Chapter Text
The moon shines bright and full in the sky, the edges of midnight circling down across the skies and across the vast Aegean Sea along the shores of Troy. At the island’s center lies the kingdom of the same name. Imposing walls of solid stone line fifty feet into the air and within the confines, protected by the mighty wall like a quarried blanket, the marble palaces and silver roads of the Trojan Kingdom lie.
A little over a kilometre outside the city, nestled on the shores is a massive battalion of war camps. Fires light braziers that trail every few feet, casting the sleek leather tents in shadows that paint the ground in large, imposing shades. Across it, soldiers mill about, sharpening weapons along whetstones, fastening the clasps of their bronze armor, and preparing for attack.
Overhead the camp, stacked nearly thirty feet tall and woven from the fibers of the strongest Cornelian woods was a massive wooden horse. Sat on a slab and wheels, soldiers prepare the monolith with precision and dexterity, tying the edges of the slab it rests with ropes. On the gut of the horse is a carved entrance, currently being held open and the outline of people entering iit visible.
A hooded figure hops from the interior of the horse. The clasps of her cloak are pulled tightly over the edges of solid bronze armor, a thick war-axe gripped tightly in one hand. She walks through the line of tents, passes the soldiers amassing for one final siege and straight to the biggest tent in the camp, lying at its very center. The war tent of the Queens of the Aegean Army is filled with bright light from a massive brazier that illuminates it. In its center sits a war table, the center covered with a massive map of the Kingdom of Troy. Notes are written across its major fortifications, its gates, and whatever passages may lie underneath.
The assembled mass of queens that stand in the tent all turn their gaze as the lone, hooded soldier enters. She sets the spear down on the table, the edge glinting in the firelight; and Penelope, Queen of Ithaka, looks across the faces of each of her comrades, assessing each of them for words.
When she finds none who are willing to be first to speak, Penelope clears her throat, forcing her words to echo across the tent.
Alright my Comrades: Listen Closely.
Tonight we Make the Trojans Pay.
She circles around the table, moving to stand right at the head. The fires illuminate her face, causing the dark shadows underneath her eyes to flare. Her fingers scratch across the leathers of the map slowly.
Ten Years of War, They’ve Killed Us Slowly
But Now We’ll Be the Ones to SLAY
Think of The Lives of Your Children.
Your Families Wonder Where You’ve Been.
They’re Growing Old and Yet You’re Still Here:
Do What I Say and You’ll See Them Again!
At once, each of the queens slams their fist into their chest. The bronze of their armguards slam into the same of their chest plates, creating the slamming noise of metal in unison.
(Yes, Commander!)
Penelope’s eyes flash around the room as they each shout in unison, her finger jamming in the air to emphasize each point she makes, each role she assigns to the group as they all prepare for their leave.
Aegiale Will Lead the Charge,
Clytemnestra Will Flank the Guard,
Helen Will Crash the Gates In, Let Our Mates In,
And Then We’ll Take the Whole City at Large.
Eune Will Shoot any Ambush Attack,
And Wisely Eri will stay back.
Eury, secure Menelaus, Protect Him,
Deidi, Avenge your Husband, Kill the Brothers of Hector.
As Penelope rallies the mustering cries of their plan and of war, she slowly makes her way to and through the flaps of the tent. The others follow and they march through the camp. Passing soldiers stare at them as they pass, soon joining. The firelight of the braziers catches against the glint of their swords, sending imagined sparks of light across the blades.
(Yes, Commander!)
It isn’t long until the assembled army of the Achaeans gather at the feet of the massive wooden horse. Penelope unclasps the edges of her cloak, letting it fall from her shoulders and revealing the bronze sheen of her armor. She raises the war axe in her hand like a guiding torch, catching the eye of every soldier staring at her in attention.
Find That Inner Strength Now!
Use That Well of Pride!
Fight Through Every Pain Now!
Ask Yourself Inside:
Penelope cranes her neck, staring up at the high ramparts of the Trojan Wall. A wall she had memorized every detail of in the ten years she had been stuck in this land, fighting this war. The wall she would breach and burn to return to what she wanted most. The will that burned in her belly flared like the flames of a bellowing volcano as she turned back and screamed into the crowd.
What do you Live for, What do you Try for,
What do you Wish for, What do you Fight for?
The assembly screams back at her with fervor, slamming the pommels of their weapons against their shields. Each eye that stares at her flashes with exhaustion of a war lasting too long, fury from an enemy they’ve barely dented, and the blistering call for victory.
(What Do You Live For, What Do You Try For)
(What Do You Wish For, What Do You Fight For?)
Penelope’s gaze shifts past the crowd to stare across the horizon. In the twilight, where the moon shines, she can see the outline of clouds. They swirl and bend and for a moment her gaze is caught on them, willing figures to emerge as shapes in the heavens.
Odysseus--
The face of her husband twists into view, the kind and warm eyes and light, playful curve of his smile staring back at her. He reaches a hand out to her, trying to breach that impossible distance he is trapped in to be with her.
Odysseus -- And Telemachus!
Cradled in her husband's arms is a bundle of woolen cloth, where she can barely see her baby. The baby she was torn from the moment he was born and forced into a war she never wanted part in.
She remembers the first few years of this war, the severe depression that had overtaken with the loss of her child. He would be ten years old now.
The despair had long since been washed away by rage.
I Fight for Us--
She nimbly wipes the edges of tears from her eyes, turning back with a reborn fury to the crowd ahead of her.
I FIGHT for Us!
(What Do You Live For?)
Penelope slams her fist into the underbelly of the horse, sending the wooden fibers down, revealing a hollowed passage to the horse’s interior. She stares into the darkness, and is the first to climb in and settle in the furthest corner of the horse’s insides.
Odysseus.
(What Do You Try For?)
The rumble of the wheels underneath them churn as they are pushed inside the Trojan Walls. Through a splintered crack in the hull, Penelope watches, her eye dart unseen across the landscape, taking in everything she had been assessing and planning for, every monument and building she had ensured was carefully noted before this mission with that fire trailing in her eyes.
Telemachus.
(What Do You Wish For?)
Dawn begins to rip her rosy fingers across the sky, less the soothing rays and now almost in the crimson of blood. The sea reflects that red far past the walls, an omen of what’s to come.
I’m on my way.
(What Do You Fight For?)
Penelope feels the words ripple before she can fully process them in her throat, yanking the horse’s belly open and shouting behind her.
ATTACK!
It was in an instant that the Achaean armies had swarmed the city. Penelope hadn’t even fully registered when the gates were opened and the full force of their army gathered around her. Her axe cascaded across the line of Trojan soldiers, caught by surprise and unprepared. Blood caked her hands, her armor, and her face as she mercilessly carved a path through them.
Once getting to the foot of the Trojan Palace, she ushered Eurydice inside, pointing to the top where she knew the stolen king of Sparta was. She then flipped around on her heel, cleaving the head off a soldier as she went.
The carnage the Queen of Ithaka reaped went on for several minutes, more blood caking her body than sweat now as her eyes trained vicious across the battlefield. She bared her teeth, allowing a steely breath to escape them as she went, trying to ease the ache that now settles over her bones.
Her eyes settle ahead of her and she blinks slowly. On the outskirts of the castle wall, she sees a shaded form lurk. She rubs her eyes, merely staining her face with more blood as she tries to will the shape that only seems to want to exist along the periphery of her vision in dancing black spots to come into her sight properly.
It is only when she approaches it, however, that it slings something at her. She only gives a moment’s pause to register the shadow-tipped arrow that plunges into her throat before she gasps, screaming out in phantom pain. She grips at her neck and feels nothing. Her fingers dig into a spot where her death should have been and she only sees shadow peel away with it, settling with her own after a few brief moments.
Who was that?
The world shifts around her. She isn’t sure quite when she fully realizes it, but when she raises her head to the sky she sees that the rich purple that clung to the edges of dawn still had begun to warp. It twisted and turned violently across the front of the sky, mixing between royal blue and purple for a few moments before the shape of wings and plumage seemed to be plucked straight from the sky itself. The blue mixes with the yellows of the dawn to create a strange, aurora like green that streaks across the sky overhead, forming the tails of a massive, royal peacock.
Penelope barely has time to register the shape before a voice cracks through her head like a sharp hammer and she nearly buckles at the authority of the woman’s voice that speaks to her, aged and powerful.
A Vision
Of What is to Come.
The warrior queen turns her head upward, trying her best to make out the outline of the bird across the sky, eyes shielded and narrowing in respect to this intervention blessed by the divine.
Cannot be Outrun.
Can Only be Dealt With
Right Here and Now.
And she follows it.
Tell Me How!
The peacock turns its head back to stare straight into her eyes, and all she can see is blood red fury.
It Would Seem That You’re Ready.
The bird twists and turns through the sky, piercing through it as it makes a descent. Where it seemed unimaginably far, it now seemed closer and more tangible as it bends towards one of the tiered towers of the city. It settles on the edge of one of the windows, before it steps inside.
Penelope huffs, quickly bursting the door through. She slams her axe through a few wayward fighters as she pushes her way to the top, her footsteps pounding against the floor the same as the woman’s voice that still pounds in her head.
A Mission,
To Kill Someone’s Son.
A Foe Who Won’t Run.
Unlike Anyone Who You’ve Faced Before.
She stops at the foot of a door. It is beautifully carved, the door of some kind of royalty.
Say No More.
I Know That I’m Ready--
She slams the door in, axe poised and ready in her hand. The blood and steel reflects the flickering torch light of the room as she presses in, the interior warm and calm.
(Strike Him Fast, You’re Time’s Ready!)
Penelope looks around, her gaze narrowing as she tries to take in the full scene. It is some kind of bedroom. The walls are covered in soft tapestries of muted colors, the floor covered in rugs of flush wool the same textures. She looks around and can see a bundle of pillows, blankets, and soft items pushed in one of the corners. A shelf with toys settles on the wall.
Her eyes gaze around before she sees the spectral outline, near invisible now, of the peacock on the edge of the windowsill. She stares down into an open face of a bassinet, staring at a--
Is That an Infant?
Penelope approaches, staring down into the crib at the small baby boy. His eyes are half-lidded, not even old enough to hold them open properly. She can see the outline of green eyes stare up at her as he fidgets lightly with the blanket that swaddles him, twisting and turning at the new presence of a warrior and goddess who invade his bedroom.
That’s Just a Boy.
The axe collapses from her hand as she bends down and gently takes him out. Blood stains the edges of his swaddle as he twists in her grip. She holds him out and simply stares, and then turns that confusion to the goddess.
What Sort of Imminent Threat Does He Pose,
That I Cannot Avoid?
The winds begin to pick up as the goddess spreads her wings and takes off into the air. She circles around the ceiling, sending the lights of the torches flickering. Dark shadows flicker with them, cascading the room like the interior of a boiling pot.
This is the Crowning Jewel
Of the Wise Andromache.
The shadows lurch and soon the vision of a man appears across them. Tears of black stream down his face as he rips past the shadows, trying to pull himself out of the shadow and into the room proper in his pursuit towards Penelope.
With all this Blood as Fuel
He Will Grow to be a Sight to See.
Failing to push through the shadow and out of it, the man stops. He flips the edge of a massive bow off his shoulder. His hands shake and grip in anger as the shadows spill freely from his face, planting in puddles along his feet like blood.
A Man Filled with Rage,
Once You’re Consumed By Age.
When he draws back the bow, arrow notched towards her, the shadows dissipate, swirling back into an incomprehensible mess as Penelope feels once again the whiff of an arrow towards her neck.
If You Don’t End Him Now
You’ll Have No One Left to Save!
You can Say Goodbye to--
The shadow shifts to form a vision of her husband. Odysseus’ face is drawn in fear, pain, and agony, gripping his side as arrows stick from him like a pincushion. In his arms is an empty bundle, a bundle of woolen cloth that boils Penelope’s blood at the sight.
(Odysseus!)
You Can Say Goodbye To.
Odysseus’ form collapses as Penelope screams in that rage. The noise jostles the infant, who starts to fuss and cry in her arms. She stares down at the boy with pure hatred, her grip carelessly tightening around him as it takes all her restraint to not throw him out the window.
(Odysseus!)
I Could Never Raise Him as My Own.
(There Will Be No Tale Left For You To Tell)
He’ll Find Me Even Far From Home.
(If He Finds You Then Your House He’ll Fell)
His Past Will Never be Unknown!
(The Love Of Your Family You’ll Have Failed--)
Penelope drops the boy back into the crib and shifts to one knee. She raises the axe from the floor, pressing it to her chest as she stares at the goddess’ form that shifts and settles back to the window sill.
Down On My Knees For Ya
This Boy’s Gonna Bleed For Ya!
His Cries Are Gonna CEASE--
She can sense the approval of the goddess as she tilts her head, staring out at the dawn.
(That is the WILL OF THE GODS)
Penelope closes her eyes, breathing deeply as her grip tightens on the axe. Light swirls across her closed lids as she opens them again, a new resolve and fury in her gaze.
I Can Manage Through This,
One Last Push And Then We’re Through This.
The spectral form of the goddess nods its head, the regal peacock giving one last nod before taking off from the air. As she swirls back to mix with the colors of the heavens above, Penelope can hear one last whispered command from the divine.
The Blood On Your Hands Is Something You Won’t Lose.
So Let This Infant Be Your Muse.