Time seemed to freeze as Odysseus' heart pounded in his ears, but the world didn't go dim, and Hermes turned to put a wooden spoon in a pot, stirring its contents absently as he looked between the two.
"Are you going to say anything?" He asked eventually.
Athena blinked, and seemed to... reset. Odysseus' mind was going around in circles. 'She abandoned you, remember?' a voice in his mind kept repeating. 'A mortal and a goddess can't be friends. If you believed that you're delusional. You stumbled right back in to believing the gods want to help you, when they only want to use you for their own means. Once your usefulness is up, they'll just leave you again.'
"How long has it been since you've been to Ithaki?" Hermes was asking Athena, his voice softer, more serious. "Not since Tele—"
Athena moved faster than Odysseus could react, as she grabbed him by the collar, pushing him up against the nearest wall.
"What in Tartarus are you doing here?!" She hissed. "I mourned your death an age ago, and you have the gall to stand in front of me now, a young man, as if no time has passed at all."
Odysseus looked down at her, meeting her gaze fiercely. "It might have been an age for you, but it was only a few days for me," he growled. "You left us to Poseidon and Zeus, what else could I do to protect my men?"
"What did you do, Odysseus?" Athena's grip loosened, and Odysseus stepped away, readjusting his collar.
"I did what I needed to do," he said.
"What about your family? What about your son?"
"You don't get to mention my son," Odysseus snapped back.
"Well," Hermes interjected, his voice strident and full of forced cheerfulness. "Dinner is ready!"
YOU ARE READING
Defying Fate
FanfictionI read a Tumblr post while back about Odysseus meeting and adopting the prophet Cassandra, who had been cursed so that "Nobody would believe her." Of course, if he's going to adopt Cassandra, whom he never met in the original story... why not adopt...
