stayed alone. Abandoned by Apollo (or having abandoned him?). Which god would I pray to now so that Achilles would let me live some more, and feel some more of the heat of his skin? As he grabbed my arm and pulled me to his horse, I prayed fervently.
Then he did something that froze me and then confounded me with deep confusion. He began to tie my hands up with his horse’s reins, as I expected, Hector’s last image vividly engraved on my memory: they were these reins, the ones Achilles used to tie my brother’s ankles after he killed him, that were used to drag him as a prize. Then, I was going to die. But suddenly, he stopped, removed the reins from both my hands and his horse. And he stared at me in such a way that was indecipherable and even today I find it indescribable, a mixture of annoyance, strictness and understanding, just as if he could see inside me. I felt he completely knew me: the shepherd I could never stop being, the prince that I was expected to become -myself not knowing how. Every one of my tricks was visible, in fact obvious, through that chest of mine which seemed to be made of glass for his eyes: twitching of eyelids, distant haughtiness, light-hearted smiles, and Helen by my side, the most expensive of my ornaments. They were useless beneath that look. Shame and pleasure, again, and a very strong wish of him going still further… The fact that I was standing naked in front of him, more naked than ever in my life, made me blush, not daring to lift my eyes and face him. Now that he had me entirely revealed, in all my childish tricks, how embarrassed, how near to complete happiness I felt! I wished him to go further, and for my faults I got it. Achilles whipped me. I could not hold gasping in pain -in a new pain-, in perplexity and indignation. He scourged me! Embraced my waist with an arm and then whipped me with the end of the leather girths. Three, four times, not more, and not very rough. It didn’t bleed, the skin flushed going crimson, although. He did it without anger, but firmly, as though a teacher would spank a spoiled child. When he finally stopped I released my lips from his shoulder, which had muffled my moans. Maybe I kissed that shoulder.
*****
A slap of Achilles’ hand on the colt’s limb and soon we were treading an unknown path. Since no-one had ever ventured into it before, what lay ahead us was an enigma. For the moment in which our race started I was already aware that those reins tying up my wrists were also untying me and Achilles with me, from Troy, from our fate. And not just from our fate, but from the mere idea of destiny having a hold over us.

He put his arms around my waist to grip the reins that had my wrists tied up with those tight knots that his tremulous fingers had made after lashing me. The crack of the strap on the horse made my fresh weals sting at that sound which I had experienced in my own skin just a moment before.
We rode hard, fast, at full gallop for hours, the twilight gave way to the night, and we tore both the mists and the paths with our aimless race. Peleus’ son imposed to the animal an infuriating speed. It appeared that death was waiting for us somewhere and Achilles refused to miss the appointment. And yes, death was waiting for us at the end of that journey. A double death, more uncertain than that one we left in Troy, and unlike that one, absolute. It could arrive tomorrow, in some ambush, or after many winters, while sleeping. Our bodies would never be devoured by fire in the flower of their youth; they would rot buried in the ground at the end of an awful disease or of a long, degrading old age. And then, there would not be asphodels for us in the Elysian Fields, but mallows and brambles on some grave without stone.
*****
I wish I could recall every detail of that race now, in those nights when Achilles was too tired and he fell asleep holding me as if I were his bronze shield and he was in a battle. Every man loses his last battle -if he does not, then it is not the last one. But I don’t want to think about it, now. I would like to remember something like Achilles’ hands trembling before the very thought of holding me, Achilles’ arms rocking me on his lap, bathing me and then caressing me -all of me. Pretending I remember, I imagine him doing things to me that I never had dared to imagine until we met. His head slowly and almost shyly bending over my pubis, and taking me -rather letting me to take him this way… But my blood making wet the colt’s rump beneath my raw tights was the last thing I felt before I lost consciousness, and that whole night is a thick mist for me. I came round in the morning, sore, but clean and refreshed. In front of me, Achilles was standing on his knees, quietly offering me his sword, his armour -the one shaped for him by the God of the Forge-, his tunic stained with my blood.
- Take my horse, Paris, and return to Troy.
I thought about the last, the one and only choice I had made in my life. Hera afforded me the rule of Asia; divine Athena wisdom to vanquish my enemies. Aphrodite tempted me with a queen. Was it not all the same thing? Different names for ambition and power? What I said was decided by fate on my behalf and I did not but lend my voice to it. Now a rude man who had rejected glory was waiting for my answer, ready to accept any word from my mouth, holding his breath partly in fear, partly in hope, or so I guessed, at least. Instead of giving him a golden apple, I gave him my bare hand. And so we went.
*****
That of the getaway was a time plenty of joys and fears that we spent riding Achilles’ horse by night, and looking for the complicity of undergrowth by day. Each bend of the path could hide a god in disguise; under every wolf’s skin I recognized a jealous god starving for my flesh. Finally, after many moons, we found a place to stay, a little village, poor enough for us, unknown enough to accept us not asking who we were, whose people were unhappy enough to ignore two men that barely leave their shack. We, so intimate to gods one day, were now exiled among common men for ever. The ground of this miserable land will take us in some day, when Apollo gets tired of letting us live. Fleeing from Troy we became the last of the heroes’ lineage, in a suddenly much smallerld rld where gods denied us their presence and stopped talking to us. Now there were no traced ways, no Helens, no omens, no threats… any security, neither, nobody listening. I find this new horror of freedom so much more terrifying: who will I pray to, now? Which god would demand me a sacrifice in return for my prayer -Achilles not to die before me, Achilles not to suffer? Actually, there was no choice for the young prince of Troy. The ancient order of the world got never involved with me, as much as I never got involved with it. This new world we live in is m con contemptible and empty of any greatness - for good, or for evil. There’s no honour in it -honour, a heavy chain in our necks which compelled us to be firm and strict without a rest. Our faces have not that old, beautiful gravity; they are, most of the time, deformed in a cry of grief and sorrow. But moments there are in which our grimace becomes a laugh, a smile, a cry of pleasure, or that silly expression that comes after bliss. Gods are jealous of it.
There is always nostalgia for Troy in Achilles, for Troy and for that glorious, flashing life he relinquished. Not a single day in all that time has it disappeared or diminished. We never speak of Troy, but sometimes he comes to me as if looking for an enemy, wishing I had the ardour of the warrior that I never could be, expecting me to be able to kill him -not to kill him, but to be able to… And I oblige the best I can with the fury I have learned from him.
The age of gods is coming to its end. Nevertheless, therestilstill one who won’t leave without soothing his spite against me, the one who used to love me, and the one who won’t get satisfaction unless by death. Apollo. A god’s love cannot be rejected without suffering. Any day, Achilles’ ankle will find his mortal wound: it may be a dog’s bite, a cod’s thorn, or a splinter, yet I will recognize Apollo’s arrow in it (I pray and beg for Achilles not to suffer). Once I asked to one of those poets that sometimes come and tell stories about Troy, that blind man with grey hair told me Achilles’ died by Paris’ hand. I thought he was a fool, then; but perhaps, after all, he was right. Mine is the blame. Now I am ready, and when there comes that day of affliction and shadow, when Apollo will claim me the price of all these years, taking in my beloved his unforgiving vengeance, I will know what to do. I will curl t tht the son of Peleus’ feet, my whole body covering his ankle, his only weak point -so close that this broken ankle and I will become the same thing, the same fault in his heroism… There I will wait until the ruins of our history will definitely collapse upon us, erasing us and so, erasing the last traces of an age of the world. I beg to whoever will listen to me, so that he will not suffer.
High on Olympus, Apollo may be averting his eyes from me, because I don’t behave like a male is supposed to. So what? That’s what I am, a happy boy in love, in ecstasy beneath this man so strange, and who withstands heroically the feat of not being a hero anymore.
After having been stripped of my rights when I was born, raised among goats, asked to be a prince and despised as a coward, I am a man -a poor and old one, as men are always, in a certain way. I get up early in the morning to feed the one who needs me. If he is tired or ill, I put him to bed and stay by his side until he falls asleep. And in the sunny days, I seat him on a chair outside, in our yard. He spends his time staring at me until the sun sets, his look fixed on a memory that always leaves him restless and distressed. The old poet I asked was right; Achilles will be dead because of me. And so, when I am working in our yard, my knees on the ground, and he comes and stares at me with a faraway look in his eyes, I surrender, remember that I am but a defeated Trojan, and let my flesh be a Troy for his rage to be sated. I do not know what that immortality he used to speak to me about, especially while sleeping, is. But sometimes, when he takes me in our bed, I could swear he briefly brushes it, not just because of the fleeting shine lighting up his countenance, but, above all, because of the sadness he falls into afterwards.
Or maybe should I say that he always fell in, until yesterday evening. The sun was going down, and he had been watching me for awhile as I was kneeling on the ground, working. A very long time he stared at me with his now clouded eyes. What could he be thinking about, I wondered? For a moment I feared: I know I’m not the same beautiful man Achilles saw under Skaian Gates some other evening, many years ago, under a sun that still was named Apollo. I keep my dark curls and large, hazel eyes, but I am skinny and the smoothness my skin had in the past is definitely lost today. I wondered whether he would regret his choice and curse me for being the reason for him not being a hero anymore. None of that happened: he gently came to me -not harshly and in anger- held my hand -not my hair in a rude grip-, lead me to our bed -not an arid land surrounded by destruction- and there he claimed me in the most sweet of manners, as I had dreamt so many times since I saw him for the first time. Now, words of love and kisses, now with care and tears of joy.
When we finished, he caressed my curls, went down to my eyelids, cheeks, tremulous -again tremulous- lips.
- Paris, do you remember where we met for the first time? I think I have forgotten -he told me, thoughtful, from the thick darkness of his deranged mind.
-So did I, dear -I lied, utterly happy. Now let Apollo come and carry off his pieces, both of us, whatever it may be, I do not care. We escaped from Troy, at last.

FINIS
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Far away from Troy