The Wandering Hero

Odysseus visits the Land of the Dead. He doesn't want to, but they told him it would be epic. 

(What they didn't tell him, was that it was an epic convention, and he is so through with conventional transgressive heroic acts right now. All he wants to do, is to go back to mountainous, goat-filled Ithaca and steady-eyed Penelope.)

Anyway, he was told that if he wanted to get home, he had to go to Death's home first. He wonders if it's another subtler way of telling him he'd only be able to get home over his dead body.

Circe tells him about the scene and what he has to do:

"You can't go home unless you take the long way round. And that includes hearing Tiresias prophesy for you. He's the only one in the field of dead guys who's reasonable."

"How do I get to Death's house?"

Circe shakes her pretty head, her sun-bright braids flying around. "Not house, home, you've got to get the brief right Mr. Ithaca, or you'll never get home."

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He remembers the first time he met her. She was dazzlingly pretty, with a great voice, constantly knitted and charmed him and his men. She even fed them for a year. But boy, was she kooky. For his audition, his entourage had to pretend to turn to pigs when they ate her food. She would take a long stick, wave it around and shout, "DOWN IN THE STY, AND SNORE AMONG THE REST." Then she waved the same stick in the opposite direction, and they would pretend to turn back into men. When his men pretended to be human again, they made drunken faces at each other and clutched sobbingly at his arms, Circe was delighted.

He refused to act like a pig, so he took the molu drug Hermes had given him, and then acted out the scene from the Trojan war: the one where he doesn't say a word but grabs opponents from behind and puts his sharpened sword against their throats. Very suave-like. He remembers Circe panting in pleasure when he puts the sword against her throat. Then she slides down to take his knees and says "You must be part of this production! Please say yes!" And Odysseus says yes, and even sleeps with her because Hermes said "it's the only way to earn her trust and make sure she takes care of you." So then he's signed on to The Wandering Hero produced by the Olympus Network™ and he's acting in a reality-TV type show, and he's richer than ever and everyone knows his name, but really, all he wants to do is go home.

Even though this is reality-TV, every week, the directors decide where and what happens to Odysseus. Everyone knows that the show isn't reality and that the main point is to get Odysseus home. The first few weeks however, it wasn't like that at all. All they did was to film life onboard his ship: many weathered muscled men living in close proximity and all that, and the ratings were good but not fantastic. He didn't mind because he was actually earning something, making his merry way home, and dreaming of Penelope every night.

But after the first accidental run-in with the Cyclops, Polyphemous, the ratings have shot up, and since then, the jerk-asses, especially Poseidon has been sending him and his crew into perilous seas and dangerous situations, and to get off the show, more than one of his crew have volunteered as dead-body doubles.

This is not good because a ship cannot function properly without a motivated crew. So he reminds them daily that their goal is "Ithaca," but everybody's just so tired, and they can't get out of it since they signed a contract.

This is where Circe comes in as one of the show's guest stars with special privileges in her own right as a famous enchantress. She gets the directors to grant them a year's vacation on Aiaia island with her. It's a reprieve, he and his men are grateful. Only Eurylokhos is unhappy: "Another year away from Ithaca! We've just wrapped up filming Trojan, Circe gives me the creeps, and men have died in your last stupid skirmish with Polyphemous. And even that could have been avoided if you'd just listened to me. I say we continue on."

Odysseus feels a twinge of hurt, but he suppresses it. He hadn't meant to run into Poseidon's dumb aggressive son, but as luck would have it, the ship docked on an obscure private island the directors didn't intend for him to reach. Eury had told him to just steal the cheese and sheep they found and run away, but he'd wanted to explore the place before returning home and settling down to rule his rugged country. One last great adventure!

Then Polyphemous had killed his men right in front of his eyes, so he'd played a trick on the Cyclops and blinded him in revenge. And now Poseidon hated his guts and Odysseus was under a restraining order.

"We need a rest, Eury," is all he says. The camera's filming but it can't capture sound very well. So just to spice things up he makes as if to hit Eury. His acting crew know him to well and before he can really exert any effort, they're intervening between the two of them and pretending that they'd just stopped a big bloody fight. Ratings are doubled overnight, so is their pay.

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One year later

"Fine," he tells Circe, rolling his eyes, "Death's home." She giggles, her hands moving constantly as she knits. Even though he's pretty sure that Circe has a crush on him, and despite the fact that they've slept together, Circe says she feels sorry for him and wants to help him leave. So the two of them have colluded to get Odysseus off the show and on his way home.

"Going to Death's home is just the first step," she warns him. "You'll have to take the long strange way round cause the technology doesn't work so well around Persephone's place, so it's easier for you to slip away. And the Underworld is gonna be such an epic place. I've convinced the directors to let you go. They can't touch you in Ithaca cause of the contract provision that, to put it simply, says that Olympus Network™ will not interfere in the actor's life if (a) s/he is in his or her own land and (b) does not wish it while on said land. Which is why they can't touch me in Aiaia, see. Plus I've called up Tiresias and he says he wants to help you, he's a big fan of yours after the Trojan horse episode on Trojan, so he's said yes to guest-starring in a special episode. He'll let you know what to do. But I gotta say that T says more than he should. It's not his fault though, too many reasonable, lucid thoughts running through his head, and no one caught dead wants to listen."

"Thank you Cee," says Odysseus with all the heart he can muster, but he can't but think that she's helping too much. "So what do you want in exchange for your help."

Circe shows surprise, but he doubts it's real. The girl's a good actress. "Nothing," she says blinking her preposterously long eyelashes. "I get to help a hero, 'tis all."

"Swear on the River Styx that you won't cause us any harm," says Odysseus, knowing that he's being rude. But to his surprise she does.

"I couldn't harm you even if I had permission to," says Circe, dimpling slyly, "Athena already made me promise not to. The two of you think alike, no wonder she likes you."