Chapter Text
Fifth Year of the Trojan War
Within his cave near the gates of the Underworld, on his bed of poppies, the Oneiroi Morpheus observed the dreams of mortals.
They floated above him along the cave ceiling, numerous as the stars, creations of every fear and hope, every hatred and love held within humans. He reached among them as if trailing his hand through a river, feeling and seeing each in moments that stretched for eternity and yet passed as quickly as the last drops of a waterclock.
At his touch, the dreams shaped themselves as needed: the worst of nightmares or the sweetest of comforts. Others were relayed messages from different Gods, visions sent through him to whichever human they favored or despised or wished to play with. Their reasons were rarely known to him, nor did he care to know: his purpose was the same.
Most dreams shaped themselves without his will or input, his power simply building whatever guilt or desires clung to the mortal’s mind. Grown from their seed, but watered by his hand.
War raged in the human realm: it often did, but not always so much or for so long. Many of the dreams shaped beneath his fingers were nightmares, and he both felt and heard wails of pain and grief and fear.
None of it was unusual. He had held this purpose for uncountable years, felt and seen all manner of atrocities and kindnesses that the mortal mind could conjure. All of it had become…blunted. Like the rocks that slowly wore down beneath Posiden’s relentless waves.
Yet something caught Morpheus’s attention, enough to spark a curiosity he hadn’t felt for a long, long while.
It was like a thread from the Fates themselves, but bathed in a golden glow, and it tethered the minds of two humans. Morpheus plucked at the thread, then ran his finger along it, looking closer at the connected mortals.
One he had recently become more familiar with — Odysseus of Ithaca, King and captain of six-hundred men in the war against Troy. The other -- his wife, Queen Penelope, left to rule in his absence.
It wasn’t entirely strange for humans to share these connections, however briefly or infrequent. They would ebb and flow like the tide, broken easily by distance and time. Families living in the same house together, or spouses in the same bed: it was as if their dreams could flow into one another, drawn in by their closeness. Yet none Morpheus had encountered before had been like this: vibrant and long, expansive as the sea that was between them, but not so fragile as thread or rope. It moved beneath his finger, though it hardly bent, and showed no signs of fraying.
As Morpheus slid his hands across it, he saw their dreams with sharp clarity, fractured moments where their minds almost seemed one: where their hands grasped desperately and nearly met, where their voices reached the other, only to slip back to themselves again.
Morpheus released the tether, but though it vibrated from his touch, it remained as it had been, connecting the two mortals with its lovely glow.
It was a little strange, perhaps. But Morpheus quickly turned his attention to other dreamers. The odd tether was only a minor curiosity, and would eventually fray regardless. He couldn’t afford to devote attention to it, not when he had to finish his work in time.
Iris was waiting. He was long past the days of doubting that she would be. Even after the longest nights, when they had mere moments together, she waited. It had been months since the last rainbow had formed, shimmering in the morning light while mortals still slept. She never could stay for long — her very nature was impermanent, and near impossible at night — but he would wait for her too.
Always.
Thoughts of Iris spurred him to work faster, and soon — though still not soon enough — he left his cave of poppies behind, and spread his wings, gliding along the sky as Helios began to bring the dawn. There she was: her hair flowed upward in a river of color, becoming a rainbow for any around to see. Her face and body, however, were only visible for those that knew how to look.
Iris turned when he drew near: she smiled, and her eyes held colors mortals could never have named, all so achingly beautiful and entirely hers.
Iris caught him as they met in the sky, her laughter dancing along the wind. Morpheus drew her closer, curling his wings around them both as she tightened their embrace. Even Iris could not know how long she would remain — either at the demands of other Gods or when her light vanished, as it inevitably would. It hurt every time, watching her smile through tears as they were separated and she faded away.
Yet he would wait until she returned, as she would always wait to be found.
Tenth Year of the Trojan War
Morpheus had dismissed the tethered mortals, and his confidence in that dismissal encouraged him to watch them closely.
King Odysseus’s nightmares mounted with the passing years, as did Queen Penelope’s, yet it was still each other they dreamed the most of. Alone, or together with their child. Sometimes these would eventually be shaped into nightmares, but often they were also quiet and gentle, more like precious memories than dreams. Moments they had shared -- or hoped to share -- now stolen pieces of time, and never for long enough.
The tether did not break.
The nightmare that next came to King Odysseus, however, made it tremble. Like a line tossed into the sea to save a drowning sailor: not threatening to snap, but drawn tight and strong.
Morpheus slid into the mortal king’s dream with ease, standing invisibly within it as he had before. A strange tightness had begun to fill his chest whenever he observed these dreams, and he had not yet come to understand why. So he watched the nightmare unfold.
King Odysseus sat, clad in armor and hunched on a battlefield littered with bloody corpses. He was holding something small in his arms, his shoulders shaking.
“No, no, no,” Odysseus whispered. “No, please, I didn’t -- I -- ”
Red seeped past his fingers, dripping in angry rivulets down his hands and to the ground beneath him. All the blood from the battlefield was slowly pooling there, collecting at his feet.
He curled tighter around the bundle in his arms, entire body trembling violently.
“Telemachus!” Odysseus cried, clutching the dead bundle in his arms as if he could squeeze life back into it. “My boy, my boy, I killed my boy, no no no, please -- ”
Odysseus looked up, wild dark eyes passing right over Morpheus, hidden from his sight. Tears left lines through the flecks of blood on his face, mouth working soundlessly to form words that couldn’t express the pain in his heart.
“Please!” He called out to the dead around him. “I didn’t -- please, Penelope!”
Her name shook the sky like thunder. Morpheus waited, knowing his power would shape the nightmare into her form to torture the despairing mortal King further.
Instead a sound floated along the air, like a lovely melody that whispered her name again, or perhaps it was her husband speaking it with reverence.
Queen Penelope stepped into the dream as easily as crossing a threshold, and with her came the sun, as if Helios's carriage rode atop her billowing black hair. The carnage vanished in her presence, the ground no longer a battlefield but a sloping grassy hill dotted with olive trees. Her bright blue eyes almost glowed, searching the hillside with clear intent.
The King of Ithaca stood, gazing at her as if she were a vision of Aphrodite herself. The blood streaking his face and staining his hands evaporated in the wake of her sunlight, the dead bundle in his arms vanishing with it.
Morpheus stared as well, unable to believe that she stood before them. It was no shaped dream becoming a nightmare, no conjuration of the King’s mind to protect himself. It was her, slipping into his dream as if it were a room in their home. Answering her husband’s desperate cries.
The odd knot in Morpheus’s chest tightened as the mortals ran to each other.
Queen Penelope nearly lost her footing as she started down the hill, but she did not slow, even as her blue chiton caught around her legs. King Odysseus staggered forward desperately, climbing up to meet her with ferocious speed, though the ground slid beneath him and the incline sharpened.
“Penelope!” He called as they drew close, his hand reaching out for hers, even as his feet sank into the soil, and he had to claw his way forward.
“Odysseus!” Her voice was choked from tears, but it reached her husband, and if possible he moved faster still. They were mere steps away now, her eager hands stretching out to meet him --
The world spun with the force of a gale, just as their fingers brushed, but before they could truly grasp each other, and then they were torn away. She as if plucked back along the golden thread to her own mind, and he up into the air, as vague booming voices called for their captain to wake.
King Odysseus cried out for her again as he twisted toward the waking world, hands grabbing at the empty air as if he could still hold her.
Queen Penelope’s wail as she was dragged back echoed in the remnants of the dream, long after she had vanished.
Morpheus withdrew as both mortals woke, leaving him in his cave again, panting as though he had been in battle, the awful knot in his chest tighter than it had ever been.
Panic seized him then, and he left the swirling dreams of those still asleep, and flew up into the brightening sky. Iris was out there, waiting, even if it wasn’t this day, it would be tomorrow, or another, and he would look as long as needed, each passing week, or month until he found her.
There! A faint shimmer of color caught his eye, and his wings flapped harder, driving him forward with speed that nearly rivaled Hermes.
Iris was waiting, in spite of how small her arcing rainbow was. Mortals would barely have glimpsed it, brought forward by gentle rain that had lasted mere minutes.
She would remain even less than that. She was already fading.
“Iris!” He called, only moments away from her embrace.
Her eyes found him, relief clear from the faint tears that spilled from them. She smiled, even as her light continued to dim.
“I love you,” Iris said, as his arms closed around her, just long enough to feel the barest hint of her warmth, her own hold tightening on him as if she could stop what was happening --
And then she was gone.
Morpheus was alone, the warmth of Iris’s embrace fading as she had, as the cries of the King and Queen of Ithaca echoed in his mind.
(-)
Six Months Later…
Penelope knew she was dreaming.
Perhaps it was due to the agricultural estimates she had been reading in bed: it was nearly time to sow seeds for growth in spring, and their heaviest frost had just subsided, a lingering chill left in its wake.
The warmth that pressed on her skin and the blinding light in the sky belonged to the summer sun. She shielded her eyes with her hand and peered out across the thriving fields that led down toward the sea.
A lone figure approached, face cloaked and hidden. Penelope squinted, her heart beating faster in spite of herself, even knowing she was only in a dream.
A gust of wind blew back the figure’s hood, and the sight sent Penelope running.
“Odysseus!” She called, and for a moment the previous day was the dream, surely her husband had returned to her, finally, as he had promised --
But she stopped before reaching him. He continued to approach, his arms wide for an embrace. Every part of herself screamed to feel his hold again, though instead she took a step back.
The man looked like Odysseus. His brown curls showed hints of red in the sunlight, his dark clever eyes as lovely as she remembered: he was broad-chested and shouldered, and a little shorter than herself in stature. His strong legs moved with quick steps and practiced grace, befitting of his skills with a bow and at sea. And yet…
“What troubles you, dear wife?” The man who looked like her husband asked, and his voice almost sent her running forward again. It had been so long since she had heard it, but she would know it anywhere.
Still, she clenched her fists at her sides.
“You wear his face.” Penelope said. “But you are not my husband.”
The man stared back at her, and his expression nearly overwhelmed her again, urging her to rush to him and beg forgiveness, to swear her love as he held her close.
“Why would you say such a thing?” He asked softly.
Penelope breathed deeply, and kept her voice steady, her back straight, hands clenched so tightly her nails would have drawn blood were it not a dream. She lifted her chin and replied:
“Your bow,” she said simply. “My Odysseus wields a beautiful palintonos. It was a dear gift from a friend, and he would not fight without it.”
The man tilted his head, then slipped his bow from over his shoulders, running a hand along its string. As he did, it changed, becoming the bow she had described, though its design and colors were still wrong.
“I had not remembered such a detail,” The man who was not Odysseus said, meeting her eyes again. “Truly, that was all it took to notice?”
“No,” Penelope answered, blinking away the tears that threatened to blur her vision, somehow still heartbroken for confirming what she had known. “My true husband would recognize my words for a lie. His palintonos bow remains in my care -- too precious a gift to risk in war.”
I only trust your hands to keep it safe, Odysseus had said.
Would it not be better served for your own safety? She had asked in turn. She remembered the warmth of his hands -- so strong, but always gentle against her skin -- as he had held her close and kissed the inside of her wrist before replying:
No matter what weapon I hold, I will return to you.
The man who had stolen her husband’s face raised an eyebrow, lips turning upward into a painfully familiar smirk. Odysseus looked at her that way whenever her wit unmoored him, delighted, and as if he somehow loved her even more.
“Clever,” He said. “I had heard such things of your King, but not of you. Well then, Queen Penelope of Ithaca: do you know who I am?”
She sank to the ground, bowing low toward him.
“Lord Morpheus, God of Dreams,” She said. “Have you come to mine to deliver a message? A prophecy? Or is it simply to mock the idea of my husband’s return?” The last words had more bite than she meant them to, and she swallowed before continuing in the most grateful tone she could manage. “Your visit is an honor. Please, tell me what you must.”
As she raised her head, the man before her changed.
Shadows passed over his body as he grew, large wings sprouting from his back as darkness covered him in its entirety: the last remnants of her husband’s visage disappeared beneath it. He seemed like a marble statue painted with the night sky, looming larger and larger above her until his great wings smothered the sun, and stars scattered along his feathers. His eyes, nose, and lips appeared like glowing connected lines of constellations, and a smaller wing grew out of the side of his head by one ear, flared outward and always listening. Atop long flowing hair that glittered with more stars sat a crown of vibrant red poppies.
“I carry no message, Queen Penelope,” Morpheus said, his voice reverberating from the very air itself, not just from behind his lips. “I offer a boon.”
The feathers of his wings fluttered, and even that was enough to stir her hair: she tucked it behind her ears and peered up at the gigantic God, unsure if she was meant to rise.
Penelope stared at his fathomless eyes, searching for some sign of malice or trickery even in such an unreadable gaze. She spoke her next words slowly:
“What would you ask of me, to give me this boon?”
The Dreaming God reached up into his crown of poppies, and plucked one, though it left no empty space behind. He pressed the flower between his palms, then lowered his massive hands for her to see. He had ground it down, not into a pulp, but transformed into seeds.
“Take what you can hold in your own hand,” He told her. “Scatter these seeds in your garden. Let my poppies flourish, and once the first flower has bloomed, pluck it. Place it beneath your pillow as you sleep, and the connection shared between your mind and your husband’s will bring you together once more. You will hear him, feel him, as he will you. It will be real, though contained within your dreams.”
Penelope could hardly breathe, was unable to speak, the tears she had banished before returning to the corners of her eyes.
“I…don’t understand,” she said slowly. “It will be real, but only in our dreams? Is this…” Words failed her as icy fear sank like a stone in her stomach. “Are you saying this is the only way I will be with him?”
Morpheus shook his great head, dark starlit hair tumbling across his shoulders with the movement. “His journey back to you and your son is all that keeps him moving, but it is far from over.”
“Then…” As quickly as the fear had come, burning hope rose in her heart. “You know when he will return?”
The Dreaming God did not immediately reply.
“No,” He admitted. “I do not know that he will return at all, only that his journey will continue for years yet.”
Years. The word hit her with the force of a hammer. If she weren’t on her knees she would have fallen to them. Hadn’t there already been enough lost years between them?
“Why would you offer this boon to me?” Penelope asked. “Only in exchange for planting flowers? I beg you, God of Dreams, please do not deceive me, or offer this in cruelty.”
“There is no deception, no cruelty. ” Morpheus answered. For a long moment he said nothing else, and Penelope almost spoke again, when he continued. “I have felt such longing. Seeing it in the dreams of your husband, and yourself…was a reminder.”
Penelope blinked. She should have remained suspicious, but found she wasn’t. Gods offering help out of sympathy was far more rare than facing their wrath, though not unheard of.
“These dreams,” she began, keeping her shoulders back though she remained on her knees. “You said they would be real? True, in spite of being dreams?”
“Yes,” Morpheus said, and the word was a promise. “It will be as if your minds are one, as if you are together in the waking world, and all the sensations that come with it. This will remain true if the dream shifts into a nightmare.”
“Did you make my husband this same offer?” Penelope asked. “Will he know what is occurring?”
“No,” Morpheus answered after a pause. His head turned to one side -- where the smaller wing was behind his ear -- and then continued. “There are others who would be…displeased if I interfered with him too directly. Thus I appeared to you. Would he have accepted this offer, if I had given it?”
“Yes.” Penelope said, almost before the God had finished speaking.
A slight smile curved Lord Morpheus's giant lips. “I agree.”
"But...it will be him I meet in dreams?” Penelope pressed. She had to be sure. “It will be his thoughts, not a creation of my own, or a shape of yours? I will speak to him, be truly connected to his mind and heart?"
“That connection already existed. It is what caught my curiosity, and what led me here," Morpheus replied. He drew a line with his finger, and a glowing gold trail was left in its wake. "With your agreement, and your offering, I can strengthen it. Consider carefully. I cannot promise how much you will remember after each shared dream, but I do know the pain of your separation will be like a knife awaiting afterward.”
"That pain awaits regardless," Penelope whispered. She met Morpheus's dark eternal eyes, voice rising as she stood, and hot tears dripped down her chin. "If you did not give me this offer, I would find another way to reach him."
Morpheus laughed, a rumbling sound that made the entire world of her dream tremble in its wake. His wings flapped, great gusts slapping against her face and whipping back her hair as the God rose further into the air.
"Of that I have no doubt, Queen Penelope of Ithaca. " Morpheus's voice echoed clearly through her ears, even as darkness enshrouded her, and the floor vanished beneath her feet.
"Remember my words, and you shall hold your husband within your dreams."
Penelope woke with a gasp, lurching upright in bed, her free hand automatically drifting toward the cold emptiness where Odysseus was meant to be. She brought her trembling fingers back and held them to her chest as her breathing slowed, the instructions of the Dreaming God still fresh in her mind.
It was far earlier than she would normally have risen, but that did not matter. She swung her legs over the side, leaving her lonely bed behind, striding across the cool floor without even bothering to properly dress. She cupped the seeds carefully in her hands, running her finger along the tiny dark collection in her palm as she left their bedroom and made her way down cold empty halls and toward the gardens.
Penelope would not leave this task to any servant or guard: these seeds were hers to scatter.
It would take months for sprouts to appear, and be longer still before they bloomed.
These thoughts did not deter her confident stride. By now she had become accustomed to waiting, even as doing so ached down through her bones. Odysseus had promised to return, and she would never break her own vow over the agony of waiting for him.
When she reached the gardens, she closed her hand, and kissed her fingers, pressing the seeds against her skin, as if she could infuse more of herself with them. She would have given the Dreaming God her blood if he had asked. In truth, there was little she wouldn’t have given for the chance to see her husband again, even only in dreams. Perhaps it would be the balm their souls needed, to ease their lonely nights until they were in each other’s arms again. An ember of hope flared in her heart: perhaps she could somehow help him come home sooner?
Morpheus’s words echoed in her ears. His journey back to you and your son is all that keeps him moving, but it is far from over.
The Dreaming God had been unable to guarantee Odysseus’s return, but as Penelope scattered the poppy seeds across their garden, she spoke the truth she knew aloud, in a ringing voice that held no doubt:
“I will see you again, my love,” She said. “In my dreams, and in my arms when you return to us.”