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littlesparklight · 3 years

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Water Lilies and Narcissi

There’s multiple counts of character death in here, both by murder and suicide, but none of it graphic.

***

Once there was a pair of twins born to the river god Kephisos and the nymph Liriope, pretty as the buds on flowers. As they grew, they bloomed, and more beautiful yet became. The girl, wielding bow and arrow as cleverly as she could weave or pluck flowers, blossomed under the attention her flowering beauty drew. She was charming and sweet, and sweetly charming to her suitors, and Nymphaia's father made sure that those who approached her in potential hope of more would treat her right. So her sweet disposition and her sweetness grew more fair, but not a single one of her suitors could distract her should her brother want to hunt, for she went with him always.

A potential worry to any parents, perhaps, except that their love was innocent; Nymphaia doting on her brother, and Narkissos would only see her smile, whether it was in the success of a hunt or for a gift from one of her hopeful suitors. He did not understand what charm she found in the play, or the promise of a future marriage. He did not understand why beauty should draw attention at all, and was uncomprehending not just in the face of his sister's suitors, but his own. For Narkissos felt not the sting of either love or lust, no matter the hopeful girl or boy or man, and in his lack of understanding he was thoughtlessly cruel in his rejections.

It might have mattered little, except for the string of broken hearts he left behind himself as he went to hunt, like a careless child attempting to mimick mother or sisters and eagerly yanking on flowers and herbs, breaking some, leaving others pulled out by the roots, yet more with drooping heads left to nod painfully in the wind.

Echo, spying the twins, tried to join them in their hunt to hopefully gain Narkissos' favour - unfortunately her lack of conversation left Nymphaia confused and, when a misunderstanding left her to attempt to embrace Narkissos, Echo was furiously spurned. Left behind was only a voice in the wind, but one of Nymphaia's suitors had spied the altercation, and already suspicious and laid to jealousy, he confronted Nymphaia alone, away from her father's riverbanks.

"You shameless, terrible girl, stringing us all along, when you only have eyes for your brother! It would behoove you to reject us - me - with some grace and honesty, but you can't, can you? Not when you need to hide such shameless lust."

The young man was furious, and uglier for both fury and jealousy, misaimed as it was.

"Love my--- Of course I love my brother! But not like that, what claim you? Have some shame! I already told you I wasn't interested, and Father has told you to go, so go!" Nymphaia cried, furious herself and humiliated besides. And, for the light in that former suitor's eyes, scared. He knew no reason any more and threw herself at her.

Her cry for father, for mother, for her dearest brother, was lost to the shaded pool they had been standing by as she was shoved underwater. The terror of the girl's struggle made the plane trees ringing the banks drop all their leaves.

The body sank to the bottom, and in her place lovely, death-white blooms grew from the leaves floating on top of the water.

The young man fled the scene, and said nothing of what he'd done, leaving Narkissos and his parents to search in vain for the lost daughter. But though he had no knowledge to accuse anyone in particular, Narkissos looked between all her suitors and accused them all with silent stares and harsher words, blaming their love, if not actions, for his sister's disappearance.

Narkissos' thoughtless cruelty in rejecting what he did neither understand nor feel from others became pointed. Became ugly and malicious as he blamed love - and truly so, however blindly! - for his sister's death. Unfortunately, though fewer and fewer approached him, one, unfortunately, so did. Even before Nymphaia's disappearance, Narkissos' tendency to be shallowly thoughtless would have hurt such a sweet-minded, gentle boy. Now, it was worse than that.

"Love?" Narkissos sneered, all flashing blue eyes and long, dark hair to frame that comely face as he stared at the hopeful suitor. "You might as well take your sword there at your side and kill yourself here and now, that would be quicker since that's where all love leads! And I want nothing to do with you, Ameinias. Take that love of yours and go."

The door was slammed shut, and not even Liriope's sad-eyed, frowning disappointment in her son would urge him to open it and be kinder in his rejection.

Perhaps if he had, if he'd not been hurting and nursing his annoyed confusion for all the attention aimed at him, matters might have ended differently. But poor, gentle Ameinias spent the day in tears, sunk into a blackness of mind from whence desperate action comes. Narkissos' cruel spurn echoed in his head again and again, until it had become a demand in the dark of the night, until Ameinias stole out from his comfortable bed and sturdy home, sword in hand, and walked the empty streets until he came to the right door.

"Nemesis! Furious, gentle goddess, who avenges those wrongly harmed, hear me!" Ameinias was sobbing as he drew his sword, hands shaking but his grip determined, eyes fever-bright and locked in a desperate stare at the door. "Narkissos, son of Kephisos, has no kindness in his heart, has no regard for others but himself. So let him love only that which he can't reach, when he's spurned all other love besides. Let him not go out of this unharmed, meanly injuring others with no thought!"

The sword cut true, despite the boy's upset, and Nemesis, her dark wings spread in guarding sympathy as the body fell down onto the threshold, fulfilled Ameinias' last, aching words.

In the morning, Liriope, going to fetch water, was the one who first found the body. Her scream roused Narkissos who, in wild-eyed, guilty upset, fled the house.

He had not, for all his cruel words, actually meant them. Amneinias dead there on their doorstep was a shock.

The young man ran through the streets of Thespiai, and out into the surrounding wilderness. Down paths he'd taken with his sister, laughing ease to her steps as they pursued a deer, paths he had been avoiding in his grief.

Now, they took him to a little lake in the forest, surrounded by denuded plane trees, their leaves thick on the lake's shores and the air shimmering with fear and grief. Narkissos, tired as he was, sunk down there to drink. Nemesis, having followed, made sure he paused too long as he bent over the water. Paused just long enough to catch sight of his reflection, which he had avoided in any surface that might show it to him since Nymphaia disappeared.

Arrested now, Narkissos stared, and ached for the accusing similarity he could see in his reflection. His sister was still here, and yet untouchable, and he missed her. She might have been able to stop him from being so cruel, and now two people were dead.

Three.

"Nymphaia, where did you go?" Narkissos cried, striking the water, but though it shattered the beloved image he couldn't made himself move. Instead he sat rooted, all the more desperate for the image to return whole and still to him, for he was aching with loss and the love of what was only a mockery of what had been. He was his sister, but his sister wasn't here, and she had died - he was sure one of her suitors was the reason, had she perhaps been suffering from heartache? Had someone killed her? It didn't matter. She was gone, and he was here, and he missed her.

And in missing her, he had caused a boy who had only been suffering from what Narkissos himself didn't understand in any way than as what he felt for his sister to kill himself. And though he had had no desire, still didn't, couldn't ever have seen himself to kiss her for that love, would he have killed himself for it?

It had been a guilty thought, but his parents' grief had stopped him. Now... Now his heart ached as much for guilt as longing.

"My words have caused death, our beauty has caused your death and I cannot live without you. Nymphaia, Nymphaia, I miss you, I miss your face, but seeing it in my own reflection only makes it hurt so much more. Mother and Father are glad to see me, both for myself and for the reminder that some part of you are still here, but you aren't and I hate myself as much as I love you!"

And he couldn't move.

He had feared it, had feared he wouldn't have been able to look away once he spied himself, but Nemesis had ensured he had looked and now kept poor Narkissos rooted. Not even clawing at his face made him able to move, and instead he was reduced to tearful regret of marring the face that was his sister's, too.

Finally, unable to stand the sight of himself but unable to look away, Narkissos tossed himself at his reflection, reaching for what couldn't be touched.

The lake swallowed up the youth, and Nemesis, in solemn understanding, let flowers bloom at the spot the Narkissos had sat, unable to look away from his reflection. In death, the twins would be together, his flowers on the bank of the lake, her flowers growing on the surface of it.

*** Myth check: I’ve combined different versions of the Narcissus story into one. The one that involves Narcissus having a sister is incestuous, but as I’ve always liked how Narcissus can easily be read as aro-ace in the other versions, here there’s no incest, only platonic sibling love in service of the tragedy and to flesh the relationships out. In the incestuous version the cause of his sister’s death (she has no name) is unknown, so I went with something that seemed to suit the situation and also pulled in the incest angle, if only as a wilful misunderstanding of Nymphaia and Narkissos’ relationship.

#greek mythology #narcissus #lightart

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