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Chapter Text

In one world, Odysseus returned just in time to strike down the suitors who plotted to steal his throne, violate his wife, and murder his son.  

With Telemachus at his side, he spilled their blood in the halls of his own palace.

He was reunited with the love of his life, Penelope, after twenty years away – first at war (the one that would later be called the Trojan War), and then fighting to return home, hindered at every turn by monsters, gods, goddesses, and men alike.

In the end, he got his happily ever after – for a time, at least. But those who know, know how the story truly ends.

The king of Ithaca went down in history as one of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology.

But in this world, Odysseus arrives too late.

In this world, Telemachus does not return in secret and ahead of time.

This is not an epic saga of a man becoming a monster in his desperate struggle to return home. Nor is it the tale of a boy who grew up never knowing his father, hearing only stories of his feats after setting off on a journey of his own.

No – this is a story about someone else entirely.

A different kind of hero.

***

The sea was restless.

Not long ago, it had been a furious battlefield of crashing waves and howling winds.

Now, it churned with lingering defiance.

Though Poseidon’s tempest had passed, his wrath and pain remained – choppy waters rolled unpredictably, their surface flecked with whitecaps and the golden sheen of a god’s ichor. Foam swirled in chaotic patterns, dragged into a restless dance by unseen currents below.

The waves, still unable to find peace, smashed against jagged rocks in fits of rebellion.

Soon, the dark and golden sea would be stained with the color of mortals – red. Blood red.

Splash after splash echoed across the space as chunk after chunk of the sawed-off pieces of a young prince’s body were hurled into the sea. Each one sank slowly, swallowed by the depths, destined to become a secret shared only between the murderer, the dead and the ocean.

That is, if it weren’t for one small thing, called fate.

Because, as the Fates would have it, this was no end – but an opportunity for change.

Far into the future, another young man – prophesied for greatness and tragedy alike, watched over, and judged from above and below – meets a similarly tragic fate. In a moment of agony and clarity, he stabs himself to death, desperate to redeem his failures.

Longing for a second chance – to reach Elysium.

Hoping for reincarnation.

And so, he shall live again. In another time, through another life.

Brought back into the broken body of royalty descended from his Father, stitched together by the blood of gods, sustained by the stolen power of time – unknowingly granted by a mad Titan – and anchored by the meddling of the Spinner, the Measurer, and the Cutter, who, in their own twisted way, had always held a soft spot for this particular demigod.

He would bring with him something new and unpredictable to the people of Ithica.

Confound many a god and goddess.

And ultimately, change history as we know it.

Somewhere, three little ladies cackled gleefully – until they choked on their own spit.

Chapter Text

Luke came to with a violent gasp, seizing as seawater flooded into his mouth, scalding his throat and wrenching a choked sob from his chest. Pain gripped him as he began convulsing. Darkness surrounded him on all sides, cold and endless, pressing in like a tomb.

He thrashed. Arms and legs flailed in blind panic, fighting to rise, to push against the weight of the sea. Disoriented and drowning, his thoughts began to fracture, swallowed by fear and the burning in his lungs.

Then – light. Faint and flickering, a few thin rays pierced the shimmering vault above him, refracted through an iridescent curtain of blue. With aching limbs and fading strength, Luke thrust his way toward it, toward life.

Just as his body neared surrender, his head broke the surface.

With a choked cry, he burst from the water, gulping in a desperate breath. Coughing and retching, he fought to stay afloat – feet kicking weakly, arms moving without rhythm. His chest heaved.

The midday sun glared down on him, and the sea shimmered under its gaze, deceptively calm. Squinting against the sting of salt and sunlight, he took in his surroundings.

To his left, no more than a few plethra[1] away, rose a jagged island.

Its coastline was a tangle of sharp cliffs and narrow, hidden coves. Pale beaches were scattered here and there, while beyond them rose wooded slopes dotted with twisted olive trees and sentinel cypresses.

White stone glinted among the greenery – perhaps the pale bones of a temple. The air smelled of brine and blood.

Luke floated, dazed. The world was spinning. The sun was already beginning to scorch his skin, and his muscles ached with exhaustion.

He had no memory of arriving here.

Confusion didn’t even begin to cover what he felt in that moment.

Luke was so lost.

Grimly, he turned his body toward the island and began to swim.

There was no other choice.

***

Sharp stones and broken shells tore at the soles of his feet as he waded through the shallows, each step drawing blood in tiny red ribbons.

Luke barely noticed.

The sting was nothing compared to the cold fear crawling up his spine. He staggered, half-running toward the shore, and collapsed – face-first into the wet sand with a muffled grunt. The last few paces he dragged himself forward on hands and knees.

His heart thundered in his chest like a war drum, each beat threatening to crack his ribs open. Adrenaline surged through his veins, tangled with dread and something far darker.

Gasping, Luke rolled onto his back and stared up at the cloudless cerulean sky. The cries of seabirds wheeled overhead, and the rhythm of waves breaking on stone lulled his thoughts into brief silence.

Almost without thinking, his hand drifted to his stomach, searching for the fatal wound he knew should be there. But his fingers met only unbroken skin. Warm and smooth.

His breath caught.

Something was very wrong.

His hand wandered further, feeling the ridges and furrows etched into this unfamiliar flesh – scars, long and short. A map of violence.

But they weren’t his.

A warrior knows his body in and out.

This wasn’t his.

He ran his fingers through his hair – too long, too dark, clumped with seawater and silt. It was not the pale, sandy blond he remembered. It belonged to someone else.

Lifting his hand to his face, Luke stared. A golden line curled around his wrist. It shimmered faintly under the sunlight, embedded in his flesh – an attention-hungry scar, glinting like ichor against his skin. He grimaced in distaste.

With a groan, he forced himself upright, his muscles protesting the movement. Looking down at his new body, he was presented with sun-darkened skin, olive-gold, like polished bronze and marred with more of those strange, glimmering scars.

Also – Luke realized with some humor – he was stark naked.

***

Traversing what Luke had by now deemed as Mediterranean terrain – hot, sun-bleached, and bristling with unfriendly flora – while clad in nothing but his birthday suit, proved both humiliating and agonizing.

Sharp stones and sunbaked thistles bit into the soles of his feet, and brambles scraped welts across his legs. The air was dry, sharp with the scent of dust, thyme, and goat.

His throat felt raw and scratchy like sandpaper, tongue heavy and sluggish against the roof of his mouth. Dehydration tugged at him, blackening the edges of his vision and making his steps staggered and uneven.

Twice he tripped. Once he barely caught himself before tumbling headlong into a bush.

Until finally – salvation. The low, familiar snorts and squeals of pigs drifted to his ears, followed by the earthy scent of livestock and dung.

Luke’s insides lurched, and adrenaline surged. With what strength remained, he pushed through the thorny underbrush – scratched, panting, bleeding – and stumbled into a clearing.

There stood a humble building, a farmer’s house of sun-dried mudbrick and red clay tiles, nestled beside a gnarled carob tree.

A pigpen clung to one side of the house, its low stone wall corralled a handful of lazy, grunting pigs. But what seized Luke’s attention was the clay trough just beyond.

He bolted. A crooked, shaky run carried him to the trough, where he collapsed to his knees and plunged his head into the water. Lukewarm, slightly muddy, but clean enough.

He drank greedily, like an animal, gulping and gasping, the coolness cutting through the feverish fog clouding his mind.

He didn’t hear the footsteps until they were nearly upon him – heavy, deliberate, one step dragging slightly behind the other.

Jerking upright, Luke whipped his head around, water flying from his hair in droplets.

His vision locked on the figure approaching: a weathered man, deeply tanned, with a thick curling beard and hair to match.

He wore a short chiton[2] stained with earth and sweat, a wide-brimmed straw petasos[3] hanging low over his brow. Leather sandals clung to his almost blackened and cracked feet.

The man raised his hands – palms out – in the universal gesture of peace, his gaze wary as it flicked across the stranger at his trough.

But then his eyes landed fully on Luke, and the wariness vanished. In its place bloomed wide-eyed disbelief, then horror. His mouth parted. His arms dropped limply to his sides.

“My prince?!” he gasped.

***

Eumaeus did his best – but failed miserably – to remain composed.

The swineherd stood frozen as he took in the pitiful, harrowed form of his prince. The boy's hair hung in matted strands, plastered to his brow and shoulders, his naked flesh smeared with dirt, flecked with blood, and stitched together by something... not wholly mortal.

It looked as if the gods had torn him open and then haphazardly put him back together.

For a moment, Eumaeus didn’t know whether to prostrate himself on the ground or rush forward to catch the lad before he collapsed outright. Narrow-eyed, shaking, and clearly on the brink of exhaustion, the boy looked like a ghost risen from the Underworld.

Erring on the side of caution, Eumaeus bowed his head deeply, his neck bent low in reverence, and gestured urgently for the young man to follow. He would as always, and as one should, do his utmost to uphold the sacred duty of xenia[4].

It hadn’t even been a few hours since Eumaeus had bid farewell to his long-lost king – his dearest friend and master – now returned, grim and unrecognizable after twenty years.

Eumaeus still burned with shame for not having recognized Odysseus at first glance.

Never again, he had vowed. Never again would he doubt the blood of the House of Laertes.

He’d just finished digging a grave for Argos, the faithful hound who had waited two decades for his master’s return. (The old beast had drawn his last breath upon seeing Odysseus at last – lying in a heap of dung, riddled with fleas, eyes clouded but filled with recognition.)

Eumaeus had wept as he buried him beneath the shade of his great carob tree, digging deep to keep the wild dogs from disturbing the loyal corpse.

And now… now the king’s son had returned too. Just as changed. Just as haunted.

A revenant.

“My prince,” Eumaeus said, voice cracking as he led him into the modest dwelling. “Please, accept what little I have. My hearth is yours, my food is yours, all I possess you may claim as your own.”

Inside, the dwelling was cool and dim. Sunlight filtered through small slats in the wooden shutters. Eumaeus moved swiftly to fetch a spare chiton – coarse-woven wool, patched but clean – and brought it to the boy, along with his own pair of leather sandals.

He owned no other, but these had been shaped by the roads of Ithaca, and they were sturdy enough to carry even a prince.

The young man stared at the garments as though they were foreign to him. He reached for them slowly, fingers trembling, his eyes glazed with confusion.

Eumaeus’s heart clenched – he knew that look. He had worn it himself, once. Back when he had been ripped from the court of King Ctesius by his nurse who had handed him over to Phoenician slavers – torn from silk and silver and thrown into chains.

He, too, had been a prince once.

And he, too, had looked upon rough-spun cloth with alien wonder.

Once again, Eumaeus offered silent thanks to the gods for having been purchased by the old king Laertes, spared from a crueler fate, and granted the rare fortune of being raised alongside Odysseus’ sister.

… Poor Ctimene.  

Oh, how he hoped she was faring well – though he suspected that, without her husband, Eurylochus of Same[5], who had seemingly perished on the treacherous journey back from Troy, she would continue to face hardships in the years ahead.

He turned away to offer privacy as the boy struggled into the chiton. When he dared glance again, the prince – disheveled, grim, and noble all at once – was clothed. Eumaeus busied himself laying out food: dried figs, barley māza[6] and goat cheese still wrapped in fig leaves.

But no sooner had he set it down than the boy descended upon it like a starving beast. He devoured it with feral desperation, crumbs and cheese spilling from his lips, fingers clawing at the food as if afraid it might vanish.

Eumaeus stared, troubled. What torment, he wondered, could reduce a prince to such savage hunger? What horrors had this young man endured, to unlearn even the basic courtesies of the table?

At last, when the food was gone and the boy’s breathing had steadied, Eumaeus knelt beside him. He bowed his head once more before speaking.

“My prince,” he said softly. “May the gods restore your strength. What little I could offer, I hope brought you comfort. But now you must rise – for I bring tidings of great joy.”

The boy looked to him, eyes sharp and cunning.

“Your father has returned.”

The words hung heavy in the air, thick with unspoken meaning. Eumaeus placed a hand to his chest, voice filled with quiet fire.

“Yes, my prince. King Odysseus has come home at last, after twenty years lost to war and adrift at sea. He is here to restore order, to reclaim what is his. Make haste, dear prince, for he will need you at his side as he enters his palace, to strike down the cursed men who would steal his crown and defile his house.”

***

Just when Luke thought it couldn’t possibly get worse, the gods went and shoved this shit up his ass.

Truly – and people wondered why he’d turned rogue.

At least now he had answers. He knew when he was. Where he was. And, more disturbingly, whose body he was currently inhabiting.

Still, a part of him held onto the faint hope that this was all some freaky prophetic dream – his real body lying comatose on a bunk in an infirmary, surrounded by anxious Apollo kids waiting to cram ambrosia down his throat the second he stirred.

A man could hope.

… Things weren’t exactly adding up.

Luke didn’t remember Telemachus dying or drowning before reuniting with dear old daddy. That wasn’t how the story went – at least, not in the version he half-remembered.

If his memory served him, Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, eventually met up with his son.

Together, they plotted the downfall of the suitors.

Final battle. Bloodbath. Glory.

Father and son, side by side, cutting down the parasites who had bled Ithaca dry.

There was the big reunion scene – Odysseus stringing the great bow only he could bend, Penelope testing him by referencing their immovable marriage bed, and finally, recognition.

The end.

…Well, not quite. Luke knew there was more stuff after that – revenge, feuding families, Athena… or was it Zeus… stepping in, then some incest-drama because gods forbid there could exist any Greek mythology without it – but unlike Annabeth and all the history buffs, he hadn’t actually read much of the post-epic.

Still, he was pretty damn sure Telemachus didn’t show up fashionably late to the climax looking like a stitched-together cadaver.

“Great. Thank you, man. Really – you saved my hide,” Luke said with a crooked smile to the gruff yet oddly deferential man who had so readily provided him with clothes, food, and information.

May as well ask for one more thing – especially considering that he had to take part in whatever battle awaited between Odysseus (fucking damn it) and a horde of human scum.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a sword I could borrow, would you?” he asked, feigning sheepishness and putting on his best pathetic, wide-eyed look. It worked like a charm.

The man jumped to his feet, hurrying to a wooden chest shoved in the corner of the clay-walled room. From it, he unearthed a bronze xiphos[7] – short and double-edged, with a leaf-shaped blade dulled slightly by time, but still serviceable. The hilt was wrapped in worn leather, and the blade bore faint traces of oil.

“May this serve you well, my prince. At least until you reach the palace and can arm yourself with a proper dory[8],” the swineherd said, almost reverently as he handed it over.

Luke took the sword and tested its balance, giving it a few slow, swirling passes through the air. It was lighter than he was used to – nothing like the celestial bronze he’d once wielded – but the weight of cold metal in his hand was a strange comfort. Familiar. Reassuring.

“Much obliged,” Luke said. “Promise I’ll bring it back. I’m only borrowing it – scout’s honor.” He winked, which felt oddly inappropriate in this era, but whatever.

He mostly spoke the truth too. After all, Luke could likely find something far more durable and better soon enough – he was a prince now, after all – and wouldn’t need to steal the sword for himself, no matter how much he wanted to.

As he turned to leave, waving off the man’s awed mutterings, Luke stepped outside into the sunlight, drawing in a deep breath of briny air and dry, resin-scented wind–

Whump.

Something slammed into his head. A sharp nip bit into the edge of his ear.

“Argh!” he yelled, swatting wildly as the thing flapped and hissed. He caught a glimpse of gnarled feathers and big round eyes before knocking it to the dirt. A bird. No – a twisted, mangy owl with matted plumage and a grotesque, too-wide beak.

Behind him, the swineherd gasped. “A strix[9]...” the man murmured, worry etched into his features.

His gaze lingered on Luke, filled with something close to pity, before he spat out what Luke could only assume was a hurried prayer for his sake. “That’s an ill omen, my prince. It feeds on flesh. Carrion. The blood of the dead.”

Luke scowled. “Well, I’m not fucking dead, you stupid bird.” With a snarl, he drove the xiphos straight through its chest. The strix let out a blood-curdling shriek before falling silent, its death cry echoing.

It hurt like a bitch.

Nothing seemed to be going Luke’s way.

The silence afterward was thick and unsettling. Luke wiped his blade, then picked up the limp, twisted creature by one claw.

He turned to the wide-eyed farmer and held the dead strix out with a cheerful grin. “Here. For your trouble. Payment for the hospitality.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and strode off down the path toward the palace – sword at his hip and blood on his hands.

***

The palace of Ithaca stood high above the island – built of aged limestone and timber, its sun-bleached walls ringed by olive groves and patches of dry barley.

No city hummed around it. Unlike the bustling metropolises of Athens or Thebes, Ithaca’s royal seat was deliberately modest, surrounded instead by low stone houses, goatherds’ huts, and terraced farmland that spilled down the hillside in staggered rows. It was positioned on a high ridge, with a sweeping view of the sea, and sheer slopes offering natural defense against unwelcome guests.

Luke kept alert as he walked the winding path upward, his muscles coiled with tension. The silence was unnatural.

No distant bleating of sheep. No chatter. No people on and about. No wind. Not even bird cries.

Only the crunch of his sandals on dust and stone, and the palace’s looming silhouette ahead.

Yet, Luke knew; he was being watched.

Just as he reached the boundary of the outer courtyard a flicker of movement snagged his attention. He turned his head slowly, and there, clinging to the bare branches of a skeletal tree, perched four unnatural creatures.

They had the bodies of small birds, clawed and hooked like hunting hawks – but their faces were pale and human, with long black hair hanging in greasy strands, and eyes that gleamed with feral hunger. Their talons gouged the bark as they shifted slightly in unison, tracking his movement.

Harpies.

Luke barely spared them a second glance. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

He stepped through the palace gates.

It was silent at first, but as Luke moved deeper within its halls, the noise grew. Muffled screams. Harsh, angry shouts. And crying – raw, desperate.

Odysseus had begun his manhunt.

The first person Luke encountered didn’t even see him – he just tore past down the corridor, barefoot, panting, bloodied tunic flapping around bony limbs. There was no dignity in his face – only wild-eyed terror.

Luke let him go.

He was no stranger to killing – killing monsters, that is. And these men could perhaps be labeled as such. But he couldn’t know for certain. So, he wouldn’t strike unless struck first.

Luke was done with senseless violence… for the time being.

His first opponent attacked from behind. Luke caught the movement in his peripheral vision just in time – a downward slash aimed at his neck. He twisted, blade meeting blade with a sharp clang, ringing out like a struck bell. The vibrating hum of it reverberated through him.

Luke parried the frantic blows, immediately realizing the man was in a state of panic, likely mistaking him for his father. There was no strategy to his attacks, only raw desperation.

The man looked slightly older than Luke, his bloodshot eyes huge and shifty. An arrow shaft jutted grotesquely from his shoulder, the wound already soaking his linen tunic in crimson, the stain spreading, dark and wet.

His movements quickly grew sluggish from blood loss and his strikes became uncoordinated as his strength faded.

Luke deflected easily, then slammed his blade against the man’s with enough force to disarm him. The man’s sword clattered to the stone floor and skittered away. One more swing – just a glancing slice – and a thin red line opened across his throat.

The suitor gurgled.

A hand flew up to his neck, futilely trying to stem the flow now spilling between his fingers. He turned away, staggering, as if he might still escape. He made it a few steps before collapsing to his knees, then fell face down, limbs twitching before going limp.

Luke stood over the body as the blood spread in a slow, syrupy pool around the fallen man’s head.

Numbness crept through him.

He encountered no more bloodthirsty suitors on his way through the palace - his passage eerily unobstructed.

But the closer he drew to the great hall at the palace’s heart – the more bodies he found.

They lay sprawled across the tiles, some twisted as if mid-struggle, others crumpled in heaps. Their eyes remained open, frozen wide with the terror of their last moments, unblinking even as death began its slow, ugly work. Skin had begun to mottle, flesh turning blotched and purple, flies already collecting at the corners of mouths.

The air was thick with the iron tang of blood and bile, but fouler still was the stench of their emissions – urine, feces and ruptured intestines.

Luke’s leather-soled sandals began to stick to the crimson-streaked floor, pulling away with wet, sucking sounds that raised gooseflesh on his arms. His shoulders tensed. The small hairs at his nape stood on end.

Now and then, men darted past him – looking spooked and breathless. None of them dared confront him. They only ran.

At one point, Luke’s gaze fell upon the shadows of terrified maidservants creeping along the walls. They froze, their trembling forms betraying their fear as they realized he was watching.

He let his eyes drift away, as if he had seen nothing, allowing the traumatized young women to flee without resistance.

Eventually, he came upon a storeroom, its door hanging ajar. Within, the chamber was choked with chaos – racks of weapons, spears and swords, battered shields, discarded linothorax[10] armor, even broken hoplon[11]. Many were dull, blood-caked, or of simple forge.

Luke moved among them, inspecting blades with practiced detachment, until his eyes landed on something familiar. A golden-hued kopis[12], its ivory hilt elegantly carved with the image of a serpent coiling around an olive tree.

He bent to pick it up, testing its balance in one hand. The weight was perfect. A divine weapon – far too fine to have been discarded so carelessly, left to mingle with lesser blades on the dusty floor.

No matter. It was Luke’s now. And he would take far better care of it.

He froze when a soft metallic clirr echoed behind him.

Luke didn’t hesitate. He snatched up one of the many dory leaning nearby and turned swiftly on his heel, posture low and ready.

Three men stood a few paces away.

They clearly hadn’t expected to be discovered. Their expressions were rigid, faces pale and eyes filled with something between shock and disbelief.

They stared at him as if they had seen a ghost.

***

“We should run,” Eurymachus hissed to Antinous, lips barely moving.

Neither could tear their gaze from the figure ahead – the kēr[13] of the dead prince, returned from Hades to haunt them in flesh. Or so it seemed.

Antinous felt a tingling at the base of his skull, a primal whisper slithering through his thoughts: Run, little man. He remembers. He’s come for blood.

But Antinous was no coward. He was not bred for submission, nor shaped by meekness. He was a man who took what he believed fate owed him. Just like he had today, when he had claimed more than spoils.

The door to the queen's chamber still hung broken on its hinges. No queen, no matter her bloodline, could hide behind titles once the palace walls were breached. She had resisted, of course – clinging to pride more than hope. But Antinous had shattered both.

There was no sweeter victory than one earned through defiance. Never before had Antinous tasted the supple thighs of royalty – plump and struggling. The woman had bitten, clawed and screamed – but that had only sweetened the conquest.

Neither the coin of common whores, nor the polished praises of courtiers, could compare to the shiver of a royal shamed by reality.

Now, standing before him, was the boy he’d murdered.

Telemachus looked as Antinous remembered, yet different – grimmer, hardened, his once-soft, watery eyes now sharp as flint. Death had carved new edges into him, stripping away the boy Antinous had once mocked and leaving behind something colder, something with teeth.

Golden bands adorned his limbs, twisted like burial wrappings, a grotesque patchwork befitting the dead returned.

Something in Antinous stirred at the sight.

“No,” he growled, his voice resounding off the palace walls. “We fight. Again. We held him down once – we’ll do it again. What do you say, Ctessipus? With me?”

Ctessipus, ever brutish and blood-drunk, gave a wolfish grin. “Let’s finish the mutt properly this time. Looks like he needs another lesson.” He unsheathed his sword, stepping forward, predatory.

Eurymachus exhaled sharply, a breath laced with fear. “Idiots,” he spat, but it barely registered.

Antinous turned to smirk at Ctessipus – only for a dull thunk to silence him.

His smile faltered.

A dory – slender and barbed – jutted from Ctessipus’ abdomen, clean through. Blood foamed at his lips. He stared at Antinous with the dumb disbelief of a man who’d thought himself invincible.

Then he fell like a sack of grain.

Antinous stared down at his dead companion. When he looked back up, Telemachus still stood exactly as before – spear arm loose and casual, like he hadn’t just impaled a fully grown man with it. His eyes, twin voids, studied Antinous with cold calculation.

Antinous’ bowels clenched.

“I told you,” Eurymachus nearly shrieked before turning to flee, sandals skidding on blood-slick tile.

But Antinous couldn’t move. His legs refused. He could only watch as the prince advanced, sword now at the ready.

Antinous lunged sideways at the last moment, fumbling for his blade. He brought it up in time to block the first blow – but the force rattled through his arms like a hammer striking bone. He parried again, barely.

For the first time in his life, he thought of begging – of pleading for mercy. But death had already fixed its gaze upon him. He could do nothing but watch as the blade struck true.

The pain didn’t come immediately. Just warmth – wet, terrible warmth. Then it came all at once, flooding his senses with fire.

Antinous staggered back, hands clasped desperately to his side where the blade had sliced through chiton, belt, flesh, and deeper still. Something slick slipped beneath his palms – his own entrails, spilling from the torn cavity. His sword clattered to the ground, forgotten.

He was on his knees. Then, on his back.

He hadn’t felt the fall.

The stone was cold. That was the last thing he knew. Cold, and the slow draining of self – sensation, strength, thought – all leeching from his limbs.

The final thing he saw was the prince – backlit by firelight, bathed in a golden halo – stepping over his corpse with careless grace.

***

… That had felt strangely personal, Luke thought.

Not wanting to linger, he set off in the direction the last of the men had fled, hoping he hadn’t bolted only to return with reinforcements.

After that sudden bout of bloodshed, a strange calm had fallen over him.

For the first time since he'd awakened – gasping, choking on seawater, torn from death’s maw – Luke felt at peace.

Because something had finally sunk in.

He was alone.

Utterly and irrevocably alone in his own mind. No more whispers slithering behind his thoughts. No more borrowed will. It was weirdly freeing.

As he advanced on light feet, the décor grew increasingly lavish, the surrounding walls adorned with intricate frescoes depicting mythological scenes. Each step hinted at his approach toward the royal apartments – the private quarters of Odysseus’s family.

He turned a corner – and nearly stepped on a corpse.

The third man lay splayed out in front of him, an olivewood shaft buried in his chest. His mouth was parted, as if mid-plea, but his eyes were empty. Already beginning to glaze.

Luke grunted thoughtfully. No need to worry about him, then.

He was just about to continue when instinct screamed through his limbs.

He ducked low, the motion reflexive. A heartbeat later, a thick arrow ripped through the air and slammed into a nearby column with a crack that echoed off the stone. The shaft quivered where it stuck – bronze head nearly buried into solid rock.

Luke exhaled slowly. That was some power right there, he thought dully, rising to confront whoever deemed it honorable to strike him from behind… again.

He rose to his feet with measured calm, only for another arrow to shriek toward him. He swung his blade up, celestial bronze biting through wood and feathers, cleaving the missile in two.

His gaze snapped to the attacker.

A hooded man stepped from the shadows beyond the archway. He looked more beggar than king. Long beard streaked with gray, wild and unkempt, skin weathered and wind-scoured, muscles lean and wiry. His eyes held nothing but violence and were framed by deep lines.

Luke stared at the man, his grip tightening around the sword.

This had to be Odysseus.

Or one very pissed-off hermit.

He was betting on Odysseus.

***

The young man standing before Odysseus set all his hackles on edge.

He was just as tall as Odysseus himself, clad in humble garments, yet in his grip was a kopis – one Odysseus recognized instantly. His own. A blade gifted by Athena in his youth, now wielded by another, marking him as a thief.

Mystic markings traced his skin, reminiscent of the golden ichor Odysseus had spilled in torrents – not long ago, when he had wrung mercy from the Lord of Storms.

The young man bore the posture of a general. And his eyes… were hauntingly familiar.

In the end, it was this that made Odysseus falter – for were those not his beloved wife’s eyes, her proud lift of the chin, and the same cupid’s bow he had traced a thousand times?

Was it not his own nose, his broad-shouldered stance, standing before him like a cruel reflection of past grandeur, now lost to time and torment and held up – to mock him with what he’d missed, what had grown in his absence and suffering.

It couldn’t be.

And yet – it was. Odysseus was sure.

“Son?”

The young man stood tense, his body strung tight like a bow, regarding Odysseus with a look he couldn’t decipher. Something close to fear flickered in his gaze, tangled with awkward resignation.

He said nothing.

But he didn’t deny it.

Odysseus felt his shoulders sag and his knees nearly gave out under him.

The boy – no, the man – standing before him was Telemachus. His son. Last he saw of him, he’d been a babe wrapped in linens, suckling at Penelope’s breast. Now he stood like a king in waiting, with a soldier’s grace and a killer’s calm.

Pride and heartbreak warred within Odysseus as his gaze lingered on the boy. To his great embarrassment, tears welled in his eyes – hot and unbidden.

He could not recall the last time he had wept. The tears had dried long ago, somewhere in the endless days of his imprisonment on Calypso’s Island, trapped in a love he never sought, yearning each moment for the embrace of the family he had lost.

Sadly, there would be no heartwarming reunion – not in that moment. Odysseus had barely taken a step, arms open and a wobbly smile tugging at his cracked lips, when his gaze caught the splintered remains of his marriage suite’s door.

The sight struck him like a punch to the gut, sending a chill through his veins, stripping away every trace of fragile warmth and leaving only the crushing weight of dread.

“Penelope.” The name escaped his lips like the prayer it was.

Then he was moving – brushing past his son, his steps hurried and unsteady, toward the wide-open doors of his wife’s chamber.

[1] An ancient Greek unit of measurement (one plethron is about 30 m/100 ft).

[2] A sleeveless tunic. Picture a rectangular sheet of linen or wool draped over the body, fastened with brooches, and belted at the waist. Stylish and breezy.

[3] A wide-brimmed hat with a conical crown and chin strap. Men’s versions had low crowns, women’s were taller. Also, Hermes rocked one.

[4] You will see this word repeated a lot in this fic. It is basically the law/custom of offering protection and hospitality to strangers (its opposite is xenophobia). It was fundamental to human civilized life in this time period.

[5] Same (or Samos) is sometimes described as part of Odysseus’s kingdom, grouped with Ithaca, Dulichium, and Zacynthus.

[6] Cake/bread hybrid. Barley flour + water/wine, sometimes cheese or honey, baked, boiled, or fried.

[7] A double-edged short sword, 50–60 cm/19-23 in long, great for close combat. Leaf-shaped blade = stabby and slashy.

[8] Not the fish. A long, thrusting spear used by hoplites, measuring between 2-5,5 m/6-18 ft. Great for phalanx formations or impressing your enemies from several meters away.

[9] A creature of bad omens: think blood-drinking bird-demon with owl aesthetics. Also, somehow a real genus of owl... which is why I didn't make it go poof - it might've just been a freaky owl.

[10] Body armor made of layered linen, sometimes glued.

[11] A large, round shield used by hoplites. Heavy, iconic, and perfect for dramatic shield-wall moments.

[12] A single-edged sword with a wicked forward curve. Ideal for slicing, cleaving.

[13] Basically, a destructive spirit.

Chapter Text

When she was still a little girl, her father – Icarius of Sparta – taught Penelope the most vital lesson of her life.

She had been only seven, red-faced and sobbing after a group of young, promising Spartiates[1] barred her from joining their training at the agōgē[2]. Her fists were bruised from where she’d struck them. Her pride, shattered.

Furious, she’d stormed to her father, determined to make him listen. After all, she knew her rights. Spartan law permitted girls of noble blood to train, to spar, to grow strong.

Her father – a prince in his own right – had sat her down and told her this:

“This world will never truly be yours, little one. They will tell you that things are in your favor, that your voice is heard, that your wishes matter. But they do not. You, as one of the fairer sex, will always be seen as weaker, lesser. Do not let that stop you.

Even when foolish boys – like the ones who hurt you – trample over you, you will rise. You are a princess, a future queen. And if someone slights you, you will not forget, nor will you forgive. You will strike back with vengeance. You will burn, and you will lay everything to ashes.

And just like the Hephaesteion[3], you will create a wasteland – one from which new greenery will grow, stronger than before. You will be rebirth through ruin.”

She remembered those words now, as she lay in the wreckage of her marriage bed, torn, her body hollow and aching.

Her fingers traced meaningless patterns into the tangled linen, and her eyes – dry, dry, dry – stared blankly into the painted canopy above. Gold-leafed vines, once symbols of love and fecundity, now seemed mocking.

She hurt. But the pain was distant, as if it belonged to someone else. A dream. A nightmare.

It was not the first time Penelope had been forced to endure what she did not choose.

Life as a woman was always an uphill battle. Even in her youth, she had known leering eyes, the hands that lingered too long, the words that sounded kind and sweet as honey just before turning cruel.

Her helot[4] handmaids, her Spartan sisters, her cousin (had Helen also known such suffering, such lonely anguish? Penelope had never wondered about what the devastatingly beautiful woman had had to endure on her own, until now) – they had cried into her arms and whispered of horrors shared in the hush of darkness.

These were common wounds. Ordinary tragedies. The way of men: to take. To conquer. To hunger for more, and more, and more. The way of women: to yield. To survive. To suffer in silence. Suppress it, deeper, deeper, and deeper still. (She hated it).

Odysseus had been Penelope’s salvation – her best bet. The warrior her father had hoped she would marry – the clever fox in bronze. A good man, one who would respect her as much as she could expect and safeguard her virtue.

Yet Penelope had always wished to do that herself.

She had never needed saving. She didn’t want it. Penelope had known the thrill of breaking a man’s nose during a wrestling match, of pinning him to the ground until he bit dirt. There had been no joy like it. Not even her wedding night compared.

And yet, there were some battles she simply could not win.

She had not been strong enough to repel the parasites who had slithered into her palace, drunk her wine, and soiled her halls. Not enough to resist the monster who had finally breached her sanctuary – that door that had held firm for years, battered daily by suitors but never broken.

Until now.

Deflection and patience had finally crumbled before men who refused to accept no as an answer.

There was a reason Penelope never abandoned hope that her husband would return. A reason she had never yielded to the suitors who sought to claim her as if she were a mere extension of the throne.

It wasn’t just that she was waiting for Telemachus to grow into his inheritance, to take his place as ruler in due time. No – the reason was far simpler.

None of them could ever match what she and Odysseus had shared. And she would settle for nothing less.

And now… now none of it mattered.

She sat up slowly, wrapping a sheet around her bruised form. The copper taste of bile rose in her throat. A dry heave racked her ribs, followed by another. Her breath hitched painfully.

She had lost everything: her husband, her throne, her dignity, and–

No.

She buried her face in her palms.

“Please, gods,” she whispered. “Please let it not be true. Blessed Leto[5] – grant my son safety.”

Her Telemachus, her precious darling, could not be dead. The beast who pinned her down had said vile things – lies, surely – to unravel her mind. To poison her with despair.

But if it were true… if her son had truly been lost…

Penelope did not know if she had the strength left to rise again.

***

Luke watched the back of Odysseus as the man stormed down the corridor, disappearing through a doorway further down the hall.

Only then did Luke exhale, a long, rattling breath that didn’t do much to calm him.

That moment – that look in Odysseus’s eyes – had made him realize something.

He was in serious trouble.

He had basically hijacked the body of the man’s son. And now that he was really thinking about it, yeah... that was very bad.

Because Odysseus? He was clearly batshit crazy. The man might be one of the greatest Greek heroes of all time, and in every myth Luke had grown up with, he had been described as a cunning tactician, a war hero, a survivor of monsters and gods. But in reality?

He was just a very strong, very smart and extremely unhinged veteran who’d spent the last twenty years clawing his way back home across the Aegean Sea, to reach his wife and son – only to be rewarded with stranger wearing the body of his dead son.

Yeah. Not ideal.

Unless this truly was some insane demigod-powered induced dream? He couldn’t rule that out... yet. But it felt too real. Luke was pretty sure he wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

And even if Odysseus was a legend, Luke remembered the darker parts of the stories too. For all his cleverness, Odysseus was no modern saint. He was a deeply flawed individual. And no matter how much he seemed to love his wife, Odysseus was still a man of ancient Greece - a man of his time.

A man from a brutal, patriarchal world where mercy was seen as weakness.

Luke was... not from that world.

He was already working through half a dozen half-baked escape plans. Wait for nightfall. Steal a fishing boat from the harbor. Head for the mainland and figure things out from there.

Because this wasn’t going to end well.

Telemachus’ life was far from easy – the kid had daddy issues almost as severe as Luke himself.

And, if Luke remembered correctly, he was pretty sure Telemachus ended up sleeping with Odysseus’s old lover, Circe, at some point after his half-sibling showed up in the future to say hi – only to accidentally kill Odysseus in the process.

Then again, things were already spiraling away from what Luke knew of history, so at this point, he figured he was basically walking blind. He could trust nothing of what he once thought he knew.

Luke’s escape plans were abruptly put on hold however, when a choked scream tore down the corridor. A woman’s voice – near hysterical but straining for authority – rang out: “Out! You get out of here, you hear me!”

Without stopping to think, Luke’s body was already moving, running to stop his new(?) dad(?) from doing something he would regret… like ignoring his wife, who was clearly in distress.

When Luke entered the room, he was confronted with a sight he never wanted to see again.

The woman he assumed to be Penelope stood near an open window, a long hairpin raised threateningly at the raggedly dressed Odysseus, who appeared frozen, unsure how to respond.

Penelope was partially undressed, and Luke’s stomach turned at the raw fear and revulsion etched into her face as she glared at her disguised husband. Bruises mottled her arms and thighs.

One didn’t need to be a genius to understand what had happened to her.

Luke felt paralyzed himself – like all the strength had suddenly drained from his body.

Thankfully, nothing escalated. The moment Penelope’s eyes flicked toward him, most likely wanting to assess the threat of the newcomer, her hands dropped to her sides.

She stumbled forward, then broke into a run, her face contorting in distress.

“My baby,” she breathed, her voice cracking.

She reached him and lifted her hands to cup Luke’s face. He felt like a deer caught in headlights.

Her fingers, slightly trembling, traced the skin around his ears. Her eyes moved over him with desperate intensity, cataloguing every detail – from the blood no doubt splattered across his face to the golden scars that marred his body.

“My sweet boy,” she sobbed, eyes glassy with tears.

Suddenly, Luke felt like crying too. That voice – too tender, too achingly familiar – reminded him of his own mother, back before she broke. Back when she would still gather him into her arms after a bad fall or a scary dream.

“What have they done to you?” Penelope whispered, and Luke could only shake his head.

Tears spilled freely from her now, slipping down her cheeks and pooling at her chin before falling in heavy drops.

“What have they forced you to become?” she cried, and then she threw herself at him, arms wrapping tightly around his waist, crushing him to her as she wept into his chiton.

Luke raised his arms, careful not to move too quickly or touch her too firmly, afraid of startling her. Gently, he embraced her, lowering his face into her hair, hiding in its soft scent.

It smelled sweet. Comforting. Nostalgic.

They ended up standing there for quite some time, simply resting in each other's presence, in the fragile relief of being alive. Hurt and injured – both mentally and physically – but alive, and not alone.

“I’m okay,” Luke found himself muttering to Penelope, following her down to the floor as her knees gave out and she slowly sank lower. “You’re… we’re going to be okay,” he said again and again, clumsily resting his palm against her back. He didn’t know what else to do but hold her and whisper whatever comfort he could manage.

She was a stranger to him, and yet he felt overwhelmed by a wave of unexplainable affection – a deep, instinctive desire to see her offer him that same unconditional, all compassing love she had shown only moments ago.

Odysseus stood off to the side, watching them with a slack expression and sad eyes. Luke met his gaze over Penelope’s shoulder and, unexpectedly, felt a flicker of pity for the man. He looked utterly devastated by the scene before him, unsure of how to proceed.

“Mo-mother,” Luke began, the word unfamiliar and awkward in his mouth. Penelope looked up from where she had been clutching him, her face buried in his shoulder. She gave him a small smile – clearly meant to be strong and reassuring, though it wobbled more than anything.

Luke glanced at Odysseus again and, on impulse, decided to throw the man a bone. “It’s… Father,” he said, trying not to grimace. “This man… the king – he’s back.”

At his words, Penelope’s head turned around so fast Luke feared it might snap. “Odysseus?” she whispered. She seemed to take Luke at his word, improbable as it was.

Maybe it was the fragile hope in her voice – or the way her trembling arm reached out toward him – but Odysseus fell to his knees without hesitation, nearly bowling them over as he wrapped them both in a crushing embrace.

Luke quickly shifted, shielding Penelope from the brunt of the man’s strength. Odysseus clearly didn’t know how tightly he was holding them.

“Penelope,” Odysseus choked out, and Luke instantly felt like an uncomfortable third wheel.

“Husband. My love – you’re back. Finally. Finally!” Penelope sobbed, her hands scrabbling at the backs of both men as if anchoring herself to them, desperate and disbelieving.

Well, this was certainly touching, Luke thought, a little morosely.

“I’m going to kill them. All of them,” were the next words out of Odysseus’s mouth, and suddenly, Luke found himself a little more disillusioned with the man.

Yeah, this was the guy who, one moment, could pull off feats of immense cunning and foresight – and the next, was proudly announcing his name, occupation, and birthplace to a cyclops with serious nepotistic connections and a thirst for revenge.

Luke shot him a droll look. “My king,” he began – a formality that caused Odysseus to glance at him, hurt flashing in his eyes.

“Father,” Luke corrected, not because he suddenly cared, but because honestly, he no longer gave a flying fuck. He just wanted five minutes of peace to sit down and process things.

“You can’t kill off an entire generation of your subjects. You just got back, and we’re not exactly in a position of strength. For twenty years, Mother has done her best to keep this place from falling apart, to keep the vultures from picking our kingdom clean. But seeing as you came back alone, with no crewmates in sight, I can only assume that most of the men sent off to war aren’t returning. The last thing we need right now is more bloodshed.”

Luke could see that throughout his entire speech, Odysseus remained unconvinced – not surprising, considering the journey he had just returned from. He was, at his core, the quintessential pragmatist – calculating, willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

But now, he had turned into a vengeful absolutist, fueled by retribution rather than reason.

It didn’t sit right with Luke that even at his peak, Odysseus had considered it acceptable to kill an infant – just because that kid might grow up and seek revenge.

The classic – if extremely watered-down – version of the "Hitler as a baby" question. Odysseus had apparently looked at that moral quandary and decided: shuck it, then yeeted the baby off a wall.

Even at his worst, Luke had never even considered killing literal toddlers for his cause. That was… not cool.

“That said,” Luke went on, turning to Penelope, who was watching him with dark, intelligent eyes, “I don’t think this is up to you.”

He glanced pointedly at Odysseus. “Yes, the suitors broke the rules of xenia. That gives you the right to punish them. But vengeance? That doesn’t belong to you.”

At this, Odysseus swallowed hard and stayed silent. Understandable, really, considering the man had a less-than-spotless record himself when it came to xenia – breaking into a stranger’s land, slaughtering their livestock, and going full offense when the consequences showed up.

(Though Luke doubted Polyphemus would’ve acted any differently – even if they had honored the virtues of xenia – given his fondness for the taste of human flesh.)

Luke turned back to Penelope.

“Mother,” he said gently, “what do you want to do?”

She, more than anyone, deserved to have her voice heard.

***

Penelope didn’t bother changing into more appropriate clothing. She left her chambers barefoot, head held high, limping only slightly, with Odysseus and Luke following close behind.

The first corpse they encountered was the man who had fled from Luke and taken an arrow to the chest courtesy of Odysseus. Penelope barely spared him a glance.

“Eurymachus,” she said, disinterested. “An arrogant and deceitful little man – always whispering in the background, always trying to manipulate me. A nobleman, and son of Polybus… another one of my suitors.” She clicked her tongue. “I hope you haven’t wiped out the whole family, dear husband of mine.”

Odysseus looked away, avoiding her eyes. Luke would bet he didn’t even know.

But the next few bodies brought Penelope to a halt.

She stepped up to the man Luke had gutted like a fish, using the sole of her foot to turn his face to the side.

“This one,” she whispered. “Antinous. The worst of the worst… May his soul wander restlessly, never finding peace in the Underworld. Eupeithes’ boy.”

While Penelope stared down at Antinous’s cooling body, Odysseus moved over to inspect the other corpse – the one Luke had skewered like a human shish kebab.

“I didn’t do this,” he muttered, testing the embedded spear before pulling it free with a grunt. He cast Luke a look – part surprise, part respect.

Luke ignored him.

“I recognize this one,” Odysseus went on. “Ctessipus. He threw a cow hoof at me.”

Despite himself, Luke snorted. Odysseus looked smug at the reaction.

Rolling his eyes, Luke turned his back on the big man-child and stepped toward Penelope, who was still glaring daggers at Antinous. Silently, he offered her his kopis, handle first.

She gave him a long, considering look. Then, taking the weapon in both hands, she raised it high and brought it down in a clean arc – decapitating the corpse with three precise, downward strokes.

She handed the blade back to Luke, then bent down to grab the severed head. With a rough tug, she yanked it free from the last stubborn sinews and tendons, then rose, bloody trophy in hand, and gestured for them to keep moving.

And so they went, cataloguing and identifying each and every one of the fallen men littering the palace, until they reached the spot where Luke had first been confronted by a man trying to kill him.

According to Penelope, this one was Demoptolemus – from Dulichium, … wherever that was.

Just as they were about to turn back, something, just beyond his line of sight, shifted ever so slightly.

Luke spun around, already on guard. Odysseus lifted his bow in the same heartbeat, arrow nocked and drawn.

There – half-hidden behind one of the larger statues in the courtyard – was a man. Realizing he’d been seen, the figure stepped slowly out into the sunlight, hands raised, his expression pleading.

He wore a long tunic, with a cloak draped over his shoulders and a wreath still perched neatly on his head.

“My king,” the man said, dropping to his knees. “Please, spare this humble servant of yours. Our leader is dead – you have destroyed the serpent’s head. Show mercy, so that no more blood need be shed.”

His voice was calm, deliberate. His eyes were wide and sincere. And despite the situation, he seemed surprisingly free of fear.

Odysseus didn’t lower his bow.

Luke stepped forward, placing himself between the king and the kneeling man. The tip of the arrow pressed against his chest, testingly sharp.

“Father,” Luke said firmly, “don’t let your anger cloud your judgment. Let’s hear him out.”

He glanced toward Penelope, gauging her reaction. Ultimately, it was her opinion that carried the most weight.

She met his gaze and gave a slow, silent nod – still gripping the severed head of her abuser at her side, a small dark pool of blood steadily spreading beneath her feet.

She stood slightly apart from them, watching. Judging.

***

Leodes kneeled in stunned silence, staring, as the young prince turned his back on him to plead his case before the king. It still hadn’t fully sunk in. Odysseus was back.

It didn’t feel real.

Over the years, the old king had become something of a legend, a myth whispered about in half-believing tones.

Leodes had only been a child when Odysseus set sail – too young to join the war himself. He had grown up wondering what had become of the famed goddess-blessed king, speculating with the rest of Ithaca about his fate and mourning the tragedy of his prolonged absence.

With former king Laertes aged and long since withdrawn from power, the queen had ruled in her husband's stead. She had shouldered the burdens of state, kept Ithaca from fracturing under political pressure, and protected their son Telemachus as best as she could.

Leodes knew that kingship wasn’t purely about bloodlines – it depended on strength, leadership, and presence. Without Odysseus, Laertes wasn’t returning to the throne. And as time dragged on, it had begun to seem like Penelope would eventually choose a new king.

So when suitors started arriving at the palace, Leodes had taken a chance and joined them. Who wouldn’t, when the reward was rulership over Ithaca and marriage to its queen?

He liked to think he’d have made a good king. He had noble blood, after all, and he was a diviner – a seer, with the gift of glimpsing the future. Surely that made him a viable choice. Laertes had always been known for his integrity; Leodes aspired to that same moral compass.

But the longer they waited, the more bitter and rotten things became. The other suitors grew cruel, greedy, and corrupted by their own ambitions. Leodes had grown quietly disgusted. He tried, in small ways, to discourage their worst behavior, though he never quite found the courage to leave outright.

Then came the queen’s final test – string Odysseus’s great bow and shoot cleanly through twelve axe heads. That had been the end for Leodes. He wasn’t a warrior. He never had been. And he had been away from home too long.

He’d decided to give up – go home, find a good woman to settle down with, and beg his father’s forgiveness for chasing glory for so long.

But that was when Odysseus returned – bringing with him blood and death and retribution.

By then, it had been too late.

Or so Leodes had thought.

And now, somehow, the young prince – whom Antinous had loudly and proudly claimed to have been planning to kill – was alive. And not just alive, but standing in front of him, defending him.

“Lord Odysseus, great king returned – I beg of you, do not cast me among the guilty,” Leodes began, his voice striking a careful balance between confidence and subservientness as he prostrated himself before the royal family.

“I stood among the suitors, yes, but I did not feast upon your home, nor did I insult your kin. I spoke against the other suitors – but my voice was drowned in their revelry. I swear upon the gods, I have done no harm to your house.”

He risked a glance upward, trying to gauge the reactions of those before him.

The king looked furious.

Leodes swallowed hard and pressed on, adjusting his approach. “I do not ask for freedom, but for servitude. Let me live, so that I may atone for my presence among these faithless men. Let my hands serve, rather than be stained with their sins.”

Then, carefully avoiding looking at Antinous head and his dull eyes that still dangled from Penelope’s grasp, he turned to the queen.

“Lady Penelope,” he said, mustering up every scrap of courage he could find, “your wisdom and strength have held Ithaca together for twenty long years. If there is mercy in your heart – if my presence has not troubled you – then let my fate be weighed by you, rather than by ruthlessness alone.”

And with that, Leodes fell silent.

His life was no longer in his hands.

Minutes passed. Or perhaps it was only seconds – he could no longer tell. Sweat dripped down his temple and beaded along his spine. His legs were beginning to cramp, pins and needles crawling up his thighs as he remained bowed low, unmoving, waiting.

Then, at last, the queen spoke.

“Very well.”

Two simple words – and yet that was all it took.

Leodes was saved.

He would live.

He blinked down at the stone floor he had been fixated on, then dared to lift his gaze. Odysseus met his eyes – just for a moment – before letting out a sharp exhale, throwing his bow down in reluctant annoyance, and turning on his heel. Penelope followed him with quiet, regal grace.

“Thank you, my queen,” Leodes called after her, his voice hoarse with disbelief. “Thank you. This servant will be forever in your debt.”

And then they were gone.

Only the prince remained.

Silence stretched between them. Leodes remained kneeling, bracing himself for whatever the young man might say. Surely, there would be something. If not, the prince would have already followed his parents.

“When you leave the palace today, you will spread word of what took place here,” the prince told Leodes, his voice leaving no room for doubt. This was not a request – it was a command. The voice of a ruler.

“You will explain that the suitors not only violated the sacred laws of xenia, but that they grievously shamed the queen. What happened to them was just punishment for their actions, ordered and carried out by King Odysseus – who has finally returned.”

Leodes nodded solemnly.

“Do this,” Telemachus continued, his tone steady, “and I swear upon the River Styx – no punishment shall befall you. We will not demand you answer for your own transgressions. You may leave freely and never need fear my father’s wrath.”

Leodes bowed low once more, heart pounding in his chest.

What else could he do but swear to obey?

And so he did. He promised.

***

Luke was so damn exhausted.

Pretending to be a prince was a helluva of a lot harder than he’d expected. For now, at least, no one seemed to suspect he was an imposter – which was something.

Odysseus, unsurprisingly, hadn’t picked up on anything off, probably because he barely knew his own son. (Was Luke perhaps cursed to repeat endless lives filled with absent fathers, he wondered).

Penelope, on the other hand, seemed to have chalked his odd behavior up to trauma – maybe thinking he’d had some kind of personality shift. That… worked in his favor.

Before leaving the courtyard, Luke bent to pick up the bow and arrow Odysseus had tossed aside, inspecting it with idle curiosity. It was a palintonos[6], bent backward in its distinctive shape.

He slung it over his shoulder and headed off – there was no way he going to follow Telemachus’s parents, who, from all the stories he had heard, had been hopelessly in love even after twenty years apart. What was the saying again? Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Wherever they had wandered off to, he had no intention of following.

Instead, he set off to explore the island he, for the moment, seemed stranded on – perhaps for the foreseeable future.

As he strolled away from the palace, he spotted the harpies still perched on the dead tree along the path. He raised the bow, nocked an arrow, and took aim – mostly just to see if he could.

Grunting at the ridiculous draw weight, he winced as the arrow loosened with a weak whiff, sailing nowhere near the tree and disappearing into the underbrush. The harpies shrieked with hair-raising laughter at his pathetic attempt.

Well… that was embarrassing.

***

Even after several washes, the dark residue beneath his fingernails remained.

Scrubbing hard at his hands and face, Luke eventually gave up and ducked his head under the salty seawater, rubbing himself vigorously. When he came up for air, he shook his hair like a dog and blinked the stinging water from his eyes. At least he hadn’t developed some sudden phobia of water after nearly drowning – small blessings.

Shoving his wet hair back from his forehead, he plopped down on the stony beach he’d stumbled onto after a few hours of mindless wandering. Ithaca, as far as he could tell, was as dull as it got: dry vegetation, simple homes spaced far apart, skittish people, and steep cliffs all around.

Nothing to write home about.

He picked up a smooth rock and chucked it into the sea, smiling faintly at the satisfying splash it made. After rooting around for flatter stones, he killed some time skipping rocks. That entertained him for a while – until it didn’t.

Eventually, he climbed onto a large boulder that jutted partly into the sea, sat down, and watched the sun slip toward the horizon. The sky flared with warm, vivid color, casting golden sparkles across the ocean’s surface.

Luke had died.

He’d killed himself. Or… sacrificed himself? To atone for his sins?

He let out a dry, humorless laugh.

“Ha. ha. hah.”

Gods, what a mess.

He, Luke, had failed spectacularly. Somewhere along the line, his righteous wish to make the world better for kids like him had gone completely off the rails – so far, in fact, that it ended up hurting the very lives he’d meant to protect.

When had he become the villain?

…Probably the moment he started taking advice from a guy famous for eating his own kids. In hindsight, that really should’ve been a red flag. Not exactly the wisest choice for someone who just wanted parents to be better at their damn jobs.

And now?

Luke was dead.

And living the life of a prince in ancient Greece.

Odysseus’ son, of all people.

Well… he got his wish, didn’t he?

Reincarnation. Maybe.

A second chance. Sort of.

Yay.

Way to go, Luke.

***

“There he is – there he is! I told you, didn’t I, that I smelled something.”

Luke lifted his head from where it had been buried in his knees and turned toward the gravelly, creaking voice. Hushed whispers were coming from a shadowed cave in the rock wall that curtained in the little beach he was on.

Pushing himself off the stone he'd been perched on, Luke got to his feet, the crunch of pebbles loud beneath his sandals. Kopis in hand, he approached cautiously.

“Hush now, you hussy! Can’t you see he’s coming over?”

“How would I see a thing, I’m blind, you slag.”

“Oh, both of you shut it. Give me the eye – I want to see what he looks like.”

Luke grimaced. He had a pretty good guess as to who was lying in wait. Sure enough, when he crouched low and peered into the hollow, he found himself staring into a single cataract-covered eye – bluish-white and cloudy in the center.

Inside the cramped cavern sat three old, shriveled women, all giving him identical toothless grins, flashing pale gums and one single rotting tooth he knew they shared between them.

“What are you doing here?” Luke asked derisively, wrinkling his nose at the sight of the Grey Sisters.

The Graeae were not usually known for taking an interest in the affairs of demigods – as far as Luke knew. (Was he still considered a demigod? He didn’t know.) Aside from providing taxi services in the future, that is.

“Does he not know?”

“Of course he doesn’t. Wouldn’t have asked if he did.”

“Itty bitty demigod’s causing quite the stir already, that’s why. Got everyone confused, he has.”

“Quiet! We don’t give out information for free, now do we?”

That alone told Luke more than he liked. Of course, his little tumble through time hadn’t gone unnoticed. The real question now was: how much did they know?

“Cut the crap,” he growled, brandishing his kopis. “Tell me what you know, or I’ll skewer that precious little eye of yours. Don’t think I won’t.”

The three crones flinched, shrinking deeper into the shadows.

“Nasty little godling,” hissed the one with the eye.

“I say we eat him,” said the one with the tooth.

“Yes, yes – let’s! He smells divine!” the third cackled, clapping her gnarled hands in delight.

Luke couldn’t help the snort that escaped him.

“Eat me? With that one puny tooth of yours? Don’t make me laugh – you’ll just end up slobbering all over me. Ew. No thanks.”

The offended looks that fell across the sisters’ faces were priceless.

Gripping his sword a little tighter, Luke got back to business.

“Now tell me – how much do the Olympians know about me?”

He didn’t want to spend the rest of his reincarnated life looking over his shoulder. He had no intention of getting dragged into the petty whims and twisted games of gods and titans – not this time around.

Sure, in the old stories, Telemachus had a pretty close relationship with Athena, but Luke wasn’t too worried. Immortals had the attention span of toddlers. If she did show up… well, he’d just have to play it safe.

“Funny he should ask that,” crooned one sister.

“Indeed,” said the middle one. “The Cloud-Gatherer’s been scratching his head for no reason, hasn’t he?”

“The young’un doesn’t really see that the future’s changed. Nothing to do about it.”

“Oh yes, oh yes. Now they all ought to show some compassion for us old folks. Poor Parthenos[7] and Phoebus[8], running around blind. Like headless chickens, they are.”

Okay? Luke was so not up for deciphering barmy riddles.

He brushed off his knees, stood up, and cast them an unimpressed glare.

“Thanks for nothing. No wonder you’re the lesser-known trio of sisters. I much prefer the Moirae over you ugly hags,” he said, flippantly, as he turned and walked away from the squawking old women – choosing not to kill them… mostly because the last thing he needed was to draw more godly attention to himself.

***

Oenops had had enough.

He had lived his entire life on Ithaca – a life rooted in dignity, tradition, and honor. He upheld his family’s name with pride, believing in the old values.

He had lived by the principles[9]. So why, then, was he being punished?

For a moment, he had believed fortune had finally smiled upon him. His son had returned – remorseful, apologetic for his ambitions and time spent among the suitors. He brought news both joyous and grim: the king had come home at last but so had tragedy. The palace walls had run red.

Still, Oenops had been grateful. He had held his son in his arms again. That should have been enough.

But now – no longer.

It had only been days since their reunion, yet Leodes had changed.

The once bright and confident young man was skittish, haunted. He flinched at shadows, startled at every whisper. He claimed to hear voices, to see things that weren’t there. Sometimes, he would call out, convinced someone had spoken his name.

His mind – his spirit – had clearly been fractured by what he had seen inside that cursed palace.

He was not fine.

Not fine at all, Oenops thought bitterly, staring down at what was left of his only son.

The body lay torn in the dirt, partly devoured by scavengers.

Oenops knelt beside him.

It was time to strike.

Ithaca would not suffer a tyrant king.

[1] Also known as Homoioi (“those who are alike”), these were full citizens of Sparta and members of its elite warrior class. To earn this status, men had to survive the brutal agōgē training system and devote their lives to military service. No pressure.

[2] The state-sponsored education and training program for Spartan boys – designed to produce the ultimate soldier.

[3] Here it’s used metaphorically to refer to a volcano.

[4] Technically not slaves… but also definitely not free (who am I kidding – they. were. slaves). Helots were an oppressed class in Sparta – forced to farm, serve, and generally do everything the elite didn’t want to. So basically, slaves with a slightly more complicated job description.

[5] A Titaness and mother of Apollo and Artemis. Goddess of motherhood, childbirth, and modesty.

[6] Odysseus’s legendary bow – a recurve bow that bends backward when unstrung.

[7] A maiden/virgin… you may have heard of the Athene Parthenos – the big ass statue of Athena in the Parthenon temple, Athens.

[8] Apollo's chief epithet was Phoebus = “bright”.

[9] Ancient Greece had several core values that show up again and again: reason and inquiry, rule of law, citizen participation, hospitality (xenia), pride (philotimo), and interdependence. Basically, the blueprint how to live a good life.

Chapter Text

Zeus looked ready to smite someone.

The crackling light surrounding him was nearly blinding, searing Nike’s eyes until she had to look away, lest they melt from her skull. Her hair stood on end, charged with static, skin prickling like it had been scoured by invisible ants. The air reeked of ozone.

It made Nike’s lungs ache.

Honestly, the man was throwing a tantrum for no good reason. Then again, he wasn’t the only one disturbing the atmosphere.

Athena sat rigidly on her throne, talons gouging deep, screeching grooves into the armrests. Her eyes had that eerie, disjointed vacancy Nike always associated with battle foresight.

But this wasn’t war.

It was a conundrum.

Apollo might’ve been the worst of them. The god staggered in erratic circles, golden hair falling away in glowing strands as he yanked it out by the fistful. It evaporated midair into motes of light, scattering across the chamber. He wailed between bouts of mad laughter, his pupils spinning like eclipses.

It had been a long time since Nike had seen so many Olympians this unhinged.

It had all started on what had been a perfectly normal day. Well, normal until Poseidon decided to square up against a mortal over a ten-year-old grudge – and promptly got his ass handed to him. Being a sore loser, he’d slunk off to sulk and lick his wounds, leaving parts of his domain drenched in ichor.

Nike hadn’t particularly cared. Odysseus’ victory had been satisfying enough, and frankly, what the gods did in their free time was none of her concern.

But then, only a day later, Apollo had nearly crashed his chariot into Mount Olympus, raving and sobbing about a sudden bout of blindness.

That had been followed by Zeus exploding with fury when all the intended events of the future seemed to shift. The Fates' tapestry, once taut and preordained, had frayed. Entire patterns were missing or being rewritten.

Even Athena could offer no clarity. No answers. Her probes returned nothing but white noise. The threads of destiny had simply unraveled, and the tapestry was now moving in a direction no one recognized.

Now, Nike's interest was piqued.

***

“Bring him here. Bring that scoundrel here right now!” Zeus bellowed.

Ganymede[1] looked on the verge of fainting where he stood, his hands shaking so badly that the goblets on his tray rattled against one another.

“B-but he’s not here at the moment, my lord,” the former mortal stammered. “He had to visit your brother in the Underworld. Took off in a great hurry.”

Sweat poured down his face like melting wax.

As if on cue, thunder cracked overhead. Ganymede jumped, letting out a squeak as the cups tumbled from his tray and clattered noisily to the floor. He dropped to his knees at once, scrambling to gather them, babbling apologies under his breath.

Zeus didn’t seem to notice. He lifted his gaze skyward, eyes blazing, and let out a roar that shook the clouds – a direct invocation, summoning Hermes.

The psychopomp whirred into existence in the middle of the room, feathers fluttering and a wide, Cheshire cat grin plastered across his face.

“You called?” Hermes snickered, spinning his staff lazily around before cocking his head in mild curiosity at the sight of the other occupants – and their various moods.

“Hermes!” Apollo wailed, bounding over to his brother. “What do I do!? Everything’s messed up. I’m getting dizzy – I’m not supposed to get dizzy!”

Hermes patted his usually sunny and whimsical brother on the back, exchanging a glance with Nike and lifted his brows in silent question.

Nike’s only response was a serene smile.

“I was only gone for a moment, and everything is already falling apart. My, oh my, whatever has happened?” he trilled, taking flight to hover before a still-zoned-out Athena. Her mouth moved rapidly, though no sound came out.

Sensing an opportunity, Hermes snatched up one of the cups Ganymede had just neatly put back and attempted to balance it on Athena’s head.

“Enough of your games, Hermes. Something has disrupted the flow of fate, and we don’t know what. Have you noticed anything unusual – anything that might give us a clue as to what’s happening? What did my brother want so suddenly?” Zeus commanded, his usual blend of arrogance and paranoia threading through his words.

Hermes flipped upside down mid-air, stroking his chin in exaggerated contemplation. Then he burst out laughing and twirled right side up, letting his staff rest behind his head while the snakes at its tip snapped irritably at his ears.

“You don’t say – how curious,” he said. “Little old Hades just wanted to chat about some discrepancies in the soul count, nothing dramatic. Looked like a reconciliation error or something. No biggie – happens all the time.”

Zeus did not look pleased with that answer, judging by the deepening frown lines on his face. Hermes, however, appeared completely unbothered. He floated lazily back toward Athena, who remained unresponsive.

“I recently got a pretty sizable crowd from Ithaca to guide down below, sister of mine,” he said with a smirk. “Looks like our dear Ody has been keeping busy.”

He reached out to boop the goddess’s nose, but just before his finger touched her, Athena’s hand shot up and caught it mid-air. She squeezed it in warning, sending the infuriating god a sharp, disapproving glare while simultaneously snatching the wobbling goblet off her head.

Hermes pulled back with a shrug.

As if on cue, blood began dripping down one of the pillars in the throne room. It gathered into a dark pool on the floor, then rose, twisting and churning until it formed the figure of Ares. A wide, almost gleeful smile glinted beneath the shadow of his rusted helmet.

“Athena! Color me surprised – you were right!” he crowed. “Your little mortal is a gem among rocks – rage, wrath and fury incarnate. Not only did he poke holes in our dear uncle and make him cry, he decimated his own people. A good day indeed.”

He laughed, flooding the room with the heavy, metallic tang of blood.

That seemed to snap Athena completely out of her trance. She rose slowly and cast a look at Zeus – one Nike could only interpret as shameful.

“I can’t tell you what’s going on. I… I don’t know,” Athena said, almost apologetically.

“… I have to go see a friend.”

And with that, she vanished.

Ares blinked, glancing around. “Did I say something wrong?”

Hermes chortled.

Apollo let out a howl of frustration, and Zeus spun to clutch the arms of his throne so hard they cracked. The sky outside darkened ominously in response.

Nike didn’t share their fear or confusion.

Because she could feel it – taste it.

The sublime scent of victory hung in the air.

[1] A Trojan prince celebrated for his extraordinary beauty, was famously abducted by Zeus – who, in the form of an eagle, carried him to Mount Olympus. There, Ganymede was granted immortality and appointed as cupbearer to the gods. His myth has long been interpreted as a symbol of divine favor and, in later traditions, homoerotic desire. As for Nike’s appearance – her inclusion felt thematically appropriate given the presence of both Zeus and Athena. Consider it a brief cameo from Olympus’s supporting cast.