Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ⊹ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ˖  ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

There stood richly-dowered Penelope.
Unwavering as she had been since the ginger had last heard of the woman, yet bearing a welcoming smile beneath the lilac veil she had adjourned, a gentle grin coming to freshly painted red lips, moving if so slightly the delicate sun-spot that tainted her porcelain chin.

"O' child of Achilles, how I've missed you so.." a feminine voice spoke low, ringing as men passed carrying gifts from a distant land, moving along to their own duties as the woman came to stand a hand away from the rage-fuelled son of war, "Pyrrhus, gentle child.. when last I saw you, you were but a boy still hiding behind your mother's dress, how long has it been, dear - give or take seven years, or has it already been past so?" 

So burned the fire of Hestia. Upon the hearth, o' sanctified home, the gentle embrace of the eternal goddess for her comfort provided a sense of stillness.. the peace of familiarity, a memory reborn after years apart.

"..." so stared the boy, head turned to face the woman in a failed attempt at eye contact, greenish gaze falling flat when faced with veiled eyes, rendering an attempt at politeness to fail,"eight years or so."

Something felt particularly wrong, so said one's instinct.. However the youth wasn't one to jump to conclusions without approval - he was now an adult after all, or as close to it as he could ever imagine himself becoming.

"Edging into adulthood, are you?" A soft chuckle rung followed by un-worked hands reaching to one's shoulder, resting in between neck and collarbone. "A golden time, truly.. so young and becoming, you are to be a ruler once you return home, no?"

The woman was touchy.. it was bothersome. Neoptolemus hadn't remembered Penelope to be like so, but rather the opposite, refined and modest in showing affections to any other than her son.

It was off-putting, as if something had been deeply wrong.. Frankly that had been the feeling from his arrival into Ithaca to the moment he laid eyes upon her - she who now had him at her mercy, long nails lightly grazing his skin, comforting despite the very nature of this touch: if she wanted to, she could choke him.

Yet for some reason, Neoptolemus didn't feel as if she anyhow would. Instead he felt almost appeased by the gentleness of her graze and the softness of her skin - the human warmth that for so many years he missed..

For a hardened soldier, it was a particularly confusing feeling.

Especially given how annoyed he'd been growing to be by the noises of her rattling hoop earrings.

"Yes." He responded, tilting his neck upwards to reveal a rather small Adam's apple to pulse as he swallowed deep, dryness rasping his voice as he maintained eye contact with the veil before him, deer-like in his intensity "..."
The young man was frozen on the spot.
This was no battle field, this was no Trojan he was to slay - it was a woman, one he had been told to trust and respect.. frankly he'd been more scared of that then he had been of fighting to his death: a fear of closeness, albeit anyone else would have found the situation rather odd to begin with.

"Ah, how wonderful.." The royal sighed, suddenly sliding to lean upon the wooden table before him, "You know.. I was to be wed by spring at your age - have you found yourself a maiden yet, dear?"

By the gods - he had only just found his way home after a year spent trying to appease himself, was he simply not allowed to have any time left for himself, to find peace in loneliness? Worse of all, he could well see where this conversation was going.. he just wasn't sure as of how to press the 'stop' button to the conversation as to stop the awfully young half-nymph sat in front of him before she set him up with a daughter of hers.. albeit he couldn't recall if she had any.

"It's not my time." the youngest of the two commented, glancing away from the woman, now reaching to scratch his neck, where he'd been touched. "Perhaps in a few years, but you see, O’ King Menelaus has promised me.. - "

That response was greeted with a snicker.
A snicker of mockery, he felt like, and humiliation washed over him for but a moment, his jaw tightening before the woman came to respond:

"Well, in a few years my son will be of perfect age for you," the queen chuckled, cutting him off and tucking her veil down to cover everything but her lips, hiding in the shadows of her head covering. "If you are twenty as of now.. he is only eighteen, turning nineteen in a few months..but soon, I'm sure you would consider it - No, soldier boy?”

Gaging for an opinion, it seemed.. not that Neoptolemus had any in particular, not having yet met the boy she so spoke of.

"Perhaps.." He nodded in agreement, not giving the woman much beyond a patient nod - perhaps if he were to agree to consider her offer he'd be left alone to continue his business, trade and what nots, a visit. "Surely."

But his agreement never saved him.

"He's quite a beauty," Penelope noted, shining golden dangles jiggling as she leaned onwards. "What can I say, a son of mine.. beautiful as a boy may be - now wouldn't you like to meet him..?"

No, not particularly..
Yet before the man could raise his voice to speak, agitated by the insistence on the topic, the touching, the sounds of jewellery ringing in his ears.. there came a voice from the end of the hallway:

"Telemachus." so called the true ruling queen of Ithaca, standing at the hallway with her arms crossed upon her chest, frustrated expression coming to her brow as she tapped her feet, veil resting as a cloth around her shoulders, rather than over her head. "...again?"