Work Text:
His mother loved him, she just hadn’t been able to stay.
That's what he was told, and that’s what he believed. After all, even in the post-apocalyptic world left behind in Persephone’s absence, mothers cared for and loved their children.
So no, his mom hadn’t taken one look at him and decided he was a worthless brat that she didn’t want to care for, she had loved him with her whole heart.
She just wouldn’t. Couldn’t stay.
That was all.
****
“Sometimes they abandon you”
****
The walls of the tunnel were dark, and truthfully it was generous to even call them walls. Stone sloped all around. Dark and rough and all encompassing.
He had a lantern, but it flickered in and out at a worrying rate, and every time the flame diminished he thought it would disappear forever.
The little light it did cast bounced off the cave, and created shadows that looked like monsters from the stories Mr. Hermes used to tell him.
****
“Where ever he is now”
****
A man who looked much older than his actual age sat hunched over on a tree stump and looked off into the distance.
He had long ago become a staple of the village, and while none of the villagers minded his presence, (except for old Hera, but she minded everyone) the parents still told their children not to play around him.
He didn't do much besides sit and occasionally cry, but every once in a while he would pick up the guitar laying on the ground next to him and play a few notes.
He didn't sing. He never sang.
They still weren't sure he could talk.
****
"And so I took him underneath my wing"
****
As he grew older and all the other children in the town started asking him where his own mother was, he started to ask too.
Mr. Hermes was amazing, and always made sure he had enough food and a warm place to sleep, but he still had his own duties to attend to, ones he claimed were much too dangerous for a boy his age to come along. And so he was often left alone during the day, and sometimes at night when Mr. Hermes had a particularly grueling task to complete.
He wasn't lonely persay, but he was often alone .
****
“The wind is changing”
****
The cave's silence was almost complete, and all he could hear was the sound of his own footsteps. A thud, thud, thud . He couldn't hear Eurydice's footsteps. Or her clothes rustling as she walked. Or her breathing.
He considered stopping to see if he would be able to hear her then, but he had no doubt that Mr. Hades was watching them, and he wouldn't put it past the old man to take even a slight pause as their surrender. And so he continued to walk.
He didn't sing. He was too scared.
****
"And bring him comfort"
****
Spring had come again, and the entire village celebrated along with the earth.
Well. Almost the whole village. The resident village crazy man continued to sit on his stump and stare. If anything, he seemed even more despondent than usual.
It had been years since spring started again regularly, but each time it came, the village celebrated it as though it was the first ever. Like they were scared that if they didn’t celebrate Persephone, she wouldn’t come.
The village soon became known for their spring festival. It wasn’t lavish, no one could afford that, but it was hearty and joyous and good, and people came from all around. One specific woman had come since the first festival, before they had even become known for them. Before they were anything more than a glorified potluck filled with family recipes and cautious joy.
Her presence intrigued and puzzled the villagers, but the reason for their curiosity wasn’t just the fact that she came every year, but the reason why she came.
Because, every year without fail, she didn’t participate in the festival. In fact, most years, she completely ignored the villagers' presence. She walked right by the festivities, to the edge of the village where the man on the tree stump sat. And she sang to him, an old sounding simple melody that those around couldn’t help but stop and listen to.
And every year, without fail, they cried on each other's shoulders.
****
"You might say he was naïve to the ways of the world"
****
By the time he was 18, he was positive that his mother wasn’t coming back.
He wasn’t bitter. He wasn’t. He understood that not everyone was meant to look after children even when they wanted to.
Some parents just weren’t good, and his friend Castor proved it. His father, Dyonisis, wasn’t a horrible person. A bit of a drain to be around, and his jokes were never funny no matter how hard he tried to make them. He wasn’t a great man, he had cheated too many people to be considered such, but he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t meant to be a father though, and it was evident by the bruises Castor said were from his clumsiness, or the village bullies, or the ball game they had played together the day before.
Orpheus knew better, but he also knew there wasn’t much he could do for Castor. He doubted any of the adults would care enough to interfere, and knew that his own interference wouldn’t be appreciated.
And so, he stayed quiet, and on the bad nights when he missed his mother more than usual, and started to resent her absence, he comforted himself in the knowledge that his mother had never physically hurt him.
On the worst nights, the nights when his head turned into a bloody monster content on nothing less than devouring itself, and his heart hurt , he wondered what was wrong with him that his mother didn’t even stick around to hurt him. Such thoughts were extremely messed up, he knew, but he didn’t know how to stop them once they started.
But he wasn’t bitter, because bitterness caused hearts to go callous and unfeeling, and Mr. Hermes had shown him the dangers of a stone heart through his stories, and the world had shown him the destruction apathy could bring as springtime got shorter and shorter.
So no. He wasn’t bitter.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t hurt.
****
Doubt comes in
****
The longer he walked, the more certain he grew that Mr. Hades's challenge truly had been a trap.
The cave stretched on and on, for as far as he could see (which was, admittedly, not very far). They had been walking for what seemed like forever, but the end was still nowhere in sight.
He knew that Mr. Hermes had claimed that Hades wasn’t lying about it being a trial that they could win if they persisted, but even though he was a god, Mr. Hermes didn’t know everything, and while he didn’t make a habit of it, he had lied to Orpheus before. Every time he did, he claimed that it was for Orpheus’s own good, but he never told the boy until after whatever he had lied about was over and, usually, long in the past.
Orpheus, not for the first time, wondered if Mr. Hermes had lied about his mother.
****
Persephone looked at the no longer young man who had once issued a challenge to her husband.
The years had not been kind to him, premature gray streaking his head, wrinkles creasing his sun damaged skin, back hunched over so much that she doubted he could sit up straight at all anymore. She examined his hands. Wrinkled and sagging like an old man’s. There were no callouses from the guitar sitting by his feet.
Persephone looked at her old friend. And despaired.
****
When he first caught a glimpse of sunlight, piercing through the gloom like a knife, he thought he had officially gone delusional. It was the only possible explanation.
As he continued to walk though, (because he didn’t trust this ‘test’ but what else was he supposed to do?) the light increased. Soon there was enough to see without the lantern, and he happily blew it out. If he squinted hard he could barely see what looked to be the cave’s exit.
He started walking as fast as he could without running, he knew Euridyce couldn’t keep up if he sprinted. The entrance was within reach. They had almost made it out! Except. No. That couldn’t be right.
Orpheus still couldn’t hear Euridye. He should be able to hear her by now, shouldn’t he? And her shadow. It was light enough in the cave now that he could see his own stretched across the floor, but it shouldn’t have been the only one. She couldn’t have fallen that far behind, could she?
****
The entrance was in front of him, but he knew Euryidce wasn’t behind. He had to check though. He couldn’t take a step outside without Eurydice by his side.
He turned around.
The love of his life was standing right behind him, her skin a ghostly blue, and her eyes full of despair.
“Orpheus,”
“Eurydice.”
She was right there, whole and almost alive, as the knowledge that Mr. Hades hadn’t lied sinked in.
And then suddenly……
****
Persephone sat on the hard ground near Orpheus.
“How is she?” her old friend asked the same question as always.
Persephone didn’t give the half hearted ‘she’s fine’ in response this time though. She had thought long and hard about what to tell him, and after a long talk with her husband, she settled on telling him the truth, without sugar coating it. Not that it could be sugar coated. There was absolutely no way she could make what she was about to say sound any kind of good. Because…
“She’s gone. Took a sip of the river of oblivion herself.”
Orpheus closed his eyes and knit his fingers together. He looked heartbroken, but not surprised.
“So there’s no hope then, is there?”
She looked again at the now middle aged man who was once a young boy, who when told something was hopeless, said ok then continued to try anyways. He wasn’t that persistent youth anymore though, hadn’t been for a long time.
“No. There’s no hope.”
No one had ever been brought back from the shadows of their own mind after taking a sip of Oblivion.
****
……She was gone.
****
The entrance was in front of him, but he knew Euryidce wasn’t behind. He had to check though. He couldn’t take a step outside without Eurydice by his side.
He turned around.
The love of his life was standing right behind him, her skin a ghostly blue, and her eyes full of despair.
“Orpheus,”
“Eurydice.”
She was right there, whole and almost alive, as the knowledge that Mr. Hades hadn’t lied sinked in.
And than suddenly.
****
"How long?"
****
An ethereal woman approached the old man.
“You see now, don’t you?”
Orpheus looked up at the woman who was once, for a brief time, his mother.
He gazed upon the face of Calliope the Muse, and asked the question that had been burning him for as long as he remembered her absence.
“Why did you leave?”
She looked him in the eye, her striking gold eyes steering right into his soul, and then deliberately to the guitar that lay at his feet.
“Because it is better to spare yourself the pain of a broken heart than to have loved and lost.”
He nodded.
“Why now? Why come back after 30 years of absence? What made you want me again?”
“Because you finally understand. Don’t you?”
He nodded again. Much as he hated to admit it, his mother’s reasoning stood. He would do anything to not feel the overwhelming pain that losing Eurydice brought him. Even not meeting her.
“Well, come along.”
“Where?”
“You’ve lost the love of your life in an extremely tragic way, a way that will surely be sung about for eons to come.”
“And?”
“That means that you’re finally ready to take your place among us. Not one of the original nine of course, all those spots have been filled for decades. But, from this day forward, you are a muse.”
Orpheus gaped at her. A muse? Muses were legendary, even among the small village he grew up in. They were messengers of the gods of a sort, but not like Mr. Hermes. They carried hope and despair and joy and laughter, telling their stories through music. To be a muse you had to be a musician of the highest caliber. His mother’s position as one of the nine was often credited as to why Orpheus himself was so musically gifted.
Being a muse would give Orpheus a new purpose, one that he had never dreamed of hoping for.
There was only one problem.
“I don’t sing,” he said regretfully.
“That matters not to us, we have been in need of someone to play the lyre for some time now.”
“I don’t know how to play though.”
“No matter, you can learn. You have centuries now.”