Orpheus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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deercountry2022-02-05 12:12 pm
themuseabandonsyou) wrote in deercountry2022-02-05 12:12 pm
Entry tags:
[004] Let me be your everlasting light
Who: Orpheus (themuseabandonsyou)
What: February Catch-all
When: Throughout February
Where: Earworm, Willful Machine, Cellar Door
Warnings: Potential mild sexual/suggestive content, mild body horror (partial beasthood), giant worm/slug being, background use of drugs/alcohol, discussion of NPC death (trampling), mild blood, transformative magical effects
I. Your sun when there is none
( cw: Potential mild sexual/suggestive content, mild body horror (partial beasthood), giant worm/slug being, background use of drugs/alcohol ) ( closed to Vyng and Eurydice )
( closed to Manabu )
( cw: discussion of NPC death (trampling) ) ( OTA )
( cw: mild blood, transformative magical effects ) ( OTA )
T( OTA )
themuseabandonsyou)What: February Catch-all
When: Throughout February
Where: Earworm, Willful Machine, Cellar Door
Warnings: Potential mild sexual/suggestive content, mild body horror (partial beasthood), giant worm/slug being, background use of drugs/alcohol, discussion of NPC death (trampling), mild blood, transformative magical effects
I. Your sun when there is none
( cw: Potential mild sexual/suggestive content, mild body horror (partial beasthood), giant worm/slug being, background use of drugs/alcohol ) ( closed to Vyng and Eurydice )
- The descent into Earworm from the aboveground entrance is... a little nervewracking! As a rule Orpheus tries to stay away from being underground whenever possible these days, but he guesses if Lady Bop really wanted to build her club miles deep that's sort of her prerogative? It's a sacrifice he's willing to make for the sake of trying to figure out how to make life her a little safer, at least, though as he, Vyng, and Eurydice descend he seems deeply torn at all times between wanting to glance at his wife to check on her and very much not wanting to do that. It's fine, he knows, but years of nightmares about being in the dark of the underground with her have taken their toll.
In any case, when they do finally make it there - sooner than Orpheus expected but also not nearly soon enough - and the doors to the great cavernous expanse of the club itself swing open, they're met with a veritable wall of noise. Orpheus flinches away from it, but somehow it seems to adjust down to more manageable levels, fading gently until it's a more tolerable sort of loud. Glancing around, he tries to take in as much of it as he can at a first look. It's a little hard to pay attention to much else other than the gigantic, sluglike being from which all the music seems to be emanating, though, and Orpheus stares for a long moment before trying to get the rest of his bearings. The club isn't as busy as it could be, but there's still quite a few citizens dancing and sitting in booths and at the bar for this early in the day, being served by similarly sluggy people carrying trays of drinks and bar food. The doorways lining the back wall are what catch his attention, though, posters and signs portraying people in various states of beasthood posing suggestively and winking or blowing kisses at the viewer.
He looks to Eurydice and Vyng. "Let's split up?" he says, loud enough to be heard over the throbbing percussion of Lady Bop's current song. "We'll meet up later and talk about what we find."
And with that, absolutely failing to elaborate on what he means by 'later,' he makes his way off in the direction of the stage, disappearing into the crowd. About an hour passes before he bumps into either Vyng or Eurydice again.
"I couldn't get an audience with Lady Bop?" he says, pulling them aside. "But I did talk to a few of the dancers! Oh, but what did you find?"
(There is, of course, also nothing stopping them from reconvening before Orpheus turns up again.)
( closed to Manabu )
- Orpheus does a fair amount of wandering, most days. He doesn't tend to work until afternoon and evening, entertaining at various cafes and bars in Cellar Door, but he's always been an early riser, so that tends to leave his mornings fairly open once he gets done with his chores around the house. To his credit, he has been much more careful about where he wanders recently, sticking to crowded-but-not-too-crowded thoroughfares and keeping Eurydice updated on his location via the Omni regularly, and is just taking a blurry photograph of an interesting looking storefront in Willful Machine for her when he nearly bumps into Manabu.
"Oh!" he says, backing up and fumbling with the Omni so as not to drop it before stuffing it back into his pocket. "Hi, Manabu! It's nice to see you again."
Sidestepping to get out of the way of the foot traffic and gesturing for the other man to follow, he beams, obviously pleased to see his friend again.
"What have you been up to recently? It's been a little while, hasn't it?"
( cw: discussion of NPC death (trampling) ) ( OTA )
- Another day means yet more wandering, and is proving to be mostly uneventful and sort of dreary to the point where Orpheus is considering turning around and going back home for risk of rain, right up until he spots them.
By all appearances, they're just a random Trenchie, all dressed in black frills and silver accents, but Orpheus stops dead in his tracks when he sees them, eyes flickering with a faint glow like an animal's eyes in the dark. They don't notice him staring at first, but it's hard to ignore when he darts across the street - forcing a horse-drawn carriage to stop short and takes them by the shoulders. The world around him seems to grow dimmer, shades of night drawing in and more reflective, subtle pinpoints of light like distant bestial eyes appear around him in pairs, all focused on the poor confused citizen as he begins to sing, almost frantically.
"In the mud and under hoof
Is where the bitter end will come
Try to tame them but they'll prove
More than your your efforts' greatest sum
The herd knows you are watching
The herd knows your intent
The herd has been so patient
But the last of it is spent
In the blood and under hoof
Is where the bitter end will come
The stallion that gets loose
Will end your days under the sun"
The Trenchie looks, rightfully, absolutely terrified by all this. Maybe someone should intervene.
( cw: mild blood, transformative magical effects ) ( OTA )
- Ordinarily even Orpheus would be sort of wary about the notion of taking candy from eldritch strangers in exchange for his blood - he's trusting, but he's not that bad - but there is not anything remotely ordinary about the Chocolatier. As it stands, he winds up with a very small box of chocolates, and less blood in him than before, which he does feel a little bit worried about now that the strange figure is gone, actually, but there's no turning back now, he guesses? Curious and also feeling a little woozy after all of that, he considers one carefully before nibbling at it, intending to savor it like he tries to do with all sweets.
It's gone before he knows it, though, and with it comes an odd prickling sensation all over his skin. He looks down at his hands, watching as his fingernails elongate and thicken into hooked talons and the skin of his hands and forearms grow leathery and scaly. Feathers start to unfurl from his skin, along his upper arms and chest and cheekbones, and he feels a sudden pressure at his back growing stronger by the second - prompting him to hurriedly strip out of his jacket and shirt before a pair of large brown wings unfurl from his shoulders. He blinks, startled, before starting to laugh.
"Oh! It's this again," he says to himself, kicking off his shoes so as to avoid them being destroyed by more talons coming in. He seems in good spirits about it, and that continues as he makes his way to one of Cellar Door's parks, whistling a cheerful melody to himself.
T( OTA )
- [ OOC: Want something else? Feel free to add me at questionableveracity on plurk or message me at quodVide#2951 on Discord!! ]
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It sounds fantastical to him, as does what she says next.
"Oh," he says, frowning a little. "Why teenagers, specifically?"
It's not a judgmental question - he knows a lot of people who struck out on their own early in life and did fine for themselves, so he has little doubt in an individual's ability to handle situations at a young age. But it does seem a little odd to think about an organization made up of them having such an important-sounding role in society.
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Her home was really, really stuck-up most of the time.
"Because the age of majority is--was fourteen. So all of us were somewhere around there when we joined."
Tinya was fourteen when she left her mother to be a featured dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet. She'd been magical (according to the Daily Planet at least), but her mother knew just which strings to pull to get Tinya back at her side again. But the next time Tinya left, she stuck to it.
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"Oh, that makes sense," says Orpheus. He still looks a little concerned, but it's not that unreasonable from the right angle. If he thinks of it like the army back home, that was mostly made up of people who enlisted as soon as they were old enough and got out within a few years, with the exceptions of those occasional career soldiers who stuck around long after that. Orpheus's personal feelings about the military aside, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine the Legion being similar.
"That all sounds like a lot of responsibility, though. Protecting whole planets. Did you like doing it? I can see how it would be - an honor, or very important." But he can also see how it would be an incredible burden to bear.
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"Yeah. We've grown up together, I'm eighteen now and started when I was fifteen. My--my husband joined later, we have a son." And it hurts to think about Jo back home with her being unsure of his feelings for her. They'd been separated for a year and that's something she wants to think about even less. But it still gnaws at her psyche, something which couldn't be ignored forever.
"I loved it. It was a chance to do something good for the galaxy. And it's both an honor and very important. When all other methods of solving a problem fail, we're brought in and we can't let ourselves lose."
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"They're, um. Not here with you, are they?" he asks, frowning sympathetically. He's not a father, himself, but to a degree he can imagine how harrowing that might be, being separated from your child and partner both. "I'm sorry. I hope you can see them again soon."
And he thinks, again, about just how lucky he is to have Eurydice here with him, thankful every day that the Fates or whatever whims govern this world allowed such a thing. He shakes his head and moves on with the conversation.
"That's good, though! I'm glad you could do something that was so important to you. I don't know if there's anything quite like that here? There's - the hunters, they protect people mostly, but I'm not sure how organized they are, and sometimes things get kind of complicated."
Like when the beasts that are menacing the city are also people who need help. That happens, sometimes.
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She'd love it if Jo and Cub joined her, but she has a nasty feeling that it's going to be another three years before she sees them again. And they still had no idea why her son was aging so rapidly. Maybe someone here would have been able to figure it out and stop it. Magic triumphing over science.
"I...this is going to sound awful, but I really don't think I'm the Hunter type? We were always told to spare the lives of our opponents, it's not an easy thing to overcome. Back home, I studied ballet. Maybe here, I can resume my studies?"
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It sounds like it must be, from the way that she's talking. Plus Orpheus got the impression that most of the Sleepers that made the journey from the dream to Trench showed up much earlier, though he guesses there could be stragglers.
Anyway.
"No, no, that - I think that's admirable? I can't even fight at all, much less, um..." He trails off, too uncomfortable with the idea of killing someone to even give it voice. But he lights up a little at the mention of ballet, and says, "Oh! There's a girl here, that I talked to a while ago! Her name is - um. I don't think she introduced herself, actually? But she goes by 'duckling' on the Omni, and when we talked she told me she was studying ballet too, but couldn't find anyone to learn from here. If you wanted someone to practice with, I'm sure she'd be excited to hear from you!"
(CW: Duplicity, allusion to dubcon, murder)
But the first thing she did when she found a mirror was to look at her throat. The line down it which had marked her as submissive had been gone. Gone at last and with any luck, never having to have one ever again.
"I can a little too well. But the Legion has rules against killing under any circumstances, which is often easier said than done," still looking troubled. She knows that the Daxamite who killed her is now in the tightest security prison available, but that seemed too lenient. "Really? I'll have to find her. I never let myself get out of practice in the other world and I hope to say the same about here. 'Duckling,' that's a cute username"
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"Right!" he says, beaming at having potentially found the girl someone to practice with after all. "It's a really wonderful art form. I'm not a dancer myself? But I know the scores of a few different ballets, if you ever need accompaniment!"
It doesn't quite occur to him that Tinya's being from a very different time and place from him might mean she knows very different ballets than the ones he learned from the musicians traveling through his old hometown, but the offer stands regardless, enthusiastic and hopeful.
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And at the news that he knows the scores of different ballets makes her visibly perk up. "Really? I'd appreciate that so much! It's nice to be somewhere that people appreciate the art of ballet." And she mostly liked the old-school ballets, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, things of that nature.
She'd done Snow White in the ballet of its name and Guinevere in the one based on King Arthur, those she liked. But most of the ballets of her time were based on Earth's past. She danced Monica Lewinsky, but wasn't exactly happy about it.
She's enthusiastic and hopeful about it as well. She desperately misses performing for an audience and sincerely wished they'll get the chance sometime.
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"I learned a lot of what I know about playing piano from a woman who used to play for a big theater in one of the cities out east," he says. "She taught me a bunch of the scores she knew, while she was passing through the town where I grew up."
There's a clear fondness as he talks about this, smiling almost wistfully. A lot of musicians had passed through the railway stop on the road to the Underworld, and Orpheus had a nearly supernatural talent for begging lessons off of all but the most stone-hearted of them. This piano player, though? She'd been an easy mark, a good teacher with a soft spot for kids.
"I've never actually seen a full ballet, though. Just little bits and pieces, when we had dancers come through at the same time as musicians who knew enough to play the accompaniment. I wonder if we'll ever get enough people who are good at it here to put one on, though?" It's possible. Stranger things have happened.
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"Really? It was kind of her to share what she knew with you and it must have been wonderful for you to be able to learn so much from her." She looks a little melancholy, wondering what it must have been like to have such a mentor.
She can almost feel the fondness he clearly felt for that woman. But had she known, she would have agreed that he was clearly the kind of person who could charm the birds out of the trees. She's been accused of having the same sort of ability, but for her it was under anything but pleasant circumstances. She wished she'd had the opportunity to use that skill for good.
"I know there's at least three of us here, counting me. Granted, that would make putting on a full scale performance next to impossible, but maybe we all could come up with solo routines based on what we already know and go from there?" She sounds hopeful, maybe more than she should be.
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"There were a lot of different musicians I got the chance to learn from, that way," he says. "Stopping them for a while while they passed through town, I mean. I'm really grateful for all of them."
Such a wide variety of things they taught him. Not all of it stuck as fast as the rest, of course - to this day he still can't play the trombone, despite his and that particular teacher's best efforts - but much of it did, and he's blessed with a truly eclectic repertoire of different instruments and musical styles he can play as a result.
"That sounds like it could work!" he says, brightly, when Tinya mentions the possibility of editing down what they know to suit what they have. "I'm not the best at organizing things like that, but if you ever need help putting something together, please let me know! I'd be happy to help, any time."
It's a worthy cause, introducing an art form that doesn't seem to really exist in the same capacity in this world. He's very excited about the prospect.
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"I'd imagine you know something of everything. Though, what's your favorite thing to perform and sing? Rock, pop, blues, classical, or are they all fun? And do you know other instruments along with the piano?"
She's going to be incredibly surprised at what he could do, she'd never heard of anyone having such a grasp on so many styles or instruments so to know that he did would be fascinating. Rather like her friend's grasp on molecular biology, biochemistry, along with regular biology and chemistry and physics.
"I hope so," she said, looking hopeful. She knows that most dances needed a partner, but maybe it would be possible to edit things down so that one performer could show what they could do. "I will. To be honest, I've never arranged anything like this, either, but I do have some organizational skills thanks to my time in the diplomatic corps. Though, I know I can't do it on my own, so I'd really appreciate your help."
She's excited, too. She'd been doing her best to keep her skills in practice, but she hadn't actually performed for anyone since she was fourteen and spent a year at the Paris Opera Ballet.
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At the rest, he nods, taking it in.
"That's more experience than I have," he says, sounding very impressed by the words diplomatic corps. It's not that he's never played a part in putting together events and gatherings in the past - holidays and festivals back at the railway stop tended to be something of an all-hands-on-deck affair - but figuring out what needed to be done for any of it to work? Not his strong suit. He was mostly there to run around doing as he was told, or looking after the more organized among their ranks, making sure they stayed fed and watered until it was his turn to perform for people.
"I'll do what I can, though! Just let me know if you think of anything. I haven't talked to Duckling in a while, so I don't know if she's found a place to practice yet, but if you need a space for that or to perform when we're ready I know some people who might be able to help!"
He's been very quickly insinuating himself into the local arts community since he got here. It wouldn't be too hard to find a good dance hall or stage somewhere in Cellar Door. It's just the matter of finding the right one for the right price.
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"It's...kind of a family tradition. One Mother took very seriously," which would be an understatement. Ever since she was five, she'd been following her mother throughout the galaxy. She had a brief reprieve when she was fourteen and of age, but her mother pulled her out of her attempt to establish a life for herself and back into the corps. Mostly to serve as a spy on the other diplomats and ambassadors. It had been exhausting and she took the first out that she could.
"I really, really appreciate it and I will. But...Duckling? Is that a nickname? I don't think she has, though, so space to practice would be amazing. A place to perform would be even better! Thank you so much!"
She's been trying, but she's also got her "day job" as a Night Walker.
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"It's a gift," he says, meaning it a little more literally than the average person would when talking about their talents. "And I spend a lot of time practicing. But, um. If you mean the year? 678.3 had just started, when I was last back where I came from."
He'd said goodbye to Hermes during the high heat of Hekatombaion, just after New Years celebrations had wrapped up. For a moment he goes quiet, thinking about it, about how his uncle had seen him off as he passed from that world to this, before shaking it off and returning to the conversation at hand.
"But we count the years differently, by the sound of it, so I don't know how much that helps." He frowns a little, thinking. "Anyway, 'Duckling' is just the name she goes by on the Omni. I don't think she introduced herself by her real name when we talked. But I'll see what I can do!"
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Goodbyes were always difficult, even when there were complications. She regretted that she never got to give proper good-byes to those she'd lost in the other world, especially since she knew they were all long dead by her time.
"Yes, it really seems that way. I wish there was some way of telling who was from which timeline, how many of us share worlds. Those kinds of things," she hadn't meant "Oh, that makes sense. It's easy to not make introductions on the Omninet, most people don't use their real names there."
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It's obvious enough for him, when you take into account how the whole entire calendar seems to be different for most people here. If anything it's strange to him how many people from different worlds seem to be familiar with the same not-quite-numbered months, the same linear counting of the years without the Olympiad cycle or anything like it for structure. Of all the things to stay constant across so many different universes...
But that's getting sidetracked again. Orpheus forces himself back to the conversation at hand. What were they talking about? Oh, right.
"We got kind of distracted talking about stories, instead of introducing ourselves," he says. "She was really nice, though! She's a young girl with blue eyes and red hair pulled back in a braid. She said she'd only been practicing ballet for a few months, but she seemed to know a lot about it."
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Most of the diplomatic corps and her fellow Legionnaires used the Terran calendar, even though no one really believed in god or gods anymore. Well, except for Gim, he was Jewish, but the less she thought of him, the better. It had been a senseless tragedy brought about by one girl's wish to make all of their wishes come true and his was to die a hero.
But the more she thinks of home, the more she misses it. So it was best to never let herself wonder what was going on. She usually wasn't successful.
"Yeah, that happens! Personally, I can't help it, everyone's so interesting and different, I kind of want to learn as much as possible. But, that description's familiar. "Oh! Arihu! I've ran into her myself, she does seem to know a lot about ballet, but she seems a little shy."
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And they're still learning what those cycles are here in Trench, but it seems pretty well established and possible to find some warning, if one happens to stumble across the right books or knowledgeable townsfolk.
"Oh! So you have met! That's good! She does seem pretty shy, though, yes. Maybe she'll get more confidence as she practices, though. I know getting better at music helped me a lot with things when I was growing up."
Not that he ever really had a problem with being shy, but there's a certain kind of security of mind that comes with being truly good at something you love and able to share it with others.
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Trench was unlike any planet Tinya had ever been to before. And to have it once have been Terra made it all even more disconcerting. She doubts her flight ring will work well enough here to let her do any proper exploration, but she has to wonder about the trade ships which occasionally came in. If they had any more information about Trench than Trench itself allowed.
"Yes. Practice makes...well, not always perfect, but perfect is an unobtainable goal. As much as we might struggle to reach it, it's the struggle which helps give what we're doing meaning. Especially while we're young" She was fine with the struggle to be the best ballerina, the best Legionnaire she could be. The best at what her mother wanted? Not so much.
Neither did she and she does know that kind of security. Though, she also has the security of being the only child of a seemingly endless bloodline, the security and the eventual call to responsibility.
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"That's a good way to look at it, I think. I've always figured there's no such thing as perfection in art, and that that while it's good to strive for better, sometimes the imperfections are what make the best art what it is. Like a singer's voice breaking with emotion, or the roughness of an impressionist painting."
The individuality of each artist's attempts to reach for the ideal that exists in their minds and perhaps falling short, but in ways unique to them, unique to every individual attempt.
"Anyway," he says, realizing he's about to get off topic again, "I told her I'd play for her too, if she wanted to practice to music, and I'm still happy to do that for you, as well as keeping an eye out for a good space to practice or perform. I know some of the other Sleepers put on a play, a little while back..."
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"Thank you. I...sort of had the peril of perfection shown to me in an old Terran movie about a ballerina trying to do what I'd had to do at the time--dance the white and black swans. That I had to allow room for imperfections and emotions in the moment because they'd color in the experience for the audience. And it's that, it's exactly that. I...it's so cool that you know all of this already and didn't have to learn the hard way."
Tinya remembers dancing both swans, the grace and timidity of the white with the savage attraction of the black. And watching the movie where the attempt at both with perfection drove its protagonist mad.
She smiled. She could talk about ballet for days. Even as a Legionnaire, in the other world, and here, she did her best to keep in practice because she was hoping for a danseur to arrive for her.
"I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I was--so used to going it alone. And if we can get Arihu and her friend from home and me, all of us in practice together, we'll all boost each other up, especially with your music." Tinya was on the verge of tears at the notion.
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In his excitement over the idea he sort of forgets that Tinya's very probably from a different world and that just because they made a movie in her time and place doesn't mean it'll happen in his. Still, it's an exciting notion. He hadn't thought about film being used to capture other art forms before.
"And, well, it took me some time to start thinking of it that way, too? It came out of talking with a lot of different artists, about the things they liked about their own work, and the things other people liked about their work, and how sometimes what they thought of as their own flaws were what made people keep coming back to them. And it doesn't mean you ever stop trying to improve, if that's what makes you happy, but it does mean that maybe everyone's idea of perfection and beauty is a little different."
He beams, eyes alight. He likes talking about this kind of thing - not just art itself, but the driving forces behind it, for him and for others. It's something he spends a lot of time thinking about.
"I'm glad!" he says, laughing a little. "There are a lot of other musicians here, too, from a lot of other worlds. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them know something about ballet scores, too. I can ask some of them, and see what they know. Maybe we can get a band together."
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