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Phaeacia’s harbour was swarming with sound and colour.
Countless people wove between each other, arms full of trading goods, supplies for journeys, personal belongings. The smell of markets hung thick in the air, rivalled only by the hum of music from wandering bards, accentuated by the flashing of richly dyed fabrics and glistening jewellery.
Perfect, then, for a haggard crew hoping to go unnoticed.
Odysseus climbed down from his worn ship slowly, shoulders tense at the barrage at his senses after so long at sea. Three years, he cursed mentally. Three years since he had left Troy, three years more he had lost with his family. A Cyclops, Poseidon, Circe, the Underworld, sirens, Scylla, and then-
Any energy that might have fuelled his anger had long since left him. The wound between his ribs ached weakly at the reminder, though it was no longer seeping through its bandages. He could still remember the way Eurylochus’s eyes had widened in horror at the sight of Perimedes’s sword, the panic that had cut through his exhaustion as he shouted for something to stop the bleeding.
His memory failed there, flickering in and out of unconsciousness until the island.
“Eurylochus?”
Odysseus’s mouth was dry, sticking to the roof of his mouth as he stumbled through the familiar syllables. His heart beat a nauseous rhythm in his chest, slow and sluggish as if through mud.
The man stood over a divine beast, his eyes empty, his frame sagging. Sword in hand.
“We’re never going to make it home. You know it as well as I do.”
Not for the first time, his silver tongue failed him. There were no clever words that could dissuade him, no lie that could fix the gaping wound between them, more painful still than the one that bled through his tunic. They were brothers, once. Once, they would have done anything for each other.
It hadn’t even been malice that had destroyed them. Just exhaustion. He lifted his sword, once-strong arms trembling with the strain. Its point was aimed at the cow’s throat – a direct path to death.
“Eurylochus,” he tried again, his heart burning. “Please.”
Their eyes had met, and for the first time in months Odysseus could read them perfectly. The ache of homesickness, the weight of hunger. The grief. “Please.”
With a sound halfway between a sob and a scream, Eurylochus’s grip went slack. His sword thumped harmlessly against the taunting green of divine grass and he collapsed to his knees with his head in his hands.
They had stayed there for hours, crushed by loss and longing and everything in between. The crew had sunk to the ground themselves, and just for a moment thoughts of betrayal were abandoned for mutual grief.
Eventually they rose. Not out of some great determination, or forgiveness, or renewed sense of unity, but simply because it had to be done. Eurylochus cut him free, and together they stumbled back onboard. There were no more true captains after that.
They sailed in near silence, vaguely homeward but mostly towards any source of food. Two days later, they found it.
An island, small and meagre with its supplies, but enough for some time. No one had the energy to celebrate. They gathered fruits and hunted small animals with a low hum of disbelief, the caution that came from those used to having what was precious to them taken away.
Hope bloomed anyway, a fragile candle flame they cradled and protected against the winds. No one was absolved, nothing was forgotten, but any crimes against each other were quietly accepted like all other tragedies, and they moved on.
Without the despair that had been a constant since Troy, tentative friendship began to clumsily knit itself back together – if only because it took far too much energy to fight.
Odysseus was pulled from the fog of memory by the creak of wood as Eurylochus landed at his side, looking about as comfortable with the bustle of civilization as he felt.
“Not too late to go back to Circe and live out our lives as pigs instead,” Eurylochus offered, eyeing the crowds with distaste.
“You’d make a fine pig,” he replied, gamely ignoring the shove it earned him.
Supplies. That was all they needed, and all they would focus on until they could leave once more. Ithaca was not particularly close friends with Phaeacia politically, but their trade relationship had been solid when he had left, and King Alcinous should provide for them if they asked.
The rest of the crew lingered on the deck, eyeing the crowds with anything from apprehension to pure distaste. They would stay behind for the time being – accosting the king with an entire crew immediately was unlikely to make him more inclined to help.
Odysseus and Eurylochus started walking with their shoulders pressed together to avoid losing each other in the swell of people. Other than a few wrinkled noses and occasional pitying stare, no one paid any attention to the two weary travellers in their midst.
They’d almost made it to the town square before a shove from the crowd nearly sent him sprawling.
Eurylochus caught him by the shoulders before his face could have unfortunate union with the filth of the street, but weeks of hunger had weakened their balances – Odysseus almost took the man down with him.
As if on instinct, Eurylochus turned to snarl something vicious in the direction of his assailant, and Odysseus almost let him. Just for a moment, he was transfixed by the sight of the person who had once been his friend jumping at his defence, righteously furious in the way he had once been when other children were rude to him so long ago.
Odysseus blinked and that ten year old with long limbs that had stretched freakishly over the summer with scraped knees and untameable hair – not yet cut short, military style – disappeared, leaving in his place the man about to draw far too much attention to them both. Or potentially start a crowd-wide brawl.
Without thinking, his hand shot out, landing over Eurylochus’s mouth before he could get any words out. The gesture worked, if only because he was too stunned to shake him off. They stared at each other, incredulous and unremorseful respectively.
The moment was so ridiculous Odysseus couldn’t help but laugh. It was short, almost strangled sound, thoroughly out of practice. Not even the gods could say which of them was more surprised by it.
Eurylochus continued to stare, this time with the visible suspicion that said he’d be discretely checking Odysseus for a head injury later, or chalking up the outburst as a kind of sea-induced hysteria.
The moment was interrupted by a sudden, drastic increase in the noise in the square. Screaming.
His hand moved to his sword hilt before he’d finished the thought, a simple movement the years had carved deep into muscle memory. Odysseus scanned the crowd for the monster, the god, the threat-
And came up empty.
The townspeople were not screaming. So long at sea, and he had forgotten the sound of cheers.
Eurylochus seemed to realise the same a few seconds after he did, his frame relaxing only a fraction, unused to the feeling of being safer than anticipated. The noise picked up, an excited clamour spreading from the docks through the market.
The unease of being in the dark prickled along his skin.
After a moment’s deliberation, Odysseus caught the shoulder of a boy running past. The child blinked up at him in irritated confusion, warm brown eyes immediately making his chest ache.
Gods, he missed his son.
“Excuse me,” he managed, trying to assemble some semblance of the manners he had long abandoned. “Would you mind telling us what the commotion is for?”
The boy stared at him like he’d grown a second head.
“Prince Telemachus of Ithaca is visiting! How have you not heard?” he exclaimed, incredulous.
Odysseus barely heard the question.
His heart had nearly lurched out of his chest at that precious name, vision going blurry at the edges in realisation. All these years of insurmountable separation – and Telemachus was here. His son was barely a few minutes away.
One of the kid’s friends appeared suddenly by Odysseus’s elbow – startling a few years off his life – his round face lit up in excitement.
“I heard he could heal anything with only a touch, and that he trained with a sorceress in the west!”
What?
“I heard-“ yet another child chimed in “-that he could turn to gold when he used his magic!”
Odysseus was surrounded by children – all of whom seemed delighted to deliver increasingly unbelievable facts about his son. Magic?
“But we won’t know for sure if we don’t stop wasting time!” The first one interrupted, jittering with impatience as he grabbed his friends to drag them away.
The children disappeared into the crowd, leaving them stunned. Odysseus shoved thoughts of magic and sorceresses to the side for one unquestionable truth – his son was in reach.
He hadn’t realised he’d started moving until he was pushing people out his way to get to the square, his mind taken over the bone-deep need that had driven him since Troy. Eurylochus followed behind him, apologising to strangers, but Odysseus didn’t have the presence of mind to care.
Telemachus.
He was close, Odysseus could feel it, his son was-
The world was suddenly alight with colour. Every dull grey was at once so bright it was almost blinding, as decades of collected dust had been washed away by morning rain, transforming the monotone street into a sparkling paradise of light.
A boy was waving to the crowds from an adorned chariot, and with him he brought back life itself.
Odysseus was deaf to the cheers that surrounded him. The throng of people at his side vanished like smoke. All that mattered, all that had ever mattered was right in front of him, with a smile like the sun itself, wild black hair dancing in the wind like nature itself bent to adore him.
Telemachus.
The beating in Odysseus’s chest was incomprehensible – his heart was there, in front of him, and nothing had ever been so precious.
His son turned as he rode past, and for one impossible, divine moment, their eyes met. The delight that burst to life within him, filling his lungs with the purest air he’d ever tasted, soothing every ache he’d ever felt, was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. For that moment, Odysseus could have sworn they’d left the mortal world behind entirely.
Telemachus tilted his head slightly to the side at his gaze, eyes crinkling with a gentle curiosity and a shining intelligence that was so Penelope it ached.
And then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd and sprawling city.
The new light of the world dimmed from blinding to simply shining, no longer like staring into the sun but still basking in the warmth it had left behind, as if Telemachus’s fleeting presence in the place had rendered it sacred.
Or perhaps it was simply that Odysseus himself was forever changed, that he could now look upon the world with wonder, now that he knew the beauty it contained.
His hands were trembling. His breaths shook in his lungs, his heartbeat pounded against his ears.
He had not even felt such a rush in the battles of Troy.
Odysseus needed it back. He needed his son, to be close enough to make out the colour of his eyes, to hold him and comb his hands through his hair and just be with him. He needed it with a desperation that may well kill him if left unsatisfied.
With animalistic fervour, he pushed forward again, his mind racing to figure out how to follow the chariot into the palace, to pull his son from it and into his arms.
Eurylochus’s hand around his bicep stopped him short, physically pulling him back from the street. From Telemachus.
“He’s surrounded by guards – you’ll only get yourself killed!” he hissed, moving them out of sight of the armoured men who’d already drawn their swords at the commotion.
For a blinding moment Odysseus hated him. Every moment that passed was another lost that he could have spent with his son, and Eurylochus was keeping him away.
“Just- just wait, okay?” he pressed again, accepting the fury in his glare without flinching. “We’ll still petition King Alcinous, get into the palace the without being arrested. You’ll see him then.”
“I can’t- Eurylochus, he was right there. I could have reached him.” That last part came out more defeated than angry, and the taste of it was sour on his tongue.
“Odysseus, look at me.” Reluctantly, he did. “No one is taking Telemachus away. You aren’t being separated again, but we need to do this right if you actually want to be able to see him again.”
Eurylochus was right. Odysseus knew he was right and he hated it anyway. To let his son out of sight at all was almost unbearable.
Telemachus, his heart called, eyes seeking out the place he had lost him. Wait for me.
***
Alcinous’s palace gates were overrun with people.
They crowded the entrance in such a tightly packed semi-circle Odysseus could barely see the guards in their plumed helmets. Desperate voices filled the air just as densely, cutting over one another ceaselessly.
“Please, it’s my husband, he’s sick he needs-”
“My son has broken his arm, he cannot work!”
“My wife, the labour pains are too great-”
They all coalesced into a single plea.
Heal us!
Eurylochus exhaled roughly in sympathy, though his expression was strained.
“It figures that healing magic would be popular. How does he put up with all of this?”
Odysseus’s mind was spinning with the implications. Was Telemachus harassed like this in Ithaca as well? He was still so young – the care of so many people was too great a burden.
As they watched the guards wave their spears in wide arcs to keep people at a distance, shouting things that were immediately lost to the cacophony of desperation, another tense thought grew between them.
Eurylochus voiced it first.
“They aren’t going to let anyone in.”
Panic was rising again, clutching its clawed hand around Odysseus’s heart. Telemachus was in the palace. If they couldn’t get in, they couldn’t get to him. His vision was blurring at the edges, the voices of the crowd melting together.
“Eurylochus,” he managed, his breaths shallow. He made himself meet his friend’s concerned eyes as they turned to him, trying to convey the magnitude of this need that sat in his chest.
“I’m not leaving without him.”
***
They waited until nightfall.
It was torturous, having to sit and wait while Telemachus was closer than ever, but if they acted too brashly he might lose the chance of ever seeing him again.
Odysseus couldn’t risk that, even as his impatience burned a hole through his chest.
He’d spent the hours until sundown staking out the balconies visible from the palace, until he’d gotten just a glimpse of a boy moving inside one of the rooms with raven hair and the familiar longing in his bones had come alive.
His eyes hadn’t strayed from it since, but no other sign came. Maybe Telemachus had taken to bed early, or was simply sitting in a corner of the room out of sight from the outside.
Either way, he was there.
Odysseus’s hands trembled slightly with anticipation at the thought. Just a bit longer.
At long last, Eurylochus’s distraction came – a sudden crash, an outcry from the courtyards. The guards straightened reflexively, drawing their weapons as they went to investigate.
Odysseus bolted from his hiding place, reaching the wall the moment the men turned the corner. The guard was stretched thin trying to protect all entrances from the townspeople – it was laughably easy to scale the gates by the forested area, too dangerous for the common people to attempt.
As if anything could have kept him away from his son.
The palace was old, its walls riddled with grooves that could support his weight, if Odysseus was willing to take the risk of the stone crumbling beneath him and sending him plummeting back towards the rocks.
Of course he was.
He reached the balcony with his heart ricocheting between his ribs, swinging himself over the railing without a second thought.
So close. Telemachus was just a few steps away, he was just-
His vision went black.
***
Telemachus did not know what to do with the man he had just knocked out.
His thought process had started with ‘Oh gods a strange man with a sword has just climbed through the balcony into my room’ and ended at ‘I’m going to hit him over the head with this marble bust.’ Not much had happened in between.
And now said stranger was sprawled across the floor, likely with a rapidly growing bruise at the back of his skull. Needless to say, Telemachus had had brighter moments.
The logical thing to do was shout for the guards. And yet, the thought of the stranger being dragged away and hurt – well, probably executed – for the break-in had his stomach twisting with unease.
Those dreams he’d been having, could they have something to do with him?
Hesitantly, Telemachus nudged him with his foot. No reaction. Oh, gods, he really hoped the guy wasn’t dead. What kind of ambassador would he be if he just went around murdering the citizens of other states? His mother would never forgive him.
“Hey!” he whisper-shouted insistently, “Are you still breathing?” A vague, muffled groan in response.
Excellent. Full of life.
…
Still an armed stranger in Telemachus’s room.
Hastily, he pulled the sword free of the man’s sheath, trying not to buckle under its weight – he specialised in sorcery, not strength training, and the thing was as long as his leg and probably half his entire body weight.
With a completely respectable amount of struggle, he managed to shove it ungracefully behind his wardrobe, hidden in the safety of dust and decade-old cobwebs.
That done, he resumed hovering over the man. Face-down in his carpet, Telemachus couldn’t make out more than long, slightly matted dark brown hair and travel-worn clothes. He felt a twinge of sympathy – likely not an assassin, but someone who had journeyed from very far.
Decisively, Telemachus grabbed hold of the man’s shoulders and pulled him up onto his back. His eyes found the stranger’s face, and immediately widened in recognition.
The man from the market!
Did he have a stalker?
Telemachus could not deny the sharp flood of familiarity he’d felt when they’d locked eyes from the chariot, and the way the man had looked at him, like he was the sun itself rising after an endless night, had left his skin prickling since. His reaction had been so different from the rest of the crowd – and now he’d broken into his quarters/
The man’s eyelids began to flutter – almost awake. Telemachus dragged him back to sleep with a panicked flare of magic, massively over doing it. If he didn’t lift that spell, the poor stranger would likely be out for a week.
He scrambled around his assigned quarters to find anything suitable to restrain him with. Rope was likely out of the realm of possibility for things one might find in a guest bedroom, but any sort of long or thin fabric could be improvised.
Finally, Telemachus decided on a silk handkerchief and bound the stranger’s hands with it behind the post of his bed. With a slightly trembling hand, he touched the man’s arm and lifted the spell.
The stranger did not open his eyes immediately, or make it obvious that he was awake. Telemachus could see him take inventory of his situation as he pulled away – the subtle shifting as he tested his restraints, the slight tightening of his frame as he noticed the absence of his weapon.
Then his eyes opened, caught on Telemachus still standing before him, and all of his tension melted away.
The man’s eyes – rich brown, full of the same awed and desperate warmth they had contained at the market – softened, scanning his face and bare arms like he was hungry for any detail he could find.
There was no fear in his expression, and Telemachus realised with a thrill he did not feel any himself. Just a sort of nervous curiosity bubbling in his chest – he had the strangest urge to smooth his hair, or fix his rumpled clothes, anything to look more presentable in the face of such scrutiny, however gentle it was.
“Telemachus,” he breathed, and Telemachus felt a jolt through his spine at the sound.
He had never heard his name spoken in such a way. It had been spoken with love, from his mother, with a detached respect from ambassadors, fond amusement from Circe, even in hope and disbelief from the people he cured. Never like this.
Never like it meant salvation.
The man shifted – a spasm of his shoulder almost as if he had tried to reach for him before remembering his restraints – and his tattered chiton slid to the side of his leg.
Telemachus went perfectly still.
There, curling along the side of his thigh – a stark, white scar, twisting in a pattern Telemachus could have drawn from memory.
It had marked nearly every tapestry in the palace, had been traced on his own skin by his mother’s gentle hands as she told him, over and over again the same stories.
The tales flashed through Telemachus’s mind faster than he could truly process, every crucial piece of information about this famed man his mother had told him resurfacing at once.
Odysseus, defeating a divine boar from the goddess of wisdom herself. Odysseus, with a scar Telemachus knew better than his own. Odysseus, who would always come back to them.
And most importantly, repeated at the end of every story until he had no choice but to believe it to be true: Odysseus, who loved him more than anything.
Breath caught in his throat, Telemachus pulled his eyes back up, defences shattered. The man was still looking at him, his eyes flitting between the constellation of freckles at his cheek, the slight point of his ears, the curl of his hair, as if he was trying to commit it all to memory.
His heart beat hard enough to pound in the shell of his ears.
“Father?”
***
Odysseus grappled with consciousness as effectively as trying to hold water with open hands.
He could feel something pulling him under as he came close, a sudden drowsiness taking hold and flooding his mind with empty bliss despite his best efforts.
Finally, the fog released him.
The first thing he noticed was that his head ached like it was split in two. The second, that his hands were tied back to something solid and wooden, and his sword was missing. Memories of islands, sacred cattle, betrayal and despair came unbidden, accompanied by the rising nausea in the pit of his stomach.
No. Eurylochus wouldn’t- they were just starting to be okay again-
Odysseus forced his eyes open, and promptly forgot all thoughts of mutiny.
His son stood before him, watching him with those piercingly intelligent eyes as Odysseus struggled to find his breath.
Oh, he was even more perfect up close.
At this distance, he could make out a small scattering of beauty marks high on his boy’s cheekbone, darkened by time in the sun. His eyes were identical to Penelope’s in colour, a gentle brown that gave the impression of honey in sunlight, and they watched him with a caution that hurt more than any physical blow ever could.
The creases at their corners were not quite suspicion – Odysseus had not thanked the gods for anything in a long time, but for this he could make an exception, for to be regarded in such a way by the child he would do anything for may well have killed him.
Confusion, rather.
Justified, considering that to Telemachus he was no more than a stranger – the thought burned with grief – that had just broken into his chambers. Odysseus could not remember the last time he had felt self-conscious over something as trivial as his appearance, but now, before his son in filthy, torn clothes and matted hair, he wished he could have been more presentable. Could have looked something like the father his son deserved, instead of the wretched creature he was.
“Telemachus.”
The sacred name left him in a shallow breath – all other words had abandoned him. Telemachus, his son. Telemachus, who had been so small when Odysseus had been forced to leave him behind. Dear, precious Telemachus – the image of goodness and hope painted in gold.
He moved to reach for him, to hold his son even if only for a moment and soothe the decade old ache in his bones, before he remembered his bindings.
So well-tied Odysseus felt a surge of pride with his frustration, noting to praise his boy for it as he struggled to free his hands.
Something must have shifted in the process, because in an instant Telemachus’s attention was diverted, and Odysseus felt the lack of his gaze more viciously than he had felt the lack of food. It was only when his boy visibly stopped breathing in surprise that he summoned the strength to follow his eyes, though it meant pulling them away from the most precious thing in the world.
Oh. The scar. Had Penelope told him of it? Had Telemachus ever asked for stories of him? Both the thought and the alternative were too painful to bear. Either Telemachus had wished for his presence, and Odysseus wasn’t there, or he had never felt the lack at all, and there was no place for a father in the life he had built for himself.
The pain was easy to forget when he could take in his son’s presence instead, taking advantage of his boy’s distraction to observe him further.
His ears ended in a delicate point, a remnant of Penelope’s nymph-blood that must have made itself known as Telemachus grew – Odysseus would have noticed such a trait in the infant he had held for so many – so few, truly – hours before he’d left.
He was so beautiful. Remnants of divinity lingering in perfectly mortal features, bathed in the soft glow of childhood intertwined with magic. Odysseus hadn’t been able to understand, when the towns children had spoken of it, but he could see it so clearly now.
This was a boy the laws of the world themselves should bend to please, this was a boy so precious every divine gift felt natural, even lacking in the face of his wonder.
“Father?”
The single word ripped the breath from his lungs. That hallowed, divine title Odysseus had never before had the luxury of hearing.
He managed something near a nod, keeping away tears only through the desperate need to be able to see his boy.
Telemachus’s expression crumpled – oh, gods, he was upset, Odysseus had only just met him and he’d made his child cry – and he threw himself forward.
Small arms wrapped around his neck as his son all but fell into his lap, curling around him with a sob that nearly tore his heart in two.
His son.
If Odysseus were not already on the ground, he would have fallen to his knees from the sheer weight of the love he bore. His hands worked desperately against his restraints as he pressed kisses to Telemachus’s hair, his boy’s face still buried in the crook of his neck as he cried.
He seemed to notice the struggle, removing one arm – Odysseus mourned the loss of contact immediately – to reach behind, and with a flare of heat he was free.
His arms were moving before he had even finished the thought, cradling Telemachus against him like he would die if they were ever separated again. Odysseus had barely survived leaving his darling infant for Troy – to be taken from him now, when he knew how perfect his child grew up to be, would be akin to carving his own heart from his chest.
Every bone in his body sang of love, his entire being filled with new life from holding his dearest treasure in is arms. It wasn’t until Telemachus pulled back that Odysseus realised the rejuvenation was entirely literal – his child was glowing, basking them both in soft golden light as the ache in the back of his head dissipated. The exhaustion weighing down his limbs was lifted, taking with it pains Odysseus had forgotten about entirely until they were gone.
Healing magic, he remembered, awed all over again. Powerful, too.
Then Telemachus swayed before him, and his amazement was immediately overridden by concern. Whatever his magic was, it still came at a cost.
“Hey, hey- what’s wrong? What can I do?”
Telemachus only shook his head, finding his balance once more as the glow faded.
“I’m fine, just overdid it slightly.” He searched Odysseus’s face again, this time with more disbelief than suspicion. “You’re here. All these years, and you’re actually here.”
It took everything he had not to pull his son back into his arms and weep at the words, spoken so softly, as if to say it aloud was to risk its reality.
“I’m here,” he whispered back, equally awed. “I’m here, all I have wanted since I was taken from you and your mother was to come home.”
Odysseus’s heart cracked once more with a grief so familiar to him he could wear it as a second skin. He thought of Telemachus learning to walk through their place halls, climbing the trees in their courtyards and scraping his knees and grinning with missing baby-teeth, each imaged memory as painful as the next.
“I have missed so much,” he said as tears blurred his vision, constricting his throat until it ached. “I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll have me.”
Telemachus nodded so fast his hair fell loose from its delicate braids and into his face, his own eyes wet and shining. His hands tightened where they clutched Odysseus’s chiton.
“Don’t leave again,” his son whispered, voice cracking on the words.
Every fibre of his being recoiled at the thought, his heart aching with the desperation in Telemachus’s expression.
“Never,” Odysseus swore, as if he could bind the oath to his soul with words alone. As gently as his scarred hands were capable of, he tucked Telemachus’s stray lock of hair behind his ear. His touch lingered, tracing fond circles against the softness of his son’s skin. “I will be by your side until my last day, sweetheart.”
Telemachus nodded once, still teary, before he pulled himself back into Odysseus’s arms, who was powerless to resist him. If he had it his way, he would never let his son go.
Combing his hand through his boy’s hair again, he noticed subtle golden strands interspersed through the rest, almost shimmering in the dim light of the torches.
I heard that he could turn to gold when he used his magic! The child’s voice echoed through his mind again, this time ringing of truth.
His eyes sought out his bindings, and found them lying in a blackened pile by his side. Burned through.
“Telemachus?” Odysseus asked, his voice soft in the comfortable silence they’d slipped into. His son responded with a questioning hum, not moving from where his forehead rested against Odysseus’s shoulder. “Since when are you a sorcerer?”
***
Telemachus’s explanation was excited and winding with distractions, and Odysseus could barely breathe as he spoke. Raiders. His son had been stranded on Circe’s island for two years – they had missed each other by a matter of weeks, he could have seen his son three years earlier if he’d stayed just a while longer. The thought made him want to scream until his throat was raw.
“Some of our guards found me eventually though – that was probably Athena again, actually, and I went home! Word got out about the whole magic thing though, so people want me on their diplomatic trips. I usually help the local physicians while I travel too, which is super exhausting but definitely making Ithaca more popular. That’s why I’m here now, actually, and that’s pretty much it until-”
He stopped short, blinking in realisation.
“Oh, gods, I hit you. I hit my own father with a marble bust.” Telemachus sounded so genuinely dismayed Odysseus had to laugh. Leave it to him to focus on the least concerning detail of this tale.
“It is more than alright – I am glad you know how to defend yourself. I know I likely gave… a strange impression. And it is healed perfectly, no harm done.”
His son looked unconvinced, still shaking his head in self-inflicted disbelief. “I’ve spent years imagining how I’d greet you and I knocked you out!” He kept going while Odysseus smothered his laughter in his hair, completely incredulous. “Mother is never going to let me hear the end of this.”
He pressed a kiss to his son’s temple, love swelling into a ball of light in his chest. His Penelope. She had suffered for so long in his absence. Athena had been keeping her informed, according to Telemachus, but he knew more than most that nothing could make up for the absence of a loved one at your side.
“I think we can omit that particular detail when we see her again,” he teased, shivering slightly at the thought of seeing his wife again. Soon, he promised. I’m coming home.
Telemachus nodded solemnly, then glanced to the door.
“We should tell King Alcinous you’re here – I’m sure he won’t be too upset about you breaking in.”
Right. Supplies. In the rush of seeing his son again, Odysseus had completely forgotten his initial objective. His crew were likely wondering about the delay. He hummed an agreement, and reluctantly got to his feet, Telemachus still pressing into his side as they walked.
Odysseus turned to look over his shoulder as he left, an almost forgotten instinct tugging his gaze out the balcony.
He locked eyes with a perfectly white owl perched on a branch just beyond the railing, its eyes shining with unnatural intelligence.
Forgiveness came to him more easily as of late.
Odysseus offered a tired smile, and she bowed her head in return before flying off into the night.