Beloved: seven more chapters to go
For solemnly_swear1 for being one of the most avid readers and faithful commenters a girl could have.
Title: Beloved ~ Chapter Forty-nine
Author: Sel selene_vidae
Pairing: Apollo/Paris, Hector/Paris
Summary: What if all that we believed to have been true - was not?
Rating: PG13-NC17.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to history, to myth, to legend. I make absolutely no money from this and live off on my reviewers' love.. *flutters eyelashes prettily* Some dialogue taken directly from film but twisted to suit my needs. Some descriptions taken from the first draft of the movie's screenplay.
Feedback: Help a fellow author out and pretty please comment on this fic...
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty, Chapter Twenty-one, Chapter Twenty-two, Chapter Twenty-three, Chapter Twenty-four, Chapter Twenty-five, Chapter Twenty-six, Chapter Twenty-seven, Chapter Twenty-eight, Chapter Twenty-nine, Chapter Thirty, Chapter Thirty-one, Chapter Thirty-two, Chapter Thirty-three, Chapter Thirty-four, Chapter Thirty-five, Chapter Thirty-six, Chapter Thirty-seven, Chapter Thirty-eight, Chapter Thirty-nine, Chapter Forty, Chapter Forty-one, Chapter Forty-two, Chapter Forty-three, Chapter Forty-four, Chapter Forty-five, Chapter Forty-six, Chapter Forty-seven, Chapter Forty-eight
Manip courtesy of my lovey, punk_pony
Dedicated to all those who have been waiting.
Chapter Forty-nine
“Do not touch me.”
“Please, Paris.”
“I mean it.”
Apollo sighed and ran a hand through his golden curls in frustration, blue eyes on Paris, who now sat with his back against a temple pillar with a cloak wrapped around him.
“Paris…”
“Your touch disgusts me. That is how much I loathe you.”
While he most assuredly deserved the vehement, hateful words, Apollo could admit that it was painful to hear them. Holding Paris in his arms after the young man’s heated outburst felt wonderful - it was having that missing part of him finally return to its rightful place.
It was regrettable that after a moment or two in his embrace, Paris had stiffened and recoiled so swiftly it was as if he had been touching a diseased creature.
And now they were at opposite sides of the temple, a hateful look coming from one direction and a sorrowful one from another.
He would have to try harder. “I know that you are angry, Paris.”
Paris snorted. “Angry, Apollo? Angry? Try furious. Heart broken. Mad with grief and longing for someone I have lost because of you. Angry does not even begin to describe how I feel at this moment.”
“You are not the only one who has loved and lost, Paris. I have, too.”
“By your own fault!” Paris hissed.
Apollo’s eyes widened, feeling wounded before becoming angry himself. “I did not lose the people I cared for on purpose.”
“Are you certain? Because it would seem so.”
“Why are you so hateful, Paris? I come when you call me and this is what I receive in turn? I am here.”
“Where were you when Hector died, Apollo? Where were you? Where were you when Achilles tied my brother’s body to the back of his chariot and dragged him along like cattle? Where were you then?” Paris countered, eyes shining once again.
He frowned. “Do you blame me for your brother’s death?”
“Wholeheartedly.”
“I did not drive that sword through his heart,” Apollo said, a pang of remorse filling him when he saw Paris flinch.
“But you did not stop it either.”
Apollo sighed. “I could not.”
“Why not? Why not? Hector was your Champion!” Paris’ voice rose again and he stood, cloak falling forgotten to the floor. “He fought for Troy, your Troy! Your city! He bled for you and killed for you and this is how you repay him? By sending him to Hades without a care?”
Striding over to Paris and grabbing his hands, refusing to unhand him on even when Paris tried to pull away, “Listen to yourself! You blame me for things that I have no control over! I cannot command the Fates. They alone decide when a mortal’s life is over.”
“You could have saved him!”
“I could not have saved him!” Apollo roared, emotions wreaking havoc on him. “Do not blame me for things that I am not responsible for! I was not the cause of this war.”
Paris stilled and a look of disgust flitted over his fine features. “Why do you stop yourself? Say it. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I am the cause of this. That I am the cause for so many innocent deaths. That I am the cause of Hector’s death! That you are right and I do bring the ruin of Troy! Is that not what you want to say?”
Apollo pulled Paris close, holding him tight as the shepherd boy turned Prince of Troy struggled in his arms. “No, no. That is not what I wanted to say.”
“You were right. You are right. Are you not happy? If I had only listened to you… This is all my fault.”
“Paris, please.”
Paris met his eyes. “The Fates say that I will destroy your city! How can that not be my fault? I am fated to destroy Troy. I am fated to be remembered as the Prince who sentenced all his people to death for one woman. How can that not be my fault?”
He shook his head. “Paris, calm yourself. There is so much you have yet to understand.”
“There is nothing left to understand. I have learned that we do not choose our destinies - our destinies choose us! I was never fated to lead a happy life. I do not want to accept it but I do. I accept it now.” Paris hung his head. “I only had to see my brother die before my eyes to do so.”
“Listen to me, Paris. And do not interrupt me.”
Paris looked away in frustration but said no more.
“You were fated to destroy Troy.” Paris stiffened in his arms, bowing his head again as new tears made their way down his cheeks. “The Fates passed on this knowledge to me, thinking that I might wish to save my city. I sent a vision to Cassandra and despite the curse I placed on her that she would never be believed, they took heed of her words. They cast you away, sending you to die on the hills of Mount Ida when you were a babe.”
“My own parents did not want me,” Paris whispered.
“They wanted you, Paris. Oh, how they wanted you! But they had no other choice but to…send you away.”
“Send me to die, you mean.”
“You were supposed to die but a shepherd came across you. He took you in and called you Alexandros and you became his son.”
“Another wrong I have committed. I leave the family that raised me and loved me and called me their own for a family that sent me to my death. What gratitude and loyalty is that?”
“You did what anyone who discovered the truth of his lineage would have done.”
“That does not matter now. Tell me, did you know that I had survived? That I did not die on the hills of Mount Ida?” Paris asked.
Nodding, “I did. I saw no harm in seeing a defenseless child killed. You had been cast away from Troy and your fate was altered.” He sighed. “Or so we thought.”
Paris’ voice was barely a whisper when he asked, “If you could change it all, would you?”
Would he? Would he change the outcome of this all and take away something that could never be understood by the Fate or measured by the rest of Time?
“No.”
There was a flicker of something in Paris’ eyes and Apollo’s heart began to beat faster, recognizing it.
“I need to know. That night in the temple ---”
“I knew who you were the moment you touched my statue,” Apollo said.
Bitterly, “Of course. The destroyer of Troy.”
Taking Paris’ face in his hands, Paris no longer shying away, “No, no. My beloved. The one I was fated for.”
“If I was fated for you, then why did you have me cast away from Troy? Why decide that I needed to killed, even if you decided otherwise afterwards?”
“I did not know then, Paris. The secrets of the Fates are well-kept. All I knew was that I would find you.” He caressed the smooth cheek gently, thumb drawing circles in the soft skin. “And I did.”
A hardness came over Paris’ features. “You lost me, as well.”
The young Prince made as if to move away, but the Sun pulled him close, pulled him closer, whispering fiercely, “Even gods make mistakes and my biggest one was not telling you the truth at the start.”
“Because then Troy might have been safe? You would have guilted me into staying by your side and away from Troy?”
“Never, beloved. Never. This was all written in the stars, although Asteria was always better at those types of oracles.” Apollo cracked a tired grin at that.
When Paris did not respond, he took a deep breath and continued, “I should have told you - should have but did not - because I loved you ---- ”
“Apollo…”
“--- because I loved you and nothing else.”
Paris kept silent, the heartfelt admission him, touched him, had that little spark of hope inside him flaring with such bright intensity. Heart thudding in his chest - Apollo could feel it - Paris asked quietly, “Do you love me still?”
“Always. Do you not remember my promise to you?”
They said the words together, brought back to an afternoon with the sun shining high in the cloudless sky even in the shadows created by the night’s darkness. “For my beloved, who alone holds my heart as nothing and no one else ever will.”
Some promises, some oaths were meant to be kept - no matter how seemingly impossible it all was.
“Paris?”
“Yes?” he murmured, arms having wound themselves around the god’s waist and tightening at the questioning tone.
“Do you trust me?”
Every line of him stiffened, drawing away with suspicion creeping onto him and fear pounding at his heart once again. Questions such as those were not asked lightly. “Why?”
“Do you trust me?”
There was only one answer to that and Apollo knew it.
“Yes.”
There was a pause before Apollo took his face in his hands. “There is more I must tell you.”
“Does it concern my fate?”
“It concerns the fate of Troy.”
The quickening beat of his heart rivaled the sound of war drums and Paris wanted nothing more than to turn away but Troy was his city, by birth, by Fate, by choice. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“Your father will meet Achilles.”
Priam kneeled at the feet of the man who killed his son, kissing the hands stained with the blood of his firstborn.
“I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.”
“Priam? How did you get in here, old king? The sentries --- ”
“I know my country better than the Greeks, I think.”
“Hector will be returned to Troy.”
Achilles sank to his knees before Hector’s body, pulling away the cloth that covered the bloodied face. He stared at it for a moment before sobs overtook him.
Moments later, “We will meet again soon, my brother.”
After covering Hector’s sightless face once again, he stood and lifted it with a tenderness that had been absent before.
“Troy’s Champion will be honored, the city given respite and all will be well.”
“There is more to tell me, is there not?”
“I know the Fate of Troy, as do you.” Paris’ hand trembled when Apollo cradled it between his. “Troy will fall. Twelve days and nights from now, the Greeks will overrun the city and slaughter all the men they see, throw the babies off the walls and make the women into slaves.”
Paris’ blood ran cold, eyes widening in horror as he almost saw the terrifying images that Apollo told him now. “No.”
“Yes. And you will do nothing to stop it.”
“No!” he cried out, recoiling. “You cannot expect me to stand by and watch them slaughter my people! To do nothing as they kill innocents --- ”
“There is nothing you can do, beloved.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“Nothing to do but save all you can.”
“To save all I can? Who am I to choose who will leave and who will die? Those are not my choices to make!”
“Paris…”
“I cannot! You cannot ask me to save some and condemn all else to death! I will not! I will not!” Paris’ voice rose, almost shrill and entirely betrayed.
“Paris, listen to me.” The Sun god took his arms and held fast. “This must come to pass. Do you not think that this pains me just as well? This is my city - my golden city!”
“Then why let it fall?”
“Because that is the only way this will end.”
“Apollo…” He trailed off and looked into those azure eyes he dreamt of, seeing the depths of the Aegean within them.
“Trust me.”
And Paris did.
Title: Beloved ~ Chapter Forty-nine
Author: Sel selene_vidae
Pairing: Apollo/Paris, Hector/Paris
Summary: What if all that we believed to have been true - was not?
Rating: PG13-NC17.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to history, to myth, to legend. I make absolutely no money from this and live off on my reviewers' love.. *flutters eyelashes prettily* Some dialogue taken directly from film but twisted to suit my needs. Some descriptions taken from the first draft of the movie's screenplay.
Feedback: Help a fellow author out and pretty please comment on this fic...
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty, Chapter Twenty-one, Chapter Twenty-two, Chapter Twenty-three, Chapter Twenty-four, Chapter Twenty-five, Chapter Twenty-six, Chapter Twenty-seven, Chapter Twenty-eight, Chapter Twenty-nine, Chapter Thirty, Chapter Thirty-one, Chapter Thirty-two, Chapter Thirty-three, Chapter Thirty-four, Chapter Thirty-five, Chapter Thirty-six, Chapter Thirty-seven, Chapter Thirty-eight, Chapter Thirty-nine, Chapter Forty, Chapter Forty-one, Chapter Forty-two, Chapter Forty-three, Chapter Forty-four, Chapter Forty-five, Chapter Forty-six, Chapter Forty-seven, Chapter Forty-eight
Manip courtesy of my lovey, punk_pony
Dedicated to all those who have been waiting.
Chapter Forty-nine
“Do not touch me.”
“Please, Paris.”
“I mean it.”
Apollo sighed and ran a hand through his golden curls in frustration, blue eyes on Paris, who now sat with his back against a temple pillar with a cloak wrapped around him.
“Paris…”
“Your touch disgusts me. That is how much I loathe you.”
While he most assuredly deserved the vehement, hateful words, Apollo could admit that it was painful to hear them. Holding Paris in his arms after the young man’s heated outburst felt wonderful - it was having that missing part of him finally return to its rightful place.
It was regrettable that after a moment or two in his embrace, Paris had stiffened and recoiled so swiftly it was as if he had been touching a diseased creature.
And now they were at opposite sides of the temple, a hateful look coming from one direction and a sorrowful one from another.
He would have to try harder. “I know that you are angry, Paris.”
Paris snorted. “Angry, Apollo? Angry? Try furious. Heart broken. Mad with grief and longing for someone I have lost because of you. Angry does not even begin to describe how I feel at this moment.”
“You are not the only one who has loved and lost, Paris. I have, too.”
“By your own fault!” Paris hissed.
Apollo’s eyes widened, feeling wounded before becoming angry himself. “I did not lose the people I cared for on purpose.”
“Are you certain? Because it would seem so.”
“Why are you so hateful, Paris? I come when you call me and this is what I receive in turn? I am here.”
“Where were you when Hector died, Apollo? Where were you? Where were you when Achilles tied my brother’s body to the back of his chariot and dragged him along like cattle? Where were you then?” Paris countered, eyes shining once again.
He frowned. “Do you blame me for your brother’s death?”
“Wholeheartedly.”
“I did not drive that sword through his heart,” Apollo said, a pang of remorse filling him when he saw Paris flinch.
“But you did not stop it either.”
Apollo sighed. “I could not.”
“Why not? Why not? Hector was your Champion!” Paris’ voice rose again and he stood, cloak falling forgotten to the floor. “He fought for Troy, your Troy! Your city! He bled for you and killed for you and this is how you repay him? By sending him to Hades without a care?”
Striding over to Paris and grabbing his hands, refusing to unhand him on even when Paris tried to pull away, “Listen to yourself! You blame me for things that I have no control over! I cannot command the Fates. They alone decide when a mortal’s life is over.”
“You could have saved him!”
“I could not have saved him!” Apollo roared, emotions wreaking havoc on him. “Do not blame me for things that I am not responsible for! I was not the cause of this war.”
Paris stilled and a look of disgust flitted over his fine features. “Why do you stop yourself? Say it. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I am the cause of this. That I am the cause for so many innocent deaths. That I am the cause of Hector’s death! That you are right and I do bring the ruin of Troy! Is that not what you want to say?”
Apollo pulled Paris close, holding him tight as the shepherd boy turned Prince of Troy struggled in his arms. “No, no. That is not what I wanted to say.”
“You were right. You are right. Are you not happy? If I had only listened to you… This is all my fault.”
“Paris, please.”
Paris met his eyes. “The Fates say that I will destroy your city! How can that not be my fault? I am fated to destroy Troy. I am fated to be remembered as the Prince who sentenced all his people to death for one woman. How can that not be my fault?”
He shook his head. “Paris, calm yourself. There is so much you have yet to understand.”
“There is nothing left to understand. I have learned that we do not choose our destinies - our destinies choose us! I was never fated to lead a happy life. I do not want to accept it but I do. I accept it now.” Paris hung his head. “I only had to see my brother die before my eyes to do so.”
“Listen to me, Paris. And do not interrupt me.”
Paris looked away in frustration but said no more.
“You were fated to destroy Troy.” Paris stiffened in his arms, bowing his head again as new tears made their way down his cheeks. “The Fates passed on this knowledge to me, thinking that I might wish to save my city. I sent a vision to Cassandra and despite the curse I placed on her that she would never be believed, they took heed of her words. They cast you away, sending you to die on the hills of Mount Ida when you were a babe.”
“My own parents did not want me,” Paris whispered.
“They wanted you, Paris. Oh, how they wanted you! But they had no other choice but to…send you away.”
“Send me to die, you mean.”
“You were supposed to die but a shepherd came across you. He took you in and called you Alexandros and you became his son.”
“Another wrong I have committed. I leave the family that raised me and loved me and called me their own for a family that sent me to my death. What gratitude and loyalty is that?”
“You did what anyone who discovered the truth of his lineage would have done.”
“That does not matter now. Tell me, did you know that I had survived? That I did not die on the hills of Mount Ida?” Paris asked.
Nodding, “I did. I saw no harm in seeing a defenseless child killed. You had been cast away from Troy and your fate was altered.” He sighed. “Or so we thought.”
Paris’ voice was barely a whisper when he asked, “If you could change it all, would you?”
Would he? Would he change the outcome of this all and take away something that could never be understood by the Fate or measured by the rest of Time?
“No.”
There was a flicker of something in Paris’ eyes and Apollo’s heart began to beat faster, recognizing it.
“I need to know. That night in the temple ---”
“I knew who you were the moment you touched my statue,” Apollo said.
Bitterly, “Of course. The destroyer of Troy.”
Taking Paris’ face in his hands, Paris no longer shying away, “No, no. My beloved. The one I was fated for.”
“If I was fated for you, then why did you have me cast away from Troy? Why decide that I needed to killed, even if you decided otherwise afterwards?”
“I did not know then, Paris. The secrets of the Fates are well-kept. All I knew was that I would find you.” He caressed the smooth cheek gently, thumb drawing circles in the soft skin. “And I did.”
A hardness came over Paris’ features. “You lost me, as well.”
The young Prince made as if to move away, but the Sun pulled him close, pulled him closer, whispering fiercely, “Even gods make mistakes and my biggest one was not telling you the truth at the start.”
“Because then Troy might have been safe? You would have guilted me into staying by your side and away from Troy?”
“Never, beloved. Never. This was all written in the stars, although Asteria was always better at those types of oracles.” Apollo cracked a tired grin at that.
When Paris did not respond, he took a deep breath and continued, “I should have told you - should have but did not - because I loved you ---- ”
“Apollo…”
“--- because I loved you and nothing else.”
Paris kept silent, the heartfelt admission him, touched him, had that little spark of hope inside him flaring with such bright intensity. Heart thudding in his chest - Apollo could feel it - Paris asked quietly, “Do you love me still?”
“Always. Do you not remember my promise to you?”
They said the words together, brought back to an afternoon with the sun shining high in the cloudless sky even in the shadows created by the night’s darkness. “For my beloved, who alone holds my heart as nothing and no one else ever will.”
Some promises, some oaths were meant to be kept - no matter how seemingly impossible it all was.
“Paris?”
“Yes?” he murmured, arms having wound themselves around the god’s waist and tightening at the questioning tone.
“Do you trust me?”
Every line of him stiffened, drawing away with suspicion creeping onto him and fear pounding at his heart once again. Questions such as those were not asked lightly. “Why?”
“Do you trust me?”
There was only one answer to that and Apollo knew it.
“Yes.”
There was a pause before Apollo took his face in his hands. “There is more I must tell you.”
“Does it concern my fate?”
“It concerns the fate of Troy.”
The quickening beat of his heart rivaled the sound of war drums and Paris wanted nothing more than to turn away but Troy was his city, by birth, by Fate, by choice. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“Your father will meet Achilles.”
Priam kneeled at the feet of the man who killed his son, kissing the hands stained with the blood of his firstborn.
“I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.”
“Priam? How did you get in here, old king? The sentries --- ”
“I know my country better than the Greeks, I think.”
“Hector will be returned to Troy.”
Achilles sank to his knees before Hector’s body, pulling away the cloth that covered the bloodied face. He stared at it for a moment before sobs overtook him.
Moments later, “We will meet again soon, my brother.”
After covering Hector’s sightless face once again, he stood and lifted it with a tenderness that had been absent before.
“Troy’s Champion will be honored, the city given respite and all will be well.”
“There is more to tell me, is there not?”
“I know the Fate of Troy, as do you.” Paris’ hand trembled when Apollo cradled it between his. “Troy will fall. Twelve days and nights from now, the Greeks will overrun the city and slaughter all the men they see, throw the babies off the walls and make the women into slaves.”
Paris’ blood ran cold, eyes widening in horror as he almost saw the terrifying images that Apollo told him now. “No.”
“Yes. And you will do nothing to stop it.”
“No!” he cried out, recoiling. “You cannot expect me to stand by and watch them slaughter my people! To do nothing as they kill innocents --- ”
“There is nothing you can do, beloved.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“Nothing to do but save all you can.”
“To save all I can? Who am I to choose who will leave and who will die? Those are not my choices to make!”
“Paris…”
“I cannot! You cannot ask me to save some and condemn all else to death! I will not! I will not!” Paris’ voice rose, almost shrill and entirely betrayed.
“Paris, listen to me.” The Sun god took his arms and held fast. “This must come to pass. Do you not think that this pains me just as well? This is my city - my golden city!”
“Then why let it fall?”
“Because that is the only way this will end.”
“Apollo…” He trailed off and looked into those azure eyes he dreamt of, seeing the depths of the Aegean within them.
“Trust me.”
And Paris did.