The magic flute
Feb. 20th, 2011 01:24 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annwfyn.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
writing_shadowsEpona had realized she hated that flute.
She hated it and loved it in much the same way she hated and she loved Janos Caligari. She hated its clarity, its haunting perfection, the certainty of the sound.
Jan had always been clear, had always been certain. Even when his whole soul was torn up with remorse, he was certain in that. There was nothing muddy, nothing unclear about Jan. His sins, his virtues were all carefully defined in his own gaze. His fall from grace had been certain, spectacular. And now his redemption was as bright as candle light and crystal clear.
Epona had never felt that, for all her own glitter and sparkle. Her own soul was made up of smoke and mirrors and when she looked into herself, even she never quite knew what she would see.
That, she suspected, was in her blood. Harper and Fitz were much the same. They had the same quicksilver charm, the same elusive quality when you tried to hold onto them. She had spent her childhood being 'the flighty one' in the family, but what the hell kind of family was it where her mercurial and manipulative twin brother was the solid, steady one?
Actually, she knew the answer to that one, already.
She looked back at the flute. Kael and Fitz both wanted her to give it to them. She suspected in both cases they would view it as an instrument of vengeance, a way of visiting some kind of justice on a man who (they thought) had exploited and abused the trust of a teenage girl who was too young to know what she was getting herself into. She didn't much like that reading of events. Yes, she'd been seventeen, but she'd been out and about in the world for a while by then, and in all honesty, she was unconvinced that the decisions she had made then would have been any different had she been twenty one or twenty five.
Still, they were right when they said it had been wrong to give her that soul stone indefinitely, wrong to bind her with geasa. And she knew she couldn't carry it anymore.
A part of her, the part of her which loved the flute, because it reminded her of smoke tasting kisses and a man who desperately wanted to do the right thing, knew she ought to resolve this kindly. She should give it back to Janos, or give it to his solid and equally certain lover. She would receive it as her rightful due, Epona suspected, and take care of it as well as she took care of Janos Caligari. She should do that. She knew she should.
Yet she could not.
Epona sighed, and pulled her knees up to her chest.
Fitz and Kael had told her, over and over again, that she shouldn't give Janos his soulstone. He didn't deserve it, that it would just be another act of hubris. They had snapped and snarled and Fitz had even broken the Twin Code in spectacular form by wheeling out the three most terrifying words in the English language (those not being, contrary to romantic fiction, 'I love you', but rather 'I'll tell Dad') and she'd not been able to argue or fight back or even known what to say.
She would, she thought, give them the soul stone (although she was unsure which of them she'd hand the flute to) but she wouldn't do it because she thought they were right, or because she thought that Janos had done something so terribly wrong.
She would hand it to them, because she wasn't fit to hold on to it anymore, but she couldn't bear to give it back and she couldn't bear to for the worst possible reasons.
She had known that she wouldn't be able to give it back from the moment Janos looked at her face and she saw that horrible pity in his eyes. When she'd gone looking for pictures of him, to try and understand his newfound fame, and seem the way they had looked at each other, overheard snippets here and there, that feeling had grown even stronger.
She couldn't hand over that flute, and become just another milestone for them in their beautiful, perfect, certain journey towards 'happy ever after'. She couldn't be another note in a symphony of redemption, a bit part in an opera. She wasn't willing to let him make an nonentity of her.
The flute sat before her on the bed, smooth and perfect, with maybe the faintest linger scent of wood smoke about it. Epona could smell it, she was sure, every time she closed her eyes. And with that scent came that memory, never quite faded, of the roughness of Jan's lips against hers.
Epona didn't feel like this because she hated him. She felt like this because she still loved him.
She hated it and loved it in much the same way she hated and she loved Janos Caligari. She hated its clarity, its haunting perfection, the certainty of the sound.
Jan had always been clear, had always been certain. Even when his whole soul was torn up with remorse, he was certain in that. There was nothing muddy, nothing unclear about Jan. His sins, his virtues were all carefully defined in his own gaze. His fall from grace had been certain, spectacular. And now his redemption was as bright as candle light and crystal clear.
Epona had never felt that, for all her own glitter and sparkle. Her own soul was made up of smoke and mirrors and when she looked into herself, even she never quite knew what she would see.
That, she suspected, was in her blood. Harper and Fitz were much the same. They had the same quicksilver charm, the same elusive quality when you tried to hold onto them. She had spent her childhood being 'the flighty one' in the family, but what the hell kind of family was it where her mercurial and manipulative twin brother was the solid, steady one?
Actually, she knew the answer to that one, already.
She looked back at the flute. Kael and Fitz both wanted her to give it to them. She suspected in both cases they would view it as an instrument of vengeance, a way of visiting some kind of justice on a man who (they thought) had exploited and abused the trust of a teenage girl who was too young to know what she was getting herself into. She didn't much like that reading of events. Yes, she'd been seventeen, but she'd been out and about in the world for a while by then, and in all honesty, she was unconvinced that the decisions she had made then would have been any different had she been twenty one or twenty five.
Still, they were right when they said it had been wrong to give her that soul stone indefinitely, wrong to bind her with geasa. And she knew she couldn't carry it anymore.
A part of her, the part of her which loved the flute, because it reminded her of smoke tasting kisses and a man who desperately wanted to do the right thing, knew she ought to resolve this kindly. She should give it back to Janos, or give it to his solid and equally certain lover. She would receive it as her rightful due, Epona suspected, and take care of it as well as she took care of Janos Caligari. She should do that. She knew she should.
Yet she could not.
Epona sighed, and pulled her knees up to her chest.
Fitz and Kael had told her, over and over again, that she shouldn't give Janos his soulstone. He didn't deserve it, that it would just be another act of hubris. They had snapped and snarled and Fitz had even broken the Twin Code in spectacular form by wheeling out the three most terrifying words in the English language (those not being, contrary to romantic fiction, 'I love you', but rather 'I'll tell Dad') and she'd not been able to argue or fight back or even known what to say.
She would, she thought, give them the soul stone (although she was unsure which of them she'd hand the flute to) but she wouldn't do it because she thought they were right, or because she thought that Janos had done something so terribly wrong.
She would hand it to them, because she wasn't fit to hold on to it anymore, but she couldn't bear to give it back and she couldn't bear to for the worst possible reasons.
She had known that she wouldn't be able to give it back from the moment Janos looked at her face and she saw that horrible pity in his eyes. When she'd gone looking for pictures of him, to try and understand his newfound fame, and seem the way they had looked at each other, overheard snippets here and there, that feeling had grown even stronger.
She couldn't hand over that flute, and become just another milestone for them in their beautiful, perfect, certain journey towards 'happy ever after'. She couldn't be another note in a symphony of redemption, a bit part in an opera. She wasn't willing to let him make an nonentity of her.
The flute sat before her on the bed, smooth and perfect, with maybe the faintest linger scent of wood smoke about it. Epona could smell it, she was sure, every time she closed her eyes. And with that scent came that memory, never quite faded, of the roughness of Jan's lips against hers.
Epona didn't feel like this because she hated him. She felt like this because she still loved him.
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