Written by T.J. Phoenix
The front door to the manor house burst open and sheeting rain stung the hardwood floors. It's force striking so hard that it bounced up on impact to become airborne once again. A man dressed in a long black cape stepped in on the marble floor. He was dripping rain and his shoulder was stooped for he had slung over his shoulder the unconscious figure of a woman.
Her hair was a blond tangled muddy mess. Her face obscured by it's length. He royal blue dress was caked in mud and her hem was split. Jessica pulled back in horror at the sight. She withdrew into the main drawing room.
The man continued in that direction with a high energy forward stride. Though soaking wet he was hot and his skin burned with the effort of his parcel. One foot shot out, the heel of his black boot kicking the door open. The door flew back with the impact. In the distance you could hear rushing feet scurry up the long corridor from the servants entrance.
"Jess," he hollered! As he chastised his sister from the corner of his eye. "Blankets now!"
He strode forward until he stopped in front of a sizeable stone fire place. There strewn about the floor were a variety of rich tapestries and hand loomed floor pillows. He slowly knelt and laid her across them. His hand paused, to take a stray strand of hair away from her face. She was... he could not believe, and yet. He knew who she was.
Lyric awoke to find herself blanketed in front of a warm fire. The was no one else in the room: and as Master Edward had ordered, there would be no one. A table had been set with a full buffet, but tastfully and obviously for one. One silver plate, one crystal blue goblet and one chair. Food was foreign to her still, she would pass.
She turned her gaze back to the fire. She watched it dance in hues of amber and soft bright orange, fading to her favorite silvery white. She knew she had shamed herself. She had failed at her office. How could he not... how could he not, rejoice in her presence? She could understand not love... and only lust. After all, that had happened so often on assignment, it had become the normal state of affairs. But to not feel good about her.. to feel nervous and trepidatious... to be ever, less than completely open, joyful and alive with her? How could that be possible? How could any of it be possible?
How do you define yourself?
Is it something dependent on what another human being says?
Do you define yourself in the after-image of someone elses ego?
Of course you might never look at it that way, even if it were true...
I failed my post. I wanted him selfishly. I wanted him for the joy it gave my own heart to see his beauty and inner worth. I thrilled at knowing what I gave him, even if he seldom saw or considered the impact I had in shaping his awakening. And even now, even at this distance, I would still help him. I would still care for him if allowed... and yet.
"And yet, what my Lady Muse," a voice spoke from behind.
Lyric turned to face Lord Edward. She felt awkward at first of her rather ill mannered form. Not the casualness of her attire but the openness with which she so easily allowed herself to be overheard while deep in reflection.
"And yet," Lyric began, " Slowly standing, and walking toward the chair near Edward. She slowly sat down in the seat across from him. "And yet, the joy has gone out of it for me."
She slowly dropped her head. A lack of joy in Post was the largest disgrace for the Muse Lyric. It drained her power. It reduced her capacity to be creative. And it utterly and completely shattered her sense of esteem.
Had she not been... in a storm, of her own will. Had she not been out walking on the moors, hunting for her own premature death. Lyric knew how low she'd sunk and she lived with the shame of it. Not, all together, really living... but trying her best.
She had been trying her best until today. Until last night. Her composer David had come to her again last night. He had come to her for the need to quicken his own passion. He had sought her only for his own need. And still she came to him.
The hope of pleasing him, her soul pleasure. But not in some shallow, only lustful, capacity. But to fill his heart and mind with a wondrous wholeness that might some how eclipse the pain and sorrow that had led his life that way.
David was an opium addict. He had been now, these last six years. And while he would excuse his addictions and the cost of care and feeding... He would never tear off the mask and look at the cause for the dependence. He would not face, why he could only be released through that door, and not through another. Lyric knew the rush of brain chemistry, but she also knew how directed will could change things also. How the focus and mental capacity to self heal could be achieved with out the numbing of the passion centers. With out the loss of Muse.She wanted to free him. She wanted him to live straight. Not straight like most people live their lives. Not the sour stoic shut down mechanism where once a soul breathed. But the straight out giddy euphoria induced by an absolute love of life. That's how she had lived. She had seen pain, but it was joy, laughter and love that kept her in the world of mortals until now.
Now she felt her resolve and her dedication slipping away.
"What was the last thing you remember me saying," he asked.
Lyric stared at Edward blankly. How could she express to him, the oppression of spirit she felt that even now continued to eat away at her very soul. All she could manage to do was stare at him with a stunned confusion. That expression one makes when being spoken to in a language you have never once heard, and have no identity with.
"How can I, " she said weakly...
... how can I save him. I'd go in the dark cave to get him. I would. I did. But he wouldn't come out. He wouldn't come out to the world. He said it was just me, that I drove him in there, and I do not understand. I have only ever devoutly loved him! How could I have done that. I did not care whether or not he was with me, I cared whether or not he had his life together. I cared whether or not he was provided for.
He never shared my home. He never had to cook a meal or pick up a mess or even tend to my chores. Never, not once. He just had to endure my endless passion. My hopes, desires and eternal love for him.... I came to him when he was most in need. It was winter then, as it is winter now. He was depressed, and in need of caring. His music, which was only ever of the highest caliper was slipping. The king and queen who had once spoken well of him, now were concerned with the sad and deplorable state of his talent.
David slept all day and was up all night. He drank and smoked opium heavily and lived off an allowance from his mother, all because he was on an artists sabbatical. And yet, what sabbatical. A separation from reality, very little effort put into his art. He suffered from burn out, that's why they sent for me. I had a high success rate as a muse and I had only ever been professional. Until now. When he took the flute to his lips or the guitar to his side there was a primacy about him that I would do anything to get near. Free of charge. He said it was the pace of the last six years. I pointed out the drugs. He justified and minimalized, I backed off and then approached again. Especially after my visits of inspiration became trials of tediousness for him. When who I was, and what I might possibly mean as a result became so blurred that he saw me as little more than some serving wench with a wry wit and a well turned thigh. I? Like this. ...I looked up into Edwards face, there was a kindness there I did not expect. He extended a cup of hot coffee, a rare wealth. I drank it and slowly began to feel some life return to my body. There was the sweet underpinning of chocolate and sugar, all imported. Slowly I could focus on the room and my surroundings.
Jeffery's words still echoed through my mind:
If it is for his pleasure alone, it will never be but a fleeting flash,
and you shall pay the cost alone, of these devotions.
I knew what it meant. I didn't want to know what it meant. And then I looked at Edward again. This time I actually saw him. He smiled. He stood up and crossed to my chair. He did not speak, he only stood there motioning me to my feet. I looked at him. I extended my hand and then slowly stood. Gravity fought against the effort. My legs shook under the struggle against exhaustion.
I found myself nestled against him. I fit comfortably against his chest. I tall, statuesque felt small and slight and insignificant. I wept with the earnest pain of the ageless child who sleeps in the core of my being. I wept because I knew David. I wept because I loved David. And I wept because I knew I could not stay with, nor free David. And I cried, most of all, because it was Edward holding me. I looked up raising my chin against his chest. He looked at me tenderly and smiled. I brought my feet up on point and kissed him sensuously. From the first kiss I felt a warm river of energy flow, not away, but rather, into me. I felt the intoxicating rush of knowing, exactly why it felt this way.
I can not be what you want me to be," David chided. "I know what you think I am. But I am not him. I, am someone else."
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. He had only just been inside of passion with her and here he was again, telling her to go. She pushed too far and too hard. She didn't know when to stop. And her timing... her timing was the worst in recorded history!
He wanted to be left in his solitary shallowness. He wanted to taste the simple from the enhanced brain chemistry which made the shallowness of base sexual contact a prize to be highly sought for its adrenalin stimulating aspect. Good God! He did not want a pairing, much less a mating! Not with any woman, but certainly not with her. She could not respect his need for comfort. It was all her fault. And it was definitely her problem. How he loathed her most of all, for the mirror of cascading compromise she held before his face. He did not want to see her. He did not want to know her, he did not want her. No answer was ever as simple as she made this one. And how dare she, her presumption: that she could embody everything he had need of. He had need of nothing from her!
"I give up! You win" He yelled. " I am leaving!."
He stormed out of his one room flat, quickly disappearing up the crowded streets. When she ran out into the storm, it had been to look for him at first. She tripped in a pot hole at the edge of the road. Her knee was skinned. She sobbed softly to herself as she crawled to the edge of the road. Nothing mattered anymore. She struggled to her feet. Pain shot through her calve. She would go until she could walk no further, and then, then she would lay down and die.
The storm continued to rage. Whether anger or sorrow the natural world seemed to seethe with her pain. The unrelenting cascade of rain, chilled her to the bone. She didn't care. She didn't care about her office. She did not care about esteem or dignity. All she cared about was that somehow, and for the first time in her life, she had fallen in love with her musician. Unrequited love, left a bitter taste in her heart. He returned her true affection not in the slightest. No... not in the least. Her only accomplishment: his sexual release, was her greatest shame. Their meaning hollowed by his lack of intimacy and respect.
At the edge of the woods there was a clearing. A winding path rose up through the woods. She heard thunder of horses hooves as she approached. Dark sounds and musky scents of the forest floor surrounded her. They struck an ominous chord in the depth of her soul. She felt the last light abandon her.
She would run out in front of the horse. In the last moment, the last instant, when the rider would have to stay the course and trample her all too willing body. It was too late. Fate, whom she had only ever hoped was ally and kin had instead been trickster and destroyer. How could she care, how could she care so deeply and fail him so completely.
Only an instant had passed. Her heart raced into to the horses hooves. She would move into their music. And let their refrain deafen the sound of her sorrow once and for all. Shadow loomed as life choked a struggling breath.
And then... the man who rode the steed. He brought the horse to the edge of the road with a hard pull on the reins and a commanding call that rendered an immediate response. The horse stumbled, her legs collapsing out from under her. Edward was thrown from her back in the jolt. Rolling down the embankment he crashed into tree branches and rocks.
His forehead began to bleed from a gash just above his right brow. A small trickling stream of blood pooled, moving along the contours of his cheek. His intense blue eyes flashed in pain as lightning illuminated the hillside momentarily. He caught himself in a forward roll. Grabbing an exposed tree root he stopped the forward momentum and shot up the hillside once more. Driven by adrenalin and compelled by fear.
His horse Sera, lay on her side bleeding from her withers . Her back left leg bone had been snapped in two. Tears stung Edwards face. Her death would be quick and only a moments pain. Her sacrifice would be remembered. He looked to the place in the road where Lyric lay slumped. He did not know if she still lived or if she had died. The rain was too heavy for him to make out anything other than the rumpled blue outline of her collapsed body.
He rolled her over in the road. She was unconscious, but alive. He lifted her head onto his lap. Cradling the base of her neck he held her face upward. Rain quickly washed the mud away from her face. He was touched by her genuine beauty. In the moment he first saw her, he loved her with all his heart. He did not know why he loved her but being a man of reason he still took this revelation with the distinction and respect it's passage signified.
She opened her eyes for an instant. Exhausted, she sighed. She looked to the sky. The world was spinning. Trees loomed large and monstrous and everything in the world was bigger and stronger than her.
"I failed," she cried. "I -" Her words yielded in the instant consciousness was abandoned. It was from that spot, and for a mile and a half up hill that Edward carried her to safety. All the while... fearing. For she was so cold, so cold and death was close. ...
... David walked into the pub. He smiled at Shawn who was in the middle of an animated conversation. Shawn lifted his glass and motioned with a smile. David walked past the bar and to the one stool which stood near a musty window. He sat down. Looking out at the sheeting rain he wondered if she was safe. He had after all, heard her calls above the rain. No sense in making things any worse than they already were. He knew the course he made. Just as he knew that freeing her was likely his one kind deed in an otherwise, under-examined life, of tragic comedy.
Edward kissed Lyric yet again. This time with a gentle, underlying passion which resonated a familiarity that she both would accept and rejoice in. His arms were protective and for the first time in a long time, she felt completely at ease.