This is my response to the January 2003 challenge to describe a H:TLJ character from another's point of view in 500 words or less.

Hercules couldn’t hold back the grin that stole across his face as he watched his partner tracking the deer through the forest, intensely focused on his goal. It had often crossed the demigod’s mind that the hunter shared a lot of similarities with his animal prey, and Hercules would occasionally voice this observation just to rile him. But what Iolaus never realized was that when his friend teased him that he had the brains of a stag, the demigod inwardly considered it a compliment, born from admiration.

Just like an animal, Iolaus was satisfied with the basic needs. Food, water, some shelter, and a receptive female were all he needed from life to be happy and he never went looking for more. He had a wary instinct about him, that enabled him to sense when danger was nearby, but he would fight with utmost fierceness for his own life, and the lives of those he cared about. And those maddeningly blue eyes were like windows to his soul, laying all of his thoughts and feelings and emotions bare, even as they effortlessly dissected the complex layers that other people tried to wear as a mask.

But most of all, like his animal friends, Iolaus lived for the moment. For him, there was no yesterday, and there was no tomorrow. He didn’t dwell on the past, and he didn’t fret for the future. There was only today, only now. He would do whatever was required of him at that moment. The hunter grieved in times of sadness, and took joy in happier times. And then he moved on, doing whatever he needed to survive the next moment, not looking back, or even ahead.

Hercules had never told him, but it was one of the things he loved best about his irrepressible friend, and something he envied for himself. Sometimes Iolaus faltered, and sometimes he soared, but he always remained loyal to his true nature. His spirit was strong, his heart was true and his soul was free. The demigod didn’t know it then, but over the years he would always think upon the brother of his heart as an animal spirit, feisty, untamed, never to be broken. And in darker times to come, when his soul would be aching, the memory would never fail to make him smile.

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