CUNNING ODYSSEUS!

HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY? (A) POOR WAYFARING STRANGER (B) MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW

[whinedarksea]

#WHINEDARKSEA. homer's odysseus, classic and reincarnated. written by zoe (she/they). established 2017.

inconsistent activity, often slow reply. 21+.

rules. about. verses. memes. nav.

[andreweatspussy111]

Is this guy bothering you? cuz I could bother you too but in a different better way

[whinedarksea]

@glacierfront said: it has to be something very special. something that sparks her interest.

"I'm gonna tell you right now, there isn't a dating profile in the world special enough to catch Penelope's interest."

Pessimist though he is, Odysseus doesn't like to naysay a plan until he's thought it all the way through. Julie knows this about him. You have to imagine how it might work before you plan for how it might fail, he's said before.

But he tips his head back and sighs at the sky with profound despair.

"This isn't going to work."

His eyes close. His lashes don't seem to touch his cheeks, and even the sun feels distant. It's hard to feel close to anything, when his mind is caught up with her.

"Fibercrafts... she loves fibercrafts. I should quit music and build looms."

[thanergie]

she hums, feigning thought. ❛ ah, maybe just a bit. ❜ bell says, with a small smile. she takes his hand to shake, before laughing slightly, dipping jokingly in a half - curtsy.

❛ yeah, that's me. well, sort of. it's actually my middle name. but she's the, y'know — ❜ she gestures to the waterproof glitter still spread across her cheeks, and the still - wet hair twisted hopefully not too messily against her head. she's gotta get back in the tank later, so there's no use in drying it, but she supposes it's not all that professional to drip water across the floor in the meantime. ❛ i'm normally bell. when i've got legs, at least. ❜ not exactly the truth, but close enough — to what she lets everyone else believe, at least.

she nods, glancing around the room. ❛ oh, yeah. pretty swanky set up they've got going on. ❜ she turns back to him with a little smile, nose scrunching. ❛ yeah? how was it? your stuff was pretty nice to swim to, on my end. ❜

[whinedarksea]

He catches himself before he eyes her legs the way he was eyeing her fins; it's just a quick glance, not lingering, as she curtsies.

"Bell." He nods. Introductions go by so much faster than they used to in the old days. Odysseus misses the ritual of eating and drinking before making your name into a story. Well, there is food around, he supposes. "You may as well call me Teodor, then. It's a little more personable. Have you eaten yet? I was going to scope out the dessert table while we've got a minute."

He answers the question rather than directly acknowledging the compliment, but his voice is warm. "Completely natural. How long have you been performing?"

Sirens were on the mind the whole time he played. She didn't do any singing, which may be a small mercy (he's amusing himself with the thought, more than anything).

[whinedarksea]

i love odysseus.......

[seekesotsibteadmist]

Saima couldn't help but give a little bit of a pause in response to Odysseus's statement. Only a small little tsk seemed to be their best response.

And so they come back from their fairly plain but comfortable kitchen before bringing out the bottles of juice to set on a coffee table before the two of them.

"...Sounds like a plan." As for them being alone on a Friday night, Saima shrugged.

"I mean yeah. Sometimes I just don't mind being alone on Friday nights. Surprising as that might be sometimes." Perhaps they were a little too used to their own company, but that wasn't really anything new for Saima anyway.

[whinedarksea]

Good, good. Cantaritos it is. "Would it presumptuous of me to ask for ice and salt, too?" Tajín might be too much to hope for.

"You must be tired out from all the wild parties." He's teasing, but Saima is so even-keeled that he wonders sometimes if they notice jokes or just accept everything he says at face value.

Or, equally, if they doubt it all at face value. That would be fair enough.

"Kind of work you do, I don't suppose you have to look forward to the weekend. Do you even mark time the same as us, I wonder?"

[screenshotsofdespair]

[wonderingprince]

"A nerd like my parents?" he questions, a smirk hidden in his eyes. "Well, from the stories I've heard, that's probably true." He would appreciate the comfort more if he really was an orphan. He knows what it's like to only know a parent through stories. But he has parents he remembers. Parents he knew, loved, lived with. Sometimes stories are just stories, and they pale in comparison.

And his father is sitting right in front of him.

The bitter words ring true in his memory. The years spent waiting for a reunion had taught them very different lessons. Perhaps that is true again, here and now, he thinks, head tilting to the side. Telemakhos feels his age suddenly, for a moment watching his father with the eyes of an old man; a long-lived king, a father and grandfather in his own right. Odysseus is just as lost as some of the campers here. He wants it so much that he can't see what's in front of him.

Sure, Ben hasn't exactly made it easy on him. But he doesn't expect to need to make things easy for his father; they are both too suspicious to trust easy. He's surprised that he hasn't guessed by now. It's not Athena he feels impatient with.

His gaze drags on the little wooden owl figurine.

Probably, Ben thinks, he is the secret sign that Athena has sent Odysseus. He reaches out to pick the owl up, turning it over in his fingers. It looks so much bigger in his hands than it had in his father's just moments ago.

"Are you waiting for a sign?"

[whinedarksea]

"Stories are good if you can get them," he says seriously. "Better than memories, maybe. They don't fade so easy."

Does he believe that? He has no idea.

Odysseus gives Ben a crooked smile, which grows slowly as he exhales. A slight sigh, with none of the performance of the previous one. Goddamn Athena kids.

"Do I look like I've got time for waiting?"

As if the question was a cue (his cue to avoid too-perceptive eyes, if nothing else), Odysseus smacks his thighs and gets to his feet. "The day's half over already, and I have an archery lesson to teach and Cabin 9 strategic planning to supervise. No rest for the wicked, I suppose."

It's on the tip of his tongue to offer to escort the boy to his next activity, whatever it is. But as he closes and pockets his knife, Odysseus starts to hold out a hand for the owl, then withdraws it with a shrug.

"You keep that. You know any woodworking?"

[glacierfront]

Maybe in an hour or two that will feel very reassuring. But now it’s very, oh, is that so, you fucking dickbag?

“Great,” she says, after a pause that is too long. “Well, I’m actually – not mad. It’s actually all fine. So you did your job. And you can, like.”

She breaks off, just stilted enough to throw up her hands, smile in a way that is more a single canined snarl, make an attempt at a very slow ha ha ha. Great, we’re in good humors!

“Change, again. If you want.”

And leave, she wants to say, but doesn’t quite force it out. She feels like maybe chewing on glass. Or walking into the ocean. Or biting someone.

[whinedarksea]

He should probably give her some space now, but since he isn't going to, he opts for the next-best thing and stops talking. Odysseus turns aside, as if to fall out of step with her, to get out of her way.

A stray dog once followed him all the way home. It's still the only thing that maybe convinces him that he knows who the dog is. Times have changed, and now the animals that used to signify greed are symbols of unwavering loyalty. How's he supposed to compete with that? He doesn't know. But when Julie starts walking again, so does he. Same direction.

[glacierfront]

♚ : Head scratches

The humming starts. Oh, great, Julie thinks dreadfully.

They're in the rehearsal hall. A thick book of statutes beside her, tucked away into a corner where she won't interrupt Odysseus' work. The whole cast is here. Their first full sing through. The first song: enraptured. The second: Julie looks away, burned. Pulls her statutes to her lap.

[HERMES] Eurydice was a hungry young girl.

Largely unwilling, Julie's eyes drag back up.

There's something electrifying in the actress. Eurydice moves as a woman guarded. Has walls taller than heaven's, thicker than hell's. Shies away from touch, flinches from the smallest omen. She's tired. Wired for survival.

She makes Julie's skin crawl.

Makes her wonder how anyone could possibly love Eurydice, closed as she is to the world.

It's such an impossible task. But he loves her so earnestly. Somehow Orpheus manages it. Easily, like breathing. This is where the tale runs to fiction from her. In the real world, Orpheus would leave her. Would realize she's — too much, too little — can't provide what he's looking for. Doesn't want to work for love. And anyway, Eurydice wouldn't be changed by him. Hurt too much. Scorned by life.

Then she does.

It's odd. Julie knows how this story goes. Has watched it come to fruition from kitchen table to theater hall. They'll sing it again, and again. But her throat always goes tight here, where Eurydice knows the dangers, has these walls, and still hopes.

A shadow. Odysseus' hand sets on her head. Julie blinks, eyes wet but managing to avoid the tears, and stares as he turns back to rehearsal. When did he step away? When did he find her, tucked here in the corner but worlds away?

She watches him for a long, long time.

[motheredearth]

SMILES LIKE THIS bludgeon her to the core. There are moments with Odysseus where the Earth displays only the veil of the humanity she once wore, but in these moments, where humans smile at her like toddlers caught stealing sweets, it is her godhood that recedes. What is left is a strange, but ultimately warm and unremarkable woman.

"Just because you do not like them does not mean you are not subjected to them," she admonishes, something like a purr in her voice. She keeps hold of his face, braced with a unknowing yearning for physical touch between kin. Such yearning dampens the small smile on her lips, and leads her to an abrupt, presumptuous question of her own.

"What will you do if you cannot find her?"

[whinedarksea]

Some quality of her face that is more than the features themselves changes subtly. It calls Athena to mind, how she used to put on a human face like a cloak to speak to him. For a long time, he could only guess what compelled her to it, unless it was his weakness in needing her closer, more visible. Then, eventually he saw it—the license her disguises gave the two of them to converse as if they were friends and equals.

It has become clear to Odysseus, then and now, that a god who loves a man enough to forget his mortality is his greatest danger. He doesn't allow himself to hesitate to answer, but she may see something shutter in his eyes first, like a shield, or like a flinch.

"Die, one day. Nothing could be more certain than that. Do I have another choice?"

[whinedarksea]

@deatheless said: you don't want to try to be hopeful at one in the morning.

Pour the wine and raise a cup Drink up, brothers, you know how And spill a drop for Orpheus Wherever he is now

He strikes a sour note on a string gone out of tune and winces, physically sensitive to it. One in the morning? He swears they just started rehearsing. Odysseus drags his hand across his face. "Where does the time go?"

When his arm falls loose against the guitar again, he eyes her from under his heavy lids, curious.

"You think it's a hopeful song? Singing to those gone by."

[whinedarksea]

@thanergie / bell said: they said you were nobody. are you nobody?

"I suppose the guitar gave it away."

He sets it in its stand and extends his hand for a shake. "And you must be Liyana? Pretty name."

Sometimes he regrets his stage name. It felt clever at the time. Things that come back to bite him in the ass often do.

"Quite the party. I've never worked with a siren before." Though that's not quite true, is it?

[sunsounds]

“In order to record a tale, something must always be lost. Some things must be left unsaid and disguised. The art of storytelling… is all about where and how to leave the voids.”

— Lindsey Drager, The Archive of Alternate Endings (via kaylor)

[pleoros]

Russell Tomlin - Pacific Layers

[lifeinpoetry]

I count                        all the oceans, blood & not-blood, all the people I could be,                        the whole map, my mirror.

— Fatimah Asghar, from “Oil,” published in Poetry

[whinedarksea]

His dog is standing up on his lap, paws digging sore spots into his thighs.

"It's never 'wow, you showed such superhuman emotional restraint in a life-threatening situation where you so easily could have lost your entire shit.' Always 'why didn't you pet the damn dog?' Well, how about you bring him to the movies next time." He vigorously scratches not so much the dog's ears as his whole silky head. "Do you see this?"