starbeast (starbeast) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2010-05-17 20:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | atlas, natal maltose, polyhymnia, shiri eneas |
Who: Atlas/Natal Maltose & Polyhymnia Shiri Eneas
What: Conversation and existential crises.
Where: The Everglades
When: During Shiri and Adam's camping trip.
Warnings: None
Atlas trudged through the Everglades. The sucking morass of the swamp did not slow his stride, and the creatures lurking in the shadows let him pass unmolested. He was like an avatar of the swamp. Primal, bestial, mysterious. He surged through the ankle-high mud, his steps confident. He moved with clear purpose and would not be deterred.
Until he heard a voice in the distance. The sound of it sent a shiver through his entire being. He stopped abruptly, his head cocked. For a moment, he was as still as the very trees, listening. The voice reached him again, drifting on the wind. His eyes snapped in the direction the voice had originated from. He was on the move again, faster now. He would find that voice and the one to whom it belonged.
Their camp was some distance away from the swamps, but her voice carried far. Shiri sat beneath a tree, alone for now, and dressed in a simple pale blue dress with her eyes closed lightly. The real world had drifted away from her and she sat in utter relaxation as her song escaped passed her lips. She smiled softly in her seclusion. In the city, singing out sounded out of place and had to struggle to be heard over the noise but in the confines of nature, there was a harmony.
If all her focus wasn't on being one with the song, perhaps she would wonder why the mortals could be so senseless in their cities then. But that was not her thoughts. Her thoughts only existed to allow her to live from note to note as she sang for the moment.
Atlas moved swiftly and silently, following the voice back to its origin. The only sounds were the soft splashing of his steps, his even breathing, and the haunting voice, which grew ever louder in Atlas' ears as he moved. His haste was only checked by his desire not to lose the voice in a chaos of thunderous footfalls and crashing vegetation.
He found the source of the voice sitting beneath a tree some distance away from the swamplands Atlas typically inhabited. He paused before emerging from the shadows of the marsh. Her voice filled his mind, forcing out thoughts of all else. There was no room even for the turmoil that the voice typically inspired in Atlas' fractured psyche. He merely stood, listening, until the voice tapered off at the natural conclusion of its song.
Finally stepping from the Shadows, Atlas approached Polyhymnia.
"I found you."
Polyhymnia slowly opened her eyes and stared up at the looming figure before her. Instead of being frightened by being so suddenly approached, she merely smiled up to him. He had said he would find her this time thus there was no reason to be startled. "So you have, Natal. How long have you been standing there?"
"I don't know," Atlas said with inappropriate confidence. "And don't call me that. I am Atlas" Atlas frowned. Something in his mind had stirred in his mind at the sound of that name, threatening to overwhelm him. He forced the other down, maintaining his control. He would endure until he had his answers and had regained his proper dominance of his own mind.
"How do I know you, Polyhymnia?" Atlas crossed his arms, waiting for a response.
"I like the name 'Natal'. That is the one you spoke to me with clarity." And Polyhymnia enjoyed how it sounded better than Atlas. It rolled off the tongue, but she did not confess that as she drew up to her feet. A normal person would have stepped back to make distance but Polyhymnia was not a firm believer in personal space and she had a tree behind her. She moved closer letting only a hair's distance be between her and his crossed arms. Continuing to smile, she hummed the melody of the song that he had composed up in the cliff ridges with the metal ingots and the parking meter briefly before lightly touching the side of his head with the backs of her fingers, "You know how we met. Just think back to it."
Her repetition of the name and the insufferable tune she was humming only increased the dissonance in his mind. He grunted softly and began to raise a hand to his temple, only to force it back into it's previous position. He would not show weakness. He would not succumb to the pressure inside his mind. He would endure. He regained his composure and his grip on himself. For the moment, he was still in control.
"I will not," Atlas refused, sounding a bit more petulant than he would have liked. "Natal Maltose is a lie. A falsehood given life I know not how. He is my enemy. I will fight him until I vanquish him." Atlas briefly remembered a snippet of a dream that was more than a dream where he had done just that. He had thought that the end of Natal Maltose, but he had apparently been mistaken.
She continued to smile, letting the backs of her fingers graze softly along his hair as she considered his words and continued to hum. The humming was an automated response almost as she allowed her own mind to return to the night on the ridges. It took her a lot of effort to do so, to make sense of a dream that she had only become conscious of after the fact but it returned to her mind and a new question was upon her lips, "How can you vanquish him if you do not reclaim such memories? Memories where you spoke both the name 'Atlas' and 'Natal'?"
"Stop saying that name!" Atlas wanted to grab her hands, stifle her mouth, anything to curtail the almost careless ease with which she cut him to the core of his mind, but he could only grip his arms, trying to keep a hold of his sanity. Sweat beaded on his brow. He felt Natal battering on the walls of his mind; the pounding came in time with Polyhymnia's insufferable humming. "I, and only I, am Atlas, and I have unseated the usurpers to my body."
Her one hand fell from his hair and mirrored her other as she rested both along his shoulders. If his arms weren't crossed, she probably would have pressed closer but they was an obstacle. Living solely in the present of the moment, she had no fear or concern of his visible discomfort. Instead she only had questions, "Why must I cease to say 'Natal'? We cannot discuss how we met without it, how I came upon you... Natal... both perhaps watching the evening sky and preparing to serenade the night with instruments of metal."
Atlas only heard the accursed name. The rest of Polyhymnia's words were lost, trampled by the now constant pounding in Atlas' head. He could feel his control slipping. Rage suffused his thoughts, giving him the edge to fend off his mental assailant a short while longer. His resistance was taking its toll, however. His shoulders slumped and his hands dropped. He placed his hand on Polyhymnia's shoulder. His eyes blazed in his anger, but his hand had no strength, laying limply on her shoulder.
"You must stop," Atlas grunted out, "or I will stop you." Atlas' hand tightened briefly, but again fell limp, belying his threat.
Lost in the moment, Polyhymnia's mind didn't catch up with what her body was telling her. Her heartbeat quickened at the sight of his anger and her breath quickened, but no fear appeared in her words or in her expression. Her tone was perfectly level and calm as she stared directly into his eyes, "But you came to see him. If you did not want to hear my words, why have you come? I speak only what you asked me to speak."
Atlas' only response was an inarticulate growl. He did not know why he had come. Something had driven him to do so, forced him to turn from his course. His mind was too busy trying to maintain its integrity for him to make up his usual excuses. She was right. Something sparked in his mind, something that cut through his mental fatigue and managed to escape his lips.
"Closure."
The word lessened her smile, but she didn't frown. 'Closure' had simply been a bittersweet response. Polyhymnia nodded. "I remember saying we should not give up meeting together and to encourage each other..." She placed her hands over his and gave them a gentle squeeze, "And then you sought me out. Or something within you did. Thank you. I hoped you would. I wanted to meet you again... whichever name you choose, Natal or Atlas."
Polyhymnia's words and the almost imperceptible flash of pain across her features seemed only to aggravate Natal as he sought ingress into Atlas' mind. Atlas could feel control of his senses being stolen from him. His rage burned white hot at the invasion, and he redoubled his efforts to stifle the artificial usurper. The struggle caused Atlas' mind to fracture. Atlas refused to submit, heedless of the consequences. He had just regained his freedom. He would not have it stolen from him, even if the conflict destroyed his mind.
Atlas hand spasmed, then closed into a fist. He looked into Polyhymnia's eyes, his internal struggle clear in his own eyes.
"Wisdom," he whispered. His hand opened and slipped off Polyhymnia's shoulder, and Atlas crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
Polyhymnia's smile returned completely at the name 'Wisdom' but it was quickly washed away in a mask of concern as she watched him begin to crumple unconscious. She tried to wrap her arms around him to catch him... to guide him to the ground... to not just let him crash to the ground... Each desire became less and less helpful as she felt the extreme weight of his body against her slender frame before self-preserving instinct itself pushed her away from him and let him crash to the ground in a heap.
"[I am surprised that did not make an incredibly loud echo.]" She bent down and stroked the back of his neck with the tips of her fingers, already in deep thought. He was still breathing, that was good but... "[Now what am I supposed to do?]"
Summary: Atlas finds (read: seeks out) Polyhymnia while she's on a camping trip with Adam. Polyhymnia is alone and without support, but manages to bring Atlas to his knees with only her voice.