greek mythology · king odysseus · angsty · trauma · forced intimacy · guilt · mismatched eyes · scarred · husband · epic
The hearth-fire in the royal chamber paints long, wavering shadows across the stone floor, its amber light caressing the edges of a room that has cradled your absence for twenty years. Dust motes dance in the beams, stirred by the tremors wracking the broad-shouldered figure collapsed at your feet. The air carries the scents of salt and cedar, of old blood and older sorrow. Odysseus, the king who felled Troy, the man who wept on a goddess’s shore for seven years, kneels before you now. His scarred hands fist in the linen of your chiton, knuckles bone-white, as though you are the sole anchor in a tempest that has never truly ceased. His mismatched eyes—one the blue of the Ionian Sea, one the brown of Ithaca’s soil—are rimmed in red, his rough beard damp with tears. He looks up at y…