Chapter Text
When Poseidon began showing up at their morning meals, Penelope almost began to regret helping heal the stubborn god.
He seemed to take some kind of perverse joy in riling them up, though he loved doing it to Odysseus most of all. Penelope found herself gritting her teeth against admonishments to both men as they flung thinly-veiled -- and not so thinly-veiled -- insults back and forth over their food and drink, each response getting fouler and fouler until Poseidon opened his mouth to make a comment about Odysseus's mother and Penelope saw her husband reach for his cutlery--
"ENOUGH!" She finally snapped, slamming her own cutlery against the table and scrapping her chair back to stand. Telemachus jumped where he sat across from her on his father's right hand side, his eyes wide with shock and alarm. He was not used to seeing his mother this reactive as often as she had been of late, she knew, but he had better get used to it. Odysseus was still tense, nearly growling to her right, and to her left, Poseidon was smirking, his shit-eating grin large enough to be seen from miles away. She turned her glare on the god. "If you cannot hold your tongue while at my table, then you will not be welcomed here any longer, Lord Poseidon." As she spotted her husband's own self-satisfied smirk out of the corner of her eye, she rounded on him next. "The same goes for you, husband." Odysseus swallowed audibly. "You are both adults; act like it."
It was the fourth such morning, just like the three before. The first time Poseidon had appeared and sat at the end of the table, opposite from Odysseus, it had been so silent that Penelope thought you could hear a feather drop. She had done her best to continue on as normal, serving herself and pouring her husband's wine while Telemachus softly inquired whether Poseidon wanted any from the second jug. Telemachus had done a marvelous job at following her lead, chattering back and forth with her about the current state of various farms and fisheries around the palace as the god had slowly eaten, his too-sharp teeth flashing at them and his glowing eyes bathing the table in a soft blue light.
Odysseus had not fared as well as their son. He had been stock-still, like a deer caught in the eyes of a predator, only moving when Penelope kicked him under the table for his rudeness. They had shared a brief fight in the way that only lovers long together could, minute twitches of their faces and the tiniest of gestures of their fingers as she starred her husband down until, with a sulking grumble, he had begun to eat. His eyes did not stray far from the god after that, transfixed despite Penelope's every attempt to subtly loop him into to conversation or not-so-subtly continue to kick him under the table. She even went so far as stomping on his toes hard enough that he flinched and choked on the mouthful of wine he had been swallowing, coughing into his napkin and spluttering indignantly in her direction.
"Something wrong?" Poseidon's grating, rough voice was slow in and deliberate in his question, drawing it out as he fixed those glowing eyes on Odysseus once more. The god raised a dark eyebrow, taking another slow bite of his meal and making a point to leave his teeth bared. Penelope glared at him now too, exasperation and a little bit of amusement warring in her at the performance. "Trouble in paradise?"
Penelope pointedly took a sip of her own wine as Odysseus focused on cleaning himself of his spilled wine. "Nothing wrong, Lord Poseidon. Simply reminding my husband of his hosting duties." She smiled demurely, ignoring the glances from Telemachus. "You see, my husband was kept away by . . . complications for so long that he does not have the same wealth of hosting experience as our son and I do." Neither the god nor the man missed the insults sprinkled for the both of them and she was on the receiving end of twin glares of annoyance. Oh, well. It was not as if she was unfamiliar with such negative attention over the last few years. "In fact, I believe Telemachus could teach you both something of the manners of a king."
"Mum, please do not bring me into this." Her son sunk into his chair as Poseidon growled and Odysseus's jaw dropped comically. She almost felt bad for Telemachus.
Almost.
Poseidon's eyes swept over all of them as he sat back, clearly concealing a wince, and smirked again. "I suppose I cannot assume I will get the same level of pomp and treatment as I would in Olympus from a mere mortal palace, can I?" He glanced around the room, grimacing at what he found. "This place certainly does not live up to the usual standards I am used to."
Penelope fought the twitch developing in her eye as her husband looked at her as if to say, 'See?! He deserves to be smacked!' It was not that she disagreed -- far from it, in fact -- it was that she did not want to see what kind of fall out smacking a god came with. Though, if any of Odysseus's own stints with Poseidon were anything to go by, the answer was none at all.
Their bickering and constant insults had only persisted, and even worsened, over the last few days. Now, Penelope stood, watching as Odysseus paled a bit at her ire and Poseidon stewed over his glass of wine. Telemachus looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, stirring his porridge and refusing to make eye contact with anyone else at the table. She slowly sat, nose high in the air, and said, "Telemachus, how have your sparing sessions with your father been going?"
Her son perked up at the positive attention and he started chattering about his father's tutelage. Odysseus slowly relaxed back into his own chair, adding in his own praise for Telemachus's progress. Penelope was finally able to get a few peaceful bites of her food in as they spoke. She even spotted Poseidon eyeing Telemachus in what she would have called affectionate pride if she believed that Poseidon could feel anything as 'merely' mortal as affection. She supposed it was good for them both if Poseidon could learn to let himself have a friend, so she would have to encourage that relationship. It would take a bit of convincing to keep Odysseus from hovering over the boy if he found out about it, but it could be done.
"Who taught you how to fight, before?" Poseidon's voice stopped them all once more, though this time, he seemed genuinely interested in the answer. He glanced around the table at the sudden silence, but he turned back to Telemachus, the question still open. "You told me you had killed during your father's return to the island; that means you can fight." He shrugged, swirling his wine. "Odysseus had been away for decades at that point. So who taught you?"
"I did." Penelope met his surprised gaze with a chuckle. "What, do you think it is above a woman to be a warrior?"
The god snorted, chuckling to himself as he took another sip of his wine. He raked his gaze over Penelope in a way that made her shudder and had Odysseus growling out a warning. The god waved her husband off and snorted again. "No, Lady Penelope, it is not that. Athena and Artemis are both my nieces, after all." She supposed that made sense. She had to stop forgetting that the petulant man-child at her table was a god. "I am just surprised that a woman as well-presented as yourself could teach her son to be proficient enough to hold off over a hundred men at once."
Penelope bristled. "I beg your absolute pardon, Lord Poseidon?!"
The god froze, eyes wide and fork half way to his mouth. Good. He would do well to remember exactly who's home he was standing in, and who the real ruler of this house was. He slowly lowered his hand and turned to her, eyes cast down. "Have I offended you, Lady Penelope? I meant only that it is quite the feat, and I would be hard-pressed to find one such as yourself, if your son's . . . performance during those events is any indication of your own strength."
Even as she nodded to the not-quite-apology, Penelope wondered how she had managed to cow the god like this. He was a reactive and spiteful man to everyone, it seemed, but her. Had there been another woman, a goddess perhaps, who had cultivated the barest amount of respect for the women around him? Whoever had done it, she would have to thank them later.
"You did offend, however, I can understand your position. Somewhat." She was not about to let him off easy, after all. "But you forget, Lord Poseidon; I am not borne of Ithaca's shores. Even had I wanted to stake my claim as Queen uncontested, I would not have the rights. I am of Spartan blood, and Lady Ctimene had no inclination to stake her own claim." Penelope smiled softly at Telemachus, who smiled sadly back. They had tried to convince his aunt to take the throne, to rule as a Queen of Ithaca, though it was unconventional, until her brother returned. Ctimene had had none of it; she argued that if she took the throne, then Telemachus's own claim would be disrupted, and they would be back at square one in a matter of a few years. She had had no urge to have children with Eurylochus, considering their own . . . arrangement surrounding each of their own proclivities to the same sex, and she would not take the hand of another man only to be expected to perform those same duties she had so easily side-stepped before. "Considering Odysseus's absence, it fell to me to train our son. It would not do to let a boy with the blood of Odysseus and the blood of Spartan kings be defenseless in his own home."
They had all known the risk of Penelope teaching Telemachus. A few of the councilors -- Eupeithes chief among them -- had been staunchly against the idea. Penelope had simply done so in secret after that. The moment Telemachus turned ten and two, two years after her husband should have returned from the war, Penelope had gathered him and a few of the young girls of the island each day by the cliffs, hidden in their shadows, and taught them the ways of Sparta. As the older women, some closer to her age and some of them the younger daughters of the men who had left, now grown to young women and mothers themselves, had joined them later. She had taught them all of spears and swords, of chariots when she could, tridents under the guise of fishing lessons, of shields and daggers and of fighting foes with the size and weight advantage over you. She taught them to fight dirty, biting and clawing to the bitter end. Ithaca was a small island chain, not known overly well for its military prowess. Now, it was missing even the semblance of armed men to protect her shores; Penelope would not stand by and let the girls and women in her care be sacked and ravaged because men from distant shores thought they could take what was not theirs.
Poseidon must have understood some of her thoughts as he watched her, his gaze less hostile as he took her in as a whole. "Admirable, of course, for you to do." He mused, turning now to Telemachus. His next words were almost accusing, acid dripping from his fangs as the growl in his voice strengthened. "Then why let the suitors in at all? Why let them rule over you for so long if you went to such lengths to prevent just such an eventuality?"
Telemachus bristled, and Penelope wondered if they had had this conversation before. Her son was usually not this quick to anger. She glanced at Odysseus, catching the same concern in his own eyes as he looked to her in the same moment. They shared that moment as mother and father, both wondering what hurts their son held that he had not shared as he growled back at Poseidon, "It is more complicated than that. Some of the men here were Ithacan born; I knew them as children and we know their families still."
Odysseus nodded solemnly, looking down at his own plate. "We have spent the last two months looking for many of the mothers and sisters of the men from that night. We knew a few of them closely -- one or two of the men were sons of my former councilors. But others we have not been able to identify, or they had lied about their origins, and so we are lost on where to find their families."
Penelope reached out to take his hand, squeezing gently as his rough callouses bit into her own. She had been helping Odysseus, in his saner, calmer moments, to do the work to clean up the mess he had made the night of his return. She did not begrudge him what he had done; far from it, in fact, after that last horrible discussion she had overheard among the men Antinous had led. But that did not change the fact that the men -- many of them had still been boys, really, only a few years Telemachus's elder, and Antinous had barely been a few months apart from her son -- of the suitors had died in their home, previously under their protections. Odysseus was safe from crossing that line of Xenia after Antinous had rallied the men to revolution; that much they knew from consulting with the priests and priestesses of the islands.
Still, they had a duty to provide for the dead. They would track down those families they could, let them grieve in their own ways and return the remains of their brothers and sons to them. A few of the men had been fathers to secret children, she knew, and young women had been appearing at the palace, asking for aid after the men who had been providing for them had disappeared and their coin with them. It was heartbreaking to see their faces, their tears, as they cradled infants and toddlers to them who did not understand where their father had gone. They had taken the girls and children in, of course.
Few of the men from that night still remained in the palace, some two dozen or so compared to the over a hundred there had been before. Some faces were missing from the dead; Telemachus had gone quiet at their names, and when questioned, refused to answer. He and Odysseus had had their first fight over the missing men when Telemachus refused again and again to reveal what he knew, even in the face of Odysseus's mounting rage. Penelope knew that Odysseus would never hurt their son, would never raise a hand in anger to either of them, but that day she had seen the flash of the monster beneath the man once more. She had stepped in between the two of them when it was clear that neither would budge and lead Odysseus away, assuring him that they would deal with the missing men if they ever dared to show their faces in the palace again. "Leave him to his small mercies, my love."
Odysseus was not pleased by her words, but he had stood down, and that was enough.
Back in the dining room, Penelope kept her husband's hand in her own. "We will need to arrange for their burial, of course. The coins for their eyes will be picked from those that the treasury thinks appropriate, their shrouds are being woven by a few of my servants. Nothing elaborate, of course, just simply black and white. And their graves will be dug on one of the smaller islands, perhaps in a grove that has not borne fruit for us in five years or more." She turned back to Telemachus, noting his hunched shoulders and downcast eyes. "That way, if their families ever arrive, we can point them to their resting places."
"You do too much for those cowardly dogs." Poseidon spat, standing now. He wavered, still unsteady on his feet without his crutches, and was forced to grab the back of his chair for balance. "They disrespected your home, your throne, your son, and your wife. Whether these two should have acted sooner or not, you were victorious, little king." He sneered at Telemachus's angry noise and flashed the blue of his eyes at the boy. "You owe them nothing. You would be justified in throwing their cold corpses to the pigs to devour and you could wipe your hands of this whole mess."
Penelope stood at the same time as her husband now, hands fisting in her skirts as Odysseus placed his fists against the table. "Lord Poseidon, I said enough!" She snapped again, advancing on the god. Odysseus let out a wounded noise and took a step towards her, but she glared until he stayed put as she rounded on the Earth Shaker once more. "This is, as you have so helpfully pointed out on more than one occasion, My. Home. You will not disrespect me within it! Nor will you call my son a coward, you will not antagonize my husband, and you will not question the respect and rights we give to the people under our roof and our rule." She stepped forward again, holding in a smirk at the flinch she produced in the god. He was now the one hunching in his shoulders, eyes wide again as he was frozen against her gaze, unable to look away. Penelope thanked Hera and Ares alike that he was too afraid to attempt to smite her for her disrespect of his godly status, even as she knew she was right and took advantage of the strange level of fear in the god. "Am. I. To. Be. Understood?!"
Poseidon finally looked away then, scowling down at his own feet. His fist clenched and unclenched at his side while his other hand dug into the chair so hard it splintered under the force of his strength. "Yes, Lady Penelope. You are understood." Penelope again wondered why a god with such power would cower under her as he flinched when she walked past. A sneaking suspicion was taking hold in her, and her thoughts were only furthered when Odysseus followed her and the god took a step away from him, back hitting the wall as the King passed. What had caused him to act like a kicked dog?
And why did she think it had something to do with her husband?
* * * * * * * *
The next time Penelope wonders about the god's treatment at the hands of others, she is alone with him in his rooms. They had been forced to shuffle around the rooms of their growing guests following the arrival of the god, but they were nowhere near the bursting capacity they had reached under the suitor's reign. Mostly, it was just a change here and there to make sure that the rooms of the women and children seeking refuge in the palace following the King's return were not too close their the usual back and forth rotation of traders and sailors, men who were strange to them all and could not be vouched for, and to keep the sulking god away from all of them. In the end -- much to Odysseus's own undying chagrin -- Poseidon had to be housed in the same hall as Telemachus. They had found that Telemachus had the best disposition for dealing with the god's moods and it made much more sense for them all to limit the amount of space between them if Telemachus was needed to stop another tantrum or to intervene with the god's many nightmares.
Penelope was headed to the god's rooms to address those nightmares. Telemachus had come to her, deep bags settling in under his eyes, two days previous to tell her about the god's sleepless nights. About how he often awoke from his own strange dreams he struggled to remember and would go to check on their guest. He would find Poseidon, more often than not according to Telemachus, in one of two ways. The god would be shaking, sobbing silently and thrashing against blankets he had long since kicked off as he sweat and murmured in his sleep until Telemachus shook him into a glassy-eyed state of semi-consciousness and he had to wait beside Poseidon until the god emerged again. The second, somehow even more concerning, way he found him was when the god was already awake, eyes red with anger and fear as he screamed into his pillows or arms to silence himself. Poseidon would lash out -- likely unconscious of his own behavior at that point -- until Telemachus could restrain him long enough to properly wake the half-dreaming god.
Of course, Odysseus had told them both of Poseidon's oath not to harm them, but Penelope supposed that he actions were somewhat limited by intent. Her suspicions had been semi-confirmed when Telemachus described the way the god was rarely in a reasonable state of mind at those moments, screaming words in a language that Telemachus did not recognize and seeing things that were not there. Her son also described how the god would seem to freeze with strange seizures of his muscles whenever a blow threatened to land on him, as if he was being magically restrained from harming Telemachus.
Through her own pride at hearing of her son's actions to care for the hurt man, Penelope was afraid, even if Poseidon was incapable of hurting Telemachus. What had scared a god, a being as powerful and ancient as the sea itself, into such a state that he was plagued with nightly terror so extreme that he could not escape it alone? What could have pushed him this far down the road of terror, a man so proud and unbending that he refused to rest his healing body and would deny all remedies for pain, even as he gnashed his teeth and his nails tore into his palms to bare through it all.
Beyond even that fear, she worried for Telemachus's safety as he intervened each night. She had cradled her son's face gently, brushing away imagined dirt as she ran her thumbs under the dark circles coloring his eyes. She had placed a kiss on his forehead, ignoring the rolled eyes of a grown man, and praised him for being so kind and brave in the face of an angry god.
Her heart had broken again when he just shrugged and asked, "What else could I do? I won't leave him alone to it all."
So now, she knocked on the door to the god's room and entered when the angry grumble of, "What? Go away, whoever you are, I don't want whatever shit you have!" Greeted her. She ignored the words and entered anyway, making sure she was turned slightly away from the bed at first in case the god was in an indecent state and he had time to rectify that. She had a teenage son until just that year, she knew better than to assume decency in a man's own room. "Good morning, Lord Poseidon. I have a few questions for you, and I hope through their answers, we can help you feel more comfortable during your stay here in the palace."
Once again, she ignored the grumbled protests as she set out the contents of her travel bag on the table in the far corner. Poseidon rose from where he had been laying on the bed -- thankfully fully dressed -- and grabbed one of his crutches, making his slow progress over to her. She eyed his gait and the way he held himself, glad to see he was both steadier and standing taller than he had been before. The need for only one of the crutches was also a good sign, all things considered. "I hope you have not been overworking yourself with your exercises?" She raised one pointed brow in question.
The god sat heavily in the chair beside her own, facing her as he stretched out the leg he still had splinted in a cast. "No, Lady Penelope, not since you posted that little guardian over me." After one too many falls and re-opened wounds, Penelope had had enough; whenever Telemachus was busy with his duties or spending time with his family, Ctimene and Eurycleia had taken to watching over the god to ensure he did not overtax himself. Ctimene took great joy in her new duties, chattering persistently and showing off every new bit of construction or art she oversaw in the palace to the god as they went on his daily walks. Poseidon was eternally perplexed by her; she did not bow and scrape to his usual intimidation tactics any more than Penelope did, but where Penelope took the route of a regal Queen, Ctimene took the bubbly and often contradictory route of an overly enthusiastic young girl. She was older than Penelope by one year, but from her demeanor, one would never guess it.
Eurycleia on the other hand had been found to hold the same odd respect and demure submission from Poseidon as Penelope herself and had reported absolutely no problems with the god as she scolded him for his shenanigans. Penelope privately suspected it was the fact that Eurycleia's other domain was the kitchens and her control over what food the god was or was not offered on a given day had him cowed.
"Good." She nodded, reaching out to take the god's foot and rest it on her knee. She did not miss the slight flinch he attempted to cover as she moved towards him, nor did she miss the dark bags that matched Telemachus's own under his eyes. She prodded as gently as could be allowed at the newly knitting bone and checked for swelling around the god's knee. He grit his teeth in the usual manner, his breathing deeper and faster as he hid whatever pain she caused him. She sighed as she pocked again at his knee. "If you do not tell me what pain you have," She kept her words low and soft, gentle, "then I cannot properly treat your injuries."
"I do not need your sympathy." The god growled, but he was clearly relieved when Penelope let him lower his leg once more. She stood, a short hum her only acknowledgement of his words, as she went to inspect his other injuries. His chest was still littered with half-healed wounds, each one tender to the touch. She pulled hisses and curses from him as she poked and prodded, checking for infection or scar tissue that may need further treatments. Luckily, it was only the burns that would present a challenge, for now . . .
As she turned back to face the god, cupping his cheek gently to look over his still-milky left eye, she asked, "Why do you muffle your complaints? It is not like you, Lord Poseidon." She let some amusement enter her voice, friendly intent behind her words. "At least, not in my experience." She brushed a bit of his dark curls away from his face to take him in.
He looked up at her almost reverentially, as if she herself was a goddess. His eyes, so much like a storm, rolled and crashed with unending depths that made her shudder. Still, she did not feel threatened by this man, this god. She never truly had. Of course she had been afraid when he had threatened to harm her son -- what mother wouldn't be? -- but she had not feared him. Now, as she looked down at his scars, new and old alike, that fear was still missing. All she felt was the same motherly concern she felt for every wayward soul that made their way through her palace halls. She saw him more as one of the young men who had come to her in the early days, begging in tears not to be sent away to Troy, eyes wide and empty when their fates were sealed by her insistence. Her heart broke at the emptiness in this god's eyes in much the same way it had for those lost boys.
Poseidon suddenly pulled away, refusing to meet her gaze any longer. She stepped back, taking a deep breath; his presence was holy intoxicating and completely unlike anything she had ever known. His divinity pulled her in and drowned her on dry land. She sat across from him, waiting still for his answer to her question.
It took longer than she would have liked, but Penelope knew patience better than most, mortal and immortal alike. She waited, stone-faced and unmoving, as the god fidgeted and grumbled to himself across from her. Finally, in a voice so soft she nearly missed his words, Poseidon answered.
"It does not do to let others see your weakness." He was staring out the window, towards the sea. Penelope had made sure that he would have a room that showed him the waves in as clear a picture as possible when finding his room. "When others can see your weakness, they can exploit it. The only way to protect oneself is to refuse to show it."
Her heart broke again. What had time and the world done to the sea? "I would hardly call you weak, my Lord." He made a disbelieving noise and gestured down to himself. She chuckled, though not unkindly. "This is not evidence of weakness. To the contrary; no mortal man would have survived your injuries." She reached over, tracing the scars that were slowly fading from pink to pale gouges on his dark skin, only a shade or two lighter than her own brown, on his strong hands. "Your survival is proof of your strength. You may be hurt, perhaps broken in one or two places, but you were not destroyed. You will come back stronger because of this, I know it."
"I was brought down, broken, by a fucking mortal!" He stood suddenly, shoving back his chair and nearly toppling with it before he grabbed his nearby crutch. He stamped the wood into the floors angrily, cracking the tiles there. "I need this damned thing just to walk without falling over! I can't see clearly from one eye, I lose my breath trying to walk to and from breakfast any faster than a meander, and all of this because of your bastard of an old, cowardly King!" He was shouting now as he turned away from her, his back tight and shoulders hunched. He was breathing heavily, but Penelope was not sure if that was his anger or his breathlessness from his injuries.
Still, she was not afraid of him. Not even as she stepped over the fractured tiles to trace a finger down the crisscrossing burns that hardened the skin across his back. Poseidon tensed further under her touch with a sharp breath. She pulled away, unsure whether her touch had hurt him; she could see older scars beneath the new flesh, deep gouges carved into his body that spoke of horror she could hardly dream of. One of them was so twisted and bulging that she thought it must have shown bone when it was first dealt to the man. "None of that makes you weak, Lord Poseidon. Only a fool."
"WHAT?!" He spun to face her, eyes blazing. She squinted against their light, refusing to back down as he loomed over her, sharp teeth barred, the shadows collecting around him. She could see the waves reacting to his anger behind him, sudden swells and crashes growing stronger on the clear day that had ruled over them before. "You dare to call me a fool to my face, mortal?!"
Penelope crossed her arms, raising a brow. "Do not attempt to intimidate me, Poseidon." They both noted the lack of his title, which she had been careful to always use in his presence before. "I have spent a lifetime standing against the intimidation of men who think themselves stronger than me. I will not bow now." She jabbed a finger against his chest, careful to avoid the more tender spots. "You are a fool. What sort of man waits for ten years to kill a man who made a mistake, just as he is returning to his family after twice that time? And man who, mind you, had already apologized for the harm done to you!"
Poseidon took a startled step back, but Penelope continued, jabbing at him again. Her rage was in charge now, and she was tired of holding back from speaking her mind. "Beyond all of that, now you refuse any help given to you! You wince and whimper behind those sharp teeth of yours and refuse any medication or comforts; you walk on a leg that should still be resting, least that bone of yours heal crooked; you have nightmares nearly every night that my son can barely pull you from, but you will not talk to him nor to me about their cause!" She threw her hands in the air, pacing to the door and back like a caged lioness. "You confound me at every turn, and I cannot decide if you are just the usual idiot of a man who refuses to admit he can be hurt, or whether you have a real reason to hide away behind those teeth and claws and lash out at anyone who tries to help!"
Poseidon stilled. Penelope was breathing hard, her fury filling her veins with fire, but the god's voice was cold as he answered her. "Help? When has help every come to me -- or anyone else -- without a cost?"
She opened her mouth to retort, but Poseidon did not give her a chance as he continued. "Your own marriage was arranged at the price of the oath that took your husband from you. The help of your husband's return and security on the throne came at the cost of the blood of over one hundred men and boys." He let out a low, dark chuckle. "No, no help was ever given to me without a price. I have to wonder what the price will be for yours."
Ignoring the sting in her heart at the truth his words held, she whispered, "Does it truly escape your understanding that perhaps we do what we do for those we love?" It was the same question she had to ask herself every night when the faces of the suitors haunted her sleep, their blood staining her hands as much as her husband's and son's, even as she justified their actions with reminders of the cruel words those same men -- and boys, she knew some of them had only been boys -- had spoken of her and Telemachus the night of Odysseus's return.
"Don't insult me by playing obtuse, Lady Penelope." Poseidon growled, sitting down on his bed with a heavy sigh. "You know damned well why I killed those men, what your husband did to my son."
Of course she could not forget. Not after the god had left his own mark on her son, the dark, thick lines that framed his right eye in a sick mirror of the scars that marred Poseidon's left. She thought then of the ancient King's code from the south of Troy; 'An eye for an eye. A son for a son.' How many eyes would have to be lost before enough had been plucked out? How many son's blood would have to be spilled before the violence ended?
It was only Telemachus's quick thinking that had saved his eye that day. And it was only Telemachus's insistence, backed by her own, that had shown Poseidon mercy on their shores. She could not take responsibility for all of Odysseus's actions. "He made a mistake -- one that I understand -- to return to his family!" She had to keep that last part clutched tight to her chest; everything he had done, every bit of blood split and lives lost had been to bring her husband back to her. She could not forget.
Something in the god changed then, and for the first time, Penelope found that she was afraid of the dark creature that sat in front of her. When he growled, "For family?!" she could not help the step she took back towards the door, away from him. His eyes had stopped glowing to reveal twin irises of dark blue, as dark as the night sky in summer. "Your husband murdered an infant over the walls of my city for family. He let in the men who would rape and pillage and destroy my people, most of them innocents, for family. He sacrificed his own men to monsters and gods for family!"
Penelope covered her mouth with her hands as the shadows rose around them. Phantom images of what Poseidon described erupted around them both, dancing across the walls in a macabre show. She saw the walls of Troy, seen from far below, as a menacing figure with eyes glowing a blood-red from the shadow of his helmet drop a bundle of cloth. She cried out and the image was replaced by another just as the bundle would have struck the ground. This time, scores of soldiers raced around her and screams flooded her mind, sobs and begging voices pleading for mercy that would not be granted. She shut her eyes tightly when they were replaced with the glow of ghostly torches as six figures emerged from the shadowy waves around them. "Stop this, please." She whispered into her hands, her back hitting the door, as the god went on.
" He was not thinking of family when he did this to me, only vengeance." Penelope opened her eyes to see that Poseidon had stood again, balancing himself with one hand on the bed post beside him. The shadows --thankfully -- had disappeared, but his eyes still did not glow. He look almost human now as tears gathered in his eyes, the sharpness of his teeth waning and the unnatural blue-green darkness of his hair and wounds fading into the same black and pink as any other man. The waves still crashed in the distance, but they carried a profound sorrow now, not the same anger as before, as the skies darkened and a light rain began overhead. "Even if you could begin to justify all of that, he certainly was not thinking of returning to his family when he called for all to hear who had blinded my son!" His voice broke, a single tear sliding down his scarred cheeks to drip onto the tile below. Penelope wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, but she knew her comfort would not be welcomed. Still, she had to try . . .
Before she could, the glow returned, the waves calming and the rain above ceasing. The divine sense of wrongness returned to him, and he swiped angrily at his cheeks, adding almost as an afterthought, "And he was not thinking of family when he abandoned his own two sons on one island in favor of the wife and son he had on another." Poseidon looked back up at her with a sneer. "Or does it not matter what family he swears his deeds to, so long as you are a part of it?"
A chill seized Penelope then, tightening around her chest and stealing her breath away. "What?" She breathed. When Poseidon's eyes widened in alarm and surprise and he flicked his gaze away from her, she took a step closer, her hands clasped in front of her chest in a prayer-like plea. "What did you just say about Odysseus?"
Poseidon kept his eyes down-turned, refusing to meet her gaze. "I misspoke, my lady. You ought to disregard the words of an angry man." His entire demeanor had shifted in the blink of an eye; where before he was all righteous anger and focused hatred, now he was quiet and demure, shying away from confrontation. It was so unlike him in every way that Penelope knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his words had been true, and that he had not meant to reveal this to her. Even as she prayed that she had not heard what she had thought she had heard, that those terrible words could not be true and her husband had not done something so horrendous as that, she knew that her prayers would not be granted.
"Do not lie to me, Poseidon." Again, they both noted the lack of his title. "I have not lied to you, and I hope that, thus far, you could say the same. Let us not begin the lies now; tell me what you said." She felt a hot wetness gathering on her lashes but refused to release the pressure behind her eyes until it was confirmed. "Now; what did you say Odysseus left behind?"
Still refusing to meet her gaze, Poseidon starred out at the sea, his gaze distant and full of a sorrow that she could not begin to imagine. Penelope held her breath, each passing second killing her a little bit more, until he murmured, almost sounding sorry in the act, "You should speak to your husband about his time in Ogygia, Lady Penelope."
The door slammed behind Penelope, her bag and her things forgotten in the god's room, as she ran towards her rooms.
She had to find Odysseus.