Chapter Text
The perpetual push and pull of the tides on Ogygia mimicked the ticking of a clock. With every fold of the water, another grain of sand tumbled through the hourglass.
Hope had eclipsed the first few weeks of his imprisonment on the glittering white shores. In some grandiose mixture of delusion and passion, the King of Ithaca had convinced himself that through sheer force of will, he would find a way off the island.
Away from her. In the beginning of his captivity, the nymph had served as a mere source of annoyance. Her immediate insistence that he was some sort of divine, amorous gift she’d received only confused him. If he was the gods’ gift to the water nymph, they were surely being cruel. She'd followed him around incessantly, taking every opportunity to cling to his arm and attempt to pepper kisses on his skin.
He'd denied her time and time again. He was a man wise in the stories of men and immortals; he fundamentally understood that insulting a goddess could have disastrous consequences. He'd learned that lesson, if nothing else, in the two years he'd been at sea. He tried his best to soften his words, to sprinkle compliments into his rejection, but at the end of the day, he refused to betray his wedding bed. No matter what she offered, no matter how hard she tried.
Her patience wore thin after a few weeks of pestering. Odysseus was reminded, as he often had been, that mortals were mere playthings in the eyes of the gods. He quickly became intimately familiar with the art of letting his eyes glaze over, and allowing the world around him to die.
-
He had absolutely no interest in the gilded gifts of the goddess. Every one of them, however attractive, was immediately discarded by the soldier. He made a show of shattering every bottle of wine, crushing each glass of perfumed oil under his foot, and tearing apart the shimmering fabrics she tried to adorn him with.
Her ire could be tolerated. The insult could not.
-
The nymph ricocheted between attempts at overwhelming kindness and frustrated outbursts of anger. She would insist on helping him with his daily tasks. She'd wear clothing meant to provoke his eyes. Fine foods would be offered, held under his nose as if he were an animal. He rejected them all.
Anything she wanted from him had to be persuaded through sheer force. He knew that it bothered her. Although Odysseus suffered under her thumb, he reveled in the fact that she couldn't have what she truly wanted: his willingness, his true affection. He held onto that fact. Though she could bind his very body with a spell, she had no control over his mind.
-
Every single means of escape had been thoroughly tested and found to be impossible. The wood of his rafts would rot and sink, no matter how expertly prepared. The tides, though visibly gentle, would forcibly pull his body back to the coast. He had traced every corner of the island trying to decipher some hidden puzzle that might aid his efforts. He was a fine craftsman, a brilliant swimmer, a genius after the heart of Athena herself, and yet he could find no possible means of escape.
Calypso had once sworn that no one could leave the island. The haunting realization dawned that he might have to believe her.
-
She knew no persuasion. He’d found himself on his knees most days, begging like a dog. He would take her chiton in his hands, pleading with her desperately.
“Lovely nymph, precious lady, you’ve found your amusement with me for long enough. Find mercy in your heart and allow me to leave this place. I have a young son, a loving wife, a needing kingdom awaiting me. I appeal now to your generosity and kindness. Allow me to leave, I beg of you,” he’d entreated.
It was a gamble if he’d receive fury or a wistful look of pity in response. Regardless of her reaction, she never moved an inch on her promise. Her vow that he would never leave her. The only thing begging achieved was the slow, methodical chipping away of his pride.
-
The smile painted on her face had filled him with chilling unease. If there was no challenge to her pleasant mood, the nymph always smiled at him. She maintained a deceivingly lovely disposition with her endless charms and quips. But this particular expression was alarmingly bright: as if she had achieved something great. He'd seen it once before, when he'd first opened his eyes on the island’s shore.
“Has something happened?” He started, neglecting the handwoven rope in his hands. It would be a fishing net, eventually. A tool to supply himself with food so that he’d never be tempted to accept hers.
“Yes,” she answered, her words melodic as they left her rose-colored lips. Her hands shifted forward, cradling the front of her body. “I carry your child inside me.”
The increasingly fast beat of his heart stopped. Her words numbed his hands, forced him to his feet. “You attempt to deceive me,” he retorted quickly. He narrowed his eyes at her, letting them fall down to the front of her chiton. His body reeled with horror even by the proposition.
Calypso stepped towards him. She was unbearably close now, with the scent of her perfume wrapping around his body. He tried to shift backwards, but found the sharp edge of a thorn bush that hadn't been there before. She took his hand in hers and pressed it flush against her stomach.
He recoiled, but his hand was unmoving. Her grip was tighter than any man’s, and her smile just as unflinching. “I do no such thing. You speak so lovingly of your family, my sweet soldier. I thought this might aid the longing of your heart.”
The Ithacan trembled, eyes spellbound to her face. “I don't want a child by you,” he cried, shaking his head with aggressive vigor. “Please- this is another ploy of yours, is it not?”
“That's not any way to speak to the mother of your child,” she returned quickly, her grip tightening. Frustration bled into her face. “You should be grateful.”
Gratitude was not one of the emotions he felt. Hopeless anger, disoriented sorrow overtook him all at once. He could do nothing more than shake his head over and over, hoping that through sheer denial he could force away what the nymph had declared.
-
It disgusted him to see her. The goddess, lovely in the face, now floated about the island swollen with child. Every glimpse he caught of her evoked nothing but vile repulsion in his stomach.
He convinced himself that he loathed the creature in the womb of the goddess. It had to be some alien beast, conjured solely for the purpose of testing his sanity. As the days passed, as her form grew wider, so did his complete and utter abhorrence. For her, for the thing inside her, for every damned last grain of sand on the island.
-
The voices of comrades lost reveled in his newfound misery. Men that would never again see their own families taunted him. He would soon finally get what he wanted: the chance to see his child. What a divinely comedic thing. How it amused them to remind him. A wish granted. An assault on whatever control he still held over his mind.
-
“Don’t you want to feel the shiftings of your child?” Calypso asked, her voice mockingly light. “I can hardly breathe without the little darling jumping in my womb. Put your hand on my stomach and feel it, Odysseus.”
He was strapping wooden planks together with fiber rope, exhausting himself in vain. This would be his 12th attempt at a raft. The blisters on his hands were raw and torn. Every aggressive yank only further aggravated his injuries- and only gave him more momentum.
Odysseus had long since learned the art of subverting her. He could sometimes minimize the repercussions of his words by carefully lightening whatever he truly wanted to say. But today, he had absolutely no care for the response of the nymph. With bleeding indignation, he turned to look at her. His eyes burnt like coal, glaring into the depths of her hopeful face. “I’d sooner crawl through the depths of Tartarus than willingly lay my hand upon you, or attempt to feel the movement of whatever beast you’ve created inside of yourself,” came the snarled words of the king.
Her face contorted. Fury enveloped her hands, took control of her will. He endured every strike, every piercing of his skin- accepted the suffering as something honorable.
-
The labor pains of Penelope had enveloped all of two days. Sleep hadn't met Odysseus for the entirety of her sufferings twelve years ago. He had repeatedly given sacrifice to Eileithyia, begging the goddess in prayer for the safe delivery of their child.
He made no such sacrifices today. The Ithacan only moved to the far end of the island, trying to force as much distance as he could between the goddess and himself. Even still, her moans of anguish rang in his ears. Every noise caught the midnight breeze that crawled across the shores. He ground his hands into the side of his head, trying to relieve himself of the sound. It was to no avail. He heard every cry, every sob, all 11 hours of it, clear as day.
They stopped when the moon began to sink back into the inky trails of the horizon. The goddess’s shrieks, interrupted by a new one. A soft, helpless cry. The wailing of an infant.
He felt his very heart still in his chest.
For months now, he’d convinced himself that whatever grew in the stomach of the nymph was nothing more than a test of the gods, yet another adversary to overcome. But the sound that ruptured the air was not the screeching of a beast. It was a baby.
His legs carried him faster than he knew he could move. He didn’t fully comprehend why he rushed the way he did, why he felt his hands twitch with anticipation.
He ran. The marble walls of the palace met him, and for the first time, he pushed them open willingly. His legs carried him down the hallway, down to the bedroom, his hands trembling on the handle-
Calypso was sitting upright on the bed. Her sparkling eyes fell on him immediately, but his attention was elsewhere. On the little bundle of cloth in her hands. He moved closer, as if drawn by a spell. Breath escaped his lips with desperate fervor, his eyes as wide as the morning sun.
Amid the blankets lay a tiny infant, new in life, fresh-faced and uncorrupted.
A son.
He was more handsome than the rolling plains of the island. The divinity of his mother was evident in the shine of his eyes, but the longer the soldier stared, the more of his own likeness he found. The matted hair on his tiny head was the same color as his. His eyes were lighter than the nymphs, though not fully developed in color. His eyebrows, just as unruly as the man that beheld him. It was his son. Clear as the water of the isle, a boy of his blood.
Every ounce of conjured disdain withered as the child gurgled innocently. He attempted to hold onto it, to allow it to fester. Loathing was a tool much like a shield; he’d held onto it for months, let it guide him more often than not. But as he looked, as he shared the air between them, he found himself unable.
How could I hate you, son of mine?
He found the eyes of the infant’s mother. She was still red-faced from the birth, but there was something new in her eyes. Happiness, certainly, but something deeper. Victorious satisfaction. She shifted herself backwards, her eyes clinging to his.
“I've given you a son,” she mustered. Her voice thundered against the marble.
There was nothing to say to her. When Penelope had bore him a child, he had sunk to his knees and kissed her hands with gratitude. He would not bow for this nymph creature. He would not sprinkle her with affection. Precious as the boy was, his contempt for her, alive in the very innards of his soul, hadn't shaken. He merely met her gaze with a glare, unable to conjure a word in reply. He held his arms out to take his son.
“I've given you a son,” she repeated, though she relented to his silent request. He took the child and held him in his arms. “What will he be called?”
The question of the nymph fell loosely on his shoulders. He hadn’t at all considered such a thing until this very moment. No name had been chosen for the unwanted boy. He thought for just a moment, letting the first idea that came to his mind tumble loosely out of his lips.
“Acacius,” came the solemn whisper of the king. Pure innocence, light in his hands.
Guilt threatened to tear at the solemn bliss of the moment. The physical manifestation of what he'd done, the way in which he'd defiled his marriage, now lay in his arms. He flickered between the two feelings, trying to reconcile them rationally. He was an intelligent man, able to digest the most complicated of riddles. Even still, he couldn't make sense of the boy. The only thing he fully understood was that he couldn't hate him. He couldn't manage that.
-
After almost a year, a third person had joined him upon the eternal shore.
-
Odysseus’ attempts to forge weapons were lessened by periods of staring down at his infant son in wonder. He could spend hours doing it- looking down at something so separate, and yet so intrinsic to himself. A helpless babe, the only family he’d seen in so many years. The child offered no replacement for who awaited him in Ithaca, but he couldn’t deny that some degree of comfort was brought by his presence.
“Isn't he so very darling?” Calypso asked him one evening, leaning towards Odysseus affectionately.
“Indeed he is,” he murmured, tucking a strand of the boy’s hair back. It was the same color as Laertes and Arcesius, his fathers before.
“He's got your eyes,” the nymph mused. They’d developed in color in the months since, resembling his own more and more. She tucked her face closer to the pair. She smelt like wildflowers today, a new perfume.
“And hair,” he murmured, staring down. Would his two sons look similar? Would they recognize one another as kin?
“But my nose, and lips, and cheeks,” Calypso added swiftly. She touched her finger to his face, outlining the handsome features. Indeed she was right. Though he tried to dismiss it, he couldn't help but recognize her beauty in him. A divine, ethereal look that wrapped around his face. Odysseus loathed it. He offered no response.
-
He held the boy more often than not. Every possible means of escape had long since been tested to no avail. The Ithacan knew, at least intrinsically, that the goddess would've made a spell proficient enough to keep him enclosed for as long as it pleased her.
But now, there was something grander to preoccupy him. A little child, precious and gentle. Affection overwhelmed Odysseus before he could stop it. Overwhelming love that he hadn't felt in so many years. The baby was a lifeline of sorts. Something he had, more than his mind or imprisoned body.
He returned the child to his mother when he needed to feed or the goddess insisted. As much as her presence disturbed him, he knew better than to try and fight the nurturing of a mother. The boy would need her in some capacity.
She was good with the child. Evidently, motherhood came instinctively. On some occasions, she was far more proficient at settling the baby down than he was.
Acacius wasn't particularly fussy. Odysseus noticed quite early on that he seemed to whine far less than Telemachus had. The infant was prone to silence, often electing to stare up at the sky with a pleasant look on his face.
But when he did cry, it was with a certain intensity. Like thunder, cracking through the air louder than it should've. It pierced the air one afternoon as Odysseus ground a stone blade into existence. He glanced at the boy who lay on a blanket beside him. He sat down his tools and took the babe into his arms.
“You're such a wonderful father,” came the loving coo of Calypso, who had seemingly been enjoying watching the soldier work. She admired the pair of them, a heavy satisfaction in her eyes.
“I believe he's-” he started, lightly jostling his son while patting his back. They were old, almost unfamiliar movements that he'd once mastered in Ithaca.
“I just knew he'd make you so very happy,” she continued, leaning closer to the pair, her eyes fixated on Odysseus. She was seemingly unbothered by the quickly escalating crying of the child. The birds around them flew from their perches.
“Indeed,” he complied briefly. “The boy’s hungry, Calypso.” He turned him in his arms and held him out for his mother to take.
“Won't you kiss me first?”
Somehow, through the infant’s wailing, he could clearly make out her voice, clear as the brilliant blue sky. Her face, lovesick, almost petulant, staring back at him. She made no gesture to take the baby; his existence hardly relevant in her eyes.
The blood slowly drained from his face as Acacius writhed in his arms. He steadied his voice, trying to let gentle persuasion tame it. “Calypso, the boy needs to nurse. He needs you. Look at him-”
“And I need you,” Calypso dismissed, her eyebrows meeting in an aggravated furrow. “Can't you kiss me, beloved?”
He thought of Penelope. His raven-haired bride, with her loving lips and wise council. What would she say, should she be standing beside them? What would she advise? His perception of her teetered, interrupted by the never-ending crying of the baby.
A baby who needed a mother.
Perhaps at one time, he was a man too proud to indulge in the games of immortals. A man who lectured the cyclops, who denied Circe, who ignored the advice of his mentor. But now he was a father, a father with no other choice. The baby wept. He shifted forward and pressed a kiss to the goddess's lips.
-
Odysseus had left the isle of Ithaca when his son was no more than two months of age. The details of those precious weeks were held in his mind like precious treasure.
The week before Odysseus had left for Troy, Telemachus had begun to smile. It was a simple thing, but he recalled how much joy it had wrought from Penelope and himself. They'd spent hours trying to provoke him. Together, they'd tickle his stomach, force ridiculous expressions onto their faces, and coo his name until the desired wide-mouthed grin would follow.
Acacius hadn't ever smiled. Four months had passed since the child was brought into the world, and his lips had never pulled up in such a way. Odysseus didn't notice it at first. He reveled in his son learning to sit up and babble nonsense. He was growing quickly, faster than his father would've predicted, although he didn't have much experience with children.
Odysseus started making a conscious effort after the boy had pushed himself onto all fours and tried to shuffle. Certainly now he should've been capable of the expression. His father, with strained muscles, would smile widely at the boy. He'd seen his son mimic him before.
Perhaps the child simply hadn't seen him smile. Perhaps the babe didn't know that that was something people did.
-
The boy was crawling before he was even five months of age. He was healthy and strong, full of the strength of heavy tides. Odysseus could see in the way his son’s eyes glistened that he would be stronger than himself one day. The blood of the goddess surely invigorated him.
-
In the late hours of the night, the comfort of his son in his arms was almost enough to relieve the remnants of the nightmares.
He saw the past as clear as glass when he closed his eyes. Drowning soldiers alive in their terror, bellowing eternally for his assistance. Young men- boys- screeching as they died. All that had happened, every remnant of misery pursued him restlessly. Strangled him over and over again. An unending hunt, like Orion and Lepus.
The weight of the infant grounded him. The tiny being helped to soothe the trembling nerves of the soldier. The infant didn't cry, didn't move. An anchor that bore his likeness.
He stared down, trying to focus on the color of his wide eyes, his silent lips.
“I have another boy at home,” the wistful king murmured, his words leaving his lips with the burdensome weight of memory. “Much older than you by now… the last I saw him, he wasn’t yet half your size. But he lives very far from here, on another isle across the sea.”
His own eyes stared back at him, unreactive to his words. His son was just an infant, but Odysseus realized that even if he were of rational age, he couldn’t possibly understand what he was saying. The child didn't know what existed beyond the idyllic, gilded shores of Ogygia. He didn't know of smiling people, and kingdoms, and war. The glittering isle had consumed the entirety of his life. Odysseus felt his grip around him tighten.
“You won't die on these shores, boy of mine. I swear it on my life.”
The moonlight kissed the face of a son unwanted. Acacius shifted and met the eyes of his father. He smiled.