When he reaches the surface, he can barely move. He sits there a long time, in the withering darkness. The earth is still around him.
The train doesn't come for a long time. Hades calls it a mark of respect.
The winter lasts a long time. An eternity, it seems. And the grass grows long around him, and the sprouts shoot between his ankles, and the ivy climbs up his arms as he stays there, unmoving –
Rumour says grief turned him to stone.
Do the gods take pity? Do the gods even care?
Hermes finds him upon the ground.
"Get up," he says, to a boy more stone than man.
The boy doesn't reply.
"Get up," he says again. "You still have a voice."
For the first time in forever, there is a movement. To one side, another. A shake of the head.
"Hey," he says. He crouches down. He's spent some time among men, the trickster god; he knows how they work. "Don't worry. It's almost spring."
A lady steps off a train. The daisies sprout up beneath her feet.
"Where the fuck is he," she asks the messenger god.
With some trepidation, Hermes motions towards the stick-thin woods.
As soon as she has a drink in her hand and her suitcase in another's she is sprinting through the woods, blossom on the breeze behind her, new light filtering through new leaves as her fingers brush the bark. The forest resounds with his name.
By the time she reaches the grove where he lay, he's already on his feet.
"My Lady," he murmurs, shaking off the tendrils.
She smiles, and points with a miraculously-full glass.
"Get to work," she says to her poet.
He tries to write a song. How else can she be immortal?
A thin voice answers: She's already dead.
He tries to banish the thoughts like so many summer clouds. But they stay thick and fast, and the words can't pass through. His words are light, light and airy – but while sunshine and breezes worked to illuminate the world below, they weren't enough to save her. Up here, weightlessness is not enough.
Cross-legged, he slumps over his lyre, exhausted. From a distance, the gods watch.
"He's mourning," says Hermes. "Let him mourn."
Persephone takes a drag of her cigarette, blows out fumes like an iridescent dragon. "He's an artist," she says. "Sorrow makes singing."
"He's a man. Do you forget that you're immortal?"
She looks at the man who dared to defy the gods themselves, to sing to a wall and beg to let him in, to sing to a king and beg to let her go. She watches him sitting in the copse where she found him, now raising his head to the heavens, eyes closed, lips whispering.
"He's got a little faith," Persephone murmurs.
It's almost imperceptible, as a bud unfolding. One trickle, then another, from beneath closed lids. Like snow melting. The first sign of spring.
Then from a trembling mouth, a cry bursts out – not a soft and gentle hymn, a tribute to the gods – a weeping wail, a call of despair. He clutches his lyre and he screams her name – Eurydice, Eurydice, his lost love, his heart. His hair mixes with grass, his hands with the dirt, drawing handfuls of blades in his palms in his sorrow.
"Then we better hope they answer him," the trickster-god mutters. But the goddess is already gone, a trail of blossoms where she stood, a footprint of daisies across the barren field.
"Hey, lover-boy. You want her to be remembered?"
Not even for his Lady will Orpheus answer. He shakes his head. "It's gone," he says.
She shields her eyes from the summer glare. "Nothing's gone," she starts. "You still have your art –"
But he stares up, accusing, challenging the goddess. His eyes pierce her heart, and a part of her shudders. "It's gone," he speaks, slowly, clearly. "And she's gone, too. Don't you see? Can't you get it? Can't one of you have pity –"
"You're still an artist, kid. You've got your voice."
"I lost my muse." His head falls to his hands and he speaks: slowly, carefully, deliberately. And the goddess listens. "She was there, she was behind me, and I believed her, then I didn't, and I turned around, and she was gone, and now she's gone forever. I can't bring her back. I can't recall her."
And she finally understands what Hermes meant, the god who walks among mortals – sorrow does things to them. To the mortals, at least.
Even the artists.
She wavers a moment, there before sorrow. Then slowly, gently, she kneels down beside him, there in the dust.
"I'm sorry, Orpheus. I really am."
Slowly, gently, he lifts his head. His cheeks are wet, his eyes are bright. He blinks, slowly, in the presence of majesty.
She extends a hand. "Take your time. Let it pass. The words will come."
Or so they say.
The leaves glow ember as he sings his song. The last note trails on forever.
"What do you think?" He asks the queen, the Queen of the Underworld.
At their feet, the rocks glisten. Drop falls upon drop upon drop. She shields her eyes from the boy before her.
"It's fine," she whispers. "It's good."
"It's good?" He asks. "Will she hear it?"
A laugh rings high and loud round the mouth of a tunnel.
"I'll make sure she hears it, alright."
The Queen approaches Hades. "Orpheus," she says.
"Who?"
"Orpheus. The boy. He's penned a new song."
A snarl on his mouth. "I don't want to hear it."
The Queen smiles, a sliver of spring. "You'll hear it, willing or no."
The King sighs, a lament of an icy winter.
"It's not about you this time," she says. "Don't fear for your reputation."
"Who's it for?"
"For her."
From the gleam of the surface, eyes closed, voice pure, he sings surrounded by crackling snow. He sings his song and thinks of her.
She hears his song, from the depths of Hades. She hears his song and thinks of him.
She hears his song and thinks of flowers.