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Echo wasn’t entirely sure how she wound up here. In fact, for a little while there, she didn’t even know where “here” was, considering she hadn’t chosen her destination or even the journey itself. It happened after she met the demigods, Leo and Hazel, and helped them steal her beloved Narcissus’s mirror. She’d hoped taking it would free him from his self-imprisonment, let him look up and finally see her, but that wasn’t really how things worked. Much to her dismay, taking the source of a story took away the subject’s focus in the mortal world. If Narcissus couldn’t spend his day consumed with love for his own reflection, he had no narrative purpose and began to fade. He’d come back eventually, all mythic figures did, but until then Narcissus’s Island had no need to exist, and began to fade with its master. The nymphs, fortunately, were spared and scattered to the winds.
And that was how Echo wound up on this island. It was beautiful, far more so than any place she’d been before, and she silently wandered the paths, humming pretty songs to birds just to have something repeated to her for once, and that’s when she finally came across the master of the island: Calypso.
Everyone Echo had ever met knew who Calypso was, she was the most famous of all Nymphs, a Titaness, even. She was known to be a powerful sorceress, and beautiful and kind on top of it. Despite all this, Echo was left woefully unprepared for the reality that was Calypso.
The one thing that nobody ever mentioned was that Calypso sang. She sang all the time – hen she was collecting fruit in the orchards, and when she was weaving, and when she was just wandering the shoreline in her bare feet – and every note that passed her lips was beautiful. Echo was utterly enchanted, and after weeks of simply following the Titaness around, she finally plucked up the courage to repeat Calypso’s song back to her, timid and thin, but full of hope.
Calypso froze, and narrowed her eyes at the foliage. “Is someone there?”
“Someone there!” Echo called back breathlessly.
“Well, then. Show yourself.”
Echo gulped, and stepped forward, unsure if Calypso would be able to see her at all, much less if she would approve. “Show yourself.”
Calypso blinked and cocked her head to the side. “And who are you? I’ve never seen you before, but you’re not a hero.”
“Not a hero.”
“Okay. Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
“Must you keep doing that?” Calypso asked, eyebrow twitching.
“Must… keep doing that,” Echo said with a morose nod.
Calypso immediately went still, and her face softened. “Oh, you poor little echo.”
“Echo.”
“That’s your name?” Calypso asked, her voice sharp. “Your name is Echo?”
“Name is Echo.”
Calypso looked incensed. “Another cruel game played by the gods, I’m sure.” She turned and scowled up at the sky. “And what was her crime? For what reason have you deemed it fit to torment her so?” Thunder rolled, but she ignored it, instead turning to face Echo. “We don’t need those petty Olympians. If you’d like, you and I can stick together.”
“Stick together,” Echo said, breathless again for an entirely different reason than before.
Calypso gave her a brilliant smile and offered her hand. “Come with me.”
After that, Echo stuck to Calypso’s side like glue and the Titaness never seemed to grow weary of her company, which was more than Echo could have dared to hope for. Calypso still did most of the talking, of course, though she always paused to let Echo repeat any phrases she wanted to. But mostly, they just sang together. Calypso would begin the melody, and Echo would pick it up in a perfect round, and they would make the most beautiful sounds. Echo had forgotten how much she liked to sing.
And then, one day, Calypso sat down before her, a gentle but hesitant smile on her face. “I… have a proposal, if you’re willing to hear it out.”
Echo blinked at her. “Hear it out.”
“You’re welcome to say no if you want, of course you are, but I have an idea that might, at least soothe some of the daily pain of your curse,” Calypso said. “Echo is your name, it was your name first, but since then it has become something else, something that isn’t you. If you’re willing, I’d like to offer you a new name.”
“A new name?” Echo asked, breath hitching.
Calypso nodded. “Before the Olympians, there were Muses. They’re long gone and forgotten by most at this point, but I knew them, and I loved them, just as I have come to love you.”
“Love you.”
Calypso smiled, her cheeks warming, but she stayed on topic. “One of them, Aoede, was a Muse of song. If you think it fits, I believe it would be a beautiful name for you.”
Echo’s head was spinning. Calypso wanted to give her a name. And not just any name. The name of someone whose voice was worth listening to. The name of someone who deserved to speak. Her eyes welled, and her voice hitched, tiny and fragile. “A beautiful name.”
Calypso’s face lit up. “Do you like it?”
She nodded furiously, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Like it, like it, like it, like it.”
Calypso laughed. “Then it’s yours. From now on, your name is Aoede.”
Aoede smiled with her whole face. “From now on, my name is Aoede.”