The word was a blaring howl, bolting from his mouth like an arrow sprung from its quiver. Quick. Powerful. Piercing. It sounded like death. He felt like death. There was a hurricane waking in Pascal’s chest, a war building between his thrashing heart and his hollow body that desperately gasped for air. He had never heard his voice so rough nor so wretched, never felt his insides churn so violently. The back of his right hand absently grazed his cheek, and was damp once it left his skin. He reflexively swallowed a sob that tugged at his throat. Why was he crying? Standing lone beneath the hazy night sky, Pascal was ablaze. Except he wasn’t. But whatever this was, it burned like it, his heart a fearsome thunderclap, a hot storm of emotion searing through his veins. The last thing he remembered was shutting his eyes, but in this moment, he was wide awake.
The sight of the figure lying flat on the grass beneath the tree, silent and unmoving, for some reason made Pascal furious when he should have been frightened. Was this “Castor”? A distinct copper stench wafted through his nostrils. Blood. He knew it like an old friend, a relative, a lover; he knew how it tasted, how it felt dripping through aching fingers, and certainly how it smelled. It was unforgettable—unmistakable once he’d seen enough of it, pooled around the limp figure. Though he was normally indifferent toward the ruby liquid, his breath hitched, again and again and again, until the short breaths dissipated into starving lungs. What was wrong with him? He instantly glanced at his hands. A gleaming sword weighed heavy in his left hand (a strange detail, seeing as he had been right-handed for as long as he could remember), but both were clean, to his surprise.
Someone had slain this Castor, whoever he was. But unlike every night terror before, Pascal was not at fault. His weapon was spotless, his unfamiliar clothes free of crimson stains. So what was this? A taste of what it was like to be on the victim’s side? His eyes frantically swept the scene, searching for—what? The killer? The world was dark, save for shaking silhouettes. Clouds were scattered across the sky. Not even the stars had borne witness to this act of murder. All was still, but Pascal sensed he was not alone. There was a faint rustling in the leaves on the trees, branches softly trembling against each other above him. He felt his arms raise, sword poised and his posture pristine. These motions were somehow natural, though they weren’t the ones he would have chosen. Where was he? Who was he? While he was still struggling to grasp what was happening, his body seemed to be on alert without his consultation.
He was more than prepared when the man leapt out of the shadows, his adrenaline pumping, his blood still boiling as before. “For this you will pay, Lynceus,” Pascal heard himself hiss. His mouth had surely moved to make the threat, but he had hardly meant to say it. How did he even know his name? Without a second thought, he wielded his sword. He had never had practice with this sort of weaponry, yet he fought adeptly, his lunges well-timed and his movements graceful. The bronze stubbornly clattered against the assailant’s spear, a cacophony of steely grunts and shouts accompanying their swift footwork. Pascal didn’t know what he was doing, battling this stranger in an empty field he didn’t recognize, all for a dead man he’d never heard of. But what he did know was that he was undoubtedly heated, bursting with rage, evident in the tenacity of his autonomous swings. The sword whipped through the cool air, angled for the man’s bare neck—–
Pascal awoke upright, coated in sweat. As usual. Another night, another nightmare. With a light huff, he flipped his pillow over, and drifted off once more.
Art was hardly Mona’s cup of tea, and she had no reason to be here except for the fact that some of these pieces were rather valuable and could easily be sold for a great sum of money if she could manage to get her hands on them. So many people had gathered to see the art that it helped to blanket Mona’s presense, though it did not make the threat of being caught disappear completely. Mona was smart about it, finding herself drawn to the smaller artifacts that were salvaged from the age of the Greeks, pieces of vases that were decorated with images meant to depict a story. She’d seen works such as this before since her mother’s people tended to do the same with their myths.
Mona quickly scanned the area before she parused the pieces, trying to decide which would be easiest to claim and quickly while she still had time, but a particular piece had caught her attention; it depicted a cloaked man mounted on a ferry that traveled on a river of lost souls. She wasn’t sure who he was, since she wasn’t very familiar with the myths of the Greeks, but she was able to understand what his particular job must have entailed. Despite her better judgement she picked up the piece to better observe it, and upon contact she felt the barrier she placed between herself and the “otherside” give way, leaving her defenseless against the overwhelming hoard of spirits that had been trying so hard to break through the walls she’d made to keep them out of her head.
‘The boat. The boat. The boat,’ they repeated incessantly, their voices sinister, growing louder, darker, angrier. ‘Take us to the ferryman. Take us. Let us out. Let us in.’
“Quiet!” she demanded in a panic, dropping the piece and hoping that would be cause for them to leave as she was feeling far to crowded by people who weren’t actually there. Sure enough the voices faded again, leaving her with faint words that she understood as ‘Wait for the darkness.’
Wait for the darkness… Take us to the ferryman… Their words made no sense to Mona. They rarely ever did, but looking back at the cloaked figure etched in the anicent clay, she was starting believe that perhaps there was more truth to these myths than others may have believed.
lets take the boat out
wait until darkness
let’s take the boat out
wait until darkness comes
Melinoe knelt beside the River Cocytus, the place where her mother had given birth to her, and the place which she now called her home. She refused to live under the same roof as Hades, and refused to live among gods that saw her as nothing more than an abomination, the ghastly result of what happens when a father lays with a daughter. She was nothing natural, and nothing that should have been given life to, but she existed and there was nothing she could do to change that, just as there was nothing she could do to change her appearance. Upon first sight, some might be able to admit that the frightly nymph was a dark beauty to behold; her hair as black as a moonless night along with most of her body, but her limbs were of another nature entirely. They were as white as the purest snow, and glowed like a heavenly fire, a reminder of who her father was and something Melinoe had grown to depise about herself.
Here in Cocytus her limbs served as the only light, and perhaps that was why the wailing souls which drifted endlessly within the river found themselves gravitating towards the young nymph. They were lost, and their instinct was to head towards the light, towards her. They moaned their sorrows, their regrets, their desires, all the wrongs that they wanted to make right but couldn’t, and she felt sympathy for them. If they could only have one more chance to see the land of the living perhaps they could end their cries and find peace, the sort of peace that Hades and all the other gods of the underworld had denied them, and the sort of peace that Melinoe also felt she had been cheated of since birth.
It was then that she decided that she would do the unthinkable. She would go against every rule Hades had ever established and lead these souls out of Underworld, but to do that, she would have to cross the River Styx, and the only way to do that was with Charon’s boat. She riled up the lost spirits, promising to grant them what they wished and thus making herself their new queen, and together they devised a plan to steal Charon’s boat for one night. It was easier said than done, but with an overwhelming number of spirits ordered to serve as a disruptive destraction that would leave the ferryman no choice but to disembark his boat for a short moment, Melinoe was able to blend in with the shadows and show the spirits how to do the same while they snuck onto the boat. Before Charon could do much to stop her, Melinoe and her train of ghosts were already across the river and heading straight towards one of the entrances of the Underworld. By the rivers bank Melinoe encountered more spirits, those who were not given proper burial rites and therefore had no coin to pay their way into their final resting place. They were left to wander there for a hundred years before they could ever find peace, but Melinoe offered them another option. Finally finding her voice, she spoke like a goddess, finally accepting the title that was rightfully hers.
“Wait for the darkness to blanket the Earth at nightfall as it does here eternally, and I will guide you to the world you lost. Speak to no mortal, but let your presense be known. Let them not forget those they have wronged. Let your death not serve as their relief.
I'm standin' in the flames
It's a beautiful kind of pain
Setting fire to yesterday
Find the light, find the light, find the light
"Bloody reptile, now is not the time to slow down! Faster,” he barked, kicking the dragon’s side with his heel while they flew across the Atlantic. Normally he treated the beasts with respect and kindness, but Helios was far too distressed and far too desperate to worry about hurting a dragon’s feelings. He’d made it halfway across the Altantic by then, but it still wasn’t enough. His son was still out of reach, heading towards the shores of Africa on his chariot, a chariot driven by four other dragons that the boy had no way of controlling.
Helios prayed for the chariot to crash into the ocean before then. At least he knew the ocean would be welcoming of the sun and bring no harm to Phaeton, but if he passed the continent’s borders and flew too close to the ground, the destruction would be devasitating to the mortals and the earth. All of it would be taken by the flames of the sun-- Helios had seen it happen before when he himself was a boy, a boy who didn’t know how to tame his own fire, but he had since learned how to turn his flame into the greatest beckon of light in the sky, but in the wrong hands he knew it could easily turn into a weapon of destruction, whether intensionally or unintensionally.
“Phaeton!” he called as soon as he had his son clearly within his view, close enough that he could see how panicked the boy was, and close enough that Helios could reach him if he could only manage to keep the dragons close to the heavens for a few more seconds.
“Papa!” he cried back, making the mistake of tearing his sight away from the reigns he held so he could look to his father for guidance. “Papa, help, they won’t listen!” Already the sun’s flames licked the surface of the earth, setting small sparks at the tops of lush trees, and Helios tried his hardest to remain calm, to dim the light as the sun was as much a part of him as his arm or his leg and whatever emotions he felt were oftentimes reflected by it. Helios’s fear when he saw the small fires starting to form only made things worse. In a matter of a second those small sparks became explosions, turning the sea of green into a hot sea of reds and oranges.
“Phaeton, turn them around! Turn them--” The earth shattering crack of lightening cut him off abruptly and left a white flash of light that blinded him for a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough to allow the Titan to process what just transpired. Zeus had struck something, and for the sake of his own sanity Helios hoped it was one of his dragons-- all of his dragons-- just not...
“Phaeton?” Helios blinked a few times until he regained a semblage of his vision back, but what he saw then made him wish he would have stayed blind. Heading straight for the ground was the sun, his chariot, his dragons, and a small heap of flaming flesh that could have only been his son. He watched helplessly, still in shock, still unable to believe that any of this had even happened. The boy was dead, while his body was lit by flames, Helios could see that his inner light was gone from this world and already crossing to the next. All that was left of his son now was a burnt corpse, charred and unrecognizable, and Helios knelt beside it, digging his fists into the ground while he looked up to the smoky skies and cursed the King of the Gods. “Punish me! You should have punished me, damn you! He was just a boy!”
His anger only further stretched the fires out until it covered nearly half of Africa, creating a flame large enough for the entire world to see from the horizon and question why the sun looked so warped and unnatural, but that was the last time they’d see such a light. From then on, the earth would know no sun, no day, no light, so long as the Titan grieved for his son. He couldn’t bring himself to burn for anyone or anything anymore. He heard the mortals pray for an end to the night, for him to mount his chariot again, but the thought of even touching it burned images in his mind that he wished to rip out of his memory.
What choice did he leave Zeus then, but to take the sun from him too? If Helios would not bring day to the mortals Zeus would find another, one of his own Olympians, his own son whom he could trust to do what Helios was currently incapable of. He cared not if that burning star was an extension of the Titan’s own self. If it truely acted as an extra limb, then it could be severed like one too, so the world finally knew what it meant to be bathed in sunlight again, but not without first learning the chilling sound of a scorned sun-god screaming his promises of revenge. Blood was going to be repaid with blood.
---------
Hadrian woke in a cold sweat, his body still trembling from the feelings that remained from his vivid dream. The anger, the regret, the pain, the loss was still all there, and the ghost of a memory still lurked within his bedchamber, taunting him with the fact that it’s presense could linger on the surface of his skin, but never be seen or felt in a solid form. Details were fading while others were still missing, but the one thing that stuck with Hadrian was Arthur’s face and his fervent desire to watch him burn, just as he had burned him.
The box before him was, perhaps, the ugliest out of the bunch in terms of beauty. It had no beautiful man or woman barely clothed etched into its metal, nor any painted myths from old Greece as this Gala claimed to specialize in. The box itself was golden, and in its lustrous surface contained some alluring desire to touch, but carved into its sides were the eerily familiar faces of monsters, and one small, glowing light that filled Elias with warmth over all the negative feelings he received staring at the object.
All and all, the box was uninteresting save for the gold, but to Elias, it called to him. With one look, it filled him with a frighteningly strong desire to just open that hinged lid, without thinking, only to sharply yank his hand away when something seemed to pinch his finger, as if one of those tiny monsters at bit away at the skin of his forefinger. And, shockingly enough, his finger was bleeding.
Having had enough of this side show, he turned and left, finger in his mouth to stop the bleeding (even though the metallic after taste unsettled his nerves more than they already were). But the further Elias walked, the more everything around him changed. The market place turned into beautiful columns of marble, and the dirt beneath his feet a golden floor with the markings of a beautiful map.
“Epimetheus!”
“Pandora?” he calls, unbidden, and then he is lost.
Before him stands a beautiful young woman, albeit small and fragile looking. Her skin is ashen as if she just came back from the depths of Hades, and hair as black as night. Others might have found it unsettling, but not Epimetheus, for he knew the more mortal she became, the more lively, and even now she was a sight to behold to him. He was always so afraid that the moment she stepped from their come and out into the sun, that she would shatter and crack, turn back to dirt and ash, but he held on to... something, some bright emotion he could not name.
Pandora was a woman made of clay, the first mortal of this generation to come and he, a Titan in his own right, worshiped this innocently blind creature ceaselessly, no matter that Prometheus warned him of her birth in the hands of Olympians (and Atlas would too, warn him, if he were here). But Pandora is still growing and learning, so much emotion and curiosity she doesn’t understand. He wants to teach her everything, especially love, and for that he is patient.
Even now, she holds a golden box in her arms that unsettles them, a gift from Zeus for their wedding. She was too naive to refuse a gift when offered, tells him that the winged Hermes gave it to her (oh, and how she trusts Hermes, the very one who guided Pandora to Epimetheus’ doorway), and that she wished to open it. When Epimetheus moved to touch it, the thing seared his fingers on first caress, enough to have him soothing the ache with the heat of his mouth.
“I do not like it, Pandora.” He says, though he, too, is overwhelmed with curiosity. “Do not open it.”
At his side, Prometheus appears, his usual smiling face a solemn sight. He says never to open the box, that it was a trick from the spiteful Zeus. Epimetheus seems satisfied with the explanation, but Pandora is not. Her new emotions were wildly out of control, and her curiosity dangerous. For weeks, Pandora sits and ponders all the possibilities of the box, and Epimetheus feels her withdrawal into her own mind as a painful sting. Whatever he had managed to achieve between them was gone in mere seconds.
When she comes to him one night, begging for the box (and reassuring her husband she would not open the thing, she just wanted it), Epimetheus gives it to her foolishly, having some blind faith that she would keep her promise. But curious things do not often obey orders that keep them from their discoveries.
When she opens the box and screams, Epimetheus comes running, but knows he’s too late. Scary and hideous things fly from the box, filling him with dread the moment it is opened, and Pandora seems to be crying, the first time he may ever see again. He comes to her when the box is finally finished spewing terrifying things from its maw, and wraps himself around her, to try to calm her down, but she is tense and sorrowful. Whatever progress they had made with each other before the box is gone. It only takes one bright light, however, shining from the box to tell Epimetheus not to give up on this woman. He calls the feeling hope (Elpis, the spirit calls herself, as she goes to the world to ease the suffering now placed on them by the box), and in this hope, holds Pandora just a little more tighter, and kisses away her tears.
When Elias wakes, he is in his bed and the covers are thrown on the floor. On his finger, there is a black mark, as if misery has made its home there. But Elias is a man of hope, and he finds comfort it it. When he gets dressed and leaves the Inn, the very person he goes to see is Evelyn Godwin, his persistant nature refusing to give up on the Lady.
It was a tedious week for Godric, it had been weeks since he had even left the castle, what with the endless stream of tasks he had to patch up. Stepping out into the sun, he frowns at the art gala bustling with people. Sure, it was entertaining to those who did not have to deal with the organization. Most of his current migraines were caused thanks to the gala, and he had no intention of visiting it when it was so crowded. In fact, he would have no intention of visiting were it not for the sculpture that had grasped his gaze, even in its prototype. He would come back later, when his head was a little less heavy.
…
It was around time for supper when Godric woke up, sleep in his eyes and hunger in his stomach. On the way to dinner, he spared a glance towards the gala, it seemed to be closing up.
‘Well, now or never.’
He heads toward the entrance, his pace fast and impatient. When he attempts to step in though, the guard blocks his way.
“The gala is closed for the day, sir.”
Godric looks at the guard, his eyebrows raised.
“I do believe that I have permission to enter this gala whenever I want, being the one who has kindly planned out the financial matters. Have I forgot to mention who I am, soldier? Godric Romelo, the royal treasurer.”
The guard takes a glance at his face, and backs away.
“Forgive me for my impertinence, master treasurer. Though, you will have to be swift.”
Godric nods his head and continues his pace. He skims through the brightly colored paintings that sung of heroes and beautiful ladies, he knew ever so well that those were for the weak minded. He stops, abruptly. The sculpture in front of him shows a man with a grim, yet lustful expression on his face, clutching a squirming girl in his iron grasp. It held a moment of truth, unlike anything else. Godric knew what it was like to tear something away from its home, and he also knew what it was like to be torn away. His eyes cloud over.
“It is, I believe, my right to own someone whose lips has touched the food of the underworld.”
He squints his eyes at the messenger, a smirk plastered upon his face. A sense of triumph fills his heart. Of course, there is not much morality in what he has done, but gods were not meant for conscience. They had no reason to adhere to any standards, him especially.
“Tell the gods that I rule the underworld alone and mighty, and they have no business interfering in my businesses.”
He laughs and beckons for his guards to take the messenger away.
A flash of darkness, and then Godric is back with the sculpture. He touches his hands, they seem to be covered in a fine, dark dust, and his back is damp with sweat. Carefully, he takes a square of cloth from his pocket and dabs the dust of his hands. ‘It does not do well to dabble in dreams and omens. Just my head playing tired tricks,’ he thinks, as he carefully erases the image from his memory.
It made sense, a vineyard owner finding himself drawn to a piece that depicted the ancient god of wine: Dionysus. His name and his myth was one Damon was fairly familiar with, or so he thought. What he had known of the god went just as far as what he was painted out to be in the halls of the Castello Estate: a drunken youth with a love for wine that almost topped that of the Castellos. The image stayed with him even after he returned home from the gala, the image of Dionysus surrounded by the revels of his people, dancing with his loyal retinue of maenads and satyrs and permanently frozen in a scene of pure revelry and joy.
Damon wondered if the painting would have changed its merry tone if the artist would have fast-forwarded to when the party was over. Would the wine god still be the same jubilated drunk or would he have found himself in the same place Damon often did at the end of the night? He wondered if perhaps Dionysus was a god that would have understood him, or, at least, understood him more than the God the world now worshipped.
“Is this not what you want, Bromios?” the maenad asked coyly slipping her hands from his shoulders down to his bare chest, taking full advantage of the opportunity to touch something she thought was divine and perhaps coax him to give her the same level of appreciation. Dionysus, was disinterested, stareing blankly at the fire from his seat while the rest of the maenads danced and screamed in total abandon.
“Matters not what I want, love. This is meant for you. For all of you. If a piece of me is what you want, then it is what you shall have. Take a foot, take an arm, take a leg,” he offered with a sluggish shrug, a clear indication that he’d already resignated everything long ago. It was a point he always tried to emphasize with these women, that the world was built for their pleasure and enjoyment and they could take anything they wished, do whatever their heart desired without the contraints of authority telling them what to do. Here, they were the goddesses and the almighty power, not him. He only worked to serve them and facilitate that power.
“And your attention?” she asked, snaking around so that she was now infront of him, bare and beautiful, perfect in everyway except for the chaotic mess that was her hair, but in his eyes it added to her charm. “Can I take that?”
“My attention...” he repeated with a weak smirk, mulling the words over and swirling them around in his mouth as if he were sampling a new wine, but as always he dreaded how it tasted. How often had one of his followers tried to conquer the god all for themselves, to win not just his body, but his heart? He knew what they were each capable of-- he’s seen it firsthand. These women could rip apart anything they managed to get their hands on, and he had no doubt in his mind that they could destroy him as well. One already had, and one already was.
It took him time to realize it, but he was already completely taken hold of by a woman as dangerous as any other. She was a riot, the thorn on his side that he never truly wished to shake. He remembered the first time he brought her to one of his bacchic gatherings, how she danced, how sweet a sound it was to hear her laugh as she ran through the trees, how easily she forgot what it meant to cut threads and what it meant to bring dreaded death. For a night she completely surrendered herself to the wine that coursed in her veins and in her happiness he saw why all this was worth it. He saw her for what she really was and felt her absense tapping again his glass heart, begging to be let in, begging for him to do something to win her back and make things right, but he’d never answer to it.
He’d rather have the tapping than feel the shattering blow of inevitably losing her. Picking up the shards and putting them back together again wouldn’t be enough this time around. If he let anyone else in it would be the death of him, and not the kind of simple death that he sometimes craved as an immortal, but the death of his sanity. To lose more than he lost, to break more than he had broken would undo him entirely.
“Take it,” he said finally, pulling the maenad closer, now desperate for a distraction. “Take my thoughts, take my attention. Help me forget my troubles, and I will help you forget yours.”
Damon had woken up half expecting to wake in a forest where the air was pure and there was nothing to confine him, but instead he opened his eyes to find the painted canopy of his bed, and a woman, leaving a trail of soft kisses from his bare shoulder to his collar bone. He recognized her as the daughter of one of his business partners and actually remember the woman’s name as it hadn’t been the first time he’d found her in his bed.
“Lady Crista.”
“Sorry to wake you, my lord, but you look so heavenly when you sleep. It’s hard to tell if you are even real,” she murmured sweetly, but he knew her compliments were empty. Her feeble attempts to melt his heart with false flattery were growing more desperate every time they met, but he allowed himself to believe for a moment that she truly was as enticed by his sleeping form as she was to his money. She curled her dainty fingers into his curls as if it was supposed to be a show of her affection, but it all just felt wrong and calculated. How often he tried to distract himself from the emptiness inside with the presense of these women, as if he’d find what was missing with one of them, but no matter how hard he tried and no matter how hard they tried he couldn’t be fooled.
“You don’t have to do that...” he mumbled. Locked deep within the cavern of his heart he knew there was only one person who was allowed to run her fingers through his hair, and again he saw the flash of woman running through the trees like a whirlwind with a laugh that beckoned for him to follow it, to find her.
“Is this not what you want?” The question had him glancing at the woman for the first time since he’d woken, his brows furrowed as he started to recall the odd dream he had of stepping into the shoes of a god and feeling no different as he did now.
Was this what he wanted? To keep numbing himself with meaningless relationships, and meaningless parties? To let these women fool him into thinking he had something with substance for a few hours before bringing himself out of the illusion and sending them away?
“I know not what I want,” he stated honestly, searching her face for the bright, loving eyes he had long forgotten and finding nothing there. “--but I know it’s not you.”
Painting: Pandora, Thomas Benjamin Kennington, 1908 ( x )
“I felt very still and empty,
the way the eye of a tornado must feel,
moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”
The halls were filled with artworks of all shapes and sizes - paintings that complemented the sculptures that stood next to them, each piece as unique as the next. Evelyn looked at them the way pilgrims looked at saints, the way newborns looked at their parents, the way artists looked at their muses. She had an affinity for the arts and for aesthetically-pleasing things in general. They sparked the curiosity embedded within her - that strong desire for knowledge and learning new things that her parents ordered her to suppress. There was a reason for that and she knew it as well as any other upper class lady did. Evelyn sighed as she shifted her gaze to another art piece. It was a stupid reason.
She watched Lord Bishop, her parents and their company from the corner of her eye as they turned down the halls, going down exactly where she wanted them to go. She had desired to go alone on her journey through the art gala, even considering the idea of dressing up as Evan and attending alone, but her family had beat her to it and she had no choice but to oblige. Fortunately, she was well-versed with sneaking off from the crowd and that was exactly what she did now. Soon enough, the voices of her companions slowly dwindled to the point where she could no longer hear them. She was finally free.
Evelyn turned the corner, lifting her skirts and checking to see if anyone was around. She was certainly going to be scolded for such misconduct should they find her. Luckily, she knew her ways around. Now as she roamed freely through the halls, she thought of a painting she had seen earlier that day. Although she felt attached to almost all of the paintings thus far, there was something interesting about that one in particular. It was magnetizing, pulling her in as she had passed by it at the time. She didn’t get a chance to take a glimpse and now that she was alone, she could glance at it for as long as she wanted. Finally finding the painting amongst a collection of similar-looking ones, she stopped in front of it and shuffled to find the perfect spot for her observations.
What struck her almost immediately was the overwhelming sadness in the painting. The colours were dark, heavy and austere and the crushed expression of the young woman was infectious. Soon enough, a lump began to form in the back of Evelyn's throat. She turned away for a moment to look around her. Some people had stopped to look at the painting but none shared the same reaction as she did. Perplexed, she turned back to the painting. She was attached to paintings, sure, but enough to feel the mood being portrayed? Perhaps she was too passionate?
Evelyn took in a deep breath in an attempt to compose herself. She had not felt such strong feelings before. Even though she was never allowed to show any signs of emotion growing up, she kept them hidden and none of the emotions she suppressed could amount to the overwhelming and unexplainable melancholic state she was finding herself in at the moment. She hastily wiped at her eyes then looked at her stained fingertips. Were those tears? She swallowed back a cry and rubbed at her eyes again. This trip was not going as well as she planned. She scanned her surroundings frantically as if she were waiting for someone to come for her. She was a child again, desperately trying to avoid her parents’ wrath over a mistake she had made. She was Evan, trying to avoid confrontation from people she knew who would no doubt condemn her for what she was doing or compromise her happiness. She was...
She was Pandora again.
He had instructed her to stay put and insisted that he was going to come back soon, long enough for her not to miss him too much. She was still a newborn in the eyes of the gods and although it wasn’t the brightest of ideas to leave her alone, Epimetheus seemed to trust her immensely and for that, she was grateful. They had been married for only a short while but it seemed liked he had loved her for years. Albeit overwhelming, she loved him back...
She loved him, not as much as he loved her but she still loved him. However, the intentions behind her existence were heinous and certainly unworthy of his affections. And unfortunately, neither knew that.
Across the room she went, pacing back and forth and growing restless as the minutes ticked by. Outside, the sun had begun to set, dimming their chambers. She reached for a nearby candle and lit it before making her way around and lighting the torches that surrounded the room. When she had finished doing so, her eyes caught sight of the shiny box that Epimetheus carefully placed on the table earlier that day.
“Do not open it. Under any circumstances. Although it is a gift, it is merely for... decoration,” Zeus said to them on the night of their wedding. He had a firm look when he had said this and had directed most of it towards her. She hadn’t thought much of it then but now, as she gazed at the box, she couldn’t help but let her mind wander. What was so special about the box? It seemed special enough for the king of the gods to have given it to them and it certainly held some type of value, considering they weren’t allowed to open it in the first place. Decoration? Please. A box was meant to keep things in. She wasn’t stupid. So, what exactly was in it?
She approached the box with an air of confidence, as if to say she wasn’t afraid of what Zeus may think or what sort of secrets were being kept from her. Setting the candle down, she picked up the box. Her fingers traced over the ornate embellishments, memorizing every line and curve and pattern. It was a beautiful box and she sort of did understand why it could just be a decorative piece. Yet, there was a curiosity embedded within her - a desire to know that was as strong as the gifts she had been granted by the gods.
Pandora lined her one eye into the small keyhole then lined her lips, imploring for admission.
“Oh dear box, what could you possibly hold? You are a gift, are you not? You are in my possession,” she chimed. Who was Zeus to tell her what to do? She was her own person now and this box had been given to both her and Epimetheus. It was their possession and they would do whatever they pleased with it.
“A quick peek wouldn’t hurt,” she mumbled as her fingers latched onto the front of the box. She took one last look around her, just to make sure no one would interfere, before prying the box open.
She had opened it just a crack, enough to let some light through so she could see what was inside. Unfortunately and unbeknownst to her, it was enough to let whatever it held inside out. As Pandora opened it, ghostly forms gushed forth from the tiny opening she had made. Dark matter rushed out of the box, pushing her back and sending her to the ground. Gusts of wind circled the room, toppling over pieces of furniture and blowing out the torches she had lit earlier.
Her hands went up to the sides of her head, gripping the strands of her hair and clamping over her ears. The ghostly forms were wailing now, taunting her as they poked and prodded at her. She could make out a shadow of a claw reaching out to her, scratching at her dress. She shuffled back and tried to kick it away, only to be met with air as she did. It wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.
She let out a heavy breath, pain entering her back as she hit the wall. The ghosts continued to fly about the room, wreaking havoc in every corner. Her breathing had grown more erratic now as she huddled helplessly on one end of the room. Pandora drew her knees close to her chest, hands still clamped tightly over her ears. Her dress was soaked, both with sweat and the tears that were now rushing down her cheeks. She swallowed back the lump that had been forming in her throat, only to have it escape her lips in small whimpers and a strangled cry.
The ghostly forms seemed to have taken a liking towards the sound of her distress and sent a strong gust her way. She immediately stumbled to the side, the side of her face meeting with the cold floor. She looked at the dark forms with teary eyes as their high-pitched wails increased an octave and came out in shorter intervals, as if they were laughing. Pandora pulled her knees close to her chest again, turning herself into a crumpled ball on the floor.
“Stop... Please, stop,” she whimpered. Her eyes were shut closed and her face was scrunched up tight with creases running across her face. She forced her ears to shut down, trying her best to block out the screams that rang in her ears. It took her awhile to realize that they were emanating from her own lips.
“Make them stop,” she cried. “Make them stop.” She was curled up even tighter now, as if trying to protect what sanity she had left inside of her together.
After awhile, the wind had died down and the room was no longer filled with the dark entities. They had escaped through the doors and windows, most likely looking for other places and people to wreak evil upon. Pandora laid frozen on the ground, still in her crumpled ball position, as she let out all the frustration, guilt and sadness out of her system. For someone who still didn’t quite understand emotions, she was feeling so much of it now. In fact, they seemed even stronger than the love she had for Epimetheus.
“Epimetheus.” The name had passed her lips almost involuntarily. It was a name that she had sought great solace in saying as of late. But as sweet and comforting as it was, it couldn’t compensate for the horrors she had unleashed. A feeling of dread washed over her. What would he say? Surely, he would hate her for she had disobeyed him. She had done this to herself and to him. She had failed him and that was possibly the worst thing she could ever do to a man whom she loved.
Her eyes wandered over to the box that she had dropped, the box of little horrors she had set free. She shifted in her spot on the ground and reached for the object. Her fingers traced over the embellishments once more, no longer with fascination but with dread and guilt.
“I have failed you,” she whispered, her lips brushing the keyhole and knuckles turning white as she gripped the cover.
The sounds of locks turning, the creak of an opening door and heavy footsteps rang in her ears. Epimetheus froze in his spot, his eyes immediately landing on the broken, young mess of a woman on the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
“Evelyn? Evelyn! Oh for heaven’s sake, what on earth are you doing? Get up this instant!” her mother’s shrill voice echoed through the halls. Lord Bishop and her father immediately rushed over to where she was sitting, dazed and disheveled, on the floor.
“Dear me. She feels faint. Perhaps, we should get her home to rest,” her father murmured as he laced her arms around his neck and shoulders. Lord Bishop nodded.
“Let us take her to my estate. It is time we retired anyway. These art pieces can get quite... overwhelming,” he huffed as Evelyn leaned against him. “Let us take our leave now. Stay with me, Lady Godwin. You are alright now,” he murmured to her.
Her head throbbed as she tried to remember what had been going through her mind. Eyes almost glazed over, she looked behind her one last time, past the face of her frantic mother, at the painting that had triggered the memory. An internal shiver ran down her spine as she did so and she turned her head shortly after, not daring to look back.
Lettie stayed in the art gala memorizing each of the art pieces until it closed for the day and she was finally kicked out. As a result, she had been late for dinner, and with her plate of a cold food, Lettie wandered over to the tables where the rest of the carnies were already settled and finishing their plates. As she walked, she felt some of their eyes glued on her with envy, envy that she could go out and enjoy such things as an art gala without much of a problem where as the rest of them were hardly welcome in public given their odd appearance.
They shifted in their seats, spreading themselves out on their benches to make it clear that she was not welcome to sit with them, and probably never would be, and though it hurt Lettie wouldn’t let it show. With a kind smile she offered her hellos and went to sit next to Corvo in the corner, remembering what a woman had told her earlier that day about the Muses, the goddesses of the arts, each in charge of a separate aspect of art but still a part of a whole, and Lettie wondered how long it’d take until she finally got to be a part of this whole, finally got to be seen as belonging with the carnies, belonging somewhere.
The only problem that I got with the club
Is how you're severed from the people who watched you grow up
When you're a member go on your great adventure again
And we'll be waiting at the end.
○○○○○
“We are sisters, we stick together, each a part of whole.”
“Well, maybe I no longer wish to be a part of a whole!” she spat, a culmination of pent up frustration that Terpsichore had been harboring for a long time, and as soon as the words left her lips there was a nagging part of her that wished she could have taken them back, but she committed to this nonetheless, allowing herself to tear her eyes away from Calliope and focus her sights on a door instead of the expression that settled in her eldest sister’s face. She imagined her other sisters were behind the door listening in.
“Maybe,” she started, her voice quieter now, “--I want to know who I am without you. I want the mortals and the gods alike to know who I am without you. Not a one of nine, not a part of a whole. Just me. Terpsichore.”
“So you want to be a lost muse then, is that it? Alone? With no protection? No one to tell you what’s best for you? No family?” Calliope’s anger rose along with the tone of her voice the more she spoke, and all it did was bring Terpsichore’s own anger to a peak. “Stop being a child, for once Terpsichore, and grow up.”
“I will stop being a child the day you stop acting like my mother! Your permission is not necessary, nor wanted. I am going to live among the mortals whether you like it or not, and you will do well not to come looking for me or else I swear, by the river Styx, that you will never see me again.” She heard the muffled gasps of her other sisters coming from behind the door, and saw the way Calliope’s jaw locked in an effort to hide how she really felt and maintain her authoritatize air. Swearing by the Styx was not something to be toiled with as it was eternally binding to any mortal or immortal, but Terpsichore only wished to be taken seriously and from the way neither one of her sisters tried to stop her from walking out the door it seemed she finally was.
“You know not what you ask.” Calliope spoke her final warning, Terpsichore’s finally chance to end this silliness and stay home, stay where she belonged.
“Let me have my space for as long as I need it... that is all I am asking for.”
○○○○○
Lettie woke with her eyes and mind still heavy from sleep, from the dream that was quickly starting to fade from her memory, but when her eyes finally opened fully to see the dark green thatching of her tent, she could feel herself settling back into this reality and leaving the reality she found in the dream world. All that was left of the dream were small snippets that made no sense without the rest of the pieces to make it whole, and a feeling; a feeling of regret, a feeling of loss, and an unshakable urge to look for something or someone, whatever it was that she felt was missing in her heart.
