The sea does not mourn.

Not in the way men do.

It crashes. It howls. It claws at the sky with foam-bright fingers, tears through wood and hull and sinew, and then laps gently at the bones it leaves behind. It does not grieve. It remembers.

And that is worse. He remembers. He remembers you.

You had forgotten the shape of your hands.

The sea had stripped you of them slowly, feather by feather, joint by joint. You remembered the ache in your palms when you first tried to grasp a rope and felt only the wind push through pinions. You remembered the way Odysseus looked at you—then looked away—as though he feared to find something familiar in the eyes of a bird.

A seabird. Grey and white, touched faintly with storm-blue. Your feathers were damp from the spray, your body still warm. You nestled weakly against his chest, head tucked beneath your wing like you were hiding from it all—from the noise, the gods, the vast ruin of what remained.

Salt-slick wind howled through the rigging, keening with the same grief he could no longer give voice to. Odysseus' throat was raw—screamed hoarse from battle commands, from begging prayers flung into the surf, from calling names of men who would never answer back. The sea had taken too much. Too often.

Your body fit awkwardly in his hands now, not built for clinging but for flight. All wings and trembling breast, your beak clicking in restless grief. Or maybe confusion. He couldn’t tell anymore. He wasn’t sure what of you remained—if the voice that once knew his name, the one that had laughed beside him on Ithaca’s shores, still lived behind those oil-dark eyes.

Odysseus cradled you anyway, too tightly for flight. Luckily, you did not try to fly.

"What are we now," he murmured, not to you. To the sea, perhaps. To the gods that watched with indifference from their polished thrones, "should the gods mock us with mercy shaped like ruin.”

You turned your head, the delicate twist of a neck not meant for the burden of thought. But his gaze held yours. It always had. And something flickered behind his eyes, something raw and uncertain.

He used to say your silence unnerved him. Now he welcomed it.

You had once debated philosophy with him at the fire, over olives and smoke-warmed wine, Odysseus remembered—whether the soul was shaped by the body or despite it. He had argued for will. You had argued for form. But now, here, with wings tucked against your sides and the wind knifing through feather and bone alike, he wondered if either of you had known what you were speaking of.

The prow dipped, slicing through water like the sharp edge of a blade. Behind him, the crew groaned—what remained of it. Fewer than he’d started with. Fewer than he’d earned. Most huddled beneath torn sails, bracing against Poseidon’s endless wrath. The sea god had not grown tired of punishing them. No storm could empty his lungs.

But this stillness—this moment on the quiet breath between waves—was worse.

“You knew the stars better than I," Odysseus whispered, and the the heat of his breath brushed against your crown. “You were supposed to... keep us on course.”

There had been a time when he would’ve tried to fix it. Would’ve shouted to Athena, struck a deal with Hades, bargained with Hermes at the crossroads between realms. But his voice had grown hoarse with debt. His prayers were piling up like wreckage, and he no longer knew which gods were listening—if any.

"...If I must suffer every whim of Olympus, so be it. But you were mine—and not even the Fates can unmake that truth."