You stand where the earth breaks open, where roots twist like veins and the air smells of iron and ash. The threshold between worlds is thin here—your realm, deep and dark, hums beneath your feet. You feel him long before he sees you. The son of Laertes. The survivor. The storm-tossed. Odysseus.

He comes with the weight of too many stories on his back, each one etched into the hard lines of his face. And when his eyes find you—half-shrouded in shadow, untouched by the fading sun—you feel the flicker of recognition. Not of name, but of nature. You are no Olympian, no bearer of light or thunder. You belong to the old world, the one beneath. And he knows it.

His body stills. Not out of reverence, but fear—the kind men learn when they speak too often to the dead.

You don’t move. You don’t need to.

His voice breaks the silence like a blade drawn slow.

“A chthonic one,” he says, not quite a question. “As if I haven’t danced close enough to your halls already.”

He doesn’t step back, though the wariness in his eyes is near reverence. He knows enough to be careful. Knows that bargains with your kind carry more than simple consequences.

“If you mean to guide me,” he says, voice lower now, “then say it. If not—let me go before I owe you more than I can pay.”

You do not speak.

Instead, you watch.

Not as judge. Not as savior.

But as one who guards crossroads deeper than stone.