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From the time he was scarcely more than a boy with a king’s name laid too heavy upon his shoulders, Odysseus had been bound to the sea.
It was never only one reason that carried him away from shore. Sometimes it was duty - the slow, grinding responsibilities of a crown that demanded trade, alliance, and presence where words mattered more than spears. Other times, it was the quiet but powerful pressure of his patron goddess, a guidance that felt less like command and more like inevitability, as though his feet had already chosen the deck before his mind caught up. Whether obligation or divine suggestion, the result was always the same: sails raised, land falling away, the horizon opening like a question that demanded an answer.
He learned early that the sea did not yield to strength alone. Storms could not be argued with, nor could monsters be met head-on and expected to break or to fear the shine of his blade.
So he learned another way.
He learned routes no one marked, hours no one favored, silences no one trusted. He learned to pass so close to danger that lesser perils shrank away, as if frightened by what followed in his wake. Long before he named the truth of it, he understood that once a man has steered through terror itself, little else can unsettle him.
The reasons for his journeys changed, but the paths had a way of folding back upon themselves. Again and again his prow cut the same darkened waters, and again and again the cliffs rose before him - narrow, jagged, leaning inward as though the world were closing its teeth.
This time, though, his ship rode lower. More men crowded the deck, their voices steady but alert, eager to serve. They trusted this young king who never raised his voice and never seemed surprised by the sea.
As the channel tightened and light drained from the sky, unease crept among them - not fear of anything named, but the simple discomfort of a place that did not feel meant for human passage.
If they were ever blessed or cursed enough to meet almighty Oceanos, it is what his parted jaws had to look like.
Mentor - older of the nobles who once sailed with the Cephalonian king as his tutor and now as adviser - moved to Odysseus’s side as the cliffs drew nearer, his hand already braced against the rail. “Let us help you prepare the sacrifices, my lord,” he said. “This channel is tight, and the light is failing. There should be more men to ensure the safety of our travel.”
Others echoed him at once, stepping closer, some still holding onto the ropes of sails and some awaiting possible command.
Odysseus, the king whose face still remained beardless, proving his youth better than the mismatched eyes that could be assigned to the wisest of elders, kept his gaze on the water ahead.
“No,” he said quietly. “You and the rest of the men will follow the plan and go below the deck.”
Mentor stiffened. “My king-”
“You will seal the hatch,” Odysseus continued, calm and precise, “light one candle, and you will block your ears with wax. Everyone of you. You will not come up again until I open the hatch myself or the last nail falls down.”
The words fell heavily between them.
The past teacher searched his face. “I understand your wariness in Poseidon’s domain, but wax?” he repeated. “Why wax?”
Once, the most promising of his students finally turned to him.
“These waters are claimed by sirens, and for those scavengers we have the sacrifice ready,” he said. “It alone should satisfy their hunger, and we don’t need people tied to the mast to listen to their honeyed death, but the sight and the scent of more life onboard could tempt them to go further.” His voice softened, but did not waver. “I will not have you risk yourselves on a chance that can be avoided.”
Mentor shook his head. “Then let me be your sole companion on deck and bind me to the mast,” he said. “If danger waits here, it should meet more than one pair of hands. I already lost your sire to the unavoidable fate, and I don’t want to risk losing you to preventable threats, my child.”
Odysseus’s expression tightened - not with fear, but resolve.
“It is my duty to stand here. To guide and protect my men,” he said. “And yours to live so your gift of words can lead the future generations to better paths.”
Mentor opened his mouth to argue again, but Odysseus raised a hand.
“If I misjudge this passage,” he continued, “if I meet my end here, then Ithaca will still need men who can hear, who can act, who can bring my people home.” His gaze moved across the faces of the crew. “You are the one I trust most to fulfill such a task, but you cannot do that if your mind is broken by song or throat slit by talons."
Silence followed.
“You keep yourselves safe,” Odysseus said gently, “so that if I fall, you are not lost with me.”
The words cut deeper than any command.
Slowly, the graying man inclined his head. “You speak as a king,” he said, quietly. “Not as a brash youth I once knew,” he smiled the same way when one does at the parting of ways. “Very well then, my king. I trust your judgement, but do not forget that we are here to serve you as much if not more than you are meant to serve us.”
That, more than any threat, silenced the doubt of the men. One by one, they obeyed. The hatch was drawn closed. Wood thudded into place. Soon, the deck was empty but for Odysseus and the ship itself.
Only then did the king begin his preparations.
He tethered the sheep along the mast loose enough to let them move but tight enough to keep them from leaping overboard in blind terror.
They shifted and stamped, wool brushing against wood, their bleeping small but sharp in the narrowing silence.
Odysseus did not bind himself.
Instead, he took his place at the stern, seated at the edge of the ship beside the steering wheel, where the dark opened widest. He set a single candle there, wedged firm against the wood. Nails had been driven into its wax at measured intervals, each one marking the slow passage of time it would take to cross these waters. Same one as his men possessed to tell when the time was to rejoin their captain.
When the flame caught, it burned low and steady.
The cliffs leaned closer. Shadows thickened. The sea grew strangely still, as if it were holding its breath.
Odysseus waited patiently, knowing that the terror he had taught himself to sail by was already awake - and that it never failed to answer patience.
He closed his eyes.
Sight was a small thing here. Sound told more truth.
The water shifted.
Not violently, not with the clumsiness of waves breaking against stone, but with intention, as though the sea itself had inhaled and chosen where to place its weight. The ship answered with a low groan, timbers tightening in quiet protest.
Odysseus did not move.
There was no wind. He knew that instantly. The air had been still for too long, thick and expectant. He listened instead to the slow, unnatural scraping that traveled through the cliff walls, like something vast dragging itself along stone. To the soft, nervous movement of hooves on the deck as the sheep shifted, sensing what eyes could not see.
Wax softened. The candle became shorter with passin time.
When the first nail slipped free and struck the metal plate beneath with a dull click, he heard the water below him fall away.
Something sank.
The sea answered its descent with a single, heavy swell. The ship lifted, slid sideways along the wave, then settled again, wood creaking as if exhaling. For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of receding water.
Then it returned.
Not surfacing all at once, but emerging - pressure gathering from every side at once. Odysseus felt it before he heard it: the closeness, the weight hemming the ship in. Wet breath rolled across the deck from all directions, hot and foul, thick with the stench of rot and old flesh.
It was close enough he heard the air enter its lungs, and he could swear the creature was vast enough for its heartbeat alone to cause the water to ripple.
Still blind in the darkness, Odysseus held on.
The sea was no longer empty.
He opened his eyes and saw ahead of him, pale shapes huddled along the rail - the sheep, pressed close together. Their light wool was one of the only things reflecting the small light. The wool, the bronze he wore, and at least a dozen eyes emerging from all sides.
Something exhaled behind him.
A voice followed. No voices.
They rose together in a harmony that had never learned restraint. A woman’s voice carried the sound, smooth and almost warm, while others echoed beneath it, vast and impossibly deep. Their resonance rolled through the hull and into his bones, a pressure he felt in his ribs more than his ears.
“Again,” the voices said, amused. “We meet again, crowned child.”
“Yes,” Odysseus replied quietly.
“Indeed.”
One of the sheep bleated.
The sound barely finished before it was taken.
Water surged upward. Wood cracked. There was a wet, final noise - bone collapsing under patient force - and then the sea swallowed the rest. Blood darkened the water below the rail in spreading rings.
The weird sound followed. The creature laughed. Or at least tried to. Mimicking the sounds of frail mortals to show its mockery.
“You hear that?” she asked with one voice less. Since one of the heads was still slowly working through the wool-covered meat. “Because I do,” she said. The sound followed. Fast tapping of the claw against the side of the ship. “Even now. Hearts knocking against their cages. Small, fast ones, beating in darkness. They think this shell hides them well.”
Warm breath brushed the deck, damp with salt and iron. The fire bent away, though the air remained still.
“Do they know,” she asked, almost curious, “how close they are to death?”
A low rumble traveled through the planks, close enough to feel in the feet.
“Do they know what they pass?”
Another pause.
“Or who do they trust?”
The pressure shifted, then eased.
“Do they understand,” she added softly, “what it means to tie their lives to a man watched by gods?”
Odysseus remained still.
“If they were close to death, I would tell them so. They have the right to understand the truth.”
Another sheep was devoured. The rope caught between the teets, causing the ship to tilt before the the binds were cut by the sharpness of the fangs.
The young king got up and quickly took the helm to redirect the ship to the proper course. It was too dark to know where the stone edges were. His memory was the only guide.
There were times he wished he was gifted like other descendants of Hermes Eriunius. The invisibility, like his grandfather Autolycus, or to have eyes like Lynceus that would let him see through the endless veil of Nyx. But it was not for him to be blessed by the remnants of gold in his blood, and so he had to depend on skills taught instead.
The beast was letting him sail. Hope offered being so entertaining when it was so easy to be snatched once again.
“You always bring so little,” Scylla said. “Barely enough to wet my tongues with their blood, and the wool gives the illusion of fulfillment for my stomach. Soft things. Quiet things. Why shouldn’t I try the ones hiding in the wooden belly?”
Odysseus moved his head and kept his eyes on the dark where the bow should have been.
“You won’t take them,” he said sternly.
A ripple of fake, uncanny laughter answered him, layered and slow.
“And what stops me?” she asked. “I could eat the flock. I could eat the men. Seven mouths, owl child. At least six of them, like wolves, can eat with no understanding of the limit. I could take my time and crack the metal cover protecting the red and tender meat.”
Water shifted closer. Something heavy brushed the hull.
Odysseus did not raise his voice. As his father once taught him, “It is not for the king to scream.” Instead, he remembered the secret his patroness once whispered to his ear.
“Your jaws,” he said. “They hurt. Whatever made you, it did it carelessly. Your bones stretched unevenly in agony, leaving you mangled with mandibles slow and aching when fulfilling their main task. They never healed right. You can’t eat quickly anymore.”
The laughter faltered, just enough to notice.
Then another nail fell down. Sound echoing in his mind.
Two nails left before the time runs down.
“You are not reckless,” he continued. “You won’t leave seven throats exposed while a ship with armed men moves so close. Like a fish in a pond, you’ll dive to finish your meal. And while you do, we’ll swim away.”
The water stilled.
Another sheep was taken. Its cry stopped, replaced by the crunch of its skull. Something fell down the man’s feet. The low glow allowed him to notice the hoof, drenched in blood and saliva.
The remaining voices did not come from just one place. They rose from the water, from the rock, from directly behind his head. A woman’s voice shaped the words, amused and intimate, while others followed beneath it - too deep to belong to throats, their resonance pressing against his chest.
“And what,” Scylla asked softly, “keeps me from crushing this ship first? From spilling the men into my mouths and forgetting the poor man’s offering?”
Odysseus ignored how his clothes felt damp from the breath behind him. He tried to ignore how the air felt like malaise or how easily he could imagine those jaws locking on his arms, legs, or ribs, breaking them one by one.
He took a deep breath and looked into the darkness ahead before offering the answer.
“Because if you do,” he said, “I won’t come back. No ship. No flock. You will have to depend on even thinner generosity of the sea, and hunger will cause you to thank the gods for any corpse dragged to your lair.”
Silence pressed down, heavy and wet.
Then a sheep cried out.
The sound dragged on this time, stretched downward, followed by the slow, grinding crunch of bone. Not tearing - working. Something wet struck the deck. A drop. Then another. Warm. Viscous.
The head of the being moved above him so the blood dripped onto him like a spring drizzle.
The chewing continued, patient and pained. His own mouth mimicked the motion, as if he could feel the strain from the uneven shape.
Two mouths sank down and worked below the waterline. What they would not eat would be later taken by the ever-greedy waters.
“You think this will always be enough,” she said. “But hunger teaches curiosity, god-blessed chick. One day, I may ignore the hooved animals for the taste of those who stand on two feet. One day, I may reach for the quiet ones hiding in your belly of wood.”
The chewing did not stop.
“If you do,” Odysseus said evenly, “then I will stop bringing you wool and flesh as they are. I will soak them in poison. I will weave it into the fleece, stitch it into the cloth of men’s tunics. And I will end you properly so the kin of me and my men would only know you as a story of a distant past.”
A pause.
Then one mouth surged upward. Another sheep screamed - briefly. The sound ended in a crack so loud it rang through the mast. Something struck the hull and slid, leaving a wet trail before dropping into the sea.
“If you fail,” Scylla declared, “I will never eat your sheep again. And you will have to find me a juicier offering to earn forgiveness for your hubris.”
The Ithacan looked at the shifting flame.
Clink
Only one nail remained.
“But if you prove yourself as the one to break Xena, forcing us to respond to your greed with violence,” he replied, “I will have no reason to trust this path. And I will stop sailing it. Or even better. I will drench you in Greek fire or seal your nest so you’d starve in solitude.”
Scylla hummed, the harmony thinning as the mouths fed.
“Ah, we meet at the stalemate again, young soul,” she mused. “You bargain. I eat. So simple and yet so exciting.” The voice of a woman was only accompanied by one last echo. “But if I can ask you,” The mass of flesh touched him. The serpent-like tongue tasted him from his legs and moved slowly to his back before retreating. “What makes you think I’m desperate enough for your bargain? I know you fear me. Because you are smart. So you know how strong and unpredictable I am.”
His knuckles were turning white from how hard he was gripping the helm.
“You are strong enough,” he said, “that your heartbeat terrifies most prey before they ever see you. But you are too small to leave these cliffs.”
He paused, letting the water carry the words.
“And you know which of the two of you is greedier. Charybdis would not hesitate to taste you. Her simple mind does not comprehend the danger of swallowing you whole. We both fear what we can’t reason with.”
The last sheep was taken. This one struggled longer. The chewing that followed was labored, uneven, accompanied by a low, irritated sound that might have been breath - or pain.
The chewing grew faster then, angry. The sounds layered - crush, grind, swallow - until the deck trembled faintly beneath his feet. Warm droplets struck the wood beside him, slid between the planks, and disappeared with soft plinks into the dark water below.
Only the woman’s voice remained.
“One day,” she said, close enough that the air stirred against his skin, “you will come unprepared.”
Odysseus did not look for her. His shoulders tensed with how close her voice was.
“Or desperate,” she continued, softer now.
“Or careless.”
His hands stayed on the wheel.
“You would have to wait,” he said evenly, “a very long time - to find me so.”
A low sound passed through the cliffs, not laughter this time, but something like breath being released.
Something wrapped around him. It was too rough and wet to be sure what.
“I am older than your islands, little one,” she replied. “I can wait.”
A small mouth giggled against his ear. Licking its tip.
“Your decades are like sunsets for those who matter.”
The small set of teeth pressed against his ear while the tongue played with his piercing. The pain slowly became noticeable.
“I will gladly wait for the time I’ll become your salvation.”
Crunch
He screamed before he could understand what happened. He gripped the side of his head. The rush of hot and cold made him feel weak.
His breath was becoming fast and uneven as he looked at his hand drenched in blood.
Hating the knowledge it would bring, he touched again what hurt him most.
Half of his ear was gone.
This thing spat his earring onto the deck before continuing the meal.
It struck the wood once and rolled, slick with saliva.
“Your toll was paid.”
He heard her chew the part of him she had taken before swallowing with something like pride.
“See you soon,” she said softly. “My sweet little ram.”
Then the water began to change.
Not at once. First, the pressure loosened, as though something immense had shifted its balance. The hull creaked as the weight leaning against it withdrew. One by one, the unseen masses slid away from the ship, sinking downward rather than retreating - stone dragged by flesh, flesh pulled by depth.
The sound of her descent followed: water folding over itself, disturbed not by speed but by size. The warmth in the air faded. The breath that had hemmed him in from all sides thinned, then vanished entirely.
Below, the feeding sounds ceased.
The sea resumed its slow, ordinary motion, waves settling back into familiar rhythms, as though nothing had ever risen close enough to breathe on the deck.
Odysseus was alone.
The candle burned low beside him. Wax had softened and folded inward, crawling toward the last iron nail. He watched it sink, inch by inch, until the flame shuddered as the nail touched the plate beneath with a faint, final click.
Soon, the crew would return. Soon, there would be familiar warm voices again.
He drew a steady breath.
Only then did he notice his hands.
They were shaking - not wildly, not enough to betray him, but steadily, as if some deeper part of him had begun to count. His breathing remained even. His thoughts clear. And yet his fingers trembled against the wheel.
Because he knew what waited.
One day, his bones would ache before the cold ever touched him. His eyes would miss a shadow. His hearing would dull just enough to mistake a warning for silence. His mind - so careful, so sharp - like his father would falter for the span of a single heartbeat.
And something below these cliffs would feel it and recognize the moment when the toll could not be paid.
The ship slid forward into open water. The dark loosened its grip. Behind him, far below, something ancient settled back into its patience - content to wait for age, or weakness, or desperation to bring him back without his offering.
Odysseus held the wheel until the trembling passed.
He did not look back.
For he does not wish to meet its gaze.