That's the problem with war, he thought, you get no peace. Homer had to admit, though, that he was pretty lucky. The blindness bit had worried him for a while, but hey, this was the age of heroes and all that, he could overcome it, but oh! The arrows! The spears! Didn't these people's mothers ever warn them? They could put someone's eye out with those things!
Specifically, they could put his eye out. Not that it really mattered, blind and all, but hey, he liked his eyes. People always told him that he had poetic eyes; that sort of thing is important to bards. Oh, hey, was that Diomedes? Nice spear work. Homer shifted positions slightly, the mud squelching between his toes as a hungry lion leaps toward the defenseless sheep after it has slaughtered the shepherd who fell asleep in the mild breeze as the stars shone brilliantly. Wow, Homer thought, I never knew mud could squelch like that. I'll definitely have to rememb...
"You cur! Don't talk to me of fa..." Homer stopped his musing, peeking around his rock. All right. Achilles and Hector had finally, so to speak, cut to the chase. Homer knew that once Hector kicked the bucket, Achilles would soon follow. Fate's a handy thing if you know about it beforehand. Homer smiled. What a spectacular ending it would be! The oracle at Delphi's prophecy would be fulfilled, Achilles, mighty warrior with his weak, well, heel, would die, and Homer would have a marketable ending to the Iliad.
"His heel, eh?"
Homer's head whipped around, his thoughts interrupted. "I said that out loud?" His response came out a bit weaker than he was aiming for, but at least he had an excuse: he had never, in his years of wandering and barding, ever seen (or whatever) anyone who even came close to looking like this man. Homer should know, he watched Xena: Warrior Princess religiously. He taped them when he was busy and sometimes when he wasn't just so he could watch the sword fights over and over because Homer was a FAN. For one thing, this guy was wearing yellow spandex -- Homer wasn't quite sure what spandex was but figured it couldn't be good on a guy. And yellow...yellow was fit, in Homer's opinion, for many things, but not clothing. For another thing, the man was short and he was hairy and WERE THOSE CLAWS and there was no possible way that this guy...this g... Homer began to whimper.
The stranger nodded. "Good to know, seein' as I'm supposed to kill him." Here the man paused and pulled out a cigar. "Thanks for the tip."
Right, Homer thought. Right. Right. Right. Hey, the oracle never said who was going to off Achilles, right? This guy's just a god in disguise. Right. Homer began to get hysterical.
"So, see ya around. And calm down, bub, you're givin' yerself a heart attack." He sauntered away, muttering, "Crazy old Greek poets..."
Homer grabbed his rock for support. His body was threatening to faint, but Homer had to watch. For posterity's sake. A moment later, Homer gave up on posterity.
When he came to, Achilles was dead, yes, but not even the flames encompassing Troy could lift Homer's mood. His ending was ruined. Well, he thought as he stood and brushed leaves off of his toga, maybe accuracy isn't all it's cracked up to be... He pondered. Yes, yes -- accuracy could go jump a cliff for all he cared. What was important was the ending...everything had gone so well until Hector died...
The bard snapped his fingers. That was it! "And thus they buried illustrious Hector!" Absolutely perfect, nicely marketable, and it skipped all the nasty details of Achilles' death. If the audience really wanted to know what happened they would just have to make something up themselves...because they certainly wouldn't think up (or believe) the truth.
And now, thought Homer, I have a boat to catch!