Chapter Text
The boy found Perimedes watching the coast as the waves rose and fell like the steady breaths of a slumbering deity.
Well, calling him a boy was hardly fair—after all, Perimedes himself must have scarcely been two or three years older—but was that not what made all the difference? The boy was youthful, with round, curious eyes not at all worn by the past years of war. That kind of quality was rare these days, especially as the battles dragged on longer and longer each time. After nine years of fighting, it was only becoming harder to keep hope.
Perimedes could only watch with his weary gaze, unfocused after the rhythm of the tide had lulled a part of him into a slow, sleepy state. Like this, it was all too easy to believe that the water was clear like this all the time, and that it had not been flooded with the rust-red hues of bodies slain only a few days ago. The sharp iron tang that had previously filled the air was completely masked by the teasing burn of the salt that drifted along in the breeze, as if it had never existed at all.
“Your name is Perimedes, right?” called the boy from afar, voice high with the strain of carrying through the wind’s roar. He waved, continuing his steady approach past the dark rocks that supported the hillside. “I’m Elpenor.”
Perimedes only stared for a moment. Then, he blinked and shook off the sand that the wind had carried into his hair. “Why should that matter to me?” he asked, tone not quite indicating a question, but not fully anything else, either.
“We’ve been fighting forever,” Elpenor replied easily, not even a hint of disappointment in his words as he stepped up to stand next to Perimedes and look out at the waves. “Everything matters. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take any moment of peace I can find—anything I can get, I’ll take.”
They—the Greeks—had already taken all they could get. They had taken hundreds of soldiers from their homes, heaps of weapons from the most hidden of storerooms, and piles of food from every house. They had taken countless lives in their quest for victory without any end in sight.
It was not enough.
Perimedes remained silent, eyes shifting back to the water. Elpenor seemed no more discouraged. For a second, all they did was watch the splashes of deep navy paint the maroon sky darker and darker, the sun making its rounds and finally going to rest under the horizon.
Taking the light.
Taking it all.
“I should go back and fight,” said Perimedes suddenly.
Elpenor tilted his head just a degree, light curls falling over his forehead in a perfectly innocent image. “Why?”
Was this kid stupid? Something hot and angry flared up for a moment in the pit of Perimedes’s stomach, but calmed into a sort of sickening sadness—yearning, perhaps, to go back to a time when he himself would have asked a question like that. He tried halfheartedly to ignore the way his mouth cramped, almost as if he was about to vomit right in front of this ... boy.
“I'm not injured,” he pointed out instead, keeping his mouth movements minimal in case he really did vomit. “There is nothing stopping me from going back out on the field.”
Elpenor stalled. He clutched his own bandaged arm, wrapped from elbow to palm. “Can't you keep me—or people like me, I mean—company? A disheartened soldier is never a good one.”
Perimedes scowled. Excuses were excuses, regardless of whether they were for him or not. “There's no time for that in a war. Besides, a ‘disheartened’ soldier is still a soldier. Horses are horses, swords are swords, and an extra arrow in the quiver could just be the final shot.”
“If you really believe that, why aren't you out there right now?” challenged Elpenor, eyes slightly narrowing.
He was getting too daring for someone who had just now met Perimedes. He had known his name already—so didn’t he know how Perimedes ever-so-infamously lashed out, how he once turned a conversation with his commander into a full-blown argument, how he could barely tolerate those questions or comments from even those closer to him?
“You wouldn't know,” Perimedes said simply, turning away. He didn’t have the heart to retort as he normally would; someone like Elpenor didn’t deserve his bouts of wrath.
His wrath was short-lived, anyway. Day after day, it always returned to a mild, muddled numbness like the ashen wick of a burnt-out candle. What was the point of anger, in the end?
He almost let himself forget Elpenor was there at all, just mindlessly losing himself in the pulse of the water yet again. He always found himself coming back to the ocean, time after time—finding meager comfort in the way it was the same everywhere, with its blue-green shifting hues and unending stretch of rippling water. It was almost like he was standing at the edge of the iris of a massive eye that was perpetually watching him.
Maybe a voice was talking to him, but at that moment, it didn't matter. Nothing did. Only the sea kept Perimedes anchored to the ground, unwavering like a strong reed in a bog. Though the flood would rise higher, he would hold on.
Eventually, Elpenor’s footsteps crunched softly through the dry grass and gravel lining the earth, receding. Perimedes couldn't help the disappointment that trickled through his chest like a single teardrop rolling over the cold surface of a lonely face. He didn't want to be alone—but no, people only brought pain—no, but he didn't want to be alone—
Or maybe he just wanted to stay in his comfort zone.