Apt Pupil

by Melospiza

Disclaimer: Troy is not mine. The Iliad, upon which it was based, also not mine. Not by a long shot.

Author's Notes: This was requested by a friend. I suppose it only makes sense if you are familiar with the legends of Achilles' childhood, which are not detailed in the film, nor in Homer's work. It was meant to be a drabble and ended up as a drabble-plus at 159 words.

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The youth was very observant, almost desperately so. His impossibly blue eyes took in every movement of the king and his band of soldiers, not only the sparring and the spear-throwing, but the laughing, the drinking, the telling of winding tales and singing of boisterous songs; it was as if, after living for years under veils and perfume, he was studying how to be a man.

Some of the men found it eerie, but Odysseus never minded the eyes always upon him. They were pretty eyes, after all. And when the boy's lean, pale body began to brown from the sun and cord with muscle, the private councils he shared with Odysseus began to grow to encompass new lessons.

Sprawled in the close dark of his tent, his fingers wound in Achilles' tangled golden hair and utterly at the mercy of the boy's clever tongue, Odysseus thought that Achilles was beginning to prove himself an apt pupil indeed.