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Athena’s hands were steady, but her eyes were glazed with something that resembled nervousness.
She had a pair of shears Hephaestus gave as a gift, forged specifically to cut through anything.
As she moved the blades toward the leather, the glass tag—the one that labeled him ‘Property’—began to glow in a bright, bioluminescent blue.
"Athena, wait—" Hermes started, but it was too late.
The moment the metal of the shears touched the decorated leather, a massive spark of energy emerged from the collar.
It hit Athena, surged through the nerves in Odysseus’ neck, and back to Athena’s hands.
Odysseus’ body arched off the table in an agonizingly pathetic convulsion, even through the deep sleep Dionysus put him in with the liquid Opium.
The smell of blood and burnt salt filled the room.
Athena hissed as the skin on the tips of her fingers blackened, but she didn't dare pull away.
It was so powerful that even the Goddess groaned as she struggled to remove the collar, and she wondered how Odysseus survived so long with it.
She and the other gods in the room watched as a voice emerged from the collar.
Poseidon had built in a message in his own voice.
‘if you want him, you will see him the way i did. Even if you try to free him, it will hurt.’
"He’s a coward..." Athena growled through gritted teeth, her muscles locking as the shock continued to fry the nerves in her fingers.
"He’s a fucking coward!"
With a final, shaky snap, the shears cut through.
The collar fell to the floor with an overwhelmingly light clatter, almost as if it were a feather.
Odysseus went limp against the table again, a trail of blood leaking from his nose as he convulsed with the aftershocks of… well, the shocks.
He was free of the leather that cut off his breathing, but the ring of scarred, swollen, infected skin around his throat would remain—a permanent reminder of the god who had claimed him.
They spent the next hours trying to heal it, but nothing was working and the effects of the Opium were wearing off.
They simply let him rest for now… Maybe Lady Aphrodite would help him?