I said his name

As the fire dwindled, my eyes closed in half-dreaming. I was warm, and the ground beneath me was soft with mossad fallen leaves.

‘I have no objection to Patroclus as your companion.’

My body felt hollow in its relief, as if a storm had gone through.

‘Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.'

I said his name, I think. It blew through me; I was hollow as a reed hung up for the wind to sound. There was no time that passed but our breaths.

If I had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.