InsaneJournal

Melpomene's body was keeping her away, as she traced the last of Ares’ fading marks on her skin. Aside from the cut on her lip, the bruises low across her stomach where he’d fucked her over the table were taking the longest to leave. They were darkest across her hipbones, joined by a line of purple shadowing the softer flesh beneath her naval, the shadows fading out to greenish hues. Touching a bite mark from a few days before the bruises made her miss his mouth; not something she would admit to anyone, of course, but something she let herself privately think, letting her mind roam back over their times together. His fingers between her legs in the car and his hand fisted in her hair when she’d been on her knees. Gods-fucking-dammit she wanted him again. Her own hands just didn’t have his power. They were better than nothing, and biting down on her lip helped, and twisting her other hand in the back of her hair helped, but, ugh.

She forced herself to sit up, as if the thoughts existed in a low lying cloud of lust across her bed and her head could break free of them. She wasn’t going back. Not... not for a while, anyway. It was time to focus on other things, not the marks he’d left on her body but the mark he’d left inside it. Melpomene willed herself to feel her child move, though the curve of her stomach had barely begun to change. She wanted it. Now.

So many critics called tragedy patient, inevitable, a slow, steady march to an inescapable end. She supposed this pregnancy was going to be like that. A kind of enforced patience. But - now, though! This greedy, yearning, rapaciousness was not her usual state of mind – the child’s influence, maybe? It had been eons since she was last pregnant with the child of another god, she could barely remember what it had been like. Besides, to compare Achelous to Ares was laughable.

And her mortal pregnancies had never made her feel this intense.

When had it begun, she wondered. The symposium? The arena? Was this child conceived while Urania’s comet passed overhead? Melpomene gave a delicious little shudder, closing her eyes again and leaning back on her pillows, giving in to thoughts of the future.

Till she heard the front door click open, and then she cracked open her eyes. Antigone thumped through the kitchen, and Melpomene lay a moment longer... then left her thoughts on her bed where she could return to them later, and went out to see where she'd been, this late.


Ever since she'd been trapped in that elevator with Asterion, Antigone had been avoiding them. It meant a lot of stairs and aching thighs and oh gods so much humid August sweat, but that hadn't stopped her. But tonight, with her aching arm, and her growing levels of exhaustion... Antigone had hit the button to call the elevator with bitter reluctance. She could not do eleven flights of stairs right now.

She closed her eyes as she rode it up, though, gripping the rail and waiting for it to be over.

Antigone let herself into the apartment, hesitant, nervous, uncertain about pretty much everything except two very clear things.

1: Her hand and wrist were throbbing like her heart was beating at the end of her arm.

2: She wanted to know. She needed the rest of the story.

When Melpomene opened her door, Antigone swallowed hard, and didn’t move. Melpomene’s eyes looked her over, taking in the damage. “What happened to you?” she asked, and there was concern on her face, yes.

But now that Antigone was looking for more, there was a dark curiosity, too.

Antigone didn’t know how to approach this. Her anger kept flaring up and petering out, replaced with buts and what ifs and the pull in her heart not to believe the worst. The pain in her hand was distracting as well, pulling her thoughts magnetically toward it, and with thoughts of the pain came the memory of Ares’ strength.

Antigone already knew that memory was going to stop her sleeping soundly.

While she tried to work it out, Antigone stuck with the truth, always the truth. “I had a fight with Ares.”

Melpomene’s eyes widened. “No,” she said, breathily, though she did not really disbelieve it. Of course this day was coming, but she was very surprised to see Antigone on her feet. “How? Tell me what happened?”

“He was bothering a girl in the bar,” Antigone said, watching the muse. “So I followed him when he left.”

“Oh Antigone,” Melpomene shook her head in wonder. “How are you still alive?”

“Asterion and Bia,” she said, and Melpomene’s intrigue only heightened. She was trying to be subtle about it, but anyone would have been surprised at the sudden introduction of those names to a story. It was intensely frustrating that Antigone was not spilling the whole story, that she had to keep prying her with questions to hear more.

Asterion and Bia, though. Asterion, who she’d been interested in since he started working at the bar, the imprisoned monster who ate the sacrificed youths of Athens, whose own sister betrayed him to his death (and was then betrayed herself, almost to hers. Good shit.) And Bia, who Melpomene hadn’t heard much at all from lately, but it would take longer than a couple of millennia for Melpomene to forget the part she'd played in Prometheus's punishment. (Again, good shit.)

And they were the ones who stepped in, and saved her Antigone from dying at Ares hands? Fuck Melpomene wished she’d been there to see that. Ares against Bia and Asterion? Unf. “How did that go down?”

Antigone just said: “They stopped me.”

“They stopped you,” Melpomene echoed, awed at how perfectly those three words summed Antigone up. A physical fight with Ares, and Antigone was the one who needed to be stopped? Melpomene crossed the floor toward Antigone and took her face in her hands; Antigone stood frozen, her stomach acid hot. “I love you, you’re perfect,” she said, then: “Wine.”

Antigone steadied herself with a hand against the cool marble of the kitchen island as Melpomene turned to fetch a bottle. It felt as if she’d walked into a strangers house, but a stranger who knew her, loved her. “Should you be doing that?” she asked, her voice as shaken as the rest of her. “If you’re pregnant?”

Melpomene lay the glasses on the marble with a clink. “Mortal superstition,” she said, turning her dark eyes to Antigone again. “Ares told you?”

“Is it true?” Antigone asked. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

Fuck.

“And?” Antigone’s voice stretched like a rubber band.

“And what?”

Thinner and thinner and tighter and tighter. “Are you... keeping it?”

Melpomene paused a moment, but she couldn't pretend, with this child. It was too pure, too small. “Fates willing,” Melpomene said, drawing a small ring on her stomach with a finger.

Antigone relied a little harder on the bench to keep her upright. “Why?” she asked, at last, staring at the swirls in the marble, gray on gray, swirls she traced most days, using the patterns and the cool touch of the stone as a kind of meditation while she was waiting for coffee to brew, for food to heat. She didn’t trace anything now, she needed her hand steady to hold her up. “Why do you want this baby? Why did you tell me you were Erato? I don’t understand you.”

She’d cried, when Asterion had confirmed that Ares hadn’t been lying about who this muse in front of her was, cried because the shape of the world around her was changing and she was afraid there’d be nothing she recognised left to hold onto. Also because she’d nearly died, and though part of her had been totally ready, her physical body had not, and she was feeling it.

Melpomene stood in front of her with her fingers on her belly and Antigone tried to pick out the parts of Romeo she knew, but she couldn’t. This woman was a stranger.

And her anger kept rushing over her and receding, like lone waves.

Antigone kept waiting for the tide to come in. For anger to overtake her, so she did not have to think.

“Did Ares tell you that too?” Melpomene asked.

“Does it matter?"

“I don’t suppose it does.”

Antigone stared at her, intense and desperate. “You’re Melpomene,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you’re having Ares’ baby.”

“Yes.”

“And you want to be having Ares’ baby?”

“Yes.”

“Gods and fucking monsters, say more than just yes!” Antigone screamed at her. Ah, there was the anger. “What is it, between you and Ares? What is going on? And don’t lie to me!”

Melpomene considered pointing out that she’d never lied to Antigone about Ares, not really. Crafted a certain narrative, sure, but never straight out lied. “Lust and power and fateful timing,” she said, and Antigone looked at her in horror and then swiped one of the wine glasses off the bench, where it shattered against the floor. “Hey.”

“And you decided to make me think otherwise WHY?” Antigone demanded.

Melpomene stepped closer, and Antigone seriously considered backing away, but held her ground. “You’d already made up your mind about how things were,” she said, wielding truth like a weapon. “You were so angry, so passionate. And you’d been so listless before. It was good to see you again with such direction. Antigone on a mission is such a powerful thing.” She looked down at Antigone’s hand in the splint and said, with a small shake of her head, “they had to stop you.”

This woman was not just a stranger, she was a dangerous stranger. Antigone took a step backward, and then another one. “I’m out,” she said. “I’m out, I’m leaving.” She turned and stomped into her room, dragging out her sports bag so she could start throwing everything into it. The bag was zipped, and Antigone had to use her teeth and her good hand to pull it open.

She tried not to burst into tears all over again, as the bag unzipped.

Her possessions hadn’t grown in number at all since she’d moved in, and she’d only arrived with a bag and a computer and a dead man’s photograph album and half a box of wine. The wine was gone now, it was even easier to pack. She started in the bathroom, pinning shampoo and conditioner bottles to her body with her bad arm while her good one gathered up a handful of toothpaste and brush and sunblock.

She came walking out of the ensuite to find Melpomene was sitting crosslegged in the middle of her bed, with a glass of wine in one hand and Antigone’s open bag in front of her.

“I meant what I said about loving you,” she said, and Antigone held up a horrified hand to make her stop. Melpomene did not stop. “I have always loved you.”

“Get out,” said Antigone.

“You’re not supposed to have favourite children,” Melpomene said. “But you are one of mine.”

“I’m not yours!” Antigone snapped, yanking her bag away from Melpomene and dropping the bottles in. Her toothpaste fell out and she snatched it off her duvet, furiously.

“It was my name Sophocles invoked, when he solidified you into flesh,” Melpomene pointed out, taking a sip of her wine. “You. And your father-brother. And your grandmother-mother. And your whole doubled tripled degraded, dirty-in-every-direction family,” she put her wine glass down on the duvet, stem loose in her fingers. “To quote one of your more recent translations, that is. Why not add a muse-mother to the mix? I bought you into this world more than Jocasta did.”

“Don’t,” said Antigone.

“I did, though.”

“What do you want, fucking gratitude?!” Antigone yelled at her, throwing a messily balled up hoodie into the bag. It had been gratitude for Romeo that had been the main thing holding her back from instantly believing the worst, just an hour ago, but that was gratitude for the peace she’d had here, in that restful time between Maxwell’s death and Ares’ fist through the wall. A peace the muse had provided, yes, but then deliberately shattered. “Thanks for my life, Melpomene,” she snarled, thick with sarcasm. “You make me sick.”

“Living makes you sick,” Melpomene pointed out, and Antigone hit her with such a horrified glare. How dare she be so accurate. Antigone stood in the middle of the room, just breathing. She felt entirely naked.

“How much of attacking Ares was about proving your point and how much was wanting to die, Antigone?”

Shaking, Antigone dropped as many tops as she could squeeze in her fingers into the bag.

When she didn’t answer, Melpomene said: “It occurs to me. Antigone did quite well at the Canadian Screen Awards this year? Five awards, I think.” She narrowed her eyes a little as she smiled. “And Antigone in Ferguson, that’s drawing the crowds too, last couple of years. If he had killed you, you’d be back in days. Maybe a little browner than before, but I think that would suit you, in this...” she waved her hand in the air, vague but all encompassing “...current political climate.”

Antigone stared at her.

“Just a thought,” said Melpomene, with a small shrug. "Don't expect what's on the other side of death to be any easier, Antigone. It never will be."

“What do you get, out of this?” Antigone exploded again. “What is the fucking point?!”

Melpomene let her legs slip off the bed, feet lightly on the floor. “I want to see you become your best self,” she said, standing up. She was taller than Antigone, and right now it seemed she took up every bit of breathing space in the room. “Your truest, rawest, most extreme Antigone. I think the world needs that.”

“I think the world needs you to fuck off,” Antigone replied, shoving the last socks into the bag, forcing them down with a fist.

“Do you need me to zip that up for you?” Melpomene offered. Antigone yanked the bag off the bed by its straps, leaving it gaping open.

“No,” she said. “I need you to stay out of my life.”

“I made your life,” Melpomene reminded her, her voice terrible. “I influence every thought in your head. You could never see me again and I’d still be, very intimately, in your life.”

Was there anything Antigone could say to that?

Later, she would think of something cutting to say to that.

Something that proved Melpomene wrong. Something that said Antigone did not believe her. But in her dark eyes were the unfailing eternal ordinances of the gods that no human being could ever outrun, reflections of that atavistic family curse that build Antigone's bones and guided each word she spoke, each action she took. Antigone hated it.

She wished there was a single thing she could say, a single thing she could do, that proved she wasn't Melpomene's creature. She couldn't think of a thing, though. She was very, very certain that Melpomene was right.

"Piss up a rope," Antigone snapped, shouldered her bag, and fled.