everlong.

They lounge in your halls like they built them. Their boots scuff the mosaic tiles your husband had laid. Their laughter fills the chambers where your son once slept. They eat more than the kitchen can replenish and boast about battles they’ve never fought. They drink your wine as if it was made for their indulgence.

You know their names. You know their fathers’ names. You keep a tally in the back of your mind—not out of interest, but because you must. A queen who forgets is a queen who falls.

At dusk, you sit among them, still and quiet, the embroidery in your lap forgotten. Your needle lies idle, and no one notices. They’re too busy toasting to their own futures, all of which end with your hand in theirs and a sword at your son’s back.

You endure. That is all you can do.

The worst of them, you have found, is Antinous.

He sits at the center of them all, draped over your husband’s seat; he is a man who has never earned power but has always expected it. His voice is the loudest, always the first to speak and the last to fall silent. He speaks of strategy and succession as though he is already king, and when he speaks to you, it is with the inflection of someone already convinced of victory.

Tonight, he is drinking the red wine that was made using straw mats and raisins. It is your favourite, and he knows this. That is the point.

When your gaze flickers to the goblet in his hand, he smirks like he’s caught you admiring him. “Come now, my lady,” he drawls, loud enough for the others to hear. “Do we please you yet? Or must we slay a lion and bring its pelt to your feet for your favour?”

Laughter rings out around the room, coarse and raucous. One of the younger men raises his cup in toast. Another whistles. Eurymachus mutters something under his breath that earns him a shove and a snicker.

You do not respond. You haven’t in months. That, too, they find amusing.

Antinous leans forward, elbow propped on the armrest that does not belong to him. “You will have to choose, my lady,” he says, lower now. “For the boy’s sake, if nothing else. Ithaca needs a king. And you need a man.”

Your jaw tightens, just slightly. That is all the reaction they will get from you.

You rise from your chair with the same quiet grace you’ve perfected over the years, ignoring the way his eyes follow your every movement. Your hands are steady, your spine straight. Your dignity is the only armour you have left.

As you step out the hall, past the tapestry of ships and storm gods, past the murmurs and the clinking of goblets, your mind, inevitably, wanders to your husband.

You remember him as he was: quiet, precise, impossibly steady. A man who spoke little but whose presence never had to beg to be known. He was not soft, not always kind, but he was good. Good in the way a harbour is—safe and constant, even when the storms rage. You remember his hands most of all. Not the way they touched you, though you have not forgotten that either, but the way they held the kingdom upright. Steady hands. Sure hands. A warrior’s hands that still knew how to cradle a child.

Your son remembers less. He was too young. But you see the fragments of Kento in him—flashes of that same quiet rage, that same sharpness, that same refusal to bow. He is no king, not yet, but he is his father’s son.

You reach the end of the corridor where the light begins to fade. You pause by the window, breath fogging faintly against the cool stone frame, and you stare out at the dark horizon. Somewhere, the sea still churns. Somehow, you once believed he would return.

But hope has a half-life, and yours has been decaying for years.

You close your eyes, just for a moment, and whisper a name you haven’t said aloud in longer than you can bear: “Kento.”

You hear a creak behind you, followed by the distant thud of the great doors opening. You don’t turn this time. You don’t need to. It’s just another suitor arriving late, another voice to add to the chorus of greed. But your hands clench into the folds of your robe, and your thoughts—sharp, honed like flint over years of silence—snap into focus. This cannot continue. You cannot continue.

The law binds your hands, but your wit has never needed permission to move.

You breathe in—and then you think of his bow: taller than you, carved from ash wood. No one but Kento could ever string it. Not even your most arrogant suitor has dared to try. It hangs still, untouched, in the weapons room behind the hearth, more symbol than tool. A relic of a man half the room no longer believes in.

You turn and begin walking back to your bedchambers. Purpose blooms in your chest like spring after a long, bitter winter.

Let them mock. Let them boast. Let them believe your grief has made you weak and your patience has made you docile.

You will give them a game. A challenge only one man can win—and when they lose, they will have no one but themselves to blame for what comes after.

Let them line up like fools. When they fail—when they all fail—you will be free.

At night, you are plagued with thoughts of your husband.

Sleep slips through your fingers like water, no matter how tightly you try to hold it. The sheets are cool beside you—always cool, always empty. The dark makes it worse. When the torches go out and the halls fall quiet, when even the suitors sleep in their wine-stained stupor, it is just you and memory. And memory is never kind.

So, you lie awake beneath the canopy of your marriage bed, the one no man has touched since he left. It was built by his own hands, carved from the roots of an olive tree that still grows through the floor. It cannot be moved. Neither can you.

You remember how you met. He had come to court your cousin, sharp-tongued and always the brightest in the room, while you were only there to pour wine and not to be seen. But Kento noticed you, quiet and watchful, and when he asked your cousin about war tactics, you answered instead—too quick, too bold. His eyes met yours, then, curious.

The next day, he returned with flowers—your cousin’s favourites. But he handed them to you.

Kento never asked for permission; not from your family, not from the gods. He simply looked at you one morning in the orchard and said, “If I’m to fight for something, let it be you.”

You married in the spring. Your hands smelled of fig and lemon blossom. He laughed, a rare sound, when you nearly tripped walking towards him because you were so focused on his face.

He was always so careful with you, always so patient. You remember long walks by the cliff, fingers brushing until he finally had the courage to take your hand. You remember lazy mornings with bread and honey, and the way he’d rest his chin on your shoulder while you read, just to be near.

You remember the first time he laid beside you—nervous and reverent, as if you might vanish if he moved too quickly. He hadn’t said much, but his hands had trembled, and his mouth had found yours like it had always belonged there. That night had been slow, sweet, full of promises he only whispered against your skin. Kento was careful. And then he wasn’t.

By morning, you could barely walk. He’d only laughed when you hit him with a pillow, his voice still hoarse from the things he’d begged for the night before.

You found out you were carrying a child only a few weeks later. He was still there then—busy, yes, pulled in ten different directions by the court and the kingdom—but he never missed a night in your bed. You waited to tell him, wanting to find the perfect moment. He found out before you could.

He had come back late, with dust on his sandals and his hair messy. You were asleep, or pretending to be. Kento pressed his lips to your forehead, then to your belly. “I know,” he’d murmured. “I know, my love.”

You’d blinked up at him, startled. “How?”

“I overheard Eurycleia and the others in the kitchens. They aren’t being very subtle about it.”

You both laughed, then. He’d gathered you close, hands spreading over your stomach. “Thank you,” he whispered, like a prayer.

For a while, it was good. The best it had ever been. Kento carved toys from olivewood with the same hands that had once carved your wedding bed. He kissed your growing belly each night. He spoke to the child before it was born and promised them the sea and the stars, and a world that would greet them with open arms.

When your son came into the world, Kento cried—quietly, of course. He always cried quietly. You saw the way his shoulders shook as he cradled the boy in his arms for the first time. The baby had your eyes and his father’s brow. His father’s frown, too, when he slept.

“He’s perfect,” Kento said, over and over. “He’s perfect, he’s perfect, he’s perfect.”

Then the war came; a war for someone else’s pride, someone else’s honour. Kento didn’t want to go. You knew it in the way he held you that night, tighter than ever, like he was already grieving what he’d lose. He went because honour is a god that does not take no for an answer, and the Trojan War was its altar. 

“I’ll be back before the baby walks,” he promised, voice low in the crook of your neck.

Your son had learnt to run before you received his first letter.

You remember watching other men return. You remember standing by the docks until your knees gave out. You remember the pity in their eyes. 

Years passed. Your son forgot the sound of his father’s voice, babe as he was when he left. You had to teach him what Kento looked like from paintings and stories. You forgot the feeling of being held.

You hate it. Not Kento—never Kento—but the war, and the state it has left you in. You hate the war for stretching one year into ten; for stealing your husband from your bed, from your son, from your arms. You hate the gods for not letting him come home to you for ten more, and now, you do not know if he ever will.

Now—now, you’re expected to smile politely at men who spit in the name of the house he built. Men who whisper that you should move on; that you’re selfish; that Ithaca needs a king, not a memory. They never saw the way he knelt to speak to children, or how he never raised his voice unless he was scared. They didn’t see the man who kissed you like it was a vow, who brushed his lips across the back of your knuckles and pinched your side to see you giggle. The man who chose you, again and again, even when everyone else expected otherwise.

You press a hand to your chest, as if that can soothe the ache. It doesn’t.

Your son is not in Ithaca when you announce the contest. Perhaps, you think, it’s better that way, because he would not approve.

He is his father’s son—sharp-eyed and proud, always quick to speak when he senses injustice—but still too young to understand the quiet violence of strategy. He does not yet know that survival sometimes demands cruelty; that a queen must trade dignity for time, over and over again, and pray she can reclaim it in the end.

You stand at the head of the hall with the bow placed beside you, the same bow Kento carried to war, the one he strung with ease before riding out to defend a kingdom that now forgets his name. It looks heavier than you remember.

A hush spreads, then breaks. Laughter first—low and dismissive. Then a chorus of jeers.

“The widow’s gone mad,” one says.

“At this rate, she might as well ask the gods to descend and marry her,” Eurymachus crows.

“She’s stalling,” Antinous calls out, grinning wolfishly. “She is afraid to choose, so she hides behind toys and tales.”

“This bow,” you say, “belongs to my husband.” 

Husband. Not dead king. Not memory. Husband.

“No man but him has ever strung it,” you continue. “Not in battle. Not in sport. Not in ceremony.”

A few of the men shift, uneasily now. The laughter falters.

You rest your hand on the bow—not to provoke, but to remember. Your fingers trace the smooth curve of it, worn by time and use and love. He had carried it across the Aegean. He had strung it by firelight while your son slept beside him. He had left it behind only because you asked him to.

“Twelve axes will be placed in this hall, in a line.” You lift your chin. “Whosoever can string this bow, and shoot clean through all twelve, may take my hand.”

Silence, this time. Not out of respect, but disbelief. 

“String it?” a voice says, incredulous. “That bow’s half stone!”

“Do you want a king or a circus act?” another cries out.

“She means to humiliate us,” Eurymachus spits, rising. “A trick. A delay. While her brat of a prince runs to Sparta to gather allies.”

Your eyes flick to him. “You are welcome to leave.”

He sneers but says no more.

Antinous steps forward instead, not angry but amused. “Very well,” he says. “Let us dance for her. Let us parade like fools in a hall that no longer belongs to us.” He bows mockingly. “Though it’s hardly fair, my lady, to mourn a man and dangle his ghost before us.”

You say nothing, only signal to the servants. The axes are brought in, iron mouths agape. One by one, they’re planted down the hall. You watch them with the stillness of a woman who has waited twenty years, and will wait twenty more if she must.

You take your seat again, and fold your hands, waiting for the first man to try. Not a single one of them moves.

A beggar enters your hall at twilight.

Dust clings to his shoulders like ash from some distant pyre, and his beard is streaked grey with age or travel—you cannot tell which. He leans heavily on a staff, feet dragging, and still the guards do not stop him. Perhaps they think him harmless. Perhaps they are tired of keeping count of the men who come and go.

Only one creature sees him for what he is.

Argos—your husband’s old hound—lifts his head from where he lies slumped in the shadow of the threshold. No one tends to him now. He is too old to be useful, too loyal to be loved by anyone but you. But at the sight of the beggar, his ears twitch. Then his whole body trembles.

The beggar stops. He looks down, and kneels, slowly, painfully.

Argos, who has not stood in days, tries to rise.

His limbs fail him, but still he whines—high and soft and aching, the sound of twenty years in a single breath. The beggar’s hand moves to the dog’s neck, just below the ear. Argos goes still. His chest does not rise again. The beggar lowers his head and says nothing.

Then the laughter begins.

“Look at him!” Antinous sneers from his seat, wine dripping from his lip. “Dragging fleas into our court like gifts! Shall we feed him, my lady? Or toss him back into the sea?”

Another suitor—a lean man with too many rings—adds, “I say we test his spine. Perhaps he’ll dance if we strike him hard enough.”

The beggar does not speak. He does not even flinch.

Eurymachus tosses a crust of bread at his feet. “Come, old man! Tell us a tale worth hearing. Or did you lose your tongue along the road?”

Still, the beggar remains silent.

Your voice cuts through the hall: “Bring him to me. Prepare some bread and water for this man, and give him a place to rest if he so desires.”

The beggar inclines his head, eyes low, and only then, speaks. “Thank you, my queen.”

You lead him to the side chamber—the one where you used to spin wool at night, when your boy was smaller and the house quieter. Now it serves as nothing but a place of hiding. When you are alone, you speak first.

“Who are you?”

The beggar bows. “No one of import, my queen. A man who has seen many harbours and lost more years than he can count.”

“Yet you have found your way to my hall,” you say. “To Ithaca.”

He does not deny it. “I met your husband once,” he says. “Long ago, in Crete.”

You inhale sharply. “Crete?”

“Aye.” He nods, eyes distant. “He came with spoils from Troy. Wounded, but still boasting. We shared a fire for one night only. He ate little, and drank less.”

“And what did he say?” you ask, throat tightening. “Of Ithaca? Of… me?”

The beggar’s mouth twitches—somewhere between a smile and a wound. “He spoke of home like it was a person, not a place.”

You don’t dare blink.

“He spoke of a woman with eyes like storms,” the beggar says, voice threading towards something gentle. “Who ruled her house with both hands. Who wove lies as well as she wove thread. Who could outwait the gods themselves if it meant saving what she loved. He said that no one would believe him when he spoke of your mind. That beauty they could imagine, but not your sharpness. He said you could gut a man with your silence.

“He told me about your garden, and your love for oranges. He told me that you preferred thyme over roses; that you once caught him stealing figs before dinner and made him eat them all before the sun went down. He said you made him laugh until he was sick.

“He said your son had your eyes but his stubbornness, that he liked to sleep curled up beside the hearth while you sang to him, and your husband held both of you in his arms. He missed the boy most at night.”

You swallow hard. Something in your chest splinters.

“He said,” the man continues, eyes downcast, “that he dreamed of your bed. He did not say why, but he worried that if he returned and it had been moved, he would know the gods had lied and you were gone.”

“And where did he go, then?” you whisper. “Where is he now?”

“I do not know. But I was in Thesprotia recently. There, I heard word of him again.”

“What word?”

“That he is alive. He has wandered long, but not without purpose. He comes home, slowly.”

You close your eyes. The ache that floods your chest is old and familiar—but tonight, it stings sharper than it has in years. You want to believe. You want to fall to your feet and ask this stranger if he’s seen the scar on your husband’s thigh, or the streak of gold in his hair that only shows in summer, or the way his voice goes rough when he says your name. You want to ask if he still dreams of you.

But you’ve lived too long on hope. It is not a kind thing. It gnaws at the soul. It leaves you hollow.

So you open your eyes and steady your voice. “Thank you, traveler, for your stories.”

He bows, slow. You rise to leave, your hand hovering near the door. Then you turn, just enough to glance back. “Your eyes,” you say, “remind me of him.”

The beggar does not answer.

Often, you have dreamt of what your life would have looked like if Kento had not left for war.

Tonight, after the beggar has been granted a bed and rest in your home, you stand by the window and let the sea wind carry you into that life where Kento never sails.

He wakes beside you every morning, body solid and warm beneath the sheets of your shared bed. You would grumble when he takes the covers, and he’d kiss your shoulder in apology, already half-laughing. You’d eat breakfast together at the sun-warmed table by the window—simple things: bread, still warm from the oven, figs and olives from the orchards he helped plant. Your son would run into the room with scraped knees and stories of birds and battles, and Kento would scoop him up with ease, toss him into the air just to hear his laughter ring like a bell.

You’d watch him be a father. You’d watch him teach your son how to hold a bow—gently at first, guiding his small hands, whispering patient praise. You’d watch them argue, in the way children and their fathers do, about where the stars go when the sun rises. Kento would lose on purpose, feigning deep consideration before letting your son convince him that the stars must sleep behind the moon.

You’d sit in the garden while your husband reads out loud, his voice low, your son half-asleep on your lap while the olive branches murmur above your heads. Some days you’d fight, but it would never be over war. It would be about fruits left out too long; mud tracked on clean floors; your son’s cat left loose to steal fish from the kitchens once again.

At night, when the house is quiet and the wine is sweet, Kento would press kisses along your jaw, your neck, your fingers, as if to count the years he got to stay.

Your son would grow in front of both of you. You would argue about whether to cut his hair, and whether he should learn the sword before numbers. Kento would lift him high on his shoulders during the harvest festival, and you’d catch both of them stealing honey cakes from the tray.

You imagine watching him age; the way his shoulders would broaden, the lines by his eyes deepen with laughter and not grief and bloodshed. You’d grow old with him, and sit beside him on the same bench every dusk, tracing his palm, not searching for calluses left by war, but the ones left by work in the orchard, in the stone of your shared home.

Maybe—maybe—you would have had more children.

Maybe your halls would ring with more voices and more tiny feet. Maybe he would have taught your daughters to string a bow, just as gently as he taught your son. Maybe he’d have read to them, holding them in his lap, one hand still tangled in your own. Maybe on stormy nights, when the winds howled like gods against your windows, all of you would sleep in a tangle—limbs and breath and heartbeat; Kento curled beside you, one hand wrapped around your waist, another resting on your daughter’s foot.

Maybe.

But dreams are dreams, and dawn comes cruel.

You stand at the window until the stars blur through tears you refuse to wipe away. You press a hand to your belly, as if to call back that life. It isn’t real. You know this. Yet, when you finally turn from the window, crawl into the empty half of the bed carved from the olive tree, and curl around the hollow he once filled, you think:

I miss you. Come back to me.

The fire in your chamber is burning low, little more than a memory of warmth now. Its light flickers across the tiled floor, casting long, shapeless shadows against the stone walls. You sit at the edge of the bed, robes drawn tight around your frame, though the night is not very cold. Your fingers are idle, twisted in your lap. 

The shawl you’ve pulled over your shoulders is soft but not warm, but it is dyed Kento’s favourite colour, and so, you plucked it out of your closet and draped it over yourself. Beneath the hush of the night and the distant echo of laughter from the great hall, you can hear the ocean.

The door creaks open. You do not have to look up to know it’s Kento’s nurse from the time he was a young boy. Eurycleia’s steps are familiar—uneven, a little heavier on the left, her sandals dragging ever-so slightly with each step. She has always walked like that, ever since she took a blade to the leg in some scuffle you do not know of.

She carries a basin in her hands, steam rising gently from it. The scent of crushed myrtle and olive oil follows her into the room.

“Leave it by the stand,” you say listlessly, eyes still on the fire.

But she doesn’t set it down.

“My queen,” she says, and her voice is not the voice she uses when she brings you wine or folds your linens. It is strained and urgent.

You turn slightly towards her. “What is it?”

Eurycleia moves closer, the basin shaking in her hands. A droplet of water splashes over the edge and lands on the stone with a soft pat.

“I saw it,” the old lady breathes. “I saw the scar.”

Your brow furrows.

“The scar,” she repeats, quieter now. “Just above his knee. The one from his boar hunt. The only one he carries.”

You freeze. For a moment, you cannot speak. You see it in your mind’s eye: the pale ridge of old flesh from years past, the way it curved slightly, a mark carved into him when he was still just a boy, too proud to stay down, too stubborn to yield.

“Eurycleia,” you whisper, but she is already moving forward, her voice trembling with emotion.

“It is him. I knew it the moment I touched him. I was washing his feet—just as I’ve done a thousand times before, for a thousand other guests—but when my hands reached that scar, I knew.” Her voice cracks. “My fingers remembered before my mind did.”

You swallow hard.

“He said nothing,” she goes on, “but his shoulders were the same, as were the weight of his hands, though worn. I wept, child—I fell to my knees and kissed his knuckles.”

“Don’t,” you say suddenly, too sharply. “Don’t say that.”

Eurycleia stops short.

You rise from the bed slowly, the shawl slipping down your arms. Your heart beats too loudly in your ears. You remember the beggar’s voice; the way he spoke of your marriage bed; the way he looked at you like he had seen your face before time had turned it older. You almost—almost—believed.

“He asked me not to tell you,” Eurycleia says, her voice catching on unshed tears. “But how could I keep it? Not when you’ve waited so long. Not when he is finally here—”

“I did not hear you.”

Eurycleia stares at you. You blink. A strange fog has descended behind your eyes. You can see her lips move, her mouth forming the words again. But they don’t reach you.

“Say it again,” you demand.

She tries. You see her throat work. You see the desperation rise in her eyes, the way her hands shake as she grips the basin tighter. Her lips part, but the sound dies before it reaches your ears.

You frown. “Eurycleia?”

The old maid gasps softly, as if something invisible has brushed against her throat. Her mouth opens again, but she cannot speak—or if she does, you cannot hear it. Only the fire crackles now. Only the sea murmurs beyond the walls.

“I… I must’ve been mistaken,” she whispers finally, though her eyes are wet. “Forgive me, my queen.”

You stare at her. Something is wrong. Something curls at the edge of your senses like mist. It presses against your skin, prickling like gooseflesh. But you cannot name it, or hold it.

Eurycleia bows her head. Her hands are trembling so hard she nearly spills the basin. She sets it down by the stand as you originally asked, but her eyes do not once leave your face. 

“I’ll return come morning,” she murmurs.

You nod slowly, unsettled, your arms folded across your chest. The door closes behind her. You don’t know that a goddess stands silent in the shadows near the hearth, her hands still warm from weaving silence over your ears. Athena watches you with something like sorrow and something like pride. She does not smile. She does not move, either.

She knows your husband requires just one day more, and so, she must make you wait.

One by one, the suitors try.

First is Leiodes—the youngest, the most eager, his face still untouched by war or wear. He steps forward with forced confidence, brushing back his hair and muttering something about strength inherited. He kneels beside the bow and lifts it with reverence, though it’s clear he’s underestimated its weight. His arms tremble as he fits the string against the horn, teeth bared. He pulls—once, twice—but the string does not yield. The bow doesn’t even bend.

By the third attempt, his knuckles are white and the sweat on his brow betrays him. He looks towards you, perhaps hoping for mercy, perhaps hoping your gaze will soften. It does not. He drops the bow with a heavy thud and steps back, his pride folded beneath him like a damp cloth.

Next comes Eurymachus, chest puffed up with wine and mockery. He swaggered through the morning, but now, his laugh rings hollow. “She must have tricked the bow,” he says with a wink to the others. “Soaked it in oil, or warped the wood. Anything to keep from marrying any of us.” 

The hall chuckles obligingly, but when he crouches down to try, the jest leaves his eyes.

Eurymachus is broad in the shoulders, used to wrestling, to hunting, to boasting—but not to being humbled. The bow creaks under his grip, but the string doesn’t budge. He braces it against his knee, then against the arch of his foot, hissing under his breath. His face flushes red. He snarls and digs in again, now angry, now reckless. The bow groans. The string twitches. But it does not yield.

He lets out a curse, harsh and guttural, and throws the bow down so hard, the sound echoes through the stone.

“It is cursed,” he mutters viciously. “Rotten with her dead husband’s shadow.”

Then Antinous approaches. The hall quiets at once.

He says nothing. Sharp-featured and sallow-eyed, he walks like a man already wronged. His jaw is clenched, the muscles in his neck drawn taut like bow strings themselves. He does not bow; he does not ask. He grips the bow with both hands, as if it had insulted him just by existing. His knuckles bleach to white. His fingers find the grooves carved by your husband’s hands—the marks left by years of war and duty. You think you see hesitation cross Antinous’ face, but pride burns hotter than sense.

He plants his feet, straightens his back, breathes out through flared nostrils. The wood groans. The string resists.

The tendons in his arms strain and quiver. Veins bloom down his forearms like vines under his skin. His shoulders lift, tense with effort, and still the bow refuses him. Antinous bites down hard—hard enough that blood beads at the edge of his lip. His face is blotched with rage now, mottled red and pink. The sweat on his brow trickles past his temple and into the collar of his tunic, soaking it dark. 

The string moves, but only a breath.

You wonder briefly if he will break it, not out of anger, but out of fear. You wonder if he will destroy the thing that will not obey him, rather than admit his hands are not worthy. But in the end, he does not. With a growl low in his throat, like a cornered animal, he hurls the bow away. It strikes the stone floor with a sickening sound—a crack and rattle like bone hitting marble, brittle but final. Several of the suitors flinch.

Antinous turns away from the bow as if it has burned him. His hands are shaking. His mouth works soundlessly, and then he spits at your feet, full of fury, like the failure is yours to carry, like the bow was made to humiliate him and you were the one who strung it. It is an insult, yes, but when you look at him, you see not a man, but a child dressed in silk and silver, furious that the world does not bend at his command.

None of them—not Leiodes with his trembling hands, not Eurymachus with his curse-tainted tongue, not Antinous with his flame-fed fury—can meet your eyes, for the bow has bested them all.

Still—quiet, still, and watching—stands the beggar. You did not see him enter the hall; he slipped in quick as a minnow and twice as quiet. He has said nothing, and moved not an inch. 

You watch him. Your hands are clasped too tightly before you, but you do not loosen them. Your heart, traitor as it is, pounds against your ribs.

He steps forward. 

A hush falls, sharp and sudden—then breaks just as quickly as a wave against rock. Gasps flutter through the hall like startled birds, chased swiftly with laughter—loud, cruel, and incredulous.

Antinous barks it first, loudest, the sound brittle from the strain of failure still clinging to his limbs. His face, red from exertion and shame, twists into something venomous. “You, old man?” he jeers, spit flying out of his mouth. “You think you can do what princes cannot?”

More laughter follows, mocking and disbelieving. Eurymachus leans back, a goblet in hand, wine sloshing over the rim. “Let him try,” he drawls. “Maybe the gods will pity him and give him strength to match that stench.”

Leiodes winces as if in apology, but says nothing. Others lean forward, eager now, hoping for the final humiliation of the evening: a beggar trembling beneath a weapon meant for kings. But the beggar does not flinch.

“I ask only to try,” he says. There is no boast in his voice; only request. He steps fully into the light and bows low. 

Your eyes meet his. You do not speak. You do not smile. You feel every gaze in the hall prickling your skin, waiting to see if you will laugh too, if you will dismiss him like the rest. 

You nod.

They laugh harder when he lifts the bow, like hounds yipping at a wounded stag. You see it clearly in their faces, the slight upward curl of Eurymachus’ lip as he drinks in what he thinks will be a humiliation, the smug glint in Leiodes’ eyes as he leans forward like a spectator at some stageplay, and Antinous—Antinous, still bristling from his own failure, his hands bruised and red from trying to force the bow into obedience—stands with a sneer stretched tight across his face, certain that this will end in a joke.

It doesn’t.

The beggar turns the bow in his hands, slowly, reverently, and there is something in the motion—not practiced, but remembered—as though his fingers have not forgotten the shape of it, the weight of it, the grain of wood carved by a man who loved you. He lifts it to his knee, not rushing, not fumbling, and with a strength honed in absence, war, and silence, he strings it one smooth, effortless motion.

The sound it makes is sharp and sudden, a clean, taut hum that slices through the noise of the hall like a blade through silk.

Just like that, the laughter dies.

It dies in the back of their throats, in their chests, where the mockery was swelling and ready to burst. Eurymachus lowers his cup. Antinous blinks. Leiodes stiffens. All the noise in the hall collapses into silence, thick and stunned. Still they watch—thinking maybe, maybe, it was luck. Maybe he cannot draw it.

But he reaches for an arrow with a steady hand and fits it to the string like he was born to do it. He does not boast. He simply raises the bow and draws, arms steady, posture perfect, his breath shallow and even.

Then, he releases.

The arrow sings—a high, keening whistle—and you do not breathe as it sails through the hall, so fast and clean that the air seems to part around it. It hits its mark, perfectly. It slices through the twelve axe heads in a single breath, threading the impossible path with such elegance that it is almost unreal.

The silence that follows is absolute. It is the kind of silence that weighs on your shoulders, that hollows out your ribs, that makes the hair on your neck stand on end. Someone drops a goblet. It rolls against the floor and clinks softly against the stone.

He reaches for another arrow. He does not lower the bow, and when he speaks, his voice is steel and storm and grief.

“You thought I was gone,” he says, voice cutting like the winter wind. “You thought you could bleed my house dry. You courted my wife and slept in my halls. You dishonoured my name.”

Antinous opens his mouth, his face pale and drawn, some protest or insult already on the tip of his tongue—but he will never get to finish it.

The arrow finds his throat before the words can escape.

It drives straight through, sinking deep into the soft hollow above his collarbone. His eyes bulge with shock, blood blooming from his mouth like some vile flower. He stumbles back, choking, grabbing at the shaft with trembling hands before he collapses in a wet heap of limbs and cloth, twitching once before falling still.

The beggar—no, not the beggar, not anymore—shrugs off his rags.

He stands tall now, no longer stooped, no longer disguised by age or ash or dust. His shoulders are broad, his chest scarred, his hands steady. The torchlight catches on the jagged lines that mar his skin—scars you once kissed, and new ones that streak across his skin—and his eyes, when they meet yours from across the hall, are unmistakably his.

Kento.

You whisper the name, but no sound leaves your lips.

The hall erupts into chaos.

Chairs scrape across stone. Men leap to their feet, some cursing, some crying out in terror. A few rush for the door but none make it far. Kento is already moving, already shooting another arrow, this one through Eurymachus’ eye. Another man falls, screaming. A third tries to wrest a weapon from a pillar, but Kento is faster.

Your son bursts through the archway, breathless and wild-eyed, sword drawn but not yet stained. His voice is young and sharp, panic laced beneath the edge of command. “Mother!” he cries, cutting through the screams and the sobs and the clamour of war reborn in a dining hall.

You turn to him. He looks so much like Kento once did, and you can see the fear in his face—not for himself, but for you.

“You have to go!” he shouts, reaching for your arm. “Please—back to your chambers, now! It isn’t safe—he’ll protect us, but you have to move—go!”

Your feet feel rooted, your gaze still locked on the man with the bow—your husband, your fury, your grief—but then another arrow flies past, so close you feel the wind of it against your cheek, and instinct finally seizes you. You let your son pull you, let one of the guards posted outside the doors guide you away. 

The sounds of vengeance rise behind you, as your husband’s war cry echoes off the walls like thunder, and all the men who dared defile his home begin to fall like wheat before the blade.

“I do not wish to see him.”

The shroud lies folded at the foot of your bed. You haven’t touched it since the day they scrubbed the blood from the dining hall. Three years it took you to weave, and now it lies finished—useless. Pale linen, soft as mist, with silver thread glinting faintly in the low morning light. Each stitch was a stall, a prayer, a plea for one more day. A ruse to delay the suitors, yes, but more than that: a map of grief, of waiting, of memory. You had woven your sorrow into the weft, hidden your hope in the thread. Every night, you unwove what you had crafted in daylight, as if the act could rewind time itself.

Your chambers are quiet. There is only the crackle of the hearth, and your son standing just past the threshold, shadowed by torchlight.

He does not speak at first. His hair is mussed, his tunic stained—not with blood, thank the gods, but ash, soot, dust. His sword is gone. His voice, when it comes, is too steady for someone so young.

“He asked for you,” he says, and then, hesitant: “I do not understand.”

You do not look at him. You trace a knot in the wood grain with your thumb. 

“I do not wish to see him,” you say once more, as if saying it twice might make it true.

“You don’t mean that, mother.”

You turn then, just enough to catch his expression. His jaw is set—not in defiance, but in hurt and confusion. 

“My father is alive,” your son says, as though you might have forgotten. “He is alive, and he came back, and he fought for us—for you—and you haven’t said a single word to him.”

You close your eyes. The crackle of the hearth, the soft whisper of linen shifting as you curl your fingers into the hem of your robe—these are the only sounds you let yourself hear. Your son waits patiently for you to speak.

“I know he’s alive,” you say, voice barely more than a breath. “I know he fought. I know he won. I know he stood in that hall and killed the men who made a mockery of this house, of our name, of me. I know all of it.”

Your son crosses the room slowly, crouching beside you like he did as a child, when storms shook the windows and he wanted only to be near your warmth. He reaches for your hand, and you let him take it. You open your eyes and study his face—your boy’s face, a striking image of his father’s, only unlined and unwrinkled.

“And yet I cannot—” You swallow hard. “I cannot make my feet move toward him.”

“Why?” you son asks, his voice cracking now, no matter how hard he tries to steel it. “Why, mother? He is your husband returned after twenty years, and yet, last night, he slept on the cold, hard stone outside your door.”

You flinch.

“I saw him,” your son adds. “I went to find him. He hadn’t moved. He just sat there with his back against the wall, as if that was all he deserved.”

You press your lips together. “He left me,” you say. “He left us. And when he came back… he didn’t even say my name.”

Your son looks stricken, but he doesn’t argue. You go on. “He was kind and patient. But he spoke to me like I was a queen, not a wife. And I—I don’t know what to say to a man who carries so many ghosts in his silence.”

“He is trying,” your son says quietly. “He came back to find you. He sat in his own house like a beggar and bore every insult. He saw your face and did not cry out, did not ask for your love—he only waited.”

“I have been patient.” Your breath is slow and shallow. “He has changed.”

“Then so have you,” the prince says, and his face solemn when he says it. “You waited all these years. I saw you every night by the loom. I saw you unpick all the stitches of that wretched shroud by firelight, as if time could be rewritten with thread. You did not forget him, mother.”

Your hands twitch in his hold.

“And now he is here. And you are afraid.”

“I do not know what to say to him,” you whisper.

Your son smiles. “Say anything. Say nothing. Just look at him—I think that will be enough.”

You look toward the folded shroud, the linen pale against the bedcovers. Three years of weaving and unweaving; it was your lie, your shield, and your promise. Slowly, you rise.

“Have him brought to me,” you say. “And tell him he may sleep in warmth tonight.”

The king of Ithaca looks out-of-place in his own home.

He stands just past the threshold of your chambers, shoulders stiff, hands empty at his sides. In the firelight, he looks both older and younger than you remembered: lined with grief yet carved with something terribly familiar. His tunic is clean, but the scars along his arms, his throat, his cheekbones—those are worn like old jewellery, too many to hide. His hair is longer, and his eyes are dimmer but no less sharp. He looks at you like a man drowning.

You do not move from where you stand near the hearth. You do not rush to him. You watch him as you might watch a stranger, hands twisted into the folds of your robes.

At last, he speaks.

“I have no right to ask it,” he says, voice low and hoarse, “but I will fall to my knees here if I must. I have wronged you beyond measure. I left you to fend off wolves with no promise I would ever return. I broke every vow I made the day we were wed and I became your husband.”

You stay silent.

Kento’s mouth twists into something pained. “If you can find it in your heart… after all the wars I fought, the years I spent trying to escape the will of the gods, the blood that stains my hands—” He swallows thickly. “If there is even a sliver of love left in you for the man I once was, or the man I am now… I beg you, let me earn it again.”

The fire crackles between you, filling the room with an uneven, wavering glow. You lift your chin, your throat tight.

“Move our bed from this room,” you say.

For a moment, he only stares at you, his expression blank—then confused. His mouth opens, then closes again; and then his face crumples, not with sorrow, but with a sudden, furious kind of grief. He steps forward, one hand trembling at his side. His voice is rough, shaking with force when he speaks.

“You may curse my name,” he says. “Lock me out of my house. Disown me as your husband, deny me as father to our son. You can ask anything of me—anything—and I will give it to you without protest.”

His hands clench into fists.

“But please, my love,” he chokes out, “do not ask me to move our bed, for that would mean cutting it from the very roots of the olive tree where we first met.”

The silence that falls afterwards is a living thing, pulsing in the hollow spaces between your ribs. You are afraid to breathe.

Because you had not told a soul about the secret of your bed—how it was carved into the very roots of your house, how it could never be moved without tearing the room apart stone by stone. Only the two of you had known. Only the two of you would ever know.

Now you know it is truly him. Your hands fall to your sides. Your knees weaken. Your lips part before the sound comes. It escapes you like something long-buried, torn from the chest, raw with disbelief and aching and everything you have swallowed down for the last twenty years.

“...Kento,” you whisper. Then again, as your chest caves and your knees begin to give, the sob breaking loose from somewhere deep, “Kento.”

He’s at your side before you fall.

Strong arms catch you mid-collapse, wrapping around you with the kind of ferocity only born from long, painful absence. You feel the tremble in his limbs, the way his breath stutters against your temple. He holds you like something precious and already half-lost; his grip is sure and his embrace is unwavering. And you—gods, you cannot stop shaking. He doesn’t speak. He only pulls you closer.

You bury your face into Kento’s shoulder, into the torn fabric of the cloak he hasn’t removed, into the scent of dust and salt and smoke that clings to him. Your fingers twist into the fabric at his back, knuckles tightening from the force of it, as though you’re terrified he might disappear if you don’t hold him tightly enough.

Still, Kento tries.

Even as his own tears fall, as they track silently down his war-worn cheeks and drop into your hair, he tries to wipe yours first, with the heel of his palm and the trembling sweep of his thumb. It is foolish and futile. He can’t keep up. You’re both crying too hard, and still he tries—frantic and tender all at once, like he’s trying to undo the years with nothing but the press of his fingers to your skin. He kisses the salt from your cheeks and calls you by the name only he ever used: soft, low, sacred.

His hands are not the same. They are rough now, harder than they once were, palms callused and weathered from bowstring and blade. Faint scars web the skin—new ones, ones you do not know, gathered in battles far from home. They smell of blood and brine, of war. 

But they are his hands, and they are still gentle.

So gentle as they cradle your face, as though the thought of hurting you is unthinkable. So warm that, for a moment, you forget the winters you endured without him. So familiar that your soul sings with the reminder that they had once held your son, your waist, your heart.

He leans down, forehead pressing to yours, your tears mixing now on skin that’s been too long apart. “I came home,” he breathes shakily. “I came home to you.”

When he kisses you, you let the years collapse around you. You let the time shrink to nothing between the press of your lips and his, and the memories of what’s passed pour into the space where his mouth meets yours. 

His lips taste like longing, like salt and breath and yearning. The kiss tastes like two decades of grief—then joy, and disbelief. His mouth parts against yours and you breathe each other in like lifelines. Your hands move without thought, up his chest, over his shoulders, into the gold of his hair now dulled by dust and time.

Kento lifts you in one smooth motion, arms firm beneath your thighs, and you gasp—not from surprise, but from the sheer, crushing rightness of it. Of him. The world narrows to the span of his chest, the warmth of his body, the echo of his heart against his ribs.

He lays you on the bed like you are sacred. You still his hands, not because you want him to stop but because you want to look at him. His brow is furrowed, his eyes red. There’s blood beneath his nails, soot still clinging to his skin. But when your eyes meet his, there is nothing but tenderness there.

You reach for the hem of his tunic. He lets you strip him slowly, lovingly. He does the same for you.

It is not the rush of youthful hands anymore. He touches you like he’s learning a language he once knew but forgot. He kisses your shoulder, your ribs, the dip of your hip. You trace your fingers down the planes of his back. He trembles when you touch the scar on his side, and you lean forward to kiss it, too.

When you are both bare, Kento studies you, as though making sure you are real and not another trick played upon him by the gods. You kiss him again, and pull him down with you onto the bed you once swore you’d never share again.

The room is quiet, but for your breath; the creak of wood beneath you; and the soft, gasping litany of his name from your lips.

Kento is careful. Then he is not. Then he is careful again.

After, when the fire has burned low and the residual light spills across the sheets, you lie tangled in each other’s limbs, spent but warm. His arms are around your waist. Your leg is hooked over his hip. His chest rises and falls, steady beneath your cheek.

You touch his body like a scripture, relearning him through fingertips and memory. His breath hitches when your palm brushes over his ribs. Your name falls from his lips like a prayer. He turns towards you, eyes open now, lashes still damp with the tears you both shed, and he watches you as if you’re something made of starlight and all he has ever known is shadow.

You trail your fingers along his chest, over old wounds and new ones, mapping out every change like cartography; like if you trace every inch, you’ll understand what the years have done to him. His skin tells stories now: the long scar across his side, the faded one behind his shoulder, the cuts on his knuckles that weren’t there before. Each mark feels like a sentence in a book you never got to read until now.

“Here?” you whisper, brushing your thumb over a rough patch beneath his collarbone. Kento nods once.

“A blade, from the seventh year of the Trojan War.”

You kiss it. “And here?” You drag your finger down a line along his forearm.

“A javelin. It didn’t take, thank the gods.”

You hum, soft and sad, and keep going.

He touches you too—slowly, worshipfully—as though he is afraid you might shatter under his hands. His palms drift over your stomach, your arms, the curve of your breasts. He murmurs something about your hair being longer, about your voice sounding the same. About your heart still beating the same against his.

“It’s still you,” Kento says, and he kisses your throat like it might prove it.

In return, you run your hand through his hair—softer at the crown, streaked with silver at the temples now—and say, “I thought I had forgotten what your voice sounded like. But I hadn’t. It was always there, in the back of my mind.”

He presses his forehead to yours, and you lie like that for a long time, breathing each other in. You curl closer, your legs tangled with his, your hands pressed to the pulse at his throat. For the first time in twenty years, you both sleep without fear.

When morning comes, light spills pale and golden across the stone floors, soft and unthreatening, a blessing. You are still sleeping, a faint furrow between your brows, curled close to Kento’s side, one hand resting over his heart.

He does not wake you. Instead, he rises silently, wraps a cloak around his bare shoulders, and steps into the hall where Eurycleia waits with a basin of fresh water  and a careful, tearful smile.

“My lord,” she whispers, bowing low.

Kento’s voice is quiet but steady. “Come,” he says. “Walk with me. There is much I must know.”

They walk slowly through the palace corridors, past the scattered wreckage of the battle that has not yet been fully cleaned away—the broken tables, the bloodstained curtains, the gouges in the marble where swords clashed and humans fell. The air still smells faintly of blood and iron.

Kento listens as Eurycleia tells him everything: how long you waited, how fiercely you fought to preserve your home and your honour. How you stalled the suitors with cleverness and grace. How you sat weaving that cursed shroud by day and unraveling it by night, a thousand little acts of defiance stitched into linen.

But when she speaks of the maids, her voice lowers, thick with shame.

“There were… some,” Eurycleia says carefully, her hands wringing into her robes, “who did not remain faithful to your lady, my lord.”

Kento’s mouth tightens but he says nothing yet.

“They—” Eurycleia swallows, as if the words taste bitter. “They aligned themselves with the suitors. Openly, and secretly, both. They mocked your house and betrayed their duties. They slept in the suitors’ beds and carried messages and plotted against your son and your wife.”

“How many?”

“Twelve, my lord. Twelve who forgot themselves. Twelve who forgot the kindness and shelter you and yours once gave them.”

They walk a few more paces before Kento stops, turning his face slightly towards the east windows where the sun is beginning to climb. 

“And the rest?” he asks. “The ones who stayed loyal?”

Eurycleia’s eyes shine with tears. “Most did, my lord. Most remained true. They wept for your absence and prayed every night for your return.”

Kento nods slowly. His hands curl into fists at his sides—not out of anger alone, but out of something deeper: betrayal, yes, but also grief. Grief for the loss of innocence in a home he had worked so hard to reclaim.

“They will be spared,” he says. His voice brooks no argument. “The loyal ones shall be honoured for what they endured.”

“And the others?” the old maid asks quietly.

Kento does not answer right away. He looks back down the hall, toward the heavy doors of your chamber where you still sleep, exhausted after years of waiting and grieving. He thinks of the scars you bear—not just on your skin, but deeper, hidden in the quiet places of your heart. 

“They will answer for what they have done,” he says finally, as cold and steady as the sea. “But not today, and not—”

There is a thud of quick footsteps—the half-clumsy, half-careful sound of youth—and his son rounds the corner, his hair mussed from sleep, his tunic crooked. His eyes are the same colour as yours, and that was how Kento had identified him in the first place, and hatched the plan to get rid of all the suitors plaguing his home. His face is bright with something that is almost wonder. 

Kento straightens instinctively, and the boy—no, not a boy, a man now, taller even than Kento—halts awkwardly before him. He shifts his weight from foot to foot like a child caught sneaking sweets from the kitchens. 

He stares, not at Kento’s sword or his scars or his face, but at him, drinking him in like a man starved for memory.

“My lord,” your son says at last. 

Then, without waiting for permission, he steps forward and clasps Kento’s arm in both of his, in a grip that is too tight and too eager to be anything but a son’s love. Kento lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding and clasps him back, their foreheads almost brushing as they stand there, caught between strangers and family.

“I dreamed,” your son says in a rush, the words tripping over each other, “of what you would be like. When I was small, mother would tell me stories—of how you carved, and sailed, and were cleverer than the gods themselves—but she never said your hands would be so big—” he laughs a little, boyish despite his years—“or your voice so quiet.”

Kento smiles faintly, something wry and aching tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You grew taller than I ever expected,” he says.

“And you came home,” your son says, breathless. “You came back.”

Kento lays a hand on the back of his son’s head, fingers threading through golden, sleep-ruffled hair. It is a touch both unfamiliar and natural, as though some old instinct, long-buried, has risen back to the surface without thought.

Behind them, Eurycleia dabs at her eyes, sniffling quietly.

“Come, mother must hear this,” your son says, tugging at Kento’s hand like he is still a boy of five and not a man grown and blooded in battle.

Before Kento can refuse, he is already being pulled down the hall, back to your chamber door, which he gazes upon with something like dread and longing all at once. The door creaks open under your son’s hand. Inside, you still sleep, curled in the tangled sheets. The hearth fire has burned low, embers breathing faint orange against the stone. Outside, doves coo softly from high eaves.

“Mother,” your son calls gently, stepping inside and dragging his father in with him. “Wake up. There is someone here who owes us a great many stories.”

You stir at the sound of their voices, slow and reluctant, lashes fluttering against your cheeks. You shift beneath the linen, the cool air whispering across your bare shoulders, and then you blink up at the sight of them—your son’s bright face, and behind him, Kento, standing stiffly, as though he fears he will frighten you.

It is almost too much, the sight of them together—the boy you raised and the man you mourned—and for a moment, you simply lie there, drinking in the sight of them.

“Stories?” you rasp, your voice rough with sleep.

Your son grins. “He must tell us of his journeys. Of how he outwitted monsters and gods. I won’t let him leave this room until he does.

Kento lets out soft, breathless chuckle, something rusty with disuse, as if he has forgotten the sound of his own laughter.

“If your mother wishes it,” he says, “then I will tell you everything.”

You sit up slowly, gathering the sheets to your chest, your heart pounding strangely in your ribs. Your husband’s eyes find yours, and there is a hesitation there: a silent asking. You nod, and he comes forward at last, sinking to sit beside you at the edge of the bed.

“Start from the beginning,” your son insists eagerly, flinging himself onto a nearby stool like a boy half his age.

Kento glances at you once more, seeking permission. And you, who have waited a lifetime, who have unraveled your days into threadbare hope, reach out and rest your fingers against his knee. 

It is enough.

He draws in a breath, long and steady. He speaks slowly at first, as if the words are heavy on his tongue after so many years of silence.

“I left,” Kento says, his hand resting lightly over yours where it rests on his knee, “with little more than my sword, a handful of men, and the blessing of the gods—though I am not sure, now, if it was a blessing at all.

“The war dragged on longer than we ever dreamed. Ten years of siege. Ten years of watching good men fall. Friends… brothers-in-arms… And then there was the journey home. Worse, in some ways. The gods are not kind to men who outlive their victories.”

He speaks of lotus-eaters and Cyclopes; of cannibals and sun-cattle; of shipwrecks and sirens; of men turned into beasts by the whims of witches, and of endless, hungry seas that swallowed the unwary whole. He speaks of betrayals and broken oaths; of false harbours and cruel storms; and of besting the sea god with his own trident.

At times, he falters. His voice catches on certain words, and though your son urges him on with eager questions, Kento’s gaze always returns to you, as if anchoring himself with the sight of you, alive and breathing.

At last, he whispers, “There were nights when I thought… perhaps it would be easier not to return. Perhaps it would be a mercy to let the sea claim me, as it claimed so many others.”

You reach for him then, instinctive and sure, your fingers brushing the back of his knuckles. His hand turns at once, catching yours, threading his rough fingers between yours with a gentleness that breaks your heart all over again.

“But then, I would remember the stories I had promised to tell. The ones you would be waiting to hear. And here I am,” Kento finishes, a little hoarsely, “with nothing but scars and memories to offer.”

There is a long silence. The morning light has grown brighter, casting warm bars across the stone floor. Your son shifts, glancing between you both with a frown of sudden seriousness.

“You are wrong,” he says, surprising you. His voice has changed—no longer the eager boy but the man he has become. “You brought yourself back to us. That is enough.”

Kento turns to look at him fully, and something flickers in his eyes—something you think might be pride, sharp and swift and fierce.

“And you are more than enough to make the years worth it,” he says.

Your son flushes, ducking his head, embarrassed. But you catch the smile he tries to hide, and give him one of your own. Kento turns back to you. His hand still cradles yours carefully, as if he fears you might slip away if he lets go. You search his face—the new lines, the quiet grief carved into them—and find only the man you never stopped waiting for.

“I have more stories,” he says, a little shyly.

You smile, the first true smile you have allowed yourself in years. “Then you must tell them all.”

So he does.

Kento stays, sitting at the edge of your wedding bed, your son sprawled on the floor like a boy again, and you curled among the tangled sheets, listening as your husband speaks the years back into existence—until the sun climbs high and the day outside the palace walls is no longer new.

Later, when the sun hangs high and the world beyond your chamber calls for duty and rebuilding, you stay hidden away in the quiet.

Kento sits behind you, his knees bracketing your hips, a simple wooden comb in his hand. Slowly, carefully, he works through the tangles of your hair. The comb drags gently from crown to end. His hand follows after, smoothing the strands, his touch so light it barely stirs the air. 

Your robe slips lower with each movement, baring your shoulders to the firelight. The hearth crackles quietly, the smoke sweet with cedar. 

“I should have come sooner,” Kento says, after a long while. His voice is low, close to your ear. “I tried. Gods know I tried.”

You say nothing, only tilt your head forward, offering more of yourself to his hands.

“There is one story I did not tell you, because I was ashamed to say it in front of our son,” he says, and the comb stills for a moment against your scalp. He drags in a slow breath before continuing. “There was a goddess on an island far from here.”

You hum, noncommittal.

“She found me after the shipwreck. I had nothing.” He huffs a bitter, humourless breath against your temple. “No crew, no ship, no hope left in me. She said she would save me, and she did.” His hands return to your hair, combing through steadily now.

“She gave me food and a bed. She healed my wounds. And when I could stand again, she told me I would stay. That I was hers.” He pauses, slowing as the comb catches on a stubborn knot. Gently, carefully, he works it loose with his fingers.

You say nothing, your breath shallow in your chest.

“She offered me immortality; a life without pain or fear. She said she would make me forget everything. Forget Ithaca. Forget you.” Kento’s voice cracks slightly, like a blade drawn too tightly across a whetstone. “I refused her. I told her no. Again, and again—but it did not matter.”

The fire pops in the hearth, unnervingly loud in the silence.

“She… she did not need my permission.” His hand trembles against your hair. “I fought her. For years, I fought her. I counted every sunset, every turn of the seasons. Seven years. Seven years of dreaming of your face and waking up to hers.”

You turn your head slightly, enough to catch the sight of his face over your shoulder. His eyes are glassy with unshed tears, his mouth drawn tight with sorrow.

“If I had found a way to escape sooner,” he whispers, “our son would have been only three-and-ten. Still young enough to need a father. Still soft enough not to know how to raise a sword.” 

He drops the comb, letting it fall with a soft thud to the furs beside you. His hands find your shoulders, pulling you back against his chest. He wraps himself around you like armour, burying his face into the curve of your neck.

“I am sorry. For every year I was not here; for every tear you wept while I was lying in a false paradise,” he says, breath hot against your skin. “If you ask me to atone for it until my dying day, I will.” 

His voice drops lower still, thick and desperate. “I only beg you—do not doubt that I was yours, even then. Every breath I took belonged to you. Every one.”

You turn in his arms. His hair is tousled, coarse between your fingers. He is trembling—this strong, steady man you have loved since youth—and he looks so, so tired.

You kiss him once, soft and chaste.

And again, your hand cradling the side of his face, feeling the stubble scrape against your palm. And again, more fiercely, pouring into him all the words you cannot yet speak aloud.

You kiss him until he shudders and breaks, a low, desperate sound escaping from deep within his chest. You kiss him until the sadness spills from him like a wound finally allowed to bleed clean. You kiss him until he believes you are real beneath his hands, until the guilt begins to crumble from his shoulders.

You kiss him, over, and over again.

streamer!sukuna [@/kingkuna] who is notorious for causing chaos online, whether on fps games such as cs and valorant, or even on the more inane roblox games where he makes a living off of terrorising little kids. actions speak louder than words, though the streamer is quick to utilise both when instilling terror on whichever server has the misfortune of having him

'i do this for the love of the game, chat'

'well, that, and because bullying little runts is fun'

all of these actions, streamed live every wednesday and friday, helped to garner sukuna a rather.... distinct reputation.

despite being considered an asshole for all intents and purposes, sukuna had somehow amassed a following, all from his persona of being an online troll.

so this week's particular stream was especially shocking to his fans for all of the wrong reasons.

it started off like any other stream, sukuna casually reading off the odd message in his chat whilst preparing for the stream, retorting some snarky comment that has the chat getting more and more riled up, all with a shit-eating grin on his face.

it was more or less a love-hate relationship between him and his chat, though everyone seemed happy with the dynamic, expecting no less from the streamer.

this stream in particular was particularly anticipated, if the steadily increasing viewcount in the corner was anything to go off of, probably due to the fact that this wasn't quite like his other streams. despite the countless hours of his content, very little was known about sukuna, and as a 1 million subscriber goal, the man had acquiesced to people's demands for a q&a.

it started off as well as it could have, with rather generic questions rolling out. but of course, knowing sukuna's audience (and his lenient moderators), some raunchier ones started to worm their way through

'does it... jiggle when i walk? mods, get this clown out of here'

sukuna rattles through the questions, his fans clearly revelling in his embarrassing childhood stories, in the knowledge that his hair is not dyed, and how he views his streams as training to continue defeating his nephew in fortnite whenever they play together.

and then, finally, the fated question

'kingkuna i have to know for all the ladies out there... do u have a gf??'

it's a special donation message, one that rattles off loud and clear in a way that absolutely cannot be missed, though with the amount of time it takes for him to respond, he may as well have.

'hm, wouldn't you like to know?'

there's a torrent of outraged messages, before a deep booming laugh emits from the man.

'ehhh, i'm just fucking with you. of course i do, she's my forever girl.'

there's another torrent of messages in chat, though they're now oohing and ahhing at just how uncharacteristically sweet the streamer is being. his eyes flit over the incoming messages, his grin widening as his gaze lifts to somewhere beyond the webcam's reach.

there's a silent exchange, no words needed before sukuna reclines back in his chair, his legs spreading as he makes room for whoever's coming into frame.

'she's right here, too. everyone say hi to y/n'

and when she situates herself right on his lap and his arm wraps around her waist, the chat goes crazy. the streamer seems to remember his regular image, cackling at the desperate onslaught of messages eager to get even a morsel of information about the two of you, instead starting to click away at the preparations needed before he ends the stream

'oh would you look at the time, looks like i'll be having to end the stream now. see you suckers on wednesday'

'byeeeee!'

you can't help but chime in, giggling and waving right at the camera before the stream shuts off, and you feel sukuna begin to truly relax into his chair, shuffling you impossibly closer to his chest, hugging you to him and burying his face against you.

'aww, you big baby'

'dunno what you're talking about'

you giggle at your boyfriend's antics, though definitely used to them by now. instead, you get comfy, letting sukuna use you as his personal pillow as you card through his hair with one hand, the other unlocking your phone and you begin to scroll through twitter. #kingkuna1m was already trending thanks to the premise of his livestream, and you can't help but click on the tag, looking through some of the most recent tweets.

'never would i EVER have expected SUKUNA of all ppl to be relationship goals'

'praying on his downfall fr 🙏🙏🙏 he doesn't know how good he has it'

'he's so EVIL for ending the stream like that omfg'

'the way he looks at her IM SICKKKKK ☹️☹️☹️☹️'

that last one comes with a video, a hasty screen recording of those last few moments of the stream as you wave at the camera, though you're focusing on the shamelessly lovestruck expression on sukuna's face as he watches you. it's enough to have you giggling and kicking your feet right in his lap, and he grumbles, his spare hand catching onto your flailing ankle

'quit squirming, brat'

'but you're just so cute, kunaaa'

you show him your phone screen, and it's your turn to study his face as he looks at the video impassively, though he can't hide the little twitch of his lips.

'my camera must be faulty, gotta get a new one'

streamer!gojo [@/sago] who is affectionately known by his fans for being a big fat nerd. it's not like he tries to hide it, the background of his setup decorated avidly with all sorts of posters and memorabilia from his favourite shows and games. compared to other streamers, too, gojo wasn't one to particularly shy away from details of his personal life, his laidback and easygoing persona making it easy for people to become regular viewers of his streams.

on said streams it was commonplace for his chat to ask him questions about himself, and more often than not he would give them an answer- and on one of these such occasions is when he let slip the fact that he had a roommate. and that in itself isn't anything too worldbreaking to hear, but it's the way he almost lights up as he mentions your name that has his fans intrigued.

even more interesting is gojo's reluctance, for lack of a better word, about relinquishing more information about you. how quick he is to change the subject, or act as if he never read the original message at all.

and in an impressive effort which has the streisand effect in strong contention to be renamed to the gojo effect, this only further instils a need for his fans to know everything that they possibly could about you.

it's arguably one of his most well-loved bits with an incredibly long longevity, with a large amount of fanmade compilations of him at least alluding to it

'who's my roommate? i'll let you know when i find out'

'come back with a warrant, fed'

'that's some very personal information there which i would be hesitant to spread online. what do you MEAN i was telling you all about where i grew up 2 minutes ago-'

(you get the picture)

therefore, it's a rare and delightful treat whenever a new tidbit about you is let slip by the streamer. the day that your name got accidentally revealed by him on stream was a day for the books. and of course, since gojo's fans were deranged, your insta account and subsequent face reveal were soon to follow.

and once the cat was out of the bag, gojo seemed to begrudgingly relax about your secrecy. you started popping up in streams a bit more often, usually just a face peeking in to the room of gojo's setup, a sneaky wave that satoru would notice later and grin to himself about. he's got a highlight reel of your appearances on his twitch profile that he likes to rewatch more than he cares to admit.

one time, he even had you sat next to him during a just chatting stream, the two of you shooting the shit. his fans were quick to point out how red the tips of his ears were throughout the whole stream. and how he looked at you like you hung the moon and stars whenever you spoke. and how he kept looking at you like that even when you weren't speaking.

it was never official, but satoru's feelings for you were.. rather obvious to anyone with the time to tune in to his streams. his touchiness regarding you seemed to make a lot more sense now, and became the newest aspect of satoru's life for his chat to ruthlessly mock.

today was just a regular stream- some mindless shooter game that satoru was way too invested in, no mentions or guest appearances of you. until now.

the door opened in the background of the stream- satoru's eyes flick up just before the door even moves, as if he had a sixth sense just for you- and you storm into the room, closer to annoyed than your usual cheery self.

'toru, you forgot to take out the bins. they're being collected tomorrow so don't leave it too late

and just like that, you're gone again. there's not even an ounce of hesitation before satoru is getting up from his desk, headphones coming off despite the yells of his teammates for him to stop fucking around and help them rush a.

chat is making their usual comments, a spam of their love for you and excitement that you've made an appearance. a few keener watchers were geeking over the toru nickname that's sure to make their way into the next y/n and gojo compilation video.

and despite all of this, satoru's heading out of the room.

'my girl's mad at me guys, i gotta go fix it'

and he's only gone for a few minutes, at most. but it's like an implosion of oncoming messages, all scrolling past his screen with no eyes to see them.

gojospinkietoe: FIRST TORU THEN MY GIRL!!!???? OHHHH MY GOD 🥺🥺🥺

iwatchmen: the gojoyn fans are gonna loveeee this

gojoyn5evrrr: SOMEONE CLIP THAT

funnily enough, satoru doesn't even realise the slipup until he's almost back to his room. at least he can blame the blush this time on having to have gone outside very briefly.

it's not exactly the same as his usual slipups when it comes to you- usually, there's at least an element of truth to them, but this appears to be sourced from somewhere deeper in his brain, a lot more of a subconscious desire that he hoped wouldn't breach into the conscious realm.

not until he was ready, at least.

streamer!ino [@/yunglean4ever] who's more of an up and coming streamer.. but he's slowly and steadily making his way up the rankings!! his game of choice is usually an fps, with his default usually being csgo. or something like that. he enjoys the straightforward nature of it. and teabagging his opponents when he's in the mood to be a little shit.

during these livestreams he's met many a different player, some friendlier than the regular silence or automatic irritated mood that most seemed to have- or some russian guy screaming words into the mic that was anyone's guess as to what it meant.

and while interacting with said teammates is always a promising aspect of entertainment, ino wasn't one to remember most of these interactions, save for a few especially distinct ones.

one such occasion is when he meets you. you've got your mic on, which is always more appealing for ino than having to communicate via typing or reading chats, and even better is the almost instant connection that the two of you make. you giggle at his silly username, he indignantly defends his love for drain gang, and the rest is history.

one match played together turns into a friend request, which turns into becoming a party, which turns into playing duos, which turns into goving each other your discords, which turns into many more rounds which extend way after ino ends his stream.

it was merely a start to this new... something, but with the way that ino caught himself laughing a little too hard at your mildly funny jokes, he had a feeling that it would turn into something much more.

so when he boots up his pc the next day, it's not much surprise to him that there's some giddy emotion that he feels when he says a message from you

'wanna play? had a lot of fun last night w u :D'

he couldn't type out a response fast enough to contain his excitement.

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