For @messageforyou

[refusetofight]

The palace at Skyros is only a loose sketch; Achilles dreaming memory can only paint it in sparing detail after so many years. The shapes and colors describe the place as much as Achilles’ emotions: The palace itself is washed out and bland, but the sunny rocks, the glittering sea, and the endless horizon just beyond are vibrant, tantalizing with the lure of fateful heroism.

It felt like a prison after the freedom of his bright, sunny youth on Phthia and his adventures on Mount Pelion. He was bored, impatient, but respected his mother’s wishes even as he resented them.

The dream palace is hollow and quiet. Lycomedes’ table is empty. His daughters’ looms are left abandoned. Achilles imagines the real Skyros must be in the same sorry state; he left Deidamia unwed and Lycomedes had no sons to defend his meager kingdom.

Achilles walks the halls and thumbs the shells encircling his wrist. He has no dream guide this time, but he came here on his own instincts: visit a memory both he and Pyrrhus share. Eventually, he finds an abandoned lyre and settles to play in a central courtyard where plucked notes echo hauntingly between colonnades—the only sound in the palace other than the sigh of the sea.

Comments

[refusetofight]

Enough time has passed that for all its whims, the dream feels real and solid. For a moment, Achilles thinks the stirring sounds might come from what remains of remembered Skyros. But the sounds are too sharp and certain, like forms cutting through a thick fog.

The happy cloud startles as Pyrrhus’ begins to evaporate beneath it. It leaps onto Achilles’ solid lap and hunkers down, tail wagging in agitated surprise. Achilles doesn’t notice; he’s still clinging to the last threads of his son’s dreaming shape.

“Pyrrhus,” Achilles says hurriedly. “If nothing else, remember that I love you. I’m proud of you, lad.”

[messageforyou]

Pyrrhus opens his eyes, already fading away from the dream, pulled closer and closer to the land of the living. And in the last moments, he smiles.

He presses a quick kiss to his father's hand. "I love you too, Dad. Come back soon."

And then he's gone. In his absence, there's a moment where the world of the living is near. The smell of smoke as the kitchen roars to life. The quiet shuffle of Aspasia walking into her master's room, laying out his clothes and fresh wax tablets. There's distant giggling, the sound of Molossus waking up. He sneaked a frog into his room and doesn't know that his father only pretends not to notice.

And then those wisps are gone too. Pyrrhus is awake, and far from dreams once more.

[refusetofight]

The sea breeze scatters the last smoky tendrils of Pyrrhus’ dream self and Achilles is left alone in the empty dream of Skyros with the familiar, numb longing of homesickness. What he wouldn’t give to visit his son’s home, meet the people who have become so important to him.

The happy cloud’s tongue lapping at his fingers pulls Achilles away from his thoughts. He sighs and gives the dog a grudging smile.

“And you.” The dog’s ears perk and its head cocks when it’s addressed. It ceases its smiling panting to look comically serious for a moment. “You stay here and keep him company while he sleeps, won’t you?”

The dog blinks, considering, then sneezes and resumes excited panting before scampering up into the sketch of Lycomedes’ palace. It assumes a place on the stone steps, watchful and waiting.

“Good pup,” Achilles says with a grateful nod before stepping into the inky, black void that precedes his own wakefulness.