16 Bookmarks
List of Bookmarks
-
The changing, unchanging sea by redsnake05 for tosca1390
Fandoms: Circe - Madeline Miller
24 Dec 2022
Tags
Summary
Circe has never been afraid of the sea before.
-
Bookmark Notes:
"You see it as a mortal sees it," he suggested. She considered for a moment; this was the first time she'd been to the water since her change.
"Maybe," she said. "Is that how you see it? So wide and pitiless? Nowhere to rest?"
"Yes," Telemachus said. "But that is true for many places. We cannot be afraid of them all, if we want to live."
"What do you mean?" she asked. Telemachus shuffled closer on his knees and his wet hands slid up from her ankles, over her calves and behind her knees, to rest on the smooth muscle of her thighs. She looked down at him and smoothed his wet hair back from his face.
"You have known, but until now have not felt, what it is to live with death," he said. "It can smother you, that knowledge, grind you down into paralysis and indecision, so you exist in a grey world of safety. But death can come anytime. There is nowhere safe, except in your own heart and mind."
"I didn't understand," she said. She'd known what mortality meant, and had thought she'd understood. She'd thought of it often, from the time she'd met Prometheus until now, but now the spindle was running down for her, and one day the thread would be cut. She looked at the sea. It was changeable day to day, but constant over eons. She had been like that, changing barely at all for long years, no matter whether she was calm or stormy.
"I don't fully understand either," he said. "Until recently, I lived in that grey world. It's only now that I am willing to live fully, in the knowledge of death."
Circe looked down at him and heard the love in his voice and on his face. He was the same each day, but the years would change him inevitably. And now they would change her too. She shivered as the water lapped around her feet. She had not realised before how fundamental that change would be.
Looking away from the world that seemed so dangerous now, Circe leaned down and kissed him. She tugged him up by his shoulders and he kissed her back, long and soft and lingering.
"Put your feet on mine," he said. Puzzled, she did so, changing to laughter as he walked them back out into the water with her arms around his neck. She gasped in sudden fright as something brushed the back of her thigh and leaped back from him. An innocent piece of seaweed floated away from her. She turned back to the choked sound of his laughter.
She shook her head and launched herself at him, sending him crashing into the water. She followed, grappling with him. He rose up spluttering, and lunged after her. She slid from his grasp, dodging behind him and diving for his legs. He went down again, and Circe laughed in delight. They wrestled in the water, slippery skin and strong hands on each other's bodies, each seeking the upper hand. Circe triumphed at last, and they stood gasping and smiling at each other with the water sliding off their bodies and the sun already drying their shoulders and backs.
-
Bookmark Collections:
-
Bookmark Collections:
-
Bookmark Collections:
-
Bookmark Collections: