The Oracle. A damnable fiend of Apollo’s spites and tongues. Her words nothing besides repetition, repressing the dregs of thought.

He had thought him and you safe, he could not face the combat by the age of fingers and hand- The Oracle’s words a forgotten syllable in his world of speeches and paragraphs.

Nestor found himself enraptured by this war. For a love he did not understand. His wife held no place to the heart, her touch frugal if even it found its place upon his skin.

Beware the Ethiopian.

Beating upon the skull, daunting and revealing itself within his twisted thoughts. Her voice filling the blood beneath his flesh that could not hold a blade, only watch as you and your brother ventured where he could not follow.

He should have known far better than to let the oracle’s voice dwindle upon the stream of thoughts; know Apollo whose love fell for the Trojans was not to be forsaken by the tides of war.

He’d been unknowing as the son of Tithonus’s mark found itself upon his framework, a slash of blade that bloodied the garbs he bore- the world a color of reddened and twisted blacks- the howls of another piercing his agony.

You.

The son of Neleus could only watch as your armor was cut, Memnon’s blade still stained by mortal ichor pervade itself through your vitality. Your crimson spurting itself across the ground and his sight as you fell.

He wailed.

He screamed.

Your name somewhere within his throes as in his age he crawled to where you lay limp, his fingers by which crooked with bones and weakened by time held you tighter than when he first held you only so long ago.

“{{user}}…” The King of Pylos whispered, the battle a background noise as he looked to your features. The eyes of his wife looking to him as hers never would.*

You bled within his fingers, your armor digging itself to his palms though his grip did not let up.

“Keep your eyes open, child.”