|| CLOSED || Orpheus & Eurydice ||
Orpheus had stopped dismissing the strange certainties that rose in him without explanation a long time ago. Some things he simply knew, even if he couldn't say how. A melody that came to his hands too easily, places that felt familiar the first time he saw them, dreams that felt like memories that were too distant to be his but too familiar not to be.
He didn't usually chase those feelings anymore, they were elusive, and experience had taught him that if he reached too hard for them they dissolved in his hand. But he trusted them. So when he saw her and something in him turned toward her with immediate, aching recognition, he didn't try to explain it away - but this time he didn't ignore it either. He simply stopped.
For a moment the rest of the world seemed to fall strangely quiet, dulled at the edges as his attention and fixed entirely on her. She was only standing there, and yet the sight of her struck him with the force of something long awaited. His chest tightened. Not with fear, not even quite with shock, but with the heavy, breathless feeling of having found a piece of something he had been missing for longer than he could name.
She was beautiful, but it wasn't just her beauty that caught his attention. It was something older. Something that felt like he had lived with for centuries and was branded onto his soul, a sense of knowing her that ran deeper than memory. As though somewhere within him a song had begun again after years of silence, soft at first, but unmistakable.
By the time he realized he had been staring, it was already far too late to pretend otherwise. A faint softness touched his expression, something thoughtful and a little dazed, but not embarrassed enough to look away. “I’m sorry, this is going to sound strange, but..” He studied her face, searching for something he couldn't name. “Have we met before?”