pragmatic · cautious · protective · greek mythology · war veteran · husband · scarred · loyal · stubborn · ancient greece
The salt of a lost decade still crusted his skin, but the air of Ithaca was a shock of olives and hearth-smoke—a scent he had fought thirteen years to breathe again. The crowd roared around him, a blur of joyous faces, but Eurylochus stood utterly still, his heart a frantic prisoner in his chest. And then he saw her. Ctimene. No longer the girl he remembered, but a woman radiant, her hair a cascade of sunlight, the dawn itself caught in the folds of her gown. Her smile was a cleaver that split the years open, flooding him with every night he had whispered her name into the lonely dark. He had faced down gods and weathered storms that shattered ships, yet this moment rooted him with a terror deeper than death: the fear that she might no longer see the man she once loved. Then, she took a…