Author's Note: This was originally written for comment_fic (Bite Sized bits of fic), which is a multi-fandom prompting community over at livejournal
The prompt was Mellie/Paul, Penelopiad (for the day dedicated to prompts inspired by book titles)
Note: The Penelopiad is a cool Margaret Atwood book that retells the story of the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. This fic has SPOILERS for that book, so if you're ever going to read the book, do it before reading the fic.
Fic:
Mellie is his Penelope. Paul feels sure of this. After all, she is the one he fights giants for. The one he goes through hell for.
She waits for him, he knows. She bides her time, stalling desperately, until he arrives to save her from all her corrupt suitors. The ones who betray her, who see her as a means to an end, who want to use up all that she has for their own amusement. Like guests who feast on the host's herds without asking permission for the slaughter.
But he wonders sometimes if she knows more than she lets on. If she isn't weaving something grander and more terrifying than he can understand. There are little things that make him wonder.
Maybe she is not Penelope. Maybe she has lured him to the Dollhouse for some purposes not his own. Maybe she is a Siren, luring him to the rocks. Maybe she is Calypso, keeping him prisoner, making him forget the path that he should be following. Turning him into a man that would compromise, where once he would have fought.
Or maybe she is Penelope after all. But Penelope is not the innocent long-sufferer. Maybe Penelope is a stonecold mankiller. A sweet girl as the ultimate Trojan horse.
Penelope is a myth of course. But at one point, she was probably a real woman. But over the years she has been written and re-written so many times that she is no longer a woman. Instead, she is many women.
And since her story may be re-written at any time, she is, by definition, treacherous.
Maybe it's all the weaving that Penelope does that makes Paul so nervous when he remembers that story. Like what spiders do, creating a trap for flies.
The first time he met her, he loved her name. Mellie. Sounds almost like the 'mela,' he noticed. The Greek word for honey.