WHO: Melpomene, Tragos, Aphrodite, Ares later WHEN: Monday afternoon WHERE: Outside Ares' gym WHAT: Melpomene Areia, Aphrodite Areia WARNINGS: Likely to be violence
Melpomene always thought she was pretty good when it came to handling pain. Pain was a part of life, pain pushed you up against your limits, pain taught you things about yourself you wouldn’t otherwise learn.
She wouldn’t have fucked Ares in the first place if she couldn’t handle a little pain. But oh, cruel fates, there was nothing gentle about carrying his son. As he packed on the weight in his last month before birth, he got stronger and stronger, there was less fluid surrounding him to act as a shield against his assaults, and Melpomene had started to find deep, faint bruises in his favourite kicking spots at the edge of her ribs.
I've had children by Ares too. She kept recalling Calliope’s words They made fierce kings, but not so loving to their mother. Up until recently her focus had always been on her earlier words, but lately she kept thinking about the latter.
He was not going to be a gentle child. Another thing she kept thinking; Clio’s words when Melpomene had asked if Ella had tormented her this much No, Ella didn’t- The words came with a spike of anger, every time. She couldn’t think about Clio without a rush of anger. Like a rogue wave, the feeling tumbled her over, too disorientating to tell for sure if it really was anger or something in disguise, jealousy maybe.
The rushes of anger kept coming, aimed at anyone in her path. Erato’s loose tongue made her see red, and Clio’s siding with her, of course, made it worse. Some of these waves were stirred up by hurt, but by the time they broke they were indistinguishable from anger.
She’d even snapped at Apollo when he’d laid his hand against the bruise on her stomach and started to heal it - get your hands OFF me! Do you think I CAN’T HANDLE THIS?! She’d pulled his hand away from her so hard her nail left imprints in his wrist. They faded fast, of course, but for a moment they’d still be there, a mark on her Musagetes. The anger took a lot longer to recede, like a tide, less like a rogue wave.
The problem was: he didn’t argue back, and give the emotion somewhere to go. He’d just lifted his hands away from her and smiled and said alright. What the fuck? She wanted to kick him.
She could handle this. Wear the bruises like makes of pride. Her son was strong. She could handle him. Her eyes burned with tears at the rest of it and she shut her laptop, cutting them all off.
Focus on someone who wouldn’t hurt her, instead.
I want to see you fight she messaged him. When’s your next one? I want to be there.
Tragos replied after an hour (an agonising hour – her son had stretched out into her ribs and was just chilling there, making breathing an ordeal of shallow gasps – she’d almost called Apollo back then, but her pride was too strong, and in the end she’d grabbed an ice pack from her freezer and pressed it hard against his feet until she chased them away from her ribs and the unbearable tender sore spot there. Her entire body was a bruise, but a bruise she could breath through.)
Not till Friday Tragos said. Laz had pulled him out of rotation for a bit, till he’d shed all traces of his concussion. He was still training hard (sometimes so hard it made him sick, but no pain no gain, right?) but going up against an opponent was different; the War Dogs weren’t going to lose face by sending some representative that couldn’t quite see straight into the ring.
Tragos knew in his next fight he wouldn’t be at his best anyway. Everyone knew. It was how head injuries went. The more you lost, the worse you got. Each blow to the head stuck around, and next fight, you might seem 100%, but really, only 99%. Reaction times slowed, a fraction, and you got hit again. Down to 98% next fight, made it even easier to knock someone out the next time. And so it went, the blows building up.
Blow by blow by blow and fight by fight by fight. It had started the night Ares hit him, the night he found out about Tragos and Marcie.
Some things you didn’t say outloud though, especially not to the women in your life. Or Kaden, who kept reading out concussion facts then looking at him accusingly across the room.
He just had to put everything into being faster, that was all. Hit them before they had a chance to hit him. He liked the idea of Melpomene being there. Impossible to imagine losing in her presence. (Secretly, he would’ve liked Marcie to come watch him fight, but after Barak, and especially after her concern about how badly he’d been hit, he didn’t suggest it. Didn’t stop him imagining her in the audience, though. Didn’t stop him imagining kissing her afterward. Sometimes in his imagination he dragged her up into the ring, her legs wrapped his waist and everyone cheering – might as well go all out with imagining impossibilities, right?)
Melpomene knew about the head injury, of course. Kaden had told her, in great detail, about the head injury. I’ll be there she promised, and then pulled herself off her couch to start moving. She would go and see Ares, she decided. Not to ask for permission, but to announce herself in advance. She would see Tragos fight again. Maybe her son craved the violence. Maybe she just hoped it would annoy Ares, and he, unlike Clio, unlike Apollo, would fight back.
Tragos was his man, yes, she acknowledged that, but he was also hers, and she would see him fight. She needed more time with him. Needed to inspire him.
Because who was she, what was she, really, without someone to inspire? If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a noise? If a Muse has no one to inspire, does she really exist at all?
(In her mind, Alan had his arms around her, face pressed close to hers, eyes open, calling her his muse. His loss ached. Everything ached. The wave of emotion that hit her this time was too clear and pure to be anything other than grief.)
She had to hold on to what she had left. Melpomene brushed tears firmly from her eyes. She had to hold on to what she lad left. If she released her grip for a moment, there was no telling what else she might lose.
She had to hold on to what she had left.
So to the gym she went. It was a crisp day, the sidewalks wet though it wasn’t raining, the sky low and heavy and dark, though still hanging on to the afternoon’s fading sunlight. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be there; Melpomene just had to bank on the thought that if his men were in the midst of an intense training session, he may be nearby to oversee it. In any case, she wasn’t about to message first and warn him.
But... the best laid plans...
Approaching the gym on foot, she slowed; approaching the gym from the opposite direction was Aphrodite. Melpomene stopped entirely, taking the goddess in, head to toe.
This was not what she needed right now. Oh no no no.
“Aphrodite,” she said, with a nod. Whatever else she was, Aphrodite was still an Olympian, and afforded respect, if not an ounce of warmth.