Page 4 of Elysium
Her body moved of its own accord, tethered to this man by something unspoken, unbroken. She knelt in front of him. “You sound much like a man I fell in love with long ago.” She whispered to him, fighting back her overwhelming need to take him in her arms.
“Was it too long ago?” He lifted his face from his hands, finally looking at her. “Have I taken too long?”
His eyes were haunting, tired. The man she loved, her husband, had eyes as blue as the skies, as deep as the oceans they sailed upon. But this man… the life was gone from his eyes. The grey-blue hue of them carried a grief that she could not even imagine.
The need to touch him, to embrace her husband, won out. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to her, burying her face in his wild hair. “Never.” She whispered, theweight of twenty years heavy in her voice as she held him tight. “I would wait decades more to hold you in my arms again. You are still my husband.”
“Penelope…” He replied, pulling back to look at her. “My heart.” His voice trembled. “Do you think you would still love me, still accept me as your husband, even if I am not the man that left for war so many years ago?”
His hand cupped her cheek, skin tacky against hers. Feeling the blood of the men that had invaded her home against her cheek sent a chill down her spine. She leaned into his touch, breath faltering at his query. “Nothing could keep me from loving you. Not tragedy, not time.”
Odysseus shook his head, as if in disbelief. As she tracked his war-worn expression, an idea came to her. One last act that would settle her nerves, quell any anxieties she might harbor for this man, and hopefully, ease his conscience, too.
Her lips curved into the faintest of smiles, though her voice remained sharp. “I… have to tell you something. Something I must get off of my chest.”
Odysseus quirked an eyebrow, confusion flashing across his face. Penelope rose from the ground, brushing off her hands and turning her back to her husband. “I had our wedding bed removed many years ago. What stands beyond is a replacement. It felt…” She took a deep breath, shoulders sagging. “It felt wrong to lie there at night without you by my side.” She shifted slightly, watching her husband out of the corner of her eye. “It wasn’t right to leave it as it was. Not without you.”
The warrior king rose to his feet, a look of ire and disbelief written on his features. “You lie, Penelope.” His expression darkened, his voice low and unyielding.
“Do I?” She faced her husband, shoulders back and chin tall, a chill fluttering across her skin
His voice trembled, just barely, beneath the anger. “You tell me you’ve moved it?”
“Examine it, husband, and you’ll see for yourself.”
He took a step closer to her, studying her closely as if looking for a trick. “That bed cannot be moved,” His voice wavered with restrained emotion. “I carved it from the olive tree where we shared our wedding vows. The tree where I vowed my love to you. The centerpiece of our lives together, ourpalacebuilt around a single bed, and you tell me you’ve moved it? No one, no mortal or god, could tear it from where it stood.”
Penelope let out a breath, relief flooding her very bones, followed by a smile that overtook her face before she could tamp it down. Her voice softened. “After twenty years. My husband has returned to me.”
3
HER WORDS HUNG IN THE AIR, sharper than any blade he had held against an enemy.
Relief might have flooded his chest, but it was short-lived. In her eyes, he caught undertones of something heavier, and for a moment, he did not see his wife in front of him, but the Queen of Ithaca. A woman who stood strong, alone, in front of 108 suitors trying to win her heart. A woman who raised and protected their son.
She had tested him, and he knew she would have. He passed, but he had learned many years ago that passing a test did not mean the suffering was over. The gods had been sure Odysseus had learned such a lesson.
“You doubted it was me.” His voice was low, but it wasn’t a question. He could see it in the set of her jaw, in the fierceness of her eyes.
“Of course I did.” She replied. Her tone was even, measured. “The gods are cruel, Odysseus. You would not be the first phantom I had faced, had you failed.” And try as she was to be strong in the face of uncertainty, Odysseus had spent years dreaming of his wife and did not miss the falter in her voice asshe discussed the possibility of failure, the possibility that he was not standing here in front of her.
Her words still stung. He knew more than most of the cruelty of the gods. He thought back to Athena’s words, Calypso’s honeyed promises, and Poseidon’s threats. He thought of his crew, his friends that lay on the bottoms of endless oceans because of the cruelness of the gods. Gods he had once prayed to.
And yet, Penelope had suffered at their hands too. She had endured her own trials, without a crew and a leader. She had reason to doubt, safety that had been entrusted to her. “I know the god’s games.” He finally replied, his voice raw. “I have lived with them for the last twenty years. But now…” he drew in a breath, taking in the sight of his beautiful, clever wife in front of him. “I cannot decide if I am a man who has finally outwitted the gods, or if I am still their favorite plaything to drag through their games.”
They stood here, lost in the years of silence, trapped in each other’s gaze. All the words left unsaid hung in the air between them. The room was thick with regret, tension, and pain.
“Welcome home, King of Ithaca,” Penelope whispered, her voice barely carrying over the space between them, “I’ve been waiting for you.” He took the moment, took the chance, and went to her, wrapping her in his arms.
He did not miss the way that she stiffened under his touch, a reflex he could only assume was born from years of isolation. Though he had slain each of the men that had haunted her over the last several years, he swore to himself that after this life had ended, he would find each one of them in the next and end them again.
As she relaxed into his embrace, he clung to her, as a sailor clings to his ship in the middle of a storm. She was, had always been, his anchor. His compass. The driving force behind every choice he made. His every action led him to this very point,this moment of time when she could be his, and he could be hers. “My clever wife.” He said into her hair, no longer holding back his tears. “The gods can keep their games. This is where I belong.”
4
PENELOPE ROSE WITH THE SUN, as she had done since she was a young girl. As she sat up in bed, her eyes were drawn to an unfamiliar figure in the balcony window.
Her heart immediately panged at the thought - how could she consider her husband as unfamiliar?
