Greek mythology fic: the rosary her lips and tongue
Characters: Cassandra of Troy, background Hector/Andromache
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1001 words
Status: Complete
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the Iliad? Implied violence.
Notes: The fall of Troy in four acts, through the eyes of its doomed prophetess. Written for jacyevans, who snagged a slot in my fic meme. Hope you like it! Title from Neko Case's "Polar Nettles."
the rosary her lips and tongue
I.
“Laid low by Achilles,” you shriek, “dust turned red by my blood’s own blood!” The war chamber echoes with your cries, your father’s face shuttered and brother’s face filled with pity, eyes cast upon as though you are mad, as though you don’t speak the truth.
Gentle hands reach for you, your maids bowing low in apology as they pull you away from the men’s council, these men who think they are so wise, these men who hide safe behind high walls as they send your brother out to die in the dust at the point of Achilles’s sword.
Your thoughts summon up your vision once more, a scene of awful clarity that made you retch the first time it seared across your closed lids, when it woke you from the restless dreams that plague your sleep like angry ghosts. Your brother’s body, a lifeless husk of the man who carves wooden horses for his infant son, who kisses his beloved wife as though he has all the time in the world, dragging through the dust behind an enemy chariot.
It shocks you into stillness, your body shutting down as your mind viciously rejects the sight you know will come to pass, no, no no no nononono you won’t let it-
Your maids seize the chance, and you yourself are dragged away, away from the war chamber, away from your last chance to save your brother, save your city.
As they pull you back to your rooms, ready to serve you the drugged wine your mother still thinks you don’t know about, the one that sends you into a sleep so heavy it feels as though you are suffocating, you tell yourself your heart isn’t breaking, isn’t already broken with the knowledge that you never had a chance at all.
II.
You cannot watch. Gods help you, but you cannot watch. You know that Hector will brush his hand across his son’s forehead and place the wooden horse in his little fist, will kiss his wife as though he has all the time in the world, will walk to his final battle with the bearing of a true warrior, a prince of his people.
You know that he will die.
The sound that tears from Andromache’s throat drifts across the Trojan plain, a high, keening scream of grief. It rings out into the silence, and you know your terrible truth has come to pass.
You stare blankly at the floor, and listen as the silence slowly fills with the cries of all of Troy, a mourning chorus that scrapes along the inside of your skull, that echoes in the space your brother has left in your heart.
You say nothing to Andromache when you see her. Her eyes are fathomless wells of sorrow, and you would be lost in them if you weren’t already caught in the vicious web of Apollo’s visions.
Your lips shape nothing but truths no one wants to hear, and you will not burden your brother’s widow this night. She stares as you as though divining some truth from your silence, and for a single brief moment you are one in each other’s grief.
You are a widow, your husband’s death a raw wound across your heart, so fresh the pain doesn’t even seem real. She is a prophetess, mute though she speaks still, her sorrow an older thing, its edges blunted by time but made heavier by the weight of years. Then the moment passes and you are yourself once more, your grief once again your own.
You could cry, but you hold in the tears. You have given your words - you will not give your pain as well.
It is yours to hold.
III.
Your father spirits down to the Greek camp and returns with your brother’s body and the funeral games begin. Your drink the dosed wine and let the days pass in a haze of sleep, a desperate attempt to stave off the visions.
It does not work.
On the final day of the games, you see. You see it all, and your poor shoulders cannot bear any more weight, you eyes cannot hold any more tears. A sob tears its way from your chest, words clamoring behind it and suddenly you are struggling free of your sheets, pushing past your maids as you run to the balcony, frantic in your need to speak the truth.
You have to warn them, they have to know, have to see what you see, and somewhere beyond this desperation that has seized you, beneath the riot of words welling up from your chest, where your broken heart beats like a funeral drum, you have to believe that this time, this time, they will listen.
IV.
“Murderers from the belly of a horse, intruders a torch to blind kindling!” The words pour from your mouth in a torrent, angry and desperate. Hands grasp at you, pull you back from the balcony but you fight, they have to know, you have to tell them.
“Cassandra,” a voice says, perhaps your mother but you can’t tell because the pressure is building and building and building in your chest, hard and awful, the truth of a future written in flames waiting to fall from your lips.
Tears streak down your face, an ocean that won’t put out the raging fires, useless, so useless. You scream but oh, gods they won’t listen, they won’t see, it’s all going to burn, burnburnburn-
No more drugged wine, but instead a cloth across your face, the scent of valerian and the touch of a cool hand on your forehead, a voice that might be your mother’s heavy with sadness on the syllables of your name as the world slips away.
When you wake, the smoke is so thick you can barely see, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve seen this all before, the wretched cries and the acrid smell of smoke, a city wreathed in flames.
Troy is burning, and you have no more words.
Feedback is love!
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1001 words
Status: Complete
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the Iliad? Implied violence.
Notes: The fall of Troy in four acts, through the eyes of its doomed prophetess. Written for jacyevans, who snagged a slot in my fic meme. Hope you like it! Title from Neko Case's "Polar Nettles."
the rosary her lips and tongue
I.
“Laid low by Achilles,” you shriek, “dust turned red by my blood’s own blood!” The war chamber echoes with your cries, your father’s face shuttered and brother’s face filled with pity, eyes cast upon as though you are mad, as though you don’t speak the truth.
Gentle hands reach for you, your maids bowing low in apology as they pull you away from the men’s council, these men who think they are so wise, these men who hide safe behind high walls as they send your brother out to die in the dust at the point of Achilles’s sword.
Your thoughts summon up your vision once more, a scene of awful clarity that made you retch the first time it seared across your closed lids, when it woke you from the restless dreams that plague your sleep like angry ghosts. Your brother’s body, a lifeless husk of the man who carves wooden horses for his infant son, who kisses his beloved wife as though he has all the time in the world, dragging through the dust behind an enemy chariot.
It shocks you into stillness, your body shutting down as your mind viciously rejects the sight you know will come to pass, no, no no no nononono you won’t let it-
Your maids seize the chance, and you yourself are dragged away, away from the war chamber, away from your last chance to save your brother, save your city.
As they pull you back to your rooms, ready to serve you the drugged wine your mother still thinks you don’t know about, the one that sends you into a sleep so heavy it feels as though you are suffocating, you tell yourself your heart isn’t breaking, isn’t already broken with the knowledge that you never had a chance at all.
II.
You cannot watch. Gods help you, but you cannot watch. You know that Hector will brush his hand across his son’s forehead and place the wooden horse in his little fist, will kiss his wife as though he has all the time in the world, will walk to his final battle with the bearing of a true warrior, a prince of his people.
You know that he will die.
The sound that tears from Andromache’s throat drifts across the Trojan plain, a high, keening scream of grief. It rings out into the silence, and you know your terrible truth has come to pass.
You stare blankly at the floor, and listen as the silence slowly fills with the cries of all of Troy, a mourning chorus that scrapes along the inside of your skull, that echoes in the space your brother has left in your heart.
You say nothing to Andromache when you see her. Her eyes are fathomless wells of sorrow, and you would be lost in them if you weren’t already caught in the vicious web of Apollo’s visions.
Your lips shape nothing but truths no one wants to hear, and you will not burden your brother’s widow this night. She stares as you as though divining some truth from your silence, and for a single brief moment you are one in each other’s grief.
You are a widow, your husband’s death a raw wound across your heart, so fresh the pain doesn’t even seem real. She is a prophetess, mute though she speaks still, her sorrow an older thing, its edges blunted by time but made heavier by the weight of years. Then the moment passes and you are yourself once more, your grief once again your own.
You could cry, but you hold in the tears. You have given your words - you will not give your pain as well.
It is yours to hold.
III.
Your father spirits down to the Greek camp and returns with your brother’s body and the funeral games begin. Your drink the dosed wine and let the days pass in a haze of sleep, a desperate attempt to stave off the visions.
It does not work.
On the final day of the games, you see. You see it all, and your poor shoulders cannot bear any more weight, you eyes cannot hold any more tears. A sob tears its way from your chest, words clamoring behind it and suddenly you are struggling free of your sheets, pushing past your maids as you run to the balcony, frantic in your need to speak the truth.
You have to warn them, they have to know, have to see what you see, and somewhere beyond this desperation that has seized you, beneath the riot of words welling up from your chest, where your broken heart beats like a funeral drum, you have to believe that this time, this time, they will listen.
IV.
“Murderers from the belly of a horse, intruders a torch to blind kindling!” The words pour from your mouth in a torrent, angry and desperate. Hands grasp at you, pull you back from the balcony but you fight, they have to know, you have to tell them.
“Cassandra,” a voice says, perhaps your mother but you can’t tell because the pressure is building and building and building in your chest, hard and awful, the truth of a future written in flames waiting to fall from your lips.
Tears streak down your face, an ocean that won’t put out the raging fires, useless, so useless. You scream but oh, gods they won’t listen, they won’t see, it’s all going to burn, burnburnburn-
No more drugged wine, but instead a cloth across your face, the scent of valerian and the touch of a cool hand on your forehead, a voice that might be your mother’s heavy with sadness on the syllables of your name as the world slips away.
When you wake, the smoke is so thick you can barely see, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve seen this all before, the wretched cries and the acrid smell of smoke, a city wreathed in flames.
Troy is burning, and you have no more words.
Feedback is love!