Archive of Our Own ^beta

The tragedy doesn’t end when the curtain closes, when the audience weeps or cheers or raises a glass. The sun continues to rise and set. The seasons change. And Orpheus has to live through day after dreadful day. On the worst ones, he thinks it’s penance. Cursed by his own failures to live the rest of his life without Eurydice by his side. Cursed to live with the knowledge that he is to blame for her fate, in every way, at every turn. 

Whenever winter comes, Orpheus sets to work and makes sure that he’s prepared. He always has food, though he is never satisfied. There is always fire, there is never any warmth. And in every storm, he shuts his eyes and listens to the wind, and he swears he can hear Eurydice shouting his name. Afraid, in pain, starving. While he sat inside, oblivious to his lovers cries. Until it was already too late. 

If he had only heard her. If he had only glanced up at the sky just once, and seen the dark clouds gathering. If only he hadn’t been so deeply engrossed in his work. Important work, yes. Work that had brought the world back into tune, but cost him the love of his life. On the worst nights, Orpheus thinks he would have preferred to let the world suffer than to doom Eurydice to her fate. He doesn't know what that makes him. A spiteful man, a boy in love?

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Whatever other choices he could have made, he didn’t. He worked on his song, he followed his lover to the underworld, he fought with everything he had to save her, and he failed. If only he had done something different. If only he had been different. Those are all just what ifs. And it is too painful anymore to think about what the world could be. The world he dreams about, where Eurydice’s hand stayed in his and he could fall asleep every night holding the world in his arms. It can never exist. He is forever stuck in the world he lives in now. 

And that is never any clearer than when he tries to sing. 

Ever since Eurydice’s death, ever since his failure to bring her home, there is only one topic that he can bring himself to sing about. The love of a girl, the loss of a girl, the loss of his heart and everything that he has to live for. He relives their story over and over again. As if somehow, by singing the words, he can keep some small part of her alive. 

It’s a love song.

It’s a tale of a love from long ago.

It’s a sad song.

But we’re gonna sing it even so.