#thread 07

Six years. He had been dead for six years. Achilles hadn’t lived long after him, long enough for his funeral, enough to kill Hector and countless others, but he was long gone from this world that Patroclus still called home. A home he couldn’t touch, one that he would never communicate within, one that would never perceive him, but home nonetheless. There was nowhere else.

As time passed, he felt himself growing less and less human, as though he were little more than a thought, a whisp of existence. Did he really exist? All he had was to watch, to think, to remember. He did all of these things. He thought of everything, parsing through his memories like they were precious candy drops, he’d let himself have a few, as a treat. He’d think of Achilles on those summer nights, sprawled out in the cave, of Achilles’ smile and how the sun caught the green of his eyes. He would even think of his rage, of his pride, and miss that too. What he wouldn’t give to hear his voice, to hear his name on his lips, no, he’d take any name. He’d take just a glimpse of him and feast on that for years.

He felt so unhuman, so unlike a being that actually existed, that when Thetis came he had forgotten to hope. He only thought of Achilles, of the stories etched into his tomb (it was not yet theirs), and of how wrong he was remembered. He seized on his chance to right the tale, to share how Achilles’ hair bounced as he ran, how Achilles smelled in the morning, how he would light up by the water on Pelion or how he would press his nose into his cheek through fits of giggles. There was so much about Achilles, so much that was far more important than the ruin he had sewn in his grief.

It had been ages since Kotori spent an entire day at school. She had disappeared for a good week to catch up on druid work she was behind in. Although it wasn't as if many people would have noticed her absence. With her parents in the state they were in, she could do whatever she wanted. She had been spending all this time in Boido Mori working on building a familiar army to ensure the key's protection. She was nowhere near where she should be in terms of protecting the key by building this army, but she was only a single person and a high school girl for that matter. To any other person she seemed like an ordinary girl, despite having dedicated most of her life to protecting the key in exchange for her parents revival. Kotori lacked sleep and overworked herself constantly to keep that part of her life a secret.

Although Kotori's way of living most certainly was not the best, she enjoyed going to school despite her being overworked. Although she only had one friend who she had met once again by chance being with other people around her age was nice instead of being alone. At school many students asked Kotori where she had been the past week, resulting in Kotori coming up with some excuse they all seemed to believe. After school Kotori hurried home so she could get some rest. Once she got there looking at her reflection one of her flower hair-clips had fallen out. Before stepping foot in her house walked back the same way she had come from school.

Most people would think it was silly to retrace their steps for something like a hair clip, but Kotori had kept these two flower clips since she was a child. That made it important enough to go back looking for it. She knew she had it at school, undoubtedly someone would have pointed out she only had one clip in her hair since she always wore them. Which only meant it had fallen while she walked home. The druids green eyes were focused on the ground trying to find the pink flower clip, without thinking she walked right into someone causing her to lose her balance. "Wah-!" she yelped trying to stop herself from falling. She exhaled and looked up at the stranger. The brunette scratched her cheek and gave a sheepish smile. "Ah sorry. I was too busy looking for something to watch where I was going. Are you alright?"

Hiyori decided today she would bake her roommates some sort of sweet. When it came to baking or cooking Hiyori excelled in such things. She had been looking for ingredients in the kitchen only to find they didn't have anything for baking. No flour, no sugar, no eggs, no nothing. Hiyori left the apartment to buy groceries.

She made the purchase and tried to carry them down the street. Although the bags were heavier than she had expected and she could barely hold them above the ground. "H-How heavy are these things anyways..?" she dropped the back on the ground to give her arms a rest and sat beside them. Flour, eggs, baking power, sugar, salt, milk... she listed off everything she bought in her head. It wasn't even that heavy she simply wasn't strong enough to lift the bag without trouble.