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The training grounds of Ithaca could be heard if you were close enough, with the clash of wood on wood(Especially given it was training, not a death match) as Odysseus parried another of Athena's strikes. Sweat traced paths down his temples despite the cool morning air, his muscles burning with the effort of keeping pace with a goddess. His mentor moved like flowing water, each strike purposeful and precise.
"Your footwork is sloppy," Athena observed, not even breathing hard. Her grey eyes tracked every movement with that unnerving divine perception. "You're favoring your left side again."
"Perhaps if my instructor didn't hit quite so hard," Odysseus managed between breaths, adjusting his stance to not favor his left side nearly so much.
Athena's lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "The Trojans won't show mercy simply because you ask nicely."
Odysseus opened his mouth to retort when a sound cut through the morning air. A honk. A loud, aggressive, and far too close honk.
He turned his head just in time to see a white goose(Not a swan, it wasn't quite big enough for that) waddling onto the training grounds with the determination of a warrior marching into battle. The creature's beady black eyes fixed on him with unnerving intensity.
"What in the name of—" Odysseus began.
The goose charged.
Odysseus had faced many things in his life. Boars, enemy soldiers, Athena's wrath when he made particularly stupid decisions. None of that prepared him for a goose moving with the single-minded purpose of only the fates know what! It covered the distance between them with startling speed, wings slightly extended, neck outstretched in a threat display.
"Shoo!" Odysseus stumbled backward, his wooden sword forgotten. "Go on, get out!"
The goose did not shoo. Instead, the feathered bastard lunged forward and bit his ankle with the force of divine retribution.
"Agh! You feathered menace!" Odysseus hopped on one foot, trying to shake the creature loose.
It released him only to immediately nip at his other ankle, driving him in circles like it was a shepherd herding him, a particularly stubborn sheep. Each honk sounded distinctly triumphant.
Athena watched this display with her spear lowered, head tilted slightly. Was that amusement flickering in her eyes?
"A little help here?" Odysseus called out, finally managing to seize the goose around its middle. It was surprisingly solid, warm and wriggling with indignant fury. The honking reached truly impressive volumes, echoing off the palace walls. Servants were definitely watching from the windows now. Wonderful.
"It's just a goose, Odysseus," Athena said, but something in her tone had shifted. She was studying the bird now with narrowed eyes, as though it were a puzzle to solve.
"Just a goose? This demon fowl just assaulted me!" He held the creature at arm's length. It continued honking, webbed feet paddling at the air, entirely undeterred by capture. There was nothing obviously unusual about it. No glowing eyes, no shimmering feathers, no divine aura. Just one extremely determined goose.
Athena stepped closer, circling them both. Her expression had gone from amused to thoughtful to something that looked distinctly like recognition and resignation.
"Oh no," she said quietly.
That was never a good sign. Odysseus had learned that particular tone meant Olympian nonsense was about to make his life complicated.
"What? What is it?"
Athena pinched the bridge of her nose in a gesture so human it probably would have been funny under different circumstances. "I'm going to kill Aphrodite."
"Aphrodite?" The goose resumed its violent struggling, honking directly into Odysseus's face. And due to how close it was to his ears, he grimaced. "What does the goddess of love have to do with this insane bird?"
"It's not insane. It's worse." Athena's grey eyes met his, and was that actually sympathy? "That, my clever student, is what's known as a Soulmate Goose of Enforcement."
Odysseus blinked. "A what?"
"Exactly what it sounds like. Aphrodite sends them when she's decided two souls are meant to be together. They—" she gestured at the still-honking bird, "—enforce it. Chase, herd, and generally make life unbearable until the targets meet."
The goose chose that moment to twist in his grip and bite his thumb.
"Meet who?" Odysseus demanded, shaking his hand. "I'm already married! Penelope—"
"Is not who the goose is herding you toward, apparently." Athena's expression had settled into something between irritation and reluctant amusement. "I should have known. She's been far too quiet lately. Too busy meddling with my warriors, apparently."
"Can't you just—" Odysseus gestured vaguely with the goose, "—smite it? Divine intervention? Make it stop?"
"Oh, I could try." Athena's smile was sharp. "But Aphrodite's magic is... persistent. And honestly?" Her eyes glinted. "I'm curious to see which poor soul she's decided to pair you with. This should be entertaining."
"Entertaining," Odysseus repeated flatly.
The goose honked in agreement(Well, at least it certainly seemed to find itself entertaining), still paddling determinedly toward some unknown destination.
Odysseus had faced down warriors twice his size without flinching. He'd stared at monsters and lived to tell the tale. He absolutely refused to be intimidated by waterfowl.
So he carried the wriggling goose to the edge of the training ground and plopped it out of bounds before returning(Of course, being followed back by the damn goose).
"Again," he said firmly, raising his sword despite the goose now pacing back and forth between him and Athena like a very judgmental referee.
Athena raised an eyebrow but lifted her spear. "Your funeral."
They'd barely exchanged two blows before the goose launched itself at Odysseus's legs with renewed fury. This time it didn't just nip—it clamped down on his calf with the grip of a vice and twisted.
"Gods!" Odysseus stumbled, his guard dropping. Athena's strike stopped a hair's breadth from his shoulder.
"Focus," she chided, but her attention was on the bird.
Odysseus kicked his leg, trying to dislodge the creature. It held on, wings beating against his shin, honking with what could only be described as rage. When it finally released him, bloody crescents marked where its beak had been.
"That's not normal." he stated through gritted teeth.
"No," Athena agreed slowly. "It's escalating."
They tried again. And again. Each time, the goose grew more violent. It stopped merely herding and began actively attacking—striking at vulnerable spots like his shins, knees, hell it'd even gone for his toes at least twice. During their fourth attempt, it flew directly at Odysseus's face(It was going for his nose or eyes, he wasn't sure which it was), forcing him to duck into the path of Athena's spear. She redirected at the last possible moment, the blade scoring a thin line across his shoulder instead of running him through.
Athena lowered her weapon, grey eyes calculating. "Interesting."
"Interesting?" Blood seeped through Odysseus's tunic. "That thing nearly got me killed!"
"Yes." She watched the goose settle a few paces away, preening its feathers with an air of satisfaction. "I wonder if that's the point."
Odysseus stared at her. "What?"
"If you won't go to your supposed soulmate, but you died..." Athena tilted her head. "You'd certainly end up somewhere. Somewhere a goose could still herd you. Though the goose trying to kill is... unprecedented."
The implications of that settled over Odysseus like a cold blanket. "It would actually kill me?"
"Aphrodite's magic, and her herself, are nothing if not persistent." Athena's jaw tightened. "And apparently homicidal. We're done for today. I'm going to have words with the goddess of love."
She vanished in a shimmer of divine light, leaving Odysseus alone with his thoughts and one very smug-looking goose.
───⋆˙⟡✮⟡˙⋆───
Olympus gleamed with its usual impossible radiance, all white marble and golden light. Athena stalked through the celestial gardens, fully prepared to deliver a scathing lecture about interfering with her warriors, when she heard it.
A honk. Loud, aggressive, and followed by a distinct loud yelp.
"No—not again! I told you, I don't have time for this!"
Athena knew that voice. She rounded the corner and stopped, her irritation momentarily forgotten in the face of sheer unexpected entertainment.
Hermes, messenger of the gods, psychopomp and divine herald, was sprinting through the gardens at full speed, while absolutely flunking an attempt to reason with a GOOSE. His winged sandals flashed as he attempted to gain altitude, but the goose pursuing him was having none of it. This bird was larger than Odysseus's tormentor, still not quite large enough to be a swan, its feathers were slightly grey-tinged, and it moved with the inexorable determination of fate itself.
It launched into the air—since when could they fly that well?—and seized Hermes's ankle mid-flight, dragging him back down dragging him back down to the ground. He hit the ground in an absolutely undignified tumble, and the goose was on him immediately, honking loudly into his ear.
"Three days!" Hermes shouted at the sky, at Aphrodite, maybe at the universe in general. "Three days of this! I've guided souls to the underworld with this thing nipping at my heels! Do you know how unprofessional that looks? Do you?"
The goose honked, unimpressed.
Athena couldn't help it. She laughed.
Hermes's head whipped around, his glowing eyes visible even beneath the shadow of his helmet. "Oh, wonderful. An audience. Please, don't help or anything."
"A Soulmate Goose of Enforcement," Athena said, crossing her arms. "For a god. I've never seen that before."
"Yes, well, congratulations on witnessing a historic occasion." Hermes managed to scramble to his feet, backing away as the goose advanced. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm very busy trying not to be murdered by waterfowl."
"Murdered?"
"It followed me into Tartarus, Athena. Tartarus. Do you know what it's like trying to maintain divine dignity while a goose attacks you in front of the Titans?" He dodged another lunge. "And it's getting worse. Yesterday it was just annoying. Today I'm fairly certain it's trying to break my legs."
That matched what Athena had observed with Odysseus's goose. Escalation. Violence. She filed that information away, though her amusement didn't fade.
"Have you tried following it?"
Hermes shot her a look that could have curdled wine. "Follow it where? To whoever Aphrodite has decided I'm cosmically bound to? I don't have time for romance. I don't have time for any of this. I have duties. Responsibilities. Messages to deliver and souls to guide and—"
The goose bit him.
Hermes vanished in a blur of motion, reappearing on top of a nearby statue. The goose settled at the base, honking up at him, the bastard seemed to have infinite patience.
"This is my life now," Hermes said flatly after a pause. "This is what I've been reduced to."
Athena's lips twitched. "I came here to berate Aphrodite for sending one after my student. But seeing you like this... I might actually thank her instead."
"Your student?" Hermes perked up slightly. "Someone else is suffering?"
"A mortal. One of my warriors." She waved dismissively. "The goose appeared this morning. Nearly got him killed during training."
"Misery loves company, and I'm in misery" Hermes muttered. "At least I'm not alone in this fresh Olympian nightmare."
Athena left him there, still perched on the statue, and continued towards where she was sure she'd find Aphrodite.
The goddess of love did so enjoy causing chaos.
Still, as Athena walked, she couldn't quite shake the image of Hermes fleeing through the gardens, with a goose honking and furiously pursuing him.
She'd never seen the messenger god so thoroughly harassed.
It was, she decided, absolutely hilarious.
───⋆˙⟡✮⟡˙⋆───
Hermes had delivered messages to all the corners of the world, on top of all the realms. He'd guided shades through the deepest pits of the underworld, raced winds across impossible distances, and once carried Zeus's wrath to a Titan who'd forgotten his place.
None of it, he decided, could compare to the absolute indignity of being hunted by a goose. A fucking goose.
"I swear to the river Styx," he hissed, his wings beating frantically as he shot across the sky, "when I find Aphrodite, I'm going to convince Hephaestus to forge a cage so small she'll spend at least an eon as a songbird!"
The goose behind him honked. Louder. Closer.
Hermes twisted mid-flight, diving toward the earth. The Mediterranean blurred beneath him, then coastline, then—Ithaca. Of course. The bird had been herding him southwest for hours, every attempted detour met with increased violence. His left calf still bled from where it had torn a chunk out when he'd dared to attempt veering elsewhere.
"I will pluck every feather you have," he snarled at the goose. "and stuff all of them into Ares's helm while he sleeps. I'll teach it to sing hymns to Hera's peacocks. I'll—"
The goose slammed into his back, then the bastard bit one of his wings.
Hermes tumbled from the sky in a chaos of wings and curses that could've easily made a sailor blush. He crashed through branches, leaves, and what might've been someone's laundry line before hitting solid ground and rolling directly into something(Or more accurately, someone) warm and very, very mortal.
"What in the—"
Hermes looked up into the startled face of a man with dark brown eyes and scarred hands. The man held a spear in one hand and a net in the other—a net currently containing one extremely agitated goose.
Behind Hermes, his own tormentor landed with a gentle flutter of wings. It honked once, sedate and satisfied, then simply... sat down.
"You," the mortal said slowly, staring at Hermes's glowing eyes and winged helmet, "are not from Ithaca."
"Incredibly astute observation." Hermes scrambled to his feet, putting distance between himself and both geese. "You must be the strategic genius Athena won't stop bragging about."
The man's expression shifted. "You know Athena?"
"Know her? I had the distinct pleasure of watching her laugh at my suffering yesterday." Hermes gestured sharply at the calm goose. "That thing has been trying to kill me for three days. And now it just... sits there?"
The mortal—Odysseus, had to be—looked between Hermes and the geese. His face went through several expressions before settling on resigned understanding. "Oh. Oh, you're the soulmate."
"Excuse me?"
"The goose." Odysseus lifted the net slightly. The captured bird honked irritably. "It's been attacking me. Getting worse every hour. I thought it was trying to kill me, but..." He paused, studying Hermes with the calculating look of someone solving a particularly nasty puzzle. "You're a psychopomp. You guide the dead."
"Among other duties, yes."
"So if it killed me, I'd meet you anyway." Odysseus's laugh held no humor. "The damned thing wasn't trying to murder me. It was trying to motivate me. Get me moving in the right direction or send me somewhere you'd have to collect me. So it wasn't beyond killing me..."
"Efficient," Hermes admitted. "Horrifying, but efficient."
They stood in awkward silence, watched by two geese that now seemed oddly docile now. What the fuck.
"I'm married," Odysseus said finally.
"I'm a god with responsibilities that span realms."
"I don't have time for divine complications."
"I don't have time for mortal entanglements."
Another pause. The formerly aggressive goose in Odysseus's net began preening peacefully.
"Although," Hermes continued, quieter now, "I've been alone for a very long time. Longer than most mortals can comprehend. Duty is... cold company."
Odysseus's jaw tightened. "Penelope is my wife. My queen."
"And soulmates don't erase existing bonds." Hermes tilted his head, it made him. "Athena mentioned you're clever. Surely you know Aphrodite's magic reveals connection, not possession. What we do with that connection..."
He trailed off, genuinely uncertain himself. The geese watched them with unsettling intelligence.
"They won't stop, will they?" Odysseus asked. "Not until we—what? Acknowledge whatever this is?"
"That's generally how these curses work. Blessings. Whichever term makes you feel better about being cosmically harassed."
Odysseus released a long breath and set down his net. The goose inside immediately waddled out, moving to sit beside its larger companion, both seemed expectant.
"Tell me about being a psychopomp," Odysseus said abruptly.
"What?"
"If Aphrodite thinks we're meant for each other, there must be a reason. So tell me." He sat down on a nearby rock, still gripping his spear but in a more relaxed manner. "Tell me what it's like guiding souls. Tell me about the places I've only heard about in stories."
Hermes blinked. Of all the reactions he'd expected—anger, denial, attempted bargaining with the gods—simple curiosity hadn't made the list.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know if Aphrodite is just meddling or if she actually saw something." Odysseus met his glowing gaze steadily. "And because you look like you haven't had anyone just... listen... in a very long time."
The observation struck something deep in Hermes's divine chest. He found himself sitting down opposite the mortal.
And he talked.
He spoke of Elysium's golden fields and Asphodel's grey wandering. He described the weight of guiding heroes versus tyrants, the strange beauty of Tartarus's darkest reaches, the loneliness of being the only one standing between life and death. Odysseus listened, occasionally asking questions that revealed the strategic mind Athena prized—but also something else. Genuine interest. Understanding.
When Hermes finally stopped, he realized hours had passed. The sun had shifted.
"I think," Odysseus said carefully, "that exploring a connection doesn't require abandoning everything else. Penelope knows I have many types of love in my heart. And you..."
"I'm tired of being alone," Hermes admitted. "Even if it's complicated. Even if it's mortal and finite and messy."
Odysseus smiled—tentative but genuine. "Messy is my specialty."
The geese stood simultaneously and waddled away into the underbrush. Neither honked. Neither looked back.
Hermes extended his hand. "Shall we see where this leads? On our terms?"
"On our terms." Odysseus agreed.