Rated NC17 for reference to violence.
ABSENT FRIENDS
BY MAGGIE
I don't know you anymore.
I mean, before, there was the temper, but it was tempered by sharing. There was thoughtlessness, but then, at other times the thoughts were too much with you. The frustration was the balance point, I think; it made you angry, crazy, sad, violent, but I could see all too clearly why you felt the way that you did.
Back then, the worst of it, for me, was not being able to do a damn thing to help you.
Now; now, whatever you were, whoever you were, just isn't there anymore.
I remember saying goodbye to you when you entered that place. You were afraid but trying to tough it out; nearly insane with grief, but hanging onto the bravado by the skin of your fingernails. And you didn't say it, but I could see in your eyes that you didn't know what you were going to do in that place without me.
Even back then, I had found myself capable, even willing to take the indifferent punishment you doled out to me. I knew why I had to do that. I had a good reason. Keeping you sane and keeping away the loneliness, for both of us, was a good enough reason. So when you had to walk away from me, I knew already how it would be for you. You would have to try and find someone else to take the punishment. There wouldn't be a shortage of candidates; who in that place would be able to overcome your strength?
It wouldn't be enough though; it could never be enough. Because I always came back to you afterwards, and forgave you, just like you needed. It was the scrap of humanity that you clung to, in the hope - yes, you still had some hope then - of salvation. Some kind of salvation. You didn't know what it would be, or how it would come; I guess you always thought that it would present itself in a cessation of hostilities against you. So many were jealous of your strength, your birthright, and they would take any opportunity to plague you with misfortunes. In the end you reminded me of nothing less thans a lion driven mad by stinging flies.
I felt so sorry for you.
It was in that state that you entered Cheiron's Academy, under the duress of dreams. Dreams of power and control, which you hoped would bring you peace. It was your last hope.
When you left ...
Rumours had reached my ears of evil practices and hideous rituals, so I returned to the place, trying to find out if you were alright.
I was way, way too late.
It took me ten days to make the journey and I was so tired at the end of it, but when I saw you, I ran; just took to my heels and fled, not even sure of what I'd seen. Only sure that whatever it was, it was full of shadows; evil.
It took me an hour before I could make myself admit that this tyrant, wreathed in studs and dull cruelty, was the same man I had said goodbye to four years ago.
No; really not the same. The people you threw to left and right, even trampled right over; the old woman you broke in pieces just by pushing past her and the horses that trampled and pulled at their tethers, trying to get away from you; the sound of their screams, the sound of your cracked laughter - it was the sound of something grotesque being born.
Hercules had died in that place; I blamed myself, again. You had begged me to go with you, but I knew I would never survive. You were the warrior, I was the scholar; what would I have done in that place, peeled potatoes? That was all I could see; if I'd known then what I know now, I would have peeled those damn potatoes until my fingers bled.
Cheiron took you apart and by the time you'd been put back together, you were a heartless tyrant, who would think nothing of three executions before breakfast.
I lost my best friend that day, and the biggest part of myself went with him.
Hercules was dead. Heil the Sovereign.
Life as the two of us had known it, was over.
Finis
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