Chapter Text
“This is the will of the gods,” says the voice like thunder.
Rain splatters loudly against the brass helmet, darkening the stone of the high city walls. The bundle in his arms squirms, beginning to cry softly.
The walls. They are so tall, with mist shrouding the bottoms, and the night is so deep. The clamour rising out of the city behind him would cover any noise - all he has to do is relax his grip, and he avoids offending the gods and cuts off a threat to his family before it can grow. He wouldn’t even hear a cry or the sound of it hitting the rocks below.
His stomach twists, and he blinks liquid that isn’t rain from his eyes.
“Forgive me, O Chronodes,” he says, bowing, mind racing, “but if neither myself nor my good son can defend our home adequately by the time this boy is old enough to challenge us, then may Ithaca burn, and us with it.” He doesn’t look the god in the eyes, doesn’t glance up to see if his words are enraging the king of the heavens. “Your counsel is wise, but… I cannot kill such an unworthy opponent, it offends my pride. Let him fight me in his strength and we shall see whoever is the strongest man.”
He doesn’t really believe the words - they taste sour as they leave his mouth. He is no stranger to the cruelty of war, but… this is too much for him to bear. And if he says the wrong words, he will enrage the great Zeus Chronodes.
The god, in the shape of a great thundercloud, sighs, and he finally straightens. The cloud flashes with silver lightning, striking nothing but illuminating the damp stones and cold Trojan night.
“Very well. But consider yourself warned, you proud son of Ithaca.”
Before Odysseus can say anything else, the cloud is gone. Dread curls inside him - Zeus is easily offended, and he’s not sure if he has actually pissed off the god or not. Best to make a great sacrifice to him tonight, to smooth things over if he can.
The bundle in his arms squirms again, wailing now, unhappy in a stranger’s embrace. A pudgy fist of delicate fingers and skin works itself out of the soft linens, raised towards a face with hair and eyes as dark as his father’s, as though to shield himself from the stranger in the dark. Odysseus steps back into the tower’s inner room, away from the wall.
Inside he shakes off the rain. He must look an absolute fright, he realizes, as the boy stares up from his swaddles. Odysseus reaches up and removes the horsehair helm from his head, smiling in a way that he does not entirely feel, but it quiets the boy - Astyanax, if memory serves.
HIs mind travels across the vast sea to rocky Ithaca, thinking of the last time he held an infant in his arms. This child looks nothing like his own son, but all Odysseus can see when he looks at him is the boy who was just a little younger than this lad the last time he saw him. He will be ten, now, surely as handsome as his mother, gods be good, with a sharp mind and swift feet.
Hector’s son looks like him, even in boyhood. The depth of his eyes and tender curls about his head all lay their claim on the boy, making it impossible for Odysseus to ignore. Ten years of war had not made him hate Hector, somehow; the man defended his home with everything he had, then fell to a man no lesser in might.
Odysseus had done all in his power to stay out of this gods-damned war. Hector had not wanted it either. Odysseus was compelled to be here and wage war, and yet it seemed to him a crime to end the line of a man who simply wanted the love of family and warmth of his hearth.
Nobody would judge him for killing the boy. In fact, Agamemnon would probably demand the boy’s demise for all the reasons Zeus had cited. It would be easy.
But no. Hector had endured enough dishonour at the hands of the Achaens. One last mercy for the noble man.
He gently tucked the boy back into his bed and fell to his knees, raising his voice to the heavens.
“O swift-footed messenger, great Hermes, shepherd of souls and travellers! I call upon you in my hour of need!”
---
That night, Odysseus makes sacrifices to the king of heaven and to his messenger, who speeds across the ocean with great strides, carrying a burden delicate as a dove but dangerous as a snake, wrapped in white linen and crying.
Carrying him far away from a city he might have ruled, had Fate been kinder to him; away from the ashes of his mother and father.
Smoke from animal carcasses sacrificed by his own hand billows towards heaven, begging for the favour of the gods, praying that he hasn’t just made a horrible mistake.
---
Odysseus’s sword is at the witch’s neck.
She stares at him, eyes of molten gold boring into him, recalculating. She cannot really move, pinned as she is between his body and the wall, with his free hand trapping hers well out of reach of the rod that he knows is as dangerous as any blade.
Circe’s expression changes, eyes widening, breath caught in her chest. She relaxes into the wall and his hard grip, suddenly soft, and he smells her perfume now that he is close enough to notice it.
She smiles radiantly and opens her mouth to speak when a soft voice from the corridor makes them both turn their heads, surprised.
“Mama?” says a spectre of the past.
Odysseus suddenly feels cold.
---
“Hermes didn’t say where he was taking him,” he says softly to Circe.
They are seated again, stiffly, watching one another as a rabbit watches a dog, but unwilling to commit violence in front of the boy.
Odysseus could probably send him away, raise the voice that has commanded armies and order him out of the house. He hesitates, though; so long as he is present, Circe seems content to let him speak his piece, and if this can end without further bloodshed and violence, all the better.
Part of him is curious, too. Is the boy like Hector in more than appearance? Or has the witch’s influence scrubbed away the remnants of his father?
“Yes, well. He and I have an understanding. I owed him, and when he showed up with the child… how could I turn him away?” Circe’s eyes are soft as she gazes at the child, who has begun to entertain himself with a small toy horse at the far end of the table. “Aiaia has ever been home to the outcast. Usually that entails disgraced nymphs, mostly, and the occasional goddess.”
The boy is perhaps four, now. He seems happy as he plays, heedless of the stranger in his home. He has received a new name from Circe, so that his heritage may be hidden. Best to let that sleeping dog lie as long as possible.
“Telegonus,” Circe says, and the boy turns to look at her. “Fetch me two cups, would you?”
“Okay!” Telegonus says, toddling away towards the kitchens.
She turns again to him, face warmed by the light of the hearth. Odysseus tries to hide the return of tension to his mind and body. If she notices, the goddess doesn’t comment.
“So, you’ve angered the god of tides. Tell me why that should make me more sympathetic to your men,” she says.
He doesn’t let himself relax, not with the lives of his crew on the line. She is not ready to kill him outright, but that option, he notes with a glance to the magic rod sitting by her side just slightly out of his reach, is not off the table.
He runs a hand through his hair, which has grown wild and coarse over the years at sea and probably needs a good washing. “Lady Circe, my men are rough from years at sea. We want to go home to our wives and children. Or to find wives; some of these men were just boys when they sailed with me away from Ithaca. Many have not known what it is to be husbands and fathers. We are tired.” He looks her straight on, opting to be honest with his hostess. “Poseidon is angry with us, with me really, because we did not kill his son and I was foolish enough to tell him my name. He would see us all drown for my shortsightedness.”
She regards him, mistrust in her eyes and written on the harsh lines of her posture and body language. “Mercy has earned you torment?”
“That, and hubris.”
She snorts indelicately - honestly. Indecision wars on her features for a moment, but then finally she releases a quiet breath and says, “Very well. I will help you, on two conditions.”
A loud crash echoes out from the kitchen, and they are both moving before either can say anything.
Telegonus is staring at the shattered shards of earthenware cups that have cascaded across the floor. Blood wells up from a shallow gash on his palm, and he draws in a heavy breath before he bursts into tears.
Circe sweeps the boy into her arms, pressing kisses to his temple and carrying him out of the room after a glance at his palm. She no longer seems to him the fierce witch, but more a lioness - plenty dangerous, but tender towards her cubs.
---
Circe lays the now-sleeping boy on the couch near the hearth, which has burned low, and tucks a goatskin close under his chin. She strokes his soft face, then returns to the table to sit across from Odysseus.
There are two cups of wine on the table. She pushes one towards him and drinks deeply herself. He eyes it warily, earning himself a raised eyebrow from the goddess.
“I already agreed to help you,” she says.
“True, but you stipulated conditions. I would know them before I drink wine from a witch’s hands,” He replies, unfazed.
She sighs, deeply, and her face hardens. Circe seems older, suddenly, though he is aware that time is something very different to an immortal. Her face has harsher lines, more gaunt, as one in deep pain.
She holds up a finger. “One,” she says, “you must swear to me that you and your men will leave peaceably, making no moves towards my nymphs nor attempting to lift the riches of my house.”
“I will swear that,” he replies. Even without this condition, he would have personally thrashed any man indecorous enough to try robbing or harming a hostess, particularly not the daughter of great Helios, who sees all things.
“Two: you must…” her breath catches, and tears glint in the firelight as they well up in Circe’s eyes, “...you must take Telegonus with you when you go.”
Odysseus stares at her, then raises the wine to his lips and drinks deeply.
“Lady Circe,” he begins, “I sent him away from me to save his life. My voyage is a dangerous one, and if he ever learns of his parentage, nothing will stop him from his vengeance. And besides, the boy loves you as his mother and you clearly love him as a son. Why ever would you wish to part from him?”
Penelope would sooner have died than be parted from Telemachus. Is the goddess so cold? Yet tears fall from her eyes now as she regards the sleeping boy, and Odysseus knows it isn’t coldness that drives her to this action.
Penelope would sooner have died than see Telemachus harmed.
“He isn’t safe here, Odysseus,” Circe whispers. “Athena seeks his life. Every day she works against the magics I have cast over the island, and soon she will break in. I cannot fight an Olympian. If she finds him, she will kill him.”
“Why does the goddess seek to end him?” Odysseus asks, but even as he says it, a sinking feeling comes over his heart and the knowledge enters his mind; he knows Athena too well to not guess her aims. There is only one reason the goddess of wisdom and strategy would want to kill the boy.
“To save your life, king of Ithaca.”
---
Odysseus sets sail for Hades a few days later, seeking a prophet to help him finally return to his beloved and his son.
He finds Hector in the Underworld. The man is with his wife, who died the night Troy fell. He weeps bitterly over his son’s fate, but Odysseus does not judge the man. He too would weep, were their places reversed, and Telemachus in the care of Hector.
It is strange to see Achilles, Hector, Paris, Patroclus, and many of the other great men lost in that war in the fields of Elysium. They rest alongside each other in death despite their conflict in life. So the Fates dictate.
---
Scylla has taken six lives, Tiresias has urged wisdom but ultimately failed to get them home, and Elpenor has been buried.
Aiaia welcomes them back, if only briefly. They rest for a while, then load their ships and prepare to set out now that the winds have turned favourable again.
Telegonus runs about as the men carry supplies generously gifted by Circe and her nymphs. They are fond of him now, and they take turns letting him chase their heels, with an occasional hand ruffling the boy’s thick dark hair. He basks in the attention. The men do not make the connection between him and Hector, and why should they? None of these ever had much cause to see the general of Troy in person, and even so, it has been three years since they left the ruined city.
To them, he is just a boy pawned off by an uncaring goddess.
Circe stands beside him. He can feel the emotion rolling off her in waves; he sees it in the arms crossed over her chest, in the too-stern expression on her face, in the hard lines etched around her eyes. This is a hard day for her, he knows.
She hands him a small glass bottle. It’s filled with a thick golden liquid that he might think honey, if not for the slight sheen on its surface.
“When he has his dinner, get Telegonus to drink this.” She does not cry as she speaks, just intones the words with cold control, as though holding back a tempest by the force of will alone. “It will soften the edges of his memory, so he will not ache for home. It will wear off slowly, as he grows. But for now I think it best to let the boy age without sorrow, not until he is ready to reconcile with the truth.”
“What will he remember?”
“Warmth. Love. Peace with his voyaging. In time, he will recover everything, but until then, all he will remember is that his mother loves him.” Her voice breaks on the last words.
Odysseus sets a hand on her shoulder, saying nothing. What is there to say? He has grieved, true, but not in the way of a woman for her child.
And truly, the boy is hers. He has her mannerisms and facial expressions. He is curious and confident, trusting.
“I will do all I can to protect your son, Lady Circe. I swear it.”
She draws a deep breath. “Ironic, isn’t it? That you of all men should promise me this, about the son of your enemy, prophesied to kill you.”
His mind flies back in time, towards the stone walls of Troy and the Thunder-god’s warnings. “I cannot control the Fates. Men who flee from destiny often run themselves directly into its throes. You have been kind to me, Lady Circe, and Hector was no evil man.” He smiles wryly, regretfully. “I do not think it unbecoming, either; perhaps this is a peace offering for the evil I have done on this earth.”
For the evil he will do again, once he is home. His trip to the Underworld left few illusions regarding what was happening on Ithaca - or would happen later; Tiresias wasn’t particularly clear on that part. He sees all of Time in one moment, so details like now and a decade later are trivial to him.
She smiles through her tears, which have finally broken out of her control. “Perhaps I can be grateful for the years I had with him. My little Telegonus, so curious, so strong willed.”
Odysseus is quiet for a moment. “He will return here one day. I sense the Fates are not finished with this part of your story. If he is as willed as you say, then I imagine he will come looking for you as his memory returns to him.”
“Perhaps,” Circe says, though she sounds unconvinced.
He will keep Telegonus close. If Athena wishes to destroy the boy to save Odysseus, she will have to be clever indeed to not kill them both. It’s the best solution they have - Circe cannot keep the goddess away from Aiaia forever. Circe will keep up her magic as long as she can, so that Athena might not realize immediately that the boy is elsewhere.
Circe does not tell her son that they will be parted, if not permanently then indefinitely. She simply tells him to be good for King Odysseus, then ushers him onto the ship with the last of the men.
Odysseus thanks her for her hospitality, promises again to look after the son of her heart, and orders his men to set sail with all haste. Ithaca is waiting.
---
He warned them not to slaughter the cows. He warned them.
It’s all he can think of as the storm shreds the ship. Saltwater stings his eyes, catching in his throat, making him cough and splutter. He races over what is left of the deck, squinting, crying out for the one he promised to care for.
Telegonus is clinging to a bit of railing, looking small and so fragile in the path of Zeus’ fury. He takes the boy in his arms, and at that moment the deck falls out from under them.
Icy ocean water drags them down. Odysseus kicks, heart thundering in his chest, struggling to find the surface. They break out and gasp down air, and then he sees it.
The mast is mostly intact, floating not far from where they are. It still has rigging attached. He doesn’t know if it’s chance or Athena’s doing, but he swims for it with all he has, desperate. Already his limbs are weakening and his eyes are growing dark with tiredness.
He hauls them to the mast and uses numb fingers to clumsily tie first Telegonus and then himself to it, hoping that if they should lose consciousness, the ropes will stop them from falling away from the small hope they have at surviving this mess.
Another wave crashes over them. Odysseus’ head is slammed against the wood by the force of the wave, and his world goes black.
---
There is sand in his mouth. It’s the first thing he realizes as awareness returns to him.
Then pain.
He groans, lifting weak hands towards his throbbing skull, and raises himself up onto his elbows. He gasps in air, gags, then vomits water onto the shore, the action making his whole body shake with pain. Odysseus squints, the light nearly blinding, and slowly the world comes into view.
He’s lying on his belly on a beach of soft sand. The sun beams down on his back, which is torn and sore from the wreckage of the ship. A rope is still coiled about his waist from where he lashed himself to the mast, which lies a few feet away, severed from the rigging.
Telegonus!
He throws himself upright, nearly falling backwards in the process. He searches the wreckage for the boy, frantic, until he hears a voice.
“-just like that, lad. Let it out,” says the voice - a woman’s, deep and melodious.
There’s a retching sound. Finally he spots them, staggering towards the pair, catching his feet on bits of washed-up ship and rocks, and is relieved to see his charge kneeling on the sand, bent double, pale, bleeding from a few places, but alive.
He retches again, emptying seawater from his lungs onto the beach. There is a woman - no, a nymph - rubbing the boy’s back with gentle hands. She looks up as he stumbles over.
“Telegonus,” he croaks, voice barely audible for dehydration.
The boy looks over and throws himself at Odysseus. He would be weeping, if his body had the water to spare. “You’re alive,” he whispers, and Odysseus’ heart twists. The boy must have thought him a corpse.
He wraps an arm around the boy, mindful of the torn skin where debris struck him, and locks eyes with the nymph.
She is beautiful, but the look in her eyes as she rakes her gaze up and down his form makes him instantly wary. “Hello, Odysseus of Ithaca,” she says, and suddenly he fears that they have been delivered from the ocean to a fate equally as dangerous.
---
Calypso is not a bad hostess. She washes their wounds and sits with them as they recover, serving them sweet nectar and roasted fish. She sings to Telegonus to comfort him when he asks where the crew is and Odysseus must explain to him as gently as he can that they have been lost at sea.
The island is beautiful. Lush trees with ripe fruit, springs of clean, clear water, game for hunting, and a turquoise lagoon are just a few of the charms this little patch of paradise has to offer.
He wonders, then, how it is that a single nymph is able to keep uncontested control of it. The sea is broad and has many islands, true, but he struggles to believe that no man has landed his ship here before. Something isn’t right here, and it worries him.
Telegonus doesn’t seem to mind, though. After a few days, the lad is back to his old self, exploring and asking questions. He picks seashells by the lagoon and brings them to Calypso as though they are grand treasures, presenting them to her with pride. For her part, the nymph delights in each item he brings her, encouraging him to return to his search.
Calypso watches him with eyes the colour of the wine-dark sea. It isn’t a gaze that’s calculating, not like Circe’s was. It isn’t love, not really, in her eyes. She makes him uneasy. He cannot quite figure out why until a balmy evening two weeks after they arrived on the island.
---
Telegonus is asleep inside the shelter of Calypso’s dwelling. If he strains, Odysseus can hear his gentle breathing from where he sits, stiffly, next to Calypso.
She places a gentle hand over his, and he looks at her and knows what is about to happen. Her eyes are intense, lips parted in a smile, and she leans towards him in such a way that her breasts are exposed out the top of her chiton, which is sitting noticeably lower on her body than normal.
She is speaking, but the words are lost on him. He does not want this nymph, beautiful and willing as she is. All he longs for is his Penelope, for her body and her mind and her voice that soothes his aching heart.
It is all he can think of as Calypso draws closer, hands moving down his body teasingly.
“...No,” he says, scooting backwards across the sand.
Calypso stops, looking confused. “No? But the gods have sent you to me for a husband. Am I not lovely enough for you?”
“No, Lady. You are lovely in every way, but I am a married man, and my heart is my wife’s.” And so is my body, he mentally adds.
Now the nymph looks angry. He feels power prickle across his skin, the white sands shifting beneath them in response. Warm wind ruffles his hair on what had been a still night, and the waves crashing onto the beach rise a little higher.
But Calypso leans back, visibly calming herself. “Very well. I can be patient. When you are ready to accept what the Fates have decided for us, we shall be man and wife. It is good that you are loyal to the ones you love. Not to worry; I can wait a while longer for you, my love.”
She presses a chaste kiss to his forehead, then rises and strides towards the forest, her power not fully suppressed, he can tell, by the way the trees bend in wind that is isolated to the area around her.
Odysseus breathes deeply, then feels tears prick at his eyes. He gazes at the stars, thinking of his Penelope, her eyes and smile and scent. He thinks of the boy who will be nearly fourteen now, entering his manhood, and wonders what he is like. Wonders if he has been told of his father, and what Telemachus must think of his absence.
Now alone on the beach, Odysseus weeps. The stars and the sands and the sea say nothing. The washing of waves on the shore carries his gentle cries away, covering them with its ceaseless rhythm.
---
It is now winter, but Calypso’s island changes little.
Temperature here does not fluctuate as wildly here as it does in other places he has been to. Even on Ithaca winter often brings a little snow. But aside from a gentle cooling and some stronger winds than normal, the island remains very much a paradise.
They sit in her cave, which Calypso has draped with soft linens and animal skins so that it is a place of comfort. Odysseus has taken to carving little figures of horses and men and sheep for Telegonus, both to give the boy toys to play with and to occupy his restless mind and hands.
Calypso weaves on a beautiful loom near the hearth, her hands moving swiftly. Her clack-clacking has a near musical rhythm to it, and for all he does not trust her, he finds himself watching more than once as the winter stretches on. It doesn’t escape her notice, and each time she sees him, she smiles, fire in her eyes, and carries on.
Odysseus has also taken up carving so that when the winter is done, he can build a boat and convey himself and Telegonus across the sea to Ithaca.
He wonders how he will convince the nymph to let them leave. Somehow he knows that sneaking from under her nose will be impossible: her power extends to the whole island. There’s no way he would be able to build a boat and pack supplies enough to last them the journey without her knowledge and explicit permission.
Thus cornered, Odysseus does what he does best: he thinks.
___
A year passes. His guess was accurate: he can no more leave the island without Calypso’s permission than reach the stars of heaven.
The boat he had just finished building floats in the lagoon, torn into pieces. He breathes deeply, forcing down his anger and frustration, and turns to look at Calypso.
She stands with crossed arms, a stern expression on her face, like a scolding mother.
“My love, you cannot leave. We are Fated to be together. Not even you, my strong-willed Odysseus, can change their designs. Stay with me here. Be at peace on our island,” She says, caressing his face gently. A beard has sprouted on his chin, more rugged than he would prefer, but Calypso likes it and therefore it stays.
Bitterness wells inside. He has tried explaining to her that Tiresias promised he would go home and see his wife again, but all she does is kiss his forehead and tell him that is folly. It will not be any advantage to bring it up now, so he forces down the feeling and stalks away down the beach, silent, angry.
Telegonus, now nearly six, senses his mood, and scurries away to find more seashells. In his hand he carries the horse Odysseus carved for him, which bears no likeness to the one that burned down his city but is what the man was thinking on as he whittled the wood down.
___
Three more years pass. Odysseus is not more pliant towards Calypso’s advances. She does not stop trying. He sits out on the beach, some nights, weeping.
Telegonus has begun to recover some of his memories. He asks Odysseus about the island they came from, and the beautiful woman who would kiss his hair and tuck him in. Odysseus does his best to answer honestly, but worry begins to take hold in him over the boy’s returning mind. He’s not sure what Telegonus will do if they can’t get off the island and find Circe when he is grown.
By now, Odysseus has accepted that unless the gods intervene, they are trapped here.
___
The summer of Telegonus’ eleventh year is hotter than any Odysseus can remember on the island. Birds sing in the trees and the wind comes in off the sea, cool and briny. Flowers and fruit bring colour and life to the place in hues of rich green and red and purple.
The lad is off hunting, finally grown enough to seek independence from his mentor and keepers. That is well, because Odysseus remembers his own summers of adventure as a boy. Let him make some mistakes and learn some lessons of his own.
Unfortunately, it also leaves him alone with Calypso. She stalks towards him with intent, and somewhere deep inside, he knows he can’t avoid this any more. She will take what she wants from him.
She forces him down, kissing his mouth hard, clumsily, desperately. She whispers to him of her love even as she demands something he is not willing to give, but he can feel the air tingle with her power, can sense the shifting winds and rising tide, and he knows how little choice he has.
He thinks of Penelope and closes his eyes.
___
The tension between Calypso and Odysseus is palpable.
To the nymph’s surprise, forcing herself on him does not warm Odysseus to her. He is colder now, more curt, because he knows that she can simply take him as she pleases whenever she likes, and so his motivation to stay in her good graces is gone. Why bother, when he doesn’t have a say anyway? It will not make a difference.
The months slip away again into another year, and try as she might, the nymph cannot coax the man into loving her. She begs him, pleads with him, but all he will say is that his heart belongs to Penelope.
No matter how many times she beds him, no matter how passionate or tender or caring, he remains unmoved. Not even the offers of golden ambrosia, to make him immortal, have changed his heart.
Calypso is angry at this, at first, he knows. He can see it in her posture, in the clack-clacking of the loom that is harsher and louder and more erratic than it once was. She is harsher with him and colder to Telegonus, much to the boy’s pain. He cares for her, and when she begins to lose interest in his seashells, he quiets and withdraws into himself.
By the following spring, though, anger has become acceptance. Calypso is not irrational, Odysseus knows. She has simply been alone for so long that she had convinced herself of the Fate’s designs for the pair of them when he washed up on shore.
She stops forcing him to her bed, which relieves him. He still can’t leave, but it is progress, and he will take any step he can towards Ithaca, no matter how small.
On a warm, bright day, he finds her watching Telegonus from afar as he stands in the lagoon, spear in hand, trying (fruitlessly) to catch lunch. He slips in the water, having overextended himself and putting too much power into his thrust, splashing up turquoise water.
Calypso laughs. “He will be a fine young man soon, don’t you think?” she says, and there is an intensity in her eyes that he thought she had put aside.
It makes him step back, shocked, as she continues to watch the boy - nearly thirteen now - and trails her eyes across his skin in much the same way she did to Odysseus himself when they landed on her shores some seven years ago now.
Horror fills him. He does not show this to her, however; he simply agrees and heads towards the lagoon’s waters. He takes Telegonus by the arm and shows him how to stand so he will not fall, how to time his strike to catch the fish unawares, and tells him to be patient, because the best hunters are the ones who lie in wait for their prey.
___
Odysseus sacrifices a goat that he had Telegonus catch for him late that night when Calypso and the boy are asleep. He prays to whatever gods are willing to hear for deliverance; he begs Apollo for aid on behalf of the son of Hector whom the god loved.
___
The arrival of Hermes is a shock to all three of them.
Odysseus didn't really expect his sacrifice to work. He had thought all the gods too angry with him to help, and yet here is the fleet-footed messenger of the gods in shining silver, a grin on his trickster face.
“Ah, Odysseus! We meet again,” says the god.
Odysseus bows. “Lord Hermes, it is good to see you again.”
The god laughs and it sounds like ringing bells. “You have no idea how rarely I hear that kind of greeting, good man. And you, lad! How you have grown since last I saw you!”
Telegonus is shy before the god. “You… know me, sir?”
“Of course! You were just a babe when I carried you to Circe's house. Ah, you are mortal so you may not remember, but I visited Circe more than once as you grew,” he says, and for a moment Odysseus is afraid he will let slip the secret of the boy’s true parentage.
But the trickster just smiles at the boy and winks at Odysseus - a warning, that he holds the knowledge in his silver hands and could at any time reveal what he knows, ruining the life Odysseus is so bent on preserving. It's a reminder too, that the boy he has grown to care for must never learn of his ancestry. It would spell the end of Ithaca.
It was Apollo who prophesied that Odysseus would fall to Telegonus. Whether Ithaca and his family fall with him entirely depends on their relationship.
Calypso seems in awe of the god. Odysseus wonders if he has met more of the divine than she has despite his mortal nature, simply because he hasn't spent most of his life stranded alone on an island.
The awe vanishes when Hermes delivers his message. “You have friends in high places, king,” he says, bowing with a mocking flourish. “The gods have seen fit to free you from dear Lady Calypso’s clutches.”
Calypso is speaking to Hermes - they are arguing. Odysseus hears nothing of it.
He is going home. Finally, blessedly, he is going home. Telegonus places a hand on his shoulder - wide, firm, callused in a way that it hasn’t been before. Tears fill both their eyes, and Odysseus pulls his enemy’s son into an embrace as the truth sets on.
They are going home.
___
Calypso doesn’t try to stop them this time. In fact, she is helpful, collecting supplies and showing Telegonus which trees will make the best poles for Odysseus to strip and fit into the frame of the ship.
Perhaps ‘ship’ is a bit of a stretch. It’s just a raft, really; it has a mast and a small shelter on the back, but aside from that it is just a flat of logs dovetailed together and woven with ropes for extra security.
The chisel in his hands is somehow perpetually sharp; Odysseus isn’t sure which immortal is to thank for that small boon, but it means he can work all day without having to stop and sharpen the blasted thing.
It takes three days, and then they are ready. Calypso is the one weeping on the beach every night this time, and neither Odysseus nor Telegonus feel the urge to comfort her, not when she has caused them so much pain.
He finds it hard to hate her, though. Despite it all, Calypso had cared for them in her way, making sure they were fed and sheltered. The bare minimum, he knows, but she could have turned him over to Poseidon at any time and earned the favour of a powerful god in the process. It’s what he chooses to focus on, regardless, as he and the boy lash down the boxes of dried fish and cheese and flatbread and the casks of clear island water that will sustain them on the way home.
Home.
Odysseus still can’t quite believe it. The warnings of Tiresias ring in the back of his mind about hardships yet to come, but for the moment, his heart is full at the thought of his beloved Penelope and the son he hasn’t ever known.
Telemachus will be a man now. He imagines him as tall, broad-shouldered, with his father’s brown locks and his mother’s fair eyes. A man skilled with sword and spear, patient, cunning, but loyal and noble. The man he wished he was, Odysseus knows.
Telegonus is speaking quietly with Calypso on shore. They will leave soon, and Odysseus will make his goodbye once the lad is finished. He says something that makes her laugh despite the tears on her fair face, squeezes her arm, and turns away.
In the sunlight now, he is the picture of Hector. He has the wit and charm and kind heart of that brave man, though Odysseus can never tell him so. In the years since they landed on Calypso’s island, Telegonus has asked questions of his parents. He knows that Circe was not his mother by blood - he remembers her now, as much as anyone can remember their mother from so long ago - and that Odysseus is not his father.
He was as honest as he could be with the boy. As far as Telegonus knows, Odysseus rescued him from the ashes of Troy and sent him away to safety, to Circe’s island, until their paths crossed again.
It’s all true, it just lacks some rather important details. So far he has not thought to question how it was that Odysseus survived the burning of the city or why it was necessary to Leave Circe’s care. He knows in his heart that the day will come when he can’t avoid those questions, and on that day, Hector’s son will probably take his life.
Odysseus is a patient man, though. He can just enjoy the time he has left, enjoy watching the boy who over the years has become a second son to him.
___
Calypso outfits them with fine robes and kisses their foreheads. They depart without much fanfare, and Odysseus watches over his shoulder as the lone figure on the beach shrinks, never moving from where she stands, until finally the horizon claims her from his view.
Ten years of journeying. Ten years of longing, desperate wishing, and clinging to the image of his wife and son are about to be fulfilled. If, of course, they can survive the next challenge the gods decide to throw at them.