Chapter Text
When he first washed ashore, Calypso wasn’t sure what to make of him. At first she’d thought he was a bit of debris, or perhaps a stray corpse. Those washed up occasionally, sailors drowned by her cousin’s wrath. But this one was different. He breathed much the same as other creatures breathed, and his form was almost shaped like hers. He was smaller, though, much smaller. Calypso picked him up in one hand. When she was young, before the cruel Olympians began their reign, she’d had a little doll, a gift from her father. This was not a doll, she knew that much. But perhaps he was something doll-like, something gifted by the gods. The thought filled her heart with joy.
Calypso whisked her gift to her homely cave, shrinking to fit inside. Her lovely bed was the perfect size for her gift. She set him down gently. That was when she noticed the blood.
“Oh, you’re mortal!” she exclaimed. She clapped her hands together. “I’ve never met any mortals! But I’ve heard so much about you. I didn’t think your blood would really be so red!”
Her mortal did not answer. His eyes were closed. Each breath made a noise like a broken bellows, and his chest barely moved.
“Wake up,” Calypso called. “Mortal? My gift? Wake up so that you may heal yourself.”
The mortal said nothing, and Calypso felt very foolish.
“I forget how much mortals cannot do,” she sighed. Then she brightened with an idea. “I am a goddess! I can heal you! You will be in my debt, of course, but that’s alright! You might repay me with your friendship. I’ve never had a friend before. Not one that speaks. You do speak, don’t you? When you are awake?” The mortal said nothing, as expected. Calypso laughed. “Yes, I will heal you right away, and then we will be friends! You will be the first creature to speak back to me in many years. It will be an honor.”
Calypso gathered her herbs. She had little need for them herself, but she knew the uses of every plant on her island. She peeled the mortal’s clothing from his body…
Oh. Oh. So this was why her kin took so many mortal lovers. She tentatively touched the planes of his chest, soft with black and silver hairs and scarred with the marks of a warrior. She trailed lower, down the bumps of his ribs and into the hollow of his stomach. His skin was hot against her fingers, especially near the blood. His wound was swollen and oozing, and there was a matching hole on his back, as if he’d been run straight through. The Olympian gods were cruel, but this was not their doing.
“Poor mortal,” Calypso said. “One of your kind must have hurt you. Well, my gift, you are in my domain now. I will take care of you, don’t you worry.” She patted his wound comfortingly.
The mortal slept for five days as she tended to him. Sometimes he would groan or cough, other times twitch. His voice startled her at first, deep and rough as it was. But it stirred something inside her, the same thing that stirred each time she touched him. How she adored touching him. His chest, his calloused hands, his fine legs. One of them had a thick scar that she liked to trace. She’d taken to sleeping beside him during the nights, for he was always so warm and he held her so gently. Calypso had nearly wept the first time she’d cuddled close to him and draped his arm over herself. It had been so long since she had touched something that had neither fur nor feathers. It should have been no surprise that she fell for him so quickly.
“I love you,” Calypso whispered, a blush warming her face. “I can hardly believe it– I’ve never loved before, not like this. I don’t even know your name,” she chuckled, “but I know that I love you. Perhaps, when you wake, you might say it back.”
She brushed his tangled hair from his face, and gasped as he turned his head into her touch. “Penelope,” he whispered.
Calypso grabbed his shoulders, tempted to shake him in her excitement. “You do speak! Oh, my dear! What is Penelope? A name? Whose? Speak again, love of my life, please!”
But he did not. Calypso groaned. A single word, the first she’d heard in a century, and it was a name she did not know. Pouting and grumbling, she went back to changing his bandages.
The next morning, he opened his eyes. They were grayish blue, like the sky over the ocean, and any lingering disappointment Calypso felt vanished in an instant.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she smiled, making her voice melodious and charming, bright as a bell. The mortal squinted up at her in confusion. “You’ve been asleep for several days. You were half dead when you washed up here. I saved your life. You talk in your sleep, did you know that?”
The mortal opened his mouth to speak, but a ragged cough came out instead of words. Calypso lifted his head up and poured water into his mouth. It was harder when he was awake, and most of it spilled down his face.
“Who’s Penelope?” she asked when he was finished coughing.
“She’s my wife,” he rasped. He tried to sit up, but he trembled all over and fell back onto the pillows. Calypso didn’t catch him. Her thoughts were reeling.
Wife. All of a sudden she hated the word. Someone else that loved him, her gift, the love of her life. But just as quickly the anger faded. In the ways of the gods, men could love many times over, it was only women who were limited. This wife Penelope was certainly far from Ogygia, and in no time, her mortal would certainly come to love her too.
“Where am I?”
“My island!” Calypso beamed. She grabbed his hands. “You must heal quickly so I can show you absolutely everything. There is a beautiful spring, and a splendid forest, and a sparkling stream, and a delightful cliff, and a charming cove, and that’s just about it, really, but it’s more than enough. We have everything here, you and I. How I love the word we! Isn’t it a perfect word? We. You and I, love of my life! …Love of my life?”
His eyes were closed again. Calypso huffed. She really should have asked his name.