Before the Saga The Tale of Odo and Ethyme

Title: The Tale of Odo and Ethyme
Author: rktho_writes
Characters: Original characters
Genre: In-Universe Myth/Fable
Timeline: Ancient Tion
Summary: An old Tionese legend of a man who journeyed to Hell and back to save the one he loved.

Long ago, before the days of the Republic, before the days of Xim, before even the days of the Jedi, there lived a young man named Odo of Mullan, the greatest bard in all of Tion. His lyrics were so beautiful they made stones weep and stars fall, and his skill with the infinity lyre was unmatched. He wandered from world to world in his trusty ship, the Muse, playing for food and fuel to travel onward.

So he went, until one day, in the fields of Lianna, he saw a young woman dancing with the flowers. He joined her, accompanying the breeze on his instrument, and when her dance was done, she asked who he was. He said his name was Odo the poet. She said her name was Ethyme the dancer. He asked her to join him aboard the Muse, and together they would travel the stars, singing and dancing for all to hear and see.

So it was that they flew all across Tion, and their song and dance enchanted the hearts of many. Eventually, Odo asked Ethyme to marry him, and they were joined together under the moons of Embaril. But one fateful day, while Ethyme danced, a serpent slithered underfoot. When she accidentally stepped on its tail, it bit her on the heel and ankle. Odo grabbed it by both necks and flung it into a bush, but the venom had already claimed his beloved Ethyme. As he held her body in his arms, he begged for the gods to restore her, but they were silent.

Finally, Iromis the messenger god took pity on him, giving him a map and telling him to follow it if he ever wanted to see Ethyme again. On one side of the map was a hyperlane leading to the edge of the galaxy. He boarded the Muse and set a course for the end of the map. The journey was long, and hyperspace travel was not as swift in the ancient days as it is now. Odo battled maelstroms and monsters, each one more massive than the last, until his ship reached Exotatos, a planet at the end of the universe. He landed the Muse in front of a cave, into which he ventured, surrounded by complete darkness, guided only by the light deep inside him, until he came to the end. At the end of the cave was a gate.

It was round and black, its edges etched in glowing white. It was a portal into the Void Beyond All Time, and before Odo lay a road of nothingness, stretched over the infinite abyss. He turned over his map and saw the way that led to the world of the dead. Into the Void he went. He walked that narrow road forever; all of time passed in his journey. Thousands of paths branched off into the endless abyss, and gateways to every point in space and time along them. But Odo followed the path he had been told. At the end of the road lay another gate; the gate into Death itself.

The gate was guarded by a hound with three heads, nine eyes, and scales as impenetrable as the hull of a battle cruiser. It snarled at Odo and gnashed its teeth, threatening to tear his mortal frame to pieces if he crossed through the portal. But Odo took his infinity lyre and played so sweetly that each head, one by one, fell asleep. Odo patted the sleeping beast on each head and continued onward.

Odo then remembered to place a coin in his mouth to pay Eyseth the skiff pilot to fly him across the river to the City of Hell. When he reached the riverbank, he spat the coin into the ferryman’s blue, three-fingered hand and joined the other passengers. Across the river the skiff glided. Tentacles in the water reached to grasp at the ship and drag it into the water, but Eyseth shot them each with his trusty blaster. When they reached the opposite shore, Odo thanked Eyseth and pressed on into the city of the dead.

Odo wandered the streets of the infinite city, searching for Ethyme among the shades of the departed. He went door to door, asking if anyone had seen her, but none of the shades knew who she was, nor had they seen any shade matching her description. He waded through the crowds, seeking her face, pleading to know where she was. Then, suddenly, he heard her call out to him and turned around. There she stood with tears in her eyes, her arms outstretched toward him. They ran to each other, but they could not embrace, for Ethyme was only a shade.

That was when the guards marched into the square and seized Odo by the arms. Up they flew on their great black wings, shrieking as they carried him to the palace at the top of the mountain. They threw Odo at the feet of Hovis, king of the dead. Odo begged for Hovis to allow Ethyme to return with him to the living galaxy. He sang to Hovis a song of his love for her; how they had met, and sang, and danced, and how he had flown to the edge of the universe and walked the length of the Void Beyond All Time to save her.

The queen, Versymere, was so moved by Odo’s song that she pleaded with her husband to grant his request. But how could Hovis do such a thing? If he granted an exception to one mortal, then all the souls of the galaxy would rebel against inevitable death, and the balance of the universe would be overthrown. Still, Odo had travelled great lengths to reunite with his beloved. Hovis could not deny he was moved as well, despite his duty to maintain the order of life and death, no matter how tragic. He came to a decision. An exception could be made, because Odo’s devotion was so exceptional. But though he had proven it once, Hovis decreed he must prove it again in order to earn his wife another chance at life. He would allow Odo and Ethyme to leave— but she would be made to walk behind him without speaking, and Odo was forbidden to look back. And he would go back exactly the way he came, not through any of the other gates, no matter how tempting. These were the terms of their agreement. Hovis called Ethyme to the throne and she consented to the deal. Odo and Ethyme walked together to the riverbank. It was there the trial would begin. Eyseth would ferry Odo first, then return for Ethyme.

Odo waited there, until he heard the skiff return. The next load of souls boarded the skiff as he walked on. The three-headed hound barred the way, but Hovis had already accounted for this and had a guard standing by to make the hound move aside and let Odo and Ethyme pass through the gate. Odo stepped through and onto the road of nothingness. He walked through the Void, following the map to the gate he had discovered at the end of the galaxy.

As he walked, he began to worry. What if she had lost sight of him and wandered off the path? What if she had been enticed by one of the gateways and entered through a portal to another time and place? What if she had never even boarded Eyseth’s skiff to follow them? What if Hovis had lied, or what if… What if she’d never even wanted to go back with him?

After an eternity, he reached the gateway that led to the cave on Exotatos. He stepped through and almost turned around, but he caught himself at the last second. He had no way of knowing whether Ethyme had come through yet until he heard her voice and felt her touch. So he waited, standing there without glancing back. He didn’t know how much time passed as he sat; no sunlight penetrated the cave, no stars visible except the ones that circled the gateway. So he sat, and he stood, and he sat and he stood, all the while worrying that Ethyme would never emerge from the portal. Finally, he could bear it no longer. He had to look and see if she was not there. He turned around.

Ethyme was walking right to him, her arms outstretched as she neared the portal. When she saw him, she ran to him. But she never made it into his arms. Before so much as her fingertip crossed the gateway, the window faded away, the portal turning into nothing but a painting on the cave wall. And no matter how many times Odo slammed his hands against it, it remained a wall. Sorrowing, Odo boarded the Muse, and began the long journey home to Tion. He wept the entire way, and in the months of hyperspace, he composed his most tragic and beautiful song yet: the Song of Ethyme.

 

Nice, I love in-universe mythology, so an Orpheus/Eurydice rewrite was very fun

 

Thank you very much! I enjoyed writing it.

 

I really enjoyed this also; I liked how the existence of ships and hyperspace and so forth didn't at all change the mythological feel of the story.

And kudos on including a space version of a very good mythical doggo!

 

Thank you very much! This was a fun way to indulge my Hadestown hyperfixation. And, in an extremely tangential way, it ties into my fic, Stars In Their Multitudes, because one of the main characters is Tionese and his big sister used to tell these legends to him as bedtime stories. (At the time of writing, however, his appearance a long ways off— he's not introduced until the middle act!)