It is minotaur tradition to create a song for the one you would court, or take as lifemate. Derettahs is one of my roleplay characters, a minotaur who through no fault of her own, ended up murdering her clan. The thing is, no-one, not even Derettahs herself, knows that. She, and everyone else, believes she's guilty, and a coward for running from her people, who will kill her on sight. What she'd done eventually drove her mad. Through a fluke of healing, she was made sane for a while. A human she'd befriended, Aulis, and her eventually fell in love, as she slowly began to go crazy again. This is her song, sung in private, since it could not be given to Aulis himself.
Eyai! Ancestors, turn your ears.
I am mad! And I know it. I chose it.
Ancestors, please. I beg a small thing.
Watch over him through me, and beyond me.
This pain, so sharp, so warm! How?
At twilight, which lives always in his gaze. Derettahs' Plea
I am speaking.
I have been silent, as is only right.
I have bowed my head, as is deserved.
But this time, I sing.
You turned your eyes from me long ago,
I know I'm not worth the sight.
But listen, please, just this once.
I have nowhere else to go.
But I have been given, this little time
Back to myself.
Such a precious, unwanted, unwelcome present.
I never asked!
Believe me, I never asked.
I just wished to sleep, buried beneath
the merry heart of an insane ignorant.
Wings woke me... and then he came.
One last favor, before I am lost.
Hear my whisper, if you won't hear my cries.
I am past forgiving.
But he is a heart worthy of much.
So much more. Turn your regard,
To the one of another race.
Minotaur not, but nor am I anymore.
I would not sully the name by claiming it.
He has become my friend.
He has become my heart.
Ancestors, you know, but I have lost myself.
He has become my soul.
More than brother, impossible aside.
I have been impossible in my time.
I am again.
I cannot deny the truth, even to myself.
Welcome and pushed away,
It soothes my wounds and rips them deeper.
I want to, I must! roar it to the skies,
Shout his name to the sun,
Declare it for all to know...
Yet I cannot allow a whisper of it to the dust.
I would not hurt him for all the wide world.
So I sing this.
Alone, I sing this.
Alone I dare let my heart dance.
I dare dream of might haves and possibilities
That can never be.
I admit... myself. I -feel-. Cruel chance, I feel!
I have lost my name, but another has come.
It breathes through my being, and it is his.
Aulis.
© 2000 kazanthi@hotmail.com