#chat do u think antinous cried after that

[elvensixpm]

In my vision of Little Wolf, the suitors form a circle around Telemachus and Antinous to physically stop him from escaping. In the first few seconds, Antinous shoves Telemachus so hard he bumps into the wall of suitors, and one of them (who I like to think was pitying Telemachus— or is trying to rile the crowd up even further) hands him a small dagger to fight against Antinous.

Of course, Telemachus fumbles with the dagger, never really getting close enough to deal any blows to Antinous. He holds the blade wrong, or maybe even tries to hit him with the hilt instead— because Antinous is still a guest, it would look bad on the Ithacan prince if he stabbed him.

And then Athena comes to his aid, and suddenly, he's on equal footing with Antinous. He's quick to evade his heavy blows and even manages to nick him on the eye (Polythemus reference!), which catches Antinous off guard and makes him even more aggressive.

The suitors, not willing to see Antinous lose (they placed bets on him LOL), intervene by grabbing at Telemachus and tripping him up as he fights against his opponent. They egg on the two, and then—

Antinous strikes Telemachus so hard it knocks out all the air from his lungs, and the Ithacan prince falls to the ground, defeated and humiliated but still buzzing with adrenaline. Warm blood trickles from his nose as he looks up at the suitors, who suddenly disperse, having lost interest in the fight.

Antinous tells him to go away and cry to Penelope, acting smug (but not really, his pride is somewhat hurt by the fact Telemachus managed to injure his eye) and talking himself up to the other suitors as he walks away.

As Antinous walks out the door, that's when Penelope enters the courtyard. He whistles at her, and she ignores him (although she is startled by his bleeding eye) in favour of Telemachus, who she rushes over to check on.

The stifled laughter and murmurs from the suitors as Penelope kneels to inspect his broken nose is not lost on him, and he somehow manages to convince her that he's fine— quickly excusing himself and retreating back to his room.

Well, at least he survived! That's a win in his mind. Now, he needs to find out why the goddess of wisdom intervened to help him.

[I also like to imagine Telemachus took the 'bite little wolf, bite!' bit seriously and now Antinous has seriously deep teeth marks in him. Telemachus goes up to the suitors like "thanks for the advice guys!" and they're like "uuuuh...." (looking at his missing tooth /j)]