Thalia (muse_amused) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-07-12 19:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | thalia |
Who: Thalia [narrative]
Where: Central Park
When: Backdated to May 29, after this.
She stumbles, half in darkness, through the bustling, jostling streets, blind to the midday sun (risen too late, too late), cold beneath the warm caress of his outstretched rays. Shadows follow in her wake, snarling, snickering, nipping at her heels like the rabid gods they serve.
Shadows are all she sees these days.
The people in the streets are ghosts, faceless and featureless; the roads and the sidewalks and the buildings blur together until they are all one, the roar of the traffic only a distant rumble in her mind. But the darknesses, those daughters of Erebos she sees all too clearly -- they've no care if she knows their faces now -- those jagged teeth and those glinting orange eyes might well be only real things in this fading world, and the jeering voices in her ears insist that it is the truth.
No sisters. No Sun. The Nine are broken and Phoebus could care less. Oh, he has his pretty words -- he always did, Apollo of the silver tongue -- but will he act? No, no. No love from that quarter, no more; he sits on his fat ass like Daddy Zeus -- he'll make his perfunctory lament but nothing more, he can afford to lose one or two of his harem, you know. Mama will cry, of course, but she'll do nothing to stop it.
A fucking tragedy, that's what it is. No saving it.
Tragedy. The name brings a dull ache to her throat. Tragedy, the sister she abandoned, too busy wailing and whining to give a damn as Melpomene suffered -- shut up, shut UP, an hysterical voice hisses, but it's no match for the others that fill her mind, the voices who know it to be true, who knew it ever since Goth said the words, and perhaps even before.
You're selfish, Comedy. You've always been selfish. What right do you have, to expect to be saved? What makes you so special, of all Apollo's fuck-buddies and Zeus' bastard children, that the Sun and Thunderer should ride to your rescue? Why should you have the solace of the Nine when you gave them nothing in their need?
Why indeed. She's dully aware of a canopy of leaves stretching above her now -- she's hit Central Park, but all the trees really signify is that the shadows have more room to stretch their legs. She is contemplating this when she grows aware of the music.
It reaches her faintly, as though from a very great distance: a clear, tenor voice riding a rolling, lively tune. But it's not the melody Thalia hears, only the words; unfamiliar as the lyrics are, they tickle at the back of her mind and after a moment resolve into a familiar patter: Set-up, punchline. Set-up, punchline. The classic joke. Comedy at its essence. Set up, punchline. There's a faint chuckle somewhere to her left, and then the chink of a coin landing in an open guitar case.
Later, she won't be able to say what it was that did it -- whether it was the singer, or the laugh, or even the innocuous flick of the coin -- but suddenly Thalia is pushing her way forward, and somewhere deep in her mind the buckling floodgates explode and she is screaming. All of the ugliest, most vicious heckles to ever have been shouted across a comedy club; every cruel jibe that ever followed a comic off the stage or hounded nerve-wracked open mic'ers back to their day jobs, Thalia now flings at the busker. And when she has run out of words in this country's language she reverts to her own, reaching back further to grasp at the shouts and taunts of the ancient Athenian rabble. She spits obscure Greek curses in his face, unmindful of the crowd she is drawing.
Then a hand comes down on her shoulder, and everything stops.
Time seems to slow. And in that moment, it is as though the shadows have lifted and Thalia sees herself as others do-- a wild-eyed, hysterical woman, her cheeks flushed with anger and moist with hot tears she didn't know she'd shed. A crazy person, shrieking unintelligible abuse at a perfect stranger. She knows without looking the expressions on their faces-- irritation mixed with bemusement, concern mixed with pity.
And through the sudden, roaring silence of her mind, a single voice whispers only:
Oh god.
A choking sob rises in her throat; she shrugs the hand away, and she runs.
The shadows follow after.