#uh this was written in a very emtionally laden moment

[neoptolemid]

"You Can't"

uhhh here's writing i did that I feel emotions about cause I think Eprius is all a bit of a tragedy, also it has not been beta read sorry lol

Warnings for mentions of Illness and de//ath

“You can’t.”

“You simply can’t, you can’t, no no no” His words dribbled on and fell from his mouth, he spilled forth with all his emotion in his chest.

“I .. I . . .. I’ll fordid you from taking such action, I will, I will, I truly will, don’t doubt me”

“Please don’t doubt me”

His voice was meek and as much as he spilled he was tiny and everything he had he held close.

“I don’t want you to die, I want you alive, I need you alive, please let me be selfish I can’t let you die. You have been my friend for so long and I don’t care about any of those damn gods, Apollo hates my family, he spites me even now with this plague, I can’t let you go too”

He cried out to his friend who kneeled next to him, he was too weak to fully pull himself from his bed he could only sit up and beg. It seemed that the whole of Epirus suffered under sickness.

It came like waves taking people in with only some of those going under coming back up from sickness, they had tried many medicines to cure those who fell ill. It seemed most random those who survived and those who died.

Men and women who had seemed like they were recovering one day might be dead by the next morning.

Still Neoptolemus himself had found himself sick, he had been found sick a time ago, and he never seemed to improve, he only lingered and suffered.

Like the one who had struck them with sickness intended to leave him suffering till something was achieved.

He could only sit up in bed and listen to what his oldest friend supposed.

“Please listen to what I had to suppose to you, I have spoken with Helenus, we all know which god has a hand behind this, and we have spoken and a sacrifice must be made-”

He was swiftly cut off my Neoptolemus, “So! Go sacrifice the finest bull then!” his voice was raised as it could be and it cracked and buckled under how loud he tried to be.

He coughed and fought for clean breaths as he looked to his friend.

Teary eyes meeting teary eyes.

There was no way what his friend suggested could be true, and there was no way he would allow it to be his friend, his friend was no criminal, he was no one would would normally be put in the position to be considered from such things.

“You must listen to me” it hurt him so dearly and close to hear his friend suppose such things, he hurt him too closely to hear his friend suggest such things”

His friend kneeled by him and looked him in the eyes, he kneeled by the bed from which he could not break himself from.

“This is something that call for a high sacrifice, something that will take away all the sins when they go, and please I offer myself to this. I want a better future everyone, I want a future for Helenus, Andromache, Scamandrius, for molossus, and the twins”

He pauses a moment to make sure his attention is had

“And you are included in that, I want a better future for everyone and you are included, I will be the scapegoat for these sins that we are deemed to hold, I will take them”

The damn that creaks and spills then bursts and full apart in a single moment.

Neoptolemus breaks in the moment, sobs becoming apparent and words pouring faster than he knows he is speaking, he barely knows his own tongue and he tries to speak to his dear friend, tries to speak sense to him.

His eyes well with tears and makes it hard for him to see, pooling and falling as fast as his body can produce them. He spends no time wiping them away as he reaches out to his friend.

He grabs and pulls him in by his chiton, he pulls him close, he pulls him to his chest. Tucking his head into his chest. Weeping into his friend's shirt.

He holds him close and holds him to hear him, to feel him. \

He refuses to let him go.

“Yo-u you can’t sacrifice yourself, you can’t, you can’t do that under the pretense of, Sins! And if anyone’s sins are to be cleansed through death it should be my own. Chaon please, you have no reason to die”

He looks up from his place tucked to Chaon, he looks up to his eyes and sees only the warmth of his friends eyes and a kind smile that invites. “It will be okay Pyrrhus, it will be okay, I have already taken this burden”

His voice is shining, he is a paragone, he is beautiful and splendid.

In that moment he holds Pyrrhus back, he wraps his arms and pulls pyrrhus all the closer to himself, and he goes on to speak, only this time it is apparent his voice cracks and he joins in true crying.

“And when I die I will go to those beautiful fields, and I will see my family, I will see all those left behind in Troy, and when I die I will take all this hardship with me, I will give Epirus a beautiful tomorrow”

“When I die, when I go, I will, I will, give you a beautiful tomorrow”

“And when I die, i will wait for you with your father and your little brother, and we will wait for you, when you are old and wrinkly, for I will have given you a beautiful tomorrow”