Chapter Text
Before:
Prologue:
~~~
Moly had many purposes.
Protection. Immunity. Defiance. Salvation.
A gift from the divine. A miracle in mortal hands.
That’s what it was supposed to be.
But things rarely stayed as they were supposed to.
For those that don’t know, moly was a flower.
White petals. Dark stem. Soft and unassuming, as if it were something gentle.
Something harmless.
It wasn’t.
Because you see, moly was never meant to be kept.
Never meant to be held onto, turned over between fingers, brought back to trembling lips again and again and again.
It was meant to be used once. A single defiance against magic. A fleeting protection.
But the thing was, moly did more than protect.
It quieted.
It softened.
It took the sharp, jagged edges of the world and smoothed them into something bearable.
Something distant.
Odysseus learned that quickly.
At first, he could argue it was an accident.
A moment of curiosity. A fleeting decision made without thought.
He had already used it once—already proven it worked. What harm could a little more do?
It would always burn.
Not painfully. Not quite.
But there was a heat to it, something that spread through his body, curling into his veins and settling deep within his chest.
And then—
Silence.
Not the absence of sound, but the absence of feeling.
The grief that clawed at his ribs dulled. The weight pressing down on his lungs lifted.
The memories that haunted him—
Faded.
Polites’ laughter became quieter.
The blood became less vivid.
The guilt—
Well.
That slipped away easiest of all.
Odysseus exhaled, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he could breathe.
So he did it again.
And again.
And again.
Because why wouldn’t he?
Why would anyone choose to remember that kind of pain when they had the option not to?
Moly made it easier.
That was the problem.
Because the more it took, the less it gave back.
Grief blurred into nothing.
Then love followed.
Then purpose.
Names were fragile things.
They slipped through his fingers like water, impossible to hold onto for long.
Faces followed soon after—familiar, but wrong, like trying to recall a dream after waking.
There was something important, he knew that much.
Someone.
But every time the thought tried to take shape, it hurt.
And every time it hurt—
He reached for the moly.
And every time—
It made it better.
That was all that mattered to him in the end.
Not the past.
Not the future.
Not the hollow, aching sense that he was forgetting something he should never have let go of.
Just the quiet.
Just the stillness.
Just the flower.
…
Moly had once been a gift.
Now, it was an escape.
And Odysseus had never been very good at turning those down.