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Here's one of the few things I've ever completed. It's story involving superheroes, but not a superhero story. Chord is a Muse, Anita Baxter aka "Silver Bolt" is a team mate. It -might- be adequate to submit, but would require a major re-write of the first half, I think. Probably needs a rewrite of the second half, too.
A bedroom, somewhere in the world. I glance out the window. Overcast skies, imposing towers of concrete, people driving on the left, and.... impeccably clean streets. Must be Berlin. Yep... there’s the glass dome of the Reichstag, which puts me about a mile west of Club Namenlos. Hmmm... I wonder if that tightwad Neuman ever fixed the sound system.
Lukas (don’t ask me how I know, I just -do-) is sitting on the bed, trying to steal some riffs from a Hendrix song looping on a CD player. Heh... he’s making the same mistake on the fingering that everyone makes. I shake my head… I was summoned from halfway around the world for -this-? Granted, he has potential, but still…
The girl takes us both by surprise as she hurtles through the door. She’s angry as only a 20 year-old can be; deep and righteous in all the wrong places. Even if I couldn’t speak German, I’d be able to follow along. Heh... like I said before, he’s making the same mistakes everyone makes. How do my elders do it... watching mortals make the same screw-ups over and over again through the centuries?
When she exits, the door slams hard enough to make both me and the pictures on the nightstand jump. Jimmy is still twisting magic from his Stratocaster, but Lukas is hip deep in self-pity. Eventually, he reaches to turn off the music but stops when his hand brushes across the guitar strings. Now I know what brought me here. In another time or place it might have been my cousin Atta, or Sharrabang, but right now it has to be me.
As his fingers pick out a painful melody, I sit down next to him. Yes... Now it’s making sense... It’s been a while, but some things are impossible for me to forget.
“The key to a great rock ballad,” I whisper in his ear, ”is starting the chorus with just the right power chord...”
“chord”
“Chord”
“CHORD!”
A sewer entrance, somewhere in Paragon City. Dusty skies, sagging water towers, cars swerving to the left... and dirty streets. Must be Kings Row. Yep... there’s Old Smokey, which put me about...
“Chord, have you heard a word I said?”
“Of course, Bolt”. I tried to let my mind wander back to Lukas... Assuming he was real, and not a vision, or a daydream. It had been so long since...
“So how much longer?”
I’m about to ask her ‘how much longer until what?’, but I pause when I see the annoyed expression on her face. The last thing I need is more demerits. I opt for a neutral reply. “Until the Fates will it...”
This seems to satisfy Silver Bolt... at least, she stops hovering and resumes pacing. “Fluhr and Redd were almost done investigating that warehouse. They said they’d be right over....”
I shrug, and put thoughts of Lukas away until later. “Maybe they’re looking for something specific... you know how tough it can be sometimes to find the last crate of a shipment.... Only the gods know how any business ever gets done in those twisty buildings...”
Silver comes to a sudden stop. Turning to me, she speaks.
“Chord, I have a question for you...”
Hmmm... this is going to be interesting.
“Ask away”. I settled myself on one of the cleaner bits of debris and waited.
“You’re a goddess, right?”
“Demi-goddess,” I corrected while silently groaning. Conversations along these lines almost never went well with mortals theses days. “The only thing I have any power over is my sphere of influence....”
“Yeah, I get it... Chord. Muse. Rock and Roll. Fine.” Bolt was staring at some point on the horizon. “So Muses are real...”
“Obviously.”
“And the Greek gods... and heroes...”
“For the most part...” I cautiously reply. A vague feeling of dread was starting to gnaw at my stomach. “Though the stories aren’t always remembered accurately. I mean, Hercules doesn’t look anything like Kevin Sorbo...”
“OK. So... tell me about the Fates, then”
Dread started taking big, healthy bites. “Umm... not much to tell, really. There are three of them, and they sit at a loom and weave the history of gods and humankind. The End. Rather boring, actually. Did I ever tell you that Hercules actually got rejected when he auditioned to play himself...”
“So there’s no free will.”
“What?”
“So there’s no free will.” Bolt repeated. “If the Fates are controlling history by their weaving, people have no control over their lives”.
“Of course there’s free will.”
“Then the Fates aren’t weaving history.”
I sighed. Metaphysics isn’t my strong point. An inspiration struck me (who inspires the Muses, I wondered for the thousandth time). I picked up a discarded soda can. “Silver, watch this...” I let it fall to the ground. “What happened just now?”
“You littered. Fifty demerits and latrine duty next weekend.”
“Did the can fall to the ground, or did the whole universe and everything in it leap up to meet it? It’s all a matter of perspective.”
Silver Bolt pondered the can for a moment, then gazed at me for a bit longer. “Chord, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” She went back to watching the skyline.
That was pretty much the reaction I had expected. Analogies aren’t one of my strong points, either. But at least she was no longer asking about...
“Why are they using a loom? Why not murals, or sand drawings, or finger-paints...?”
As well as I know Silver, I should have guessed that distracting her wouldn’t be that easy.
“Because that's what the first Greeks believed in, and as more and more people talked about the Fates, the more their appearance and actions mirrored the beliefs of the mortals below. Belief has great power over things once you leave the mortal realms... It doesn’t really matter, in a way, what they appear to be doing. That’s just how mere mortal eyes can perceive it. It’s a representation of reality, not reality itself. The same thing as when you drop a computer file into the trashcan on the desktop... there really isn’t a tiny wastebasket inside your...”
“Let me get this straight...” Silver Bolt was practically crackling with excitement. “Right now, on some alternate plane, there are three chicks weaving a representation of what’s happening on Earth...”
“Ummmm.... yeah...” I replied cautiously. I made a mental plea to any of my extended family listening that this wasn’t going where I thought it was.
“And this cloth is just piling up at their feet...”
“Well, it’s gathered up into bolts behind them.... or so I’ve heard.” I hastily corrected. By the gods, please.... no...
“So.... because it looks like a tapestry to my ‘mere mortal eyes’, I could unroll it to look at something that’s already happened, right?”
“Well....yes...”
Silver was floating three feet off the ground now, and I don’t think she even realized it. When she spoke again, dread finished off my stomach and started working on my intestines....
“Chord, you’re taking me to Olympus.”
“No.”
I might as well have been talking to a lightning storm. Silver was pacing back and forth, gesturing wildly as she planned.
“This is fantastic Chord I don’t know why you never mentioned this before you know how I’ve always wanted to know about my real parents and now we just have to take a little trip to another dimension...”
“No!”
“...it’s in the clouds right so maybe we should stop somewhere first for some warm gear hey lets see if anyone else wants to go it’d be a fun trip should we bring any gifts or anything maybe if they get something nice they can weave something about me and Statesman...”
I had to stop this now. “Silver Bolt, for the last time, NO! I swear, by Apollo’s lute and the shears of Atropos, we are –not- going to Olympus, you are –not- talking to the Fates, and we will –not- discuss this further!”
For the first time since I’d known her, Silver Bolt was speechless.
“But... why not?”
Well, almost speechless. The soft clink of my WWZD charm against my armor gave me an idea. “Because... I say so.”
“Bullshit,” Bolt hissed as she strode up to me. Her eyes crackled with barely restrained energy. “I knew you back when you were getting your ass handed to you by purse snatchers, Chord. Don’t you –dare- get all high and mighty on me now.”
Come to think of it, ‘I say so’ never worked for Zeus, either... I studied her carefully. Maybe it was time to come clean...
“Well, Miss ‘I’m a freakin’ semi-demi-goddess’... tell me again why we’re not going to Olympus?”
... but not today. Not when she was like this. I’ve lost too much already... I put my hand on her shoulder. “Silver, the Fates aren’t some sort of magical McDonald’s where you drive up and order a Happy Meal. They have their own needs and plans. They’re ruthless and devious. Even the elder gods avoid them. Please, trust me on this... consorting with them can only lead to disaster.”
“ ‘Trust you?’ ‘Trust you!’ You’ve not only hidden from me the fact that we can find out the biggest mystery of my entire –life-, then refused to help me discover it, and now you want me to trust you?”. Silver Bolt pushed my hand off and turned away. “Dammit Chord!”, she said in a muffled voice. “I thought you were my friend...”
I watched her shoulders shake. Was she...? Nah, not Silver Bolt. I had to say something, though.
“We’re not supposed to fall in love, you know...” I softly spoke. I crossed my arms over my heart as I forced myself to uncover memories long buried in pain.
“What?”
Bolt still wasn’t looking at me, but at least I had her attention.
“The Muses. We’re not supposed to fall in love with our charges. We’re here to inspire all mortal kind, and emotions like love only get in the way. And in the early days of ‘rock and roll’, every artist needed my attention. Most of the bands I worked with I had to fight with my sister Sharrabang over... arguing whether they were Country or Rock.”
“So there I was, with Sharra, in some godsforsaken part of Texas. Bill Haley and his Comets were what drew me to that club. Sharra was there to check out the duo that was opening for them. They claimed they played “Western Bop”, but after they tore through their first song Sharra and I both agreed which way their future lay.”
“That was the last thing we agreed on. Sharra saw the look on my face whenever I gazed at the lead guitarist. She sternly told me that I had more important things to be concerned with than some mortal that played well and had nice brown eyes.”
I snorted. “‘Nice brown eyes’... now there’s an understatement. They were as soft and sweet as pools of melted chocolate, and deeper than they had a right to be.”
“But I almost failed him that night. Sharra was right in one respect; because I allowed myself to be distracted, I hadn’t noticed that the music promoter Eddie Crandall had also taken an interest in this young man. Ed was intending to talk to the two players, but even before the sound of applause had faded away, they had their guitars packed and were heading out the back door. And Crandall was on the far side of the auditorium.”
“If I had been paying attention, this wouldn’t have been a problem. I would have planted the idea in Crandall’s head to get up earlier, and meet them as they came off the stage. I might have enflamed the musicians’ desire to linger, and bask in the audiences’ praise. Now, however, there was no time for subtlety. I did what no Muse had done in over a thousand years; fully materialize in the mortal plane.”
“I appeared outside the exit just in time… that is, just in time for the door to swing open and smack me in the face. I fell to the ground, stunned. Nobody had ever bothered to tell me about pain.”
“While I tried to shake out the bell that was ringing in my head, my mortal guitarist was pulling me to my feet. Just as he finished, Eddie came upon us. He gave me a second glance, as if he knew me but couldn’t quite remember from where. He then turned his attention to the raven haired young man next to me.”
“While they were talking, I turned and started limping away. As soon as I could turn the corner, I would leave the pain and the sweat and the godsawful Texas heat behind me. At least, that was my plan. A light touch on my shoulder made me turn around. Once again, I was staring into those wonderful brown eyes.”
“’Sorry again about knocking you down back there,’ he said to me. ‘I was hoping you’d let me buy you a soda tomorrow to make up for it’”
“I smiled, ‘Sure, that’d be... swell.’ We talked long enough to set a place and time, and then when his back was turned, I left the earthly plane.”
“Sharra was furious. ‘Kid, have you gone loco? This is not how we do things. When Apollo hears of this he’s gonna to be madder than a snake’s ass at a rocking chair store.’ I would have none of it, though. I was feeling lofty, both from the absence of pain and the memory of my rocker’s touch. I informed my sister Muse that the old way of doing things didn’t apply anymore, that rock and roll was different, and would require a new way of doing things. Besides, such feelings for mortals weren’t totally unknown in Olympus, even among the Muses...”
“As for Apollo, he took it better than I had hoped. Oh, he raged and ranted over his precious rules being broken. He forgot his anger, though, when I showed him what my mortals were doing with stringed instruments that decade. Torn between a desire for order, and a chance to have his boredom relieved for a small while, he grudgingly gave permission for me to have my way. He had only one condition, which I readily agreed to; that I could not tell him my true nature.”
“My new love and I met the next day, and the day after that. While I couldn’t spend every waking moment with him, he had a larger share of my attention than most. What a time to be alive! Elvis was shaking his hips while parents were shaking their heads. Johnny and Ray were rocking people no matter which side of the theater they had to sit in, and the Chordettes (no relation) proved that chicks could rock too. The months and years flew by. As rock and roll's fame grew, so did my love’s. Unfortunately, I had to spend more and more time away from him in order to oversee other musicians.”
“Things became strained between us. While he didn’t mind my being secretive about my past, my unexplained absences were what eventually drove us apart. He eventually gave me an ultimatum; come clean about where I was all the time, or we were through.”
“I begged Apollo to be released from my oath, but he just smiled and suggested that my relationship had gone on for too long. In any event, he felt that I needed to spend more time nudging rock along a better path, because he was growing concerned over several ‘unruly’ trends.”
“Thus my love and I did part. There were no harsh words, or rages of emotion from him... just a deep aching hurt that shot from his eyes to my heart. I was devastated, wandering aimlessly through the world for gods only know how long.”
“Then I received word that he had moved to New York and gotten married. Something inside me snapped. He was mine! How dare another lay claim to him! I went to Cupid and Venus, but they refused to interfere with ‘true love’... as if any love could be truer than what we had felt! Then a plan was born of desperation and, mayhaps, selfishness...”
“The path to the Fates loom is not an easy one to find; indeed, some say you can only find it if you are -meant- to find it... When I finally got there, I saw they were expecting me... which makes sense, of course. No explanations were needed, and no bargaining was permitted. They told me to perform several vile tasks, and in return my brown-eyed guitar man would love me for the rest of his life...”
Silver Bolt cleared her throat. “What did you have to do?” she softly asked.
I shook my head at the memories. “Vile things. I will not say more than that, except that there’s a reason why Annette Funicello had a top ten hit in 1959...”
“Who?” Bolt asked.
I gave a cold smile. “Exactly.”
My smile faded as I thought of what came next. “I eventually returned to the Fate’s lair, feeling both physically and spiritually dirty. They already knew I had been successful; they just wanted to inflict one more humiliation on me. I waited in silence, for an eternity or two, until Atropos, the cutter of threads, gestured to Lachesis, who was working at the loom. A thread was twisted. Suddenly, I found myself at a small airport. Standing in front of me was... –him-.”
“At first, I was afraid to look into his eyes, but when I did I saw all the love I had seen before and more. I don’t know who reached out to whom first, but when we hugged I felt complete for the first time in months.”
“The impatient coughs of his fellow passengers in that cold February air eventually made us let go of one another. He didn’t have much time. Legal problems had eaten up most of his funds, so he was doing a few gigs here and there with friends to raise some cash to pay the bills. He had been about to fly to his next performance when I showed up. We agreed to meet after his next show, and I promised I would tell him –everything-.. vows be damned!”
I looked up and made sure I had Silver’s complete attention. “Anita, the Fates sing a twisted tune, but they do keep their promises. He loved me as he got on that plane; there was no doubt about that. I know that he loved me for the rest of his life... right up to when the plane crashed five minutes after take-off, killing Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and the only man I will ever love, Buddy Holly.
finis
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