HAHAHAII!! i love your writing sm it inspires me to keep continuing a story I'm working on! 🙏 may I request a Telemachus X gn reader who's a royalty from another kingdom, like Petras or Cephalonia, you don't need to clarify the kingdom btw!! and gets engaged to Telemachus(After Ithaca Saga) Telemachus is upset about it, why, you might question, because he heard rumors about reader being spoiled and rude, but when he meets reader, he realises the rumors were false and they are actually nice and agrees to the engagement! I'm sorry this is so long lol I yap too much! anyways, have a good day! take care of urself!<3
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Summary: Bound by duty to a political marriage, Telemachus braces himself for a life with a spoiled, arrogant stranger. But when his betrothed arrives, every rumor unravels. Kindness where he expected cruelty, warmth where he expected disdain—each quiet act of care cracks the armor around his heart. What began as obligation slowly becomes something else: a bond that might hold not just peace for Ithaca, but hope for Telemachus himself.
Pairing: GN!Royalty!Reader x Telemachus
A/N: this has been sitting in my drafts for a while,, SOO here you go telemachus fans !!
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Telemachus had NOT asked for this.
The herald’s voice still rang in his ears, clear and sharp as the clang of bronze: “A union between Ithaca and Cephalonia, sealed through marriage.” The words had spilled into the hall with the weight of prophecy, undeniable, inescapable. Telemachus had sat tall upon his father’s seat, shoulders squared, jaw set, as though the news were no heavier than another day’s petition. He nodded once, deliberate and measured, but inside his chest his stomach coiled into knots.
Marriage? The word tasted foreign, a binding heavier than armor, and not one he had chosen.
He knew of you. Everyone did. Or rather, everyone believed they did. Your name drifted across the wine-dark sea long before your face ever would—wrapped in whispers that clung like burrs to a traveler’s cloak. They said you were spoiled, born into silk and gold and never letting the world forget it. They said you sneered at those beneath you, that servants walked on eggshells in your halls, that you laughed at misfortune and demanded the impossible.
Telemachus had heard these stories a dozen different ways. Sailors shared them over jugs of sour wine, claiming to have glimpsed your arrogance with their own eyes. Traders muttered the tales in the agora, their voices dripping with bitterness, as if your haughtiness had cost them dearly in coin. The rumors grew as rumors do, changing with each telling, yet always circling the same cruel image. And so, long before he ever saw you, Telemachus prepared himself for a burden.
He had imagined the days to come with another who would sneer at Ithaca’s simplicity, who would demand luxury where there was none, who would look upon his people: the shepherds, the fishers, the weary mothers who carried water jars up the cliffs with disdain. He pictured endless arguments behind closed doors, your sharp tongue clashing with his quiet endurance. He pictured duty stretched into chains, binding him to a stranger he could never admire, let alone love.
And yet, what choice did he have?
For Ithaca was no longer just his father’s realm, and alliances could mean the difference between peace and ruin. Telemachus, son of Odysseus, knew better than most that duty was often sharper than desire. Still, as he sat beneath the flickering lamplight of the hall, the herald’s words echoing through stone, a thought flickered bitterly across his mind:
A king may command ships, but not his own heart.
You arrived in a fine chariot, bronze wheels gleaming, attendants trailing in neat rows behind. The courtyard swelled with bodies as Ithaca’s people gathered, their curiosity too sharp to be contained within stone walls. Whispers darted like minnows through the crowd—measuring your jewels, your robe, the way you held yourself. Telemachus stood at the gates to receive you, tall and rigid, crown catching the afternoon light. His face was carved into neutrality, polite but distant, a shield against whatever storm you might bring.
You descended with grace, not the haughty, practiced sort he had braced himself for, but something quieter. Grounded. Each movement was deliberate, assured without being boastful. The first words from your lips were not directed toward the prince awaiting you, nor to the murmuring court.
“Thank you for your journey,”
You said warmly to the guards who had ridden with you across the straits. You bowed your head slightly, offering a smile that softened the sharpness of rumor. One of the men blinked, startled, before stammering out his gratitude. Telemachus felt something in his chest jolt, but he smothered it quickly. He told himself not to be swayed. Courtesy was easy when eyes watched your every step. Masks could gleam as brightly as gold.
That night at the feast, the palace glowed with firelight, music threading through the air like fine silk. Platters of fish, olives, and roasted lamb lined the tables, yet you scarcely touched them. You spoke little of yourself, offering no boasts, no indulgent stories. Instead, you listened. You leaned close when fishermen spoke of the year’s catch, as if the salt still clung to their words. You nodded earnestly at farmers’ tales of thin soil and fickle rain, and when you laughed—full and sudden. It rang bright and unforced.
Telemachus sat across from you, the cup in his hand long forgotten, watching in silence. Every moment, he waited for the mask to slip. For the curl of disdain, the lash of arrogance, the sharp edge of cruelty that rumor had promised.
And that unsettled him more than any sharp tongue could have. The weeks crawled by, and each day left him more unsettled. At first, it was nothing more than chance glimpses, moments small enough to ignore, yet stubborn enough to linger.
One morning, passing by the kitchens, he paused at the sound of laughter. Not the brittle, practiced trill of courtly amusement, but something softer, fuller. He looked in to find you with your sleeves rolled up, hands buried deep in a mound of dough. Flour streaked your cheek and the bridge of your nose, and the cook beside you scolded playfully as you pressed too eagerly into the mass. When a young boy dropped a clay bowl with a clatter, Telemachus waited for the sharp rebuke he had braced himself to hear. Instead, you only grinned at the child’s mortified face and brushed flour onto his nose with a conspiratorial wink. His fear dissolved into giggles. Telemachus lingered in the doorway longer than he intended, the knot in his chest tightening, before turning away with heavy steps.
Another day, he crossed the courtyard, intent on some small duty, when the sound of children’s voices pulled his attention. There you were, kneeling in the dust, skirts spread around you like a halo as you wove daisy stems into delicate crowns. The children crowded at your sides, eyes bright with the self-importance of kings and queens, directing your handiwork with squeaky commands. You obeyed each one with mock solemnity, your brow furrowed as though the matter were of state, and when a crown broke in your hands, you let out an exaggerated gasp that set them shrieking with laughter. The sound rang off the stone walls, carrying through the palace like sunlight in a place long starved of warmth. Telemachus slowed his stride, caught between the pull of his duty and the unfamiliar weight of watching you. He told himself he did not understand the feeling.
Later still, he came upon the stables. A mare, wild-eyed and restless, lashed out at the grooms who struggled to calm her. Hooves struck the packed earth, the air thick with the animal’s panic. Yet you stepped forward without hesitation, ignoring the men’s protests. With one hand, you steadied the mare’s flank; with the other, you brushed her coat in long, careful strokes. Your voice—low, steady, almost a hum- seemed to ripple through the air. Slowly, impossibly, the animal eased, muscles loosening beneath your touch until she stood quiet as a shadow. From the dimness of the doorway, Telemachus froze, his breath shallow, as though he had stumbled into something sacred.
None of it aligned with the picture he had been given.
He had been told to expect pride sharpened into cruelty, vanity dressed in silk, disdain dripping from every glance. Instead, he found himself cataloging these small mercies: flour on your cheek, flowers in your hair, dust on your knees, patience in your voice.
Telemachus tried, at first, to dismiss it. Anyone can play at humility for a time, he reminded himself. Masks are worn most tightly under watchful eyes.
But the words began to ring hollow. Each quiet act of kindness pried a little deeper at the armor he had built around his expectations. Each time he looked at you, the iron certainty of rumor bent, stretched, and cracked. And slowly, steadily, doubt began to chip away at stone.
One evening, Telemachus returned late from the harbor. The air still clung damp with sea spray, and his clothes smelled of brine and sweat, the rough wool scratching at salt-stung skin. His shoulders ached from hauling ropes, his hands red and raw, nails rimmed with grit. The path up from the docks was long and steep, and though the torches along the walls flickered faintly in the distance, he expected the palace to be silent by the time he arrived—its servants dismissed, its hearths cooling, its corridors hollow with sleep.
But when he stepped into the courtyard, his pace faltered.
Perched on the low stone wall, a lantern balanced between your hands, the flame painting your features in amber light. Shadows flickered across your cheeks, softening the sharpness of the night air. You did not look startled to see him; on the contrary, your eyes lifted to his as though you had known precisely when he would appear.
“You’re late,”
You said. Not an accusation, not a question. Just the simple statement of a fact, softened at the edges by your tone. Before Telemachus could find words, you rose. The lantern tilted as you stepped forward, and then you placed it in his hands. Your fingers brushed his, light and brief, but the contact caught him off guard, grounding him more firmly than any anchor.
“Come,” you said gently, turning toward the hall. “You haven’t eaten.”
He followed—though later, he would not be able to say why. The kitchens were hushed at that hour, their earlier bustle faded into embers and faint warmth. The smell of smoke and roasted herbs still lingered, clinging to the stones. You moved through the space with quiet familiarity, setting the lantern on the counter, pulling bread from a basket, cutting cheese with a steady hand. No servant stirred to assist you. No courtier lingered to remark on the impropriety of a royal heir preparing food with their own hands. It was just you, moving with the ease of one who thought nothing of the task. You set the plate before him, simple and unadorned.
“You didn’t eat at supper,”
You said matter-of-factly, not meeting his eyes, as though this required no explanation at all. Telemachus stared. At the bread. At your hands retreating from the plate. At the small but undeniable truth of what this meant. He thought of how many nights he had returned from the sea to find the hall dark, the food cleared, his absence unnoticed. He thought of the weariness coiled in his bones, the ache he carried wordlessly because who else would think to ease it?
And now, here you were. It was a small gesture: bread and cheese on a plate, lantern light against the walls, but to him it struck with the weight of something far larger. Not pity. Not show. Just care.
For the first time, he realized: you had been watching him too. Thinking of him, in ways he had not thought himself worth noticing. Later, lying awake with the murmur of the sea spilling in through the window, Telemachus found the image returning, unbidden. The curve of your hand steadying the lantern. The warmth of your voice in the stillness. Bread torn from your own grasp to place in his. He turned these fragments over in his mind, unwilling yet unable to set them aside.
And there, in the dark, he admitted reluctantly, quietly, as though confessing to the night itself.. that perhaps, just perhaps, he had misjudged you.
After that night, something shifted. Subtly at first, so subtly that Telemachus told himself it was nothing.. And yet, he began to seek you out. At first, he cloaked it in excuses. A polite duty to escort you through the markets, to ensure the people greeted their future queen with respect. A convenient reason to show you the olive groves on the western slope, where the trees bent low with fruit. A courtesy to guide you along the cliffs, warning of loose stones as though you had not already walked with surer steps than most born to the island.
But once his duty was fulfilled, he lingered. He found himself walking half a step slower so your stride matched his. He asked questions he did not need to ask, and when you answered, he listened. Not with the distant patience of a prince humoring formality, but with a growing hunger for every detail. And you, patient, steady—never pressed. You did not demand his time or his attention. You simply let him circle, cautious and restless as a wild stag, until by degrees he came to stand at your side of his own accord.
It was there, in those unhurried hours, that your voice unfolded itself to him. You spoke of Cephalonia’s mountains, their peaks often veiled in cloud, and the way the air grew sharp and clean the higher you climbed. You spoke of long nights spent at the hearth, listening to gray-haired storytellers weave sagas of gods and ghosts until the embers burned low. You spoke.. hesitant at first, then freer, of your longing not to be shut away in marble halls, gilded and admired yet untouched by the world’s rough edges.
And in your words, he found none of the vanity he had braced himself against, none of the shallow pride rumor had wrapped around your name. What he found instead was yearning—raw, human, familiar. A mirror of something that lived in himself: the desire to be more than the shape duty had carved for him.
Each time you spoke, he felt it again.. that quiet cracking of the stone he had built around his heart. It was on one such walk, when the cliffs glowed in the last light of day, that the words finally broke from him.
The sea roared below, endless and untamed, spray leaping high where waves shattered against the rocks. Above, the sky burned gold and crimson, the sun’s descent painting everything in hues of fire. You walked a little ahead of him, your cloak snapping in the wind, hair pulled free from its pins, wild and untamed as the sea itself.
And Telemachus, son of Odysseus, who had faced storms and shadows, who had carried the weight of duty across years of absence and war.. felt his throat tighten with a fear entirely different from any he had known.
“I feared this,”
He said at last, his voice roughened by the wind, by the truth itself. You slowed, turning to him with quiet curiosity.
“This engagement,” he continued, forcing the words past the knot in his chest. “I thought you would be… cruel. Vain. A burden I would carry for the rest of my life.”
There it was, laid bare between you, sharp and unadorned. The confession he had never meant to voice. And you.. you did not flinch. You did not harden with anger or wound him with reproach. You only tilted your head, eyes gentle, the wind tugging strands of hair across your face as you asked softly,
“And what do you think now?”
For a long moment, he could not answer. He could only look at you—truly look, without the haze of rumor or the shield of his own expectation. And what he saw was not a mask. Not artifice. But warmth. Steadiness. The quiet strength of someone who carried kindness as naturally as breath. “Now,” Telemachus said, his voice breaking low in his throat,
“I know I was wrong. And I am glad to be wrong.”
Your laughter rose above the waves, bright and unguarded, carried on the wind like music. It was not mocking. It was joy, pure and startled, as if his honesty had given you some freedom as well. And in that sound, Telemachus felt the last of his resistance fall away. It was not sudden. It was not overwhelming. It was a steady fire, kindled slowly, each moment another spark: flour-dusted laughter, daisies in your hair, steady hands on a restless mare, bread and cheese laid out in a quiet kitchen. And now this.. your laughter breaking like sunlight over the dark sea.
Where once he had seen only obligation, he now saw possibility. Where once he had dreaded the path laid before him, he now looked ahead with something startling, something fierce—hope. And though neither of you had chosen this bond, Telemachus found himself wishing, with growing certainty, that you both would.
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yes i'm writing "just maybe" right now, soo enjoy my drafts
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