(no subject)

[tragic_mask]

Arriving at the Visitor's Center, Melpomene takes a look around.

"Well, this is it. In all its touristic glory. "

Comments

[mechanicalswans]

"I think it would be," he says. "I think it would be very... enlightening. For both of us."

[tragic_mask]

Her hands drop to her sides, and she glances at him, darkly. "No doubt."

[mechanicalswans]

"I should like to cherish every part and aspect of you," he murmurs. "And I should like you to know what you're getting involved with. Even if I would never hurt you. It's been so long since I could be honest."

[tragic_mask]

She looks at him quietly, for a long moment, with the shouts of tourists around them and the crashing waterfall as backdrop.

"Not here, but..." She stops, tries again. "You know, there is truly nothing to cherish about who I really am. I was made of darkness, more than any of my sisters."

[mechanicalswans]

"And you think it would bother me?" he asks quietly, leaning closer to her. He doesn't really want anyone else to overhear what he has to say, not that they're paying attention to much besides the scenery.

"I am a murderer, you know. A rapist and torturer. I have killed people and used their parts in my work. I'm not afraid of darkness."

[tragic_mask]

Her mouth tautens to hear these confessions, but she forges on-- too late now.

"At least you create something good from it. All I can make are strings of words... and not even my own. And for this, I have... destroyed lives."

She turns away, gazes off. "Anyway, I don't think I could recover this self, if I went back to the old one-- and I enjoy being able to smile, sometimes."

[mechanicalswans]

"You do as you were created to do," he says, watching her, expression once more impassive. "And I do what a cruel twist of fate has led me to do. But you know... I think that each of us is exactly what the other needs."

[tragic_mask]

"I guess we'll see," she says, skeptically. "I will want to have the mask and dagger you made for me. It will make things more... as they were, before."

[mechanicalswans]

"I could separate you," he says. "Give you control over it, so that you can turn it off and back on. Let you be as at peace as you like. But you would have to trust me."

[tragic_mask]

"I trust you. But... I wouldn't, after the change. Trust is for the weak. The naive."

She sounds doubtful: wanting to know him better (the dark things she can see, despite her efforts-- threads of memory winding through his mind), not wanting to lose herself in the process.

[mechanicalswans]

"You know yourself better than I do."

He looks up at the waterfall, around at the other tourists on the boat.

"But whatever you need, whatever you want--I can give you. I know I can."

[tragic_mask]

"Well," she says. "What about a festival, with hundreds of attendants from around Greece?"

She smiles, wryly. "There are some things I think can't be reproduced... which is why my glory is faded."

[mechanicalswans]

"We can make new things, my little one," he says. "Let me create, let you refine--we will be unstoppable. And if you want a festival, just give me some time and I will make it happen."

[tragic_mask]

"Well." She looks at him. "We'll do this, then. No holds barred. The gods we were made to be... we will be."

[mechanicalswans]

"We will," he agrees, looking into her eyes. "The only question is where."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, not here," she says, with a trace of a smile. "Wouldn't wreak that on these innocent tourists."

[mechanicalswans]

"Of course," he says. "It will be completely your decision, when and where it happens..."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, we'll have to go back... I think the purpose of the vacation is destroyed, if we're not pretending to be anything we're not."

[mechanicalswans]

"Now, then?" he asks. "We aren't very good at the pretending, it seems. It keeps bleeding through."

[tragic_mask]

"Yes," she says. "But you're better than I am. Which is ironic. You'd think the storyteller could tell a story."

[mechanicalswans]

"Artifice," he says, "is my specialty. And if I want something to be true--really want it to be--I'm very good at self-delusion."

[tragic_mask]

"Well, strip away the mask," she says. "And I'll put mine on. I haven't worn it in hundreds of years. But... it helps define me."

[mechanicalswans]

"I almost never take mine off," he says with a humorless chuckle. "Quite a pair we are--just look at us. But I think we can be mended."

[tragic_mask]

"I know you're capable of making the repair. Though it could be difficult."

She runs a hand over his face, as if to find the mask there, and remove it.

[mechanicalswans]

"Nothing worth having ever comes easily," he says. "And something so powerful--it should be difficult. But certainly possible."