Chapter Text
Penelope was already tired that day, but as soon as the palace went dark, something inside her sighed deeply.
In a blink of an eye, the fires had all gone out and the normally sunlit windows had shuttered shut. Distantly, she could hear servants and suitors alike protesting and stumbling at the sudden lack of light that swept through the halls.
“Mom?” Her head whipped towards the silhouettes of Telemachus – and Antinous, who was trailing after him protectively. The discomfort in her heart was as present as always whenever she saw the suitors who hoped to replace her husband, but the feeling wasn’t as strong as it had been when the suitors first arrived – three years ago, when news of the Trojan War’s end had arrived in Ithaca – and that was due to her son, who had become impossibly fond of the suitors.
She schooled her face into something less troubled, which was pointless, really, since they couldn’t see her. “Telemachus. Lord Antinous.” Penelope paused as her eyes adjusted to the dark. “It appears that something has happened.”
A brief moment of silence. “A curse?” Antinous asked, his voice gravelly.
Penelope couldn’t help but tense up at the sound of those words. “Let’s pray that it isn’t so,” she said decisively, before startling at the sound of footsteps quickly approaching, along with the rustling of fabric and metal. A guard.
“My queen!” the guard said, clearly out-of-breath. “There’s someone in the royal hall who wants to speak with you!”
“Who?” Telemachus demanded. His voice had only started deepening a short while ago, and yet he sounded so much like Odysseus in that moment that Penelope blinked.
“A figure in a cloak,” the soldier informed them with a hint of nervousness in his voice. “They refused to tell us their name, but they arrived in the royal hall as soon as the palace went dark.”
Of course, Penelope thought. Things can never be simple. “I’ll meet them, then. Are they still in the royal hall?”
Immediately, two voices protested.
“Mom–”
“My queen–”
She put a hand up, still turned towards the guard. “Silence,” she ordered, her voice firm. “I’ll have the guards with me. Telemachus…” Penelope sighed, feeling very reluctant. “...Go with Lord Antinous. Lord Antinous, keep him safe.”
The guard cleared his throat, sounding rather awkward. “My queen, the stranger ordered all the guards to leave the royal hall. They seem to be… not mortal. We weren’t able to deny them, and we were unable to reenter the hall.”
“Is that so,” she said flatly, her mind racing with thoughts. “Very well. Telemachus, come with me.”
Her son piped up again, albeit less upset than before. “Antinous should come, too! He’ll protect us both!”
Penelope almost said no, but Telemachus had a point. “Very well,” she repeated, sighing.
The doors to the royal hall slammed shut behind the group, which had grown to include several other of Penelope’s suitors, much to her chagrin. The figure’s lazy smile in their singular torchlight only made her more irritated, though she hid it well.
“Hello, Queen of Ithaca.” The figure’s smile widened beneath their hood. “And hello, Telemachus.”
“Speak to me, not him,” Penelope said sternly, her voice ringing out within the eerily quiet hall. Even the suitors stayed silent, though she could feel their wariness from behind her. “Who are you and what do you want?”
The figure only watched her as they kept smiling. “Your reality,” they started instead of answering her question, “has deviated from the other one slightly — perhaps in a positive way. In the other reality…” Their ghostly eyes looked behind Penelope. “…Your suitors were not as kind as they are in this one. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll show you your other reality.”
Penelope’s mind spun with questions, but as if under some spell, she found herself sitting down on her throne. To her side was Telemachus, who sat on his seat with a bewildered look on his face, and the handful of suitors around her maintained that aggressively protective look on their faces as they settled on the scattered seats inside the hall.
Her eyes never left the figure, and as soon as her words started working again, she asked, “Why?”
“Your reality may be different, but Odysseus of Ithaca — in both realities — is the same, as is his journey. The Muse Calliope has transformed the other reality’s events into song, and you all shall listen and learn.”
Even with the figure’s non-answer answers, Penelope latched onto one word: Odysseus. Her husband, who, by the way the figure was speaking of him, was still alive, as she had hoped and prayed relentlessly for.
The suitors murmured amongst themselves in low, conflicted voices, and Telemachus gripped her arm tightly.
“Mom,” he breathed, eyes visibly wide even in the dim torchlight. “This person is going to tell us about Dad?”
Penelope pursed her lips. “It seems so,” she said to him, unable to keep the mixture of hope and doubt from her voice. “Stranger,” she called out to the figure. The suitors went quiet once more, all of them watching her carefully. “Begin, then. We will keep your advice in mind.”