Lyrics

[INTRO – Odysseus, bewildered, MALE VOICE]
Odysseus:
“…Who are you, girl, with your feet on my throne?
Laughing like Ithaca’s halls are your own?
Do you mock me, child, or don’t you know—
This seat was bought in blood and woe.”

[VERSE 1 – Evangeline, quick patter, playful, FRMALE VOICE]
(drum snaps, sly strings)
Evangeline:
“Oh, I know who you are, great king of the sea,
The storm, the trickster, the man of deceit.
You left your crown, you left your men,
And now you return to sit here again. But while you were gone, who kept the flame? Who cleaned the blood, who bore the shame? We watched, we waited, we starved, we bled— While you carved out glory and counted the dead.”

[Verse 2 – Odysseus, indignant, MALE VOICE] (brass and low drums build)

Odysseus:
“You think this throne was pleasure, child?
Each mile was torment, gods reviled.
Every night I buried names,
Every dawn, another flame.

I fought so this land could live, could breathe,
Do not sneer at the scars I weave.
You know nothing of what I’ve borne,
You know nothing of a hero’s storm.”

⸻

[Verse 3 – Evangeline Rap Build, FEMALE VOICE] (tempo quickens, percussion sharper)

Evangeline:
“Hero? Ha! Six hundred gone,
Six hundred lives and you sing the song.
Six hundred fathers, six hundred sons,
You stand alone, but they’re the ones—

The ones who gave, the ones who drowned,
The ones who never set foot on this ground!
You call it fate, I call it cost,
You brought home a crown, but look what you lost!”

⸻

[The Dagger Line – Callback] (music drops, cello + faint motif from “Open Arms”)

Evangeline (slowing, voice cutting):
“You want us to greet you with open arms…
Yet six hundred died in yours.”

[MUSIC SLOWS TO STOP]

(silence. Odysseus freezes. Single heartbeat drum.)

Odysseus (shaken, whisper):
“…Polites.”

⸻

[MUSIC KICKING BACK IN]

[Verse 4 – Evangeline, softer but seething, FEMALE VOICE] (harp + tense strings)

Evangeline:
“I never knew the man you called your friend,
Only the stories that never end.
You speak his name like a sacred prayer—
But all I have is silence there.

You held his trust, you held his life,
You held the sword, he paid the price.
So tell me, king, since you survived…
What made you worthy when he died?”

⸻

[Final Clash – Both MALE AND FEMALE VOICES] (full brass, drums, stormlike strings)

Evangeline (fast, furious):
“You don’t get to play the hero here!”

Odysseus (booming, raw):
“You don’t know the blood that I’ve borne!”

Evangeline (snapping back):
“You sit on bones, you call it throne—
But we lived the dying, we lived alone!”

(voices overlap, instruments crash, unresolved dissonant chord → silence.)