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Post By Manga Shoggoth Wed Jul 05, 2006 at 09:56:15 am EDT |
Subject
A Man and his Muse Part 2: Be Mused | |
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Visionary stirred restlessly in his sleep. The accommodations in the Many Coloured Land were, to put it bluntly, rather basic. In his case this meant a gap between two tree roots (not a willow - he wasn't stupid) where a knob of bark was digging into his back.
The campsite seemed quiet. The fire had burned down to embers, and the clearing was gradually being illuminated by the coming dawn. The effect was somewhat eerie, although - this being the Many Coloured Land - this could be perfectly normal.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could hear music, a haunting duet of flute and string. He wasn't sure if this was due to being half-awake or the mushrooms that went in the stew the previous night.
He became aware of the figures approaching him. Nine of them, obviously female and strangely familiar, but otherwise indistinguishable in the combination of gloom, mist and sleep-ridden eyes. He struggled into a position where he might be able to offer some defence, or at least raise the alarm.
Then his sleep-fogged mind grasped something else. Apart from the shadowy female figures, he was alone in the clearing. A hauntingly familiar panic started to rise.
They halted in a rough half-circle in front of him. The tallest of the figures spoke.
"Know, O Mortal, that we, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, call you blessed."
They were now close enough for Visionary to discern features. The skin tone was very familiar, as was the style of dress. And the faces...
"We come to you to lavish you with the... what in Hades happened to our clothes?"
The speaker definitely looked like Sayaana, apart from the classical pose and arms over-full of scrolls. Miiri looked especially lovely with roses entwined in her hair (if this was a dream it was obviously one of those dreams). Noona, on the other hand, looked rather worried about something.
"Erato, are you up to your old tricks again?"
"Not me!" retorted Miiri. "Something's obviously got twisted in his mind."
Visionary was getting a little fed up with this. At least Hallie, Tanner and Asil had a case when blaming him for their faerie-related wardrobe malfunctions, but the girls were not wearing anything much different to their normal attire.
"Don't be so silly, Clio." giggled Losiira, who was, for some reason, holding a mask with a grotesque smiling face. "It's not like you don't have the figure for it. And I've seen you hanging around the library, trolling for scholars."
"And as for you, Thalia, treating everything as one big joke..." retorted Sayanna.
"Errm. Excuse me, girls?" Visionary started, trying to head off what appeared to be a long-brewing fight. The girls were normally so quiet - perhaps coming to Faerie had unsettled them somehow.
"And will you two knock it off with the damn music already!" yelled Sayanna at Philaana and Odoola. The haunting flute and string duet fell silent, which absolved the teatime mushrooms, but didn't do much for Visionary's ongoing state of mind.
"Oh! That my sisters should fight so!" declaimed Kaara, holding a grotesque mask to her face (this one with a crying expression) "Poor Euterpe and Terpsichore, to be bullied by your big sister thus."
"You stay out of this, Melpomene!" yelled Sayanna.
"Ladies?" Visionary continued, trying to get a word in edgeways.
"Sisters, it is fairly obvious what has happened." explained Deeela. "Miss Genius over there..." - she waved a wax tablet in the general direction of Luuma - "... has got us lost again."
Luuma was looking at some sort of globe with what appeared to be star patterns etched on it. "Shut up Calliope! There's nothing wrong with my celestial navigation skills."
"Then what are we doing in Faerie in our underwear?" asked Miiri. "Not that I am complaining, mind you. Anything is better than Calliope going off to see her latest conquest in her Littlest Vampire outfit."
"Actually, I think I know the problem." said Noona quietly, as the gathering dawn allowed her to see Visionary clearly for the first time. "We've come to the wrong one."
The clearing fell silent.
"Polyhymnia's right." said Luuma, giving her globe a shake. "We appear to have ended up in the Parodyverse."
"There goes that delivery!" said Deeela, with an air of resigned finality.
"Woe! That Adam should lose his inspiration due to the carelessness of our sister Urania!" declaimed Kaara, with rather more passion than Visionary really felt was necessary.
"Shut up Melpomene!" yelled the other eight girls in chorus, evidently sharing his opinion. Kaara lapsed into a sulky silence.
"OK then." said Sayaana turning to address Deeela. "Calliope: Who's next on the list?"
Deeela consulted her tablet.
"Dan Brown." she said.
"Not Damn Bloody Brown again!" screeched Sayaana. "He never listens to a single damn word we say. And he screws it up afterwards. Can't you get us lost again, Urania?"
"I can but try..." replied Luuma, throwing her globe into the air and giving it a vigorous smack with her staff. The globe arced over the girls with a distinct wobble, and at the apex of its flight flashed brightly.
When Visionary regained his sight, the globe and the nine girls had disappeared, and the campsite and its inhabitants were as he remembered them from the previous night.
He sighed. Just occasionally, he thought, it would be nice to understand what was going on.
Footnotes:
Quoth Visionary in 2004: If I had green skinned slave girls who did what I said, I wouldn't be here talking to you.
Quoth Visionary in 2006: It's terribly unfair that AG gets such a helpful Muse while I get writer's block.
(sigh) Some people never learn...
I discovered to my delight that - according to Wikipedia, at any rate, there are indeed nine muses. They are played as follows (with the symbols associated with them):
Sayaana
: Clio (history), scroll and books
Miiri: Erato (lyrics/love poetry), crown of roses
Deeela: Calliope (epic poetry), writing tablet
Kaara: Melpomene (tragedy), tragic mask
Philaana: Euterpe (music/lyric poetry), flute
Noona: Polyhymnia (sacred poetry and geometry), a pensive expression
Odoola: Terpsichore (dancing), carrying a lyre
Losiira: Thalia (comedy), comic mask
Luuma: Urania (astronomy and astrology), staff pointed at a celestial globe
The placements are pretty random (except for Deeela, Kaara and Miiri).
As is always the case with my writing, please feel free to comment.
I welcome both positive and negative criticism of my work, although I cannot promise to enjoy the negative.
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