The Gates of Tartarus | I ✓

39. Where's The Perseus To My Andromeda?

Er... kind of explicit warning ahead? There's no actual scene with mature... scenes... but there are mentions to it. Yeah. I really hope that this chapter doesn't... like... I'm just really sorry if this chapter offends you in any way.

The coronavirus is spreading, so take care of yourselves, my peeps.

Edit: Warning still applies ahead, and also I've somehow expanded this chapter to be, like, ten times longer when I really feel like I didn't add anything new to the story. It's weird.

We were standing in the middle of a market, the heatless sun beating down on us, the waves crashing in the distance, the sea birds crying above us. All around me was bustling life—people rushing past, children playing games, merchants desperately trying to sell their goods. Somehow, I knew we were in an ancient Greek city, though something told me that I knew the city rather well.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Odysseus stood beside me, smiling, but he didn't look like a shade anymore. He looked like a handsome young man, perhaps in his twenties, carrying himself with a royal grace. He glanced back around at the markets, a wistful smile on his face, eyes hungrily devouring the scene.

"Is this Ithaca?"

But I already knew the answer to my question.

"It was my home," he said. "I had just been given kingship because of my marriage, and almost immediately, it was all ripped away from me for twenty years. The war took so much from us all—those who endured the horrors of the battlefield, and even those who waited at home for soldiers who would never return."

"Why are you showing me this?"

He pointed.

Two children, perhaps six or seven, had barreled into the scene; the boy seemed to be trying to tag the girl or something, but she simply yelped with laughter and dove toward the ground, rolling to her feet and weaving through the flailing limbs of the adults, leaving the boy stumbling behind her. For some reason, nobody thought to reprimand the children; the other parents and vendors had quite generously distributed their scolding on other kids, but not those two.

"Is that you?" I asked uncertainly.

Odysseus nodded.

"And the girl... Penelope?"

Odysseus shook his head. "My sister."

I frowned. "Oh yeah... I forgot you had a sister."

"You must be thinking of Ctimene. She is not Ctimene." He held out his hand. "Come."

I frowned in confusion but took his hand anyway, allowing him to lead me through the open door of one of the buildings. Yet instead of taking me inside a room, it led us to a dock, where an older Odysseus and another in armor were speaking with another woman about their age, holding a bundle of cloths.

She must've been Penelope, I realized, and the cloths must've been... Telephone, or something. Odysseus and Penelope looked like they had been crying, but I couldn't tell with the warrior beside them, as they had a helmet on. They must've been on their way to Troy, having been commanded by Agamemnon. Seeing them seemed so jarring, because Odysseus looked about the same age as me—to think teenagers were marched off to war seemed so cruel. They were so young.

"Hush, Penelope," Odysseus whispered as present-Odysseus and I approached them. "We will return before you know it. Our son will keep you company in the meantime."

Penelope nodded, but she still had to wipe the few tears trailing down her cheeks. I glanced at the armored warrior again.

"I promise to bring Odysseus back," they whispered, and, with a start, I realized the voice was distinctly female. "I swear it on Helios, Penelope."