Gathering. (Pt. VIII) (or... Pt. 8, for Egyptians)

[sia_dot_com]

The last beats of the song to which they danced ended in the sweet, slow draw of a solo violin. Sia dipped his goddess deeply over his arm, his hands strong and supporting. She was beautiful, graceful, strong... Everything he found desirable

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[philammondotcom]

He managed to make it to the sandy beach without breaking down. Behind him, he could still hear the sounds of Nyx' party, and he longed to be a part of it, with Nyx at his side. Closing a hand over his eyes, he stopped at the shore, evaporating his dress shoes and socks in a quick thought.

"Ah, screw it," he muttered thickly, dropping his hand. His suit changed into a comfortable black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

He couldn't believe he just left Nyx... willingly. She was there, beautiful, confident, radiant, mysterious as ever. She wanted to see him. When had that stopped being enough? Why couldn't it be enough? Why couldn't he be enough for her?

His feet walked him north on the shore. The sound of the ocean helped... It sounded like his own internal roaring. As long as the ocean was doing it, then he didn't have to. That's what he kept telling himself.

Finally, he found a large outcropping of rock and sat down, raking his hands through his head. How could he have done that? How could he have done that?

You're an idiot, that's how, he berated himself. A Grade A idiot. No wonder she isn't attracted. Blame her? I think not.

"I could have at least pretended... I could have at least stayed with her..." This, aloud, as his mind started overrunning him. His utterance was immediately answered by bright laughter, bright feminine laughter close by, bright feminine laughter close by that he recognized.
Circe.

Without even thinking about it, he stood from the outcropping and headed toward her laughter. It was coming from a hidden cove close to the rock where he had sat.

[circe_dotcom]

"We do not cheat." Came a chorus of voices.

Circe looked at her cousins and then at the splayed circular cards at her feet, tossed between her curled spot on the cove's shore and their splashing nest in the water.

"Then how come I'm almost undressed already ?"

"You have less clothes." One bright young thing said laughing, fluttering between all water maiden and something seeming flesh and blood.

Circe arched a brow. "I think not. How can I have more clothes than a niad. You've cheated to get me into the water. I know it." The cards in her hand shook a little with her own laughter.

[philammondotcom]

He stopped at the edge of the cove, finding Circe and a bit of her family engaged in what looked to be strip poker -- and Temptation was losing.

It was a measure of his distress that he didn't react as violently as he usually would have, at the inflaming sight. Instead, he turned toward the incoming sea again and cleared his throat. While he could still see them indirectly through his peripheral vision, he afforded her some privacy, in this manner.

"I'm sorry to have interrupted," he said. He did mean it, too, but the tone of his voice was flat, discordant, emotionless.

[circe_dotcom]

At the cleared through, half the naiads scattered, water droplets falling back into the sea.

Circe turned, however, puzzled and picked up her dress, wrapping it around her easily. "Philammon ?"

His words had been lost to her cousin's giggling, but the pose of his back, the fact that he was even turned away. She slipped behind him, arms going around his waist.

"Temptation's Beloved, what troubles you ?"

[philammondotcom]

Don't break now, he told himself, as he felt Circe's comforting arms about his form and her breath through the cloth on his back. Not when you're finally holding together so well.

He didn't know how to answer her. As time spun on, he wasn't sure if he trusted himself to speak, either. He could feel his throat clogging with anger and loss and frustration and longing all at the same time, and to speak would have been to let go of some of it, somehow, someway. Circe had put up with so much from him already. And so, at least outwardly, he retained some semblance of calm for a few more precious moments.

He brought his hand to rest against the two small ones that clasped about his waist. It was all that he could manage.

[circe_dotcom]

Circe let her mind graze his, for just a moment, like a kiss. And then freely opened her mind, to his. If he wouldn't speak of it, he could share like this. She knew it had to be about Nyx. Since she'd met him it'd been about nothing and no one else.

At least, nothing and no one he could admit to, even slightly. There was something more to all this self torture; she was sure of it, simply because she'd found herself invoked to be his confessor.

She wrapped her mind around his, comforting and supportive and simply there. 'When you're ready, Musician. I will be here.'

[philammondotcom]

He remembered the touch of her mind.

Every so slightly, he leaned back against her. He knew what she wanted him to do, knew that she wanted to know all of it, not just Nyx... All of it.

"Not yet," he said silently to her. "I will. But not yet."

Aloud, he told her:

"I left her. I told her she was dangerous to me, and I left. She wanted to have me around, and I left her."

[circe_dotcom]

She chuckled softly but sympathetically and beneath his hands, her own moved. "Sometimes, Philammon, you make me think you enjoy suffering. That perhaps it is a musican's thing, to find some pain for inspiration. But then I think, but the world has had happy songs."

Circe began to circle around to face him. "Old scars, old wounds, why do you let them keep you from what you want ?"

[philammondotcom]

He opened and closed his hands as Circe pulled away. He felt like doing something with them, something violent. Puzzled, he stared at his palms, then rubbed his fingertips together. It wasn't like him to be violent.

"Right now, Circe, it's not the past that's keeping me from her. She's already told me that she didn't want to date me. I've made a fool of myself nearly every single time I've seen her. And she's.... She's Nyx, ancient, fair, mysterious. She touches half the world constantly, and still remains beautiful, lovely, untouchable, even as ubiquitous as she is. And what am I? And how can I compare? There are uneven matches, then there are uneven matches and then there's me and her."

He could feel something building inside himself, something he didn't want to lose control of. He closed his fists tightly at his side, as if it gave him some measure of restraint. But he had started trembling, ever so slightly.

Setting his jaw, he stared out over Circe's dark head, his eyes falling on the sea. The comfort of the music of nature around him was waning quickly. He turned away from the vista, staring at nothing in particular.

"I couldn't keep on looking at her, keep on wanting her, and knowing that ... that.. she didn't.... How could she, honestly, Circe, how could she? Me?"

He let out a sigh through his teeth; it ended up as a hiss.

"I feel like..."

But he wouldn't put into words what he felt like doing. It scared even him.

[circe_dotcom]

Circe cupped one of his shaking fists in both her hands and brought it up to her cheek, un-afraid. "Yes ?"

She left his fist there and let her hands travel over his arms. "Because I do not think I know, Philammon. To me the question is not 'How could she?'; because she quite clearly does. You're here, aren't you ? The question, Philammon, is why won't you let her ?"

' What are you afraid of, Dark One ? Do you think she doesn't know ? That I don't ? Of the twist and coil, the heaving anger, the despair, the madness ? Temptation dances to your music under the deep Night sky. So tell me, what don't we know ? What makes it impossible ? '

[philammondotcom]

He instantly flattened his palm against Circe's soft, cool cheek, completely unwilling, even in his current state, to even appear to raise a hand in violence against Circe. He had hurt her once this night, and it was enough; it was more than enough.

Her gentle touch, like her words, clawed into his already-twisting heart, and he winced. Circe's voice spoke to him silently, it made him shudder, hard.

"No, Circe, don't bring this out, it can't be tonight."

The image of Circe dancing to music he wrote under Nyx's great sky flickered in the back of his mind. Later, he would remember it and be touched. For now, it flowed into him without causing a ripple. He was not himself.

Pulling away from her, he started pacing back and forth by the area where Circe and her naiads had been playing cards. He didn't watch what he was doing or where he planted his feet; he just paced, trying to walk out his demons. The sharp curves and steep uphill climbs of the California highway were calling to him, and he wanted to answer. He wanted to race at ridiculous speed on his motorcycle. He wanted a reprieve.

"I can't do this," he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

[circe_dotcom]

"Very well." She bowed her head a moment and turned to go. Circe stopped a few steps away from the cove's entrance. "There are many beasts within a man. The driving passion...the lower sinking self destruction. For some men, they look alike. But for you, something slithers lowly in places a true Minotaur would carelessly place his foot, and crush it into nothing."

The wind whipped a little about her suddenly, tangling in her hair. her posture changed and when she lifted her head suddenly, her eyes were dark though he wouldn't see it.

"Be gone, ride swift as wind and fly. A thousand miles before a serpent blinks an eye. Drive forth your demons, meet them in pace. Return only when in a mirror your heart you'll face."

But the energy about her quickly faded, if it'd be there at all. "I'll give my regards to our hostess."

[philammondotcom]

He stopped his pacing, and stood silent for a few moments, raking his hands through his hair. As the word 'hostess' dropped from Circe's lips, his form disappeared.

Only to reappear before her again.

He stared down at her a moment, then gathered her up in his arms, being careful not to crush her. The embrace was tight, but not painful.

"Meet me at my home at sunrise, if you can," he said.

And then he really was gone.