Your characters are so alive that i think i can feel them breathing. thanks.

Excellent descriptions, love the story.

xox

So happy, yet so sad.

Totally fulfilled my expectations. I love your writing and I love this story! Please write more Alexander!

xox

SUCCESS. Only a greater writer could make me feel the emotions of the characters like that! I can't believe the story is nearly over :(. It was too good.

Aww the courtship ritual Hephiastion has taken upon himself is so cute it literally makes me laugh. The last bit with javelin is so school-girl crush hehe. Very, very cute and happy that these two are slowly, but surely getting together!

Better not hope for too much :)

Keep up the great work!

Definately some complex relations going on there.
Loved the boys all being boys. Really, really entertaining stuff!
Hope that muse is still at work!

Wow, this story is a gem in the making! I love how well defined each boy is and how the reactions to each member arent typical. I still hope Hephiastion and Alexander get together though! Call me a tragic romantic hahaha.
Really well-written, just descriptive enough.

What a sweet story! The way you described the beginning feelings of Hephaestion and Alexander was very realistic. It was nice to read a story where they are 'just like normal people'.
Greetings, Susan.

What a beautiful ending to a beautiful and exciting story. They are both very young and shy, not yet sure of their feelings, but one can understand the true bond of love and friendship. It's a very realistic first time tale, an endearing opening when Hephaestion says: It's even colder tonight.

You also bring us some beautiful imagery when Alexander helps his friend with his injured wrist, it brings alive the well known old urn painting with Achilles and Patroklos binding their wounds.

I have enjoyed this hunting excursion a lot, and I want to thank you for sharing. All the best wishes,

// NorthernLight

What a wonderful story I loved how you were able to capture all of the emotions that the guys would have had to deal with at that age. You really do have a knack for writing them when they were younger and I always enjoy reading about them :)

Loved how you ended this story! However, it feels kinda like a cliffhanger. Is there going to be a series to this one?

Well it's really late to review but I read all through ... great story, sweet and tender and also with a nice realistic edge to the situation and behaviour of young soldiers at the time.
I very much enjoy your long fictions (several chapters) so I hope to read a new one from you very soon!

That was a great story! Finally some AlexHeph action! Hehe, and Alexander got Hephaestion's first kiss! I liked the ending, it was very sweet. I hope to read more from you in the future!

This is my favorite chapter so far – therefore, you will get the least intelligent/probing commentary on it (from me) so far; I'll just point and say: glee! delight! Craterus' tirade – excellent! He's more right about the future than he wants to be, too – the boys will grow up to command the toughest army the world's yet seen, but they could indeed have been speaking Persian in a generation! Also loved the line "Just for that, you're on foraging duty, son of Antipater!" Alexander's knowing "Nothing to worry about" and Hephaestion's sudden desire to strangle him – ha! At the end, Cassander's open admiration, contrasted with his sardonic attitude toward Alexander – topped off with Hector's giggling "And then you fainted!" – perfect!

And am I on the right track to say that Hephaestion's focus on Alexander right after waking up was an overriding anxiety that Alexander had been hurt? (Again maybe just my wishful thinking – but I really believe he was not at all thinking of strategy or impressing anyone, at that one moment!) Alexander, on the other hand – I'm guessing he's ambivalent, perhaps even a bit resentful, toward Hephaestion now because _he_ wanted – and expected – to be the one to kill boars, impress people, and achieve such Macedonian milestones, first!

But back to Craterus and this surprising gentleness! Well, I wouldn't call it gentleness, but it's not exactly leniency either (a mixture of both perhaps?) – as he assesses Hephaestion's injury and when Hephaestion declares he wants no help getting back to camp – all that was wonderful. Then, when Hephaestion's _really_ injured after killing the boar, his care of Hephaestion – plus Hephaestion's sudden respect for Craterus when he admits his terror of his father being the driving force behind his own first kill, and then his terror during the hunt itself – OH! And I must mention, thanks for giving us both the tough-talking, rough-edged side and the gentler side all at once, and not separating the two sides as is usually done after such an incident in a story (have seen this done far too much for Lord of the Rings fic, for example...)

Hephaestion's thoughts here seem so realistic. Desire is so paramount, especially when he finally has a chance to be alone with Alexander, yet warring with hormones is the need to prove oneself as tough as the other guy! (Just as strong an impulse for boys like them, I would think!) In fact instinctively he follows the competitive streak rather than his desire for Alexander ... and after a long night of restless wakefulness, when he finally gets next to Alexander he's too tired to think about touching for long! Seems very realistic to me – no pangs of romantic angst keeping _this_ Hephaestion up all night!

Hephaestion fumbling the reason for his kiss, and yelling like crazy after jumping into the stream – well there's the Hephaestion that's endearing! You know I enjoy Gestapo-Hephaestion, and I also appreciate that growing up as he did in this story, it's smart and almost necessary for him to be figuring angles and characters and the politics of human relationships by this age, but surprisingly I find myself thinking here that he _should_ meet a challenge he can't solve (Alexander!), to feel the confusion and bewilderment that follows, then realize that not everyone is as predictable and manipulable as he may think. For some reason I think that discovery would give him great joy and excitement (after he'd come to terms with the frustration of not being able to solve the problem!) Just as Alexander might enjoy himself more if he didn't hold himself and the others to such high standards, all the time. The moment they started laughing together in the freezing water was great.

Crateros continues to be one of those rare, simultaneously frustrating yet highly enjoyable presences in a story!