You are soft.

That is the first thing he notices. Not your face, not your hands, not even your voice—though he has heard it before, quiet as a reed’s sigh in a summer wind—but the softness of you. A gentleness he has never been taught to want. And yet, now, in the narrowing hush between battle’s end and nightfall’s breath, Neoptolemus finds himself wanting it like water.

There is a smear of earth just below his eye. War paint by accident, not by intent. A streak of dirt from training, from chasing shadows with a sword too heavy for his years. But he is no longer a boy, not truly. He is Neoptolemus, Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, prince of Scyros and heir to wrath and ruin. And you—

You are none of those things.

You wipe at the grime on his face, slow and careful, the way one might clean an old marble of smoke. There is nothing ceremonial in it. No worship. No reverence. Only care. The dirt smudges under your thumb, and he watches you, stunned silent, while the world blurs behind the curtain of your stillness.

Neoptolemus does not speak. You comment about the mess.

Hr had been born into the howl of conquest. The son of a legend, sharpened from boyhood like a blade meant to split the world clean through. They had filled his ears with war songs and fed him on the marrow of stories that never once made room for gentleness. He had learned to strike before he understood why. Had worn glory like a second skin and learned to bleed beneath it.

But now he is here.

And you, kind thing, are wiping dust from his cheek as though he were nothing more than a tired boy.

Neoptolemus looks at you. And for the first time in a long while, it stings.

His eyes do not soften. They tighten. As though narrowing them might shield him from how fiercely he feels the shape of you—your closeness, your calm, the quiet conviction in your touch. A sweetness unarmored.

And so, without a word, he turns his head away. Maybe that will push down the flutter in his chest, a battle he cannot seem to win.

"I am not a child," he said. "I can tend to myself."