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He… he hurts.
More than he should. Even with the beating he just endured. There’s supposed to be some kind of shock after this, isn’t there? Adrenaline or something?
There’s blood on his face, running down from his nose, from his cheeks, and he feels the sting too much. He can feel every single bruise already, like he can feel every damaged blood vessel instead of just the impact of the hits that caused them.
Maybe that is what the shock part is? Orpheus definitely wouldn’t know, nothing like this had ever happened to him. He would remember being in this much pain.
He would remember the pain of thousands of punches and kicks and scraps all in one… right?
It’s the last thing he manages to think before he sees the vague impression of three women above him, practically sneering at him as he curls further into a ball on the ground, squeezing his eyes shut and feeling the burn of tears streak down his face.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Alone.
— — — — — — — —
She’s the most beautiful girl Orpheus has ever seen, he’s sure of that. He doesn’t know who she is, but he knows that much. She’s sat at one of the outside tables of the bar – it’s most of their seating there, it used to be fine when the warmer months were longer, but they’re still trying to adjust to the new seasonal cycle – and she must be cold, even with her thick coat. Her face is a little obscured by distance and patrons passing through his line of sight, but even through that he can feel how in love he already is.
She has a face he could fall in love with over and over again.
She feels familiar in some way though, the more he keeps looking at her. Maybe she’s been in town before? He tries to remember faces, but with so many people coming in and out of town, it’s just not possible to remember every face he sees. So it’s possible it’s that. He doesn’t know what else it could be.
He can’t tell much about her, just that she looks sad, downtrodden even. It’s not an uncommon look around here, especially with how harsh the winter can get, and it’s something that only has him working harder to fix things.
Orpheus might not have that solution, not yet, but he still wants to help her, to give her even just a tiny reason to smile in the midst of the bite of snow sure to fall around them in the coming weeks. So he looks around the area, trying to find something to do just that for her.
His solution comes in the form of old bulletin announcements left on the board outside the bar. No one needed them anymore, they were from last week and no one benefits from posters advertising old news and already past concerts. So he takes one off the board and begins carefully twisting one end into a stem.
It’s not his normal form of art and, as of late, not his normal way of making flowers – they’ve just sort of been appearing whenever he sings these days – but he thinks it’s a nice gesture. A flower that will live forever until he can bring the real flowers back to life. And permanently this time, not just one or two randomly appearing in his hands and pockets whenever he sings the right things.
So he folds and twists and tears and bends the paper into a small flower, as if he’s done it a million times before, and he holds it up to the light to inspect it once he’s done.
Perfect.
A perfect flower for a perfect girl.
— — — — — — — —
Eurydice’s eyes are staring blankly at him and it’s the most terrifying thing Orpheus has ever seen.
It’s still her, he knows it’s still her in there.
But, right now, she’s just another face in the crowd of workers around him and that fact scares him more than anything else could. The girl he loves more than anything, the one who stood out like the summer sun in the middle of winter, made and shaped to blend into everything and everyone around her.
Maybe they were right. Maybe she really is gone.
And maybe he’s all alone again.
Orpheus can feel her eyes on him as he pulls himself off the ground. He can feel the eyes of the workers around him as he tries to wipe the blood off his face. His hand comes back covered in red, but his face still feels soaked in it even though it’s not actively bleeding anymore.
He shouldn’t have come.
He can’t change anything.
He couldn’t fix anything before, why should now be any–
Before... What was ‘before’? Before what? Before now, before Hadestown, before winter, before any of this even started?
What even happened before this started?
Why can’t he remember anything else?
— — — — — — — —
He all but collapses into Eurydice’s lap once he makes it to his room and his lyre’s put away with the care it needs. She’s lounging on the bed with a book in hand, but she quickly and instinctively shifts her position to let Orpheus settle in. His arms wrap tightly around her and he can all but feel her smile as a hand runs through his hair, untangling any knots it finds along the way.
It’s moments like these he couldn’t be more glad he convinced her to stay with him for the summer. He doesn’t know if she was necessarily planning on leaving before that, but if she wasn’t, and if she was still planning on staying in the lodging up the road, he couldn’t let that slide by. The hotel had fine enough heating during the wintertime, but heat and extra crowding made it downright claustrophobic in the summer. So Orpheus had insisted she stay here, with him, in his room above the bar. It’s small, and had clearly only been meant for one person, but the windows open and it’s high enough that the breeze coming in is always cool.
So she stayed.
And now Orpheus can come home from work, whatever it may be that day, and find her here. Finally settled, comfortable.
Besides, that’s part of married life, isn’t it? That ‘honey, I’m home’ moment at the end of every day? So, really, they’re just getting a headstart on that part of it before the wedding in the spring. If there even is a spring. And there will be. Because Orpheus is going to fix everything, so there’s no need to worry.
But right now Orpheus isn’t coming back from work, not really. He’s not back from cleaning the tables and counters at the bar, or one of his occasional concerts. No, right now he’s just a little tipsy, living through the high Persephone brings with her every year. There wasn’t much in his system, but with how little he drinks the rest of the year, it doesn’t take much to get him in this state.
Even with this, Eurydice still smiles. She smiles because they both know by now that a drunk Orpheus is simply a giggly Orpheus that requires some extra love.
“Hello, bug.”
In this state, Orpheus can’t remember exactly why she calls him that sometimes – something about how easily his eyes can bug out? It was something like that – but he likes it. He likes anything she calls him, whether it’s lover, or bug, or simply his name. He’ll take all of them with a lovesick smile and a nod. Even if it’s one he can’t remember her calling him before.
That’s a weird thought.
He can’t remember her calling him most things, after all. They only met a few months ago, so everything is new. This one just feels… more new, he supposes. Oh well, blame the thought on the wine coursing through his system. That’s what he’ll do.
Instead of pondering on that further, he snuggles in impossibly closer, a small, dopey smile appearing on his face, “Hi, my love.”
— — — — — — — —
There was a before, he knows that now. But not as in before he came to Hadestown, no. The before is the last time he was here. And the time before that. And the time before that. And the countless times before that.
There has to be because why else would he feel such dread? Why else would he know, without a doubt in his mind, that he is doomed to fail?
He can’t figure out why he knows, or even how he knows, but he does, and no amount of reassurances he and Eurydice can give each other will fix that fact.
Because over and over and over and over and over again, Orpheus has walked out of hell alone. And if he goes now, leaving Eurydice to follow with no way of knowing if he’ll fail or not… not knowing when he’ll fail. He doesn’t know enough to know when it happens, to know if it changes every time he tries, but he knows it does happen. That it will happen.
But Eurydice doesn’t know that. She’s upset at the circumstances, of course she is, but she’s not upset at the inevitability of his failure. But she still thinks they can make it out.
Will she ever truly know that they can’t? Or will she just turn back into the mindless shade she had been before?
Does he want to know that? And, more importantly, does he want her to know that?
But… What is it that Mister Hermes says all the time? Maybe it will turn out this time?
Orpheus had never really known what he was talking about – he’d have said godly things if he had been asked to interpret it before – but maybe he does now. Maybe things can turn out right if he simply makes sure they do. After all, he has an idea of what went wrong every other time.
Eventually, Eurydice had been taken away from him before he could manage it himself, dragged away to wait for him to fail her, even if that’s not what she thought she was waiting for. Hades had come not long after, and Orpheus couldn’t tell if his face was unreadable on purpose, or because deep down he knew the boy would fail.
Orpheus has been alone for a few minutes now, having been expected to start his trek out of Hadestown, but he hasn’t been able to. Instead, he’s held his head in his hands, running those same hands through his hair, giving himself gentle taps on his legs, anything and everything he can think of, and it’s made those minutes stretch by like tortuous hours.
Finally, he takes in a deep breath and shakes his head, trying to shake off his doubts, everything that came before now. It’s just the here and now, that’s all there is.
There’s no before now. Just walk out the same way you came in and Eurydice will follow.
He can’t focus on anything else. He can’t focus on his failures because he can’t fail.
Not this time.
He can do this.
Right?
— — — — — — — —
Orpheus wakes up slowly, and to a rather unexpected sound: a lyre. His lyre. Someone’s playing it, or at least trying to play it. He cracks one eye open to see Eurydice sat on the bed, her back to him as she tries to pluck at the strings of the instrument.
He watches for a long moment, his eyes transfixed by the sliver of skin he can see on her shoulder, where the blanket she has wrapped around herself has slipped away; apparently she decided that was easier than finding her clothes from the night before. She’s so beautiful even when he can’t see her face.
Eventually, he sits up, the sheets falling down to reveal his own state of undress as he wraps his arms around her waist, “Good morning, my love.”
Eurydice glances behind her, a soft smile on her face, “Good morning.”
“What’re you doing?”
Instead of answering properly, she shifts to face her lover, the lyre still in her lap, “How do you play it?”
“How do I play it?” Orpheus tilts his head curiously as Eurydice nods, “I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it, I suppose.”
He slowly takes the lyre from her, pulling it into his lap. As easily as breathing, he starts running his fingers along the strings, the notes coming from the instrument and mixing with the warm breath of the summer perfectly. They intermingle as perfectly as they've been crafted to, and the flowers in the window box respond in kind; their colors brighten and any wilting swiftly goes away, even just through the few notes coming from the lyre.
Eurydice’s eyes move between his hands and the window, shaking her head in disbelief, “I could see you do that a thousand times over and never truly understand how you do it.”
Orpheus slowly lets the music draw to a close, his hands moving to the wood of the instrument rather than the strings, “I don’t know if I understand either. I just play the music that comes to me, like I’ve known it my whole life.”
It’s an odd thing. He’s written other songs of course, but the process has been so different for his other songs compared to this one. This specific song just… comes to him so naturally. As if something deep in the back of his mind knows how the song is supposed to end up, and he just has to figure out how to get it to that point. And yes, that can make the process frustrating as he tries and tries and tries, but it also makes it all the more gratifying when it does work out in the end.
Or, well, when it eventually will work out in the end. Because it has to, he’s sure of that much.
— — — — — — — —
He can’t do this.
He thought he could. He thought he could be strong for her, but how can you be strong for a person when you don’t even know if they’re there or not.
Realistically, he knows that she’s there. He knows that Eurydice is behind him, following his every step as they make their way out of hell. But he can’t hear her when he sings, walking alone and waiting for her response, and he can’t see her, and how does he know that she’s there if he can’t do either of those things?
Every instinct in his body wants to betray his mind and turn around and finally see her, but he knows he can’t do that. But he needs to, because how else is he supposed to know that she’s really–
No.
No, she’s there.
He knows that she’s there, even when he can’t see or hear her. Because she has to be.
She always is, after all.
Even when they’re going back into the dark, into the cold. She’s been behind him every time. Even though he let her down in the dead of winter, and he left her alone and starving and cold she had to–
She’s coming with you. Without a doubt in her mind, she’s following you out. Everything’s okay. Everything will turn out this time. It will because you’ll make sure of it.
But he can’t force away his own doubts as easily as she could. Everything always felt so calm around Eurydice, the world around him seemed to quiet just so he could listen to her. But now, when he’s all alone with his thoughts, the world is deafening and his thoughts even moreso. He can’t even hear her footsteps behind him. All he can hear are his own thoughts and the cold wind whistling in his ears, seemingly begging him to turn around, just to make sure.
Why has he failed so often? What about the situation could have every worry in his mind so wrapped around their–
Him.
Hades.
He’d wanted her down there in the first place, what incentive was there to let her go? One song from a poor boy singing in a desperate attempt for his lover?
After all, what is a boy to a god?
And now that same boy can’t see the girl, can’t even hear the girl – if the girl is even there to begin with – and the god gets to watch and laugh as the boy goes out of his mind.
Orpheus thought he could fix things, that he could fix everything with a magic song and that everyone would be happy forever and ever. And he’s thought that a thousand times over, and he’s failed just as many times. This is how the world is. It’s dark and cruel and it doesn’t care about love, not really. What it really cares about is survival, if that at all.
And Orpheus was a fool to think he could strive for anything beyond that and succeed.
Mister Hermes had called him young, innocent. Eurydice had called him naive, sheltered, protected even. And now Orpheus calls him senseless, hopeless, inane, foolish. Because Orpheus can see the world now, and he can see that it was exactly that that led him here.
It was that thinking that now has him all alone.
Eurydice isn’t behind him, she wouldn’t be. Because there’s no reason for her to be. She’s safer here than with Orpheus. Hades has no reason to let her follow her.
But he can see movement flickering in the corner of his vision, starkly contrasted with the light of the rest of the world inching closer as he does. Is that her? Or did he imagine that? Can he afford to hope for even a moment that she really is following him? Diligently matching each of his steps with one of his own?
He grips the straps of his lyre tighter, trying to ground himself as the light gets closer. They’ll be home soon, safe in each other’s arms, because he will succeed this time. No matter his doubts, no matter his fears, because she has to be behind him. That was the deal.
The light is so close now, just a few steps away, and he can all but feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. But it’s hard to find joy in it when the flickering remained in both his vision and his mind. He can’t enjoy it when he can’t even be sure that Eurydice is behind him to enjoy it too. Perhaps he really is foolish, but it’s that thought that stops him in his tracks a mere step away from the world of the living.
All the doubts that have seeped into his mind have reached the breaking point in the dam of his mind and it all spills over, all at once, rushing through his mind.
She’s not there, she doesn’t love you anymore because you failed her.
Hades is laughing at you from Hadestown, all you are is the amusement of the week to him. A trifle of a toy he can play with for his own whims.
But all of it ultimately circles back to one thing: Eurydice isn’t behind you.
And, just as he’s done countless times before, the boy hesitates at the threshold of the world. The boy hesitates, and he turns.
Over and over again, he turns around to see the girl.
The two lock eyes for a singular moment and they understand. Even as the girl fades from existence, they understand the love between them.
And it happens again.
And again.
And again.
And again.