Odysseus could feel his hands trembling. He held your tiny body close to his chest, a sharp pang somewhere in his heart each time you shifted or made a sound of curiosity. He looked down at your bright eyes, so innocently trusting of a man ordered to kill you.

This was an impossible task, he thought. One no-one should ever have to do.

And he knew that he couldn't. How could he hurt you, when you were innocent? You hadn't had the chance to live yet. He couldn't kill you. He wouldn't.

So he pulled himself to his feet again, hiding you in your bundle of blankets and holding you so it wasn't painfully obvious he was carrying a baby in the middle of a battlefield. And he made his way out of the palace, through the crowd of celebrating Greeks, and back to the Ithacan camp. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Athena's disapproving voice, but he ignored her.

Somehow - gods only knew - he managed to make it to his tent without anybody asking what he was holding. He sat down, letting out a long, exhausted sigh as he untangled you from your blankets.