Very first story shown to anyone but my family. All comments welcome. You don't have to be nice. :)
Notes: This is the myth of Marsyas and Apollo. It is not very well know, I came across it in a book (Dorian Gray ftw) and felt like writing it. Marsyas is a Satyr who challenges Apollo to a musical contest. Guess who wins? It's another ancient Greek hubris - nemesis.
I have one other story. It makes even less sense. It's for Watchmen. If people like this I'll make that presentable.
Oh yeah:
Warnings: Slash, sort of. Everyone wants Apollo. Also, insanity. And torture. No death.
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Flute to my lips, I play and it is perfect. Steady breath, fingers moving quickly and flawlessly, each minute shift brings a new tone. I play my best song, the longest and most difficult. The notes flow, the tempo is slow, and I do not make mistakes.
I am the best, and I do not make mistakes.
I play, and he watches me. My fingers and my breath and my flute hold all my attention, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He is sitting there, his chin in one hand, elbow to his knee, simply watching me. He does not move or blink, and I wonder if inside he is falling apart.
Not even a god can match me. I am Marsyas and I am the best.
I play with pride and I am so meticulous.
My audience lends itself to playing well. The nine young women are beautiful and so silent; it was easy to forget that they were there, if you were looking at them, but if you tried to look away they whispered at the back of your mind until their voices filled your head, and if your brain sometimes burst and ran down your fingers you just played with all the more fervor and feeling.
But feeling leads to sloppiness, to mistakes. I wouldn't dare be here if I gave up to my emotions.
He's still watching me.
I forget about him.
No, I don't. I can't. I hope that my fingers move just as fast, my breath just as steady, because I am watching him. He is a god.
A god.
He looks like…
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…
He looks like birds, my mind is falling apart; his shoulders, his face is made of the curves of dove's breasts, he's still as a statue but he looks so ephemeral, he's going to fly away.
He is a deer, I am used to satyr's features and he is nothing like that, he is strong and beautiful and delicate without being fragile, he could be leaping just free of a hunter's arrow, wild.
His eyes must have snakes in them, to move like that, even when they are still. Even when they are watching, watching me. Goats who look into snake's eyes are beguiled, transfixed until the coils ripple closed, until there's no breath left.
I notice that I have been playing when I come to the end of the song.
The Muses—I am not sure whether to call them one or many, they all look so different, distinct, and yet they seem to be of one mind and body—are looking at me. I can't read their faces.
Now Apollo plays.
His hand is around his lyre, fingers curled around oiled wood. He draws it into his lap, fingers moving to the strings.
The sound. Beautiful music, I discover, does not make you think of home. This music was an alien world that felt like awe and ecstasy.
Too slow to know where you are; I can't make out the clouds but I think they're upside down tonight, I can't tell you what happens the trees are all wrong I don't know where I am scared. I'm terrified, shivers like moths down my face and arms, the music, notes running like wine down my neck, like honey over my nose and mouth and I can't breath but I can still see the Muses, sitting in a half-circle, but they are no help because they don't look part of reality anyway. But they are real, and I'm still here and so is he.
I think I meant to say 'so are they' but Apollo is moving, he lifts his face away from the harp and opens his mouth. He starts to sing.
"Not fair," I gasp, and then I don't know where I am anymore. Dimly I think I'm no longer in the hollow with the Muses, but Apollo is there, I am where he is. I can see everything, the whole universe, and for one second, one note I am somewhere where the edge of the world is white feathers and then his voice drops to a place of black water and still rivers that carry time backwards. Another second and I can't remember who I am, and all the world closes in on me that is nothing and devours me slowly. I am so far beyond terrified now that I'll never be the same again, he's erasing my mind, I almost forget about Apollo for his music. I can't do this much longer, tearing me apart drifting on this sea of tone and pitch and deep notes and high notes tearing my skin I'm a ghost I'm nothing, just a wisp on the wind and his breath is going to blow me away.
There is no winding down, there are fighting things and teeth to drag me back to reality, and the clouds are doing nauseating things to flip right-side up again, drifting through themselves and back between my mind and the world.
His voice stops and there is a terrifying moment when I am somewhere else without that guide, when I am where he is except that he is no longer there, and I am alone and myself.
Pain. I never realized it but this world is pain beyond anything else. Pain and he speaks and his voice is pleasure and I need to hear it again, he stops and the world hurts, I never knew how much pain I have always been in, without the sun-god's voice.
I never question how he can do this to me. He is a god.
I never question that he is the winner. Maybe if he had never sung to me I could still speak, but as it is I cannot remember that this was a contest. Even if I had known it never would have mattered. There are things more important that life and death, and the voice of the god of the lyre is one of them.
He strung me up by my wrists and produced a knife.
People came to watch, I think. I could vaguely see their faces, in the beginning, but now I just see his. I think I may be screaming, I may be begging, I know I'm repeating one word, please please please, maybe it's please, Apollo, please, please and I know they think I'm begging him to stop, or to just kill me now, they think I'm begging for mercy, for him to stop.
I'm not. I'm begging him, pleading not for my life but my soul.
I just want him to sing again.
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(In the myth, Apollo finally realizes he's being cruel and simply kills Marsyas. I have more chapters, although they may not be as faithful to the myth. I will work on those this weekend.)
(I would like reveiws, just say whatever you want to.)