Chapter 10: Visions of Me

 

Odysseus took the short bow in his hands and stepped up behind the fence where Claire stood, the woman placing a bucket of arrows on a table nearby.

Approaching the table, Odysseus grabbed a wooden arrow, one tipped with a bronze head and laced with white feathers.

He twirled it in his hand before eyeing how the light reflected off the bronze, ignoring Claire who was speaking on how to use a bow.

“Hey! Are you listening to me?” 

“Huh? Yeah, three fingers on string, around the arrow, keep back erect then pull bow up, pull drawstring until body is forming a T with the string beside your face.” Odysseus recapped, before striking a pose, and letting out a breath.

In the distance, Chiron narrowed his eyes, the centaur laying in a hammock beside a garden and putting down his book.

“Ok. Aim and fire.” Claire said, with Odysseus letting loose his arrow.

“Wow.” Claire muttered, watching the arrow completely miss the target and fly over the wall. “You know those arrows are expensive right? Chiron makes them by hand.”

“Shit.” Odysseus winced. 

“Try again, this time steady your breathing, observe your target before drawing.”

Odysseus tried again, this time the arrow flinging wildly to the side.

Damn it! Odysseus inwardly swore.

“Well, at least it's inside the camp.”

Odysseus narrowed his eyes, his hand tightening around the bow.

His arms were shaking, his muscles aching from the strain of drawing a bow twice over.

Odysseus closed his eyes. Taking a breath. An image in his mind of that man again. 

“Maybe we'll take a break. It's clear you're tired.”

“No.” Odysseus said, drawing the bow for the third time and aiming at the dummy. “I can do this.”

“Whatever.” Claire yawned. “Just miss inside the training yard this time.”

Odysseus clenched his jaw, his weakened arms shaking.

I can do this!

“Take a breath.” Chiron said, the centaur appearing beside Odysseus and resting a hand on boy's wrist, coaxing him to lower the bow. “Claire. I instructed you to guide Odysseus with archery after he had eaten lunch.”

“Eh, he wasn't doing anything. Figured the sooner I get him acquainted the better.” Claire shrugged. “Plus I wanted to see what he could do.”

“Rest is as equally important as the work.” Chiron stated, taking the bow from a reluctant Odysseus. 

“B-but-” Odysseus began.

“Take a moment. Let us eat.” Chiron said as the teen’s stomach rumbled.

 

****

At the center of the camp, a teen sat, engorging himself on the food laid out on a large table beside a fire. Stews, jerkys, vegetables, all items entering the black hole known as Odysseus.

“Disgusting.” Claire winced. “You eat like a pig.”

“Mhhm.” Odysseus continuing, ignoring the woman. 

“Odysseus.” Chiron called out to the teen. “As I've said previously, the food isn't going anywhere.”

“He's not listening.” Claire rolled her eyes.

“This reminds me of an idiom I once heard.” Chiron said, smilng to himself as he went back to his book that had an image of a flaming bird. “The way to a man's heart is his stomach.”

Odysseus shook his head, continuing to munch on the vegetables and meats until his outstretched hand froze at the soup. 

In the bowl was a wooden spoon.

“Oh, look at that, he finally stopped.” Claire said.

“Chiron.” Odysseus said, turning slowly to the mentor. “Hermes told me to be weary of eating anything with a spoon.”

Chiron looked up from his book. 

“A warning from a god? You would do well to listen then.” Chiron said, going back to his book. “Although… gods are fickle beings who use mortals as playthings. It could mean to be weary now, or it could mean ten to fifteen years from now.”

Odysseus looked down, eyeing the soup. “So… what is it?”

Chiron flipped a page. “Sadly only the Gods know. While I have done nothing special to the soup, Hermes’s warning could very well mean that a piece of the stew's meat falls into your windpipe and you choke and die.”

Odysseus frowned. Staying away from the soup. “Oh… neat.”

 

****

After eating, Odysseus sat at the table, opening and closing his system. Eyeing the change in his system stats. 

Support System Menu
SPONSOR: &(1 ERROR! CoRRupted Data!&^
Title: A Strategic Goddess’s Beloved Name: Odysseus		HP: 80/100
CLASS: Challenger LvL 1		MP: 0/0
Free Points	4	AFFINITIES  Divine 150 Chaos 10 Fire 2
STRENGTH	8(5)
VITALITY	10(8)
SENSE	12(10)
DEXTERITY	13(11)
ARCANA	1(0)
EGO	20
[SEALED]
[BUFFS]: Protection of %^!@()[ERROR! Data does not exist!] [DEBUFFS]:  Malnourished (-2 All stats) [RESISTANCES]: Divinity 175%, Chaos 10%, Fire 2%
SKILLS: Shard of Aegis (25MP), Telumkinesis, (10MP)

 

His malnutrition had gone down, so now instead of negative three, he was getting two, meaning he was recovering.

I'm getting stronger. 

Odysseus took a breath, sitting there and letting his food digest as Chiron had instructed.

He turned, staring at the flames radiating from the campfire. Flames that seemed to twist and twirl, change in shape and color until they warped into images that danced in Odysseus's mind.

In them, he saw visions of grand battlefields, realms ranging from floating isles to lands of lava, women he'd never known calling his name, and above all, the sapphired-eyed man with an owl on his shoulder standing with his gaze indifferent to the carnage and screams.

But behind those dull eyes… Was guilt.

Is this what I'm meant to be? Odysseus finally understood something as his eyes met with the man's.

These visions, were glimpses of a future. His… Future.

From the owl-like silhouette at the man's side to the sapphire irises. Odysseus could see now that what he saw was visions of himself. Of the carnage he would wrought. 

Of the monster he’d become.

Odysseus turned away from the flames, looking at Chiron whose book rested on his lap with his green irises focused on the teen.

“Have you ever heard about the Phoenix?” Chiron asked, with Odysseus blinking rapidly to dispel the tears in his eyes.

“N-no sir.” Odysseus replied, eyeing the book on the man's lap.

“It is… an immortal creature, one that many associate with the cycle of life and death. When it dies, the ashes it leaves behind are used as kindling to reinvigorate a new phoenix. Washing away the past to bring forth a new tomorrow.” Chiron explained, the flames beside the table seeming to grow brighter. “Much like the gods, it sees the past, present, and future, but unlike those fickle beings who live in stagnation, a phoenix will kill itself to begin again. Each incarnation, a new bird.”

Odysseus sat there, pondering the centaur’s words.

“What did you see?” Chiron asked. 

“Huh?” Odysseus replied.

“What did you see in the flames?”

Odysseus turned back to the fire pit, the heat caressing his skin as a vision beset him.

“I…. I see death… Screams. Entire cities engulfed in war. People being raped, murdered, tortured, and burned alive. People calling out my name. A hundred unknown faces asking me why?” Odysseus replied, staring blankly as his voice dropped to a whisper. “Is this my future?”

Chiron and Odysseus sat in silence, neither speaking with the only sound in the air being the cackling of flames.

“I… don’t want to be a monster Chiron.” Odysseus replied, thinking back to the man incinerating infants. His indifference as the people that knelt to him out of fear burned away until nothing was left but the ashes of their corpses. “I…”

 

“Then you won’t be. Should you choose not to.” Chiron stated, his hands clasping together. “Visions are only glimpses of what MAY come. Despite what the Moirai and gods might have others believe, fate isn’t invincible, statistics can be outwitted. Although, one would need to possess adequate guile and strength necessary to defy destiny.”

“Defy destiny huh…” Odysseus replied, his eyes tracing to the bow laying on the table in the distance with Claire practicing her shooting nearby.

 

Odysseus finally rose from the table, his body reinvigorated.

 

“Oh good, here to miss again?” Claire quipped, firing her arrow into a training dummy that embedded into the thing’s head.

Odysseus ignored the woman, grabbing the bow and an arrow, narrowing his eyes in the process at the six training dummies spaced out from one another with arrows in their heads.

He struck a stance, his back foot firmly planted in the ground as he lifted his bow up and tilted it ten degrees off from its vertical angle. As he did so, he felt a shadow on his skin, like an invisible person guiding his posture and stance.

Claire stood off to the side, yawning again as she waited for the man to fire his bow.

And then he did, sending the bronzed-tipped projectile through the air and embedding it through an arrow already stuck in the head of the dummy.

Claire jolted back, doing a double-take before blinking rapidly. “What the fuck?”

Odysseus didn’t waste any time entertaining the woman, he grabbed another arrow, firing it and achieving the same result he had done previously, causing Claire to gawk. 

One, two, three, six. Eventually each target now had an arrow within an arrow with Odysseus letting out a breath as he lowered his bow.

Claire leapt over the fence, walking over to eye Odysseus’s handiwork.

“What the fuck?” Claire let out as Odysseus smirked and felt a firm hand touch his shoulder.

“Excellent work Odysseus.” Chiron praised, congratulating the young man who suddenly felt a sense of pride welling up inside as the mentor guided him away from the angry Claire. “You appear to be blessed with the talents of a great archer.”

 “Thank you Chiron.” Odysseus smiled as Claire fumed in the backdrop, the woman attempting to do what Odysseus had done but failing. 

“Oh, no need to thank me young man. This was your own doing. Plus, you’ll be helping to replace the arrows you just destroyed.” Chiron smiled, handing Odysseus a knife and summoning a bag out of thin air that he tossed to the boy.