Achilles is a mishmash of divinity and mortality; just erring enough to be extraordinary without being immortal; Helen likes the halo he carries, the posture: cocksure youth, the blade an extension of his body(here is a hunter, hunter, hunter).
Helen watches her divine cousin on the other side of the war, smiling with teeth from atop the walls of Troy. She remembers running with him under the Spartan sun, one long summer while men competed for her hand. He had been the only one who could keep up with Zeus’ blood in her veins.
Achilles had already hated Agamemnon, whispering conspiratorially with Helen behind columns: He’s not like us, his blood is just blood. Helen had, for the most part, tolerated her brother-in-law with the same flippancy she aimed at most men. They didn’t matter in the long run, she was a daughter of Zeus.
Helen knows men fear Achilles on the plains of Troy, they whisper his name reverently as if he was an envoy of Hades himself, Achilles can kill men on a battlefield but Helen? Helen can unite them; for or against, to kidnap or take her home. She commands wars with a smile and a tilt of her head.
And even Achilles — Achilles will fight, but he is but a general of Helen’s army, Patroclus by his side.
- retelling troy || Eliot C. for @lhzthepoet
