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For the third time that day, the sword clattered to the floor of the armory.
"Oh, come on. I can't believe you fell for the 'behind you' trick."
The prince's cheeks burned. It wasn't even the obvious gap between them that smarted: he only had his youth on his side, the dubious privilege of pitting himself against a man no longer in his prime, but his father had twenty years of experience on him, ten of which spent in the greatest war in living memory, and that had to count for something.
It was the disappointment. Here he was, the man he'd been using for two decades as the stick with which to measure himself, and no matter what he did, he always fell short.
"Last time, there actually was someone behind me," said Telemachus, hating how he sounded like a whining child.
His father chuckled. "The thing about being a good liar," he said, "is that you have to tell the truth just enough that they never know which is which. Otherwise, they'd just never believe you."
Telemachus wanted to kick something. Why did he have to go and make so much sense?
"You know what? I'm calling it a day," he spat, making no move to pick up his weapon and keep going. "This is pointless."
"I'll show you pointless."
He jumped. She was just there, gleaming in her armor, blocking his way to a door she hadn't even bothered to open, simply existing. She looked human enough, but it was only for their benefit: the form she had chosen didn't come close to touching the ceiling, but it seemed to fill the room so completely as to leave him gasping for air. Her eyes were so blue he could drown in them, and he would never, ever get used to it.
"Athena," he breathed, her name half a prayer, his mind still wrestling with the fact that she was speaking to him at all.
"Your father is a man of underhanded ways, you ought to know that by now," she said, glancing at him the way an artist might look at her masterpiece. "Brave enough not to be accused of taking the coward's way out, wise enough not to dive in headfirst without a trick or two tucked in the folds of his cloak."
"I noticed," he grumbled, avoiding both of their gazes.
"If it's fairness you want, fairness you will get. Pick up your sword, I'm next."
The shock nearly doubled him over as if she'd punched him in the stomach. She couldn't possibly mean it.
"You... you want me to spar with you?"
"Why not? I'll be entirely transparent."
"As long as your definition of 'transparent' doesn't involve being invisible," he clarified, because words were treacherous terrain with those two.
"He's learning," said Odysseus, and that single crumb of pride fed him enough that for a moment, he felt he could take on not just Athena, but the whole of Olympus with his bare hands.
"You're on." He reached for the handle of his weapon and prayed he wouldn't come to regret it.
He regretted it more than he ever had in his life. By the end of it, he was sore in places he hadn't even known he had, breathless and holding a stitch in his side, and though she had kept her promise – no tricks, no taunting, just the clash of weapons echoing off the walls – it was as good as hacking and slashing at a mountain for all the progress he made.
Telemachus threw his sword to the floor in frustration.
"I can't even get close! Are you sure you only have two arms? It's as if you were everywhere at once!"
"In this form, I do," she said casually, not knowing or caring about how it sent a chill down his spine. "But 'everywhere at once' is a fair assessment, in a way." She looked thoughtful, as if she were wrestling to find words that a mortal would understand. "Tell me, have you ever observed a fly up close?"
"A fly?" Every question felt like a trick question with her. "Can't say that I have. Why? Is there some lesson to be learned even from a bothersome insect?"
"Each of a fly's eyes is not one, but many," she said. "And so, when your hand comes down to swat at it, it sees the threat coming from every angle, so very, very slowly, and it simply flies away faster than a man can even think, much less move."
The memory of Antinous's taunting grin stole his breath.
"How did I do that? Is time now moving slow?"
"No, I just made your thoughts quick."
If that was how she saw the world all the time, he didn't stand a chance.
"I was given to believe that your eyes resembled an owl, not a fly."
"When it's convenient."
"Then how...?"
"You'll figure it out."
"Sure," he said, dripping sarcasm, and shouldered past her out of the armory without bothering to put his weapon back on the rack, no matter that that could have very well earned him a curse if only she'd been in a slightly worse mood.
Telemachus stood patiently in the doorway to the women's quarters, waiting for his mother to finish counting stitches under her breath. After everything that happened, she wouldn't tolerate having to undo her work to correct a mistake; if he made her lose count, her retribution would make the Furies look like little girls throwing a tantrum.
If he had to take a guess at what she was making, it looked like a new set of robes to drape around the statue of their patron goddess in the family shrine; time and use had not been kind to the old one, its edges frayed with many hands touching them for comfort, and after today's poor showing, it was a good thing at least one of them was pleasing her.
It was larger than life, awkward to wear for any woman in the household, but for its very special purpose, it would do. The intricate borders seemed to show a rendition of the tale of Athena's birth; that had always been one of his favorite bedtime stories, second only to those of the faceless man who was always supposed to come back tomorrow, an eternal tomorrow that never became today. Telemachus entertained himself watching the rows come together one by one to form the frozen instant of Hephaestus's axe coming down to cleave Zeus's head in two so she could spring out fully formed, armored and roaring her existence to the world.
"Good enough for today. I need a break."
She rubbed at her eyes, tired from squinting at her detailed work, and only then noticed him standing there.
"How long have you been watching?"
"Long enough."
"Come here. You could teach Zeus himself a lesson with those stormclouds hanging over your head. What's going on?"
This was the part where he should have been hard as stone, come up with some clipped response that said nothing at all of his turmoil. It wasn't befitting of a prince to come crying to his mommy.
Instead, Telemachus unraveled like one of her skeins of yarn.
"I just... just..." Words failed him, and he just growled like an animal. "How does he do it?"
"'He' being your father, I'm assuming? How does he do what?"
"Everything! The way he just... bests everyone on this blasted island in combat with one hand tied behind his back, talks circles around the gods themselves, and doesn't even break a sweat! How?!"
"Experience, perhaps too much of it. Sometimes I wonder if he would be happier being less... like that, but lighter. Unburdened."
Ugh, look at her being so wise. It was the last thing he needed.
"You don't get it, do you?"
"Then explain it to me," she said, unmoved.
"He looks at me like... like a lion looks at a soaking wet kitten! What more am I supposed to do to be worth his notice?"
"And there it is," she said softly, as if she'd been expecting it. "Telemachus, dear, a man like that happens once every generation if we're lucky. He's had his time to shine in his, and the time will come for you to shine in yours, but it is not our lot in life to be born fully formed, at the height of our potential."
He glanced at the goddess stretched on her loom, forever the same, not needing to turn black and blue with bruises to earn her prowess. Why did mortals have to do it the hard way?
"But... looking at him, I feel like I'm late on some sort of schedule I wasn't even told I was supposed to follow."
"Oh, my boy. What makes you say that?"
Telemachus reached out and brushed the tiny face of the newborn goddess in the picture. It certainly was closer than he ever got to the real thing in combat.
"She was there, in the armory."
"Solid? Same limbs as you and me?"
"Mm-hmm. Though going by how she was fighting, you'd think she had a couple thousand of each."
"She let you have a few rounds with her?" she beamed. "Darling, that would make anyone feel as small as a fly."
"Please. Do not mention flies if you don't want me to punch something."
"... all right." At least he'd managed to stump her. "You two always come out on the other side a little odd when she speaks to you. I've learnt not to question it. But truly, you should see that as the progress it is. That she even offered... please tell me she offered. You didn't just...?"
"She did. How much of a fool do you think I am?"
"I don't think you're a fool, I just think you're a young man of an age that's not exactly known for good decisions. Now that we've established you did not, in fact, challenge our patron goddess to single combat of your own pigheaded initiative... congratulations."
"For what? Losing like an idiot every single time?"
"What else did you expect?"
"I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. And to make a fool of myself in front of my father like that..."
"Ah. So which one bothers you more, losing to her or losing in front of him?"
"... both?" he said in a pitiful squeak of a voice that made him want to run and hide in shame. "At my age, he was already able to catch her by surprise once every hundred times or so, I'm sure of it."
"Maybe. So what's the plan for next time?"
"You're saying that like there will be a next time. Maybe she'll just decide I'm not worth it."
"Well, I think you're plenty worth it."
"That makes one of us. How do you survive a fight with the embodiment of wisdom and strategy with your dignity intact? I'm not even asking for a win, just... just a smile. From either of them."
Penelope did smile at that, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"My boy, I don't know the first thing about how to defeat a goddess."
"Never mind," said Telemachus, turning to leave. She froze him mid-step.
"But I do know how to defeat a woman, and between you and me, sometimes that's almost the same thing."
"I'm listening."
Wait.
Wait.
Not yet.
Don't be obvious.
His father's stare felt like sunburn on the back of his neck as he failed again and again to find the slightest flaw in her defenses. She just parried lazily, visibly holding back, without so much as a grunt of effort. The sword wasn't even her best, said the stories: all the pictures always had her carrying a spear. She looked completely unbothered, but this room... this room had no mirrors, unless you counted the polished bronze of the shields mounted on one wall, bright enough that they would reflect the deadly gaze of a Gorgon if it came to that.
Step by laborious step, Telemachus at least managed to put her back to them, that she couldn't immediately check her appearance without twisting around. Whatever eyes she had, like an owl, a fly, or any other creature of the earth, sea or sky, at least they weren't in the back. For now.
"At least I've got you sweating," he lied, begging his voice not to crack. He wasn't sure goddesses could sweat. If they could, every drop could probably sprout wonders.
She didn't stop, but she slowed. Not by much, not enough to be human, but it was something.
"It's really not a good look on you." He said it too quickly, too fearfully, cringing in expectation of her wrath, not at all like his father's casual, charming fibs, but it landed.
"What did you just say?"
He couldn't hope for more than this. A momentary break in her stride, faster than a blink, like a tiny hitch in the rhythmic words of a skilled bard weaving his spell over the audience.
He may be no more than a kitten, but the funny thing about kittens was that their claws were always out.
Clink.
That was as far as she let him get, a barely audible touch on the shimmering scales of her cuirass, not even enough to poke an eye out of the fearsome, leering visage sitting on her breast, but it was as though time had come to a standstill.
Did that just happen?
Telemachus turned to look at his father, and he couldn't even bring himself to care that she had him at swordpoint in the time it took for his eyes to plead for a scrap of approval, ready to run him through like one of Eumaus's pigs on a spit.
Odysseus was slapping his thigh with abandon, unguarded in a way he only let himself be once every moon, so taken with the spectacle he forgot himself entirely.
"That's my boy!"
"How?"
Considering that he had the tip of a sword poking uncomfortably into his collarbone and a dangerously peeved goddess on the other end of it, that had better be the best explanation of his entire life.
"I... I grew up on stories, remember?" He swallowed, fighting against the dryness in his throat. "Not just my father's, but yours as well."
Athena lowered her weapon. He'd always thought the 'owl eyes' refrain was a bit of an exaggeration, but the way she tilted her head, listening intently, he could suddenly see the resemblance. He didn't like it. It gave him the sinking feeling that he was rather like a mouse in that scenario, about to be snapped up and made into her dinner.
"H-how you discarded and cursed the aulos, your own invention, just because you didn't like the way it puffed up your cheeks while you were playing it."
"Hmph. Pity. The sound is really quite lovely, but..." She curled her lip in distaste. "I'll leave the playing to someone who has little beauty to lose, if it's all the same to you."
"Or how this..." he gestured widely to encompass everything: his father, aged prematurely by more war, sun and sea than one man should ever endure in a lifetime; the armory, still scarred with the evidence of his return that no coat of paint could quite hide, "all started with a contest of beauty."
"Excuse me. I still maintain that my offer was by far the most interesting, and things would have turned out quite differently if that pampered, empty-headed boy had been thinking with his brain instead of his—"
"I think you've made your point," said Odysseus wryly, the only one who could ever interrupt her and live to tell the tale.
"And so," concluded Telemachus, feeling like he might wilt under her calculating gaze at any moment, "when I found no weakness of the physical sort, all I needed was for someone to remind me that there are other kinds. Vanity, for one."
"Why do I feel like I know who that someone is?" said Odysseus.
"Because there could be no other. An auspicious match, that." She said it like pulling teeth, always sniffing at anything resembling love, as was her wont, but even she had a smile playing at her lips. "Not bad... for a kitten."
"You know about that?!" he spluttered, his cheeks hot enough to power a forge. "Were you listening? How much did you hear? Did you just let it happen out of pity?"
"I'll just let you believe what you will, shall I?"
And she simply melted out of existence, there one moment and gone the next, leaving them to share a disbelieving shrug.
"Is she always like that?"
"Worse. Get used to it."