Chapter Text
It's been twenty years.
Twenty years of waiting, almost Twenty-one years of age. For so long the young prince had been waiting. But his father was officially late. The challenge for the suitors had begun, he'd given up on believing that his father would return. But the little boy in him clinged onto that chance.
He watched as his mother walked down through the direct centre of the suitors in the yard, holding the bow of the king. His hearing was muffled as he was watching from his bedroom, sat on the ledge of the balcony, glaring from afar and peeking around the corner of the pillar by leaning off the railing with a dangerous tilt. Having already given up on caring about it, the feeling was farmiliar after all the nights of boredom stuck in his bedroom living in a world without a father, one he'd left behind.
He saw her grip the bow, as he squinted. Drawing it into a "C" shape and bending it backwards with a sweat, but managing it. It always amazed him how his mother could string the bow, perhaps she had been taught a trick.
Telemachus hopped backwards from the balcony back into his room, glancing at an old sleeping Argos which could draw a smile from him, and not leaving before scratching his head. He began taking quiet steps through the halls. Eyes glued to the walls, stopping at one of the images, laballed "Odysseus, Newly King of Ithica". It was made on the day of his crowning. Oh how he longed to be able to look his father in the face instead of the murals on the walls.
He continued with his hand pushing him off the wall and walking on the right-hand side. He made it all the way through the corridors which he had memorised to the point he could walk through with his eyes closed, and then he made a right, then a left, straight for a bit.. and finally a right.
There they were. The suitors, each trying to string the bow. He watched as one grasped the bow, attempting the Queen's technique, but the bow bounced back and fell to the floor. Another man another step away from shooting through the axes.
Telemachus could let out a held breath of relief at that, his mother could be slightly safer. And that's all he needed in life.
He took a further look, the neat arrangement of twelve axes. Just what he could expect from his mother, everything she did carried elegance. Even the things she set up for an upcoming marriage. A new father out of the hundred-and-eight men which had watched him grow up. It sent a shiver down his spine at any of those men becoming the King.
It seemed as though none of them were powerful enough to manage the challenge. He didn't know what he'd worried about! Of course none of them could manage to beat his father's own game. The majority had already sat down with wine in hand, but where is his mother.
He wanted to speak to Penelope, about going on a voyage today. To prove he could do things independently, after all he had been training with Athena!
He spun around on his heel, watching as a larger ship began to dock on the beach, then seeing the walls of the palace yard, and then it caught his eye. The more muscular of any suitor, having strung the bow. Drawing back, and seconds from releasing.
He took a stride, and another. His eyes wide as he watched his mother let down her hair usually kept in a neat bun, flowing at her sides and down her back. She sat on a chair, her head directly at the end of the hole of the final axe.
He reached out his arms helplessly, screaming for the suitor to cease fire, but he'd ran the arrow, and shot. Leaving a clean strike. It was fast, and there was a sound that followed shortly after that made his stomach churn.
The sound of an arrow peircing his mother in the side of her head. He sprinted, ending up next to the woman.
Blood, everywhere. The crimson oozed out, she hadn't screamed, her eyes half lidded, eyed glossed over but dull. More dull then they had ever been.
He dropped to his knees, head shaking side to side, hands trembling. Breath speeding up as a skinking feeling overtook him. His world went dark in mere seconds, he hadn't had time to stop it. He didn't react fast enough.
He clinged to the fabric of his mothers dress, praying it was a twisted dream, but it was real. Everything was so real. As the suitors began to realise the ticket to the throne was gone, shouts emerged, but it hadn't moved Telemachus.
All he could think was "please, not her. Anyone but her." His mother knew she would had died, its exactly what she expected, or what she'd wanted. The tears pooled, they started to wet her clothes, trembling hands moved the hair from her face, screams erupted from the boy. Till his voice ran hoarse.
All he had was his mother, she's all he's ever known. And now she's gone. Her blood spread quickly, her face grew pale, her skin cold.
He grasped her hand, it was a stark comparison. It made the floor feel warm, and her blood melting. He couldn't believe it. How could it be, an arrow lodged in her cranium but it still came out in pints.
Telemachus was hit with grief too quickly, every supressed emotion as to not cause his mother any more stress rushed out all at once. There was nothing he could do. If only-
If only his father got there sooner.
He picked himself from the ground, throwing his cloak he wore around his neck over his mothers body, making sure it covered her whilst she laid there. The suitors had grown a level of drunk, their shouts to drinks had caused the majority to not realise.
The weight of the world laid on the prince's shoulders. He couldn't keep his head low longer, the sorrow grew into vengeance and anger.
He saw a man, standing with a look of uncertainty on his face. A scruffy beard, a dark cloak, scars littered all over his body. The man's face was relatively unmoved due to his fury over the suitors, but having seen Telemachus had put a spin in that ruthlessness aura he carried. He wiped his tears, he griped his spear, his hands steadying.
The man he heard of in the stories of Ithaca, from his mother. All the men he'd slain, but he couldn't make up for a few minutes. A few minutes that would cost his wife and son.
Odysseus.