Who: Atlas/Natal Maltose, Polyhymnia/Shiri Eneas, & Adam What: Awakenings and holy time Where: Adam & Shiri's apartment When: Tuesday May 4th. Warnings: None
Atlas' eyes slowly opened. He was on an unfamiliar mattress on an unfamiliar floor in an unfamiliar room looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. However, none of that concerned Atlas at the moment. He sat up at the edge of the mattress, holding his hands in front of his shocked face.
"Wow," Atlas said quietly. "Unreal. My [gosh]," Atlas swore mildly in his native tongue.
"This is amazing!" Atlas surged to his feet, the volume of his voice rising. "I feel incredible! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I can win! I feel great! I! Can! Do! This!" Atlas was ebullient. A wordless scream of pure pleasure punctuated his exclamations. As the primal scream faded from hearing, a smirk appeared on Atlas' face.
"Yes! I'm home!" Atlas thrust his arms to the sky, hands outstretched. "I'm alive! This is all a miracle! I'm awake! I'm wide awake!" Atlas stood there, his arms still skyward, his head thrown back, laughing madly as he became intoxicated on life.
No matter how deeply Adam had been in concentration of worship of his goddess, the screaming within his own house was far too loud to ignore. Mid-phrase and the mortal paused, turning in the direction of the sound, a glazed look of confusion crossing his face. He'd been focused on the task at hand, of properly honoring Polyhymnia as he had been doing on Tuesday nights for a sizable amount of time now. Blinking, he slowly began to realize what was happening, and turned to glance to his goddess. Their guest had woken...
And their guest had interrupted them. Polyhymnia had shifted from enrapture to divine anger in a single moment. Noise interrupting rituals? Shouting that distracts her high priest? Her eyes flashed blue in her holy fury, but she reached out and brushed Adam's cheek with the total tenderness, "[Wait here, my own beloved one. Do not even move.]" She kissed his crown gently and then turned from him, opening the door to the hallway that separated their bedroom/her shrine and the guest room.
Her movements had been totally calm, her words completely gentle, only the outrage burning in her eyes gave her away as she left him and once in the hallway, she gave away any of that facade. She threw open the door to the guest room, "[You! I waited patiently for two days for you to wake up. Two. Now you get to wait for me.]"
Atlas' laughter faded, but that was the only indication that he had heard her. He remained as he was, arms outstretched, head thrown back. After a long, silent moment, Atlas slowly lowered his arms and turned to face Polyhymnia. He met the fury in her eyes with a calm smile. He had endured the crushing depths of the ocean, the fiercest storms of the sky, and even the wrath of multiple gods. He saw no reason to get agitated in the face of this current tumult.
"[I will wait as long as you say, little cousin]," Atlas replied calmly. Though outwardly calm, every fiber of his being hummed with vitality. He lifted the mattress easily off the floor, placing it upon its box spring. With more of the floor space clear, Atlas fell to his hands, doing rapid push-ups.
"[Good.]" Just good. Polyhymnia turned from him and closed the door behind short of slamming it. He could do all the push ups he wanted as long as he did them quietly. He could do push ups until he became the god of push ups as long as he didn't disturb her holy evening anymore.
But as the door closed, her calm began to return to her. She didn't question any of her previous actions, she simply returned to her bedroom/shrine and let out a deep exhale. All her irritation was gone with the breath. Her irritation was part of the profane world and that had no business here. Not now.
She placed her hands upon her priest's shoulders. "[It is handled. Let it not concern you any longer. We will continue as we always do.]"
Adam glanced up to her for a moment, curious in part to what had happened, but also prepared to let it be. Their guest had woken up, but things must not have been much of an issue if she was already returning. If the door was closed... Slowly he let out a breath and relaxed once more. He'd worry about their guest later. For now, he had his priest duties to return to. Turning, he resumed where he had left off, and continued with the prayers.
And the evening worship continued as it usually did. The Titan guest was not even a thought or a consideration for the muse until the rituals and prayers were long finished and she was holding her priest in their bed. As she pulled the sheet over them and rested her own head on the pillow that the thought of the Titan returned to her. Too energized from worship to sleep and with no other distractions to keep her, she kissed Adam in his slumber and then slid out of bed.
The coolness of the floor beneath her bare feet made her giggle lightly as she pulled back on Grecian styled dress that she had been wearing during the worship. Everything felt too intense to be real and yet too clear to be a dream...
In that mindset and remembering the Titan was in the house finally, she moved swifter and opened the door to the guest room again. "We should try this again I believe."
Atlas leaped to his feat. He had been cycling through every type of push up he knew, but not even a single bead of sweat dampened his clothing. He still felt as if electricity was dancing across his skin. He laughed a laugh that was almost a scoff. Electricity dancing across his skin had not felt so good when he had been locked in mortal combat with Zeus, but that was in the past. Atlas no longer felt any malice towards his old foe. He no longer lived in the past.
"Try?" Atlas asked quizzically. Were they not doing "this", whatever "this" was? Atlas put the question aside. It was meaningless esoterica.
"Yes, let's," he answered, turning to face Polyhymnia.
The muse moved closer, bridging the gap between them with grace unhindered from concepts like reason or restraint and yet with the seeming purpose of flower petals caught up in the breeze. Her body moved closer to him seemingly by instinct alone, stopping but a breath away from him. All her consciousness was focused in her thoughts as she smiled and stared up at him, "Complete sentences and happy... A novel combination for our meetings, Natal."
Natal shrugged, unperturbed by her closeness.
"I am a new-made man, Wisdom," He replied simply. "I am..." He trailed off, thinking on how to define just what, exactly, he was. "...Whole."
Reaching down, Atlas took Polyhymnia's small hand in his much larger one. He ran his thumb over her knuckles, enjoying merely being in contact with another being. He remembered the night they first met. The memories and emotions were vivid in his mind, and he allowed them to fill his senses.
Polyhymnia idly wondered as he ran his thumb along her skin if he could feel the crackled of the churning power she could beneath her skin, running through her nerves and racing through her veins. Probably not. She was pretty sure it was all mental and she gave it no further thought, even an idle one.
Instead, she reached out and placed her other hand along his cheek. It wasn't their first meeting that filled her senses now but their third, "So you forewent the struggle and allowed unity and not violent separation?"
A chuckle rumbled deep in Atlas' chest. His own churning power was an echo of Polyhymnia's own, but it was not the sensations within him that moved him to mirth. It was the question posed to him. He took a moment to enjoy the feeling of her hand on his cheek before replying.
"There was much violence, [cousin]," he answered jovially. "In separation or in unity, violence is a constant. It exists at the core of my being." Atlas took his free hand and placed it over his heart. "But I have embraced it, made it part of myself, and emerged as something less and yet more than I was before." Each facet of Atlas' personality had lost something, but they had gained immeasurably more as a whole.
"You remind me of what the moderns claim the stars are now. Cores of churning destruction and yet the heat and the light that it gives off sustains life." The muse's smile brightened further at such a thought. Finally, she had found some sort of redemption for modern astronomical thought even if it was metaphoric. Her words continued in her natural melody, using the rhythm of his heart that she could pulsing through his grip as the beat, "Natal is polished, Atlas is channeled... What is your name now? I hope it remains Natal."
Atlas' laughter grew at the aptness of her metaphor.
"The stars and I are close friends," he said as his laughter passed. "It would not surprise me to learn that I have become like them after all this time." He still knew them all by name. He wondered if they would still answer him back. His cousin's question pushed aside his musings for the moment. There would be time for them another day.
"It is my understanding that those like us keep two names in this new age." It was an understanding that had come to Atlas at a great cost, but one he appreciated nonetheless. He continued, "So, I think I will keep both. I am Atlas Telamon and Natal Maltose. You may use whichever pleases you." Atlas had great affection for both names, favoring neither one nor the other.
"Some even more than that..." She spoke the words distracted. In her mind's eye she saw both names 'Atlas Telamon' and 'Natal Maltose' written out in Latin letters. Every color and object rang out in her ears with some sort of note or chord and in her heightened power, even imagined letters called out to her in simple wordless song... And the sound brought her full attention back to him. She lifted up to her tiptoes to be eye-to-eye with him.
The same chord.
"Your names are anagrams."
"They are?" said Atlas, surprised. He had never thought about how his names might relate. They simply were. "Perhaps the one that gave me the name Natal Maltose could not create anything new, only work with what was at hand."
He could now fully remember the luminous being that had given birth to Natal Maltose. Polyhymnia had reminded him so much of that being when he first met her, and even now could see shades of it within her. The gentleness of her hand upon his cheek. Her strange words that somehow made perfect sense. On the surface, it was a similarity that should have angered or frightened Atlas, but Atlas could see beneath that deceptive surface. In a very real way, he owed all that he now had to that being.
One who could not create anything new? Curious. How could someone not be able to create? It seemed fundamentally foreign to the muse in the millisecond before the evening of their first meeting flashed back to her again and yet it didn't flash. It seemed existed along with all her memories contemporaneously but it called for her...
She had spoken and he had whipped around enraged, crying out to the sky and yet he shielded himself from her. Even when he had advanced toward her, he was wary... Her eyes widened with understanding. At least a theory.
And one that should have concerned her but...
He didn't seem concerned.
"That one may have blessed and cursed you, depending on who is judging your lot. I am no judge." She giggled then and turned her hand within his, grabbing his wrist in the process and began to walk backwards, leading him to the bed, Each time she spoke to him he was new and different. "No matter. Come sit with me."
Atlas allowed himself to be lead. A very vocal part of his mind was very interested in the direction Polyhymnia was headed. Atlas, however, did not let his lust consume him. He would not disrupt the harmony of the evening for something so overtly immediate and physical.
"Maybe not a judge," Atlas said as he followed behind Polyhymnia, "but you are important to me, and I welcome your insight." Atlas' new form had its limitations, but he found he enjoyed them. Speaking to another was a pleasure long denied him.
Important? The word made the muse blush slightly like a complimented child as she sat the edge of the bed and tugged him to sit beside her. Now it was her turn to run her pale fingers along his knuckles, watching intently at the contrast of shades, "You do? Well..." she giggled again and shifted, bringing her legs beneath her to be knelt so she could whisper in his ear, "I can tell you a secret about what I think... But shhh, shhh, such is how blessings and curses are."
Atlas leaned in to listen to her words. He was intensely interested in what she had to say, but found it hard to concentrate. Her breath at his ear, the feel of her hand, her slim figure pressed against him, her cool skin that seemed to burn wherever it touched. Her every action, her very being, inflamed his senses. He felt he could lose himself in the sensation.
"I think an Angel gave you the name Natal. Auspicious, annunciations are rare and more auspicious... and this is where the blessing and the curse occurs..." Polyhymnia paused and shifted quickly, releasing his hand and scooting behind him, brushing along his back before claiming his other hand and whispering in his other ear, "The Most High creates with names."
"An Angel? The Most High?" Atlas murmured, only half listening. His focus was solely on the sensations of Polyhymnia's closeness and her brushes against him.
Her words were not wholly lost on him, however. They stirred an understanding in him. An understanding that floated in his mind, separated from the rest of his knowledge as if it existed in a bubble. He looked to Poly to burst that bubble without, of course, sacrificing the pleasant position he found himself in.
"Tell me of them," he requested simply, hoping her explanation would keep her by his side.
Closer even, the more forbidden her words, the closer she moved to him. She released his hand once more to drape both her arms around him, letting both hands rest atop his far shoulder as she continued to whisper in her sing-song, "Them? The Angels? The Most High? His Creations? All plurals, Natal. You must be more precise and then I can begin my tales."
Encircled in Polyhymnia's arms, Atlas was spurred to greater boldness. His desire was growing, and any space between them was too much. He wrapped his arm around Polyhymnia's delicate waist and, with utmost gentleness, lifted her onto his lap. His arm lingered about her waist, and he rested his free arm on her shins.
"Tell me of the Most High and the Angels," He whispered. "Their names ring in my head as clearly as a bell, but I know not why." He gazed deeply into her eyes, watching for clues to her shifting emotions.
Her high priest’s words from his worship still danced along her skin like a refreshing rain on a warm, summer’s day; his soul still felt so close to her own and his desires and hopes still so clear to her being. It was this that made the muse move with immediacy, disquiet had entered her heart from how she must have been misleading. In her enthusiasm and her dispensing with any concept of the future in favor of being perfectly in the present, she realized she must have been.
No matter. Such was easily corrected.
It was not his physical attention that drove her to do so nor was it where she found herself but it was the possibly mistaken interpretation that silent acceptance could produce. Two mistaken interpretations and neither were acceptable to her – she did not wish to harm or mislead either man that was under this roof with her tonight.
So, she shifted, never breaking her gaze with him as she stood before him, allowing his arm to remain somewhat around her waist and her hands now rested upon either of his shoulders. The muse was known to speak without words – with gazes, gestures, expressions – but with her divinity so heightened in these moments combined those so perfectly that it was difficult to separate them. Instead, her voiceless speech was simply comprehensible without needing to understand how or why: I apologize. I did not mean to mislead. Our physicality would simply lead to disharmony.
But as she corrected him voicelessly, it didn’t stop her from simultaneously instructing him vocally in her hushed musical tone, “Do you not know that to the Most High belongs dominion of the heavens and the earth? He decrees a matter, He says to it 'Be' and it is? I cannot deny that He has created whole nations by bestowing a name on a mortal man and brought down other nations by speaking another. And the Angels descend therein by permission of their Lord for every matter. He commands them to strengthen those who have believed and to those He strikes terror, to strike them on the necks and every fingertip. But…”
The minor gap was bridged once more, she was never one to instruct or reveal anything at any sort of a distance. Her legs brushed against his as she stood and she leaned in again to whisper once more into his ears. These words were about him and they should belong to him alone so she spoke in the quietest of voices, “He creates by a word and calls His creations by name. If He did create you… part of you, any of you then perhaps He considers you a creation of His. Depending on who is in judgment of such a thing, it could be a blessing for you for it is written that He has compassion on those He created. He loves everything that exists and does not despise anything He has made. So, did He create you from dust, then bring you out as a child, then that you reach your maturity?”
At Polyhymnia's unspoken rebuff, Atlas shrugged. He did not share her nonverbal eloquence, but his eyes clarified what his shoulders left ambiguous. Where you have lead, I have followed. Where you will lead, I will follow. There was no anger in his eyes, but perhaps a flicker of disappointment, quickly faded.
"I was aware of all that you have said," Atlas said aloud, "but I needed you to draw out its full meaning." Atlas remained still, allowing Polyhymnia to give of herself as she willed. Their connection was still a vivid spark in his mind. He accepted them now without expectation.
"And, through His agents, He has created Natal Maltose," Atlas allowed thoughtfully. "From the dust of my mind and body did he shape Natal, who was very much a child. Now, Natal has reached his maturity within me. I have accepted His gift, given in what was, perhaps, an act of compassion."
"Then you are fortunate if you wish to see your existence as such. When He presided in the great assembly and he gave judgment among the gods, He decreed that we shall die like mere men and fall like every other ruler." She leaned back, simply standing before him now. Unconsciously, a minor sadness entered her melody, some of the notes took a minor key as she continued to speak in the same pleasant sing-song, "If you choose, you can adore and worship Him or you can turn your back. You have free will as His creation."
Atlas considered her words. He wasn't so sure the choice was as black and white as she had portrayed it, and he wasn't so sure his will was as free, either.
"The Most High has made his expectations known," he replied. "I will give unto him what is his, and I will keep for myself what is mine." Atlas knew that there was more in the universe than the Most High, and that even those who are most high can tumble to the ground. For now, however, Atlas had no regrets about cleaving to the agreement passed down to him from above.
His will was freer than hers, that she at least was certain of, but at his words any trace of that minor key that had settled on some of her words disappeared. Polyhymnia broke out into a big grin once more. She moved her hands from him but only so she could clap softly in sheer amusement as she giggled, "If He ever questions you on it, tell whatever Angel He sends that. It should halt them in their winged tracks."
"I will be sure to do so," Atlas said with a nod. He was glad his response had inspired such joy in Polyhymnia. However, each time contact was broken between himself and Polyhymnia, distraction crept in. The stars were calling to him, and he had business left unfinished.
"Thank you, Wisdom," He said, standing, "for your care and your kindness."
Polyhymnia lifted her gaze as he stood not willing to break eye contact, "That sounds like you politely saying 'Goodbye', Natal. Are you saying 'goodbye'?"
"If you want me to stay, I will stay," Atlas said earnestly, brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheek, "But I do not want to impose on you and your... friend after you've been so good to me. I do not want to bring too much unwanted disharmony to your life." He did. He did very much, but not at Polyhymnia's expense.
Polyhymnia mirrored him in the action, reaching out to brush her fingers across his cheek in reply. "I will not keep you if you must go, if your new life is making such a demand of you but at least stay and eat. I made you something." And there was a spurt of childish selfishness in her that while she wouldn't keep him completely, she wanted that much.
The mention of food brought Atlas' attention wholly back to Polyhymnia.
"My life is not yet so demanding that I can't stay and enjoy a meal made by your hand," He said eagerly. He left unsaid that it was not the demands of his own life that compelled him to leave, but the demands of hers.
Polyhymnia only heard 'yes' and his eagerness and teeming with power an energy, the present once again consumed the muse completely and her simple excitement bubbled over into laughter as she took his hand. "Well, then come, while it is still dark." Why was that important? She didn't know herself nor did she ponder it. She made ready to dash and simply hoped he would oblige her because she knew she couldn't pull him.
"Where you will lead, I will follow," he said, giving voice to what was previously unvoiced. What had once been said as the distance between them grew was now said as that distance shortened. He let Polyhymnia's presence wash over him once more and followed her happily out of the room.
Summary: Atlas wakes up after yet another coma in Polyhymnia and Adam's apartment. He's much changed yet retains his impeccable timing, interrupting Polyhymnia's weekly religious passion. After being chastised, he and Polyhymnia talk, flirt, stop flirting, talk, and eat in roughly that order.