Defying Fate

Chapter 18-p3

Odysseus lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He'd pushed nearly all the pillows and blankets onto the floor, but even the mattress was too soft, and he kept tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable. Or.. perhaps he was too comfortable. It was strange, also, to be lying in a bed that didn't move with the waves, he'd been sleeping on the ship for so long, and there was no sound but the wind through the trees outside, and Asterion's soft breathing, as the child lay in his familiar place by Odysseus' side. Asterion had been so adaptable, taking to each new experience with a cheerful smile

It was so strange, knowing that he was so close to home. On the right island, even, but in the wrong time. This place was so simultaneously familiar and foreign. He'd never felt further from home in his life. Even the gods were different here.

To calm his swirling mind, he pulled up the old, frayed memory of Penelope and Telemachus on the balcony of his palace, but, something was off about Penelope's smile. It was too wide, too forced, and as he tried to correct it, instead, it faded to a look of confusion. Telemachus grew into the young man Odysseus had seen in his hallucination, tall and willowy, but nearly a copy of Odysseus himself, aside from the fierce blue eyes, which he'd inherited from his mother.

"Are you trying to replace us?" Telemachus asked, looking at where Cassandra stood to one side, holding Asterion.

"No!" Odysseus cried, "I could never do that—" but they were gone and he stood before a storm wall, which loomed high above him. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed.

Odysseus woke to find rain pattering against the shutters of the window in the little room. There was a flash, and a few seconds later another thunderclap. Just an ordinary storm.

Odysseus' door opened, to reveal the outline of Polites.

"I—I couldn't sleep," Polites said. "The beds—"

"Too soft," Odysseus nodded, though it was too dark to see it. "Neither can I." He scooted to the pile of blankets and cushions on the floor. "Come on," he said, lifting Asterion and setting him down among the bedding, and laying down beside the child. Polites came too, burying his head in one of the pillows, and pushing his back against Odysseus's. There was another thunderclap and Eurylochus was there.

"I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright," he grumbled, but he did not return to his own room either.

Athena passed by the room the next morning, toweling her hair after a shower, and saw them, a mess of tangled legs and arms, snoring softly in the dim morning light.