One day the knife began to fall

They're releasing us from hospital today, Telos and I.

Calliope, drive me home?

What do you mean, install a baby capsule in Ares' car??

[Filtered away from Aphrodite and Ares]

I'm done. I'm done, I'm done, I'm ready for this to be over, I'm ready, I'm ready. I can't move, I can't eat, I can't think, I'm fucking done!

[It's been a week since a courier delivered two bags of chocolate coffee beans, and six days since Melpomene finished the last of them while sitting in her armchair, facing the window that looked out across the street, thinking deeply. Well, sulking, some would say. Brooding, even. But there was a good deal of thinking churned into the mass of bitter feelings still swarming through her.

Urania hadn't sent a note and had simply signed the bags with a U, and she hadn't said anything about it since. Melpomene's tempted to ignore it as an unsatisfactory offering for her current emotional turmoil, but she did eat all the beans, and they were covered in her favourite 70% dark chocolate.

Tuesday morning she sends a package back. It's close to the same size; two bath bombs that will dye the water the deepest blue, almost black, and the shimmery glitter that will be unleashed as each dissolved is as close to the night sky in a bathtub as one can get.

She doesn't send a note either, or sign it with anything more than an M.

Some fine wordsmiths they are.]

I want my knife back.

I was right, Aphrodite wants my baby. And I have the clawmarks and bruises to prove how desperate she is to take him from me.

Just call me Ofares, right?

[Melpomene leaves the note resting on Alan's pillow, the pillow she's spent the night curled around, and next to the shirt that's spent the night wrapped around her. Her hand is rushed, Tragos is out in the living room and Will is shouting for her, and Melpomene wants to spend time on this but time, she knows, has run out for them. Her love hasn't, but time has. This is the way so many things end.]


May you find Marian, Alan. May you walk beside her out of hell. It’s a long road; tell her not to look back. May the Sheriff find his punishment for every wrong deed he ever committed against you. May you all find some kernel of beauty in this unkind world. I love you, Alan-a-Dale. I love you for the hardest mile we walked together.

Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.

Alan's left me.

Everything inside me burns, every aspect of me is seared raw, is flayed, naked and unprotected. He opened me up and tore me apart. I have no heart, just a stomach of acid.

I want to burn the world down and leave nothing but him.

I want to crawl into the dark earth and softly rot to nothing. I want to drown myself in the depth of the Styx.

I want to scream till it tears my soul inside out, the only way I'll ever be able to inspect all this damage.

If that offer still stands I'd love for you to shut Urania's savage mouth.

Every day that passes since Apollo's murder, the world claws back another few moments of sunlight and it sickens me. We should all be plunged into eternal darkness. It is proof that there is no rightness in this world that we are not.

I have it on good authority that Maid Marian is not with Hermes. I am sorry, I know that would have been a simpler problem to solve.

For what it's worth, I don't believe Hermes is going to be coming at you, Will Scarlet, any time soon. You may be able to sheath that sword of yours for the time being.

[Clio]

Sister, I am sorry for approaching your problem with Hermes the way I would have approached it if it was my problem.

Obviously I’d still love to make him suffer in retribution, but you are the one he hurt. It is your decision. However you want to deal with him, I am behind you.

( For Urania, my sister, and the omen in the sky tonight. )

We are sunk deep into a frantic first run at the script for Last Song's mid season finale; though hands (not mine) are cramping we are electric, though we are seven hours in no one is waning, we are breaking only now for food (not me, I am sustained, we will keep writing through, Soren & I, this momentum will not be broken.)

My team is full of geniuses (perfectly inspired geniuses) together we fit like roots fit the earth (you demand the space you need, you nurture those bold enough to take it) and this is joy, pages & pages of raw creation, stiff fingers & aching backs & more caffeine & taurine than the mortal body should be able to take. 

We are fire & heart & purpose, and though we have another frenetic day of writing tomorrow I know sleep is not for me.


[Ares]
Your War Dogs, are they fighting again tonight?

Beauty in all things—no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.
Here it may dwell; and with your aid, Melpomene, and all thy sister-muses
(for ye are, I think, daughters of Memory) within the tortured mind as well

God Name: Melpomene Pantheon: Greek Apparent Age: 29 Current Alias: Romeo Morning Occupation: Screenwriter Player: Ali PB: Nadia Hilker ( There's something tragic about you, something so magic about you, don't you agree? )