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The gods truly were powerful beings. That should have been obvious, but most mortals didn’t realize truly how strong they were simply because they didn’t deal with them that often, or at least weren’t aware of when they did. The whole of the Trojan war started because of a conflict between a few gods and was constantly being interfered with by them, but few who fought in it knew that or were aware of the extent that they got involved. Even those who did interact with gods only knew what they were told. To them, gods were simply mentors. There were only so many true displays of power.
But Polites had known that there was little limit to what a god could do since he was 11 years old.
He, Odysseus, and a few others had gone to hunt a rumored magic boar just for the fun of it, as well as some bragging rights. Odysseus had made a plan that everyone agreed to simply because it was his idea, also because nobody else had one. Polities would distract the boar, the others would disable it, and Odysseus would kill it. Simple as that. Or at least it was supposed to be as simple as that.
“Ody!”
They had underestimated the strength and intelligence of the boar. What they thought would disable it wasn’t enough and it had pretended they had bested it so they would get their guards down. So when Odysseus confidently went in to deliver the final blow, it attacked him more brutally than any normal creature would before running off again.
“No…no no no…you can’t die…”
The others had run off in fear, though one did swear they’d get help. So Polites was left alone with the slowly bleeding out body of his friend, feeling his breaths start to get more and more shallow as a broken rib stabbed into his lungs. Polites couldn’t save him. Nobody would be able to. But he couldn’t stand to see his best friend die. Not when there was so much he had potential to do. Polites knew that Odysseus was destined to do such great things. So he held his body close, closed his eyes, and whispered a prayer.
“Please, any god who is listening, have mercy on my friend. I do not care what the cost is. I would do anything to be able to protect him. To keep him alive. This cannot be what the fates have decided for him. So I beg you. Spare him. Or if you cannot do that, give me the ability to do so. There’s no length I wouldn’t go to save him. To give him the life he was born to have. Please.”
Polites just cried, hoping that someone would hear his prayer, that someone would give him what he asked for, hearing the time between each staggered breath grow wider. Then he felt a weak hand on his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw Odysseus, broken and bloodied, staring up at him. Smiling.
“You can relax, my friend.”
Polites knew that each word had to cause him immense pain. But he was still saying them. He was assuring him. He was dying and he was spending the few words he had left to comfort him. Not what to tell his family, not any reflection. He was telling him to relax and reminding him that he cared. He was more worried about Polites than about himself. He knew that he was a goner. He accepted that. So he decided to take his final moments to tell Polites that he’d be okay. The cunning, cocky, young prince had always been so empathetic towards those he cared about. It was the thing that Polites admired most about him. It inspired him. But the Polites knew gods punished compassion almost as much as they punished hubris.
Polites heard one last sharp breath.
Then silence.
He screamed.
Everything went white.
Someone had heard his prayer. Someone was able to tell just how genuine Polites had been. Someone could envision the bright future for Odysseus that Polites saw. Someone gave Polites what he wanted.
But the gods punished compassion.
Polites lived a long life after that day. Not to say that the gods had blessed him with a longer life, but that the gods had quite literally had him experience more life than everyone else did. From that day forward, any time Odysseus died Polites was sent back in time to the most recent event that led to that death and was able to prevent it from happening. Sometimes it was easy to figure out –picking a fight with someone older, making a wrong turn in the woods and coming across a wild animal, misjudging the structural integrity of a branch– but other times he needed multiple attempts just to figure out what had happened, times like when Odysseus had gotten an illness from a diseased fish that had gone unnoticed for months before he showed symptoms then died in his sleep or a time he suffered a head injury that seemed like it was just a concussion until he dropped dead out of nowhere a week later.
As such, Polites had gotten very used to seeing his friend die in a wide menagerie of ways. For the longest time it seemed like the price of being able to save his friend’s life as many times as needed was said friend being practically cursed to be much more likely to die from the simplest things. But strangely, it was because of that that Polites had taken in his friends' first dying words deeper and deeper. Polites had become kinder, more optimistic, and more empathetic. He also became a lot smarter in a non-traditional sense as he had narrowed down figuring out how to make sure his friend didn’t die into such a perfected process that he got an unofficial position as an advisor for Odysseus. He had learned to not become paranoid as not only did letting his fear of Odysseus dying make him seem at best overly anxious and at worst a liability, but it got Odysseus to listen to him less which made him die all the faster and often even worse than he would have. He took care of anything that presented a high risk, but if it didn’t show enough potential to kill Odysseus, he would just let things play out. He had as many chances as he needed to keep his friend alive, after all.
He did not fear Odysseus dying. He feared not knowing how to save him.
And unfortunately, that fear had become a reality.
One moment. There was one single moment that Polites couldn’t figure out how to get Odysseus to survive. Just off the coast of Thrinacia, talking to Zeus, Odysseus was given the choice between sacrificing himself or the entirety of the crew.
And he always chose himself.
No matter what Polites did beforehand, his friend let himself die again and again and again. All the work Polites had done to make sure he survived was for nothing. Because Odysseus was too kind of a soul to pick his own life over the lives of his men. And Polites had no idea how to stop it from happening.
No matter what he did, they couldn’t row away fast enough. No matter what he did, someone tried to kill a cow. No matter what he did, there was a mutiny.
Different amounts of men would be on the ship. Different men would ignore Odysseus and Polites’ and even occasionally Eurylochus’ pleas. Different men led the mutiny.
It didn’t matter how much anyone begged or bargained. It didn’t matter if the crew learned about Scylla after the attack and mutinied then or were told beforehand and mutinied then. Nothing mattered after the sirens; if they avoided them Odysseus would just die by Poseidon so quickly that Polites ruled that option out. Things between the sirens and Zeus might change, but as soon as Zeus was reached, it always ended the same. And Odysseus always said the same damn thing before he died.
“You can relax, my friend.”
Polites had practically studied everything that he could do differently. Everything that could prevent it from happening. Because for the past however many years Polites had lived, whenever Odysseus died Polites would be sent back to the final day of the war, waking up to Odysseus already being in the horse that the Trojans were accepting. He knew that it was Odysseus’ choice to kill the son of Hector that caused the ripple effect. The first few loops Odysseus had gotten mysteriously smited and it only took making in through the city the right way to see Odysseus get told he had to kill the son of Hector, him refusing to, then getting smited. Polites had to figure out a way to make sure Odysseus chose to kill the infant without being able to talk to him, managing to get a word into Neoptolemus, son of Achilies, who was able to talk to Odysseus and plant the idea that if Neoptolemus wouldn’t hesitate to kill any remaining relative of Priam so that Odysseus would know if he didn’t kill the infant prince, someone else would. There was no way around Odysseus killing the prince if they wanted to survive past that last day, but it was apparently that choice that resulted in him eventually choosing to sacrifice himself over the crew. Polites knew that there had to be some way to get past Scylla without a mutiny, without trying to kill one of Helios’ cows, or without having to deal with Zeus. There had been a way past everything else, after all.
To not get surprised by Poseidon again, they had to go through the sirens and plug their ears with beeswax.
To be able to talk to Circe, they had to let Odysseus fight alone.
To not get taken by Circe’s magic, Odysseus had to stay on the beach while others searched the island at first.
To not start infighting too soon, Odysseus had to stay unaware of who opened the wind bag.
To knock the cyclops out, he had to encourage Odysseus to put in all the lotus fruit he was able to sneak along; if he suggested the idea of drugging wine just to be safe while they were on the island he wouldn’t believe it and if they were still on the island he wouldn’t let him take any of the fruit onto the ship.
To not be killed by the cyclops, he had to make sure Odysseus was in the right place but also wouldn’t find the club before the cyclops got it.
To keep things calm on the island of the lotus eaters, he had to have built up enough trust that Odysseus would only have the two of them investigate.
Everything had been figured out. Everything could be planned. Everything could be compensated for. Everything was a puzzle that could be solved.
Except how to keep Odysseus from getting past Zeus.
“You can relax my friend. I can tell you’re getting nervous, so do yourself a service.”
Polites couldn’t remember when it was that he decided to start using his friend’s dying words as advice. But he had found that when he did, he was able to keep Odysseus alive longer for some reason that he never figured out. His assurance and comfort is what helped ensure that he would last 3 years again and again and again. It kept him sharp, it kept him motivated, and it kept him sane.
And it also kept him from staying alive at any point after that encounter with Zeus.
If Polites was comforting, assuring, and compassionate, Odysseus wouldn’t let him –and the rest of the crew– die. But if he was formal, practical, and cold, Odysseus wouldn’t live long enough to make that choice. So he was left having to figure out how he could be kind enough to keep him motivated but not so kind that he wouldn’t be made to make the impossible choice.
Or that he wouldn’t choose the crew over himself.
“I see in your face there is so much guilt inside your heart.”
Polites had found out more about Odysseus than anyone else would have the capacity to. Frankly with how many crises he had helped Odysseus through, he probably knew more than even Odysseus consciously knew about himself. He knew about all his insecurities, his hopes, his fears, his dreams, and every notable event of his life. But he didn’t know how he could get Odysseus to pick himself over his crew. He didn’t even know how to go about trying, or at least how to do that without risking too much.
Polites didn’t know what would happen if he died. He didn’t know if he died and then Odysseus died if he’d be brought back to life, but with all that he knew about the gods he doubted it. What if he managed to convince Odysseus to let Zeus kill whatever crew members remained and then he got himself killed by Poseidon the next day? He had been putting so much effort into keeping both of them alive. He thought that they had to both survive. But who was he to assume that? He had always seen Odysseus as someone who was meant to do great things in life, someone that had to get back home. But he was just someone to keep him alive. He wasn’t meant for anything more than being a helpful companion, an act of divine help that his friend didn’t even know existed –the first and last time he told Odysseus about his time loops Odysseus had been so filled with guilt and horror he begged Polites to kill him just to remove his knowledge of that fact from his mind because he couldn’t comprehend it in a way that would allow him to live with himself– and nothing more. He didn’t come from any special lineage, he didn’t have any glorious accomplishments in war, and the only thing he had going for him in life was being credited for being a skilled strategist when really he was just able to live through the horrible failures that others, like Odysseus, couldn’t.
What might happen if he died and Odysseus lived? What would happen to Odysseus? He had seen how his friend reacted during the loops where Eurylochus, his second-in-command and brother-in-law, died and he saw just how much he started to lean on him to stay strong. But if he died, he knew that Eurylochus wouldn’t be able to give him that same support and his friend would trust anyone enough to be vulnerable with him. So he’d be left without someone he could open up to but would still have heard Polites’ kind words from the island of the lotus eaters. Without someone he could confide in, he would let all of the horrible things he had to deal with build up. And depending on when it happened, he would have more and more time to let negativity build up with only memories to remind him to lead with kindness and compassion. And maybe, just maybe, if he still ended up going to the same places, when given the choice between sacrificing the crew so he could get back home or letting himself die, he wouldn’t choose the crew.
Maybe Polites being alive was the reason that Odysseus kept dying before he got back home.
“It’s almost too perfect, too good to be true. Why would the lotus eaters pass up on all this food?”
Someone always killed a sheep, even if it wasn’t Odysseus. Polites had learned that there were some things that someone would always do no matter what –killing a sheep, revealing Odysseus’ identity, opening the wind bag, leading the mutiny, hurting a sun cow– but the sheep was one of the most annoying constants to him. Still, if it had to happen then he would let it happen. He had gotten very skilled at acting properly surprised by things he knew would happen so he was able to blend in with the shock of his fellow crew members as Polyphemus emerged. As Odysseus began to talk to it, he could let himself somewhat zone out so he could plan.
If he did want to let himself die, he had to be extremely careful. He very likely only had one chance and so he had to guarantee that whatever he did would lead to Odysseus surviving.
If he was alive at Zeus, Odysseus wouldn’t choose himself.
If he let himself get eaten by Scylla, Eurylochus or Perimedes would likely be even more mad at Odysseus for what happened and could kill him in the mutiny instead of just injuring him.
There was no way to die by Poseidon because it would be impossible to get on a different ship without being suspicious.
There was only one place Polites could die.
In the cave.
If he died by Polyphemus, Eurylochus would be able to snap Odysseus out of his shock at the dead crew members, he would have even more reason to be mad enough to reveal his identity, the crew would have lower morale and be more likely to open the wind bag, and Odysseus wouldn’t have the energy to search for Circe so would still go to save the crew and likely would do it alone. And without having Polites’ voice to encourage compassion he would still kill the sirens, the crew would still be sacrificed to Scylla, the mutiny would happen, and everyone would be far too exhausted from the three years without a voice of optimism and would hurt a sun cow.
But would it be enough for Odysseus to choose his own life above Zeus? Would he sacrifice whatever crew members remained for the sake of getting back home? Or would he still not be able to put the lives of several over the life of his own? How much work did Polites’ optimism do for him? Would not having him by his side for three years at sea allow him to truly sacrifice anything to get back to his son and wife?
Odysseus grappled with so much guilt. But Polites had always been there to help him lessen those feelings without causing him to simply turn off his empathy so he could still function as a leader. But it was because of that that he wouldn’t choose to let himself survive over his crew.
“You shall be the final man to die.”
So if Polites was the first to die, then maybe the cyclops would be correct.
The fight began, Odysseus called out orders, everyone was moving. Polites was able to fall into muscle memory for how to fight and as such was able to pay close attention to how injured the cyclops was. As the injuries got more serious, he began to make the maneuvers that he learned not to do to make sure Odysseus didn’t die. He watched the cyclops move towards the back of the cave.
He saw Odysseus start to relax.
The cyclops began to emerge.
Polites rushed towards Odysseus.
The club was raised.
Polites shoved Odysseus out of the way.
The club struck him in the back, snapping his spine.
“Captain…”
He hoped Odysseus would still greet the world with open arms for as long as he could. And he hoped that that would get him home. His dear friend could finally get the chance to light up the world of his son and wife.
That was exactly what Odysseus deserved in life. It was the life he was born to have.
“Enough.”
With a second strike, Polites’ skull was caved in.