Chapter Text
Odysseus’ POV
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Odysseus usually avoided running inside, especially in a palace crowded with maids and visiting noble folk, but he was jogging through the twists and turns of the palace hallways anyway.
He was late. And for once, this meeting was actually important.
Various kingdom’s envoys and diplomats were gathered in the meeting room of his palace, and they were all waiting for him.
Penelope had spent twenty years doing her best as a mother and acting ruler, but there wasn’t much she could’ve done, especially in regards to international matters without selecting a new king. And that would mean admitting he was dead. Which is something he’s very glad she had never done.
Thus Ithaca desperately needed new trade deals. The Trojan war had stagnated trade and commerce for everyone, but Ithaca had fallen behind during the ten years he’d been missing. Without their king they could not update routes or schedules of trade to fit their needs.
But he was back now, so for the past year or so he’d been hard at work, re-establishing relationships with neighboring kingdoms and helping out the people who had suffered in his absence.
He slowed his steps as he approached the meeting room, trying his best not to give the impression that he’d just been running. He gave a short but polite apology for being late and took his seat at the head of the table.
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All things considered, the meeting went well.
The envoys were agreeable, but many of them kept staring at him and whispering things at the beginning of the meeting.
Rumours. That had been one of his biggest problems for the past year, the swirling rumours that his gold stained skin was covered in Poseidon's ichor.
They were all true, of course. But that only made it worse. People on the streets were awful at whispering, he could hear them talking about the time he sacrificed thirty-six people just to save his own skin (Eurylochus’ fault, he shouldn’t have killed that damn cow), the time he killed half of the noble men of Ithaca and surrounding nations (the suitors), but most of all, the time he (repeatedly) stabbed a god. They weren’t shy about sharing either.
No doubt, some of these diplomats had heard the rumours when they arrived at the docks but assumed they were just common folk making up stories about their mysterious king- but then they all saw that it was true.
He wondered if that was the reason so many other islands hadn’t shown up, was it possible they had heard about him and Poseidon’s fight? It made sense that they didn’t want to be associated with a monster like him. Someone who could have the wrath of the sea god brought down on him at any time.
Even a year later, the godly blood wouldn’t wash out. He’d tried. Penelope had stopped him when he drew blood just from scrubbing.
He got up from the meeting table and waved to Telemachus as he left the room, who’d been sitting across the table, listening in. His son would be king someday, so he had to learn how to make trade deals. Watching someone else do it would help him learn.
Odysseus hadn’t gotten that privilege. He’d become king at thirteen, all because of his father’s declining mental state, so he’d never gotten the chance to learn from his father. He was determined to be different from his dad. He’d be a better parent. Even though he’d spent ten years at war and ten more on the journey home he was sure he’d have time to make it up to his son now.
He’d been home for about a year, he hadn’t really been counting the days, he just knew he was home. That was all that really mattered to him.
Home meant he could rest in the afternoons and work in the mornings, rather than working day and night like he had to as the captain of a fleet of ships.
Home meant he could see his wife and watch his son grow up and mature.
Speaking of, he walked to the work room, (after grabbing an apple for a snack from the kitchens), it was the place he and his family had been spending their time recently.
Penelope would weave her tapestries and shrouds, while teaching him to do the same. She’d gotten better at it since making his father’s burial shroud, the one she’d kept unraveling to buy time from the suitors. Before she announced the challenge, that is.
He’d tried carving again, (the work room was where he used to carve small wooden items, both useful and decorative,) but his hand shook from old injuries. And so, he had cut his hand open far too quickly for Penelope’s liking. He’d endured much worse but she wasn’t having it. She didn’t want him to hurt himself.
So now, rather than carving, he would attempt to learn how to weave with Penelope. Key word being ‘attempt’. His calloused hands felt strange against the soft wool, his fingers were too shaky for some of the more delicate parts of the process and he wasn’t very good at it.
He loved it. Penelope was always there to guide him. He was creating rather than destroying, as he so often did during his twenty years away. It was nice to have this moment with his wife, away from royal duties.
Telemachus would often spend his free time with them, but he didn’t care much for weaving.
Sometimes Odysseus would teach him to carve, (when Penelope was busy), but most of the time his son would practice music. He had only recently picked that one up. Penelope had tried to give him lessons, before Odysseus had returned, but he always said it was too feminine and that the suitors would make fun of him for it.
Now that they’d gotten past that little issue, Penelope had convinced him to at least try it out. To say he was gifted would be an understatement, Telemachus was a natural at the viola, and skilled at various other stringed instruments too. He insisted he wasn’t that great but they’d hired a professional tutor from overseas because his mother, who had been playing viola for more than thirty years, had nothing left to teach him.
Odysseus was so proud of his son.
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As he passed the courtyard his eyelids got heavy. Which was strange, because he wasn’t tired. Not more tired than usual anyway.
He kept walking.
And his eyelids got even heavier.
It was embarrassing.
Or it would’ve been, if there was anybody around to witness it, but he hadn’t seen a single person since he’d left the meeting room. No one had even left the room behind him.
Strange.
Telemachus hadn’t followed him out the door either, which was also strange because he had a music lesson to get in before lunch, and that would also be in the work room.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen anyone in the kitchen either, despite the fact that lunch was in less than an hour and the chefs should have been preparing the food already.
He muttered something about talking to the kitchen staff about that. Or, rather, he tried. The words wouldn’t leave his throat, taking up space that he didn’t know he had.
He must be more tired than he thought… Maybe he’d have a nap after lunch.
As he approached the courtyard he realized something; hadn’t he already passed the courtyard?
Athena and him had been speaking frequently, he would consider them friends, even if he wasn’t her student anymore.
Hermes had popped into the palace for a few royal dinners (unannounced) to see his descendants, and great granddaughter-in-law. He’d also mentioned that he did it to make sure that ‘Poseidon hadn’t messed with his favorite great grandson.’
He didn’t need to add the ‘without Zeus’ permission’ part. Everyone knew there was nothing they could do if the god king sided with Poseidon. Odysseus would be doomed. But for now, Zeus felt bad for lightning striking Athena during their games on Olympus, so he was being extra lenient and empathetic towards his favorite child. Hopefully it would last.
The goddess of wisdom had warned him that if he ever suspected Poseidon was coming to enact revenge that he should tell her immediately.
So he called out to her, and Hermes. Whichever could get here faster. But again, the words caught in his throat. He couldn’t make a sound.
Almost as if whatever was doing this, probably Poseidon, had expected him to cry for help.
His eyes grew impossibly heavy, worse than they had been during the whole wind bag thing, and he’d been up for nine days straight when he’d felt like this the first time. Yet he was fully aware.
Despite not being tired, he fell unconscious the moment his eyes slipped closed.
He slumped to the floor against his will.