I wake with a start.

My throat is dry and my head wants to explode.

I swim in sweat after those chaotic nightmares, feeling more tired than before I went to sleep.

No, that's not accurate.

I must have passed out at some point because I have no recollection of what happened.

There are only a few images from my dreams, where angry Spartan princes chased me around.

"Ugh, what a mess." They wanted to cut my arm off for courting their angelic sister.

She was a woman worthy of dreams though. She was beautiful, smart, and had a captivating voice.

No, hold on. That wasn't part of the nightmare, that happened last night. I met her for real, and while I don't remember much from the drunken feast, we played a game with pebbles.

"And I lost, over and over." The princes didn't hold back the laughter, it was rather humiliating, even if I was drunk. That's when our host, King Nestor of Pylos finally revealed her name.

"Penelope," I mutter, willing my eyes to open. The world spins around me and feels like my skull is in a vice. I fight the urge to throw up, at least before I find out where I am.

"It's Nestor's palace." Yes. I'm still in his halls, spread over the cushions where we played petteia the night before. Someone covered me in fleece, so this is why I'm sweating so much.

The board is still here, untouched since my last defeat with the leader figure stuck in a corner.

It was a fun game, simple enough to understand with my foggy, drunk brain. And she was great.

"Penelope. Of all people, it had to be Penelope." The woman my namesake met and courted too, and had to duel an unnamed Greek hero for her hand. And it cost Odysseus an arm.

While arms seem important, the humiliation of the loss broke his career instead.

Returning to Ithaca empty-handed ruined his prestige. It sent his life into a downward spiral.

Without a wife and the respect of his subjects, he couldn't rule Ithaca for long.

Someone overthrown him, somebody so insignificant, that he didn't get a mention in the myth.

After that, when the Trojan Wars broke out, the Spartans enlisted him as a strategist but didn't listen to him. While Homer remembered him as a talented strategist, it didn't matter.

"He attributes the Trojan disaster and the fall of the Mycenaean civilization to me. And all because I couldn't win her hand, and lost mine instead." Shit. And it was Penelope.

She's the one person I wanted to avoid, and I ran straight into her. Ran? I flew into her arms, and I would do it again. She's an astounding beauty, talented, smart. I must run away somehow.

Throwing off the blanket to stagger to my feet, I find a way out of Nestor's palace. It's still early in the morning, the Spartan princes are nowhere in sight, and only a few servants are awake.

"The ship. If I fix the Gambit fast, I can set sails home and forget this nightmare." As if I could forget those beautiful grey eyes. "Speaking of which, where is Glauca?"

It's all Athena's fault. She said I could change destiny, yet her bird threw me into the arms of the woman I needed to avoid the most. That crafty owl even bit my fingers to force me to play.

"Damn it. You can't trust the gods. They're selfish, and only want me to entertain them." I should have known better, from all the Greek mythology I read into in my old life in the future.

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The Gambit is still in the drydock where Nestor's men dragged it yesterday.

My sailors didn't wake up yet, sleeping in tents around the docks. Did they even start the repairs?

They stripped down the ship's hull, and I can see all the holes, but they didn't fix them.

I better take matters into my own hands then. And we have a forest nearby.

"It should be easy to find the materials we need." But rebuilding the ship or changing the damaged planks would take too long. I need something better and faster.

Wandering into the woods, I notice some buzzing. It's a beehive on a tall pine tree surrounded by oaks. This gives me an idea. Beeswax mixed with pine resin makes an excellent adhesive.

I gather some oak leaves before returning for tools, then light them on fire. It burns with a thick grey smoke and I use it to drive out the bees and take down their hive.

They build their honeycombs from their wax, and the honey is a nice extra. While I can't use it for the adhesive, it would be a shame to waste it, so I collect them into a container.

I have to grind the honeycombs and heat them to get the wax.

In the meantime, I scratch some resin off the pine and mix it over the fire to make as much glue as possible.

And I need loads. The sailors only begin to stir after I return, and I get them to work.

"Sand down the ship's hull and gather the sawdust together." This will give me the next ingredient and make the ship lighter, but there's still one more thing.

Ochre. I could skip it, but it will make the adhesive even stronger. It should be abundant on the market. The Mycenaean Greeks used it often for coloring, it's iron pigments, and sand.

Finding the right vendor is easy, and I drive a hard bargain to get some for the honey I collected.

It still costs me a lot, as I run into my destiny again. Damn it, there's no escaping it.

"Lord Odysseus, good morning." The smokey voice, even more hoarse than yesterday greets me.

It's Penelope in the flesh, and she's as beautiful as I remembered. And look who's there?

"Good morning, My Lady." Trying my best not to panic, I bow to the Spartan princess. "I wondered where my owl went, but it looks like it found a better host."

"It's a she." She pets Glauca sitting on her shoulder, and what a shoulder it is.

She wears a simple tunic, which might count as a chiton too, but it's longer than mine.

It looks better on her too.

"I suspected, but Athena didn't say, and I'm not a bird expert."

It doesn't matter anyway, I'm going to strangle that owl to death.

Look at her smug face, it's almost like she's smiling.

"But please tell me something, princess. How did you and everyone recognize this bird?" It's as good an opportunity to ask as any, and there is an urge to make her talk a little longer.

"Well, the blue aura around her is quite a giveaway." She hovers her beautiful hand around the bird, her giggle sounding like a song from the heavens. There is no blue aura though. None.

"I don't see it." And no, squinting doesn't help either.

Is it because I'm from the future? Or am I blind to these mythical things?

Well, I can see this angel without an issue.

No, that is the issue.