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Chapter Text

Another lightning strike hit the goddess of wisdom, sending her down to the marble that seemed very shaky in her fading vision.

Athena drew a ragged breath, ichor running from her lips.

If it’s my last wish, father, please grant it, I beg of you.

Her wings lying uselessly on top of her, she raised her hand pleadingly.

“Please, let him go.” The words came out so quiet, so broken. “Please, father, let him go.”

She had barely finished the words when the world went dark around her.

She woke up choking, making a terrible gurgling sound as she tried to breathe through the ichor in her throat, arms helplessly trying to prop herself up out of the puddle of golden liquid.

Heavy steps shook the ground around as a shadow moved over her.

Athena whimpered softly.

Zeus took hold of her chiton, lifting her up easily like you would an unwanted kitten by the scruff of its neck.

She gasped, no air finding its way into her lungs.

“So,“ he said. “There we are, child of my mind. What now?“

She couldn’t speak, grey eyes glistening. Ichor dripped down onto the floor as lightning stung in her flesh like shards of glass, trembling and twisting as its creator was so close by. Her mind did not allow a thought past pain and the knowledge that she had to answer.

“Father…” the word came out as a toneless whimper.

“Do you understand now that I am King on Olympus and not you?”

She managed a nod. In a more present state of mind she would have told him that she had never questioned his reign in the first place.

She was dimly aware that they were not alone in the arena, but firmly kept her focus on him, knowing that there was not a lot of focus she was capable of right now.

At least if you take my life, let me go to Ogygia and let Odysseus deal the final blow.

Her father’s figure danced and blurred in front of her. The lightning in his eyes was dying down.

“I believe you,” he said, setting her back down. Her knees buckled instantly, sending her to the floor hard, sitting slumped over in front of his feet. She weakly tried to move her wings in a reflex to keep herself upright.

“Let this serve as a warning,” Zeus addressed the gods on the ranks with a booming voice. “that you should not easily challenge the king of the gods. This time, and only this time, some goodwill shall be shown. Hermes?”

“Yes, father?” The messenger god’s voice was uncharacteristically thin.

“Go to Ogygia and set the mortal free.”

Hermes saluted, looking straight ahead, careful not to spare Athena a glance.

“Will do, Sir.” And with that, he was gone.

Athena sat still, pain blurring her perception. Ichor was running down her skin, flaming over sore flesh. Electricity prickled in the open wounds, making her fingers tremble uncontrollably.

Don’t pass out. Sit still and don’t do anything, nothing that could make him change his mind.

The smell of ichor was all-encompassing, it was drenching what was left of her clothes, dizzyingly floating around her.

Zeus waved his hand dismissively.

“Council is concluded. Get back to your domains.”

With soft murmurs, the crowd started to disperse. Zeus bowed down to his daughter, lifting up her chin. His fingers were burning on her bleeding cheek.

“I hope you understand that my act of mercy does not mean I approve of how you behaved tonight.”

“I know, father,” she heard herself say. “Thank you for granting it even as I am undeserving of it."

Please, don’t let this be the wrong thing to say, please don’t punish Odysseus for my wrong-doing, please…

Something vaguely resembling affection replaced his stony expression.

“Get back to your domain, Athena.”

He let go of her and left the arena, and then she was alone.

Instinctively, she tried to uncurl her wings, feeling one of them had been struck. The smell of burnt feathers joined that of burnt flesh. She gasped when her wing-muscles strained against tearing, tears filling her eyes.

Gods, Athena, focus. Take stock. Make a plan, by Styx.

But it hurt, so much.

A coughing fit made her body light up with white, searing fire, blinding her as her muscles tensed. The hand she could move instinctively at her mouth despite the pain, she felt ichor wetting it at an alarming rate.

She barely managed to stay upright through the coughing, gasping for air when it finally passed.

I need to get out of here. That’s what he said, get back to your domain. If I’m still here when he comes back…

She had been dismissive of injuries in the past, given that she had barely even been nicked in all the battles she’d been in, not even in the fight against the giants. If you were good enough, you just didn’t get hurt, so no need to entertain the possiblity too much.

And here we are now, and all I have is the not very helpful advice I gave Odysseus, that unless his legs are broken he can get up if he sets his mind to it.

Well, her legs weren’t broken, even if her right wrist most likely was, and even if one of her wings was rendered unusable unless she wanted it to rip in two. Time to live up to the poeticized will of the warrior.

She used her left arm to support herself, keeping the right cradled to her chest as best as possible. The arena was spinning around her. The first attempt she made at getting up ended just as quickly with her back on the ground, panting. Her body was not supposed to behave like this. It was supposed to obey her without protest, at all times. This was not right.

She reached for her spear with some difficulty, using it to pull herself to her feet with agonizing effort. The wounds the lightning bolt had left felt like shards of glass were stuck inside them, rubbing together with every movement. The hand gripping her spear was bleeding as if it was trying to alert her to the damage. Athena groaned softly, the sound echoing through the empty arena.

Alright, hardest part is over.

She almost laughed out loud at the empty encouragement her mind helplessly produced.

If I don’t get out in time, all this was for nothing. I need to get Odysseus home.

Tears spilled out against her will, but she paid them no mind. All that mattered was that she took a step even as the room swayed, even as her hand threatened to slip from her spear, even as she had to forcefully keep her right wing from trying to help with balance, and another as the bone of her wrist stabbed into her flesh, and another as the arena temporarily lost focus.

Even when she was only at the entrance of the arena, she already questioned how her body was still enduring the abuse she was putting it through.
Olympus was mercifully deserted outside, the showcasing of Zeus’s power seemed to have its job of intimidation quite well.

Athena stumbled as she pulled herself forward, wings dragging behind her rather than helping her. Her chiton felt heavy with ichor.

A fragment of the lightning bolt crawled out of the wound in her chest like a spider, slicing like blades as it moved. Her throat produced a gasping groan as it pulled free of her skin, dissolving in a small ripple. She staggered, all but her full weight resting on her spear, and silently screaming at herself that she had to keep going, by Styx, if I fall, I won’t be able to get back up.

Olympus had never felt this cold to her before.

She managed another shaky step, her legs unstable despite not having been hit too badly.

Looking ahead, her palace seemed miles away even though it was one of the closest to the arena.

Stumbling forward with a lack of grace she hadn’t known for thousands of years, she pushed beyond the lightning tearing through her body, ichor running from her lips, breaths coming in shallow pants as she forced step after step, not allowing a rest because she wasn’t sure if she could even come back from leaning against a pillar for a moment.

The world blurred and swayed around her, but she pushed forward through agonized tears, telling herself despite all logic, that if she only managed to reach her palace, Odysseus would get home safely, if only she didn’t collapse, he’d be fine.

She yelped when she almost slipped on her own ichor, right hand instinctively reaching for the spear to support herself, jagged bone stabbing into her flesh like a fire-gleaming knife. Her half-stifled scream seemed to echo over Olympus.

Keep going. Just keep going.

The fact that she actually did seemed impossible even to herself, defying all logic. The amount of ichor she had lost had to be more than had been inside in the first place.

Her fingers cramped around her spear, trying to keep her hold on it secure. Her hand was numb. No other part of her body showed the same mercy.

There was the door of her palace, she only knew because it opened at her approach, her vision failed to communicate anything more than that.

Another step, hanging by will alone, passing the threshold. The world was rapidly losing color around her.

Athena only barely managed to turn and at least shield her broken wrist before her body forcefully untethered her from reality and send her plunging into darkness.

Chapter Text

She was floating through space, disconnected from her physical form. It wasn’t Quick Thought, it was a dark plane of nothingness, stifling any thought she might have tried to form.

The first thing she felt was the cold. She was lying on icy marble, wings awkwardly stuck under her body. It took her a full minute to force open her eyes, only to be met with a blurry, indistinct world that meant nothing at all to her. Sluggishly, she made an attempt to move her wings, but their response was nothing but an indifferent tremble.

She heard a low groan, weak and foreign, followed by a sharp ripple of pain running through her entire body. A gasp, clipped and feeble.

Then darkness.

She came to slowly, mind stirring from long inactivity. She wasn’t sure if her body or her mind was forcing her to lie completely still, trying to get a grasp of reality.

The only thing she could hear was-

Pallas?

A cold shiver ran down her spine at the sound, of the labored breaths echoing through the hall, gasping for air, shuddering with fading strength.

Please don’t go, Pallas, I didn’t mean to-

She knew how it would end, it had happened before, and she braced herself for the inevitable… but the breaths didn’t cease. Impossibly, they just kept coming.

She opened her eyes with difficulty, blinking to get a crisper image- and recognized the intricate ceiling of her palace.

It can’t be Pallas. She died before it was built.

Slowly, things clicked into place. The lightning. The way back. Odysseus.

It wasn’t Pallas breathing. It was herself.

Athena frowned, a shiver running through her body. It felt foreign, displaced. It wasn’t supposed to feel this way, completely exposed, she never lay on her back even when she slept. And it hurt, so much that she had a hard time believing it was real.

Her entire right side was covered in a web of rivers running with molten gold, pulling at shards of what had to be leftover lightning in a continuous fire. The fingers of her right hand wouldn’t respond to her. Every time her torso expanded with a breath, the wounds seemed to open further. Something inside met every breath with a stabbing pain, as if there was a knife firmly pressing against her lungs.

She caught her breath, trying to give herself some relief from the pain. Without the horrid gasping sounds, she could hear her heart beating, noticing with detached confusion that it sounded odd, like a drum not quite following the chant it was supposed to.

She wanted to turn around, wrap her wings around herself at least, but she doubted she would be able to without causing even more damage, given the sharp sting shooting through her right shoulder when she started flexing the muscles in her wing. The lightning had pierced right through even though she had done her best to keep her wings folded and away from the strikes. One slip-up, one small mistake…

Her mouth was so dry.

Maybe if she got some nectar, she’d be able to move. It was supposed to give them strength, wasn’t it?
She had done the simple gesture to summon items too many times to count, things like food or wine were rarely stored in their palaces (Dionysus being an exception), since it was easily created. Normally.

She flexed the fingers of her left hand, feeling them shaking. Controlling them enough to move as intended proved way more difficult than she had thought.

She gasped, feeling the energy draining from her with frightening intensity, she almost saw how it pulled at her consciousness, fighting off her control. For a split second, the shadow of a goblet appeared above her like a taunt before vanishing into thin air.

Athena didn’t have the time to put up a fight as darkness swallowed her once more.

Waking up, she dimly knew she had been out for longer this time. It was nighttime on Olympus, she could tell by how dark the front hall was. Again, it took an agonizing time for her mind to follow her body’s example and adapt to consciousness again.

There was just no way that she had been knocked out by a simple summoning spell. It was supposed to be as simple as breathing for a god, then again, the latter also was rather difficult at the moment. She didn’t know how long it had been since she had had enough air in her lungs.

She couldn’t just lie in the front hall of her palace like this. Even if more broken than she had believed possible, this was still her body, hers to control. It had to be possible to move.

Groaning softly, Athena lifted her head, trying her best to ignore the spinning of the room around her. She managed to prop up her left arm, wounds protesting at being pressed against the cold floor. Every movement felt like she was trying to transport a very badly sown bag, threatening to come apart at the seams any moment. She had to fight against using her bad wing to balance like she normally would have.

She almost jumped at the miserable whimper that escaped her throat. Even though her left arm wasn’t completely unusable, it was by no means unscathed. The floor underneath was slippery with ichor. She groaned as she put more of her weight onto her arm to finally get her wing out from underneath her, hissing as it touched the other, feathers digging into the open wound. She slowly pulled her legs under herself, putting all of her strength into her arm to support her just a little longer.

She sat, slumped over, breathing somehow even harder than before.

A violent tremble took hold of her like a tidal wave as she tried her best to get some air. Her wounds felt like someone was pressing a hot rod into each of them, and yet she was ice-cold. The room around her flickered in and out of focus.

Athena blinked several times, trying to get a proper look at herself.

Even feeling the pain of it hadn’t prepared her how it looked, golden wounds gaping wherever she could see, edges singed and blackened in places. Ichor was oozing from them in thin trails, accompanied by a strange clear liquid that she couldn’t quite place. She was almost sure it wasn’t supposed to be there.

She was so cold.

Her mind drowsily wandered to what had happened before the arena, and dread filled her stomach. If Odysseus needed help, could she muster up the strength to come to his aid? How could she if she could barely even sit up?

She was shaking like a leaf. For a few seconds, her vision blacked out.

I need to be well enough, I have to help him, I have to…

Her lungs contracted as her breaths quickened, panicked gasps echoing in her ears.

Like in slow-motion, she felt herself slumping forward, instinctively moving her left wing under her falling body, a tearing pain shooting up through her shoulder and other wing when it was forcefully pulled on top of her, and even as she silently begged that she had to stay awake, she had to be there for her friend, oblivion mercilessly grabbed hold of her, pulling her back into its domain.

Odysseus came running into the clearing, with the energy that most mortal kids shared.

“Athena!”

She had never been happier to see him, her favorite student, her mortal friend.

“Be careful, you’ll fall,” she warned gently.

He grinned as he climbed the lowest branch of the tree he always liked to sit in.

“Not if you catch me.”

She swallowed hard.

“I might not always be there to catch you, Odysseus.”

He chuckled, that innocent sound she hadn’t realized she missed so much.

“I know. I don’t mean that much to you. Why would I, you’re immortal and I’m just a toy to you.” His voice had grown hard.

“That’s not true,” she protested. “I care about you, I always have.”

His laughter sounded rough and sarcastic now.

“You have a funny way of showing it. When I needed you the most, you walked out on me. If you cared, you wouldn’t have done that.”

“I’m sorry-“

“Sorry doesn’t bring back my friends, Pallas Athena! Sorry doesn’t bring back the last ten years that I could have spent with my family! Sorry won’t bring me back when I throw myself of that cliff to finally escape the pain!”
“Odysseus, don’t!” She reached out for him, now suddenly on a cliff in the storming rain, but he was far ahead, and she couldn’t move.

She cried out when he suddenly appeared right in front of her, bleeding from a spear wound to his chest, blood coming from his lips as he stared at her in shock, she caught him but he turned to water in her hands, and still she could hear the last thought of his fleeting life: “It’s all your fault, Athena! If you had been there, I’d be fine.”

She woke up on her side, curled up as far as her body had allowed, everything burning. She remained still anyways, drawing some comfort from being covered by her own feathers.

It had just been a dream. Hermes had gone to get Odysseus, and she clung to the hope that the fact she hadn’t heard from him was a good sign, surely at least if things hadn’t worked out, he would tell her.

He could still die. He’s stubborn, but he’s not unbreakable.

Her stomach twisted. She had never realized how much of a privilege a functioning body could be until she had been forcefully stripped of it.

She had planned, in the little time she had to contemplate while going up to her father, to see Odysseus in person, she felt she owed him to be there, with ‘skin in the game’ so to speak, she understood now how it had to feel if your guardian talked down on you while sitting comfortably on Olympus.

Now, however, it seemed she couldn’t afford that courtesy, not if she wanted to see him sooner rather than later.

Closing her eyes, Athena took a breath and stepped into Quick Thought.

Thunder greeted her, so loudly that she instinctively ducked from a strike. Fractured, the remains of her hourglass floated in the air heavy with ozone and rain.

Even outside of her physical body, Athena found she could barely stand.

Why? How is this broken, too?

Lightning cracked through her sanctuary, making her wounds flare up with pain. A shard of glass, whipped around by a gust of wind, sliced into her hand-

Athena gasped, brutally thrown back into her body.

She whimpered, hand helplessly grasping for her hammering head. Ichor dripped from a new gash across her knuckles, exactly where the glass had struck.

Chapter Text

Waking up was painful, but in a tired way, Athena was getting used to it. She had no idea how much time had passed since the night in the arena, but she spent a ridiculous amount of it waking up from being knocked out by the whims of her physical form.

Her head still hurt, a dull unpleasant feeling behind her temples.

She tried not to think about what it meant that her mindscape was shattered and filled with thunder. She’d figure out something about that, but for now it just wasn’t an option.

Slowly working her way back up into a sitting position, she carefully tried to move back a little, feeling dizzy but managing to scoot back until she could lean against one of the walls at least.

She thought about attempting a summon spell again, she doubted she would even be able to speak if she tried, after not drinking anything for however long it had been.

If only she wasn’t losing so much time, she had a terrible feeling about just how long she’d been stuck here, she could have spent time experimenting, but she couldn't risk losing another eight, twelve, maybe twenty-four hours to trying something to no avail.

What then, goddess of strategy? What then?

If one of her warriors was injured in the field, she’d tell them to get out of the line of fire and tend to themselves to the best of their abilities if there was no medic available.

She supposed that would be a decent strategy for her, too.

Her knowledge of anatomy was vast, of course, way beyond what the mortals knew of these days, but it only helped to assess the damage.

She was pretty good at making bodies stop working as intended, but to bring them back to their normal state… that was a different matter.

Taking another look at her arm, she grimaced at the crust of ichor and that weird clear liquid covering it. The wounds were still lazily bleeding, and the burning inside them hadn’t faded at all. Looking more closely, she could tell from the glowing that there was definitely still lightning stuck inside, which was in all likelihood was not a good thing. She remembered from the Trojan war that having debris stuck in your wounds had always been a big point of concern. Maybe if she removed it, that would make it heal better.

I should have learned more about Apollo’s domain.

She cursed her hand for shaking as she reached for one of the wounds, hissing as she touched the burnt edges. Tears welled up in her eyes as she bit her lip, daggers shooting through her arms as she dug her fingers into the wound to get to the lightning fragment. The fight between knowing what had to be done and the instinct of pulling back and ending the pain was much harder than she would have cared to admit.

The lightning bolt burned on her fingers, slicing like a small blade. She held her breath as she pulled it out as quickly as she could. It crackled in her hand before she let it go, watching it dissolve into a small growl of thunder. Fresh ichor flowed from the wound.

She instinctively pressed her hand to it, groaning at how much it burned, but she couldn't put enough pressure to staunch it. She hated how feeble her fingers’ grasp felt around her arm.

Just keep going. I can’t bleed out anyway or I would have already. It has to be the lightning delaying my healing, if only I can get it out-

She groaned through clenched teeth as she pulled another fragment out of her arm.

Then another.

Ichor was running down her arm, the smell stinging in her nose.

She was feeling more dizzy by the second.

No. I will finish this. I can push through this.

She gasped, the lightning bolt she had gotten hold of was much longer than she has thought, it burned against the broken bone at her wrist in searing spikes of pain.

A shivering fit took hold, making her slump against the wall, stubbornly focusing on holding on to the bolt, she’d get this stupid thing out and she. Would. Get. Better.

She arched her back, muscles forcefully tensing in her arm, fingers of her right splaying out without prompting. She groaned through her teeth as the broken bone was forced into moving.

Her vision went dark for a few moments.

Stop. Being. Weak.

She pulled defiantly as the bolt sliced through her skin, yanking it free because she couldn't give up now, even if she was shaking so hard she couldn’t see straight, even if ichor was soaking the burnt remains of her chiton, even it felt like her lifeforce was drained alongside it, even as the fingers she held it with were numb and yet aching.

She winced when the lightning dissolved into thunder above her and weakly pressed her better hand to her bleeding arm, the room seemed submerged in water, and Styx why was she shaking so hard?

She tried pushing herself up from the wall to stay awake, but her left arm refused to cooperate, leaving her barely sitting, teeth chattering and nothing to be done as once again, darkness won.

Maybe she could transform.

A part of her guessed it wasn’t the best of ideas, but maybe…

Maybe her owl-form wasn’t as badly injured and could make the flight. Ares had spent so much time in his boar-form after he got injured in Troy, maybe that was the reason. She had to get out of here, one way or another.

Athena pushed her damp tangled hair from her forehead with a groan.

She was familiar with an array of bad options being presented and choosing the least terrible, but having more and more options revealed as impossible was new.

If this didn’t work, what choices did she have left?

I just need to see him once. I need him to know I’m sorry, even if he can’t forgive me.

Athena took as deep of a breath as she was currently able to, which was not very deep, and prompted the transformation.

It was agonizing.

It should have taken seconds, easy as changing clothes, but instead, she felt every process slowly commencing, her bones breaking, rearranging themselves, wings shrinking, feathers sprouting. She screamed soundlessly as her skin ripped and regrew.

Slowly, she managed to get on her claws, staggering as she stood for the first time since that fateful night, even if in a different form.

She still felt the strain on her wings, but she could move them. Making a cautious attempt at flight, she was surprised to actually hover, even if a dull pounding settled in her temples instantly and her right wing proved to be just barely in working order.

She tumbled slightly as she made for a room with a window that she could use to leave.

Oh no.

The detransformation was equally painful and slow, but still unpreventable. She got through it somehow, lying in a slightly different space than before, on the floor of the formal sitting room that Hephaestus had added to this palace when he hadn’t yet known that neither did she wish to have gods over on a regular basis, nor would any of her siblings not just walk into whatever room she was in without knocking.

Her wing was burning even worse than before and as pathetic as it made her feel, she did not look at it. She didn’t want to see how bad it was.

Her vision was flickering in and out, every breath a challenge. She was shaking violently.

Still. She’d managed to transform, even if briefly. If only her body would heal up slightly, she might be able to push through that flight with enough willpower.

Only not today.

She was back in the arena. Her father stood over her body, and she cowered into the sitting equivalent of a bow.

“Why is it still about this mortal, Athena? Haven’t you given enough for a man whose lifespan is the blink of an eye compared to yours? Spiting your king only for a fleeting chance?”

“I… I failed him,” she whispered. “I just want to do right by him, he’s my student, my protegee, my friend, I should never have-“

She caught her words when he lifted up her chin, his eyes cold and lifeless.

“There is no use in bargaining for a lost cause, Athena.”

She shook her head, gasping.

“No… no, he isn’t… he can’t be...”

“I never sent Hermes to get him.” He smiled at her demonically. “I needed you to understand, that his life is meaningless to you. You are destined to be alone, Athena, if only you didn’t fight it, you wouldn’t be in so much pain. I had to teach you this lesson once before, but you forced my hand to do it again.”

She shook her head again, eyes wide with panic, backing away helplessly.

“No… no, father, please… Please, if it’s me you need to punish, do it, but let him go, don’t leave him in this place, I beg you, I won’t… I won’t approach him if that’s what you want, but please, let him go.” Her voice broke. “Please, father, tell me what I have to do.”

He caught her by her wings, holding them tight so she couldn’t fly away.

“Remember him,” he said coldly. “Remember him like you remember the daughter of Triton, as a sign of who you are. Do not pride yourself on being a Savior of Mortals, because you are not. If you hadn’t meddled with his life, he would not be where he is now, remember that, daughter of Metis, remember that you are wisdom and warfare, you bring council, but most of all you bring pain. Remember him.”

Athena woke up panting, still leaning against the wall of the sitting room. Her cheeks were wet. Without waiting to form a coherent thought, she plunged headfirst into Quick Thought, she had to know it wasn’t real, she had to know he was safe-

The thunderstorm knocked her to the ground, rain falling heavily around her. She used her wings to stay in place despite the wind, searching for a solid part of the hourglass that she might be able to use to see him, to make sure…

A shard of glass cut into her cheek, another her arm as she raised it in defense.

She wanted to push through the pain, it didn’t matter if only she could see… but the wind was too strong for her, forcefully pushing her out of her own realm, back into a body she couldn’t use, head pounding and tremors running through her limbs and she just couldn't be sure, couldn’t be sure that the dream hadn’t been real.

She sat on the floor of her sitting room, listening to the disconcerting sound of her heartbeat, still not sounding as it was supposed to.

None of this was anywhere near how it was supposed to. Wounds were supposed to close with time, yet hers were still bleeding like on the first day.

She was supposed to be with Odysseus, and yet here she was, imprisoned in her own palace, in her own body.

Thinking it over, trying to reach him with her owl-form was probably the best option, the only one not completely doomed to fail. She had tried to get up earlier, and in short, it would not do.

Still, even her owl-form was not in a state to make the travel, at least it hadn't been last time and she had little reason to believe that had changed given she felt no stronger than she had then.

Perhaps it was time to focus on nectar. Not because she wanted it to ease the dryness of her mouth but because if you looked at it objectively, she needed some boost of strength to make the trip, and it was the only thing she could think of that might help.

Even if it was not directly shortening the distance between her and Odysseus, it was still means to that end.

She should probably make for Ithaca, taking a break before she went looking for him since she couldn’t see him. She knew what route he would most likely take, but she doubted an uninterrupted flight would be possible.

But now for the nourishment.

She reached out her hand and closed her eyes, gathering herself for a few seconds before she made the summoning gesture.

It pulled at her mental energy like an octopus’s tentacles, but a goblet appeared this time, albeit shakily.

Brow furrowed and holding her breath, Athena directed it to the floor beside her. She sat still for an embarrassing amount of time, gathering her strength back.

The glass trembled when she lifted it up, moving it to her lips.

She had to fight a cough when the first drop of nectar burned down her sore throat, but gods it had never tasted this good.

Finishing it off, she wiped her mouth, leaning back with a huff.

It felt far from a miracle healing, but she did feel a bit better. Better, but very tired.

She tried getting up, only to shake awake later from where she’d been sitting, absently staring into space without moving an inch. She felt sluggish and clumsy, and she was almost sure she had never been this sleepy before.

But… but I felt better… why do I still not function properly?

It seemed to take hours until the question even registered in her mind.

She stayed awake, barely, again and again trying to get something, anything done, but her senses were dulled to the point where all she reasonably could do was blankly staring at the wall and not thinking.

She was pretty sure that this was the moment she had actually died, the nectar had done what the lightning couldn’t.

After all, what was the goddess of wisdom if she couldn’t think?

She had to have fallen asleep at some point, but when she woke up, at least her mind seemed to be back to semi-working condition.

It was hard to tell if she had healed up at all, but she chose to believe she had.

She needed to get back on her feet, and she would be able to if she properly set her mind to it.

Her transformation was still slowed down to an agonizing crawl. It felt even worse than last time, impossible as that seemed.

Finally in her animal form, she carefully hopped onto the window sill, taking a first look at Olympus in what seemed like years.

Unchanged, naturally.

Even if her world felt completely removed from the concept of balance, didn’t mean the natural order of things would as much as tremble.

The sudden image of dropping out of flight helplessly in the middle of Olympus made her stomach turn. Perhaps a test was in order.

She lifted herself up into the air, unsteadily circling the small room and only barely avoiding turning back forcefully. Small lungs contracting painfully, she shakily landed on a sofa.

No way in the world. Don’t be naïve. There’s no way this is enough.

She clawed at the cold, unforgiving fact, but it remained. In this state, she wouldn’t make the flight, not even to Ithaca.

I have to rest, just once more, and then make do with what I have, no matter how little.

Deciding to turn back was like a punch in the gut. She ended up back on the floor, bad wing awkwardly stuck underneath her, she had never thought how much trouble it would be not to be able to move it properly.

A strange heaviness came up in her throat, and before she could decide on a theory what it was, she felt her eyes welling up. Blinking rapidly, she tried to push back on the feeling.

A low whimper escaped her throat as a first tear breached her defenses. She shook her head but it wouldn’t listen, forcing out another right after, as the heaviness broke out in a stifled sob. She tried to fight against it, but it only got stronger, and she hated it, every single choked sound of misery that got out, the heaving of her shoulders pulling at her wounds, the tears spilling over her fingers as she pressed a hand to her mouth, trying and failing to control herself.

She remembered the last time she had cried, in one of her first nights on Olympus after Pallas’s death, ripped from everything and everyone she knew and loved, sent back to the man who hadn’t wanted her and his wife who wanted her even less.

She’d felt powerless then, but not like this. She knew her father would want her to continue her training, and as much as she dreaded touching her spear again, at least she’d have something to occupy her mind.

She hadn’t been weak like now.

She hadn’t been useless like now.

Athena bit her lip to keep the sobs quiet. She didn’t want to hear herself crying, didn’t need to have audible proof of how pathetic she was.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to protect her friends, stand and shield them.

She couldn’t keep the sound in this time, but she twisted the cry into a growling yell, hearing her frustration echo back to her.

Athena didn’t need breaks.

Athena pushed through the pain and did what was necessary.

That was who she was, by Styx!

The sobs were so deep that they physically hurt. Athena whimpered in pain.

She had wanted to go to Odysseus first thing after speaking to her father. She had planned to stick around to see him home safely, unless he absolutely wanted her gone, and even then she would’ve made his journey as easy as possible behind the scenes. She had wanted to make things right, and instead she couldn’t even see him.

She wrapped her good wing around herself, chest aching, tasting ichor on her lips, and for the first time since that night thousands of years ago, she cried herself to sleep.

She had been half-awake a few times, she was almost sure, but now her body finally allowed her to wake up properly.

Now or never.

Athena sat up, relieved to see the world in focus and not shaking too badly to move. It was little in her favor, but these days she counted her blessings.

Her mind was set, no doubts were allowed right now. If she ended up in the ocean, so be it. It was where she had left her friend, after all. She’d get to Ithaca one way or other.

Athena breathed through and transformed.

After the pain of it had subsided a little, she landed back on the window-sill. She seemed to have picked a time with very few gods around, and none of her uncles, aunts or siblings. Good.

Feeling rather unsure deep down, she took off from the window, leaving behind the safety of her palace. She was painfully aware how slowly she was flying, but so far, it was more stable than she had hoped.

She hadn’t thought feathers could hurt.

Dropping below the clouds carefully, her injured wing complained. It wasn’t torn like the one of her humanoid form, but it was definitely compromised. She had to focus on laughably simple maneuvering.

A drop of ichor fell into the ocean below. Her wings already felt way too heavy.

If she’d had any, she’d have clenched her teeth.

A sudden impulse of pain made her grasp for her side, sending her briefly tumbling. She gasped as she steadied herself. She never made mistakes like this, mistaking her wings for hands.

Like ripples from a stone dropped into a lake, pain radiated from where she knew the lightning wounds lay under her feathers. She felt the much smaller lungs of the bird still struggling to get enough air.

For a while, her mind grew numb with pain, stubbornly pushing on over the water as the sun rose and exhaustion snapped at her like a hungry dog.

A seagull moved into her flight path, shrieking at her. Athena instinctively pulled to the side.

She felt her wing muscles where they had torn in her humanoid body, strain and start to succumb to the pressure. For a moment, she was just holding herself up with one wing, then she managed to at least keep the other horizontal. Ichor started wetting her wings as the wound grew worse.

For the first time, she learned that owls could form tears of pain, too.

She pushed forward through the pain, soundlessly gliding above the water just above where a sudden drop in height wouldn’t immediately submerge her, but not too high so a fall wouldn’t be more painful than it had to be.

The winds were uncomfortably strong and chilly, and more than once she was pushed out of her flight path like a leaf by a breeze, each clawing at her already weakened form.

Her wings trembled with strain in a mirror to how she’d randomly been shaking for possibly days now.

There, a sliver of green on the horizon. Normally she would have already seen houses at this distance.

Athena had no time to be relieved to see it as her wing cramped up, she struggled to compensate with her other, fluttering ungracefully and yet barely missing the water surface before she could somewhat use it again.

But there it was, Ithaca. Stony beaches and dark green valleys, even if they looked decidedly washed out in her current vision. Still, she’d never been more relieved to see the island under her talons, even if it was looking a bit shaky.

She felt like her wings had burned down to the skeleton. Ichor was leaking out of this body much more quickly than it should have.

Blurred, she could make out the palace on the top of the hill. Her wings automatically directed her there, she always picked Odysseus up from the palace.

Dropping a few feet, she barely caught herself before hitting the ground. She could feel how feathers dropped from her bleeding, burning wings.

Tumbling, she avoided a shepherd’s cart, vaguely hearing a surprised exclamation from the man.

So close.

A gust of wind almost threw her into a tree. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear her heart beat, just forced her wings to move, closer and closer to the palace, she could do it, just a little longer.

There it was, Odysseus’s room, with the balcony the railing of which he liked to climb onto. He’d fallen once, and she had caught him, only to be extra cold toward him because he had made her reach out, feel someone’s touch. She wouldn’t do that ever again.

The small brown owl tumbled again, careening toward the balcony.

With a final effort, the wound on her wing ripped open. Her scream was cut off as she made contact with the stone floor of the balcony, skidding into the room as her body forcefully contorted and changed back into her natural form, breaths hitching, suffocating from the smell of ichor. Her wings, her arms, every inch of her was covered in flames.

She groaned, feeling divine blood speckle her lips.

A blurry figure stepped over her, she could hear them speaking but didn’t understand what they said, and all she could muster the strength for was a single word:

“Odysseus?”

Chapter Text

Ithaca’s King had returned.

Odysseus could still not believe he was actually home. If he hadn’t been on the ocean for two weeks, barely managing to bargain his way past Poseidon (suffice it to say their biggest herd of cows was no more and he was never to set foot on a ship again, which he was very much happy with), and if he hadn’t had the vivid memory of Calypso losing her perfect façade and shouting at Hermes, he would have walked around pinching himself every second. As things were, he just did it every couple of hours to be sure.

It had been his fourth night in his own bed, with Penelope at his side, and he thought he could never see enough of her, of her and their beautiful son who had his hair and her eyes.

They were sitting in the courtyard, Penelope leaning against him and running her fingers through his hair, newly trimmed at least a little. He had his arm wrapped around her, just feeling her, and he thought if a god offered the three of them immortality, he might just take it just so he never had to let them go.

Telemachus was sitting cross-legged on a stool, telling a story he had made up. He had been apprehensive at first, saying that he couldn’t possibly compete with the stories his father had actually experienced, but Odysseus had been quick to say he would love a story that he had no part in, and he couldn’t lie, his son was a good storyteller, conjuring up a chimera that he saw more clearly than the one he had actually seen in Circe’s palace all those years ago.

He watched Telemachus fondly, trying to burn his features into his mind the same way Penelope’s were, because by the gods he couldn’t wait to spend more time with this kid, getting to know him like he had wanted to all these years.

Eurycleia came in, quietly and swiftly as always, bringing some bread and olives as refreshments. She tousled Telemachus’s hair fondly and patted Odysseus’s arm as she walked past with a gentle smile.

“Thank you,” Odysseus said softly.

Telemachus finished up the story with the triumph of his hero and then got up to grab some of the snacks before offering the plate to his parents.

“Thank you, dear,” Penelope said with an affectionate smile. “What a son we have, don’t we?”

Odysseus felt the foreignness of a smile creeping onto his face.

“We sure do. And a true poet, too. That was a great story you told, Telemachus. What else do you like to do?”

Telemachus shrugged, blushing a little. “Mom said you… you are really good at wood-carving, so I’ve been trying that, too. I’m not very good at it, I suppose it’s hard to learn by yourself.”

Odysseus nodded, happy to be offered such an easy hand.

“That’s true. Why don’t you go and show me what you’ve done, and then we can work on something together?”

Telemachus’s eyes lit up.

“Sure, that would be so cool! I’ll go get it!”

Penelope chuckled, kissing her husband as the boy ran off.

“I’m so glad you two have hit it off so well.”

Odysseus nodded wistfully.

“Me, too. I was afraid we would have a hard time connecting, after so many years. But he’s such a good kid.”

Penelope nodded. “Oh yes, that he definitely is.”

Telemachus was torn between running and walking slowly, through the palace that finally was their home again. Gone were the deafening noises from the great hall, gone was the need to sneak around to not be seen, gone the overpowering stench of being in a prison.

And his father was back.

It was hard to believe after so many years, but in a soothing way he saw a lot of Athena in him, and in the same way he’d felt immediately like all they needed was time to get to know each other and everything would be alright.

He opened the door to his room and went looking for his most recent woodcarving.

Finding the small owl he’d made just two weeks back, he rose, gaze trailing outside over the balcony.

Was that-?

He frowned, trying to see better against the light. No, that was definitely an owl.

Eyes lighting up, Telemachus crossed the room to meet who he was pretty certain would be his guardian. He knew two weeks were hardly any time even for mortal standards, he had kind of missed the goddess.

“Athena!” he called out as the owl somewhat shakily aimed for the balcony, but his wave froze in the air as she fell, barely touching the stone floor before she started to transform in the doorway, groaning as her forms shifted.

Hands at his mouth, Telemachus watched the goddess who had helped him against overwhelming odds just weeks prior, lying on the floor of his room, wings splayed out beneath her, grey eyes staring unseeingly, breaths coming in short gasps.

“Athena…” he repeated shakily as he knelt beside her, careful to avoid her wings. A golden liquid all but covered her body, and even though he had never seen anything like it, he knew that it was divine blood, and there was way too much of it.

She whispered a word, he couldn’t make it out, only knowing she didn’t recognize him, not with how glassy her eyes were.

He felt sick.

“Athena? Athena, can you hear me?”

He could tell she tried to speak, but the only thing that got out was a low whimper, bringing tears to his eyes.

She shouldn’t be- This was all wrong.

He didn’t dare to touch her, not wanting to cause her more pain.

“Athena… stay here, I’ll get help, okay?”

He took off running, heart hammering in his chest. Mom and Dad would know what to do. Dad would know how to fix someone up, even if that someone was not supposed to be hurt at all.

Odysseus looked up when Telemachus came running back into the courtyard, smiling internally because he barely remembered the days when energy had been his own second nature.

Penelope tensed next to him, and then he registered Telemachus’s expression.

“What’s wrong?” Penelope asked, alarmed.

“I need you to come upstairs,” Telemachus said breathlessly. “Quick.”

“Son, what’s the matter?” Odysseus asked as he and Penelope rose.

“Just come!” He sounded so urgent and afraid that both broke into a run without further questions.

Odysseus feverishly tried to hypothesize what could have Telemachus so worried, but he lacked the necessary knowledge even to guess how he would react if an accident had happened, if he’d still not stop to explain.

Following their son to the room that had been his own in his youth, his anxiety rose, he knew the likelihood of a genuine monster was low at best, but that didn’t keep his mind from conjuring them up.

What he actually saw, he was still unprepared for.

“Oh, by the gods,” Penelope whispered.

Odysseus almost stumbled when he hurried to Athena’s side. Telemachus was already there, looking at him with eyes swimming in helpless tears.

Do something, his gaze said, please fix this.

Athena looked at him when he got to his knees beside her, chest rising and falling irregularly under her cracked chestplate.

“Odysseus…”

Her voice sent a shiver down his spine, so familiar and yet so wrong, way too quiet, way too raspy and weak.

“Penelope, grab a cloth and my dagger from our room, would you?”

There was so much of what had to be her blood all over the floor. He didn’t know where to even press down to staunch it.

“Odysseus,” Athena repeated and he forced himself to meet her gaze. Tears ran down her cheeks. He had never seen her cry before.

“Stay still,” he said hoarsely.

He didn’t want her to speak, not make the storm inside him worse, he couldn’t deal with this right now.

“Odysseus, I-“ She coughed and he saw with horror how ichor ran down her chin.

Please don’t let me find out the limits of immortality like this.

“I’m sorry,” Athena managed.

Penelope returned with the cloth as he had asked and he cut off a strip of fabric in one smooth motion.

Athena groaned when he resolutely started bandaging her bleeding arm.

She reached out with her other hand, grasping for his arm. He halted, only because he couldn’t shake her off, not when she so rarely reached out at all.

“Please…” The word hit like a punch to the gut. “Give me… one minute… listen, please.”

He swallowed at the lump in his throat.

“You’re bleeding. Let me help you first.”

“Please.” He could tell how much effort it took her to hold onto his arm. Her skin had always been light, but right now she was so pale there was no difference between her and the white fabric he held to bandage her wounds.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, desperate urgency in her voice. “I should have… never left you. I am… everything you said… and I should have never… pushed you so hard… I didn’t want you to… suffer…” Her voice trailed off, eyelids fluttering as she fought to stay awake. Her hand slipped from his arm. Odysseus shook awake from being frozen in place.

“Athena! Athena, don’t do this to me, stay awake!”

“Not… not up to me.” She shivered, the words slurred and barely audible. “I just… need you to… know… I’m… sorry.”

Odysseus forced a breath. This sounded so much like goodbye.

“No! You don’t get to die, do you hear me? I won’t let you!”

“Immortal,” she mumbled weakly. Her eyes were almost closed.

Odysseus reached out for her cheek, knowing he was provoking a punch to the face for it, but he’d rather have that than watch the light leave her eyes. She didn’t even flinch.

“How sure about that are you?”

She took a few seconds to reply and his stomach turned.

“Still… breathing… so pretty sure.”

There was little to argue with that, but it didn’t make him feel better either.

She was bleeding so badly.

“Okay, I take your word on that. I’m still gonna patch you up now, yeah?”

He had started with the bandage again, but looked back when she didn’t reply. Her eyes were closed, and he could tell she was out cold even though she was still trembling.

“Athena.”

No response. Shit.

He squared his jaw, continuing to wrap cloth around her arm. First aid now, then trying to wake her up.

“Can we help?” Penelope asked quietly. He thought for a moment.

“Not right now. Later we’ll need more supplies but right now, what matters is to stop the bleeding.”

He was almost glad she was unconscious because of how tightly he had to bandage, he had heard too many people scream in agony when it had to be done in the war. It was quite disconcerting how much she was shaking, even though at least it meant she was alive.

He would have said she looked human now, but she didn’t. He knew that any mortal who had been this badly injured would not be trembling, they’d be dead.

He grimaced as he removed the shattered remains of her arm-guards which had definitely failed to guard her this time, he had to pull the bent and blackened metal out where it had pierced her skin. Her wrist was broken, and badly. It would have to be splinted.

“What on Earth happened to you?” he asked quietly, but got no answer. Deep down, the shapes of the wounds gave him a sickening certainty that he wasn’t ready to think into existence quite yet.

“Dad?” He looked up into Telemachus’s scared green eyes. “Will she be okay?”

I’d say the gods know, son, but given the situation, I’m not sure they do.

“Probably, Telemachus. She is a goddess, you know?”

He opened the sides of Athena’s chestplate, feeling goosebumps run up his arms. He silently apologized for being so close, knowing how much she disliked being touched.

“I know,” Telemachus said, voice wavering. “And you know her.”

Odysseus looked up briefly.

“Yes, she’s… wait, you know her too?”

Telemachus nodded.

“Yeah. She helped me against the Suitors a few weeks ago, but she didn’t stick around.” 

“Yeah, she tends to do that.” His voice came out sounding harsher than intended.

Telemachus gingerly placed a hand on Athena’s uninjured wing. He was looking as shaken as Odysseus felt.

“She said she'd come back, I think she went to help her friend, maybe something went wrong?”

Odysseus couldn’t help but scoff. Everything about this was highly unusual, but some things didn’t change.

“Athena doesn't have friends, Telemachus.”

His son shook his head earnestly.

“She called him… hang on. You two, you were friends, weren’t you? But you fought and stopped talking?”

Again, Odysseus halted briefly. What had Athena said to his son?

“Well... Yes.”

“She was... of course, I am so dumb, she was talking about you the whole time!”

“Son, I don’t think I follow you.” Odysseus felt dizzy. It didn’t help that removing the cracked metal of Athena’s armor only revealed more blood, at least one attack must have struck her right side completely unprotected, even though he couldn’t think of a reason why she’d not have her shield up in a moment like that. He handed Penelope one end of the cloth to cut a bigger piece.

“She said she was helping me because she’d failed to help a friend of hers before and maybe she could make up for it that way,” Telemachus continued, thumb gently running through Athena’s feathers without a second thought. “She said she’d be back soon but she had to attend to something first.”

Odysseus hated himself for being unable to focus on the task at hand.

“When was that?” he asked.

“Two week-ish before you came.”

He breathed in sharply.

“That’s… Hermes came two weeks ago. I knew there was something weird about him, well, weirder than usual. ‘Your freedom wasn’t cheap, make something of it.’ That’s what he said, and I thought it was strange, but I didn’t think of it… and just a day after I prayed to her for the first time in ten years. I’m so stupid, still believing in coincidences after all this time.”

“After ten years…” Penelope interjected. She had asked about Athena two days ago, because of course she had noticed he had not mentioned her a single time in his recollection of his travels, and he had naturally told her the truth.

He felt tears welling up in his eyes, Athena’s apology mercilessly echoing in his head.

“Yes, for me,” he said quietly. “She’s a goddess, this probably felt like the blink of an eye to her.” Somehow, he didn’t believe it had.

He really didn’t want to address her right wing, the mess of golden blood and burnt feathers didn’t bode well even without closer inspection, but he couldn’t bandage her torso without lifting her up, and he doubted that jostling would help.

“Why is she… here?” Penelope asked as she offered him another strip of fabric. “Won’t she need help from the gods… for something like this?”

He looked up at her, finding his concern mirrored in her face.

“Possibly,” he admitted. “But she is here, so no matter what happened, we have to do what we can.”

Grimacing, he moved over to the splayed out wing, trying to assess the damage. Carefully moving the feathers aside, they all gasped audibly. A deep tear ran through her flesh, burnt at the edges for around five inches, below that the gaping wound seemed more recent. Where it was burnt, feathers were missing.

“Sorry,” Odysseus said softly as he moved a bandage in between the remaining feathers, tying the wound together as best as he could. He had a feeling that the crude x-wrap would not exactly be comfortable, but he couldn’t think of anything better to do to stop the bleeding for now, before he could learn up about wing-anatomy and figure out how to suture this injury.

“Telemachus, can you help me for a moment?”
“Yes, what should I do?”
“I want you to lift her torso up gently, just a little, so I can tie the strap around better. Can you do that?”

His son nodded. He seemed to have the same lack of reservations with Athena that he’d had, and again he wondered what had happened between the two.

He tied the cloth above the chiton, just for the moment, he figured Athena wouldn’t exactly be thrilled if he undressed her for this, even if medically advisable.

“Alright,” he said. “This should be enough to handle the bloodloss for now. I… I don’t want to mess with it more for the moment, I don’t know how to treat wounds like this.”

“Then we should put her in the bed, shouldn’t we?” Telemachus asked, now having the goddess’s head resting in his lap. “Make her more comfortable?”

Odysseus hesitated briefly, then nodded.

“Alright. Pen, can you support her wing when we lift her up? I think it’s best to keep it as still as possible.”

His wife nodded, and together they carried the goddess over to Telemachus’s bed, lowering her down with her wings on either side of her body. Odysseus had no idea how Athena usually slept, or honestly if she slept at all.

Telemachus carefully put one of his blankets around her. Athena groaned softly when he again ran his fingers through the feathers on her good wing.

“Athena?” he asked hopefully.

She blinked, eyes barely opening. A tear ran down her cheek.

She tried to speak, but the sound that did come out was indistinct and weak.

Odysseus had learned to hear her when she spoke mentally even when not directly to him, unless she actively locked him out of the conversation. She had appeared genuinely surprised when he had told her that he could hear her talking to Diomedes, as long as he was close by.

So he could hear her clear as day now, sounding a bit exhausted but otherwise a lot like herself, even if the open fondness in her voice was very new.

Hey there, Little Wolf. It’s good to see you.

Chapter Text

Telemachus sighed with relief, a smile spreading on his face.

“It’s good to see you, too. Kind of. I wish you weren’t hurt. But I missed you.”

She closed her eyes again, face remaining pale and exhausted, but Odysseus still heard the smile in her mind.

I missed you, too. I would have been back sooner. I meant to help you with the plague downstairs, but it seems your father beat me to it.

Telemachus shared a look with Odysseus before leaning against him. Odysseus felt his throat close up when he wrapped his arm around his son.

“And would his father be here now if it wasn’t for you, Athena?” he asked quietly.

She looked at him then, grey eyes wary and questioning.

He shrugged. “Deduction says you had something to do with me getting off that island. Did you?”

She hesitated, then nodded slightly. He felt like his legs were about to give out.

After Hermes had helped him get away from the island and the relief started to wear off, he had been mad that it hadn’t been her. Hermes had little reason to be invested in his survival, even if they were technically related, he seemed to help on a whim when he was bored, and yet, his own mentor hadn’t even answered a prayer made to her on the literal edge of a cliff. It had taken ten years to overcome his pride and make said prayer at all, and then it was left unanswered.

Seemingly.

He breathed out.

“There’s… I’ve got so much to say. Do you think Quick Thought would make this easier on you?”

She looked away before he heard her voice in his mind again.

No. It’s too unstable to be safe for you. A pause. I’m sorry… I know you don’t like me being in your head. I don’t… I can try speaking out loud.

He barely managed not to raise his eyebrows at her.

“No, it’s okay. I’m listening,” he said aloud. Then: “Was it you who sent Hermes?”

No. My… father did.

Her father. Her father who had been haunting his dreams for seven years. Her father, who he had been trying so hard not to think about for the last minutes even as the evidence had been staring into his face.

“He did… he was the one who did this, wasn’t he?” He gestured vaguely at her.

Again, Athena looked away. That was also wrong. Staring people down was her thing.

Yes. But he did let you go. That’s all that matters.

He swallowed hard.

“Tell me what happened. Please.”

Her hesitation wasn’t completely silent, in a strange way, he could hear something like background noise now as they talked, instead of the clear and precise thoughts he knew. Athena used her telepathy like spoken word, she never gave him an actual insight into her mind, only let him hear what she wanted. But not right now.

After I spoke to Telemachus, I went to look for you, she said finally. I hadn’t… I didn’t keep up with your journey before. I should have, because then I might have been able to intervene sooner, before it got too big. I’m sorry I did not.

Odysseus sighed. Deep down, he was glad to know that she hadn’t watched him struggle and still chosen to leave him to it. He didn’t know if he could have forgiven her for that.

“I guess I did say a bunch of insubordinate things to you when we fell apart, so…”

If it had been about insubordination, I couldn’t have taken you as my warrior in the first place. You were always insubordinate, from day one. You were grieving, and I should have been there and stood with you. And what you said was true. I was wrong to leave you, and I wish every day that I hadn’t. I cannot change what happened, only apologize that it did.

He could hear the plea in the background, the quiet asking for forgiveness.

He had thought about forgiving her a lot on Ogygia. He thought he would if only she stepped in now, helped him now, because he had been so desperate. He hadn’t really expected to be asked to in the first place, been more ready to apologize himself because in the end, he was the one who needed her help.

Now, however, for the first time in so many years, he saw her how he had when he was younger, not as the goddess but as his mentor, his-

Telemachus said you called me your friend when talking to him. He couldn’t say that part out loud. Did you?

He was looking at her, catching another tear forming and running down her cheek.

Yes. I realized way too late what an honor it was to be called yours.

Odysseus didn’t speak, his throat was too closed up. He just reached out for Athena’s hand, both still covered in her blood, and held it tightly. Feebly, her fingers closed around his.

Finally, he could get words out, voice husky with emotion.

“Well, if Athena of all people considers me her friend, how could I not consider her mine?”

He saw the hint of a weak smile on her face, but it was broken by something sounding a lot like a sob and then a cough.

“I’ll get something to drink,” Penelope said softly, tousling Telemachus’s hair before she left.

Athena drew a labored breath. Odysseus ran his thumb across her knuckles, still shocked that she didn’t pull away but held on. He waited for a while until her breathing had normalized, or well, more closely to normal anyway.

Still, his mind wandered, trying to piece everything together. If Telemachus had spoken to her roughly two weeks ago, and Hermes had picked him up a little over two weeks…

“Athena? How long have you been… like this? Injured, I mean.”

She shivered.

I don’t know. A few days… when did you call out to me? Because… I heard you… I saw you, on the cliff. I couldn’t let you die, but… I couldn’t get to you, the border around her island is too strong, I needed my father’s permission, so I went… when was that?

He didn’t want to tell her, didn't want it to be real. From the uncertainty in her thoughts, he guessed she had a suspicion.

“That was seventeen days ago. Twelve I needed to get home, I’ve been here for five.”

She inhaled sharply, but quickly controlled herself. Still, he made out the waver in her next thought.

Then seventeen days.

“Styx,” he said quietly.

Athena hummed audibly. Her face did not betray emotion, but her thoughts did, he could feel shock and deep below, a hint of sadness.

Penelope entered with a chalice of wine, offering it to him.

Athena flinched when he reached out to help her lift her head, but made no comment. He knew she probably hated being this vulnerable even more than he hated seeing her like this. She drank eagerly, like she hadn’t had anything in a long time.

Penelope pulled her son close, watching Odysseus with Athena, so gentle, but it was the goddess’s behavior she was surprised by, sure, she was injured, but Penelope didn’t believe the softness in her features came from that, nor the fact that seemingly, after 30 years, it was not only Odysseus who viewed them as friends.

“Let’s let them talk it out,” she said to Telemachus. “You can tell me what happened when you first met her.” And she gently led him onto the balcony.

Chapter Text

Odysseus helped Athena to lean back against the pillows when she was done drinking, feeling the absurdity of this situation starting to sink in.

A goddess is bleeding onto my son’s bed. And not just any goddess, it’s Athena. Athena, whose reply to ‘what do I do if I get hurt’ was, ‘I really think I have trained you better than for you to get yourself hurt’

“How do you feel?” he asked aloud.

Athena scoffed quietly.

Like the boundaries of my immortality should not have stretched this far.

He looked down at her, bandages already staining golden in places and seventeen days, these are seventeen days old already- and sighed.

“Fair. I’m glad they do. Even if it seems absurd…I mean… you flew here, how? Your wing, it’s-“

I had to see you.

Calm, matter-of-fact. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Did… does anybody know you’re here? Apollo, he probably is in charge of medical up there, right?… he can’t have possibly cleared you for this.”

I don’t have to answer to Apollo, Odysseus.

He sighed.

“Why am I not surprised? You should listen to your medic, Athena, he’s not doing it to annoy you.”

Athena looked at him, grey eyes unreadable.

Even if I had been under Apollo’s care, and he had told me not to go, there was no choice to be made. I knew you were on the ocean, surrounded by monsters that want you dead and hunted by my uncle who also wants you dead. I may have persuaded some gods to release you from that cursed island, but they wouldn’t care to shield you. I knew Hermes wouldn’t stick around to protect you either. I will never forgive myself for not being here sooner, because you could have died, and I would not have been there. This body will live, even if I don’t know if and when it will heal. You being my priority is the only logical thing.

He lowered his head, breathing out shakily.

This was worlds from ‘You forget your place, Odysseus!’

“Seems the last ten years have changed us both,” he said, his tone trying and failing to hide the pain he felt at that thought.

Possibly.

“Still, as your friend, I must tell you that even though I am glad to see you, putting this much strain on yourself in this state was not a very smart decision.”

Again, a scoff. He had missed that.

Much of what I recently did qualifies as not a smart decision. I’m getting used to the feeling.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Are cryptic hints all I’m getting about what happened to you or will you tell me?”

She shivered.

There isn’t much to say. My… I did something that angered Zeus.

The noise in the background of her thoughts almost overpowered the consciously sent one. Indistinct voices, and thunder, and at the very forefront, fear, not a thought at all even though it was her mind, there was deep, primal fear in there that he had never felt from her before. The hand she could move clenched into a trembling fist.

Odysseus looked at her for a long moment before he spoke.

“I’ll be honest, I do want to know what happened exactly. I am curious, you trained me to be. But I also think you’d feel better sharing this. You don’t have to do this alone.”

I don’t want to put more on your shoulders, Odysseus. It’s bad enough I crashed into your home like this, after everything I should have helped you with is over.

Odysseus shook his head.

“But that’s not why you’re here. That’s what my mentor might be here for, but that’s not who you are anymore, remember? You’re my friend, so you can let me help you, too.”

She contemplated that for a bit.

It is strange, she said then. It is not a complicated story at all, and yet I don’t seem to know how to tell it.

Odysseus nodded.

“No, that’s not strange at all, I get it. It may not be a complicated story, but it is probably difficult. I struggled telling Penelope and Telemachus parts of my story, too. Honestly, most of it. Maybe… do you remember how you used to show me your memories from old battles and such things so I could see their strategies? Maybe showing will be easier than trying to put it into words.”

Again, Athena hesitated.

Are you sure you want to see this? The gods… we fight in nasty ways, and few kind things were said about you, too.

He nodded, taking her hand again. She was still trembling slightly.

“I can handle it.”

Athena breathed out.

Promise me you’ll tell me to stop if you need to. I don’t want you burdened with this, that won’t make anything better.

“I promise.”

She breathed out again, short and clipped.

Alright then.

Closing his eyes, he could see the images she was sending clearly, he could see her walking up to the gate of a massive palace that bore the insignia of Zeus, a lightning bolt and an oak leaf.

He wasn’t surprised to see her memory from the bird’s eye view, she had explained long ago that she had the ability to show her memories this way as part of her domain was history. In Quick Thought, she could even see memories that weren’t hers.

Athena knocked and the gates swung open. She breathed through before stepping inside. Odysseus felt his chest tighten when she approached the throne where the King of all Gods sat, hair a light grey like a cloud before it starts to rain.

Athena bowed her head.

“Father, King of the Gods, if I may, I rarely ask you for favors, but tonight I fear I must. One of my students, whom I consider my friend, is imprisoned far from home and I hope to gain your approval for his release. Odysseus of Ithaca.”

A low rumble of thunder rolled through the palace as Zeus rose.

Odysseus felt it in the form of a cold shiver.

“Divine intervention?” The King of Olympus growled as he walked over to his daughter, a towering figure over a head taller than her. Well, it wasn’t that he was taller that her in a classical sense, it was like he was more, like a giant looking down upon a human. “That is what you are asking for? To have all his apprehensions hand-waved away?”

“I am merely-“ Athena began, but he cut her off with a curt gesture.

“You of all my children, wise one, I would not have expected to play with thunder for a mortal. Alas, if you truly believe he is worth the risk, why not make it a game? Let us convene in the arena,”- This part was spoken so loudly that Odysseus knew every god on Olympus could hear it- “and your request shall be judged, Athena Koryphagenês.”

The scene changed to a massive structure, clearly the arena in question. Zeus sat in a throne atop a steep set of marble stairs. Athena stood below, waiting.

“Athena has requested the release of the mortal Odysseus,” Zeus thundered. “Here is your challenge. Should you convince the five gods of my choosing or me, he shall be released. Apollo," he called, voice echoing around the arena. In a golden flash, a lean young man with a lyre descended from the ranks and landed in the arena. “Hephaestus!” The god of forging landed with a mechanical thud. “Aphrodite!” In a shower of anemones, the goddess appeared, throwing a kiss toward the ranks. “Ares!” Odysseus shivered slightly at the hulking figure of the war god, so large that he almost reached Zeus’s stature. “and Hera!” The Queen of Olympus regally descended and joined the siblings in the arena.

“Do you accept?” Zeus asked boomingly.

The called-on gods and goddesses bowed their heads in turn with words of agreement. Finally, Zeus’s gaze rested on Athena.

“I accept,” she said, bowing low.

“Then let the game begin.”

The other gods returned to their places, only Apollo remained. His fingers idly touched the strings of his lyre, producing notes unlike anything Odysseus had ever heard. Scales like those of a snake covered parts of his skin like ornaments.

“Alright then,” he said. “Answer me this, sister, how can I be in favor of a mortal’s release if he has silenced the voices of so many sirens? Their songs are part of my domain, which he has thereby violated.”

Athena did not miss a beat.

“You can hardly say that he killed them out of pure malice. They would have devoured every single man on that ship without a second of thought given. Additionally, the sirens have become more and more reckless with each ship that they bring down, and the death of this school will be understood by those who are left. If they are aware of their mortality, they’ll be cautious enough to ensure their survival and that of their songs, so I might even say he’s done your domain a favor in the long run.”

Apollo raised his eyebrow as if he knew perfectly well that last part was nonsense, but then he nodded.

“Good, if that’s true, I vote for his release.”

The siblings slightly bowed their heads to each other, then to Zeus.

Odysseus caught the slight shift in the God King’s hair, just a tad darker than before, like the sky on a day where it might rain, but it also might not.

“Your vote has been heard. Hephaestus!”

The god appeared in Apollo’s place, muscular, one leg replaced from the knee down by an intricate metal machinery that Odysseus suspected was centuries if not millennia ahead of anything mortals could build, if it wasn’t entirely impossible.

“Very well,” Hephaestus said, and viewing it through Athena’s memory, he knew that the god did not want to be here, even less then Apollo had. A tail like that of a donkey trailed behind him, moving slightly as if to get rid of flies, but Odysseus guessed it was a reflexive attempt to shake off the oppressive sensation of thunder in the air. “Trust is an important virtue forged in the trenches of war. I cannot in good conscience lend my support for a man who chose to sacrifice that.”

Odysseus drew a sharp breath, tears forming under his lids. Hephaestus was right. They should not have freed him. He had no idea how Athena would argue with a truth so simple yet unshakeable.

“If they had listened to what Odysseus told them, that choice wouldn’t have had to be made at all,” Athena said. “Odysseus spent decades protecting them and caring for them, and they thanked him his service with lack of trust, disregarding him and even causing a mutiny. If trust was broken, he did not deal the first blow. Being imprisoned, there is no good he can do, but if you make the right decision now, he’ll find his way home and build a future with those who are waiting for him.”

Hephaestus hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

“Fine. Release him.”

Zeus nodded curtly, but he did not seem in the slightest entertained.

“Aphrodite!” he called.

The goddess appeared in the arena even before her name was fully said, playfully walking around Athena who had to turn to keep her eyes on her. Her wings were smaller and fluffier than Athena's, feathers speckled with browns and soft pinks, and constantly in motion.

“Oh, your little warrior, Athena Korie,” she sang, her voice ethereal and yet husky, like a deep perfume. “there you are, pleading, and how could I answer when he did not heed his own mother’s pleas, letting her die of a broken heart?”

“You know as well as me that he did everything he could to not fight in this war!” Athena retorted. “If that’s what you’re mad about, he is not the one to blame.”

“He is the one who spited uncle Poseidon’s child, though.” Aphrodite crossed her arms. “You might have saved him then, but you did not, so now let him feel his mother’s pain and rot on that island.” She turned. “I vote-“

“Wait!” The arena froze into Quick Thought. Athena seemed to fight with herself for a moment, then she bowed her head. “Please, Aphrodite, this is not about me, Odysseus loves his wife and son unwaveringly, please, reconsider.”

“Always the same tricks, Athena,” a roaring voice broke into the stillness of Athena’s realm, and the calm blue was replaced by a violent red, the glass by gusts of sand.

The goddess groaned, putting a hand to her temple.

“As if you’ve got any other ones, Ares!” she spat back before barely dodging a swing of his axe.

Odysseus had seen the siblings fight once before, but being in the trenches himself, he had not gotten a proper look. Ares was clearly much stronger in his own realm, his anger strengthening him and giving Athena less time to parry and outthink him. Black wings, vulture-like and imposing, flared behind him.

“Let the coward deal with his fate, I say,” he boomed. “No warrior worthy of a god’s favor should stand by while his brothers in arms get devoured! Not a second spent trying to kill Scylla!” His next swing almost brought Athena to the ground. “His proudest achievement is hiding inside a giant child’s-toy and cheating his way to Troy’s downfall! No honor, no courage, pathetic and weak, like his son who’s not strong enough to take his own throne!”

Odysseus felt his blood boil at the mention of Telemachus, and as if she heard him, Athena pushed Ares back with a sudden burst of power, Quick Thought flickering back to blue as her wings spread behind her.

“Hold your tongue unless you want it cut!” Athena growled, voice loud and intimidating and yet Odysseus felt a warmth at it, because after all, this was his patron goddess holding her own. “Telemachus is my friend, and I will not allow you to speak about him this way! Tell your love that broken hearts can be healed, and his continued suffering will not bring anyone relief.” Impossibly, she brought Ares to the ground, spear-tip at his throat. “If it’s blood you want, brother, set him free. There are 108 bodies there, only waiting to be slain by Ithaca’s rightful king when he returns for his family.”

For a few agonizing moments the three gods remained perfectly still. Athena silently broke her Quick Thought, bringing the arena back to normal.

Ares and Aphrodite shared a look, then turned to Zeus.

“Release him,” Aphrodite said. Ares nodded. “Yeah, let him go.”

A low rumble of thunder passed through the ranks and Athena looked up, alarmed. Zeus’s hair had grown a full shade darker again, but he only nodded.

“Hera,” he said simply.

Athena clenched her fists slightly when the Queen appeared beside her, peacock feathers trailing behind her like a robe.

“Mortal heroes come and go as the tides do, tales are being written faster than they can be read,” she said, her voice rich and vaguely dangerous. “What makes yours so special that I should concern myself with his fate?”

“He’s got one of the brightest minds of this age,” Athena replied.

“His age will pass like all mortals do. What else?”

“He has a way with words that lacks its equal. He’s the best warrior I have ever trained.” Athena stood straight, firmly keeping eye-contact with Hera.

“Yet, you are the one who speaks for him now. Try again.”

Athena bit her lip briefly, when she spoke, her voice was audibly softer.

“I am quite fond of him. And he… he’s funny… in a way.”

Hera chuckled. “Quite a sweet sentiment, daughter of Zeus. Still, I’m not convinced.”

Athena breathed out.

“He has remained faithful to his wife, the Queen of Ithaca, through all his trials and despite all temptation. They have not seen each other in 20 years and yet, not once has his gaze touched another with desire.”

She held her head high, still, through her memory, Odysseus felt that she was uneasy, that she had not wanted to say this. Hera's tail-feathers ruffled slightly.

She threw a poignant look at her husband before saying with calm authority;

“Release him.”

Looking at Zeus, Odysseus felt his stomach turn. The King’s wings rustled as he rose, feathers black near the bottom like his hair. His black eyes sparkled.

Athena turned around, standing straight.

“I met your conditions, father. I won your game. Set him free.”

In a heartbeat, Zeus was in front of her, grabbing her spear near the tip and pulling her closer to him before throwing it to the ground. Like a vice, his hand closed around her arm, and Odysseus heard the metal of her armguard creaking as it bent.

The air was heavy with the smell of rain around them.

“How dare you!” Zeus’s voice had never sounded more like thunder. Only now Odysseus realized that the god had held back seven years ago. He hadn’t even been particularly mad. “How dare you defy me, child of my mind? What makes you think you have the right to shame me, your king, on the mountain that is my own?” Athena flinched, shaking her head as she tried helplessly to get out of his grip.

“Father, I didn’t mean to-“

“SILENCE!”

Olympus shook with his roar. Odysseus flinched.

“I will show you justice, daughter of Metis, I will teach you not to disrespect your king!”

His hair was pitch black now, but his eyes were blazing with lightning. Odysseus saw raw, honest fear in Athena’s eyes. He couldn’t feel more than echo of her thoughts and feelings in the more detached version of her memory, but he could still tell how much Zeus’s grip hurt.

But that’s her father.

He wanted to take the thought back the second it crossed his mind because he knew she could hear it.

But what else could he think when he saw how lightning gathered in the air around them, and he could hear her soft gasp when a fragment jumped over from Zeus’s hands to her skin, drawing golden blood.

“I am the ultimate judgement call!” White bolts assembled in Zeus’s right, blinding in their intensity. Athena’s eyes darted, to her shield, back to her arm trapped in her father’s grip, and she knew she had no way out. With a sickening realization, Odysseus knew she couldn’t block this blast.

“I am the one who makes your kingdom fall!”

Athena turned her face and closed her eyes.

The strike hit her in the right side, engulfing the arena in light. Yet, he could feel it traveling, bolts slicing into her skin everywhere and even though he didn’t feel a tenth of the pain, it still made him gasp. He could feel the bones in her wrist snap like twigs under Zeus’s fingers.

Zeus still held on to her, his left hand sending smaller bolts up her arm, now covered in golden blood. Athena had slumped over in his grasp, head hanging limply. Olympus gasped when he let go and she dropped to the floor.

“Is she dead?” It was Ares’s voice, but barely audible. Blood was dripping down to the marble way too quickly.

Together with Athena, he was pulled into Quick Thought, dark with clouds and seemingly unraveling at the seams.

He had joined her for a time dive before, he knew how it worked, and she wasn’t supposed to tumble through the ages like this, like she had no control over her own realm.

They landed, impossibly, on Ithaca.

And it was a moment Odysseus remembered, too.

His younger self stepped into the clearing in the forest, carrying baby Telemachus, Penelope at his side.

Athena, the one who had actually been there back then, turned, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey Athena,” young Odysseus said. “I want you to meet our son, Telemachus.”

“And I was wondering why you'd summon me at this time.”

She stepped over to them, taking a vaguely curious look at the baby.

Looking at present-day Athena standing to the side, Odysseus saw she was crying, tears silently running down her face. Even in her mental form, blood covered her arm and side, even if you couldn’t see the wounds.

“Congratulations,” Athena said in the memory. “I’m glad to see everything went well.”

She took a step back when he approached and offered the baby to her.

“We’d like you to hold him,” Odysseus said.

“Hmm.” She didn’t sound too eager, but let her armguards disappear so she wouldn’t hurt him.  Odysseus placed his son in her arms, carefully guiding her hand to support his small head. He smiled at her.

Athena looked down at the small boy when he opened his eyes and looked at her, Penelope’s beautiful green eyes, and he looked up at her, unafraid.

Looking back to the version of Athena whose memory he was watching, he noticed the difference in expressiveness like a punch in the gut.

Thunder rolled through the memory, and it shook, starting to dissolve into fragments of glass.

He heard Athena’s thought, clear as if she was shouting; No!

She reached out her hand toward where the family was standing.

Then they were back in the arena, back with the air crackling with electricity, and Athena opened her eyes, traces of tears on her cheeks and desperate determination in her eyes.

No. No, don’t get up. Just stay down.

She did not listen to him.

Zeus watched his daughter get to her knees, then move back two feet with a hasty flick of her wings. Her right hand hung uselessly at her side.

“Stay.” Zeus said coldly. A rapidly fired bolt sliced through Athena’s wing like a knife through butter before she could move it behind her again. She gasped, losing her balance, barely catching herself with her left arm. Another bolt came at her and she groaned when she instinctively raised both arms to shield herself, arm guards lighting up and shattering from the impact.

The next hit her square in the chest, lifting her briefly before dropping her back down at her father’s feet. Blood ran down her chin.

Zeus lifted up his hand for another strike, but halted when she raised her hand to him pleadingly, gold dripping from them.

“Please, let him go.” Her voice broke. “Please, father, let him go.”

The pictures cut off so abruptly that he didn’t even see her hit the ground.

Suddenly completely back in the present, he felt Athena shaking.

Her face was ashen and tense as violent shivers ran through her body.

She whimpered softly.

Worry pushed back at the shock he felt, and he bowed over her.

“Athena. Athena, what’s wrong?”

Penelope and Telemachus, alerted by his tone, stepped back inside from the balcony.

“What’s the matter?” Penelope asked as she hastily crossed the room.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Athena. Talk to me, please, what’s wrong?”

He could only hear the jumbled fog in her mind, knowing she was trying to form a cohesive sentence and failing.

Penelope frowned.

“She showed you something, didn’t she? I caught that part of what you said. I… Could that have cost her too much strength?”

Odysseus looked at her, helpless, and yet so unbelievably glad to have her, so cool-minded and practical.

“Maybe? I don’t know… none of this usually does.”

“I’m fi-ine…” Athena murmured weakly.

“Yeah, I can tell. Is Penelope right?”

“I’m fine,” she repeated dazedly, whimpering again when Penelope reached out to cover her with another blanket. Her eyes, only half-open, were glassy. She made a weak attempt to lift herself up.

Odysseus cursed his curiosity when he gently but firmly pushed her back down into the pillows. He should have known that this would be taxing, that even something that she had never needed effort before would now be hard, that he should have nudged her to rest rather than to reveal what she had been through.

“Stay down, please. It’s okay. You don’t need to get up. Stay down.”

She groaned softly, reaching for his arm that was pinning her down, but before she reached it her body went limp, sinking back onto the bed.

Odysseus breathed out, letting go of her shoulder.

“Shit.”

He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. Images were hammering in his mind, so much lightning, gods, how had she lived through this?

He remembered Athena’s face when she had told Hera her final argument, then Ares’s words. Is she dead?

He saw Athena get up from the floor of the arena, bleeding and staggering, with no glory to be gained, immortal body all but failing.

Knowing that she had pushed on, that she had done all this, for his family and for him.

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.

Chapter Text

Telemachus returned about an half-hour later, face flushed from running.

“Okay,” he said. “I need to say it all before I forget it. So, you clean the wounds with vinegar or wine, and then you make a salve out of Honey, olive oil and herbs like sage or thyme. He said a bunch of herbs, we have most of them in the garden, chamomile, garlic-“ He frowned, thinking for a second. “Majoram. Symphytum, too.“

„We don’t have that in the garden, but it grows in the clearing in the woods,” Odysseus said with a nod.

“He said that additionally to putting it on the wounds, it helps to put herbs in tisanes and soup. Theo said there’s really not enough herbs you can put into a person when they’re really hurt.” He smiled a little.

“Theo, huh?” Penelope teased lovingly. Telemachus grinned.

“What? He’s nice. He didn’t even bat an eye when I brought up the lightning.”

“No, I’m glad you got along.” Penelope smiled. “Why don’t you go gather the herbs from the garden and wash them, I’ll go to the cellar to get the rest.”

Telemachus nodded and the two left Odysseus alone with Athena.

The man sighed, taking a closer look at her so he would know what wounds to address. He didn’t like anything he saw, knowing that her immortality was the only reason that there was hope for her to get better at all, but unsure if it would go quicker or more slowly than for a mortal.
Looking at her broken wrist, he was reminded of the war, he’d seen something like this, from a fighter even more stubborn than himself who’d thought that a broken bone would heal on its own. It had, in a way, but wrong, and in the end the bone had to be rebroken.
To Athena’s credit, he doubted that it had been stubbornness this time that had made her leave her wrist alone, she had not had any way to set it properly if she had had no way of bandaging her wounds. His stomach twisted at the thought, because it meant she had to have been pretty much immobile for the last couple of weeks, because surely she’d have some instinct how to take care of herself even if she had never needed to before. And still, she had flown here. For him.

Sparing a glance at her face, still and almost peaceful in unconsciousness, he decided that if her wrist had to be rebroken, it was better done now while she didn’t have to feel the pain.

He’d spent so many years in his youth reaching out to her, stealing little gestures of affection and nearness, and yet now he hated that she didn’t move away when he reached for her hand, hated that she was so vulnerable outside of her control.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, twisting her wrist in a quick sharp motion.

Nothing happened. The resistance was way stronger than it should have been.

Odysseus grimaced before he tried again, putting more of his weight into it, but nothing.

He supposed it was not exactly a surprise that gods’ bones were stronger than mortal ones, but it was not a welcome realization.

Athena groaned, wincing. He let go of her arm as she hissed with pain.

“Sorry,” he said. She blinked, looking at him.

I passed out again, didn’t I?

“Yeah. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that showing me would cost you so much effort. You could have stopped, you know?”

She hummed quietly.

I don’t exactly know my limitations at this time either.

“Well, if you feel like you’re about to pass out, stop what you’re doing and rest, that should help.”

She scoffed, but didn’t protest.

Odysseus grimaced.

“Question, could it be that your bones are stronger than a mortal’s? Significantly?”

She frowned.

They are. It has something to do with me being able to fly, it makes my bones lighter, but the strength compensates to prevent injuries. Why?

He almost smiled at the longer answer, she’d always liked to explain things. Unfortunately for him, asking for an explanation had never meant she gave him a break from training since she never got out of breath.

“Your wrist… it started healing together. But I think because of your arm guards being bent, it got fixed in place wrong. I have to align the bone properly before it can heal right, so it needs to be rebroken.”

She nodded.

Go ahead.

“That’s the thing. I can’t.”

I can handle it. If it has to be done-

“No, you don’t understand. I mean I physically can’t. I don’t have the strength. I tried just now, and the bond should still be very fragile, but it doesn’t budge at all.”

A short pause.

“That explains why it hurts more now,” Athena said aloud, voice strained and raspy. “Alright then.”

She lifted herself up a bit shakily, sitting on the bed and taking a closer look at her arm.

“Yeah, you’re right, this doesn’t look good.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’ll do it.”

“Athena, you…”

She met his gaze.

“I doubt the pain will be significantly worse than it is now.”

He swallowed hard, but there was nothing he could say to stop her without a better way.

Athena hissed when she closed her left hand around her wrist, eyes tearing up with pain. She drew a few breaths, gathering her strength, then closed her eyes and moved her hand in a quick brutal twist, feeling the bone snap again under her fingers.
A mixture of a groan and stifled scream escaped her throat.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” Odysseus’s hands on her shoulders, gently holding her upright. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t do this for you.”

“It’s okay,” she managed, and for a moment, she wanted to lean into him, just draw some strength from his nearness as the pain spiked through her arm. She hadn’t realized how much the pain had faded in the past two weeks.

“I’ll splint it right now, okay, after that, it can heal properly.”

She hummed in agreement, sitting slumped over, dizzy with pain.

The door was opened, and Penelope entered, closely followed by Telemachus. The young man grinned at her.

“You’re awake again!”

She managed a weak smile.

“Seems like it.”

“We’ve got a bunch of stuff that’ll help you.” He held up a cloth filled with herbs.

“If you’re not careful, Apollo might make you his champion,” she teased, trying to ignore the sting the words caused.

“That would be cool, but I want to be yours.” Telemachus smiled.

She felt a heaviness in her chest not caused by her injuries.

“That’s not for me to decide, Telemachus. Your parents have a say in that.”

Odysseus looked at her, surprised.

“We’ll discuss that when you’re back on your feet,” he said then before sitting down and quickly and skillfully tying a long piece of wood to her arm to stabilize it. The pain momentarily overwhelmed the anxiety she felt at his unclear answer, she didn’t want a rejection he already knew would be voiced hanging over her until he saw fit to deliver the blow.

She didn’t object. If he wanted to make her wait, that was only fair. She’d let him wait for ten years, after all.

“This will burn,” Odysseus said, dipping a piece of cloth into the vinegar. “But it’s gotta be cleaned. I’ll be as careful as I can.”

“Let me do it,” she said, feeling a spike of hope of getting to take charge of her body again.

Odysseus looked at her quizzingly, then handed her the cloth.

“You know that warriors usually don’t have to treat their own wounds, right?”

She only nodded, biting her lip as the acidic liquid touched her skin, sizzling in her wounds. She felt nauseous from the smell and the pain, but refused to show weakness, at least on the outside she wanted to be strong.

Odysseus watched her for a little before he caught her hand.

“Stop. You’re being too rough.”

“It’s fine-“

“No, it isn’t. Why are you doing that? You used to be gentle about my scrapes when I was a child, remember?”

“Well, I am not a child,” she snapped, hating that this simple argument was enough to make her heart beat faster, she just wanted this gone, tear the weakness out of her bones, and she hadn’t wanted to be cold toward him again. She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry. What I mean is, I do not need to be coddled.”

Odysseus scoffed, shaking his head and taking the cloth from her hand. For a second, she wanted to cling to it, refuse to let go of this little bit of control, but of course she let him.

“It’ll hurt enough being careful,” he said. “No need to make it worse.”

He was right, it did hurt.

She sat still, teeth clenched and not making a sound as he cleaned the wounds on her arm, traveling up to her shoulder and neck. She flinched when he touched her face.

“Sorry.”

She focused her eyes on the wall beyond him, trying to ground herself elsewhere, she didn’t know how to deal with her racing heart in any way but to leave this situation, she longed for Quick Thought and knew she couldn’t go there.

Vinegar burned on her cheek, feeling like acidic tears.

Odysseus threw a worried look at Athena. He didn’t like how spaced out she looked. There was something so defeated in her empty gaze that made his gut twist.

“Athena?”

She flinched, eyes flashing to him.

“Yes?”

“You okay?”

She hummed in confirmation. Somehow, he was not convinced.

“I’m gonna have to remove the bandage around your chest and cut your chiton a little to reach the wounds there, okay?”

She tensed up, instinctively curling up some.

“Just as far as I absolutely have to.” He did feel for her, he knew what feeling helpless was like, but he also knew her wounds had to be treated.

She didn’t say anything, just untied the knot keeping the bandage in place and unraveled the cloth. He offered a reassuring smile but got none in return.

The fabric of her chiton, golden with ichor and blackened from where the lightning had struck, clung to her body, and she pulled it free before Odysseus could tell her to be careful. Fresh blood ran over her fingers.

He sighed.

“Gods, Athena, can you not deduce from other people’s injuries that you’ve seen how you’re supposed to treat yourself right now? Mainly, gently?”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head before carefully wiping away the ichor from the wound and then handed her a piece of cloth.

“Press down on the wound, would you?”

He worked around her fingers pressing the cloth to the wound, noticing that she was trembling slightly. He wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or discomfort.

“We’re done,” Telemachus said, bringing over a bowl of a sweet-smelling salve. “It probably tastes really good,” he added with a grin.

“Thank you,” Odysseus said, smiling. “I’m almost done cleaning, too.”

“Does it hurt a lot?” Telemachus asked Athena, compassion in his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, little wolf.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She felt a weary smile creeping onto her face.

“There really is no question about who your parents are.”

“Still, not an answer.” His eyes sparkled with mischief.

Odysseus snorted. She threw him a look.

“Alright. Yes, it does hurt. Are you happy now?”

“Happy you told the truth, not happy about the truth itself,” the young man replied.

She almost told him that he had the making of a warrior of the mind, but stopped herself. Odysseus might consider a comment like that overstepping.

“Wise answer, son,” Odysseus said affectionately and Telemachus beamed.

Athena hissed softly when he applied the salve to her side, it burned much less than the vinegar had, but somehow that made the pain stand out more. At least it smelled a lot better. A shiver ran down her spine when Odysseus carefully wrapped a bandage around her torso, doing his best not to touch her too much. Being grateful for it made her feel pathetic. Logically, none of this should have been an issue. Even if he had meant to hurt her physically which didn’t seem to be the case, it shouldn’t have mattered since he couldn’t do her any real harm, and considering him to look at her differently, Odysseus, husband of  Penelope, was absurd. So why was it that her heart was beating so painfully fast with fear whenever his fingers brushed against her skin?

She shivered again, more violently this time. She was cold.

Odysseus didn’t comment as he tied off the bandage.

“Could you lie down?” he asked then. “That’ll make things easier for me.”
It was a lie, and not even a good one, he wouldn’t have attempted it if she’d been more present, but as things stood, he wasn’t too surprised when she simply obeyed, though he still hated the fact that she did. Even if he wanted her to rest for her own sake, it didn’t feel right to be able to fool her this easily.

She didn’t make another sound as he applied the ointment to her wounds and bandaged them.

The wounds were so deep. It wasn’t surprising, but no less painful to see.

A knock on the door made them all start.

Penelope opened, facing Eurycleia again.

“I wanted to ask if you wish to have dinner downstairs or whether I should bring it up.”

Penelope looked back to Odysseus, who gestured at the room, but Athena’s voice cut in before she could tell Eurycleia.

Don’t. Please. You don’t have to watch me, have a normal meal, as a family.

Odysseus got up from the bed, a smile in the corner of his mouth.

“Bring it up, please,” he told Eurycleia. “We’ll all eat together.”

Athena looked crestfallen, lowering her gaze. Telemachus sat down next to her.

“That’ll be nice,” he said. “Our cook is great.”

She sighed.

“I should not have come here like this,” she said, voice almost toneless. “You… you three have so much to catch up on.”

“We’re having a family meal still,” Odysseus said with a shrug. “No need to stress about it.”

“I would go,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “But I don’t think flying to Olympus is an option I have right now.”

“Oh, you think?” Odysseus raised his eyebrows. “Color me shocked.”

“I am by no means an expert on godly anatomy,” Penelope added, firmly but with a gentle tone. “But I believe your body is trying to tell you to rest quite loudly. Please consider yourself our guest until you’re properly healed.”

Odysseus nodded in agreement.

Athena looked away.

“That’s very kind of you. I am really sorry to impose in this way.”

“Athena.” Odysseus lifted up his hand. “It’s fine. The gods know, or well, it seems like at least you do not know, that I wanted to invite you over my entire childhood, so why don’t you take it as that?”

Her apprehension was almost palpable, but she nodded, defeated.

The food was good, but Athena ate little. If she had been asked, she would have said immortals didn’t technically have to eat, even if the truth of the matter was that they usually still did every couple of days.

She half-listened to Odysseus and Penelope discussing what would have to be done for the kingdom in the following days and pretended she didn’t see the worried glances intermittently thrown her way. She didn’t want them to worry, didn’t want them to see her hands shaking, she was so tired, but she’d slept earlier, so it really was ridiculous.

“What have you done with Athena?” Odysseus teased. “You haven’t given your opinion on our little mortal schemes once.”

Her body betrayed her with a shiver.

What had she done to Athena, indeed.

“Well, I am surrounded by smart people, so I have little to object to.”

Penelope chuckled.

“Would you listen to said smart people about taking a rest?” Odysseus asked. “Cos you’re looking very pale.”

“I am resting,” she replied, refusing to admit how much she felt her energy draining just from sitting up, she knew how far her body could be pushed naturally, training to the point of exhaustion especially in her youth, and this was not how it was supposed to be.

“I take that as a no.” But he didn’t press her on it further.

“May I tell you about what happened while you were gone?” Telemachus asked brightly. “It was quite something.”

“Of course.”

She managed a smile when he sat down to her left, folding her good wing slightly to give him more space.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be on the balcony if you need us,” Penelope said as she pulled Odysseus along.

Telemachus grinned at the goddess.

“So, after you left, I thought it would be smart if I took some initiative, you know, change something about our situation myself. I thought you would probably know where to find me if you tried, so-“

Athena felt herself relax slightly. Odysseus had been quite cordial with her, much more so than she deserved, but a part of her didn’t trust the peace. Maybe he didn’t want to be too harsh while he perceived her as weaker.

Telemachus on the other hand seemed completely unchanged from when she had last seen him, if anything, his step was lighter.

There was something so fundamentally good about this kid, way too good for a champion of yours, so she found herself believing that he really didn’t hold a grudge even after learning what she’d done to his father, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that he really should have.

“… I’ve kind of decided that ships aren’t really for me, but it was nice getting to see another island, anyway…”

She just listened to him, occasionally humming in response, she wanted to engage more but his voice was strangely soothing and she had to focus really hard just to stay attentive. If he minded, he didn’t say so.

“… Nestor told me about the wooden horse, I’d heard about it before from Menelaos when he visited us years ago, but Nestor is a much better storyteller, and I guess he understood I wanted to know what Dad was like…”

Telemachus lowered his voice some more. He could tell that Athena was still trying to listen, but her posture said clearly that she was starting to fall asleep.

He wondered if she was tired ‘only’ due to her injuries, or if he had been right to assume a few weeks ago that she’d not slept in a long while. If a human told you “maybe then, I could find sleep at night” you naturally thought they were sleeping some, just not well, but with her, he'd suspected that didn’t apply. He’d wondered how long she’d been restless before revealing herself to him.

He was talking in little above a whisper now, hearing her breathing, a little too shallow but regular. He didn’t move, watching her sleep deepen and her features relax some.

He let the story trail off before his ship arrived back on Ithaca, somewhat glad he didn’t have to put into words how helpless he had felt before his father had stepped in to save him and his mother from the suitors.

He'd have thought she wouldn’t understand that feeling, but even without seeing what she had showed Dad, he suspected she very much did now. Apparently, even someone as strong as her had nothing on the Thunderbringer.

He looked up when his parents quietly re-entered the room.

“Would you look at that,” Odysseus said in a low voice. “The goddess listened to reason after all.”

“More of a bedtime story, I reckon,” Penelope said fondly. “What you don’t yet know, Odysseus, is that our son is not afraid to use that magic voice of his. He’s helped me just like this in many a sleepless night.”

Odysseus smiled.

“And here I thought I didn’t need more reason to be proud.”

Telemachus blushed, beaming.

He got up carefully as not to wake Athena, and went to hug his mother, feeling his heart jump with joy when his father wrapped his arms around them both.

Chapter Text

For a few moments, she was lost in the void, not knowing where she was or how she got there, only offering made by her sluggish mind being that it wasn’t the arena, that at least she wasn’t back there.

Athena blinked, feeling breaths rattling in her chest as she waited for her blurry vision to adjust.

Ithaca.

Right.

She’d made it to Ithaca.

Breathing out shakily, she felt the heaviness of her body, limbs throbbing, chest feeling as if a stone was resting on top of it, making every breath a challenge.

Best it had been in two weeks.

A sound made her jump, turning her head to see Odysseus in a chair beside the bed, one leg dangling over the armrest, gods he still sits like this after all this time, head resting on one arm. He was looking tired even in sleep.

She swallowed hard. Here he was, alone, when he was finally back in the same place as his family.

Careful not to make a noise, she lifted herself up into a sitting position, fighting against the dizziness. She shivered.

Feeling a cough coming up, she held her breath, fighting the sound. She tasted ichor in her throat, unable to prevent a small gasp for air.

Odysseus jumped, eyes snapping open.

Athena coughed painfully, cursing her body silently before she wiped her mouth, finally being able to breathe again.

“Well, that’s mildly concerning,” he commented. “Is that blood?”

She wiped her hand on the remains of her chiton.

“Not much. It’s fine. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Odysseus grimaced. She got the impression he was annoyed.
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to sleep in the first place. How are you feeling?”
Still terrified for no reason. Still weak and useless.
“I’m fine. I didn’t mean to fall asleep either.”
“It probably was good you did, anyway. You were out so quickly, you must have been really tired.”
She knew nothing to say to that, knowing he was right and not wanting to admit it. Weak.
Odysseus frowned, concern in his gaze.
“Are you really okay, Athena?”
She nodded, but a shiver ran through her body, making her grip the sheets. The room was way cooler than it should have been at this time of year.
Odysseus got up, reaching out a hand, but stopped when she backed away.

“Sorry. My bad. I should have explained. Are you cold?”

She contemplated lying for a second, then nodded.

“Can I check your temperature?” he asked.

She looked at him, confused, but she supposed it made sense that if he wasn’t cold, maybe her temperature was off. She nodded slightly.

She did her best not to show the shudder when his hand touched her forehead.

“Oh,” Odysseus said, grimacing. “Yeah, alright, I figured.”

“How are you not freezing?” she asked, goosebumps travelling up her arms. “You’re ice-cold.”

He shook his head. “No, not really. It just feels that way cos you’ve got a fever. And not exactly a mild one either.”

She sat still for a few seconds.

“Hmm,” she said then. “Add that to the list of things I didn’t know could happen.” Her sarcasm sounded strained, but he was glad it was there.

“That makes two of us. Honestly, I noticed yesterday you were feeling a bit warm but I thought my hands were just cold.”

He reached out behind her to get the blanket, and she hissed when he accidentally touched her wing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. Speaking of, though, I think your wing needs stitches. Or well, probably it needs way more than that, but stitches is the best I can do.”

She threw a look at her wing, crudely held together by a sling of cloth, and sighed.

“What do you want me to do?”

He bit his lip briefly.

“Lie down. I’m thinking about the how, though… No, I think it’s fine. Just lie down normally.”

She frowned but obeyed.

Odysseus put a small tray with supplies on the bedside table, she couldn’t quite see what it was from her position. She hissed when he touched the bandage and moved the feathers around it. Her wing involuntarily jerked at the pain.

“I am really sorry,” Odysseus said. “I read up on wing anatomy last night, so I have some idea what I’m doing. I should have prioritized that probably. Careful now.”

She groaned through her teeth. Odysseus cursed when her wing spasmed again.

“Sorry,” she panted. “I’m not… I’m trying to hold still.”

“I know. It’s not your fault. I’ll have to hold it down more, okay?”

She made a sound of confirmation, feeling a tremor run through her entire body. She hated that her wing did this, as if it wasn’t bad enough that it didn’t work.

She stifled another groan with her hand.

“Put your weight into it,” she gasped.

“I don’t want to hurt-“

“Odysseus!” she snapped, feeling a faint echo of her usual power. It was partly comforting, yet filled her with dread. “Not the time. Press down.”

Odysseus struggled with her wing for a little, cussing every few seconds, then let go.

“Not a chance,” he said. “I have no idea where that power even comes from, that wing should not be able to move, but there we are. Maybe if I sat on top of it, I might be able to keep it in place. But not on the bed.”

She blinked away the treacherous tears of pain that had formed in her eyes and looked at him.

“Floor, then?” she asked.

He hesitated, then nodded and offered her a hand. She almost took it on reflex before lifting herself up on her own, trying not to think about the fact that she hadn’t been on her feet in this form in over two weeks.
Her steps were unsteady, but fortunately there was enough space just a little beyond the bed so she could get to her knees before her legs gave out and forced her to. Her injured wing felt like it was about to fully rip when Odysseus carefully got behind her to support it, easing the pain ever so slightly. Athena lay back down on her back, eyes fixed on the ceiling that had been crudely painted to look like a blue sky with clouds. She had taken a brief look back then, seeing Odysseus precariously perched on a ladder for this project for his then unborn son, and had decided she would not involve herself with this. She had stuck around to make sure he didn’t break his neck, though. And yes, she had put a spell on the paint so it wouldn’t wither, which was why it still looked crisp twenty-one years later.

“Here goes nothing,” Odysseus said, as he knelt down, legs fixing her wing in place, and she groaned with pain and the feeling of being stuck, fighting against the overwhelming wish to push him off even though she knew he meant to help.

“I know, this sucks.” His voice was so compassionate, so pained for her sake, making her throat close up. “But it works. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Her flesh burned when he pushed the tear closed, as if the two halves had forgotten they should be together. The needle piercing her skin barely even registered.

Odysseus breathed out in relief.

“Oh, by Styx! I was afraid your skin would be too strong for my measly mortal needle too.”

She couldn’t speak verbally, but her thoughts just managed to be coherent.

That’s one of Penelope’s needles, isn’t it?

“Yes, why?”

I did strengthen those back in the day. She was working with a tough fabric, so… that needle isn’t fully mortal.

He paused briefly, looking at her.

“That’s… does she know about that?”

I’d say no, but it’s Penelope we’re talking about, so she might have figured it out .

A smile crept onto his face.

“Good point. Still, that was nice of you to do.”

She didn’t say anything to that, what did something this small matter in the scope of her failures?

She felt a shiver coming and forcefully held still, muscles tensing. Odysseus threw her a small worried look, but continued to suture the wound.

Athena’s vision blurred, and for a while not much existed beyond the burning in her wing and the ice in her veins.

“You still with me?” Odysseus asked.

She hummed in confirmation.

“Almost done. Gods, this must be excruciating, I’m really sorry.”

“…s’fine,” she mumbled.

“Saying that a lot doesn’t make it true, you know?”

He dabbed a piece of cloth in some oil before carefully wrapping it around the wound and covering it with a bigger bandage, doing his best to balance tightness with some level of comfort.

He grimaced, seeing beads of sweat on Athena’s brow, cheeks flushed, grey eyes vacant. He didn’t have to check again to know her fever was getting worse.

“Athena?”

She looked at him tiredly.

“I’m done now. Time to get you back to bed. I can… I can carry you if you want.”

He wasn’t exactly surprised when she forced herself into a sitting position, shakily getting to her feet. She stood for a second, swaying, then staggered forward.

He got her left arm around his shoulders before her knees gave out.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

He had never had the opportunity to notice that she really was surprisingly light until yesterday, when he had noted that he could have carried her on his own even though she was taller than him.

Athena groaned softly, struggling to stay on her feet even as she was leaning on him. Her uninjured wing slightly hit his back as she tried to balance with it.

Her skin was burning where it touched his.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No, don’t worry. Two more steps and you can sit down. I’ve got you.”

He hated that he couldn’t support her fully, arm around her waist to keep her upright, because he’d have to hold on directly where the wounds were worst, instead just barely touching her back as she stumbled and finally reached the bed, dazedly letting him help her to sit.

She was shivering like it was the dead of winter, teeth chattering as she wrapped her working arm around herself.

Odysseus bowed down to look at her.

“Hey. Athena?”

Her eyes flickered to him, tears brimming in them.

“I want you to lie down, okay? I’m gonna get some stuff to cool you down some. You’re burning up really bad.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t… have t-to worry. It’ll pass. It al-always does.”
Odysseus felt his stomach turn.

“What do you mean by that?”

“The… sh-sh-“ She broke off the stutter, finishing the sentence silently. The noise behind her thoughts was dull and sluggish, making it hard to focus on her words.

The shaking. It comes… in waves. It’ll get better again after a while.

He cut off their mental connection in time to spare her the image his mind produced, of her violently trembling in a cold, dark room, alone.

“Well, regardless,” he said aloud. “I’m sure we can make this a little less uncomfortable. I’ll be right back, alright, just stay here.“

“Odysseus?” Her hand weakly caught his arm. “I’m sorry…I should be… stronger…”

“Athena, you’re very, very hurt. It’s not your fault that your body acts accordingly. This really isn’t about strength. Please, just rest and wait till I come back, okay?”

She nodded, letting him go.

He didn’t feel good about leaving her alone, there was so much off about her right now and he couldn’t even begin to predict what the goddess of wisdom would do now that a fever was clouding her mind. Clearly, caring about her own well-being was not a high-ranking option.

“Ody?” He didn’t turn before Penelope’s arms wrapped around him from behind and he melted into her embrace. She smelled so much like home.

“Have you slept well?” he asked.

Penelope hesitated for a second.

“No. It’ll be a while before I can without you beside me, I reckon.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Pen. I just didn’t… feel comfortable leaving her alone in a state like this.”
“I know, and I agree,” she said gently. “We made this decision together, so let’s not let it cause us to start lying to one another. You asked me how I slept, and I told you, it’s nothing more than that.”

He smiled, turning around to kiss her.

“My wonderful, smart wife,” he said. “You are right as always.”

She smiled back before cocking her head slightly.

“You need to start wearing an apron if you can’t keep your chiton clean,” she said then. “Eurycleia will not be happy with you.”

Odysseus looked down at the gold-stained fabric.

“What’s going on?” Penelope asked.

He gestured her to come along, remembering what he had been doing.

“I fixed her wing,” he said. “Kind of, at least. But she’s running a pretty high fever.”

Penelope grimaced.

“I suppose that’s not too surprising. What are you getting?”

“Cold water to hopefully get her temperature down, and another blanket, because she's freezing.”

His wife nodded.

“Alright, you do that, and I’m going to the kitchen and brew up a tisane, the more herbs the better, as Telemachus’s new friend said so wisely.”

Odysseus nodded, stealing another kiss before they went for their tasks for helping the goddess in their home.

Chapter Text

Being alone shouldn’t have mattered.

Athena knew perfectly well that she had handled -apparently fever-induced- spikes like this alone before, and it hadn’t killed her either.

The room seemed to be closing in around her, making her breaths come in short gasps.

She was still sitting, good arm wrapped around her chest, unprotected without her armor, and felt her heart racing against her fingers.

Another cough shook her body, and she doubled over, straining for air. A drop of ichor fell down onto her leg.

Knowing there was no-one there for the moment, Athena allowed a soft whimper to escape her mouth before attempting to shake her hair away from her face and being rewarded with a pounding behind her temples bad enough to shoot black dots through her vision.

Weakly, she used her left to pull herself further onto the bed, more collapsing than lying down, aching to her very bones, Odysseus’s face flashed before her eyes, so worried, he shouldn’t be worried, making her throat close up. She willed her body to move, to turn around, her injured wing complaining when she pulled it on top of her, feathers covering her body as she pulled in her legs. She’d always slept like this, ever since coming to Olympus, and she had vowed to never let anyone see her this way, curled up into herself to feel safe like that wasn’t a deeply illogical notion beneath the strength of her mind.
Athena supposed right now very little actually mattered to her beyond desperately hoping that she wouldn’t wake up to the floor of her palace, having imagined coming here after all.

She shivered violently, feeling her teeth chattering as her fingers gripped a handful of feathers, twinging pain grounding her a little.

“…thena?” The sudden noise made her pull out two feathers on accident. She groaned when a hand touched her shoulder.

“Athena, can you hear me?”

“Hmm?” she managed, followed by a few gasping breaths.

Odysseus stood above her, feeling her shoulders heave with labored intakes of air. She looked so vulnerable with her wing wrapped around her like a blanket, and by the gods, he understood the feeling, but she clearly couldn’t breathe properly like this.

“You gotta turn around, Athena.”

She whimpered softly.

Odysseus grimaced, then carefully turned his friend onto her back, gently laying her wing beside her. She mumbled something that he didn’t have to understand to get that she was very unhappy about this. Her eyes had somehow gotten more glassy while he had been gone.

“I know, I’m sorry. No, Athena, don’t-“ -She was weakly trying to turn back around- “I know you don’t like this, but you have to trust me. I’m not trying to hurt you, I just want you to be able to breathe, yeah?”

He dipped a cloth into the cool water he’d brought, wiping the sweat off her brow and placing the damp fabric on her forehead. She breathed out, shivering slightly, eyes fluttering and closing, but she eased up a little.

“Yeah, that’s better, isn’t it?”

Penelope entered quietly with a smoking pot of tea.

“Just a few minutes until it cools a bit,” she said, then looked at Athena with compassion. "Oh dear. Infection?"

Odysseus shook his head. “I don’t know yet. Probably. Apparently it’s been going on for a while.”

He turned back to the goddess.

“I’ll take a look at your wounds, okay? I need to re-dress them, and I want to make sure none of them got worse.”

She didn’t protest, expression twisting in trying not to betray her discomfort.

She never was scared of touch. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t like this. Is this really all because of Zeus?

Athena turned her face away when he started removing the cloth around her arm, stained with her blood. At least the salve they had made had stopped the fabric from sticking to the wounds.

It had been stupid of him not to consider that her wounds were likely infected after getting no care for so long. He really wasn’t at the top of his game.

Athena moved slightly when he carefully dabbed away some of the blood, in the characteristic fashion of someone who's in pain but refuses to fully show it. Her lower arm looked largely fine, or rather, not terribly infected at least, but further up the wounds seemed to be almost glowing, and a clear liquid was mixing with the ichor lazily oozing out of them. He supposed that was the godly equivalent ‘not how it’s meant to look’.

“I’ll have to disinfect those again, Athena,” he said.

She hummed weakly in response, but it sounded a lot like a whimper. She shivered, and he put the blanket around her, leaving her arms uncovered so he could reach them. He saw a tear running down her cheek when he bowed over her.

“Can you tell me what hurts right now?” he asked gently.

The mental reply he got was even more disorderly than before, consisting mainly of images and feelings rather than words. The overall sentiment was ‘pretty much everything’.

“Yeah, I thought so. You’ll be okay. Try to sleep some, yeah? No need to endure it more than you absolutely have to.”

She shook her head ever so slightly, another tear escaping and running down her cheek. He wanted to wipe it away, but he knew it would not register as kindness.

She flinched when he took care of her wounds, breaths hitching with suppressed pain. He decided to move treating her side to later, instead taking the cup of tea from Penelope and carefully lifting his friend’s head a little to help her drink. He wasn’t feeling good about how much support she needed with it compared to yesterday.

“Careful now,” he said quietly.

A sliver of shimmering gold mixed in with the light brown of the tisane as Athena drank in small sips. Odysseus smelled chamomile and valerian, guessing his wife had purposefully made the mixture have calming properties, and he hoped that it would be enough to make Athena sleep. How bad her fever really was, was guesswork, but given she couldn’t even articulate herself in her thoughts, his guess was ‘very bad’, and the more she slept through it, the better.

He replaced her cloth on her forehead, and tucked her in more. They’d have to address the fact that her chiton was burnt and bloody, but he didn’t have the heart to do it now when her mind was so clearly clouded and fear pounded at its forefront. He didn’t want her to feel as helpless as he had in the past seven years, even if his intentions were good.

The door was opened, and Telemachus stepped inside, hair still wild from sleeping, he’d taken up residence in what had once been Ctimene’s childhood bedroom for now. He looked at Athena compassionately before giving his mother a hug.

“Hey there, little wolf,” Penelope said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mostly.” He smiled. “I slept in a bit, though.”

Another knock on the door interrupted them.

Penelope opened the door, seeing a messenger, she thought his name might be Podargos.

“My Queen.” He bowed low, and a cynical part of her thought he was doing it extra carefully, like everyone had done for the past weeks. “We’ve got a bit of a situation in the courthouse, I’ve been asked to request the King, or you, of course, to help us out.”
“Someone will be over in a few minutes,” Penelope said without missing a beat. “Thank you for your message.” She gave him a coin in exchange and he hurried off. Penelope closed the door, meeting Odysseus’s eyes.

“They want me, right?” he asked. She nodded.

“I bet some people are trying to get some kingly verdict now that you’re back. I swear, if it’s Laios with his sheep again, I might murder him.”

“I’ll bring my bow then.” Odysseus smiled thinly. “But, Pen, I don’t know if I can do this on my own… I don’t want to accidentally reverse one of your verdicts if someone believes my word counts more than yours, and I have no idea what’s been going on here…”

“You can both go,” Telemachus said. “I’ll stay here and make sure Athena’s okay, don’t worry.”

Odysseus patted his son’s shoulder.

“You’re a good kid, little wolf. Thank you.”

“No problem, dad.” Telemachus blushed with excitement.

Odysseus bowed over Athena again.

“Athena?”

Nothing. Her breathing was shallow, but regular. Tisane had done its magic after all.

“Alright,” he said to Telemachus. “Her fever is pretty high, so change that cloth every once a while, yeah? And watch-“

“Odysseus,” Penelope interrupted gently. “Some trust. He knows.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Telemachus smiled, taking a seat beside the bed, pulling up his legs.

“I cannot in good conscience tell you we’ll be back soon,” Penelope said with an eyeroll. “You know how needlessly long this always takes.”

“No worries. I know how to keep busy.”

Telemachus got his woodcarving tools when his parents had left, starting a new project as practise. Maybe his father would have time to teach him soon, but until then he would contend with his own skill-level.

After a few minutes, he replaced the cloth on Athena’s forehead, feeling how warm her skin was under it. She looked somehow more tired than she had yesterday.  

He thought about what had happened to her, his father hadn’t recounted it yesterday, but Telemachus wasn’t dumb. He understood that Athena had spoken to Zeus about the release of his dad, and somehow, the situation had escalated to a lightning bolt to her face. Did it even matter what exactly the reason had been? He’d always guessed Zeus had to love his children a lot, since he had so many, but who’d want to cause anyone he loved pain? Had Athena known her father would do something like this, or did she feel betrayed on top of it all? He hoped she knew she could still share how she felt if she wanted. He hoped she knew they’d keep her safe

He worked silently for a while, thinking about this and that, until Athena next to him groaned and moved.

He got up, smiling at her.

“Hey there.”

She gasped, trying to lift herself up from the bed. He didn’t hold her down, instead he took her hand into his own.

“Athena. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

She looked at him, grey eyes appearing almost black.

“Telemachus?”

He realized it was the first time she had addressed him by his first name.

“That’s me,” he said brightly. “Mom and Dad are at the courthouse. You don’t have to get up, it’s all good. Do you need anything?”

She shook her head slightly, but she did lie back down. He took the cloth from her forehead, dampening it with fresh water before putting it back and getting up to get the half-empty cup, filling it up.

He sat down on the bed beside her, to her left, and she folded her left wing a little clumsily to make room.

“You should drink some more. It really helps to drink a lot when you’re sick.”

She quietly let him help her prop herself up and drink.

“How are you now?” he asked, putting the cup away.

She hesitated, then sighed.

“Dizzy. And my head hurts bad enough, I’d worry I was having a child if I didn’t know better.”

Telemachus frowned “A child?”

She squinted at the sun streaming in from the balcony.

“Don’t you know? I was born from my father’s head. Which is still much less disturbing than how having children normally works.”

He laughed, and she managed a smile, too. Sometimes making light of the insanity of immortal life helped to bear it.

She let her weary gaze wander, seeing Telemachus’s carving tools.

“What were you making?” she asked.

“Oh.” He blushed. “A wolf. It’s not turning out very well, though.”

He showed her the figure, half of it still hidden in the block of wood. Imperfect, crude.

“It has plenty of character,” she said. “And it’s not half-badly made either. Don’t undersell yourself.”

He grinned, then shrugged.

“Dad said he’d show me some techniques. But I guess I wanna practice anyway.”

Athena, knowing plenty of technique herself, and never shy to teach her crafts, nodded.

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Odysseus would love teaching his son something he was good at.
Her head really did hurt, and her vision flickered in and out of focus. Still, she felt less on edge than she had earlier. She could look Telemachus in the eyes without being crushed by guilt, which didn’t mean it wasn’t still there.

“You should be outside, little wolf. Now that you can without fear, you shouldn’t be stuck in here.”

“No, it’s okay.” He smiled. “It’s different, you know, not being able to leave and not leaving. I don’t mind being here with you.” He ran his fingers through her feathers, like it was the most natural thing in the world. She flinched instinctively, and he took his hand away.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did that hurt you?”

She took an endless second to form words.

“No… no, it’s fine. I just… didn’t expect it.”

“I won’t do it anymore if you don’t like it. I guess I just find your wings cool.” He chuckled lightly. “But really, if you mind, I’ll stop.”

“No… I don’t mind.” She barely felt like she was saying the words herself, because she didn’t like being touched, she hadn’t for thousands of years, and it hadn’t exactly gotten better in the last couple of years, but she didn’t correct herself, quietly allowing him to stroke her wing, he was being so gentle, careful not to go against the direction of her feathers. Her chest felt tight, head pounding like the strain of trying to comprehend the feeling literally hurt, she kept her eyes open, not wanting to close them and make the physical contact all she could perceive, Telemachus was talking casually, but she couldn’t focus on the words, floating helplessly in a void until sleep took back over.

It was darker in the room when she woke up again, twilight just bleeding into night. It still took agonizing seconds to ground herself and realize that this was still Ithaca.

Athena unfolded her left wing, pins and needles running through it after being closed awkwardly for a few hours. Her mind cautiously tried reminding her why she’d had it folded, but she pushed the thought away.

A rustling sound made her turn, meeting Penelope’s eyes. The woman put away an embroidery hoop and smiled.

“Ah, awake again I see.”

Athena hummed in confirmation, feeling her heart in her throat.

She had dreaded being alone with Penelope, because there was no way in the world that Penelope didn't know what she had done, Odysseus would have told her.
“I need to tell Pen about you,” he’d said back in the day, looking at her with puppydog eyes. “I know you training me is a bit of a secret, but I couldn’t keep anything from her, please, you won’t be mad, right?”
She’d raised her eyebrows, sighing. “You’ll be absolutely useless in training until I let you, right?”
A wide grin. “My grandfather didn’t name me ‘a pain in the ass’ for nothing!”
Athena had sighed again. “Truly blessed with the gift of prophesy, that man. Fine.”
He'd beamed at her.
So yes, Penelope knew how badly she had wronged Odysseus. And Athena had a feeling she was way more ready to protect Odysseus from her than he himself was.

“Odysseus is asleep,” Penelope said, tone gentle. “He’ll be back later, don’t worry.”

Athena swallowed hard.
“He shouldn’t… none of you have to do this. I… I’ll be fine. I can’t die.”

Penelope raised her eyebrows.
“Well, that hardly means that you’re not struggling, does it? We only have mortals as reference, and be assured, no mortal with a fever half as high would be left alone. I suppose you must contend with our way of dealing with injuries for now.”

Still, no hostility in her voice. Athena felt her anxiety rise by the second. Deception was her domain, Ares was the one who played with open cards, but right now she didn’t feel like it was a game of wits, she felt like she was stuck in a brazen bull and waiting for the flame to be lit.

“You’re looking a bit better than earlier today, I think,” Penelope said. “Are you feeling better?”

Athena helplessly nodded. Her head didn’t feel less like it was about to explode at least, and the fact that she could barely breathe was not due to her injuries, she was pretty sure.

“Glad to hear. The tisane is pretty cold by now, would you like some wine instead?”

What’s the correct answer?

She nodded, managing to sit up, and grateful that Penelope handed her the mug instead of getting closer.

“Thank you,” she said tonelessly.

Her trembling fingers gripped the clay so tightly she could feel thin cracks forming on the inside of it. She finished the wine off before she could shatter it in her hand.

“Is everything okay?” Penelope asked. “You’re looking at me like there’s something wrong.”
Athena looked away.

“You don’t have to be polite to me,” she said. “You spent years having to play nice, don’t feel the need to continue doing so.”

Penelope frowned.

“I’m not playing nice. It’s an unusual situation is all.”

Athena looked up.

“But I am very much deserving of your rage. I failed Odysseus, and you by extension. There’s no way you don’t have anything to say about that.”

Penelope sat back down in the chair, holding Athena’s gaze.
“Look. My husband and my son are very happy you’re here. And I believe that you are genuinely sorry for what happened between you and Odysseus. If those two things were different, the only reason why you’d be allowed to stay would be the holy laws of hospitality, and your godhood. As things stand, I view you as our genuine guest, as the friend of the house that Odysseus always wanted you to be, and I’ll treat you as such. All I ask is that you won’t cast my husband and son aside like playthings, not now that you’ve come back, because they are my entire world, and I don’t want them to be hurt any more.”

Athena looked into Penelope’s eyes, intelligent yet kind, and for a moment she didn’t think she could speak.
“I don’t want any of you to be hurt either. If I could reverse what happened-”

“Well, we can’t do that, can we?” Penelope shrugged. “The future is what matters. So what is in the future, Athena? Will you stay with them this time?”
Athena swallowed hard.
“If I’m wanted, I will.”
“Would you swear it to me?”

Athena nodded, but took a few seconds to speak. Oaths were sacred even to the gods, and breaking them had nasty consequences, so a simple ‘yes’ would not do, even if it was all she wanted to say.
“I swear on the River Styx, that unless I have to in order to ensure your safety, or if I’m ordered by my king or one of you, I will not abandon this family, and in any case, I will do everything within my power to shield you from harm.”

Her king. The god who would smite her for taking this oath for a mortal if he knew, unable to understand that she craved the company of this family in a way that he would never understand, who would never understand what even Aphrodite knew, that a virgin goddess was by no means immune to a broken heart.

Penelope nodded, expression serious.
“Good. That’s all I needed to hear. You don’t have to fear that I would try to keep my family away from you. You mean a lot to them, and I see they mean a lot to you, too. I can forgive the past. After all, you did have a big hand in Odysseus making it home, and it you paid dearly for it.”

Athena bowed her head, hiding the tears welling up into her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The sense of danger fading, she found her strength drained, suddenly feeling cold again, body shivering, vision blurring beyond the tears.

“I think that means you should lie down,” Penelope said gently. Athena didn’t have the strength to argue. She felt Penelope wiping her forehead, and then a blanket being wrapped around her. There was something so foreign about these gestures, her last memories of being cared for were from over three-thousand years ago, and time and regret had dimmed them greatly.

“Rest a little.” Penelope’s voice came like through water.

Athena didn’t know if she replied.

When she emerged from the blur a while later, it was still night, and Penelope was doing embroidery again. Athena could see her face still, but the lamp only illuminated her hands, working nimbly.

Athena lay still for a while, observing her, until Penelope put her work away, picking up the lamp and stepping over to the bed to replace the damp cloth.

“I thought someone was watching me,” she said with a slight smile.

“I’m sorry,” Athena replied. “I enjoy seeing people excel at crafts, I guess I got distracted.”

“No problem. But, since you are awake, there is something I’ve been wanting to address.”

Athena felt her stomach turn.

“Yes?” she asked meekly, hating how scared her voice sounded.

“Nothing bad, just, your chiton is pretty much completely destroyed, I brought you a new one.” Penelope smiled gently. She put the bundle of fabric down on the bed. “I hope it’s loose enough to fit your wings, otherwise we can of course cut it.”

Athena breathed out with cautious relief. Even though, this was nowhere near private enough for her to feel comfortable changing, but she understood it was the only reasonable thing to do.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Would you like me to help you?” Penelope asked.

“No.” The word came out more violently than expected. Athena bit her lip. “I mean, no, it’s fine. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it.” Penelope’s gaze was understanding in the dim light. “I’ll give you some privacy, just call if you need anything, okay?”

She put down the lamp beside the bed.

“You can take it with you,” Athena said softly. “I can see in the dark.”

“Oh, right, naturally,” Penelope said with an embarrassed laugh, taking the lamp. “I forgot for a moment.”

“It’s the gesture that counts,” Athena replied. “Thank you.”

She unfolded the fabric of the chiton, calculating how she’d have to go about this. Only using one arm and one wing wouldn’t exactly make this easier, neither the fact that she was already dizzy not getting up.

Taking the chiton with her good arm and navigating it so she’d be able to put it on reminded her of one thing specifically; that her ‘good’ arm was by no means unscathed. And that it was impossible to move her left side excessively without hurting the right.

A cough came up, too strong to be contained, and she doubled over, lungs contracting as she struggled for air and pressed her hand to her mouth, tasting ichor again.

“Athena. Athena, are you okay?”

She winced, drawing a ragged breath, then nodded.

“I’m so sorry I came in,” Penelope said breathlessly. “But this sounds terribly painful. Can you breathe?”

Athena nodded again. The stabbing pain in her side was back with a vengeance, and she questioned whether another bone was broken, maybe a rib?

“It’s because you moved too much, isn’t it?” Penelope asked, voice worried.

“It’s fine…”

“Athena.”

The goddess forced herself to look up.

“Is it?” Penelope repeated.

“Possibly.”

Penelope pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down.

“I get why you don’t want me to help, I really do. I… especially during the last couple of years, when things got more tense here, I started noticing when people touched me, even when they just wanted to provide comfort. I’m so relieved that for me it’s not like that with Odysseus and Telemachus at least, but I get it’s different for you.
Here’s what I can offer. You can put this chiton over your old one, then cut that one’s sleeves, so you can take it off after. That way you don’t have to undress at all. I can help you with your wings, especially the injured one. I won’t touch you more than absolutely necessary. Do you think you can handle that? Be honest.”

Athena clenched her fist. The truth was she wanted to say no, but she had no alternative. And really, she could handle it. She could handle being scared uncomfortable for a few minutes.

“Yes,” she said tonelessly, trying to swallow down her heart beating in her throat when she moved forward to allow Penelope access to her wings, folding her left like she usually did when getting dressed and hoping desperately that the other wouldn’t jerk again and hit the other woman.

Turning, she navigated her left wing through the hole in the chiton, shivering when Penelope carefully moved the other through it as well. The movement sent spikes of pain up to her shoulder-blades and she caught her breath.

“I’m sorry, that hurt, didn’t it?”

“No way around that,” Athena said shortly.

Penelope helped her put the chiton on properly, leaving it loosely draped over her body. Being so completely concealed by fabric was oddly comforting.

Penelope handed Athena a pair of scissors from the embroidery basket and picked up the thin fabric belt to tie up the chiton, putting it back onto the bed.

“I’ll help you with the belt in a minute, so you don’t have to move your arm too much, but I won’t have to touch you for that, okay?”

Athena nodded. Her heartbeat finally settled down some when Penelope stepped back outside. She struggled a little to use her left hand that didn’t seem to know how to use scissors properly -She made a mental note to address that in the future- then cut the sleeves of her old chiton, making the fabric drop from her body so she could pull it free and properly put the new one around herself. She made a brief attempt to tie the belt, but Penelope was right, help was probably in order. She allowed herself a minute of just sitting still before Penelope called out from outside.

“Are you alright, Athena?”

“Yes… I’m done.”

Penelope stepped back inside, sitting down beside Athena.

“Okay, now hold on to the belt, and I’ll give you the other end to tie off, yeah?”

Athena held her breath until the knot was tied.

Penelope smiled softly.

“There we go. That was a lot, I know. Are you alright?”

Athena nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “for being so… complicated… about this.”

I don’t deserve your kindness.

“There’s no need to apologize for that. As I said, I get it pretty well.”

You have 108 reasons to feel this way. I don’t.

“I’m really sorry that you do, Penelope.”

A somber expression settled on the woman’s face, hidden in the dark, but not to Athena.

“That actually means a lot, Athena.” She smiled sadly.

Athena shivered, feeling drained. Naturally, Penelope caught it right away. Athena understood now why Odysseus loved her so dearly.

“Maybe it’s time to turn in,” Penelope said, picking up the remains of Athena’s chiton. “I’ll get rid of this, alright?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

By the time Penelope returned (from getting rid of the chiton and some mortal business), Athena was already fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Olympus was buzzing. They had been invited to one of the banquets that nobody but Zeus and Poseidon actually enjoyed (Dionysus did not count since there is little you mind when being drunk enough to kill seven mortals from alcohol poisoning)

But of course they’d dress up and play family for a while, as they always did.

Athena could see them clearly through the transparent walls of her palace, walking past, and she knew if they turned around, they’d be able to see her sitting in the hall, barely covered by what was left of her armor, ichor dripping to the floor.

Apollo and Artemis walked by, not talking aloud, but she could hear them anyway, they hardly ever bothered to lock her out of their conversations unless it was about her.

Something quick zoomed past from behind, pulling Apollo’s himation over his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Hermes!” Apollo exclaimed, and Athena heard the messenger god snicker further ahead.

They passed beyond her sight, followed by Demeter and Hestia talking about recipes, and then Ares and Aphrodite arm in arm, love in their eyes.

Hephaestus, who hated these meetings more than any of them, they’d had a game going for millennia now where she would try to make him bite back a laugh at least once per banquet (her quota had embarrassingly dropped to about 20% during the last ten years), but he didn’t look in her direction now, not once, just like the others hadn’t.

Athena felt tears well up in her eyes, hugging herself tighter as she watched Hera catch up with Hephaestus and put an arm around him.

She knew they had no reason to look. She knew that.

Petrichor filled the air and she caught her breath.

Zeus walked past, hair dark with thunder, and he turned, staring directly into her eyes, his own blazing yellow with lightning. Athena gasped, and-

The rain was raging over the ocean. Her wings took on more water by the second, weighing her down. Up ahead, she saw a ship, Odysseus at the helm, facing the towering figure of her father, lightning gathering around them.

Being in her owl-form, she couldn’t call out properly, but she managed a piercing screech native to the animal. Odysseus turned, eyes wide with fear, shielding his eyes against the rain.

“Athena!” The same desperation in his voice like on the cliff, tears running down his face. “Athena, help me, please!”

She poured every ounce of her strength into her wings, and still, horribly, she knew that she wouldn’t be fast enough.

“Athena!”

Her father was looking at her then, lightning crackling around him, and he smiled, knowing what she knew as he raised his hand to strike the ship down as the rain poured down and she barely made any ground.

“Athena, please!”

Her wings, completely soaked with water, betrayed her, pulling her down toward the unforgiving sea, and she knew she couldn’t take off again once she was in it.

Odysseus!

The sea caught hold of her and dragged her under the same second the bolt shattered the ship.

She gasped, emerging from the black sea, wings stinging, heavy with water, she was elsewhere, but where? Her eyes wildly darted, trying to make out something in the dark blur around her, wings spreading like shields behind her, where was he, Styx, where was he?

“Shit. Athena!”

She spun around, breathing hard as her lungs fought against drowning, and a shadow of her spear glimmered in the air for a second, but the summoning sputtered out before it could fully manifest.

Odysseus backed away, trying to catch her gaze, something of her in her wide eyes, glowing in the darkness and yet unseeing. He lifted up his hands, signaling surrender.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just me. You’re okay. Athena. It was just a dream, you’re safe now, it’s just me, everything’s okay, I promise, it was just a dream.”

For endless seconds, she stood opposite him, chest heaving, wings trembling behind her, ichor dripping from the right where the stitches had ripped open. Shit.

“Athena, I promise it was just a dream. It wasn’t real.”

His heart was pounding in his throat.

“Odysseus?” Athena whispered.

He saw the light leave her eyes like in slow motion, impossibly catching her before she hit the floor. He sat down a little harder than intended, her head coming to rest against his chest. Even through his chiton, he felt her skin was on fire.

“It’s okay,” he repeated softly. “There now. You’re okay.”

He knew she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t feel him, she was completely still apart from the ragged breaths trembling from her lips, and she was bleeding again, but this time there was ichor coming from her nose, too, he guessed it was due to the strain of trying to summon a weapon.

He should have gotten up and addressed her wounds immediately, but he sat, holding her close, wishing he could offer her some comfort that she could feel, that she wasn’t so scared and hurt, in that moment he desperately wished for his childhood mentor, because even as her feathers brushed against his skin, he didn’t think she was truly back. He wasn’t sure that person still existed beyond all the pain.

Her voice still echoed in his head, so ragged and agonized; Odysseus!

If only he’d been able to wake her up sooner.

Blinking away tears, he lifted Athena into his arms and got up, carrying her back to the bed. She moved ever so slightly, moaning, but she didn’t struggle, too out of it to pull away, and she lost consciousness again before he had even put her down.

He dampened a cloth, gently wiping away the sweat and blood from her face, supporting her head with his other hand.

He wondered if he would have felt less terrible about this before the war, or whether he subconsciously had always seen her as a mentor even more than as a friend, deep down not ready to see her this weak and vulnerable.

Getting up, he gathered the supplies he’d almost put away yesterday, glad now that he hadn’t on an inkling. Removing the rest of the ichor-stained bandage, he sighed.

That was a lot of blood.

Wiping it away, he counted five popped stitches, but at least it hadn’t reached the lower ones.

He poured some vinegar into a bowl to disinfect the needle, half-expecting for the wing to reflexively hit him in the face, but it remained completely still when he lightly placed a hand on it to keep it in place.

He wondered if there was a way to tie the bandage to keep her from spreading it on instinct when adrenaline overpowered the warning signals. Some more reading was probably in order to find out.

The door was quietly opened and Telemachus peeked in. Odysseus offered him a weary smile and received one in return, but bright and happy by contrast. His son sat down on the chair beside the bed and looked at Athena, brow furrowed.

“Her wing is bleeding again?”

 Odysseus sighed.

“Yes. She had a nightmare and spread them accidentally.”

Telemachus grimaced compassionately.

“Being injured like that scared her quite a lot,” he stated simply. “And some other things are going on, too, I just don’t know exactly what.”

Odysseus met his son’s eyes, kind and intelligent as Penelope’s, and nodded.

“Me neither, son. I hope she’ll be able to talk about it sometime, but she’s so used to keeping to herself, you know?”

Telemachus nodded.

“She was pretty different when you met her, right?”

Odysseus scoffed.

“Worlds. Even what she said to you a few weeks ago, she would have never done back then.”

“Would you tell me how you met?” Telemachus sounded a little unsure. Odysseus smiled. Just as curious as he had been.

“Sure. When I was about ten, a wild boar terrorized the woods around Ithaca. It wasn’t just big and unnaturally strong, it was smart. Many warriors tried and failed to kill it. It was a test by Athena to find a warrior, but nobody knew. My… friends and me, we thought we might as well try our hand at it. Or well, it was my idea, I had no sense of danger.” He wrangled down the sense of grief knowing that Eurylochus had been against it and Polites had been sad about the boar being killed. “We trapped it with ropes and killed it. That’s where I got this scar from.” He pointed at his knee. “And from that point forward, I felt watched, especially when I played fighting with my friends. I saw an owl once or twice, but she didn’t reveal herself for weeks. So one day, I went to a clearing in the forest on my own, where I could be pretty certain from where someone could approach. I waited till I felt eyes on me and turned, looking where I knew they’d have to be, and said ‘Show yourself.”

“That’s so smart,” Telemachus said with a grin.

Odysseus shrugged, then finished the last stitch on Athena’s wing and started to clean away the rest of the blood.

“I thought if only I pretended hard enough that I could see them, they’d reveal themselves.”
“Did you guess it was Athena?”

“I had entertained the idea, more as wishful thinking.”

“And when she showed herself, did you know then?”

Odysseus smiled thinly.

“Yes, I was pretty sure. I mean, she had to be magical at least if she could turn invisible, and she seemed amused by my trick rather than offended, so strategy wasn’t that far fetched. I was such a little shit, honestly. I refused to tell her anything about me, just because, and I felt really smug about knowing who she was. Still, seeing her as she really looked was insane. I’d never seen a god before.”

“Did she stop time for you, too?” Telemachus asked. “Because that was the crazier part for me, feeling your thoughts and having so much time for them.”

“Yeah, the first time in Quick Thought is quite something.”

Odysseus started applying the salve he’d quickly whipped up to Athena’s wing, grimacing because she didn’t move at all, and she was terribly pale.

“She offered me to be her student,” he continued almost absentmindedly. “Naturally I agreed. I wanted to learn everything about being a great warrior, and she promised that's what I’d become if I stuck to her teachings. She was quite strict and no-nonsense about training, and she pushed me very hard. I think she never had a student that young before, so we tested my limits quite a bit.” He laughed a little. “I didn’t mind too much. I wanted to make her proud, and she did praise me every once in a while. I sometimes had the feeling she was impossible to please, you know, but she just had high standards. I really did view her as a friend. She corrected me about calling her that for a while, but I wore her down after a year or two.”

Telemachus saw a twinkle of mischief in his father’s eyes. He supposed he could see Athena being the way he described, but it felt so different from the Athena he knew, and even further from how she behaved now. He wondered if she would have even considered him as her student back then, when there was nothing special about him, unlike his father who’d clearly been a prodigy.

Odysseus bandaged the wing and gently tucked Athena in, staying seated at her side.

“Why was the whole friend-thing a problem?” Telemachus asked. “What’s wrong with being friends with one’s student, too?”

Odysseus shrugged. “I think Athena takes… or maybe took… a lot of pride in having no attachments. I don’t really know why, she always treated it as part of her domain, being logical and detached, objective, with no feelings to get in the way. That’s what she tried to teach me. Maybe she was right about it, too. If she had stayed distant, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt for me, for us, like this.”

“Well, maybe,” Telemachus said. “But I thought people weren’t meant to be alone. We get sad when we are. And didn’t Athena make people? Didn’t she make us like this?”

“She always said the whole ‘people’ thing had been a massive experiment, and that she and Prometheus played around, wanting to see what would happen. She’d probably say the ‘emotion’ component was an accident.” He smiled wistfully. “But I think she’d be wrong. You can’t just make a creature and not expect it to feel. Monsters, animals, everything that breathes, they all feel. So do the gods. And Athena always had feelings, too, she just tried her best to ignore them.”

Telemachus hugged his shins.

“I think she’s been really lonely,” he said quietly.

Odysseus sighed. “I think so, too.”

His heart twisted painfully, and he got up to run his fingers through Telemachus’s hair affectionately.

“I love you, son, you know that, right?”

He felt tears well up in his eyes when the young man got up and hugged him tight.

“I love you, too, Dad. I’m so happy you’re back.”

When Penelope entered, she found her boys working on wood carvings together, Telemachus intently watching his father and trying to replicate his technique. She smiled tenderly before she put down the basket of food she had brought onto the table.

“Nobody tell me you don’t want breakfast.”

“Not a chance.” Odysseus put down his tools. “I intend to have breakfast every day for the rest of my life, let that be known. We’ll continue after, okay, Tel?”

Penelope saw her son beam at the nickname and he nodded.

They settled around the table to eat, seeing that Athena was still asleep and not wanting to wake her.

Penelope would have lied if she’d said she wasn’t worried about the goddess, about having no idea what the limits of her body were and what could happen if they were reached, and even more worried that Athena herself didn’t seem to know either. She wasn’t exactly feeling confident about being tasked with taking care of an injury of a severity beyond even the scope of the gods. Clinging to the concept of immortality should not have felt so insecure.

“And, are you learning new things?” she asked her son with a smile.

“Plenty!” He grinned. “You’ll see, Mom, I’ll be great at it sometime.”

“Of course you will,” Odysseus said. “And you’re nowhere near as bad as you make it sound, Telemachus, don’t undersell yourself now.”

Telemachus chuckled. “You know, Athena said the same thing, word-for-word. Now the question is, who picked it up from whom?”

Odysseus smiled.

“Probably me. Your mother said something along the lines of ‘a lot of things about you make sense now’ when she first met Athena.”

“Oh, that is true, but I do believe your flirting was very much your own,” Penelope teased.

“Not my fault the virgin goddess couldn’t help me with that!”

“Well, it was very endearing either way.”

Odysseus put honey on another pita.

“Never ask Athena or me for flirting advice, son. My luck was that someone here found my idiocy charming for some reason.”

Penelope chuckled, enjoying the moment of genuine lightheartedness that she hadn’t felt in 20 years. Her favorite idiot.

“Noted.” Telemachus grinned, watching his parents grasp hands across the table.

Guess what, he addressed a younger version of himself struggling to believe, Dad did come back, and he’s different but really cool, and Mom loves him even more than she said, and I love him now, too, and also we’re friends with a goddess, even if she’s not well right now, but I know she will be, so it’s really like I always told myself, somehow things will turn out fine.

Chapter Text

Athena shot up with her heart in her throat, and the smell of lightning in her nose.

Eyes darting, she tried to make out where she was, feeling like her father had severed her connection to time completely, she shouldn’t be waking not knowing how much time had passed, the twisted images of sleep already blurring in her mind.

“Hey there.” The voice was soothing and gentle, but she flinched anyway, meeting Odysseus brown eyes.

“Ithaca,” he said. “And it’s the next day. Are you with me?”

I didn’t say that out loud, how does he know…

She drew a gasping breath, hearing it echo way too loudly through the room that was so bright the light stung in her eyes.

He seemed mad. How long had she kept him awake?

“Athena? Are you with me now?”

She nodded, averting her eyes.

Unless I am ordered by one of you…

“Talk to me, Athena. You’ve been having nightmares all day, and I don’t like how you’re looking. How are you really?”

She wrangled down another gasp, trying to force even breaths. Her wing was burning like it had been freshly hit.

Unless. I am ordered. By you.

“I’m fine… better. I’m awake now.”

How much longer till your patience runs out?

“Why do I have the feeling that all of this was a lie apart from the last sentence? I know  you’re not well, Athena, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

Her heart twisted in her chest as she frantically tried to figure out what he wanted to hear, when she couldn’t even say she was trying to get better because she lacked the strength to take control over her body and surely admitting that would only make things worse…

“I’m sorry,” she offered tonelessly.

“You did nothing wrong. Just try to work with me here.”

Like invasive vines, fear wrapped around her heart and her lungs, choking her.

He’s lying. He doesn’t mean “you did nothing wrong” because it’s not true, how much of what he says is lies I can’t detect right now because my mind isn’t working right?

“I don’t… You don’t have to worry, I’m just… tired still.”

Wrong answer.

Odysseus breathed out in frustration.

“Alright, I’ll take this for now, but you need to talk to me sometime, okay? I want to help you, but I can’t if you’re not a little bit honest with me. I am not asking because I want you to be uncomfortable.”

But I don’t know how I feel.

She nodded again, subdued.

Why was he putting up with this at all? Why should he when he thought she wasn’t doing enough, when she was keeping him awake at night and away from his family? His commitment to being kind to her made no sense… unless…

Hadn’t he learned how vindictive the gods could be? How spiting them once could destroy your entire life?

Did he think she was like that, too?

Didn’t he know that it would take one word from him to make her leave, that her godhood meant nothing the second he wanted her gone? Did he think she would not honor his wish and force herself into his life or hurt him if he rejected her? Was he keeping her around to protect his newfound peace against her wrath?
She would have to tell him he was free to cast her out. That she’d never retaliate for anything he said or did, no matter how much it hurt.

She tried to get out the words out of her throat, it was cruel to delay it for them both, but what came up instead was a cough, stinging in her chest and tasting metallic on her tongue.

Odysseus grimaced when she wiped a drop of ichor from her lips.

“I really don’t like how that sounds. I gotta sent Tel to the healer again to find out what we can do against this. Does it feel worse than before, Athena? And please, be honest, I don’t want you to cough up your lungs with no warning, okay?”

Athena breathed out shakily.

“I don’t… I don’t think it feels worse,” she said, gut twisting because it was the truth but there was no way to prove it. “There’s not more ichor, anyway. I remember… it was a lot more in the beginning. It’ll probably stop at some point.”

“Hopefully.” He smiled a little.

Athena shivered. Somehow, her body was aching even more than usually.
Her clothing clung to her body, drenched in sweat, and she felt the air through it like an icy wind. Tensing up, she did her best to sit still, not wanting to shake again, not wanting Odysseus’s worried eyes on her -how long till that mask of worry disappears and all you see is frustration? Wanting to be actually fine for just a moment.

The shivering got worse, and she stubbornly wrangled it down in the parts of her body she could control.

She flinched painfully when a cool cloth touched her skin.

“Your fever’s pretty high,” Odysseus said gently. “I think you should lie down. Please.”

She winced at the last word and wordlessly got back down, feeling like she was exposing her body to a hit, gods, how much she hated lying on her back like this, helpless.

Face it, you’re always helpless now.

She closed her eyes so they couldn’t even think about forming tears.

“Athena, if you can, I’d like you to stay awake a little longer, we’re preparing some broth right now, I think it would do you good to eat a little bit, even if you don’t need it to survive.”

She nodded silently, opening her eyes again. She could feel her rapid heartbeat vibrating through her entire body.

“You don’t… have to take care of me,” she forced out, fixing her gaze elsewhere, anywhere but his face.

Odysseus sighed.

“Yes. Yes, I do. And there’s no shame in needing help, Athena. I know you hate this, and trust me, I’d prefer you were well, too, but you’re not, so we’re handling it.”

Stop this, please, why won’t you just say what you think, shout at me if you want, but please stop the charade.

She drew a shuddering breath.

“That’s not… I mean you don’t… have to… It’s not your responsibility. I don’t expect you to.”

Odysseus frowned in sympathy. How would she expect him to help where her own blood family had failed her.

“We will anyway. You’ll have to get used to the idea.”

He reached for her hand, but she flinched violently again, and he backed away. She seemed caught in a nightmare still, and he couldn’t get to her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

“It’s all good,” he replied, trying to speak even more softly so she might finally feel some level of safety. “Really, it’s all good.”

Telemachus entered with the broth.

“Mom asked if you could come help her downstairs, there’s a messenger from… I forgot where. I think they just want to see you’re back. I can take over here.”

Odysseus clenched his fists. He felt like he was leaving business unfinished on both sides.

“Is it okay if I go?” he asked Athena. “I don’t want to cut you off…”

“No, it’s fine.” Her voice wavered slightly, and she still wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, go and help Penelope.” Almost pleading this time.

He grimaced.

“Okay. I’ll be back soon.” He touched Telemachus’s shoulder before he left the room.

The young man put the bowl down beside the bed.

“I’ll help you, okay?”

He smiled at the goddess, seeing something haunted in her grey eyes, and he just wanted to throw his arms around her and hug her tight until she felt better, but he knew from how careful his parents were with touching her compared to each other or him, he, too, would have to hold back a little.

Don’t the gods hug each other? Is that why she’s so unused to it?

Athena weakly propped herself up a little.

He offered the bowl, supporting it with one hand as she took it into her own. He felt her fingers tremble.

“You should be able to drink it already, it’s not that hot I think.”

She sipped obediently, swallowing with some difficulty, but not backing down. He guessed stubbornness got you a long way in becoming Olympus’s greatest warrior even if it meant ignoring one’s own limitations.

He smiled at her when she finished off the broth, and this time he got one in return, a weak one that didn’t reach her eyes, but a smile nonetheless.

“There we go. You liked it?”

“You do have a good cook,” she offered.

“Oh, I made that.” He grinned. “I enjoy doing things like that, I guess it’s not very princely, but Mom always says Ithaca isn’t that strict of a kingdom anyway, so we all kinda do what’s needed in the moment. She helped a ton herself when we were hit by an Earthquake a couple of years back. I thought back then, that’s the kind of King I want to be, one who helps his people however they need.”

“You’ll be a great king, little wolf.” He blushed at the affection in her voice. She shivered slightly, and he pulled the blanket around her more closely before putting the bowl away.

“Can I sit next to you?” he asked then.

She nodded, folding her left wing at her side.

“Sure.”

He sat down beside her, leaning his back against the wood of the bed.

“You’re not well at all today, right?”

Athena swallowed hard, looking away.

“You don’t have to worry, little wolf.”

He shook his head.

“But I do. You’re my friend. C’mon, Athena. Remember how we met? You talked more or less openly with me then, and it helped a little, didn’t it?”

A quick glance at him.

“Maybe.”

“Then why not try it again?”

She sat still for a while, and he just waited. She’d speak in her own time.

“I find it hard to…” she began finally. “I had ten years to think about how I felt about what happened with your father and me-“ Her voice wavered slightly. “-but I had no time at all to figure out my feelings about any of this… So it’s all hard to distinguish, somehow. It’s not supposed to be like that, is it?” she added, sounding ashamed.

Telemachus shook his head.

“No, that’s okay. Feelings are complicated. It’s okay to be confused about them. But what you shouldn’t do is hold them in. If you feel like crying, you should cry, and if you know what you need, you should ask for it. If you keep too much bottled up, it only gets more painful and in the end it overflows, and you say or do things you don’t mean.”

Athena hummed, wrapping her good arm around herself. She knew that part all too well.

“I mean, that’s probably what happened between you and Dad, right?”

What was it with this family and guessing her thoughts? It was honestly quite disconcerting.

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“Would you like to talk about that more? I can tell it really bothers you. I mean, you should discuss it with Dad properly, too, but maybe talking to me first is easier?”

She swallowed hard.

“There’s not much to say,” she said, voice pressed. “I failed him, I left him when he needed me most, and I shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, but that’s not all that happened. You didn’t just get up and choose to do that on a whim, there must have been reasons.”

“None of those reasons matter.” Her voice was hard yet laced with pain. “Nothing could justify what I did.”

“Tell me anyway,” he said. “I’d like to understand. Not in order to forgive you, because I already have. So have Mom and Dad. I’d like to know what really happened regardless.”

Athena sat still for a while, but he could tell he’d successfully nudged her in the right direction.

“After Troy,” she began softly. “the fleet ended up running low on food eventually, so they arrived on an island. Odysseus and his friend Polites went to scout it out and were directed toward the cave of a cyclops by the lotus-eaters. Polites was trying to get Odysseus to approach matters in good faith rather than with a sword. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. I’d always wondered how Polites even survived the war with that attitude. I suppose he was a happy man, though,” she said wistfully. “and maybe Odysseus needed that, even if that opened up opportunities to be hurt. I… I thought at the time that he could keep himself safe if he was hard enough, and that if push came to shove, I could shield him from the rest. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.” She laughed, and it was the exact same laugh Dad had used when talking about his trials, humorless, bordering on hysteria. He carefully reached for her wing, briefly touching her feathers. She was trembling.

“I told him not to listen and keep his emotions aside for this, and take backup for going to the cave at least. I didn’t know what kind of island it was, but I had a bad feeling about it, even though I couldn’t make out any threats yet either.
And then it just had to be that cyclops. A child of Poseidon. I blamed Polites in the moment, but of course it wasn’t his fault. It was nothing but bad luck on their part, and I should have scouted the island better to prevent it.” She breathed out in a mix of anger and sadness. “I should have protected him.”

Telemachus saw tears glistening in her eyes and touched her wing again, trying to offer some comfort.

“He dealt with it pretty well, all things considered,” Athena continued. “Turning his name into an alibi was a stroke of genius, using the lotus, blinding the monster to get him to remove the blockade of the exit, all of that was everything I could wish for from my warrior. But not for this one. Not for warrior of mine and not for a son of Poseidon.” She sighed. “I was unhappy enough with Odysseus being on sea again because Poseidon dislikes me and after the war it was known to everyone that I was your father’s patron.” She grimaced. “I should have kept my pride aside until he was home, not claimed the victory as my own so soon. The elder gods are vastly more powerful than my generation, so there was little protection I could have offered against Poseidon, not in his domain. So when they ended up against his child, I knew death was the only way out, because Odysseus would be targeted even if the only information was merely that a mortal blinded the cyclops, just to hurt me.”

She breathed out shakily.

“I didn’t exactly explain this well, I suppose, I didn’t want him to merciful in the first place, so I just told him to kill the cyclops and be done with it. It was a terrible moment for this lesson right after Polites got killed right in front of him, Polites who would have wanted mercy to be granted even then, but I didn’t think of that. It was the logical thing to do in my mind, so I expected him to obey me. But he didn’t. He went a step further and told the cyclops his name.”

She wrapped her arm around herself, continuing more quietly.

“And I wish I could say I was just scared for him in that moment, but it’s not true. I was furious. I felt like I’d tried so hard to keep him alive and instead of appreciating it he ran straight into a sword that I had told him was there. So I thought, I’m not watching my uncle kill him, and I’m not sticking around someone who won’t listen when it’s important and watch him kill himself that way. I kind of expected he’d ask me to stay, but he didn’t.” Her voice trembled at the admission.

“It… I think he’d waited years to give me a piece of his mind. I was so hard on him in the war especially, I knew there’d be a point where the gods on the field would push it too far and my father would order us to step aside, so I put all the pressure I felt on him, because I knew he’d win it for me. He stopped treating me like a friend in that time, too, but after all I’d always told him we weren’t friends, so I should have been glad. It wasn’t supposed to matter that he only called on me when he needed me, or that he blamed me for being in a war he didn’t want to fight, as long as we turned out victorious in the end. Maybe I thought deep down that things would just return to normal afterward, I don’t know. I don’t know if I thought much about what would happen after the war. I must have known he would refuse to fight another one, when he had all but refused this one already. I must have known I wouldn’t be needed for much longer, but I can’t say I ever consciously thought about that. I’d gotten so used to his company I didn’t even consider what losing it would be like.” She shivered, voice breaking. “I… I don’t know if it was coming anyway, if he just wanted to get home before breaking off my mentorship to focus on you and your Mom. He’d have been justified. He… he said that he’d step lighter knowing I’d no longer be there to plague his life and sneer at his every decision.”

“Well, you were both probably shouting at each other, weren’t you?” Telemachus interjected gently. “People say a lot of things they don’t mean during arguments.”

Athena’s face twisted with pain, and she hugged herself tighter.

“He was right, though,” she whispered. “I was trying to twist him into what I wanted, rather than what he needed. Maybe, if I’d helped him instead of stepping aside, he could have gotten out of the contract and not have had to go to war in the first place. That’s all he wanted, to be with you and your mother, but I didn’t put his wish first. It was selfish, and prideful, and vain, just like he said. I used him to win the war that me and my family started, and then had the audacity to feel hurt when he didn’t fight to keep me around. Why would he? The only thing I do is hurting him.” Her voice faltered, and a tear ran down her cheek.

“That’s not true,” Telemachus said, but she only shook her head.

“No, listen to me now, it’s not true. Objectively. Everyone had to fight in the war, and you kept him safe during it, Dad said as much when he talked about it, that ‘the gods’ on our side kept the others away from his troops. Don’t tell me that wasn’t you.” He didn’t raise his voice, but it was full of passion. “And you got him home in the end, are you forgetting that? Without you, he’d be dead now and I would’ve never met him. And beyond that, it’s so obvious you missed each other a lot, and why would he feel like that if you’d only ever hurt him?”

Athena pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling a noise that sounded a lot like a choked sob but quickly turned to a cough, making her double over in pain. Her folded wing jerked, and she blindly reached for it, keeping it from opening and hitting him. Telemachus got up quickly, taking a fresh cloth and dipping it in water before carefully pressing it to her forehead. She reached for it, fingers staining the fabric golden. Telemachus hesitated a moment before allowing her to hold it herself.

She felt her thoughts race, too quick to decipher a single one and so painful that it felt like the broken hourglass of Quick Thought has escaped its shattered realm. Sitting slumped over, she fought to keep down the tears, she felt weak enough already without allowing tears over a mistake she had no right to cry about in the first place, even when she wanted so badly to believe that what Telemachus had said was true.

“Athena?”

She hummed, hearing the shuddering in the sound, her own weakness screaming at her.

“You should rest,” Telemachus said softly. “Feelings are exhausting like that sometimes, and you’re not well anyways. At least lie down, we can keep talking if you want to.”

She didn’t fight him when he helped her to settle back down, feeling dizzy and drained of all the feeble strength she possessed. Almost instinctively, she made an attempt to turn onto her side as if that could keep the emotions out, like they hadn’t long infected every part of her, squeezing the life out of her.

A warm hand touched her shoulder.

“Let me help you,” Telemachus said. “What do you want to do?”

Athena gasped softly, goosebumps traveling down her arm from where he was touching her.

“I hate… lying on my… back,” she managed. Please just let me feel safe for once.

“Okay. I’ll help you turn around.”

For a few moments, his hands burned all over her body, then she was on her side, immediately pulling in her legs. She groaned softly at her wing pulling painfully from her shoulder.

“Do you have your wing like this normally, or on top of you?” Telemachus asked.

“On top,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes when he carefully lifted her wing on top of her body. She caught his arm when he moved away.

“Thank you,” she breathed, voice shaking. He squatted down to be at her eye level, nothing but warmth in his expression, and took her hand into his.

“No problem, ‘Thena. You’re more comfortable like this, right?”

She nodded, cheeks hot with shame, the casual nickname burrowing into her soul, burning where it passed, not all that different from lightning.

“That’s good.” He smiled gently.

How are you still looking at me like this when you know I’m the reason your father missed your childhood? When I admitted there was no good reason for me leaving him, how are you not angry?

“You really gotta talk to Dad about all this, you know that, right? He’d want to know how you felt about it then, and how you feel about it now.” Telemachus pressed her hand. “He’s worried about you.”

Athena closed her eyes so she didn’t have to look into his.

“He shouldn’t be. None of you have to worry. I’ll be fine.”

She wondered if the words would start sounding less hollow to her at any point. It never had in ten years even when she had just told it to herself.

Telemachus sighed, but he didn’t argue, he just ran his thumb across her knuckles and she had the very strong notion that he believed it even less than she did.

Chapter Text

Athena had never been more surprised to wake up and her head feeling clear. Well, clear-er. Her head still ached a little, and her body felt sluggish like she had been lying still for centuries, but her mind was much quieter and more orderly, making her realize all the more how badly it had been racing recently.

Opening her eyes, she could tell where she was pretty much immediately, which was also new and quite comforting. The sun shone into the room in warm scattered rays, and Penelope was sitting nearby, all but finished with the embroidery she was working on.

Athena lay still for a while, observing her, before Penelope turned and met her gaze.

“You know, I can tell when you’re watching me,” she said, but there was no hostility in the statement.

“I’m hardly surprised,” Athena said. “I guessed you could even back in Sparta.”

Penelope chuckled. “Well, it was either that Odysseus was insane for speaking to his pet like he got answers, or it was not a pet at all, and he was getting answers.”

Athena felt her lips twisting into a weary smile.

“Little know those who think the Queen of Ithaca only prides this goddess with her crafts.”

She cringed slightly, it was such a casual sentence for a god, but she heard the arrogance in it now, as if Penelope had any reason to care about her pride.

Penelope smiled, putting her hoop aside.

“Well, thank you, and the Queen is happy to see that the goddess is feeling a bit better today.”

Athena hummed in agreement, propping herself up, then wincing when her right wing refused to move even slightly.

“What-“ She turned, trying to get a look at it, heart beating faster.

“Your wing?” Penelope asked. “Odysseus kind of put it in a sling so you can’t move it instinctually and it can heal better. It probably feels strange, I’m sorry.”

Strange didn’t begin to describe it. A wing wasn’t supposed to be tied up.

“No, that does make sense. I’ll get used to the feeling.”

She leaned back against the frame of the bed.

Penelope bit her lip briefly.

“May I check your temperature, just to be sure?” she asked then.

Athena gripped the fabric of her chiton under the blanket as she nodded. She managed not to back away from the touch even though she could still feel the sensation under her skin all the same.

“Not quite gone, but much lower,” Penelope said gently. “It’s probably too early to celebrate, but let’s be cautiously optimistic.”

Yeah, definitely not only her crafts.

“That seems reasonable.”

They sat in silence for a while as Athena tried to adjust to inactivity, it hadn’t mattered much to her when her mind had been clouded, but now she felt the urge to do something.

“Already restless?” Penelope asked, and Athena decided she liked the woman’s soft teasing tone. “Would you like something to occupy yourself with? Something to read, perhaps?”

Athena hesitated, not wanting to be trouble, but then nodded.

“That would be nice.”

She enjoyed the moments of calm before Penelope returned, as much as she cared for this family, she wasn’t used to being with people all day.

“I just picked something random,” Penelope said, handing her a scroll. “I figured you know a lot about more topics than our library can hold.”

Athena took a look at the scroll. Agriculture.

“Well, this isn’t my domain, so I might still learn something new.”

She focused her attention on the words, finding her sight still slightly blurred until she had blinked a couple of times. Penelope settled back down beside her, picking up the hoop again.

Athena was naturally a quick reader, but today she felt slower to a frustrating degree, again and again finding herself staring at a sentence for a full minute without comprehending a word. It was making her head ache.

Annoyed, she told herself it was only a matter of time before her mind would return to normal, doing her best to ignore the pang of fear that reminded her of the shattered hourglass.

Holding the scroll up shouldn’t have taken strength.

Closing her eyes briefly, she propped her left leg up to rest the scroll on it and give the appearance she was still reading.

She found her gaze wandering to Penelope again, watching her nimble fingers at work. She wondered if the woman had chosen not to weave, having done so for years.

Watching her was the closest thing to crafting herself that she would be able to do for a while, she realized with a sting in her heart. Despite herself, her fingers started playing with the fabric of her chiton.

She shifted her weight again, annoyed how hard it was to just sit still and let Penelope work in peace.

As if she’d heard the thought, the woman looked up, gaze questioning but warm.

“You’re so much like Odysseus,” she said. “He’s fidgety when he’s recovering from an illness, too. You want to get up, don’t you?”

Athena felt her cheeks flush.

“Not… Just a few steps, nothing unreasonable.”

Penelope breathed out with a slight laugh.

“How about we put a chair on the balcony and you can get some fresh air?”

Athena was embarrassed by how excited the prospect made her. She nodded.

Penelope got up, picking up the chair she’d been sitting on.

“Wait for me,” she said before carrying the chair outside. Athena pushed the blanket aside, sitting up fully, fighting down a slight dizzy spell.

Apparently she’d used her wing to balance more than she had realized.

Penelope stepped up beside her, staying close as the goddess rose shakily, hand gripping the bed post.

She offered her arm to hold on to.

“Just in case,” she said with a smile. Athena managed to return it, taking a slightly unsteady step before letting go of the post. She stood for a few seconds, catching her breath before she continued toward the balcony.

Dizziness threatened to overwhelm her, and she caught herself on Penelope’s arm despite herself, internally screaming not to grip too tightly.

“It’s alright,” Penelope said softly. “Just hold on, you don’t have to be so careful.”

Athena breathed out shakily, bridging the distance and sitting down on the chair as carefully as her body allowed. Her heart was beating painfully fast.

“That was probably a bit much.” Penelope’s voice was worried. “Forgive me, I should not have suggested it yet.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m… I’m fine, just a bit rusty,” Athena protested. “It’s nice to be outside, I haven’t properly been in weeks.”

Penelope nodded, frown not quite leaving her face.

“Alright then. I’ll get a second chair to keep you company, okay?”

“Penelope.” Athena reached her hand out, but didn’t bridge the gap, remembering she wasn’t the only one who had a difficult relationship with touch.

She bowed her head in reverence.

“Thank you.”

Penelope smiled, bowing her head in turn.

“Anytime.”

For a few moments, Athena sat straight and stiff as she usually did; she had never noticed her own mannerisms, especially not negatively, but now she was aware how cold she had to appear to those around her, how distant. How unapproachable if you weren’t determined.

Shifting her weight, she pulled in her left leg, knee toward her chest. It made breathing a bit harder, but it felt much more protected and comfortable, and she hoped it would communicate similarly. Not that anyone in the family seemed to be deterred by her stiffness, not even Penelope who had the most natural distance toward the gods, but she wanted nothing more than to be whom Odysseus had made himself see in his youth.

A friend of the house.

She jumped slightly when Penelope put down a chair beside her and joined her. The queen’s expression showed nothing but calm.

“Do you mind if I continue this?” she asked, pointing at her embroidery.

Athena shook her head.

“No, by all means.”

She leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes and taking in the sun. She was still feeling dizzy and short of breath, but none of this was visible and that was comforting.

She wasn’t sure if she hadn’t spaced out for a little, but she jumped all the same when Telemachus’s voice cut through the silence.

“Oh, you’re outside!”

He grinned at her.

“Dad and I spoke to another messenger, he sends his regards. I’ll get some chairs for us.”

And gone he was.

Athena and Penelope shared a warm look.

“I haven’t thanked you,” Penelope said. “for helping him in that fight.”

Athena looked away.

“Because you don’t have to. My help was ten years overdue. If anything, it is a dent in the debt I cannot hope to repay in a lifetime.”

Penelope’s eyes were somber.

“If I may, I don’t think you should think of this as a debt. Nobody’s helped by guilt pulling you under, and I get the impression that’s what’s happening right now. There’s a future for us now, and we can build it together instead of chaining ourselves to the past.”

And yet, am I not always chained to the past, like Apollo is chained to the future? Forced to remember and to preserve where others can forget?

She nodded silently, blinking away a tear.

Telemachus and Odysseus entered with a chair each, joining them on the balcony.

“Great to see you up,” Odysseus said with a smile before kissing Penelope.

“We went to the clearing earlier,” Telemachus explained excitedly. “Dad showed me a little pond where you can swim. It’s pretty far back, so I never knew it was there.”

“You remember the oak we used to meet at?” Odysseus asked Athena.

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Well, it’s still standing, and I think it grew even bigger. The clearing itself is pretty overgrown, though.” A hint of wistfulness. “I’m considering doing something about it, but I’m not sure yet. Maybe nature should be allowed to run its course there.”

“Maybe,” she said softly, feeling some undefined sadness at the thought of their old training grounds overtaken by plants.

“Anything else you checked out?” Penelope asked.

“We walked through town together. You know, reminding the people it’s not just that the king is home, it’s our family that they should look toward. Tel visited Theo,” he added, playfully puffing his son’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Telemachus giggled.

“And we stopped by at Eumaeus’s place briefly,” Odysseus concluded.

“Quite the itinerary,” Penelope said with a smile.

"Athena, can I ask you something?" Telemachus asked after a short period of silence. "It has little to do with what we were just talking about, though."

"I am used to that from your father," Athena said with a small smile. "Ask away."

"Can you swim?"

Odysseus snorted, then broke out into a laugh, deep and honest. Athena looked at him, shocked for a moment, how long had it been since she had heard that laugh? And how much longer since she had really heard it?

Penelope had her hand over her mouth, shoulders heaving.

"Sorry, Tel," Odysseus managed through hitched breaths. "The goddess is right, that could've been me. What gives, owl-eyed one?" he asked, eyes full of mischief. "Can you?"

Athena rolled her eyes at him.

"Yes," she said then. "But the reason I assume you asked is a valid one. My wings are more of a hindrance than of much help."

"I wondered," Telemachus said, "because I've never seen an owl swim before."

"They can, but rarely do. Owl-feathers aren't waterproof, so they just get soaked."

"Don't they get really heavy then?"

She nodded. "Impossible to take off from the water. You always have to swim to shore, which, depending on where you got in, could be a while."

"So, if you'd ended up in the ocean when flying here...?" Penelope asked, concern in her voice.

Athena shivered, thinking of the possibility.

"I doubt I'd be here yet, yes."

"Can you survive underwater?" Odysseus asked. "I always assumed gods could do that."

"I can. It's... A bit more complicated than just not having to breathe. Most of my siblings would just hold their breath when diving, and their immortality would keep them alive, that's true. I can actually breathe underwater, it's part of my heritage from my mother's side." She shrugged. 

"Until a few days ago, I didn't even know you had a mother," Odysseus said. "I forgot her name..."

"Keep it forgotten," Athena interrupted him. "It's much safer if you don't speak of her, it's a touchy subject on Olympus, and I'd prefer my stepmother not to take interest in you. Nor my father to renew his." 

Odysseus paled, and he nodded.

For the first time, he tried to make out Zeus in her features, one would think the king of Olympus would leave a strong resemblance with his children. But he couldn't put together the blazing eyes with even the coldest gaze of hers, as much as he tried he couldn't see Zeus in his friend who was just smiling faintly at his son.

He wondered if she had wanted to look like him. If she still did.

"So, how did you find out about your abilities in the water?" he asked. "If I know anything about you, you were curious, and then tried to perfect swimming with your wings despite them not being made for it." His tone was teasing, and she smiled a little. 

"Not quite," she said, knowing she could just cut the explanation, but continuing anyway. "I had to learn when I was young, because I grew up in a lake."

Telemachus looked at her quizzingly, and she shrugged.

"I wasn't always an Olympian."

"You what now?" Odysseus sounded genuinely shocked. "How is this the first time I hear about this?"

"Maybe because you never asked about whether I could swim," she teased, knowing that even if he had, she would not have taken the conversation this far. She didn't even know why she did now.

"Well now you have to elaborate, I'm afraid, or I will explode with curiosity."

Penelope smiled, shaking her head.

"When I was born, my father was already with Hera," Athena said. "It was... A pretty nasty scene, to be honest. In the end, they made up, but it was decided that it would it be better to send me to live elsewhere,"

Bastard or not, I want her out of my home, Zeus!

"...so they picked the only relation of us who had kind of settled down, Triton."

"Wait," Odysseus interjected. "But isn't he a son of-"

"That was before my rivalry with Poseidon," Athena explained. 

Before I killed her.

"Triton's home is in Lake Tritonis, under the surface. I spent as much time as I could on the shore, keeping my wings dry, but there was no avoiding swimming there. Triton was already more accommodating than he had to be, training me on land and such."

Before I killed her.

"Was it only him?" Telemachus asked, smart little wolf, guessing the truth he couldn't know. "Or did he have a family?"

"A massive one. I struggle to remember their names now. It's been a long time."

It was a lie. She knew all of their names. She knew all of their expressions after her spear had found its mark, too.

"After I joined Olympus," she continued quickly, wiping away the two centuries of childhood, or the closest thing she had had to that. "I've had little reason to swim, and my uncle doesn't want me in the ocean anyway, so it all works out nicely I'd say."

"But how did you join Olympus?" Odysseus persisted. 

"After a few centuries, my father had a change of mind about involving himself with my life," she said, finding some cynical glee in telling the truth while not encompassing a fraction of it. "My stepmother got him to accept Heph... Hephaestus into Olympus in turn, so they were even. She got used to it, I believe."

Her cheeks burned at the slip-up, using the nickname even Hephaestus himself only got to hear rarely. She didn't use nicknames because it gave people ideas, and Hephaestus was one of the few who wouldn't ask her to meet more often because of one. She supposed she wouldn't even have minded if he had, not recently anyway. She had been very cautious not to visit him more often than she usually did, not wanting to disturb his peace.

Penelope took a long look at Athena before turning to Odysseus.

“What did the messenger have to say?” she asked.

Odysseus sighed.

“The usual? Isn’t that funny? A week and it’s already the usual.” He laughed humorlessly. “But he told me what Diomedes has been up to. I sent word, maybe he’ll visit.”

Athena felt a shiver run under her skin. Looking down at her hands, she saw them shaking and closed her left.

Not now. Not when it’s finally calm.

She pulled her leg closer to her body, curling into the chair more. She wanted to wrap her wings around herself more than anything else, but even if she could have, it would have drawn attention that she didn’t want right now, not when their voices were so relaxed, when there was finally no worry clouding their smiles.

When she was finally not a burden to them.

Her gaze followed a bird in the distance, idly letting its wings carry it through the air, so gentle if you knew how to handle it.
For a moment, the longing of having the wind under her own wings threatened to choke her. She had cursed her wings when living with Triton, they made her slower than everyone around her, and they were considered freakish and ugly, even if she wasn’t verbally told so. Only one person had told her again and again that they were beautiful.

She’d learned to love them herself on Olympus, and they had long been a part of her now.

Until.

Her father’s face flashed in front of her, eyes blazing yet ice cold.

Stay.

Swift, simple, unforgiving. Just one cut.

She guessed he honestly might not have known how badly the lightning bolt hurt. He had never felt his own weapon, after all.

But knowing he loved the air just as much as she did, she couldn’t believe he didn’t know how much it would hurt her to take away her flight just to make me stay, father, as if I would have tried to escape you, like I didn’t know I couldn’t have.

“Athena?”

She flinched, snapping back to attention. The family was looking at her with concern.

“I’m sorry, I was lost in thought. Did you ask something?”

“I said it was getting a little chilly out here,” Penelope said, expression gentle. “Maybe we should head inside.”

Athena nodded, fear knotting in her stomach. She knew none of the others was actually cold, angry at herself for spacing out and apparently revealing… something. She felt decidedly uncomfortable not knowing what it was.

I should be better than this.

She got up under their watchful eyes, closing her eyes briefly when the world swayed around her. She flinched when her arm came to rest on someone’s shoulder.

“Tel,” Penelope scolded softly. Athena managed a grateful smile directed at the queen, but she left her arm wrapped around Telemachus, allowing him to help her, feeling painfully how foreign it was to let someone so close… She’d thought allowing physical contact would open herself up to being hurt, but it had turned out she hadn’t even needed it to grow soft, and even less to be harmed through it, because lightning cared nothing for your feelings toward it. Only that now, she additionally also felt fear at being touched now that it was necessary.

She staggered slightly, feeling light-headed and weaker by the second, tears of frustration forming in her eyes. Odysseus stayed close by her, ready to catch her if necessary. His expression was tense but there was an unsettling sadness in it that she couldn’t place.

Telemachus helped her onto the bed, sitting beside her.

“Tel,” Penelope said again. “Give her some space, love.”

Again, Athena felt a mixture of gratitude and regret when Telemachus obediently got up.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, gaze downcast. “It’s not… It’ll be better in a minute, you don’t have to worry.”

“Athena.” Odysseus’s voice was laced with concern. “Don’t pretend it’s all good. It doesn't have to be. It’s no big deal, you just have to take things slow for a bit. Getting up was a big step. You gotta rest now.”

She didn’t say anything, not about the weakness creeping through her together with the heat that had subsided before, not about the suffocating fear of feeling her thoughts slow down and lose focus like they weren’t everything that made her.

She obediently lay down, closing her eyes, not protesting when the blanket was wrapped around her. Odysseus hand brushed against her arm for a second, and she ignored his whispered apology, tears pressing against her lids.

It can still mean I’m getting better. It can still be the turning point.

She almost got herself to believe it.

Chapter Text

Athena was underwater. At least technically. The courtyard of Triton’s palace was protected by a giant air-bubble, making a patch of dry land in the middle of the lake. Zeus had ordered the kingdoms of the seas to teach both underwater and land warfare. Not for her sake, naturally, but for the possibility of war where their forces were required.

The festival had taken place there, shrewdly watched by her father, stepmother and uncle. Before everything had gone wrong.

Athena knew already that she couldn’t save Pallas, she had seen this moment, had rewatched it too many times to count, and yet she couldn’t do anything besides pressing her fingers to the wound, listening to what she knew were her friend’s final shuddering breaths.

She didn’t beg. She knew it hadn’t done any good back then.

“Th- thena…” Pallas whispered through choked breaths. Her blood-stained fingers, red, mortal blood, weakly reached for Athena’s arm. Her touch burned like ice.

Athena drew a shaky breath, pressing down harder, trying to will the blood to stop flowing.

“Get away from her!” Triton shoved her aside, hands closing around her wings, locking her in his grip- you need to learn to dive, child, there’s no way around it. You’ll thank me for this later.

“Let me… help her, please,” she pleaded, not wanting to be pulled under again, but he didn’t let go of her, his sea-green eyes ice cold. Pallas had his eyes.

“You have done more than enough! You killed her. You killed our little girl!”
His voice echoed with the choir of his family, accusing, full of hatred.

“Uncle, please…” She always called him uncle even though he really wasn’t.

He slapped her hard, but the pain didn’t matter, all that mattered was that he hated her, he hated her for what she had done and she couldn’t reverse it.

“Zeus!” Triton growled, voice choked with tears and yet booming. “Get your daughter out of my home!”

She landed on the ground, wings heavy, full of water, and looked up to her father who got up, hair dark with the storm.

“You think I want her in mine?” he asked coldly. “You think anyone could want that?” Stormclouds filled the dome over the courtyard. “That child you call mine puts disgust in the hearts of all she approaches, man or god.” He looked directly at her, with that disappointed look she had spent millennia dreading to receive, fighting so hard to avoid. “Desperately seeking the favor of mortals as if they are not praying for her to leave their lives. I can hear them now, Pallas Athena. Remove the goddess from our home, they say,” His voice was a mocking imitation of Odysseus, and yet it cut like it was real. “For we dare not tell her off, lest she hurt us again.”

“No…” she whispered, pleading for him to say he was lying, cruelly joking, but he didn’t.

Lightning crackled, slowly gathering in her father’s hand.

“Let me show you how wanted you are, Athena,” he said, lifting up his hand, and she couldn’t even close her eyes before the lightning struck.

Athena gasped, feeling the lightning churn and twist through her entire body.

“-ust a dream, ‘Thena, you’re o-”

She struggled against the weight pressing against her shoulder, managing to get her torso upright, her wing was struck she couldn’t move her wing-

“-you hear me? Athena?”

Her gaze darted wildly, trying to see where the danger was, she knew Telemachus was beside her but she didn’t know where to shield him from and she couldn’t tell him…

“Athena! Listen to me, please!”

Telemachus appeared so suddenly in front of her that she yelped in shock.

He jumped, staring at her.

“Woah… uh… Sorry. It’s all good now, Athena, trust me, you just had a bad dream, but you’re safe now, I promise.”

She tried to turn, to see what had scared him, but she couldn't make out anything.

“What- what’s wrong… where… what made you scared?” She heard her own voice, weak and terrified.

“No, don’t worry!” Telemachus reached out a hand without touching her, and despite herself, she gripped it, desperate to be grounded. “I was just… your eyes glow. I didn’t know they did that. It’s all good, really, there’s no danger.”

Athena shivered, barely clinging to reality, but some part of her brain supplied a course of action and she blindly took it, closing her eyes as she cast an illusion over them to stop the glow.

“Be-better now?” she asked shakily, feeling a dull ache settle behind her temples.

Her heart was beating painfully fast and she just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that there was danger somewhere and she just couldn't see it.

“Is that a spell?” Telemachus asked, concern in his voice.

She nodded silently, shivering, hoping he wasn’t mad for scaring him. Hoping the spell wouldn’t break because she couldn’t keep it up.

“No, then don’t do that,” he scolded. “You shouldn’t use your magic, it takes too much strength. I don’t mind the glowing, I was just startled.” He paused for second. “Athena? Please stop the spell, okay?”

She shivered again, obediently breaking the illusion, but keeping her eyes downcast.

Telemachus grimaced. He’d comforted his Mom after nightmares before, and he should have felt confident to do the same for his friend, but it was impossible to know what she had dreamt about and he didn’t know if he could even say it wasn’t real when it might have been.

She was still holding on to his hand even as she curled up into herself more, still shaking all over.

“Can you talk to me?” he asked softly. “You don’t have to tell me what you dreamt about if you don’t want to, but if you can tell me how you feel, I can maybe help.”

She shook her head slightly, drawing a shuddering breath. He ran his thumb across her knuckles and she didn’t pull away.

“That’s okay, too. Try to mimic how I’m breathing, okay, that’ll help you calm down. Trust me, it helps.”

She nodded to that.

He showed her even, deep breaths, and he could tell she was trying to recreate them.

She gasped, then a cough shook her frame, raspy and painful-sounding, and he heard something that almost sounded like whimpering in between.

“There,” he said softly, gently steadying her as best as he could. He didn’t like how the cough sounded one bit.

She rubbed face against her shoulder briefly once she could breathe again, struggling to catch enough air.

“It’s okay. Try to breathe.”

He felt a slight pull in his mind before he heard her voice.

That’s much harder than it should be.

She sounded exhausted still. He thought he could hear suppressed tears in the back of her mind.

“Just try. Does it hurt to cough?”

A little.

“Coughing sucks,” Telemachus said compassionately. “I hate it most about being sick.”

Understandable. Are you sure you don’t want me to cover my eyes? You’re avoiding them. Or is something else-

She cut herself off, but he understood the rest of the question anyway. It was strange hearing someone’s thoughts along with something that was more like mental talking.

“No, it’s okay, really. I want to get used to them. I know it’s you, so it’s not scary.”

He found he felt calmer saying that out loud, it really was just his friend after all, nothing to be afraid of.

“Do they glow because you see in the dark?” he asked then.

Yes. I barely notice a difference.

“That’s pretty cool.”

You don’t like the dark, do you, little wolf?

“I mean… I…” He shrugged, flustered. “I guess not.”

There’s nothing wrong with that. You know, once I have the strength, I’ll make you something that’ll light up the dark for you.

He supposed she could see his smile. It was nice knowing that she didn’t judge him for being uncomfortable in the dark, when people had often made fun of him for feeling this way as a boy.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said, voice a little hoarse. The difference in strength between her mental and physical voice made his stomach twist with worry.

“How do you feel now?” he asked.

Athena sighed.

“Worse than earlier. I suppose the hope was misplaced.”

He shook his head, even though he knew how badly her fever had spiked earlier, so much that he doubted she remembered much of the afternoon even though she had been awake once or twice.
“No, that’s okay. You’ll get better soon, I’m sure of it. Try not to be impatient. You’re not used to being sick, but it’s really normal to take a few days.”

He decided the glowing really was practical and not scary. He could see how she looked away slightly now.
“It’s been more than a few days, little wolf.” Her voice was quiet.

He moved a little, settling on her left as he usually did, still holding her hand.
“Was it really two weeks before you got here?”
“Yes.”
“Were you scared?”

She took a few seconds to answer. Her fingers briefly gripped his a little tighter.
“I… for you and your father, mostly. I couldn’t see what was happening to you, and that’s… it’s unsettling if you usually never have to guess but suddenly can’t check if you want to.” Her voice wavered slightly.
“So normally you can see whatever you want?”
“Past and Present, pretty much, yeah. It’s like… I need to know where to look, but that’s little limitation, if I were to look for you, I’d just go to the last time I saw you and find your whereabouts from there. That’s how I found your father.”
“But it takes too much strength now?”
“Hmm,” she said, noise vaguely confirming, finding she didn’t want to talk about what was really happening in Quick Thought, because she wanted to believe that it was just that, she was weakened and couldn’t use her powers, and it would be fine once she was better.
“That sucks,” Telemachus said compassionately. “But I’m sure it’ll be better soon, and until then, we’ll just stay close by so you know where we are anyway.”

Athena sighed.

“Sometimes, I think it’s for the best that I didn’t involve myself with your life sooner. Didn’t get the chance to mess with all the goodness in your heart that makes you so special.”

He looked at her, genuinely surprised.

“I’m not special, Athena, you know that. You saw me fight.”
“Little wolf, most people can be trained to be a good fighter. I know, because I’ve been in many wars and have lost champions to fighters I would have never considered training. You can be a great fighter, too, if that’s what you choose. But that light that you’ve got inside you, you can’t train that. And I’d hate to see it dim.”

He felt choked up with the amount of affection in her voice.

Following his intuition, he bridged the distance, leaning his head against her shoulder for a few seconds.

“There’s light in you, too, Athena,” he said quietly. “Even if you can’t see it, I can.”

He heard her breath hitch, but she didn’t say anything, and he supposed for the moment, that was enough.

Chapter Text

It really was strange, Penelope reflected. Just a few days ago she could have confidently said, that beyond being her husband’s (temporary) guardian and a powerful Olympian who commanded respect, she had no care for Athena. She had never questioned why Odysseus did, what was there to question when he considered the goddess a friend, and he had clearly not been torn down for that disrespect, so some fondness had to be reciprocated, and that had been enough for her.

She supposed it made sense that the goddess who helped create humans would have some humanity in herself, too, humanity that maybe some of the other gods lacked, but she would have never expected that she’d begin to care so quickly.

Still, there they were, and she was genuinely worried about an immortal goddess as she was changing her bandages.

Athena was lying perfectly still, eyes fixed into nothingness. She’d given her quiet permission for the bandages, and hadn’t spoken a word since. Penelope was sure the procedure had to hurt, but she also understood the urge to appear strong and unfazed especially when feeling weak and powerless.

She wondered why the wounds on Athena’s forearm were bleeding much less, and more cleanly, without the clear liquid mixing with the ichor. Maybe the strike had traveled from her shoulder and was feathering out toward the hand.

Athena moved slightly, turning her head when Penelope carefully dabbed vinegar on the wounds on her neck that were hard to bandage and looked all the worse for it, additionally to being moved more than the rest of her body. The goddess winced when the sponge Penelope was using traveled up to her face.

“Sorry,” Penelope whispered.

“It’s okay,” Athena replied tonelessly.

Penelope had the chance to observed the goddess more closely as she cleaned her wounds, her sharp jawline and cheekbones under the golden lightning bolts, just the suggestion of a few freckles, barely visible to the naked eye, almost human, but only if you disregarded her eyes, even now slightly illuminating her lashes with their soft ethereal glow. And the golden blood now lazily trickling down from her temple.

Athena briefly closed her eyes in discomfort when Penelope wiped it away.

“Alright,” Penelope said. “The rest should be less painful.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Athena replied. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me.” Penelope gently started applying the herbal poultice to Athena’s wounds. “I know you’d prefer to do this yourself.”

“Still.” Athena shrugged. “Given I don’t get what I’d prefer, I am grateful for the offered help.”

Penelope almost smiled. She wondered if Athena knew that she spoke more formally when expressing emotions consciously, but didn’t do so when showing casual affection.

“I’ve got a question, about the… I suppose logistics of godhood,” she said after a while, blushing slightly in embarrassment. “You do not have to talk about this, I don’t want you to feel like a history book.”

“I kind of am a history book,” Athena replied with a thin smile. “Feel free to ask.”

Penelope chuckled lightly.

“I’ve been wondering how gods get their domains,” she said. “I always assumed you were born with them, but thinking it over, I am unclear on how that would work, too.”

Athena nodded.

“That’s a reasonable question. The truth is, fate is an elusive thing even to us. It’s not as simple as looking at a god and seeing their domains unfold. We’re born with our sets of powers, like my Quick Thought, or Hermes’s speed, and then we figure out what it could be used for from there. It was decided more quickly for my younger siblings, but back in the day it took a while. I suppose it’s much easier to attribute elemental powers to domains than something like Fated Forge, which is one of Hephaestus’s powers. It works like a creative vision of sorts, seeing what materials are meant to be made into. He figured his domain out by himself, really, there was little left beyond announcing it once he joined Olympus.” She paused briefly, biting her lip. “Often times, one of our domains manifests itself more prominently right from the start, and others only come much later. It was like that for me with Wisdom. Well…” She exhaled in a way that suggested a laugh. “That part was prophesized, too. Still. I only used Quick Thought specifically for thought for a long time. I only got assigned warfare after I joined Olympus.” Her tone shifted almost imperceptably at that sentence. “Quick Thought lends itself to that well, of course, and Ares’s powers are somewhat similar to it, so I suppose it was meant to be used that way from the beginning.”

Penelope was almost sure she detected some doubt in Athena’s voice then, but she didn’t comment. She had never considered Athena mightn’t feel completely at home in her domain, especially not in the one she’d trained Odysseus in.

“Some domains are also comparable to passions,” Athena continued. “When a god is passionate about something, truly cares about it, it’s hard not to be good at it. It’s not enough to just want it. It’s much deeper than that, it almost feels beyond yourself. That’s how I came to crafting,” she added, shrugging like it was a little embarrassing. “It doesn’t really fit with the rest of my domains, I suppose, but I enjoy it too much not to claim it as mine.”

Penelope cocked her head slightly.

“It’s not as appreciated on Olympus as your other domains are, is it?” she asked.

Athena shrugged again. “Olympus likes its gods cut and dry. Our overlapping domains mean many opinions and perspectives that can be difficult to unite. It’s much simpler for things like the underworld, ruled by one couple. So yes, they would have preferred me to stay in my lane, so to speak.”

Penelope smiled somberly.

“Well, I for one am glad you have the thing that means so much to me and so many other women as part of your domain. It’s comforting, almost as if what we do can be just as appreciated as our men going to war. And I will be eternally grateful to have had the crafts I love keeping me sane those past twenty years.”

Athena sat perfectly still for a few seconds, then her face softened.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” she said quietly.

Penelope fastened off the bandage on Athena’s arm when Odysseus entered, still talking to Eurycleia on the other side of the door.

“… no, theioula, we’re making sure of it, don’t worry, really. Thank you… for helping to keep it secret for the time being, we really appreciate that.”

He smiled wearily at the two women when he closed the door.

“She knows, in case it wasn’t clear,” he said. “I decided not to deny it, where’s the use in that, after all. And we got some food. Isn’t Tel here?”

“He went outside to collect some herbs in the forest,” Penelope replied, getting up from the edge of the bed. “He should be back soon.”

Athena caught the slight unease in both parents, she guessed it was hard for them not to know each other’s exact whereabouts, and she wished more than anything to simply take a look into Quick Thought and ease their worries. She hoped Odysseus wouldn’t ask her to.

He didn’t, instead putting down the tray he’d been holding and then pulling Penelope close.

She watched the two, feeling her heart twist at the thought that they could have had this years ago, if only-

Telemachus entered, mercifully cutting off her thought together with his parents’ worry.

“I brought half to the kitchen and half here,” he explained, smiling, before he snatched a pita and a piece of cheese from the tray.

“Tel!” Penelope scolded, but she was chuckling.

Athena quietly sat up fully, feeling the heaviness of her immobilized wing like a shackle. A bout of dizziness made her grip the sheets. She hated how much the fever fluctuated, leaving her fine one moment and helplessly drained the next, she hated how she started to recognize the symptoms that she shouldn’t even be having, like she was accepting them as a part of her.

Subtly wiping her brow, she managed a smile when Odysseus brought over a bowl of soup for her even though she wasn’t hungry. She had no interest in giving them more -if unfounded- reason to worry.

He didn’t ask, just supported the bowl with one hand as she obediently took a couple of sips.

“That’s not one you made, is it, little wolf?” she asked. “At least it tastes different.”

He beamed at her.

“You’re right, cook made that. Do you like it better?”

She shook her head, grateful when Odysseus put the bowl away unprompted, as if he felt that she didn’t want any more.

“No, they’re both really good.”

She watched them eat for a while, quietly listening to Telemachus making it abundantly clear he was the amalgamation of both of his parents, and her heart felt heavy with affection for all three of them, tinged with a vague terror she recognized from the moment of seeing Odysseus on the cliff on Ogygia, the fear of losing something more valuable than words could describe.

Oh fates, allow them to be happy now, I beg of you.

She shifted her weight slightly, exhaustion pulling at her, so horribly familiar at this point even though she hadn’t known it at all in the 4000 years before.

Her side felt somehow more tender than it had before being treated earlier, she could have drawn up the shape of the lightning running from her shoulder to her hip with her eyes closed, every edge seemingly irritated by being disturbed.

Shifting again, she tried to ease the pull on the wound as much as possible.

A jab of pain seared through her side, making her gasp, it felt as if a hot wire was moving under her skin, right against her ribcage.

“Athena, what’s wrong?” Odysseus asked, alarmed.

She hissed, clutching her side.

“Athena, talk to me, what’s wrong?”

“I think… I think my rib is broken,” she pressed out, pushing away the thought that it hurt so much worse now. “Maybe… it… shifted.” I barely even moved…

Odysseus hissed.

“Shit, Athena, why didn’t you say something?”

“I just did, didn’t I?” She gasped, trying to get enough air.

“I mean earlier! What if it hurt your lungs?”

“Ahh… I never had a broken rib before. I’m not sure that’s… what it is.”

Odysseus huffed, sitting down beside her, hands hovering helplessly without touching her.

“I need to… you need to let me look, Athena… or Pen, if that’s… someone needs to take a look at it.”

She nodded, trying to take a deeper breath and being rewarded with another jab of pain. She was so dizzy.

“Go… ahead,” she pressed out, unsure if she wanted to close her eyes or keep them open when a cough tore through her chest, making black spots shoot through her vision. It was deeper than before, and she knew what would happen before she felt the ichor on her hand, before she heard Telemachus and Penelope gasp in unison.

Odysseus cussed, then she felt his hand on her back, carefully but firmly stabilizing her as she gasped for breath, a tremor running through her entire body, vision blurring before another cough came, wet and raw, feeling like a knife spear twisting in her chest. She pressed her hand to her mouth, not wanting the ichor to splatter anywhere, this hurts, by Styx, this really hurts.

"It’s okay. Shit. It’s okay, try to breathe, it’s gonna be okay.” Odysseus’s voice, deep with worry.

She gasped softly, eyes pressed shut as she tried to get some air, drawing shallow breaths as not to trigger another cough, feeling her hands shake.

Opening her eyes, she felt a tear escaping and running down her cheek. Looking down at her hand, she saw ichor lazily trickling through her fingers.

It was more on that night, she wanted to say, it’s not that bad, but she was afraid to speak, feeling another cough lying in wait. Her head was spinning.

A soft, strangled sound made her wince and look up, meeting Telemachus’s tear-filled eyes. He drew a shuddering breath, tears dropping from his lashes. Penelope had her arm wrapped around him, looking at Athena, eyes wide.

“I-it’s okay,” Athena managed, voice sounding hoarse and cracked.

“I don’t think you get to say that when you just coughed up a handful of blood,” Odysseus said, and she flinched from the severity in his tone.

Athena, we cannot take care of something like this. This is too much for us, you need to leave.

“I… can’t die,” she offered helplessly. “It’ll pass…”

“You said that two days ago when it was a drop or two. Bit hard to believe it now,” Odysseus said gravely, handing her a cloth to wipe her hand and mouth. She still tasted ichor on her tongue, feeling nauseous and weak and not wanting to swallow it for fear of having to throw up, so many bodily functions gods don’t regularly worry about.

She shivered, hearing Telemachus’s breath hitch as he suppressed a sob. Her heart twisted in her chest.

Didn’t take you too long to hurt him, did it?

She didn’t dare to reach out mentally, telling him it would all be okay, it felt invasive and wrong to do in a moment like this.

Finally, you’ll be out of my mind!

“Athena?”

She met Odysseus’s gaze, expecting frustration and finding concern.

“You’re really pale. I’ll help you lie back and we’ll find a position where you can breathe easily, okay?”

She nodded, moving carefully with his hand steadying her back.

“How about like this?” Odysseus asked, and she nodded slightly, feeling as if the room was moving around her.

“Okay. Pen?”

Penelope appeared beside her, propping up the pillows behind her so she could lean back.

“Better now?” Odysseus asked.

“Yes,” she replied, forcing a verbal reply to maybe calm the tension in the room a little.

Telemachus sat down beside her, face pale and streaked with tears. He was holding a damp cloth, gingerly reaching out for her. She turned her face toward him, and he gently wiped the remaining ichor from her lips, hands trembling as he did.

“Thank you,” she whispered, offering a smile, and after a moment, he returned it.

She felt him reaching out mentally, a little unsurely, and let him in.

That was scary, he said shakily. I’m sorry I cried, it must have been so painful, I should have-

There now, she interrupted. Didn’t you tell me you should cry when you have to? I’m sorry I scared you. It’s gone now, and I’m sure it’s nothing serious.

He looked rather doubtful, but he put his hand on hers and gripped it tightly, and she closed her fingers around his in turn.

Just don’t hide it, okay?, he said. If it gets worse, don’t be brave about it, tell us.

She nodded slightly.

Odysseus cleared his throat after a few moments, but she caught him biting back a weary smile and remembered he had heard them speak, she hadn’t thought about locking him out.

“Okay,” he said, face returning to serious. “I’ll check if I can see or feel anything at your ribs, alright? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

She nodded, goosebumps traveling up her arms.

You can touch me if you can reach me, Odysseus, but as of right now, there’s a sword in your way.

Athena, you’re such a spoilsport. Hugs are meant to be nice, you know?

She tried her best not to flinch when his hand moved her chiton aside a little and failed miserably.

Did I have the chance to make this normal for myself if only I’d tried more? With my siblings, or with Odysseus when he was younger? Did I cause this fear myself by isolation?

He was being so gentle, she knew that, the pain was solely from her injuries, and she didn’t think it mattered if he hurt her, not when her body was already broken down far beyond what should have been possible, and even if not, she would have freely offered herself up if he voiced the desire to hurt her, he deserved to cause her pain, and she wouldn’t refuse it… So why was her heart pounding in her chest at a gentle touch?

Odysseus grimaced.

“I think there’s a bruise right up there, I’m gonna slightly press down, see if I can feel a fracture. Tell me if it hurts.”

His finger moved toward one of her upper ribs and she groaned in pain when he touched it, instinctively curling a little.

“Sorry. I take that as a yes. That’s probably where it is then. We’re gonna find a way to stabilize it, okay, and then it’ll heal up just fine. Okay?”

She nodded, forcing herself to lie down still. She believed the rib was broken, she had no reason not to, pushing aside a small voice inside her quietly pointing out that the pain had felt different.

Watching the family cling to the security of having an idea what was wrong, Athena swallowed down her doubt and stayed silent.

Chapter Text

Odysseus turned to his wife and son.

“Would someone go and ask our good friend Theo for advice?” he asked, sounding tired. “And remind me that once this ordeal is over, we’ll compensate the man properly for his troubles.”

“I think we’ll both take a walk,” Penelope said. "Unless you need me here.”

He nodded. “No, it’s fine, we’ve got this, I think. Go, get some fresh air.”

Telemachus pressed Athena’s hand before he got up and joined his mother.

They walked through the palace side by side, something that should have been so casual and still felt like a gift.

Telemachus subtly wiped his eyes, hoping it wouldn’t show.

“Do you want to talk about it, Tel?” Penelope asked when they left the palace.

He shrugged.

“I just… it means that something is really wrong, doesn’t it? I know she’s immortal, but what happens to an immortal when they get too sick? Because she’s not getting better, and at some point… where does it end?”

Penelope frowned, gaze wandering across the horizon.

“I don’t know, little wolf. I think there’s little we can do beyond hoping for the best.”

“Do you think Athena knows what could happen and won’t tell us?” he asked, voice uncertain. She offered her arm and he took it, walking closer to her.

“No,” she said after a while. “I think she doesn’t know either. If she knew nothing could happen to her, she’d explain it to ease our minds, it would help much more than ‘I’m immortal’ and she would know that. If she knew something bad could happen, I’d like to think she’d be at least a little more careful.”

Telemachus hummed, sounding unconvinced. Penelope couldn’t blame him, she felt uncertain about that last part, too.

“She seemed surprised, anyhow,” she said. “I don’t think she knows.”

She tenderly stroked his arm.

“Do you think Dad thinks I shouldn’t have cried?” he asked then, voice cracking.

“I know he doesn’t think that,” she replied, no hesitation in her voice. “Whoever gave you that idea?”

They had reached the town below, lowering their voices. Penelope offered a practiced smile, and Telemachus followed suit, still unused to having eyes on him like this, not the shameful yet persistent stare that said the bird is out of the cage, look at him, so unlike his father, not taking the throne that’s his, no, genuine reverence and warmth.

“I… I guess it felt… weak… to cry, when none of you did… and when she’s hurt and she doesn’t even make a sound. She’s so strong, Mom.”

Penelope sighed.

“She is, but not because of that.” She ran her thumb across his arm in small circular motions, and he briefly rested his cheek against her head. “You know, Tel, some people get told their entire life that crying, and showing emotion, and reacting normally to pain, makes them weak. So they teach themselves not to. But it’s not true. Our friend is doing it, and she suffers all the more for it. Being strong should make you feel better, but right now it makes her worse. Because sometimes, we will have strong emotions, and we will be in pain, and we will have to cry, and if you taught yourself to suppress it, where does it go?”

Telemachus nodded, understanding.

“It all stays inside.”

They nodded at some more citizens as they walked past, and Telemachus wondered if one ever got used to it, or if his Mom was naturally good at making people feel appreciated.

“Exactly,” Penelope said. “I’m glad you cried, Tel, not because I want you to be scared, but because you were scared, and you allowed it to come out. It was a terrifying thing to happen, and you care about her, so it was a perfectly normal thing to do.”

She hesitated.

“It’s not easy to remember that some people are safe to be vulnerable around, when you’ve learned that others are not,” she said then. “I find it hard to cry sometimes when I want to now, because I had to keep my emotions down around the suitors. Because they would have thought me weak, and hurt me for it. But I want you to keep in mind, that around those who love you, you can be true, always. We would never consider you any lesser for it.”

He smiled at the tenderness in her voice, but then his face grew grave.

“She doesn’t feel safe around us, does she?”

Penelope sighed.

“I doubt she feels truly safe around anyone, little wolf. But I believe if we continue being kind and patient, she might start to trust us. I think she’s trying to already.”

They halted before the home of Theodyces, and Penelope put her hands on her son’s shoulders before briefly pulling him close.

“Alright,” she whispered. “Let’s find out how to help our friend.”

Night fell, and Athena couldn’t sleep.

She had acted like she did, not wanting to talk, and not wanting to worry Odysseus who had insisted to stay with her despite looking very tired.

She hadn’t called him to attention when she had noticed his head droop about a half-hour ago, only saddened that he wasn’t sleeping in his own bed, but she knew he wouldn’t leave her side if she woke him.

The others’ visit with the healer had yielded little, lying as still as possible, managing pain if necessary, carefully wrapping the injury to stabilize it. In summary, nothing they weren’t already doing.

Her side was throbbing, but she hadn’t needed to cough again at least, even if the coppery taste of ichor lingered in her mouth even after hours, even after drinking something.

It really was laughable that despite losing a few hours to a fever spike earlier, and despite the cough, this could almost be considered a good day.

She swallowed hard.

The quiet of the night would have been a lot more comforting if she didn’t feel like there was blood in her throat constantly, too persistent to swallow down, and not bad enough to trigger a cough and be released that way.

Not that she was particularly keen on the latter anyway. Especially not when Odysseus was catching up on sleep beside her.

She swallowed again.

Her thoughts wandered toward Olympus, and she forcefully tried to drag them anywhere else. She didn’t want to be there even in spirit.

I didn’t think they hated me quite this much.

She supposed hate wasn’t quite the right word. Hate might have drawn them to her, to gloat, to injure her further, even.

Hate was what had turned her father’s eyes white with lightning. It was always simmering in the background, hate for the fate she would have had, had she been a boy, hate for her that boy being the reason for her mother’s fading, the mother whose eyes she had, hate who she was and who she might turn out to be, and sometimes she thought there was more hate than there was affection, but that was how things were. Only wishing for the love of a father without the hate was a fantasy that she had long stopped engaging, she guessed all children wished for it for a while before accepting the natural order of things.

Athena swallowed.

It was stupid to even consider whether she preferred the hatred even without the promise of love, when it caused her pain like this, when it had all but destroyed her body. Only a fool would prefer fire to the vague coolness of disregard.
She had given her siblings little reason to feel any other way, and wasn’t it a good thing that at least she hadn’t hurt them enough for them to hate her?

Odysseus stirred, cooped up in the chair, and she turned, glad to be pulled back into the present.

He shifted, brow furrowed in sleep, and curled into himself more.

She was glad he was getting some sleep, still, there was an unease about it that she couldn’t quite place.

Odysseus shifted again, almost like a flinch. For a moment, dread settled in her stomach, what if he was injured?

“I’m… no… I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice drunken with sleep. The words put the situation into perspective for Athena.

Nightmare. Shit.

“Odysseus?” she asked hesitantly.

He didn’t respond, but she could see his eyes move rapidly behind his lids, and then he blocked an imaginary blow with his hands.

“No…” he mumbled. “No, please…”

“Odysseus,” Athena repeated, but she could tell her voice didn’t carry far enough.

Briefly considering, she pushed off the blanket and carefully sat up, the wire in her side shifting and burning at the movement. Be still, by Styx, I do not have time for this.

Odysseus mumbled something indistinct, and the fear in his voice was palpable.

Athena felt weakness pulling at her limbs when she slowly rose, steadying herself with her left hand. She had to close her eyes for a few seconds to fight the dizziness.

It was just a little further than a step, really, and she managed, albeit shakily.

“Odysseus. You’re dreaming. Time to wake up.”

He didn’t react to her voice, but soon after he flinched violently, whimpering in his sleep.

She grimaced, conflicted. Being touched, especially when dreaming, would scare her, but on the other hand, if her own nightmares were anything to go by, he would want to experience as little of it as possible.

“Odysseus.”

Still no response.

Athena closed her eyes for a moment, and reached out for his shoulder, shaking him slightly.

“Odysseus, wake up.”

He jumped, jolting awake, and his hand closed around her wrist.

Usually black eyes, now blazing with lightning. Fingers bending the metal of her armguards, and she can feel the imprint like they’re touching bare skin.

Athena drew a shaky breath, blinking hard to stay in the present.

Odysseus stared at her, wide-eyed, panting.

“It’s okay,” she managed, voice wavering. “Just a dream. You’re home.”

He shuddered, then his gaze focused a little.

“A-Athena?”

“Yes. It’s me. There’s no danger.”

“I… I’m sorry, Athena… I should have… I should have listened… I didn’t want to fail you, please, I’m sorry I disobeyed you, you were right all along…”

Tears ran down his cheeks, the words all but catching in his throat.

“Odysseus,” she interrupted, his words twisting in her heart. “It’s alright. Don’t apologize. It’s all good now, you’re home, this is Ithaca, your wife and your son are next door sleeping, and you’re safe. You just had a nightmare.”

He shivered, then his hand slowly released her wrist as his gaze darted around the room.

“Athena?”

“Yes?”

“You’re… are you really here?”

She swallowed hard.

“Yes, Odysseus. I’m really here. I promise I am.”

He reached out a shaking hand, silently pleading to be grounded, she wouldn’t have understood ten years ago, but she did now. She wrapped her fingers around his, holding on as tightly as her limited strength allowed.

“Tell me… tell me again. Where I am,” Odysseus said, voice choked and uncertain.

“You’re on Ithaca. Penelope and Telemachus are next door. This is your childhood room. You’re not on sea anymore.”

He shook his head, still appearing confused.
“…No. I’m not allowed to… Poseidon… I made a deal with Poseidon to get home.”

“That’s right. You’re home now.”

“Home.” His voice sounded dreamy and far away.

Athena fought a shiver, feeling unsteady and weak. I don’t know how to do this.

“Athena… it… why doesn’t it feel real, Athena, why… I just want to be home, why can’t I feel that way?” She heard the tears in his voice.

“It’s hard to feel safe when you haven’t been for a long time, my friend. Let me show you what I can see.”

She felt fear settle in her stomach, terror at not knowing whether she’d be able to do this without spending the rest of her dwindling strength, but she knew she would have given anything for security in his place.

Opening their mental connection, she gave him access to her sight, revealing the room around them.

“See, remember the ceiling you painted for Telemachus? And they moved the furniture around some. The dresser is Ctimene’s, isn’t it? You can make him a new one now if you want. The room doesn’t look like you left it, do you remember?”

He nodded. “Yes… I built a crib for him. They put my old bed back… because I wasn’t there to build one.”

“You can do that now. I think he’d like to help you with it.”

“Yes… that would be nice.”

She felt the death-grip on her hand loosen some.

Her heart was beating unreasonably fast, but the connection held steady. Apparently it had been the force of her memories that had done her in the last time. Great job not figuring that out sooner, goddess of wisdom.

Odysseus breathed out shakily, then his gaze flickered to her. She felt him break the connection, ‘double vision’ as he called it always made him queasy.

“Athena… no, wait, why are you up? You’re not supposed to be out of bed, why are you…?”

“I couldn’t let you go through that if I could wake you instead,” she replied simply.

He rose, movements still clumsy and shaky. She groaned softly when he reached out to support her, less controlled than he would have been when not running only on fear-driven instinct.

This time, it wasn’t imagination. She could taste the ichor in her throat, metallic and suffocating, but she fought the cough down, not now, not when there was finally something she could do, when she could finally give rather than receive.

Her side was burning, and she thought it was insane how much of an area a small fracture like this affected.

Odysseus helped her sit down, erratically putting the blanket around her, then helplessly hovering around her and she could feel his desperation to make sure everything was fine.

“Odysseus,” she said gently. “There’s no danger. It’s all good. Sit down.”

He obediently sat beside her, legs pulled in, arms wrapped around his shins. A suppressed sob shook his frame.

Athena swallowed hard.

“Do you… do you just need to cry, or would you like to talk about it?” she asked hesitantly.

Odysseus sniffled.

“H-how much do you know?”

“I took a pretty thorough time-dive to find you, so… a lot.”

He nodded, burying his head in his arms, making his voice sound dulled on top of cracked.

“I… if only I’d… listened. You warned me, and if I’d listened, I’d have 14 men to mourn instead of… of 600.”

“You couldn’t have known, Odysseus,” Athena interjected.

“And if I’d been stronger… I could have stayed awake until Ithaca and kept the bag closed… if I’d used different words for Poseidon, he might have spared them… or if I’d found another way past Scylla… And they all died, Athena… I knew every single one of them, and I killed them all-“ A sob broke him off.

Athena flexed her fingers, hesitating, then put her hand on his shoulder, feeling his breath hitch, but he didn’t flinch away.

“I know what mortal bodies are made like,” she said quietly. “Nine days without sleep is already beyond what your body should have been capable of, Odysseus, and they should have trusted you. You gave them no reason to believe you’d keep treasure to yourself. And I’ve known Poseidon for 4000 years, and I couldn’t tell you how and if you could have persuaded him. Not fighting Scylla was the only way any of you had a chance at all. You tried your hardest against overwhelming odds. Those choices should not have fallen on your shoulders.”

He drew a shuddering breath.

“I miss them… Athena, I miss them so much… and they hate me, even in death… I hear them scream for me… and I couldn’t save them. I wouldn’t… what kind of captain sacrifices his fleet?”

“One asked to make an impossible choice,” she repeated, forcing shallow breaths to combat the tang of metal in her mouth.

“I just… the worst thing is, I am so happy to be here!” Tears threatened to drown out his words. “I am so happy, because Pen and Tel are here and I love them so much I think my heart will explode, and I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve to be here and be happy with them, and still I can’t and don’t want to change it.” His voice broke.

“What good would it do?” Athena asked, fingers absently tracing circles on his back. “Seriously, what good would it do? After everything that was lost, is the solution that you eat yourself up with guilt?” She hesitated for a second, swallowing. “If I’d been in your crew’s place, I’d be most offended if you’d have been stuck on Ogygia for the rest of your life, because then there’d really have been no point. You’ve paid dearly for a chance at happiness, now you should use it to honor those you lost.”

Odysseus drew a shuddering breath as he nodded erratically.

She saw his eyes darting toward the door again, and she didn’t have to have access to his mind to guess what he was thinking of.

“Why don’t you go check on your family, see that they’re alright?”

He wiped his eyes.

“T-that’s pretty illogical, though, right?… I should believe they’re fine… I should…”

“Odysseus,” Athena interrupted gently. “Screw the logic of it. Go check on them.”

He nodded again before he got up, all but running.

Athena counted internally, calculating how far away from the room he was.

She felt her chest tremble with strain before she finally allowed the cough, daggers shooting through her entire body as it tore through her. Tears welled up in her tightly shut eyes, and for agonizing seconds? minutes? all there was was the fire in her lungs and the ichor in her mouth, wetting her fingers.

A low whimper escaped her throat along with more blood. Weakness crept through her limbs, and she felt herself sinking back against the pillows, struggling to breathe, at least a little, and she knew Odysseus would come back, diligence forcing him to, and she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear her mother being so wrong; you’re a fighter, Nea, always remember how strong you are.

She groaned, blindly reaching over to the side table, knowing there was a cloth, her right side on fire as she was forced to reach over, elbow painfully pressing against her wing until she finally gripped it, breaking into another cough, fabric staining golden as she felt like she was falling despite lying still.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, she sank back, every breath an effort, her vision was blurred and what little she saw was swimming around her. She weakly wiped her mouth, then pulled the blanket over herself a little, pushing the bloody cloth under it.

She felt her hands faintly trembling.

The door opened with a dulled sound, light from a candle streaming into the room.

“I’m back, Athena.” Odysseus’s voice sounded a bit hoarse from crying.

She tried to reply, but her mind wouldn’t even allow her to form words, let alone speak them.

“She might be asleep again,” Penelope said as the two stepped closer.

Odysseus bowed over her, she could more sense than actually see him. His hand gently touched her forehead.

“Oh dear,” he said.

“Spiked again?”

“Yes. Gods, sometimes I think it gets higher every time.”

She felt with vague detachment how Odysseus carefully adjusted her position, hearing herself gasp softly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Just making sure you can breathe.”

 A cool cloth touched her forehead, making her realize in a daze how hot her skin had to be as he gently wiped the sweat off her brow.

Athena supposed she should have been frightened at her vulnerability, but in that moment before the dark, all she felt was tired relief.

Chapter Text

Penelope watched the sun go up in silence, fingers gently tracing lines on Odysseus’s face with the hand he wasn’t gripping tightly.
He’d moved a small couch over to the room earlier, fortunately not all their furniture was naturally bolted to the ground, and now he lay sleeping, body angled a little awkwardly, head in her lap.

The night had been relatively quiet, all things considered, even if Athena seemed restless every now and again, moving or groaning softly. Penelope guessed she wasn’t the only one relieved that the goddess’s breaths continued to come shallow, but steady. She knew it was foolish to hope that the bloody cough had been a one-time thing, just a terrifying dream rather than a very real threat, but in the quiet hours of the morning, she allowed herself to engage the comforting thought.

The sun had already risen considerably when Odysseus stirred, yawning.

“Good morning, love,” she said, savoring each word.

He turned, looking up to her.

“Behold, I am in the presence of the most wonderful woman to ever have walked this world,” he said, voice sleepy but full of affection. She chuckled, tousling his hair playfully.

“And you’ve done her the biggest service by bringing her husband home to her.”

He lifted himself up to pull her close and kiss her and they stayed snuggled up for a while, thoughts intertwined in the sweet intoxication of being together.

“How’s Athena been?” Odysseus asked then, gaze wandering toward the still goddess.

“Quiet,” Penelope replied. “I checked her temperature once or twice since you fell asleep. It went down a little.”

Odysseus grimaced worriedly.

“One would think godly healing would hit a little harder than this.”

“Well, consider, she is here, she is not dead, and she’s not unconscious all day. Given how badly she’s injured, that constitutes a miracle even for a goddess, I’d imagine.”

He nodded.

“You’re probably right.”

He got up, reluctantly letting go of her hand and stepping over to Athena, gently putting a hand to her forehead. She groaned quietly, moving a little, but not waking up.

“Pen?” Odysseus asked. “Has she coughed again?”

Penelope caught the subtle shift in his voice, and rose, alarmed.

“No. Why?”

She stepped up beside him, and her gut twisted when she saw dried smears of ichor around Athena’s lips.

“This wasn’t there in the evening,” Odysseus said. “I’m not… Am I seeing things?”

On a hunch, Penelope pushed the blanket away from Athena’s body, finding exactly what she’d feared. There was barely any blood left on her hand, but the stain on her chiton suggested there had been more.
She whipped around when Odysseus inhaled sharply. He held up a cloth all but golden with ichor.

“May the fates help me, I will kill her myself.” But his voice wavered.

“She hid that?”

“Yes! And I know when, too! Gods, Pen, I was gone for five minutes! That was on purpose, don’t tell me otherwise!”

Athena shifted, a tremor running through her body. Her eyes opened slightly, completely glazed over, a stray tear blindly catching in her lashes.

Penelope saw Odysseus’s face soften with compassion.

“We’ll talk about this later,” he said quietly, tucking his friend back in. She whimpered, a gasp catching in her throat, and he carefully slid his arm under her back to prop her torso up again so she could breathe as easily as possible. Her head lolled powerlessly, coming to rest against his chest. She blinked, clearly trying to grasp for awareness, and missing.

“It’s okay,” Odysseus murmured. “Rest. We’ll talk later. It’s not the time now. Rest.”

Athena whimpered again, and the combined strength of her voice and her confused mind managed to make a single phrase coherent.

I’m sorry.

“Later,” he repeated. “It’s okay now. Athena, I just want you to rest, do you understand me?” He knew she wasn’t apologizing for what she should have, her mind told him as much. With her thoughts fractured by fever, he doubted she’d caught anything beyond his raised voice, and as exasperated as he was about her hiding the cough, scaring her wasn’t what he wanted.

He supported her head when he helped her settle down, and for a moment, her hand weaky reached out, if he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she was trying to hold on to him. He adjusted the blanket, grimacing at her faint trembling. Penelope handed him a cool cloth. Athena’s eyes flickered and closed when he put it on her forehead.

Odysseus got up, taking another piece of fabric. Penelope gathered the bloody ones in a small basket.

“I’ll take these to be washed later,” she said.

Odysseus hummed in agreement, and even he heard that he sounded unsettlingly like Athena in that moment.

He carefully wiped the remnants of blood from her mouth, he hadn’t thought he could hate something as much as the look of red on skin, but if anything, the gold was worse, a constant reminder that no one was meant to see a goddess’s blood at all.

How a father could do this to his daughter, I will never understand.

He sighed, lightly brushing a lock of hair behind her ear in a brief tender gesture before he got up again and sat back down beside Penelope. She wrapped her arm around him.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours?” she asked, playing with a strand of his hair near his temple.

“I’m reminding myself that I’ve pissed off enough gods in a lifetime, but it’s really hard not to break my three-week streak right about now.”

Penelope leaned her head against his.

“If it didn’t mean certain death, I’d encourage you to, and get my dagger.”

A smile played around Odysseus’s mouth.

“And that’s the woman who married me.”

She chuckled.

Odysseus sighed.

“I’m worried about her, Pen.”

“I know. Me, too.”

“What if this is beyond what we can fix? What if we can’t help her?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there,” Penelope replied. “Even then, we’d figure something out. We always do.”

He tried not to think about the times he hadn’t been able to figure something out in the past, because he wanted to believe she was right.

His gaze wandered toward Athena’s pale, gaunt face, barely relaxed in sleep.

“She’s so different now,“ he said softly.

“Well, she’s really unwell, so…”

“I don’t think that’s what it is. Not just that.” He hesitated for a moment. “I do believe that she regrets what happened, it’s really obvious she does and I do, too, I was mad for a while but then I just started missing her, you know? And I guess I didn’t think she would miss me, too, but apparently she did, and I get that we were both too proud to reach out sooner, it all makes sense, but…" He paused to breathe. "There’s something so… fragile… about her. Like a tree after a storm holding together until a gust of wind hits it and snaps it in half. And I don’t mean physically, that part I get. I suppose part of it is what happened in the arena, that would terrify anyone, but I don’t like the way she looks at me, like I’m gonna hurt her, too. Like I even could, even if I wanted to.”

Penelope nodded.

“Have you considered it’s not physical pain she fears from you? Look, if we… if we’d parted with harsh words before the war, I don’t know if I could have handled the following years. It was hard enough with being sure of your love, I can't imagine what those ten years must have felt like to you both. I know you are much alike, but I think the difference is that you are accustomed to love, and Athena is not." 

Odysseus opened his mouth as if to protest, then his eyes wandered to his friend, regarding her somberly.

"How could she be if the way Olympus treated her this time is anything to go by?" Penelope continued. "And love, it’s terrifying. You give another person your heart and pray they don’t crush it. I imagine for a goddess, and specifically for someone as strong and used to control as Athena, that powerlessness must be even more difficult to handle. So yes, I think you could hurt her, if you chose to.”

Odysseus frowned unhappily.

"But I don't want to. Do I make it seem that way? I'm so happy she's here, doesn't she know that?"

"It's not on you, love. I think she's just feeling very insecure and frightened right now. I don’t think being severely injured by someone so close to you and having an unnaturally high fever is helping in any way.”

He nodded wistfully.

“I wonder if it’s my fault, in a way. Even now, I wish she just was as strong and steadfast as she used to be. Maybe I never gave her the opportunity to be vulnerable with me because I relied on her strength so much.”

Penelope reached out for his cheek, making him look at her.
“Look, I get why you feel this way,” she said, voice calm but firm. “But there’s no use in blaming yourself. Athena didn’t want to be vulnerable with you because of beings thousands of years older than you and I. It’s really more impressive how much of an influence you had on her, in the short time it’s been.” She sighed, offering a kiss that he gladly took. “You’re doing your best, Ody, and we all know that. Try to talk as much as you can. I definitely see where you learned your silence from." Her voice was teasing but tender. He pulled her close, resting his head against hers.

“However did I survive without you, Pen? I don’t think any god could answer me that.”

Athena woke in a cold sweat, gasping for breath.

Her hand helplessly gripped for something, a weapon or a shield, and finding nothing.

“Athena?”

She blinked rapidly, gaze well too slowly focusing on the blurry figure in front of her.

Odysseus.

She hummed in reaction, tiredly regretting opening her eyes, it was so bright behind him…

“Can you say something verbal so I know you can hear me?” Odysseus asked, and her gut twisted at his tone, vaguely signaling danger.

“I can hear you,” she replied, cringing at how weak her voice sounded. Her eyes briefly shifted toward Penelope, bent over the side table and making a salve.

“Good.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “There’s something we must talk about.”

She felt her heartbeat picking up, instinctively backing away slightly, painfully feeling her wings uselessly stuck behind her.

Odysseus pulled out the ichor-stained cloth, holding it up, she thought she saw disappointment mixed with frustration in his eyes.

I’m sorry… I didn’t know how broken I was when I got here, I didn’t think you’d be stuck helping me like this… I didn’t want this to happen.

“You can’t do that, Athena.”

She felt her breath catch in her throat, looking away.

“I… I didn’t…”

“Try to hide this from us? I’m pretty certain you did that, actually.”

“What… I…”
“Did you wait until I was gone, Athena? To deal with it alone?”

She drew a wavering breath.

“No… I mean… You needed…” She had never been more frightened by stumbling over words, silver-tongued Athena rendered speechless when it mattered most, when he was mad and she couldn’t even explain…

“What I need right now is for you to tell me the truth. Did you purposefully wait till I was gone to cough up blood, yes or no?”

Athena shivered, then nodded, eyes downcast.

Odysseus sighed, exasperated.

"This is madness, Athena! I know you never had to worry about it before, but you don't know how much more your body can handle! And we can't do as much as we wish we could, but you can't go hiding things like this from us, too. What if you’d choked? What if something else had gone wrong or even went wrong because nobody helped you? I saw what happened to you, Athena, and you're not weak for being in a state like this, because by all accounts you should be dead, but you're really doing your best to retroactively adjust that!"

"Ody," Penelope interjected quietly, putting a hand on his arm. She heard the suppressed gasps Athena was trying to hide her fear with.

"It's all good now, we're not mad, just worried," she said softly. "But he's right, Athena, this is not the time for hiding how you are. I know you find this humiliating, but it can't be helped right now, okay?"

Athena nodded, eyes glistening. Her throat felt closed up and she just nodded.

"I'm sorry I shouted," Odysseus said. "I'm just worried, you know?"

"It's okay," she managed. Her head was pounding, and she almost asked for water, the cool cloths didn't bring her fever down significantly, but they eased the pain a little. She shivered, that was starting to hurt, too, it seemed wrong for her muscles to ache from trembling, but there was little use denying that was the case. “I’m… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…” The words stalled on her tongue, when the throbbing pain in her side seared up to a raw and blinding fire, and she could feel ichor flooding her senses, slowed down almost like Quick Thought. She tried to swallow instinctively, but her body overwrote the command, forcing it out in a painful heaving cough.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Odysseus’s voice was tense as he put a hand onto her back to steady her. “Don’t fight it, it’s only gonna hurt worse otherwise.”

She couldn’t exactly say that she felt very clearly just how powerless she was in the fight, so she just closed her eyes, trying to allow it, allow it, like she’d allowed the lightning to hit her because she knew anything beyond blocking would make it worse, and she needed to save her friend, how long would Olympus think her weak for this, and why should it matter to her if they did-

“-ena! Athena, c’mon, stay with me!”

She groaned, her body fighting against itself, chills running through her, and she struggled to hold on to his voice through it all, she didn’t know if she was still coughing because everything hurt.

“-et some water, Pen. She’s burn-“

She gasped weakly.

Then, water on her face, mixing with the sickening taste of blood, and suddenly she knew where she was.

“Meet me on the shore, and don’t keep me waiting, child.”

The lake had never seemed this deep. Her wings were fighting to carry her upwards, still shaking from shock and disbelief, this couldn’t be real, surely this isn’t real, surely…

But she knew it was real, because the blood was real, stark and red, dimming the water around her with each move and there was so much of it she was sure it would fill up the lake entirely.

Pallas.

“-thena, don’t be scared, it’s o-“

She whimpered, feeling blood in her mouth, she didn’t want to breathe it in, but it was all around her, Pallas was all around her, and she had to breathe her in.

“Shit. Athena, no, you need to cough it out, I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but you’ll choke if you don’t…”

No… where?…

A hand on her back forced more fire through her body and she trembled, cough shaking her frame.

“There you go. This hurts, I know.”

Someone wiped the water from her face along with the blood and she weakly leaned into it, silently begging to have it all washed away, even knowing that to get that blood off her skin, they’d have to rip it off.

Chapter Text

A few minutes earlier…

“I know you find this humiliating, but it can't be helped right now, okay?" Penelope said, hoping gentleness would get through to Athena more than stern words.

The goddess nodded, shoulders hunched, damp eyes darting defensively, never meeting theirs.

"I'm sorry I shouted," Odysseus said. "I'm just worried, you know?"

Penelope knew that the slight raising of his voice could hardly be called shouting, but she guessed he had noticed the effect it had had on Athena, too.

"It's okay," Athena said, a statement so clearly a lie, it was pitiable, really. She shivered. “I’m… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

She broke off, flinching, and instinctively reached for her side, eyes wide.

Odysseus saw her tense, almost seeing the pain travel through her body, and he grimaced involuntarily when she swallowed hard, then doubled over in a painful cough.

He moved beside her, steadying her, feeling the rattling in her chest, gods, this has to hurt so much.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you. Don’t fight it, it’s only gonna hurt worse otherwise.”

She didn’t reply, just closed her eyes, fingers over her mouth, ichor flowing through the gaps between them, and the coughs just kept coming, sounding like they were spiked and ripping through the flesh of her throat.

He held her steady as best as he could, sharing a pained gaze with Penelope who was crying, green eyes wide and frightened, just like he felt.

Athena shuddered, hand slipping from her mouth, ragged breaths bringing more ichor to her lips, and suddenly he was supporting all but her whole weight.

“Athena!” he called, alarmed. “Athena, c’mon, stay with me!”

She groaned weakly, shivering, and when he touched her skin, he all but recoiled.

This can’t be natural. Fever doesn’t spike like this, not that quickly, not that high.

“Quick, get some water, Pen! She’s burning up!“

Athena weakly gasped for breath, body shaking.

Penelope nodded, wetting a cloth, water dripping down from her haste, and placed it on Athena’s forehead, cool streaks running over her flushed skin like tears.

Odysseus felt her tense, and suddenly her wing strained against his arm, trying in vain to open, the other shaking in its sling. Her breaths quickened, and her eyes widened, unseeing, cloudy, and yet filled with fear.

“Athena, what’s wrong?”

She moved erratically, clearly caught somewhere beyond this room, and he didn’t know why or where...

“Athena, don’t be scared, it’s okay, you’re safe with us!“

She whimpered miserably, and his heart sank when he heard a faint gurgling noise, but no cough followed. She kept her mouth closed, face strained with effort.

Gods, she’s holding her breath… she must be in so much pain…

“Shit. Athena, no, you need to cough it out, I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but you’ll choke if you don’t…” He closed his eyes as he carefully patted her back to trigger the cough, feeling like he was betraying her and knowing he had to.

She gasped and the coughing shook her entire body, and he held her as tightly as he dared. She trembled, whimpering miserably, but at last, her breaths sounded less rattling, only a soft wheezing sound remaining that sounded a lot like she was crying even as no tears came.

“There you go. This hurts, I know.”

Penelope leaned over them, gently wiping the ichor and water droplets from Athena’s face, cupping her cheek after a second of hesitation to stabilize her. Athena didn’t even flinch away, eyes fluttering.

“P-Please,” She mumbled weakly. A tear slipped down her cheek.

“What?” Odysseus asked, voice low and gentle. “What do you need?”

She made a strange shrugging motion, clearly uncomfortable, shuddered, and then her body went slack in his arms.

“Athena. Athena, can you hear me?” He knew he wouldn’t get a reply even as he asked.

Breathing through with some difficulty, he forced himself to move, to carefully move Athena to her side, trying to remember how it was done properly from the war, fates, this can’t be what he wanted, this can’t be how he wanted his daughter to end up, unconscious in the care of a mortal who has no idea what he’s doing…

Penelope knelt beside him, continuing to clean Athena’s face, her own tense and streaked with tears.

“There,” she breathed. “It’s over now. You were so brave.”

Something about the tenderness in her voice, and the sinking question when Athena had last received care like this, made Odysseus’s throat close up. He knew she wasn’t a child, hadn’t even been one by all accounts, but did you ever really grow beyond wanting to hear that someone saw how hard you were trying, how badly you were fighting?

Athena shifted slightly, but didn’t open her eyes. Her breathing finally evened out some.

“Let’s give her a little time to rest before we bandage her side again,” Penelope said softly. “It’s probably best if she stays as still as possible for now, right?”

Odysseus nodded, wiping his eyes and smelling ichor all over, coppery and rich.

“Pen, I’m such an idiot,” he said, voice pained but kept low. “Why’d I have to be so harsh to her, I know that she’s scared… I just don’t want her to…” He broke off.

Penelope nodded.

“I know, love, I know.”

Odysseus reached out to cover Athena with the blanket as she shivered. She curled into herself a little bit, fingers gripping for the sheets. He adjusted her injured arm carefully, thinking cynically that at least her wrist didn’t stubbornly refuse to heal like the rest of her body.

Night had fallen over Ithaca, in what would have been merciful if Athena hadn’t know neither the dark nor the next day was likely to bring relief.
Her chest had been aching all day, strained from coughing, and more often than not the pain blurred into a haze over what had to be hours of semi-awareness. Semi-awareness. Imagine that for the goddess of the mind.

She was alone now, which was both relief and curse, relief because she didn’t have to endure her weakness being on full display, and curse because she was alone, Athena, do you understand me? You’re alone!

And then she wasn’t.

She tasted rain on her tongue first, grassy and bitter, then the familiar sensation of the faint electric charges in her body reacting, like her blood was singing, or screaming.

Athena gasped when the King of the Gods materialized in front of her.

“Look at you, daughter,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “Taking refuge-“ he spoke the word with contemptuous disregard- “in the home of a mortal? Laying bare to them how breakable a divine form really is?”

She swallowed hard.

“I didn’t come here for healing, father. I meant to aid those I’ve sworn to protect, but… I’m not strong enough, father, I can’t… I cannot help accepting their care for now, you must understand-“

“Oh, I do understand,” he interrupted. “I understand that the child I call my own is weak, pulled down by her attachment to a man who spites the gods wherever he treads, his wife that he is oh-so-loyal to, and his son whom he’s known for all of a week. I understand that this loyalty for them, so fleeting and so temporary, is strong enough to disturb your appreciation of the love I, your father, has offered you for thousands of years.”

She shook her head feverishly.

“No, father, of course I am grateful for your love. It could never be matched in value-“ And yet, those mortals you speak of lifted me from the ground that you didn’t hesitate to push me to. “I never meant to make you question my loyalty, I swear it.”

She flinched when he appeared next to her, cruel hands almost gently lifting up her chin.

“Good,” he whispered. “Prove it.” His voice was cold, and he pulled her to her feet, uncaring of her stumbling. She felt her fingers grasp the cool wood of her spear.

She met eyes with Odysseus, standing protectively in front of his family, brown eyes wide with fear.

“I agreed with his release from Ogygia,” Zeus said, faint lightning sizzling on her shoulders where he touched her. “But remember, daughter of mine, that I decide when gods stand and fall, I decide about these mortals’ little lives. And I decide, it’s enough. Show me loyalty, Athena. Kill them.”

She heard the family gasp as she did. Telemachus hunched his shoulders, but pulled his mother closer protectively. Odysseus blindly grabbed for a sword he didn’t carry.

“No,” she whispered.

Zeus looked at her coldly.

“That’s an order, Athena.”

“No!” Odysseus exclaimed, voice filled with tears. “Athena, please, I’ve just come home, please don’t… don’t take this away from me again-“

Athena tightly gripped her spear, her blood icy in her veins.

“Father, I’ve taken a punishment previously beyond immortal comprehension for this family, and I would never call it an unjust price, but don’t ask this of me, I beg you, please, not when my wounds have not even healed, don’t make it for nought, please.”

She felt her words, so foreign and yet sickeningly familiar, the council of Athena, so controlled, filled with manipulation, always probing and prodding to get the outcome she wanted and yet powerless to force it.

Her father looked down at her, unfeeling.

“I will not ask you again, Athena. Kill them.”

Athena closed her eyes, then turned her spear, sharp tip resting again her throat.

“No. I can’t.”

Zeus chuckled in disbelief.

“Really, child? You think you can persuade me like your mortal did on Ogygia? You think you can take your life, can choose how it ends? That-“ He slightly tapped against the spear, causing the tip to nick the skin on her throat “-would be a nasty injury to heal, don’t be foolish now.”

“Do what you want to me,” she whispered, voice pleading and tear-filled. “Do your worst, test the limits of godhood with me, kill me if you can and want, but please, I beg you, don’t hurt them.”

He shook his head, annoyed.

“It’s a losing battle, Athena. Why should the continuation of their little lives matter to someone like you? I’m your father, I’ll always be there, and yet you choose them over me? Over yourself?”

Athena felt hot tears run down her face.

Zeus shook his head again, then lightning crackled in his hand and she backed away from the pain-

Her spear hit something solid.

Athena stared down at it, deeply lodged in Telemachus’s chest, blood spilling over the wood.

“-Thena?” he asked, shocked, red running from his mouth.

She just stared at him, paralyzed.

She thought she would never forget the sound Odysseus and Penelope made as they rushed to their son’s side, amplified to a thousand voices, and she couldn’t move, time mercilessly slowed and yet out of her control to halt.

Odysseus looked up at her, cradling his child to his chest, and she saw tears and hate in his eyes, and she knew he was right before he opened his mouth.

“Curse the day I killed your boar!” he yelled, and then his voice shifted, turning to that of Triton. “Get out! Get away from me!” He looked at Zeus, eyes blazing with pain. “Get her out of my home!”

Athena drew a sobbing breath as her eyes snapped open, pulling it her into the same room but away from the gruesome scene, and she was terrified by how quickly her mind called it a nightmare, because what if it wasn’t?

She instinctively pushed herself up to sit, needing to see if there was blood, fates, so much blood.

“No, Athena, it’s okay, don’t get up.”

She flinched violently, meeting Penelope’s green eyes, filled with concern and compassion so unfitting for the situation that Athena wanted to scream.

How could they still look at her like this?

“Just a dream,” Penelope said. “A terrible one, I know, but a dream still. Try to breathe, okay?”

Athena buried her head in her hand.

Maybe death wouldn't be a punishment after all.

"I... You can't-" Her voice betrayed her, forcing out a stifled sob instead. "You can't be that close... I don't know what I... I could hurt you, I don't want to... Hurt you... You need to stay back when I'm like this, I can't control... I could hurt you! Penelope, please, you can't be this close to me!"

She was trying to keep her voice down, not wanting to sound threatening even as her words broke out in a forceful tumble.

Penelope took a step back, lifting up her hands.

"It's okay," she said. "Nobody got hurt. It's all good."

Because you didn't see what I did. What I could do.

She stifled another sob, struggling to breathe.

"I can... I could summon a weapon," she explained desperately. "I could get you hurt..."

Penelope nodded, but no fear registered on her face.

"Is it okay if I sit there?" She pointed at the chair.

Athena managed a nod.

"Is that what you dreamed about?" Penelope asked. "Hurting someone?"

"I didn't mean to..." Athena whispered, helplessly hugging herself with her good arm.

"Of course you didn't." Penelope's voice was calm and matter-of-fact. "Consider this. I highly doubt you have the strength to summon and wield a weapon right now. Do you honestly think you could?"

Athena honestly didn't think she cared about the fact that Penelope had a perfectly logical point and was probably right.

What if she isn't, though?

"Athena."

"We can't risk it," she got out.

Penelope sighed, then nodded.

"Okay. We'll be careful, alright? Nobody will get hurt."

Something in Athena was deeply unsatisfied with the answer, millennia of listening to gods and humans, knowing exactly what her siblings said when they didn't want to agree with their father but still needed to appease him.

We'll be careful until we choose it is worth the risk.

She wanted to argue, to insist, for their safety, but the thought of making Penelope angry froze the words in her throat. She looked away.

Penelope ran her fingers through her auburn curls, Athena absently noted that she was wearing it down now instead of neatly styled as usual. She found it a little disconcerting, being so used to the former.

Penelope leaned on the armrest of the chair, watching Athena intently.

"I understand that not talking about how you feel isn't just something you choose to do," she said. "Old habits die hard, especially those we have to keep ourselves safe. I'd like to encourage you anyway. Sharing this could really lift a weight off of you."

For a moment, Athena almost spilled it all, but the image of blood running from Telemachus's mouth stopped her. No matter how ready Penelope thought she was, she wouldn't be ready for this admission. And Athena wasn't either, selfish as concealing her true colors was.

"I'm not... feeling too well," she said, meaning exactly that and not that at all. “I think it would be… smarter. To try and sleep again?”

Penelope briefly raised her eyebrows, then nodded and got up.

“Alright. Try to drink something first, though, okay?”

Athena obediently drank from the offered mug, then settled back down, closing her eyes, and trading the prospect of Penelope asking for something else she couldn’t handle, for the ever-looping replay of her spear piercing flesh.

This is what I do. I pull people close and hurt them, no matter how much I don’t want to. Everyone I ever loved suffered for it.

She hugged herself, then willed herself to lie still, miming sleep that she knew wouldn’t come.

I swear on the River Styx, that unless I have to in order to ensure your safety, or if I’m ordered by my king or one of you, I will not abandon this family, and in any case, I will do everything within my power to shield you from harm.

But was she? Wasn’t she leaving the biggest in their threat right in their home for no reason other than pathetic selfishness? Was it within her oath to stay because she wanted to be with them? Wasn’t she obliged to do anything to protect them, even if it hurt herself?

She knew the answer, naturally.

She heard Penelope rise as the door was quietly opened, she recognized Odysseus by step.

“How’s it looking?” he asked softly, but she understood every word.

“Her fever’s pretty much stayed the same,” Penelope replied. “No coughs. She had a pretty bad nightmare, though.”

“Another one?”

Penelope sighed. Her voice sounded both worried and tired.

“I doubt they’ll stop until she talks about at least some of it, but she… she just withdraws. I don’t know how to reach her. How to make her feel comfortable with opening up.”

You don’t want to open me up, Athena thought cynically. Bound to look even less pretty than what’s inside a mortal.

“We’ll figure something out,” Odysseus said. “Now catch some sleep, okay?”

“Trying,” she replied and Athena presumed there had been a kiss stolen before the door closed.

If not for me, they’d be sleeping in their own bed, together.

She didn’t open her eyes when Odysseus settled beside her and checked her temperature, she fought not to move when something in her body shifted and burned, was glad that he’d already checked on her because she felt her fever rising, dulling her senses for what might have been minutes or hours, but no sleep came.

Emerging from the haze a little, it was quiet apart from the soft scraping of a woodworking tool, used carefully so it wouldn’t wake her.

He’d never allow me to leave. He’d insist he wants to help, because I trained him to ignore how he feels, trained him to go above and beyond what he feels he can handle, and now it’s me who he thinks he has to fix.

Maybe we’d be fine if I wasn’t hurt like this.

She almost flinched when a distant crashing noise rang through the quiet of the night.

Odysseus inhaled sharply, bolting up from the chair.

Silence filled the air as he held his breath.

“Probably nothing,” he murmured to himself, but she could tell he was on edge.

“Athena?” he asked, and she felt his fingers carefully checking her pulse. She lay perfectly still, focusing on even breaths. “Okay. I’ll be back in a minute, you won’t even notice I’m gone, I just need… I need to check what that was.”

She heard the metallic sound of a weapon being picked up, and then he had slipped out.

Athena sat up, fighting down dizziness, painfully exhilarated by her mind working quickly, almost frantically. Her fingers were shaking as she gripped the scroll Telemachus had read to her earlier, its back not written on.

Her wing protested when she closed her hand around a primary feather, instinctively fighting to keep what it needed to fly, but it wasn’t like she’d be flying anywhere either way, so she pulled it free, pain blooming from the spot.

She pushed the bandage on her arm back slightly and dipped the end of the feather in her blood. Coming up with and executing a plan quenched part of the uselessness she felt even though she was trembling all over from what she was about to do.

Shakily with her left, Athena scribbled down some words.

“I need to leave to protect you. Don’t be worried, I’ll be back once I’ve healed some.”

Chapter Text

Athena put the note and her feather down by the bed before she tightly grabbed the bed post and pushed herself to her feet.

Her legs felt like they had forgotten how to carry her. She shivered, further planning inhibited by the struggle to simply walk.

Get out first, then think where to next.

She considered if her owl form would make this any easier, but decided she'd better make use of the limbs she knew she could somewhat use rather than take a gamble on her animal form that might not be able to fly either.

Not like she'd make it to Olympus either way. Not that she even wanted to.

Her temple maybe. That wasn't so far from the palace at least.

Her injured side complained at the movement and she grasped for it with a sharp inhale, stumbling as she let go of the post, vision swimming with pained tears.

She more staggered than walked, helplessly aiming for the opposite wall, fates, how was she getting weaker as time progressed?

Her chest contracted, forcing blood into her mouth, and she didn't have the strength to hold back the cough, slumping heavily against the wall, ichor splattering on the floor as she gasped for breath.

She felt lightheaded. They'd be worried about the blood. 

What am I doing? 

She wiped her mouth, leaning her head against the wall, exhausted.

She could just go back to bed. Try harder to convince them she was a danger to them. Somehow, she could make them understand, and they could figure out a solution. 

Normal ties would probably be enough to hold her down right now. She could handle being restrained if it kept them safe.

So they're still left to take care of the person who wronged them the most? Just requiring even more help? And for what? So the goddess of  pushing everyone away can feel less lonely?

Athena breathed out shakily, fighting down a sob. She was so tired and yet her skin was crawling with erratic energy.

Pushing herself up from the wall, she almost fell. Her vision was blurred almost to the point of disorientation.

The door opened and she yelped, startled.

"Gods!" Odysseus exclaimed, equally taken aback.

Athena shivered, mind racing wildly, not allowing her to grasp a single clear thought beyond the overwhelming sense of danger.

"Athena. No, what..." He stepped closer, trying to catch her gaze. "Shit, I'm sorry, were you looking for me? I didn't... Damn, I'm sorry I left you... I just... Athena. Athena, can you hear me?"

She nodded mechanically, desperately trying to figure out what to do next, fates, what am I thinking, what's wrong with me, now he'll be angry...

Eyes darting, she tried to find a way out, any way not to face the fight ahead, she knew there'd be one, of course there would, he'd think she didn't appreciate all they'd sacrificed... 

"Hey," Odysseus said gently. "It's okay now. I'm here. I'll help you back, okay?"

"No," she muttered, voice low and pained. "No, you don't understand..."

Odysseus cursed himself internally for leaving, especially knowing the noise had really been nothing, just Telemachus on a nightly excursion to the kitchen, he knew he'd had to check, but coming back to this made it hard not to regret it anyway.

He only heard her gasping breaths, but he couldn’t see how badly getting up had hurt her.

“I’ll get the lamp real quick so I can see you. Do you want to sit?”

She breathed a “No.”

“Lean against the wall, then, yeah?”

Odysseus vaguely saw her shift and was both relieved and worried she wasn’t being too stubborn.

Crossing the room in a few quick steps, he picked up the lamp from the table, when something on the bed caught his eye.

He moved the lamp over, the fresh shimmer of golden blood catching in the light. He took a few seconds to put together the scene.

“Athena, why is there a feather-?” He picked up the scroll as he asked and broke off.

“I need to leave to protect you. Don’t be worried, I’ll be back once I’ve healed some.”

It was barely legible, yet the words seemed to echo through the room like a scream. Odysseus felt like he was about to throw up.

“You… you were leaving?” His voice came out barely audible.

Athena didn’t reply, and he couldn’t see more than her vague shape against the wall.

Crumbling the papyrus under his hands, he approached her again, forcing her face into the light. Blood stained her lips, and she wasn’t looking at him.

“Why are you… if you came back just to leave me again, that’s a pretty cruel joke, Athena.”

She shook her head.

“No… you don’t understand, I didn’t… I can’t…”

“Explain then.”

Odysseus fought against the tidal wave of emotion rising in him, this is bad, this is really bad, but I can’t lose control now, remember what happened last time I pushed her too hard. Deep breaths.

He dug his fingers into the scroll to relieve the worst of it, uncaring if it tore.

Athena struggled to speak, eyes still never meeting his.

“I’m… I didn’t mean to… I need to, Odysseus, I don’t… want… I left a note…”

He couldn’t stop himself then.

“A note that says ‘don’t worry’ written in blood? Did you really think that would make anyone worry less? Gods, Athena, I can’t-“ He forced a calming breath. “I can’t believe you’re doing this again.”

He saw her eyes widen, shock spreading over her features.

“No…” she whispered. “No, Odysseus, not like then… I didn’t… no, I wasn’t…” Her breaths quickened. “Oh gods, I…” She moved a trembling hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry…”

He inhaled sharply when she slid down by the wall, getting to her knees in front him, head lowered.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated breathlessly. “I didn’t mean to… styx, that’s not what I…” Her breath hitched. Odysseus with a sinking feeling realized why she was kneeling. Why she presented her neck like for a sword-strike.

He went to his knees in front of her, carefully reaching for her mind.

She let him in, and the strength of her thoughts almost knocked him back. Somehow, it felt less coherent than what she was saying. He got the overlapping apologies anyway, plus the general feeling that something was very wrong, and not like it had been ten years prior. Or maybe he was just clinging to that idea because he couldn’t handle the truth.

“I’m sorry,” Athena repeated, again and again, words slurring together to almost incomprehensible. “I’m so sorry, Odysseus.”

He took a deep breath.

“I got that now. It’s okay. Try to breathe, I don’t want you more hurt. Tell me the reason. Why do you want to leave? Think it if it’s easier.”

“I don’t-“ She broke off.

I.. don’t… want to.

He frowned.

“Who’s forcing you, then?”

She looked away again, thoughts racing and yet restrained, like she was holding back what the real reason was.

“Athena,” Odysseus said sternly. “This is not something I can and will let slide. I can’t. I need to be able to trust that you won’t just leave me again. I cannot walk into this room and find you gone, do you understand me? Can we be warriors of talking about things for once? Please?”

She nodded erratically, pulling in her legs with a soft gasp of pain.

“I… I just want you to be safe,” she whispered. “I wasn’t… I didn’t… I don’t know what I’m… thinking… I just… I knew you wouldn’t let me leave, even though you should… I didn’t mean to do… to do that again, I’m sorry…”

“Of course I wouldn’t let you leave!” Odysseus shook his head. “Gods, Athena, you can barely stand!”

She shivered.

“I’ll be fine… But you won’t be.”

He frowned.

“First of all, the confidence is unwarranted. You might not be fine if you don’t rest.” His voice almost broke at speaking the worry he felt into existence. “Second, what do you mean? Where’s the danger?”

She drew a shuddering breath.

“I don’t… something could go wrong. I can’t risk… harming you, I can’t… I just want to protect you. What if I… hurt one of you… what if I do something nobody can fix?”

Again.

He heard the addition like a hiss in her mind, but chose to ignore it for now.
He was surprised how easily his response came.

“That can always happen, accidents happen. But that’s life. Us mortals, we live like this, every single day, and we don’t shackle ourselves to the wall. I… my heart could stop beating, right this moment, and there would be nothing anyone could do. It could happen, but if we are frightened of every single possibility our lives could end, we drive ourselves insane. And you… you’ve always been around mortals, and they lived and died as the fates chose, where does this fear come from now? I could’ve died in the war, too.”

Athena swallowed hard, her voice cracked and almost inaudible.

“I believed… in the war I still believed I could keep you safe. But I… know better now. I can’t… keep anyone safe. I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t even give my life for you, no matter how much I would like to.”

Odysseus sighed. His heart was still racing at the prospect of what could have happened, had she just been a little stronger and he just a little later, even as his anger had evaporated.

“Look. I get you feel out of control, believe me, I understand that feeling. You’re tired, and in so much pain, and it’s a lot. But you can’t just run from it, Athena. You can’t just run from us. We care about you. I care. Deeply and truly, I care for you. And the most pain you could cause me is leaving me again, you understand? Imagine… Imagine you’d wake up and I was just gone. Wouldn’t that scare you?”

She nodded, eyes wide.

“That’s what I thought. And you’re my friend just as much as I am yours, even though you don’t seem to believe that. So obviously I’m worried. Obviously you leaving would hurt me, even if you think it’s for a good reason.”

Athena nodded again, eyes glistening in the lamplight. Her shoulders were heaving with each breath, and he could almost feel her exhaustion.

“I’m sorry,” she offered again.

Odysseus sighed. “It’s alright now. You’ve apologized enough. Here’s what I actually want from you. Promise me. Promise me you won’t try to leave again without talking to me first. I don’t care about the reason and how valid you think it is. We can work it out together. Promise me.”

She shivered more violently.

“I-I swear-“

“No,” he cut her off. “No need for that. A friend’s promise is good enough for me.”

Quite honestly, knowing how exactly an oath had to be worded, he was afraid she’d accidentally lock herself into something impossible with how out of it she clearly was.

“I promise,” she whispered tonelessly, a silent plea in her voice.

“Alright then.” He wasn’t sure it really was alright, he hadn’t fully processed his feelings on the matter, but for now, he decided it was enough so he could ease her mind at least.

She trembled again, and he undid his himation and wrapped it around her shoulders. She pulled it closer around herself immediately, curling up a little more.

“Time to go back to bed,” he said. “Can you stand? I can lift you up, too.”

She nodded, and tried to push herself up.

He moved to her left side, offering her his arm. She gripped it with less strength than he would have liked and he didn’t dare pull her up for fear of injuring her further.

She was almost standing when she gasped sharply, doubling over instinctively with pain.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, alarmed.

She gasped again, letting go of him and grasping for her side, swaying and all but collapsed back to the ground, giving a piercing whimper of pain.

He cursed under his breath.

“-‘m Sorry,” Athena hissed weakly.

“Just try to breathe,” he said.

She groaned through her teeth. In her body, it felt like something shifted, and she dazedly thought that a broken rib couldn’t reach from her lungs down to her hip, but she couldn’t voice it as blinding pain rippled through her side.

She curled up into herself as she felt a cough coming, please just make this end.

It didn’t hurt as much as earlier, but that brought no relief, she could tell that the weak, gasping wheezes were ineffective and there was something stuck in her throat she couldn’t get out. Trying to catch her breath was completely futile.

“C’mon,” Odysseus said. His voice was tense and pained. “Don’t hold it, it’ll be over faster if you don’t.”

She couldn’t say that she was trying. Her vision was blurring fast.

Odysseus carefully moved her a little, then his hand gently but firmly pressed onto her back. “Work with me, Athena. Please.”

Athena gasped, no air getting beyond the ichor in her throat, and her body trembled with strain. He pressed down again, and she was cruelly relieved when she could finally cough even though it set her lungs on fire.

“There we go,” Odysseus muttered. “Hold on. It’ll be over in a minute.”

She felt herself slumping back and he caught her, supporting her body.

A whimper escaped her throat after the cough died down, but she felt almost sobered up, like the manic energy of her earlier actions was fading, leaving the naked horror of what she had done.

How couldn’t I see that this was like ten years ago? How didn’t I think of that?

“I’m sorry,” she got out, unable to lift herself up and for a terrible moment, she thought he’d let go of her and let her fall. After all, he had every right to. “I’m sorry.”

The apology sounded hollow even to herself, she meant it, from the bottom of her soul, but what did it matter? What did it matter when she’d repeated the mistake she didn’t think he should forgive her for?

“It’s okay now,” Odysseus said softly.

“No, I-“ don’t deserve this. “You sh-“ should hate me. Her throat wouldn’t allow more words. She whimpered again, helplessly falling into the abyss she had opened herself and no less afraid for it.

I ruined it this time.

“Careful now,” Odysseus murmured. “You can hold on to me, okay? I’ll try not to jostle you too much.”

His arms wrapped around her, and suddenly she was resting against his chest, clinging to the feeling as everything moved around her, she couldn’t see properly through a sheen of tears, and a part of her was terrified, being at the mercy of someone she’d wronged more than anyone else, helplessly floating in someone else’s arms, yet she blindly grasped for it, the paradoxical gentleness and the soft vibration near her head that suggested Odysseus was speaking.

Not having the strength for untangling fear and comfort from each other, Athena closed her eyes, heart racing, and curled into the gentle touch she didn’t deserve.

Chapter Text

Odysseus ran his fingers over Athena’s feather lightly. He’d told himself to set it down an hour ago, but it remained in his hand almost compulsively as he sat curled up in the chair beside her bed and listened to her shallow breathing.

He supposed it was ironic, really, given how much he’d bothered her about her feathers in his childhood.

“Your wings are so cool!” he’d said. “Can I touch them?”

“Absolutely not,” Athena had replied curtly, folding them behind her.
She’d replied just the same for years- “Do not give me the puppy-dog eyes, they will not work on me.”- and he thought she’d stay hard on it. Not even her owl-form was allowed to be touched, he had been bitten enough times to know that.
Then his father got worse, and Ithaca looked toward a thirteen-year-old boy as its new king. He’d rarely had reason to pray to Athena, when he could just talk to her in person every other day, but the day of the coronation he asked her to come in a panic. Thinking about it now, he suspected she had already been close by from how quickly she had been there.

“Next time you shout at me like this, someone better be in mortal danger,” she commented, but her expression softened when she saw him curled up at the foot of his bed, princely crown discarded to the side.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I-I’m not ready,” he whispered through tears. “I don’t want this.”

Athena squatted down in front of him, letting her weapons disappear.

“There now. You’re as well prepared as you can be.”

“That’s not very well, though!” he protested. “I’m too young, I don’t know what to do and I-“ A sob broke him off.

“There’s no need to cry about it,” Athena said. “You’ll do fine. What you don’t know yet, you’ll learn, and there are plenty of people who will assist you-“

He just gave a low wail in response.

Athena sighed, then he felt a gentle pat on his head with something impossibly soft and when he looked up, he saw it was her wing all but wrapping around his shoulders. He sniffled, then curled up at her side. She didn’t hug him, not with her arms anyway, but he didn’t complain.

“Your feathers are so soft,” he mumbled through tears.

“Don’t get used to it,” she said, but she didn’t pull away.

“Can you come with me… please?”

She sighed again. “That’s sure not to draw any questions at all… Fine.”

He’d managed not to cry during his coronation, the steadying presence of his patron sitting on his arm as he walked through the great hall, and who cared about the confused looks at the prince bringing an owl with him, when he felt so safe because of her.

He looked over to the bed where Athena slept, still wrapped in his himation under the blanket. She hadn’t woken up, which wasn’t surprising, and she hadn’t moved much, which, all things considered, he supposed was good enough.

Odysseus by no means had his friend’s perfect memory, but he remembered last night’s conversation pretty clearly. The last few hours of thinking it over had calmed him down some. At least in the department of Athena leaving. Even if he had been a little later, he doubted she would have gotten further than to the end of the hall. So, he supposed for that to be a legitimate threat she would first have to get significantly better.

No, while it had shaken him, that was not what he was most worried about now.

I can’t keep anyone safe.

What if I do something nobody can fix? Again?

You don’t understand…

And really, did he? Did he truly understand how distant, prim and proud Athena had come to saying she would gladly give her life for his, from teaching him her opinion to being afraid of what he might think of her? Did he understand how fear had seemingly wormed itself so deeply into her soul that he hardly recognized her at times?

Odysseus buried his head in his arms.

Right about now he would have given a lot to have Athena’s time-dive powers to see her last ten years the way she had seen his. Or alternatively, having any power that could help heal her injuries.

He wondered if Olympus was watching them. After seeing how much spectacle had surrounded his release, the probability wasn’t zero. He was doing his best not to share his thoughts on the gods right now, even though he had plenty of thoughts.

How can they not care at all? The fact that Zeus is cruel is bad enough, but they can’t all run on ruthlessness. Right?

He thought back to what he’d seen in the games, he hadn’t thought there was real animosity between the siblings, save maybe Aphrodite, but even with Ares, at least from Athena’s perspective there had been something good-natured about the brawl that didn’t suggest they really hated each other. Hadn’t he even been the one to ask if she was dead with a clear tone of worry?

And yet, none of them had come.

He jumped at a sound by the door, breathing out in relief when Penelope quietly came in.

“Good morning,” she said softly as she crossed the room, missing the stain of ichor on the wall that he only now saw.

Penelope took one look at him, then at Athena, and sighed.

“Not a good night, was it?”

He shook his head.

“Would you get Tel? I think I’d better tell you both about it.”

Penelope’s eyes widened.

“That bad?” she asked tonelessly. Her gaze traveled back to Athena.

“Yes, but I don’t mean physically,” he clarified. “That’s… I guess it’s pretty unchanged.”

She breathed out.

“I suppose that’s a small blessing either way. I’ll get Telemachus.”

Odysseus got up and stretched when she was gone, then checked on Athena. She moved slightly when he reached out, but didn’t wake. He thought it was fascinating how little time it had taken to learn when she was sleeping calmly and when she was in pain that required action. He guessed if she’d known he could read her body language that well, she would have been uncomfortable about it.

Penelope entered with Telemachus in tow, who looked equal parts sleepy and worried.

Odysseus reached for the feather and scroll, storing both in his belt.

“Let’s go to the balcony to talk, let her sleep.”

Telemachus threw the exact same worried glance at Athena that his mother had, scanning for what their family talk might be about, then followed his parents outside.

Odysseus told himself that locking the door for this was completely unreasonable.

“What happened?” Penelope asked.

He’d not thought of anything besides the incident for the last hours, and yet, suddenly he didn’t quite know where to begin.

“I… I left for a few minutes to check out a noise,” he said finally. “It was nothing, just Tel.”

“I knocked over the vase at the corner, Mom,” Telemachus added. “Sorry, I should have taken a lamp.”

“It’s okay, love,” Penelope said. Her eyes didn’t leave Odysseus, brows furrowed.

He grimaced.

“She tried to leave,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “I mean, she didn’t even get to the door, but still.”

“Shit,” Penelope said.

“But why?” Telemachus asked, eyes glistening.

Odysseus pulled out the crumpled note.

“To protect us, in her words.”

Penelope shared a worried look with him.

“Well, she sure is resourceful,” she commented humorlessly, then sighed. “I’m sorry, Ody. If I’d known she was this serious about it, I’d have told you.”

He frowned. “What do you mean? What’d she say?”

“Her nightmare from yesterday. It was about hurting someone accidentally. She was very insistent on us keeping our distance from her when she can’t control what she’s doing. I honestly thought it was just the first wave of panic after.”

“No, I would have thought so, too.”

Penelope sighed.

“Shook you up quite a bit, didn’t it?” she asked. “Darn it, I thought oaths were binding even for gods.”

“What oath?” Odysseus asked back, honestly confused.

Penelope blushed.

“I may have asked her to swear that she wouldn’t leave you again like ten years ago. I knew you probably wouldn’t want to ask her, but I didn’t know her at all, so I felt better like that. I thought it would make sure.”

Odysseus sighed.

“It wasn’t like ten years ago. Not to her, anyway. She seemed completely caught up in the idea that she might cause us harm, and I’m sure that was an exception in her oath to you. And after all, the note explicitly says she’ll come back. It-“ He breathed out. “It’s fine, mostly. I believe her she didn’t mean to repeat ten years ago, the fates know I got about fifty apologies for it. And she promised not to do it again. Still. I’m afraid we can’t test that promise.” He looked at his family gravely, then pulled the feather from his belt.

“I trust her,” he said. “But I don’t trust the part of her that did this.”

“That’s what she wrote with?” Telemachus asked, eyes wide.

Odysseus nodded.
“This is one of her primary feathers. It’s like… Could you rip off a fingernail?”

“Oh gods,” Penelope murmured, shuddering. Telemachus hid his fingers in a fist.

“Exactly,” Odysseus said. “That’s what she effectively did. I just… I don’t know what’s going on in her head right now, but something must be severely off. I don’t know how much of it is the fever. She… I’ve never known her like this, but I’ve known myself in the darkest places, and it reminds me of that. I don’t know what happened to cause it, but right now, she needs us to protect her.”

“Double shifts?” Penelope asked, and he nodded gratefully.

“I know it’s asking a lot of you, too, but-“

“But she’s our friend, too,” Telemachus interrupted. “Of course we’ll take care of her. You don’t have to deal with it all alone, Dad.”

Odysseus felt a tired smile spread on his face and he ruffled his son’s hair.

“Every day, I thank the fates that I got to meet you, little wolf.”

Chapter Text

There was something in her chest.

Athena gasped, fingers instinctively gripping her chiton right above her heart, as a sharp sting not unlike a spear being twisted, rippled through her chest. She was lying too far on her back, she could already tell, and she had to lift herself to be able to cough properly…

No cough came, but the pain stayed, and she could feel her heart thrumming through her entire body, it felt off, even if she couldn’t quite tell what was off and how it was supposed to beat. She had spent little time of her immortal life listening to her own heartbeat, and when she did, it was usually because something was wrong with it, usually because it was too fast.
She supposed it felt kind of fast now, too.

“Athena? Are you okay?”

She gasped, eyes snapping open. She knew it was Penelope even before her vision cleared.

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” Penelope asked. “What is it?”

As if summoned by the question, Athena felt the rest of her wounds wake from their slumber, painfully reminding her that it was probably easier to list the parts of her that didn’t hurt.

“Not much apart from the usual,” she said hoarsely.

Penelope frowned.

“Are you sure?”

Athena felt the automatic reply on her tongue, surprised at the word that actually left her mouth.
“No.”

Penelope hummed.

“Be honest with me,” she said then. “If the thing that hurts additionally today happened to, say, Odysseus, would it be cause for alarm?”

Athena considered.

“I’m not sure,” she said finally. “I think my heart was just beating a little faster than normal and it startled me. So probably not.”

Penelope didn’t look fully convinced.

“Tell me if it hurts or feels weird otherwise, alright?”

Athena nodded slightly, knowing she would have been expected to describe how it felt properly, but she couldn’t bring herself to. The thought of fully focusing on the body that barely felt like her own anymore made her feel nauseous.

“Morning, ‘Thena.” Telemachus dropped onto the bed beside her, and she jumped.

Her spear hit something solid.

Athena tensed as the memory flooded her senses in dizzying speed.

What have I done?

“Athena?” Telemachus’s voice was worried. “Did I hurt you when I sat down?”

She couldn’t bear to look at him, too scared of what she might see.

“No,” she heard herself whisper. “No, it’s all… you didn’t… hurt me.”

It all came rushing back now, blurry as it was, the dream- it had been a dream. She was almost sure it had been. Her attempt to leave. Odysseus.

“Athena?”

A hand touched her wing and she flinched violently.

“Tel.” Penelope’s voice was quiet, but firm. “Not now.”

“Sorry.” He sounded distraught. Of course he did.

It’ll be today. I know it will be. I pushed them too far this time. They don’t even know half of it, but last night was too much.

“Athena, try to look at me, please.” Penelope again. Athena did her best to follow the order, finding it impossible to hold the other woman’s gaze for longer than a second at a time. She was trembling.

“It’s all good,” Penelope said softly. “Here’s what I want you to do. Tell me where you are, when, and who you’re with.”

Athena wrapped her arm around herself, fingers painfully pressing against her wounds, but she didn’t ease her grip. At least the pain was certain to be real.

“Ithaca… the palace… Odys- Telemachus’s room.” Her fingers curled around the fabric of the chiton, feeling dried ichor in the folds. “With you and… Telemachus.” She frowned, gaze fixing on the archway leading to the balcony. “It’s morning, I think…” She faltered. “Metageitniṓn… I believe… but I don’t know… I don’t know which day.” She tried to reconstruct from the day in the arena, but everything was blurring together… “I… Lost track…”

“That’s okay,” Penelope said. “It’s the 26^th. Metageitniṓn, you were right on that.”

Athena shivered. She knew it was closer to three weeks than a full month but the passage of time time felt crushing anyway.

Did I fool myself by calling time my own? Wasn’t I always a slave to it like everyone else? No more tied to it than to my other domains that my father so effortlessly took away in one strike?

“It wasn’t meant as a test,” Penelope said. “It was just to ground you a little.”

Athena struggled to remember the last time she’d felt truly grounded.

Telemachus was still sitting next to her, a little further away, and she could see the sadness in his features when she glanced over without meeting his eyes.

He knows, too. He knows I tried to leave them even if he doesn’t know why… He knows that’s what I did to his father, too…

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Penelope frowned. “What for?”

It felt like reminding her, and Athena’s mind feverishly told her not to, stupidly, as if there was a possibility they’d forgotten, as if her saying something or staying quiet would influence their decision on what to do with her.

“I didn’t… I’m sorry I tried to… I didn’t want to cause you trouble… last night… and in general… I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry I repeated the thing I explicitly swore not to, I know what I deserve for it, but please don’t do it? I’m too weak to handle the pain, only not really, because I am immortal and it’s not like my heart will stop beating, but it would make me really sad, so refrain from punishment this time?
Laughable.

Penelope sighed.

“Well, I’m not going to pretend to be happy that you tried to leave. You put yourself at risk of getting more hurt, and I’d wish you hadn’t interpreted the boundaries of your oath that way. I’m glad Odysseus stopped you soon enough.”

“I didn’t mean to… stretch its boundaries,” Athena said. “I… it felt in accordance with it in the moment… I guess I didn’t think… it through.”

I should not be able to not think things through. You’d think it was against my nature.

I’m broken.

“You can hardly be expected to with that fever, I imagine,” Penelope said gently. “Don’t be too worried. I know Odysseus and you talked about it already, and he seems alright, so it’s fine. I’m not going to chastise you more for it.”

Athena swallowed hard, throat closed up.

“I don’t… deserve your kindness,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t feel pressured into giving it.”

Penelope sighed as she sat down on the chair. A soft smile appeared in the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t. And I cherish every moment I don’t have to be kind and can choose to be, after years where all I wanted was to scream when I smiled. You’re a goddess, Athena, but don’t mistake my kindness for fear or mortal courtesy.”

Athena slightly bowed her head in appreciation. She couldn’t find anything to say.

Everything’s twisted. None of this should be happening.

Her body seemed to agree, pain blossoming from the spot the lightning had originally struck, and rapidly spreading through her side, from her hip up to… into her lungs.

She felt her body convulse with a cough before she even heard the sound, the searing pain growing to all but unbearable.

She made a brief, pathetic attempt at fighting it, but the coughs overwhelmed her body, someone was supporting her back and she doubled over, feeling ichor drip from her mouth into a cloth.

“It’s alright. It’ll pass in a minute.”

“Mom, there’s… there’s blood again, Mom.”

“I know, Tel. It’ll be okay. Hold her steady.”

She wanted to tell Telemachus that he didn’t have to worry, but she couldn’t talk, nor concentrate enough to open a mental link-

The pain in her side shifted as if to mock her, and she cried out in between coughs, trying to remind herself that she wasn’t alone, that she couldn’t move too much as long as they were with her, but styx, this hurts so much.

She groaned, vision blurry and fading, and she was so ready to accept the embrace of unconsciousness, but it didn’t come.

Ragged breaths followed each other and Athena let her head droop, feeling her shoulders heave with each exhale.

A hand carefully lifted her chin, slightly calloused in the way characteristic of a weaver. Athena didn’t move away as Penelope wiped the blood from her mouth, knowing it would cost more strength than she could spare.

“Can you breathe easily this way?” Penelope asked.

Athena nodded weakly. She closed her eyes, collecting herself. It certainly would have been much easier to do if she hadn’t felt like parts of her were scattered all over Greece.

She could tell she was resting against Telemachus, he had his arms wrapped around her and his cheek touched her hair.

She wished sometimes that feeling affection didn’t hurt her so much.
Then again, there was probably a reason Ares and Aphrodite belonged together. Maybe love and pain were always meant to be one.

“Are you okay?” Telemachus asked quietly, voice wavering.

She nodded again.

Penelope moved into her field of view again, offering a mug.

“Drink slowly,” she said.

Athena obediently took a few sips, grimacing at the taste of ichor mixing with the wine, but glad it subsided when she swallowed.

“Rest now, okay?” Penelope carefully brushed a strand of hair behind Athena’s ear, and the goddess felt her heart twist painfully.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault. Try to rest now. Tel will help you lie down. Are you cold?”

Athena almost shook her head, but a shiver betrayed her. She was getting strangely used to never being quite comfortable with the temperature even when her skin wasn’t burning too badly.

Telemachus carefully lowered her back against the pillows, moving to her side and tucking her in. She had preferred him behind her. It would have been much harder to accidentally injure him that way.

Again, the spear flashed before her eyes, making contact with flesh, sickeningly scraping a bone on its path inside.

She hadn’t known much about anatomy then, but she hadn’t needed to. You knew when you caused a fatal wound even if you had no concept of death.

She shivered.

One should think her mind would at least be kind enough to make the memories she wanted blurry along with those she needed.

Her chest felt tight, and her heartbeats echoed so loudly that she wished she could halt them like holding her breath.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because when she opened her eyes again, the sun had clearly risen considerably.

Turning her head, she saw Odysseus and Telemachus around the small table, playing Petteia.

Athena frowned slightly when Odysseus threw his dice and they barely made a sound. She supposed there was a piece of leather or something of that nature to dull the noise.

She watched them, the matching and yet different mannerisms, both with their cheek resting against one hand when they were thinking.

It took a few blessedly calm minutes until Odysseus’s gaze shifted toward her. She closed her eyes, but heard him get up.

“I know you’re awake.”

By Styx, I wish I wasn’t.

She opened her eyes, waiting for the smile in his voice to fade.

“How are you now?” he asked.

She shrugged, humming something non-committal.

He raised his eyebrows.

“And you used to rip on me for being not precise enough.” It was meant to be lighthearted, but she winced.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, looking away. “I’m… fine, really. Nothing wrong in particular.”

Odysseus sighed.

“I wasn’t scolding you, you know? Just teasing.”

“I… know,” she said, and his heart ached at how tired she looked, how pathetic the lie was in its obviousness. “You should finish your game,” she added softly.

“You sure?”

“Yes. Please.”

He hesitated, then settled back with Telemachus.

Athena didn’t move once during their game, sometimes watching, sometimes gazing elsewhere with that forlorn look on her face that still seemed so foreign.

He won, but it was a close game. Telemachus didn’t seem to mind.

“You’ll beat me next time,” Odysseus said, tousling his son’s hair. Telemachus grinned, then his eyes shifted to Athena. Odysseus nodded, then got up to sit with her.

“How’d I do?” he asked.

“I… I didn’t know you wanted me to pay attention,” she said, voice wavering.

He sighed.

“No, that’s okay. Oh dear. Are you this on edge because of last night?”

She shivered, not meeting his gaze.

“I’m not angry with you, Athena, you know that, right?”

He both doubted that she knew and that she believed that.

She shifted uncomfortably. He just wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight until she felt more stable, but he didn’t dare to touch her. She seemed too fragile, too close to the edge, and he couldn’t push her over.

“Tel’s pretty good, he almost got me,” he said in a more lighthearted tone. “I think he’ll make a great warrior of the mind… maybe a historian, what do you think of that, Tel?”

“How do you know I’ve thought about becoming that?” Telemachus asked, eyes shining.

“Lucky guess,” Odysseus replied, but the glee at having been correct was evident in his voice.

“You’d really make a good historian, little wolf,” Athena said, feeling the strain the simple sentence caused. It should have been easy. All of this should have been easy.

“When you’re better, can you show me some of history, maybe?”

Athena looked at Odysseus, who gave no indication whether he approved.

“As much as you want,” she said softly, then shivered.

“Nice,” Telemachus said with a smile.

Athena forced one in return, feeling it didn’t reach her eyes. She subtly wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, the dull ache in her hand intensifying under her fingers.

Odysseus got up, reaching for the bowl of water, then frowned.

“Dang it. Tel, would you go refill this for me?”

“’course.” Telemachus smiled, taking the bowl and leaving in a blur.

Odysseus chuckled at him running.

“Did I have that much energy at his age?”

“I seem to recall it,” Athena replied, fondness softening her features as Odysseus turned to her.

“How did you come to calling him Little Wolf by the way?” he asked. “Nicknames aren’t usually your style.”

She shrugged a little uncomfortably.
“The suitors called him that as an insult. I wanted him to be proud of his crest, of his family. A recontextualization, if you will. I didn’t know they probably got it from Penelope calling him that as a term of endearment. Do you mind me using it?” she added, looking for disapproval in his face. She only found a smile.
“No, not at all. I think it’s sweet.” He looked out toward the balcony. “I love him to pieces, Athena. I knew I would, of course, but he’s… loving him comes so naturally. It’s so easy, like breathing.”

She nodded wistfully. She doubted he thought so, but she understood exactly what he meant. She supposed the metaphor stretched even further. After all she had tried her hardest to stop loving him for ten years, and it was starting to look like to stop breathing might actually be the easier task, even for an immortal.

Odysseus rested his head in his hand, smiling at her with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

“So, do I stand to get a nickname too, oh wise one?”

“Would you like one?” she asked back. She guessed he was joking, at least in part, but she was never sure these days.

He grinned.

“The 10-year-old inside my chest just cheered. But I’ll be reasonable. I’d love it, but I don’t mind waiting till you find something that fits right. You’d probably rather eat your tongue than call me Ody, wouldn’t you?”

She didn’t say that there was little she wasn’t desperate enough to do if it could give her a feeling of safety. Of not being one undefinedly small step away from being sent away with prohibition to ever return.

“I have never liked that one much, that’s true.”

He hummed.

“Anyone ever called you a nickname?”

Thena, I’m gonna tell Dad you cheated!
I didn’t cheat, Pallas, you’re just a sore loser.

“Not-“ in a very long time “frequently.”

“Hm. I thought so. Maybe I’ll start doing it while I don’t have to worried about being knocked on my butt by you.”

She knew it was lighthearted. She was pretty certain of it. They had regularly teased each other much more than this.

“You’re free to call me whatever you want, Odysseus.”

Pathetic. Failure. Burden.

Odysseus grimaced.

“Athena?”

She forced herself to meet his eyes for a second.

“I’m just teasing.” His voice was tinged with desperation? Frustration? “I’m… You keep looking at me like I mean to hurt you, but I promise I don’t. I’m not angry with you.”

She wrapped her arm around herself.

“I… I’m sorry…”

He sighed.

“Is there anything I could say that would ease your mind?”

She breathed out. Then slowly shook her head. Maybe there was something, she desperately hoped that there was something, somewhere, that would make things hurt less.

“I-I messed up, Odysseus. You know that I did. There’s nothing that could be said that would erase that.”

Telemachus entered, and Odysseus nodded at him with a smile before turning back to Athena.

“It doesn’t have to be erased. It happened. You’re forgiven. You promised not to do it again. That’s good enough.”

That can’t be good enough.

She nodded, hoping he would say something that she could respond to correctly. Or not say anything more at all. It might have been the safest option.

“Athena? Did you understand what I said?”

She nodded again, chest feeling tight.

Telemachus settled back on his chair, absently playing with a petteia piece as he listened.

“I don’t want you to beat yourself up over it,” Odysseus continued. “It’ll just delay your healing. But if you want to talk more about it, we can. I just want you to be okay.”

But I’m not okay, and you know it. I don’t know how to get better. Talking won’t fix the bleeding, or the broken bones, or the fact that my heart is beating more wildly than it has ever done in a battle.

“It’s fine,” she muttered, looking away.

“Is it?” Odysseus persisted, and her gut twisted in fear. It was a mirror of her own question; is it really fine, Odysseus, or are you just trying to spare my feelings because you want my body to heal? How long will you continue to do so?

“Athena, I’m not doing this to annoy you. If I believed you were fine, I’d leave you be. But I don’t think you are. I think you’re having an entire conversation with me in your mind that you won’t let me hear. The fates know I did that a lot when I was upset with you in the war and didn’t want to have the discussion.” He offered a crooked smile that she didn’t return. “I know now that I should’ve talked to you then. Not let the frustration build up the way I did. We might’ve spared us both the pain if we’d just talked.”

You talk too much, Athena. Run your mouth just like your mother. I will ask your council if I require it, and if you have something to add, you will ask me for permission, is that understood?

Fates, Athena, you really can’t shut up to save your life, nobody here understands what you even talk about, let alone cares.

For the goddess of wisdom, you sure lack the tact to keep your mouth shut when you should.

“I didn’t know… I’m sorry.”

Odysseus shook his head.

“No, that’s my point. I didn’t talk because I chose not to. At the time, I thought it was the better choice, but it really wasn’t. That’s why I don’t want you to make the same mistake now. Remember when you told me there was no point in making the same stupid choices that generations of people before me had already made and found out were mistakes?”

She nodded. Of course she remembered. The conversation had been about someone attempting to avert a prophecy. Odysseus had wanted to try and outthink it, and for once, she had shut the thought experiment down outright. Not even her father had beaten the prophesy about his downfall, fate had just decided to throw him a bone in the form of a daughter, not a son.

“I remember.”

He nodded.

“Then don’t repeat mine, Athena. Talk to me. If you don’t, it’ll only get worse. You know why I know that? Cos I was on an island, for seven years, begging someone to listen to me just once and she never did, she just talked over me, and told me everything was fine, so I just stopped, and you know where I ended up.”

She saw him on the cliff then, noise in her mind rising to a roar. She’d been so close to losing him. He could’ve made the choice any time while she hadn’t been there.

“That’s not where I want you to be, okay?” Odysseus continued, and his worried gaze was like a hot wire wrapping around her heart. “I want you to know that someone is here who will listen to you, because I know things are not fine, but we can fix it.”

She looked away. It should have been a simple request, speak your mind, but she couldn’t. She felt words forming and drying on her tongue.

We can’t fix this. You can’t fix me.

“There’s… it’s fine… I’m just tired… I don’t have anything to say.”

Her mind was so loud. Even if she had been able to say it, it was impossible to even hear what she was meant to say.

Styx, I need a second of quiet. Just a second to think.

“Athena, please try to work with me. I just want to help you-“

She wanted to curl up and bury her head so the noise might at least dull. She could barely understand what he said, and he would be expecting an answer, and it just hurt…

“Athena, it’s really not-“ Oh fates, stop saying my name, please, I beg you, just let me forget I exist for one second…

“-on’t mean to press you, but you can’t keep going like this-“

She felt a welcome sensation pulling, begging to quiet the cacophony in her head.

“Athena,” Odysseus said again, pushing her over the edge and she fell, gratefully letting Quick Thought take over.

Odysseus heard the familiar sound, bracing himself, it had been a long time since he had been in Athena’s realm.
He opened his eyes still in the same room.

“Athena?”

Looking at her, her eyes were open, but blind, pupils and irises replaced by an odd, cloudy white. She sat still, body trembling slightly.

“Athena!”

His mind feverishly tried to put together what was happening.

It’s already been seconds.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” Telemachus asked, eyes widening at Athena’s changed look.

“It’s Quick Thought… it has to be, I heard it. But it’s taking way too long… Athena. Athena, can you hear me?”

She remained still, unblinking, unresponsive. Odysseus could feel seconds trickle by, by the gods, a second is already ten minutes or more, how long has she been gone?

He wasn’t sure if she could hear him inside of Quick Thought. It had never been a question in need of an answer when he didn’t have the time to get a word out before she was back in the present.

“Athena, come on! Come back.”

Telemachus gasped and Odysseus whipped around. His son’s finger trembled when he pointed at Athena’s hand, resting limply on the blanket. Now bleeding from a fresh cut.

“That… that just appeared,” Telemachus whispered. “I saw it open up.”

“Shit.” Odysseus reached for Athena’s mind, but no link opened. It was like there was nothing there to hold onto.

“Who is that?” his father asks. His mother stifles a sob.
“It’s Odysseus, Laertes. It’s your son.”

Odysseus drew a shaky breath, feeling his eyes well up. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. Athena’s mind was who she was, she couldn’t be lost in it…

“Athena, please, just come back!”

Could she?

Another cut appeared, ichor oozing down her arm. It was as if an invisible knife had drawn it.

He remembered the constant noise between her thoughts. How she stumbled over her words. The fever warping her actions.

He rose hastily, wetting a cloth with shaking hands, maybe that would help, maybe it was an effect of the fever, if only they could bring it down enough… A first tear slipped down his cheek.

“’Thena?” he heard Telemachus ask. “Wake up, okay? It’s okay, we’re with you.”

For a second, ten minutes, Odysseus held on to the hope that she’d reply. But she didn’t.

Carefully reaching out for her, he lowered her back against the pillows and placed the cloth on her forehead, hoping it would help, please, gods, not her, too.

“Athena,” he repeated, voice breaking. “Athena, please, come back, we can fix this, I promise, I promise we can figure it out, just come back, please, wake up.”

Not you, too, please, Athena. I need you.

He resorted to shaking her slightly, and she moved, but it was off, sluggish and delayed, the exact opposite of what Quick Thought was meant to be.

He kept repeating her name, begging, pleading, he lost track of the seconds, there was another wound, bleeding stronger because it was on her right arm, Telemachus quietly wrapped a second bandage around it, and still, Athena’s eyes were white. Her body was shaking.

Odysseus felt a sob come up in his throat, he could barely see through a sheen of tears, helplessly shaking his friend’s shoulder and begging her to react.

Suddenly, Athena gasped loudly, ichor wetting her chiton right above her heart from another wound, she blinked, fingers grasping for her chest, and when she opened her eyes, Odysseus felt himself shatter at their familiar grey.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he got out, voice hoarse, all but failing.

“Athena, are you okay?” Telemachus asked, swiftly moving to her other side.

She blinked again, looking at him in confusion, then at Odysseus’s tear-streaked face.

“What… What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed, eyes darting in search of danger.

Odysseus drew a shuddering breath.

“I’m… I’m sorry for overwhelming you, Athena, I’m sorry… if it was something I said, just please, please stay with me this time!”

She frowned.

“No… what… what’s wrong? What… what happened?” Her voice grew more agitated with every word.

“Hey,” Telemachus interjected. “It’s all good. Take a deep breath. We’ll figure this out.”

Odysseus nodded erratically, closing his eyes for a second.

“Right. It’s just… you were gone so long, Athena, we were scared… I was… You never were in Quick Thought this long, we thought something was wrong… And those wounds…”

She shook her head.

“But I… I wasn’t… how did you notice, I was just… it can’t have been more than a second for you.”

Odysseus just shook his head.

“No, it was,” Telemachus said. “It was at least a minute for us. I think more like two. Your eyes went all white and you didn’t hear us at all. And you got hurt, these cuts, they just started appearing out of nothing.”

Athena looked down at her bleeding hand and chest, then back at them.

She trembled slightly.

“I… I didn’t know… I didn't know it was slowed down, too. I wouldn’t have- of course I wouldn’t have if I’d known it would scare you, I-I’m so sorry.”

“How long was it for you?” Telemachus asked.

“Five minutes… maybe ten… but certainly no more than that… it has to be slowed down…” She grimaced, running her hand through her hair in exasperation. “Of course it’s slowed down! It just… of course it is. It makes complete sense.”

“W-what do you mean?” Odysseus asked, slowly calming his breaths. It helped seeing her move normally, act normally, she’s fine, it’ll be fine.

Athena drew a shuddering sigh.

“I… I haven’t been able to use… Quick Thought the way I usually do.” Her voice was forcedly steady. “Not since… the arena. I… I hadn’t tried since coming here, so I didn’t know it was slowed down this much, I promise I didn’t… I just wanted to think… just for a few minutes, I just needed a second to think.” Her breath hitched slightly.

“What about the wounds?” Odysseus asked.

She looked away.

“The hourglass… it’s… broken. There’s… I got cut by some shards. It’s not deep… I just-“ Her voice broke. “I don’t know what’s wrong with m- it… I don’t know how to repair it, but I needed… I need it to think properly, I… I-I didn’t mean to worry you, I just-“ She exhaled shakily.

Odysseus and Telemachus exchanged a glance. No matter how familiar with Quick Thought you were, it was impossible not to understand how unique and uniquely important that realm was to Athena. Imagining it shattered and disordered…

Athena clenched her fist, fresh ichor oozing out of her slashed knuckles from the flexing. Telemachus got up and got a cloth, gently bandaging the wound.

“It’s like I’m not able to think properly,” Athena whispered. “I’ve never… I need it to be quiet, just briefly, so I can think, and I can’t go there… and it’s not quiet there, either.” She shivered. “I know that it's normal, you live like this all the time, but I never... I never had to. I don't know how... It's like... My mind is always screaming at me and I can't go where it's quiet... And I know it shouldn't be so hard to think like you do, it should come naturally, but it just doesn't.”

She kept her eyes downcast, a tear catching on her lashes.

Telemachus put his hand on hers, avoiding the fresh wound.

“No, but it's not the same as for us,” he said softly. “We're used to thinking like that.”
He bit his lip, considering, then continued. “I think I know what it’s like. You know, there's this woman that lives downtown. We visited her when I was younger. She's blind. She wasn't sick or anything, she was just born blind. I asked her if she was sad that she couldn't see the world, and she said that she really didn't because she never knew any different. I think it's the same with us. We don't know how quick your mind goes. I guess we have less thoughts in total too. But you always used Quick Thought, you're used to it, so now it feels like somebody made you blind, and of course it's much harder than if you hadn't known in the first place what it can be like."

Odysseus nodded.

"He's right, Athena, of course it's a struggle now. Even I miss Quick Thought sometimes and it doesn't even belong to me. It just makes things more ordered. And I don't have the weight of your thoughts and memories." 

He sighed, reaching for her hand, and she didn't pull away.

"I need to have a stern talk with the person who taught you that you shouldn't be struggling with anything."

Athena almost said that nobody had taught her that, but she supposed it came up that way and didn't have the strength for a discussion on the subject. She knew they were making perfect sense, she just felt uncomfortable with the fact that she hadn't figured it out herself. It really was a simple analogy.

Try not to spend too much time in that realm of yours, little bird. I know it’s a nice place, but even for the smartest girls, it’s not good to be cooped up in her own mind too long. Maybe especially for the smartest.

Had Triton he been right in his warning? She’d spent virtually no time in Quick Thought back then compared to how much she had grown used to later. Among the many answers she had, how many years she had truly been alive considering Quick Thought was not one of them.

Would she find this easier if she hadn’t used her mind as a retreat, easily accessed and therefore carelessly used? Should she have limited her time there to avoid depending on it?

“Hey,“ Odysseus said, gently but worriedly. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” she murmured, looking down at her hands.

Who’d genuinely believe at this point that all she wanted was to worry them less, not more, when every one of her actions made it worse? Odysseus hadn’t cried when they’d parted ways ten years ago, not for her. She’d only taken a few days to directly cause him tears this time around. Telemachus had cried because of her, too.
“Look, I get this is really terrible for you,” Odysseus said, running his fingers over the back of her hand without touching the fresh wound. “I really do. We’ll figure out a way to fix it once you’re better, I’m sure of it. But until then… please don’t try to use it again? I know you don’t care about these wounds, but if it’s broken it might cause worse ones. Or ones that we can’t even see. My point is, it might be more dangerous than we think. We can work around it for now. If I… if I talk too much or if we get too loud for you, tell us and we’ll give you time, no questions asked. Nobody will be mad, I promise. I know it’s not perfect, but it might make things more bearable. Alright?”

She nodded, unable to get words out through the emotions welling up. She knew this wouldn’t solve things, not when her own mind was louder than their words could ever be, but she hadn’t realized how much a offer like that could make her heart ache with gratitude. An undeserved offer, but one she would have desperately grasped for on Olympus in one of those gruelling meetings during the last ten years especially, where her father and Poseidon tried to make themselves heart across Greece, dismissive and venomous respectively when anyone else tried to intervene, where she would flash to Quick Thought for minutes at a time to keep her bearings, so much sometimes that afterwards she felt dizzy and nauseous from traveling realms too much in too short a time. She had never taken it as a sign to use her powers more sparingly. It had never felt like a conscious choice in those moments.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t mention it,” Odysseus said, offering a smile. “We just want you to be safe and comfortable.”

I want to crawl out of my skin. My heart’s beating so fast and it hurts, and I haven’t had a sensical thought in weeks.

“I know… I-I’m trying…”

“We know you are.”

Chapter Text

“Mom?” Telemachus asked quietly.

Penelope looked up from where she was sitting with Athena, wiping beads of sweat off her brow. The goddess had been sleeping fitfully for about an hour, but she was calm now. Maybe rather than calm, exhausted might have been the right word.

“What is it, little wolf?”

He sat down on the chair closest to her, face faintly illuminated by the lamp.

“Will she be fine, Mom?”

Penelope sighed.

“I hope so,” she said, reminding herself that lies wouldn’t get them anywhere. “I don’t know. She’s immortal, so I assume yes.”

Telemachus pulled up his leg, hugging it.

“But being immortal doesn't mean you’ll be happy,” he said. “I worry about that, too. That she doesn’t care about how sick she is. Not really. She mainly cares about us being worried, and she hates not being able to do things the way she usually can, but it’s gotten so bad-“ His voice wavered. “And I don’t think she’s frightened about it at all. About… about dying. And not because she thinks she’s safe from being immortal, but because she’s so unhappy that it doesn’t matter to her.”

Penelope heard the tears in his voice and got up to hug him tight. She ran her fingers through his hair.

“Oh Tel. My dear, smart, sweet child. Sometimes I wish you didn’t see things so clearly. Didn’t have to feel others’ pain so much.”

He hugged her back, burying his head in the crook of her neck.

“You think I’m right, then?” he asked.

Penelope hesitated, then nodded.

“Then what do we do?” He looked up at her, a hint of that childlike trust in his expression, that she’d make things right.

“Beyond being kind and trying to get her to talk to us, there’s not much we can do,” she said sadly. “Needing help is not enough if you don’t know how take it.”

He wiped his tears, leaning against her again.

“I know… It’s like the second someone says anything kind about her, it’s a different language. She nods and agrees sometimes but she doesn't mean it. I think she really thinks we’re too nice to her. In the beginning I thought she was being polite.” He sighed. “I don’t want her to feel like that. Like she deserves none of the good.” He hesitated. “Do you think it’s that bad on Olympus, Mom? Do they always treat each other like that? Not just that nobody came to help her out, that’s already bad enough, but are they all cruel to each other too? Tell each other to feel bad about themselves? Aren’t they a family?”

Penelope wrapped her arms around him more tightly.

“I don't know, Tel. Athena’s the only goddess I ever met. From how I see it, the gods aren’t a family the same way that we are. I suppose it comes with immortality and the-“ She hesitated, wondering how much she could say without spiting a god. “messiness of having so many different gods that are all kind of related but also work on running the world together. I doubt living with all my relatives on one mountain would be as harmonious as just with you and your father.”

Telemachus nodded somberly. He supposed that made sense.

“I love you, Mom,” he said softly.

She kissed his forehead and pulled him close.

“Littlest wolf, light of my life, I love you, too.”

Athena didn’t move when she woke, hoping to drift back to sleep quickly. As frightening as the prospect of another cruel nightmare was, she’d rather have that than a cruel reality.

“Athena?”

She cursed herself internally at forgetting that her eyes glowed. Naturally, opening them when it was as dark as right now would draw attention.

“Yes?” Her voice broke, sounding weak and tired, though not nearly to the degree she felt both in her bones.

Penelope moved into her field of view with a lamp in one hand and a bundle of cloth in the other.

“I was hoping you’d wake while it was still dark,” she said. “I think that’ll be more comfortable for you.”

Athena struggled with an answer for an agonizing moment.

“W-what’s wrong?” she asked then.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Penelope replied gently. “I only noticed that your chiton got pretty stained over the last days again, it’s probably making your wounds worse, and at any rate it must be uncomfortable. I wanted to wait till the dark to help you change, that’s all. Tel is outside, he won’t come in. We can do it like last time, okay?”

She offered a pair of scissors.

Athena bit her lip.

“No… it’s yours, and it’s not torn, I don’t want to cut it for nothing.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have no special attachment to it.”

Athena shook her head, cursing her hands for trembling.

“No, I can just… undress. Like a normal person.”

“What’s really normal in this world?” Penelope asked. “You don’t have to make this harder on yourself than it already is, Athena. It’s a piece of fabric, nothing important.”

Athena closed her eyes, silently begging for a resolution that didn’t make her gut twist with guilt and shame alike.

“Let’s- Please just… please.”

Penelope nodded, expression sympathetic.

“Okay.”

She put the lamp down on the side table, the chiton beside Athena, then helped her to sit up. Athena shakily fiddled with the knot of the belt, knowing she’d have to give up long before she yielded and turned the belt so Penelope could reach the knot more easily.

“May I?” the woman asked.

Athena turned her head away. “Yeah,” she breathed.

She flinched anyway when Penelope touched the fabric and loosened the knot quickly and skillfully. She took her hands away, leaving it to Athena to pull it free. It was stiff with dried ichor where it had rested against her side.

“Are you sure?” Penelope asked, sounding worried. “It’s really no problem to cut it how we did last time.”

Athena shook her head, then remembered it was dark.

“It’s fine. Just… it’s fine.”

Penelope sighed and Athena clenched her fist as guilt rippled through her. She was stuck causing harm either way and she felt like a knife just consisting of a blade, destined to cut no matter how it was touched.

“Alright. I’ll get behind you,” Penelope said, moving around Athena on the bed. “We’ll move your wings through first, then pull it over your head and you can hold it in front of you, okay?”

Athena only managed a hum of agreement, feeling her throat close up with tears. Even among the goddesses- really more among the goddesses than the gods, since the latter in large parts knew better than to make comments if they didn’t want to get hurt -she had often been ridiculed for being stuck-up, prudish, for no reason they cared to understand. Not that she knew the reason. She’d never liked being uncovered, even during the relative innocence at Lake Tritonis. It was one of the few things Artemis and her semi-regularly had arguments about. The other virgin goddess was of the firm opinion Athena was covering herself up to avoid the looks, which you’ll get anyway, Athena, and you can defend yourself fine, so there’s no point in changing your life around it for fear. Don’t teach them they’re right.

She’d never realized just how much she’d wanted someone to just accept what she wanted even though they hadn’t been asked to.

She hissed softly at the fabric brushing against her injured wing, helping to navigate the other through the hole. The mild night-air hit her bare skin, making the hairs and feathers on her back stand.

“Careful now,” Penelope said softly and pulled the chiton over Athena’s head. Athena hugged the heap of fabric close to her chest, trying to focus on where it was rather than where it wasn’t.

Behind her, Penelope gently worked to thread her wing through the fresh chiton, then helped her fully slip into it. Athena took a few seconds to lay the old one aside so Penelope could tie the belt.

“All done.” The queen smiled encouragingly. “That was all the bad I had to ask for now. Do you want to try and sleep again?”

Athena nodded. “I think so…”

She didn’t flinch when Penelope helped her to lie back against the pillows and draped the blanket back over her.

“Thank you,” she whispered tonelessly. “For helping me.”

“Of course,” Penelope said softly. “No need to mention it.”

Athena thought there was very much a need, but she didn’t protest. Her heart was aching and she felt way too lightheaded to argue.

Apollo would find it interesting- She had to note down for the future that heart-ache could feel way more physical than she had previously experienced. Not too different from her throbbing side. She might be imagining its intensity. It wasn’t like she could trust her own mind anymore.

She was relieved when darkness took over, numbing the pain a little.

Chapter Text

Penelope stretched, yawning, and blinked against the glow of the morning sun. She had to have drifted off.

“Tel?” she asked quietly, immediate anxiety rising because he wasn’t beside her where he had been.

“Right here, Mom.”

She saw him, sitting on the bed and smiling at her. Athena lay beside him, curled up on her side with her wing on top of her.

“Her fever spiked again earlier,” Telemachus explained. “She told me a few days ago that she prefers lying this way, and it made her calmer. I thought it would be better if I stayed close to make sure she can breathe properly.”

Penelope smiled tenderly.

“You’re such a sweetheart, Tel. Thank you for keeping watch.”

“Of course, Mom.”

Athena moved slightly as if she’d heard them speak, groaning as she shifted.

Telemachus turned, watching her eyes flicker open.  

“Athena?”
He had to remember asking her if she was okay with being called ‘Thena’ in a quiet moment. He knew it surprised her at any rate, but he didn’t know if she didn’t like the nickname, even if it was said kindly.

“Yes?” she murmured. She was looking like she hadn’t slept at all.

“Are you okay?”

She just nodded, then flinched when there was a knock on the door.

Odysseus entered with a basket.

“Good morning,” he said, setting it down on the table and kissing Penelope before kneeling beside Telemachus and Athena, tousling his son’s hair.

“How was the night?” he asked, directed at all of them.

“Uneventful,” Penelope said after a moment.

He reached out to feel Athena’s temperature as he nodded. Her eyes glistened, and she hunched her shoulders, injured wing weakly trembling as she tried to pull it closer around herself.

“Small blessings,” he said. “We’ll change your bandages after breakfast, alright, Athena?”

She nodded slightly, then winced when he carefully helped her to sit up. She didn’t protest, but she hung her head, defeated.

“Try to eat a little,” Odysseus said.

Athena breathed out shakily.

“I’m… I’m not hungry. I don’t have to eat, I… I don’t need to.”

Odysseus looked at her pale, strained face, sighed, then nodded. He didn’t feel great about this, but the fact of the matter was that he didn’t know if she was lying or not.

Don’t you ever eat, Athena?

I do when I feel like it. It’s not like with mortals and their frankly ridiculous amounts of food-intake. I can’t believe we made you that way. It’s so inconvenient.

And what exactly did that snide remark about him whining he wanted lunch translate to now? Did she or didn’t she need to?

“Okay. Just… please let us know when you need something, yeah?”

She gave a non-committal nod, and he left her be.

The family ate breakfast, sitting in an open circle to include Athena, even though she didn’t engage in their casual conversation. She appreciated the gesture, she really did, but all she really wanted was curl up back on her side and close her eyes instead of playing the impressively difficult part of sitting still and not saying anything.”

Penelope got up, filling a mug with wine from the pitcher. Athena knew what was coming before the other woman held it out to her.

“Would you indulge me?” she asked with a smile. “My mortal brain gets anxious about you not consuming anything at all.”

Athena attempted to smile back, but failed. She understood, but that didn’t make it any easier. She reached out for the mug, fingers closing around it.

Normally, she would have saved herself with Quick Thought.

Time still seemed to slow down, but she couldn’t do anything besides watch how the cup slipped out of her trembling fingers and shattered on the floor.

Penelope yelped in surprise.

Athena’s stomach turned, fingers still trembling as she ran them through her tangled hair in exasperation, staring in disbelief at the shards of ceramic and spilled red wine.

“Shit. I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Penelope said, then tilted her head slightly. “Really, it’s all good. I’ll clean it up in a minute. It’s no big deal.”

“No, I…” Her voice trailed off. She clenched her teeth in an effort to keep her breaths even. “I didn’t- I’m sorry.”

“It’s just a mug,” Penelope said. “It’s just… It’s an object, Athena. It doesn't matter.”

Athena didn’t even know why she flinched at her soft tone.

She closed her yes, feeling every breath like a stab.

“I’m sor-“ She gasped, clutching her side. For a moment, she thought her heart skipped, sending a new sensation through her chest along with the fire spreading from her side.

She tried to hold it in, she really did. It felt wrong to cough now, like it was meant to manipulate them into not being mad. She heard a chair being pushed back hurriedly as she doubled over, hacking sounds shaking her entire body.

She twistedly hoped it’d just keep going, until the bone stabbing into her lung disintegrated into dust and she’d be free of it. Her mouth was filled with metal.

“I got you,” Odysseus was saying. “I got you.”

She felt ichor running down her chin and neck when she sank back, head spinning, laughably, really, she knew it had been much shorter than the last times.

“Athena? Try to stay awake, okay?”

She couldn’t find the energy to nod. She didn’t want to stay awake. She wanted to sleep, long and dreamlessly, until she was healed and back to her old self. Or gone, spirit dormant like her mother’s in her father’s body. Anything that wasn’t this.

She forced her eyes open, seeing all three of them around her, faces filled with worry, and she wanted to scream that she didn’t want to cause this pain, that she didn’t think she deserved to cause this pain, but that she couldn't help it.

“There now,” Penelope said softly, trying to smile. Telemachus handed her a damp cloth and she thanked him with a nod. Gently, so gently it burned, she reached for Athena’s face, cleaning away the ichor from her lips and chin. Tears were glistening in her eyes.

Athena breathed out shakily, almost against her will leaning against Penelope’s hand for a few seconds, blinking away her own tears.

Crying doesn’t pride you, child of my mind. Nor does it pride me. Pull yourself together.

She managed not to wince when the cloth brushed against the wounds on her neck.

“That hurt, didn’t it?” Penelope whispered. “I’m sorry. And you’re so brave about it. So brave about it all.”

With an almost subdued crack, something inside Athena shattered.

Her eyes welled up, tears flowing over before she could even try to hold them back.

She shook her head, turning away from Penelope’s touch.

“No, I’m not.”

“Athena-“ Penelope’s mouth twisted with sympathy.

“I’m not!” Athena repeated, a sob all but cutting off the words. “I’m not brave! I’m weak!”

“That’s not true,” Odysseus said softly.

Her eyes shifted from Penelope to him, and he almost recoiled at the desperation in them.

“Look at me!” Her voice broke, jagged pieces of the words cutting her tongue. “Look at me!”

Odysseus shook his head.

“We are. It’s not true.”

She stifled a sob, good wing spreading slightly from emotion. Hunching her shoulders, she curled up into herself, seemingly without feeling the pain of the sudden movement.

“Be careful,” Telemachus said, voice quiet and distressed. He reached out a hand, but hesitated to touch her.

Penelope shared a glance with Odysseus before letting him take her place next to the goddess.

“Athena,” he said, but she shook her head

“I- you know i-it’s true!” She barely got out the words through her tears. “I just cause you pain! I’m just a burden t-to you!”

“No,” he said gently, grimacing at how much she was shaking. The sobs sounded so foreign still, raspy and pained like a muscle forced to exertion after years, centuries, millennia of inactivity. “No, stop that. It’s not true. You’re not a burden.”

She shook her head, sobs heavy and pierced by whimpers. His heart twisted, he’d heard himself cry that way in his lowest moments on Ogygia, agonizing and inconsolable.

“You’re not a burden,” he repeated, but his words didn’t reach her, and he knew he couldn’t leave her alone, not like this, not when he saw how much she was hurting.

She flinched a little when he touched her shoulder, running his thumb over it in small circular motions. “Athena, we don’t mind taking care of you. You’re our friend.”

“Yo-you shouldn’t.” Her fingers curled around her chiton so tightly that her knuckles went white. “I’m… I’m a terrible friend.”

She drew a few short, shuddering breaths, barely catching any air. Tears were streaming down her face uninhibitedly and she erratically tried to wipe them away.

“That’s not true. You just tell yourself that, and you’ve done it so much you started believing it.”

Odysseus looked at his son in surprise, but then nodded.

“He’s right, Athena. You’re hurt, and that makes it hard to think straight.”

She sobbed, a strangled, stifled sound, a nail grazing her cheek as she tried to get rid of the tears with hasty motions.

“Careful,” Odysseus said, gently catching her hand in his. “Don’t hurt yourself. It’s okay. You don’t have to hide it. It’s okay.”

He hesitated for a second, old worries surfacing, remembering how she had reacted to touch in the past.

But it’s different now. And she needs this. We both need this.

“Athena. Come here, okay? It’s alright.”

She tensed slightly when he wrapped his arms around her heaving shoulders, but didn’t protest when he pulled her closer into his arms.

Her eyes met his, wide and unsure.

“It’s okay,” he repeated softly. “Easy. It’s okay now. It’s alright. Let me hold you, okay?”

He offered his hand and she gripped it like a lifeline, finally curling up against him even though the tension in her body didn’t ease.

“You should… you should hate me…” she whispered. “I don’t deserve your care. It’s too much…” Tears drowned out her words.

“You do deserve the care,” Odysseus said, voice low and calm. “And we don’t hate you, of course we don’t. We care about you.”

Athena whimpered. He could feel her heart racing along with her breaths.

“No, but…You’re… so worried, all the time, because of me. Because I’m not getting better. I’m trying to, but…”

“Of course you’re trying, we know that. Athena. You can’t just yell at your wounds hard enough so they get better, that’s not how that works, they need time, and care, and it’s barely been any time, and our care is probably not appropriate for them. It’s not your fault.”

She flinched, burying her head as a new fit of sobs shook her body. He could feel her left wing curling around him like a hug and guessed that she was trying to wrap it around herself.

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s alright. You’re safe. I’m right here.”

She sobbed miserably, but didn’t pull away. Struggling to find a place where he could touch her without causing her pain, he ran his fingers over her hair.

“It’s okay. Just breathe. It’s okay.”

“W-why do you care?” she managed. “I failed you… I’m not- not worth it.”

He swallowed hard at the open admission. He’d known she felt that way. He still hadn’t been prepared to hear it, spoken with such conviction, like it was an unmovable fact.
Athena lowered her eyes like in surrender, tears falling from her lashes.

“Hey now. Look at me.”

He gently lifted up her head to look at her.

“That’s bullshit, Athena. Of course you’re worth it. You’re being way too cruel to yourself.”

“But I’m not!” she insisted tearfully. “I’m not, and I-I’m selfish… beca-ause I don’t want you to realize… even though I’m hurting you! I swore it, and- and I should be better than this!”

Odysseus looked at Penelope questioningly. She frowned as she tried to piece together Athena’s oath in her mind.

Unless I am ordered by one of you.

Her expression softened with sympathy as she moved closer.

“That’s it?” she asked softly. “You’re afraid we’ll ask you to leave?”

Athena hunched her shoulders.

“Y-y-you sh-hould,” she whispered, voice breaking with pain. “You’d be- be better without me.”

Telemachus shook his head, a stray tear running down his cheek.

“But we wouldn’t, Thena. We really wouldn’t.”

She only whimpered in response.

“No, we would not,” Odysseus said. “Don’t you understand that this isn’t a mentorship anymore? It’s not an exchange. I don’t keep you around because you could be useful to me, I want you around because you’re my friend. We won’t send you away. We want you here.”

She trembled, tears still flowing freely.

He gently tucked at her mind, and she allowed him in automatically.

The noise inside it had risen to a roar, and without a single coherent thought sent his way, he heard more than enough.

Pathetic. Weak. Burden. Useless.

And then, brutal and overpowering;

I don’t deserve the help. It’s all my fault anyway.

“No, no, no,” he murmured. “You are not a burden. No, come here, it’s all good.”
He gently hugged her tighter and she made no move to escape.
“You’re our friend, I promise I mean it. And friends aren’t a burden, that’s not how that works. You’re hurt, and you need help, and it doesn’t matter if it was your fault, which it is not, or even if it had been your own doing, it does not matter. We’ll help you, because we care about you, and it’s not obligation, it’s because we want to. It doesn’t matter how bad you feel about yourself, you’re loved, Athena.”

She whimpered, overwhelmed, burying her head again, sobs wracking her frame for a full minute. He stroked her back, murmuring soothing phrases he was almost sure she didn’t hear.

Telemachus carefully reached out to stroke Athena’s feathers, trying to provide additional comfort.

“No… no one could love me… like this,” Athena finally whispered, defeated.

“Like what?” Odysseus asked, heart twisting with sympathy.

“So… much. So gently. Like it’s easy.”

He shook his head.

“But it is easy. So many things are hard, but not that. You think the kid who took all the shortcuts he could in training would’ve cared for you if it had been difficult? What makes you believe, that of all creatures in the world, you are unlovable? That you deserve all the bad?”

She barely even took time to consider.

“Because I- I should know better…” she whispered. “I’m… supposed to be the goddess of wisdom. I shouldn’t make… so many… so many mistakes. I’ve-“ Her breath hitched. “I had 4000 years… and I used them all wrong, I pushed everyone away and I… don’t know any different anymore… I try being better but it’s too late… to show my siblings I love them, I tried, but it’s too late for it, they hate me now… and you’ve been so good to me and I just hurt you… again and again and…I can’t… fix it, I can’t, I’m not- I can only watch what happened and I can’t- change it, I don’t- I just know how to h-hurt people… but I don’t want to, I swear I… I don’t want to be alone- but it’s all I… I know how to be…”

She broke off, gasping for air, weakened body tensing under the strain.

“Easy,” Odysseus said, then drew a sharp breath when he saw ichor run from her nose, not much, but it was there. No wonder she wasn’t healing, when she was under enough stress to make herself bleed.

Athena’s fingers gripped for her chiton right above her heart, more tears coming between short gasps.

“It’s okay,” Odysseus said, swallowing at the lump in his throat. “Breathe. Try to breathe slowly. It’s not too late. Not for us. You’re enough here. We won’t let you go. Try to breathe, please.”

“I… I don’t deserve this,” she whispered, half-confused, half-desperate.

“To feel this terrible?” he asked. “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t believe you deserve that, either.”

“No, I…” She gasped again, and he grimaced, carefully adjusting her position in his arms before wiping away her tears, even though it was a very temporary gesture.

“Athena, do you think you can listen to me and try to believe what I’m telling you?”

She sniffled, then nodded, wide-eyed.

He breathed through.

“Good. I want you to understand that we are not doing anything for you because we owe you. And don’t owe us either. Neither from the past nor from what care you get now. You’re loved anyway. That’s how it works.
And because of that, you don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to hide how you feel. You don’t have to tear yourself apart trying to find some worth in the pieces. You’re already good enough.”

She sobbed, shaking her head. Her body was shaking from exhaustion and anguish and he held her close, trying to steady her.

“But I… I can’t do anything… I’m useless… you… how could a tool that doesn’t function anymore be good enough?”

Odysseus sighed, tracing circles on her back.

If someone other than herself taught her that’s what she is, may they rot in Tartarus for all eternity.

“But you’re not a tool. That’s my point. You are not the goddess of wisdom to me. Nor warfare. That’s just what you do. You’re Athena. And Athena is good enough just the way she is. I don’t care about how many giants you killed in the war. I don’t care about how many battles you won. How many things you invented. I think it’s insane and I admire you for it, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It’s always been about you. You, who knelt and cleaned my scrapes when I cried. You, who came when I was afraid to be crowned and stayed with me. You, who helped me meet the woman of my dreams. You, who came to my wedding. You, who blessed my son and held him in your arms like you were scared to break him. Who played peek-a-boo with him when you thought we weren’t watching. Who strengthened Penelope’s needles so she could sew more easily. Who let me try and escape having to go to a war you’d spent ten years training me for. Who kept me and my troops safe from the other gods. Who told my son to be proud of his family crest. Who stood up to half of Olympus for us. Who might have saved herself but chose to save us instead. That’s who matters. That’s who we love. It’s you. It was always you, from day one. And you are good enough. Right now. Just like this. You are enough.”

She curled up against him then, trembling all over, and he stroked her back as she cried.

“It h-hurts, Odysseus,” she whispered weakly. “Ev-everything… it hurts… so much.”

Odysseus blinked away tears.

“I know. I know it hurts, and I wish I could make it stop. You don’t deserve this, you hear me? You don’t deserve any of this pain.”

She sobbed softly, exhaustedly leaning her head against his chest.

“There now,” he murmured. “That was so hard, I know. It’s okay. Try to rest.”

He shared a look with his family, then nodded slightly.

Telemachus moved first, settling behind Athena and resting his head against her hers as he wrapped his arms around her and Odysseus. Penelope followed, putting her hand on Athena’s.

Athena looked at them, unbelieving and frightened, tears trickling over her flushed cheeks, raw and sore from crying. She swallowed down a sob, they hurt in her throat and she was so tired…

Her head was spinning, with so many conflicting thoughts it hurt trying to untangle them.

She couldn’t believe what they said.

She could feel that they were there.

She hoped they’d stay.

She wanted to believe what they said.

She was so tired.

She was so scared.

She hadn’t felt as safe as right now in thousands of years.

She thought maybe they didn’t hate her after all.

She knew herself well enough to hate herself.

She didn’t have the strength to fight their love.

She wanted it, needed it so badly, even as she could barely breathe, completely overwhelmed by this… by being held, so gently, so safely, like she actually mattered.

Athena wrapped her wing around Odysseus more closely, wishing she could hold them all at once.

“I know I-I can’t ask this,” she whispered, voiced tinged with shame. “but… please… don’t leave.”

“We won’t,” Penelope said softly.

“Definitely not,” Telemachus agreed.

She looked up at Odysseus. He offered his crooked smile.

“Not a chance. You’re stuck with our love now, and it’s not going anywhere.” He pulled her closer against his chest. “You’re not alone, Athena. I promise, you’re not alone anymore.”

And Athena, if only for that moment, closed her eyes, and allowed it to be the truth.

Chapter Text

For a while, Odysseus had thought that he’d get to hug Athena properly one day. Encouraged when she stopped correcting him on calling her his friend, he thought it was only a matter of time till she’d give him enough leeway for a hug, too.
He had been wrong. Sure, he had stolen some physical contact over the years and had felt very smug about it, but as time progressed he had come to terms with the fact that reciprocated hug was not going to happen, not beyond the incident before his coronation.

And now, here they were.

Her feathers were soft where they touched his back, slightly trembling with exhaustion from keeping her wing wrapped around him. She had all but stopped crying, breaths only slightly hitching every few seconds. Her head rested heavily against his chest.

“Can you breathe?” he asked quietly.

She nodded slightly.

“Okay.”

They were silent for a while, all holding on to each other until Athena groaned softly.

She shifted slightly in discomfort, breaths coming more labored. Odysseus bowed down to feel her temperature even though he all but knew it had risen again.

Athena drew a shaky breath.

“I hate these so much,” she admitted, voice shaky with, for once, open vulnerability. She sounded incredibly tired.

“I know,” Odysseus said softly. “Pen, would you-?”

“Of course,” Penelope said, running her fingers over Athena’s knuckles before getting up to dampen a cloth.

“Does this help at all?” she asked Athena when she placed the fabric on her forehead.

Athena shivered.

“A little,” she said, then flinched slightly when a droplet of water ran down her face like a tear. Penelope smiled gently as she wiped it away.

“Do you want to sleep?” Odysseus asked. Athena shrugged, but her fingers weakly clenched around his chiton. He smiled.

Well, would you look at that.

“You can sleep like this, too, if you want. I’ll just shift a little so you can lie down comfortably.”

She hummed in agreement and he carefully turned to lean against the headboard. Telemachus helped to navigate her wings into a more natural position as her eyes fluttered closed. By the time he had tucked her in, she was already half-asleep.

Penelope began to clean up the broken pieces from the cup and the wine quietly but efficiently. Telemachus stayed with Odysseus and Athena, one hand gently resting on the blanket.

“Athena?” Odysseus asked softly after while, but got no reaction. Her ran his fingers over her hair in slow, soothing motions, hoping to keep her asleep.

“That was a long time coming,” he said to his family. Penelope sat back down at his side and he leaned his head against hers briefly.

“Are you alright?” she asked him.

He nodded.

“Yeah… I’m glad she got it out in the open, you know? She was thinking this stuff anyway, better if we know.” He sighed. “I still wish it wasn’t quite so bad.”

He couldn’t quite put into words that they hadn’t seen half of it, he’d only been in her mind for a minute and knew there was so much more wrong than what she had said, and ingrained much more deeply.

What have they done to her on that mountain?

Or was this me? Surely it can’t just have been parting ways with me?

He supposed he should be glad that she had allowed the offered help. She seemed comfortable enough resting against him. He hoped she felt a little safer now that her breaths had evened out, still a bit too shallow for comfort, but regular.

Penelope placed a light kiss on his temple, wrapping her arms around him from behind.

“We’ll see this through, love,” she said softly. “We always do.”

Athena was cold when she woke up.

It was different from the fevered chills she had grown so accustomed to, this cold was bone-deep, pressing, like her ribcage had been opened and winter air was flowing right through her.

She opened her eyes with a gasp, gaze darting, trying to find-

I must’ve done something wrong… but what?

“Od-“

“Athena.”

She gasped softly, eyes flickering to Penelope.

“Are you okay?”

She blinked.

“Yes,” she murmured unsurely.

“Odysseus is downstairs,” Penelope said gently. “He’ll be back soon. He would have rather stayed, but they needed him specifically.”

Athena nodded slightly, turning the words in her head until they made sense.

Right. Kingly duties.

“I’ll let you properly wake up first,” Penelope said.

Athena knew no other option other than nod to it and trying to piece herself back together into a somewhat functional state. Telemachus was sitting nearby, carving a small figurine. He smiled at her.

Penelope sat down on the edge of the bed, her green eyes gentle.

“If you feel up to it, could we talk about where you stand as far as touch is concerned?

Athena swallowed hard, then nodded.

“It’s no problem at all if it’s different for each of us, I’m guessing you’re more comfortable with Odysseus than me, and that’s totally fine. I still want to do right by you. Can you try to tell me what you are comfortable with right now?”

Athena shrugged, nervousness mixing with dismissal in her gaze.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to…”

Penelope raised her finger just slightly, motion measured and non-threatening. Athena had to tell herself the latter several times before her heart resumed beating normally.

“No, no. Please, don't go back to that again,” Penelope said. “Earlier... I know it was extremely painful and exhausting, but it was good. You talked, you were finally honest about how you feel and we could help you better because of it. I will say if I'm uncomfortable. I asked you if you were."

Athena looked at her, fear evident in her eyes. Penelope sighed.

"Is it what I said or the tone that frightened you?"

Athena blinked, then looked away. 

"I... I don't know. I'm sorry."

“That’s okay.” Penelope smiled, then offered her hand. Athena hesitated briefly before placing her own in it. “I’m not mad. Do you understand where I’m coming from? I don’t want to force any touch that you don’t want, but I also don’t want you longing for contact and thinking you can’t ask for it.”

Athena lowered her eyes.

“I understand,” she said slowly. “I… my mind’s… it’s… I’m not sure about… about anything right now.” Her cheeks burned with shame at the admission.

“That’s okay,” Penelope repeated. “We’ll figure it out together. I have to change your bandages, would that be okay?”

Athena nodded, relieved to be able to answer a question simply.

Telemachus put his woodworking aside.

“Mom?” he asked. “Can I change them today? I watched plenty of times, I can do it.”

“I know you can,” Penelope said, ruffling his hair. “You can if Athena doesn’t mind.”

Athena shook her head.

“I don’t mind,” she said softly.

Telemachus smiled and sat beside her on her right, gently starting to loosen the cloth around her forearm.

“Call me if you need me,” Penelope said, stepping out onto the balcony.

Athena watched with vague detachment when Telemachus applied the salve to her arm.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Yes, the fever’s gone down again.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He looked at her, green eyes warm yet shrewd. “You were really upset earlier… Do you feel a little better after letting it out?”

Athena was silent for a few seconds. Did she?

“It feels… strange,” she said finally. “Different, but I’m not sure in what way yet. I’m not… used to this.”

“I know.” Telemachus briefly put his hand on hers. “We’ll be there either way.”

Athena swallowed hard, blinking away tears. She surprised them both by catching his hand when he made a move to take it away.

“Thank you, little wolf.”

He smiled brightly.

“Of course.”

She reminded herself he had a job to do, releasing his hand. He carefully rebandaged her lower arm, then moved on to past her elbow. He hissed quietly.

“That one looks a bit inflamed,” he said. “I’ll use some vinegar on it, okay?”

She only nodded, clenching her teeth when the acidic liquid touched her skin, seemingly determined to burrow into the wound as deeply as possible. She wondered how much of Apollo’s healing domain was rooted in this type of thing, in the seemingly ineffective remedies the mortals knew. She supposed a big part of it had to be his divine magic.

“Did you never get injured before?” Telemachus asked. “In a war?”

Athena shrugged, gaze wistful. “A few scratches, nothing serious. Nothing that left scars.” She hesitated briefly. “Almost, in the war against the giants. It would have been a nasty blow, but Ares… he shielded me in time.”

It felt strange to admit it, even though it was true. She’d denied it for years, not wanting Zeus Olympus to know that she’d had a moment of weakness, however minor. She supposed it didn’t matter anymore now after it had been made so brutally clear how breakable she was.

She hissed when a strand of hair touched a wound on her now exposed shoulder. Telemachus brushed it back, dabbing ointment on the light golden cuts.

“Ares deserves more recognition than he gets,” she continued despite herself. “They always act like it’s him or me. It makes sense, poetically speaking, the gods of war, at eternal war with each other, but really, we’re-“ she broke off, shivering slightly.

“Two sides of the same coin?” Telemachus asked.

She nodded. “Yes. That.”

“What’s he like?” Telemachus bandaged her shoulder.

Athena frowned, uncertain.

“He’s… he’s hot-headed. Acts before he thinks. He’s got a lot of heart, though.” The words felt foreign in their honesty. “And he’s got grit. He was still a child when we started sparring, and he never gave up even though I had centuries on him. He would never stab you in the back either.”

Telemachus looked at her curiously, catching the barely veiled affection in her voice. He wondered how Ares would speak about his sister in turn.

“He sounds nice,” he said softly.

Athena exhaled in an almost-laugh. “He does not hear that a lot.”

He worked up her neck and face, treating the wounds as gently as he could, wondering whether she wanted to talk about her siblings or whether that would only cause her more pain because they hadn’t come to help.

“Could you move your arm a little so I can reach your side?” he asked. “Or would you like Mom to do that?”

She moved her arm aside, shifting against the pillows.

“Go ahead,” she breathed.

She winced slightly when his fingers brushed against the bandage.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry.”

He carefully loosened the bandage, grimacing at the angry glow of the injury, still slick with fresh blood. It didn’t look better at all. If anything, it looked worse, deeper.

Athena groaned softly when he touched it, and he grimaced at the heat radiating from her skin around the wound.

“I’ll be careful,” he said, gently wiping away the ichor before taking the rest of the ointment, applying it to the wound.

Athena gasped softly, tensing up. She gripped for her chiton above her heart.

“Does it hurt there?” he asked, alarmed.

“It’s… probably just the rib…” She drew a sharp breath. “I’d… ask your father- if it always feels like this, but he wouldn’t know.”

“I never had a broken rib either,” he said, silently adding, and I really thank the fates for it when it’s this bad.

“I’ll… be fine, little wolf,” Athena said, leaning back heavily against the pillows.

He could tell from her breathing and the flush in her cheeks that the fever was rising again, and routinely dampened a cloth.

Her eyes flickered closed as he touched the fabric to her forehead, and she seemed to sink into the bed further, exhausted.

“Try to sleep,” he said lightly, tying off the new bandage. “May I sit with you?”

She nodded, humming in confirmation. Her wing folded beside her, a little clumsily. He sat down beside her, cross-legged, carefully reaching for her feathers.

“Is that okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she mumbled, and from the way she curled up slightly in his direction, he guessed it actually was.

He met his Mom’s gaze, who was standing by the balcony, watching them with a slight smile. Telemachus ran his fingers through his friend’s feathers.

“Anyone ever told you your wings are super soft?” he asked.

Athena blinked sluggishly.

“Once or… twice.”

Her mind focused on the feeling, the gentle motions in the direction of her feathers. She didn’t clean her wings the way a bird would, not in this form anyway ever since Hephaestus had created a piece of machinery to make the process quick and easier, but it still felt comfortingly familiar.

“What’d they make beaches for?” she asks, annoyed, shaking out her wings. “I’ve got sand everywhere.”

Pallas giggles.

“A very grumpy owl you are.”

Athena huffs.

“Let me brush them out,” Pallas offers.

Athena sighs.

“That will keep them clean for approximately two minutes, don’t bother.”

Pallas puffs her shoulder playfully.

“You. Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.”

Athena rolls her eyes, but obediently stretches out her wing. She wouldn’t think of actually trying to change Pallas’ mind on something like this. It is wise to know when a battle is useless.

Pallas- no, Telemachus, hummed softly under his breath as he smoothed her feathers.

“I wish I just had scales, like you,” she murmurs. “My wings are nothing but trouble.”
“Thena!” Pallas protests. “I love your wings! And you love flying too, you know that.”
Athena smacks her lips, but doesn’t argue. Pallas is right. She usually is.
She chuckles when the nymph slips under her wing and throws her arms around her. She wraps her wings around her friend in turn.
“And you give such good hugs with them,” Pallas says, sea-green eyes sparkling. “No more wing-slander, or I’ll knock you on your ass in our next spar.”
Athena’s lips curl into a smile. “I’d like to see you try.”

A hand gently wiped a tear from her cheek.

“It’s okay,” a voice said, faint and distant. “You’re safe.”

She woke in a haze, body heavy, yet unreal. She forced her eyes open, finding nothing but an indifferent blur that didn’t clear even with blinking. A low murmur filled her ears, incomprehensible and far away.

Underwater again.

She gasped weakly, trying to get air into her lungs, but a weight pressed down on her chest, making it all but impossible to breathe.

A spark ignited in her side, molten gold spreading through her body. Something foreign shifted in her body and for a moment, she could almost trace its shape, glowing and forked like… oh.

Her consciousness flickered before she could fully grasp the realization, slipping from her grasp like water.

No, this… this was important…

She gasped for air, feeling what was supposed to be her body twist and jerk with pain, then sink back like stone. The fire spread through her limbs, then into her chest, and she felt gold rise in her throat.

Odysseus turned, alerted by Athena’s quiet gasping. Her eyes were half-open, but dull, her face contorting into a pained grimace.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, hurrying to her side with Penelope in toe. She didn’t respond, but her body trembled faintly, then she flinched, back arching in pain. He quickly reached out to steady her, her hand weakly brushing against his as he reached to support her head.

“Athena, can you hear me?”

She gasped, a wet, gurgling sound, then coughed violently, but her body didn’t seem to resist at all, head lolling heavily against his hand.

He cursed under his breath, lifting her up, supporting her limp body.

“Pen, help me with her head, quick!”

Penelope was already at his side, holding Athena’s head so she could cough without choking. Odysseus grimaced painfully.

“C’mon, Athena, wake up. You gotta work with us, please. I’m sorry, I know it hurts.”

She whimpered weakly through the coughs. Penelope’s lips pressed together tightly as she wiped ichor from Athena’s mouth. Her fingers seemed about 20 shades darker than Athena’s ashen skin.

Odysseus felt his friend’s chest faintly convulsing under his hands, by the gods, how has it already been this much, there can’t be that much ichor in her lungs, there just can’t…

He almost thought it was over when another wave of coughs tore through her, ichor splattering on the cloth in Penelope’s hand.

“You’re okay,” Penelope whispered, voice faintly panicked. “Oh, gods… you’re okay, we’re here.”

She looked at him, eyes wide and frightened.

Odysseus’ face was grim and set.

“Breathe,” he said. “Just breathe, it’ll be done soon. Just a little longer.”

Athena just whimpered.

Both Odysseus and Penelope released a breath when the coughing fit finally subsided, but it wasn’t enough to ease up. Athena was so pale her skin appeared almost grey. Her breaths came shallowly, chest barely rising, as if cost too much strength to.

Penelope wiped her mouth gently and -in a terrible way- routinely before gently easing her into Odysseus’ arms. The goddess was shivering, eyelids fluttering.

Odysseus frowned when her cheek touched his arm, expecting to feel the heat of fever as usual. Instead she felt cool, skin clammy.

“Pen, she’s…” He touched her forehead, feeling a faint sheen of cold sweat. “She’s cold… something’s wrong.” He felt the dark irony in his words. As if there was anything right in this situation.

Penelope frowned, feeling Athena’s skin herself.

“She’s shivering, too,” she murmured.

Odysseus mind raced as Penelope carefully wrapped the blanket around their trembling friend. He took it all in, her pallor, the cold, the slight purplish tint of her lips…

“I saw this in the war,” he said, voice thick. “It’s shock… from blood-loss I think. We have to keep her warm… make sure she keeps breathing.” His voice wavered.

Penelope nodded, rising.

“I’ll put on the fireplace?”

He nodded.

“Try to stay awake,” he murmured to Athena. He wasn’t sure how faded her consciousness was, but if there was anything he could do to anchor her… “I’ll have to lay you down, though… I don’t know why they did that, but I remember that’s what they did in the war…” What Polites did in the war while I was trying not to be useless and help him.

He swallowed at the lump in his throat, placing Athena on her back and desperately hoping she would be able to breathe. She was shaking so badly.

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “Just breathe for me, yeah? You can do this.”

Her eyes flickered open briefly, but didn’t meet his. He lifted her legs lightly, quickly rolling up a blanket to keep them elevated.

Please, let my memory serve me right and not make it worse.

Athena shuddered, wing weakly jerking under her. He breathed in sharply, then lifted her a little to shift its position to be more comfortable.

“Sorry, I didn’t notice. There you go. Just breathe.”

He felt for her pulse, erratic under his fingers.

Penelope returned, wiping her hands.

“Should she… drink something, perhaps?”

“I… I don’t want her to choke. We better wait till she stabilizes a little,” he replied uncertainly. Taking Athena’s hand in his own, he carefully started massaging her palm, as if to will her ichor to keep flowing through her.

She opened her eyes, lips trembling as if to form words.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe, just breathe.”

She shivered, but her breaths kept coming, weakly, but more or less regular.

Odysseus had no idea how long they were sitting before finally, the faint hint of color returned to Athena’s cheeks, and her shivering eased a little. Her fingers curled around his very slightly.

“There we go,” he murmured, finding her pulse mercifully steadying.

She groaned softly, eyes fully closing, exhausted.

Penelope breathed out, brushing back Athena’s hair. She shared a look with her husband.

Odysseus nodded a little erratically.

“She’s okay,” he said quietly. “She just needs to rest.”

He knew neither of them believed his words, but they were needed anyway.

She’s okay. She has to be.

Is she, though?

Chapter Text

Telemachus sat, working at his "Night project", meaning the woodworking project that was turning out a little wonky on account of poor lighting. His Mom had nodded off, naturally, she was doing her best to keep Ithaca running as well as being here. If not for the suitors, he would have been able to help her and Dad now, he thought angrily. He would have been trained to be a better prince if they hadn't kept him confined.

He looked up briefly to check on Athena, but she hadn't moved. Good.

He worked in silence for a while, the faint chirping of the crickets in his ears.

He supposed his tiger might actually turn out to look like one if he didn't mess up the stripes.

He looked up at Athena shifting slightly.

It had to be nice to see in the dark. He could have seen her face then.

Telemachus held his breath to listen to hers. Not wheezing, which was good, but quickening, which wasn't good.

He unfolded himself from his curled up position on the chair and grabbed the lamp from beside him.

Athena scrunched her nose a little when he moved closer, the warm glow of the flame illuminating her face. She was frowning, then shifted again, mouth opening as if to say something, but no sound came out.

"Are you dreaming?" he asked softly. "It's all good, you're safe here."

She moved again, fingers twitching slightly above the blanket.

"No," she mumbled. "No, please..."

Telemachus frowned.

“Athena?”

She winced, fingers clasping around the blanket above her chest.

“Pallas…” she whispered, voice barely audible. “I’m sorry, Pallas, please…”

She flinched, then groaned from the pain of the sudden movement. Telemachus set down the lamp and sat beside her, putting his hand on hers.

“Athena. Everything’s okay, you’re just dreaming.”

She gasped. He could feel her heart race under his hand, and wrapped his fingers around hers more tightly.

She muttered something indistinct, a shiver running through her body.

“Just a dream,” Telemachus repeated. “Do you think lying down on your side again would make you feel safer? I’ll help you, okay?” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper, as he very carefully turned his friend to her side. She immediately curled up, injured wing weakly trembling before he adjusted it on top of her, then tucked her in. He settled down beside her, taking her hand again, smiling a little when she held on.

“That’s better, isn’t it? I’m right here, you know? You’ll be okay.”

He started humming under his breath, the lullaby his grandma had often sung for him.
Did the gods have lullabies? He would assume they did, because they had children, and surely the humans hadn’t come up with something so universal all by themselves. Then again, he didn’t quite understand the gods anymore. He had kind of thought they were like Athena, but at least Zeus and Poseidon couldn’t be more different from her.

Whether or not lullabies were a human invention, it seemed to help Athena calm down.

Her breathing evened out some after a while, and her shoulders relaxed a little as she drifted into a deeper sleep.

Telemachus looked ahead to the balcony, just visible by outlines in the faint moonlight.

Now that his friend was taken care of, he got to pondering a different matter. Mainly, who was Pallas? Who had Athena seen in her dream?

Odysseus entered, softly closing the door behind him as his gaze quickly swept over the room, accounting for everyone meant to be there.

“Everything okay?” he asked Telemachus.

His son nodded. He was leaning against the bed, Athena’s hand in his own.

Odysseus walked over to his wife, dozing on the couch.

“Pen?” he asked. “I’m here now, you can go to a bed that won’t hurt your back.”

Penelope opened her eyes sleepily, lips curling into a smile.

“Shall I take you?” he offered.

“If you insist,” she mumbled. Odysseus smiled fondly as he lifted her into his arms and she wrapped her arms around him.

“I’ll be back in a minute, Tel.”

“Alright.”

He carried Penelope into their own room, relishing every second of her resting against him, he’d waited so long for this, for casual acts of love like this one.

“Do you want me to sit with you until you’re asleep again?” he whispered when he set her down in their bed. She shook her head.

“If you’re there when I fall asleep, I’ll look for you when I wake up,” she said softly.

Odysseus’ heart twisted.

“Okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her hair. “Good night, then. I love you.”

She pulled him close for a kiss.

“I love you, too.”

Telemachus hadn’t moved much when Odysseus returned to the room, and neither had Athena.

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Odysseus said, sitting down in the chair.

“Who is Pallas?” Telemachus asked.

Odysseus frowned.

“Pallas? That’s one of Athena’s titles… I heard it used once or twice, and I think someone once told me it’s supposed to mean ‘Spearfighter’.”

Telemachus bit his lip.

“You sure it’s not a name of someone else?”

Odysseus paused briefly.

“Why?”

“She dreamed earlier,” Telemachus said. “She said that name, and she apologized… And I doubt she was talking to herself.”

Odysseus scoffed quietly.

“Yeah, would surprise me. Sorry, never heard of anyone with that name from her.”

Telemachus hummed.

“Maybe I’ll ask her tomorrow if she seems well enough.”

Odysseus nodded, going through his memories again, but coming up empty.

Pallas.

Who on earth was Pallas?

Athena shifted when she woke up, pain rippling through her muscles like she had overexerted them. She couldn’t fully suppress a slight groan.

“Athena?”

She looked up, seeing Odysseus sit on the bed to her left. She was lying curled onto her side, and immediately, she hoped that he’d let her stay that way.

“Are you-“ He broke himself off. “No, I can do better. What hurts?”

She hummed.

“Muscle-aches,” she said, cringing at how hoarse her voice sounded.

“Unsurprising,” he said. “Do you remember what happened earlier?”

She looked at him, eyes wide.

“I don’t… define earlier.”

“I’m not sure you were awake. You coughed, really badly, and you went into shock, I think… Your skin was ice-cold, you were barely breathing.”

Athena was silent for a few seconds.

“Oh,” she said then. “I remember the coughing, I think… but not much beyond that. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“That’s hardly something you have to apologize for. I’m sure you didn’t do it on purpose. How are you feeling now?”

Athena bit her lip.

“A little… off. Lightheaded. Not too much worse than usual, though.”

Odysseus grimaced.

“I suppose that’s good enough. Let me help you sit up?”

She shrugged, but didn’t resist when he carefully helped her to turn and sit up against the pillows. Telemachus lay curled up on the couch, breathing regularly.

Odysseus reached out for the mug on the nightstand.

“Drinking something probably won’t hurt,” he said.

She obediently took a couple of sips, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Athena grimaced.

“I… I realized something… earlier… it was important but I can’t remember. I can’t… normally I’d just time-dive and find out, but I can’t- I can’t remember.“

He caught the note of panic in her voice.

“It’s okay. It’ll come back. Do you know when you thought of it?”

“When I coughed… I think. I’m trying to replay it, but it’s so blurry.”

“You’ll remember,” he said calmingly. “Try not to stress yourself about it.”

She breathed through shakily.

Odysseus was silent for a while, then leaned back against the headboard.

Athena had the very clear feeling something was coming that she wouldn’t like.

“So,” Odysseus said. “About earlier. This morning, I mean.” He smiled a little awkwardly. “Finally got that hug, huh?”

Athena felt her cheeks flush.

“I’m sorry… about all… that. I don’t know what happened, I didn’t mean to be that weak… I don’t know what came over me.”

Odysseus shook his head.

“And that’s why Pen wanted me to talk this out with you,” he said. “Right as always. Being vulnerable around people who care about you is not weak. I just got a glimpse into your mind, and you’re in a lot of pain. You don’t have to handle that alone. If anything can make that even a little better, it’s a good thing. You get me?”

She swallowed hard, but nodded.

Odysseus tilted his head.

“What I actually wanted to ask,” he said. “was whether you’d like another one. I mean, disregarding us, when was the last time you got a hug?”

Athena deliberately ignored the first question, trying to stop her hands from trembling.

“That must’ve been before humans were created,” she said then.

Odysseus inhaled sharply.

“Wow,” he said then. “That’s… longer than I thought.”

Athena scoffed sadly.

“Gods aren’t exactly known for being quick to change their minds. I decided not to engage in… things like that… when I joined Olympus, pretty much. Some of my younger siblings tried to break my resolve, but…” She trailed of, lowering her eyes wistfully. “I could’ve had it, you know? Wouldn’t even have had to fight to get it. Ares… and Artemis and Apollo as well, they would have been so ready to give if I’d let them.”

Odysseus swallowed down the well, now would be a great moment for them to give, and they can’t be bothered, so I have my doubts, both because those weren’t just Athena’s siblings, they were Olympians, and because he knew she wouldn’t want him to speak badly of them.

“You know,” Athena continued softly. “They asked me to play a lot, the twins. Ares, too, but we got to sparring quite early so I suppose we were around each other a lot either way. Anyway, one of those days I agreed and we played tag in the forest on Delos. Rather, I was catching them mostly. It was… fun. Artemis was quick, even back then. Apollo predicted where I’d go next, but he got caught more anyway.” Fondness snuck into her voice recalling the event. “Artemis fell, tore her chiton. She didn’t get hurt, but she had a habit of tearing her clothes on bushes and such when playing, and got into trouble for it a lot. I… I didn’t even think about it, I just fixed the tear. It was like I could see the threads and how to mend them back together. That’s how I got my last domain. They really pushed me to pursue it. Artemis still wears the first cloak I made her sometimes. Apollo made a habit of showing up and leaving sketches of clothes that I could make.” She sighed, almost a laugh, but just almost. “He is a great artist, but he has no grasp on how impossible some of what he makes up is. It’s a nice challenge.” She paused for a moment, wrapping her arm around herself. “A lot of people were surprised about me taking an interest in something so… soft, I guess. But it made… it shouldn’t have, but it made it easier for me. Because making a nice garment and gifting it is a lot less hard than… than actually being there. I thought… somehow I thought that was enough.”

Odysseus sighed. He felt the guilt radiating from her, but he was glad she was saying it.

“It is something anyway. And you can still try to make a change if you want to.”

She hummed, eyes glistening. He knew she was unconvinced, but she didn’t seem interested in debating it. She shivered and he wrapped the blanket around her more closely.

For a while, they sat together in silence.

“Either way,” Odysseus said then. “We can’t really influence what Olympus does, but we can deal with ourselves. So let me ask, and just say yes or no, would you like another hug now that you’re not quite as upset?”

Athena was silent for a long time, fingers twisting and untwisting in her lap.

Finally, she sighed in frustration.

"This is why I tried staying away from Aphrodite's domain," she said. "Because it makes me like this. Because I don't know how to...  Because it's a simple question that should be simple to answer. It is simple to answer. I even know what I'd like to say, at least I think so..."

"Then why not say it?" he asked.

Athena grimaced, her eyes briefly flashing to him.

"Because... I don't know. I never... I hadn't... You can't be like this on Olympus. You have to take the space you need or someone else will. I kept myself safe for so long by being harsh and commanding, but now... None of it matters to me anymore. I don't... I don't want to take up any more space. I don't want to ask for any more... Favors." Her words came fast, ashamed.

Odysseus opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it.

“Yeah, let me think this.”

She let him in without comment.

Athena, can other gods hear what I'm saying right now?

Not apart from Apollo. He's got strong telepathic abilities that I can barely shield against when I'm at full strength. I doubt he is listening though. He's... very busy.

He hated the hesitation. The more gently Athena spoke about her family, the more he hated them for not being here.

Zeus?

Athena swallowed hard, eyes darting.

He can't... You mustn't tell anyone, but he can't read minds. He just likes to pretend he can.

Odysseus nodded.

Good then. This isn't like with him. This isn't Olympus, and I will never allow it to be. No favors. No games. No punishments. Just telling each other what we need. 

He sighed. Athena was looking at him like he had about three heads too many.

“I realize this must be incredibly difficult to adjust to,” he said aloud. “if this is how you've lived for what, 4000 years? But just try your best, that's good enough.”

Athena lowered her head.

“I don’t understand how you’ve got this much patience with me, when I can’t do any of this right.”

He had a lot of thoughts of how exactly to explain to her why, but he settled for a simple truth.

“Because you’re my friend, and I care about you.” He paused. “And after all, I’m just sitting with you right now and keeping you company, not like I’m doing an arduous task or anything.”

He had never been good at leaving a simple truth just standing on its own.

Athena leaned back her head, sighing.

Are you sure you don’t mind? she asked. I don’t you to… to offer this just because you think I need it.

She didn’t have to explain what ‘it’ was. Her mind replayed the memory of being hugged unbidden, along with the many conflicting feelings she had about it.

He smiled.

“I promise I don’t mind. If I ever don’t feel like it, I will tell you, but otherwise you can assume I’m ready to.”

Athena bit her lip.

“Then yes,” she murmured almost inaudibly, and he knew her cheeks were flushed without even seeing them. A smile crept onto his features and he moved closer.

“Okay,” he said gently.

She sat stiffly when he wrapped his arm arround her shoulders, but her wing almost automatically settled around him. Gingerly, she leaned her head against him.

“Comfortable?” he asked. She just nodded, and he felt her breath catch like a small sob.

Very slowly, she relaxed a little. Odysseus leaned his head against hers.

Another hitching breath. A drop of water fell onto his hand.

“It’s all good,” he murmured. “Just rest, I’m not going anywhere.”

He ran his fingers over her arm in small, circular motions.

“Odysseus?” Athena whispered after a while, voice small and choked up.

“Yes?”

She breathed in shakily.

“Thank you.”

Odysseus smiled, hugging her tighter.

“Anytime.”

Chapter Text

She woke up leaning against Odysseus.

Athena took a few seconds to reconstruct the past night before she let herself relax again. Maybe she should have tried to pull away, but for whom?
Was there a position left for her to defend even? Hadn’t her “favorite” title been stripped by a lightning bolt already?

She listened to Odysseus’ even breaths, her body feeling incredibly heavy. Her wing was stiff from being pinned behind him all night, but she didn’t move.

Her thoughts were jumbled, like she was not herself at all, nestled against someone else after all this time.

“Athena?”

She jumped, turning to Penelope. The woman’s smile was warm as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Good morning. How are you feeling?”

“A little off… it’s okay.”

She realized where she was, feeling her heartbeat quickening.

“Oh, I… I’m sorry, do you… do you mind this? I don’t mean to-“

“Athena,” Penelope interrupted gently. “I don’t mind. I haven’t seen you so peaceful… ever, really. Especially not recently. And Odysseus has a lot of affection to give after all this time, there’s enough to go around. Don’t worry about it, please.”

She reached for the mug on the nightstand, helping Athena to drink a few sips.

“I watched the sun rise earlier,” she said casually. “I used to do that all the time back in Sparta, and imagined how Eos rode her chariot up the sky. After Odysseus left for war, I took to staying up late because he’d always been a night-owl. Tel is, too, you can never get him out of bed early.” She smiled. “Is it called being a night-owl because of you?”

Athena shrugged.

“Hardly. I sleep very little usually, night or none. I didn’t… we don’t create our sacred animals, owls existed before I came to be. And my- it wouldn’t be appreciated if I took on a nocturnal lifestyle. Olympus has its schedules, too.”

“I bet,” Penelope said. “Big kingdom to run.”

“When we’re not busy running each other in the ground,” Athena said cynically.

Odysseus shifted behind her, yawning. His arm automatically tightened around her, and she stiffened when it pressed against her wounds.

“Odysseus,” Penelope said, reaching out for his arm.

“Hm?” he asked sleepily, blinking.

“You’re hurting her, love.”

He looked down, then loosened his grip.

“Oh, sorry, Athena, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay,” she said softly.

Odysseus yawned again.

“I truly am an old man.” He grinned. “Gotta stretch a little.”

Penelope moved closer to support Athena’s back. The goddess did her best to lean forward.

“Now you can move.”

“Thanks, Pen.” He shifted, getting up. Athena felt her vision blur, her head falling forward despite herself.

“Woah, easy,” Penelope said gently, and reached out to steady her.

“It’s fine,” Athena murmured, blinking to clear her vision.

Penelope carefully lowered her back against the pillows, then wiped her forehead with a damp cloth.

“We moved a bit fast, didn’t we? Just dizzy, or something else, too?”

Athena closed her eyes for a few seconds.

“Just dizzy,” she mumbled.

“Okay.” Penelope’s hand brushed against hers gently. “Then it’ll probably pass. Can you try to squeeze my hand if it gets worse?”

Athena hummed in confirmation, but she barely had time to consider whether being tired qualified as ‘worse’ before darkness pulled her under.

It was way into the morning when she woke again, and Telemachus had joined his parents. He sat on the bed cross-legged, his fingers absentmindedly running over her feathers.

“Either way, we’ve got to send a messenger to Pylos,” Penelope was saying. She and Odysseus were looking over some letters at the table. “Better if they hear from us before we do from them.”

Odysseus nodded. “I’ll write the message. Handwriting and all that. After that, we should have answered all of them, right?”

Penelope nodded.

“Hey Athena,” Telemachus said, smiling. “We’ve got some soup set aside for you.”

He got up to get it for her and she obediently drank some.

“Yours again?” she asked with a wry smile.

He beamed. “Yes.”

Athena played with a strand of hair, shorter and burnt at the end from lightning, and always in her face today. The burned pieces chipped off easily when she touched them.

Telemachus tilted his head.

“I can cut this if you want. And take care of your hair in general while I’m at it, it’s probably quite tangled.”

Athena shrugged. It was tangled, and now that she thought of it, she could feel every single knot.

“Let me sit up,” she said, swallowing her doubt that she’d be able to. Her body apparently felt the need to tell her that it hadn’t enjoyed being struck by lightning. What a surprise.

“No, it’s okay,” Telemachus said, then frowned. “Hm. How about you just lie down with your head on my lap, then I can reach your hair fine and you can rest?”

Athena shrugged slightly. “Sure.”

Telemachus got up. “I’ll be right back, I’ll just get some stuff.”

He hurried off. Athena shared a look with Penelope and Odysseus.

“You can tell him no, you know that?” Penelope said gently.

“It’s fine,” Athena said. “I don’t mind, it’s nice of him.”

Telemachus returned shortly after with scissors and a brush. Odysseus got up to help him and Athena get settled. Telemachus spread her hair out, looking for burned pieces.

“It’s not much,” he said, carefully taking a strand between his fingers. “Tell me if I tug too hard.”

She hummed in confirmation.

-Snip-

The first cut is erratic, hectic, like she might change her mind. A strand of ginger hair, long and thick, drops to the floor beside the vanity.

-Snip-

The knife almost grazes her skin several times as she cuts strand after strand. She doesn’t glance at the mirror. This isn’t about beauty. She couldn’t care less about how it looks.

-Snip-

More and more strands fall onto the polished marble. She hates how the stone looks without the distortion of water, water beyond her tears. It’s like it’s not meant to be like this, above the surface.

Snip.

“For a nymph?” Zeus asks, expression both surprised and annoyed. “Really, Athena, that’s ridiculous.” He gestures at the uneven mess she’s cut because she couldn’t hold the knife straight through her sobs. “Mourning like this is beneath an Olympian. This is disgraceful!”

“That’s it,” Telemachus said gently. “I’ll brush it first, and then see if I need to clean up the trimming.”

Athena swallowed hard.

She hadn’t realized that she had had her hair grow out after… that, stopped its growth at where it was now and never cut it since.

“Okay,” she managed.

Telemachus ran the brush through her hair in careful motions, manually untangling bigger knots.

“Do you do your hair yourself on Olympus?” he asked.

“I don’t… do my hair, really,” Athena replied. "But I know my stepmother and my aunts have servants help them. They wear more complicated styles that you can’t well do on your own.”

“Yeah, Mom does those too,” Telemachus said. “I help her sometimes. I-“ He hesitated. “I suppose I shouldn’t like to do girly things like that, but I do.”

“Now,” Odysseus interjected. “You think we didn’t help each other with our hair in the war? Achilles had hair to his waist. There were always braids in it.” He paused briefly. “My friend… my friend Polites, he’d make flower crowns, you know?” His voice wavered slightly, but he pressed on. “We’d wear them, all of us, as we played or fought. Eurylochus, he was big. He had a sword too heavy for most warriors to even lift. He still wore the crown. Only a moron thinks a man with flowers in his hair can’t kill him.”

Penelope put a hand on his, knowing the pain it brought to speak of his friends, but that he still wanted to.

“Maybe he’ll believe it from you,” she said tenderly. “I’ve told this story quite a few times.”

Telemachus blushed, briefly gazing at Athena.

“Apollo rivals mine and Ares’ bodycount from the wars we’ve all fought,” she said. “Your parents are right, only a fool would think you lesser for it.”

He shrugged uncomfortably.

“I… I know I shouldn’t have let it get to me, what they said, but…”

“They said it all the time,” Odysseus said, getting up to hug his son. “You’ll learn the truth now they’re gone, don’t worry about it, my little wolf. Wear those flower crowns.”

Telemachus smiled, fingers carefully smoothing over Athena’s hair. He picked up three strands and started braiding them.

Athena froze.

Unbidden, Quick Thought pulled at her consciousness, and for endless seconds, she couldn’t even put together why as she struggled against it, against herself, helplessly dangling over the mouth of time, saliva dripping from its fangs.

If I talk too much or if we get too loud for you, tell us and we’ll give you time, no questions asked.

She couldn’t speak, her turmoil invisible to their eyes, and-

She’s sitting perched on the big branch of the tree by the water. Nimble fingers braid a blue ribbon into her hair, and she’s listening peacefully to the animated chatter behind her, running like water in a creek.

“Athena, can I ask you something?” Telemachus asked, fates, she could still feel the strands of her hair overlapping and being woven together…

“Sure,” a voice that couldn’t be her own replied.

The pull from Quick Thought was overwhelming, and she had to warn them it might happen out of her control…

“There’s this name, you said it last night… I was wondering who it was, maybe you’d like to talk about it.”

Think, goddess of wisdom, how do you communicate?

“Sure, ask away.”

What by Styx am I doing?

Hang on. Mental link.

“The name was Pallas, I think?”

Athena yelped as she was pulled into Quick Thought like into the mouth of Charybdis herself. She barely saw the shards of the hourglass race by her as she dropped beyond them into the endless abyss of times long past.

“Athena?” Odysseus’s voice reverberated all around her, loud and frightened.

Yes! She called back, hoping to the fates that she’d opened the mental link in time. I can… I didn’t mean to…

“Odysseus, what’s happening?” Penelope’s voice now, uncertain and almost scared.

“You can see it too?” Telemachus.

Athena fought against the current, wings straining against the- wind? There was no wind in Quick Thought?

“Don’t worry, Pen, just sit down and close your eyes, it’ll make you feel queasy otherwise,” Odysseus said. “You too, Tel. It’s just a mental link, it’s not real. Athena, you have to get out of Quick Thought, it’s not safe-“

I… I’m trying… I’m not doing this!

She was still falling, so impossibly long, and she didn’t know where she was going.

“You’re shaking, Athena. Does it hurt?”

She hesitated briefly, it was hard to assess pain when tumbling through the ages.

She could vaguely feel her physical body, Odysseus’s hand gripping her arm.

No… it’s… I don’t think so… it’s not broken here…

It was so weird hearing them speaking verbally in real time, like she was only half here, and half still in her body.

“Okay, then stop fighting it. You’ll just hurt yourself. Do you know where we’re going?”

Athena didn’t get the chance to reply before the void opened to an open sky, vibrantly blue with only a few white clouds.

Odysseus, keeping his eyes closed, saw how Athena looked around, then heard a half-physical, half-mental gasp. Two figures emerged behind a cloud, the bigger one shadowing the smaller one under a massive wing.

Odysseus inhaled sharply.

“Woah,” Telemachus said. “Is that… is that Zeus?”

“Yes,” Odysseus murmured, feeling Athena stiffen.

“It’s okay,” Penelope said, and he was uncertain whether she was speaking to Athena or to him. “We’re right here.”

Zeus and Athena, a version of her that looked unsettlingly different in a way he couldn’t quite grasp, dove down toward the ground.

The Athena watching with them briefly struggled against the current of the memory, groaning in frustration.

I can’t… It’s not supposed to pull me like that. I can’t tell- what it wants.

“You’ve got to let it happen,” Odysseus said, knowing it was a hard ask. “Fighting it will only cost you more strength, strength you do not have. Please.”

She shivered, but let the wind pull her after her past self and her father, rapidly descending toward the mortal realm.

It was clearly a part of the world even Odysseus hadn’t been to before, the orange sand of a desert below hot under the searing sun. Just when he wondered what the two gods were doing in such a lifeless place, the desert broke, giving way to a luscious oasis around a shimmering lake, stretching the size of possibly all of Ithaca. The sandy banks of the lake were green, and through Athena’s memory, he could tell the air was getting more humid and cooler around it.

He heard Athena draw the mental equivalent of a sharp breath.

No… I don’t- I don’t want to see this.

“What is that?” Telemachus asked gingerly.

“That’s Lake Tritonis, isn’t it?” Penelope asked.

Athena breathed out shakily.

Yes.

Below them, Zeus landed on the sand near the shore, followed by his daughter, whose landing could only be described as sloppy. She bent over, breathing heavily.

Her hair was much longer than they had ever seen, reaching down past her waist. It appeared a shade lighter than it was now, too. If she hadn’t looked unsettlingly young either way, that would have given it away.

Zeus raised an eyebrow.

“Tired already?” he asked.

Athena looked up, face flushed, and wiped sweat off her brow. She straightened automatically. She was wearing a simple white chiton, rich but lacking character, and a set of armor in a bluish metal that looked slightly too big on her. Her wings were large for her body, too, and there was some white fluff especially near her shoulders, downs, Odysseus guessed, revealing they weren’t fully grown yet.

“It felt like a long flight, father.”

Her voice froze the Ithacans in place, quiet, distinctly young-sounding and cautious, but missing its edge, its… its weariness.

Zeus huffed. “Well, take care of training your endurance, daughter. This will not do.”

Athena bowed her head.

“I will, father.”

Telemachus felt sick. He hated how Zeus spoke to his daughter, when she was so clearly tired. He didn’t know where exactly the lake was, but Athena looked so… so small. He wasn't sure she was even supposed to fly yet when her wings were still partly downy like that.

“How old… how old are you there?” he asked gingerly.

Athena took a few seconds to reply, when she did, her thought sounded strained.

About a month.

“What?” The disbelief was the same in Odysseus’s and Telemachus’s voice.

Athena sighed, eyes still fixed on her younger self who was looking around with vague wonder in her eyes, and her father gazing at the lake with disinterest.

My birth was… unusual. I’ll… later.

They all flinched in unison when two figures rose from the glimmering surface of the water. Odysseus immediately recognized another god he never wanted to see again in Poseidon, large and imposing like Zeus, but he didn’t know the other, a big man with brown curls and pearlescent scales scattered all over his body, leading to webbed feet and hands.

“You let us wait,” Poseidon said, sending a shiver down Odysseus’s spine. He felt Athena’s feathers shakily brush against his hand.

Zeus put a hand on his daughter's shoulder, but there was little warmth in the gesture.

“My daughter is not yet accustomed to flying.”

Poseidon grinned, revealing rows of sharp teeth, like those of a shark.

“Well. She’ll hardly need that skill here, anyway. Greetings, niece.”
Athena bowed her head, but the greeting apparently had only been a formality, Poseidon was still addressing Zeus.

“She doesn’t look much like you, brother. One should think she would, being only your child, right?” His tone was vaguely mocking. “Pretty enough, though. Which I bet didn’t help her standing with Hera.”

Athena had taken a small step back, and even from a little away, her discomfort was palpable, to seemingly anyone but the elder gods speaking about her. The man beside Poseidon tilted his head, observing the young goddess with interest- and maybe pity.

Penelope bit her lip to keep her composure. As if it wasn’t bad enough what Zeus and Poseidon had done to Odysseus and his crew, she thought.

Zeus sighed.

“Indeed. The ruckus I’ve had because of her… This arrangement will restore peace on Olympus once my wife has gotten over herself. Or so I hope. You never know with that woman.” His voice was cool, dismissive. Penelope felt very much like kicking him in a rather painful place.

Poseidon chuckled.

“Truly. Well then. Triton?”

The man beside him nodded.

“Yes.” He took a step forward, his smile warm as he looked at Athena. “Welcome. I’m Triton, your cousin. We’ll be glad to have you with us, hopefully you’ll be happy here. What’s your name?”

Athena straightened a little.

“Athena,” she said softly.

“Speak up, child,” Zeus scolded.

“I’m sorry, father. My name is Athena,” she repeated toward Triton.

He nodded.

“Athena. Mind of the gods. That’s a strong name.” He nodded to her reassuringly before addressing Zeus. “Uncle, I suppose I'd train and educate her with my youngest? They at least look about the same age. Unless you had something different in mind for her?"

Zeus looked indifferent.

"Make sure she can hold her own in a fight. No daughter of mine will be weak. And keep her mind sharp. Otherwise, you may act as you see fit."

He turned to Athena.

"I don't want you to be cause for complaints, child, do you understand?"

Athena lowered her gaze.

"Yes, Father."

Penelope ran her fingers over Athena’s arm in the real world, feeling her heart ache for the child she had clearly once been. Her own family life hadn’t always been easy, but the coldness Zeus treated his daughter with was hard to watch. So was the way she kept looking at him for guidance and received no warmth in return.

„Good,“ Zeus said. “Poseidon, accompany me, there’s matters for us to discuss.“

„To Olympus, when Hera’s grumpy?” Poseidon asked with an edge in his humor. “You must think me truly brave.”

The two gods departed together, Athena’s gaze following them, her expression forlorn and uncertain.

Triton took another step toward her.

“Athena?”

She reluctantly turned to him, and despite herself, her older counterpart stepped closer, gaze not blurring despite the tears she felt in her entire body. She hadn’t thought about this moment in a long time, how abandoned she’d felt because her father hadn’t even turned around.

“Yes, cousin?” her younger self asked unsurely.

Triton grimaced.

“Hm. Why don’t you call me uncle instead? I know it’s not technically correct, but it feels more appropriate. My daughters are more closer to your age than me.”

Athena nodded.

“Sure,” she said.

Triton looked at her curiously.

“That’s oceanic armor you’re wearing, isn’t it? It’s good for living here, for certain, because it withstands water, but I didn’t know Olympus had this. Good thinking from your father, I presume.”

Athena didn’t reply, but her thought was strong enough to surpass the ages, echoing through the memory, both defiant and filled with sadness.

No.

Triton stepped back toward the lake, waving his new ward over.

“Come along, I’ll show you your new home. You can shed the armor for now.”

Athena hesitated briefly, then dematerialized her armor with a flick of her wrist. She looked at the water warily, her wings folded behind her. Unease rippled through the memory, an instinctive, primal feeling with no active thought behind it. Triton extended his hand toward her.

“Come on, it won’t bite you.”

Athena hesitantly stepped into the water, lifting her wings to keep them above the surface. She followed Triton a few steps, then halted, her eyes wide.

Triton looked at her quizzingly.

“Are you frightened? But you have been in the water before, haven’t you?”

Athena shrugged uncomfortably. “In the bath,” she said, her feathers shuddering slightly, betraying discomfort.

“Well, it’s not much different from that. Just come over here.”

Athena bit her lip, but obediently stepped closer to him. The water reached past her knees now, and she lifted her wings higher to avoid getting them wet. Triton shook his head.

“Athena, my palace is underwater. Your wings will be submerged anyway. There’s no other way down, I’m afraid. You can breathe underwater, there’s no need to be scared.”

“How do you know I can?” Athena asked.

Triton reached out, touching a spot right under her ear.

“Oceanid marking. No idea where you got it from, but it’s probably not my question to ask.”

Athena touched the place with her fingers, frowning with a strange sadness on her features.

“Come on,” Triton said again. “Don’t think so hard about it, swimming will come naturally to you.”

“Don’t think about it?” Odysseus asked, tone vaguely teasing. “Well, he clearly hasn’t met you before.”

Athena didn’t reply as her younger self finally took Triton’s hand, reluctantly allowing him to guide her in further. She held her wings high, stubbornly above the surface. Triton frowned, not exactly frustrated, but maybe at a slight loss.

Athena hesitated again, eyes fixed on the water.

“Look,” Triton said. “This is daunting, but once you’ve had your head under, you’ll see it’s nothing big. See?”

He dove under briefly, his hair dry as he emerged, but water glistening on his scales.

Athena shivered.

“I- I can’t,” she whispered. Her eyes darted toward the shore.

Triton sighed.

“Alright then, let me help you. It’ll be easier that way. You need to learn to dive, child, there’s no way around it. You’ll thank me for this later.”

Athena winced when he wrapped one arm around her, trying to take a step back.

“No, I-“

She couldn’t say anything more before he pulled her underwater.

The viewpoint of those watching shifted, seeing Athena struggling against Triton, eyes wide with panic. He wrapped his arm around her flailing wings, trying to hold her in place.

“Athena,” he said, his voice dulled by the water. “Athena, it’s alright, calm down.”

“No!” she pressed out, wriggling out of his grasp, briefly disoriented before she scrambled toward the surface and broke through with a gasp.

“Athena!” Triton called as he followed her up, but she didn’t listen to him, instead she waded to the shore as quickly as she could, wings trailing uselessly behind her. Telemachus thought it was obvious that they weren’t meant to be wet like that.

Athena curled up on the sandy bank of the lake. She was trembling all over.

Triton sighed, looking at the shaking goddess, her fingers gripping for the sand on the shore.

“Oh, the heavens in their infinite wisdom just had to send me a bird.” He reached out, a little awkwardly patting her shoulder. “There. It’s all good now. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

Athena drew a shaky breath. Triton squatted down before her, brushing a wet strand of hair from her face.

“Alright, little one, how about this? I’ll send up some nymphs your age, maybe you’ll learn easier from them. And you’ll have a little more time to adjust to all this. It’s all very new still, isn’t it?”

Athena looked away.

“Yes,” she murmured then.

Triton patted her shoulder.

“You’ll get used to it. I’ll see you later, alright?”

Athena just nodded, watching Triton dive into the lake and disappear from sight, then she got up, shaking out her wings as best she could before quickly approaching a big, crooked tree near the waterline. Her wings still dragged, clearly doubled in weight from the water, but she still climbed up to a big branch, pressing her back against the trunk and hugging her legs. She was sitting quite precariously, but she didn’t seem afraid, now that she was out of the water.

“Gods, you look so young,” Penelope said, voice wavering.

“What was that about the one month?” Odysseus asked.

Athena, the one watching with them, glanced around uncertainly.

I was born like this, she said. Fully grown, somewhat. I’d been conscious before for… three years, give or take. But that body, that was very new. It’s complicated, and I can’t focus right now. I need to get out of this. An edge of panic snuck into her voice.

“Are you in pain?” Odysseus asked, worried.

No, but I know what happens next, and I can’t- I don’t want to see it.

She kept her eyes away from the waterline as she helplessly pulled against the time-dive, trying to free herself from her own mind. It felt like being restrained in place by the wind, it left her alone as long as she didn’t try to move. What is this force even? I’m the only one who should be here. And I definitely don’t want to stay.

“Athena?” Telemachus said, his voice thin. “You have to stop… I’m sorry, but you’re shaking really bad. We’ll be with you, you can do this.”

“Is it about us seeing it, too?” Penelope asked.

No, Athena murmured, stiffening. She heard the pearly laugh of some nymphs- Triteia, Agapia, Eidothee and-- across the water, but she couldn’t fight to escape further, not when Telemachus sounded so worried.

I don’t mind you seeing… not this part. I just… it’s complicated.

She looked up at her younger self who was watching intently, grey eyes narrowed. She knew that she had been too shy to call out, content with just watching from a safe distance.

Come on, just look. You’ll have to see her anyway. Get it done before she speaks.

But she kept her eyes trained on herself, hearing what she hadn’t heard back then, the splash of someone emerging from the water near the shore, bare feet on wet sand.

“Hey there.”

Two versions of Athena flinched at the same time, and both of their gazes settled on the speaker. A young nymph grinned up at the goddess, skin broken up by shimmering green scales, with the same sea-green eyes as Triton.

“I already like you,” she said brightly. “I never considered sitting in a tree before, but now I have to try.” She walked closer to the tree, examining the trunk. “How did you get up there? Did you fly?”

Athena tilted her head a little, shifting her weight.

“No, if you put your feet on that knot-“ she pointed it out “-you can pull yourself up.”

“Ah,” the nymph said, grasping for the branch above her. She yelped when she missed, losing her balance.

Athena reacted quickly, catching her wrist before she could fall.

“Hold on,” she said softly, helping the other girl onto the branch.

“I need to practice that,” the nymph said with a laugh, holding onto the trunk with one hand. She looked over the lake. “Woah, this is so high up. You can’t really climb things underwater, you know, because you can swim everywhere. But this is so different. I like how the lake looks from here.”

Athena looked at her curiously, head tilted slightly.

The nymph turned to her, smiling.

“Dad said to come find you. I wanted to come up with him right away, but he said Zeus would want to speak to him and grandfather alone first. Also it would’ve been weird if I was the only one of his daughters to come with, and Triteia and Kalliste didn’t want to. They’re dreadfully dull sometimes. One should think getting a foster sister would be interesting, even to them. Triteia is over there, but she told me to go meet you alone. Don’t think much of it, she’s always like that.” She took a breath. “Oh, your name is Athena, right? Dad said so.”

Athena nodded.

“Yes,” she offered.

“That’s such a pretty name.” Again, the nymph laughed, and in the present, a tear slipped out of Athena’s closed eyes. The other girl extended her free hand to her in a greeting.

“Nice to make your acquaintance. I’m Pallas.” 

Chapter Text

Telemachus’s heart twisted when the nymph said her name. He could feel Athena wincing, and remembered in brutal clarity how this time-dive had come to be.
It’s my fault for asking… and something must have gone terribly wrong with Pallas or Athena would be happy to see her.

“Nice to meet you,” the uncannily young version of Athena said softly.

“I’m happy you’ll be living with us,” Pallas said cheerfully, shifting her position on the branch slightly. “So little happens down here, I bet Olympus is much more interesting. I’ve never been, what’s it like?”

Athena hesitated, then shrugged.

“I haven’t had anything to compare it to,” she said then. “It’s very loud, and busy, at least it felt that way to me.”

Pallas hummed.

“Yeah, I bet. Well, it’s pretty quiet here most of the time, but the courtyard and the market can be busy too.” She almost lost her balance, but caught herself. “How are you sitting so still? It’s so unsteady.”

Athena shrugged, her wings flaring up slightly. The desert air had dried them already.

“Oh, I see!” Pallas’s eyes lit up. “Your wings are so cool! I’ve never been close to a god with wings before, I think. May I touch them?”

Athena nodded hesitantly, spreading her wings out to their full width.

“Woah,” Pallas said as she reached out to run her fingers over the ginger feathers. “Oh, they’re soft! I didn’t think they would be. I love them!” She smiled brightly, uncaring, unaware, that, 4000 years into the future, the same girl who had blushed at the compliment suppressed a sob.

“Thank you…” Athena said unsurely.

Pallas chuckled.

“I’m sorry if I talk too much. I just find it so exciting. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to fly, can you see the palace from above? I always wondered if it was about the angle you looked down from.”

Athena frowned, then shook her head.

“You can’t see it,” she said then. “The water… it throws the light back, like a… like a mirror. Nobody could tell me why it does that so far, it’s just an observation.”

“Well, if it’s about water, someone down here is bound to know,” Pallas said easily, then almost lost her balance again.

“Maybe we should go back to the ground before you fall.” Athena’s voice was a mix of concern and faint amusement. Pallas giggled.

“I bet I’ll get used to it. I’ll be the best tree-sitting nymph in all the land, just you wait.”

Athena tilted her head.
“Aren’t there tree-nymphs?”

Pallas looked at her in feigned shock.

“I will pretend I did not hear that. How dare you betray me like this. I thought we were friends.”

She looked at Athena, seeing about every conflicting emotion at the same time in her expression, and smiled.

“Hey, I was kidding, you know that, right? I’m not really mad.”

Athena breathed out.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

Pallas smiled, then looked at the tree-trunk unsurely.

“Now to get down…” she murmured.

“Wait,” Athena said. “I can help you. Hold on.”

She didn’t hesitate before easily jumping down to the sand, landing securely with a little help of her wings, but by no means in a proper stance. Odysseus knew he should have thought no different, given she was one month old, but it shocked him anyway. There was something fundamentally wrong with seeing Athena thoroughly untrained.

She offered Pallas her hand, helping her down from the tree.

“And of course you’re taller than me,” Pallas commented when they were standing next to each other. “Where is the fairness in the world?” She playfully tapped Athena’s shoulder. “Kidding again. Sorry. Don’t they have humor on Olympus?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Athena said a little stiffly.

“On second thought, I think I’m glad I’ve never been there. Oh, that reminds me, do you want to come down with me now? Dad says you don’t know how to swim yet, but I can show you.”

Athena hesitated.

“Is he waiting?” she asked uncertainly.

Pallas shook her head.

“I doubt it. He knows I’ll have talked your ear off.” She chuckled. “We have plenty of time.” She bounced excitedly, and in the present, Athena thought her heart was about to shatter. She had not forgotten how… how lively Pallas had been. She only hadn’t seen it in a while. It had been thousands of years since she had last longed so painfully to draw Pallas close and never let her go.

“Oh, Athena,” Pallas exclaimed in the past. “Do you think I could fly with you? It’s alright if not, but I just have to ask. It would be so much fun!”

Again, Athena tilted her head in a distinctly owl-like fashion.

“Like me carrying you?” she asked.

Pallas shrugged, then nodded, her smile a little embarrassed.

“I don't know if I’m too heavy for you, or maybe you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

“No, I can try,” Athena said after a moment of contemplation. “My m-…” she broke off and cleared her throat. “There’s no shame in failing, but there is no excuse-“

“not to try,” Odysseus finished softly. He had heard this sentence too many times to count.

Pallas’s sea-green eyes lit up.

“Oh, splendid! I so hope it works!”

Athena hummed, brow furrowing.

“What’s wrong?” Pallas asked.

“Nothing, I’m thinking about how to pick you up,” Athena replied. “I’ve never carried anyone before. You can’t go on my back, I can’t move my wings that way.” She almost absent-mindedly rose a few inches above ground, considering. “If I put my arms around your midsection, that might work.”

Pallas nodded. “Just try,” she said.

Athena hesitated a little before carefully wrapping her arms around the nymph’s waist.

“A little higher maybe?” Pallas suggested. “Yeah, that’s better. What do I do?”

“I don’t know yet,” Athena said. “Let’s see if I can lift you first.”

Penelope had a bad feeling about the idea, it was clear that Athena hadn’t yet had opportunity to build strength since her birth… it was insane to say, but the goddess was looking decidedly scrawny. Clearly, she was not about to let that stop her, though.

Pallas giggled when Athena slowly rose, each move of her wings deliberate. It didn’t look like it should have been possible, but she lifted the nymph off the ground inch by inch, expression set in focused determination.

“How in the world-“ Odysseus murmured. “I see you were always disregarding limitations like being half the other person’s weight.”

Hardly, Athena replied automatically, but she didn’t seem to be actually listening.

“Don’t move too much,” her younger self instructed softly. “I don’t want to drop you.” Her voice was strained with effort.

“Is it too difficult?” Pallas asked immediately. “Set me down if it’s too hard.”

“No, it’s fine.” Athena rose a little higher as if to prove her point, sweat beading on her brow. “It’s not that heavy.”

In a sad way, it was almost comforting, to see the well-known lies emerge so soon, with an innocence that they no longer had these days.

Pallas chuckled giddily as Athena gingerly picked up some speed, a little shakily carrying her over the beach.

“This is amazing!” she exclaimed. “Athena, my sister is over there, she won’t believe this!”

Athena didn’t argue, only changed course, heading over the lake.

“Can you… see the palace?” she asked breathily.

“No, you’re right, it’s reflecting too much,” Pallas replied before calling over to the nymphs in the distance. “Triteia, look!”

Athena’s sharp eyes, both now and in the memory, could see the other nymph turning around clearly, her eyes widening.

“Pallas, have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”
“I’m flying, silly!” Pallas’s voice was overflowing with joy. “And if that’s insane, I don’t want to be anything else.”

Triteia, having her sister’s curly hair and Triton’s lighter scales, shook her head. Her gaze toward Athena was rather cool.

Athena was breathing heavily, her wings shaking slightly with the effort.

“Pallas?” she asked.

“Yes, what’s the matter?”

Athena grimaced.

“Can… can we go back? I’m… I can’t carry you for much longer.”

“Yes, of course, or just drop me.” Pallas’s voice was chipper and carefree.

“What? No-“ Athena’s eyes darted nervously as she turned, making back toward the shore.

“It’s fine,” Pallas said. “Just fly a little lower and let me fall in, it won’t hurt.”

Athena set her jaw, trembling more by the second, but holding on to Pallas as she struggled to maintain her height. The memory provided a mix of emotions, reverberating through Quick Thought, the main one being protectiveness, defying all logic, because why would a water nymph require protection from the water. The emotion was strangely touching in its rawness.

“Athena, just drop me,” Pallas repeated.

Before Athena could protest, her wing cramped up, and she yelped in surprise and fear as they both dropped toward the lake.

Athena tensed in the present, feeling the water close above her head like she had back then, the fear no less deep 4000 years after the fact. Perhaps worse.

“All good,” Pallas was saying. “Are you okay, is your wing hurt?”

Athena just gasped, struggling to the surface with hasty motions. Pallas’s eyes widened, then quickly wrapped her arm around the goddess and helped her to get above water.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Athena. It’s okay, don’t be scared. It’s just water.”

Athena breathed out shakily.

“I can’t… I can’t fly like this,” she got out.

Pallas looked at her wings, dragging from Athena’s shoulders.

“Oh, because your wings are wet? I see. Maybe you can use them for swimming instead?”

Athena’s eyes darted to shore, but she still moved her wings, treading water in deliberate motions.

“Don’t pull me under,” she said then, voice strained and choked.

“What?” Pallas frowned.

“Don’t… I want to stay above the surface, don’t pull me under.”

“Of course not,” Pallas said. “Woah, I can feel your heart beating from here, you must be so tired. Do you want to hold on to me for a minute? I’ll help you stay above, promise.”

Athena nodded weakly, holding on to Pallas’s arm as she tried to steady her breathing.

“I… I’m sorry I’m making it difficult,” Athena said after a while, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and Telemachus’s heart twisted. Some developments apparently weren’t recent.

“Oh no,” Pallas said immediately before any of them could. “Of course it’s scary when you’ve never been in the water before. Don’t apologize for that.”

“You didn’t find flying scary,” Athena argued.

Pallas shrugged. Beads of water rested on her dark hair without actually wetting it.

“Yeah, but I have no sense of danger, or so I’m told. Kalliste says it’s a miracle I haven’t been eaten by a caveworm yet. Which is metaphorical, because caveworms are just a scary tale the kids get told. At least in the lake. Either way,” she said. “Do you want to practice swimming a little, above the surface? Maybe you’ll get more comfortable that way.”

Athena hesitated briefly, then nodded. She followed Pallas with deliberate strokes, clearly observing the other girl’s movements to replicate them.

Odysseus thought that, in hindsight, it had to have been high praise from her to call him a quick learner, because she clearly was exactly that. Not only that, she independently adapted her movements to accommodate her wings better.
In that moment, he saw the goddess she’d become, the strong, resilient woman who never backed down from a challenge.

Pallas turned around elegantly with a small dive and smiled.

“You’re getting better already,” she observed happily.

“I’m so much slower than you,” Athena murmured with faint frustration in her tone.

Pallas raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, I’d be pretty offended if you weren’t, I’ve been swimming my entire life.”

Athena hummed in reluctant agreement, then bit her lip.

“I’d… I’d like to try… to dive,” she said then. “I think it’d be less daunting if I knew… if I know I can get back to the surface on my own, it mightn’t be as scary to be underwater.”

Pallas nodded enthusiastically, smiling.

“Yes, that’s great. I’ll go under with you, and if you get scared, or anything’s wrong, I’ll pull you back up immediately, yeah?”

Athena looked at her, and the mixture of her expression and the feelings of her memory showed surprise, surprise at being offered help.

“Why… why are you so kind to me?” Athena asked very quietly, and Penelope felt her throat close up. One month, echoed in her mind, and already the girl had learned not to expect help.
How could she when her own father discarded her like an unwanted piece of clothing? When her stepmother clearly petitioned for that? When her uncle is all but preying on her, and her cousin, however well-intentioned, doesn’t really know what to do with her?

“Why would I not be?” Pallas asked easily. “Friends are kind to each other.”

Athena tilted her head.

“I- I never had… a friend.”

Pallas smiled.

“Well, you do now.”

A half-smile appeared on Athena’s face, tentative, but there.

Odysseus felt words on his tongue, but none came out. He had no idea what to say to this, to the exchange that could have come from his lips, that had come from his lips in large parts, and been received so differently then.

They watched her learn to dive with Pallas’s help, it took a couple of tries, but Athena was nothing if not persistent. She still seemed uncomfortable underwater, but she didn’t complain.

“Ready?” Pallas asked.

Athena nodded.

The Lake was deep, and looked more otherworldly by the second. If one ever suspected an underwater kingdom, it had to be here.

“Woah,” Telemachus said softly when the buildings came into view. “Oh, it’s beautiful.”
Odysseus could only agree. He had seen glimpses of Olympus, with its divine opulence beyond mortal description, but this place, serene and yet bubbling with life, was simply beautiful.

Pallas led Athena directly to the palace in the middle of the buzzing town.

“Learn from the best,” she said with a chuckle that sounded like bubbles underwater. “Straight through the window.”

Athena tilted her head, but followed obediently through one of the big windows into a council room.

Triton turned around.

“Daughter of mine, how often do we have to have the discussion about using the door?”

“Until the day I die, presumably,” Pallas said easily.

For a moment, Quick Thought seemed to darken and shiver. Athena tasted ichor from biting her lip too hard. It should have been easier knowing what was coming before it happened, but it wasn’t.

If not for me, they’d still be having that discussion.

She swallowed down the tears. Letting them breach the dam would give way to an ocean, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop until her skin dried to her skeleton.

“And you’re being a bad influence, too,” Triton said. He smiled at Athena. “You found your way down?”

Athena shrugged, embarrassed. “Pallas helped me.”

He nodded.

“I thought she would. I’m sure she won’t mind showing you around a little, would you, Pallas?”

“I was going to anyway,” Pallas said.

Triton smiled, then put a gentle hand on Athena’s shoulder.

“Welcome to Lake Tritonis, little bird.”

The image froze, a grain of sand frozen in time, and Athena was pulled from the moment, back into the starry vastness of Quick Thought.

Flashes of the past flickered around her. Pallas showing her her room, whispering at the dinner table, Triton showing her the library, kept dry by magic as if it had waited for her.

-

The time dive spat her back out in the courtyard. Athena swore she could hear some malevolent force snicker at the cruelty of it.

“Athena?” Her physical body moved, carefully lifted into a sitting position. “Can you breathe better like this?”

It’s fine, she replied automatically, trying not to look at the stones she knew would be drenched in blood.

Her younger self, now dressed in one of the slightly shorter chitons the lake-people wore (a blue one that Pallas had picked. It’ll look great with your hair, Thena. You should wear more blue.) was standing with Triton, watching a couple of nymphs train for battle. Pallas was among then, too, wielding a spear with precision and focus that spoke of a formidable fighter.

Athena looked up at Triton, her wings fluffing slightly in the air that filled the courtyard. Two braided strands held her hair back from her face, wetness suggesting they had been watching for a few minutes. Fish swam above their heads beyond the air-bubble’s bounds.

“I have so much to catch up on anyway,” she said.

Triton shook his head.

“You have all the time in the world, Athena. A month or two will not decide your future as a warrior. We’ve talked about this, you can train with them once you’re ready.”

Athena frowned.

“It doesn’t- I am ready.”

Triton looked at her, expression firm but not unkind.

“You are ready when I can’t see your ribs.”

Athena paused for a moment, then flicked her wrist to materialize her armor.

“Technically, you can’t see them,” she said.

Odysseus couldn’t suppress a smile. Neither, so it seemed, could Triton.

“Athena, goddess of pedantry, is that it? Let me send word to Olympus that we have figured out your domain.”

Penelope caught the slight unease on Athena’s face at the mention of Olympus. The girl wrapped her arms around herself.

“Either way,” Triton said. “You won’t change my mind on this. I won’t have you harmed because Olympus didn’t feed you properly.”

Athena shrugged.

“They did give me food,” she murmured. “I just… I didn’t know it was hunger that I felt. And I don’t like the pure ambrosia. It’s too sweet.”

Penelope focused on Triton, his expression set as he looked at the training nymphs. She could see his anger, suppressed, but there, and she agreed whole-heartedly. Of course she didn’t know how exactly Olympus had treated Athena, but it sounded a lot like they had just let her fend for herself, disregarding completely how young she really was.

Who could look at a child, divine or not, and not want to make sure they’re well-cared for?

She knew the answer was ‘way too many people’, but she would never understand it.

“It is really sweet,” Triton said quietly. He put a hand on Athena’s shoulder. “Head up, little one. You will use that armor of yours soon.”

-

Back into the void again. Athena wished it actually was a void, not taunting her with constant images of Pallas and Triton, of the life she might have had, the person she might have been, the person who Pallas would have wanted her to be.

If she could see me now, she’s be so sad. Thena, she’d say, look what you’ve done with your life. Chasing ghosts and eternally stuck in the past that you’re meant to command. Still holding on to the spear you killed me with even though you don’t use it anymore, just so it can twist in your heart whenever you look at it.

She was pushed into her room. Her room at Triton’s palace, that was. It was night, a largely artificial creation in the depths of the lake, they worked at the same schedule as the above-world, dimming their lights when the sun went down.

Even without being pushed by Quick Thought, she stepped closer to the bed, finding herself curled up into a heap of feathers. She could hear the tell-tale noise of suppressed crying, and a strange ache bloomed in her chest. She couldn’t touch anything from a time-dive, she knew that, but she still wanted to reach out, hold the girl she had once been close, back when there had still been something worth protecting in her, back when she didn’t have gallons of blood on her hands.

The door to the room was opened, and Pallas peeked in.

“Thena?” she whispered, and Athena drew a shuddering breath in the real world, the nickname reverberating through her very being. “Thena, are you awake? There is a swarm of iris fish outside, you’ll love them- Athena?”

She stepped further inside toward the bed, almost brushing against the older version of Athena standing beside her.

Don’t reach out. Don’t try, you’ll break your heart even more.

“Thena, are you crying?”

A short pause.

“No,” came a muffled sound from under the feathers. It sounded rather miserable.

Pallas’s face twisted in sympathy, and she went to close the door.

Athena shuffled around, sitting up with a mixture of a huff and a sob.

“What’s wrong?” Pallas asked, returning to her side.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Athena murmured, pulling her knees closer to her chest.

Pallas scoffed, plopping down on the bed beside her.
“Yeah, sure, I also make a habit out of randomly crying myself to sleep. Tell me.”

Athena buried her head in her arms.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it.” Her voice came muffled.

“Of course you are. That’s why I’m asking.”

“No…” Athena sounded equal parts desperate and frustrated. “Not because of you. My father… he told me not to.”

Pallas was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments.

“Well, he’s not here, though, is he?” she said. “And I’m not gonna tell.”

Athena hesitated.

“If he finds out, he’ll be angry with me.”
Penelope’s heart broke at the fear rippling through the memory. If she had thought that Athena’s fear of her father had started with the lightning bolt a few weeks ago, she would have been proven wrong now. There was an undeniable sense of danger Athena clearly had around him, and all Penelope could hope was that it was only instinctual, not rooted in something that had already happened.

“He won’t find out,” Pallas said. “You’re not announcing it in the square, you’re telling your sister, that’s very different.”

Athena sniffled.

“It’s about my Mom,” she said then, voice barely audible.

Pallas’s eyes widened, mirroring the shock the family in the present felt.

“You have a Mom?” the nymph asked.
You called your mother “Mom”? Odysseus added silently.
“But Dad said… that Zeus had you on his own. That you were born from his head.”

Athena shrugged.

“He wants me to say that, too. But it’s not true. I mean, the born from his head part is true, but he didn’t have me on his own.” She breathed out shakily, creating a small ripple in the water. “Before he married Hera, he was with my mother. Metis.”

Pallas frowned.

“Oh… oh I remember her. I never met her, really, but I also never met Hera or Zeus. Dad must know her though, he’s been to Olympus before. Now that I think about it, she hasn’t been mentioned for a while, though…”

Athena scoffed.

“He doesn’t want people to talk about her. I don’t know what he told Olympus about what happened, but it can’t have been the truth. My mother helped him win against Cronos. She said… she said they were happy with each other.” A sob broke off her words and Pallas wrapped her arms around her. Almost absent-mindedly, Athena let her wing curl around the other girl.

“What happened?” Pallas asked after a while. Athena laughed humorlessly.

“I happened.”

Odysseus flinched at the amount of pain in her voice.

“When Mom was pregnant with me,” Athena continued, “they got a prophecy. If Mom had a boy, he’d be stronger than Zeus and overthrow him. If it was a girl, she’s be wiser than her parents.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if prophecies are real. There’s no way I could be wiser than my mother. But they believed it anyway. My Mom wasn’t worried. She said that she knew I’d be a girl anyway, and even if not, she wouldn’t have minded giving up the throne for her son. But my father… he didn’t want to take the chance. So he-“ She faltered, shivering. “He consumed her. I don’t know… I have questions now, now that I know what it’s like outside, how he did it, but I can’t ask him. I think… I think he doesn’t want people to know, because of Cronos, because he did exactly what he killed Cronos for. That’s why I’m supposed to say I’m just his daughter, not hers. Because I’m not supposed to be here at all.” Her voice wavered.

Telemachus shivered, hugging Athena tighter. He guessed her choice of words meant it hadn’t been like that, but his mind offered nothing but he ate her. They had a scroll detailing Zeus’ defeat of Cronos, and the drawing of Cronos eating one of his children had always terrified him.
‘Great Zeus, seeing the injustice, vowed to fulfill the prophecy of his father’s doom’, the story went, unaware of its own twisted irony. He wondered what it had to feel like for Athena to read things like that.

“My Mom said he would love me,” Athena continued in the past, breath hitching slightly. “because I was a daughter, not a son, but she was wrong. I’m just a mistake to him, something that makes him and Hera fight, something left over from the past he tries to erase.” She shivered again, and new tears leaked into the water. “He can’t have loved her, Pallas, not in a way that matters, when he won’t even acknowledge her. And he can’t have wanted her child either, if he had, he would’ve kept me with him, no matter what Hera said.” She sighed shakily, her wings drooping as she rested her chin on her knees. “It all seems so pointless. There is no point… to me.”

Odysseus clenched his fists. Her clarity, the raw truth in her words regarding her father, hurt more than he’d thought. He twistedly wished she could feel the same anger now.

"It’s not pointless,” Pallas said for him, wrapping her arms around Athena more tightly. “Maybe from your father, it is, but you’re not pointless. You’re my best friend, and I’m glad you’re here.”

Athena sniffled, leaning into her embrace.

Pallas stroked her friend’s back for a while, concern mixing with anger on her face before she finally spoke again.

“What happened to her, Thena? How’d you get free?”

Athena shivered.

“It was… it wasn’t… being inside him wasn’t good for us. I don’t remember what happened, not really, but I remember that Mom told me I’d have to go. She turned me physical, and gave me my armor… and then she told me to hit my spear against his skull until he let me out.” Her voice wavered. “She… she couldn’t come with me. She-“ Her voice was all but broken off by sobs. “S-she said it’d-d be fine. But it… it wasn’t. She just… she disappeared. She’s g- she’s gone.”

“Oh Thena…”

Pallas held her friend, tears glistening in her eyes. Athena sobbed, curling up against the other girl.

“I miss her,” she whispered. “I miss her so much, and I can’t… I don’t remember her face clearly, Pallas. It’s like it wasn’t real. Sometimes… sometimes I think I just made it up.”

“No, of course you’re not making it up.” Pallas protested. “Why would you do that?”

“Asking the right questions, that one,” Odysseus murmured, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. It didn’t help that the memories felt more personal than he had ever seen in a time-dive, and he could feel Athena’s anguish like a tangible force.

“Because… because I felt so alone.” Athena sniffled. “On Olympus… so I made up someone… someone who loved me.”

“Oh, darling,” Penelope murmured, feeling her eyes well up. She opened her eyes briefly to take Athena’s hand into her own.

“Oh, Athena,” Pallas whispered softly. “It’s so wrong… of your father, and the others, too. They should never have made you feel so lonely. But I don’t think you made up your Mom. You never make stuff up like that, not for yourself. If you remember it, even if it’s blurry, it’s real.” Her fingers tenderly played with Athena’s hair. “And now you don’t have to wait for love on Olympus, Thena. So they’re too stupid to realize they should love you. Let them, that’s what you’ve got us for. Me, and Dad, and you know, Kalliste and Triteia like you about as much as they like me, which is not a lot, admittedly, but either way, I’m your sister and I love you, and I’ll never let you forget it.”

Athena chuckled tearfully, wrapping her arms around Pallas along with her wings.

“I love you, too,” she murmured.

They settled down on the bed after a while, Athena’s wing loosely draped over Pallas. She lay on her side, but much less curled up than she liked to these days, letting Pallas snuggle up close to her.
She looked relaxed, Telemachus thought. Relaxed, and safe. Comfortable.
He wondered when she had last felt like that as the room before them blurred back into the starry tower of time.

Chapter Text

Athena felt that she was being pulled up further this time, and her heart twisted with fear. For the first time, she hoped the time dive would keep her for longer, further in the past. She knew it would just be avoiding the inevitable, but she was relieved to step back into a room, even though it belonged to Pallas.

The nymph lay sprawled on her bed like she always did, her nightgown idly moving in the water. Fortunately for Athena, her longing gaze was interrupted by herself in the past, opening the door.

“Pallas?” Her eyes seemed to be glowing more than usual. She had forgotten they had done that before she had reigned in her expressiveness to be less vulnerable on Olympus. “Pallas, wake up!”

Pallas groaned, blinking.

“Thena, it’s the middle of the night!”

Athena shrugged.
“That never stops you. Come on, I want to show you something!”

Pallas grumbled, but sat up.

“Stay where you are,” Athena said, then closed her eyes and made a very familiar gesture, freezing the room into Quick Thought.

Pallas’s eyes widened.

“Woah! Athena, what- what is that?”

There was no fear in her eyes, just curiosity.

“Still the same room,” Athena said, all but vibrating with excitement. “It’s… it’s a part of my mind, I think.”

“Wait, this is your first time?” Odysseus asked.

I discovered it earlier that night, Athena replied absently.

“That’s so cool!” Pallas got up, spinning around. “Is it… it’s not like a dream, is it?”

Athena shook her head.

“No, it’s real. I discovered it on accident earlier, because I knocked over the vase in my room, you know, the nice one. And all of the sudden I was here, and I could catch it and put it back.”

“Woah,” Pallas said again. “So you can slow down time?”

“No, it only makes your thoughts quicker,” Odysseus murmured, tone teasing. Athena had always been particular about that difference.

“I don’t think that’s what it does,” Athena said, almost as if she had heard him. “I think it only happens for me… and for you now. Like we’re moving faster, and the world is the same.”
Pallas hummed.

“Still, that’s amazing,” she said. “There’s so much you could do with this. Next time grandfather says something mean, you have to take me here and we’ll think of a clever retort.”

Athena tilted her head.

“I wonder if that’s what it’s meant for,” she said thoughtfully. “for thinking of better arguments, in court and such. Not making rash decisions.”

Pallas nodded, frowning.

“Hm, maybe. If it quickens your reactions, you’ll beat me in a fight in no time, too.”

Athena shrugged.

“That doesn't seem sporting. I’ll beat you without it one day.”

Pallas grinned, playfully boxing her shoulder.

Athena smiled.

“There’s more. I explored a bunch earlier, and there’s something else it can do.”

Pallas’s eyes lit up.

“Oh yes, show me.”

Athena took her hand, pulling her to the edge of the glass platform. The fog cleared to reveal the hourglass, without the adornments Athena had later added. Pallas whistled, impressed.

“Hold on,” Athena said, wrapping her arms around Pallas from behind, the security of her movements suggesting they were habitually flying together by now.

“How long has it been?” Penelope asked. “You look much stronger.”

About seven years. Athena sounded resigned.

Pallas yelped when Athena dove from the hourglass, but the goddess held her tightly.

Odysseus almost reminded her of how she had unceremoniously pushed him down into his first time-dive, but he refrained. He understood it had been a different time for her.

They landed in a different part of the underwater palace, the dining hall, it seemed.

It hurt to see Quick Thought how it was meant to be, Athena found. Even then, she’d controlled her own realm with ease. Whereas now…

“Thena, look!” Pallas exclaimed in surprise. “There’s us!”

She pointed at the two girls eating with the rest of the family.

“It’s from earlier this week,” Athena said. “It’s a memory. I- I can see so much with this, Pallas! I can go back to any point and see what happened. And it doesn’t even have to my memory, I can go further back, and it doesn’t matter if I was there.” Her voice was full of so much youthful excitement and joy that Odysseus’ throat closed up. Part of him wished he had gotten to know this Athena, too, before life had changed her so much. He knew they would have gotten along back then, too.

“I want to see so much more,” Athena continued, “but I had to show you first. I thought you might want to come with.”

Pallas grinned, eyes shining.

“Of course I do! We can see the whole world like this!”

Athena nodded.

“Exactly. Where do you want to go first?”

Pallas giggled excitedly.

“Oh I want-“ She paused, eyes widening slightly. “Thena, where did you already go?”

Athena shrugged.

“I just tried out some things. I went to the place Uncle had correspondence with lately, Attica, I wanted to see what it looks like. And I tried how far I could back and saw Gaia and Ouranos. It was insane. But otherwise nothing all that interesting.”

Pallas clasped her hand.

“Thena, don’t you see? If you can go as far back and wherever you want, you could go before you were born.”

Athena frowned.

“That’s what I sai-“

“Before you were born the second time, Thena.”

Odysseus drew a sharp breath together with the younger version of Athena.

The goddess paled visibly.

“You think- you think I could see…”

“Then you’d know for sure. If you can see things that you weren’t there for, it can’t be your imagination. If you see her, you can stop doubting yourself. Don’t think I don’t know you are doing that still.”

Athena swallowed hard.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I don’t know… I don’t know if it’s possible, but we can try.”

They dove further down, Athena’s wing-strokes sure of the way, but decidedly hesitant.

They landed in a place unlike they had ever seen.

Telemachus shivered even two time-dives away. It was completely instinctual, this- this void in its oppressive nothingness was not a place that should have memories. Nothing should have been in there at all.

But there was.

Not far away, one- no, two figures lay huddled together in the cold stillness.

The bigger one, a tall blonde woman, had a majestic wing wrapped around the smaller figure, Odysseus recognized her feather pattern as a blue jay’s.

Athena gasped softly.

“That’s her,” she whispered shakily to Pallas. “That’s my… that’s her.”

Tears ran down her cheeks. Pallas wrapped her arms around her, wide eyes fixed on Athena’s mother.

Metis stirred, frowning. She shivered slightly as she opened her eyes, brilliant and grey. Just like Athena’s.

The titan was startlingly beautiful, in an ethereal way, and it took Odysseus a few moments to understand what was off. ‘She turned me physical’, Athena had said. The two weren’t physical now, they were spirits, and all of them were inside of Zeus right now. The second he understood that, he could feel the humming of electricity all around, as if the lightning reached down into Zeus’s very essence.

“Nea?” Metis whispered, lifting her wing to reveal Athena curled up at her side. The name rippled through time, and two different versions of Athena winced at it. The only one who didn’t respond was the one that was addressed.

Metis reached out for her daughter, brow furrowing with worry. Athena, looking even younger than they’d first seen her, maybe ten or eleven, lay perfectly still, skin so light it seemed almost translucent.

“Thena, you…” Pallas’s voice was uncharacteristically small. “You’re flickering.”

Metis’s wings flared behind her as she knelt beside the small goddess, hands tenderly but urgently looking for signs of life.

“Athena? Athena, wake up.”

Penelope saw the flickering now, like a silver aura around both Athena and her mother, only that Athena’s was faint, like a candle about to go out.

Metis breathed out shakily, cupping her daughter’s face in her hand and opening her mouth.

She bowed over the still child, and breathed out, silver energy flowing from her mouth into Athena’s. The aura around Metis shuddered and dimmed.

“There,” the titan whispered. “Come on now, little owl, come back to me.”

Athena remained perfectly still, no breathing to be seen.

Metis looked up into the void, expression exhausted and pleading. For a moment, her gaze almost seemed to catch those watching, seven and 4000 years into the future. Then she closed her eyes, forcing more of her energy into her breath, sharing it with her daughter. Then another.

An endless moment of silence followed. Metis shivered, her own essence flickering.

Then Athena shifted, drawing a ragged breath. She curled up into herself, her wings shuddering slightly. A weary smile passed over Metis’s face.

“There you are,” she murmured, fingers gently running over Athena’s feathers.

Athena shivered, eyes flickering open. Telemachus frowned, surprised. They weren’t grey. There was a ring of grey around her pupils, but the rest of her iris was dark, speckled with hints of yellow.

Zeus’s eyes. She had Zeus’s eyes.

“Mom?” she mumbled sleepily.

Metis quickly wiped a stray tear from her eyes.

“Yes, baby, I’m right here. Come here.”

Athena obediently sat up, curling up in her mother’s arms, their wings easily wrapping around each other. Even seeing it felt so overwhelmingly safe that Penelope had to swallow down a lump in her throat.

“Do you want to leave?” Pallas asked softly. She was holding Athena tightly as the young goddess cried, her body shaking. Athena just shook her head.

“She- she was real…” she got out, her voice low and miserable.

A tear slipped down Pallas’ cheek. She patted Athena’s back.

Metis looked up into the void again, as if looking for answers, then sighed.

"I must tell you something, Nea," she said quietly.

Athena shifted. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Metis breathed through, her fingers gently running through her daughter’s hair.

“I’ve been keeping something from you, little owl. For a few weeks now… your father, his essence has been flaring up… it’s been trying to snuff you out.”

Athena frowned, listening intently.

"I've been asking you if you were fine more often, but I think you've been lying to me," Metis said.

Athena shifted uncomfortably.

"I... I wasn’t lying. I am fine. I've just... this space feels tighter somehow, but I thought... I'm getting older, so always seeing the same place is bound to become dull, right?"

Metis looked away, face contorting in a pained grimace.

“That’s not it, Nea. It… when you were born, it was happening, too. I thought I’d lose you, I could barely keep you alive. It… evened out after some time, as if he was getting used to you. I hoped it would stay that way, but you’re growing too big. I- I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose, the divine essence is fickle, and yours is so different from mine, and from his. But just now, I couldn’t wake you up, you were ice-cold, barely breathing.”

Athena’s eyes widened, and she instinctively snuggled up tighter to her mother.

“I didn’t- I didn’t feel anything.”

Metis chuckled sadly.

“Yes, and I am so relieved about that. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being in pain, too.”

Athena was silent for a second.

“How did I wake up, then?” she asked.

“I gave you some of my energy. I have been for a few weeks, whenever it happens. But it gets more difficult each time, and I can feel myself growing weaker. And on top of that, it’s getting more frequent. This was the third time in seven days. At this rate, neither you nor I will last the month.”

Athena tilted her head, her fingers playing with an ornament on her mother’s gown.

“But what happens then?” she asked.

“We’d go dormant, I’d imagine,” Metis said gravely. “Technically alive, but unaware. Gone in all ways that matter.”

Athena shuddered.

“But you can fix it,” she said, with the simple trust of a child.

Both her older counterparts shook their head, one full of anguish, the other in quiet resignation.

Metis swallowed hard.

“I cannot ‘fix’ it, Athena. Not in the way you want me to. Here’s what we will do. I will give you armor and a spear from my armory. I have to turn you physical so you can use them. I still have enough strength to do that.”

Athena frowned.

“Then what?”

"Then you find a weak point in his skull," Metis said, voice hardening. "And hit your spear against it as hard and as often as you can. Don't falter. Make it impossible for him to ignore or endure you. Sooner or later, he will have to let you out."

“Us,” Athena corrected. “He’ll have to let us out.”

Metis’s expression was somber.

“I meant it how I said it, Nea. I’m sor-”

“No!”

Athena freed herself from her arms, rising. Her wings, looking way too big for her small body, spread in agitation.

“I can’t go without you!”

“You can,” Metis said. “You have to.”

“No!” Athena repeated. “You want me to go to him without you? He put us in here, he’s the reason for it, and you want to send me there, away from you?”

Metis rose.

“Athena. I can’t go with you. You need all the strength I have left to make it out. The only alternative is that we both fade to nothing, and I cannot allow that.” She sighed, a tear slipping down her cheek. Athena didn’t move away when her mother reached out to cup her face in her hands.

“I’ve been selfish, my little owl,” Metis said. “I should have done this sooner, but I wanted to keep you so badly. You’re not meant to be here, in this stifling place, you never were. I will not be able to keep you safe for much longer either way, and if I must lose my child, I’d rather know she got to spread her wings in the sun.”

Athena stood still for a moment, then threw her arms around her mother, sobbing.

“Mom, I don’t want to.”

“I know.” Metis stroked her hair. “I don’t want it either. But you’re a fighter, you’ll be just fine out there. I know you will.”

You were wrong about that too, Athena said softly, more to herself. And I think you knew it was a lie.

"Not yet," her younger self cried desperately, "please, not yet."

Metis hesitated, holding her daughter close.

“Good,” she said finally. “Two more days. But no more, Nea, we don’t have the time. You’re being so brave.”

She knelt again, cradling her sobbing child close, her own tears wetting Athena’s hair.

A few feet away, Pallas was doing the same, and 4000 years from then, Telemachus rested his head against Athena’s, feeling tears slip down his cheeks as well.

“Pallas?” Athena whispered hoarsely. “Let’s go, please? I- I don’t want to say goodbye again.”

Pallas nodded, and they left the scene, and so did the watchers from the present, once again drawn into the endless blue.

-

They ended up in a council room, carved into the white stone of a cave. Most of Triton’s palace looked man-made, but this part was a reminder they were, at the end of the day, living within the bounds of nature.

The seats were filled, by who Odysseus guessed were river gods and nereids or oceanids. The talking was animated as they pointed at different spots on a map that seemed magically waterproof.

Pallas wasn’t there, but Athena was sitting next to Triton, observing the map with interest. Without asking, they knew she was quite a few years older, and she held herself with much more confidence and security.

The conversation trickled on about trade and politics while Athena carefully probed if Quick Thought might have changed his mind and would grant her some mercy. It had not.

Her younger self shifted slightly, and she remembered what this was about.

Well, I suppose I should be glad there are no other people watching that would use this against me.

“We do not have to get worked up about this,” Triton was saying. “Let’s just gather all our points first and then figure out a solution.”

Athena shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. Her hair was partially braided again, the rest moving slightly in the water.

When Triton briefly left the field to the other gods, she leaned over.

“Uncle?”

Triton bowed down.

“Yes, what is it?”
“I’m-“ Athena grimaced, putting a hand to her chest.

Triton frowned, expression tight with concern.

“Again?” He put a hand on her arm reassuringly. “Gentlemen,” he said then. “We are called away on something urgent. Please excuse us, we’ll return as soon as possible.” He rose, putting his arm around Athena as they left the room.

“Alright now, little bird, hold on.”

Athena let him wrap his arm around her, and Penelope smiled. Apparently Athena didn’t feel any distrust about her first swimming experience, and she guessed Triton had put in work to make it that way.

“He swims so fast,” Telemachus said in awe as the water-god swiftly ascended toward the surface, carrying Athena with him as if he didn’t feel her weight at all.

The landscape around the lake was just as beautiful as they remembered, life stubbornly refusing to give in to the desert around.

Triton carefully set Athena down on the sand, squatting down in the shallow water before her.

“Alright, let’s get that water out of you, shall we?”

Athena just nodded, breathing labored.

Triton held out his hand, carefully moving it in a motion not unlike the one Athena used for Quick Thought. Water droplets trembled on her skin, then lifted and combined in the air as Triton directed it to him.

Penelope wondered if he was just drying her, but it was more than that. He seemed to be pulling water from inside her body as well, Penelope watched a droplet emerge from her skin with strange fascination. She would have worried about him drying Athena out, but the goddess didn’t seem frightened or in pain, on the contrary, her breathing steadied by the second.

“So, that should be all of it,” Triton said after a while, idly forming the water between his hands, then froze it into the shape of an owl with a quick flick of his wrist.

Athena smiled. Her breaths had evened out considerably.

Triton reached out, carefully reaching out to feel under her ears.

“That seems fine… Are you feeling better?”

Athena nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s not your fault. When was the last time you surfaced?”
Athena looked away.

“Three-and-a-half weeks,” she replied, with the air of a child who knows they have done something they shouldn’t have.

Triton sighed.

“We’ve talked about this, Athena. You have to spend a little time up here regularly to give your lungs a chance to recover from the underwater. I know you’re doing this because you think it makes you stronger, but that’s not how it works. You cannot outlast your body into working in a way it was not built for. It’s just a fact that your oceanid side is not prominent enough to sustain a fully underwater life. It’s not a personal failure.”

Two things, Odysseus said. Firstly, I like this man a lot, and secondly, how on Earth… why in the name of the fates did Zeus send you there? Didn’t he know your lungs couldn’t handle it?

I doubt it, Athena replied. I didn’t know until it first happened. It’s not… it wasn’t that bad.

Her younger self spoke before Odysseus could protest.

“I know… I just forget.”

Triton raised his eyebrows.

“And that’s how you know exactly when the last time was, I see, I see.” He sat down beside her. “Why don’t you just take Pallas on a little flight every week? She’d be thrilled about it. Two birds with- well, that seems in bad taste, doesn’t it?”

Athena suppressed a smile, then her expression grew somber again.

“I just want to be like the nymphs, it would make things so much easier.”

Triton nodded.

“Well, you’re not. You’re different from them, but you’re no less strong. In fact, in many ways you are stronger than most, a little bird who lives so far away from the sky, and still never stops trying to be better. A lot of people would cave from the challenges you’re faced with, Athena. But you’re no less strong if you spend time on the surface, exercise your wings a little, I know you secretly like doing that. I would too if I could fly. Don’t let anyone take away what you enjoy, little bird. Don’t let those who judge you change how you behave. Their opinion is not worth your happiness, nor your well-being, alright?”

Athena hesitated, then nodded. She didn’t resist when Triton put his arm around her shoulders, leaning into the embrace as the scene faded.

-

The time-dive let them back out on the shore of Lake Tritonis. Athena's breath caught when she saw spears clashing nearby, feverishly reminding herself that it wasn’t that day, it was the wrong spot, and nothing ever happened before that day.

She stepped closer to where the two of them were sparring, spears sickeningly familiar, they had always used those spears, and nothing had ever gone wrong.

Both girls fought beyond what most mortals could even comprehend, even if it was much easier to follow through Athena's eyes.

Odysseus saw a lot of his own fighting style not only in Athena (which was expected) but also in Pallas. She had the same habit of relying on her offensive just a tad more than Athena. He wondered whether it came from fighting with the same partner. Even if he could easily tell that this was his best fighting perfected. It was marveling to watch, and he couldn't help but think that this held a beauty he'd never seen before, not even from her.

Athena furrowed her brow, picking up her pace. She wasn't using Quick Thought, like she had promised, but her strikes were precise, angled just right to keep Pallas on her toes. They didn't speak, playing a game of wits as much as of bodies.

Watching from Athena's point of view, he noticed a falter in Pallas's defense.

"And you got her," he murmured, nodding in satisfaction when Athena used the moment and brought the nymph to the ground, spear tip just above her throat.

A smile broke through on the young goddess's face when Pallas dropped her weapon.

"This is starting to become a pattern I don't like," Pallas said, panting. "This is your third win this week."

"All you have to do is defeat me," Athena said with a grin. "There's no foul play here."

She dropped her spear and offered Pallas her hand, then yelped when she got pulled to the ground with her.

"Hey!" Athene exclaimed, but she was laughing, a sound Odysseus had never known, a pearly chuckle sounding like nothing but carefree, childlike joy, and it was hard to believe it wasn’t Pallas who laughed, but Athena.

"At this point, I'll have to insist on underwater fights to keep my win quota reasonable." Pallas giggled. 

"I should be practicing that more anyway," Athena replied, her expression growing more serious.

Pallas boxed her shoulder.

"I detect someone not celebrating her victory properly."

Athena sighed.

"I would if I knew this was what I was meant to do. I'm not... I'm not sure if I'm meant to stay here, you know? My father's been visiting more often, and-"

Pallas scoffed. "What, once every five years?"

"That's more than he used to. It's like he's waiting for something... For me to be something, but he doesn't tell me what."

"Well, if he doesn't tell you what, then how can you try and be it?" Pallas asked. "That's hardly your responsibility."

"You know that won't stop him from blaming me," Athena replied bitterly. "Or worse, Uncle or even you. I'm... I feel uneasy about it."

Pallas was silent for a while, her brow furrowing.

"If he asked you to come back to Olympus," she asked then, voice uncharacteristically flat. "Would you?"

"I wouldn't have a choice, Pallas."

"Yeah... Would you want to?"

There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in Athena's reply.

"No. I never want to go back to that place."

Then you should have watched your goddamn spear, Athena growled at herself.

She couldn't take this anymore, watching the end approaching so fast. She knew it wasn't so but the closer her appearance edged to that day, the more she felt like her younger self was a wolf in sheep's clothing, a murderer way too close to her victim.

Pallas smiled, resting her head against Athena’s shoulder.

“I hope he never asks,” she said earnestly. “If you ask me, he doesn’t have the right. You’ve been with us for so long, if he’d wanted you, he should have taken you back sooner, or not sent you here at all. You’re all mine now.” She giggled.

Athena chuckled, leaning her head against Pallas’s.

“You’re so silly,” she said affectionately.

“Proudly,” Pallas retorted without a second of hesitation.

Athena snorted, then rose.

“Come on then, silly girl, let’s go home.”

In the future, Athena almost laughed.

Home.

-

At this point, Athena didn’t know if she should be relieved to land anywhere that wasn’t the courtyard. Maybe it would be easier to just get there without seeing every little moment that had made her childhood so treasured before a single strike had ripped it all away.

Her younger self and Pallas were lying on the shore, stargazing. The chill of the desert night was significantly tempered by the nearby lake.

The sky was brilliantly clear, stars speckling dark blue. Odysseus wondered for a moment why it seemed so familiar, yet off. Then he understood. The sky of Quick Thought looked the same as this.

“How many stars can you see, Thena?” Pallas asked. “Your eyes are better than mine.”

Athena frowned, thinking, her eyes quickly sweeping the skies.

“Approximately 10.000, I’d say,” she said then.

“Woah,” Pallas said. She pointed at an assortment of stars, tracing the constellation with her finger. “That’s Amalthea, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Athena said, reaching out her hand as well, and the stars seemed to glow brighter, silver lines revealing a goat in the sky.

“I’ve known you what, 170 years?” Pallas said. “And still there’s more you can do than I know. That’s so pretty! Can you do another one?”

Athena smiled, moving her hand over the sky, revealing more constellations.

“Aetos, Zeus’s eagle,” she murmured. “And that’s the river Eridanos… Thytêrios, to commemorate the sacrifices for the great war… and Aigokerôs, for Aegipan.”

“The gods made all of these, right?” Pallas said thoughtfully. “I wonder if you can make constellations, too.” Her fingers absent-mindedly played with her necklace, and the small ginger feather hanging from it.

Athena hummed.

“I suppose I could,” she said. “Hang on…” She got up, shaking out the sand from her wings. Pallas followed, looking at her friend expectantly.

Athena’s brow was furrowed in concentration, silver energy flickering around her fingers. A small ball of light appeared between her fingers, then another. Athena finished off a triangle shape, then two more stars further apart from each other. Silver lines formed around the stars, forming the translucent image of-

“Oh, it’s a spear!” Pallas exclaimed excitedly. “Thena, it’s beautiful!”

“That’s so magical,” Telemachus said softly.

Athena wrapped her fingers around the handle of the spear and aimed at the sky, thrusting it forward.

Pallas bounced excitedly as the constellation settled on the night sky, a bit to the left of Amalthea.

“Imagine Dad’s face when he sees this! I’ll be able to say, look, my best friend made that for me!”

Athena smiled, letting the spear glow bright in the sky.

“We might as well name it Pallas,” she said playfully. “You know, for my sparring partner.”

Quick Thought shuddered again, feeling the weight of the emotion Athena was not willing to let out.

Might as well call it what it is, ‘Thena’. A fucking tombstone. A monument to the blood on your hands, frozen in the sky for all eternity.

“Athena?” Odysseus asked. “You’re shaking. Is it hurting you?”

More than you realize.

Not physically.

She was still looking at the constellation when it faded into the past.

-

Athena only took a brief look at the scene before she spread her wings, fighting against the unforgiving wind that wanted her to stay.

Her feathers trembled as she kept her eyes trained on anything that wasn’t the center of the courtyard.

“What are you doing?” Odysseus asked, concern evident in his voice.

I have… I have to get out.

She knew her physical body was starting to shake with the effort, and she was tied down, as if someone had her wings in their grasp, watching her struggle haplessly like an insect under a magnifying glass.

“Athena, you have to stop fighting this, please! Your nose… your nose is bleeding, you’re straining yourself too much!”

Then help me! The thought came with startling intensity. Hit me, it might break the connection… just help me get out of here!

Odysseus shook his head even though she couldn’t see it.

“I’m not hitting you, Athena. You’re hurt enough as it is. You’ll be okay, it’ll let you out soon, I’m sure of it.”

No, you don’t understand… He heard the tears in her voice. I can’t- Odysseus, I will tell you what happened, I promise, just don’t- don’t make me see this again, please!

“Hey…” He took her hand into his own. “Try to stay calm. This isn’t about my curiosity, I just don’t want you to fight this, we don’t know what could happen… I can’t let you get lost in there because you lost a fight against your own mind. Try not to panic, okay? We’re right here.”

She drew a shuddering breath, but didn’t reply, and he could feel the resignation in her. He saw her turn in the time-dive, standing like a statue as she watched the courtyard.

It was buzzling with people, most of them seated on the theater-like stands in the back, some in the front with gleaming weapons. An athletics festival, he assumed.

Odysseus couldn’t see anything dangerous, except-

He breathed in sharply as he spotted who was sitting with Triton on the ranks. Poseidon, and behind him, Zeus and Hera.

That probably explains who is the reason she wants to get out of there.

He couldn’t believe he had once upon a time genuinely worshipped the god who sat there, talking to his brother rather than his daughter who stood with Pallas nearby, visibly nervous. The two girls both carried spears, and Pallas was wearing arm-guards made from a leathery material. Athena fidgeted with the strap of her chiton.

A herald, dressed in all red, stepped forward, voice rising above the murmuring crowd.

“Our next battle is of Pallas, daughter of Triton, and Athena, daughter of Zeus.”

Odysseus saw Triton grimace a little, looking at the herald with reprimand.

Naming Zeus after Triton? Not a good mistake to make.

“Whoever disarms her opponent first will be victorious.”

Athena and Pallas stepped forward, bowing low to the ranks, then to each other.

They assumed a fighting stance, waiting for the signal.

“Fight!” The herald announced, and their spears clashed.

Pallas led with three quick thrusts in succession, stabbing around Athena’s spear to disorient her. Athena parried easily, then retaliated, spear moving precisely on the height that was best to destabilize.

Pallas retreated, steps secure, then their spear-tips clashed with a metallic ring.

Athena changed her grip and attacked again.

Telemachus watched with bated breath. He had only seen a mock battle once before, at Nestor’s palace, but this was different, almost like a dance. It was obvious how well Pallas and Athena knew each other, it was much less about technical skill and much more about wit. He’d have guessed Athena would win easily either way, she was, after all, the goddess of strategy, but they seemed evenly matched.

He didn’t like how tense Athena was, her body rigid in his arms. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a simple mock battle between friends, even if he couldn’t guess why.

He traced circles on her arm, trying to calm her down. She wasn’t moving, neither in the real world nor the time dive, eyes resignedly fixed on the fight.

Pallas twisted her spear, trying to yank Athena’s from her hand, but the goddess didn’t falter, using the opening to bring Pallas to the defensive. Athena’s strikes were quick, yet strong.

Odysseus shifted his gaze to Zeus who was watching impassively. Hera’s face was a mask, devoid of emotion. Poseidon was smirking. Triton was looking at the two girls with visible pride.

The crowd ooh-d and his eyes snapped back to the fight.

Athena blocked a strike from above, pushing back against Pallas as she got back up. Her brow was furrowed as she regained her footing.

Looking back at Zeus, he saw the god’s hair had become a shade darker, his expression clearly annoyed.

Oh, so she’s not good enough to visit, but she cannot lose a friendly fight against a well-trained and skilled opponent?

He looked back to see the scales had balanced again, both girls dealing blows on equal footing.

Zeus frowned, eyes narrowed.

Pallas’s spear grazed the ground. She grinned, launching another attack.

Athena parried, chiton flowing around her legs as she evaded another strike.

Zeus’s hand tapped on his adorned breastplate as he adjusted his position.

A little lightning played between his fingers.

Pallas drew a sharp half-circle with her spear.

Athena took a quick step backward, then shifted her grip to thrust her spear forward.

Light caught on the metal of Zeus’s armored armcuff.

Pallas faltered.

Her strike missed, catching Athena’s arm and drawing a little ichor.

The goddess gasped, trying to pull back instinctively, but the forward motion was too strong.

“No!” Telemachus exclaimed, flinching away instinctively.

Odysseus caught his breath.

The spear made contact with skin, then flesh, the sickening sound of a bone being scraped by a blade echoing through the memory.

Athena whimpered softly, the sound escaping her lips even beyond the time-dive.

Pallas gasped, spear clattering to the ground before she crumbled, her body slipping from the frozen spear-tip.

Her blood was red.

For a moment, everything was dead silent.

Athena stood, wide-eyed, red trickling from her spear.

“T-thena?” Pallas’s voice was very small.

Athena flinched, then dropped her weapon as if it was hot, falling to her knees beside her friend.

Penelope was sure she would never forget the piercing fear in her tone.

“Pallas!”

She reached out instinctively, pressing her hands to the gaping wound in vain. Pallas groaned, tears spilling from her wide, sea-green eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Athena whispered breathlessly. “Pallas, I’m so sorry, I thought you would dodge… I’m so sorry, please, you’ll be okay, just hold on, okay?”

“Th- thena…” Pallas whimpered, blood-stained fingers reaching for Athena’s wrist. Her breaths came choked, wheezing. “Thena, st-op, it h-hurts-“

A sob shook Athena’s body, desperate and frightened.

“I have to,” she whispered, voice breaking. “It has- it has to stop bleeding, Pallas, I-“
Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

The perspective shifted erratically, one second to where Athena was standing in the time-dive, then directly through her younger self’s eyes, emotions flooding the personal memory.

Fear. Helplessness. Guilt.

Blood was pooling under Pallas, staining the stone and the fabric of their chitons.

Red was trickling over her lips that were all but grey from shock.

Her eyelids fluttered as she gasped for breath.

“No,” Athena begged tearfully. “No, Pallas, please stay awake, please, I can- I’ll fix this, just stay-“ A sob choked her words.

Triton’s voice broke through the shocked silence on the ranks.

“Get a healer!” he yelled, his command breaking the spell. Murmuring filled the courtyard, shock vibrating through the air as Triton ran toward his daughter.

“T-thena?” Pallas gasped weakly, breath shuddering. Tears slipped down her face.

Odysseus had heard this exact sound before, and a chill settled in his bones.

Athena whimpered in fear when Pallas’s hand slipped from her arm and her body went limp.

“No… no, please, no, I didn’t- Pallas, please, no-“

Triton got to his knees beside them, tearing a piece of fabric from his chiton to bind the wound.

“Pallas!” His voice was husky, choked with tears. “Pallas, stay with me!”

Athena moved her hands so he could reach the wound, shoulders heaving with panicked sobs.

Pallas lay perfectly still, her yellow chiton wet with blood. Her breaths were barely perceptible, shuddering and labored, and weakening by the second.

Triton pressed down on the wound now, but there was blood still flowing over his fingers.

Athena was stroking her friend’s arm, murmuring incoherent words that were meant to be soothing, but were penetrated by her sobbing.

“Hold on,” Triton whispered. “Hold on, little one.”

Odysseus felt sick. He knew what neither Athena nor Triton could see, could allow themselves to acknowledge.

A pair of scissors edging toward a stretched-out thread still throbbing with life, inching closer, and closer, impassive and inevitable.

Then a healer arrived after what seemed like hours, face grim and set as he bowed over Pallas.

Odysseus felt the twin blades closing around the thread, cutting it in two.

The world seemed to slow, like they were caught outside of Quick Thought.

Triton pressed his hand to his mouth.

Athena wrapped her fingers around Pallas’s.

The healer looked up to Triton, then shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Athena whimpered piercingly, gripping Pallas’s hand more tightly.

“No, I- I thought she’d-”

Triton’s gaze hardened with pain.

“Go.” His voice cut like a knife.

Athena shot up, eyes wide and tear-filled.

“Uncle, I did-dn’t mean-“

She yelped in shock when Triton’s palm connected with her cheek.

A collective gasp rang through the room in Ithaca.

“No…” Penelope breathed, shocked. It felt like a personal betrayal.

Athena whimpered, pressing her hand to her face, blood staining her skin, mixing with her tears.

It still burned 4000 years later. Athena felt the first tears breach her defenses.

She had always cut the time-dive before the slap whenever she had rewatched it in the past.

This had not been the last hit she’d gotten, the fates knew her father had gotten angry at her on several occasions over the centuries, even if her siblings probably wouldn’t believe it, but this one, not even leaving a visible mark-
Not even the lightning bolt had managed to match that pain.

Triton halted for a second, his expression twisting with grief and maybe regret. He swallowed hard, clenching his fists.

“Go,” he pressed out, voice barely controlled.

Athena gave a strangled sound of anguish.

“I’m sorry, please- p-please, let me… I- Uncle, please!”

Triton turned away, shoulders shaking with a suppressed sob.

“Zeus,” he said then, voice flat. “Please… take her.”

Zeus was standing near the edge of the courtyard with Hera, his expression neutral.

Athena gasped, trembling.

“Wha- no, please…”

Penelope felt tears escape under her closed lashes. The way Athena was looking at Triton, silently begging for him not to mean it, made her want to scream.

She’s your child. You’ve treated her like it for centuries, you can’t just-

Poseidon stepped up beside his son, his gaze toward Athena filled with venom.

“You can’t expect them to keep her, brother,” he said to Zeus. “Not under these circumstances.”

Zeus’s mouth twitched in slight annoyance, but he nodded.

He didn’t spare a glance toward Pallas.

“Very well” he said. “Athena.”

Athena stifled a sob.
“Father, I-“

“You heard your uncle. Come.”

She looked at him with pleading eyes.

“I- I didn’t-“

Zeus cut her off.

“I will not repeat myself. Come along.”

Athena erratically ran her fingers through her hair, shaking all over.

Zeus strode over, gripping his daughter’s wrist the same way he would 4000 years later before striking her down, forcing her to her feet. Athena cried out softly.

“Don’t make a scene,” he hissed, grabbing her chin. “Pull yourself together. Take your spear and come along.”

Athena flinched at the mention of the spear, but an almost imperceptible twist of her father’s grip made her whimper and hastily dematerialize the weapon, tears flowing freely.

She was looking at Triton who was cradling Pallas close, longing, desperation, agony in her expression, but Zeus pulled her along, easily overpowering her even as she clearly pulled against him. Hera followed them a few paces behind, her gaze stoic, but less statuesque than earlier.

At the edge of the courtyard, Zeus let go of his daughter’s wrist.

Athena drew a sobbing breath.

“Father, I… I didn’t mean to, I- I don’t know how- I didn’t want to hurt-“

Zeus waved dismissively.

“Quiet now. What’s done is done. You will come with us to Olympus, we will set off at once. Meet me on the shore, and don’t keep me waiting, child.”

Athena stared at him as if he was speaking in tongues.

She winced when Hera’s hand briefly brushed against her shoulder.

“Do what your father says,” she said, voice steady, but not hostile. “There is nothing you can do right now.”

She hesitated, as if to say something more, but Zeus interrupted her.

“Are you coming?”

The queen turned and stepped over to him, away from Athena who was trembling, eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

Hera put her arm around Zeus’ shoulders and they were gone in a flash, leaving the younger goddess behind.

Athena stood still for at least a full minute before she shakily stepped to the edge of the air bubble.

She didn’t wipe her tears away.

For a moment, it looked like she would turn back.

She swallowed a sob, face contorting with pain.

Then she dove through the barrier, toward the unforgiving light of a dimmer future.

Chapter Text

Coming out of the time dive was a punch to the gut in more ways than one. Athena didn't say that she could feel the wind slacken, she just shot upwards through the centuries, determined not to catch another glance of the past.

She practically threw herself back into her body, numb to the pain, uncaring that her vision was swimming beyond her tears, she just curled up and tried to fight the memories replaying again and again in fragmented brutality.

"Athena?"

She felt Telemachus had his arms wrapped around her, and a part of her waited for him to pull away, now that he'd seen, a part of her thought he should, but she held on to his arm anyway, and they couldn't see anything more but her mind filled in the gaps anyway, the grueling last swim up to the shore, coming to Olympus and having to pretend it didn't matter, the reprimands she'd gotten for Demeter and Hestia trying to tell her father she was struggling, you are my daughter and I will not have you whining to your aunts. If you have complaints, bring them to me.

He hadn't believed that she hadn't said a word to them.

How long she had fought to take the name that twisted in her heart whenever she heard it, in a gesture that she sometimes feared came off as mockery rather than honoring.

"Tel, do you want me to hold her for a little?"

The grip around her tightened slightly.

"No..." Telemachus's voice cracked.

Athena blinked, still not getting a clear image beyond silhouettes. She sobbed, and it felt off, like she was crying for the wrong reason, like the pain should feel different.

"Athena, I know this is really hard, I'm so sorry," Penelope's voice, soft and grounding. A hand on her arm. "You're back now, dear. You're back with us."

Athena whimpered, wishing beyond anything to just disappear, this felt so familiar, like she was young again, trying to escape Olympus by rewatching the worst moment of her life over and over again, finding some twisted solace in knowing she had no one but herself to blame. That if she only tried harder, she'd never have to feel this way again because she wouldn't make another mistake like this.

Only for it to never truly stop hurting.

She felt bad for how quickly the tears ebbed, she was lightheaded and weak, and her sight was blurred, but it felt so wrong not to cry, when she was meant to bleed.

A shape moved in front of her, then a very slightly dampened cloth wiped away tears from her cheeks, and what had to be ichor under her nose.

“Just breathe,” Odysseus said quietly, hand lingering on her cheek briefly.

She just nodded, sniffling, then opened her eyes.

Penelope drew a sharp breath together with him. Athena’s eyes weren’t completely white like when she had been inside of Quick Thought, but they were clouded still, irises and pupils dulled like by fog.

Like she was blind.

"Woah," Odysseus said. "Your eyes... Can you see me?"

She shook her head, blinking hard.

"Blurry," she murmured. 

Odysseus hummed, swallowing down the cold dread he felt.

"I- let's give them a few minutes or so to clear up. We're right here."

"Okay," she murmured. He was relieved she didn't seem too worried yet.

Fates, please let this not be as bad as it looks.

He carefully reached out, cupping her face in his hand.

"You know you're back, right?"

She closed her eyes, two slightly milky trails of tears escaping from her eyes, and he leaned his forehead against hers.

"We're all here," he whispered. "You're okay. We're here."

"How can you- you've seen it now." Her voice cracked. "You've seen... What I do to people I love."

He hummed.

"Right. So we've seen someone who would do anything to make their friend smile. Who, after 4000 years, still blames herself for a mistake. Who got hurt way beyond reason for it. Who would have rather endured anything rather than see her friend hurt. Who tried everything in her power to make it right."

"But that's just it," she cut in, voice sharp with pain. "I didn't. I could've used Quick Thought... I should have been more careful, and I should have- I trained myself out of doing it reflexively during a fight and if I hadn't-"

"Athena," he interrupted. "There's something you must know about this. You... It wasn't your fault.”

She scoffed tearfully.

“I was looking at… at your… I was looking at the stands,” he said finally, hating how he had to watch his words when all he wanted was to say ‘I was looking at your murderer of a father.’ “He… he sabotaged this, Athena. He blinded her, made her lose her balance. She would have never faltered like this otherwise.”

Telemachus and Penelope gasped audibly in unison, but Athena didn’t even look up.

“You think I don’t know that?”

He was at a loss for a moment.

“You- you know?”

She sighed, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“My spear, my kill,” she said hoarsely.

“What?” Odysseus shook his head. “No, Athena, if I startle someone and they stumble into Telemachus’s sword, he didn’t kill them! You would never say that about him.”

She sniffled.

“He’s not-“

“-not you,” he interrupted her. “That’s what you really mean. It’s all fair game for everyone but you.”

She winced, withdrawing a little.

Odysseus reigned himself in, expression softening.

“Oh Athena,” he said gently. “Come here, yeah?”

He carefully wrapped his arm around her, relieved when she simply buried her head in his shoulder. She sobbed, her good arm holding on to him, and despite the sorrow he felt, there was some warmth at that. She had never hugged him back like this. Telemachus wrapped his arms around them both and Penelope joined from the other side, tousling her son’s hair. His cheeks were tear-streaked.

Athena sniffled.

“I- I miss her,” she whispered through tears. “I still miss her… so much…”

“I know,” Odysseus said softly. “I know you do.”

I get you now, he wanted to say, I get why you didn’t let anyone close when this was how it ended, and when nobody on that bloody mountain took care of you afterwards, I get you didn’t want to feel like that ever again.

He held her, feeling her body heave with sobs, and he felt tears in his throat, too, knowing this might just be the first time someone hugged her for this, for a loss so devastating it surpassed the centuries.

“We’re here,” he kept saying, because he couldn’t bring himself that it was okay. “You’re safe now. We’re here.”

She nestled her head closer against his shoulder, and he leaned his cheek against her hair.

“N-nobody knows about it, you know?” she said finally, voice slightly muffled. “And those who know… nobody remembers. On Olympus, it’s like she never existed-“ A sob broke her off. “I- I took her name because I couldn’t- I couldn’t handle speaking about her, and I wasn’t supposed to either, and I couldn't handle her being forgotten either.”

Odysseus drew a sharp breath.

“Wait. The Palladium… now I remember. That is a statue of her, isn’t it?”

He recalled the wooden statue that they had stolen from Troy now, of a girl in motion, seemingly carried by a benevolent wind- or swimming. Smiling.

Athena shrugged slightly.

“I was- I was afraid… that I might forget her face. Like I never truly remember my- my mother’s. I didn’t… it was different, but…” She shuddered, and for a moment he feared she would start coughing, but she just curled up a little. Her voice was barely audible. “I knew he wouldn’t want me to have it. He said I was weak for mourning her like- like I did. He was so mad… it was so dangerous going behind his back like that, but I didn’t care. He took it- said I should be glad he didn’t throw me after it like he did with Heph…” She trailed off, then chuckled humorlessly. “Let me off lightly, considering… now.”

Odysseus clenched the fist he wasn’t hugging her with. She was trembling slightly, and her almost casual tone made it worse.

How often? How much?

For a moment, he hated Triton with all his being, for sending his friend away, for not keeping her at least relatively safe, when he had known how little regard Zeus had for his own daughter -he all but let her drown, for fuck’s sake. He-

He had to cut himself off.

He understood Triton, in a twisted, sad way, he knew he might have reacted the same. Accident or none. No matter how great the love was.

He did not understand Zeus. Not with one ounce of his being.

“You aren’t weak for grieving her,” Penelope said softly. “We saw how much she meant to you, I would be more concerned if you had felt nothing.” She ran her thumb over Athena’s knuckles. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this, back then, and now again. You didn’t deserve that.”

Athena sniffled.

“How are you- always so kind, Penelope?”

The other woman smiled wistfully.

“I am not. Actually, I am furious right now. Not at you, at some other people who I cannot speak openly against. But you lost someone so dear to you, and you deserve to know that that pain is real, and that it’s being seen now.”

Athena looked at her, disbelief evident even in her blurry gaze. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Oh dear,” Penelope said, brushing away the tears. “One day, you’ll be able to believe that, too.”

Athena sighed shakily.

“I- It feels like… I showed you what I wanted you to see… to make it seem better than it was… you shouldn’t feel bad for me. I- I killed-“ Her voice broke off.

“How was that about the time-dive being objective?” Odysseus asked gently. “We saw what happened, and we can decide how we view it. It was an accident on your part. You are not a bad person for making a mistake in a situation rigged against you, Athena.”

She shivered.

“Maybe you should try and rest a little,” Penelope said.

Athena shook her head, looking away.

“I- I can’t- I can’t handle the dreams… not right now. It’ll- it’s been so bad already lately,” she admitted shakily. “It’ll be so much worse now… and I-“ She stifled a sob. “It never shows me… how she was… it’s all twisted- at least I hope- even when it’s before, she always knows… that I killed her… and just once, I’d wish- I know I don’t have the right, but I wish just once she’d- she didn’t hate me.”

Telemachus ran his fingers over her feathers. He knew he hadn’t truly known Pallas, but even for him, he felt like the loss left a hole, and he couldn’t imagine how Athena had to feel.

“She wouldn’t hate you,” Penelope said softly. “That girl we just met… she loved you. She loved you so deeply, Athena. You were each other’s entire world. When you see her in your nightmares, that’s not her, dear. That’s your own feelings of guilt taking her shape. And you do have the right. You love her, and you deserve to remember her love for you as well.”

Athena curled up further, sobs shaking her frame.

It felt like watching someone starved trying to swallow food down their dry throat, the affection both necessary and painful.

“She… she loved life… so much,” she managed, voice tinged with pain and tears. “She loved everything around her, every little good thing… and I could, too, because she was there. I learned from her- and I haven’t lived since- I might as well have died that day. I should have instead of her, because she could have lived without me, and been happy, and I couldn’t.” She roughly wiped her face with the back of her hand, hunching her shoulders. “It never- it never stopped hurting… sometimes I don’t think about her for a while, and that feels wrong, too, but whenever I do… it’s like it was yesterday.”

She breathed out shakily, and Odysseus felt her body fall heavier against him. She was exhausted. Of course she was.

“Darling,” Penelope said. “Is this the first time you spoke about this since it happened?”

Athena threw her a brief clouded look, then nodded slightly.

Penelope’s heard twisted.

“What happens to a wound left unattended?” she asked. “It doesn’t heal. It festers. You… you needed someone to help you bandage up that wound, Athena, and nobody did. You carried this alone for so long, all of this, and-“ She broke off, tears choking her words. How could she even try to express the pain she felt at someone suffering on their own for so long, and not even by choice, but pushed to by the cruelty of the person meant to protect them the most?

“But you’re not alone now,” Telemachus said, voice quiet but steady. “And if you want to talk about her, you can. And if you want to just miss her and cry for her, that’s okay too. About your Mom, too. We’ll be there, and we’ll listen.”

Odysseus swallowed hard. “He’s right,” he said softly. “We’ll listen, and we’ll remember them.”

Athena sobbed, but she let them hug her tight.

Chapter Text

They just sat there for a while, quietly processing what they had seen. Athena shifted every once in a while to avoid falling asleep.

Odysseus supposed they should be glad she wasn’t worse, given the strain she’d just been put under, but he didn’t trust the calm. She should not have been conscious, let alone breathing relatively calmly after the tears dried.

He hesitated, when he spoke, his voice faltered.

“Athena? Is your vision clearing at all?”

She looked at him, her eyes still too light.

“Give it a few hours,” she said softly, with that resigned tone of someone who had endured something before.

“You- you know what’s wrong?”

She shrugged. The tiredness in the motion was hard to watch.

“There are limits… to how long you’re supposed to use Quick Thought. Normally it takes a few hours of use before it affects me, but I suppose… nothing works quite right at the moment. It’ll bounce back.” He caught the slight uncertainty in her voice, and he didn’t like it.

“Wait, but you mean hours inside of Quick Thought though, right? Shouldn’t I have seen that before then?”

He didn’t know why he asked. He knew he didn’t really want the answer.

“No, hours in the real world.” She said it simply, like it meant nothing.

Odysseus brain refused to even calculate how much an hour of Quick Thought at regular speed meant.

“Athena- Athena how did you… why do you know that?”

She shivered, voice barely a whisper.

“It was easier… it was easier not being on Olympus for a while. When I was done with my duties… I rewatched it. It felt fair… to have every second of it in my mind, every one of their faces… I don’t remember how many times I went back. Sometimes in the end I’d let myself see something nice from before, until I understood it hurt even more.” Her voice cracked. “Sometimes I’d think if I went to sleep, I might wake up home. And everything would be okay. But she was right. I never was big for making things up.”

A tear escaped from her lashes.

Odysseus shook his head.

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “About it all, and especially that we weren’t there back then. That nobody felt compelled to step up and comfort you when you needed it. You didn’t deserve that. Someone should have told you that rewatching this for hours, days at a time was not the way to get better. Someone should have told you it was not your fault. Someone should have told you she mattered.”

Athena sniffled, then winced and carefully moved her arm from around his shoulders so she could curl up. He could feel her trembling faintly and guessed she was in pain.

“She wasn’t mine to mourn,” Athena said quietly, sorrow filling every word.

“She was yours to mourn most of all.” Penelope’s voice was soft but firm. “You loved her, and you needed her.”

Athena drew a shuddering breath, but she didn’t argue. Penelope suspected she was too exhausted to put up a fight. When she offered the goddess water, she drank obediently, throat working as she swallowed. A tear slipped down her cheek when Penelope gently ran her fingers over her temple and along her jawline.

“Try to rest, dear. You don’t have to sleep, but try to rest.”

Athena nodded silently.

Odysseus knew she would fall asleep before she did. He could tell from the increase of weight against him, and he guessed it would be hard to stay awake when someone was gently preening your feathers like Telemachus did right now.
He didn’t keep her awake. He knew she was incredibly tired.
Fates, let her body take this well. We can take care of her mind, but please don’t mess with her healing.

His mind was about as mocking as hers.

Go on and fool yourself into believing that.

The problem was, his mind was probably right.

His eyes fell to her arm, to the small white scar right across her biceps. It was the only scar she had always had for as long as he knew her. In an ironic twist, the lightning hadn’t as much as touched it.

“What’s that from, Athena?” he’d asked back in the days. “I didn’t know gods get scars.”

Her hand moved slightly, as if to pull her clothes down to cover the scar, but then she just clenched her fist. She didn’t look at him.

“It’s very difficult to scar a god. Our wounds can largely be healed without. Most of the marks you see on a god would be kept by choice.”

“This one, too?”

She gazed into the distance with a look he couldn’t quite place.

“Yes,” she said then, and wouldn’t elaborate any further.

Of course not.

He knew he would have kept the scar, too. He knew it wouldn’t heal him, but sometimes he wished he had scars to show for those he had lost, and if they filled every inch of his skin.

“Tel?” Penelope asked gently. “Do you want to make tea? Something gentle, but put valerian in it, it should help deepen her sleep, probably calm her dreams.”

Telemachus nodded, getting up to prepare the kettle.

Odysseus and Penelope shared a look.

“You knew none of this,” she asserted, not really a question.

Odysseus shook his head.

“I got her statue out of Troy,” he said. “She was abrasive, but not in a way that made me suspicious. We were… things were tense anyway, I didn’t think much of it. I would have never guessed…” He paused. “I don’t think Olympus knows, not her siblings anyway… they’re all younger than her. I don’t know by how much… I hope they don’t know. Not all of them… not all of them can be like him. She… the way she speaks of them, I just hope.” He sighed. “I hope they deserve it just a little bit, that they have a good reason not to be here…”

He buried his head in his hand.

“She won’t… She’ll have to go back… once she’s better… and by the fates, I don’t want her to. I don’t want her anywhere near that mountain again.”

Penelope put a hand on his shoulder, and he took it into his own.

“I know I should have… known this. Guessed this, after what happened when she asked for my release. I should have known there was more. There’s nothing… nothing I could have done, I know, but still. To think she was alone… alone with this. For so long.”

He saw Telemachus subtly wipe his eyes as he crushed the herbs.

“We’re here now,” Penelope said. “And it matters. You know it matters. She didn’t want to show us this, but I believe if she’d have had to choose whom to show, it would still have been you. We can make sure that she’s not alone now.”

“Mom?” Telemachus asked. “Can you check? I don’t want to put too much…”

Penelope rose, putting a hand on her son’s shoulder.
“Put around three quarter, just to be safe. When she’s up, we’ll talk about her eating properly, because clearly what she’s been saying wasn’t the whole truth.”
She stroked her son’s back.

“Do you want to talk, little wolf?”

Telemachus hesitated for a moment, when he looked at her, his green eyes were damp with tears and yet filled with a fire she rarely saw. He was angry.

“It was such a… She didn’t have to die like that! I thought it was… I was sad because it was an accident… and now it wasn’t and I’m mad.” He breathed out shakily. “And… and they all left her. It’s not fair. It’s not even her fault!”

Penelope shook her head.

“No, it isn’t.”

He clenched his fists, then poured the steaming water on the herbs.

“I… I don’t understand people sometimes,” he said. “I don’t understand how someone saw the same thing we saw and… and they could have done what I wanted to do. And just didn’t. Like they’re deaf and blind to the- to the pain. But they’re not, they just don’t care.” He wiped his eyes again. “And I can’t fix it. It’s all been done. I can’t go back and tell them to do better. It’s too late. They’ve already… already hurt her.”

“Hey,” Penelope said softly, catching his trembling hand. “Tel. Come here, sweetie. Come here.”

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her shoulder. She could feel him shaking.

“You’re right that the damage was done,” she said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be mended or at least eased. For Athena. It’s not too late to love her. It’s not too late, and it makes a difference, right now.”

Odysseus nodded, carefully lowering Athena onto the pillows and tucking her in, then got up to join the embrace.

“Listen to your Mom, little wolf. She’s the wisest of us.”

Penelope raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t let Athena hear that, love.”

“Athena is wise enough to know that, too.”

Then you find a weak point in his skull. And hit your spear against it as hard and as often as you can. Don't falter. Make it impossible for him to ignore or endure you. Sooner or later, he will have to let you out.

And Athena didn’t falter.

She didn’t know how to use the spear yet. But she knew to strike one spot over and over again, even as the world -Zeus- shook around her. She didn’t have the strength to be happy when thin cracks started appearing in his skull. She wanted to show her mother, so badly, but she didn’t turn around, instead silently repeating what she was meant to say.
I had to get out to avoid death, not to defy you. I am your daughter, and I will be loyal to you. My name is Athena. I had to get out to avoid death-

She briefly wondered whether it would hurt him if she stabbed the gooey mass next to her, but she understood that he would hate her if she hurt him like that. Her mother had told her what to do and she trusted her mother. Doing what she said would keep her safe.

Wrong.

There is no safety on Olympus.

Not for you.

Not even for you.

Least of all for you.

She was lying on her back now, and he was standing over her.

“You have something of mine, daughter.”

She knew what he meant the second the words left his mouth.

“I- I didn’t… want it, you know? I didn’t want this.”

He ignored her. Instead, his fingers trailed along her upper arm, making her hair stand. Then dug in, suddenly and brutally.

Athena screamed.

He didn’t flinch as he tore the lightning bolt out of her flesh, uncaring of the rivers of ichor flowing from the open wound.

“Father, plea-“

Another scream cut her off as another bolt was ripped out of her body.

There is so much more. Fates, there must be so much more.

His fingers ripped out lightning from her arms and shoulders, then traced the wound along her side, and she could visualize the bolt before his nails broke the scab and reached deep inside of her, gripping the squirming lightning like it was nothing but a worm.

“No, please-“

But he pulled, and the lightning obeyed. She tried not to scream and failed miserably, feeling how the glowing knives ripped through her, slicing a rib clean through and he just didn’t stop, not for a moment, just held her down with his other hand so she couldn’t move.

“Shut it,” he growled. “I have taught you better than this.”

The lightning was still not out. If anything, it seemed to reach deeper, as if it was growing. Her body was slowly being sliced to pieces, and her consciousness just wouldn’t fade as the electricity pinned her in place.

She wrangled down a scream as the lightning twisted inside her lungs, and she was drowning, drowning in the ichor inside her chest.

Her voice was all but inaudible.

“Father-“ And then, a word that she hadn’t tried to use in thousands of years. “Dad, please-“

Maybe if it hadn’t been him, he would have stopped.

Maybe if it hadn't been her.

But it was them, and he kept pulling.

Electricity arched over her body as the bolt came free, yet she flinched from the roar of thunder as it dissolved above her.

“Stop…” Or end it.

His hand grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up, fingers pressing against her jawbone.

She gripped for his arm instinctively, knowing she could not free herself.

She whimpered in fear when he forced open her mouth. She knew what was about to happen, and the knowledge only scared her more.

Why do you hate me?

She shouted it at him, soundlessly, tears streaming over her face.

She knew he heard her, but he showed no emotion.

Instead, he reached into her mouth, and her trachea erupted in flames as a bolt of lightning started to move through it, back toward its creator.

She gasped airlessly, electricity in her veins, and there was blood, bubbling out of her mouth as her father caught hold of the lightning in her throat and started to pull it, small blades tearing into her windpipe and fates she knew this would be fatal, god or not, you couldn’t rip through someone’s insides like this and expect them to live.

She wanted to yell at him to just kill her already, to kill her like he killed her mother, but she didn’t. She had people to protect now. In death or life, talking back would only hurt those she loved.

The lightning filled her mouth, burning away her tongue and lips, and it seemed to be everywhere, like it had sunk its claws into every bone, organ and bloodvessel in her body, but at least she couldn’t have talked back now if she tried.

It got caught on something inside her, and her body convulsed in pain.

Zeus’ face was indifferent as he yanked the lightning away from the obstruction, like a fish torn from its fishhook with the vague disregard of the fisherman.

The smell of ozone filled the air as the bolt slashed through her trachea and neck, tearing her aorta.

Athena would have laughed if she had been able to when she felt gallons of ichor wetting her skin within seconds.

You’ve done it. After all this time, you finally finished what you started. What you were always meant to do.

Thunder roared above her dying body as her father tore the bolt free, and tears slipped over her ichor-covered cheeks, because even now, she wished things were different.

Maybe if it hadn’t been him, he would have loved her.

Maybe if it hadn't been her, she would have been lovable.

But it was them, and he killed her.

Chapter Text

A few minutes earlier…

They had gently coaxed Athena to drink, and she had been sleeping calmly for a while. Telemachus had his arm wrapped around her now, his cheek resting against her head, her good wing loosely draped over his legs.

She was pale, her face drawn, but she had relaxed a little in sleep, and that was good enough for now.

“You’re living my childhood dream,” Odysseus said teasingly, watching his son stroke Athena’s feathers. “At least in this regard.”

Telemachus shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood for humor right now.

“I think they ought to be cleaned properly,” he said. “I… I don't know how I didn’t think of it before, but I mean… she had downs when she was a child. I suppose her wings work like a bird’s would, and she can’t do anything for them herself right now.”
Penelope nodded.
“Maybe you can try and brush them out carefully for now,” she suggested. “I wouldn’t use water, not while she’s asleep, it might scare her. She can tell you how to care for them properly when she wakes up.”

Telemachus nodded and took the offered brush.

Going over her feathers one after the other was strangely relaxing. And it made him feel like he could help, when he already couldn’t take the pain away.

He left it at her left wing, not wanting to hurt the injured one, leaning his head against hers once again.

His parents came back inside from the balcony, and his Mom smiled at him gently.

“They look so shiny now,” she said softly. “I’m sure they feel a lot better.”

“I hope,” he replied.

She kissed the top of his head.

“It means so much to her that you’re here,” she whispered. “I know it does.”

He didn’t agree, but he leaned against her for a few seconds.

Someone knocked on the door, and Penelope frowned as she went to answer. Odysseus stuck close behind her, even though he knew an enemy would hardly knock.

Eurycleia’s expression was still calm, but slightly tinged with worry. She never asked about their guest, respecting their privacy, but Odysseus guessed it was hardly relaxing to know that a goddess was injured in their home, badly enough to require round-the-clock supervision, no less.

“I have prepared lunch for you,” the nursemaid said simply. “I was here a half-hour ago, but it sounded like you were busy, I apologize if you’d have preferred the food then.”

“No, this is perfect,” Penelope said, putting a hand on Eurycleia’s shoulder. “Thank you for being so considerate.”

Eurycleia made a dismissive gesture.

“As long as you are well, dear.” She hesitated for a long moment. “If there’s anything or anyone your guest requires, do let me know.”

Odysseus nodded, forcing a smile.

“We will, thank you.”

“Dad?”

He turned to look at Telemachus, who wrapped his arms more tightly around Athena. She was moving now, wing trembling, brow furrowed.

Dreaming.

Eurycleia didn’t say anything, she just handed the basket to Penelope and briefly put her hand on the queen’s arm.

“Thank you,” Penelope said, closing the door.

Odysseus crossed the room in a few steps.

“She was not supposed to dream,“ Telemachus said, exasperated. “That’s what we gave her the tea for.”

“Well, that valerian has nothing on her past,” Odysseus commented grimly.

“It’s not that potent,” Penelope said gently. “It lowers the probability, but it might have been naïve of me to expect it to work magic after an experience like that.”

“Athena?” Telemachus asked softly. “Athena, wake up.”

She just shifted, breathing out shakily, and then they were pulled back into a memory.

Penelope gripped her husband’s arm for stability as they both closed their eyes.

“Shit,” Odysseus muttered. “Athena, no, you have to… you’ll hurt your eyes more…”

And of course he knew she couldn’t do anything, right now, she couldn’t even hear him, the absence of her conscious thought was unquestionable.

They were back inside of Zeus, he could tell even through the blinding flash of silver-white energy.
“Mom! Mom, no!” Athena’s voice, hoarse and panicked.

Metis didn’t reply.

She couldn’t.

Odysseus felt her essence fading, and it felt like watching a star go out.

This is not natural. This shouldn’t happen. Goddesses can’t die.

The light dissolved, silver energy slowly sinking into Athena, now clearly in a physical body, too-big armor hanging off her small frame. She was growing as they watched, at least by a few years in a matter of seconds, as if the energy forced her to grow stronger and therefore older.

She opened her eyes, now fully grey and glowing, and terribly afraid.

“Mom?”

Penelope drew a shuddering breath.

Athena shivered, looking around, and only now did they realize where she was, no longer in the void of the spirit realm, but in the physical plane of Zeus’ body, pressed against his skull, her downy wings tightly folded against a gooey pulsating mass -fates, that’s his brain-, fingers clasping a spear so tightly her knuckles went white.

“Mom!” Athena repeated, voice wavering.

Silence answered her.

The young goddess drew a short, sobbing breath, then looked down at herself, at her body, then around at where she was. Her eyes darted, calculating, then she shifted the angle of the spear so the tip rested against Zeus’ skull. She pushed against it, probing, then moved it slightly, until she found a weaker spot. Her memory communicated her thoughts quite clearly, it was not thin enough, but she couldn’t move elsewhere without great effort, and time was of the essence.

Penelope hated how naturally this child, divine or not, thought about how to best survive.

The first hit was tentative, a test of new muscles more than anything else.

The second was simultaneously exactly like Athena and not like her at all.  

Deliberate, measured, well-calculated, yet weak. Clumsy. Unrefined.

Athena’s breath hitched slightly, her brow furrowing. She hit the bone again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

A low rumble echoed through the space, Odysseus guessed it was a groan, but it sounded like thunder.

Athena hunched her shoulders, fear flashing over her face, but then she gritted her teeth and hit her spear against her father’s skull again.

Time blurred briefly as Athena, the one with them, shifted, groaning softly.
“It’s okay,” Telemachus whispered. “Just a dream.”

Her younger self was breathing heavily, hair disheveled, clothes soaked with sweat and unnamable fluids. Her motions were mechanical, spear stubbornly hitting against bone over and over.

A groan again, but she didn’t flinch this time.

Her small face was drawn, eyes dull with exhaustion. But she didn’t stop.

The world tilted and shook, and Athena closed her eyes, whimpering as she was pressed more tightly against skull and brain respectively.
Penelope could make out bruising on her arms as she desperately clutched her spear tight so she couldn’t lose it.

A sudden sob made Penelope’s throat close up. Tears brimmed over in Athena’s eyes as Zeus presumably hit his hand against his head twice to make the headache stop.

“Mom,” the young goddess whispered desperately. “Mom, it’s- not working… and it hurts, Mom… I can’t… please, I can’t- I need you, Mom, please-“

Telemachus pulled her closer. He knew she couldn’t hear him, not her younger self anyway, because he hadn’t been there, but he spoke anyway, voice soft and soothing.

“It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just hold on a little longer. You’ll get out soon.”

Athena curled up, holding on to the spear like a lifeline as the world around her trembled.

She drew a sobbing breath when it stopped, then turned her spear again.

The daughter of Metis had one thing above all else. Grit.

She clenched her jaw, hitting her father’s skull again.

Small cracks had started to appear around the spot, but it wouldn’t be enough. No matter how much willpower, her strength would run out before the bone would break. The silver aura around her was already flickering as it fought to keep her body alive.

Athena shuddered, arms trembling from strain, but she kept moving her spear.

The groan reverberating through Zeus’ head was closer to a scream. Then a command, rumbling and authoritative even from inside his head.

Odysseus realized this was Athena’s first time hearing her father’s voice, unintelligible, alien. Dangerous.

Then the world shook, and this time, Zeus definitely screamed.

Athena’s eyes widened, and she hastily moved as far to the side as she could, pressing her hands to her ears as a splintering sound enveloped her.

Light streamed in through a crack above.

And Athena escaped.

It was incredibly bright through her eyes, she could barely see anything, but she felt the presence of something powerful, something terrifyingly familiar.

A hand closed around her arm and she cried out softly but piercingly, spear clattering to the floor uselessly.

Black hair like rainclouds seemed to surround, and she stared up at the towering figure of Zeus.

“What-“ he growled, voice low. Ichor streamed from the cut in his head, but it didn’t seem to weaken him. “-are you?”

Athena swallowed hard, looking at him with wide grey eyes.

“Answer me. What are you?”

She winced, her small body trembling all over. Then she spoke, hastily, desperately.

“I had to get out to a-avoid death, not to defy you. I am- I am your daughter, and I will be loyal to you. M-my name is Athena.”

They only say lightning gathering in Zeus’s eyes before the mental link cut off.

Odysseus let out an unbelieving breath, opening his eyes.

“Please say he didn’t-“ His voice faltered. “Oh by the fates, don’t let this be the first thing he did to you.”

He knew Zeus probably hadn’t struck her, but the only reason he thought so was because she hadn’t had lightning marks when she had come to Lake Tritonis. Not because he believed Zeus wouldn’t.

Athena moved in her sleep, left fist clenching.

Odysseus sat down next to her, carefully reaching for her shoulder.

“Athena?”

She frowned, exhaling in a soft gasp, but didn’t wake up. She was still dreaming, he could tell from the movement of her eyes behind her lids.

“That’s enough,” he said gently. “It’s enough. Wake up. You don’t have to relive any more of this.”

She didn’t wake.

Telemachus looked up at his mother, eyes wide.

“Was that too much valerian? Is that why she can’t wake up?”

Penelope frowned.

“It would surprise me, it wasn’t a high dose…”

Suddenly Athena’s body tensed and a strangled cry escaped her throat.

They didn’t have to speak. Odysseus put a hand onto her back and Telemachus moved behind her, holding her upright.

Athena’s face contorted with pain.

“It’s okay,” Odysseus murmured. “It’s okay. We’re here.”

She squirmed weakly, eyes fluttering but not opening, and they could feel her pain radiating through the room.

“Athena,” Odysseus said again. “Athena, wake up.”

Her hand flew to her side, fingers powerlessly pulling at her chiton.

“Is it too tight?” Penelope asked, voice strained.

Odysseus didn’t reply, but he opened one of the sleeves so the fabric flowed more loosely.

Athena gasped, eyes half-opening for a split second.

Then she started coughing, wet and raspy, golden blood wetting her lips almost immediately.

Odysseus reached out to support her head.

Telemachus closed his eyes, a stray tear rolling down his cheek.

“I hate him,” he whispered. “I hate him.”

Athena weakly reached for Odysseus’ arm as more blood spilled from her lips, the coughs sending spasms through her entire body. She whimpered, fingers weakly reaching for her throat.

“It’s okay,” Odysseus said hoarsely. “It’ll be over soon. You can do this.”

She coughed weakly, her head lolling against his hand, then her eyes flickered open.

He held his breath as she took one, gaspingly, desperately.

He almost started hoping, but then she started coughing again. Ichor splattered over his hand.

Athena whimpered, straining for air.

“Od-ys-“

She couldn’t finish his name.

“Right here,” he said. “It’s okay, I’m right here-“

“No- I-“

She grimaced as her body convulsed against her will.

“It’s okay, don’t speak. Don’t speak. It’ll pass soon. We’re here.”

She groaned through her teeth, another cough forcing itself past choked breaths.

“-h-have t-“

Her eyes rolled back, and for a moment, he thought she would pass out, but she held on.

“Athena, don’t try to speak. Please.”

He took the cloth from Penelope to wipe his friend’s face.

Athena drew a shuddering breath, slumping against Telemachus as the coughing finally died down.

She could barely keep her eyes open, but she managed words, hoarse, broken, terrible.

“The light-tning… it’s still- inside.”

Athena woke with her head swimming before she even opened her eyes.

Darkness greeted her, black and all-encompassing.

Darkness that should have been completely foreign to the owl-eyed goddess, and still felt like a bad dream.

She blinked several times, as if that would fix it.

She had always used her own energy to keep her room bright at night, the only way to keep the panic at bay when she woke up blind after overusing Quick Thought again.

“Athena? Are you awake?”

She jumped violently, a sting shooting through her chest at the sudden sensation.

“P-penelope?”

“Right here.” She heard the woman move, then a hand brushed against hers. “You’re breathing fast. Are you in pain?”

Athena swallowed hard.

“No- I- I-“ Her voice cracked.

I can’t see you.

“Would it easier if we spoke in our minds, the way you do with Odysseus sometimes?” Penelope asked. “Or is that part of Quick Thought?”

Athena shook her head.

“Okay,” she managed.

“How do I…?” Penelope asked.
Athena tentatively opened a link between them, careful not to startle her.

Now.

Like this? Penelope asked. Her mental voice sounded ever so slightly different, which was normal, comparable to the voice of a letter compared to speech. Athena always enjoyed hearing someone’s ‘true’ voice.

Yes, like this, she replied.

Interesting, Penelope said, a hint of curiosity sneaking into the word, and Athena wished with an ache in her heart that she was fine, good enough to explain how it all worked, because she loved doing so and she was almost certain Penelope would care to listen. But she wasn’t fine, and she had something else to say.

Did I say it earlier? About… I don’t remember. The lightning, did I tell you?

Silence. Athena felt her heart racing. She couldn’t see what Penelope was doing.

“You said it was still inside of you,” Penelope said aloud. Humans usually defaulted to spoken word.

Athena breathed out.

Yes… It had been feeling like something shifting. I must’ve… I don’t know how I didn’t put it together sooner. I… the lightning fragmented on impact. I think there’s one piece stuck near my ribs that’s been causing the coughs.

Penelope drew a sharp breath.

“We figured as much. Fates, I can’t imagine what kind of pain you must be in.”

Athena didn’t know what to say to that, so she asked another question.

How bad was it?

Penelope sighed.

“More ichor than we would have liked. The shock was less bad this time, though, thankfully.”

Athena looked away.

I’m sorry. I don’t want to- I would fix things if I could. I should have remembered the lightning- I even pulled some bolts out back on Olympus, I should have seen-

“From your arm, right?” Penelope asked. “That’s why it’s not as inflamed there?”

Yes. I’m sorry.

“It wasn’t on purpose. There’s no need to apologize. Considering what state you were in when you arrived, I doubt you spent much of the time in your palace conscious, let alone truly aware.”

Her fingers wrapped tightly around Athena’s.

“We’ll figure out what to do about this tomorrow. Today has been hard enough on you.”

Athena had to fight against not gripping Penelope’s fingers tightly to anchor herself in the darkness.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Athena hesitated for a moment, but her mind made the choice for her.

I can’t… I can’t see.

“Still blurry?” Penelope asked.

No… it messes with my night vision, too… I know it does that. I used to… But it’s been so long- so long since I was last blind. And it was terrifying then, too.

Penelope reached for something, then a yellow ring entered Athena’s field of vision, allowing her to see Penelope’s features. The blurriness had faded some, it always did first.

“I might have guessed; your eyes aren’t glowing tonight. You never truly have to go without sight, do you?”

Athena just shook her head, drawing a hitching breath as Penelope ran her thumb across her knuckles.

The queen was silent for a while, her expression thoughtful in the lamp’s flicker.

“I can stay here with the lamp if that helps,” she said finally. “Or, if you want, I can stay close so you can tell I’m here. I fear there’s nothing we can do to make the whole room brighter.”

“I know… of course. I wasn’t asking-“

“I know you weren’t. You very rarely ask for things you need.”

Athena’s mind strung together an argument on why it would be useless to ask in a matter of seconds, but the core of the matter was that Olympus couldn’t care less about what you needed, and she had forgotten how to behave any differently. And she was pretty certain Penelope knew that.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just try it out.”

Penelope placed the lamp on the bedside table.

“I will come to your left now,” she explained softly. “It’s Odysseus who’s lying on the couch right now if you can see that. The balcony door is closed.”

Athena wished the simple details didn’t help so much.

She could feel from the mattress that Penelope was sitting down beside her.

“Here I am. That should cover all your sides.”

Athena breathed out in a huff, shaking her head.

“How am I this easy to read for you?”

“Well, you are a warrior. And I happen to be married to one of those. And grew up around even more of them.”

Athena hummed. Her eyes were getting ever so slightly used to the dark, to the point she could at least make out silhouettes. She supposed it was better than nothing.

Penelope’s fingers brushed over her hand, gentle and soothing, and for a second, the thought flashed through Athena’s mind that Penelope would have wings if she was a goddess, the brown wings of a mallard duck.

She frowned. The thought seemed so random.

“I would ask you to scoot over if that’s what you want,” Penelope said. “But I’d prefer you didn’t move too much. Just press my hand if you want me to come closer, okay?”

Athena really didn’t want to ask for anything more, but her fingers betrayed her.

“Okay.” Penelope’s voice was little above a breath.

If she had been more present, Athena would have been ashamed of how easily she melted into the touch when Penelope wrapped her arm around her shoulders.
Maybe she wouldn’t have been ashamed either way.

Maybe she had grown up a little after all.

She let her wing curl around Penelope a little gingerly, unsure if she was overstepping.

“Does your wing hurt if I lean back?” Penelope asked.

“No, it’s fine… I can take it away, I just-“

“Athena.” A hand came to rest against her head, and she felt Penelope’s cheek against her hair. “You only have one thing to worry about right now, and that’s being as comfortable as your body allows. I can tell you if I’m uncomfortable, and I would do so if I was. Just make yourself at home, please.”

Athena drew a shuddering breath, but she obeyed.

Slowly, the tightness in her chest faded a little. She couldn’t even bring herself to tell herself being nestled against someone else shouldn’t mean so much. Because it did, and she was tired of pretending otherwise.

Penelope hummed a tune that seemed vaguely familiar, her fingers tracing circles over Athena’s arm.

“Try to close your eyes,” she said softly.

Athena decided it was nice to just do what she was told without fighting back.

Well, you’re used to that, aren’t you?, a chorus of voices, her siblings, whispered. Daddy’s little pet soldier. And where did it get you?

She jumped when she heard Penelope’s voice in her mind. She had forgotten to close the mental link.

I’m sorry that Olympus is such a hostile place. It must be incredibly hard to be in constant competition with your siblings.

Athena breathed out shakily.

They always say that he’s favoring me, she said. That I’m his golden child who can do no wrong, but I never felt like that was true. It’s definitely not true anymore, but that’s not- They don’t see how calculated everything I do is, how much I weigh every council I give if I know he will disapprove because I know it doesn’t matter if I am right.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Some truths weren’t meant to even be thought, but it came out anyway.

I didn’t know what he would do when I won his game. But I wasn’t surprised either. I was shocked that he… that he blinded her… but I wasn’t surprised. I know he would destroy me completely if he saw fit. I’ve always known.
The power of being the favorite is mostly smoke and mirrors, and I fought so hard to keep it anyway. Maybe if I’d just been one of my siblings, I’d be closer with them.

Penelope silently wiped away her tears.

Athena drew a sobbing breath.

I love them, she admitted. I haven’t shown them the way they deserved, but I do, and it hurts to think that if I’d been different, they might love me, too.

Penelope hesitated for a moment.

I don’t know if they love you or not, she said then. And I won’t pretend to know. But I won’t agree with you that they don’t before I’m sure of it.
“Either way,” she said aloud, voice gentle. “When you say that you would have been worth loving if you had been different, what you’re really saying is that you’re not worth love now, and that’s not true. You definitely are.”

Athena shivered.
Penelope just held her close, like something precious and breakable, and then her lips gently brushed against Athena’s hair, the kiss feather-light but definitely there.

“There’s nothing wrong with getting what you need, you know?” Penelope whispered. “Nothing is gained from withholding it from yourself.”

She pulled Athena closer, letting her cry.

“Shhhh,” she murmured. “It’s okay. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.”

Athena sniffled.

“I’m… I’m so tired,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

“I know,” Penelope said softly. “I know.”

But she was there, and she was being held, and maybe, that was enough for tonight.

Chapter Text

The room was quiet when Telemachus entered, holding a spare lamp to light his way.

His father rested on the couch, and his mother-

He stepped closer, watching them. His Mom, loosely wrapped into Athena’s wing, and Athena, tightly curled against her, her head resting in the crook of Penelope’s neck. Her breathing was slow and steady. Relaxed.

It had been a while since Telemachus had snuck into his mother’s room at night to curl up with her, but he remembered. He remembered how safe it felt, how warm.

Torn between feeling sad that she hadn’t felt this in thousands of years, and happy that she could feel it now, he rounded the bed, sitting down beside Athena and gently reached for her forehead.
Remnants of fever-sweat, but cooler right now. He dampened a cloth just a little, wiping her face.

His mother moved just a little, ever so slightly tightening her hold on Athena, holding her closely, protectively. Athena’s wings shuddered slightly as she curled her left tighter around Penelope.

“It’s okay,” Telemachus murmured. “Just me.”

He checked his friend’s pulse and breathing, then tucked them both in, and settled on his chair.

His dreams had been odd, clearly shaped by what they had seen the day before, and he was still feeling a bit downcast, though less helpless. He could still give Athena just as much love as he had before, and she was taking it now, and at some point, it would make a difference. Maybe one of these days, she’d want to talk about something from her past, and he could be there and listen.

His mind drifted back to before Athena’s birth, to Metis, and he tried imagining what it had to be like, to love your child and knowing that you had to let them go to a place where you couldn’t protect them because the place you were in wasn’t safe either. He supposed his mother had felt the same when he had set off toward Pylos a few weeks prior. The difference being that for him, things had worked out, and they had seen each other again. Meanwhile Athena had watched her mother die.

He thought Metis would probably like that her daughter was being held and cared for right now, even if not by her. He wished she could see it, and he wished he could pray to her and tell her, but he was afraid because she was technically inside of Zeus -if there was anything of her left- he might receive the prayer, and that was not likely to go over well.

Odysseus yawned and stretched, eyes immediately darting to the bed, checking on Athena in the dim light.

“She’s okay,” Telemachus said softly.

Odysseus blinked at him through half-lidded eyes.

“Ah, you’re here. Good. Your Mom must’ve fallen asleep.”

“She’s tired,” Telemachus said quietly. “She’s been working a lot.”

“I know.” Odysseus sat up, trying to smooth over his unruly hair in vain. “I would never blame her for falling asleep. Still, it’s good you kept watch.”

Telemachus shrugged. “Of course.”

Odysseus got up, gathering his woodworking tools and settled on the other chair by the table, picking a long branch from the basket and started removing the bark.

“What are you making?” Telemachus asked.

Odysseus pulled the blade over the wood in a smooth motion.

“Pincers,” he said.

“Out of wood?”

“Yes. We can’t use metal to touch the lightning with. Wood’s safer.”
“How do you know?” Telemachus regretted the question when he had uttered it, remembering his encounter with Zeus, but his Dad didn’t flinch.

“Athena told me all sorts of things over the years. Mostly essentials, but if there’s one thing she loves to give, it’s knowledge.” A weary smile was illuminated by the flickering lamp. “Admittedly, I asked a lot of questions to get a break from training. It never worked because she doesn’t have to slow down while talking. Either way, one day I asked about lightning. She told me that lightning can travel even if you’re not directly targeted by it. If you touch a metal tool and the lightning hits it, it travels to you and hurts you anyway. ‘It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever be in the position to be in close proximity to lightning and this applies,” she said. ‘If it’s directed at you, don’t believe throwing your sword aside will save you.” He sighed. “I suppose she didn’t expect that both of us would learn the hard way. Either way, while metal lets electricity travel, wood doesn’t. So removing the lightning with wooden tools should be safer for us.”

Telemachus tilted his head slightly, watching his father’s practiced movements.

“That’s so interesting. What other materials keep the lightning away?”

Odysseus frowned, considering.

“Glass, if I remember correctly. Leather, dry clay. A bunch of materials I didn’t know. Athena does that sometimes. There is a lot of knowledge mortals don’t have access to because it’s not our time yet, and she hates answering questions incorrectly, so she’ll drop some tidbits of future knowledge as well. Never enough to figure out how to build something, but I think she enjoys sharing it, even just the little bits, she’s so passionate about inventions.”

“But how does she know about the future?” Telemachus asked.

“She doesn’t really, not prophetically,” Odysseus replied. “But she experiments a lot so she knows what’s possible to create without magic. And, she says, if something is possible without magic, humans will figure it out someday.”

Telemachus rested his head on his hand.
It was nice Athena thought they had that much potential. Hopeful.

“Dad? She said a few days back that you’d have to agree to let her train me. Would you?”

Odysseus halted the knife for a moment, meeting his son’s gaze.

“I think so,” he said then slowly. “I believe she knows not to be as hard on you as she was with me. Honestly I doubt she would want to. But I would like you to be able to defend yourself, and there’s no-one better to teach you that. And there’s so much else she could teach you about diplomacy, and history, like you wanted.”

Telemachus smiled faintly.

“I would like that.”

He watched his Dad shape the pincers out of the wood, motions methodical. Like it was the most natural thing in the world, to have to create wooden medical equipment, carving it, sanding it, then hardening it over the hearth.

“Dad?” He asked, his voice smaller than he would have liked. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

Odysseus rose, putting the pincers on the table, and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“I hope so.”

The first rays of sunlight filtered through the curtains when Penelope stirred. She immediately felt the weight of Athena’s body still resting against her, and gently ran her fingers over the goddess’s hair before she realized how bright it was.

How long had she been asleep?

Looking up, she saw a half-finished round of Petteia, and her son and husband busy playing.

“What- what time is it?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

Odysseus turned, smiling at her.

“Morning, love. Uh… about an hour after sunrise, I think.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep…” She ran her fingers through her hair, carefully removing her arm from under Athena so she could sit up. “I wanted to… gods, I didn’t mean to leave her unsupervised.”

“It’s okay,” Telemachus said. “She was calm when I got here.”

Penelope got up, stretching absentmindedly before burying her head in her hands.

“But what if she hadn’t been?” she said, her voice gaining a slightly panicked edge. Odysseus got up before she even continued. “I meant to stay awake to make sure-“

“Pen.”

She looked at him, green eyes wide and filled with exhausted tension, but she didn’t pull away when he put a hand on her shoulder.

“Pen, nothing went wrong. You were right next to her, you would have woken up if it had.”

“I wanted-“

“I know.” He pulled her into his arms and she buried her head against his shoulder. “I know, but you need to rest. You’ve been pulling double-duty more than any of us for days now. Nothing went wrong. She’s okay. You gave her so much just by being there.”

Penelope drew a shuddering breath.

“I know… I just…” She breathed out shakily. “I don’t know what’s going on right now.”

“You’re stressed,” he replied, stroking her back. “It’s been a long week.” And a long twenty years before that week.

She nodded silently.

“Do you want to take Tel on a morning walk, get some fresh air?” he asked.

Penelope looked at him.

“Are you sure… shouldn’t we stay with you?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll keep her company. Try to unwind a little.”

Penelope smiled faintly, wiping her eyes.

“Thank you… I love you.” She kissed him very gently, and he returned the gesture.

“I love you too.”

He tousled Telemachus’ hair when he followed his mother toward the door.

“You, too, little wolf.”

He yelped when Telemachus hugged him tight. A soft chuckle escaped his throat.

“Love you too, Dad.”

He watched them go, his family, smiling with vague joy at the sheer fact that he had them back, finally, before settling back on his chair.

He sat still for a while, watching Athena lying perfectly still, looking lost now she wasn’t wrapped into someone’s arms.

4000 years.

He knew he couldn’t give any pieces of his mind to those responsible, not only Zeus, even Triton was far too powerful to confront.

I could forgive lashing out in the moment, but you should have taken her back. Or anything other than completely leaving her alone, just like her birth father did, like her Mom did, even involuntarily. Like that’s what Pallas would have wanted to happen to her sister after she taught her love for what, 200 years?

He sighed.

He supposed it didn’t matter much what he thought anyone should or should not have done, when he was faced with the undeniable results of the other gods’ actions in his friend’s current state.

Athena moved, groaning softly. Her eyelids fluttered, her movements sluggish and leaden.

He was at her side in a second, placing his hand on top of hers.

“Hey. Can you hear me?”

She blinked up at him, eyes half-lidded but looking clear and grey like they should.

“Yeah,” she murmured.

“Can you see me, too?”

She blinked another time, forcing her eyes open completely.

“It appears so.”

“Good. Suppose I should have trusted you when you said it would clear up with time.”

Athena’s mouth twitched into a fleeting smile.

“I wouldn’t have believed it either.”

He was relieved that she could see again, but there was no other reason for relief. She was too still, somehow paler than the last days, as if the very act of keeping her eyes open was sapping her strength.

“You don’t look great.”

Athena huffed weakly.

“I don’t feel great either, admittedly.”

“Now I’m truly worried. An honest assessment of her state from Athena?”

He was only half-joking.

Athena sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

He gripped her hand more tightly.

“I really need to stop teasing you, don’t I? It’s all good. I know it’s hard.”

He hated that she didn’t even make an attempt to take his hand, and he suspected it was lack of strength rather than lack of willingness.

“We have to address that lightning,” he said, the words cutting into his tongue before getting out. It felt so unforgivingly real in the harsh light of the morning.

“I know.” Athena wetted her lips and he reached out to get her something to drink. Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I don’t- want you to put yourself in danger. The tools-”

“I thought of that.” He held up the pincers. “I made these.”

“Wood.” She exhaled in an almost-laugh. “You did listen.”

“On occasion.” He smiled.

She turned her hand, palm facing up.

“Show me.”

He handed the tool over, for a moment feeling like a boy again, waiting to have his work judged.

Athena gripped the wood with shaky fingers, closing her eyes briefly to feel the shape better. She nodded slightly.

“That’s good work. But you know that.”

“Still always nice to hear.”

She hummed, tightening her hold on the pincers. Silver energy flickered around her fingers like a thin aura, seeping into the wood.

Athena exhaled sharply, shivers taking hold.

Odysseus’s eyes widened.

“Athena, stop!”

His hand shot out to take the tool away, but she jerked away.

Don’t touch!

He grasped the signaling of danger in her voice.

“You’re hurting yourself, stop it!”

His hand hovered helplessly over hers but he didn’t dare to touch the wood. He had disregarded this tone of voice once.

Athena gasped raggedly, and then he did reach out, holding her steady as she shuddered from the exertion. Ichor bubbled from her nose.

“Athena, stop, please!”

She winced, letting go of the wood like it was fire-hot, but then her eyes rolled back and she went limp in his arms.

“Athena!”

She lay still, sweat beading on her forehead, breaths barely making her chest rise. Gold ran down from her nose over her lips.

Odysseus breathed out, cupping her face in his hands.

“Would you care not to cause yourself harm for one second?” he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers.

He understood what she had done. He had considered the possibility of the wood not withstanding lightning himself, and clearly she had thought the same. She had attempted to strengthen it, but clearly her divine power was not present in abundance right now.
It had had an eerie resemblance to what he had seen her mother do to save her life.

He gently wiped the blood from her face, then lifted her into his arms, feeling her head loll against his shoulder. A part of him wanted to hold her close so she couldn’t slip away.

Picking up the pincers from the bed, he could feel the faint thrum of divine energy inside the wood, its color subtly shifting to a silvery hue in the light. That would help, it really would. He just wished such a basic exercise of her powers didn’t bring her body to the point of collapse.

Athena stirred faintly, groaning.

“Athena?”

She hummed something indistinct.

“Next time warn me ahead of time before you do something reckless like that, okay?”

She sighed, closing her eyes.

It wasn’t meant to be reckless. I forget how-

“No, you don’t. You knew perfectly well your strength doesn’t allow this right now.”

“This was- n-necessary.” Her words came strained and breathy. She shivered.

He breathed out.

“I know.”

She swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry… for scaring you.”

“It’s okay.”

The door was opened, and Penelope and Telemachus re-entered.

“Is everything okay?” Telemachus asked, eyes widening at seeing Athena lying in Odysseus’s arms. He sat down beside them, wrapping his fingers around hers.

“You look tired.“

“A little.” She managed a smile.

“Hopefully, getting the lightning out will improve that,” Odysseus said, forcing all insecurity out of his voice as he carefully lowered her back onto the bed. He threw a look at the basket Penelope had brought.

“I think waiting a half hour or so might be smart till you’ve recovered a little.”

Athena nodded silently.

Penelope set down the basket and picked out a clay bowl with soup.

“Try to take a bit, please,” she said softly. “You need all the strength you can get.”

Athena sipped the broth obediently, knowing the renewed interest in nutrition was because of what Triton had said, and she didn’t have the energy to explain why that had been different, that her newly formed body had of course needed sustenance to get to some level of strength, but that the nectar she’d had one, maybe two weeks ago, should still be enough to keep her body running. She supposed it didn’t do any harm to eat something either way.

She wondered whether Penelope regretted allowing her so close last night even if she didn’t say so, and her heart ached at the thought.

It had felt so… safe. Way too safe for someone like her.

Penelope’s hand touched her cheek, steadying her when her head threatened to droop forward.

“Alright, that’s enough then.”

She set aside the soup and helped Athena to lie back. Her fingers gently brushed against Athena’s skin, then rightened the blanket.

“Rest a little now.”

Athena nodded faintly, closing her eyes because she was dizzy.

She had to have dozed off for a few minutes, because when she opened her eyes, they had finished eating.

“Well, leaving them in is hardly an option,” Odysseus said. “We’ll have to take the risk with the blood-loss and hope for the best.”

“Right,” Penelope replied. “Do you want to do it?”

“That would be a bit much said. I will, of course. Unless you really want to, but I doubt that.”

Penelope shook her head.

“By all means, I think you’ll do a better job.”

Odysseus nodded, face serious.

“Alright, then once she’s awake-“ He turned, meeting her gaze. “Or now. That works too.”

He sat down beside her again.

“You ready?”

She shrugged.

“As ready as I’ll be, I suppose.”

He forced a smile.

“Fair enough. Are there any knives in this house that can cut your skin?”

Athena nodded slightly.

“If you cut where the wounds aren’t healed, any should do. But your wood-carving knives should do the job either way.”

He tilted his head.

“You strengthened those?”

“I watched you almost cut your finger off with a dull one once,” Athena said. “Sharp knives are safer because you have to apply less pressure. You’ll have to be careful to cut with control though because it won’t let you do damage while slashing.”

“Huh,” Odysseus said. “That explains why I never cut myself on accident with those.”

He went to pick up one of his tools, thoroughly cleaning it with vinegar.

“So where do we start?” he asked, eyes sweeping over the wounds he could see and those he couldn’t.

“Perhaps we should start somewhere easier, like the arm,” Penelope suggested. “Just to practice how it behaves before we tackle the more critical area?”

Odysseus nodded.

“That seems smart. Athena? Objections?”

She shook her head.

“Just be careful… don’t touch it with anything besides the pincers.”

He nodded, settling on the bed beside her and testing out the position.

“This’ll do. Tel, do you want to be assistant medic or emotional support?”

Telemachus looked at him, wide-eyed.

“Uh… if you think I can-“

“Of course you can.” Odysseus said. “I just need someone to hold the tool I’m not using and wipe away the blood, pretty much.”

Telemachus nodded.

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Alright, good. Then Pen, get to her other side and help her stay still. Athena, you can brace against her if it hurts too much.”

Penelope nodded, settling on Athena’s left and taking her hand into her own.

“It’ll be fine,” Athena said quietly for all and none of them.

“Yep,” Odysseus replied with a sigh. “Here goes nothing.”

And with that, he placed the first cut.

Chapter Text

Athena clenched her teeth when the knife traced the path of the lightning, barely even scabbed, let alone healed. If she’d had the dexterity left, she would have preferred to do this herself, because self-controlled pain was definitely easier to handle.

“How long do you think it is?” Odysseus asked, halting the knife.

“I- I don’t know. It shattered on impact. Try to locate it first and cut- cut more if you need to.”

He nodded. “Alright. Tel? Pincers, please.”

Telemachus handed them over, wincing in Athena’s place when Odysseus pressed them against the wound edges to force them apart. Ichor welled up in quick beads. Telemachus carefully dabbed it away with a cloth even as it kept flowing.

“Can you feel where it is, Athena?” Odysseus asked.

She grimaced, then shook her head.

“The others- were -“ She gasped. “right under the s-surface. Not deep.”

Odysseus frowned.

“I can’t see it yet. Maybe your blood is too close in color.”

Athena frowned.

“No… they’re more white than gold… try to pull it apart further.”

Odysseus gritted his teeth, pressing the blade and pincers to both sides of the wound to pull them further apart.

Penelope grimaced, pressing her cheek against Athena’s head.

The goddess didn’t flinch, but her fingers curled around Penelope’s a little tighter.

Odysseus inhaled sharply.

“Not deep my ass, Athena! I can see it, I think… if that’s not the bone. Fuck.”

Athena swallowed hard, closing her eyes.

“G-get to it,” she pressed out.

“I am not a medic, Athena.” His voice came out sharper than intended. She winced.

“I- I know.”

He huffed, motioning Telemachus to wipe away more blood.
He could see the fragment now, glowing maliciously between golden ichor. Her flesh was scorched where it had- had burrowed inside like a parasite, only saving grace being that it hadn’t sliced her brachial artery- yet.

“What on Earth is this stuff?” he murmured, swallowing down all the other things he had to say about how Zeus’s weapon worked and how much it fitted him.

Athena winced slightly as he shifted the pincers, breaths coming fast and clipped. Her arm trembled, and he tightened his grip to keep her still, cringing slightly as he felt the wounds under his fingers, radiating heat.

“I know it hurts,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

She swallowed, a soft gasp escaping her throat.
Penelope ran her fingers over her hair.

Odysseus clenched his teeth and reached out for the fragment.

The moment the wood touched the lightning, a jolt of power erupted from it, Odysseus felt the pincers thrum under his fingers with energy barely kept at bay.

Athena tensed up, her back arching. A strangled cry forced itself past her lips.

“Easy,” Penelope murmured tensely, shifting her hold to support Athena better. She looked at Odysseus, eyes wide. “Have you got it?”

“I barely touched it.” His voice was strained. “I’ll have to shift around to get a better grip. Athena?”

She gasped raggedly, a tear rolling down her cheek unbidden.

“Athena, can I continue?”

She just nodded, looking up toward the ceiling.

Telemachus got up, moving as carefully as possible to avoid Odysseus’s hands as he wiped away more blood.

Penelope checked Athena’s pulse, feeling it race under her fingers.

“Breathe,” she murmured. “Focus on breathing, dear.”

Athena’s eyes briefly flickered to her, brow furrowing as she tried to even her breaths.

Odysseus bit back a curse, twisting the pincers to the side to get a hold of the lightning. It felt like a shard of glass, smooth yet deadly sharp… and way stronger than anything should ever be.

Athena’s muscles spasmed faintly under his hand. Penelope pressed her hand to her forehead.

“Ody, the fever is spiking. She’s burning up.”

Telemachus reached behind him, lips tightly pressed together as he blindly wetted a cloth to hand to his mother. Water dripped from the fabric before Penelope pressed out the excess.

“Thank you, Tel.”

He nodded tensely.

Odysseus didn’t like how much he could feel the lightning through the pincers, not like an electric shock, it was doing its job, but like fire, licking against the wood, weakening it. Without her strengthening it, it would have already burned through.

“I almost have it, Athena, then I just have to pull it free. You can do this, hold on, okay?”

She didn’t reply, blinking hard. Her breaths came rapidly and beads of sweat ran down her face and neck. Penelope held the cloth against her forehead and he could tell from her expression it was warming up way too quickly.

“Keep going,” she said.

Athena shuddered, fingers twitching in Penelope’s hand without true strength. Her good wing fluttered against Penelope’s back, locked against moving any further. Telemachus kept the other still with his free hand.

Odysseus opened the pincers, trying to slide one side under the fragments. Tremors of power echoed through the tool. He was almost sure this would be a one-time use.

The second the pincers locked around the fragment, Athena’s body jerked, whether from pain or electricity was hard to tell.

Penelope quickly changed her grip to keep her still.

“It’s okay,” she whispered breathlessly. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Athena gasped, a strangled, pained sound, and instinctively tried to twist her body toward Penelope, away from the pain.

“Athena,” Odysseus said, voice gentle but firm. “Athena, look at me. Focus on me.”

She groaned, but forced herself to meet his gaze. She was shaking all over.

“I know this hurts. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise. I’ll start pulling it out now, and I need you to stay as still as possible, do you understand?”

Telemachus dropped the bloody cloth into the basket, picking up a fresh one, and soaked the one Penelope handed him in water again.

Athena clenched her jaw, head resting heavily against Penelope’s hand. She nodded ever so slightly.

Odysseus swallowed hard, then angled the pincers to loosen the fragment.

“Come on,” he muttered, applying careful pressure.

Athena gasped shudderingly - then her body went limp.

“Athena!” Penelope exclaimed, fingers immediately darting to Athena’s neck.

She could feel her pulse under her sweat-dampened skin, but barely. Racing, but weak.

Odysseus exhaled through his nose.

“Come on,” he repeated, now toward Athena. “You can do this.”

Penelope looked up at him.

“She’s burning, Odysseus. The lightning… it’s like it’s fighting her. She can’t take much more of this.”

His eyes flickered from her to Athena’s still form.

“She can’t take much more of it being inside her either. We have to keep going.”

He put more of his strength into the pincers, forcing the fragments upwards by fractions. The wood trembled in his grip.

Athena gasped, jerking awake. Penelope shifted, holding her as still as she could.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. Breathe.”

Athena choked out a ragged breath, her eyes glazed and unfocused. Penelope pressed a hand to her chest. Weak pants vibrated under her fingers.

“Deep breaths, Athena. Deep breaths. Almost done.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue. She could see in Odysseus’s expression that the fragment was still stuck.

Athena whimpered. Penelope pressed a kiss to her damp hair.

“You’re being so strong. Just a little longer.”

She grimaced, putting more of her weight on Athena’s shaking wing, and wiped the sweat off her face. Her heart broke at the shuddering breaths.

Odysseus clenched his teeth, forcing the fragment up further. He didn’t allow himself to flinch at the strangled sound his friend made, at the pain he was causing her.

Athena tensed, struggling weakly against Penelope. He could tell she was no longer present enough to understand what they were doing.

“Any second now,” he growled, addressing the fragment directly.

A warning crack echoed through the room.

Athena’s entire body flinched -then she went still again.

Telemachus breathed out in quiet desperation.

“Ody, you need to get it out. Now.” Penelope’s voice was tense.

“Those were the pincers, Pen. I am not sure I can. They’re about to give out.”

She breathed out, hand still resting against Athena’s neck, tracking her pulse. The goddess’s skin was burning hot under her fingers.

“Then you have to leave it in. If the pincers snap inside her-“ She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

Odysseus cursed under his breath.

Another crack shook the tool in his hand, and the scent of burnt wood broke through the rich metal of the ichor.

Athena stirred faintly, but didn’t open her eyes.

Odysseus’s brow furrowed as he carefully lowered the lightning back the little bit he had raised it, unthreading the pincers from under it. The lightning hissed against Athena’s flesh, then settled back in its place, triumphant.

He pulled back the pincers from the wound, letting Telemachus bandage it tightly.

He took one look at the tool he had made, slick with blood and cracked almost all the way, and threw it aside in frustration. It shattered into several pieces on impact.

Penelope gently lowered Athena back to the bed, smoothing her damp hair from her forehead before getting up to get the basin of water.

Athena lay still, not entirely limp but not conscious either. She didn’t react when Penelope carefully started wiping the beads of sweat from her face and neck.

Telemachus blinked hard, cleaning the blood off his hands. Odysseus briefly put a hand on his shoulder.

“You did good, little wolf.”

He almost added that Athena would be okay, but he didn’t want Telemachus to question his honesty when he really hadn’t done anything to make this go worse than it had already gone.

“Athena?” Penelope said. “Can you hear me?”

She pressed her lips together when she got no response.

“Her breathing is really shallow, Ody.”

He leaned over, barely hearing the faint sound of her breaths. Pressing his fingers against her throat, he felt a shiver run down his spine. Her pulse was there, but fluttering, weak.

She shivered faintly, eyelids fluttering, but not waking up. The fever flush was fading rapidly, but there were no grounds for relief.

“She’s gonna go into shock again,” he said softly.

Penelope inhaled sharply, then reached for Athena’s hand.

“You’re right. Her fingers are ice-cold.”

Odysseus shook his head.

“Fates,” he breathed out, then slipped his arm under her to hold her steady as Penelope removed the pillows so he could lay Athena down on her back.
Telemachus didn’t say anything, but he rolled up one of the blankets to elevate her legs, then they wrapped the other blanket around her.

“Athena. Breathe, alright? You can do this.”

Penelope took Athena’s hand into her own, warming it as best she could.

Odysseus silently counted the stutters in her breathing, every weak hitch one too many.

“Keep breathing,” Telemachus murmured. “We’re right here.”

Athena stirred, muscles suddenly tensing. Her eyes snapped open, wide, unseeing.

She drew a ragged breath, then collapsed back against the sheets. Her body squirmed briefly against the pain, then went limp again. They could barely see her breaths move her chest.

“No, come on.” Odysseus hated the desperation that snuck into his voice. He wasn’t the one whose body was shutting down with lightning ravaging her system.

“She’s still feverish,” Penelope said, replacing the cloth on Athena’s forehead. Odysseus’s stomach turned seeing her fingers brush against Athena’s skin, shades darker than the goddess’s ashen complexion.

Athena’s fingers twitched slightly against Penelope’s as if her body was trying to anchor itself anywhere. Penelope gripped her hand tighter, fingers gently massaging her palms.

She kept shivering like the room was ice-cold.

Odysseus hesitated for a second, then gathered up the pillows to use to elevate her legs instead, wrapping the second blanket around her torso and wings. Her breathing was still quiet, uneven, punctuated by agonizing seconds of nothing.

“Breathe,” he murmured. “I know it’s hard, just breathe.”

She gasped weakly.

Odysseus reached out for her shoulder, shaking her slightly to keep her present. He knew she was exhausted, and that she’d not wake properly for hours, but right now he had to pull her back from the edge.

“Athena.”

He shook her again, this time getting a feeble groan. Her eyelids fluttered briefly.

“There we go. Stay with me.”

It seemed to take ages until some color returned to her skin. She shuddered, then curled in on herself a little, still shaking, but not crashing anymore.

At least he hoped so.

“Tel?” he asked. “Do you want to sit with her and keep her warm for a while?"

Telemachus nodded, immediately settling beside Athena and pulling her into his arms. She mumbled something indistinct, then sagged heavily against him, the last of her energy drained.

They allowed themselves a breath of relief, though short-lived.
She was still there, but at what cost? What had their intervention achieved apart from more pain and the brutal realization just how dire things were?

Odysseus looked at his blood-soaked chiton, at the broken pincers, at his family all sitting on the bed, Telemachus cradling Athena to his chest, her body limp and small.

“Odysseus?” Penelope asked quietly. “What happens when an immortal’s body is pushed too far?”

Odysseus met her gaze, his eyes hard with desperate determination.

“I don’t know, and we won’t find out. We can’t keep doing this on our own.”

He breathed out.

“I have to call for help.”

Chapter Text

“Theodyces?” Penelope asked unsurely.

Odysseus shook his head.

“What’s he gonna do despite failing with more flair? He doesn’t have the tools either and he will not be able to keep her fever down. If it was two days earlier, I would try, but this… Pen, this is killing her. We all know. We’re running out of time.”

“She’s immortal…” There was no security in her tone.

“Well, so are Titans, right? And yet…” we know of one whose spirit faded to nothing.

Penelope breathed out.

“Who then?” she asked.

Odysseus sighed.

“I’ll make a sacrifice to Apollo. If anyone… He’ll be able to fix this.”

If he’s willing to.

Penelope nodded.

“Alright.”

He stayed for a little longer, hoping Athena would be less likely to relapse later. She didn’t stir once in Telemachus’s arms, lying pale with her head resting against his shoulder.

Odysseus looked back several times as he left.

He collected a knife, some incense and then headed down to get a sacrificial goat.

Since he was going to burn the entire sacrifice and not eat part of it, he could safely feed the animal something laced to make it less aware. When it stumbled and started staggering, he picked it up and set off.

He approached the altar, carrying the goat with one arm, his other supplies in a basket in the other.

He hadn’t made a big sacrifice like this for a while, not since the grand one for Poseidon. This was different, more personal. More desperate.

Stepping inside the small stone chamber, he closed the door, setting down the animal on the altar. It moved sluggishly, then its head drooped again.

Odysseus set up the incense, letting the sweet aroma of burning spices fill the room.

Please let him answer.

He breathed out, then raised his hands toward the sky and began.

“Paean Apollo, lord of the Muses, averter of harm, I offer this gift to you so you may hear my prayer.”
It had felt strange back in the day, to speak so formally to the gods when he was seeing one of them every day. Athena had been clear about it though. ‘There is no need for formalities with me, but you have to treat the other gods with the reverence expected of a mortal. You are not different than any other mortal to them and they will smite you if they’re having a bad day.’
He'd sacrificed to her, too, of course, but more like you would give a gift to a friend. And he hadn’t used a title of hers in earnest for decades.
“A friend residing in my home is plagued by injury and illness,” he continued thickly. “of which I fear only your aid can save her. May your gaze fall favorably on me, great Apollo Epicurios.”

He stepped forward, picking up the knife and quickly slitting the goat’s throat, letting its blood flow over the altar before lighting the fire.

He knelt in front of the altar, feeling the blood of the goat still on his hands.

The smoke made him more nauseous than it had ever before.

Please, I can’t watch another friend die.

“Odysseus of Ithaca.”

He flinched violently, bowing low. He recognized the musical voice, but it was impossible to feel any relief at having been heard.

“Rise,” Apollo said.

Odysseus obeyed, looking up tentatively.

Apollo’s figure flickered in the smoke of the sacrifice, golden glow radiating from him. His expression was serious, but not hostile.

“Congratulations on making it home,” he said.

Odysseus swallowed hard.

“Thank you for allowing me.”

Apollo hummed dismissively.

“I would have thought you would rather bite off your own tongue than ask the gods for aid ever again.”

Again, Odysseus swallowed.

“I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t my last resort. It’s not for my own sake, it’s for Athena’s.”

Apollo’s golden eyes widened slightly, then his tongue, forked like a snake’s, briefly ran over his lips.

“So I should have looked into your future more after all. What about Athena?”

“She’s here,” Odysseus said. “And she needs help. Desperately.”

Apollo was silent for a second.

“Athena is on… of course she would try to get to you. It should not surprise me.” He cleared his throat. “I cannot believe she made it this far. I thought her wing was injured.”
Odysseus dug his nails into his palm remembering that Apollo had been there, seen the damage, and hadn’t come on his own accord.

“It is. Somehow, she made it,” he said, tone measured. “But she is really badly hurt and we can’t do anything to make it better. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t ask for help if she was getting better, but she isn’t, she’s been getting worse for days and w- I’m getting seriously worried. I don’t know how much more she can take.”

Apollo nodded slightly.

“I see. Give me a rundown.”

Odysseus cleared his throat.

“She’s had fever spikes ever since she arrived-“
Apollo interrupted him.

“When?”

“Ten days ago.”

The god nodded, motioning him to continue. His face was unreadable. Almost like warpaint, patches of golden and white scales covered his cheekbones and most of his arms.

“They’ve been getting worse, more frequent and longer. There’s little more we can do besides waiting them out and trying to keep her somewhat comfortable. Most of her wounds are infected or inflamed, but the real problem is the lightning.” He paused for a moment. “The bolts fragmented on impact, they are still stuck inside of her. We only recently figured this out, and we tried to remove one of the fragments, but it went wrong.”
He swallowed hard, praying to something not a god that his botched surgery wouldn’t draw the healing god’s wrath. What stopped Apollo from blaming him for Athena’s state, no matter how unfair it was?
“I don’t have the necessary tools and Athena can’t strengthen them to the level they’d have to be at not to break, she’s not strong enough. The lightning is buried pretty deeply and it seems to react to being touched almost as if it’s alive… All we got out of my removal attempt was her fever spiking, and her going into shock.”
He swallowed, his throat feeling parched.
“We think… we think a piece in her side has injured her lung. She’s been coughing up ichor. It started with a few drops at a time, but by now it’s handfuls worth of it.”
He swallowed again.
“There are some other things, she’s in a lot of pain of course, but those are the ones that are most dire. I know… I know it’s probably ridiculous, a mortal fearing for a goddess’s life, but I do. I’m afraid she won’t get better, and I don’t know what to do for her.”

Apollo nodded. His expression hadn’t softened, not really, but there was something in his demeanor that suggested he had been listening very closely.

“Even the likes of me,” he said finally. “haven’t seen wounds like this inflicted on one of our own. It is only natural they are beyond what you can treat when a mortal who’d met one hundreth of her pain would be less than ash.”

He sighed.

“I know you have called me in hopes I would come to Ithaca to heal her. I cannot yet say if that’ll be possible. For now, I can offer you this.”

He held out his hand, and Odysseus watched a small flower grow in the god’s palm. It looked somewhat familiar besides the color.

“Is that purple Moly?”

Apollo paused for a second.

“Ah, right, Hermes gave you Moly, I recall. This is a related plant with slightly different properties, it’s called Gantos. Brew four of the roots into a pot of tea, not more. A small patch is growing outside of this temple now. It should help her fever and restore some of her strength. It is not a cure, but it will help keep her symptoms as mild as they can be. I assume she can’t summon nectar?”

Odysseus frowned.

“I don’t think she can. Not anymore.”

Apollo hummed.

“I would give you some for her but we are forbidden from giving nectar or ambrosia to mortals. The Gantos will have to do for now. Oh, do not consume any yourself, it’s not safe for mortals. You can handle it with your hands, it’s not that dangerous, but you don’t want to drink that tea, it’ll mess with your heartrate.”

Odysseus nodded silently.

Apollo sighed. For a moment, something more raw broke through his clinical mask. Perhaps worry, maybe guilt. Maybe something entirely different.

“I realize time is not on our side. Do not attempt to remove the lightning yourself for now, keep her as still as possible so it isn’t aggravated more. If you don’t hear from me before then, be at the temple again tomorrow, same time. A sacrifice isn’t necessary. If there’s an emergency before then, send me a quick prayer. I would like to do this with as little risk as possible for everyone involved, but I have no desire to find out about the limits of immortality from my own sister.”

You’ve certainly not done a lot to prevent it so far, Odysseus didn’t say. He could tell Apollo was choosing his words very carefully, but referring to Athena as his sister as if he still had any right to call her that made Odysseus’s blood boil.

“I wish things were less complicated,” Apollo said, and Odysseus froze, his heart beating faster. Athena had taught him to shield his mind against being easily read, and he suspected she had bestowed additional shielding as a gift, but he remembered now that she had said Apollo’s telepathy was almost strong enough to break her own shields.

I’m sorry, I’m just scared for her. Please don’t hurt my family.

“At ease,” Apollo said. “I realize you have plenty of reason to fear the gods, but you and your family are under Athena’s protection. That may not mean something to all of Olympus, but it does to me. I don’t intend to harm you for your thoughts just because they’re loud enough for me to hear.”
The sacrifice began burning out, but Apollo kept the connection up with a small gesture. For the first time, his expression broke way to something more earnest.

“It may not seem that way to you, but it’s not lack of care that kept me away until now. I cannot yet promise what kind of help I will be able to offer, but it’s not hopeless. I can’t in good conscience give you more reassurance than that.”

Odysseus nodded.

“Thank you for the honesty… and for your help. If the plant can lower her fever, that will already be a big relief.”

Apollo nodded slightly.

“Let’s hope so. Do you have any more questions for now before I take my leave?”

Odysseus meant to say no, not wanting to wear out Apollo’s favor, but his tongue had other plans.

“My medical knowledge is very limited,” he said. “And of course it might not even apply to a goddess. When she went into shock earlier… it was worse than before. It took minutes until she stabilized. I elevated her legs, tried to keep her warm, but if it hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t have had anything else to try. It felt like she was just teetering on the edge of needing more… and I don’t know what ‘more’ would be.”

“That was earlier today?”

“Just an hour or so ago.”

Apollo nodded.

“If she goes into shock again before tomorrow, you need to contact me when you notice the first signs. Her system won’t take kindly to another collapse in this short amount of time. Do you understand?”

Odysseus nodded. His blood felt like ice in his veins.

“Regardless,” Apollo said. “The concern remains. If you feel like she’s slipping too far, not reacting to her name or being shaken slightly, you might have to resort to pain as a stimulus. I don’t mean injuring her further, just something to jolt her system. If you press your knuckles here-“ He touched a spot below his collarbone. “That will hurt but not do any damage. I understand the desire to be gentle, but in a moment like that, it is necessary to do whatever it takes. Alternatively or if this doesn’t work, temperature changes are another option, for example with cold water. Press a damp cloth to the back of her neck or her chest. The idea is to give her body something sharp to react to.” He frowned slightly, again with that worry that seemed so genuine. “During the shock, did you check her heartbeat and breathing? What was it like?”

Odysseus swallowed hard.

“Her heartbeat was fast, really fast, but faint. I’m not sure if it was out of rhythm, there was something off with it, I believe. Her breathing was pretty shallow, and it was… stuttering. Almost a second of pause between each one at one point.”

Apollo breathed out.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” he muttered, then grimaced before his golden eyes settled on Odysseus again.

“You are right to be concerned. Is she stable now?”

“When I left, yes. She was asleep.”

Apollo nodded.

“Alright. Let’s hope it stays that way. Are you supervising her through the nights?”

“We haven’t left her alone at all for a few days now.”

“Good.” Apollo breathed out. “As I said, I will be back tomorrow around this time at the latest. If I should not show up, you can assume I have gained some first-hand experience with how Athena has been feeling, and you’re on your own. I hold on to hope it won’t come to that.”

A smile played around his mouth but there was no humor in it.

He was scared, Odysseus realized. Scared of ending up like Athena.

“Pray the strings of fate are woven in your favor, Odysseus of Ithaca,” Apollo said, and the golden smoke began to dissolve. The next sentence came in a breathy whisper. “About time they are.”

Telemachus hadn’t really moved from his spot all throughout the day. His parents had told him they could take over by Athena’s side, but he hadn’t wanted them to. It felt safer, holding her close, as if she couldn’t slip away then.

Dad had come back torn between optimism and something much darker, and Telemachus understood why.

Apollo hadn’t refused to help. He had given them the flowers, and he had said he would come if he could.
The ‘if’ in that sentence being the problem.

Telemachus couldn’t have even put his anger into words if it had been safe to speak about.

He imagined Theo asking Dad to be allowed to help Mom if she was even mildly injured, knowing that Dad would personally carry the healer into the palace and not let him go until Penelope was cared for.

He couldn’t even hypothetically imagine his Dad saying no.

He leaned his cheek against Athena’s hair, listening to the soft sounds of his parents talking on the balcony. The sun was beginning to set.

Athena stirred in his arms, groaning softly.

“Athena?”

She hummed and opened her eyes, groggily blinking into the fading light.

“That didn’t go so well, did it?” she rasped.

Odysseus and Penelope entered from the balcony, relief mirroring Telemachus’s.

“Hey there,” Odysseus said, sitting beside her.

“I must’ve…blacked out,” she murmured. “What time is it?”

“Sunset,” he replied.

Athena didn’t seem to have the strength to look shocked.

She was still extremely pale and her eyes were glazed with exhaustion. Odysseus wrapped his fingers around hers.

“How are you feeling?” Telemachus asked softly.

Athena’s eyes flickered to him and she gave something between a smile and a grimace.

“It’s alright… just tired.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Odysseus said. “Be honest, please.”
“I’m sorry.” She breathed in shakily. “My arm hurts quite a bit… and I’m dizzy. It could be worse.” She blinked slowly. “You didn’t get it out, did you?”

“No.” Odysseus sighed. “I’m sorry. This just caused you unnecessary pain and achieved nothing.”

“Well… we kind of… had to try.”

He offered her the cup of tea with the Gantos and she sipped some obediently. She frowned a little, but didn’t comment on the taste.

“Try to stay relatively still,” he said. “Don’t give the lightning reason to shift for now, okay?”

She nodded slightly.

“I’m sorry… I don’t… I don’t want to worry… you.”

“You’re our friend,” Telemachus said gently. “We can’t not be worried about you.”

She shivered slightly and Odysseus adjusted the blanket.

She winced.

“Your arm?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“I don’t think I was fated to be a surgeon.”

“Probably not.” Her voice already grew fainter and she sank more heavily against Telemachus.

Odysseus grimaced.

“Try to rest now.”

He didn’t mention Apollo. He didn’t want to give her hope and then see it squashed. For her, this was less about her life and more about her brother caring about her. And if Apollo really wouldn’t return, she could not afford the heartbreak.

Not when him not returning meant that they were on their own.

Chapter Text

Apollo leaned back with a quiet exhale, blinking twice to fully break the connection.

He only very rarely answered prayers in person, they all did, there were too many of them. It wasn’t exactly fair, but having a strong name did help. He guessed most of his siblings would not have ignored Odysseus’s prayer entirely. Not after what happened in the arena.

He hadn’t been able to predict anything that night. His visions, the precursor to a prophecy that no god, no matter how powerful, could change, were much less precise. Gods could always make decisions that would change that possible future, the more variables, the more muddy the vision.

That night, it had been pure fog.

Truthfully, he hadn’t been worried.

For about ten years now, he had not been able to see Athena’s future basically at all, signifying that there was an important choice that would determine her fate, and it could be made at any point.

He had not understood it was the choice of reconnecting with Odysseus.

On the afternoon of that day, he had gotten a brief vision of a young man squaring off against a much bigger attacker, and the faint sound of Quick Thought in the background.

And then, later that night, they were called into the arena.

He had never seen Athena like this, energy thrumming through her very being, standing as straight as she always did, but still like a different person than the one he knew.
He had kind of gotten used to her being quieter in recent years, less commanding, less… present, in a way. Once or twice, he had asked if she was alright, but she had brushed him off.

Then they sat in a council meeting, the usual yelling commenced, and he heard Athena slipping into Quick Thought a few times without following it up with a clever remark. Aphrodite was trying to say something, but part of being the ‘pretty one’ was that people rarely actually wanted your opinion. Apollo knew, if music had been his only domain, he would have shared her fate.

And then, Athena’s voice, quiet and measured.

“Father?”

She spoke more softly than she would have done before, but loud enough to be clearly heard.

Zeus looked at her quizzingly.

“What is it?”

“Aphrodite has something to say and I would like to hear it, if I may.”

Apollo wasn’t the only one who looked at Athena like she had spontaneously grown a second head. It wasn’t like she had taken extra care to shut Aphrodite down in the past, the council had done that very well without her help, but actively speaking up for her was something else entirely.

Zeus nodded.

“Alright, then speak up, Aphrodite.”

Aphrodite pulled herself together and made her point.

“Was there a hidden jab in there I didn’t get?” she asked him later.

Apollo shrugged.

“I don’t think so. I think she was being nice. Or she really wanted to hear your point.”

Aphrodite raised her eyebrows.

“That would be new,” she commented, but she didn’t argue against it.

They both noted from then that Athena was holding back in council, taking a mediator role more often than not. Sometimes, council would pass without her even saying her own opinion.

“Somehow, I like this less than her parroting Dad’s opinion whenever he gives her a sharp look,” Artemis said. “Doesn’t seem like her, don’t you think?”

Looking at her in the arena, Apollo decided that maybe none of them really knew what was and wasn’t like her.

He knew Athena had fallen out with her champion even though she never talked about it. Once, Hermes flew up to her while Apollo was within earshot.

“You wanna know something about my grandson?” he asked. “I just met him… surprising, really, I didn’t think I would, with you always being two steps away-“

Athena looked away.

“He’s no longer my concern,” she said stiffly. “I would prefer not to talk about it.”

Hermes had opened his mouth as if to remark something, but the look on her face made him hesitate.

“Sure, I guess,” he said.

And now, almost ten years later, she requested her mortal’s release.

Apollo thought being the god of prophecy should come with fewer surprises.

He had gotten a quick rundown on what Odysseus had been up to, written by Athena, but it was clinical, fair. Events, casualties, divine encounters. He suspected Zeus had requested to see for himself so she didn’t lie, or maybe Athena wouldn’t have lied either way, knowing that while she was the one who could access history, there was not a moment where their father couldn’t demand access to her realm to see for himself.

Apollo had always been glad that his own realm, Snake’s Eye, had no such merit to his father. His prophecies manifested verbally, and he was unable to control their words, so he couldn’t lie about them either way. His visions were one-time and couldn’t be re-accessed. In summary, nobody had any reason to be in his mind, and he was glad for it. He couldn’t imagine being pressured into letting someone in there no matter how messy things were. He had already hated when he had been young and his powers had been assessed by Zeus. That was the only time he had insisted on seeing Apollo’s realm for himself.

He guessed his father wanted him to be involved due to being on Troy’s side in the war, but he had nothing to say about it.
Was he happy the mortal had brought down Troy? No, but that was war. Plus, the prophecy had been clear on Troy’s fall.
Was he happy Odysseus had killed his champion’s son? No, but he had been ordered by Zeus.
He knew Athena would refute his argument easily, but he didn’t mind. He had no reason to stand against his sister in a matter that didn’t even touch him. He didn’t know why there was such a spectacle about it, but he also saw that their father wasn’t in a good mood, and he wondered why Athena would choose this day of all days to ask a favor. That was more reckless than she would otherwise be.

No visions. Just a growing sense of dread.

He stood back, sitting back down with Artemis and Hermes.

They watched Hephaestus play an equally by-the-book argument. Apollo wondered what the plan was. Was she meant to win or lose?
But it had been absolutely predicatable Hephaestus would give it to her, Athena was probably the sibling he liked best out of all of them.

And why would Zeus showcase his golden child failing?

They didn’t see what happened between Aphrodite, Ares and Athena, but Apollo heard Aphrodite’s thoughts when they voted for Odysseus’s release, surprised yet with a quiet respect.

She learned to love after all.

He shifted uncomfortably by then, feeling a vision linger at the edge of his consciousness.

Something was about to go wrong.

Their father was annoyed, but it made no sense, why would he initiate a game if his answer was going to be no either way?

And then Athena said Odysseus was faithful, and the vision came at full force.

He just saw lightning, and his mind immediately assumed Zeus would personally kill Athena’s mortal out of spite.

He believed that until the first bolt struck her.

He didn’t remember how he got out of the arena, it was all a blur. They had scattered like mice, no way around it.

He sat in his palace, half-waiting for his own introduction to the lightning bolt. For what reason, he had no idea.

Artemis had slipped away from Olympus without another word. She’d always been the one who ran when he froze.

A hunter and a medic alright.

He thought numbly that they fitted quite nicely with the goddess who’d just approached the king of the gods after already being hit with lightning. He couldn’t think of anything less wise than that.

He didn’t sleep. He doubted many Olympians did.

In the early hours of the morning, he began preparing his infirmary. He didn’t know how she would get there, if she even could.

But she didn’t come, of course not, and seeking her out was very different.

Zeus had to know she needed help, and if he had not cared to get her any, that probably meant she should not get any.

He was pacing, on edge, hoping against all logic that she would stumble in, giving him the justification he needed, I thought you’d sent her, father, I’m sorry, I should have asked you first.

“At least her mortal is free.”

Apollo whipped around, bow materializing with an arrow already knocked back.

Hermes lifted up his hands.

“Easy, sunshine. No need to weaken Olympus more.”

Apollo breathed out.

“Why would you sneak up on me like that?!”

“I didn’t sneak in, you just have bad hearing.”

Hermes dropped onto a bed, ignoring Apollo glaring at him for dirtying the sheets.

“I thought she’d be here,” he said. “She’s not in the arena anymore, and someone already cleaned up, too.”

Apollo breathed out.

“Then she’s probably in her palace… Did you report back to father about the mortal?”

Hermes nodded.

“He’s off,” he said. “Gonna probably stick around behind the scenes a bit. Ask Aeolus for some good wind, play tag with some monsters along his path… We’ll see.”

Apollo nodded.

“I’ll be honest, the only reason I care if this mortal gets anywhere is because Athena wants it. I meant, have you spoken to father? Did he say he anything about… I don't know, anything about what’s next?”

Hermes shook his head.

“Nah, I just told him I went to Ogygia and carried out his order. He said ‘good’ and then I was back out.”

His grin was a bit too tense.

Apollo sighed.

“He still mad?”

“Not in a great mood. Like a mid-grey.”

So like yesterday minutes before he covered the arena with our sister’s blood.

Then I should probably not ask today whether I’m supposed to help her, he said.

Hermes inhaled sharply.

“You think he’d let her-“

Apollo put a finger to his lips. He didn’t feel safe enough to talk openly.

It’s what he did when Ares got injured by that herd of chimerae, he continued. ’It’s part of his loss,’ that’s what he said. I think it’s because I tried too early… maybe if I’d waited till he’d calmed down, I would have been allowed to treat him. And this- He hesitated for a moment. This is worse than any chimera.

Hermes lifted himself up from the bed, flying a quick circle.

She’ll be fine, though, right? She’s immortal, sooner or later she will heal.

Apollo sighed, looking away.

“Sure,” he said.

Later that day, Hephaestus sent a mechanical quail to Apollo’s palace.

Apollo almost got a heart attack when the contraption landed next to him, fiery eyes seemingly regarding him shrewdly.

‘If you can spare a little time, and only if you can do so safely, come see me.’

Apollo considered for a moment, then pulled the other god into Snake’s Eye remotely. He didn’t want to leave his post just yet. Not when Athena could still make it here.

“I sure hope I don’t burn myself when I get back,” Hephaestus said.

“Sorry. This is probably safer.”

Hephaestus nodded.

“I would have come, but I… I think it’s better if I stay away from the mountain for a bit.”

Apollo understood that well. He would have rather not been on the mountain either, and he didn’t have a physical reminder for life of what Zeus was capable of.

Hephaestus sighed.

“How bad it it?”

Apollo swallowed hard.

“I don’t know.” He avoided his brother’s questioning gaze. “I haven’t seen her yet. I’m not sure if I’m… allowed to.”

Hephaestus cursed under his breath.

“And you can’t ask him because if he’s in a bad mood, he’ll take it out on her too.”

His fingers flexed around the pliers he was holding.

Apollo wetted his lips.

“I- I’ll ask when he’s in a good mood again. After all… she’s the favorite…”

Hephaestus breathed out in a huff.

“Right now, even the least favorite would not want to trade places.”

Apollo sighed.

“Either way,” Hephaestus said. “I made you some surgical tools that you might want to use when you get to treat her. The metal will not conduct lightning. I’ll send them up.”

Apollo nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Keep me posted.” Hephaestus’s face expression was grim.

Apollo nodded again.

“I will.”

He broke the connection and leaned his head against a stone pillar.

Somehow Hephaestus’s understanding was worse than if he’d chastized him.

Days passed with Olympus wrapped in stormclouds, days of hushed speech and quiet fear.

Apollo stayed away from Athena’s palace. If he couldn’t help, he couldn’t face her either. If he saw her, he wouldn’t be able to handle not helping.

If he even could.

Whenever he thought about what had happened, he was reminded how insane it was. Lightning, used against one of them. For nothing.

He had never even seen a wound like that, let alone treated it. All he knew was that it had looked BAD in the arena. And that was hardly a medical assessment he could work with.

He felt frozen, paralyzed by not knowing what to do.

He could only hope Athena’s divine body had the mercy to keep her knocked out for most of her healing.

He jumped when Aphrodite stepped inside his palace.

“Got a second?” she asked.

He nodded.

She sighed.

“So I’m mainly asking for Ares,” she said, “He’s been pretty down… after what happened the other day. I mean… it was pretty bad.” She breathed out. “I was wondering how Athena is doing.”

Apollo almost screamed.

He knew why they were asking him.

It didn’t make it any easier.

“I don’t know, Dite.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged uncomfortably.

“Father didn’t give me the go to treat her.”

Aphrodite looked at him, eyes wide.

“No… no, he didn’t forbid you, he can’t…”

Apollo breathed out through his nose.

“Well, he didn’t forbid it, but he didn’t allow it either.”

Aphrodite frowned.

“Why don’t you go then? You’re the medic, it’s your job.”

“Yeah, so will you take the blow if Father decides that tending to Athena is treason?” Apollo was aware of the tension in his voice, like a lyre string too tightly strung. “I would go and ask, but I was part of the game. He’s mad at all of us because he wanted her to be beaten, and we allowed her to win. If I ask him too soon, he might tell me to never ask again.”

Aphrodite didn’t argue against that.

“So nobody’s checked on her so far?” she asked more quietly.

“I don’t think so. I can’t… not when there’s nothing I can do to help.”

She hummed.

“That seems… cruel,” she said.

“I’m not keeping you from going.”

She scoffed.

“Me? Of all people? She’d think I came to gloat at her being vulnerable. You know she won’t want to talk to me while she’s weak and in pain, she barely does when she’s well.”

He knew she felt guilty and was hiding it, of course. He could sense it in the edges of her thoughts, the justifications, the automatic replaying of moments where Athena had been kind to her.

He didn’t push her further.

He also chose to avoid Ares in case Aphrodite told him about his lack of treatment for Athena.

He had never been gladder to be called away from Olympus for a bit.
For two weeks, he buried himself in his work in the mortal realm, trying not to think about the case he was leaving at home.

Maybe one of the others would crack and reach out to her. Maybe someone would make the choice on his behalf.

He knew they were all cowards.

Coming back to Olympus, he found a scroll left for him, not sealed, but smelling faintly of waterlilies.
Hera.

He could tell it was an older scroll, from the early age. Opening it, he found a report in a handwriting he didn’t recognize.
‘Prisoners of the great war’

He skimmed through it, trying to find the reason it had been given to him.

The way it was written sounded a lot like Athena with a little less stiffness, but it wasn’t in her hand, and she hadn’t even been alive back then.

‘Following the injury of myself (M.), Zeus had the culprit hunted and taken prisoner. He was subsequently tortured with lightning. The damage of this weapon on divine bodies is severe. It appears to have almost lifelike properties, moving through the body even without direct command.
The prisoner was sent back to the opposite side before long-term effects could be assessed, but he has not been seen on the battlefield since, and I doubt he will be before this is over.
The risk of friendly fire with the lightning bolt is very real and we all have to take great care to avoid it. Even a singular stray strike could be enough to put one of ours out of the fight as well if it lands badly. The only reason the Titans have not yet fallen is having recognized Zeus as the most dangerous warrior on the field and all their defense engineering mainly working against lightning.’

Apollo breathed out.

He knew the Titanomachy had been brutal, but not like this.

Shuddering, he unrolled the rest of the scroll, scanning for another paragraph about lightning.

Nothing.

The insignia in the bottom corner to mark the writer weren’t stamps yet like they used now, it was handdrawn, a bird with blue markings -a jay? and and an ‘M’. He had no idea what titan this was from.

Athena would know. She must have studied this war and known all our allies in it, even the less well-known ones.

He sighed.

If Hera sent him this scroll that was so clearly from her private collection, she probably wanted to tell him something with it.

He had to go talk to her.

Before he could get up, a prayer broke through, laced with fear and desperation.

“Paean Apollo, lord of the Muses, averter of harm, I offer this gift to you so you may hear my prayer.”
They rarely made themselves heard so clearly.

“A friend residing in my home is plagued by injury and illness,” the voice said, “of which I fear only your aid can save her.”

Apollo closed his eyes to see who it was.

He recognized the man, he’d gotten a vision about two weeks ago when his uncle had allowed him to step foot on his homeland.

Odysseus of Ithaca.

“May your gaze fall favorably on me, great Apollo Epicurios,” he said, voice reverent but still desperate. He was frightened.

Apollo breathed through and answered the prayer.

Apollo had heard plenty of people talk about their friends, family, loved ones when they were injured. He knew when something was serious, and this definitely was.

Shit.

He went to Hera first anyway, that was the less daunting task.

She was in the garden, gazing into the distance.

“God Mother?”

She turned.

“Apollo. You’re back.”

He nodded.

“You… left me something. I read it, but I don’t know… what it is I’m meant to take from it.”

Hera sighed.

“It is the only record there is,” she said. “It took a while to look through, but there are no other reports of this type of thing from the war or after. I thought it might help you anyway.”

Apollo swallowed hard.

“May I ask a somewhat insubordinate question?”

She huffed, almost a laugh.

“By all means.”

“Have you… spoken to my father yet today…? What kind of mood is he in?”

For a moment, Hera was silent, and fear coiled in Apollo’s gut. Was this how Athena had felt? Pressed for time, no matter what the weather was like?

“You can go,” Hera said simply.

Apollo nodded.

That was all he could hope for.

Apollo had always respected his father. He knew he was often considered the favorite son, taken more seriously than Hermes, punished far less than Ares.

He loved his father.

He had never truly feared him until a few weeks ago.

He wondered if Athena felt the same.

Zeus indeed looked to be in a decent mood, though that did nothing to stop Apollo’s heart from pounding in his chest.

“Apollo. What brings you here?”

Apollo swallowed hard.

“Father Zeus, I wanted to ask how you want me to deal with Athena. She has taken your punishment and the fallout, as I assume was your wish. Would you like me to tend to her injuries now, or at a later point?” Or not at all, he added silently, not wanting to give the option out loud.

Zeus looked at him casually, more surprised than anything.

He’s not angry. He’s not angry.

“If they have not yet healed, you may treat her. I assumed you already had.”

Apollo was shocked speechless for a moment. How could anyone believe that those wounds had healed yet? He assumed his sister might be back on her feet at this point if he’d tended to her from day one, a big maybe, but healed?
“I wanted to have your permission, father,” he said out loud. “It is your power to decide what is just, and it’s not my place to interfere with your punishment.”

“Quite right.”
Zeus smiled favorably, then ruffled his son’s hair. Apollo did his best not to flinch.

“You’re working very hard,” his father said. “Don’t forget to indulge once in a while. Get yourself a girl to help you loosen up.”
Apollo didn’t say that women were rarely part of his target group. His father knew, it just didn’t matter to him.

“Good idea, father,” he said flatly and internally breathed out in relief when he was dismissed.

Good. This was good. He still had all of his limbs and official permission to treat his sister. This was good. He just had to get his breathing under control.

He managed sometime when he was gathering his things, the new tools, the scroll, more as a token of good luck rather than actual help.
He breathed out, then left his palace and stepped off Olympus, a small cloud carrying him toward Ithaca.

Chapter Text

The sun set over Ithaca, and they were keeping vigil. Telemachus’s eyes were half-lidded, about to close. His fingers were still tracing Athena’s feathers absently like he had done for hours, but exhaustion was starting to pull him under.

Penelope had taken care of some kingdom affairs over the afternoon while Odysseus and Telemachus stayed with Athena.

Athena was drifting in and out of consciousness now, too exhausted to stay awake for longer than a minute at a time. At least she hadn’t gotten worse. The Gantos had really helped the fever more than anything they had tried before. If only it was the push they needed and not just some surface-level relief Athena was barely aware enough to even appreciate.

She shifted slightly, brow furrowing. Odysseus moved closer instantly as her eyes flickered open, their glow somehow appearing fainter than it should.

“Athena?”

She hummed some vague acknowledgement, then shifted again like she was uncomfortable.

“Are you in pain?”

A painfully long pause.

“’don’t know…”

She shifted again, and he carefully put his hand to her chest, over her collarbones.

“You have to stay still, okay? The shifting’ll aggravate the lightning. Can you say how you’d be more comfortable?”

She stilled obediently.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

He smiled somberly.

“Not your fault. We just have to be careful, yeah?”

Her eyes drifted shut again before she mustered up enough strength for a reply.

Odysseus looked at his wife, expression quietly desperate. Penelope put her hand on his arm.

The minutes ticked by in a slow crawl.

Every once in a while, Athena moved, but she held still as soon he put his hand on her chest again.

Odysseus felt cruel restricting her movement, but Apollo’s words echoed too urgently in his mind; ‘Her system won’t take kindly to another collapse in this short amount of time.’. They could not afford to risk needing his intervention when they couldn’t rely on it.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”

She groaned.

“I know it hurts. Try to sleep, okay?”

She looked at him tiredly, opening her mouth as if she wanted to say something- then gasped, body going rigid. Telemachus snapped awake beside her, eyes wide and confused.

Her hand flew to her chest, fingers weakly gripping her chiton right above her heart.

“Breathe!” Odysseus’s felt his voice shake, trying to steady her.

She grimaced, her breaths coming in pained stutters.

“Athena, what’s wrong?”

She just groaned.

He waited for a cough to come, but none did. Still, ichor shimmered in the corners of her mouth.

Putting his fingers to her neck, for a second he could barely track her pulse, it was so fast.

“Hey. Athena. Stay with me, okay? Stay with me.”

Her reply was just a whimper.

For a moment, he thought her heartbeat was finally slowing, but it still felt off, like it was too slow now.

Two… three… that pause is too long… four, five… another pause, fates, this is so out of rhythm…

“Athena, I need you to breathe with me, okay?”

She managed a nod, eyes pressing shut as she tried to mimic his breaths. Telemachus supported her back, his thumb tracing erratic circles under her wings.

It took ages until she settled down some, sinking back against the pillows, exhausted.

Her heartbeat still didn’t feel right, but it was less bad than a few minutes ago.

“Stay awake, okay?” Odysseus took her hand into his own, grimacing at how cold her fingers were. It wasn’t shock, not quite, but clearly a sign things weren’t quite right.

“Can you try to tell me what happened? How it felt?”

Athena looked at him blearily, her eyes half-closed. The mental connection she opened was weak, unsteady. He felt the worry like a rock in his stomach.

I-

She struggled with the words, the only thing coming through loud and clear being that she was completely spent.

“Try to send me the feeling, that’ll be easier.”

She breathed out shakily, then he got the sensation, purposefully dulled, he could tell, but his hand touched his own chest on instinct anyway.

For a moment, Zeus flashed through his mind, gripping a golden heart in his massive hand and pressing down.

“That’s not good,” he breathed.

Athena shifted weakly.

“I’m- I’m so sorry…”

“What… you didn’t do anything!”

“I never- wan-wanted this,” she murmured. “This much worry… needing this much help… I never meant-“ She had to stop for a short breath of air. “I never wanted to put this on you.”

“Athena.” He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “We know that. But it is that way right now, and it’s okay. We care about you, so we have no problem caring for you. That’s how it works.”

She shivered.

“I… I care so much about you… all of you… and if I could reverse time and undo all the hurt… I would. No matter what it cost. Whatever it would take. And I… I can’t do that, I know… and I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I have forgiven you. For everything bad that happened, I promise.”

“Me, too,” Penelope said softly. “I wouldn’t have to ask for an oath now, I trust you without. The part you had in the pain we went through, it’s forgiven.”

Telemachus shifted.

“I was never mad at you,” he admitted quietly. “So there’s nothing to forgive on my end. So I guess I promise I’m not mad about anything that happened.”

Odysseus smiled at his son fondly.

“Look at you, just as pedantic as your godmother.”

Telemachus frowned, confused for a second, but then his eyes lit up.

“Yeah, I guess I am a little like her.”

Athena frowned.

“Who is-“

“Athena, seriously, why do you think you were one of the first people who I asked to hold him besides like… his grandparents?”

She breathed out.

“I- oh.”

A tear ran down her cheek, but she didn’t wince when Odysseus wiped it away.

She erratically rubbed her knuckles against her chest above her heart.

“Does that hurt still?”

“A- just a little.”

He grimaced, worried.

“I- I wanted you to know,” Athena continued, voice quiet and fast, “that I care- that I don’t know how I could have… handled it… if I’d stayed on Olympus… without you three. And it’s scary… to need people… so much, so deeply, but I-“

She was silent for a few seconds, more tears running down her face.

“But I love you,” she said then, voice incredibly small. “I care so much for you and I just want you to be safe and happy… more than anything else.”

Odysseus felt his throat close up.

Never in his life had he imagined hearing those words from her, but right now… they felt final, not heartwarming. Like preparing for a goodbye, and one infinitely worse than the last one.

He leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes to keep the tears contained.

“Oh Athena,” he got out. “We love you too.”

“We do.” Telemachus rested his head against her shoulder.

“That we do,” Penelope murmured, kissing Athena’s hair.

Athena sobbed quietly, but she didn’t argue.

Maybe, she was starting to believe them.

Just maybe.

They wrapped her in an embrace, not letting go until she had drifted back off to sleep.

Odysseus pulled away, letting the tears escape.

She will be fine. She’s immortal.

“Gods, I’m so scared for her,” he breathed.

Penelope wrapped her arms around him.

“I know love. We are too.”

Before he could respond, a kind of familiar yet completely foreign pull sucked him in.

He knew it wasn’t Quick Thought just as certainly as he knew it was divine.

He landed in a marble structure, sunlight filtering through the columns. Light and dark green vines and leaves covered the small gazebo.

Apollo stepped into his field of view, demeanor still calm, yet inexplicably different than earlier.

“Odysseus. I hope this wasn’t too startling.”

Odysseus felt his heart thundering even not being here physically.

“No… It’s fine.”

Apollo was carrying a bag slung around his shoulder rather than carrying his bow, and even in this non-Quick-Thought realm, Odysseus smelled something vaguely medicinal.

Gods, please let this mean-

“I’m outside of your palace right now,” Apollo said. “I can tell Athena is here, but her trace… it’s too weak for me to pinpoint where exactly she is.” The edge of worry that snuck into his voice told Odysseus it was not a usual concern. “I’ll need you to either describe the place to me or step to a window with a light so I can see.”

Odysseus felt dizzy.

“Of course. I’ll be on the balcony. It’s in the back, facing the forest.”

Apollo nodded.

“Good.”

And just as quickly, Odysseus was back in the room.

“Odysseus, what-“ Penelope asked as he got up hastily.

“Apollo’s here,” he said, grabbing the lamp. “He told me through… not Quick Thought, but something similar. I think… I think he’ll help, he had a medical bag… and why else would he- anyway. I’ll show him where we are. Would you wake up Athena; she’d want to be awake for it.”

“Of course.”

Telemachus looked at his mother.

“Should I move so he can treat her?”

“I think it would be better, yes.”

Telemachus nodded, carefully lowering Athena to the pillows so he could get up. She stirred faintly. Penelope bowed over her.

“Athena? Sweetheart, you have to wake up.”

Athena groaned softly, moving on instinct before half-opening her eyes.

“P-Pen?”

Penelope smiled a little, cupping the goddess’s face in her hand.

“Yeah, I’m right here. Wake up, dear, it’s important.”

Athena blinked, grasping for awareness. Her fingers twitched against the blanket.

“W-what’s the… what’s wrong?”

Penelope breathed out.

“Listen. This afternoon, we made a sacrifice to Apollo.”

Athena tensed.

“You… did what?”

Penelope kept her voice even, knowing Athena wouldn’t take this all that easily. They had just not expected for Apollo to be this quick, so she wouldn’t have any time to adjust to this.

“You’re not improving, dear. We’re afraid if we kept going the way we have, we’ll lose you.”

Athena’s fingers crumpled the blanket between her fingers, her breaths coming faster.

“I- No, it’s dangerous…”

Penelope wrapped her fingers around Athena’s, holding them tightly.

“It is necessary, Athena. Mortal medicine can’t fix this, let alone our limited medical capabilities.” She hesitated. “And Apollo seems to agree, because he’ll be here any minute.”

She could see Athena’s eyes dart even with their glow softer than it should be.

“He’s… coming?”

“Yes. He’s outside right no-“ A low thud made them both start. “Oh, that sounded like he’s here.”

Athena’s gaze flickered to Telemachus, then to the balcony, then back to Penelope. Her unease was so tangible you could have cut it with a knife.

“It’s alright. Everything will be okay. Don’t be afraid.”

Athena drew a shuddering breath, but didn’t pull away from Penelope. Nervousness radiated from her every fiber.

Outside, Apollo nodded to Odysseus gravely, letting him go in front as he went in. Without a word, he closed the shutters over the windows and the balcony door.

Penelope had goosebumps. She was torn between backing away, and staying with Athena for support.

Athena didn’t look at her, but she sent a thought, laced with anxiety.

It’s better if at least you and Tel get back, please, I can’t read his thoughts.

Penelope didn’t protest, just lightly kissing Athena’s knuckles before getting out of the way, wrapping her arm around Telemachus.

Apollo made a small gesture, and the room was basked in light as if it was midday. It didn’t seem to even cost him a thought.

The difference between Apollo and Athena was painful. The healer god was glowing. Even in light, he seemed to radiate light from within, not human, definitely not human, but how divinity was supposed to show. She had never remembered first meeting Athena this clearly, the quiet authority in her just standing there, so obviously divine that you couldn’t mistake her for a mortal even for a second even though she hadn’t tried to be intimidating. So different from now.

Penelope swallowed at the lump in her throat. She had never fully grasped how much of her natural power Athena had traded for their safety until this moment when she saw her and her brother in the same room.

Apollo nodded toward them in silent acknowledgement, then turned to Athena, meeting her gaze, gold eyes locking with her silver ones.

He breathed out, crossing the distance in a few strides.

“Athena, I-“

Odysseus breathed in sharply as the god of healing got to his knees in front of the bed, bowing his head.

“I’m so sorry.”

Chapter Text

Time froze.

Athena stared at Apollo, her eyes wide and shocked.

“What- what are you doing?” she got out finally.

Apollo sighed.

“I think it would be an understatement to say I’m pitifully late. I don’t ask you to forgive me, but I am truly sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

She kept his eyes trained on him in a mixture of shock and suspicion.

“You aren’t obliged-“

“Yes, I am. And I- I didn’t stay away because I wanted to, but it doesn’t matter why because I wasn’t there and you needed it… clearly more than I even feared.”

Athena felt cold dread settle in her stomach.

Somehow, despite its painfully and confusingly gentle tone, the reminder of how much stronger than her Apollo was at the moment sent a shiver down her spine.

I can’t protect them.

“Apollo?” Her voice came out steadier than expected.

“Yes?”

“I don’t care why you stayed away,” she lied, because she did care, or she would care once she could wrap her head around that he was actually there. “There’s no bad blood… but I need to ask you for-“ She broke herself off because the memory of lightning could overwhelm her. “I need you to do something.”

“Anything I can do.” His voice was so gentle and guilty and it was making her dizzy.

“Swear that-“ Her voice faltered but she pressed on. “that unless you’re per- personally ordered by our father, you will not hurt the royal family of Ithaca nor consciously do anything that might cause them harm.”

Apollo breathed out, his golden eyes briefly lingering on the family. There was no hostility in his gaze, but Odysseus still wondered if he could bridge the distance between himself and Penelope and Telemachus in time. He had a bad feeling about it.

“I swear on Gaia, mother of all things, and Ouranos who reigns above, that unless I am personally ordered by our father, I will not hurt the royal family of Ithaca, nor consciously do anything that might cause them harm,” Apollo said, then grimaced at the collective sigh of relief.

Athena felt some of the tension leave her body. She was so tired, but at least the family was safe.

“Will you be mad at me now?” Apollo asked.

“I- I’m not… mad at you, Apollo.” She shivered. “Please just… get up.”

He breathed out and obeyed. She hated the concern on his face, the way he looked at her like she was about to break. She hated he was probably right about it.

“I mean it,” he said. “I won’t leave if you yell at me, I deserve that much.”

Athena shook her head weakly.

“I didn’t… expect you to come.”

He frowned and looked away.

“That does not make it any better, Athena.”

He cleared his throat.

“We should… move this discussion to another point in time, I think. I could barely detect you from outside, you know that? That is not supposed to happen. Your essence… I’ve never felt anything like it, it’s like it’s flickering.”

She breathed out shakily.

“That’s… not good.”

“No, not good at all.” Apollo sighed. “I’ll have to take a proper look at you to assess just how bad it is. I’ve never used Healer’s Mark on you, right?”

Athena shook her head.

“No… but don’t- not beyond the… the night in the arena,” she said.

“Of course not.”

“Sorry,” Odysseus asked, taking a step forward. “Not to interrupt, but… is it okay if I ask what’s going on?”

“Sure,” Apollo said. “Healer’s Mark is one of my abilities that allows me to see what injuries were sustained, how and by whom, and how they progressed. I could go back to any point in time, really, but of course now we only need the recent ones. It won’t hurt her, just feel a little warm.”

Odysseus nodded slightly.

Apollo looked back at Athena. She breathed out and nodded.

The god lifted his hand, and a net of gold appeared over Athena’s body, tracing every part of her, then it rose above the bed, like an imprint of her body.

She breathed out softly, fist clenching ever so slightly. Odysseus fought down the urge to step closer.

“Alright,” Apollo murmured. “Let’s go back.”

The golden shadow of Athena shifted, and the net seemed to change, growing finer and more even.

Penelope knew with a sinking feeling in her stomach that the concentrated gold hadn’t been normal, it had been her injuries. What they saw now was how it was meant to be.

“That’s before,” Apollo said. “No recent injuries.”

He moved his hand slightly and thicker lines of gold appeared on Athena’s body on her right side, pulsing as if alive.

Apollo’s voice was quiet and clinical, mostly speaking for himself.

“That was the first- your wrist broke from the impact… the bolt hit straight in the right side… two ribs broken, two cracked… and the upper one punctured your lung.”

He addressed Odysseus without looking up.

“You said she was coughing up ichor?”

“Yes.”

“When- when the lightning… shifts,” Athena murmured. “It’s not- not the rib… I think.”

“That is probably right. Let me see first, I have a theory.”

The golden glow intensified, and Apollo’s brow furrowed.

“Right,” he said softly. “That’s now the lightning settled… fates, Athena, how did you get up from that?”

Athena swallowed hard.

“Because I… had to.”

Apollo breathed out.

“Of course. Forgot who I was asking.” His hand traced the golden glow, progressing time slightly, and this time they could see the second strike, a pulse shooting through her wing.

Apollo shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

“There’s the third one,” he murmured. “Your arms took the brunt of it… have you been able to use them at all?”

“The left one,” Athena replied.

Apollo nodded.

“Right.”

He winced slightly at the last strike appearing on Athena’s incorporeal form, golden veins spreading over her chest, but moved time forward without commenting again.

“Okay… here we have loss of ichor, mainly… oh, that is interesting.” He frowned. “Did anyone remove any lightning from your body?”

“I did.” Athena’s voice was fainter than a few moments before, and Odysseus could tell from how she was looking that her fever was rising. “From my… arm.”

“That’s not that one. What about your chest?”

Athena shook her head, struggling to form words. Odysseus stepped forward gingerly, dampening a cloth. Apollo nodded slightly.

“Some more tea if you still have some,” he said. “Athena, you have to hold on for a little longer till I’m finished assessing, okay? I can’t treat you properly before I have an idea on where the lightning is. I’ll try being quick.”

Athena hummed, then obediently took a few sips of tea from Odysseus.

Apollo moved time ahead, murmuring to himself as he kept looking.

“Hm, these cuts aren’t- let’s archive those for now. The transformations did nothing for you, Athena. You were already pretty feverish on Olympus… both due to the lightning and infection. Hmm. There’s a small improvement here. It’s very slight. Did you by any chance drink some nectar there?”

Athena nodded weakly.

“It was… weird,” she mumbled. “It… made me… tired. Really tired.”

Apollo breathed out.

“It was trying to knock you out, Athena. Probably in an attempt to deep-heal.”

“I-“ Athena swallowed hard. “I… tried not to sleep… It was so weird.”

Apollo massaged the bridge of his nose.

“And of course you fought off a healing trance from one of the most powerful substances in the world. Of course you did. Somehow.”

He looked at Odysseus in a mixture of exasperation and something else.

“Whatever did you do with her? Cos my sister’s been breaking laws of nature for you pretty much.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, continuing his assessment.

“Ah, and that’s where you made for Ithaca… fates, that did not do your wing any favors. Nor any other part of you.” He shook his head. “You’re lucky you didn’t end up in the ocean. Alright. Let’s see. Oh, yes, there is the first bigger lightning shift…” He traced the line with his finger. “Damn, I thought so. It couldn’t have penetrated your lung on its own this quickly, but because of the broken rib puncturing it slightly it wormed its way in. At least your other organs held up…  Yeah, it just kept reaching inside… it really is like it’s alive and looking to do maximum damage like they wrote… But they are all shifting much more…”

He progressed time further, face growing more grave by the second.

None of the family could fully make sense of the shifting of the golden net, only that it wasn’t looking healthy in even an abstract way.

Apollo sighed, then let the golden version of Athena disappear.

“Alright, that’s today’s state of things… Not good at all. Let’s deal with your fever first though, okay?”

He summoned a small vial of a brilliant ruby red liquid, shimmering in the light like the ichor did, as if it was blood tinged with gold. Nectar.

Athena tensed.

“No… I don’t want to… it’s gonna put me under, Apollo, no-“

“It won’t,” he said, voice even and reassuring. “Now I’m here, I can guide its intent. I will keep you out of a trance, I promise. It’ll help.”

Athena looked unsure, but didn’t argue.

Apollo took the mug of the Gantos tea and added about half of the vial.

“I take it you had no nectar or ambrosia since that time? What about other food?”

Penelope answered for Athena, her posture tense.

“Some soup when she could handle it. Not much though… we weren’t sure how much was necessary. Perhaps three bowls in total in the time she’s been here?”

Apollo grimaced.

“And there we have the reason for the weight loss. Athena, didn’t you tell them you needed more than this?”

Athena winced.

“But I… I don’t, though… I have gone with less for longer.”

“Oh? Was your body falling apart then, too?”

He shook his head.

“Gods, Athena, you’re lucky you’re immortal or you would’ve not reached age ten, let alone age 4000.”

Telemachus felt his mother flinch along with him. It was said casually, suggesting Apollo didn’t know what he was referring to, and Athena didn’t react obviously, but he saw her fingers twitch against the blanket.

“Another thing to file for later, there’s no changing it now,” Apollo said. “Just drink this for now.”

Telemachus stepped forward, cautiously but with purpose.

“May I help?” he asked.

Apollo’s golden eyes settled on him, and Telemachus wondered if he should be looking away. He decided not to.

“Not with the nectar specifically.” The god’s voice was even. “The rules are rather strict on that. You can stay close though if you want.”

Telemachus nodded and settled on the bed beside Athena, holding her hand.

Apollo’s gaze lingered on him a little longer, almost wistfully, before he lifted the mug to Athena’s mouth, supporting it with practiced hands.

Athena sipped obediently, though her posture was tense.

“How long?”

“Couple of minutes till it should set in. Do you think you can listen to me talk for now?”

Athena nodded slightly. Odysseus and Penelope stepped a little closer to the bed. Apollo looked at all of them in turn even though he still addressed Athena.

“Here’s what’s been happening,” he said. “I have a theory why, but that’s for later. Either way, since you’ve arrived here, the lightning has been traveling, generally as close to your core as it can. Most of the fragments are resting against your bones by now. Which is not ideal by any means, but they haven’t broken them down yet. I presume part of why the earlier removal failed was because it’s too deep in, right?”

Odysseus nodded. “I think so.”

Apollo ran a scaly hand through his hair.

“We’re lucky divine bones and organs are as resilient as they are, even against each other. The lightning fragments are not as strong as the direct strike was, but they’ve been doing their best to do damage wherever they can. I hope the smaller ones at less critical points will be possible to remove with too much difficulty, since I do have proper tools available.”

Athena frowned.

“It has to be non-conductive-“

“I know. Or rather, Heph knew. He made them for you.”

Athena remained silent, but Telemachus saw her eyes glistening.

Apollo continued.

“There are some things I will be able to heal immediately, like the broken wrist or the lower part of the wing. Anything that wasn’t caused by lightning, I can heal using my essence. We’ve got two glaring issues. Actually, we have three. The first one is the one which you already guessed, the fragment that’s been stabbing into your lung. It’s very deep in at this point, and it needs to be removed soon, but it’ll also do a lot of damage pulling it out, so it would be much better if you were more stable first… which in turn would be much easier if you had no lightning in your lung. We’ll have to take the risk.”

Odysseus didn’t ask what exactly the risk was. Sometimes, not knowing was easier.

“Another thing is your essence,” Apollo said. “Like I said earlier, it’s flickering. It’s hard for me to say just how dangerous that is, but given I have seen many injuries and never anything like this accompanying it, I’m inclined to say it’s not good.”

Athena huffed, almost a laugh.

“Presumably,” she said quietly.

Telemachus shared a look with his parents, but none of them said anything. It would have been nice to have a moment alone with Athena to bring up the parallels to the times before her birth that Apollo clearly didn’t know about. It was hard to guess why she didn’t say it.

“A lot of firsts in my line of work,” Apollo said with a sigh. “Here’s problem number three. You didn’t mention it, so I presume you don’t know, but there’s not only lightning in your side. A big fragment of the last strike to your chest appears to be gone, but not all of them.”

“That… it tore itself free, I believe,” Athena said. “Still on Olympus… as I was get- getting to my palace.”

Apollo inhaled sharply.

“While you were walking past father’s, by any chance?”

Athena frowned, trying to remember.

“Might be, yes. Either his or Hera’s.”

He nodded.

“That makes sense. I believe it’s like… you know how weird it feels when Poseidon is around, how your mouth gets dry and you have to blink more often?”

Athena scoffed.

“Another reason not to be around him.”

“It’s because saliva and tears are water. His presence pulls at the water around him. It’s an Elder God thing, I believe, because I never felt less angry when Ares is around.”

Athena nodded.

“I think I see your point.”

“That’s relieving. I believe being on Olympus kept the bolts at the surface, so to speak, because Father was pulling them toward him by being close by. When you left, you got out of the pull radius, leaving the bolts free reign to burrow deeper. That’s why you could get some out on your own on Olympus, but it didn’t work even with assistance earlier.”

Odysseus swallowed hard.

“You’re saying if she’d stayed on Olympus, she wouldn’t be this bad?”

“Not… an option,” Athena said before Apollo could respond. “Useless to entertain.”

Apollo was silent for a second, but he didn’t argue.

“Either way there is no going back to Olympus now,” he said instead. “If you get too close to him, the bolts will probably try to get back out on their own, and that in not a good thing. The removal has to be controlled. You’ll have to stay here until they’re out.”

Odysseus nodded in Athena’s place.

“As long as it takes and after that however long you want, as far as we are concerned,” he said.

Athena breathed out shakily, lowering her eyes.

Apollo nodded.

“Good.”

“Sorry?” Telemachus asked. “What was the third problem?”

Apollo’s golden eyes settled on him again.

“Right. Thank you. The third problem would be that one of the fragments that hit Athena in the chest has traveled inward and has been slowly wrapping around her heart.”

A collective gasp.

Athena closed her eyes briefly.

“It’s holding the lightning at bay, but barely,” Apollo said. “Your heart is arrhythmic, has been periodically for weeks, but it’s gotten worse recently. I hardly even have to ask whether you’ve experienced chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, because there’s no way you haven’t.”

Athena nodded silently.

Apollo sighed.

“Removing that fragment will be very dangerous, but it’ll have to be done soon. Time is not on our side in any of this.” He breathed out, looking away. “I’m so sorry, Athena.”

“I don’t blame you-“

“You should.” For the first time, Apollo’s voice cracked with emotion, anguish filling his face. “You should. The only reason I wasn’t here sooner is cowardice, and I cannot even imagine what it cost you, in how much pain you must have been.”

Athena didn’t reply anything to that.
Apollo swallowed hard.

“What do you say we deal with the… emotional repercussions of this after I patched you up some?”

Athena nodded.

Apollo straightened.

“Good. Before we tackle the lightning, I’ll take care of your wrist and the lower part of your wing.”

He prepared another mug of tea and nectar.

“Drink the rest of this, please.”

Athena obeyed, and Apollo removed the splint from her forearm with practiced hands.

She winced a little, but didn’t make a sound.

“It’ll hurt for a second,” Apollo warned. “I’ll be quick.”

Athena tensed when he wrapped his hand around her wrist, breathing out in a low, strained sound.

Wisps of golden energy flickered around Apollo’s hand, like the silver they had seen in the timedive from Metis and Athena. The broken bone made an uncomfortable noise as it was set, like sand rubbing against itself.

“Try to flex your fingers,” Apollo said.

Athena obeyed, her hand trembling from lack of use, but functioning.

“Okay, good. How did you treat the wing?”

“I sewed it up as best as I could, and we’ve been keeping it immobilized like this since so it doesn’t move on instinct,” Odysseus replied.

Apollo nodded.

“Alright, in that case, I’ll paralyze it for now so it can’t spasm. It’ll wear off in a couple of hours, okay?”

Athena curled her fingers more tightly about the blanket but nodded.

Apollo took out a small device that looked like it was tipped with a snake fang.

“Help her lean forward, would you?” he said.

Telemachus nodded, wrapping his arm around Athena to stabilize her. She let her head rest on his shoulder.

Apollo moved behind her, carefully smoothing back some of her back feathers to place the tip of the device there, pricking her skin and then pressing down on the back of the metal contraption.

Athena stiffened slightly as she felt her wing go slack from the snake venom Apollo had injected, all remaining instinct screaming that this was dangerous and wrong. The coldness of the liquid in her veins contrasted with the warmth of Apollo’s energy as he guided it where he needed it to be.

The pain was dulled, but definitely not gone, and she had to fight to keep still when he touched her wing.

She could still feel him removing the bandaged, and she definitely heard him hiss.

“Sorry,” Odysseus said, embarrassed. “I was… not the medic of the army.”

“I can tell,” Apollo said, but his voice wasn’t unkind. “The stitches are the least of my concerns, though, they hold at least. The wing itself, though. This needs to be very thoroughly cleaned, because at this point, it’s terribly infected because of debris that has been getting into the wound.”

He ran his hand over the limp feathers, golden energy cleaning and sealing the part of the wound caused by the flight to Ithaca.

“After we’re done with the surgery, you’ll definitely need a good preen, Athena.”

Athena just nodded.

“Alright then,” Apollo said, pulling out a set of tools made from a material that looked simultaneously gold and silver. “I’ll start where you left off earlier to see how you react, Athena. I will numb your arm too, but I have to keep you awake for the procedure, you’re not stable enough to be put under without risk. I would rather you didn’t have to feel any of it, but the venom’s not that strong, is it?”

Athena shook her head.

“It is better with it,” she said.

Apollo breathed out, nodded and then pricked her upper arm with the device, numbing the area.

“There we go. Since this is a pretty delicate procedure,” he said directed at the family, “it would be better if not everybody was in the room at the same time. If I have to use my powers more, it’s safer if there aren’t too many people to be mindful of.” He met Odysseus’s gaze. “It might be best if you stayed. Being most accustomed to wounds and all that.”

Odysseus didn’t say we’re all pretty accustomed to it by now. We’ve been here watching her cough up her lungs for over a week.

Instead, he nodded to Penelope and Telemachus. To his surprise, neither of them moved toward the door, but to the bed. Penelope bowed over Athena, brushing back her hair, and pressed a kiss on her forehead. Odysseus heard Athena’s breath hitch slightly, and he knew without seeing it tears were filling her eyes.

“We’re close by,” his wife whispered. “Hang in there, okay?” He didn’t hear a reply, but he guessed there had been one.

Telemachus leaned his head against Athena’s, gripping her hand tightly. He didn’t say anything, just held on to her for a few seconds.

“I’ll be fine, little wolf,” Athena whispered, voice barely audible. “Don’t be frightened.”

He nodded, reluctantly letting go and joining his mother by the door. Odysseus tried to smile at Penelope, but he knew it looked about as desperate as hers in return.

Looking back at Apollo, he swore the god’s amber eyes were glistening.

“Let’s get started,” the god said quietly.

The bandage fell away and Odysseus grimaced. The wound was gaping, immediately starting to bleed again as the pressure on it ebbed.

Apollo’s face was set as he worked, golden energy slowing the bleeding. He picked up two of the tools, both a kind of delicate pincers. Athena winced when they made contact, and Odysseus moved around to offer her his hand to grip.

Somehow, watching it happen was worse than when he had tried himself, he could tell, of course, that Apollo knew what he was doing, that he was causing minimal damage and was completely focused on the fragment, but all he saw was the tension in Athena’s body, the way she closed her eyes in pain, the way some cold metal tool was working inside of her body. He ran his fingers over her knuckles.

“I see it,” Apollo said, voice tight.

Athena breathed out shakily.

“How are you feeling?”

“Keep going,” she replied, voice clipped.

Apollo breathed out.

“Not what I asked, but fine.”

He reached further inside the wound, his pincers hooking around the fragment. Athena gasped, instinctively flinching back.

“Odysseus,” Apollo commanded. “Keep her arm still.”

Odysseus reached over, pressing down on Athena’s arm to hold it in place.

“Okay, I have it now, we’ll slowly pull it out,” Apollo said.

Athena leaned back her head, forcing herself to breathe. She was terribly pale.

Slowly, Apollo started to force the fragment upward, and Odysseus all but expected another cracking noise, but the divine pincers held.

“Fates, it is stuck pretty badly,” Apollo murmured. “Ath, are you hanging in there?”

She hummed some vague confirmation.

Apollo grimaced, then changed his grip on the pincers and gave them a brief, controlled tug.

Athena gasped, involuntarily jerking back.

“It’s okay,” Odysseus murmured. “It’s okay.”

The fragment sizzling against flesh made his stomach turn.

“There we go,” Apollo murmured. “It’s loosening. Just a little longer.”

Athena’s eyelids fluttered, even with the nectar, the fever was rising again.

Apollo clenched his jaw and continued.

“Just a little more,” he repeated. “Almost out.”

Odysseus looked over to the wound, seeing the pincers rise slowly.

His heart was racing.

Please, just this once…

“Fates,” Apollo breathed in relief, and then the fragment was free, glinting maliciously clamped in the pincers.
Cloth appeared in the god’s hand and he pressed down on the open wound.

“Odysseus, can you take over with the pressure?”

“Of course.” Odysseus grimaced at Athena’s low sound of pain when he wrapped his fingers around the bandage. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts, but it’s out now. It’s out now. Apollo inspected the fragment only for a few moments before he opened the balcony door and threw it outside. It dissolved into a low rumble of thunder. All three of them flinched.

Athena drew a ragged breath, but her fingers weakly curled around Odysseus’s.

Apollo looked at them, his expression grave.

One down. However many more to go.

Chapter Text

Odysseus pressed his hand to Athena’s arm, feeling ichor against his fingers. She let her head sink back against the pillows, forcing out breath after breath.

“You holding on?” he asked.

She gasped.

“Y- yeah.”

Apollo stepped back to them, checking Athena’s pulse.

“Easy,” he murmured. “We’ll take a break for a couple of minutes, this was pretty draining for you.”

He took over from Odysseus, tightly bandaging the wound to stop the bleeding.

"I cannot give you more nectar right now,” he said. “you’ve gone too long without and your body has completely depleted its resources. We’ll have to refeed slowly or it’ll make things worse. Which is not ideal, because you definitely need all the strength you can get.” He turned to Odysseus. “I can hear your family outside, they’re very worried, why don’t you tell them we’ve managed to remove one, we’ll tackle the ones in her side next.”

Odysseus hesitated.

“Is she- is she strong enough for that? This one was already so hard for her…”

Apollo’s face was grave.

“We have little choice. If we had the time, I would prefer to remove the smaller fragments first to ease the pain, slowly getting as much nectar as possible inside of her so she’s as strong as she can be. But we don’t. The fragment around her heart caused extensive strain in just a matter of days, and just for a few hours now, it’s started to bleed. I don’t know how long it’ll handle this, but certainly not the two weeks or more it would take to get her to some semblance of strength through nectar.”
Odysseus breathed out.

“You’re saying she’d get worse faster than you could make her better.”

Apollo nodded. “Exactly.”

Odysseus pressed his lips together in a tight line.

“Okay.”

He got up, his hand slightly brushing over Athena’s arm.

“I'll quickly tell the others, I'll be right back.”

Apollo finished off the bandage as the door closed behind Odysseus.

“They care a lot about you,” he commented softly.

Athena swallowed hard.

“Some- sometimes I allow myself to believe that.”

“If you ask me, their thoughts are pretty strong proof.”

“I don’t… I don’t listen in, unless they allow me.”

Apollo breathed out in an almost disbelieving huff.

“That’s more respect than most of us grant each other, let alone for mortals.”

Athena met his gaze, eyes clear.

“I know.”

He hummed, then put his hand on hers after a moment of hesitation, his golden eyes somber and thoughtful.

“We’ll fix this, okay?”

Athena didn’t grip his hand back, but she didn’t pull away either.

Odysseus reentered, settling back on the bed.

Apollo breathed out in a soft sigh. He checked Athena's pulse.

“I think we can continue.”

Odysseus nodded unsurely, his fingers resting against his friend's arm.

“Okay,” Apollo said to Athena. “I’ll need you to lie relatively flat and slightly turned to the left so I can reach the wound as easily as possible. I’ll be careful.”

He gently reached out to support Athena’s back to get one of her pillows. She grimaced when he shifted her position, groaning softly at her arm being moved.

“I’m sorry,” Apollo murmured, supporting her back and wing with the pillow. “There we go. Can you breathe okay like this?”

She nodded slightly, letting her head rest against the pillow Odysseus had put in his lap.

“Odysseus, I need you to hold the chiton in place like this.”

Athena flinched when Apollo’s fingers brushed against her skin and he moved the fabric aside slightly.
“I’m sorry, I know you don’t like this, but I have to reach the wound. This is the only way you can avoid taking it off.”

“It-t’s okay,” Athena murmured. Her voice sounded strained, but she held still. Odysseus curled his fingers around the fabric, his other hand absently running over her hair. Apollo cut the bandages around her torso, revealing the wounds. He inhaled sharply.

The injury was bleeding sluggishly, the surrounding skin flushed in a sickly shade of bronze. It seemed worse in the unforgiving artificial light Apollo had created.

The god pulled out the venom again, injecting some more and distributing it with a controlled gesture.

“This will hurt still,” he said. “I can’t let it paralyze it any deeper than this or it’ll interfere with your heart or breathing.”

Athena shivered, but nodded.

Apollo picked out a blade from the tool-set and pressed it to her side, the metal easily reopening the barely scabbed wound.

Athena breathed out with a soft sound, her body tensing slightly.

Odysseus used his free hand to steady her shoulder.

Apollo’s eyes flashed golden as he narrowed them.

“I cannot see it yet,” he said.

Odysseus erratically ran his thumb over Athena’s shoulder.

“I have to go deeper,” Apollo murmured, carefully widening the incision.
The ichor that flowed from it appeared darker, welling up sluggishly, and he used a fresh cloth to wipe it away.

Athena groaned softly, her now usable hand faintly tightening around the pillow, her good wing trembling where it was locked underneath her.

“There it is.” Apollo said grimly. “How did it even… get there?” He breathed out through his nose. “It's stuck in between two ribs, kind of threaded in between them. You do not do things half-way, do you?”

“Well, she didn’t do this,” Odysseus said cooly. He knew an oath to the Earth and Sky was only second to one on the Styx and offered a decent amount of protection for him and his family. He silently thanked Athena for giving him the opportunity to speak openly even unintentionally.

Apollo didn’t snap back.

“You’re right,” he said instead without looking up. "Athena, I'll move in with the pincers now. Focus on keeping Your breathing as even as you can, okay?"

Athena swallowed hard.

"I'll- I'll try."

Odysseus gripped her shoulder more tightly.

With a faint metallic sound, Apollo picked up the pincers and placed a cool hand against Athena's side. She shivered slightly, bracing herself. Any sound she made would just worry Odysseus, or even Penelope and Telemachus if she was too loud.

The pincers entered, the cold metal flaming against her flesh, and she gritted her teeth.

He touched the pincers to the fragment, and an electric jolt seemed to ripple through her system, her lungs all but flinching away from the pain.

She gasped for air, her ichor rushing in her ears, trying to force her breaths back into a rhythm.

"All good," Odysseus was saying. "Try to follow my breaths. In... And out. You're doing great."

Athena turned her head to bury her face into the pillow.

It hurts. I can't... This isn't right...

"I know," Apollo said. "I know you're in pain. Hold on, please."

She felt the pincers slip under the fragment as if she could see the procedure herself. The pain was sharp and blinding, forcing tears into her eyes.

"Not getting any leverage like this," Apollo murmured. "I have to reposition."

He moved his tool, and it might as well have been a child idly stabbing a fork into its food over and over, at least she doubted said food would feel differently. 

Being able to move her right hand again was better than not, even if each unsupported clenching of her fingers send a spike of pain through her arm.

"Breathe," Odysseus said. "You with me?"

She gasped out some confirmation.

Apollo shifted the pincers, and her body jerked automatically, black dots filling her vision.

She was doing a bad job at this but she didn't have the strength to apologize.

"Slower breaths," Apollo said tightly. "You can do this."

Athena shuddered.

Odysseus's fingers carefully reached out, checking for her pulse.

"It's pretty fast,"  he said. "Fever spiking again."

Apollo nodded grimly, shifting the pincers enough to grab the fragment on the lower end.

Athena groaned, breaths quickening.

Her wing trembled but didn't jerk again. 

Apollo's brow was furrowed as he moved the pincers to the side to unthread the lightning from the rib.

Odysseus winced as he felt Athena's pulse stuttering, beads of sweat running down her neck. 

Apollo moved in with a second tool to apply more controlled force, hands calm and precise as he moved, but Odysseus realized with a sickening certainty that the god was genuinely worried.

A whimper escaped Athena’s throat.

Her face was ashen, her lips almost grey.

“Hold on,” Odysseus whispered.

Athena breathed out shakily and tried to stay still.

Apollo hissed in frustration. The fragment seemed intertwined with her system, stubbornly holding in its place like a spring.

“Athena?” Odysseus asked in alarm when he felt her body sag more heavily against him.

She groaned, blinking hard, but her gaze was unfocused, distant.

“Stay with me,” he said.

“Pulse?” Apollo asked.

Odysseus felt a cold shudder run down his spine.

“Weaker. What... What would-” He broke off before he could finish the question.

Athena mumbled something indistinct, her fingers twitching against the pillow.

Apollo hissed again, his forked tongue briefly appearing between his lips as he pulled at the fragment with more force. The lightning crackled dangerously.

Athena gasped out a strangled breath, her entire body tensing. Her eyes were wide but not seeing anything.

“Easy,” Apollo growled through his teeth, doing his best to keep her still. Odysseus caught hold of her jerking wing and held it down.

“You're okay,” Odysseus kept saying. “You're okay.”

He heard a faint sound, almost like a harp or lyre, but he couldn't quite place it, just knew Apollo was its source. He blindly hoped that whatever it was, it was helping.

Athena squirmed, there was no other word for it, and then she coughed, her entire body shaking.

“Oh no...” Apollo's voice was tight. His grip on his sister's back tightened as he struggled to keep the pincers steady.

Ichor dripped from Athena's lips, stark and golden against her almost colorless skin.

“Just don't snap back,” Apollo murmured frantically, holding on to the fragment for dear life. Then he growled out a word in a language that Odysseus did not understand, was pretty sure it was a curse word.

“What do I do?” Odysseus managed.

“Make sure she can cough it out safely,” Apollo replied. His free hand rested on athena's back trying to ease the strain on her lungs, his other still working to remove the fragment. They were past the point of being able to stop.

Odysseus felt Athena's blood stain his fingers as he tried to keep her head in a position that allowed her to breathe. She weakly clawed at the pillow, but then her eyes rolled back in her head and her body fell limp.

Both men cursed simultaneously.

“Athena!”

She was lying perfectly still, her ichor-stained lips slightly parted in unconsciousness.

“Her pulse- it's-” Odysseus swallowed hard. “Skipping. It doesn't sound right.”

“I know,” Apollo said. “But the lightning is almost out of her lung, and I cannot stop now. If it snaps back into its place that'll do even more damage. She'll make it, she has to.” And then, barely a whisper: “She's strong.”

Athena drew a shallow breath, eyes barely flickering open.

Odysseus cupped her face in his hand.

“Athena, focus on my voice. You have to stay with me, alright? We're almost done.”

A strained whimper escaped her throat.

“You're doing so well,” he said gently, “You're being so strong.”

A singular tear ran down her cheek.

Apollo cursed again, using his other tool to stabilize the lightning fragment. It buzzed maliciously between the pincers.

Athena shuddered. The rattling in her breath worsened considerably.

Apollo frowned in concentration, a thin golden net forming between his fingers. He guided it forward, into the open wound in Athena's chest.

“Please don't fight me, Athena. This will help close the puncture wound in your lung, don't fight it.”

Athena didn't look like there was any energy left in her to fight. Her eyelids fluttered, threatening to close. Odysseus kept his hand on her cheek, willing her to look at him.

A tremor ran through her body, and Odysseus’s stomach turned when he saw a strange almost water like flickering in the air, silver and seemingly rising from her skin. He had seen this before, the silver sheen flaring up during the war, making her eyes glow. Playing around her feathers when she was in owl form and sitting in the sunlight. She rarely made a show of her divinity, but it was always there, always safely wrapped around her.

“Apollo, her essence-”

A familiar sound broke him off before he could hear the god's answer and he was pulled into Quick Thought.
The once vibrant world was dimmer than he had ever seen it, its brilliant blues washed out and flickering.

“Athena?”

He could see the hourglass broken this time, its shards floating lazily through nothingness. They made no move to injure him.

A small weight landed on his arm, a dark barn owl with ginger around her face and chest. Odysseus didn't even consider before he pulled his friend close, running his fingers through her feathers. Athena cooed weakly, nestling her head against him. Slivers of silver energy floated away from her small form, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. Even for this form, she felt too light, too fragile.

Odysseus swallowed hard.