Oneshot

The bright eyes of goddess Athena do not reflect the flames. Her shining hair is not touched by the pieces of soot floating in the blistering air. Her golden-sandaled feet do not swirl up the dust and smoke but are swallowed by it nonetheless.

Ilion burns, and she is glad.

The enemies turn to ash, and she rejoices.

Her hero teeters on the wall of the inner palace, about to tumble.

“Odysseus?”

He sways, and she is at his side in the fraction of a thought and grabs his hand and pulls him in, down from the parapet. He registers as cold, clammy, convulsing, cracked…

On the pavement far below shimmers a tiny red speck. 

And in truth, she knew this would happen and has pleaded with her father to deliver the words of doom and command because she cannot bear to break her masterwork herself. No, she likes to play the unshakeable with her heroes and to patch them back together after fights, be it the cracks in their armor, their bodies, or their souls. 

She cannot heal the fabric of the soul if the mortal blow came from herself.

“Thea mou,” he sobs into the place where she has no heart, and his fingers grip the fabric of her chiton, “all I hear are his screams.”

In the end, the goddess bright-eyed Athena needs to guide him out of the burning palace by her own hand. Pinewood beams crackle and sizzle over their heads, plaster crumbles, and stairs almost give way under their feet, held together by her divine will for just a few moments more.

The streets are carnage; Ilians in looted armor roam the alleys and slaughter Achaeans who are disappointingly drunk on victory, drunk on wine.

From the precinct of her own temple, she feels a sudden, sharp spike of unease – a cold ripple and then the loss of connection. But it does not deter her from her life’s work, his hand in hers.

When they reach his tent at the shore, the camp is deserted, the fires are burned low or extinguished. A brazier ignites at her mere thought, and Odysseus shivers even though the late spring air is balmy. He is covered in soot from head to toe; his hair and beard are singed, and his eyes unseeing.

Goddess bright-eyed Athena sighs and strips him to his loincloth, washes off the ashes with pure water, and combs his hair. She has seen her stepmother, aunts, and her father’s many lovers take care of the forms of godly children and believes she has executed a passable imitation. 

As she lifts him onto his cot, he once more embraces her midsection, clinging to her like a drowning man to a piece of rocky marble. He will bruise his fingers and arms if he continues to squeeze, so she banishes all her bronze and the Aegis and leaves only thin linen and wool. 

He will not let go.

No matter how much she strokes his head and whispers his name in his ear that he did well and that it was all meant and ordained by the fates. 

He mutters: “He looked just like Telemachos.”

He did not, in fact. While the Ithakan child is fair-skinned and blue-eyed, the Ilian boy is… was… crowned in obsidian curls. But clearly it is the aspect, the shadow, the principle that shakes Odysseus.

Can a principle also heal him?

Goddess bright-eyed Athena closes her eyes and molds her form… softer, smaller, more fit for an embrace. She leaves her shining hair and her eyes the same; she does not wish to deceive. He no longer weeps into her abdomen but into the part where the neck meets the shoulder. From her fingers in his curls sweet sleep pours, and he sinks onto the cot, never releasing her waist. And so she sinks with him.

The darkest hour of the night still reeks with the smoke of the burning city, but the camp is still quiet, and goddess bright-eyed Athena lies in the arms of her hero on his tiny cot and waits for Eos to arrive. He has to sail with his men today – she feels the doom of the Achaeans approaching – but has she managed to ground him yet? 

She turns in his embrace to look towards the tent flap where a sliver of the starless night sky is visible, but Odysseus's hand drifts to her hip again and draws her back to him. 

“Penelope,” he sighs in his sleep and buries his face in her neck and hair. At least her fragrance of olives should remind him of… home.

Athena stiffens a bit; these sensations are unfamiliar, after all, but when he presses his pelvis to her back, she compels herself to relax. His hands wander, one landing on the apex of her thighs, one at the place where she has no heart, and he moans into her ear. 

It does not take long, and goddess bright-eyed Athena once more wonders what the fuss is about. There is a growing patch of wetness on her lower back, but unlike with Hephaestus, she does not mind, and it can stay for the moment.

Odysseus shudders and smiles, and she can feel her magic of sleep deepening and the fog lifting from his mind. He dreams of the stars above Ithaka and her sacred tree.

She turns around once more and presses a soft kiss and a spell into the crown of his head: “I will take the suffering from you.”

Thea mou - my goddess