Odysseus moved.
His bow sang. The first arrow found its mark, punching clean through a man’s throat before he could scream. The second lodged itself deep into another’s chest, sending him staggering backward, toppling a table in his descent. A goblet of wine spilled over the floor, dark as blood.
Panic shattered the stillness.
The men scrambled, knocking over chairs, slipping in the mess of their own revelry.
But Odysseus did not stop.
He stalked through the halls of his home, step by step, loosing arrow after arrow.
The halls of Ithaca filled with the screams of men, with the sounds of slaughter.
But Odysseus did not stop.
He pushed forward, using his sword to bring down any man that dared to challenge him. The steel of dropped weapons clattering to the ground surrounded him. It grounded him.
The air was thick with the smell of blood, the smell of piss. Somewhere, a man cried for his mother.
Odysseus bit back a laugh. Men that had been vying for his wife’s hand in marriage now found themselves scared and cowering. For all the courage they might have pretended to have in the face of his queen, they soiled themselves when facing her king.
His hands were red, his ragged tunic covered in the blood of a hundred men. His breath came fast, heavy in his chest, but his wrath did not ebb. His fingers twitched around his bow.
A body shifted nearby. A suitor, barely alive, wheezing.
Odysseus turned, arrow drawn, before he had even thought to move.
His eyes tracked every flicker of movement in the hall, watching.
Waiting.
Several moments passed, and no one moved. The bodies piled on the ground, spilt blood streaming over the cobbled floors. With a grunt, Odysseus dropped to one knee, slinging his bow over his back once more.
He pressed his hand to the stone, steadying his breathing before he looked around, worry suddenly creeping up his throat.
He was not finished facing the consequences of his time away.
There was one more person he had been waiting to see.
1
HE STOOD ON A PRECIPICE.
Hand hovering in front of the wooden door, his heart beat wildly in his chest. How long had he been standing here? How long had he waited for this very moment? And yet - years of monsters, years of gods and of death… none of that compared to the bone-chilling terror he currently felt.
She was on the other side. Only a cypress door stood between him and the single thing that kept him going for the last twenty years. He hadn’t journeyed for kingdom, pride, or treasure. It was the woman on the other side of the door, his first and only love, Spartan princess and Ithacan Queen.
He had slaughtered over a hundred men without a second thought, bringing every suitor down with his own hands. But this… this moment seemed to take more courage than all of that combined.
Gathering all the courage he had left, he rapped on the door in time with his racing heart. In an instant, it all played before him. Every minute of his journey, every instant he had to choose between his home,his wife, or his crew.
Their screams kept him awake at night, seeing their lifeless bodies when he longed for peace.
Odysseus had stood at many cliffs before - one as a young man, with a different set of suitors vying for a different Spartan’s hand. But even then, his eyes were not drawn to the beauty of Helen, but to her cousin, the daughter of Icarius. That moment seemed a lifetime away now, and yet, standing here, his heart had not changed.
In the eternity after knocking on the door,their door, his memories were kind to him - stolen kisses by the olive tree. Moments of laughter with his young family. His wife, and his son, together before his world was ripped in two.
His breath caught in his throat when he heard a muted reply from the room. He tried to stand tall, push the years away, and present himself to his bride with the same strength he had decades ago.
