Achilles had fought a god for Patroclus — the river god, Xanthus, whose current he clogged with Trojan bodies, whose waters he blackened with blood. He would fight the Fates too if it came to it. These thoughts he keeps private, however, that he may not provoke the Fates.

"Very well — as you have told me a tale of my future, I shall tell you a tale from my past. I have already spoken of my two-fold fate, that I should either win fame in war and die with vigor still in my limbs, or else live a long life while my chance for glory ebbs like the tide. When in my youth my deathless mother heard a prophecy that soon would come a great war in whose bloody jaws countless men of Achaea would be devoured, she purposed to protect me from the path that would sooner lead me to the house of death.

"So it was that I came to live in the house of Lycomedes of Scyros. However...as he had only daughters, his late queen's womb barren of sons, my mother bade me wear the disguise of a girl, that I might better hide myself. Yes, laugh if you will — but remember that even Heracles donned woman's dress when he was made to slave under Omphale of Lydia."