An arrow, a reaver, a ship, a wave, a cold swell, a white fog--Death was destined to come from the sea for Odysseus Laertides and in the fullness of time it did. He had often meditated on the form it would take and thought he had considered and prepared himself against every seaborne end but in the event dying was confusing, a jumble of impressions of foam and blood and long empty vistas. He was relieved to see that Athena, who had abandoned him for decades and, he had thought, for good, was there to greet him and gather him to her breast (he had never before been this close to her, never touched her--her skin was very hot and she smelled like metal and summer). She grinned at him like she had when they were plotting an especially pernicious piece of mischief and said she had been waiting for him long these many years. She had been poised for the moment when his thread would be cut and had swooped down from Olympus to catch his soul before it could start the long trip down to Hades. The underworld was not for him, not even its Elysium, she said. For Odysseus, her best beloved among mortals, her favorite since he was born, she would as his final reward make for him whatever afterlife he wanted.
Odysseus thought a little while (or possibly a long while--he was distantly aware of nights passing, greenery sprouting from oak trees and withering away, through all of which Athena's grin was immovable) and asked to be young again, or at least not old, and to spend eternity making his way from a war indefinitely far in the past to an island indefinitely far in the future. He would remember that the war had been painful, but that he had won it. The details of the island would be vague--splintered images would come from time to time--but he would know it represented the consummation of every desire. He did not want to know that he was a ghost. Let trials and cruel kings and monsters come, he said, and let them all be overcome at the last second. And above all, he said, stay with me this time.32.1 And she would, she said, and she had.
Athena granted his request. Moreover, as she knew full well that the age of heroes was fading like an ember, she turned her back on Mt. Olympus and went with him.
Much as she dotes on him her mind sometimes wanders and she looks back in on Earth. When this happens a certain comet passes through the constellation Orion for the space of seven days before slipping back out into the great night. My grandfather was privileged to observe this rare celestial phenomenon and averred that his grandfather before him had seen it in his youth.32.2