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somepsychopomp · 26 days ago

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Monster!Odysseus AU

Well then! I'm now writing an AU where Odysseus is Scylla. (Literally making him the monster, literally making him the "same" as Scylla, etc etc etc.) This was supposed to be 1 scene but now i have a whole fic outlined 😭 So yeah, here's the rough draft of the first portion.

Basically, Odysseus failed to reunite with his family and in his grief, he transformed into a monster. He's now doing Scylla's thing and eating men alive but also he's super sad still.

Word count: Approx. 2k

Warning for blood and all that stuff.

The wooden ship groaned softly in the current, the sound of waving lapping against the hull everpresent. They were five days behind schedule due to a litany of bad luck: poor winds, violent storms, cloudy nights obscuring their view of the stars. They lost a good number of men to their misfortune.

And the food was running ever lower. The farther they travelled, the less fish their nets turned up.

Half of the two-hundred man crew laid below deck, sleeping in their hammocks after a full day of rowing. The other half took up their oars in an attempt to propel themselves home before hunger had its way with them.

The ship’s captain steered the vessel, studying the way ahead. For three days and three nights, he hadn’t slept in an effort to guide his men home. Ithaca should only be a day or two away, and at last, they had a mild wind to their backs.

They needed to return home not only because their families were waiting for them, but because the King of Ithaca was not a patient man. He’d no doubt lash every man ten times, one for each day and night delayed. He’d do worse if he were in a foul mood by the time they arrived.

The captain was no war general or soldier. He was merely a seaman who was paid to bring a ship to Sparta with goods to trade, and to come back with the king’s gold. All he wanted was to finish his job so he could close his eyes and rest.

The route he had in mind was tricky and dangerous, however. He knew that up ahead, only a few hours away now, was a vast series of rocky islands jutting from the sea. They formed a kind of labyrinth, one large enough for a ship to pass through if they were careful. The captain didn’t fear some rough terrain, though. The most terrifying aspect was that, at an inevitable point in their passage, the rocks on either side of their ship would rise up and tower far above their heads. The narrow strait made of jagged stone could easily rip their ship to shreds if they weren’t careful.

There were plenty of tales of wayward ships losing themselves on the rocks. Sailors said there were all sorts of hazards there, anything from shallow spots to run aground, to sirens waiting for them. It was risky to take the shortcut, but sailing around the oceanic canyon would add at least two more days to their voyage.

The captain felt his stomach growl and steeled his nerves, issuing a silent prayer to the gods for safe passage.

Ahead of him, the men rowing the oars were murmuring stories to each other to stave off the boredom and exhaustion.

One man asked, “You know what they say about Ithaca’s previous king, right?”

This again.

It was no doubt the most famous story to come out of rocky, weather-worn Ithaca in centuries.

“He killed himself, didn’t he?” a second man asked.

“Wrong! They say that Odysseus of Ithaca still lives.”

“How can that be?” a third voice asked, still carrying the lighthearted tone of a boy, “He threw himself from the top of the palace into the sea over fifty years ago.”

The captain rolled his eyes. Everyone knew the story. No doubt the men will now embellish it to give the poor lad a scare.

Over half a century ago, the great and terrible Trojan War raged for ten long years. When it ended, every man that remained sailed home without issue. All but poor, unlucky, wayward Odysseus. Despite the supposed sharpness of his mind, he wandered the sea and its islands, encountering all manner of people and beasts, for ten more miserable years. He went from a proud king to a haggard old man. And due to his foolishness, he lost everything.

Every last soldier under his command, his ships, his mind. But he didn’t die, no. When Odysseus returned home at last, empty-handed and alone, it was to find Ithaca turned over to a new king. Odysseus walked into his former home to find his wife married to a much younger man.

All the world had assumed Odysseus was dead, leaving him in the past. And his young son, who might not even have existed, had long since been slain by the new king to keep him from attaining any political power.

In his grief and madness, it was said that Odysseus leapt from the palace wall to meet his watery death below.

Although, the captain had heard other versions of the tale. He heard men say that the new king drove Odysseus over the edge by spearpoint. Others proclaim that his former wife took one look at him that was so full of pity or disgust, that Odysseus killed himself in shame. The captain wasn’t so sure of that last variant, since the previous queen did die quite soon after she remarried. And that was its own river of rumors: poor Penelope died of a broken heart, poor Penelope was already in failing health when she married, poor Penelope happened to be a victim of her new king when a younger, prettier piece of meat walked by. The captain didn’t much care for those sorts of stories.

Whatever way Penelope died, some dared to believe that Odysseus never made it home at all and that he was still out there, somewhere, wandering in circles.

It was all in the past, as far as the captain was concerned. That young usurper, still their current king, was a white-haired elder himself by now. And the name Odysseus was nothing more than a ghost story that sailors used to scare each other with.

The older men at the oars all chuckled, snapping him out of his thoughts. One of them said, “Aye, it’s all true! My grandfather swears it. When I was a young lad, he told me he was there on the day that Odysseus returned home. My grandfather worked in the palace, you see. And he watched with his own eyes as that old fool threw himself from the highest wall. But!”

He paused, no doubt to savor the attention drawn to him, “But my grandfather swore on his own life that as Odysseus fell… he changed. What leapt from the wall was a man. What hit the water was a beast, no, a monster more horrible than anything else in the sea. It swam away, never to be seen again.”

There was a pregnant pause. For a moment, all that sounded was the occasional ruffle in the sails and the slap of oars against the water.

“Really?” the young lad asked.

A gruff laugh. “Of course not! My grandfather used to fill my head with all sorts of those crazy stories. Gave ya a good run around, though. Didn’t I?”

The men all fell into laughter, even the lad. The captain let them have it, knowing that any distraction from the fatigue and hunger was a good one. Within minutes, the first rocky spire rose from the sea. It was slate gray in the dull moonlight, an omen for what was to come.

Soon, there were as many rocks jutting from the ocean as there were stars in the sky.

“Steady!” the captain called out as he guided the ship. By then, the rest of the crew had woken from their slumber to man the oars and adjust the sails. It was a constant fight to keep the ship from crashing into any of the stone pillars, running aground on any of the tiny patches of flat rock that claimed to be islands, or losing their oars as the ship was constantly being bumped and jostled from choppy waters.

They were nearly to the strait.

Overhead, the moonlight began to die out. The captain risked a glance above, only to see dark clouds forming over the strait. The rest of the sky was only sparsely populated with clouds, but for whatever reason, it looked like a terrible storm was brewing over their only exit out of this nightmare.

The captain grit his teeth and commanded his men to light enough torches to see by.

They soon entered what felt like a vast, endless cavern. The only source of light was the orange glow of their fires. It cast elongated, warped shadows across the stone walls to their side of the vessel, constantly tricking the captain into thinking the walls were closing in on them.

When he thought he saw the smallest shaft of moonlight, he called out, “Nearly there!”

A few voices cheered in response. No doubt the entire crew was out of breath and terrified by now.

Just as they dared to hope, the whole vessel came to a grinding halt. The captain was nearly thrown off his feet, but managed to stay upright. The ship had come to such a sudden stop that he didn’t think they’d hit a shallow spot. Rather, it felt like they were caught on something.

“Captain!” a voice toward the bow of the ship called, “Captain! Come look, it’s a man!”

More and more men were gathering at the bow. What was going on?

The captain pushed his way to the front of the ship and gazed down at the water.

He didn’t believe his eyes. Just barely illuminated by the glow of their torches, a man waded in the water. He kept his head bowed, allowing his gray-streaked hair to fall over his face and obscure most of his features. His skin was bare, he was treading water without a chiton or cloak.

Something felt terribly off here. But their ship was stuck and there was a man in their way.

“Hail!” the captain called, “Are you in need of saving?”

The man did not respond. A shiver passed through the captain’s body. The more he looked, the more he was sure that this strange man wasn’t wading. Though they could only see his head and part of his upper body, his shoulders didn’t move. His chest didn’t move. He looked completely still.

Perhaps he was standing. Perhaps they did hit the ground and the water in this portion of the strait was so shallow that a man could stand in it.

The captain said, “Stranger! What is your name?”

How long had this poor man been here?

At last, the man looked up.

The captain nearly staggered back, suddenly sick with fear.

The man before them bore wide, unblinking eyes that wept with silent tears. But his eyes were not full of sorrow. They were full of hunger.

Something burst from the water behind them, snarling like a wolf but ten times as loud. A man screamed but by the time the captain turned around, he could only catch a glimpse of a black blur retreating into the water. A torch rolled across the deck before someone else snatched it up.

The captain shouted, “Take up arms!”

The men drew their spears, but they soon learned it was all futile.

A sound like snapping jaws drew their attention back to the stranger in the water. He didn’t make a sound as he began to rise. He revealed his full torso and looked like a normal man. Muscled, tanned skin, scarred. He looked like a seasoned sailor, a warrior. But he just. Kept. Rising.

Instead of two legs, a massive trunk followed. It was almost impossible for the captain’s eyes to make sense of. The best he could describe it, it was like seeing a creature that was half man and half serpent. The beast’s lower half was covered in scales the color of tarnished bronze and speckled with black.

The trunk widened and widened as the man rose above their heads.

At last, the captain saw what had snatched up one of his men. He wished he had the courage to weep. But all he could do was stand in terrified silence.

Six long necks sprouted from what could be considered the monster’s waist, each covered in those same tarnished scales. Each neck terminated in a snarling wolf’s head, one of them still gnawing on the remains of their crewmate, but the heads were wrong.

They bore the long muzzles, amber eyes, and triangular ears of a wolf, but their skulls were wrapped in leathery, black scales. The eyes glowed with more light than their torches and bore slitted pupils.

As the wolf heads snarled and growled, the captain caught a glimpse of the teeth within their maws. Three rows of needle-like teeth layered upon each other like a shark.

The scent of rot and death filled the air. Some men started to gag, others cried out to the gods to save them.

The captain did not remember what happened next, only that the smell of blood overtook his senses.

The crew tried to row and tried to fight back, but it was futile. The beast had them in its clutches as its heads moved faster than the eye. One by one, each head stole a man and left behind his trembling, screaming companions. There was nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide. The captain was sure they were all going to perish.

All while the face of the man looming above them never changed. He watched them die, he ate them, all while weeping his silent tears.

But as soon as he had arrived, he was gone.

The monster sank below the surf and their ship was moving freely again. They rowed for their lives until they were breaching the other side of the strait. The moonlight cast its silver glow upon the endless bloodstains soaking into the wood.

They lost six men, but none who survived dared to stop rowing for the fear that they were being followed. The captain risked a glance back only one time.

In the exit to the strait, the upper half of a man watched them flee before vanishing under the water.

#epic the musical #epic odysseus #scylla #epic the thunder saga #monster AU #oh god its almost 3 am now #y'all don't know this yet but Ody also has 12 wolf legs paddling underneath him #i'm trying to make him as lore accurate to Scylla as possible without it coming off as stupid #but fr why did homer give Scylla 12 feet thats just too many #tw blood #odysseus #greek myth retellings #Athena to Ody as he eats men alive: well this is certainly one coping strategy but perhaps we can find you another #she's his only friend left fr but also she's a little scared of him #canionically all the gods feared scylla so yeah now they're gonna be scared of Ody fr #i also got my inspo from Falin Dungeon Meshi is it obvious

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