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If Odysseus listens very carefully, he can make out the faint whistling of a tune in the wind. 

This island prison is a sanctuary of perfection, which is to say, it’s a torture in it’s own right. The wind never howls, and the sun never blazes, and the plants never wilt and the animals never make a sound. It’s like living in an endless dream, where the edges are fuzzy with haze and he thinks, not for the first time, that the moon is always a perfect white sphere and the sun never strays from its rising point just past the highest mountain peak. 

Time isn’t a thing that happens here. Time and space and sound. It’s all muffled. Echoes at best, barely able to penetrate the thick mist. 

It’s driven him to madness, he thinks.

Ogygia doesn’t allow for much sound. The tides’ push and pull, the humming of birds he’s never actually seen, the faint buzzing of something lingering beneath every surface; it’s all a distant background, like a blanket that coats his mind and makes it difficult to focus. Because that’s what it does. Makes it impossible to think straight. Makes it easy to get lost in the fog. 

Sometimes he hears things, and he knows that it’s just his mind playing tricks on him. Ogygia exists in a space with nothing substantial. So when he hears people, familiar voices tugging at him, he knows it’s not real. If it’s not the distant hum, it’s not real. 

It’s usually screaming. It’ll sound like a person shrieking from right behind his ear, but he’s long become accustomed to it. He knows not to turn around and humour his delusions. Screaming and wailing and crying and everything in between; it’s not real. It cannot do anything to him. 

Sometimes he hears laughter. It’s rare, but when it happens it’s always with a different voice. Sometimes it’s more than one voice. Sometimes it’s all the voices he’s ever heard. They laugh inside his head, or maybe it’s more accurate to say they laugh at him. He can’t really blame them; were he to be a spirit haunting Odysseus the Failure, he would’ve taunted too. 

Calypso’s laugh is the only real thing. She laughs a lot. It gets mixed with the strange hum of the island, but it’s real. He often wonders if it’s better this way, for her laugh to be a separate thing from the people who laugh in his head. For her to not mingle with the voices that exist because they are the only thing that belong to him.

He often wonders if this is why he is hearing things in the first place. Because nothing belongs to him anymore, and the voices are laughing at him for it. 

Acceptance is not quite the word to call his definition of existence. Resignation? Defeat? Though adequate, they don’t encompass the way it feels when he listens to screaming and laughing for the long hours of a seemingly endless day. It doesn’t quite fit how his endless nights reside.

The whistling is new though. He doesn’t know how long ago the voices first began, and he can’t begin to try and piece together how long it’s been since. They’ve been pretty consistent though. He wonders why they would change their tune. 

It’s a nice melody, he thinks, when he catches a stray piece of it floating through the still air. Like someone humming, or whistling into the sky. He can’t quite place where he’s heard it; he’s half-convinced he’s never heard it at all, and that the familiarity comes from the voice, not the sound. 

Odysseus tries humming along, but his voice sounds like grating bark against stone. It’s not pleasant. Which is strange. He used to love singing. Penelope said it added to his charm, how he could string stories into songs.

The whistling song seems to appreciate his efforts, at least. He swears he can hear a lilt in its notes, like singing with a smile. It’s a nice change of pace. It’s better than being laughed at. 

He doesn’t bring it up with Calypso. He doesn’t really bring anything up with Calypso, but during the long nights he finds that sometimes his tongue goes loose against his will and he speaks. He speaks about the mundane, the island, the wind that doesn't exist, the water that’s always too perfect, too pristine, the sun that never burns. He talks to the nymph like he’d talk to a friend, which is wrong, he doesn’t want to talk. But he talks anyway. Invisible wine that unclenches every knot he’s tied in his voice. 

Calypso loves it. Odysseus isn’t surprised about that. She likes listening to him, she had said once. She hates the quiet, and when Odysseus finally finds his wits and stops speaking she is always pleased. Odysseus doesn’t know what to think about that. He tries not to. 

But he doesn’t tell her about the whistling. Compulsion forces his traitorous tongue to hold, for once. By the tick in Calypso’s brow, he’s not subtle about his restraint. He endures his discipline in silence. 

Regardless. It’s his little secret. Something that finally, finally belongs to him. He is allowed an illusion of privacy when the sun is up, and when Calypso pretends to home-make even though magic could wash clothes better than any hand. He pretends like the trees and the water and the animals aren’t watching him for her. He pretends like he’s alone. 

His favourite spot is the highest cliffside that juts out over the water. The beach beneath is riddled with jagged stones that reach up like claws from the ground. Not that they’re much use to him. Magic, he has decided, is an accursed thing. Stones turn to sand and carry him away from harm. 

But he likes the view. Endless ocean where the treeline is far behind him and he can pretend he’s looking over his ship instead of stranded on an island. He finds it’s a good pass time as any.

The whistling continues here too. He’d argue that it’s stronger here, where the thick emerald leaves of the forest aren’t around to block the sound and carry it away. The ocean is calm as it always is, and the music plays with the rise and fall of the waves like a dance. He closes his eyes and enjoys the way it feels like, for once, he’s not alone. 

The music stops. He opens his eyes, and he is met with wings.  

It’s not the first time he’s reimagined people from Before. Before he lost everything. Before he sacrificed his people for a chance. Before punishment claimed him like a reward. From Before. 

He’s begged for Athena enough times that he started seeing her in his dreams. Started seeing her in every owl that stared at him while he crept out of Calypso’s hut and into the dark. Saw her in the water, a distant figure, imposing and unmoving as she stared at him, watching as he fell from the cliff. 

He’s seen others too. Polites is always a mangled mess, and Odysseus has forgotten what his voice used to sound like. It’s a jumble whenever he opens his mouth. The words never sound right. He sees Eurylochus too. And the rest of his men, all six-hundred of them. They’re accusations sit fresh in his head. 

He’s forgotten what Penelope’s voice was like. She never speaks to him though, when the foggy image of her appears to him. Mostly, she just stares, and Odysseus is struck with the fact that he can’t even remember her face. 

Hermes isn’t a new delusion. Odysseus has lost count of how many times the winged Olympian has flown over him and offered him help. Odysseus has lost count of how many time’s he’s begged, only for Hermes to vanish before his very eyes. 

He thinks that, for someone’s memory seems to trickle through his fingers like sand, today’s delusion is exceptionally clear. 

“Hello old friend!” Hermes grins, a wide thing that doesn’t look natural. Odysseus is surprised he’s remembered this much detail. Usually the people he imagines are wispy imitations at best. He wonders if this is what he gets for unlocking a new level of insanity. 

Odysseus doesn’t humour his imagination. Hermes is an imposingly tall figure despite the lithe stature, and though he’s a welcome change from seeing someone like Poseidon drowning him on land again and again, he’s still blocking the view. 

“Rude!” Hermes laughs, and he floats over to where Odysseus had been staring over his shoulder. He peers closer at him so that, any closer, and their noses will touch. “You just earned yourself a lifetime of late pigeons.”

Odysseus tries looking past the other shoulder. For that he has to lean over the ledge. It’s almost sunset, and the sky is painted a brilliant ombre of orange and pink. He enjoys it for all of three seconds before Hermes flies back into view. 

“Now you’re just playing dirty,” he pouts, hand on his hand. The wings on his head flicker, obscuring his view further. “I dressed up for this! You should be complimenting me by now!”

“You look nice,” Odysseus says. He tries looking through Hermes’ shoulder. 

“I knew I should have gone for the other belt…” Hermes mutters, flying a little higher in his musing. Odysseus spots the sky through the gap in his arm and stares. “This is a new low. Apollo will never shut up about this.”

Odysseus feels Hermes’ attention turn back to him, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. The sky is now a blazing inferno, and it lights the ocean on fire. If only Hermes would get his face out of the way so he could enjoy this last precious hour before nightfall. 

“Helloooo?” Hermes waves a hand over his eyes. Odysseus’s mind tricks him into thinking he can feel the slight change in air when Hermes swipes close enough to almost bump his nose. “Don’t tell me you’re under a spell. Ballsy nymph.”

Odysseus feels a wave of warmth wash over him, and he does his best to enjoy it. It’s getting cold already, without the not-too-hot-not-too-distant sun. It ends almost too quickly, but he doesn’t have the energy to mourn too much. 

“Hmm, no spell then.” Hermes leans closer, close enough that the brim of his wide hat brushes against Odysseus’s forehead. The touch is foreign and soft. He likes it. Leans into it. It’s better than Poseidon's frigid claws around his ribs or Zeus's lightning tearing through his body or the cyclops’s grip around his throat when he doesn’t let himself sleep fast enough at night. His mind is kind today, it seems. A reward. Maybe for his compliance. 

“Oh!” Hermes grins, wide and unnatural and borderline unnerving. He floats back in time to Odysseus’s tilt forward. At this rate, he’ll fall off the edge. He knows the exact moment when he’ll lean too far. He can already picture it. He briefly wonders if this time, it will work. 

There’s a large hand cradling his forehead, keeping him from dropping past the point of no return. Odysseus is curious how it must look to an outsider, him hanging off of the edge like this, suspended by nothing. His mind compensates him with Hermes. He wonders if he’s already dead.

He doesn’t let himself entertain that futile hope. 

“It won’t kill me,” he explains, keeping his eyes down to the water that squirms between the jagged stones beneath. “It never does. You needn’t worry.”

“I think,” Hermes hums, cradling his head until he’s sitting upright again, long fingers spreading over his scalp, a palm resting just above his eyes as he’s forced to look up. He lets his mind have this semblance of comfort. He likes it too much to remind himself of how unreal it is. “I very much do.”

“You’ve never stopped me before.”

“Haven’t I? I’d like to think I would have.”

“Who knows,” Odysseus sighs. He goes back to watching the sun from beneath Hermes’s wing. “The dialogue keeps changing. It’s never consistent. I guess I’ll never know.”

“Are you sleep-walking?”

“No,” and then, after a pause. “I don’t think so. I’m not allowed to.”

“Hmm, peculiar way of saying it,” Hermes grins. He leans close, enough that his breath ghosts over his face. He still hasn’t moved his hand. “Like people have control over that kind of thing.”

“I’m not allowed to,” he repeats. 

“Alright,” Hermes concedes. Too easily, Odysseus thinks. The Hermes of his hazy memory had loved to banter. He had argued all night with Odysseus, guiding him in circles before taking him to Circe. It had been a fun night, Odysseus remembers. Being made a fool by Mechaniotes, but having fun, for the first time in what had felt like forever. 

Now Hermes accepts defeat like a mortal instead of divinity, and he holds Odysseus with a certain gentle flare. It’s unlike him. Upon meeting the messenger, he had tossed Odysseus into the air and had let him plummet, over and over, singing and laughing as Odysseus barely kept himself from throwing up. He doesn’t remember the reserve of gentle favour. Must be an inconsistency, trying to make up for something. 

“Are you going to throw me yourself?” Odysseus wonders aloud. “It would fix this linear.”

“Did you enjoy it that much?” Hermes huffs.

“Yes,” Odysseus feels no shame in admitting it to himself. He’s long past the point of deceiving himself. Which is funny, considering all the delusions he sees and hears. “It felt like flying.”

“Fitting from one of mine,” Hermes chuckles, finally moving his hand. He cards through Odysseus’s too-long-hair. It’s clean, he knows; Calypso had washed him this morning. Had scrubbed him clean of blood and dirt. Had brushed his hair and let it fall because she likes the look. It bothers him, itches his neck. But he’s learned to live with it. 

Hermes hand is warm against his head, carding through sun-dried locks and pushing them out of his eyes. The world expands as Hermes tucks them behind his ear. Huh. This is new. A sunset without edges. 

“You look weary, darling,” Hermes murmurs. Odysseus hadn’t noticed when he’d drifted close enough to crouch onto solid ground. Even like this, he towers above him. His silhouette reminds Odysseus of Athena. 

“I’m not tired,” Odysseus insists. Calypso will fetch him for bed. She always does. “Not yet.”

“Alright,” Hermes concedes again, so unlike him. “That’s fine. Hey, the sun is almost gone.”

Odysseus hums. Hermes is right. The sky is getting dark now. Usually a shallow chill will permeate the air, but right now he is still warm. Hermes feels like a personal sun, so close like that, a hand in his hair. He feels himself lilt sideways, away from the ledge, pulled by the siren song of soft presence. He doesn’t even realise he’s leaning into him until the hand in his hair moves down, cradling him close, an arm around his waist. It’s unusual. He feels small, like a child and not a weathered man counting down his countless days. 

“I’m not tired,” he mumbles, eyelids heavy. The sun is almost gone, and he considers praying to keep it up. He would rather it be day than night. He doesn’t like the night time. 

“I’m sure,” Hermes chuckles, and it’s like a cocoon that blankets him. He dimly realises that this is probably the most kind delusion he has ever had in all his time here. He’s not dying, not being maimed, not sacrificed and not sacrificing and not forgetting the faces of people he swore he’d never forget. He thinks that, if this is indeed a dream, he doesn’t want to wake up. He can exist in this one for a while longer. 

“Will you come back?” He can’t help but ask. 

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Again,” Odysseus says. “I remembered you well. It’s like you’re here.”

Hermes' face does a funny thing, where he’s smiling, but it looks like he’s bitten into something that tastes odd, and he’s still trying to figure out what it is. 

“Darling,” he leans down to catch his eye. “Oh, punishment indeed.”

Odysseus doesn’t know what he means. 

“I had thought it was silly,” Hermes continues, leaning back, and dragging Odysseus so they can stare at the stars beginning to twinkle in the gloom. “An island of the forever-living.”

“You can’t die on this island,” Odysseus explains. “I’ve tried.”

“I know, love.”

“It never sticks.”

“I know.”

Odysseus doesn’t want to fall asleep. Falling asleep in dreams means waking up in the land of the living. He can picture it now, opening his eyes and facing the familiar ceiling of Calypso’s cabin. He can picture it, a warm body next to him, achingly familiar in the way that it aches to think of it as familiar. He can no longer remember Penelope’s touch. He can’t remember anyone’s touch. 

This dream is so vivid. It is like a new experience. He will cling to these memories forever. Of a touch of someone he knows. 

Odysseus wakes up to the sky. 

He stares for a long time, not daring to move, barely breathing. It’s something…this is something that’s not normal. He hasn’t woken under the stars in…he doesn’t even know how long. This island of ever-living has routine, and it is torture in it’s own right when Odysseus knows exactly what is coming next. 

He never wakes up outside. He’s always inside, because he either slept inside or Calypso brought him inside. He never gets to stay outside though, under the stars, feeling the first rays of the sun touch his heels. 

Maybe this is another dream. He wonders if it’s a mercy his mind is finally pulling on him. He can’t hear screaming. He can’t hear laughing. His heart nearly stops in his chest when he realises he can’t hear anything at all. 

There is no buzz, no unnatural haze of background noise that is always just a little bit too perfect. No animals. No feeling of being watched by thousands of eyes. The water lapping the shore is distant. There are seagulls calling on the horizon. 

Ogygia is not home to seagulls. 

Odysseus sits up, running at his eyes with quivering fingers. They are cold to the touch, like he spent the whole night outside. He is encased in the shadow of a seemingly unmoving cloud. Calypso never came for him. This is a change in routine. 

Above him, someone whistles a song. 

Hermes floats like a gliding bird in one place, arms crossed behind his head and hat tipped so low it covers his entire face. His ankles are crossed, and the wings sprouting from them flap in an irregular beat. 

Odysseus stares at him. 

Hermes stops whistling and casts his head to look at him. 

“Oh, good morning darling!” He greets, flipping in a lazy arch before settling to float beside him. “I was worried you’d sleep in.”

“I never sleep in.”

Hermes just laughs. 

“Well, now that you’re finally awake, I think it’s high time we get moving!”

Odysseus doesn’t understand the words coming out of Hermes’ mouth. 

“I…” He pauses, unsure. This is not normal. He doesn’t know what to do. “I finished the repairs yesterday.”

Hermes quirks his head. He’s got that same look, like he’s bitten into something tart. 

“What,” he starts slowly, “are you talking about? The boat?”

“The house,” Odysseus corrects. 

“I’m talking about the boat, love. The raft. The…the one I saw down by the shore. Are you unwell?”

Odysseus huffs a chuckle. It holds no mirth. He moves to get up, watching Hermes flit away only an inch away, keeping close. Like a clingy bird. 

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m always funny.”

“You are being cruel.”

“Odysseus,” Hermes leans back, holding a hand against his chest. He’s still smiling, but somehow it looks solemn. “I am the god of trickery, not cruelty. I would never be cruel to you.”

Odysseus ignores him, and heads down to the beach, where a path is woven through the forest. It leads to the house. Calypso will be upset, he can already picture it. The last time he spent the night outside, he couldn’t walk for days afterward. The bones healed quickly, of course, because Calypso has magic, but he doesn’t fancy repeating that experience. 

“Where are you going?” Hermes follows close at his shoulder, almost touching. His breath tickles his nape. He tries to repress a shiver. 

“To the house,” Odysseus explains. He stops suddenly, and the abrupt halt forces Hermes to jolt up to avoid bumping into him. Turning around, he looks at the winged messenger. “You’re real.”

“Lovely that you noticed.”

“Oh,” Odysseus says. He turns back around. He doesn’t keep walking. “Am I dead?”

“You cannot die on this island.”

“I know,” Odysseus stares at his feet, where his toes sink into the sand. “I–”

“I’m not guiding you to the Underworld, I’m not a figment of your imagination, I’m not a this, or a that,” Hermes huffs, drifting to be directly in front of him. He’s pouting. It’s not a flattering look. “I’m real. I’m here with a message.”

“Oh,” Odysseus doesn’t let his shoulders drop. He doesn’t. “Okay. Calypso is–”

“I’m–” Hermes lets out a long-suffering sigh, hand dragging down his face. “I’m not here for the nymph.” Then, after a pause. “Okay, well, I was partially here for the nymph, but I’ve already delivered her message.”

Hermes draws closer, and he holds Odysseus’s shoulders in his hands. It’s strange. Odysseus is not a small man; his shoulders used to be broad, and Penelope used to love draping herself over them. So did his crewmates who found him to be the perfect height for an arm rest. But Odysseus knows he’s strong. He’s got wide shoulders. Thick arms. He had been able to swing a sword right through a man. He had been able to hold an infant from the fabrics of its cradle. Well, he used to be. He wonders if Penelope would recognise him now. Weak and fickle.

Right now, Hermes' hand encloses over his shoulder as if he were a child under the shadow of a titan. He’s never felt this small before. Fragile. 

Hermes leans down, catching his eye. Odysseus looks into endless white. 

“I’m here for you.”

Odysseus…doesn’t know what to do. 

“…oh.” He says after a pause. “Why?”

Hermes grins, blindly wide and full of teeth. 

“I have a message from Olympus.” He announces, whirling around to be at his side, standing, for once. His hand never leaves him, only cruising over his back until his long arm can drape over his shoulders and hold him close to his chest. They start for the beach. “From Zues himself. Are you ready for this? Are you? Your time here is over, love. You can go home!”

Odysseus doesn’t believe him. 

“Tell the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth, my dear.”

“You’re lying.”

“Accusing a god of lying?” Hermes squints, but he doesn’t look angry. “Do you ever want your mail on time?”

“I–…” Odysseus looks back down to his feet. The sand is soft and cool. He tries to focus on the feeling. “Why?”

“You were fought for, darling,” Hermes hums, forcing him to keep walking with a gentle tug. They are on the beach. The path to the house is up ahead. “Valiantly, may I add. The show of the century, even! Father was so angry; I wish I had someone paint the whole thing. Anyway, it was epic, and all for you! I must say, you are one of my favourite mortals.”

That’s probably a lie. There are already stories of great heroes before the Trojan War. Heroes that were worth getting fought for. Worth divine intervention. He is a warrior who has nothing to show for his efforts. He’s no Perseus. He’s no Heracles. His tale is full of tragedy. It’s not that exciting. 

But Odysseus isn’t too keen on bringing his faults up. He lets Hermes talk over him. He doesn’t move away from his hold. 

“–expected of someone of my blood, anyway. I’m always telling everyone that they should give credit where credit’s due, but dear old daddy-o–”

Odysseus squints. They have passed the foliage that makes up the path to Calypso’s house. They’re…they’re walking away from it. They aren’t going inside. He looks around. This beach is one he’s memorised. Up ahead, past the bend of sandstone, there is a large cut-out of the shore that acts as a bay. Odysseus tried using it to anchor his raft and leave. He had rowed from dawn to dusk. Calypso had not been happy. He hadn’t been able to use his broken hands for weeks.

His raft remains untouched by time. It is perched along the forest line, not even tied up because this island does not experience winds and storms and heavy rains. The wood is as jagged and hastily put together. He remembers cutting them up like it was yesterday, and yet a lifetime ago. 

“Ah, well,” Hermes stops a ways away, looking at the raft with a grimace. “This…this is pretty pathetic, actually. Can’t very well have you drown in the first few seconds of your freedom.”

“It floats,” Odysseus points out. 

“Of course it does, darling,” Hermes tuts absentmindedly. He pulls Odysseus away from the sun to sit in the shade of the treeline. “It’s wood. Wood will float.”

“Don’t try to be funny.”

Hermes barks a laugh. 

“I don’t have to try. It’s in me, right here,” he presses a hand to chest, grinning. “Naturally. I’m a good time.”

Odysseus feels like he’s dreaming. 

He watches Hermes flit about, disappearing into the forest and coming back with armfuls of wood and vines. Odysseus watches him wave an arm around and watches his raft get remade, stitched by magic.

“Isn’t this divine intervention?”

“Who, me?” Hermes cackles, and throws a twig at him. It hits him in the face. He tries not to sputter when Hermes laughs harder. “I’m all about it, actually. It’s endlessly amusing.”

The raft is finished by midday. Odysseus tries to help, but Hermes shoos him away like an annoying pest. Instead, he asks Odysseus to go get his stuff for the journey while he finished up. 

His stuff – his tattered cloak, chipped sword, battered tunic – is all stuffed away in a little chest under Calypso’s bed. Calypso doesn’t like looking at it. It’s all ugly, she would say. She’s made him clothes to wear. He’s wearing her robes of cotton, and he does his best to fold them over his body like a tunic. Calypso likes seeing him in free-flowing fabrics. He claims he misses the war. It had been a lie, but Calypso hadn’t known that. He’s good at lying, but she got angry over the truth he gave her anyway. It hadn’t been a fair fight, that one. It rarely ever was. 

But Hermes doesn’t know that. He looks impatient, tapping his finger to his arm where he’s crossed them, waiting for Odysseus to answer. 

“I…” He takes a breath and holds it, willing his pounding heart to steady. “Yes. I’ll go.”

He walks the familiar path through the forest. It bleeds out into a massive valley surrounded by the island’s more shallow cliffsides. A waterfall cascades into a serene lake of sapphire blue, where fish dart this way and that in perfect lifeless patterns. Flowers grow on the hedges that line the lake, leading to a wide garden fenced off by elegantly carved poles. The cabin is just short of the garden, lingering by the lakeside and facing the highest peak, where the sun rises from. The flower brush decorating the arch of the entrance is wilted and black. The garden is full of rotting fruits. The animals are silent. 

Odysseus’s hands quiver. 

He opens the door to find the cabin empty. The hearth is filled with ash, and though the sunlight streams into the cabin in beams of bright white, the air feels cold. 

Odysseus makes his way inside, past the cushions lining the floor and the shelves of pottery along the walls and the scrolls stacked in hazardous piles. Wooden shavings litter the corner where Odysseus spent most of his time indoors. His latest project, forgotten and too early in its construction to have shape, sits unfinished by his blade. 

He grabs them both. 

The only other room in the cabin is this one that leads to the back entrance, a single door away from the common space. There’s a large bed pushed to the back and framed with delicate wooden beams, curving into intricate shapes and designs, like vines intertwined over a pillar. Flowers usually decorate it, always fresh and usually bright in colour. Right now, all the flowers are ashen and dry and wilt petals along the silk sheets. 

Odysseus doesn’t let himself linger on the memories that try to cling to him. Nights where the flower petals were grey like they are now, when Calypso’s patience grew thin. Instead he reached beneath the bed where a little crook is dug into the groove of the floor. His hand catches the latch of the small chest, and he quickly pulls it out. 

A leather bag, small enough to tuck beneath his aged cloak. He leaves the tunic full of holes. Those holes hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. 

Gently pushing the chest back, Odysseus gets up and makes for the back entrance. He adjusts his cloak, the familiar rough fabric scratching at his neck. 

Outside, Calypso is waiting for him. 

Her magic is strong, and weaves through the very air. He tries not to choke. He tries to keep his hands from shaking. 

“You can’t leave me,” she begs. She’s crying, angry tears trailing down her dark face. “You can’t. We’re in love.”

It echoes in his head, in his heart. As if her heartbreak were his own. There is a distant buzzing in his ears, the sound of the perfect wind and the perfect waves. A thousand eyes bear holes into his back. 

“I don’t care what that damned messenger says. He’s lying! You’re mine!”

Odysseus feels the air turn cold. Feels his feet root themselves into the ground.

Calypso loves to talk. At night, she spares Odysseus the embarrassment of opening his mouth by opening her own. She talks and talks and sometimes she would sing to him. Her voice is beautiful and it spins spider webs into his head. She talks to him now, yelling, crying, and he finds himself at a loss. 

“I love you!” She declares. Odysseus expects her to lunge at him, like she usually does. Spirited. Devoted. Mad. But she doesn’t. She stays put. “I love you! I love you!”

There are words on his tongue that beg to be said. He knows the feeling. He’s said things he doesn’t want. It’s like the words don’t belong to him and want out, they want to return to Calypso. Because they are not Odysseus’ words. They aren’t. 

“I love you,” he says. He doesn’t mean it. It hurts to say. Penelope will hate him should she ever find out. And she will. His beloved. He could never lie to her. She will know he uttered these precious words to another. That his body is no longer hers alone. That he has been ruined for her pure touch. 

Calypso looks up, and she’s smiling, like she knew he’d come around. His head is filled with cobwebs and cotton. He feels compelled to move forward, even though he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to get closer. Calypso is a rose full of thorns. He doesn’t want to bleed again. 

“You do?” She asks. She’s happy. Odysseus is put to ease despite himself. Calypso is easy on him when she’s happy. When she thinks Odysseus is happy. He can delude himself into thinking it’s all okay, that maybe he is happy. He hates how he relaxes, how it feels like she will reward him for being lenient. For bending. 

There is a large warm palm on his shoulder, fingers curling over his neck and thumb pressed into his nape. It pushes the fog from his brain, clears his ears. He can hear a quiet hum along his hair. 

Calypso is suddenly furious. Her hair waves around like snakes and she snarls, teeth sharp, thorns peaking out past her skin. Like a barbed vine waiting to crawl up his leg. It hurts every time. He hates the feeling of bleeding without real reason to. Without a fight to justify it. 

“But…” he takes a deep breath. No matter how hard he leans, the hand on him is unyielding. The breath against his skin is steady. “Not in the way you want me to.”

Calypso cries like Odysseus had that first night he dreamt of Penelope and couldn’t remember the melody of her voice. Like she’s losing a love. To her, it may very well be the case. 

Hermes guides him, Diactorus, with a firm hand on his neck, humming a song under his breath. Odysseus pretends he doesn’t see the sharp lilt of his smile, dangerous and just a bit too wide. Unnatural. Pretends Calypso isn’t cursing his name, crying like he’s hurt her. He feels bad. Instead he listens to the music. 

Hermes drops the windbag into his arms, pushes his raft out into the open sea, and then starts talking. 

“See, it’s still daylight, but come nightfall I’ll point out the star you must follow to get home,” he explains, flying lazing circles above like a seagull over land. Odysseus shields the sun from his eyes in order to keep the Olympian in view. “These parts are uncharted, my dear, so it will be in your best interest to stay on course.”

“How did you find me then?” Odysseus asks. 

“Oh, darling, I know every inch of every land,” Hermes cackles, swooping down to hover directly in front of him. The wind is kind, and pushes his sail in with strength, but he holds the mast and rope regardless. This means when Hermes starts twirling his long hair with his finger, he doesn’t have the hands to bat him away. “How else would I deliver my messages on time?”

“How long did it take to deliver mine?”

Hermes hums, gently tugging his hair before smoothing it down, repeating the motion with another lock. Over and over. “Athena played our dear father’s game for months, I think. Your delivery only took a day. I would never keep you waiting.”

Odysseus doesn’t believe him, but he keeps it to himself. 

“And…” He’s scared to ask, but he needs to know. “How long…how long have I…”

Hermes hovers closer, one hand splayed on either side of Odysseus’s head, tilting it up to face him. Upside down, his smile almost looks apologetic. 

“Seven years, my love.”

It doesn’t take a scholar to add the time together. 

“Twenty years…” Odysseus rasps. He tries to tug his head out of Hermes’ grip. He can’t. “I’ve been…I’ve been gone twenty fucking years…”

“A long time for a mortal,” Hermes hums, cradling Odysseus’s cheeks between his long fingers. “A small lifetime.”

Odysseus wonders if the years have been taken from him like they take from everyone else. His reflection was a flitting thing between ocean waves, and Calypso never let him look. Had his hair greyed? Do lines decorate his face? Does he look like an aging man instead of a seasoned young warrior that led a war?

Hermes hasn’t aged a day. He looks like what Odysseus used to look like, young-spirited and cradling his son and wife for the last time. A man sailing for a voyage that would last a decade. Looking at him gives Odysseus no feel of the time that’s passed. It does nothing to soothe him. 

He drops one hand off of the mast to feel his eyes, manoeuvring around Hermes’ clingy fingers. He tries to feel the wrinkles that used to line his eyes when he smiled. Have they deepened? He can’t tell. His skin feels foreign against his touch. 

“My darling, you look dashing,” Hermes laughs, shaking his head before finally letting go. He goes back to flying, closer now than before, enough for the wind of his wings to tickle his hair. “Calypso’s island is cursed. Ever-living. Calypso can’t die, but it’s an extra measure. A real “kick them while they’re down” moment. Overkill if you ask me. The years have been…one could say they’ve been kind to you.”

Odysseus doesn’t need a mirror to understand what Hermes is saying. 

With the wind on his side for once, there is little to do on the raft. There are rations pushed into a basket and tied to the mast, one which he himself did not collect. Inside he finds dried fruit and rice. Hermes denies involvement. 

“That would be divine intervention.”

Odysseus rolls his eyes. 

He’s not hungry, despite Hermes eyeing him up and down at the statement. He hasn’t felt hungry in a long time – seven years, if the messenger is to be believed – but now he has the excuse of rations. He can fish too, if need be; he can see silvery bodies pass by abnormally close to the raft to the point where he wouldn’t even need to jump in the water to get them. He’s never been this…this lucky before. Nothing has ever worked out for him like this since he left Ithaca. 

He eyes Hermes, but the deity ignores him. 

With nothing to do, he settles with his back against the thick wood of the mast and pulls out his blade. 

Hermes eyes him critically once Odysseus’s attention has shifted away from him. He floats down to his shoulder level, peering around his neck like a curious animal. The wings on his head brush against his skin with every little flutter of movement, as soft as silk. Odysseus ignores him and fishes out the small blob of wood in his pouch. He doesn’t remember what he’d been carving, but he knows what he wants it to be now. He sets to carving. Hermes watches like it’s the most fascinating thing to have ever happened. 

Hermes, per his own warning, doesn’t help when they run into trouble. It’s fine, because Odysseus can handle these things, and he’s already been blessed enough to be in debt for several generations. He fights off strange water creatures with long tentacles and paddles during the long days when the current and wind cease to exist. He fishes too, once his rice begins to deplete. Hermes is less than helpful because he keeps shoving Odysseus off the raft. 

It’s surprising, the fact that the god hasn’t left yet. He’s not known as one to have a lot of free time, being a messenger and guide for the dead. Odysseus often wonders, watching Hermes float aimlessly above him, lazing around in the sky, just what he’s getting by sticking around. Nothing exciting ever happens beyond the encounters with sharks and storms. He makes the mistake of asking. 

“Dawww, aren’t you the most thoughtful little thing,” Hermes coos, pinching Odysseus’s cheeks until they hurt. He vaguely wonders how much strength the Olympian is holding back to refrain from tearing Odysseus’s face apart. 

“I’m a grown man,” Odysseus grunts, trying (and failing) to pry Hermes’ hands off.

“And I’m thousands of years old! My little baby, that’s what you are.”

Eventually Hermes lets go and settles on the raft languidly. He’s much taller than Odysseus, and the wings at his ankles dip into the water on the other side when he lies down. 

Odysseus goes back to carving. After a moment, Hermes speaks. 

“I have a soft spot for mortals,” Hermes sighs, smiling at the sky. “‘Specially mortals like you, my love. Heroes.”

“I’m…” Odysseus swallows his words. He’s barely a man. He’s more akin to a monster tainting this life with mistakes. He’s no hero.

“And a hero of my kin?” Hermes continues as if Odysseus never interrupted. “Golden grapes on a golden platter.”

Odysseus wonders if gods can become delusional. His mother had been a normal mortal, as his father. He doesn’t remember further than that, because he’d had other things to worry about. But if Hermes wants to think of them as kin, then who is he to stop him?

“Sure,” Odysseus snort, and doesn’t bring up how that didn’t really answer his question. He digs little details into the expanse of wood with his blade. “Will I ever get to fly then? Wings on my head or anything?”

“Oh, you think you’re funny, huh?” Hermes cackles, sitting up enough to yank at his hair. He’s gentle about it, impossibly so, for a being able to snap his neck with a single swipe of his finger. “Maybe I should bless you with a hat that will never come off instead.”

“Yours…it definitely comes off,” Odysseus scoffs.

“Try it, sweetheart,” Hermes grins. 

Tentatively, Odysseus reaches for the strange hat perched on Hermes’ head, the wide slope curving and casting his face in shadow. When Hermes doesn’t smite him into ash, he gives a tug. Nothing moves. And when he pulls harder, he feels like he’s pulling the ropes of a fleet all by himself. Hermes’ himself doesn’t even budge. 

“How is this–” he grunts, using both hands to try and peel the stupid hat off. Hermes looks so smug that it just serves to infuriate him further. “So stuck? You spelled it, didn’t you?”

“Me?” Hermes fake-gasps, clutching at his chest. “I would never. How dare you accuse me of such cheap tricks.”

Odysseus throws his hands up in defeat. Hermes cackles like a madman. 

“Kinship,” Odysseus mutters. “What great benefits I reap.”

“My silver-tongue, for one,” Hermes grins giddily, reaching over to tug at his hair again. Always gentle. Never to hurt. It’s still strong enough to pull his head along with it. “But also, it wouldn’t be the worst if you let me deal with this.” He gestures to Odysseus’s hair with a flippant wave of his wrist. 

“What, like cutting it?”

“Or something,” Hermes ponders him with a wide smile. “I do – if you hadn’t noticed – have impeccable taste.”

“With your reputation, you’d cut it all off,” Odysseus huffs. He lets Hermes continue to run his fingers over his scalp, hair rough with salt. It would be nice to get it off his neck. “Would it kill you to give me a mirror?”

“Divine intervention,” Hermes tuts. He drags Odysseus over despite his surprised protest, easily pulling him over to his side of the raft. “Now where’s that blade of yours?”

“You sure you’re not out for my head too?” Odysseus can’t help but snort, handing the blade over. 

“Oh darling,” Hermes murmurs, and though Odysseus can hear his smile, it sounds a little bit sad. “If I could keep each and every one of you, I would.” Then he laughs softly, and Odysseus can feel him start untying the ribbon that he had attempted to bind his hair with. “I am fond of your humans. So much feeling to give in a lifetime so short. It’s something you cherish dearly that we immortals forget to understand.”

Odysseus doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels hands ghost over his nape, collecting long strands of hair between his fingers. Fingers that could snap his neck. Fingers that could dig into his skull and rip his mind out. 

Fingers that gently card over his head, the shnick shnick shnick of a blade cutting through it. Gently. 

“Don’t you forget?” Odysseus can’t help but ask. “Don’t you…after years and years, don’t you…”

“Ah,” Hermes hums. His long legs bracket Odysseus’s body on either side, but despite the trap of limbs, he feels at ease. Years of being trapped, and yet this prison doesn’t feel threatening. Wrapped around…around kin, if a cheat is to be believed. It sure feels like kin. 

“We remember,” Hermes explains. “I do, anyway. Always. Every face that is mine. Precious.”

“You’re lying.”

“You seriously want late mail for the rest of your life?”

“I forgot,” Odysseus confesses, staring down at his hands. Calloused and scarred, with fingers that have healed over and over and healed wrong. Crooked and broken and mended. “It took me twenty years, but I can’t…I can’t remember Penelope’s voice. I can’t remember–”

“My love,” Hermes presses his large palm between his shoulder blades, as if to shush him. It works as well as a muffle would. “Want to know a secret?”

“Is it a real one?”

“On my brother’s cattle,” Hermes smirks. Odysseus hopes Apollo isn’t listening; he has a feeling that he wouldn’t be in the god’s good graces. Come to think of it, there are very few of them who are. Every one he’s encountered has wanted him either dead, or something worse. 

“I don’t like meddling with my kin,” Hermes says. Shnik shnik shnik, hair falls like leaves around him. “Not for not liking them. I grow…attached. Fond. Easily. It takes kin like you to make me want more.”

“We die,” Odysseus fills in the gaps. Hermes starts to hum a tune. Shnick shnik. “You don’t. Even an Olympian feels grief, huh?”

“Don’t let my family hear you say that,” Hermes tuts without heat. “Exposing us all like that will surely leave you with a worse fate than late mail.”

“Do you love as fiercely?”

Shnick shnick shnick. 

“More than you could ever know, my darling.”

It’s strange, feeling the salty sea breeze against his skin. Hermes hadn’t let him look until after he was done, and forbid Odysseus from ruining his “refined treatment skills” by messing with the blade. 

He looks…the mirror was conjured by a trickster, so it wouldn’t do to forget that any kind of enchantment could have been casted over it. Still, when Hermes had handed him the handheld mirror, he couldn’t help but fear the worse.

Odysseus looked…different. 

His hair has the same grey in it that it did when he had left for war; streaks along the left side. Shallow lines dance around his eyes. His face is full of scars. 

But he chooses not to focus on how…on how disfigured he looks. He instead lets his eyes roam past his face, meeting Hermes excited grin from over his shoulder in the reflection. 

His hair is short again, coming no longer than past his ear at most. Thick waves curl up in the salt breeze, coiling over his temples and face. His beard has been trimmed down. He looks like he just walked out of that grand meeting, plans of a wooden horse drawn out on the parchment in his hands. Disguises of poor beggars hidden away in chests. The months leading to the fall of Troy. 

“Soooooo,” Hermes grins, cooking his chin over Odysseus’s shoulder. He looks far too pleased with himself. “Whatcha’ think?”

Odysseus tilts his head this way and that, bringing a hand up to feel at his face. 

“Hmm,” he muses, squinting. “Looks choppy?”

“Choppy?!” Hermes balks, shooting up into the sky with indignation. Odysseus keeps his face furrowed as he inspects himself. “Choppy?! You dare to tell me that I didn’t style your ugly canvas into perfection! I’ll curse you with misfortune! A hat that never comes off!”

His wings, every pair, are fluffed up like a ruffled bird. For once, Hermes' smile looks ticked, like Odysseus has finally managed to strike a chord. He’s still cursing him up and down – Odysseus really hopes that none of that stuff actually comes back to haunt him – pacing in the air like one would stomp over the ground. He lasts three seconds before snorting, and then before he can tamp it down, he’s laughing. 

Full-body, like something out of his youth, where Polites may have fallen in mud trying to chase Odysseus through the forest. Or managing to tackle-hug Athena from the back and causing her to squawk like a disgruntled owl. 

He clutches his stomach and laughs and laughs. It starts hurting after a while, but now that he’s stopped, he can’t stop. It feels like he hasn’t laughed in forever. A short lifetime. Not like this. Not with every sliver of soul he has left. 

He laughs and laughs, and then before he knows it, he’s crying. It’s a strange mix, clutching his chest trying to tear the pain in his heart away, to make it hurt less. He makes an ugly plethora of sounds, gasping and crying and laughing, like he’s finally gone mad. What a performance he would have made, twenty years ago. He could have avoided a war. 

Odysseus doesn’t hear Hermes descend, but he does feel large hands cradle his head. Pulling him forward, and he goes willingly. Seven years, seven fucking years trapped on an island, seven years of hating the feeling of foreign skin against his own, and yet now he can’t get enough. It’s warm, it’s soft, gentle and caring. Everything he had forgotten during his imprisonment. Reliving it. 

“There there now,” Hermes whispers. He smooths a hand over his head. Probably to appreciate his handy work, Odysseus’s blearily thinks. Over and over. Warm warm warm. “Unjust was your punishment, Polytlas.”

“I destroyed Troy. Dropped an infant from a tower. Killed my friends. My crew.” His voice cracks, and he pretends he has enough air in his lungs to breathe. It is an arduous task. “I have forced Penelope to grow old alone. I have forced Telemachus to grow up alone.”

“Alas,” Hermes hums. “Tragedy is what makes heroes of legend, my love.”

“I am no hero.”

Hermes doesn’t say anything. Odysseus is thankful for the silence.  

“You will need to abandon your caution, darling,” Hermes tells him. “You cannot spare a silver for it.”

“Caution…” Odysseus muses. 

“You haven’t faced the worst of this ocean,” Hermes continues, watching idly as Odysseus paddles the raft. “Charybdis lies ahead.”

“As you’ve said.”

“Don’t snark me, my love,” Hermes cackles. “I’m just the messenger.”

“A nosey messenger.”

“Endless bad fortune,” Hermes flicks his wrist at him. “And a hat that never comes off.”

Hermes chuckles to himself. Odysseus just rolls his eyes at him. 

“You’ll need your old wit, my friend,” Hermes explains again, drawing lazy patterns in the clouds. He’s afloat again, lying on his back, casting a cool shadow over Odysseus against the blaring ocean sun. “Cunning old Odysseus. Athena’s fearless warrior. My witful kin.”

“Traitor of Cause?” Odysseus offers. He thinks it's a little bit funny. 

“Doesn’t match the tone,” Hermes snickers. “But nice try.”

Odysseus doesn’t need the messenger to spell the obvious out for him. 

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“As sharp as ever,” Hermes flies in a circle, gliding down to hover just above him. Odysseus feels a finger stir through his hair. “And you’d be right. I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

“You have,” Odysseus snorts. 

“Brat,” Hermes chides without heat, tugging at his ear. “Maybe I should give you wings. Would that make you grateful?”

“I am grateful,” Odysseus confesses. He tilts his head to look up, and they are nose-to-nose. Upside-down, Hermes’ smile looks soft. “For everything. There is probably better company–”

Another ear tug. 

“–but you are here.” Odysseus hesitates, then slowly brings a hand over to his chest, palm above his beating heart. He can't seem to get the right words out. Can't describe the feeling his chest. Can't put it into something that he can understand. So he doesn't try. “And I am forever grateful.”

Hermes stares at him for a long time, white eyes roving over his face and leaving trails of warmth in their wake. Eventually, the god pulls away, and Odysseus watches him slowly settle behind him. Long arms wrap around his chest, and a head comes to perch atop his own, legs bracketing his. He feels like a child against Hermes’ towering form, but welcomes the touch. Out here, there is no one to watch his walls fall down. 

“I wish I could keep you.”

“Don’t even try,” Odysseus laughs. He keeps rowing. Hermes doesn’t let go. 

“I think I’d just swallow you up,” Hermes ignores him, muttering into his hair. “Keep you inside my stomach forever.” Hermes pokes him in the belly. “You’d be so comfy in there. Snug and safe.”

“I’d rather die, actually.”

“Fickle words for someone like you,” Hermes jests. “You tried to, like, a dozen times darling.”

Odysseus rolls his eyes again. The sun beats down on him without Hermes to shade him, but the ocean waves are frigid against his arms. The wind is kind today, as it has been since he left Ogygia. Must be his exceptional luck. 

“Hey,” Odysseus muses at the thought. “Why couldn’t I have inherited something more useful, like luck?”

“You are so ungrateful,” Hermes scoffs above him. His fingers dig into Odysseus’s ribs. “You think the idea of a wooden horse would have come to the mind of any idiot?”

“Wooden horse, infinite luck, or the ability to fly,” Odysseus makes a show of thinking. The wings along Hermes’ ankles bat at him like disgruntled birds. “Whatever would a mortal choose?”

“I really should swallow you. You’d have two out of three then.”

“That’s divine intervention,” Odysseus points out.

Hermes throws his head back and laughs loudly at that, the vibrations of it rumbling against Odysseus’s back. It makes paddling difficult from the canted angle. He gives up and puts the paddle in his lap, letting the cool water rivulet down his legs. It feels good against his sun-warm skin. 

“When will you leave?” Odysseus asks eventually. Hermes settles back, tucking close. 

“Soon,” he says. “Tomorrow maybe. I’m a busy god, my love.”

“As you’ve shown me,” Odysseus grins. “Lazing around like this.”

“It’s a vacation, I would say,” Hermes muses, tapping along his ribs. His wings flutter against his ankles, soft like silk. “I deserve a break. War is always fun and games for those who don’t have to clean up after it.”

Odysseus hums at that, watching water trickle over his thighs from his paddle. Watching large white wings lazily beat at his shins. 

“Is this divine intervention?” He asks. 

“Mmm, maybe,” Hermes shrugs. “Will you tattle?”

“I don’t know…” Odysseus taps at his chin. “Will you curse me with a hat that never comes off if I do?”

Hermes cackles, heels thudding sharply against the raft. He swiftly gets up, and, sparing Odysseus no dignity, drags him up from under the armpits. It’s a familiar feeling. He’d done the same thing on Aeaea. Pulling him around like a doll on strings. 

“What are you–!?”

“You want to fly, darling?” Hermes howls, pulling them up and up, higher and higher until Odysseus’s raft is but a small square along the ocean. He refrains from shrieking, because that would be humiliating. Instead he clings to Hermes as best he can. “I’ll give you the flight of a lifetime!”

He tosses Odysseus like a sack of flour, over and over, catching him again and again before he plummets into the ocean. For hours. The rest of the day. He loses the battle of wits and starts screaming at some point. Then he loses his mind and starts laughing. 

Odysseus wakes up before dawn, while the sky is still grey. In the distance, storm clouds brew. 

Hermes hovers above, watching him. He’s smiling. He’s always smiling. 

Odysseus realises that his luck has finally run out. 

“I–”

“Me first,” Hermes pushes a finger against his mouth. Odysseus obediently quiets. 

Hermes looks at him for a long time in the quiet of pre-dawn, his white void-like eyes never blinking. His wings are, for once, still. Everything is so quiet. Unnatural. Odysseus wonders if this is goodbye forever. He wonders if he will ever make it back to Ithaca, to Penelope, or if he will die trying. If he will ever hear her voice again. To hold her. To relearn everything he's forgotten.

If, by some miracle, Odysseus does succeed, and everything works out, and he gets everything he's longed for; he wonders if a lifetime more will pass, and he will fade away, and Hermes will remember him as just another lost warrior. A tragedy to be told to another sunken kin.

Hermes opens his mouth to speak. Then he pauses, unlike him. Takes a moment to collect his words. Odysseus waits patiently for him to speak. Silence laps them, the waves around them as quiet as the grey sky.

“You," he whispers eventually, "would have looked splendid with wings, darling."

Softly. He speaks so softly. With gentle care, he reaches out and traces the shell of his ear, fingers brushing against the sensitive skin behind. Odysseus stays quiet.

“I’d have blessed you, if I knew it’d do you good.”

“Maybe not,” Odysseus croaks past a dry throat. He’s thirsty, he tries convincing himself. Just thirsty. “My people will think I come bearing a curse.”

“Perhaps,” Hermes smiles. “Just imagine it though. It would be so funny. Are you sure?”

“That would be divine intervention,”  Odysseus points out. 

“Ah,” Hermes snickers. He doesn’t move his hand. Odysseus doesn’t move his head. “It would be retribution for all the disrespect. Maybe I should do it. Or a hat that will never come off.”

“Just go, Hermes,” Odysseus sighs. He pretends it doesn’t hurt to do so, losing yet another friend. Somehow, this one hurts more than the others he remembers. Maybe it’s because this time, for once, it’s not his fault. “Go deliver your messages.”

Hermes’ smile widens. 

“My dear mortal,” Hermes hums. He looks endlessly fond. “This is why I don’t spend time with people like you. It’s not a pretty look for someone like me.”

Odysseus wants to joke something about vanity. He doesn’t. It doesn’t feel right. Grief is something that catches even the highest immortals.

“Will you watch over my travels?” Odysseus asks instead. He thinks it’s a foolish question; Hermes is the god of passage. He asks anyway. “Even when you’re gone?”

“Silly little thing,” Hermes laughs, and moves to speak into Odysseus’s hairline, his hand still cradling the side of his face. “I’ll always be watching. A mark of pride to my bloodline you are, my love.”

“You have my–”

“Don’t thank me,” Hermes huffs, blowing soft air onto his skin with every breath. “I like to intervene, remember? It’s fun.”

Odysseus pulls away from him, and Hermes lets him, letting his hand fall away. Quickly, Odysseus rummages through his pouch, rifling through the several small items until he finds what he’s looking for. 

He offers Hermes, sitting upon his open palm, a small wooden tortoise.

“It isn’t much,” Odysseus starts. He tries to keep his hand from shaking. “But, lord of travel and mischief and luck and message, please accept this offering. A small piece of my endless gratitude.”

It’s not the most formal offering. It’s actually not even remotely acceptable on the long list of potential offerings. Still, he holds his hand out. After long seconds of stillness, Hermes gingerly reaches out and takes the carving. 

“Ah,” he murmurs, cupping the wooden tortoise with care a mother would have for her child. It looks comically small in his hands. He holds it close to his chest.

When Hermes bends down to kiss him, his lips feel like a blessed breeze along his forehead, right beneath his hairline.

When Odysseus looks up, Hermes is already gone. 

Beyond the horizon, dawn has broken, ocean waves lap against the raft, and the sun lights the sky.

If he listens very closely, he can hear the faint whistling of a tune in the wind.