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“Me?”
Ascanius - Iulus to them - looked around at all these people, mostly old and young, who all looked at him like he had some sort of answer, some sort of knowledge they didn’t not possess.
“You are our Prince, your father’s only heir. With him gone, it is you who we are loyal to.”
Ascanius had to look up at most of them, with some of these people he could barely reach their shoulders. He saw his own age mates give him a look of horror and hope and pleading all at once, no longer reaching out and asking to play but instead as if he was of a sort of divinity who was fundamentally different than them. Better.
He took a deep breath.
“We need to strengthen the wall.”
They built, they armed, they prepared to fight. His father told them to stay inside the wall, no matter what: pride and shame be damned. It was his own stupid childishness that he had shot that fawn. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He acted like a child. The child he was. He had to stop acting like that. With his father gone, he had to be the king. He refused to think his father was gone. He was the prince.
At a few hours past midnight, Iulus was still surrounded by advisors standing in his tent with a faint lamp talking strategy. The ones in this tent were the best of the best, Trojan leaders, picked men in their prime with experience and strength that he could only dream of. He was tired and sleepy and scared and trying to remember his father's stories of the Greek War, where the Greeks had clever plays and mystical happenings and every man and women had something to say. The camp was still surrounded, he couldn’t take chances, he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t let his guard down. All these people were counting on him, and somehow he was saying things that had people nodding, so hopefully they were right.
“My lord, please listen to us, though we are young.”
Nisus, Euryalus. 19, 15. Nisus had his beard, Euryalus not so.
“Speak.”
Nisus said that their enemy was sloppy, they had gotten drunk and fell into deep sleep. The two were going to kill, loot and see if they could find their King, Aeneas, his father. Those words alone made Ascanius want to cry, to cling, to hide behind his father’s sturdy bulk and be safe from it all. He wondered when he would ever, if ever, be free from war. Whether his life was just going to consist of war and its in-betweens. But he couldn’t cry, that was childish.
Think.
The plan was dangerous, obviously so. Nisus was skilled but Euryalus (though older than himself) was not as much. It was basically a suicide mission, and they were young.
Ascanius had often heard his father or the elders say something along those lines, that the young ones were worth protecting, that they were to be the legacy upon which an empire was founded, and to treasure each young one as if their own. He looked up at Nisus and Euryalus. They were young. So young.
“You will be rewarded greatly if you succeed.” Ascanius couldn’t think about how young they were. He was younger. This needed to work. So he talked.
As he talked he detailed their empire, how high a rank would be rewarded to Nisus and the gifts he and his father would give. He looked up at Euryalus, awkward and hesitant despite his dying need to follow Nisus to Erebos if he must, and grasped his hands.
“Euryalus, you are close to my age. You will be my right hand should you return, my dearest friend and closest confidant.” He promised him his future.
Euryalus looked back at him and smiled softly, the picture of maturity. “My mother came with us, all I ask, my prince, is to take care of her. I’m not telling her that I am leaving.” Ascanius wondered if he would grow to be as pious as that
“She will be treated like my own mother, she is my mother barre her name. Don’t you worry about her.”
Euryalus rose, looking that much more sure and giving him a smile that told Ascanius he didn’t think he’d come back. “Thank you.”
“Take my sword, and Nisus, take this lion’s pelt.” He wanted them to stay. “And tell my father:” He talked too long, they might not have enough time. Ascanius loaded them with messages and warnings and information. They were too many for one to remember. They were too few to keep them there in safety. They were in vain.
They smiled, and held each other’s hands. “As long as we have each other, we will be okay.”
The next time he saw them, it was with their heads on spikes.