Ariana Moore (startmeup) wrote in nevermore_past, @ 2012-07-25 02:13:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | achilles, thetis |
Who: Thetis & Achilles
What: A mother pleading with her son
When: Ancient times, before Odysseus comes to take Achilles off to Troy
Where: Scyros, where Thetis was trying to hide Achilles
In spite of everything that she had done, all the lengths she had gone to, her son had still been found. A ship with Odysseus was coming to take her son to Troy, to his death. She couldn't let that happen. She wouldn't. If Achilles went to war, he would never come home. And her heart could not take that loss. No parent should have to bury their child.
She found him on the beach, as she'd expected. After everything she'd said, he still wanted to go. But she was going to make one last effort to convince him to stay. She had to try. She had to.
"Achilles," she said softly, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Are you certain I cannot convince you to stay here, with me?"
chink_in_armor
2011-06-12 09:28 pm (local) (link)
Thetis had brought him to Lycomedes court when he was just nine years old. He'd grown into his adolescence on this island with the daughters, exploring his eventual step into manhood. Still Achilles craved that battle cry, that sound of thunder under his feet, swift and fleeting. There was a promise in the kiss of death, that he would return to this world with glory while most men would be left and forgotten.
His father, a man he knew nearly nothing about other than he'd been a man of war himself. Not nearly as famous as what Achilles was promised. While his father would waste away on the shores of his own kingdom, Achilles would be something far greater.
Therefore, his mother's pleas fell on deaf ears. He was fifteen now, strong, and though he'd been passed off as a girl all this time he'd trained, building his stamina for this day. He may have never known Odysseus would come riding over the horizon, but the day he did, the bells went off in Achilles mind luring him in like a siren.
He touched his mother's hand gingerly. "And what would be here for me, mother?"
(Reply to this)(Thread)
argyropeza
2011-06-12 09:35 pm (local) (link)
She squeezed his hand. "A wife. Children. Grandchildren. Me," she answered, trying valiantly to keep her voice from breaking. "Is it not enough I want to see you grow into a man with a family? If you go to Troy, all that waits for you is death. And the glory you chase like a man possessed."
She tilted her head all the way back, trying to keep the tears from spilling down her face. "A mother never wants to send her child to his death," she continued, voice only quivering the tiniest bit. "My heart breaks at the thought of you going, of never seeing you again."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
chink_in_armor
2011-06-12 09:48 pm (local) (link)
Achilles stood now, even at his age not quite the young boy she'd dropped off years ago. "I can't live under your shadow mother, not anymore." His thumb rubbed against her cheek softly, a soft gesture against the tears she did not want to let fall. He did not like seeing her in such distress, his mother had done everything for him. Put him above anything else in her own life, and for that he was grateful, but it was time for him to live his own life.
"To live with the promise of more and only waste away to a family, children and no one to remember me," he shook his head looking out toward the open ocean ahead, "I can't ignore it," he whispered. It called him from a distance, as if he could already smell the sweat and blood and heat of battle.
He knew not what he was stepping into. The burden he would carry, those that would fall from his choices. The grief he would endure.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
argyropeza
2011-06-12 10:26 pm (local) (link)
"I never asked that of you," she replied. "I only ever did the things I did to keep you safe. To keep from watching my son sail away to his death." She leaned into his touch and closed her eyes, and a few tears did slip out, finally.
"How can you call that wasting away?" she asked, pleading now, and she knew it. "A good woman, children who will honor your name, and their children after them, and perhaps even the generation after. Is that really so little?"
She sank into a heap on the shore, letting the water wash over her, not caring it was making her clothes wet. The ocean was the only place she'd ever felt truly at peace, and she needed its comfort and peace now more than ever.
"Then you won't come back," she said in a hollow, dead voice. "You'll die on the battlefield, and I will have nothing to remember you but your name, and my own memories. For you cannot have your glory without your own doom, my son. Moros ever seems to dog your steps."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
chink_in_armor
2011-06-12 10:50 pm (local) (link)
Achilles shook his head pulling his mother into his arms for an embrace. An embrace that later years of war would bring him to his knees and her arms around him in comfort.
He did not want her to cry for him. This was his destiny as he chose it, and he could not let her coddle him any longer. "I know, mother," he said in a whisper, his voice as gentle, as she'd taught him to be, "I do not curse or blame you for your efforts. Never could I be so brash toward you." As he'd learned to be while living under the persona of a girl for near seven years.
"It is my choice now. Would you ask me to live the rest of my days and wonder why I did not chose to go? I will make you proud. I will stand proud on that horizon and you be known to have birthed the greatest of all. I will not disappoint you."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
argyropeza
2011-06-12 11:05 pm (local) (link)
Thetis clung to him tightly, knowing it would most likely be one of the last times she would do so. She may have had the gift of prophecy, but even she couldn't know every possible outcome. So she clung to her son like a lifeline, memorizing everything about him, so that after he was gone, she could easily recall him in her mind, the way she wanted to remember him.
"I know," she whispered. "I know you don't, and still I feel that I've failed you somehow. That I should have done more. Although what that might have been, I do not know." She wiped a few more tears away.
At his words, she felt her heart sink even further. Because of course she couldn't ask that of him. He was stubborn and strong-willed, just like she was, and if he was determined to go, he'd find a way, come Hades or high water. "I know you will," she said, smoothing some hair away from his face, touching her forehead to his. "And you could never disappoint me. Never. You are my son, and in my eyes, already the greatest of all."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
chink_in_armor
2011-06-13 12:14 am (local) (link)
She held on as if him leaving would take the very breath from her body. So, Achilles stood, letting her hold on to him. It was the least he could give her by breaking her heart to do what it is he felt he needed to for his own selfishness.
"You have not failed me." He brushed the side of her cheek lovingly. When she'd first left him on the island she'd been strong and persistent while he fought her. He'd been angry then that she wanted him to hide himself in such a way. To a young boy who had gone from being trained by Chiron since he could walk to kept away under the guise of a young girl, it was a feat. Achilles had already lashed out in his training with Chiron. It was where he met Patroclus, and now he and his cousin would be reunited again this time brother's in arms.
"This is what I'm destined for. Let me have that," he asked her in a near plea to understand his desire for this. He kissed her on the cheek.
"You are always dear to me, mother."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
argyropeza
2011-06-13 10:30 pm (local) (link)
She didn't know how, but she managed to dredge up a small smile through her tears. "Well at least there's that," she answered in a quavering voice. She had only ever hidden him because to lose him would have been unbearable. The thought of never seeing her son again made her feel cold all over, and she'd done anything and everything she could to keep him safe. But it seemed he was still going to slip through her fingers, despite all of her best efforts.
She had known when he was born that he was destined for great things, and she had watched him grow up, strong and determined, fierce in what he wanted and how he wanted to live his life. She let out a shaky exhale, forcing herself to speak evenly. "Are you..." she trailed off, pulling on all of her inner strength. "Are you certain this is what you want?"
"And you, my precious son, you are the most important thing in my world."
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
chink_in_armor
2011-06-15 04:37 pm (local) (link)
His hand grazed her cheek again, a reassuring gesture that he'd never been more sure in his life. Achilles needed to prove himself to no one. While Agamemnon and Menalous would rage war over the loss of a woman, Achilles would fight for no man but himself. This was his war, his time.
"I am certain." Not even her warm tears could sway him otherwise, even as she had held him so close to her bossom, clinging tight so to not let him go.
Achilles took a step back her grasp still clinging to him. "You will always have me as your son, mother. Even through death." In a time where mortal men were nothing more than pawns to their gods, even a demi-god such as Achilles he would make his own future.
(Reply to this)(Parent) (Thread)
argyropeza
2011-06-19 02:30 am (local) (link)
She let out a great, shuddering sigh, and drew herself up. "Then you must go," she said quietly. "For who am I to fight Fate? However hard I might try." She took his face in both hands. "Be careful, dear heart," she said, kissing his forehead.
She managed a small scoff. "As if even death itself could stop me loving you," she said in a blessedly more even voice. "Then go, with my blessing. And know that I will be looking out for you."