WHO: Antigone, Melpomene, Much and Oedipus WHEN: The day after Ares WHERE: Melpomene's place, and the Theban Cycle WHAT: Family reunions WARNINGS: A few well meaning threats of violence :)
Antigone didn’t sleep well, that night. She tried, but every time she closed her eyes Ares was waiting. The brief sleep she did steal was wracked with nightmares anyway.
Eventually she gave up, got up, and made coffee. Romeo’s door was still closed and, Antigone hoped, the Muse herself was still asleep. She hoped she’d slept better than Antigone, but couldn’t imagine how she’d manage it. Maybe the wine. Antigone hoped the wine helped.
But you couldn’t just hope, in life.
In the armchair closest to the tall, wide windows, Antigone drank her coffee and tried to think of any power she had that could make Ares leave her friend alone.
She had no plan, but she did have a tangled knot of anger inside her and her mind kept firing and after following a few of the sentences down rabbit holes she fetched her laptop and started writing it all down. And the words poured out of her, not about Ares in particular but men in general, survival in general, and it choked her up, some of the things coming out of her.
What she ended up with was a furious, distraught essay that didn’t suffer from an overabundance of hope. It hurt to write and it hurt to read over, after.
And - hell - Romeo was supposed to be the Muse of love poetry and this is what Antigone came up with, living with her? It spoke volumes about how broken Antigone was, that all she could write about was grief. Or how broken the world was.
Or maybe this was Antigone’s love letter, to a future time.
She shut her laptop quickly, when Romeo stepped out of her bedroom door. She was fully dressed, a high necked black dress buttoned up over the marks on her neck, it’s sleeves long and transparent, though opaque enough to hide any discoloration of her arms. “Hi,” Antigone said. “Hi... I made coffee.”
“Thank you. I’ll have to take it in a travel mug, I’m due on set.”
“Shit, Romeo - couldn't you could call in? You've had a, a night.”
“No,” she said gently. Her attention had been caught by the dent in the wall of the kitchen, and she raised her hand to touch it, fingers running over the cracks in the paint. His voice you did well echoing in her head. “No. I’d rather go.”
Antigone nodded. She’d been trying very hard, all morning, not to look at that dent. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Romeo turned, and lay a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you,” she said again. “But Garth’s coming past in a taxi, we’re going to brainstorm on the way.”
“I’ll have my phone on. I’ll come and get you, if you need me. Please call if you do?”
“I will,” Romeo said, readjusting the cuff of her sleeve, making sure it was firmly buttoned. “Thank you, again, for the coffee. For everything.”
“Of course,” said Antigone, and walked her down to the street to make sure she got into her taxi. The air was hot and humid, the sky bleached white. There’d been days like this in Thebes, Antigone thought. Days when, so long ago they were barely a part of her anymore, everything hadn't felt like such a struggle.
She took herself back inside, gathered her things, then went out to find her father.
~
Antigone stepped cautiously into the shop, casting her eyes up at the ornate collection of antiques hung on the walls above her head. The scent of the shop, the dust and the wood polish and something else that had no particular label, something old and eclectic; all of it reminded her of her father.
The guy that popped up from behind the counter was decided not her father; he was so not her father that seeing him gave her whiplash. He grinned at her, and Antigone was hit with the sudden feeling that she wanted to backpedal quickly, and go back to hiding in her room.
But no, once again, she was out in the world. Once again, she was Antigone.
“Aah,” said the boy behind the counter. Though to her eyes he looked close to her age, her mind automatically went to boy. She was right, of course; she had over a thousand years on him, but that didn’t make him young, either. Still. Boy. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Her face softened a little, in curiosity. How had her father known she was coming? She hoped that he wasn’t messing around with oracles, that was the very last thing she needed.
But the boy – young man, she corrected herself, trying at least to be polite – stepped around the counter toward her with a necklace in his hands, topaz and rubies glinting in the sunlight. “This has been calling out to be worn around a neck like yours,” he said.
“No it hasn’t,” Antigone told him.
He looked at her appraisingly. Well, it had been worth a shot. “You’re right,” he said. “Of course, you’re right... what you’re looking for is something more like..." He produced a ring instead, a burnished silver thing, that reminded Antigone of something she had owned once, lifetimes ago, when she was a princess and not... this.
“I’m not here to buy anything,” Antigone said firmly. “Or sell – what are you – ?”
He’d ducked down behind the counter in the middle of her sentence, and a moment later popped back up in a mask, pointing at it with both fingers. “Not even one of theeese?”
Taken aback, Antigone didn’t say anything. She couldn’t remember the last time she spent any time with anyone... silly. She shook her head, shedding the distraction. “I – just, tell me where Oedipus is.”
“Hm?” Much asked, pushing the mask up off his face, keeping confusion out of his expression as he tried to work out if this was some sort of code.
“Does he still own this place?”
“Rex?” Much said, with his eyes wide, and Antigone closed hers and raked her hand across her exhausted face. Of course he was going by a pseudonym.
“Rex,” she agreed. “Is he here?”
“Yeah – all the way out back,” Much pointed, but his eyes were still wide. Antigone gave him a glare as she stepped past him to follow his finger, and Much instantly pulled out his phone the second her back was turned.
He’d had just enough time to send a message when he heard her footsteps coming back toward him. He shoved his phone back into his pocket as Antigone appeared again in the doorway. “Actually,” she said, but before he had a chance to respond she was stepping closer to him, looking up at him with a blazing look in her eyes. “I want to make this very clear. You are not to tell a soul who Oedipus is, do you understand me?”
Much couldn’t disguise the oh shit look in his eyes, a look Antigone easily read. “You already have,” she said, flatly.
“Ye...ah,” Much admitted, apologetically, “But-”
“No,” Antigone cut him off. Much shut his mouth. For a long moment, Antigone shut hers as well.
“Do you know what a curse is?”
“Yeah,” said Much.
“Do you? Who are you?” she demanded, eyes stripping him down.
“Much,” Much said. “The Miller’s Son. I’m one of Robin Hood’s men.” It didn’t seem wise not to tell her the whole thing.
“Robin Hood?” Antigone said, and tilted her head the way the earth must have tilted when the titans burst forth. “How sweet. Robin Hood. Listen to me, Much the Miller’s Son. You do not know curses. My bloodline carries a curse the likes of which you cannot imagine, but if that man through there suffers any ill effects from your loose tongue, you will understand, with perfect clarify, what it is to be cursed. I will make sure of it.”
“Shit, okay, just-”
“If you tell me to calm down,” Antigone said. “I will open you up on this floor.”
Much, who’d been going to ask that very thing, said, “Okay.”
“Good,” she said.
“No one’s gonna give him shit,” Much said, hoping he was right. “You can trust us.”
Antigone did not look like she believed him. “I hope I can trust you to save your own skin,” she said. “Because that is forfeit, if his life gets any harder.” His fear meant a lot more to her than his word did, but he looked, genuinely, like he believed she wouldn’t hesitate to bring the heavens down on his head.
“Got it. Understood.”
“Good,” she said, again, and looked at him for another long moment before leaving again through the back. Leaving Much with the dawning realisation that (this lifetime, at least) he had a type, and his bosses daughter was pretty much it.
~
Antigone pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes, sandpaper dry from her lack of sleep, berating herself for being such an idiot. She wasn't even back in Oedipus's life again and already she might have ruined it. She felt sick, but she'd been feeling that way since last night, so what was new there?
She tried to shake it off, look a little bit normal, because she could hear movement around the corner, and when she saw him, for the first time in a long, long time, Antigone softened, just a little. She didn't step in through the office doorway, but hesitated there, hand on the frame. "Hi Dad," she said.