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Part 10 of Warriors of the Mind
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2024-09-29
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2025-08-02
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53/?
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Fighting to be loved

Chapter 7: past and present running free

Summary:

The family does their best to figure out the situation

Notes:

My Greek is not great but research says theioula could be used as a substitute for auntie so we’re going with that please don’t crucify me. I don't want to use just "theia" bc I might want to pick up the "Thea" nickname again later idk yet maybe and it's too close

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Penelope looked from the unconscious goddess to her husband. He was pale and clearly shaken by what he had seen, and she berated herself for not listening more closely.

“Odysseus.” She reached out for his cheek. “Are you alright, love? What did she show you?”

He shook his head slightly, taking her hand into his.

“It’s fine, I just… She’s his, Penelope. That’s his child… and he was harder on her than he was on… us… I know how much… control…” His voice faltered. “It wasn’t on accident, Pen. He meant to do this. He meant to hurt her… exactly like this.”

She could have said many things then. While Odysseus had grown up with a goddess by his side, and had seen many Olympians in person, she only knew Athena because of him, had met her a handful of times, always polite toward her, but noticeably distant. She hadn’t taken offense, knowing that Gods were meant to that way, that Odysseus had been chosen to be more, but that, in the end, they weren’t meant to be close.
So, yes, a part of her wanted to say that gods were different, and that maybe familial relations were less to them.

Instead she pulled him and Telemachus close, feeling his heart beating fast, and said: “Well, regardless of what Olympus chose to do or not to do, she’s here now, and we’ll do right by her.” She kissed him gently. “Our first priority should be taking care of these wounds properly. I’d hardly call what you did earlier a permanent solution.”

Odysseus looked at her, dejectedly.

“I don’t know… if we can help her. We’re mortals, what exactly are we supposed to do?”

Penelope shrugged. “What we do best, figure something out.”

She let go of them, then turned to Telemachus.

“Here’s what I want you to do, little wolf. Go to the healer downtown, I believe it’s Theodyces the younger now, and try to find out how to treat burns like this. Don’t tell him why, just act interested in his craft. If you bring up lightning, do it later when you already have some information, he might think you’re not being serious, but he just might have something to say that can help us anyway. Alright?”

Telemachus nodded.

“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said with a serious nod.

“Wait,” Penelope held him back. “Change your chiton before you go. It’s stained.”

He looked down at the fabric, seeing gold on the fabric.

“Oh. Thanks, Mom.”

She tousled his hair affectionately before he left in a run. Like a foal with its legs still faster than its mind.

Odysseus gave her a pained, yet loving smile.

“You’re the best, Pen. You really are.”

She let him pull her back into a hug, but was very much aware of Athena’s breathing, weak and labored, and she knew he heard it, too.

“I am not sure if Immortals have to breathe, but this does not sound good,” she said quietly.

Odysseus sighed.
“I know. I don’t know how gods work, really. Athena… she never felt the need to… tell me about this type of thing. She always… we were in Troy together, and there were so many gods on the field. Ares got injured, and so did Aphrodite, and Athena was in the trenches all the time, yet she never got a scratch. I… I never thought she could be hurt.”

He thought back to Troy, at Diomedes who had been responsible for the aforementioned injuries under Athena’s instruction.

“Isn’t Ares going to come at you for this?” he’d asked.

“This is a war,” she’d said, unbothered. “Ares knows that. We’ll hash this out in the arena or on the battlefield, makes no difference. It’s the nature of our shared domain.”

“One day you’ll wake up stabbed.”

“I doubt it. He’d think it cheating to come after me while I’m unarmed. Also he wouldn’t manage. He’s not exactly quiet.”
He hadn’t asked if she liked her brother at all. Athena rarely talked about other gods in more than telling him of their powers and whom to avoid (pretty much all of them), and even though he sometimes thought he caught some fondness for some, Hermes, sometimes Artemis or Apollo, and in the war particularly Hephaestus, he doubted that she was in the habit of showing them.

“How does this work?” he’d asked instead. “I mean… he can’t exactly die, right? So what now?”

Athena shrugged. “Apollo will patch him up. Unless Ares punches him in the face again. In that case he’ll have to deal with it. Either way, he’s immortal. We’re hard to keep down for long.”

Somehow, he doubted that her assessment back then had included the lightning bolt.

Apollo. Why did he have an inkling that the god wouldn’t show up to pick her up?

“What are you thinking about?” Penelope asked.

“Her… her wounds weren’t bandaged at all,” he said slowly. “She had her armor on still. No healer worth their salt would have left her arm guards on like this.”

Penelope nodded, green eyes somber and knowing.

“But… but surely he must have…” he trailed off, remembering what he’d shouted at her ten years ago, you’re alone, Athena, do you hear me? You’re alone!

Just a moment back then when he had thought he might have dealt a blow that landed with that one, but he had quickly dismissed it. Why should it matter to her when she was the one pushing him away.

He supposed there was a difference between having a distant relationship with one’s family and not being able to rely on them to help with injuries severe enough to kill any creature even slightly less than a god several times over.
“Hey.” He looked at Penelope. “You don’t have to keep what bothers you to yourself anymore, love. Talk to me.”

“I don’t think it’s smart to say the words I think right now. I’ve made enough gods angry for a lifetime. I wish… she was alone for seventeen days, Pen. I just wish she hadn’t been. And I’m scared we don’t have the means to help her properly. She’s so badly hurt.”

Penelope nodded.

“I get that. We’ll try our best and work from there. She might just need some rest and peace of mind for her body to start healing on it's own, she is a goddess, it probably works differently from us.”

Someone knocked on the door and the couple jumped.

Penelope opened it a bit, meeting the gaze of Eurycleia.

“There you are,” the old servant said, eyeing her shrewdly. “I was wondering where you’d gone so suddenly. Is everything alright?”

Penelope looked at Odysseus next to her, who wished he had telepathic abilities right about now.

It turned out he didn’t need them.

“A friend of Odysseus’s is here,” Penelope said simply. “We’d like to keep that a secret for now, and they are not to be disturbed, not even by you. I promise it is not lack of trust that makes me ask this of you.”

Eurycleia looked at her king and queen, then poignantly picked a ginger feather from Odysseus’s chiton.

“I understand. If your guest requires anything, she… they shall receive it without question, I’ll see to it.” She met Odysseus’s gaze. “There is a stain on your chiton, dear. I do hope it washes out.”

Odysseus couldn’t help a small smile.

“We’ll find out, I suppose. Thank you.”

She patted his shoulder.

“You’ll never let your old nurse get any rest, my boy.”

“Well, the gods don’t exactly let me get any rest either, theioula.”

“I might have to have a word with them about that,” Eurycleia said as she turned around.

Penelope and Odysseus shared a look as they closed the door again.

“How long do you think she’s known?” Odysseus asked.

“Back in the day? Probably since the first week,” Penelope said fondly. “You don’t exactly look at a uniquely patterned owl following a young boy around all the time and don’t at least think about the gods.”

Odysseus smiled wistfully. He missed those days, and in a way, he missed Athena from back then, curt and distant as she had done her best to be, because there had been so much safety in her, he’d looked up to her before the war had made them both more cruel.

He hadn’t fully appreciated how much her strength comforted him until it was missing from his life, but right now, he felt it more than ever. No matter how much he had tried not to think about it for the last ten years, Athena had been the hero of his youth, his goddess, his strong untouchable patron, and yes, he had thought he would have harsher words to say should they meet again, but not in a million years would he have wanted her to be like this, reduced to a shivering, bleeding shell of herself, unconscious and as helpless as a goddess could possibly be.

Odysseus hugged his wife tightly, and prayed, directed toward none of the gods, that things would turn out fine.

Notes:

Some reminiscing. Some Eurycleia (my beloved). Some Penelope being the absolute best.
Athena will be (consciously) back next chapter.
Also I need to straighten out the plot of this fic now lol. It's all vibes from here and I'd like to have an outline, so yeah, I'll go do that and see you when I'm done :3

As always, drop me a thought if you so desire :) xx

(oh also, I would like you to know that when Ody said "The gods don’t exactly let me get any rest either", Athena may or may not have heard that. *runs off*)