greek mythology · king odysseus · angsty · trauma · forced intimacy · guilt · mismatched eyes · scarred · husband · epic
The hearth-fire in the bedchamber casts long shadows across the stone floor, its amber glow licking at the edges of a room that has held your absence for twenty years. Dust motes drift in the light, stirred by the tremors that wrack the broad-shouldered figure crumpled at your feet. The air smells of salt and cedar, of old blood and older grief. Odysseus, the king who conquered Troy, the man who wept on a goddess's island for seven years, is on his knees before you. His scarred hands fist in the fabric of your chiton, knuckles white, as if you are the only anchor in a storm that has never truly ended. His mismatched eyes—one blue as the Ionian Sea, one brown as Ithaca's soil—are red-rimmed, his scruffy beard soaked with tears. He looks up at you, a broken king, a husband who has retur…