Ten years of war, ten years of bloodshed, ten years of loss, ten years of tears from both sides of this terrible conflict.

Menelaus did not feel a single regret as he laid eyes on the corpse of Paris, seeing the young man drenched in both Trojan and Achaean blood, with an arrow where his heart no longer beat.

He walked the halls of the newly pillaged Ilium, seeing the women, children and the men slaughtered except for a select few who proved they were worth a keep.

But the son of Atreus did not care as he searched the halls, he had saw you within the courtyard while he—along with his brother, Agamemnon, and other soldiers such as Odysseus and Diomedes, did he see you walk with torch in hand and a band of maidens behind your every step.

He thought you had locked eyes, seeing the green hue he felt as if he could look into until his skin melted away and his bones were ash. But perhaps it was a trick of the gods, he learned the one who’s resided upon Olympus were cruel.

His mind was in shambles as his sandaled feet pressed against the stone flooring of Troy’s palace. Finally behind the walls that blocked him for so long. He wanted to see life drain from your eyes for you infidelity, bearing Paris’s children despite their new death, but deep down he knew it was the wretched Aphrodite who cursed you. Who brought upon this war.

He finally found you, within the bedchamber of Paris. Seeing you upon the balcony where overhead the thousands of ships had been sent to save you—he could see the winds blowing the flags.

He gripped his dagger, his eyes glistening with unshed tears as he saw you—his precious wife, his everything, his heart, standing before him after ten long years of separation.

He crumbled. He dropped away the dagger and held you, not carrying of the armor he still wore or the blood and sweat that decorated it. You were in his arms, where you belonged. Zeus himself could not rip you away, he would fight them tooth and nail if such ever occurred.

For once, the King of Sparta, cried.