Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Telemachus had taken the habit of wandering around his mother's room when she and his father were alone in it. He had followed her around the palace occasionally before his father's return--especially during any sort of festivities, where even more drunk strangers plagued their halls, servants were distracted and fear for her overtook him. But, despite the men-like monsters roaming his home for years, his mother's room had always been a safe space where only they and their most trusted servants were allowed. When his mother was there he could, at least for a bit, know she was safe. That had changed when his father got back to Ithaca and started living with them again.

He didn't have any real reason to distrust him. His father had done nothing but free them from the dangers they'd been subjected to for years and be gentle with them--too gentle even, as if he feared one strong word would make them fade into the air. 

But he had learned to be vigilant of the men in their house for years, to watch their strong hands and wandering eyes for any sign of trouble, to invent excuses to discreetly get his mom away whenever one of them found a way to get too close. 

Seeing his parents together, it was easy to remember that his father was not any of those men. He had tangible proof of it: his mother's relaxed body and genuine smile, with no trace of the well-practiced facade of strength and propriety she had worn for so long nor of the fear and pain it had concealed; his father's eyes, which looked at her with adoration instead of possessiveness and at him with wonder instead of disdain; the little touches shared between the two, that his father always offered with hesitancy and immediately withdrew the rare times his mother didn't respond with eagerness; and their words, which carried love and care instead of hidden threats.

 But, when they were out of sight and those proofs were out of reach, worry took the best of him and led him to the halls near their room. 

The habit wouldn't last, he thought to himself as he walked the distance between his room and his mom's study for the fifth time that morning, carrying a spare string for a lyre he didn't play any longer. He just needed more time to get to know his dad. It had been barely more than a week since he got back, after all, and there had been too much to take care of for them to have any time to properly bond. Once they did, once they could spend time alone and share anything beyond brief conversations with each other, he would learn to trust him, he would know his mom was safe with him even when they were out of sight and his early walks around the halls would stop. They would have to. He couldn't spend the rest of his life sneaking around his own home, moving random objects between rooms and searching for a sense of comfort like he was some kind of thief; not when those men were already gone.

He entered his room and threw the lyre string on the bed, feeling embarrassed when the strength of the fall made the growing pile of random objects--old shoes, unneeded candles, empty cups, among many others--he had used as an excuse to leave his room in the last few days bounce. This behavior was the exact kind of weakness the suitors would have launched onto and used to their advantage, had they been there to find out about it. He let himself fall on the sheets with a sight, thinking, in spite of himself, of the next excuse he would use to walk the halls. 

Before he could decide on one, a crashing sound, coming from the direction of his mother's room came to his ears and made him get up in worry. He reached for the sword he kept under his bed and started walking towards the sound in long fast steps. As he got to the corner that led into the royal room, he raised his sword, feeling the cold in his veins and getting ready to strike whatever threat could lay before him. 

But, once he passed the corner, what came into sight was not menacing in any way. It was just a small boy, in the middle of the hallway, crouching to take something from the floor. 

As soon as he noticed him Astyanax picked up his stuff and rushed back into the shadow of the column opposite to the room's door. 

He might have been there for a while, Telemachus realized, and he wouldn't have noticed. He had avoided walking directly in front of the room all morning, staying in the surrounding hallways, and from them the stone column would have hidden the boy.

—I'm sorry,_Astyanax quickly apologized—I didn't mean to make noise, I just...

—What have you got there?—He interrupted, noticing the kid was covering something in his hands.

The boy shrunk into himself and Telemachus winced, realizing his voice must had came out too sharp. He didn't really know how to treat children. Not anymore, at least. When he was twelve, maybe thirteen, he had used to play the lyre and sing stories to entertain the smaller children of the palace staff. It was fun, easier than dealing with kids his own age, actually. It had been hard once he and his peers grew old enough for them to feel intimidated by his position, but it had gone even worse by the time boys started training for combat and wanting to prove themselves. His lack of skill had started causing jokes and whispers--not to his face, of course, fear of the crown made sure of that, but they still reached his ears, and they still stuck. Small kids hadn't had any notion yet of social hierarchy or of the expectations placed upon young men; they had just beamed at the music and stories he gave them, and he had truly felt like royalty for once. He had stopped playing to them once the situation with the suitors got out of hand and all his free time became occupied with trying to keep them away from his mom. With time, he had forgotten all his songs and, apparently, lost his way with children too. He had not only been unable to carry out any conversation with Astyanax since he had arrived with his dad but had also just scared him with only a few words.

—I...It's nothing important... —Said the boy, looking at the floor and extending his hands to show him his belongings as if they were evidence of a crime.

Thelemacus gave the boy an apologetic smile, not sure of what to say to seem less threatening, and looked at the objects in his hands. He had a small knife, not a dagger or one from the kitchen, but instead one slightly curved and made with a material that did not shine as much in the light; a few cracked wood sticks, probably picked up from the gardens; and a carved bird. Telemachus' eyes stopped at the carving, a knot forming in his chest as he remembered the wooden toys lying on a shelf in his own room: little soldiers, portraits, puzzle boxes, and figurines of forest animals and known monsters. They had been some of his more prized belongings as a child, once he learned from his mother that his father had made them for him before he had left for the war. He would pass his fingers over the details in the wood, even after he had grown far too old to play with them, imagining his father's hands tracing the same shapes when he had carved them. The pat of the knife had been undeniable proof that he had actually existed and, more so, that he had loved him enough to create something in his name.

—Did...Father... make this toy for you?—He asked the boy.

Telemachus fumbled a little when the title got to his lips, not being sure which possessive form should go with it—your? my? our?—and finally settling for using none. Even on its own, the word carried too many implications that he would have rather not acknowledged. That was, he admitted to himself, the other reason, aside from no longer knowing how to act around kids, that made him avoid the boy over the last few days. If he did, he wouldn't have to deal with the fact his father had introduced him as his adopted son and how that made his stomach twist. He knew it was immature and unfair to the kid, who had no fault and had obviously gone through a lot during the years at the sea. But it hurt to think about Astyanax having his father by his side as he grew up, learning from him and getting his love and protection; while he, instead, had to trace his finger on wooden toys, memorize stories, and whisper to tapestries to create the illusion of paternal love. It hurt too that, even after getting his father back, they both still didn't know how to act like father and son. His father struggled to talk to him, fumbling with his words, and always let his hand hang in hesitance before touching him; he felt exposed around him and couldn't even trust him enough to feel calm when he was alone with his mom; meanwhile, his father took Astyanax's hand, stroked his hair, and gave him comforting words as it was the most natural thing in the world, and the boy never looked as calm as when he was with him.

—It's not a toy.—Astyanax said with a frown—and I made it...but...dad did teach me how to.

—You made this?—Telemachus exclaimed in surprise. 

The boy was still holding his hands out to him, but his gaze had left the floor to meet his, and there was a weird sort of light in it.

Thelemacus took the wooden bird and examined it, marveling at the feeling of the faint outline of the small feathers under his fingers. It was an eagle, with its wings spread and its claws extended in a haunting position, its eyes looked a bit squished, but they felt really alive.

—It's really good...—He told the boy, returning the carving to him. —You are really good at this. 

Astyanax smiled at the compliment taking the bird from him. He looked back at the other pieces of wood in his hands and, after a moment, showed Thelemacus one of them. 

—This one will go with it—He said, placing it on his hand.

Telemachus found himself lost while looking at the red wood. The trace of the knife had caused weird angles in it, but it didn't form a recognizable shape yet--except for two wobbly sticks in one of the corners that might or might not look like claws. He wanted to say something but didn't know what sort of appreciation he could make on work that was far from finished in a craft that he knew nothing about. Before he could come up with something, the door beside them opened and his parents exited the room hand in hand.

They were both smiling and lost in each other's eyes. It took a moment for them to notice him and the boy. Once they did, his mother said:

—Oh...Hi boys. Did you…need anything?

She turned towards Telemachus for that last part, slightly tilting her head and examining his face with those piercing blue eyes that had been able to unravel all his secrets since he was a boy. He shook his head in a no, embarrassed at having been cought wandering around her room, and tried giving her a casual smile. She made a thin sarcastic line with her mouth and squinted her eyes a bit for expression, letting him know she didn't believe him at all. He made an exasperated ‘don’t want to talk about it’ motion, but took his eyes from her, not wanting to answer anything more.

He directed them instead towards his father and Astyanax. They were, he realizes after a while, silently looking at each other with an intensity similar to the one he and his mother had just before. He was well-versed enough in silent conversations to recognize what they were doing as one. He was aware he didn't know either of them well enough to decipher it, but he still observed every little movement of their faces. The boy's eyes wandered from his father's face to the rest of his body with a frown, just to go back up after a while, accompanied by a twisty smile. His father matched it with more security while he offered the boy his free hand.

—Alright—Said his father, turning to Telemachus with a smile. —Ready for breakfast?

(--)

When Telemachus walked past the hall of his mother's room the next morning, he stopped and observed the dark corner behind the column that faced the door. There, hidden by the shadows, he saw the movements of a small figure: Astyanax had gone back. He was there the next day too, and the day after that. 

On the third day, Telemachus no longer passed by pretending not to see him, as he had the times before. Instead, he entered the hall quietly and walked until he reached the column. Astyanax was seated there, in a dark corner by the edge of the wall. He had his knees close to his chest, his arms resting on top of them and a knife and a piece of wood in his hands. 

—Hi—He said, barely above a whisper, without taking his eyes from his carving work.

—Hi—Telemachus answered—Can I... sit with you?

Astyanax didn't look at him but nodded and moved to make space for him in the salient. Telemachus sat by his side and watched him carve. He noticed that in the shadows, without the sun lending them its glow, his sandy blond curls looked almost brown. Like that, even with his growing stick-like limbs, the distance between the boy's features and his father's--and his own-- didn't seem quite as large. He didn't know how he felt about that.

—So, do you...come here every day?...—He asked.

Astyanax was just a kid, a kid who had arrived at an unknown place, full of strange people, after spending all his life either on the sea or on desert islands. Unlike for Telemachus, being scared, and acting too clingy with his father didn't make him seem weak; it was normal; it was to be expected.

—You do too.—Astyanax said ambstembly, his eyes still on the wood.

Thelemacus felt heat spread over his face and neck at being confronted with his childish behavior.

— I just...I do stuff...get an early start on the day…—He stammered, failing to create a compelling excuse.

That made Astyanax lift his gaze from his work and raise his eyebrow at him in an unimpressed way.

—Why are you ashamed?—He asked, frowning and tilting his head. It sounded like an actual question, not an accusation.

— You wouldn't get it... —Telemachus sighed. —I'm not a little boy, I don't get to just wander around my parents room without seeming...I don't know…wrong…

—If you were a little boy you wouldn't be here—Astyanax said, using the confused tone one would use to correct someone who said something senseless, like that the sky was green. — Children don't try to protect the people they love…They are the ones being protected. —He lowered his gaze to the carving once more as he passed the knife over the wood with force, more than necessary, almost janking the piece out of his hand and launching a few splinters in the air. Another shadow, one that had nothing to do with the lack of light around them but that still dimmed the colors in his face, seemed to fall on him as he spoke again, almost whispering.— They are the ones people get hurt for.

There were words that, despite the boy not voicing them, seemed to have gotten out somehow—through the force he used with the knife, the line forming in his forehead, the darkness in his face, or the tone of his words—and to be floating in the air for Telemachus to decipher. He couldn't, not fully, but he did recognize some stuff: determination, protectiveness, frustration. Things he was way too familiar with. He realized he had misunderstood the child's actions. He wasn't in front of that door out of fear for himself, clinginess, or need of comfort; he had been pulled there, just like him, by worry and fear for someone he loved.

He looked at the child with that new revelation in mind, and his gaze lingered on the dozens of tiny cut scars in his arms and legs; little rosy white lines splattered around his skin, almost like freckles. His father had similar ones, he recalled, but in much bigger numbers, and not all of them looked that new. The unusual look of those scars had attracted his attention from the first day, but, he realized in that moment, he had never taken note og the fact that aside from them, the boy's skin was clean; in contrast to his father's, which had marks uneven in color, shape, and size in every visible part of his body. During the previous ten years both of them had gone through the same journey, Telemachus reflected, so the uneven distributions of the marks of it could only be explained if his father had taken most of the hits for the kid. Astyanax must had seen him hurt many times before, feared for his life even. And, even then, when they had reached their destination and all the monstrous threats they had faced were far away, he couldn't stop fearing he'd get hurt again. 

In a way, Telemachus thought, they were both the same: scared boys fighting to protect the ones they loved from monsters that were long gone

(--)

From that day on, Telemachus stopped his badly dissimulated walks around the halls in the morning and instead accompanied Astyanax on the floor in front of his parents' door. If they had asked--though they never did-- he could have just said he was keeping Astyanax company, without the need to admit his own boyish fears.

The first few days he just sat in silence while the boy carved. Astynax didn't speak either and only ever raised his eyes from his work to give him shy smiles when he arrived and throw quick, nervous glances towards the door every few minutes. With time, Telemachus decided to tentatively start conversations with him. He learned that asking about his carvings was the best way to get the boy to talk; he'll shyly but excitedly explain everything about the techniques and tools he used and the stories he had made for every animal figure. They all had names, the boy had explained, stories, and unique personalities. There was ‘Chloe the squirrel', who had her arms twisted due to the constant movement of hiding her nuts, she hid much more than she needed because she had miscalculated the previous winter and almost died of hunger, and she was not going to let it happen again; ''Andronicus the deer' who once had to kick himself out of the grasp of the hungry lion that had caught him and had scars on his paws because of it; and ‘Praxedes the lion’, who was the one that had attacked Andronicus, and her pup, whom she was training to hunt. Thelemacus listened attentively as the boy spoke of each of them and never pointed out that making those stories up for his figurines was not far from playing with them, which Astynax insisted was childish.

One morning, he didn't even had to ask anything for the boy to speak. As soon as he arrived, Astyanax announced he had finished the little bird he had been working on, and presented it to Telemachus with pride, insisting on him listening to the story he had for it. Telemachus watched the bird, lit under the soft morning light, and realized it was a little woodkeeper. It worked as part of a pair, the boy reminded him, running through his clothes until he found the eagle he had previously shown him and holding it in his free hand. 

—Ready?— The boy asked, facing him with a grin before putting his attention back on the figurines once more. Telemachus made an affirmative sound, and the boy cleared his throat. —Alright, well then..this little buddy... I haven't named him yet, sorry...But, he was once surprised on his flight by a hungry eagle, who trapped him between his claws...

The boy carefully brought both carvings together, putting the little bird between the eagle's claws, where, due to the form of its wings, it fit like a puzzle piece. Telemachus let out a genuine gasp, impressed by the clever craft.

—But, the woodkeeper was smart, and he wasn't letting himself die.—Continued the boy—So he had an idea: He let his body fall limp, like he was dead, and when the eagle lowered his head to eat...

The boy stopped the narration to separate the two pieces once more, just to bring them together again in a new position. He squinted his eyes and bit his bottom lip in concentration as he made careful moves to put the beak of the woodstick-- the first part of the bird that had been done, Thelemacus remembered-- into the eyes of the eagle. With a soft click, the pieces came together once more. Telemachus was left speechless.

—He struck his eyes with his beak!—The boy raised his voice triumphantly for that part and retracted into himself right after, probably remembering how early it really was. His next words were a whisper.— The eagle let go of him from the pain and he flew away into the sky!

Astyanax smiled and then gave Telemachus a shy look as he handed him the pieces so he could look at them up close.

—They are amazing — Telemachus said in awe as he moved the pieces in the dim sunlight, looking at the mechanisms that brought them together—And the story is good too... Wit beating strength as always, right?

He had been told stories with that same structure millions of times growing up, by his mother and grandparents, who always believed in the power of the brain and wanted to encourage him to always use his. Not all were fables though, some were drawn from their own experiences, from supposedly real tales of previous kings, or from the things his father had lived with them before the war --those last ones were his favorites, he asked them to tell them over and over again.The little he knew about his father was enough to be sure he shared the same convictions as the rest of his family and had probably passed them on the boy through similar tales, which he was now imitating. As he'd grown, Telemachus had learned reality was more complex, and wit, though a great advantage, couldn't get you out of everything--It hadn't been enough for him and his mother to fully get rid of the suitors. But the world was simpler while he had held those hopeful beliefs, and so, he decided to not tell the boy off of them.

—No, not always —Said Astyanax, interrupting his thoughts with his somber voice— Just sometimes.

Thelemacus was caught off guard by the boy's words. Being reminded once more of the years of journey he and his father had had--from wich he could only ever get glimpses of-- and of how they had shaped the boy, making him crash with the hard truths of the world earlier than he should have.

—Yeah, you are right…—He agreed—But 'just sometimes' is good enough to try. Don't you think?

The boy smiled at that, small but decisive, looked at the wooden animals in his hands with an unusual intensity, and after a while he gave a firm nod.

(--)

Early mornings were not the only times Telemachus and Astyanax found each other in front of the door of the royal room. They were there too every few nights, when the piercing sound of screams guided them through the dark.

The screams had woken up Telemachus for the first time a week after his father returned. He had reached for his sword and ran towards his mother's room in panic, opening the wooden door in a swift move. 

He found the room wrecked, one of the little tables his mom had beside the bed was torn to pieces, and the candle that she kept on it was on the floor, the wax spilling from it drowning the flame out. On the floor, barely lit by the dying fire was a moving mass. It took a second for a face inside the mass, his mother's, to reveal itself by turning to the sound of the opening door and the fast steps. She gave him a tired smile, and he lowered his sword, realizing that the rest of the mass, the reason he couldn't recognize the silhouette as a person at first sight, was his father's body, laying on his mother's lap and clinging to her to the point that, in the almost absolute darkness, it was hard to know where one of them ended and the other started. He was trembling like a leaf--whether from cold, fear, crying or something else it was hard to say.

—Your father just had a nightmare, boys.—His mother said soothingly. 

Only hearing her words, Telemachus realized that behind him, standing in the doorframe without stepping into the room, was the shorter shadow of Astyanax's body.

—You have nothing to worry about, please go back to bed.—She continued.

But Telemachus kept looking at the mess in the room. He knew nightmares well; he had woken up short of breath and covered in sweat countless times, heard his mother's muffled sobs when he had walked past her room in restless nights, and cleaned her sleep-shaded tears from her feverish skin when she was sick. He knew that broken furniture was not a normal consequence for bad dreams; it was, however, a common one for violence.

—He woke up confused, thought we were being attacked.—His mom said, as if reading his thoughts.—We are lucky he came to his senses before tearing down the door, it would be considerably harder to replace.

The joke fell flatly in the tense room. But the explanation, the unafraid tone of his mom, and the way he could faintly make out the decided, soothing movement of his mother's hand in what he assumed was his father's hair, gave Thelemacus some assurance, enough for him to agree to leave the room when his mother insisted on it once more.

On his way out, he purposefully stepped in the dying flame of the candle, worried it would somehow spread to the bits of wood from the table despite the considerable distance separating it from them and sure his mom wouldn't be getting up to put it out any time soon. Before letting his foot fall on it, he caught a glimpse of Astyanax's widened eyes and tensed-up body, and when he passed through the doorframe, he could feel the boy's stiff frame still in there. 

The screams in the middle of the night soon became a common occurrence. Even when he already knew their origin, Telemachus kept getting out of bed and crossing the hall to his parents' room, followed close behind by Astyanax, every time he heard them. He and the boy never opened the door again, nor did they exchange any words, like they did in the mornings. They just pressed their ears on the wood and listened to the flow of whispers. ‘You are home’, ‘it was a dream’, ‘I'm here’, ‘can I touch you?’ were some of the words Thelemacus learned to identify; they let him know it was safe to go back to bed. Astyanax always lingered on the door a little longer, like he needed something those initial whispers couldn't provide, but eventually he left too.

(--)

One morning, Telemachus showed up at the door carrying his old lyre. He had decided to get into playing it again, and between his various duties and his training with Athena, those early mornings were the only time he had for it. Besides, he liked the idea of sharing his music with the boy the same way he had shared his carvings and his stories with him, making the daily waiting considerably less tortuous.

—What is that?—The boy asked him as soon as he sat by his side.

—A lyre—Thelemachus answered—It’s a musical instrument. I play it…or, I used to. I'm trying to get back to it.

He passed his hands over the strings, enjoying the once familiar sensation of the vibration in his fingertips, to show him how they produced sound. The boy winced and scrunched up his nose at the rough, untuned pitch.

—What? Don't you like my song? —Telamachus asked sarcastically.

The grimace in the boy's face instantly disappeared and was replaced first by a panicked expression, that was gone as quickly as it appeared, and then by a thigh smile.

—No I loved it.—He answered quickly—I've never heard Ithacan music, it's really… different.

Telemachus couldn't help but laugh at Astyanax's obvious lie and attempt to protect his pride. As his body contorted with the force of the laugh the boy stayed frozen, staring in confusion.

—It's not even tuned!—Telemachus said in between laughs—I was just showing you how it works!... It's like…like if I told you one of your carvings is pretty when you hadn't even made one cut in the wood!

—Oh…I…I'm sorry, I just…—A blush spread through the boy's cheeks as he failed to get out words.

—Gods, you are not a good liar…How can you not be, being your father's son?—He froze momentarily at the words, knowing how they might have sounded. But the boy didn't seem any more disturbed than he was before, so he didn't draw on them.— You didn't need to lie though.—He added with a smile.— I'm a big boy, I can handle criticism.

—I didn't want to upset you—The boy mumbled, turning his gaze to the floor.

Telemachus waited for his breath, still half gone from the laughter, to steady before carefully moving the strings, listening to the variation in the sound, until the instrument was finally tuned--or at least until he thought it was, it was hard to know after so many years. Then he began playing a melody, nothing elaborate, just one of the exercises he remembered having been taught. The boy's eyes glowed with wonder as he watched the movements of Telemachus’s hands on the strings.

—That sounds way better—He said, slightly breathless.

—It sure is!— Telemachus chuckled. He let the music fill the air between them for a moment before talking again.—So…what songs do you like? If I know them, I can try playing them.

The boy seemed to think for a bit, frowning slightly, but eventually he answered.

—Well…Dad sang me lullabies and sang-stories when I was little. Those were nice.—His eyes were still fixed on the strings and the movements of Telemachus’s fingers on them—But mom’s songs were better…if she was happy while singing them the air seemed to sing too…they weren't as childish as dad's, and she had a pretty voice. I don't know their names, though.

The words made Thelemachus' thoughts trip, and the movements over the lyre faltered for a second. 

—Mom? I thought your mom had died in the war—He said, before he could stop himself.

Telemachus knew the boy was aware of being adopted—apparently his father never tried to hide it. But he had avoided any conversation about the boy's birth family, afraid of intruding or rubbing salt on any unknown wounds and breaking the bond he had been able to create with him within the previous weeks.

—Oh…No I don't mean…She is not my mom mom.—The boy corrected him, lifting his gaze to meet his—Just like dad…But she is my mom, I guess...She gave us a home and looked after me, like moms do, and she liked me to call her that…So I did.

Telemachus' mind was frantically reviewing every piece of information he'd managed to gather about his father's journey, trying to match them with what the boy was saying. But his father never mentioned any woman giving them a home for any period of time nor anyone parenting the boy with him. He wondered for a second if he might have lied to them.

—How long did you live with her?—He didn't stop playing and made an effort to sound casual.

—Don’t know exactly…— The boy said, his gaze back on the instrument—I think I was like five or six when our boat crashed home…So, maybe five years?

Now, that did sound like something his father had said. He had mentioned he and the boy had been imprisoned by a goddess after crashing on her island for five years. However, Thelemachus had imagined those years as a time of hard labor, pain, and them having to worship the goddess to keep themselves safe, not with their captor singing songs to Astyanax and him calling her mom.

—Why didn't she come here with you then?—Telemachus asked, with practiced neutrality.

—She couldn't. The gods only let us go.—Astyanax wasn't looking at the lyre anymore, but he wasn't looking at Telemachus either; his eyes were instead focused somewhere in the distance, somewhere in his head rather than in the hallway. His voice came out distant.—That’s why she didn't want to let us leave. She was…scared of being alone again. Dad had to fight her for us to leave…she always said if we did…

Astyanax's voice trailed off as he got lost in a clearly painful memory. His eyes shined with tears that hadn't yet fallen off yet, and he was placing pressure with his nails on one of his arms, causing the skin around his scars to taint with an angry red color.

Telemachus knew if he probed more he'd only push the boy deeper into wherever his mind had taken him, so he stopped the questions forming in his lips. Seeing the boy like that made his soul clench. Yet, he couldn't think of any words that could help him out or give him any comfort. In lack of better ideas, he changed the melody of the exercise he was playing to the one of an actual song. He was very rusty, so he chose an easy one, one of the first ones he'd learned as a kid, simple but cheerful and sweet. He messed up the opening notes and winced, but he didn't stop playing; he kept carefully coaxing the chirping melody out of the instrument, note by note, pull by pull of the strings. Slowly, the digging of Astyanax nails in his skin stopped and was replaced with the movement of his fingertips over the freshly made red spot. Telemachus ended the song and started a new one, and somewhere in the middle of it, Astyanax's eyes started to focus again, drawn first to the lyre and then to Telemachus' face. The boy looked at him as he blinked a few tears away, and then he gave him a tiny, almost unnoticeable, smile.

(--)

Telemachus repeated his conversation with Astyanax in his head countless times in the following days. The dissonance between the boy calling the goddess “mom”, a word that should equate to safety for any child, and the terrified reaction of his body while talking about her, gave him an uneasy feeling --even greater than the one that hearing the boy call her by that title did. It felt wrong.

Despite the constant threats and looming fear Telemachus had felt during the last decade of his life, his mom, and his family, always meant safety for him. His grandfather, despite his ravings, never caused him any fear; it hurt to hear his grandmother talk about how much he reminded his of his father, but he never doubted her love for him; and even when she had left yelling and swearing that she'll never come back after a big fight with his mom, caused by the return of his uncle and a small part of the Ithacan army without his dad all those years ago, he always remembered his aunt Ctimne with fondness and hoped to see her again. 

In an attempt to understand the boy's experience, he tried gathering more information. He didn't directly ask Astyanax about the goddess, afraid of pushing him too much and causing him pain, but he tried directing conversations towards topics that could lead him to bring her up. The boy never said much about her, and Telemachus learned to fish for passing comments and physical reactions. The contradiction remained: Some of the memories of the goddess that Astyanax would bring up, like sandcastles and bird-watching, came with a fond smile and a nostalgic tone; but others, like bedtime stories or daily ‘family meals’—things that by name Telemachus would assume a child enjoyed-- came with a tremor in his voice and distant, empty eyes. The way such different reactions could be provoked by the same person puzzled Telemachus. He realized that, even after living under the same roof as his enemies for years, he had always known who he should fear and who he could trust. He suspected the boy couldn't say the same.

As he got to know both his father and the boy, he noticed stuff about them he hadn’t before and started suspecting he'd been wrong about the kind of monster the boy feared while guarding his parents' door. He noticed the way the boy wouldn't flinch at the crashing sound of swords during the guards' sparring sessions, like his dad did, but did at any minor schooling from an adult; how he would have a nervous gaze and trembling lip whenever his father and his mother left the room hand in hand; and how he didn't frantically trail his eyes over his father's body like he did every morning after returning from a hunting trip--even when it was a considerably more dangerous activity than sleeping in his room.

His suspicions were confirmed the day he decided to let Astyanax see one of his most prized treasures: the collection of carvings his father had left for him before the war--He had actually considered gifting the toys to the boy, but, even with his father now home, the notion of giving away what for years had been his greatest connection to him made his stomach twist.

The carvings were all lowered from their shelf and placed across the floor of Thelemachus' room, where they both sat as Astyanax carefully examined each of them. The first item to catch his attention was the small portrait of the royal family when Telemachus was a baby. He lifted the circular piece of wood in his hand and put it above his head, towards the sunlight that entered idly from the open balcony, moving it around to see it from different angles.

—Dad made many just like this back home. —He whispered.

—Many?—Asked Telemachus with an amused smile on his face.

One of the very first things he had learned about his father was that he was extremely sentimental, especially when it came to their family. It made all the sense in the world that he had made tons of portraits of them during his years away, Telemachus thought.

—Yeah—Astyanax carefully placed the portrait back on the floor. —He made a new one every time Mom destroyed them.

Thelemachus froze in place at the comment, caught off guard with the mention of the goddess, made without him having to probe.

—She destroyed them?—He echoed, his voice coming out with more surprise than he actually felt.

—Mhm—The boy agreed mindlessly as he took another item, one of the puzzle boxes, from the floor and inspected it.—I guess she thought if he didn't have anything to remember you two by, he'd fall in love with her, and she wouldn't have to make him kiss her anymore.

The boy moved the box around, seemingly unaware of the cold that his words had brought on Telemachus.

—She made him kiss her?—He asked, looking for confirmation but hoping, begging, to get none.

Astyanax just nodded while he moved the different parts of the box around. 

—Did…Did she make him do anything more?—Asked Thelemacus after a while.

Astyanax faltered at the question, stopping his movements on the box for a moment as he looked blankly at the wall.

—Well… She made him stay back home, even though he always talked about coming back here…And she made him sleep in her room…—He paused with a frown, the dimming of light Thelemachus had seen before settling in his face.—He didn't actually say anything about that one, but I knew he didn't like it…He sometimes woke up trembling… or crying, with bruises and cuts.

Thelemacus felt nausea rise in his stomach as he understood the meaning of the boy's words. His father had been raped by that goodess, presumably for years, and Astyanax had noticed it, even if he didn't understad what it meant. Telemachus had suspected it, but he hadn't wanted to believe it. He didn't know what to do with that information. He wanted to help, but he didn't know if he could do it by confronting his father, passing the information to his mom, or simply preserving his privacy. He didn't know either if he should explain to the boy the implications of what had happened or let him live in not so blissful ignorance. Before he could make up his mind, another thought came to him.

—Did she ever make you do anything?—He asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

—No—Astyanax said, simply. And the air seemed to find his way back to Telemachus' chest. Until the boy spoke again —I wasn't as…stubborn...as dad. I just did what she asked and didn't upset her.

But that didn't change a thing. Physically forced, threatened, or emotionally coerced, if the goddess had touched the boy, the dreadful wound would still be there. Telemachus knew that much, he'd seen the pain in the eyes of plenty of the working girls in the palace, always present, no matter the details-- he had feared he would inevitably find that pain in his mother's eyes one day during most of his life.

—Did you… Did she ever ask you to touch her?—He asked the boy.

—I mean…—The boy frowned—to kiss her cheek and hug her, and sit on her legs…just the things kids have to do for their moms if they love them.

The word “have” made Telemachus' stomach drop. It left in evidence how much the goddess had gotten into the boy's head and how much he didn't get an actual say in any of those forms of contact. But it didn't help him answer his real question.

—No, I mean…—He thought for a bit about his next words, looking for something that would truly narrow the answer down. —Did she ever touch you while you were naked? Or while she was?

—What?—Asked the boy, his frown deepening in confusion and disbelief.—No!, that'd be gross!

A relieved chuckle spilled out of Thelemachus' mouth. Unfitting, he schooled himself, for the pain the boy and his father had gone through was still there, even if the goddess' actions hadn't gotten as far as they could have. 

—Yeah…Yeah, you are right — He couldn't help the release of tension in his muscles and the soft laughter that came with it.—You are absolutely right…It'd be fucking gross…

He froze mid-laugth, once his word settled in his ears. He still didn't know much about how to treat children--though he'd learned a bit about it, or at least about Astyanax, in the last few weeks-- but he knew that was the kind of word you were not supposed to say around them. The kid stared at his still body for a second, his eyes wide, as probably Telemachus’s were too. Slowly, a grin formed on Astyanax's lips, followed by an arch eyebrow that asked, "Do you really think I've never heard that?”. When Telemachus didn't answer, the boy's grin exploded into a burst of laughter. It came out of his belly as his body contorted, and it echoed in the walls. Soon enough, Telemachus was laughing too.

They stayed like that for a few moments. And when they finally caught their breath and collected themselves, the air seemed to be lighter. 

The boy returned to the carvings in front of them and eventually started rambling about the jointing teachnis of the pieces in the puzzle box. Telemachus had started feeling the words stop reaching his ears as his head struggled to grasp the information he had just gotten when a curse word left Astyanax's lips without notice. He looked at the boy as he kept talking, a cheeky grin on his face. Soon enough, another curse word came, and then another. The boy kept rambling, as if unaware of what he just had said, but the spark in his eyes gave him away: He was playing with Telemachus, he was daring him. Telemachus let himself be dragged out of his thoughts and accepted the game, casually inserting his own curse words in the conversation with the boy. The boy failed to hide his giggles as they shared increasingly vulgar terms. When Telemachus ran out of known curses he started mixing them up or inventing new ones with any combination of sounds that could somehow sound rude. Laughter filled the room again. Telemachus kept making up words, putting all his energy on it as if they, and the laughter they produced, could somehow erase the grim reality the boy had shared with him, or at least ease the pain from it a bit. Deep down he knew it actually couldn't.

(--)

A few days later they sat facing the wooden door as usual. The awkward air of the first mornings had long disappeared, and was now replaced with the new usual: lyre music, rambling, and muffled laughter. The light of the sun, entering through a high opening by the end of the hall, indicated that it was somewhere near the middle of the morning, far later than when their parents usually woke up. Thelemachus wasn't worried, though, partially because it was not the first time they had slept late, and partially because most of the thigtness in his chest, the one that had initially pushed him towards the halls in the mornings, had receded with time, and Astyanax's rambling was distracting him from the very little that remained.

The boy was going on about how annoying his history tutor could be--his father had taken weeks to select the men who would fill his place in educating the boy, so he had just been able to start his lessons a few days before-- when the door opened. Telemachus got on his feet automatically, still laughing from the impression of the old tutor the boy had done. His eyes only went to the door when he saw a flicker of panic appearing on Astyanax's face. His mom was in the doorframe wearing a tired smile, her elegant clothes and regal stance contrasting with the paleness of her skin and the dark circles under her eyes.

—Are you alright?—He asked as soon as he saw her.

—Yes, dear.—She said, her face softening.— I'm just tired…Your father had a difficult night. We should let him sleep a while longer.

He opened his mouth to point out she was evidently tired too and argue she should sleep as well, but she beat him to it.

—There’s a trade deal that needs to be closed.—She said with resolution—I was supposed to attend today's council meeting as your dad handled it, but now…I'll have to ask you to take one of the tasks off my plate. Would you do it?

Telemachus thought the question was unnecessary, his mom and he both knew that he would do anything for her. He gave her an affirmative nod and a soft smile nevertheless. 

—I’ll handle the council, I've covered for you before. And you won't have to cough me up in all the details of the trading negotiation.

His mother nodded and gave him a proud and grateful smile. He had received that expression many times since he was a boy, but the warmth speeding through his body at it never stopped.

With the plan for the day settled, Telemachus directed his gaze back to Astyanax. He prepared a comforting smile, knowing that the boy could be upset about not getting to check on his dad as usual and might need an extra nudge to get started on the day. But the soft words he had prepared died on his lips when he saw the boy's expression. He was frozen in place, his skin pale, his eyes empty, and his hands shaking slightly as he crushed them on his carvings.

—Astyanax?—He asked. —Are you alright?

The boy turned his head to the sound of his name, but his eyes seemed to look through Telemachus, and he didn't seem to register the question. 

—Father won't be coming out in a while, he needs rest, but he is alright.— He told him in a soothing tone.

Telemachus crunched down to Astyanax's level and let a hand hang on the boy over his shoulder hesitantly. When the boy didn't move away, he placed his hand softly on his skin, hoping it would somehow pull him out of his mind. The boy's eyes seemed to focus a bit with the contact, settling in Thelemacus's eyes and apparently recognizing the words given to him.

— You have lessons to attend to…—He continued, more to test the boy's presence in the moment than for the meaning behind the words—I can… walk you to them if you like?...So you won't have to be alone.

Astyanax opened his mouth to speak but closed it immediately after, forming a thin line with his trembling lips. After a beat he nodded and let out a few deep breaths, contorting his face into a more neutral expression. Telemachus recognized the obvious attempt the boy made to collect himself and thought that, if needed, he could probably succeed at it and go on with his day, muffling the fear that was evidently eating his insides --A twist in his stomach formed with the thought that the boy probably had already had to do that in way scarier scenarios. But knowing he could do it was no reason to ask such a thing from him. Telemachus gave him a soft squeeze on the shoulder and got up, gesturing to his mom for them to talk in a corner at the end of the hall.

—He needs to get in there and see father—He whispered, when he felt like they were out of Astyanax's earshot.

—Your father would refuse to take the day off if he woke him up…— She frowned as she spoke in an even tone. —Whatever Astyanax needs, I think you and I can handle it, at least for this...

—He needs dad—Thelemachus cut her off—He doesn't need to wake him up… He's just worried, scared you've hurt him...he needs to see him, needs to know he's alright.

The pained understanding that salted in his mother's eyes indicated to him that she understood the unspoken bits between his words, that she already knew what his father had gone through and where the boy's fear came from. When she examined his face, he knew it was to try and determine how much he knew, more than to uncover any sort of unknown truth. Telemachus felt a small relief at knowing that his father had confided in his mom about what the goddess had done, that he was not alone in his pain. He had wondered for days about how to handle the information he had in a way that would help, instead of hurt, his dad, and it was good to know his mom, who knew him far better, was already on that.

 His mother let her eyes dance between the boy and the wooden door that kept her husband safe, clearly debating between her worry for both of them and trying to decide on what to do. After a while she let out an almost unnoticeable sigh and started exiting the hall without a word. Telemachus and Astyanax trailed behind her, trying to match the pace of her resolute steps. Thinking she had decided against letting the boy in the room, Telemachus reached her, seeing her face again, and prepared to argue. But, before he could say anything, she stopped mid-step, as if remembering something, and spoke.

—Dammit.— She let out, in a whisper, but it was still high enough for Telemachus and Astyanax to listen. —Astyanax, could you do me a favor?— Her tone came now high and clear as she turned to face the boy—I forgot something in my room, a hair comb our trading allies gifted me. I was going to wear it as a sing of gratitude. Telemachus and I have to have a quick word with our staff before breakfast, and I don't have enough time to go get it… Could you get it from me? Please? It's on the table close to your father's side of the bed.

The boy stayed still for a second before giving an enthusiastic--thought that part he tried to hide--nod. 

—Thank you, sweetie.—She said softly—And please be careful not to wake up your dad.

Astyanax nodded once more and quickly walked the way back through the hallway, towards the royal room. Telemachus thought about waiting for him, but his mother used a gesture of her hand to urge him to keep walking. They did not actually go to talk with their servants, only took the long way towards the breakfast table and walked slower than before to arrive at the breakfast table shortly behind the boy.

As they entered the room, Telemachus watched Astyanax hand a heavily decorated comb--that he had seen around since he was a boy and was definitely not a recent gift--to his mother. He was relieved to realize that not only had the color returned to the boy's face, but also that the trembling of his hands wasn't there when he presented the object to the queen. The boy walked towards Telemachus's side after accepting his mother's thank-yous and took his hand with his own with certainty, even when that was something he had never done before. Then, he gave it a small squeeze; a quiet thank you, Thelemachus understood. Smiling at him, he returned the squeeze, trying to tell him he'll try to always be there to help, even when he wasn't asked to, even when he didn't get it all. The boy smiled back, warm and genuine, and Thelemachus knew he had understood too. And something in the way the boy kept his hand on his made him think that, even when he couldn't completely erase his pain, being there could, at least for the moment, be enough

Chapter Text

Penelope stood in the doorway, holding in her hand the comb the boy had given her and feeling the sensation of the delicate engravings against her skin. Her gaze fell down on it, on the mix of pinkish and green tones and the strength of the marks of the paintbrush against it that added texture to the image. It was beautiful, but she didn't actually remember who had gifted it to her. She knew it hadn't been her husband, for she could never forget any of his gifts; nor any of the suitors, for all their gifts were either thrown out or discreetly traded with various merchants for their worth. It could have been sent from her family, she thought to herself, from Sparta; she could have bought it herself on a whim in her youth, maybe; or it could actually be a gift from a trader in business with the city, like she had said. Wherever it had come from, it had done a fine job as a tool to send Astyanax into her room and ease his fears.

She lifted her hands to her head, pushing against the weight that lack of sleep caused in her bones, and started carefully manipulating her hair with her fingers, undoing her hairdo to replace it with something that she could use the comb in. As she braided the strands of hair her eyes fell on Thelemachus and Astyanax. They exchanged complicit looks and simple smiles as they took their places at the table. The boy looked considerably calmer, the color had returned to his face, displacing the previous paleness and the light was back in his eyes. 

Penelope smiled, pleased to see her little scheme had worked. Though the confirmation was welcomed, her success was not a surprise; she knew her craft well. She had trained herself from youth in the art of gently pulling the loose threads in the tangled web of people's minds and wills, until they gave in and she could weave her plans with them; making people do what she wanted without them ever doubting it was their own idea; twisting their wills the same way she was now twisting the natural loops of her hair into a more purposeful shape. That is what she'd done with the boy. But, the reminder rose in her mind, he had already wanted to go into her room and see his father before she spoke, she hadn't actually needed to lie, she could've just told him he was allowed in.

She stuck the comb in her braided hair with a sharp movement, cutting off the flow of her thoughts as the teeth slightly scraped her scalp. The kid feels better, she told herself, that is what matters.

She took her place at the table, facing Telemachus and Astyanax. Like every morning, relief made her feel light when she noticed the void the suitors had left in the room. Normally Odysseus would be there to fill it, to replace the fear with warmth and safety, ground her in reality. But, he was sick in bed that morning, so she would have to make do for herself. 

“Your hair looks nice,” said Telmachus, noticing the hand she was raising to try to blindly check on the braided crown with her fingers. The design was easy to make, with no need of help from her husband or a maid, but appeared elaborate, proper. She had used those kinds of designs for years, while the suitors were in the palace. 

She answered to her son with a thankful smile.

“Yeah, it looks pretty.” Added Astyanax, giving her a small smile and looking her in the eyes. 

He almost never did that. During the first few weeks after he arrived in Ithaca he seemed to be repressing the urge to run away whenever she was around, and even though it had gotten better with time, he still looked uncomfortable when he was around her and rarely ever held her gaze. The small gesture felt like an achievement for Penelope. 

“Thank you” She answered, smiling back.

After a brief moment Astyanax turned his eyes away; not quickly and nervously as usual, but casual, simply letting them fall on his empty plate. Penelope kept looking at him through the corner of her eye, even as the sun that entered through the window above him slightly stung her already tired eyes. She served hot wine and bread onto her plate. Seconds passed and she kept expecting, hoping, for him to look at her again. He didn't. She told herself it was alright, she could wait. 

She could wait however long it took if it meant knowing all the new parts of her husband that had formed in their time apart; she would trace all the new scars, listen to all the stories, learn how not to trigger the new fears, find her own place in the family he had formed with the boy.

She had always known Odysseus would be changed once he got back, just as she had changed in her long wait; she had always told herself that they'll make it work no matter what. Still, her husband getting back home with a child that wasn't hers had been a surprise;, one that, despite her desire to connect with the boy, she had to admit, even if only to herself, caused an ache in her chest.

It wasn’t about the lack of blood connection; before Telemachus' birth she and Odysseus had considered adopting a child, she remained herself, never doubting they'll be able to love them just the same as one that came from their flesh. They had been married for years and hadn't been able to birth a child; their hopes had risen a few times, just to be dragged back to the floor a few months later; physicians and midwives had been unable to help. Once she was carrying Telemachus they had been cautious with their hopes, trying to stop them from rising even when she got already significantly further into the pregnancy than she had during their previous losses and the physician said they were mostly safe. It hadn't felt real until she had held baby Telemachus in her arms, with Odysseus laying by her side and placing a hand over his tiny shape, both of them following the soft rise and fall of his chest; the crib Odysseus had carved years prior remained unused for months. During the following months they had let their joy sink in, materializing it on the wooden toys and tiny weaved clothes that began filling their son's room. They had talked and dreamed of family outings to the forest or the beach, the the things they'll teach their boy and all their future joys; of sleepless nights, tantrums, exasperated tutors and the challenges they'll face together; of seeing their baby boy grow up and become both the product of their joint work and the surprising revelation of a person they could never dream of.

At the end, she thought bitterly, they had both experienced all of that, but they had done it apart. And now, here they were, trying to take back the life that had been stolen from them; rebuild a home that had been wrecked even though the walls of their palace stood as high as ever; and learn to be a parent to each other's children. Because Telemachus could share his father's blood but Odysseus was as much of a stranger to him as she was for Astyanax. The ache in her chest got heavier with those harsh truths.

The bright sound of laughter pulled her out of her thoughts. In front of her, framed by the hard sunlight, Telemachus was pressing his lips together and contorting his face in an attempt to keep the food in his mouth from blowing out, and Astyanax laughed without restraint, his body moving back and forth like a tree branch being pushed by a soft breeze. The breeze tickled her chest and the ache in it got slightly lighter. They could rebuild their home, she told herself, their boys had already laid the first stones. 

Yet, she knew the obstacles and barriers that had formed in her husband's soul during the last twenty years would be hard to breach. He had told her all the facts of his journey the first night he’d been back. Sharing not in search of connection and support--things she still fought to remind him he deserved--but because he felt he owed it to her to show her who he'd become, to tell her all the ways he felt he had wronged her, so she could consciously decide whether to take him back or send him away. He was foolish to think she would ever choose differently, that she would hold his sacrifices against him; still, she appreciated him considering her will, especially after so many years of men who didn't care for it pushing themselves into her life. 

That night, when he had entered their room as a ghost from the past, he had talked fast, avoiding her eyes and touch, and numbered all the things he'd done. The way he acted had reminded her of the procedure needed to take a spine out of Telemachus’ finger when he was a boy, a quick move to get it over with and save both of them from a hard time. No, she corrected herself, it was more like what he would have done if he got stabbed in battle. It was a procedure she had never seen but had imagined in fear enough times to have engraved in her mind: a sharp pulling of the blade as he ignored his pain and prayed to the gods to not let him bleed to death. That's the way he had told her his story. He didn't let her hold his hand through it, and even weeks later still moved away when she tried to care for the wound.

Unlike with her husband, she suspected it was fear and not shame that made the boy keep his distance. He almost never held her gaze, but she had caught him following her movements with the corner of his eyes more than once, as if expecting her to transform into a wild monster without notice; and he was always waiting on their bedroom door in the mornings, likely fearing she would hurt his dad like that sick goddess had. The notion caused painful knots in her stomach, making it hard to shallow the piece of bread in her mouth, but she supposed she couldn't blame the boy. The little Odysseus had told her about Ogygia was enough for her to know it was no place for a child to grow up in; but Astyanax had grown up there, and he had, just like Odysseus, been forced to play into the goddess sick make believe game. ‘She wanted us to act like her family’ her husband had said, the night of his return, as he pulled out the invisible blade. The goddess had wanted Odysseus to act like her lover and Astyanax, like her perfect son. No, she couldn't blame the boy for his fears; nor could she blame her husband for doing whatever he could to ease them: for letting the child check his body for wounds every morning, for always letting him know where he was, and for making all his meals since the day they had arrived.

Penelope’s fork stopped mid air as she remembered that. Her gaze moved to the boy's plate, shiny and completely empty, and she cursed at herself for forgetting. The boy never ate what their staff made. He had timidly served himself during the first breakfast they had shared, until his eyes reached the fig plate, he had locked eyes with his father and the very next moment her husband had walked towards the kitchen and came back with a plate of fruit salad and the words ‘ I made it, eat as much as you like ’. It had been the talk among the staff for a while, but eventually it had just become reality: everything that the new prince ate was prepared by the king. But that day, the king was sick in bed and she could not let the boy starve, so she breathed and said:

“Astyanax,” The boy moved his head away from Telemachus, looking in her direction but not meeting his eyes. “I don't think Dad is joining us for breakfast this morning. Do you think you could, just for today, eat with us?”

Awareness of the knots in her back muscles hit Penelope as she sat still, remembering her own quarrels with her father over food as a little girl, the hours that passed before he finally gave in and let her go without eating her spinach. She had a trading deal to close today, she couldn't spend hours trying to get the boy to eat. Despite the worry her smile did not falter; she had known since youth how to perfectly fake a smile. Her father had never made her eat her spinach, she thought to herself, despite his mentions of the gods  and pleas in name of her health; but his father was not her, he hadn't known how to twist wills on his finger the way she did. If needed to, she could convince the boy to eat. 

“Alright” Astynax said, smiling politely. Penelope’s posture relaxed at the words.

She remembered the smile and the gaze from earlier, repeated the words of acceptance the boy had just said, and thought that maybe, despite the incident from earlier, they had already started rebuilding something. 

Her spoon was left above her half eaten plate as she stood up, taking the boy's plate and serving him from the bowls on the table. She pointed vaguely to each of the dishes, waiting for the boy to nod before serving him a portion. She noticed some of the nods seemed to take slightly longer to come than others, but they were also more energetic, so she didn't dwell on it. The plate ended up completely filled.

Penelope saw the boy eat without making any protests, and wondered if the decision of him eating only from his father's cooking was not his, but her husband's, if perhaps he didn't trust the palace staff. He wouldn't be unjustified. Her delaying of the suitors had kept her and Telemachus somewhat safe, but the same couldn't be said about the rest of the people under her roof. During the first years she had convinced herself that the web of schemes she had made restricted the movements of the suitors enough for them to be unable to touch anyone in her home; but with time they learned to loosen their invincible restraints, and the younger girls in her staff had faced horrible pains for it. She knew if she just gave in and gave one of those men what he wanted, the rest would leave and her maids would be safe; still, her resolution never wavered. The people who had turned against her family in those years, she reflected, were completely justified; it was the smart choice, the one she would've taken in their place. It wouldn't be smart to turn on the crown now, with Odysseus home it would surely cost anybody who tried their life, but she knew it still would be justified.

Her grim thoughts were cut off when Telemachus stood up, already done with his breakfast, and announced he was leaving for the council meeting. He circled the table to kiss her head before leaving, the touch reminding her why she had sacrificed others for. Then, he gave Astyanax a simple smile before crossing the door. The sound of laughter and of his conversation with the boy left the room with him, and so seemed to do the lightness in the air. She and Astyanax were left alone, sitting at one corner of the monumental table, in complete silence.

As Penelope watched the back of Telemachus disappear from her sight the thought came to her that even if she hadn't had to protect him; even if her suitors weren't the pathetic tyrannous men they were; even if she hadn't known from the start that any of them would make her and her son miserable as part of their family; even if she had met them before marrying Odysseus, none of them would’ve ever stood a chance to gain her hand. She remembered nostalgically how in her childhood she had dreamed of building her own home, her own family; and how she had discarded that dream quickly in her youth, when she had met the men asking for Helen’s hand. She had seen the possessive looks they had thrown at her cousin, heard the empty compliments that showed that despite their eyes never leaving her they didn't actually see her, and decided that if that was what it meant to be desired, if that's what it meant to be loved, she didn't want it. She had decided that she would not marry, that she would rather remain with her father and siblings and know that at least in her own home she wouldn't be seen through.

But then, she had met Odysseus and he had seen her, in a way no one, not even her family, had seen her before. She smiled to herself at the memory. They had crossed each other by chance on a patio, during twilight, and started polite conversation, always keeping decorum. She had tried to pull the strings of his will, as she would with anyone else; but unlike no one else before, he had noticed. She didn't remember what she had been saying, nor what she wanted to get from him with it; but she remembered the way the torches of the guards on patrol had lit the disbelieving smirk he made when he noticed her meddling, and the panic she'd felt when she realized she had been caught. She had thought he would ridicule her, or find a way to get her in trouble for the insult to his ego. Instead, he had played along, let her  unravel his mind and delighted in it; and caused hers to unravel too. With time, the threads of their minds had been woven together, distinct but always intertwined, as they built their shared life.

A lot of time had passed since that night, she thought to herself, and way too much of it had been spent apart from each other, yet she could still feel the connection that had begun then. The parts of their beings that were connected to the other hadn't loosened in the slightest, that was not the reason for the new distance between them; it was the new threads that had formed in each of them. But she was determined to string those together too, no matter how much meticulous work it took. That's why, she reminded herself, she had to eat slowly and remain at the table with the boy for as long as she could without running late to her meeting. She had to ignore the thick air and uncomfortable silence, and the way her body, accustomed to eating fast and leaving that room as soon as possible to get away from drunk lustful men, felt her dragging as unnatural. She had to stay there in case the unusual breakfast gave her an opportunity to connect with her husband's son.

She tried to start a conversation, commenting about the food and asking the boy about his progress with his new tutors. He smiled politely and answered all her questions, but he did it in the most concrete way possible, never giving her the slightest glimpse into his thoughts and falling completely silent afterwards. That's what she had done, she remembered, when she had been forced to talk with any of her suitors; more subtly, but still the same move. Not liking the idea of making the boy feel cornered or scaring him off, she decided to retreat. She tried to keep down the frustration of having to wait for another opening to connect with him, of having to wait even more for her family to feel complete even when her husband was back. She focused instead on her food and the sound made by the scraping of both their spoons on their plates, the rhythm slow but constant. Eventually, the boy finished his meal. 

“Thank you, it was all really good” he said, leaving the fork above his plate with a ding sound.

“I’m glad” she smiled “Would you maybe like more, sweetie?”

She said it more out of habit, after having to keep the customs of a perfect hostess for so many years, rather than because she thought the boy would be hungry. He had, after all, eaten a portion quite big even for an adult. She extended her hand for him to pass her the plate so she could take it away, put it in a pile with the rest and leave it at the center of the table for the servants to take away. But he seemed taken out at her words, caught in his own head, and was surprised at the movement, slightly flinching away. She wondered if she had done something wrong; maybe pushed too hard while trying to converse or made him feel uncomfortable with the term of endearment. Yet, the boy quickly collected himself and gave her a polite smile, offering his plate.

“I'd love to.” He said, meeting her eyes. The look lasted a few moments longer than the previous one, but somehow felt less direct, as if he was looking past her. “Thank you”

She held the boy's plate for a moment, before deciding against addressing his previous unease and getting up to serve. She was about to ask exactly what he wanted a second portion of when her eyes fell on his plate. It was coated by splatters of a brownish sticky paste, distributed all around the surface, it looked as if it had been given messy brushstrokes with spoiled paint. Penelope couldn't help but smile, Telemachus had done the same with the food he didn't like, trying to camouflage its volume and hide how much he had left.

“Were the figs that bad?” She said teasingly.

The boy's eyes widened in surprise and his smiled faltered, just for a second, before coming back wider. 

“No, I loved them!.” He said “I just…Sorry I made a mess”

Penelope had to hold back a scoff at the obvious lie. It was funny, she thought to herself, that the boy thought he could lie to her. Many had tried before and they all had failed. When men had filled her house trying to mask their intentions she had stood like a stone hit by the waves on a beach. Some of them had been weak, thinking her too dumb to actually put effort into their deception; others harsh, made within alliances and loaded with political power she just couldn't ignore; in any case they had been constant. But she had been strong, the craft of her words sturdier, and when their attacks had stopped she was still standing, even if a bit eroded like any rock would be after so long. Yeah, it was fun for an inexperienced boy to think he could fool her.

“You sure?” she pressed, arching an eyebrow to show her skepticism.

“Yeah!” Astyanax answered, loudly and a bit shaky, looking somewhere past her shoulder.

No, the craft in the boy's lie wasn't solid at all, it was obvious it came from emotion and his words were spit out instead of well thought through. As the sun hit him from behind and made the strands of his curls shine golden she thought she could practically see the one loose string in his mind that would undo the poorly made knot of his lie with no more than a slight pull. Normally, she wouldn't put the effort of undoing something so small. But the thought came to her, as she envisioned the invisible thread, that if she pulled, if she got the boy to admit the lie, maybe she could get to the emotion behind it; maybe she could make him be vulnerable with her for once, connect with him; maybe she could finally stop waiting and start mending her family. Before she could think better of it , she opened her mouth and pulled at the invisible thread.

“Well, then I’ll give you a bit extra this time” she said casually, duncking the serving spoon in the fountain and lifting once it was full of chopped figs “try to not make a mess this time alright?”

The boy stood still for a second, looking at the plate, but eventually gave a small nod. He asked for extra portions of some other dishes before taking his plate back. Then, he started to eat. He did it slowly, mixing every bite with other stuff, taking his time in guiding the spoon towards his mouth, swallowing quickly and dragging the next bite. Penelope served herself a few pieces of cheese and pretended not to notice his struggle, waiting for him to give up and stop eating. The minutes dragged and Astyanax didn't speak, losing color with every bite he took. The worry of having pushed him too much started crawling in her skin. She had to find a way, she thought to herself, to let him stop eating the figs without showing she'd noticed his aversion to them from the beginning, without revealing her plan. Before she could do it, the door of the dining room opened.

“Morning, family” said her husband with a tired smile, as he crossed the distance between the door and the table “Love, you should have woken me up” he whispered when he reached her side, taking between his fingers a strand of hair that had fallen off her braid.

“No, I shouldn't” She corrected, standing up to meet his height and taking a hand towards his forehead. He was not burning any more, but he was still warmer than usual, and his eyes were small and red on the edges. “ You should have stayed in bed. I would have told a maid to get you your breakfast”

“I like eating with my family. Besides, there is stuff to do and…”

“Telemachus and I have everything under control” she insisted “You need to rest”

Odysseus opened his mouth to argue back, but stopped when his eyes fell on Astyanax and his breakfast. He frowned and he reached the half eaten plate with one hand.

“Are you eating breakfast?” He said, looking at both the child and Penelope with a grave gesture. He looked at the plate more closely and the frown deepened. “Why are you eating figs? You don't like them. ”

The boy’s skin by that point was colorless. His eyes met his father's as he fidgeted with the hem of his clothes, but Penelope could feel the corner of them focused on her. He opened his mouth a few times without speaking.

“What are you talking about?” He blurred out eventually.  “I love them!”

“No, you don't” Said Odysseus, his tone calm and sweet but giving no room for discussion. “You say the texture is gross.”

Penelope thought she saw the soft shine of tears in the boy's eyes as he shook his head, but she couldn't be sure, because a moment later he was running towards the door. Odysseus followed him immediately. She, instead, didn't react until a crashing sound came from the hall. Only then, she left her place besides the dining table and crossed the room. 

The boy was on his hands and knees on the floor, his body shaking like a tree fighting not to fall off during a wild storm. His head violently moved down and a sticky mix of food and unrecognizable fluids fell from his mouth. Odysseus quickly kneelt beside him, blocking him from Penelope's sight. Comfort words that Penelope couldn't make out were spoken, with the softness of a caress, as he stroked Astyanax’s back.

“You should've woken me up.” he told her without facing her. His tone, sharp as an arrow, contrasted with the softness he had used with the boy.

“I…You needed to rest. He didn't show any problem with eating, didn't say he disliked figs” Her voice sounded small as she tried to string together an explanation. To convince him, –and herself– that the boy’s state wasn't her fault. With every word the falseness of that sinked more in her heart. “Why didn't he say anything?”

“She'd get upset if he didn't eat what she cooked!” The spited out words cut through the air, slicing Penelope's heart as understanding washed over her like a cold wave.

Odysseus turned to face her and she almost wished he didn't have. His dark eyes were small and cold, meeting her with a violence he had never directed at her. Her blood froze and her heart caught in her throat. Her husband closed his eyes with a sigh.

“I should have told you” He said after a moment, his tone apologetic and warm again.

The boy sat up, still shaking and with thick drops of water falling down from his eyes to his face. He took the back of his hand to his mouth, cleaning it with it and scrunching his nose in disgust after noticing the yellow-green spots on the fabric that covered his body. His gaze stayed on the floor as he crawled away from his sick, sitting beside the wall and failing to fight down his sobs. Odysseus moved to his side.

“It's alright” He said softly “It's over. I'll bring something to clean up with and some fresh clothes and everything will be fine.”

He started getting up, when the Astyanax's hand caught his arm and stopped him. The boy looked at him with wide eyes and trembling lips and shook his head, his eyes pointing to Penelope for an incredibly brief moment.

“It's alright. She will come with me” Odysseus said soothingly. His eyes crossed with Penelope's for a moment, with a sort of anxious energy, asking her to come with him, to a peace the child, but also, to talk about what happened on their own. “You won't stay alone with her.”

The words did nothing to calm Astyanax, instead his eyes opened even more and his grip on his father's arm tightened, poking with his fingernails on his skin. Penelope wondered if they'll leave a scar; one whose origin she would've seen, as she was supposed to with all the rest; one whose cause would be on her, not in her hands but with the terror she caused his son, as none of them should ever be. 

“She won't hurt me” Her husband told the boy, with a security Penelope couldn't help but feel as undeserved. “I promise, she never would.”

“He has no reason to trust that” she said, surprised to have managed to keep her voice steady. “Stay with him. I'll bring water and a change of clothes”

She started crossing the hallway before Odysseus could argue, letting her feet lead her to the kitchens with long decided steps while a hurricane slowly rose in her mind. A mix of voices in her head kept asking why she hadn't just told the boy he could stop eating, why she'd been so caught up in getting him to admit his lie, to not discover hers, why she hadn't just told him to enter their room and see his father when he had been scared. She crossed the door of the kitchens, the voice in her head still throwing questions at her, throwing them with a spite that made them more accusations than questions, really. Couldn't she, the voice kept saying, connect with people without deception anymore? Had having to lie to survive for so long left her truly that broken? She stopped her own attempt of scraping excuses from deep inside her head, crossing the kitchen.

She reached for a bucket, lowering her body down to pick it up with. The movement brought back the image of the boy scrunched down in the hall, his breakfast and countless tears flowing out of him. Her mind twisted the memory cruelly after a second. She was presented with the image of the boy in the hallway, in the same position he had been in, but with a  rope tied around his stomach; it kept tightening, squeezing him up and forcing his guts out. She understood that rope was the loose thread she'd found in his mind, the one she had pulled on with no care, the one she had caused him pain with. A wave of disgust washed over her.

She carried the bucket, along with a piece of soft cloth, across the palace. A few servants stepped close to try to help her with the weight, but backed down after their eyes met the fire in hers. They feared her, just like the boy did, just like Odysseus, sometimes, did too. She had told herself that the way her husband would sometimes flinch away from her touch, no matter how soft, and the evident worry the boy felt about her being alone with his dad were caused by the memory of their captor, not by herself. She wondered at that moment if she had been wrong. “ She wanted us to act like her family ” that's what Odysseus had said, in between tears. Wasn't she, Penelope asked herself, searching for the same when she kept pushing the boy? She had been trying to force a connection she was not entitled to, without caring if the boy was up to giving it or not, and had ended up hurting him for it. In a way, she was just like that wicked goddess.

As her mind was clouded with those reflections her feet had carried her to the residential part of the palace, without her noticing. She remembered she had said she'd bring the boy a fresh set of clothes, yet she couldn't bring herself to enter his room, to intrude once again into his life and possibly cause more damage. So she took the clothes from the back of Telemachus’ closet instead. 

She walked back to the hallway in front of the dining room, focusing on the feeling of her fingers passing along the fibers of the fabric and the weight of the bucket pushing down her arms. The physical sensations tied her mind down to the ground, keeping it from flying back into her wild, stormy, painful thoughts. It threatened to escape a few times, but she pulled it back down; she wanted to be collected when she reached her husband and the boy. As she passed the corner that led to them she straightened her back and forced a smile. Her act didn't fool Odysseus, who frowned in concern. Concern and love, she told herself as she started scrubbing the floor, not fear or hate; if she was fully like that woman he would never look at her that way. She smiled at him, trying to ease his worries and tell him they could talk about it later. Before he could agree, the boy spoke.

“I’m sorry Penelope,” he said, quickly as if reciting something already planned in his head “I didn’t mean to make a mess. I should have just said I didn’t..”

“No,” she interrupted, trying to keep her tone soft but firm. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I should’ve…” She cut herself before she could say “I should've seen you were struggling ”, she had, after all, seen it, her fault was somewhere else, somewhere worse . “I should’ve made you feel safe. I'm sorry I hurt you.”

“It’s alright" Astyanax played mindlessly with the hem of his clothes as he spoke. “You didn’t mean to.”

“But I still did, and that is not alright."

For some reason, those words made the movement of Asyanax’ fingers over the fabric suddenly stop, and his eyebrows frown in confusion. He looked at her, for the first time since she had arrived in the hallway, as if searching for something in her expression. He didn´t seem to find it. He opened his mouth a few times to answer but he closed it up again every time and ended up just offering a small smile and a thoughtful nod before looking away, deep in thought.

Penelope finished cleaning up, dropping the cloth back in the bucket,  and told Odysseus she’d leave for the trade meeting and leave him to help Asyanax get cleaned and dressed. He protested when she advised both of them to take the day off of their duties, indignated at the notion of her carrying the entire load of the kingdom again, even for a day, when he was there to share it with her. She had to remind him his child needed him, for talking about his own sickness did not persuade him, and to promise she would take  a day off, letting him worry about everything as she was doing that day once he recovered in order for him to agree.

As she walked out of the hallway, turning on the corner that led to the front door, her eyes fell on the little corner of light made by the figures of father and son smiling tiredly and talking in a low voice. She stopped her steps for a moment, took in the sight and smiled. Someday, she thought to herself, they would build a new family of their own; but today, Astyanax would find safety on his dad, Odysseus would recover from his sickness, and she would handle the kingdom; all of them taking it all one day at a time.

Chapter Text

The leaves of the tree hid Astyanax and kept the noise out. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, on top of the tree. His cheeks were almost dry and the wood had started taking a shape under his fingers, so it must have been long. People were probably looking for him. It was fine, he told himself, because the thick green leaves hid him and kept the noise out.

He passed the tip of his fingers over the carving he was making. It was not right yet. He had fixed the ears and the eyes, but the face was still off. He didn't know why. Maybe the dark had made him mess up, maybe the memories were starting to fade in his head. He didn't know why, but it was still off. He thought he could try to make the cheeks smaller, maybe that would fix it. He put the knife over the wood, breathed in, and kept carving. Little pieces of wood fell down to the ground. They moved down slowly, making little circles in the air. The pieces of wood looked like little birds, thought Astynax, they were calming to look at.

Suddenly, a sound interrupted the calm. It was the sound of steps. Astyanax couldn't recognize people in Ithaca by their steps, like he did back home when it was just him and his parents. He tried hard, but it was impossible, there were too many people there. He did know some steps by groups. Groups like the guards. They walked with heavy steps that were followed by the metallic ‘cling’ of their weapons and armor. That was the group where the steps coming in his direction belong.

He breathed in and reminded himself that the thick green leaves were hiding him. If he stayed still, he told himself, the guards wouldn't see him, just like sometimes he didn't see the birds in the trees until they jumped around. He tried not to move as the guards walked towards his tree, looking around in the bushes of the little garden. When they got closer Asyanax recognized in between the many steps a familiar pair. Telemachus's steps. He walked a bit like his dad, with the same softness that made it hard to hear him until he was very close, but with a bit more energetic rhythm. He recognized the sound of Telemachus's steps and understood he was there, searching for him.

He tried to stop every movement of his body, including his breath, when they all passed under the tree. They were slow, too slow. The guards stopped to look around and moved the bushes below the tree, but they didn't look up. Astyanax smiled. They were about to walk past him when Telemachus stopped, looking at something in the ground, just below the branch he was at. He was looking at the bits of wood, Astyanax understood, the ones that had looked like little birds when they fell. He looked at them for a few seconds, and then raised his head. 

Astyanax was met with a warm smile. It was surrounded with brown hair and a simple crown. They reminded Astyanax of the bond between his dad and Telemachus. How he was his son, by blood, and how his dad always said he was his brother too, even if not by blood. Brother. Astyanax liked the word, but he never used it. Telemachus didn't either. He saw his smile and sighed, he had been found.

“Tell my father we found him!” Telemachus yelled to the guards. Astyanax panicked. He didn't want his dad to come there, didn't want him to tell him to go down, didn't want him to know about the tree. Telemachus looked at his face for a few moments, frowned, and spoke again. “But...tell him not to come here. The prince is not hurt and he's got guests to attend to. I can handle it.” 

Telemachus waved his hand. He made the motion Astyanax had learnt was used to dismiss people. The guards obeyed and left. They were alone now.

“Can I climb up?” Telemachus asked him, walking closer to the tree’s base. 

Astyanax looked around at the carvings he'd made in the wood of the high branches. He had kept them secret. He didn't want his dad to know about them, to look away from him with empty eyes and go quiet, like he always did when he mentioned home. Telamchus had told guards to tell him not to come, Astyanax remained himself, and he wouldn't say anything to his dad if he asked him not to. Besides, if he didn't let him climb up, he would tell him to go down. Astyanax didn't want to go down, not yet. He gave a small nod.

The tree shook when Telemachus started climbing. He was much heavier than Astyanax. The thin branches made little cracking sounds when his hands or feet held to them. At some point one broke under his weight and he almost fell off, getting smacked in the face with a branch as he tried to hold on to the tree. Astyanax felt a laugh getting out of his lips. It was a big laugh that got out of them without control.

“Does my pain cheer you up?” Telemachus spit, getting higher, almost reaching him.

Astyanax stopped his laughs with a few deep breaths. He checked Telemachus's face as he climbed. Rolling eyes and a smile. Annoyed then, not mad.

“Just a bit.” He said smiling. “Maybe if I saw you fall down I'd be happy enough to go back.” It was a lie, or a joke really, he wouldn't want to go back anyway. His words did lighten the air.  

Telemachus smiled and let his body fall on the branch Astyanax was sitting in. He did it harder than he needed to. The boy let out a high scream, the world got blurry in his eyes and his hands squeezed on the wood. It was now Telemachus' turn to laugh and his to roll his eyes. He definitely did it on purpose, Astyanax thought as he recovered.

He thought that maybe that would be all, that they could just mess around and he would not get asked about the running away or the tree. 

He had been wrong. When his laugh slowly calmed, Telemachus' eyes went to the branches of the tree. Astyanax had made a small collection of animals in their wood. There were all of different sizes and types. Furry, feathered, or scaled. With four, two or no legs. With wings, tails, fangs or claws. They were all different, but none could be found in Ithaca.

“So…You've been working on this for a while?” Telemachus asked. 

“A few weeks” Astyanax let his fingers pass over the carving he had been working on. Maybe he should keep fixing the cheeks.

“It's amazing.” Telemachus said. He always said that about his carvings, but he always seemed sincere. A few seconds passed before he spoke again. “You didn't climb up here tonight to carve in the darkest, though. Or did you?” 

Astyanax raised his knife and looked him in the eyes to make a point. He had actually been carving. Telemachus' arched an eyebrow. He seemed to have seen through him. He seemed to see that he had actually been carving but he hadn't climbed the tree to carve. Astyanax huffed. He would have to talk to him.

“I just…needed to get out.” He admitted, getting back to his carving. “The party…stuff got a bit too much.”

A bit too much didn't even begin to say it really. Astyanax had been at many social events since he had arrived at Ithaca and they were always a bit too much. That night's celebration was worse than that. Kings from other kingdoms and the few survivors from his dad's crew were invited. There were more people than ever before. More danger than ever before. Astyanax had tried to keep track of everything going on, but the more attention he had paid the less it all had made sense. Words ringed in his ears, steps went in all directions, cups crashed, people laughed, clothes moved in a colorful blur, wine was spilled, spoons scraped on plates, smells flew out of soups, smiles surrounded him... He thought he would drown.

Then, he had found himself on the tree, where thick leaves hid his tears and kept the noise out.

“You know? I've been there.” Telemachus said softly, “Social events can be…overwhelming when you are just getting started in them. It gets better with time”

Astyanax let out a sight and let his knife dig in the wood. He didn't think it would get better, and even if it did “with time” was too far away. He knew the world kept moving around the little green bubble the leaves the tree made for him. People had noticed he was not around and they would keep doing it if he escaped again. They would get mad. He didn't like mad people. He needed to find another way to not drown.

“You know what helped me?” Asked Telemachus, as if reading his mind “I focused on the entertainment. The aoidos and games and such. It helped block out the rest”

“That's dumb” Astyanax said without thinking. He bit his tongue at his rudeness then checked Telemachus's face. Frowning a bit, but tilting his head. Not mad then, just confused. “If I blocked out everything, how could I know if people started getting upset? If they started getting dangerous?”

“Right…” Said Telemachus, as if he hadn't thought of it before. He looked in the distance and stayed quiet.

Astyanax passed the knife over the wood, correcting the carving’s cheek. He didn't want to know what Telemachus was thinking as he stayed quiet. He thought about it though. He thought about how his words had pointed at the way he had failed. They had pointed at how he had tried to pay attention to everything but ran away when it got too much, ran away and left them alone, left them alone with the dangers he didn't know if were there. They pointed at how he kept telling his dad he could protect him too, but left him alone with all those strangers, just as he had left him alone with his mom back home. Astyanax carved as Telemachus looked in the distance. He didn't want to know if he had seen what his words said too.

“Rigth, I guess peace and quiet are better to feel safe, then.” Telemachus said as if he hadn't stayed silent for so long. Astyanax thought his words were weird. He seemed to think that him running away was fine. “Why here, though? With all other hiding spaces in the palace?”

Astyanax could feel his eyes on his neck as he worked. Staring. Waiting for his answer. He wasn't sure, but he thought he was not only asking about why he had hidden there from the party. He was asking why he made all those carvings there too.

“The leaves in here make it like a little bubble and…and they are green green, not yellowy green. They are like the ones back home. It 's nice.” He kept carving as he talked. Carving, like he did every time he climbed up that tree. Carving, like he did with the trees back home.

“Do you miss it? Your…home?” His voice dropped a bit when he said that last word. Astyanax suspected that he didn't like calling it that. His dad didn't either.

Astyanax nodded at the question. He nodded before he could think about it. Panic rose in him when he realized how it could look. 

“It's not like I don't like it here!” He said quickly. “Ithaca is really nice! And you and your mother have been super kind with us. Thank you, really”

He looked at Telemachus' face. He looked for anger in it, anger he called for with his words. Anger that was deserved if you were ungrateful with someone who had let you in their home and took care of you in it. Telemachus wasn't angry. He was just listening and smiling softly. He was not offended. 

“It's just very different here” Astyanax continued, more calm now. “everything here is…too much” 

He sighed as he turned away from Telemachus's face and pressed the knife on the wood. It had been too much from the beginning. Arriving on a new island full of strangers, being told to be part of a new family, having to learn so many new things, had all been too much. Ithaca was nice, like his dad always said it would be. There, he had other kids to play with, tons of places to explore, and teachers who taught him stuff his father never did. There, he knew his mom couldn't hurt his dad, couldn't hurt him, not anymore. But there, there were many other people who could. Too many people. Unlike with his mom, he never knew what to look for to know if the people going in and out of the palace were upset, or what to do to keep them happy with him. He just tried to do what everyone asked him to do. Classes, events, practices, smiles. It was much more than what he had to do back home. In Ithaca there was always too much to do, too much stuff happening, too many people, too much noise. Just...too much.

“Home was simpler.” Astyanax admitted. Not better, just simpler. “There were less duties, less people… just dad and mom. It was lonelier, but easier.”

“Do you miss her?”  The question came as a whisper.

“Who? My mom?” 

Telemachus frowned at the word, but he didn't tell him not to say it. His dad always did, had done it since he was little. Telemachus just nodded.

Astyanax opened his mouth to say ‘yes’. He knew he should say yes. Kids loved their moms and missed them when they weren't around. 

He did miss his mom’s singing, and birdwatching with her, and the way she was happy with him being silly and didn't ask him to learn to be a prince. He did think of her everyday, of her tears and screams the day they left, of her soft whispers before, of the cliff with pointy rocks at the bottom that sat back home. Nobody but his father would get upset with him for saying he missed her. Everyone else would think he was a monster if he didn't. Telemachus, who loved his mom more than anything, would surely do.

He opened his mouth to say ‘yes’, he knew he should, but the word wouldn't form.

The knife stopped moving on the wood. The wood that held a collection of carvings of animals he didn't want to forget, but not even one carving of his mom's face. His eyes crossed with Telemachus's. He felt tears forming in them.

“You don't have to answer,” Telemachus said softly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

Telemachus was fine, Astyanax reminded himself. He reminded himself that he didn't try to get him down from the tree or away from his dad's door, that he never told him not to call his mom that, that he didn't get upset when he said he missed home, that he never seemed to get truly angry, just annoyed. He could answer him, he could answer him anything and it would be alright.

“It's fine” His voice sounded, weird in his ears, clogged. He reminded himself again that he could say anything. “It's just…I do love her, I swear I do, and it hurts to know she is out there without me. She…she was never good at being alone…”

He looked down at the ground, meters below them. His belly felt liquid. It felt as if his body had suddenly remembered how far he was from the ground. It felt like the night when he followed his parents' screams to the cliff.

He remembered how when they got back their clothes had been wet from the rain. His mom had lit a fire in his room and put his dad's shaking body in his bed. She had let him sleep with him and gone alone to her bed, just for that night. Before leaving, as they both warmed by the fire and heard his dad mumble and sob in his sleep, she had whispered “Am I really that awful that is better to die than to stay by my side?” She had whispered it so low Astyanax wasn't sure she wanted him to listen. He had answered anyway. He had cleaned her tears and told her that wasn't true, that he liked being by her side. It seemed to help, because when she talked again she did it clearly and looking at him. “Good. Because I like having you by my side. I think if I didn't, if I had to be alone again, I’d probably be the one to jump off the cliff”. She had said that looking at him. She had said that and he had still left.  

“But, it doesn't hurt me to be without her. It's…It's even nice, sometimes.” The admission left his mouth. The admission of just how selfish he had been. He looked at Telemachus, he tried to see if he was upset with him. “Is it…Is it too horrible I don't?”

He already knew it was, but he wanted to hear what Telemachus thought. He hoped he thought it wasn't that bad, hoped that he thought he wasn't that bad. Telemachus was nice. Astyanax liked his jokes and the way he never seemed to get truly angry at him, just annoyed. He liked the idea of calling him “brother” someday. 

“It isn't” Telemachus' voice was firm. He didn't seem to have any doubts. “Or well…It is horrible you have to feel that way, but it isn't horrible of you to do it. Does that make sense?”

“A bit”

Silence fell around them again. Astyanax kept on carving. The little monkey began looking more like his memories. Telemachus looked as he worked. He looked at the monkey sometimes and around the rest of the animals of the tree others. Astyanax looked around too. He remembered the beautiful carvings at his dad's bed. He had seen them when he had entered his room to bring Penelope something one morning. They were made on a living tree too. He wondered if his tree would ever look as pretty as theirs. If it ever did his dad could never see it. The memories of Ogygia would surely leave him empty eyed and hurt. They always did. At least, Astyanax thought, Telemachus had seen it, and he had seemed impressed by them. He gave the final touches to the monkey and left the knife aside. It no longer looked off.

“I think I know something that would help you with the problem of parties.” Said Telemachus when he saw he had finished. Astyanax tensed. “You don't have to agree to do it, or to come back. Just hear me out, I think it could work.”

Astyanax looked at the leaves around them. They hid them and kept the world out. They did, but the world was still there. He had to find a way to go back to it without drowning. He nodded.

“You don't have to try to see everything to know if it's a threat. You can focus on just one person, or a few at most” Telemachus raised his hand to tell Astyanax not to argue. He had opened his mouth to do it. “You can focus on dad. When my mom's suitors were around her, I would focus on her reactions to know when something was a threat and I needed to…intervene. She has good judgment, if she doesn't look worried I know I shouldn't be either. You could do the same with dad”

Astyanax thought for a bit. His dad always seemed scared of the sea, or of his mom, even when they were in their good moments. He thought some things were dangerous when they weren't. But, he thought to himself, he never thought something wasn't when it was. That was good enough judgment. Astyanax could know if his dad was upset in a way he couldn't with strangers. If he paid attention to him instead of to everything, maybe, just maybe, stuff would stop drowning his mind. Telemachus' idea could work.

“Maybe I could try it”. He said.

“Good.” Answered Telemachus “And I'll pay attention to you. If I see you struggling I can get you out. And,” he said that last word slowly when Astyanax opened his mouth to argue “I'll go back and make sure everything is safe, so you can be calm.”

Astyanax frowned at that. He had seen Telemachus fight in practices. He would be of more help than him for sure, but it wouldn't be fair. 

“It wouldn't be fair for me to leave you alone. To let you protect me, and not protect you.”

“It can’t be helped sometimes,” Telemachus said, calmly. “I may have to leave dad to protect everything at some point too, or you, one day. Sometimes stuff happens. I…family should be there for that.”

Astyanax didn't think his mind getting drowned was “stuff happening”. At least it wasn't serious stuff happening. But he knew Telemachus wouldn't let him go if he didn't agree. He wanted to look after him. Astyanax liked the feeling. For some reason, he didn't argue back.

“Alright.” He said. “We go down and try it then?”

“If you want to.” Telemachus answered.

Astyanax breathed in and nodded.

They climbed down the tree. Telemachus went first and Astyanax followed, even when he climbed faster. They left the bubble of quiet, green green leaves, and far away animals and returned to Ithaca. Ithaca where stuff was a bit too much, where his mom was not around, not even in carvings, and would never be, where the pain of her thorns would never touch his skin. Astyanax felt his body fizzing. He felt as if little ants were moving inside of him. He has felt it before, they were nerves.