starbeast (starbeast) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2010-06-12 23:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | atlas, natal maltose, polyhymnia, shiri eneas |
Who: Atlas/Natal Maltose and Polyhymnia/Shiri Eneas
What: Conversation.
Where: Shiri's backyard
When: Sometimes after Atlas' call to Freyra.
Warnings: None.
It was a beautiful summer day outside. Birds sang off in the distance, flowers and vegetables in their bloom and growth swayed in the breeze in the nearby garden. It was a hot day but the heat was manageable. The sun shone down brightly upon the earth but not oppressively so.
But the beauty of the day was completely lost to the muse on her back porch. At a distance, it might have appeared that she was simply sitting on a rocking chair, quietly enjoying the view, but that was false. In truth, she was not there. Only her body was. She stared out over the yard blankly, her pink eyes glazed over and vacant. Her body was totally limp; it gave no struggle to the whims of the wind when it rocked the chair. She didn’t even stir.
The only movement her body took upon itself was the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. That soft breathing betrayed her life, but she didn’t notice or care. It was not her intention to appear in any form. At the pinnacle of mediation, she had no intentions at all. She was beyond the concept of intention. Temporarily, she was beyond all things. Nothing existed. Not her body, her mind, the slightest thought, even the concept of self was gone from her. Temporarily, she had escaped it all.
Atlas vaulted easily over the high fence at the end of Polyhymnia's yard. He landed with a moderate thud in the soft grass. Atlas realized that somewhere between the swamp and Polyhymnia's house he had lost his shoes. Again. He doubted it would improve Freyra's opinion of him. He could only imagine what she would say when he arrived at Ridgekeep shoeless. Atlas did not mourn their passing, though. The grass felt good on his feet.
He spent a moment standing there enjoying the connection to nature before spotting Polyhymnia sitting in a rocking chair, quietly enjoying the view. Atlas raised his arm in greeting. He waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. Atlas frowned. Was it possible that Polyhymnia had missed his subtle entrance and greeting? He moved toward her, closing the distance between them with rapid, ground eating strides. When he reached her side, he found her laying limp and unresponsive. Her glassy eyes stared through him, focused on nothing.
Atlas resisted the immediate urge to lift Polyhymnia, chair and all, and go running through the streets looking for help. He could see the gentle rise and fall of her breast that signaled that she was still breathing. He recognized her current state. In fact, he had spent a significant portion of his life in just such a state. Not wanting to disturb the meditating muse, Atlas moved back into the yard. There he lied down on his back, enjoying the feel of the grass below and the sun above. He placed his hands behind his head, allowing him to lounge without taking his eyes off of Polyhymnia's barely moving form.
Eventually the muse began to stir. She couldn’t remain non-existent forever. The concept of self returned to her first, then thought, then physical awareness. When visual sensory functions returned to her, she blinked her eyes and became aware of the last sensation to return to her: the ability to feel pain and irritation.
People had eyelids and blinked for a reason. To not do so and then expose the eye to heat and wind was the perfect recipe to dry them out. Her vision was blurred, the very light of the sun compelled her to shy away from it and her eyes burned… She clenched her eyes shut, covering her face with her pale hands as she crumbled over her knees in the rocking chair as a whine escaped her, pitched low in the minor key. It dawned on her then in her discomforted distress that all those symptoms were similar to what actual Albinos often experienced and what she had often cited to get out of classes simply because she didn’t want to go to them. That realization only made her whine louder, “How do they live like this? I would have torn out my eyes by now. I am not Hindu, Karma should leave me be.”
Atlas watched patiently as Polyhymnia returned to herself, but hearing her pained whine and seeing her crumple from her chair spurred him to immediate action. Choosing the kip up from the repertoire of stand-from-prone movements taught to him at Ridgekeep, Atlas was on his feet and at Polyhymnia's side in an instant.
"Is something the matter, Wisdom?" Atlas knelt at Polyhymnia's side, concern plain in his voice and on his face. "Can I do anything to help?" He placed a comforting hand on her back. He looked her over, looking for an obvious wound or other cause of trauma. Picking her up and running down the street seemed much more reasonable at the moment.
If there was a place that sold eye drops down the street, it would probably be a good course of action. Polyhymnia did not think of it. But even with her eyes closed, clenched shut as tightly as she could, she could hear his concern. It compelled her to respond immediately. "My eyes betrayed me, Natal. They are in sheer revolt against me." Like a child, she rubbed her shut eyes and that suddenly she realized something important, "Natal? What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," He replied. Mirth crept into his voice as he continued, "It is a shame you can't see me." Atlas tilted his head at various angles, trying to see past Polyhymnia's hands to see just how her eyes were betraying her. He was experienced with betrayals and revolts, but not of this sort.
However, he was experienced with meditation. He thought back to those days. How the weight of his burden eased as he escaped the constraints of his body. How his turbulent thoughts and emotions bled away. How the constant, howling wind became distant and it's stinging bite irrelevant. Atlas wanted to chuckle, but refrained. He would not make light of Polyhymnia's pain. Few could endure hardships as well as he.
He looked around the yard, hoping to find something he could use to alleviate Polyhymnia's suffering. He spotted the red, sickle-like bodies of peppers bobbing gently in the wind in her garden. Perfect.
"I'll be right back," he assured, stepping away from Polyhymnia's side to collect one of the ripe specimens from the vine. Returning to her, Atlas crushed the pepper in his hand and held it out to her. "Here, keep your eyes closed and breathe this in. It may sting a little, but it should moisten your eyes enough for you to open them. It's something my daughters told me about. They said it helped them after they visited me upon my windy mountaintop prison." Atlas' own eyes watered as he breathed in the pungent aroma of the crushed pepper.
She pouted with childish reluctance but just the same she surrendered to the suggestion and inhaled the pungent peppers. And it certainly did sting. Part of her was ready for that... braced even but that preparation did nothing to prevent from whining again and leaning back again in the rocking chair.
Her tears were immediate.
Which made relief quick in following.
Slowly, Polyhymnia opened her pink eyes, blinking them rapidly amidst her tears. "Thank you... I do rather them tearing then burning. You wanted to see me?"
Atlas smiled, both relieved that his plan had worked and glad that Polyhymnia was feeling better. He pulled his hand away from her face, placing it behind his back. He hoped it would keep the pepper juice in his fist from reaching her now that she no longer needed it.
"Yes," Atlas said simply. "I have to return to the Aesir and their kith for a time, and I did not want to leave without seeing you." He ran the back of his non-peppered hand down her arm, but did not let it linger. "Also, I've been given a phone. I wanted to give you the thing's number so that you can reach me if you need me." Atlas spent a lot of time away from Polyhymnia, but he hoped the device allow them to remain connected even when they were apart.
“The Aesir?” Why did everyone she knew keep going up to visit the Northmen’s gods? Polyhymnia decided then that the Aesir must have awesome pinball machines or something because the attraction could not be crime-ridden DC or depth of conversation; she was just too Europeanly biased to believe depth of conversation existed within the halls of the Viking gods and she also didn’t care that she knew that she was being blatantly prejudice either But, as she took another fraction of a second to consider this, her vision clearing, she giggled lightly. He said 'return'. Maybe that was where he disappeared to when they had both left the mountains... Mysteries had new directions to consider. “I am glad you came and told me. I wondered if you would disappear again into the mists only to emerge when I least expected.” Though in a way, even now was one of those times. She hadn't expected to see anyone in her yard when she returned to herself. “Wait here.”
She stood then and went into her house to retrieve a wet rag only to return as quickly as she left. As she eased around him to return to her rocking chair, her fingers grazed along the arm around his back until she reached his wrist and then she simply took hold and brought it with her as she sat. She didn’t comment about washing his hand from the pepper remains with the wet rag, she had other things to talk about. “I have a phone, too. I think they may be required by the world today but they are a good requirement.” She giggled again and leaned forward to whisper, “Did a family who barely spoke English hand you one with the instructions ‘Here, here. Take, take.’?”
Atlas' eyebrow quirked. He was slightly stunned by Polyhymnia's instant transition from total inaction to total action. He found her merry capering to be quite amusing. He joined her in her mirth, chuckling lightly.
"No, a strange man found me in the swamp and handed it to me under orders from Freyra," Atlas said distractedly. He didn't have time to wonder at the oddity of his and Polyhymnia's life when she was doting on him so earnestly. Her presence was still somewhat intoxicating to Atlas, though no longer to a mind numbing degree. He spread his fingers wide, allowing Polyhymnia greater access and focused more on what he wanted to say.
"I don't much like the tiny thing," Atlas said, referring to his phone, "but if I am to be saddled with one, I will make use of it." He suddenly realized that he had never explained his long absence to Polyhymnia. With all of Zeus' family that he had encountered, he had assumed it wasn't a secret. "And, yes, the Aesir. They took me in when I grew tired of living like an animal in the streets. I stayed with them until the memorial for fallen Zeus. They taught me..." Atlas trailed off, a faraway look briefly on his face before shaking it off. "Many things. But it seems they think they have a greater claim on me than I would agree to. I am returning to have an argument with Freyra about just how beholden to them I am. But, I don't want to be outside the reach of your voice or to leave you worrying what has befallen me."
Such consideration and care. Polyhymnia continued to smile, but for a moment her light-hearted smile gained a level of deeper sincerity. She lifted her other hand and rested it upon his cheek, brushing her thumb along his skin before it, too, rested with the rest of her fingers. "Thank you, Natal."
And then the next moment came and her whimsical side took over once more, Her hand remained along his cheek, but the other pulled away the wet rag from his hand and let it fall to ground, discarded. Something else had caught her eye... more and more did as the sunshine stopped being an irritant. "Did the strange man take your shoes when he gave you the phone? Why are you discalced?"
Atlas smiled back, enjoying the feeling of Polyhymnia's skin on his own. He kept his hands to himself, however, not wanting to again cross the line that she had placed between them.
"'Discalced'?" he asked, catching the end of her question. "If that means shoeless, I lost my shoes in the swamp. I'm thinking of going around 'discalced' permanently. I lose them so often and need them so rarely." Atlas had lived eons without shoes. He only wore them now to fit in.
"It does mean 'barefoot'," She slipped her own feet out of her shoes and looked down as she wiggled her toes, "Miami steals shoes. Little shoe gremlins come out from under rocks and from the foam of the sea and snatch them away. That is why I have to keep buying shoes... my feet just get so dirty without them."
As she tucked her feet back into her shoes, she brought her attention once more solely to Atlas, brushing her fingers against his hair before moving the hand to be open before him, "Let me have your phone. I will put my number in it."
Atlas obediently handed over his phone, letting his fingers brush against hers briefly in doing so. He then looked at his own feet. They were caked with several different types of filth. Perhaps he would take better care of his next pair of shoes.
"I have the number for my phone, as well." Atlas rattled off the sequence of numbers just as Freyra had told it to him. "Gremlins?" Atlas said idly. "I'll see if my little dragons and I can end their thieving ways and recover our lost shoes." Atlas enjoyed the idea of warring with a smaller race of thieves. It would be just like the old days.
Polyhymnia really had been typing her name and phone number into his phone. She was even politely ignoring how his phone didn't have a qwerty keyboard, thankful none of the letters of her mortal name shared the same number with each other but then complete distraction set in and took hold of her. Her eyes widened in delight, "You have dragons?"
"Yes," Atlas said with a wide grin of his own, sharing Polyhymnia's delight. "I found them by the score in the local swamp. I ate a few, but now I have found a much better use for them. I use them to guard my newly planted golden apple tree." The tree was Atlas' most dearly held secret, but he trusted Polyhymnia with it.
Polyhymnia giggled again, overcome with delight. Had she been typing on a phone? She couldn't remember. Such things were unimportant. More important was her clapping, "I have not seen a natural dragon since Rome. I thought all them were gone." Wait. What else did he just say? Her mind raced to process. "Golden apples? You have golden apples?"
"Not yet," Atlas said with a twinge of regret. "I have merely planted a seed. They were one of my few joys as I labored between earth and sky, and I will have them again if I can." Atlas' eyes met Polyhymnia's. "I will share them with you when time, and the apples, are right."
"That is a lot to share with me, Natal. I am undeserving," she murmured in reply, her hands stilled on her lap. Now was not the right moment to clap. Maybe in the next, but not quite right now. She smiled softly, "I have no grand hidden treasures to share in return."
"That you would share them with me if you did is enough," Atlas responded with his own smile. "But you must promise to keep it secret that I have planted them. I cannot afford to lose the seed that I was given." Atlas held her gaze, waiting for her response.
"It would only be fair..." But Polyhymnia nodded, leaning in once more to whisper, "I like secrets. They are something to keep, a symbol of trust in their own right. I will keep your secret." She even crossed her heart as she spoke.
"Thank you," Atlas said, capturing her crossing hand and kissing it briefly. Letting go of her hand, Atlas continued, "If you like secrets, I have more to tell. Though, they may only be secrets because no one knows them other than myself." Atlas had much to tell Polyhymnia about where he had been between their infrequent meetings.
"Ooh, secrets!" Polyhymnia leapt to her feet and then plopped herself down on the porch beside him, letting her skirt billow around her, in a sudden bolt of energy and movement. Her giggling returned to her as did her sing-song speech, "Tell me all your secrets. I like secrets and stories. Then you can go visit the Northmen's gods. But when you come back, I hope you have new secrets to tell.... at least new stories."
"I'm certain I'll come back with the story of at least one epic conflict," Atlas said. His mind went to his upcoming discussion with Freyra, and wondered if it would end with him dodging hexes. Atlas turned slightly to better face Polyhymnia.
"My secrets do not start at the beginning," he began, speaking slowly and with great effort. "Much of our family knows the story of the beginning. No, my secrets start after most consider my story to have ended, because it was only after I had met Medusa's gaze that I learned the secrets of the stars and the seas. Secrets I will now share with you."
Summary: Atlas comes to see Polyhymnia to inform her that he has to leave for a while. Polyhymnia is busy meditating, but once she returns to herself (and after a little first aid from Atlas), they are able to share feelings and secrets.