Chapter Text
The halls of Ithaca no longer rang with music.
Where once laughter and lyre-strings echoed through marble colonnades, now only whispers passed. And when servants walked, they did so softly, as if noise might offend the gods or tip the balance of fate.
The Queen was dying. So was the Prince.
The people of Ithaca knew only half the truth, but it was enough to turn joy into dread. Less than a week ago, the kingdom had celebrated under fire-lit skies. Penelope, radiant with sweat and triumph, had given birth to a boy—Telemachus, tiny and perfect. Odysseus had kissed his wife's forehead with tears in his eyes, had held the boy as if the weight of him made the world real.
But then came the fever.
It struck on the second night. Penelope shivered uncontrollably, unable to stay awake. Telemachus’s skin burned to the touch, yet his cries had weakened, fading into a whimper that frayed nerves and hearts alike. The palace healers had tried every tincture they knew: sage, willowbark, decoctions of thyme and honey, mountain water blessed by old priestesses. The fever raged on.
And Odysseus—mighty Odysseus, whose name stirred fear and admiration from Mycenae to Delos—could do nothing.
He stayed in the room, always. Sitting. Standing. Pacing. Whispering to them in a voice raw from grief, wiping Penelope’s brow, brushing sweat from Telemachus’s small face. His fingernails were cracked from clawing at stone in moments of panic. He hadn’t slept. His cleverness—the famous mind that had talked monsters into knots and nations into surrender—now circled in hopeless, spiralling thought.
What is this sickness? What curse have I earned?
Was it some punishment for pride? Had he insulted a god unknowingly?
Or worse—had he been too lucky for too long?
He would have traded his throne. His ships. His name. All of it—gods, all of it—for one sure way to make them well.
But they only worsened.
He had not left the room in days, perhaps more. Time bled strangely in mourning. Servants brought water and food, but he rarely touched either. His hair was uncombed, his beard tangled. The gold band on his finger felt like a shackle now, not a symbol.
Polites and Eurylochus had left at dawn three days ago, commanding a fleet of Ithaca’s fastest ships. They had sworn to search every isle, every port, every temple from Aetolia to Crete. No harbour was too distant. No myth too strange. They would find something. They had to.
When Polites left, he had gripped Odysseus’s forearm hard, their brows pressed together in a warrior’s farewell.
“You are not alone, brother,” he’d said.
But Odysseus had already felt alone. The kind of alone that only comes when the person you love most is slipping away—and taking your heart with them.
Odysseus had watched their sails vanish over the horizon, and his knees had buckled the moment they were gone.
He missed them fiercely. Not just as soldiers or friends. As something older. As roots.
Now he sat on the edge of the bed, eyes bloodshot, staring at Penelope’s motionless form. Her lips were pale. Her breath was shallow. She’d barely stirred in two days.
Telemachus lay in a woven cradle beside the bed, wrapped in wool. He was too quiet. His skin had turned blotchy, and his limbs jerked occasionally, small and twitching.
The nursemaids, at Odysseus’s command, had been dismissed. He couldn't bear anyone else touching them.
When the room grew too still, he would mutter prayers to Apollo, to Asclepius, to Hera and Artemis and Demeter and anyone who might listen.
At first, he had spoken with formal grace, like a king. Then, when no help came, he began to plead.
Then, he began to beg.
Now, he sat with his head bowed against the mattress, whispering in broken tones, forehead pressed to the back of Penelope’s hand.
“I will give you everything,” he murmured. “Take my name from history. Let me die instead. Please. Please.”
Footsteps echoed beyond the doors.
One of the palace guards—bronze-armoured, hollow-eyed—entered.
“Still no word from the fleet,” he said quietly.
Odysseus didn’t look up.
The guard hesitated. “A priestess from the mainland has offered to pray at the shrine.”
“Tell her we appreciate her prayers.”
The guard nodded, bowed, and left.
The wind outside the palace walls howled over the cliffs. The sea churned restlessly below. Ithaca itself seemed to mourn, its coastline grey and jagged, mist clinging to the mountains like grief draped in veils.
The hearth in the bedroom crackled, casting flickering light across the room.
And then, as if the air itself exhaled, the room shifted.
A man stood at the foot of the bed. He had arrived without sound, without fanfare, and yet the room recognized him all the same. The light bent around him. His hair curled like smoke and fell to his shoulders, and his cloak shimmered with the hue of dusk on the sea. Wings—small, translucent, delicate as dragonfly silk—shimmered at his heels.
Hermes.
The god of crossroads, of messengers and dead men.
He stood in silence, eyes fixed on Penelope and the child, no petasos to obscure his gaze.
“No,” Odysseus breathed, standing too fast, staggering a little. “No—no, you can’t. You can’t be here for them.”
Hermes’ usual smirk was nowhere to be found. His bright, flirtatious mask was absent. Tonight, he wore no armour of charm. He looked tired; and older than the myths made him seem.
“Darling,” Hermes said, and there was a heavy softness in the word, “I don’t want this either.”
“They’re not ready,” Odysseus begged, stumbling forward. “Please. They haven’t lived—he’s just been born—Penelope, she—she hasn’t even seen him smile yet—”
“I know.”
Odysseus’s voice cracked like a blade snapping. “You’re a god. You can do something. You—you have divine power. You can heal—can’t you!?”
Hermes said nothing.
Odysseus sank to his knees before him, his pride shattered and his wit gone. He grasped the hem of the god’s cloak like a child begging his father. “Please. Please, I’ll give you anything. I’ll—my voice, my hands, my memory—take it. Take everything. Just let them stay.”
Hermes looked down at him for a long time.
He stepped forward and, with uncharacteristic gentleness, knelt. He pulled Odysseus into his arms. The mortal king wept like a boy against his shoulder, shaking and wordless—the kind of grief that comes from love too large to hold.
Hermes rested his chin on Odysseus’ head and exhaled slowly.
“You always were my favourite,” he murmured. “Great-grandson of mine. You clever, difficult thing. I’ve watched you since you were a boy. I danced at your wedding. I left laurel on your doorstep the night your son was born.”
“I’m nothing without them,” Odysseus choked out. “I can’t—I can’t lose them. Please don’t let this be the end of us.”
Hermes was quiet for a while.
And then he reached into the folds of his robe and withdrew a single bloom.
It was small and pale, almost translucent—like the petals were made of moonlight. It smelled faintly of snowmelt and honey.
“This,” he said, “is the breath of Leuce, daughter of Oceanus. It only grows where souls kiss the edge of the river Lethe. The dead forget. But this? This remembers life.”
Odysseus stared at it, barely able to process.
Hermes placed it gently in his palm.
“Brew it into tea. Just a few sips each. Penelope first, then the child. Their fevers will break before dawn.”
Odysseus clutched it to his chest like it might vanish. “Thank you. Thank you—”
Hermes held up a finger.
“Don’t thank me, friend. You must never tell anyone where it came from. Not your friends. Not your son. Not even her.”
“But why?”
“Because if the other gods find out I meddled,” Hermes said with a small, dry smile, “they’ll make sure I can’t ever meddle again. And I rather like visiting you mortals, darling. You’re a mess, but you're my kind of mess.”
Odysseus laughed—a broken, gasping thing.
“You will live, Odysseus,” Hermes continued. “You will travel far. You will lose much. But your family will be the reason you endure.”
He rose, brushing invisible dust from his robes. His expression, for a moment, softened once more. It was quickly obscured by his bronze helmet materializing upon his head.
“Hold them close,” he said, turning toward the window. “Love is rare, even for gods.”
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
The fire brightened again. The breeze died.
And in the stillness that followed, Odysseus made the tea with trembling hands, weeping all the while. As the night stretched on, Penelope’s breathing deepened. The flush in her cheeks faded to a healthier hue. Telemachus stirred in his cradle and let out the first strong cry since his birth.
Odysseus didn’t sleep.
He watched them both until morning, hand pressed to the flower in his pocket—a secret gift from a god who had, just this once, chosen mercy over duty.
And he never spoke of it again.