#it's like I've gone from depressed in a dull helpless way to depressed in a hysterical way but sometimes for a

[fluentisonus]

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[sweetea-rosey]

Greetings @ham-cheese-toastie ! Lol

I was very much intending to write you fluff for this secret santa, but....well, you said angst :)

If you give me your Ao3 I'll gift it to you on there

Nestled within the thick of the strangler fig trees, under the dappled view of the sun above the vines, is an oasis. At least, that is how Odysseus refers to it. It's a small dip in the ground and it goes dry easily, leaving sandy mud and long grasses in its wake. But it rains often enough that it fills with muddy water, the sun shines onto it just enough to make it barely reflective.

Odysseus can visit when he likes, safe from the prying of Calypso.

Whether she truly doesn't know of his getaway, or if she simply deigns to overlook his sporadic absences, he does not know.

But, in those moments, he gets to truly look at himself. The murky water dulls him, but he can't deny it. In the water, he thinks he can see himself trapped within the embrace of the lotus. His body is older, and much more weary. Lines have spread across his face- more like the cracks in a foundation than the rings of a tree. He has less color in his hair than he remembers, gray slowly encroaching from his temples and sneaking its way up into his hair and down to his beard. Both of which have grown out past his shoulders. But his eyes …they seem cloudy. His sight is focused- intrinsically, like breathing, he knows exactly what he wants- where he wants to go.

But the haze weighs him down. It makes him want to drop and plant himself right where he is.

That, he suspects, is Calypso's enchantment. Maybe she's trying to encourage him to love her.

He can't tell if his love for Penelope is so true and profound that no love magic could ever truly bend the flow of his heart …or if this is what Calypso thinks love is.

This heavy feeling that doesn't allow him to fully entertain leaving, that clouds his mind and makes him forget how to build a raft. The weight in his limbs that bind him in place like a dog, each day getting quieter and quieter before it realizes that escape is impossible and trying is pointless. This…this helplessness that trails him each day.

As if love is just …not being able to leave.

He thinks it might be easier if he did try to learn to love her. Maybe he's just exhausting himself for a fruitless task. He'll never get to see if his son has his mother's eyes, he'll never track the gray in Penelope’s hair, he'll never again catch up with Diomides, he'll never know how Helen is fairing after being reunited with the King of Sparta.

And all for what? For disarming an active threat?

Zeus can order him to drop a baby from a wall; but he pokes the eye of a man-eating Cyclopes and suddenly none of Odysseus's previous heroic acts matter at all?

He fears his despair may drown him, like a more depressing rendition of what happened to Narcissisus.

A haunting sound- like a minor chord on a kalimba- breaks his terrible musings. He snaps his attention up abruptly and wishes his soul could truly leave his body for a bit, so that he might converse with him on an equal plane.

“Why do you follow me?” He asks, his voice rough and painful.

Polites smiles. Only Polites would smile as a shade.

Odysseus just watches the stillness of his old friend, the way the air seems to warp uncomfortably around him. He stiffens at the cold that trickles down neck.

The wind whispers into his ear, stealing Eurylochus’s voice to do so. “I've never known you to roll over so easily,” he comments.

Odysseus turns around, but he sees no one. He looks back across the pond and Polites is gone. In his place is a little gray winion, with fluffy fur that occasionally wisps out like stormy cirrus clouds. It wears a red bandana around its head and holds a lotus flower in its stubby hands.

The voice returns. “In the end, you ate the lotus.”

Odysseus scowls. His mouth doesn't move, but he sees his reflection respond, the figure of his Second in Command standing just behind him. “She forced it on me.”

“Maybe he doesn't love Penelope enough,” the voice of Perimedes comes from somewhere.

“No, he loved them too much!” Declared the slurred voice of Elpenor, which Odysseus thinks is just unfair.

“Regardless,” Eurylochus cuts them off, “he can never seem to do the right thing. Maybe if he didn't ruin things with Athena …”

The Winion across the pond doesn't say anything. It simply stares, offering the lotus.

He'd have to swim to accept it.

Eurylochus scoffs. “You were never fit to be Captain-”

‘Captain’ echoes. All at once, he hears six hundred voices calling out to him in distress. Each one is begging for him to do something, to protect them, to make a decision and use his wit to get them away from certain death.

But direct combat was never his forté. He didn't know what to do.

In his frustration, he slashes the water, watching the little waves tear apart his reflection.

He opens his eyes with a start, finding his lungs constricting and the sun waving a wobbly goodbye above him.

He panics and flails until he's in a good position to shoot up and hull himself back onto the grass, coughing out dirty water. When he's done heaving, he looks up to find a figure blocking the sun.

His heart skips. He tries to speak, coughs, tries again. “I..p….Penelope?” He gasps.

The figure leans down, and then he thinks it's Athena, swooping down to pick him up and carry him away in her talons.

He blinks and it's gone.

He glances behind him, to the other side of the pond, to find it empty.

He stands up, taking slow breaths, only to startle at the woman that's appeared in front of him.

He slumps. “Calypso,” he relents.

Calypso's sweet, genuine smile is too much. “Hello my love, let's get you away from this pond, alright?”

She lures him away with cold and heavy hands.