Work Text:
There were times, if she thought too hard about it, when she saw herself as a pawn in a game of the gods. She’s long been a warrior in the battles at hand; she’s hidden in horses and she’s toppled regimes. She knows there are wars going on in parallel above her head, more silent and more deadly, except that her gods too are entirely mortal.
She’s heard this epic before and she’s not the main character: she has no destiny to fulfill, no looming prophecies. The fate of the mercenary, she knows, is much less grand. But it is hers, and she carries it diligently: the lotus does not tempt her, the songs of the Sirens fall on covered ears.
It’s not until she meets Will that she begins to sympathize with Ulysses. Because she can hear his songs, the false promises he makes unknowingly each time he talks of family and of the future. He’s a terrible singer, she can attest, but he packs her extra clothes and he knows how to apologize and he gets too excited about fig jam.
A lesser character, she thinks, would jump off the boat. A lesser character would die a nameless death at the hands of this unintentional Siren, a warning to others about the dangers of caring too much. But she doesn’t have that luxury. It’s not that her work is more important now, but that it matters, that she matters, to so many more people. And that, more than certain death or failure, terrifies her.
Because she’ll be back in these waters again someday and the ropes that tie her to the mast won’t hold forever.