of ladies most deject and wretched

[chariestmaid]

The first feeling is fury. When Ophelia wakes from a warbling, uncertain dream like the reedy call of a recorder, there are tears in her eyes, but she can tell they're tears of anger. Ophelia would always cry, whenever she tried to argue on her own behalf, always broke down and bit her tongue before she got another word in. But if something saddened her, she could never summon tears. Her father didn't believe her because of it — she doubted her own feelings, doubted they counted if she couldn't express them appropriately. Hamlet could, he could swear his love with all the holy vows of heaven, before he ripped up his own words and threw them back at her.

And now her father’s left her, to weep herself to sleep. All propriety, all decorum left with him, not that it was been enough to cover her. He put his jacket on her shoulders instead of his arm, and turned his back to her, to go with the king.

Fury fades, and what remains is a drowsy numbness, a sense of wrongness as she sees herself as if from the outside: a missing cog in a breaking-down machine. What should she be feeling now? Ophelia doesn't know.

Hamlet was right, she thinks. She wasn't made to live in a court. She should have been a convent girl. She should have worn a veil, so no man could ever see her face, nor smear the paintings from it.  The chariest maid, her brother once said, is prodigal enough if she unmask her beauty to the moon. She keeps her eyes down, lest the moon catch her crying, or her angry tears unmask her.

When she looks up again, she's still clutching her father's jacket, thinking of the shame she'll bring when she's found out of doors. How did she come to be in these woods? It’s a quiet relief, after the stone walls of Elsinore, to see so much green.

Comments

[chariestmaid]

“But one moon,” she admits, as if it’s something to admit, an embarrassing-yet-true fact about her world. She takes the existence of other worlds in course. It’s as likely to be as true as anything else. “Diane’s orb. The eternal maiden’s.”

[papadopoulos]

There's a brief, wistful smile. "Okay, so probably same world as me, then. Diana would like this place. Parts of it, at least." He motions to the woods around them. "This, definitely. The company here? Probably less. Too many men for her tastes."

[chariestmaid]

"O, ay?" If she were speaking with Hamlet, she might quirk her brow and ask is that not the world? But Hamlet -- she wants to sob her frustration again. Instead she laughs, choked. "I was told to make my ways to a nunnery. It seems I am an arrow misaimed."

[papadopoulos]

Shakespearean English gives him such a headache. He will persevere, though --even if it gives him a slight pang, thinking of his erstwhile arrow friend ¹, last seen buried in the body of an ancient giant snake monster. "You certainly don't look like an arrow to me, and I know arrows," he says, gently teasing. "Maybe a young lady who has lost her way, which is easy enough to do in these woods. Never was fond of woods." He offers an arm, courteous. "Would you like to go somewhere a little more...habitable?"


¹ Debatable. He insulted the arrow 70% of the time he talked to it.

[chariestmaid]

Her father would dislike it, Ophelia is certain, if she took the arm of a strange lord and went somewhere unknown. Or perhaps this would be one of the exceptions, where following her father's instructions would make the whole court call her cold and rude, and he would later explain some invisible nuance to the situation she had missed. She finds she doesn't care. Anger still burns bright in her breast, and she can't think let herself think angry at who. She only takes the man's arm, eyes modestly down. "Show me," she says.

[papadopoulos]

It's been years since someone has treated him like this. He can't help but find it fondly charming, and he directs their path towards the mansion and habitation. "It's obviously no nunnery," he says, amusement clear in his voice. "But it's a --decent enough place most of the time. Strange, sometimes, but...better than where we left, for most of us." He falls silent for a moment, leading her through the twisting pathways of the woods until they come along to the edges of the hedge mazes. (Thankfully, they don't look too menacing today.)

"Oh -- I forgot, I'm sorry," he adds, looking sheepish. "I'm Apollo."

[chariestmaid]

"Apollo," she murmurs, cementing it in her mind. Like the god. Like the god, she thinks, connecting it at once to the familiar fashion in which this Apollo spoke of Diana. The way Ophelia herself might speak of her brother, with confidence in his habits. "My name is Ophelia."

[papadopoulos]

"Ophelia!" That -- makes sense. Claudius and Laertes are here, after all, so why shouldn't Ophelia show up? For a god of truth, though, he is adept at hiding his thoughts; and so pastes on a polite smile. He is resolutely ignoring the fact that he has a song by the Lumineers going through his head as they continue walking.

"You may find some unexpected friends here in this place," he continues, trying to figure out the best way to explain the mansion to her. "I found my brother, sort of. Well, he's close enough to my brother that it mostly doesn't matter."

[chariestmaid]

It feels strange, to be making conversation about family members, walking on the arm of the man she doesn't know, scant hours after the first man in her life accused her of coquetry and dismissed her. But she follows along, politely, consciously turning her face to Apollo as he speaks. "Close enough?"

[papadopoulos]

"Yeah." He makes a vague, fluttering gesture, a brief dazzle of light: maybe it's the sun in Ophelia's eyes, but Apollo certainly looks a little sheepish about it, though he elects not to say anything. "He's from a different world. Still the god of wine, theater, drama -- all of that, but not the one I know."

[chariestmaid]

It's an odd thought, unsettling. What would her brother be like from another world, all the same things that make him him, but with none of their history? Perhaps that's the world she's found herself in. She doesn't dare to speculate. "Dionysus," she surmises. "Which god are you?"

[papadopoulos]

He chuckles a little, and it is warm, like sunlight streaming through a window. "I've got a lot of names. Apollo. Phoebus. Sometimes Lester. Sunny. Goldilocks, if I'm in a good enough mood. But if you know Dionysus just by those descriptions, you probably know what I'm god of as well."