Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Odysseus sits against the wall, waiting. He’s disguised as a beggar to keep anyone from recognizing him until he wishes it, but it doesn’t take much effort. Not after his long years at sea that left him so haggard. He knows he looks a far cry from the polished king he was when he boarded that pentekonter long ago. It’s worked so far, none of the suitors have paid him any heed while they struggle with the bow. 

It’s a clever move from his beloved wife, few of them would have the strength to string it - not after what looks to be years of doing nothing but feasting in his hall - even if they had seen a palinthos before to have the knowledge on how. And to then have the skill to complete the rest of the challenge? Not very likely. It seems he is right, for one of the suitors, their unofficial leader, all but throws the bow to the floor. The string follows, the drape of it across the bow a pale line that seems to split the dark horn and wood in two.

“Screw this competition, we’ve been here for hours.” They had, the suitors unable to believe they’d failed and attempting to string the bow twice or even thrice more. “None of us can string this, we don’t have the power.” If they ever did. “Screw this damn challenge, no more delays. Can’t you guys see we’re being played?” That’s been the case for years, all due to the work of his clever, lovely wife. 

Antinous kicks at the bow in his anger, and it skids across the floor. Towards Odysseus. It stops a finger’s length away from his sandal. He pretends to ignore it, head bent over his knees. Antinous turns away to bang his fist upon the table. A kylix upturns at the motion, wine spilling across the wood like blood. Odysseus makes a silent promise that that blood will soon be real.

“This is how they hold us down while the throne gets colder.” It’ll be warm soon. “Hold us down while we slowly age. Hold us down while the boy gets bolder. Where in the hell is our pride and our rage?” That rage will soon fail them, give way to fear. “Here and now we can take control. Here and now burn it down to ashes. Channel the fire inside your soul!”

Antinous holds the attention of the other suitors now, their focus so complete that no one notices Odysseus as he stands. He scoops the bow up from the floor, retrieves the string from the floor. He gathers more weapons into his arms, as many as he can carry, and only regrets it when he tunes back in to Antinous’ vitriol. 

He’s calling now for the murder of Odysseus’ son. A thing that makes him yearn for empty arms, to string his bow and shoot an arrow through the bastard’s poisoned tongue. But not yet, not yet. Soon, but not just yet. 

He hurries for the armoury and dumps the weapons inside, only lingering long enough to wind the bowstring around the weapon, rather than leave it to disappear so he can’t find it later. And then he’s back in the banquet hall, Antinous still calling for Telemachus’ death. As much as he wishes to see his son, at the moment he actually hopes Telemachus’ mission gets delayed, to keep him away from these men until they’re lining up for the underworld.

“Hold him down ‘til the boy stops shaking, hold him down while I slit his throat. Hold him down while I slowly break his pride, his trust, his faith, and his bones.” Not if Odysseus smashes his hands into splinters and pulp, never to be useable again. Of course he’ll never need to use his hands, not after Odysseus is done with him. “Cut him down into tiny pieces-” How about you get cut into tiny pieces, Antinous. “-throw him down in the great below. When the crown wonders where the prince is, only the ocean and I will know.” 

If only he knew the crown was in the room with him, plotting and enacting the best way for all these suitors to die. He carries another load of weapons to the armoury and returns to the hall. If he’s right, he’ll only need to make one more trip. Odysseus regrets that truth when they begin speaking of his wife. Of their host, in such a way that ensures they’ve broken Xenia.

“And when the deed is done, the Queen will have no one to stop us from breaking her bedroom door, stop us from taking her love and more.” His gorge rises, he gathers the weapons as quickly as he can. “And then we’ll hold her down while her gate is open,” He makes for the armoury, arms full of the last of the suitors weapons. He can still hear the suitors, their voices echo through the whole palace in their excitement. “Hold her down while I get a taste.” Odysseus reaches for the armoury door. “Hold her down while we share her spoils.”

He wrenches the door open and freezes. Someone stands within the armoury.

Chapter Text

She smiles at the shouting that echoes up from the banquet hall. On any other day it would be displeasing, too loud a ruckus for her palace and Penelope would have sent someone to bid them be quiet. But this time, the suitors are expressing their dismay at failing her challenge, a delight to hear. Perhaps now they’ll finally leave. But then the words that filter up to her change. Anger at their failure turns to rage at the throne. At her family, a threat to her son.

“Haven’t you noticed who’s missing? Don’t you know the prince is not around.” Penelope stiffens. If he dares. “I heard he’s on a diplomatic mission, and I heard today he comes back to town. So I say we gather near the beaches, I say we wait ‘til he arrives.” Penelope hopes desperately that Telemachus’ ship has either arrived already, too early for them to ambush it, or is delayed to another day. She offers up a silent prayer for that, a prayer to Poseidon Asphalios and Hermes Eriounês for luck and safety in her son’s journey. 

Antinous, of course, continues with no awareness of her swelling rage. “Then, when he docks his ship, we can breach it. Let us leave now, today we can strike and-” If they’re moving, so will she. Over her dead body will they touch her son. “-hold him down til the boy stops shaking, hold him down while I slit his throat.” 

Penelope bites her lip, the coppery tang of blood sharp against her tongue. She’ll take the long way to the armoury to avoid passing by the banquet hall. She doesn’t wish to risk any of the suitors catching sight of her unless she wishes it. And she cannot run, lest anyone be suspicious of the reason behind their queen’s rush.

“Hold him down while I slowly break his pride, his trust, his faith, and his bones! Cut him down into tiny pieces,” Penelope fists the cloth of her peplos, her knuckles white. When a servant passes, more food in arms for the suitors, she forces a smile to her face. The tenseness of it goes unnoticed. “Throw him down in the great below. When the crown wonders where the prince is, only the ocean and I will know!” She won’t know, will she? The suitors will see about that.

She’s at the armoury now, or just about. At the other end of the corridor, someone turns around the corner. She doesn’t know who they are, doesn’t glimpse more than a flicker of brown hair. Penelope slips inside the room before anyone else crosses her path, then raises her brow in surprise. 

Not at the presence of weapons, no, this is the place for them. But these are not palace weapons. They’re the suitors’ weapons. What are they doing here? Not that she isn’t grateful. And they’re in disarray too, as if someone bundled as many as they could carry and dumped the pile just inside the door. Has one of the suitors perhaps split from the rest, wishes to help her?

The next words that drift to her send a chill through her blood. A chill of dread. “And when the deed is done,” She only half pays attention to what her hands are doing, sorting through the weaponry for something she can use. “The queen will have no one to stop us from breaking her bedroom door.” She spies something familiar. The bow. Yes, one of the suitors must have decided to bring all the weaponry here. “Stop us from taking her love and more.” 

She will stop them. And wouldn’t it be fitting? Penelope lifts the bow from the clutter, cradling it to her chest. A tear slips free and falls to gleam upon the bow’s surface. To have Odysseus with her in this form as she protects herself and their son? Yes, she can do this. She had practiced, since Odysseus had left for war. 

Perhaps not with his beloved weapon, but she knows how to handle a palintonos. Knows she is strong enough for his. She uncoils the string, fits it to one end of the bow, and pulls. It’s only when the weapon is string that she realises she had tuned out. It doesn’t seem she’s missed much. She still shudders at the promised violence in the words, a dread that turns to terror when the door opens and she spins towards it, startled.

“Hold her down while we share her spoils, I will not let any part go to waste!”

The man blinks at her, she blinks back at him. He’s holding the suitor’s weapons, must have been the one bringing them here. But he isn’t one of them.

“Penelope?” 

She knows that voice.

Chapter Text

The person inside the armoury is a woman, bow in her hand. She turns towards him with wide startled eyes. Fawn-brown eyes.

“Penelope?”

She stares back at him, mouth open in a gasp. “Odysseus?”

A flicker of warmth goes through him, that she can still recognize him on sight. After twenty years away, after aging and fighting, with saltwater and blood crusted into his matted hair, he wouldn’t have blamed her if she didn’t. Knows he looks like the beggar he pretended to be before the suitors. But she knew him all the same. He beams at her. 

Of course, of all the people he’d expected to pop up in the armoury, he hadn’t even considered that it could be his wife. She’s older now, looks different than before just like him, with lines on her face that speak of stories. Laughter from their son, stress from ruling the kingdom. A heavy weight set into her shoulders and fingers shaped by weaving. Hair streaked with gray. In his eyes she’s only grown more beautiful. Especially when she is holding herself like a warrior.

“Is that my bow?”

Her hands tighten around it. “Yes.”

She holds it with a practiced hand, quiver already slung over her back. And the weapon is strung, not the state he left it in. A state that implies she knows how to use the powerful weapon.

“How long have you been able to shoot my bow?”

A smile flickers on her face. “I’ve been training. Now, my love, as much as I would like to keep this going, there’s something I really must do before a proper reunion.”

He has his suspicions. “The suitors.”

A nod. She hisses, “They threatened Telemachus.”

He straightens and adds the pile of weapons in his arms to the rest. The clatter, though loud, is quieter than the suitor’s ruckus even from this distance. “Yes. I was disarming them before tackling the matter. With it done, we must deal with them. Together?”

She smiles sharply. “Together.” 

Penelope offers the bow to him, but he shakes his head. “Keep it, my love. I will grab another.”

And Odysseus does, grabbing both another bow and a xiphos. He offers a dagger to Penelope. Rather than taking it, his wife lifts the fold of the peplos at her waist to show one already tucked away there. He laughs.

“Shall we?”

They step out into the hallway, where Odysseus locks the armoury behind them. They set off for the banquet hall, Odysseus in the lead. No one notices their entry, too busy contributing to Antinous’ speech and call for the suitors to turn their weapons on their hosts. At the same time as their entry, the men all turned away from them, Antinous raises his kylix into the air. 

Wine splashes over the side, dripping down his hand like blood. Shouting follows the motion, a great cheer echoing through the room. He opens his mouth to rally the crowd further, turns the conversation back to Telemachus, and turns. His head shifts, gaze lowering. His eyes make contact with the pair of them and his words falter, mouth open. 

Even from here Odysseus can see his brow furrowing. But before he can say anything, call attention to them, an arrow whistles through the air. Not from Odysseus, but from Penelope. It’s perfectly aimed, piercing through his tongue and the back of his throat. Blood sprays and the man begins to fall.

Chapter Text

The room fills with screams, suitors turning towards them. Towards the direction of her arrow. The first to notice her and Odysseus are the first to die. They do so quickly, with arrows in their throats. Three suitors are felled in the time it takes Antinous’ body to hit the ground, one from her arrow and two from Odysseus. Suitors go to reach for their weapons, and find them absent. 

Eurymachus is the first to realise what they’ve done, turning horrified eyes to her. He turns tail to run, to escape with his life. It doesn’t earn him anything but an arrow in his back. The room erupts into pandemonium, suitors fleeing at the realization they are weaponless against rulers here to take back their palace. 

Most of the suitors are able to escape the room, too many of them to be killed here, but in the end ten more are felled before the room lies empty of anyone living but Penelope and Odysseus. Their exchange is wordless, little more than a flick of Odysseus’ gaze towards the fleeing suitors and an answering nod from Penelope. Though they’ve lived so long apart, they are still of one mind. Still know how to speak to one another without speaking.

He darts off after them, weapons in hand. Penelope considers the room before her. The staff will be displeased with all the blood, but better a day of cleaning than further damage from these men to her house. Though it may make the task harder, she decides to refrain from calling anyone to take care of the mess until they are done handling the suitors. If only to keep the servants out of harm’s way. 

She turns to go, bow still in her hands, and passes the banquet table. Something crunches under her sandals. Antinous’ kylix, the ceramic long shattered and wine spilling across the floor. It mingles with his blood in a deep red pool. Penelope crouches to finger one of the shards, sharp as a knife and lying beside Antinous’ head. 

The man’s eyes are open, still wide in the shock of seeing his own death. He looks smaller like this, no longer the man that frightened her so, with threats against her family.

She smiles down at that empty face. “You should have left when you realized I didn’t want to marry. That I believed my husband would return. But you didn’t, and then you broke Xenia. This is the consequence of that.”

She stands, and at the same time there is a shuffling sound at the doorway. Penelope turns. One of the suitos is standing there, his clothes sprayed with blood. He must have come back, thinking that he would be safer if he returned to this place. To the hall, already cleared of the living. It wasn’t a good choice for him, and neither is it a good choice for him to rush her. 

She knows why, he’d thought to take her by surprise. Thought he could overpower the Queen. He thought wrong. She sends an arrow into his heart before he’s even taken three steps towards her. The suitor falls, and Penelope enters the hall. Half the torches have gone dark. Odysseus, using the darkness to shoot the suitors from a place unseen. 

It would be so very like him to do that, when he built the palace he even designed it in such a way that those who know it well would be equipped to defend it in such a manner. She can guess what way he’s gone, what shadows he’ll be hiding in, by the bodies strewn to her left. So she turns to the right to intercept any suitors who may have gone in that direction. And she suspects there will be some, for that way lies the armoury.

How dearly she wishes she was wrong when she hears voices inside the armoury. The armoury she knows Odysseus locked. So too she knows why it is open, for her son’s voice is the first she hears. 

“Throw down those weapons, and I ensure you’ll be spared!” Her heart sinks. Oh Telemachus no, you don’t know what they wish to do. They will hurt you, dearest boy, if you let them live.

Menlanthius only confirms it. “After seeing what the king will do to us, we wouldn’t dare!”

“I don’t want to hurt you, but trust me I’ve come prepared!”

She sags slightly in relief, even as she keeps moving. Thank the gods, at least he’s already with weapon in hand. And he’ll have backup soon.

Chapter Text

Telemachus brandishes his spear at the men before him, dismay curdling in his gut. If he had known why the armoury was locked in the first place, he wouldn’t have entered. But it’s too late now, one of the suitors reaching for a spear in a pile of weapons. Melanthius, nearer to him, is the greater threat. He already has a sword in hand.

“Throw down those weapons, and I’ll ensure you’ll be spared!” He’d rather not fight ten men at once, and if thinking they’ll live will whittle the numbers down? Would it not be a good option?

Melanthius seems to disagree with this choice, a snarl on his face. “After seeing what the king will do to us, we wouldn’t dare!”

Telemachus’ fingers spasm on the shaft of his spear. King? What- Hope wells. His father is home? He bites his lip, gives a minute shake of his head. For all he knows, during his trip one of the suitors - likely Antinous - has snapped and declared himself King, now dispatching any threat to his throne. That’s more likely than his father’s appearance on this day of all days, but oh he does hope. His grip tightens on the spear again.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but trust me I’ve come prepared!”

Melanthius chuckles darkly. “Your very presence has doomed the king, young prince. We don’t fight fair.” 

He didn’t expect them to, they never have. If they were the type of men to do so, they wouldn’t have stayed in the palace for years. And Melanthius did confirm who the king they refer to is, only his father would care about Telemachus’ fate. Well, he may be young, but Lady Athena is his patron and he is a warrior.

He offers them one last chance to escape this with their lives. “Stop!”

None of them take it. Melanthius calls to his fellows. "Brothers, we have company, and he’s made a grave mistake! Left the weapons room unlocked-” It’s not like he knew it needed to be any other state, no one told him when his ship arrived that anything was happening. But sure, yes, technically it’s a mistake. “-and now they’re ours to take! Brothers come and arm yourselves, there’s a chance for us to win! We can still defeat the king if we all attack the prince!”

The suitors rush him, but Telemachus is already moving. He downs two of them with a spear to their throat, another of them trips, and then he dances back, out of the reach of the suitors. They’re too startled by one of their comrades tripping of all things to notice as he ducks behind a column into shadow. The other men cry out a few heartbeats later, voices rising in panic.

“Where is he? Where is he!”

Even Melanthius’ voice is tinged with it. “Capture him, he’s our greatest chance!”

There’s a distant twang, a thud against the ground. Telemachus chances a peek. There’s a body lying on the floor with an arrow in its back, and he sees that the man he thought had tripped is in the same condition. His father’s here, then. Or, no, not his father, for when he follows the arrow’s trajectory and finds the bow, it’s his mother’s hands holding it. 

But then there is a hand grasping at him, one of the suitors had seen him when he chanced that look. He bucks, thrusts his spear backwards. The secondary spearpoint pierces flesh, but the man doesn’t release. 

“Get off me. Get off me!” 

He jabs again, and this time it works. The suitor goes down with another blow and twist of Telemachus’ body. He backs away from the other suitors. Of the five that remain, Melanthius is the closest. The man knows it, slashing his sword towards Telemachus with a savage grin.

“Fight til the prince can barely stand!”

The suitors close in, and even with quick thought Telemachus finds he has little space for any thought but for those directing his fight. Too many bodies around him, and he only has himself. Despite his efforts, he’s grabbed all too soon. Melanthius has his hands, another suitor grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks his head back. He can just barely see Melanthius’ smile. 

“Got him.”

And then the hands fall away to the twang of a string, two cries of rage, and a flash of metal in Melanthius’ gut. Telemachus stumbles back, tripping over a suitors body. It was the man holding him by the hair, an arrow in his neck. When he rises, he can see a sword has been plunged through Melanthius’ gut from behind, and is now being yanked free. Melanthius falls away to reveal the man behind him. A man that looks like Telemachus, if older and worn by his years. Odysseus.

Chapter Text

Telemachus stares back at him. His mouth falls open in half astonishment. Odysseus knows the expression is echoed on his own face, though his awe is at the wonder it is to finally behold his son. Even so, it doesn’t stop him from spinning to stab a suitor that rushes them. He falls with a gurgle, sword sliding free from his throat. With the man’s death, the room falls silent. Something that shouldn’t be, he knows two other suitors still live. And yet, when he forces his gaze from his son, he finds that they are the only men standing. Two men lie nearby, arrows piercing their chest. One still groans weakly. Odysseus ends him with a flash of metal. Telemachus is frowning faintly at the body, or more specifically at the arrow. He follows its trajectory backwards to see Penelope walking towards the both of them, bow in hand. By Telemachus’ face, Odysseus would guess that he wasn’t aware she could handle the weapon.

“Mother?”

She laughs, the sound tinged in relief. It echoes in Odysseus’ heart, relief that for all the blood splatter and carnage, their boy is unharmed. “I am from Sparta, dear. My brother's warriors. I know what it is to hold a weapon.”

“But Father’s bow? And the suitors?”

Penelope snorts darkly, the sound suitably ineligant for the rage that flickers across her face. “What, should I have left your father to handle them on his own, after all the things they were saying?”

Telemachus squints. “What were they saying?”

Odysseus shares a look with his wife, a silent conversation held in the span of a blink. Telemachus doesn’t need to hear that. Penelope didn’t need to hear that, though she did. He shakes his head at the boy.

“Never you mind that, son. Let me look at you.”

The young man’s gaze is just as searching as his own, the both of them picking out and memorizing the other’s features. The palace may be drenched in blood, but it all pales in comparison to the beauty of this moment. His sweet boy, his beloved wife, the three of them together again at last. 

Odysseus doesn’t know which of them initiates the hug, only knows that the three of them are huddled together on the ground in a few heartbeats, openly weeping. He strokes Telemachus’ hair, kisses Penelope’s cheek.

“I’m finally home.”

They croon it back to him, of the same mind. “Home. You’re home.”