Page 7 of Elysium

HE DIDN’T RETURN TO SLEEP THAT NIGHT. How could he? He had watched his wife and his son recoil from him. Watched his son standing between them, acting as a human shield for his mother.

Odysseus’ mind raced as he lay there, listening to his wife's steady breathing, trying to piece together what had occurred in this room tonight. The room was silent. It felt suffocating.

He had been dreaming… of what - he couldn’t remember.

Was it the depths of Scylla’s lair, or the halls of the underworld that haunted him?

Each time he closed his eyes, all he saw was pain.

But when he opened them, he saw his wife underneath him.

And though her voice sounded calm, her eyes were wild with panic.

Had he been so wrapped up in his nightmare that he forgot the touch of his wife? So consumed by the evils lurking in the recesses of his mind that he saw her as a threat?

Then there was the knife. He hadn’t mentioned it, but he saw it there, on the ground. If he sat up, he could still see it. The blade glinting in the moonlight, a stark reminder of how much had changed… how much his family had to mend.

He could not undo the years of scars his wife and his son bore on their skin and on their hearts. But he would try.

For them, he would try.

He slipped from the bed with the same silence he had utilized on the battlefield. The shadows of Ithaca’s past whispered in the quiet as he wandered its halls, each step stirring dust that had long settled without him.

As he wandered the halls, walls he had built with his own hands, his mind wandered too. The moon was setting, dust floating in the air as he walked past the opened windows.

Turning a corner, he stopped in his tracks, having collided directly with a member of his house. Eurycleia scolded him, “Just because you’ve been gone nearly twenty years doesn’t mean this house has stopped turning, your grace.”

Odysseus laughed, steadying the older woman in front of him. “You know, where I’ve been, kings have silenced members of their staff who dare speak to them like this.”

“I reckon those sorts of calls go through your queen now.” Her grin was teasing, but the words twisted like a knife in his gut.

Ithaca had kept moving, even without its king.

It was so easy for him to block out life here.

He had imagined Ithaca waiting for him as he left it, unchanged and faithful.

But the world still spun. He was a ghost walking through a house built by another man’s hands.

“Excuse me.” He murmured and left her behind. A bitter taste lingered on his tongue. With no desire to continue to walk through halls of history, he turned on his heels, returning to the bedchamber.

Upon arriving at his door, he found his son standing by the door, sword strapped to his hip. They made eye contact briefly before Telemachus averted his eyes. “Father,” he said, blush creeping up his neck. “Forgive me.”

“Don’t,” He said, echoing the sentiments he shared with Penelope last night.

The words came steadily as he placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“There is nothing in need of forgiving. I am grateful for you, my son.

Grateful for how you have protected your mother when I could not. You have grown into a fine man."

He could feel the physical strength of the young man that stood before him, the strength he had not been there to help forge.

Odysseus kept his hand on Telemachus’ shoulder a moment longer, but the weight of it brought an unfamiliar feeling.

It wasn’t the proud weight of a father reflecting on his son.

It was the weight of a man unsure of where he stood with that son, a son that might consider it too late for a father’s influence.

Telemachus shifted under Odysseus’ gaze, the flush of embarrassment creeping further up his neck. “Father, I…” He stumbled over his words, “I wasn’t sure what to expect once you returned.”

He wanted to comfort his son, respond with something light to ease the tension, but the words lodged in his throat, voice thick with emotions unsaid.

He knew Telemachus had held so much of Ithaca together, so much of his mother together.

He had to be a man much before he should have been, and Odysseus would carry that burden to his grave.

“You have done more than should have ever been expected of you.” Was the reply he managed to force out. How could he put into words that he was learning how to be a father again? That he knew he could never recreate the years lost, and that he would do anything to have that time back.

???????????

Odysseus smiled down at his wife as she dozed in the noon sun. She had fallen asleep on the chaise, cuddling their son to her chest. Pride echoed in his heart. His entire world sat in front of him, illuminated by the rays that spilled in through the window.

Their whole lives lay ahead of them, the king, queen, and prince of Ithaca.

Gently, without waking his sleeping wife, Odysseus picked up his son, walking onto the balcony with him.

Telemachus squirmed in his arms, eyes squinting in the light.

“What do you think, little prince?” He asked, beaming down at his son.

The smell of the sea surrounded them, the waves crashing against the shore.

Odysseus looked out to the horizon, watching as the ships came in. He knew what they were here for, knew they were here to make good on the pact that he had come up with. Menelaus was gathering his armies to fight for his wife back.

His heart tightened. There was a time in the past when he yearned for adventures and journeys, the lust that followed glory, pulling him into every conflict and battle.

But now… All Odysseus wanted was right here.

He would do anything to hide them away from the duties of war and the risk of bloodshed. And yet, duty spared no man.

How could he refuse Menelaus?

And now, standing here in the bright sunlight, watching the life he had dreamed of take place in front of him, he wanted nothing more than peace.

Menelaus wanted the fame and the honor of being married to Helen, and couldn’t stand that he had been jilted by a woman and a Trojan prince.

All Odysseus wanted was right here…