Work Text:
Eurydice watched him work. She couldn’t see what Orpheus scribbled down, but it all made itself evident on his face. The thoughtful furrows as he worked his mind around the melodies that she could not hear, giving way to the pinches and sighs of frustration, undisguised as he was stymied, the song eluding him. But then, a spark behind his eyes, a beautiful, joyful expression curling up his mouth and brightening the entire room as inspiration took hold. Until that too ran its course, fading into contemplation again.
Orpheus had never had need to hide anything from the world, certainly not his emotions, and so he did not. It was a radiant, unfamiliar thing, to show oneself so completely. Eurydice wanted to drink it in until its unfamiliarity was a distant dream of the past.
Sometimes, she was treated to even more, when his emotions could not be content merely playing out over his face, and spilled out of him aloud. Snippets of music, incomplete, but no less entrancing than when she’d first heard him sing. Those few mesmerizing notes, trailed off, the handful of chords strummed, resonating in the air like an entire orchestra. What it would be when it was complete, Eurydice couldn’t imagine, but the anticipation of it bloomed fiercely, inviting her to keep watching, keep waiting, for that song which promised to change the very world.
She didn’t want to look away.
But reality asserted itself with familiar pangs in her gut, and as the weather grew colder, it took with it the time she could spend simply watching. That was time wasted when there were things that needed to be done to survive.
So she watched less and less, until she could only spare Orpheus a few glances.
And he didn’t look up at all.