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ysrith's talk about Lee angst I bring you a tiny, self indulgent piece of Lee angst. (Warning: it is very self indulgent).
No real spoilers beyond basic knowledge of the series. No pairings, just Lee.
These are poets' wretched lies.
- Euripides, Heracles
Even now, when the true state of things is known, when the worst and more has happened, Lee refuses to believe in myths. Around him people grasp for comfort and find it in old stories. He hears them tell and retell them, drawing them from half-forgotten memories back into the light. Once more Dionysus rescues Ariadne, Odysseus reaches home, and Demeter brings her daughter back from the underworld. Their gods are gentle and kind, not vengeful and petty. The whole fleet is an expert on the suddenness of loss, but they do not tell stories about loss beyond recovery.
Once, when he was very young, his mother told him the story of Niobe and her twelve children. Niobe who thought more of herself than Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis; Niobe who said that boast out loud, surrounded by her children, holding them as the certainty of the future. When she came to the end, her voice broke slightly as she told him of the slaughtered children and the triumphant gods, of Niobe’s eternal weeping. When he buried his head in her lap and asked her what it meant, she could or would not say.
After Zak’s death he asked her the question once more; it was cruel and thoughtless beyond belief but he couldn’t help himself. This time she answered. She told him that the gods don’t give certainty, that the gods give nothing that they cannot take back. When he wants to sharpen the pain of her loss he thinks about her face when she told him that.
Now when people want to tell him stories of Apollo, his namesake, he closes his ears. Apollo is not the sun, nor is Artemis the protectress of maidens who wander alone in the forest. They are power and Lee does not worship or follow power. He follows what is right, what he thinks to be right. And there are no stories he can tell to make himself feel better.
ysrith's talk about Lee angst I bring you a tiny, self indulgent piece of Lee angst. (Warning: it is very self indulgent).No real spoilers beyond basic knowledge of the series. No pairings, just Lee.
These are poets' wretched lies.
- Euripides, Heracles
Even now, when the true state of things is known, when the worst and more has happened, Lee refuses to believe in myths. Around him people grasp for comfort and find it in old stories. He hears them tell and retell them, drawing them from half-forgotten memories back into the light. Once more Dionysus rescues Ariadne, Odysseus reaches home, and Demeter brings her daughter back from the underworld. Their gods are gentle and kind, not vengeful and petty. The whole fleet is an expert on the suddenness of loss, but they do not tell stories about loss beyond recovery.
Once, when he was very young, his mother told him the story of Niobe and her twelve children. Niobe who thought more of herself than Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis; Niobe who said that boast out loud, surrounded by her children, holding them as the certainty of the future. When she came to the end, her voice broke slightly as she told him of the slaughtered children and the triumphant gods, of Niobe’s eternal weeping. When he buried his head in her lap and asked her what it meant, she could or would not say.
After Zak’s death he asked her the question once more; it was cruel and thoughtless beyond belief but he couldn’t help himself. This time she answered. She told him that the gods don’t give certainty, that the gods give nothing that they cannot take back. When he wants to sharpen the pain of her loss he thinks about her face when she told him that.
Now when people want to tell him stories of Apollo, his namesake, he closes his ears. Apollo is not the sun, nor is Artemis the protectress of maidens who wander alone in the forest. They are power and Lee does not worship or follow power. He follows what is right, what he thinks to be right. And there are no stories he can tell to make himself feel better.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 12:45 pm (UTC)Something else entirely. I loved it.
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Date: 2005-08-25 01:58 pm (UTC)