ironic use of icon is ironic, or, WHY WON'T LYSANDER STFU?

[toujours_nigel]

He comes in from shift to see Menesthes and Chryses huddled together on Chryses’ bed, and Xanthos laying on his, big hand draped on his brother’s thigh, fingers twisted in a fold of his chiton. He turns to cross to Menesthes’ empty bed when Chryses reaches out and pulls him closer, and Xanthos straightens to pull him down beside him, and, in the guise of shifting to make space, swings his legs to Chryses’ bed so he is trapped between them.

 

“Tell us a story,” Xanthos demands, head beside his thigh, achingly like his uncle—Menesthes is nothing like, but Menesthes looks like his father, and Xanthos nothing like.

 

“Do.” He stares, sure for a horrified moment that they’re asking about… but they wouldn’t, surely? “Tell us about your father.”

 

“He was a soldier,” he says. “He died.” He thinks Xanthos flicks eyes at Menesthes, but when he looks, there is only compassion there. And the eyes are trained steadily on him.

 

“Your mother moved back to her parents’ house, then, like mine did?” Menesthes is looking steadily at him, though Chryses has looked away—only child of doting parents.

 

“She waited only till I was born to quit the house. My uncle was not the best of men, nor my grandfather.” No Athenian likes a child who marries a Macedonian, even when she is of Thracian blood.

“Look you much like your father?”

 

“So my mother tells me.”

 

“A striking man, then.” Xanthos’ hand comes up to slap him on the back hard enough to make him wince. “Given your beauty at thirteen.”

 

“Fifteen,” he says. “Fifteen next month.”

 

Again the flickering eyes. “He always has done that; forgets not all of us are as big-boned as he.” Menesthes shoots him a small, apologetic smile. “Our mother was near as tall as our father, and our grandfather towered over him.”

 

“And you’re a runt,” Xanthos says, big bones relaxed. “Queen Olympias has been kind to your mother. And Alexander to ours. How well we live, upon the largesse of royalty.”

 

“She was the Queen’s handmaiden before she wed,” he says, accepting the prodding, awaiting more.

 

But no more comes. Xanthos heaves himself up, and names duty as reason to leave. Chryses stretches out to sleep, and Menesthes grumbles out after his brother to stand guard before the King’s tent.

 

He lies awake, turning his patronymic over in his mind.

Other Lysander snippets can be found here. *sigh* There's more of them than there should be.