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He finds out, eventually. There is only so much Odysseus can hide.
“How long?”
Odysseus flinches, shakes. His eyes are unfocused. There are marks on his wrists- rope, or something close. “Eurylochus-”
“How long, Odysseus?”
His silence says what Eurylochus already knows.
I failed you.
Odysseus is awake. Finally , his captain is back. He presses his forehead to his brother’s, squeezing him tight.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, sings the beat of his heart. If Odysseus notices, he doesn’t comment on it.
“How long was I-”
Too long. “Only a few days.”
Odysseus is still, in his arms. “And the truth?”
“Two weeks, three days.”
Odysseus’s laugh is hoarse and pained. “Hades save me.”
He pulls back, meets Odysseus’s eyes.
They look like Ctimene’s.
“You almost died.”
His smile slips. “How close was I-”
Too close. He doesn’t say that, though. He doesn’t say anything.
The silence says enough for him.
“It wasn’t-” your fault? My choice? Whatever he is going to say dies in his throat. “Eurylochus, I-”
“I’ll kill her.” The words are flat, emotionless, because they are true.
Odysseus grabs his wrist. His hands are shaking. Eurylochus cannot breathe. “You can’t.”
“I’ll try.”
“She’s a goddess.”
“I’ll try.”
“She will kill the crew.”
He goes still. His heart is dead weight, sitting in his throat.
He cannot breathe.
“She will kill the crew,” Odysseus repeats. His voice breaks, because the words are true.
“I got them killed.”
The moon casts light onto the curve of Odysseus’s cheekbones- his face is gaunt enough that they are painfully evident now. “Yes,” he says, the master of lies reduced to telling the truth with his serpent tongue. “You did.”
Euyrlochus wishes it would feel more like an accusation, coming from Odysseus’s lips. That his regret might be validated, proven right. That his guilt might be given a purpose. “And?”
Odysseus smiles, a ghost of a thing. It has been a long, long time since he has seen his brother happy. Tonight does not fix that. “And so did I.”
You did, he thinks. If only the words were more bitter. Held more anger.
It’s too late. He understands, now.
Understands that you can only save so many, when playing the games of the gods.
You did, and then I did too.
“If you could go back-” He stops. Starts again. “If you could go back. Do it again. Do you think you could save them?”
Odysseus’s eyes are grey no longer, but in the moonlight Eurylochus can almost pretend that there is silver in his gaze.
As if his Goddess had not abandoned them all.
The admission is quiet. “I don’t even think I could save myself.”
“How long, Odysseus?”
To long too long too long and Eurylochus could not stop it did not stop it-
He still needs to know. To know just how much he failed.
“Keep him safe. Please.” Penelope’s plead is gentle. Desperate, though. She does not meet his eyes- stares out across the sea, born to be a queen. Regal.
Scared, if you knew how to look.
He is young- younger, at least. Still hopeful. This war will take most likely take a handful of months, a year or perhaps two if it drags. At the latest, he will be home in time to see his youngest’s third birthday. And Telemachus’s second, his nephew nestled in Odysseus’s arms across the balcony. Time he will mourn, yes, but he will return. “Keep him safe?”
“Please,” Penelope repeats. The pointed tips of her godblood ears flick.
He smiles comfortingly, resting a respectful hand on her shoulder. “Sister, calm your mind and your worries. Odysseus has a god’s blessing- he is young, and clever, and a good fighter when push comes to shove. The grey-eyed one would not allow him to be any less. I know you fear for him, but he will be fine.”
Penelope is silent, for a moment, the set of her jaw hard and tense. “You are going to war. He has never killed before. He- I fear he might not be able to stomach it. It is more difficult a thing than many think.”
He laughs, lightly. “You say that as if you have experienced such a thing.”
For a second, a calmness flits across her face. “I might’ve. I had a life before him. I am from Sparta, remember.”
“And they allow women to kill then, in Sparta?”
Her laughter catches on the air, then dies. “Eurylochus.” The casual nature is gone from her voice- a queen once more. And he is her soldier.
“Yes, my lady?”
“I fear...” Her voice dies. She starts once more. “I have a feeling, about this journey. Please, Eurylochus, my friend. Keep our Odysseus safe.”
“You have my word,” he vows. A fool to the core.
Odysseus looks away. There is shame, on his face, written to his core. Is that why he did not say anything? When the goddess-
“I don’t know. Time, it-”
“When you cut your hair?”
He remembers it, the morning Odysseus had returned with his hair shorn short, just below his chin. It had shown off the lightning scars on his neck. He hadn’t understood why Odysseus would do that- he hated those scars. But his hair was short. It had screamed of something changing, something going wrong. Even then he had suspected something. Why hadn’t he-
“It was too long,” Odysseus chokes out in a flood of words. “She- it was too long. She wove her fingers through it, and I-”
“Odysseus,” he breathes, the pain in his chest so bad he feels he might die. “Odysseus.”
“It was too long, because she had tugged it and pulled it and pulled me and-”
“Odysseus!”
His brother looks at him. He is crying.
So is Eurylochus.
“Odysseus,” he says again. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words are not enough. Will never be enough.
“I’m sorry.”
Have never been enough.
“I’m sorry I opened that bag.”
“I’m sorry I killed the cattle.”
“I’m sorry I betrayed you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“I’m sorry I failed to protect you.”
He had promised. He had promised.
He had failed.