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Athena is the first one outside the family and those helping with childbirth to hold Odysseus and Penelope's firstborn.
A child. A small, fragile life. All mortals are fragile, but seeing one that cannot yet do anything but cry for help empasizes that in a lot of ways.
She carefully hands him back to Penelope.
"You honour me."
"Aw, not a fan of kids?" Odysseus remarks. He doesn't sound upset - just curious. Curiousity is to be rewarded.
"His skull is still full of soft spots. My hands are not meant to handle with care. Maybe once he's older."
Penelope looks to be lost in thought for a moment, her eyes on her child's face. "That's sensible. But I'll hold you to it."
She doesn't end up getting the chance to, because soon after, Paris rejects Athena's offer of wisdom in favour of asking Aphrodite to kidnap a married woman whose marriage is protected by a sworn oath of every other man who has asked for her hand.
Athena supposes that, to desire wisdom, one must already be wise.
She spends ten years fighting a war caused by a man's stupidity. She is in her element, here, guiding Odysseus and Diomedes in battle. With gods supporting their heroes on each side, the war is messy.
And then after it, on his journey home, Odysseus disappoints her by refusal to bring a threat to rest.
So her refusal to show her face again is entirely within reason.
Years pass within the blink of an eye to an immortal.
It isn't as though Athena misses Odysseus, exactly. But she has been part of his life for many years, and she does wonder what became of him.
She looks in on Ithaca first only to discover that he is not yet back.
She sees Penelope, weaving a funeral shroud. She sees her promise to remarry as soon as she is finished. She sees her undo her own work, and at once she is pained at the destruction of craft and appreciative of the cunning.
She sees Penelope's suitors. She is not impressed by any of them.
She sees a young man doing his best, and yet barely enough, to protect her.
No. Not just any young man.
Telemachus. A long time has passed indeed.
He looks like he needs some help.
He proves to be very receptive to her training, soaking her insights up like a sea sponge. He holds himself awkwardly, and doesn't seem to be quite comfortable with operating his body even outside of a fight, but that's an issue that can only be solved with practice.
One day, once he lies down to rest and she is ready to leave, he calls out "Can you stay?"
"Why do you ask?"
He does an awkward movement with his shoulders. "We're friends, right?"
How does she answer that? How does she convey the nuance? The way that she has been there far before his birth and will persist long past his death? The way that attracting the attention of a god can turn from burden to boon with the swiftness of a loosened arrow? The way that friendship, the way Telemachus knows of it, is a concept entirely mortal?
"You may call me such."
"So could we just hang out?"
She hums and sits down next to him.
And then he starts telling her a story about a time one of the suitors brought game to be cooked that had looked sick to anyone with their wits about them. He says he had convinced the servants to cook it anyway, and to serve to the suitors, and to make something different for the family and for the staff.
She compliments him on his cunning and quick thinking. He laughs it off, but the smile stays on his face.
Maybe this could work.
Odysseus is not particularly happy to see her again. He isn't scornful in reception of her, either. Above all, he seems tired, and she cannot blame him for it.
She decides against telling him it was her that petitioned Zeus to let him free from Ogygia. If he is even half as sharp today as he was on the day she left him - and he must have been to be able to make it home - he figured it out for himself.
For a time, Telemachus spends some more time training with his dad than he does with her, and she can't blame him, either. She understands the way mortal families belong with each other for the most time. She understands that divine concerns are different from human ones. She understands how it may be better to leave the both of them to themselves.
And then, it seems to wane.
Once, when she's sitting next to him in the way it turned to habit, Telemachus asks, "Does talking to your father ever fill you with dread?"
Oh. Athena knows enough to recognize that something about this question is deeply, deeply wrong. But that doesn't give any insight into what that "something" is.
She decides to simply answer the question as it is.
"It does. But he's very different from yours. He has a mercurial temperament, and he's unpredictable in the worst way."
"It isn't as though my father is without his anger." She cannot deny that it is the truth, but it doesn't seem to be the core of it.
"He isn't. But he uses it to protect those close to him, rather than to bring harm."
That much is broadly true. There are countless stories she might be able to share of such. Would any of them give the answer that Telemachus is seeking?
In the end, she settles on, "Have you heard the story about my mother?"
"I didn't know you had a mother."
She can't help but laugh a little. "Not many do. It was said that his first wife, by the name of Metis, would give birth to a son that would overthrow him. To prevent that from coming to pass, he had absorbed her. But she was pregnant at the time. And so, later, I was born out of his head."
"I bet you're glad to have turned out to be a daughter."
She thinks about it for a moment. "Well, I imagine that if I hadn't been, the prophecy would come to pass one way or another. He would certainly know by his own experience. But I doubt that knowledge would have swayed him from trying. So I suppose I am luckier for it."
She wonders whether telling him that was a good idea.
Even though it's said in a whisper, Athena hears her name called with the same clarity as if it was called out to make one's throat hoarse.
The scene is familiar. This isn't the first time she finds someone she'd like to call a friend at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean.
She places her hands to hold him. It sits on her with a terrible weight that he could easily break right here and now. Even all these years later, he is just as fragile; even all these years later, he cries for help.
For her help, of all things.
"I am here."
Can her hands handle him with the care he asks for?
"What brought you here?"
She cannot read the expression that comes onto his face, but it cannot be good. "I was wondering whether Poseidon would care to kill me or to spare me if I were to jump off the cliff and into the sea."
She will need to understand why. "Do you aim to die?"
"...Why did you phrase it like that?"
He needs her to be certain in what she does. "No one ever truly wants to die. They don't want to live the life they are currently living. There is a life that they do want to live instead." She looks at him, and he seems to be listening. "What is it? What life do you want to live?"
Telemachus doesn't answer, only sinking to his knees and still holding onto her hand. She mirrors his motion, sitting down next to him.
It seems he doesn't know the answer to that question, either. "Alright. Let's try this again. What do you not want about this life?"
The answer comes immediately. "I don't want to be like my father."
The statement is strange at best, but it's something to go off, a thread in the mess to untangle. She nods at him, trying to show she has understood it. "Who do you want to be like?"
That answer also comes easy. "You."
The idea of being akin to any of the gods is typically regarded as hubris, but that doesn't match the situation. That doesn't match Telemachus as she's come to know him.
Aside from divinity, what is it that marks a difference between her and Odysseus? What can describe her, but not him?
There are some options, some more obvious than others. She needs another point of reference to make sure. "Alright. Anyone else?"
The next thing he says takes more time. "Aunt Helen", he admits finally, and - well, she can't hold it against her. This was Aphrodite's doing. It's not Helen's fault she was caught up in this mess.
More importantly, she can only think of one thing the two of them have in common, especially when put against Odysseus.
How does she bring Telemachus to the same conclusion she reached?
"Have you wondered about something in your life turning out differently than it did?"
He doesn't answer, but she's learned how his face looks when he's thinking about something.
"...Have you?" she repeats.
He shifts his posture, burying his face in his knees. She feels her question get answered more than she hears the "Yes".
"What was it?"
"It's stupid. It can never be."
She is almost certain she knows what he means, and how easily within her power it would be. "Try me."
"...Has my father told you about the sirens? What they tried to show him? That they couldn't get things quite right?"
Odysseus did tell Athena about it. She already had the broad awareness of the dangers he faced, but not the details, and thus, not the ways he had surpassed the obstacles. The siren story had been simple enough - once you block your ears, they won't be able to get to you, and they will make mistakes in trying to tailor their illusions.
Such as the false Penelope mentioning a daughter.
It would be so easy to simply change him into a woman right here and now. She would barely need a justification - he had admitted to not wanting to follow in his father's footsteps, and she, having trained him, could claim offense to the fact and thus enact retribution in whatever way she deemed fit.
But she knows that mortals are rarely simple. She knows that Telemachus needs to first comprehend that what he wants is possible, that he can have it, that it's something within his reach.
She begins to speak. She speaks as he lifts his gaze; as he averts it again; as he listens to every word, and soaks it up just the same as he always does. She weaves together a tapestry of every word she can think of that could help him comprehend what she is trying to communicate.
And when she thinks it's sunk in, she stands up, and pulls him up by their still-linked hands.
Odysseus and Penelope do not need any convincing at all. It isn't as though Athena would've needed them to approve - this has never been about them - but it seems a better idea to tell them before than after.
In transformation, Telemachus almost falls over, and Penelope catches her. Her eyes are shut tightly, and she covers her mom's hands with her own, and the two hold onto each other for - just a few seconds. Then Telemachus opens her eyes, rights herself, and stands still for a couple of moments.
For being adapted better to change than to staying the same, mortals still need them to sink in.
And then, suddenly, there are arms around Athena, and almost childish laughter.
The girl is still small and fragile, when compared to her. She could break at any moment still.
But, as Athena returns the gesture, she is safe in her arms.