A/N: My first/second Odyssey fic. About Penelope. And no, it will not be a smutty fic about Hermes and Penelope, as some persons (theangelcried, take note) have requested. Enjoy.
I hated my cousin with a burning passion until I was fifteen years old.
Helen. I hated her name, too. It was so new, so…fragrant, like roses and flowers in spring that echoed her unearthly beauty. Not that men ever needed any reminder, or women either. She always had jealous women gossiping about her or men falling over themselves to get into her favors, but my sister cared for none of them. She glided through life with the grace of a swan and the compassion of an icicle. Her in her beautiful, hand made dresses, her hair done by her five maids. She had no need of anyone else. She stood alone, unreachable, untouchable.
I was stuck with my old fashioned name, my second-quality dresses, my plain face. Somewhere else, I might have been beautiful, but here I was second fiddle, always, to Helen. Helen, Helen, Helen. It was always about her. "You're Penelope, Helen's cousin." "Penelope, do you know where Helen is?" "Penelope, you're almost as beautiful as Helen.
Almost. The story of my life.
Almost as beautiful as Helen. Almost as good a weaver as Helen. Almost as clever as Helen. Almost as graceful as Helen. Almost as perfect as Helen.
Perfect Helen.
I hated her more than anything.
I heard stories, sometimes, about her birth. How her lovely mother, Leda, who had no match for beauty in all of Greece, had been seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan. How she had given birth to two eggs, one containing Helen and her brother, the other Clytemnestra and her brother. Her story was legend. Some of the voices whispering these tales spoke in jealous tones, others in awe. She was something of a goddess, they whispered, a demi-goddess, like the nymphs that lived in Poseidon's lair, the sea.
Until I was five I tailed her mercilessly. I begged to imitate her, be like her, serve her every whim. I wanted nothing more than to be Helen. To be her clone was my greatest desire. Then I grew older, and I discovered that I wanted to be myself again. Or was forced to be. Helen abandoned me at the age of eight. She was too old for me, too mature for me. I would never play with her again. When I saw her after that she would never look at me, surrounded by pampering maids and sighing men, singing their poetry to her window at night.
Her beauty captured everyone around her. When she was near, men stared, and women fluttered and attempted to attract her attention: "Helen, your dress is simply lovely!" "Helen, I heard that you had a proposal..." "Helen, I love how your hair is done! How do you manage to look so beautiful." She would smile, reply politely, and move on, leaving the women to stare after her enviously. They gossiped about her because every woman wished that they were the famous Princess Helen, and Helen knew it. She was never hurt by the rumors. She was too high and proud for anything to touch her.
By the time she was twelve, she had blossomed into a beautiful young woman and already looked as beautiful as many of the older women in our court. Already suitors had begun to press their suit, either with Helen or her father. Me? I was gangly, flat-chested, struggling through my awkward years growing into my new body. Well, I was not that ugly, but next to Helen I was hideous. And it was always Helen I was compared to.
Who can live up to that kind of comparison?
When she was thirteen, she was kidnapped by Prince Theseus. She returned only a few weeks later, but hardly seemed affected by the experience, if more thoughtful and slightly more introverted – though she had never been an extrovert. Her father never forgave Theseus for stealing his favorite daughter. In many ways, like everyone else, I think that father found himself in love with Helen, and that was why he was in such a rush to marry her off. Perhaps he was afraid of what he might do to her.
She was too beautiful for any man to be safe around her.
When I was fourteen, I fell in love. He was a handsome, Grecian boy, his dark hair and dark skin more attractive than the paleness sometimes favored by women of Greece. I sighed over him, dreamed of him, wrote him anonymous love letters. He never knew my name, we never kissed, but I loved him feverishly for the one year he came into my life.
And then he was dead. Dead and gone, killed by Helen, the way I saw it.
There was a duel over her. Some outland man had insulted her honor, and Helen had known what I could not notice. Like every other man, he had loved her, and he had fought to defend her. He was stabbed through the heart and died in moments. The other man got away and was never found. No one ever identified him.
The day I heard the news, I cried myself to sleep. The next day, I stalked to Helen's room, in a rage. She would get what she deserved for causing my love's death. Her and her wicked, wicked beauty that cast a spell on everyone around her. Witch. Whore. I hated her more than I ever had before at that moment. She had taken everything I loved from me, everything I desired. Attention. Beauty. Love.
She was not in her room. Her maid cowered and stammered at the fire in my eyes that she had gone to the beach. I ran there, determined not to let her escape. She would not get away from my anger. She would not escape this time.
I found her curled up at the edge of the waves, rocking back and forth. She wore only her nightgown, and her feet were bare. She glanced at me briefly and looked down, but I saw that her face was streaky and patchily red. It seemed that Helen could not cry beautifully, at least.
My anger faltered slightly before an onslaught of pity, but I pushed it away. "Why do you have to ruin everything?" I exploded. "Why do you have to kill everything? My dreams, my hope, and...him. Why does everyone love you? You're nothing but a witch. You bewitched him just like you bewitch everyone else. I hate you. I hate you!"
Helen didn't look up. "I didn't ask to be beautiful, Penny," she said softly. "I didn't ask for everyone to love me."
"Don't call me that!" I shouted. It was my old, childhood nickname. "My name is Penelope. It's as ugly as me. But maybe you just can't remember. I bet you didn't even know my name. You're so arrogant up there on your high horse, everyone bowing down to you. Well, you're no better than me, Helen. No better than me, do you hear?" I was crying. "Someone needs to bring you down before you ruin everything."
Helen looked up at me and suddenly was on her feet, her fists clenched, as angry as I was. "Do you think I had any choice? I would rather be like you – plain, ordinary, ugly you. I don't want everyone always looking at me, always wanting me to be perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm not."
I recoiled, tears streaming down my face. Her words stung. Plain. Ordinary. Ugly. "I'm not ugly," I whispered. "I'm not. Why do you have to kill everything? Why did you have to kill him?"
"I didn't mean to," said Helen softly. She fell to her knees. "I'm sorry, Penelope. I didn't mean it. You're not...I mean..."
"I am," I whispered. "I am."
Helen looked away, her hands toying with the strings on her nightgown. "I'm so sorry, Penelope. If I could give you anything, I would. But you were always distancing yourself from me. I can't have friends. Father won't let me. He says they would only hurt me. He said you weren't good enough for me. And I'm sorry, because I believed it." She sighed. "I can't say I understand how you feel – I've never been second to anyone. But I'm sorry that I've hurt you like this. I didn't want him to die. I told him I didn't love him – I even told him that you were in love – but I'm too beautiful. I always kill everything. Our friendship. Him. Love. I'm not perfect, Penelope. Everyone wants me to be, but I'm not. I'm not. I can't do anything right." She looked up at me, new tears streaming down her cheeks. "I came down here with the intent of killing myself, of throwing myself into the sea and letting Poseidon have me. But I wasn't even brave enough for that. I'm not even brave enough to die."
I felt a horrible weight settling into my stomach. There was nothing I could say. "You're brave," I whispered finally.
Helen gave me a quavering smile. "You're braver than me, Penny."
I smiled weakly. "I'm sorry, Helen."
"No, I'm sorry, Penelope." Helen got up and brushed off the sand. There had been something, for those moments, something human about her, but now she was the goddess again. "I'd better get back to the palace," she said briskly. "Father will be worried."
I watched her go and wondered if anything had changed.
Our friendship was not repaired, but I could not hate her anymore. She wasn't untouchable, after all. She wasn't perfect.
The humanity made me more able to understand, and accept.
I no longer hated her, I decided. I would try to be more open to her, to reopen those channels of friendship. And perhaps, someday, we would be Helen and Penelope again. Not just Penelope. Not just Helen. But both, together.
And we would find a way to survive.
I am an old woman now, and I no longer envy Helen at all as I did those thirty years ago. She is no longer beautiful, and she suffers for her beauty. My Nana always used to say, "great beauty attracts even more trouble than great ugliness," and she is right, though I could not see it then.
The friendship with Helen was never the same, but only a few years later I found love in a brave, handsome young man from Ithaka. I am Queen there still, though soon I will follow my husband into the Underworld and Telemachus will take his father's place. I smile to think of my little boy as King, but he is a grown man now, full of responsibility and love for his young wife.
I laughed when I learned what her name was. I'm sure you can guess.
Helen.