FIRST DRAFT OF ALTERNATE UNIVERSE ODYSSEY FANFIC/MYTH ITERATIVE
INCLUDING A TRAGIC PENELOPE AND TELEMACHUS BEING FORCED TO MATURE INTO BRUTAL PRAGMATISM TO SURVIVE
Across an endless canvas of stars, beyond life and light, primordial night wanders:
Reality as her muse, Nyx cries in divine boredom, “O, infinite cosmos, answer to my call, and with the threads of your being weave me a tale. A tale of destiny defied! Inspire in me a story of a time where fate fails and mortals fall!.”
Servant to her primordial demand, the stars shift, the world bends, as time itself bows before her, split in two; and so she would peer into the cracks between, where a song would grace her ears.
And in this song, she heard the musings of the gods who bicker so meaninglessly below her-
Athena’s voice would pierce firstly, a cry of simmering rage and sorrow, “Father! Do not tell me you cannot see the injustice of his fate! Would you have a simple man on his way home suffer so excessively?”
Zeus gave an indignant nigh indifferent look, his eyes bored as he gazed upon his fiery daughter, “I do not have this man do anything! It was not I who cast him into the underworld, and it was not I who had him disrespect Persephone.”
The goddess of war, though not as enflamed as her brother, was not quick to surrender her stance;
“And what of Xenia? Have you no care for the suitors or their blatant disrespect? Tame for now yes, but their anger is bubbling, their rage imminent. Have you no concern for your own domain?”
Upon these poison tipped words, the sky rumbled and shook with a deep, grey, fury. Zeus’ voice boomed as he reprimanded insolent war, “Do you mean to call me a hypocrite? Or perhaps a coward? My daughter you may be but your words from here should be chosen with caution. Know that my judgement is ultimate and fate inevitable; if my divine law is disrespected then of course punishment shall follow suit!- that said, when and how is not of concern. If, still, you are so concerned with my xenia or this mans nostos, then I may allow you to deal with it yourself!”
Thunder cracked and rumbled as he waved his hand, “Go then! Descend for this foolish man! Or is your word fiercer than your conviction?”
Athena bit her lip in restrained rage and deep concern; colorless ichor flowing from her bite as she weighed her options. She knew she didn’t have much choice, The King Of The Skies would not tolerate much more, and to stop here would be to abandon her pride.
So, with a powerful step that boomed against the rumbling heavens- a final resounding of her authority and pride- she would stride off toward the underworld, “Then it is so, I will hold the mantle of the one to honor nostos and xenia then if that is what you wish.” Her words were sharp, like a unexpected arrow to the gut- and so too was it cunning, as Zeus did not wish to chase her down for such inconsequential sentiments.
And so with burning conviction, of pride as the cunning of war, as authority as a goddess, and as her stakes in this man, she descends.
And silently, like a murmur, something escapes her lips in an exasperated breath,
“Telemachus… I will not be able to watch you during this, I may only have faith in your safety”
Thunder rumbles and booms over the rowdy ithaca; the halls of the kingdom loud with drunken rage and reckless frustration, it had been a week or maybe more, and still no man could string the kings bow.
As if in rhythm to the suitors rage, rain beats relentlessly against the castle, chilling its halls with the premonition of tragedy. The fates whispered between the taps of water tonight.
The rain would however find entrance through the open window within penelopes chambers, flooding her stone floor and soaking her carpet; and like a siren upon a rock, Constant Penelope in all her fatigued majesty sits upon her olive-carved wedding bed; barely out of range.
In her hands she weaves, her eyes flicker and shudder, the shroud shall be finished.
Within this same room sat Thoughtful Telemachus, seemingly the only one bothered by the cold that washes over not only his body but mind and soul. Within his heart is a deep darkness, a feeling he cannot shake, as if the fates itself are warning him.
“Mother, shall I go fetch something to cover the window? Do not worry, I do notfear the suitors; Rather, I could likely quell them-”
“That will not be necessary.” Her voice was sweet and soothing as she cut through his sentence- but her eyes seemed lost, glazed over. There was something bittersweet about the way she gazed weakly at the shroud, now finished, in her hands.
Something was not right, and telemachus knew it; she did not look him in the eyes when she spoke,
“I am sure you know, but I am a spartan. I can not claim the title of warrior, but I’ve been close to those who are, I’ve grown up in that world.” Her words were slow, deliberate, as if every breath required a year of thought;
telemachus’ heart grew heavier with dread,
“Every warrior is expected to meet impossible circumstances, and in these circumstances they must make impossible decisions. As an example: If the gods have left you, would you wait in vain at risk of your own family?”
Telemachus’ voice falters, “What do you mean mother?”
The wise penelope gazes distantly past her son’s eyes “What I mean to say is, something happened. I do not know what, I do not know how, but something happened. I have spent now over 20 years waiting for your father, because I love him.” The wife of odysseus still would not meet his gaze as she reached over to a table, her gently calloused fingers wrapped slowly around a chalice of unkown liquid,
“That said, I also must consider that for 20 years, I’ve grown to love you as my son. I cannot easily put one of you above the other, so I must approach this pragmatically…”
Flawless penelope would close her eyes as her icy silky hands shook- bringing the chalice intimate to her lips; and hero telemachus, pushed by a deep instinct, would try to run forward; but the mother of ithaca was swift as she brought it to her lips, and that rancid bitter fluid ran down her throat, gulped greedily as if she were drinking ambrosia itself,
“I say this to tell you this, my actions today are not a betrayal of faith, they are not me giving up on your father or renouncing him, so i ask you to do the same. Have faith in wise odysseus, and however you two may meet ensure it is not at Styx, not with me.”
“Because I love you as much as I love your father. But i know not when your father will get back, or how. You however are right infront of me, I cannot save him, I can save you.” With shaky hands, weak from the poison which ravages her, she hands him the shroud, “take this, and run. As far and fast as you can. I will not survive, so you must. If you must burn this to keep yourself alive then do so. Just, please don’t die.”
But prudent telemachus, strong as his love and understanding may be, was for those very same reasons not so swiftly dismissed,
“Mother! Are you mad? What is this? Quick, I shall fetch euryclea to find someone who can cure you- of the poison and this madness!”
But her eyes only softened at the son of ithaca’s exasperated loving fury, “Telemachus, I raised you well, and you inherit the wisdom of your father. I do not believe you don’t understand.”
“I understand very well that grief has broken your mind!” Wily telemachus snapped back with quickness- yet in this haste he had failed to hide the crack in his voice, and the despair that filled it.
“Perhaps it has.” Her voice was slow, solemn, but with a sharp conviction she stood.
The queen of ithaca stood fiercely before young telemachus, though shorter her stature felt taller, and her shaking weakened hands thrusted upon the boy the shroud she has crafted, “If so then it is such that no mad woman shall rule over what the old king Odysseus once cherished and crafted with rugged and torn hands. And so this mad woman shall give one final address, and by her own hand and no others will she die.”
“Mother i say once more I can handle them!”
“If that’s so, perhaps you are no less mad than me. I cannot stop you Telemachus. I do not have your strength, your youth, your energy. All I have now is my name. So with that I will do what i can.”
The boy was short of breath as Penelope of ithaca trodded purposefully down the water soaked floor toward the door, “If you believe trying to battle a hundred angry men in fair battle is all you can do with the gifts you are given- I cannot stop you. But this mad woman- your mother- is not so inclined to agree.”
Left in silence, chilled by rain and winds, the gods spared no mercy to the boy sat on the edge of a revelation- Young telemachus never gave much mind to fate, more concerned with the here and now, yet as he stepped steadily to the door penelope had just strutted out he stopped and began to consider something new- inevitability.
“Oh, mentor, where are you now? If i had the time, or if i perhaps knew sooner, I would consult Old Nestor’s wisdom, or spear-famed menelaus’ will while i could.
Alas, time wasted in regret is worse than passivity. But what am i to do? To simply accept the death of my own mother? Of her kingdom?
Yet her logic was profound, and i must face the truth that it is by now far past late to cure whatever poison she digested.
And I know it true that if she were to die- even if i were to topple those ravenous guests it is likely my injuries would not last my life much longer- Ithaca would be left with no more than dead vengeance, and a broken kingdom for my father.”
His conclusion had been reached, though he still didn’t want to accept the idea of just running; his concentration is broken, however, by a hardly recognized squawk from behind.
Alarmed and on-gaurd telemachus spun around, his eyes locked upon the open window- and rain continued to pitter patter through, singing a different song now however, as it landed too upon not just the room but the bold-eyed hawk that perched upon it’s windowsill.
Telemachus would calm ever so slightly, but his suspicion wasn’t at full rest, “A hawk? Could it be, athena?”
There’s a beat of silence, their eyes remain locked,
“No, athena i don’t believe you would appear before me like this, would you? Or have I truly gone mad finally?”
Telemachus interrogated the blank-faced bird of prey before him, his reservations and already fraught state leaking into his every doubt; yet his guard was quickly thrown off as the bird seemed to move as if… it were laughing?
And as it’s body moved with the silent laugh he noticed the dangling sandals held by the hawks mouth- small feathers on either side adorning the gold-coated footwear.
“Hermes! It must be…” steadily and carefully telemachus walked toward the brown-feathered messenger god; however as soon as he got close the laughing bird would drop those gilded sandals upon the windowsill and take off into the storming sky- unbothered by the perilous divine with it’s strong-feathered quick-footed flight.
Telemachus sprinted to the window sill and nearly slipped out as he barely caught sight as the hawk escaped out of view at shocking but fitting speeds.
Left alone once again telemachus gazed down upon the sandals, no mind paid to the rain beating upon his face as if begging for acknowledgement while he weighed the reality,
“I see then- even Hermes knows it true then. To disobey now would be to draw the ire of both mother and god- if that is so I can no longer allow my childish aspirations blind me.”
With a bit lip, telemachus would grab hold of the cold golden sandals, slipping them steadily upon his stone-calloused feet; it was a miraculous perfect fit- yet no less would be expected of a god’s blessing-
“Yes, this wasn’t just a sign, it was a blessing.”
Yet even as the son of ithaca finally begun to reconcile with the paradoxical duty of abandoning duty- a fire still burnt like a wildfire inside his wide pupils.
Nimble-footed telemachus would perch himself above the windowsill, staring distantly at the storming kingdom,
“This is not abandonment, this is a temporary retreat, and i promise i will return. With men, with power, with the king- and you will either accept and repent, or witness the son of the wisest hero’s full wrath.”
His words were a spiting poison threatening to infect the very rainfall upon this land as with one more preparatory breath- he leaped high through the air.
His feather feet hit the ground and flew with a pitter patter against muddied earth- as wily Telemachus ran past the boundaries of home- leaving nothing but a vow to return.
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