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Chapter Text

On the road to hell, there was a railroad line. 

It was always dark and dismal, no matter if it were the first break of morning sun or a cloudless cerulean sky. The railroad remained painted in shades of coal and ash. Hot-iron steel festered in the forest air, and with it, a sense of dread lingered. The bridge between the living and the dead was no cheery notion. 

No one dared walk the length of the tracks. No sheer boredom or morbid curiosity could make someone wonder what was on the other side where the tracks disappeared over the horizon. Only those on board who made a deal with Hades himself saw what was on the other side. 

A whistle like the shrill scream of a bird announced departures and arrivals from the infamous Hadestown. It broke through the mornings and pierced through the nights, a chill of winter air, biting and bitter. Its forlorn call reminded those who lived by the tracks that times were hard. 

With the hard times the freeze of winter brought, it wasn’t uncommon for people to run into three old women all dressed the same in dresses of silver dust. Like whispers in the trees, voices singing in the back of people’s minds, the Fates drifted from place to place as agents of chaos.

These specters of deceit, each brandished with an accordion, a violin, and a tambourine, haunted the minds of the cold. They sang like the wind in haunting refrains, convincing even the most steadfast to give into the chill and make a trip to the underground. 

No sight was more haunting than the devilish grin of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos as they snipped away yet another string of life. 

But sometimes making a deal with death itself was easier than going another day in the cold.

So often the whistle of the train instilled disquietude within those close enough to hear its dies irae, but it brought a feeling of hope when the seasons changed and Persephone would step from the car. It was the one time a year the whistle was celebrated. The goddess would step onto the frozen ground, and it would thaw beneath her boots. Each step turned the frost-bitten snow into blades of emerald. With her, the scent of snapdragons and sunshine followed as she unfroze the winter with her smile and a bottle of dandelion wine. 

Persephone’s arrival commemorated the beginning of springtime, but her appearances got later every year, and the second train whistle signifying her husband coming to whisk her back down to Hadestown got earlier and earlier. What once was six months on the surface and six months in the underground slowly shifted to four months of warmth and eight months of cold. Months of merriment and warmth came to a halt all too soon. And while Hades greedily collected Persephone, those above were thrust back into hard times that the winter brought.

Perhaps Hades missed his wife too much.

Perhaps Hades was looking for more workers.

Rumors of changes in Hadestown showed themselves in murmurs between the gods, and Hades wasn’t above plunging the world above into a harsh winter if it meant more workers for his mines. 

Everyone knew the cold made people desperate, and desperation turned into exchanges of life for two gold coins that would take them right down to Hadestown. 

It was hard times, and the road to hell awaited those who tried. 

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Well-loved wooden floorboards, walls of browning brick, and a sign hanging out front with illuminated Greek lettering that proclaimed the name of the tavern for all who passed: “ροδιά σπιτάκι”. Hermes made sure the tavern always welcomed the goddess of spring, even when she wasn’t there. An homage to the good times when the alcohol poured and bellies were full. 

Even in Persephone’s absence, the messenger god kept the doors to Pomegranate House open for any wandering travelers in need of a meal and someplace to escape the cold of the world for the night. For a reasonable fee, a bowl of barley soup with a crust of freshly baked bread and a goblet of ambrosia wine could be purchased. And, as always, a chance to warm frozen limbs was offered to anyone who stepped through the tavern’s doors, whether or not food and drink were bought. Hermes’s hearth was always open.

Only a few tables were occupied this early in the morning. Snippets of chatter drifted from the patrons who lingered for days on end. The morning light of the sun filtered through the tavern’s windows, casting the splintered furniture in a golden bronze that yearned for the summer. Inside, the warmth provided some shelter, but the raging winds and snow outside showed no slowing. Winter held onto the world with an iron-like grip.

A reminder that spring and summer were nowhere in sight. 

Hermes hung behind the bar, organizing the wall of wine bottles. Pomegranate House was always well-stocked, the abundance of alcohol stretching to the ceiling in a wall of shelves. A few contributions were from the god of wine himself, Dionysus, but Persephone always made sure the tavern carried her favorite summer wines. Most of the bottles, lustrous bottles of rich oranges and deep purples, stayed untouched until the first train whistle of spring. Hermes didn’t like the sight of dust on the bottles. And he knew Persephone wouldn’t like it either.

“Orpheus,” Hermes called out. His eyes and hands were still fixated on the wall in front of him. When the god didn’t get a response, he finally pried his eyes from the wine and looked out into the tavern. Louder this time, but never stern. “Orpheus!”

The boy finally lifted his gaze from where he sat with his lyre he was plucking, meeting the god with startled eyes that swam with subtle embarrassment. With all the grace of a fawn taking its first steps, Orpheus stripped away the lyre that was strapped around his shoulder, placed it on the barren table he sat at, and stumbled over to Hermes.

“Mr. Hermes?” he cleared his throat, hands twitching at his sides.

A musician’s habit. Always fidgeting, always plucking absent melodies at the side of his pants. As if the boy couldn’t go a single second without music at his fingertips. As if he found inspiration from every little thing in his life.

Hermes placed a wine bottle in Orpheus’s hands. A dark red of cinnamon and apple, spiced and warm. The drink was a signature in the winter months when even fire couldn’t warm well enough. “For table six,” Hermes instructed. 

“Of course,” Orpheus took the bottle in his hands with a quick nod before heading back out from behind the bar. He moved as he always did, a bit clumsy and as if his feet could never keep up with his flitting brain. 

Orpheus was always a little squirrelly, even when he was a little boy. Hermes had watched him hold his lyre for the first time, fingers too excited to strum the strings that he had forgotten to tune the instrument. He remembered the flush of embarrassment that brightened over his pale skin at the discordant chord that rang out, how shaking fingers adjusted the strings, and tried again.

Music came naturally to Orpheus. With Calliope as a mother and the divine Apollo as a father, lyrics and melodies were a second language to the boy. Hermes had seen how easily verses and rhymes came to him, and the instrumentals just as easily. He was touched by the gods and gifted the power of music.

And when both mother and father were too busy with their lives as god and muse, too absent to be proper parents, Hermes took the young musician under his wing and gave him a place to stay.

Orpheus was a decent bartender and waiter, but his talents flourished in musicality. Apart from the boy’s habit of getting distracted with his lyre during business hours, he managed to get through days with minimal spills and mistakes. An endearing, sheepish personality made the boy a favorite among frequent customers. No mistake could make someone hate Orpheus, a boy who beamed like the reflection of the sun on the snow and sang like a bird in springtime.

Generous as he was, Hermes also let Orpheus play his music for the tavern on weekends when the building got the most foot traffic. Orpheus was infectious enough, all coiled-up nerves and excitement, but when he sang, people listened. Really Iistened. 

As Orpheus made his way over to the table with the bottle of wine, the tavern’s front door swung open. A flurry of winter wind seeped into the opening for a moment before the wooden door creaked to a close and a girl bundled in layers of grey stepped inside. Hermes recognized the look of weariness on the girl’s face. He’d seen it many times on patrons who visited the tavern.

Winter was harsh to those who traveled through it.

The girl took a few looks around with the frenetic nature of a bird. Head shooting around at every creak of a floorboard. Shoulders tensed, walls up. Her arms stayed clutched to her chest and deeply buried in the material of her coat. Slightly frightened and frozen, the girl made her way deeper into the tavern with the caution of a cat. 

There wasn’t much time for Orpheus to move away as the girl promptly took a few staggering steps, backing right into him.

The two stumbled, the girl whipping around to brace her hands on Orpheus’s chest before she broke apart from him. Orpheus nearly dropped the bottle of wine in his hands, but his attention wasn’t on the alcohol. 

It was on the girl in front of him.

The two stared at each other for a moment, a beat, as if time itself froze them together in a trace. The girl was transfixed, her guard slipping as she looked at the deer-like face of Orpheus. Orpheus looked back. Wide eyes and a slightly agape mouth, he took a step back from the girl. And as she stood still, Orpheus lowered the bottle of wine, and the fingers of his free hand drummed at the side of his pants.

Hermes recognized the look on the young musician’s face. He’d seen it so many times. The look of pure love, of enamoration, of obsession. But Hermes could tell there was something else mixed and lingering within the eyes of Orpheus, looking like a deer underneath a train’s blinding headlights.

The dread of realization.

Chapter Text

Eurydice closed the tavern door as quickly as she whipped it open, sealing the winter wind back outside. The numbness of the cold seeped into the cracks of her like the drip of rain through a poorly constructed rooftop. She rushed her flushed hands into the pockets of her coat, kicked the snow off her boots, and stepped further into Pomegranate House.

Every muscle in her body was taut and tense. Her head whipped around at every little sound, every shuffle, until she settled her eyes on a small menu board above the bar. Whittled wood advertised hearty soups and side dishes that made Eurydice’s stomach grumble on instinct.

The lack of money in her pocket did nothing to aid her hunger. If anything, it only made the aching in her belly intensify as saliva pooled in her mouth merely at the names of the dishes. Pot pies with cheddar sage biscuits, a soup with pumpkin and butternut squash, apple crisp with hay custard.

Every waking moment, blazing hot or freezing cold, Eurydice was hungry.

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Eurydice looked down at her supper plate and basked in silent guilt at the portion compared to that of her parents. She was the smallest of the family, yet they made sure her plate had the most food.

“You’re still growing, Eurydice,” her father said as he took the loaf of sourdough and began to break it into thirds. While two portions remained the same size, he “accidentally” broke apart a third, bigger portion that he slipped onto his daughter’s plate.

Eurydice opened her mouth to protest, but her mother placed an extra slice of cheese and a handful of berries on her plate before she could get a single word out. “You need every bite you can get, dear. You’ll wither away before next spring.”

Her parents did this song and dance with her every supper, and it always made a lingering sense of guilt swirl with the hunger already in her stomach. While she sat at home in her solitude and silence, her parents slaved away for scraps. No matter how fatigued her parents were at the end of the day, no matter how much food they had in the house, Eurydice always got the biggest meals. 

How the shame ate away at her consciousness like a wild animal ravaging its prey. Eurydice, barely ten years old, already knew how hard it was to come across food in the winter. The ground, still frozen, prohibited any planting, and the snow buried anything that grew in the cold climate. Still, her parents always made sure she ate. 

And what did she do the whole day?

Collect handfuls of snow for water she’d melt over the fireplace, sure, though anyone could do that. She’d clean and make sure the house was tidy for her parents to come home to. Somedays, she’d brave the cold and search for food out in the forests that surrounded her house, but after being caught by her father, Eurydice strictly stayed home.

Her plate, not bountiful but surely not scarce, made her stomach churn.

“You need it more than me,” Eurydice mumbled as she pushed her plate closer to her parents sitting across from her, but her father stopped the plate before it hit the middle of the table.

“Nonsense. If you don’t eat enough, you’ll never get tall like your mother.”

“And you’ll get sick more often,” her mother added. 

Eurydice’s father hummed in agreement. “Eurydice, don’t make your mother worry,” he scolded, but his tone was light and gentle as it always was when he talked to his daughter. “Eat.”

Eurydice stared down at the hunk of bread on her plate. Its crust wasn’t as crisp as the loaves in the marketplace, the signs of age prominent by a simple glance. She was grateful that there weren't any spots of blue this time that she’d have to eat around. She started breaking it apart into small portions to pair with the cheese. She paced herself and let the taste of the salt of the cheese dissolve on her tongue like a snowflake.

Over the years, Eurydice had learned to savor the food in front of her despite how much she wanted to dig her teeth deep into the bread and lacerate its stale crust. It was a way to be thankful, savoring meals, her mother told her. Whenever the hunger was particularly awful, her mother would hold her and tell her that her stomach growled with hunger to remind her that she was alive. But she knew that she was only trying to distract herself from their limited resources.

Eurydice was born hungry and pessimistic.

“You’re not going to finish your supper?” her father asked when Eurydice stood from the table with her plate still carrying a portion of bread and cranberries.

Eurydice forced the rumble of her stomach away. “I’m full,” she said quietly before slipping into the kitchen.

Eurydice knew her parents often went to sleep hungry. If she pressed her ear to her bedroom wall, she could hear them murmur about the lack of rations from the room next door. The very thought ate away at her, and with the guilt, the hoarding started.

She kept a small backpack of leftovers tucked away in a cupboard in the kitchen. She knelt before the cabinet next to the sink and pulled out the bag, making sure to wrap the bread in a cloth for preservation before she stuck it into a pocket with other grains. 

The cranberries dropped into a separate pocket where a growing collection of produce and sweets was stored away. She let the cranberries fall into the pocket next to a handful of individually wrapped taffies her mother brought home as a winter solstice present. 

She made sure her parents never found the bag. If they did, another lecture about eating would be delivered, and Eurydice knew she wouldn’t be allowed to leave the table until her plate was cleared. She hated being sneaky, but it was better than wasting food.

Her collection of leftovers came in handy when both her parents fell ill in the winter when Eurydice turned twelve. 

It came for her mother first. She came home with the evening’s game and a lingering cough that resonated deep within her lungs. The rabbit slung across her back crashed down on the kitchen counter as she hacked into a closed fist. Phlegm presented itself in a gob of lime that she wiped away on a handkerchief from her pocket.

“Mama?” Eurydice crept into the kitchen when she heard the noise that startled her. She peered from behind the entryway and looked up at her mother in concern.

Her mother cleared her throat, casting her daughter a look as if the cough never existed. “The winter air,” she said indifferently. “Breathing too much of it isn’t good for you.”

Her mother’s voice sounded hoarse like sandpaper, like the gravel of the roads, gritty and raw. It made something in her heart drop, but her mother made it sound like a passing ailment. Colds came and went with the changing weather. Eurydice tried to push it to the back of her mind as she moved to help her mother prepare dinner.

The next morning, her mother didn’t leave her bed. 

Nor did she leave it for the entire week.

Eurydice took turns with her father tending to her mother. She dismissed her mother’s delirious questions about the surplus of food Eurydice brought her from her collection. Every time she would inquire about where she got the handfuls of figs and walnuts, Eurydice changed the subject. The bedroom stunk of sickness, but Eurydice never faltered in her care for her mother.

She died a week later. 

Eurydice had never seen her father cry before. Her arms barely wrapped fully around him as she let him cry into her shoulder and shake against her body like a tumbling leaf. No amount of kisses to his head or holding of hands could truly console him.

He developed a cough and terrible chills that Eurydice had seen in her mother the morning after her passing. What Eurydice attributed to the aftermath of extensive crying turned violent and rapid. 

Whether it was the sickness or heartbreak that killed him still is a mystery to Eurydice. 

Freshly twelve and freshly orphaned, Eurydice didn’t find the time to grieve. With no money to her name, she had no choice but to leave and resort to the life of a runaway. 

She packed all she could carry in her backpack of leftovers. A candle from their living space, the hunting supplies from outside, matches and firewood, a gold and brown handkerchief once belonging to her father, and a grey winter coat belonging to her mother.

She stepped into the cold in the coat that was too big for her, but she couldn’t find it within her to let the wind chill her.

Not when her life was already so dark and frigid. 

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Eurydice didn’t like how the eyes of the people in the tavern followed her like vultures. What might’ve been a simple glance to the newcomer, the girl took it as a threat. The attention made her clutch her coat closer to her body as she advanced deeper into the tavern.

A fire flickered in a nearby hearth where a table of men warmed their hands. Eurydice hadn’t seen a proper fire in months. The scent of smoke washed her with comfort and warmed her frozen limbs. But she didn’t step any closer despite how her body longed for proximity. 

Eurydice tried to ignore the way the table of men turned their heads to her and tried to ignore the way the skin underneath her coat broke out in gooseflesh. Their gazes weren’t lecherous. Curious, if anything, but Eurydice had learned to be wary of men. 

All of them were the same. They took what they wanted and spit out the unwanted remnants like the bones of a chicken carcass. Men were primal, Eurydice had learned, and thus, she kept her distance.

Eurydice took a few staggering steps backwards, away from the fire, until she felt her back collide with something. 

Someone.

Eurydice whipped around and caught herself, hands bracing outwards against the chest of the person whom she’d backed right into. As quick as she had collided, Eurydice was pushing away. Any form of an apology died on her lips as she lifted her gaze to the stranger in front of her. 

She watched as he took a step back, gentle eyes staring at her with a quiet shock. And Eurydice tried not to falter, to slip from her cold exterior, when she spotted the reverence behind his wide eyes.

She’d let herself fall before. And she knew how dangerous falling could be.

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“We need food,” Eurydice reminded. “If we don’t find something tonight, we’ll starve by Thursday.” 

Her arms wrapped around her stomach as she shivered from the cold that slipped through the cracks of the inn. She didn’t like fighting with Adonis. Their arguing paralleled the winter weather outside, how fierce the snow and wind seemed to rage against the window. When the gods fought, everyone else living on top felt the consequences.

He wasn’t like this when she met him in the springtime. She wandered into the inn after a bitter winter of moving from place to place and surviving off the wild. Room and board were scarce enough that Eurydice practically fell to her knees and kissed the ground when she spotted the inn during the world’s first spring shower. 

She shook the rain from her hair and scraped her boots at the entryway’s doormat before making her way further into the inn. Adonis was there at the front desk with an expression of boredom and a mind obviously elsewhere. Her presence drew his eyes away from the nothing on the wall. Just one look from the innkeeper and Eurydice knew she was destined to fall in love with him.

Times were always easier in the spring when the flowers bloomed and the grass regained its vibrant emerald hue. Adonis let Eurydice stay for as long as she wanted, free of charge. Nights spent alone in her room slowly changed to sleeping in his private bedroom until she found herself there every night.

Sleeping in Adonis’s arms was like the warmth of a blanket in the chill of winter. He held her like a man starved of a woman's touch. Always close to his chest, she stayed. He showered her in a love she hadn’t felt since her parents were alive. Those five months of sunshine made Eurydice feel as if the gods had finally smiled down on her and blessed her with happiness for the first time in her life.

But the winter changed Adonis. As Eurydice had come to realize, the weather changed many people.

“You want me to go out in the middle of a snowstorm to find something to eat?” Adonis huffed an exasperated laugh that oozed with condescension. “I’ll freeze before I get 10 feet into the forest.”

He talked to her like a petulant child rather than a girl who knew her way around the world. If anything, she knew more than he did. She didn’t like the patronizing tone he always took in their bickering. “Then we need to find something first thing in the morning,” Eurydice concluded. 

Adonis made a wild gesture to the door that was slowly becoming blocked behind a foot of snowfall before he stormed off. “Be my guest.”

Eurydice flinched at the sound of the door slamming shut. She clenched her fists into tight balls until small fingernail indentations were left in their wake, suppressing the urge to throw the belongings of his bedroom at the door. Cautiously, she released the steam through a sharp exhale. Adonis was infuriatingly stubborn. Their fights were petty, but he always found a way to escalate them into bigger conflicts than they needed to be. 

Eurydice closed her eyes and remembered the way he kissed her in the summertime. Warm and sweet, cradled close and cared for. She reminded herself that this was the man she was in love with, no matter the conflicts they found themselves in with the season change.

She lowered herself to a corner where her belongings lay and began to dig through her backpack. The food inside was reserved for emergencies, and Eurydice didn’t like to use them unless necessary, but she made an excuse for tonight. Supper would settle the tensions between her and Adonis and soften their icy moods.

There was enough for a proper meal for both of them as she rationed. Eurydice pulled out a half loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth and a few apples just as the bedroom door reopened.

“Eurydice, you know I didn’t mean—”

Eurydice whipped around to find Adonis staring at the collection of food on the floor. The rage on his face was unlike anything she had seen: facial features twisted up tight, a vein popping at the side of his neck, fists clenched, all coiled and ready to burst free.

Eurydice could hear her heart rate quicken as it pounded in her ears.

“Have you been holding out on me this entire time?”

Eurydice went to explain, but Adonis was at her side in a matter of seconds and snatched the backpack from her hands. Turning it upside down, he poured the contents of her collection onto the ground. A pool of bagged fruit, preserved cheeses and spreads, and different breads and dried meat gathered at Eurydice’s lap. 

“You little leech,” Adonis spat. A laugh of disbelief slipped from his lips.

Eurydice pulled herself to her feet as she tried to find an explanation somewhere within her closing throat. She clawed for the words desperately. She could only manage half a sentence before Adonis’s hand came sharply across her face in a slap.

The sentence melted from her tongue like ice as she held a hand to the sting on her cheek. Eurydice had never been hit before, and when she slowly looked back to Adonis to see if a look of remorse was on his face, if he had realized his fatal mistake, all she was met with was a look of hatred. 

“I give you a room for free. I let you sleep in my bed, eat my food, drink my wine,” Adonis began in a dangerously quiet voice. “And you’ve been hoarding all this shit from me. No doubt it’s my own food, huh?”

Eurydice shook her head in a frenzy. “No, Adonis, no, I never stole from you—”

Adonis tossed the backpack, now empty, back into her hands. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out.”

“Adonis, it’s freezing out there.”

He chuckled bitterly. “You had no issue with suggesting I find food tonight. You’ll manage.”

Adonis all but shoved Eurydice down the stairs of the inn, barely giving her time to tug her jacket on before he shoved her into the snow and locked the front door. Bare hands bared her fall, her skin shooting up in a bright pink at the contact of snow. She wiped them off on her jacket and stuffed them in the pockets before the coldness could settle in her bones.

Darkness was already painting the world at nighttime, and Eurydice knew she needed to get going before the snowstorm got worse, but all she wanted to do was sink into the snow and sleep. She couldn’t stand even if she wanted to, too weak and too devastated to pull herself to her feet. 

Adonis was gone. And so were the supplies she was harvesting since autumn. 

The wind howled in a haunting melody. Three figures, each sporting a lantern, trailed through the snow as if the weather didn’t affect them at all. Each wrapped in a silver dress with sleeves that reached the forearm, the melody they sang morphed with the wind’s scream. 

“Look here,” one called out in the break of the song. “Poor child, all banished in the cold.”

The middle one directed her lantern towards Eurydice with a snicker. “Are you cold, little bird?”

“I’ve heard that if you stay in the cold for long enough, you’ll feel warm again,” the last noted.

A cackle from the first figure. “Fascinating, Atropos!” 

“Perhaps you’ll give it a try, little bird,” hummed the second.

Eurydice tried to reach for the lantern’s light like a divine sign from the gods, but as fast as the figures appeared, they were gone with the next whirling gust of wind. Only a bark of laughter was left in their wake.

She considered their words for a moment. How good it would feel to fall asleep in a bed of snow, but her rationality called for her to stand. She needed to act fast or she’d freeze to death. 

And with all the willpower within her, Eurydice willed herself to her feet.

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The boy in front of her was staring, though she supposed she was staring, too. 

Meek like a baby animal, his eyes of deep sepia looked at her like she was the only mortal woman on the face of the earth. His stare was cosmic. Eurydice took note of the way his breathing labored and his chest rose and fell like the breath had been stolen from his lungs and the first look of her. 

He looked at her like he already knew her.

Did she know him? There was a strange sense of familiarity in the boy, but Eurydice couldn’t put a name to his gentle face. She tried. She searched the back of her mind for anything. A starting consonant, a nickname. She came up short.

Eurydice let herself falter for a moment as she looked back at him. If a look from a boy alone could make her fall, Eurydice would’ve fallen. The gentle purity in his gaze made her feel special after years of life throwing her obstacle after obstacle. His look, silently startled, whispered to her.

I’m afraid I will love and look for you in every lifetime. 

But time had changed Eurydice. She’d seen the look of first love many times before and willed herself not to get attached this time. No matter how soft his eyes were when he looked at her or how pleasant it felt to be looked at with so much love, Eurydice broke away from his eyes and moved to a secluded table in the corner. 

Eurydice slung her backpack over the chair and dug through it until she found her father’s handkerchief. She carefully unraveled the golden material and let the candle from her childhood home fall into her hands. On its glass container, a woman in pink and green watched over two young children. φύλακας άγγελος was printed at the bottom.

Guardian angel. 

Some guardian angel she had. 

To leave her forever alone and abandoned, she had pulled the short straw of angels. 

“Anybody got a match?” Eurydice called out to the tavern. The last of her matches had been used to start a fire the day prior, and she hadn’t had time (or the means) to purchase a new box. Out of the corner of her eye, back by the front door, she saw the boy from before shift the bottle of wine to an empty table in front of him and search frantically through the pockets of his apron. 

An older man from behind the bar beat him to it, offering a box of matches to the girl. No doubt the tavern’s keeper.

“Give me that,” Eurydice snapped as she snatched the match from his hands. The world had made her snippy and standoffish, and it often slipped into the way she talked to others. As if she didn’t act quickly enough, the man would change his mind and leave her dejected like everyone else.

She struck the match against the wooden table and cradled the flame with her hand. It bloomed from the head of the match with vigor. As she moved to light the candle sitting on the table, its flame promptly extinguished in front of her eyes. 

“We keep meeting like this,” Atropos grinned. Next to her, Clotho’s lips remained pursed from where she blew out the flame. 

“Sheltering from the cold, little bird?” Lachesis cooed, a hand gracing Eurydice’s braids off her shoulder. The girl flinched away from the Fate’s touch.

Clotho leaned in close, her voice coming out like the hiss of a rattlesnake. “No matter where you go, you’ll never be able to really run away.”

“Not from your past, not from the present,” added Lachesis.

“Surely not from the future,” Atropos finished.

Eurydice could never escape the Fates, no matter where she went. They always followed like a trail of smoke. Around them, she had learned to hold her tongue. The women held the lives of all mortals in their hands, and one wrong word could get her string snipped. Eurydice knew better than to argue back or give in to their haunting teasing. 

The Fates floated from Eurydice’s table and occupied a spot at a nearby table, their laughter floating away with them. And like always, Eurydice was alone again.

She had grown fond of solitude with her age. She found companionship a necessity in her younger days, but older and wiser, Eurydice couldn’t trust those around her. In a world so stacked against people like her, navigating it alone ensured her survival. People turn with the wind, with the seasons, and the changing weather. Eurydice had seen that firsthand. 

She thought about Adonis daily.

The tavern-keeper produced another match and lit the candle for her. She offered a thankful glance as she watched the wick flicker to life before her eyes. It danced with the wind and radiated against her skin as she held her fingertips above its flame. The warmth consumed her for a moment.

How nice it would be to be warm all the time. To be in a place where the cold wouldn’t follow, to find a bed of feathers to crash into and a belly always full. Although no place ever existed, Eurydice let her mind idly wander. A soft, melodious voice broke her from her safe haven of thoughts.

When she lifted her gaze, her eyes landed on the boy from before with a paper flower clutched in his shaking hand.

“Come home with me.”

Chapter Text

It’s you.

…

It’s me.

A shuddery gasp slipped from Orpheus at the contact of her hands against his chest. It was a ghost of a touch, barely anything at all. Barely anything but a convulsive movement, but it spawned a flutter in Orpheus’s heart.

The girl in front of him caught herself before she could properly crash into him, pushing away before Orpheus could process her presence. He tightened his grip on the wine bottle so as not to drop it, but his eyes and attention were elsewhere.

Orpheus knew that staring was rude. Hermes always caught him in dazes, but no matter how much he tried to snuff the habit, Orpheus couldn’t stop. He couldn’t help the way his eyes would lock onto moments and memories, and when it came to this girl, he couldn’t pry his eyes away. Just to get a better, bewildered look, Orpheus took a few faltering steps away.

She had skin like deep caramel and coffee with small blotches of pink from the slap of the cold outside. She had dark hair woven in intricate braids with small feathers and twine spiderwebbed among the strands. Half of her hair knotted at the top of her head like a bird’s nest, while the other half cascaded down her shoulders.

And those eyes, Gods, those eyes. Orpheus couldn’t stop staring at those eyes, so dark like a midnight sky with microscopic flecks of constellations that shimmered so beautifully within the black.

Past the smoky and smudged makeup she wore, the girl looked back at him in a way that stole Orpheus’s breath away. Her existence squeezed the air out of his lungs. His chest heaved. Like a fish, his mouth opened and closed hopelessly for air. He was drowning in her, and Orpheus didn’t make any move to surface for air anytime soon.

He watched her crossed arms slowly fall to her sides. Her cold exterior faltered if only in a flicker. She softened, a crack in her shell, a small glimpse as to what was inside. A peek of neck and collarbone shifted with the movement of her arms, and Orpheus quickly forced himself to banish any drifting, dangerous thoughts away. 

She was strikingly familiar.

As if he’d known her all along. 

I know you before we’ve even met. And I don’t even know you yet.

He wondered if she also stared at him with that haunting feeling of remembrance. Like an old friend or someone in a past life. This stranger, and also not-so-stranger, felt like home. His lips yearned for conversation, but before Orpheus could mutter a single word, ask her if he had met her before, the girl broke away from his stare and occupied a faraway table at the back of the tavern.

Orpheus’s eyes followed her even as she moved away. As much as he wanted to follow her, he remained glued to the floorboards underneath his feet. Was he paralyzed? No. No, he was awestruck as he watched the girl dig through her backpack and unravel a candle.

Even the smallest movements were beautiful to him. The simplicity of the way she held the candle and how her hands worked the bandana that engulfed the candle around her neck left Orpheus utterly helpless. 

“Anybody got a match?” Her voice was softer than he expected, rising above the tavern like a song. Gently melodic. Her voice and the persona she displayed were a paradox in themselves. Orpheus could’ve fallen in love with the voice alone. 

Her voice broke him from his staring, and at her open-ended request, he quickly set the wine down on the table in front of him. His hands shot to the pockets of his apron. Frenzied, he searched. If he were able to retrieve a match for her, he’d be able to talk to her.

Orpheus’s heart jumped to his throat when his hand curled around a match in his right pocket. The gods must’ve been smiling down on him! A sign, this match, a prophecy, like their destinies were already written in the stars. He forced himself to take a step forward only for Hermes to be at the girl’s side with a matchbox before him, beating him to it.

With a snatch, the girl swiped at the match offered to her. “Gimme that,” she snapped.

Orpheus schooled his disappointment as he let the match fall back into his pocket. His tongue itched to speak with her as if his existence were tied directly to hers. It was a feeling unnatural to Orpheus, this dependency. Like a planet that revolved around its sun.

This stranger of a girl, who wasn’t entirely a stranger, was Orpheus’s sun.

As much as it pained him to, Orpheus tore his gaze from the girl as she lit her candle. Staring would do him no good (even if that’s all he wanted to do). His eyes ached for her, but the ache to talk to her burned brighter.

And he couldn’t talk to her empty-handed.

Quickly, Orpheus made his way over to the back of the tavern and towards the bar. On the wall next to it, a bulletin board overflowed with flyers of a few touring troupes who headlined Pomegranate House. All were dated and withered from time, but it was a flyer painted in the colors of springtime that called to Orpheus’s hands as he tore it from the wall. 

His hands worked as if they had done this before. A past routine hardwired within his bloodstream. 

Have I done this before?

It did seem familiar, Orpheus, with the flyer of spring in his hands, rolling it up like a poster and twisting the end tightly. He snuck tiny glances at the girl as his hands flew. Just to remind himself that she was there. He tore the top into five strips like the petals of a flower that had bloomed underneath the summer sun. In a harsh winter, there were barely any flowers around. Hardly any bouquets. 

Orpheus would make his own spring.

His hands adjusted the makeshift petals before holding the flower up in the air. He silently admired his work among the feeble flicker of the tavern before his eyes shifted to the girl. She ran her fingers above the flame of her candle, brown fingertips illuminating a rich bronze. Orpheus swallowed down the nerves that bubbled up in his throat. The heels of his feet bounced, the fingers holding the flower slightly trembled, the heart in his chest hammered.

Hermes, now leaning against the bar, instantly noticed the poet’s antsy behavior. But there was something else there he hadn't seen before. Love. “You’re staring, Orpheus,” he chastised.

“Sorry, Mr. Hermes,” but Orpheus made no effort to stop.

“Orpheus…” sterner this time to break the mortal’s gaze, but the efforts were futile. The god sighed. “You wanna talk to her?”

“Yes,” the response came out instantly, desperately, and a little too eagerly. Gods, yes, he wanted to talk to her. Orpheus wanted to talk to her more than he found a reason to live. He wanted to have her eyes on him, to let that soft voice hit his ears, to feel her fingers against his as he gave her the flower.

He wanted her.

“Well, why don’t you go on up and do so?”

Orpheus hesitated. His voice came back small. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re a poet,” Hermes continued. “Surely you’ve got something to say.”

Orpheus had a million things to say, but nothing sounded right. In songwriting, Orpheus could test out his lyrics before presenting them to the world. This girl would be receiving the first draft of his love, and that thought terrified Orpheus.

Hermes cracked a faint grin. His worn-out wrinkles crackled around his lips, curling up in amusement. “Speak from the heart,” he encouraged. “Go on.”

Orpheus’s eyes locked back on the girl at the table at Hermes’s encouragement, and like fuel to a fire, his feet immediately started moving towards her. He was a magnet and she his gravitational pull. Hermes’s voice caught him before he could take another step forward.

“Orpheus.”

Orpheus looked back at the messenger god with the eyes of a young boy. Naive and bright. “Yes?”

The god grinned knowingly. “Don’t come off too strong.”

Orpheus’s ears glowed; a soft pink. 

The poet was known to shoot off like a rocket in moments of passion. 

If a melody captured his attention, he would spend weeks working on it. He would lock himself in his private chambers and work day and night with his lyre in his lap. He hummed everywhere he went. Plucking absent strings in everything he did. Orpheus could never break from a burst of inspiration. He became consumed in his obsessions. 

Both god and mortal had seen it play out before, and both knew that this girl in the tavern was his next fixation.

Orpheus turned away from Hermes, and his attention landed back on the girl. He adjusted the flower one last time before making his way over to her table-side and offering the paper flower to her. She didn’t notice him at first, her dark eyes remaining on the firelight in front of her, and it wasn’t until he spoke that she lifted her gaze.

“Come home with me,” Orpheus proclaimed. His voice was strangely steady, a sound that even caught him off guard. He tried not to let the chuckle from behind the bar dissuade him as he adjusted the paper flower in his hand. 

At first, the girl’s eyes darted around, as if the voice were addressing someone else, but they finally landed on Orpheus. Eyes wide and guarded, the girl stared at him, her voice coming out in a tumbling rush. “Who are you?”

Orpheus’s lips were moving before his brain could form a rational response. What he meant to follow up her startled question with was the utterance of his name, but instead what came out was, “The man who’s gonna marry you.”

If Orpheus closed his eyes, he could picture it. A small ceremony swaddled in magnolia and maple. Sometime in the spring, when everything was in bloom again. The way she’d look in white, the way he’d shake as he held her hands, and kiss for the first time as husband and wife. If he concentrated hard enough, Orpheus could paint the picture as if pulling the thoughts directly from his memory. 

How familiar those memories felt, and how certain he was that they had already happened before. 

There was a shift in the air at his declaration. The girl’s shoulders relaxed as her eyes, slightly frightened and guarded, eased and sparkled with faint amusement. Orpheus could feel himself wilt as she looked him up and down. His knees wanted to buckle. He wanted to fall before her and worship the ground she walked on. He longed for her eyes like a flower longed for the warmth of the sun, and Gods, did he practically fall apart at how the faintest hint of a smile curled at her lips.

“I’m Orpheus,” the poet followed up.

The girl’s eyes moved past Orpheus and over to Hermes at the bar. The messenger god was watching the interaction out of the corner of his eye. Half polishing, half spying. The girl scoffed. “Is he always like this?”

Blunt and knowingly, Hermes gave a nod. “Yes.”

The girl chuckled. Chuckled! The sound alone was a small victory. Even though it was barely a whisper of a laugh, Orpheus found his heart swelling. When she gave her name, he truly felt his heart warble. 

“I’m Eurydice.”

Orpheus.

…

Eurydice.

Something clicked within Orpheus at how familiar the name sounded. He didn’t dwell on the feeling of deja vu long enough before his thoughts slipped from his mind, unfiltered.

“Your name is like a melody,” Orpheus exhaled reverently, a gentle slip of the tongue, as if her name alone could conjure ballads for the gods and score quartets of strings. He retracted his outstretched arm as he let the music of her name float aimlessly in his mind. 

Eurydice.

Eurydice.

Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice…

Eurydice, why I do I feel as if I know you already?

“A melody?” Eurydice chuckled.

“A melody. I could write songs, ballads, in the rhythm of the hymn that is your name.”

Eurydice’s eyebrows lifted. “Aren’t you poetic?”

“...I try at times.”

Eurydice leaned forward on the table she was seated at. Like a cat, she lounged and stretched her arms forward. Elbows propped up, her chin found the back of her hand as she cocked her head to the side. “A singer,” she concluded. “Is that what you are?”

Orpheus glanced over his shoulder to the lyre left abandoned on a table, “I also play the lyre.”

Realization crashed down on Eurydice. “A liar and a player,” she announced sarcastically. Orpheus noticed her walls shoot back up the same way they did when she broke away from their first look. She leaned away as she let her arms drop back down to the table. “I’ve met too many men like you.”

Orpheus shook his head. A gentle, nervous exhale of a laugh fell from his lips. He knew where she was coming from. What she was referring to.

As he grew up, Orpheus watched the traveling bands that headlined at Pomegranate House with an innocent infatuation. He loved the strum of the harps and the kitharas, the blare of a trumpet. These bands in which Orpheus worshipped were sirens on the stage, hypnotic in their song, but sleazy behind the curtain. 

The complementary drinks Hermes provided only made them handsy and crude. On multiple occasions, Orpheus found himself sleeping in the tavern’s lobby. He’d curl up on the floor near the fire and muffle the sounds of distant pleasure drifting from his private chambers with a pillow. 

As if the reward for music was intimacy and not the gift of sharing the craft with others. 

Orpheus vowed never to let his music turn him sordid like the players he’d seen over the years.

“Oh, Gods, no, I’m not like that,” Orpheus was quick to respond. A bashful tint of pink dusted the paleness of his cheeks.

Eurydice didn’t look convinced. Her eyes fell from Orpheus and landed on the candle in front of her. Without her eyes on him, Orpheus felt cold. He hadn’t known how much he longed for her attention until it wasn’t upon him anymore. 

He turned his head over to the bar where Hermes polished off a cup. When he searched the god’s eyes for guidance, Hermes couldn’t contain a small gruff chuckle. Orpheus was a clueless fool. Both god and mortal knew that. As his mentor, his father figure, Hermes, had seen that first hand with how often he searched for advice. It was Hermes who gave him the strength to perform when his nerves made his throat close up like an allergic reaction, encourage his lyrics despite how much Orpheus vowed they were useless. 

Hermes wouldn’t leave him out to dry.

Your song, the god mouthed. 

His song.

Orpheus swallowed thickly as he looked back towards Eurydice. “I’m working on a song,” he blurted. When Eurydice didn’t look back at him, Orpheus continued his rambling in that frantic, soft tone his voice always took on when he was nervous. “It isn’t finished yet, but when it’s done and I start singing it, spring will come.” 

This captured Eurydice’s attention. Dark eyes shifted from the candle back to Orpheus, and he could’ve sworn that single look took all the breath from his lungs. “Come again?”

“Spring will come–”

“When?” Eurydice’s amusement was back. “I haven’t seen the sun in months, let alone spring.”

“That’s what I’m working on,” continued Orpheus. 

The seasons had been warped for years. Spring and summer were a limited time on the mortal face of the world. The winter was prolonged, and Orpheus’s song was meant to bring the world back into tune. It was far-fetched, he knew, but he also knew the power of his song. He’d seen how a chord or a lyric could make the patrons of Pomegranate House happier. So why couldn’t his song conjure seasons?

“A song to fix what’s wrong, to fix the everlasting winter. A song that’s so beautiful that all of the flowers will bloom and the ground will thaw and Lady Persephone will return from the Underworld,” Orpheus’s rattling faltered as his eyes landed on Eurydice, his voice coming back soft and sheepishly. “...that’s the goal, at least.”

Eurydice looked intrigued. “You think a song can make spring come quicker?”

“I hope it can.”

“I sure hope it can, too,” Eurydice leaned forward again. “Tell me, Orpheus, how do you intend on calling forth spring with music alone?”

Orpheus thought. “Maybe the gods will listen to a song about them.”

“Or maybe they’ll ignore it like they do with every other prayer and offering.”

Orpheus couldn’t deny her statement. The gods didn’t like to listen to the mortals. They had troubles and worries of their own. Godly duties. Gods, not even his own father listened to his songs no matter how much he wrote about the divine Apollo. 

“Whether they listen or not, I’m willing to try. I’ll make them listen,” Orpheus continued. Orpheus’s head slightly tilted lower as his hazel eyes, cautious and meek, lifted to meet her. He looked up at her through his eyelashes like a careful child. His voice came back in a murmur. “And I’m willing to try with you as my wife.”

Eurydice’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I get it now. You’re crazy,” she said as if coming upon a revelation. “Why should I become your wife?”

“Maybe because he'll make you feel alive.​”

The voice came from behind the bar, from the messenger god, as he went back to polishing the cups. Eurydice looked towards the god, but Orpheus’s eyes remained on her. The amusement and sarcasm on her face morphed into something perplexed as her eyebrows knotted and her bravado faltered for a moment. 

“Alive?” Eurydice repeated as if the word were something reverent itself.

Because Eurydice knew how to survive. 

But Orpheus knew how to live.

Eurydice turned back to Orpheus. He was faced with an expression he hadn’t yet seen on the girl: interest. Pure curiosity as she moved closer to Orpheus. He held his breath, lungs contorting, as she stood and gently plucked the paper flower from his hands. 

And for the first time in front of Orpheus, Eurydice properly smiled. “Humor me, poet. What else have you got?”

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

Orpheus, for once in his life, was thankful for the lull in the tavern’s foot traffic that allowed him to slip from his shift and give all his attention to Eurydice. The few tables that contained customers were easily manageable. Consumed in their own conversations and slowly waking with the morning sun, Orpheus was able to go unnoticed by Hermes and get to know the girl at the table in the corner.

He brought over two plates of warm breakfast and a pitcher of spiced cider without Eurydice asking. He set the meal on the table and poured two goblets full of the golden liquid, sliding a goblet to Eurydice before settling down in the seat across from her.

When Eurydice reached into her pocket to pay, Orpheus was quick to shoot it down. “It’s on the house,” he explained.

Eurydice glanced past Orpheus at the menu behind him, then back at him. “I can clearly see that breakfast costs three obol.” 

“For you, it costs nothing.”

Even Orpheus winced at the sickly sweet words. Eurydice chuckled, but she still seemed hesitant to let the topic drop. He scoured his mind for a believable excuse. Something, anything, to get her mind off paying.

The girl looked like she was starving.

“Hermes gives away free meals to those on the road,” he swallowed around the awkwardness of the lie. “A traveler’s special.”

Eurydice cocked a suspicious eyebrow, but thankfully, didn’t push the fact further before she was picking away at the portion of winter berries on her plate. Orpheus stifled a sigh of relief. 

He was never a great liar. His face always burned something hot, and his hands quivered. He concealed the shakiness by stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his apron and mentally calculated how much the meal would cost his paycheck.

Not that he minded.

Not when Eurydice would finally eat.

Eurydice worked at the plate of warm breakfast like she hadn’t eaten in months, and it would’ve frightened Orpheus how fast she was eating if he wasn’t enraptured by her every move. Toasted rye with cranberry spread was quickly devoured before her fork moved to a small serving dish of herb-baked eggs. 

Orpheus, too, found himself beginning to pick at the food on his plate, but not before sneaking subtle glances at the way her lips closed around her fork or the way her throat bobbed as she swallowed.

Orpheus was smitten.

“So, poet,” Eurydice spoke around a forkful of egg. “How long have you been singing?”

Orpheus lifted at the sound of her voice and only brightened further as the conversation shifted to the topic of music. His favorite topic. “For as long as I can remember,” he said. “My father gifted me my lyre and taught me how to play it when I turned six, and my mother taught me how to compose lyrics.”

“What a musical family you have,” Eurydice hummed.

“Well, Apollo is known for his music…”

Eurydice’s eyes widened. “Apollo?” she sputtered. “God of music and sun?”

Orpheus tilted his head downwards as a shy flush raced across his face. “He isn’t around much anymore, but I have the music and the lyre to remember him by.”

“No wonder you have such ambitions. You have to be touched or something.”

“I don’t know if touched is the right word,” Orpheus replied reservedly.

“Gifted then,” Eurydice corrected. “Always finding inspiration everywhere, perhaps from some muse whom you love you reverently?”

Orpheus’s fingers drummed on his leg. They plucked out a silent chord progression as she spoke, pulling out melodies from their conversation like they were itching to break free from his fingertips. His voice returned like a prayer as he muttered, “Just you.”

He reveled in the way Eurydice’s face softened if only for a moment. Like the first break of sunlight after a thunderstorm, the gentleness in her gaze practically made him fall in love with her all over again. An endless cycle every time he looked at her. Again and again, over and over.

“You poets always seem to know what to say.” Eurydice’s voice was softer this time before she continued to eat away at her breakfast, burying the blush on her cheeks through bites of toast.

The conversation dwindled as the two returned to their breakfasts, and as the meal concluded, Orpheus rose from the table to collect the dirtied dishes. He stacked the plates and forks and balanced them in his left hand as he gathered the goblets in his right. Excusing himself, Orpheus quickly bussed the table and brought the dishes to the bar top.

“Enjoying yourself?” Hermes took the plates and slid them over to the sink. 

“Mr. Hermes,” Orpheus swallowed, clutching his racing heart. “I don’t know how I can breathe around her, let alone talk. She’s…”

Terrifyingly familiar. 

“She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”

Hermes chuckled. He cleared the bartop and adjusted the lapel of his silver suit. “No use in telling me all that,” he said coolly as he made his way into a backroom of the tavern. 

Orpheus watched as the god left, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, until a voice rang out next to him.

“So, lover, who’s gonna pay for our wedding?”

The suddenness of the voice and the suddenness of Eurydice’s existence pulled a small yelp from Orpheus. She was perched on the bar’s countertop next to him. She sat with one leg crossed over the other. One hand rested on her knee while the other was planted on the countertop next to where Orpheus’s hand lay. He had to physically restrain himself from moving closer so his hand could cover hers. 

“I beg your pardon?” Orpheus’s ears burned. He was all coiled-up nerves, but he was grinning wildly.

Lover.

She had called me lover!

“The wedding,” Eurydice recalled. “You did say that you wanted me to be your wife, did you not?”

“I did.”

“So?”

Orpheus faltered. Even though he had the tavern, the tavern that he lived in for most of his life, he knew that times outside were harder. A lack of springtime meant a struggle for food and money. Certainly, a wedding in times like these was unrealistic. A fantasy. Fabricated and unfathomable.

Though again, something about his music seemed to bring him answers, as if he could strum his lyre and sing a pretty song and the world would pluck back into tune.

“I’ll sing.”

“You’ll sing?”

“I’ll sing,” Orpheus repeated, quieter with the nerves that ran through his entire body. “Play my music, write songs. I’ll work and raise the money until we have enough.”

Eurydice hummed. “You think your music will fund our wedding?”

Her tone wasn’t cruel, but it still made Orpheus shrink next to her. She was slightly taller than he, seated there on the countertop. He felt inconsequential next to her.

“Yes,” he murmured weakly. 

But Eurydice didn’t turn cold. She looked as if she was processing his words before a grin broke across her face. “How romantic.”

Orpheus’s heart fluttered. “You think so?”

“Of course I do,” Eurydice replied. “And I expect you to sing at the wedding, too.”

Orpheus inched closer to Eurydice. He found a spot standing before her and staring up at his muse with those wide eyes so full of gentle reverence. “For you, I’d sing a hundred songs. Write a thousand ballads, score beautiful melodies and instrumentals fit for a goddess,” he swallowed. “But none would ever equal the grand nature of your beauty.”

Orpheus kept a careful distance from Eurydice, no matter how sweetly he preached. How he wanted to slip and stand between the space of her thighs, to feel the smoothness of her fingers against his, to finally figure out how her lips tasted, but he refrained. Eurydice, despite how comfortable she seemed, was like a wild animal. Jumpy and easily frightened. One wrong move and she’d bolt. 

A hush fell over the two of them. They stared in a standstill, and Orpheus inched closer to the sun by slowly reaching up to brush a wayward braid behind her ear. Before he could make contact with her hair, Eurydice’s hand was outstretched like a warning as she leaned away. Her eyes filled with the same fear that she had looked at him the first time he spoke with her, and Orpheus’s heart tumbled to the pit of his stomach as he pulled away his hand like he had been burned.

Slowly, her hand lowered as if she realized the instinct of fear that was engraved in her blood. Eurydice was used to pushing people away, but Orpheus posed no threat. He wasn’t violent and vile like the other men she met. No, Orpheus was sweet. And gentle.

She flinched when Orpheus’s hand raised again, but relaxed when it was only outstretched towards her. An open palm. An invitation to hold. There was softness in his gaze as he looked up at her sitting on the countertop. He looked at her as if beckoning a hurt pet closer. 

It’s okay. 

I won’t hurt you. 

Tentatively, Eurydice’s hand met his, and Orpheus had to stifle a small gasp at the contact of skin for the first time. Her hands were rough from living, but he didn’t mind as her palm shifted into his. Orpheus lifted their hands to the low light of the tavern. He glowed against the dark toffee of her skin, and Orpheus would’ve spent his whole life staring if Eurydice hadn’t broken his gaze by using his hand to slid off the countertop. 

“You said spring will come when you sing the song you’re working on,” Eurydice spoke. Through her sentence, she lightheartedly mocked Orpheus’s soft and accented tone as she moved back over to their table. All crisp, precise and sophisticated vowels but still quiet in the whisper Orpheus always seemed to talk in. The impression amused herself as she grinned at the way the words fell from her mouth.

Orpheus chuckled. “Yes,” he replied, trailing her movements like a house cat.

“Why don’t you sing it then?”

“It isn’t finished yet—“

“Sing it,” Eurydice insisted.

When she was met with no response from the timid Orpheus, Eurydice shifted off her coat so it highlighted the bareness of her shoulders. Orpheus forced his eyes to stay on her eyes rather than drifting down to where her shoulders beckoned him. His Adam's apple bobbed nervously.

“You wanna take me home?” Eurydice purred.

Orpheus’s response was instant and desperate: “Yes.”

“Sing the song.”

When Eurydice concealed herself again, Orpheus could find his breath, despite how a part of him longed for her proximity. It hurt to be away from her. As she took her seat at the table, Orpheus moved to retrieve his lyre. 

Orpheus was a nervous performer. From the first time he held a lyre to his teenage years, he always fretted and worried about strumming the wrong strings or singing a discordant tune. And now, as he pulled the lyre’s strap over his shoulder, his nerves rolled off of him in waves.

What if he played so poorly that Eurydice never talked to him again?

What if she thought his music was purposeless? What if–

Orpheus swallowed down the nerves, pressed down on the lyre’s frets with his left hand, and gave the instrument a strum. It resonated in the quiet tavern, and he cleared his voice gently before starting a chorus of la-la-la’s.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

The notes came in a pattern of seven, a melodious series in F major that sat in his falsetto. With another strum of the lyre, another pattern of singing followed.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

This time, higher, Orpheus’s eyes slipped shut as his voice soared up high like the soaring beat of a bird’s wings.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

High and gentle, Orpheus sang. 

La, la, la, la, la, la...

Each chorus was accompanied by a soothing strum of the lyre until Orpheus’s voice drifted away as quietly as it started. His falsetto wavered as the lyre slowed to a gentle hum before ceasing altogether.

It was a melody he had been working on for a while. Despite how familiar it felt, he never seemed to be satisfied with how it sounded. It was like an old song that had been mistranslated with time. Incomplete and begging for a finish. 

Orpheus let the final chord echo for a lingering moment, and when he finally opened his eyes, he looked down to find a brilliant red carnation blooming in his right palm. 

Eurydice couldn't help but creep closer. She stood and rounded the table over to where he stood, eyes wide as she looked at the flower in his palm. “How’d you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Orpheus instantly offered the carnation to her. “It isn’t finished yet.”

Eurydice, delicately, plucked the flower (real this time) from his hands and analyzed its petals. A fiery red with a strong stem and petals outstretched to the sky. It carried the perfume of spring. “Even so, it can do this?”

Orpheus didn’t respond.

So Eurydice responded for him.

“You have to finish it.”

Chapter Text

Ever since he was a little boy, Orpheus had terrible stage fright. 

Perfectionism burned through the poet’s blood. Orpheus would stay awake well into the night, as the rest of the world slowed and slept, working with his lyric sheets and lyre. Everything was always unfinished. Yearning to be reworked and reworded. The terror that came with playing an unfinished song was enough alone, but then there came the possibility of making mistakes.

Fumbling a word or two, strumming a discordant tune, and how the hypotheticals made Orpheus’s skin crawl. The son of the god of music could not flub a verse. There was no handbook on how to appease godly parents, but he knew Apollo would look down on a musician who botched a song. That expectation was one he set from the moment he laid his hands on his lyre.

The two terrors worked in tandem, the nitpicking and nagging fear of failure. Always in the back of Orpheus’s head, like an earworm that only spouted delirious doubts. He could never escape the internal taunting, no matter how much he practiced and how much he matured.

Those doubts always broke forth like a floodgate. 

Orpheus was eight when he first performed for an audience. His hands could only produce simplified versions of the chords his father had taught him, too small to reach all the strings in the chord of G, and unable to hold down two strings with the same finger. He couldn’t pluck intricate patterns without his fingers breaking open, but despite the lack of skill, Hermes insisted that the boy get used to the feeling of performing on stage. 

They planned the performance for a cool, autumn night. The chill outside beckoned travelers inside Pomegranate House with the warmth and scent of spiced apple. A small, makeshift bandstand with a carbon microphone was set up in the corner of the tavern adjacent to the roaring hearth. The performance was set for sundown, but no matter how much the tavern settled into darkness, a certain troubadour never showed up.

Hermes found him hiding in the storage room. It was a small space crowded with walls of wine and mead, cartons of dining plates and silverware, and barrels bountiful with food. Cramped was the storage room, overflowing with stock that the god had almost glazed over Orpheus together. And perhaps that was the mortal’s goal in the end. The young boy’s legs dangled from the wooden crate he sat upon, hands clutched to his knees, and his eyes locked on the floorboards.

“Orpheus,” Hermes began.

No reply.

“Orpheus.”

Silence.

Hermes moved deeper into the room, closing the door behind him. He crouched down in front of the boy and lowered himself to his level, “You’ll never get on stage if you don’t go and get it over with.” 

Orpheus didn’t look up as the god spoke. Instead, his small hands began to tremble. “I don’t want to,” he murmured. 

“How’re you gonna be a musician who doesn’t perform?”

Orpheus curled in on himself. Hermes continued cautiously when the young boy refrained from answering his question. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

The sentence sent Orpheus catastrophizing. His small voice shook as he spoke. “I’ll get up there and I’ll play the wrong notes, or I’ll open my mouth and nothing will come out,” he frantically rattled on, pausing only to inhale shakily. “Or worse, I’ll sing but I’ll sing the wrong lyrics and play the wrong notes at the same time…”

“You’re not going to play anything wrong,” Hermes consoled. 

Orpheus’s bottom lip quivered. He burrowed like a rabbit, and appearing so hidden, the boy looked like he did when Hermes first met him at four. 

All stubby fingers and smallness as he clutched Calliope’s skirts and peered from behind her up at the messenger god. He barely uttered a word past a meek “hello” before disappearing behind his mother again. The boy had always been a nervous little thing. 

Orpheus moved at an adagio as he lifted his gaze to Hermes. His throat bobbed as he muffled a small whimper threatening to slip from his throat. His wide eyes, which were often so vast with joy, shimmered with a sheen of unshed tears.

His face crumpled as he looked up at the god. “Mr. Hermes, I’m scared,” he whispered.

Hermes had only seen that expression a handful of times, and every time it made something within him wither. He caught a glimpse of it once when Orpheus asked about his parents. 

When are they coming to see me? Orpheus had asked.

Hermes couldn’t give him a proper answer. He was a messenger, but he wasn’t a predictor of the future. Gods and muses were busy people. Often, they moved from one thing to another without dwelling on the past. 

This meant children, too.

Hermes didn’t respond to Orpheus, and with his silence, he watched as the young boy’s face fell.

Did they abandon me?

The god wasn’t able to get a word out before the boy’s face flooded with distress, and he hurried off to his room.

The same distress that now painted his face in the dimness of the storage room.

“You don’t gotta be scared, Orpheus.” Hermes shifted closer and placed a hand over his to calm the tremors. “You know how to sing, right?”

Orpheus nodded.

“And you know how to play your lyre?”

Orpheus hesitated, but nodded nevertheless.

“Then there ain’t nothing to worry about. The music, it’s in you, Orpheus. Gods, if I’ve ever seen a boy pick up music faster than you have.”

Orpheus’s mouth fell open, but Hermes shook his head. “No more worrying. You’ll cloud your head with nonsense. And then you’ll surely forget your lyrics.”

Hermes chuckled to himself, but Orpheus didn’t find it funny. If anything, he looked even closer to shattering. 

“Listen, when you get up on that stage, I want you to breathe in for four,” the god gently instructed. “Hold that for seven, then let it all out for eight. Why don’t we give it a try?”

Hermes modeled the breathing first. He took his time and over-exaggerated, his exhale whistling out like a gust of wind. Orpheus joined in on the second round as Hermes kept count of breathing in, holding, and out on his fingers. 

Orpheus visually relaxed as he held his breath. His eyes shut in concentration. The trembling of his hands didn’t seem as violent as before, and when he exhaled, his tense shoulders slackened like the air depleting from a balloon. His eyes still sparkled with tears when he opened them, but Orpheus quickly blinked them away.

“That better?”

Orpheus nodded.

Hermes gave his knee a small squeeze. “You got this, kid. Knock ‘em dead.”

The stage fright didn’t make Orpheus cry like it did when he was eight, but it still came in those pestering physical symptoms that made him feel like the stage was torture rather than a privilege. The rapid heartbeat, the numbness in his fingers and legs, the lump lodged in his throat. It didn’t matter how many times he performed. He still felt that subtle terror, no matter how frequently he faced an audience.

The terror began to creep up as Hermes started setting up the stage. 

“Mr. Hermes, it’s not even Saturday yet,” Orpheus murmured, hovering over the god as he started to move around the tables and chairs to face the bandstand in the corner.

Hermes clustered a small semi-circle of tables and chairs, all facing the stage. He muttered, slightly strained with the effort of shifting furniture. “You’ll manage singing a few days early.”

Orpheus frowned. “Mr. Hermes…”

“Don’t Mr. Hermes me,” the god straightened out and worked the kinks out of his back, shooting Orpheus a look before his eyes shifted to Eurydice.

She leaned against a support beam in the middle of the room. With her arms behind her back and her slackened posture, Orpheus couldn’t help but fixate on the differences between her now and a few hours earlier.

A completely different person, this Eurydice that Orpheus was staring at. She wasn’t tense, muscles squeezing tight as she hunched her shoulders or flinched away from a touch. No, if anything, she seemed comfortable. Orpheus obsessed over the little differences. The darkness of her eyes softened by firelight, her stance loose and comfortable against the beam, and the way her lips curled up subtly when he found her eyes.

“Make your muse happy and sing a song,” Hermes whispered.

Orpheus had only given her a preview of the melody that rattled around in his head. The seven-note refrain was a pattern that always seemed to follow him wherever he went. Even then, the song resonated. If not its beauty, it was the magic the song seemed to hold. 

Orpheus’s song had never produced flowers before. The most the song could do was bring a grin to someone’s face, and that was if they were listening in the first place. The carnation that spouted from his hand, the one now resting in the lapel of Eurydice’s coat, had to be a sign. He was doing something right, bringing forth seasons with his song.

Orpheus wondered why Eurydice wanted to hear more when she knew it was unfinished.

Perhaps she simply wanted spring to come earlier.

Or maybe she wants to hear my voice.

“It’s not going to be any good,” Orpheus mumbled as he made his way over to Eurydice. 

Eurydice looked amused. “I didn’t take you to be a pessimist.”

Orpheus flushed. “I’m not a pessimist.”

“Then get up there and sing.”

“Eurydice…” whined Orpheus.

“Orpheus..." Eurydice teased lightheartedly.

Orpheus could feel those deliberating thoughts slowly creep into his mind. What if his lyre wasn’t tuned right and the first chord came out all wrong? What if he forgot the lyrics and stood there in terrified silence? What if the notes he sang weren’t even notes at all?

He opened his mouth to protest Eurydice, but the words died on the tip of his tongue. Because there was a feeling deep down that longed to share his music with not only Eurydice but the entire tavern. He was a musician, albeit a nervous one. And when Eurydice was looking at him like that, looking at him so sweetly?

Gods, it felt like he could do anything. 

Orpheus gave her a timid, almost dreadful look before departing from her side and stepping up on the bandstand. He found the spot behind the microphone, and up on that stage, he still felt like that eight-year-old boy who took his very first bow so many years ago. 

His songs were simpler back then, with melodies he pulled from berceuses his mother used to sing to him. He’d lie his head upon her lap and let her thread her fingers through his unruly hair, singing lullabies until the young boy drifted off into a quiet slumber. Orpheus loved the sound of his mother’s voice. Perhaps that’s what he missed the most about her. 

In every song he sang, he could hear her. The roots of his musicality.

The tavern was decently packed. Tables that used to be facing the hearth shifted to face the stage in the corner thanks to Hermes. There was conversation, but it was still quiet enough to hear the feedback of the microphone as Orpheus fumbled with its height. He winced, warbled an apology, and went to the tuning pegs of his lyre.

Hermes occupied a spot next to the hearth. His hands found the pockets of his slacks as he cleared his throat and called out, “Alright, gather ‘round, you vagabonds. The poet’s got a song for us tonight, so listen good and listen well.”

A hush fell over the tavern, and Orpheus lifted his head and looked out into the crowd.

He recognized most of the patrons as regulars, faces that never seemed to leave the tavern. The one he brought plates of warm stew and fresh bread, the ones he refilled their cups a few times too many, and the ones he apologized to endlessly when he spilled the wine on their laps. He slipped up during his shifts, more times than he could remember, but they still looked at him fondly. A few of them even gave a grin as he made eye contact.

Three old women in gray sat at the bar. Orpheus knew the women. He recognized them as the Fates, not godly like Hermes, but just as old as time and just as powerful. No matter how many times they frequented the bar and how many times Hermes pointed them out, Orpheus could never distinguish the three. He’d glance at Clotho, thinking she was Lachesis, but then he’d second-guess and assume she was Atropos when she was Clotho the whole time.

The Fates weren’t Pomegranate House regulars, but their presence was expected with a god running the tavern. Still, Orpheus didn’t fancy seeing them at their seats. They made him uneasy. They spoke in sentences he didn’t understand. Like warped poetry verses that Orpheus could never fully interpret the meaning of. Always vague and morbid, he felt as if they were watching him, watching his every move. 

And he didn’t like how they were looking at Eurydice.

From her table at the front, Eurydice didn’t seem to notice their eyes on her back. Her gaze was fixed forward on Orpheus at the bandstand. Like he had seen her before, she sat leaning forward with her elbows propped up on the table, her chin resting on the back of her hands.

Orpheus could’ve died happy, right then and there, at the sight of the faint smile on her face.

But as much as her presence made him preen, it only fueled the fire of his nerves.

Orpheus could hear his rapid heartbeat in his ears. It rushed forward like the tide of a stream that couldn’t be stopped, and he shifted at his place on the stage when he felt his legs begin to tingle with numbness. Flex the toes, shake out the legs. Focus.

He knew the song wasn’t finished yet. He had slaved over it for countless nights, yet Orpheus couldn’t find a fitting finish. Gods, he’d tried so many different notes and lyrics, but nothing seemed right. The possibility of slipping up and accidentally playing a faulty chord or a verse he had scraped made his hands falter on the lyre. 

I want you to breathe in for four. Hold that for seven, then let it all out for eight. Why don’t we give it a try?

Orpheus forced his eyes to close, and he breathed. He kept count, his mind an internal metronome, as he willed his body to relax. With the exhale, he felt the feeling come back to his fingertips and his legs that threatened to buckle and break with nervousness. 

When he opened his eyes, Eurydice was the only face he saw. 

And Orpheus smiled.

His hands found the fret of the beginning chord, head dipping down to double check, before he gave the lyre a gentle strum. G minor. The notes rolled out slowly from the instrument. Orpheus liked how the chord sounded so dreamy and contemplative. With a gentle grace, he let the chord linger for a moment before his lips parted and he began to sing his song.

Queen of flowers, queen of fields

Queen of the green and the growing Earth

Orpheus knew he wanted his song to be about the goddess of spring, Persephone. A song to conjure spring should directly call out to her, shouldn’t it? Whenever Orpheus wrote songs to Apollo, though, the god never seemed to listen. His pleas for a speedy return fell on deaf ears. Sometimes, he thought the god was ignoring him on purpose. Maybe Persephone would be different.

Orpheus continued:

Lady Persephone, half of the year

Was bound to stay down in the Underworld

There were variations to the tale of Hades and Persephone. Some believed that the goddess was kidnapped and snatched down to the darkness of Hadestown, bound to live six months in the underground after eating the seeds of a pomegranate. Hermes dismissed that rumor when Orpheus had asked one night.

Persephone had married Hades of her own volition after falling in love with the king of the Underworld. They agreed on the terms together, spending six months underground and the other six back on top. Even if those months had become distorted over time, the goddess wasn’t held against her will. She came and went as she pleased. And not even a king could control the firecracker that was Persephone.

Orpheus let his voice drift off as a sudden bundle of nerves settled in his throat. His head dipped nervously back down to the lyre in his hands, swallowing nothing but thick and dry air. His shoulders tensed. He remembered the lyrics and the chords just as well, but his throat swelled in sudden anxiety. 

He was used to the small crowds, but something about tonight seemed different. People were really paying attention to him. Watching him. And one of those people was his sweet Eurydice. 

Hermes, if only for a brief moment, saw that eight-year-old boy standing on that stage again.

“Go on,” he urged gently.

Orpheus swallowed again, turning his head to the side to clear his throat before singing:

In the other half, she could walk in the sun

And the sun, in turn, burned twice as bright

He found his voice growing a little more confident as Hermes brushed behind him. Gentle hands found his shoulders, easing out the tension until they sank back to normal. Relaxed, Orpheus could find himself consumed in the music of his song. Rather than singing to the lyre in his hands, he sang out to the audience.

He sang to his sweet Eurydice. 

Which is where the seasons come from

And with that cycle of the seed and the sickle

And the lives of the people

The birds and their flights

Orpheus plucked the strings of his lyre as if he were picking them straight from the clouds of Olympus. It was in performance that he could finally focus on how the notes sounded in his mouth rather than worrying if they were the right ones. It sat in a range of his voice that forced him to sing with gentle reverence. Orpheus liked those types of songs the best.

The gentle lullabies Calliope used to usher him to sleep with.

The soft prayers to the gods for good fortune and blessings.

The tender song that his heart sang whenever Eurydice smiled at him.

Orpheus continued:

Singing: La, la, la, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la, la…

His voice drifted off. The same refrain from before, when the flower bloomed in his hands, floated in the tavern, bounced off the walls, and eventually melted into silence. His hands stilled at the lyre until they fell to his sides.

“That’s it?”

Eurydice broke the silence, looking as if she had blinked back to consciousness. Orpheus hadn’t noticed how consumed she was in his song until it was over. He selfishly wished he could go back in time just to see how content she looked, to memorize her face so free of worry.

“It’s not finished…” Orpheus recalled quietly.

Eurydice hummed. She was silent for a while, as if internally digesting the song. And with a further crack in her facade, she smiled.  “It’s good.”

✧°˖ . ݁˖︵‿❀‿︵˖ . ݁˖°✧

"Where'd you get that melody?"

Orpheus shrugged. "I don't know. It just...It just came to me one day, like I've known it all along."

Hermes leaned back in his chair. Something passed over his face, but Orpheus couldn't put a name to the emotion. Recognition? No, it was deeper than that. Dread? Why would Hermes be fearful of a melody?

The god sniffed. "That's an old song you just sang. Long time since I heard it."

"You've heard that melody before?"

Hermes nodded.

"Where?"

"Y'know Hades and Persephone?"

Orpheus nodded.

"That song's tied to them like nothing I've ever heard."

Orpheus grew quiet. The melody did feel like something he'd heard before. While beautiful and delicate, it was also haunting how familiar it was at the same time. And Gods, now that he knew that the song was connected to the king and queen of the Underworld? His head raced.

"Mr. Hermes?"

"Hm?"

"Could I...could I ask you something? About Hades and Persephone?" When the god gave him an amused look, Orpheus continued. "You know the story better than I do.”

“Seems like you’ve got a pretty good grip on the tale as well.”

“I know, I just…I was wondering...”

“That’s never good.”

Orpheus shot the god a small, desperate look. In the chair beside him, Eurydice chuckled. 

It was just the three of them in the tavern. Now blanketed in the darkness of the night, a few hanging lanterns and the fireplace offered subtle light. A bottle passed between them. Orpheus passed every time it was slid to him, but he could still catch the faint smell of citrus as it passed him. The aroma of summertime. 

Hermes refilled his cup. “What’s on your mind?” 

“How do they do it?” Orpheus asked. “Being apart from each other. Do they not talk to each other at all when she’s on the surface?”

The god took a swig from his cup. Exhaling sharply, he let it fall back to the table. “No, they’re not in touch during the spring or summertime. They don’t really got a postal service to Hadestown,” Hermes grinned to himself. “Not unless they wanna go through me.”

Gods, I’d go crazy, Orpheus thought.

Underneath the table, his hand instinctively twitched for Eurydice’s hand. He’d known her for what, a day? Not even, and Orpheus couldn’t fathom a couple hours without her by his side. How her hand would feel so naturally intertwined with his. He bathed in the sunlight of her existence. Without her, he’d be hurled into the darkness he didn’t know he was living in until she came along.

Surely, he’d go insane if he lived in the king of the Underworld’s shoes. 

“So they go six months without a single word?”

“More like four months nowadays,” Eurydice corrected from his side.

“Hades ain’t exactly a patient soul,” continued Hermes. “It can get awful lonely down there.”

Bending the rules of nature just to be with his wife again. “I think it’s romantic," Orpheus murmured.

Eurydice scoffed. “I think it’s selfish. Stealing away our spring for his own personal gain.”

Orpheus glanced over at Eurydice. Her views were justified by the life she led, constantly on the run. Winter must come too soon for her while Orpheus, in Hermes’s tavern, had shelter and food. 

But if Orpheus were in Hades' place? He’d bring Eurydice back to the Underworld as soon as possible, too. 

“Do they worry about each other?”

Hermes swallowed another swig of his wine. “Course they worry about each other. Distance ain’t kind to anyone. You’d worry about Eurydice if she weren’t tethered to your side?”

His fingers drummed, hand flexing. “Yes.”

“Just ‘cause the gods are gods and all, don’t mean they don’t go through the same stuff you mortals deal with. They worry when they don’t know things. And they love just as hard.”

Eurydice chuckled. “The god of the dead loves?”

“Yeah, as impossible as it sounds,” Hermes replied as he rose from his seat. He settles his hands into the pockets of his pants.  “You got all your questions out, Orpheus?”

Orpheus quickly committed the information to his memory. Perhaps he’d find some further inspiration in the longing of Hades, his loneliness. The poet nodded.

“Alright, you two, get some sleep. It’s mighty late,” Hermes gave Orpheus one final look. All parental pride as if whispering to him: “You did good tonight.” 

When Hermes slipped back behind the bar and into a backroom, Orpheus turned to Eurydice. With the nighttime, he could tell she was at a standstill. He caught a subtle conflict behind her eyes, and his heart plummeted into his stomach. She was thinking about leaving. And it terrified him. His voice came out quiet but rushed.

“Stay.”

Eurydice looked at him. “What?”

“Stay.”

Eurydice’s mouth fell open, but Orpheus shook his head. “It’s too cold for you to be out there all alone. Please, just for tonight, stay. And if you hate it then…”

Orpheus couldn’t finish that sentence. The mere thought made him want to weep. 

I want to hold you forever.

Orpheus' voice was barely a whisper as he squeezed her hand. “Please.”

He’d give up everything for her to stay for the night. His bedroom? All hers. If she wanted his music sheets, his lyre, his soul, he’d offer it just to keep her close to him for a few hours more. Gods, he didn’t know how much he needed her until the possibility of her leaving arose.

“Orpheus…” Eurydice began. 

“Eurydice…” Orpheus pleaded.

She made a promise to herself never to fall again. Love would only weigh her down. And heartbreak, like she had felt in the past, would hurt her. 

A heartbreak from Orpheus would certainly kill her.

But he was looking at her so cautiously. Yearning so strong, as if her saying no would shatter him entirely. If anything resembling a soft protest fell from her lips, she was sure that Orpheus would fall to his knees and softly beg for her to stay. 

No one had cared for her like that before. She had always been a runaway. 

And in spite of herself, against everything she’d ever done in all her years of living, she decided to stay.

Chapter Text

It was hot.

For the first time in months, Eurydice woke up hot. 

The back of her neck was slick with sweat, unbearably damp, skin ablaze as she ripped away the heavy bedding. The patchwork wool pooled in a heap of crimson and burnt orange at the foot of the bed. The heat made her delirious. Pathetically hopeful. Had she fallen asleep for months only to awaken to the long-awaited changing of seasons? 

Blearily, Eurydice lifted her head to peek from the bedroom window. Having been bestirred, her incoherence made her long for the sight of green outside. A tree with newly sprouted leaves. Dandelions poking through thawed ground. The call of a robin or a warbler whose voice would carry like a song of hope. 

She saw branches, but only in the patterns of the frost crystallizing against the glass. Tiny limbs, icicles of frozen cold, stretching across the windowpane like overreaching hands. So similar to the barren trees outside that yearned for warmth just as much as she did. 

Eurydice blinked. Perhaps if she stared long enough, the frost would melt to reveal springtime behind the cloudy condensation. But the morning sun, as warm on her skin as it was, proved fruitless against the iron-clad clasp of winter. 

It only confused her. How come her bedroom was so warm when outside was still just as frozen as it was when she fell asleep? 

It even angered her. This waiting game was frustrating. Waking up to disappointment every morning, longing for the snow to cease, patience waning every day with no change.

Eurydice dressed contemptuously. Hampered hands, tense with frustration, tore off her nightwear and coerced her black slip and vest on with enough force to tear if she wasn’t careful. 

How long? The question repeated over and over in her head as she tugged her tights on and laced her boots. How long? How long was she supposed to wait? How long were the gods intended to torture the mortals above? How long was her body going to play tricks on her, waking her up in a sweat only to be met with frost on her windowpane?

Irritation rolled off her in waves, crashing and colliding as she tugged on her winter coat for the millionth time. How that coat, so useful and painfully sentimental, had turned into something she hated. She longed to ditch it, itched for the day that she wouldn’t need it anymore. Leave it hanging on a peg for the season. Let it gather dust in a closet. Stuff it underneath the bed and forget about it for good. 

But that day wasn’t today.

Eurydice moved over to her bedside and extinguished the candle on her nightstand with a puff of air that was more of an exasperated huff. She tried not to look at the windowpane, that cursed, cold windowpane, as she tidied her bed for the day and turned on her heel to leave. 

The winter made her crueler than usual. Easily standoffish, sheltered, and angered at the world. It wasn’t her true self, she knew, but couldn’t help how quickly she turned to annoyance with the cycle of winter that was her life. Eurydice so often lived in a bad mood that she had forgotten how happiness felt.

But it was Orpheus who seemed to always douse the fire that was her frustration.

Especially with the flowers he left her every morning at her front door.

She awoke to a new flower each morning. Pink azaleas, yellow primroses, white daisies, and orange daffodils, all coated in soft pastels and carrying with them the sweet smell of spring. 

The carnations were her favorite. Deep ruby petals that bloomed like small ruffles of tulle, the spicy-sweet, clove-like fragrance of the flower. It reminded her of autumn. And if anything, they reminded her of Orpheus. 

Eurydice kept that first carnation he gave her close to her chest until it eventually wilted with time. Even then, she kept the dried flower in a small vase in her bedroom until a new one appeared at her doorstep. 

Each time he sang this song, a new flower blossomed from the palm of his hand, and he never hesitated to offer it to Eurydice. He’d drift from the back kitchen with a bundle of periwinkle lilacs like a child who had been caught stealing sweets. It happened again, his face would read, all soft with playful shame as he tucked the flowers into her hand before Hermes could scold him about getting distracted during his shifts.

He’d slip lilies to her table as he passed with a crate of cups to bring to the back for washing. Tied to the stem with a ribbon would be a new stanza he was workshopping. Little love notes containing lyrics of Hades and Persephone, but sometimes, if Orpheus were courageous, they would be about her. Her skin, her hair, her eyes. Secretly, those were the ones she’d whisper aloud to herself before falling asleep, gushing over every meter and metaphor.

And when Eurydice let him get close one night, when she had been feeling strangely courageous, she let Orpheus take small sprigs of chamomile that bloomed after playing a few songs on the weekend and interweave them into her braids. She sat in front of the fireplace as he sat behind her and worked the flowers into her hair. Small pearly petals barely connected to a bud of yellow in the center, with a honeysuckle scent, sweet and perfumed. 

He was ever so careful not to tug, a trait she attributed to the fragility of the flower he was working with when, in reality, it was she he was being careful with. One wrong move and she’d dart away. His fingers worked deftly as he weaved the stems through her hair like stitching a patch onto cloth or embroidering designs onto clothing. Orpheus hummed as he worked. Eurydice settled for silence. 

And when she turned to face him when he was done, she caught the way his breath stuttered in his chest. She, now backlit by the fireplace behind her, cast shadows against the stunned face of Orpheus. 

“You’re radiant,” he muttered, mostly to himself but loud enough to be a declaration.

And she would’ve dared to kiss him had she not been so terrified of shattering the moment.

Eurydice had been living in the tavern for two months and still hadn’t kissed the boy she was slowly falling in love with, but that didn’t discourage Orpheus from expressing his love for her, nevertheless. No matter her hesitance, he’d always return with another flower.

It was a small cluster of red dahlias this morning. She gathered the flowers in her hands, running her fingers along the soft, spiky petals of deep crimson, so rich they were almost black. The sweetness was faint when she brought the dahlias to her nose. If anything, she smelled more of Orpheus on the flowers. Warm cedar-wood, a hint of praline, worn paper and deep ink, subtle apricot. Undoubtedly Orpheus. 

She found him in the lobby of the tavern, seated at a table with his lyre propped on his knee. He alternated between plucking at the strings, humming to himself, and writing on the pad of paper on the table. His face was fixed in concentration. Eurydice found herself lingering at the staircase just so she could watch him in all his unparalleled glory. The way his eyebrows narrowed as his fingers slipped on a chord, and how his tongue would poke out as he readjusted and repeated the pattern. 

With his eyes downcast, Eurydice could’ve gone unnoticed for hours.

But she purposefully scaled the rest of the stairs noisily to not startle him with her voice. Her boots were deafening in the silence of the morning, clicking down hard against warped floorboards. Orpheus’s head lifted at the sound, tensed, and then relaxed altogether when Eurydice shifted into view. His grin alone could’ve given the god of the sun a run for his money.

“Still not finished?” Eurydice moved deeper into the room. 

A soft, suppressed laugh sneaked past his lips. “Unfortunately.”

Eurydice held up the bundle of dahlias with a knowing look. “How long have you been up?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” 

Orpheus softened, smiling at the way she prodded. He rephrased. “I wanted to work on the song.”

“You’re always working on the song.”

Orpheus’s voice came out musically, light and blithe. “Unfortunately.”

Eurydice moved closer to his table, his song alluring like the call of a siren. She slipped into the seat across from him and folded her arms, letting her head fall and rest against them as he began his song again. Subtle humming, barely even there as his hands worked against the strings.

His writing pad on the table was more like a sketchbook than a notepad. She lifted her head so she could get a better look, finding the occasional lyric or two in his loopy cursive surrounded by small doodles of coiling vines and efflorescing tulips. She fixated on his handwriting, obsessing over the small notes he’d leave himself in the margins. 

“Reword”: circled three times around the seventh line.

“Birds, soaring flight”: crossed out, written out again, then crossed out a final time. Replaced by the line, the birds and their flights.

“Yes!!!”: an arrow pointing to a small drawing of a staff with seven notes, three exclamation marks.

“Do you know when you’ll be finished?”

Orpheus didn’t reply for a while. He continued to play as he spoke. “No.”

Eurydice lifted her head properly. Her chin found her arms, burrowing into the material of her winter coat. “How long does it take you to write a song?”

“A few weeks if I’m really set on a melody. This one’s giving me some trouble,” Orpheus’s fingers fumbled. “It’s like I know the song. Like I’ve written it before, and I’m trying to remember it, but I can’t.”

Eurydice hummed in acknowledgement even though she thought it was a little absurd. Shouldn’t he be able to remember if he’d written it before? She didn’t know how long he’d been writing this song, but it had been two months since she’d met him. And he still wasn’t done with it.

“You’ll finish it soon.”

He gave her a faint smile, bordering on optimism. “I hope so. It’s driving me crazy.”

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“Do you know when it’ll be finished?”

Orpheus looked down at his lap. There she rested, like an angel with her hair fanned out above her. A halo of braided black. He didn’t move for a long time when she shifted to lie down, afraid that if he did something wrong, she’d vanish into thin air. His hand hesitated before it came down to gently trace along the blossoms of chamomile intertwined in her hair. 

His mind was on her rather than his music. “Hm?”

“Your song,” a chuckle slipped from Eurydice’s lips. 

A chuckle! 

“The one you’ve been working on for years.”

He scoffed amusedly, correcting, “Months.”

“That’s no better, lover.”

Orpheus turned his head to the side and away from Eurydice. Every time she called him that, that little term of endearment, something burned in his chest. 

Lover. 

His lips ached from how much they curled upwards at the fluttery feeling. Curled fingers shot up to conceal how he was practically beaming, nervously abashed with how a single word could affect him. His hand came down to his fluttering heart. “I’ll finish it soon.”

“You said that last week.”

He cocked his head and looked down at Eurydice. He was still grinning. “Did I?”

“You did.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, teasingly. “I’m starting to think you’ll never finish it.”

“I will. I’ve just gotta figure out the lyrics. Nothing seems to sound right.”

Eurydice hummed. It was silent for a while. With everyone else in the tavern retired to sleep, the crackle of fire and shifting of logs was the only sound until Eurydice spoke again:

“Let me make you a promise.”

Orpheus froze as Eurydice sat up. He stayed fastened to his spot as she settled to sit in front of him. The small sprigs of chamomile seemed to glow golden in the evening firelight. Orpheus resisted the urge to move closer despite how he yearned to be as close as possible. Her head in his lap had been the closest he’d gotten in two months. 

And he didn’t know how much he longed for that contact until it was gone.

“Once you finish your song, the one about spring,” Eurydice began. “I’ll marry you. Properly.”

Orpheus blinked. “What?” he whispered out, already smiling.

It had been months since Orpheus proposed, but he didn’t forget, and he still meant it after months of getting to know Eurydice. Her sarcasm, her pessimism, her fear of getting too attached. He could sense that with how often she kept her distance from him. It was the small victories, her head in his lap, that made him long for the day they hadn’t yet planned.

The date was up in the air until now. Now, Orpheus had the conclusion of his song to look forward to. Orpheus couldn’t help the way his mind was drifting to ideas of their soon-to-come wedding. What type of music would Eurydice prefer? Would she keep her beautiful hair down, cascading over bare shoulders that glimmered in the sun, or would she opt to have it pulled up? Their first kiss, their first dance. 

Orpheus was ready to relive life as he knew it, but as her husband. 

And how certain he was that he’d weep at the first sight of her, so beautiful in white.

“You heard me. I’ll marry you when your song’s done.”

His face fell. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take me.”

“I can wait.”

His hands tapped at his knees, antsy. Agonizingly longing for her. How long was it taking him to write this song? Months? Waiting to wed until he finished seemed so daunting, and what if he never finished it? What if her patience wasn’t enough?

“No, it could take me another month, a year. I don’t…I couldn’t…”

Eurydice softened. “Then spring,” she settled. “We’ll plan for spring.”

“Spring?”

She nodded. “Your song is already conjuring flowers. No doubt it could bring about spring in no time.”

Orpheus flushed. “You think highly of me.”

“Nothing you haven’t already told me.”

Eurydice captured a stand of hair in her hands. They graced along the petals of chamomile as if she were trailing along a harp, the music of Orpheus’s song still ringing between them when the flowers had bloomed early that evening. “Nothing you haven’t already shown me.”

Orpheus withheld from capturing her in an embrace, knowing that acting too fast and too soon would only frighten her. His hand twitched. It shook before it reluctantly reached for her, slow enough in case she wanted to move away. But Eurydice didn’t flinch away. His hand covered hers, taking hold and flipping it over so he could slip his fingers between hers.

“Spring,” he agreed. “We’ll plan for spring.”

And he would’ve dared to kiss her had he not been so terrified of shattering the moment.

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Orpheus was wiping down tables when a train whistle broke through the silence. 

His head lifted. His rag went stagnant in his hand, ears pricking. The echo of the whistle ricocheted against the tavern walls. There was light conversation in the tavern, and he would’ve missed the sound altogether if he weren’t already in his own world. His mind was distant with melodies, and the whistle jerked him back to reality like whiplash.

At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Pathetically hopeful. How he longed for spring, yearned for it so desperately. Spring carried the promises he and Eurydice made that night by the fire, the night when he almost kissed her. Spring brought a new start, a new beginning, and a new life that Orpheus couldn’t wait to start. 

When the whistle rang out for a second time, growing closer rather than farther away, he knew that it wasn’t his imagination. 

“About time,” someone called out at a table.

“I was starting to get worried.”

“Worried? I was about a day away from going down and getting her myself!”

Conversation buzzed in the tavern, electric, eclectic, and more lively than Orpheus had seen in months. Winter layers peeled away and draped on the backs of chairs. The lull dissipated in a matter of seconds as Orpheus scrambled from table to table, taking drink orders: summer cocktails, entire bottles of wine, endless lines of shots. He jotted them down as they came and brought the writing pad to the bar. He was already sliding it over to Hermes, equally busy with the merchandise he was pulling down from the back wall.

Orpheus was never a big drinker. He’d indulge during the holidays, the celebrations where Hermes would slide him a small mug of mead. The taste always left him coughing as it burned down his throat like wildfire. How anyone drank for the taste was beyond him.

He’d seen how alcohol turned the mind. The musicians who couldn’t go onstage without three or four helpings of the stuff, musicians who seemed more dedicated to the drink than the craft.

And if anything, Orpheus was a lightweight. Too much, and too strong, and he’d act more of a fool than he already was. 

“Mr. Hermes, is it really her?” Orpheus leaned up against the bar as his voice bordered on childlike wonder rather than simple curiosity. 

Hermes pulled out a long bottle of deep purple liquor. Blackberry? Plum? All of the bottles on the back wall looked the same to him, and after overpouring a few too many customers, he let Hermes handle the alcohol. He watched the god pour the liquor into shot glasses, the purple turning lustrous and glittery as it hit the tavern air. 

“Only one train comes from Hadestown each year,” Hermes replied. “It’s her alright.”

Orpheus couldn’t help but selfishly think that this was his doing. His song’s doing. He was constantly working on it, always refining the lyrics he didn’t think were any good. Singing as he washed dishes, humming and whistling as he organized the stock room, performing it for audiences on the weekend. Sometimes, he’d wake himself up from the singing he had been doing in his sleep and rush to write down the melody before he forgot. Surely, he was doing something right.

Surely, Persephone had heard him.

The tavern became a flurry of movement. Shot glasses were downed and refilled. People at the bandstand tuned violins and cellos. Chatter rose above the commotion like the blare of a horn, so loud that it started to rear its head as a headache in his brain. But he was too excited to focus on the thrum behind his eyes, too busy making runs for more food and alcohol, and far too consumed with stopping by Eurydice’s table whenever he got the chance. 

She looked almost startled at how alive the tavern was. Small, still swaddled in her winter coat, and stiff. Orpheus caught the slight wideness of her eyes, those shoulders that always seemed tense. Only when Orpheus found a break in his shift to sit next to her did she visibly relax. 

“Is it always this lively when a train passes by?” Eurydice’s eyes focused on a table of customers on their third round of shots who were stumbling up and onto the tables and chairs in an intoxicated stupor.

Orpheus followed her gaze, watched as Hermes warned the table, and grinned. “It is when her train does.”

“Her?”

Orpheus had forgotten this was Eurydice’s first summer at Pomegranate House, but when he looked back to find confusion etched on her face, it dawned on him. She’d never seen the sunset concerts. Orpheus had a proper band then, musicians who played along with him and got the entire place on their feet and dancing. Summer was a dancing season. 

She’d never seen the drinking contests with a goddess who never lost. The banquets, the parties, everything. What had she done in past summers? How had she survived?

And how lucky am I to have you here now.

Orpheus couldn’t contain the sheer grin on his face, like he was letting her in on a secret. His voice came out gentle as he leaned in a little closer to whisper: “Persephone.”

Realization crashed upon Eurydice in a wave, and just as she opened her mouth to repeat him, the door to the tavern swung open. And in all her summertime glory, the goddess of spring stepped inside.

“I know you’re not drinking without me!”

Applause crackled like thunder, and Orpheus caught how Eurydice just about flinched at the whiplash of the sound. Whoops and hollers, cheering, even a blessed prayer, all collided in cacophony as Persephone stepped further inside. 

Carrying with her was the sweet scent of fruit. Outside, the world seemed to thaw. No more frost on the windowpane. The glass cleared, and already the trees were starting to thrive with life. Only small buds of green, but still green nevertheless.

The goddess was an explosion of color in the dreariness of winter. Lilies of red, orange, and yellow seemed to bloom from the crown of her head in the waterfall of wild curls. She made her rounds to the tables, shaking hands, making conversation, taking shots. Everywhere the goddess went, life around her seemed to blossom. 

“You’re late again,” Hermes scolded lightly as Persephone took a seat in front of him.

Persephone barked out a laugh. She reached into the pocket of her fur coat, white at the top until it slowly morphed to green towards the bottom, and pulled out a flask. “You think I don’t know that? Take it up with my husband.”

Playful pink lips curled around the flask and drank generously, and with the sharp exhale, her head lolled with looseness. Persephone licked her lips and mostly angled to the ceiling, muttered, “Wine always tastes better up on top.”

“Tell me about it,” Hermes responded. 

His eyes drifted over to Eurydice’s table, where Orpheus sat. The boy talked animatedly, all spastic hand gestures and a smile wider than the god had ever seen before. He called out his name and caught the poet’s attention. Orpheus excused himself from Eurydice and scrambled over to the bar. 

“Take the goddess coat, for gods’ sake.”

Orpheus murmured an apology before he helped Persephone shrug out of the coat, folding it neatly in the crook of his elbow. Even if she had just come from Hadestown, the coat alone still smelled of summertime, all herbs and blades of grass. Orpheus had to resist the urge to bury his face against the fur and take a lavish inhale. 

When Persephone turned and met the eyes of the poet, a smile akin to a mother’s graced her face. “Sweet Orpheus,” she cooed. Her head came out to grace the side of his face. “You’ve gotten taller.”

Orpheus gave a small bow of his head. “It’s nice to see you, Lady Persephone,” he replied. He hesitated, wondered if he should ask about his song and if she had heard, but the question melted on his tongue as he moved to hang up the coat on the back wall.

Orpheus loved Persephone as if she were his mother. He would always have Calliope, but Persephone was more present, more physically there. The goddess was a good friend of Hermes, spending every summer up on top at Pomegranate House. Dancing, partying, drinking the god dry. And with every season, she watched Orpheus grow up. From a small boy too nervous to play by himself in front of her into a young man, still nervous, but less than he was as a child.

“He seems happier.”

Hermes lifted his head at Persephone’s voice. A gruff chuckle slipped from his lips. “Happier, hopeless, more distracted. The boy’s a lot of things these days.”

When the goddess met Hermes with a perplexed look, Hermes simply cocked his head over to the table where Orpheus was already hovering over again.

Eurydice’s. 

Persephone gaped. Her face was frozen in stunned elation. “Since when did Orpheus get a girl?”

“Not just a girl.”

Persephone was moving over to the table before Hermes could say anything further. 

She found Orpheus kneeling in front of Eurydice’s chair, hands in hers, and gently talking. As she crept closer, the expression of the girl in the chair lifted away from Orpheus. All wide eyes, tensing muscles, almost scared as if standing face to face with some malevolent beast rather than the goddess of spring. Persephone would’ve laughed had the expression not been so pure.

Orpheus caught the look on Eurydice’s face, how it shifted away from him to something behind him. He turned to find Persephone standing, rather hovering over him, and he scrambled up to his feet. Behind him, Eurydice rose, too. 

“When were you going to introduce me to your girl, Orpheus?” 

Orpheus grinned. “I was just about to get around to that.”

“Clearly not fast enough,” Persephone glanced past Orpheus.

He moved out of the way to let Eurydice step up in line with him. Orpheus could tell that she hadn’t met someone like Persephone before. A goddess. When she didn’t make any move to join him, he gently reached out his hand to hers and tugged her closer. 

“Eurydice, this is Lady Persephone. Lady Persephone, this is Eurydice.”

And just because he couldn’t help himself, he softly added: “My fiancée.”

“Fiancée,” Persephone reverently repeated. “Isn’t that something? I leave for one winter, and our little songbird goes and gets himself engaged.”

Orpheus turned scarlet. His fingers flexed around Eurydice’s. “Well, we haven’t set any exact date or anything. Just that we planned for spring.”

Persephone smiled with the warmth of the sun. “Waiting for me, huh?”

Eurydice seemed to shrink underneath the goddess’s gaze. She dithered, unsure of what to do with herself, but eventually moved into a bow. “It’s nice to meet you, my goddess.”

This pulled a laugh from Persephone, who waved her hand dismissively. “No, no need for all that, dear. Gods, not even Orpheus bowed when he first met me. Please, you can call me Persephone. I don’t know why anyone fusses over formalities.”

When Eurydice straightened out, the goddess continued, speaking to her rather than Orpheus as she took both her hands in hers and pulled her closer. “You have to let me plan your wedding. Consider it an engagement gift.”

Eurydice opened her mouth, no doubt to protest that they didn’t need divine intervention for their humble union. She had her sights set on a small gathering, perhaps even just her and Orpheus, nothing grand and over-the-top. But Persephone was already a whirl of ivy skirts, turning to Hermes. 

“Pull out your pomegranate mead! We’re throwing these babies an engagement party tonight!”

Another string of cheers echoed around the tavern. Persephone was already moving back over to the bar with a flourish. From the crook of her elbow hung a knit bag embroidered with flowers that she was already pulling wine bottles from. They seemed to never end as she lined them up along the bar, over and over, more wine and liquor.          

Persephone gave a final reach into her bag and produced a vibrant bouquet of wildflowers. Green hydrangeas, pink lisianthuses, and small buds of baby’s breath. 

And Eurydice caught the bride’s bouquet as the goddess threw it over her shoulder.

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The music was loud and lusty as it carried across the tavern, oozing from the floorboards and seeping through the cracks in the walls. The blast of a trombone, the trill of a piano, the thrum of a violin, and the strum of Orpheus’s lyre rose above and consumed the tavern in a constant upbeat song for spring. 

Winter coats had long been forgotten on chairs as dance erupted, patrons enveloped in one another with one arm on their partner and the other sporting a metal mug of liquor. And even if Eurydice was still standing off to the side, Orpheus was delighted to see that she had shed her winter coat, too. 

He practically forgot every single chord he had ever learned when he saw the bareness of her arms for the first time. Deep sepia, almost golden in the light of the tavern. Glowing. So radiate, so beautiful, so Eurydice. He forced his fingers to keep moving along his lyre’s strings despite how much he wanted to abandon the instrument altogether and flock to her side.

Persephone was the ringleader of the commotion, moving and dancing with the music as she kept every single mug full. She waltzed over to Eurydice on the sidelines, flask in hand, as she tried to push the girl into the circle of dancing. Orpheus caught the startled look as Eurydice pulled away and shriveled back into her own little corner.

No matter who was dancing, Orpheus’s eyes always stayed on Eurydice. The way her eyes danced with subtle fascination, timidness, and faint longing. She danced on the line of shelteredness and freedom, and as if he could make her break free from her facade with a song, he played a little more intensely.

It wasn't until Persephone’s arm was around Eurydice’s shoulders and guiding her into the center with her that Eurydice fully gave in. The goddess was muttering something to her that Orpheus couldn’t make out over the music as she offered her the flask. Eurydice took a quick swig before abandoning all her previous caution and joining in on the dancing.

She was a natural on the dance floor. Captivating. Orpheus stopped playing altogether when she started to spin and sway with the music, arms stretched to the sky, braids fanning out with every little rotation. She moved like the music itself, all grace with an underlying current of fire that left him breathless. This was the Eurydice that she kept in hiding. Unashamed passion. Pure happiness.

Many would’ve had their eyes on the goddess of spring dancing right next to her. Who wouldn’t with how Persephone seemed to move? Her movements were sparky, loose with the alcohol, and relaxed like the flutter of a bird’s wing. But Orpheus was focused on someone else.

His eyes never left Eurydice as she continued to dance, and his fingers picked back up at his lyre. He had seen her happy, but never like this, shimmying and moving like nothing could ever hold her back. Orpheus forced himself to push down the slight simmer of possessiveness that burned his blood whenever a patron would dance with her. He couldn’t help it. But Eurydice was smiling like he had never seen. That alone was enough to quell his worries.

With a flourish, the song concluded. Patrons exploded into applause as their bodies rested with exhaustion. There in the center, Eurydice stilled and brought her hands to her mouth with a look of faint surprise, as if shocked at her own outburst. Orpheus watched as she muffled a small giggle before moving to the edge of the stage where he stood. He shifted his lyre to his side and kneeled at her height.

Eurydice placed a hand to her heart, slightly out of breath as she spoke. “I haven’t danced like that in ages.”

Orpheus was grinning brightly. “I wouldn’t have known.”

She was free. So beautiful, naturally, and it showed especially when she moved. When she didn’t reply, Orpheus continued, mouth moving without a filter. “You dance beautifully.”

Eurydice laughed.  “I’m a terrible dancer.”

“Liar,” Orpheus countered without hesitation. “You’re breathtaking.”

She softened as she looked up at him, and Orpheus’s heart lurched in his chest when he caught her eyes dart briefly down to his lips. Gods, how he wanted to kiss her. He could do it right now. Lean forward just the slightest, find the warm skin of the side of her face with his hand, press and feel the softness of her lips with his thumb before moving and–

“A toast!”

Persephone was moving to fill everyone’s empty cups again and placing cups into those whose hands remained empty (Orpheus). Eurydice moved out of the way as the goddess gave him a cup that was accompanied by a small look of approval before moving away again to the center of the room. Turning back around, her eyes landed on Orpheus.

“Why don’t you bless the round, little songbird?”

An uproar of approval rang throughout the tavern, and before Orpheus could decline, all eyes were on him. Reluctantly, he straightened out and away from Eurydice, finding his voice as he raised his cup to the sky. 

“To the patroness of all our music and wine, who has finally returned to the surface and blessed us with spring, Persephone.”

More cheers and applause as Persephone preened. 

Orpheus continued: 

“She asks nothing but that we shall learn to live as brothers and bask in the camaraderie of one another. There will always be enough when she provides, and she will always refill our cups.”

“I will!” Persephone’s voice called out generously.

“And we will always raise them up.”

Orpheus wavered when his eyes fell to Eurydice, holding her cup up with the rest of the tavern, eyes soft as she looked up at him. He finished his toast to her rather than anyone else.

“Let the world we dream about be the one we live in now.”

The tavern drank. Orpheus followed as he brought his lips to the mug and downed the wine in one swallow that sent him hacking. A few others in the tavern were coughing, too. Eurydice winced as she swallowed hers. Hermes, from the bar, was sputtering. Persephone had no reaction beyond elation as she licked the booze from her teeth. 

Orpheus’s throat burned furiously. He coughed into a curled fist, face already flushing with heat. He wasn’t tipsy after one drink, but he knew that another would definitely send him over the edge. 

Now loose with liquor, the tavern slowly morphed back into song and dance. Orpheus placed his lyre in the stand on the stage before shifting down onto the ground next to Eurydice.

“Gods, that stuff’s strong,” he croaked.

Eurydice hummed in agreement. “Tell me about it.”

Now that he was on the ground in front of her, Orpheus could study her closely. She was more relaxed than he’d ever seen, though perhaps that was the alcohol’s work. Her face was flushed. Beads of sweat collected at her forehead from the dancing, skin shimmering. She glowed, if anything, more than the goddess who was now dancing with the rest of the tavern.

Eurydice didn’t join in. Her attention was on Orpheus. Like the look they had first shared two months ago, so familiar, so natural. So kissable. 

And he didn’t have the chance to long for her lips again before they were upon his. 

He gave a startled sound against her, a small whimper, his eyes wide before they instantly relaxed and slipped shut. Her face was warm when he reached up to cradle it. All electric sparks as he faintly trembled when her hands found his shoulders. He could taste the wine on her lips. How enticing it was to push his tongue further and see if the rest of her tasted of alcohol. 

But he didn’t escalate, letting her pull away after a few seconds of pure bliss. 

Orpheus was content to keep the kiss gentle and chaste, sober enough to truly commit the taste and feel of her to his memory.

Orpheus found no need to get drunk.

He was already drunk on Eurydice.

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