Torn Apart

Refresh My Broken Mind

Oh Arthur. How long?

His hair is shot through with silver and there are lines on his face where there weren't before. He is barely a husk of himself. How did he come to this? How long has it been?

I remember choking. Drowning. And then a voice. He called with my voice, and I woke and answered.

And now my voice is returned and I sing.

I sing for the man trapped with the monster. I see you. I see you both, and you are not the same. A scourge and a lash for the beast, a comfort and consolation to the man. I divide you, drive you apart with the knowledge of who you are.

Arthur. My Arthur.

The beast has drained him so, he cannot even move. I spread my wings at the end of Hades' hand and pour all my music into his withered soul.

The beast rails within Arthur, and terrible words pour out of his mouth. I shut them out, drowning his oaths with such a song as I have never given before. Sorrow burdens the tones, that I bind Arthur to myself in ways neither man or gods can break, but I will not have this creature overtake him.

Not my Arthur.

He came for me.

He found me.

My song is guidance. Freedom. The light that drives back the dark.

And his eyes, a terrible frozen green, begin to melt again. The cursing ceases. The tears resume. Those warm, brown eyes are on me. So tired, they say. So very, very tired.

And the hand below me releases, the strings slipping away. I have crossed the distance in the heartbeat I no longer have, landing on Arthur's arm. Up to his shoulder. Burrowed in the crook of his neck.

My song is softer now, gentle by his ear. It is rest. It is healing. It is 'safety' and 'home' and 'never again alone.'

And I craft a new song, though it is not to Arthur, it is to the one behind me. Hades.

I sing of a man who threw himself into hell for friends in danger. Who trapped hell within himself to keep them safe. I sing of the man who refused to give up and run away when it kept getting worse. I sing of his voice and arms as the last things I knew in life, and his voice as the first thing I woke to in death.

He has given so much.

What more has he suffered that I do not yet know?

Do not, I plead, send this man away alone.

In any way, in any form, let me stay with him.

Please.

But when I look up, Hades is gone.

.....

The music.

Gods, her voice.

She was so very, very careful before. But now I can take it. I am no longer fully human, and I have carried that voice myself. I can listen and live, and it is a flood of life and breath.

The Shiker rages, impotent oaths and vile words with no power. It isn't me, Kay. I would never say these things. But he know what is happening.

So do I.

And by every god there is I welcome this.

Kay. There's no one I would trust more with my life. No one I would trust more to keep me contained.

It is not slavery if it is chosen.

It is not servitude if it is embraced.

She is with me, vaporous feathers at my face and neck, the song soft in my ear, filling every dry, cracked, and riven place in me.