Center of Love:

Disclaimer: I do not own Troy.

Summary: A study of Paris of Troy. 1, Briseis. You stare up at your cousin, your brother, the man who killed your love, and you think, right before he calls your name, that you could learn to hate him. BriseisAchilles.

City of Love

(and wine and dirty buildings and crushed pearls)

A Study of Paris of Troy

Briseis

You see your cousin aim a moment after the love of your life saves you, and a moment before he fires. The arrow thuds into the ankle of the man beside you, and he screams, anger and pain mingling in his voice. “No!” you scream, the words ripping from your throat. “Paris!” you call, hoping beyond hope that he will not fire again, though this man killed Hector and desecrated his body; that he will miss, though archery is the only warrior art he has ever mastered and Troy trains the best archers in the world.

An arrow flies past your ear with unerring aim and stands quivering in his chest. A cry tears from your throat, barely forming the words, “Paris, no!” Another arrow, and you turn toward him, not wanting to watch him die – another arrow, and he rips it out – but unwilling to let him die alone. He raises his sword, falters as another arrow joins the first, entering almost by the same hole in his armor. He stumbles, and Paris fires again, in a swift motion, one you had often admired and now hated.

He falls to his knees; an utterly defeated stance in an indomitably free man, and for a moment, before he calls your name, you wonder if you could hate your cousin. But he does call your name, he reaches out to you, and you know that it is for you that he has killed your love; it is for you and his noble and misguided sense of duty, evident now only that it is needed.

He clings to you, and whispers in your ear things you had always longed to hear, but was never able to, since you chose the virgin robes. Those robes, you think, still lie in a heap in his tent. He tells you not to worry, that it will all be okay. You know it’s not true.

Paris calls your name again, and Achilles pushes you away from him. You reach out, and you grab your cousin’s hand and throw one last, long look at your love; you wish you could hate the man who killed him, but you know you never can.

And you look at your cousin, strong and brave and pushing you ahead of him up the long flight of stairs that leads to salvation and a life of loneliness, and you wonder what choice you would have made had not the only two men left in your life made the decision for you; in agreement just this once.

But Paris is your cousin, and he loves you, and you love him. He has always loved you, always cared for you – when you were a child, and you tripped and fell in the fields, it was Hector who saved you, but it was Paris who picked you up and coddled you as Hector fixed the hurt. But Hector is gone, and now Paris is left; only Paris, but he is enough, you think, just enough.