Everyone on deck was nearly lost in a strange darkness, and they moved slowly, as if through thick syrup. Odysseus stepped away from Polites, his head suddenly clear, and his legs strong. He knew what this was, and searched for the culprit
"Took you a long while to catch up," he said, scanning the frozen faces of his crew to find that of a woman. She wore the uniform of his crew, and her hair was bound back with a thick cord. She seemed to be paused in the middle of assisting a rower with pulling a rope but as Odysseus spotted her, she unfroze and smiled. Her grey eyes glittered with intelligence and mischief.
"I had business in Troy, cleaning up the mess," she said, examining her perfect fingernails. "But I always had my eye on you."
"So you know where we are?" Odysseus found he didn't have much patience for banter today.
"I'm not here to give directions like some passing citizen," the woman said, putting a hand on Odysseus' shoulder. She wasn't tall in this form, and she had to look up slightly to look into his eyes. "I'm here about that one." She pointed with her chin at the child.
"Are you asking me to kill him?"
"I'm simply questioning your judgment. Showing mercy toward the son of a man you fought for a decade. People might say you've grown soft." She spoke quietly, and without malice, but the words stung.
"Killing an innocent child isn't the kind of man I want to be," he said, pulling away and looking out at the frozen waves. "I don't care what people might think. I know I'm as determined as ever."
"You've changed," the woman said. "You're not the little boy I met back in that forest, with the boar..."
Odysseus remembered the day, he had gone with Polites and Eurylochus to fight a wild boar that had been terrorizing the nearby village. No man had been able to slay it, but Odysseus had come up with a strategy that took it down, though the boar had nearly killed Polites, and he and his friends had sustained injuries from the fight. An old scar on Odysseus's right leg itched at the memory.
He had been ten years old.
"Maybe I'm not. It's been a long time."
The woman smiled, but her eyes had gone hard, flintlike. "Only for a mortal," she said, "but you are something more than a mere mortal. You're one of mine, little warrior."
"What do you want from me, Athena?" Odysseus asked, frustrated. "Haven't I completed every task you've given me?"
Suddenly, the small woman in the white chiton was gone, and in her place was a towering figure in battle armor, massive owl's wings sprouting from her shoulders.
"I want to ensure that you keep up and that you do not grow weak," she said, her voice like a thunderclap, and Odysseus had to resist the urge to clap his hands over his ears. "Do not disappoint me, Odysseus."