As she inspected him, he did the same. He had been a younger boy when Patroclus and the other suitors lined up for her hand in ancient times. His mother had hid him away to keep him from the war that would be his destiny. It had been a long time.
He adjusted the collar of his jacket at her comment, still that prideful air in his eyes.
"A debilitating ankle and years of war forced me to take a new route," and Achilles was no man to forgo seeking admiration and glory. While he had come out of the Underworld unscathed, his ankle would forever be branded with the mark by Paris' arrow.
Over the course of thousands of years, it put no less strain on that weak spot, and limited the tendon's ability. Even so, Vietnam had been his final war, the last one that took a toll on his mind, body, and soul as the first.
"About ten years ago, I decided it time to show thee incompetant mortals the war is not just mere entertainment, if I could not continue the life I know so well." It was a way to connect. A way to release all that intensity that still gripped him as hard as ever. "And you, Helen, still the beauty," he said with the smallest of smiles.