golden_lyre | The Drowning Fiddler

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eurydice

The Drowning Fiddler

The Drowning Fiddler is a little pub in Earl's Court that Orpheus has been visiting, on and off, for about two hundred years now. In more recent decades, the basement has been remodeled to double as a concert venue, and a number of bands who went on to be famous got their start on its cramped stage. Having spent a good deal of time and a good deal of coin at the bar, Orpheus has come to know the owner, Martin, well enough that he's occasionally asked to fill in for any musicians who back out at the last minute or on any nights when the stage isn't booked.

(Orpheus suspects that Martin keeps nights open when business isn't going well, so Orpheus can help him pick up the slack. Orpheus doesn't mind. He always puts a little encouragement to drink in his music when he plays. Martin deserves it.)

It's a Wednesday night, and though that's the Fiddler's least busy night in general, the room is packed. There wasn't a lot of time for advertising, but since the advent of social media (something Orpheus still can't quite get his head around), a few hours is all the notice needed to fill a room when he plays.

There's no amplification system because Orpheus never needs one, and there's no one to introduce him. He just sidles onto the stage, whiskey in one hand, cigarette in the other, and takes a seat on a wooden stool. As he settles himself (whiskey on an unused amplifier, guitar in his lap, still lit cigarette tucked between two strings), the room gradually quiets, but anyone still speaking comes to a hush when Orpheus starts to play.

He starts off with something quiet, something that feels like a Wednesday night, a needed breath of fresh air and freedom in the middle of the week. The room relaxes in the wake of it, as if communally exhaling in relief, and Orpheus smiles, loving the moment he knows he has the audience in the palm of his hand.

A quick sip of whiskey, a couple of drags on his cigarette as he retunes his guitar, and then he plays what they all came here to hear.

Something to dance to.

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She hasn't quite cottoned on yet that he quite literally means that about the church, and instead gives him a grin around her fork. It's a fun idea, really, and those old churches are always so pretty with their high ceilings and coloured glass. If she has to blend in by living in a building, it's not the worst they could do.

Spearing another piece of fish with her fork, Eurydice climbs up onto her knees to hold it to his lips.

"Could we really?" she asks, eyes wide. It is not a thing people do. But it is a thing she would very much like to do. "Only I know she'd be so much happier with someone here to help raise Jonah and she loves to cook and he thinks you're magical and I do love them so could we? She's been like a sister to me."

Taking the little Greek immigrant on a dance scholarship into her heart while working a full time job in ER with a small child and no partner, Katie is on a mighty high pedestal in Ree's eyes.

He's in no rush to do it, but it's definitely on the infinite bucket list now. They may have to start collecting open-minded friends so they can do it properly when the time comes. He's thinking a catered, exclusive party. On Easter, maybe.

He leans forward to take the bite, smiling around it as he chews. Somehow it tastes better after watching her eat it.

"Of course! I don't know why not." He has not yet spun out the implications of this arrangement and how he'll have to start wearing clothes. At any rate, it's a temporary situation. How long can it possibly last? Fifty years? (How long do mortals live these days, anyway?)

"Hmm...we may need a bank account. I haven't tried buying property since that was standard." He thinks an estate agent wouldn't take well to a briefcase full of cash.

There's no rush to do anything, really. But if he has a list, then that's not a bad thing to be on it. And once the date becomes known, she'll have a quiet giggle about it. She's fairly sure that the son of the chaste god was a good guy who wouldn't have minded a night of drinking, merriment, and joyous sex without censure or judgement. It's his dad who would have taken issue. And the priests.

She smiles as he takes what she offers. She loves to feed him, to take care of him in as many small ways as he'll allow. Tiny intimacies anchor her in this new life where they're together again, and she's missed the flecks of colour in his irises, the way light hits his lashes, the lift and curl of his lips in expression and motion.

"Good! Because I think she'd be less stressed. Mortals are always stressed. This modern world is doing them no favours."

(She has no idea. Maybe 80 years? Maybe 100? She'll be eternally youthful - eventually she'll have to use makeup to look older, until they drop out of society when she 'retires' from dancing.)

A mouthful of rice is chewed with slow enjoyment as he continues, and she nods thoughtfully.

"I have one," she tells him, "We can share it. I think. I'm actually not too clear on that... wait. Do you have ID?"

Because he's three and a half thousand years old, and there is technology, now.

Every care she takes with him chips away at the lingering doubt that this is real, that he's not finally gone mad. He shifts to sit with her on the floor, watching her eat and occasionally remembering to do so himself.

"The world has never been good to mortals without money or influence." It's been great to those with both, but Orpheus has now spent much more time on the other side of the wealth divide, and he's come to appreciate it much more. "And you care for them, so we'll do what we can to ease their lives."

He shifts again, so his leg is pressed against hers, a grounding touch, and he pinches off a bit of fish to offer the cat. "I do have ID. They don't let you fly without it anymore." He has a guy. And when the guy dies or retires, he finds a new guy.

If he has gone mad, then he's in good company.

Eurydice smiles happily at his concession to her familial love for her neighbour, and wriggles closer so the whole side of her thigh is pressed against his, increasing the contact he'd initiated. Seph delicately takes the offered fish, eating with a daintiness that is ever so slightly unnatural.

"Oh, right." That makes sense. Another mouthful of curry is savoured, the spices warming and fresh. "Where were you before London, then? And how long were you here before we found each other?"

She's curious. Pressing about his past prior to her reappearance is not her goal, but she wants to know who he was in the intervening millennia, and it will help them both to adapt to their new life to have shared memories.

Orpheus is perfectly happy to eat one-handed if it means he can slide an arm around his wife and lean into her side. "Before London was New York, and before New York was Paris. I've been in London...ten years now? Fifteen perhaps?" He tries to move on before people start to notice he's not aging. Martin's noticed, he's fairly certain, given how long he's been playing at the Fiddler, but one of Martin's greatest features is that he doesn't ask questions. "It's not my first time through."

He turns his head to press a kiss to her shoulder. In time, he suspects, he'll tell her all his stories, all the ones that matter, at least, even the stories of people he's loved. It's good to start small, though, and he wants to know about her as well, as much as possible, as much as there is as well. It's as though they're meeting each other for the first time all over again.

"What about you? You came for your dance school? Tell me of your mortal family."

If it's snuggling he wants, it's snuggling he'll get. Eurydice is very, very happy to be held by Orpheus in any and all ways, shapes, and forms, so she's quite content to lean into him in turn as they sit on the floor and eat.

"I'd like to dance in New York," she admits, abandoning her fork for a moment to pull apart another piece of fish with her fingers so it can cool down a bit before she gives it to Seph. "Just so I can take the pretentiousness down a notch."

She watches all the SYTYCD shows. She has Ideas with a capital I.

"You must have seen so much..." Rice and curry are loaded onto her fork, and her cheek nuzzles his hair at that kiss before she takes the bite.

Her mortal family. Quite literally the gods alone know how she was inserted so well into their lives, but she was.

"Five brothers," she starts. "Jace, Nik, Alekos, Vlasis, and Christos. I'm between Nik and Alekos, Vlasis and Christos are twins. They did an excellent job of guarding me from all the boys at school, you'll be pleased to know."

It should be such a small thing, to have his wife nestled in the crook of his arm, but it's everything. He reaches across her with a fork to taste the curry, and he kisses her cheek as he goes.

"You would set the city ablaze, my love." He grins to think of it, of such a stage for her to stun the world upon. "And I think it would mourn you when you left." There are places in New York where he can feel the loss of an artist the city loved, regardless of how many decades have passed. "We can live there for a time, and I can show you what I've seen, and we can discover more together."

He has seen so much, and he wants to see it all again with her at his side.

"Five?" He laughs. "Gods, I'll be sure to thank them as they attempt to guard you from me, no doubt."

It really is everything. Just to have him nearby is exhilarating. His scent lingers on her sheets, his music and instruments nestle among the plants and coffee cups of her flat, he's in every part of her life and it's all she wants.

"That sounds amazing, honestly," she tells him. "And you'd play, of course, and we'll be ridiculously eccentric because mortals are weird."

Travelling the world with him is a dream she never thought she'd be able to fulfill, and now that the world is so much bigger than they'd thought when they'd first met, the opportunities are endless.

"Yeah, five." She grins. "And they will. They'll take one look at you and demand to know your intentions, and then Nik will probably want a guitar lesson, and Jace will just watch you with suspicion, and Vlasis will make you the best baklava you've ever eaten and the twins will make you play football, and my parents will just sit and watch all this with a serenity that can only come from raising all those boys, and a nymph they thought they'd always had."

It's raucous and loving and wonderful, and she misses them. Her brothers are all dark haired, taking after their father. The gods chose a mother with hair of a similar colour to Ree's own, and two of the boys have her wild curls. It was well chosen, and no one in the family or their small village knew that she wasn't at all what she seemed.

Spinning dreams like this is enough to make him giddy with possibility. Even more than when he was a prince of Thrace, he has the ability to make her dreams come true, to lavish her with anything and everything she wants. He's used to living humbly only because he's never had a reason to do otherwise.

"A power couple, is what that's called, I believe. All the Upper West Side elite would invite us to parties to show off that they knew us." It's been a long time since he's let himself be the toast of any town. Not since travel between them became so easy.

He laughs at her description of her family. "Well, I'll handle Jace with a song. And I will tell them all that my only intention is to make you happy for the rest of eternity." He catches her hand and leaves curry-scented kiss on her inner wrist.

"Or do you think they'll expect a wedding?"

"Will we use our powers for good?" she asks, "or for evil?"

There's a smile in the question, disappearing around a mouthful of curry, and it bursts forth again at the kiss he drops on the sensitive skin of her wrist. Her vein is greenish beneath the skin, and his lips leave a lingering warmth there along with a slight stain from spices.

"They'll demand it, to be honest. You'll have compromised my virtue or something equally old-fashioned, and modern Greeks don't really pray to our gods anymore so they don't know any better," she tells him. "Why, are you proposing a renewal of vows-- wait. Orpheus, we're married and I don't even know the last name you use."

"Good." He answers without hesitation. "Always good. They're such…fragile things, mortals. They all need a little more goodness in their lives." He tries not to get attached to individual mortals, but as a collective, they appeal to his empathy.

He would kiss her a thousand times a day if it made her smile like that each time, and he hums softly against her skin before pulling away, a sound of utter delight and contentment.

"It's Tragoudistís, currently." Surnames have changed so much and are different in every culture. He's had quite a few.

Vow renewals are such a strange concept. You make a vow. You keep it or you don't. All the same, he ducks his head. "It might be nice to have a second chance at that day." The day the gods stole her from his side.

"Like flowers, blooming only for a season," she murmurs, then offers him a forkful of curry and rice. She fancies feeding him. He should let her.

Tragoudistís. Apt.

"Of course it is, I should've guessed," she laughs, then clambers into his lap, her knees either side of his hips. A kiss is dropped onto the tip of his nose. "And it's a name I'd be most pleased to take, and have the day end happily. If you want to do it all again, that is."

He leans forward to take the offered bite, then steals a kiss before straightening. Any time she wishes to feed him, bathe him, clothe him, or otherwise look after him, he will happily let her, so long as she returns the favor.

Sliding an arm around her, he smiles at the kiss, his eyes closing. "It would make your family happy," he says as he blinks them open again. "And it would make me happy as well."

So... all the time? She has literal lifetimes of catching up to do, so it’s good he’s happy to let her take care of him. And she’s happy to return the favour.

“All I ever want is for your happiness,” she tells him, the simple honesty hanging like a vow between them. “So, Orpheus Tragoudistís, be it known to you that Eurydice Floros of Kallithea Elassonos accepts your offer of marriage.”

She offers him another bite of curry.

“I will feed you. I will clothe you. I will care for you, body, mind, and soul, and I will love you.”

And she will raise their children. She hopes. Eventually.

The simplicity of her love for him robs him of both breath and words, and before he can accept her bite, he has to kiss her. It's as honest as her vow, and as he pulls back, he touches his forehead to hers.

He can think of nothing better to return than, "I will feed you. I will clothe you. I will care for you, body, mind, and soul, and I will love you.” It's not a renewal, exactly, but in a way it's a reformation of the household that had been broken by her death. Not marriage but family.

And now he'll take that bite.

The kiss seals more than any modern cleric or celebrant ever could, and Eurydice feels a literal blessing of their union settle warmly around them as her husband returns her vow.

Then eats.

She laughs in quiet delight.

"I don't think modern weddings are quite this casual," she tells him, offering a piece of fish to Seph, who takes it delicately from her fingers before trotting off with it to the balcony, her tail high. "And my mother will insist on something more... structured. But I say we're married, and married again, and anything else is just a fancy party."

She has a mouthful of curry, herself, then pushes her fingers through his hair. He's a perfect blend of the beautiful youth she married so long ago, and what she's fairly sure is either a hipster or a hippy. The terms sound too similar.

"I'll let you choose my dress."

There is a warmth to the space that wasn't there before, as though Apollo has smiled on their union, and he smiles as he eats.

"As long as it isn't overseen by a Christian priest, we may have all the structure your mother could wish." He laughs to think of her mother, of her family, of meeting her family. All such strange, modern things to consider.

He leans into her touch, luxuriating in the simplicity of her affection. Such a small thing, and it brings him back to his youth, as if each stroke of her fingers rubs away the centuries. "What are your mother's thoughts on wedding dresses?"

His peripheral experience tells him there's a whole thing with brides and their mothers and dresses.

She hopes he has. He did the first time, after all.

"They're Orthodox," she tells him, somewhat distracted by his hair and his smile and a forkful of curry. "But I think they won't care, so long as I'm happy."

She kisses his temple, then his forehead.

"She's traditional. Shoulders covered, knees covered. White." A beat. "I would like green, somehow."

"Not in a church, then," Orpheus says. He thinks he could handle a priest if it was the right priest. "Out under the sky for the gods to see." He takes a bit of fish and dips it into the curry thoughtfully.

"Shoulders and knees? Hm." He's teasing, and he tilts his head to smile at her. "I think we can find something to keep us both happy in the end."

"Definitely outside," she agrees, taking another happy bite of their shared meal. Such a simple thing, to be in his lap, to be eating together... but the simple things in life are the best, as the saying goes, and it's one she wholeheartedly agrees with.

"And she's sure I'm a virgin," she adds with a grin, leaning in to kiss his smile. "Innocent and pure and probably angelic. No man has lain eyes nor hands, much less anything else, on this body."

Her mum is the cutest, though.

Orpheus is going to have to make a point to bring home more finger foods. He would feed her every meal from his hand if they could manage it. He picks up a bit of fish between his fingers to offer it to her. "Under a laurel tree."

He laughs softly and rests his chin on her shoulder. "I'll do my best to behave, then." They may have to wait some time to meet her family. He's not sure he'll be able to keep his hands off her any time soon.

That's an excellent idea. She wholeheartedly approves. Maybe not with other people present, because the way she takes the fish from his fingers and lets her tongue dart out to make sure she got every last bit from his fingertips is, perhaps, invitational.

"A laurel tree would be perfect," she breathes, and nuzzles his hair as he rests against her. "And you only have to behave for a short while. The rest of the time is ripe for ravishment."

As is the way he slides his thumb across her bottom lip, leaving a trail of spice. It's only incentive to do it more, wherever they may be. As he leans against her, he trails his fingers up her leg, smiling in contentment. "I suppose I can be patient, then. If there's to be ravishment after."

Leaving a trail of fire, she thinks he means. She licks her lips regardless, and abandons her meal to just hold him, nestled in his lap.

"We can practice all we like before we get there," she points out, "and I suspect that having to stop for a short while will only make that ravishment far more intense."

A beat.

"And there'll be wine."

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