𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ᵉ*ᵗᵐ

67 ┃ 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮

━ ⭑─⭒━

━ ⭒─⭑━

The next three days passed in a strange kind of limbo.

Not terrible. Not wonderful either. Just... a blur of motion, salt, and silence.

The boat was small—far smaller than the Ithacan ships you'd grown used to. No wide berth to stretch your legs, no below-deck room to escape the wind, no creaking masts or coiled ropes to lose yourself in. Just a cramped skiff with two half-sore bodies, a crate of salted jerky, and a couple of half-glazed clay jugs filled with lukewarm water that sloshed with every wave.

You'd been using the compass Hermes gave you to stay the course—its needle glowing faintly even in the sunlight, pointing toward the last thread of divine pull you could still feel. It didn't always make sense.

Sometimes it wavered, dipped strangely north when the sun said otherwise. But Peisistratus trusted it, and you trusted him. Mostly.

"Gods have a funny way of pointing straight while everything else tilts sideways," he'd muttered once, adjusting the tiller with his shoulder and squinting at the horizon. "But hey. I followed worse signs to worse places."

Besides following the compass, there was nothing to do, really. Not in a boat this size. You couldn't pace, couldn't stand without wobbling, couldn't even stretch without bumping into Peisistratus or the oar handles or the side of the boat.

So mostly—you sat.

You sat and stared.

At the sea. At the sky. At the horizon that never got closer. Water stretched on endlessly in every direction, a deep, rolling blue that faded into grey by dusk.

Sometimes you'd count the passing clouds. Other times, you'd watch the sunlight ripple across the waves and try not to think about what waited below.

There were hours where neither of you spoke. Not out of malice—just because there was nothing left to say. The sea did all the talking. Slap, slap. Creak. Splash. Over and over. It was maddening in a slow, sleepy way.

But then Peisistratus would break it.

He'd start whistling, or humming some half-remembered tune from Pylos. 

Then singing. Loudly. Off-key. On purpose. "WhEn ThE gOdDeSs Of ThE TiDe LiFtS hEr SkIrTs FoR mE—!" he'd belt, grinning wide, one arm dramatically slung across his chest while the other waved like he was conducting the waves themselves.

You buried your face in your hands more than once, groaning through your laughter. "Please stop. Please, gods—"

"—she winks, she dips, she– damn near tips—"