Roses

Epimonos chuckled triumphantly at the sight of her enjoying his offering. While she drank, he bit into a nectarine he'd been keeping in the folds of his toga. While he was down in the garden, he'd taken the opportunity to retrieve two of them, three apples and another full bunch of grapes, so that he wouldn't go hungry again today.

Once she had drunk all the water, she glared at Epimonos in frustration again. But this time there was an elusive softness in her eyes. Some quality... perhaps the bitterness, wasn't there anymore. Epimonos gave her a friendly smile, still intent on forming a cordial, perhaps even fond connection with her. The harpist's gaze dropped to the ground, as if she felt ashamed for treating Epimonos so rudely before.

The harpist took her seat and immediately began a slow, sweet sonata that warmed Epimonos' heart.

Nightfall came. On this night, the harpist continued playing well after sunset. When she finished her last sonata for the day, she gave Epimonos a look as if to say, "The show's over. You can go now." There was no malice whatsoever in her eyes this time.

Epimonos gave her an understanding nod.

"Tell me something," he said to her, just as she was about to disappear into her couch. "Whatare you?" he asked, as he stood up and approached her. "You seem to be a plant spirit, like the dryads. But your features aren't like theirs."

The harpist seemed to take slight offence at this observation. She stared at Epimonos reluctantly, as if she were inclined not to respond at all.

"Please tell me," he pleaded.

The harpist still hesitated.

"You know, the other tree spirits give men a moment of their womanly favors in return for an offering of water," Epimonos remarked, prompting a look of shock from the harpist. "All I ask from you is one answer for a simple question."

The harpist seemed humbled by his logic and nodded in agreement.

"I'm a great dryad, too. Just like all the others you've seen," she told him.

"Okay. But how come you're so... spiky?" Epimonos asked.

"You have yourone answer," the harpist bluntly retorted, before descending into the bramble tangles of her couch.

"So I have, dryad," Epimonos nodded with amusement. "So I have."

No more than ten minutes had passed since the harpist had begun her first sonata of the morning, when her tenacious admirer came to her with yet another bowl of water. He left the water at her feet as usual, but this time he stood close by, waiting expectantly.

When she'd finished her sonata, the harpist picked up the bowl and consumed its contents.

"So?" Epimonos said with a smile as the harpist licked her lips.

"So, what?" she responded in confusion.

"Another bowl, another answer. Why are you so different to the other dryads?" Epimonos asked, calling back to his question from the previous evening.

"Is uniqueness so confounding to you? No two dryads in this garden are identical," the harpist answered defensively.

"Maybe not," Epimonos conceded. "But none of the others are covered in sharp prongs."

It seemed to be a tender issue with the harpist. She hesitated a moment before answering, "They protect me."

"Okay," Epimonos nodded. "Protect you from what?"

"From you!" The harpist snapped, glaring at him sharply. "From man! You are an arrogant and dangerous animal! You are merciless in your pursuits of senseless ambition! You care nothing for the suffering you cause, or the emptiness you leave in your wake! You wish to subjugate the entire world, and every life in it, as if it belongs to you alone! You look upon us and think only of how you can bend us to your service. You take what you want from us and give nothing in return..."

"I brought you that water," Epimonos softly countered.

The harpist responded only with cold silence.

Epimonos noticed her hands were clenched tightly around the frame of her golden harp, as if she were afraid it was about to be taken from her.

"I don't understand," he continued. "My onlyambition towards you has been to extend you a compliment, perhaps even a friendship. Have I done something to offend you?"

There was an awkward pause before the harpist told him, "Your question's been answered."

Without a word, Epimonos grabbed the empty bowl and headed briskly back to the garden. The harpist knew precisely what he was doing. He would soon be back. All the same, she was glad for the few minutes of solitude she would have to play her music.

Sure enough, Epimonos returned to her before she had finished two sonatas. His water bowl had been refilled. Just as before, he left it by her feet and waited for her to finish playing.

"Why do you dislike me so much?" he asked her, almost the instant she'd finished drinking. "Was it something I did? Something I said?"

The harpist sighed sadly. "I first met your kind long ago," she began. "They came to my grove when I was just a small shrub. They came with their axes and hacked away at the trunks of the great elders of my home; the gentle giants who used to lull me off to sleep with the rustling of their leaves in the evening breeze.

"My tree folk had spent centuries reaching toward the clouds, and the men -your kin, felled them in less than a day. Theycheered as the great ones came crashing to the earth!

"Then they dragged the corpses off to carve them up for their 'catapults,' their 'fortresses,' their 'mighty triremes.' And as a parting insult, they trampled me into the ground as they left.

"With Persephone's blessing, I survived and recovered. I hated the men for the gentle spirits they so callously murdered - I still do - and as I grew, I sprouted thorns which grew longer and sharper every day, until I became dangerous enough to ensure the cruel men would never encroach on me again," she explained in a solemn voice.

"So, that is why I dislike you, man. Have I answered your quest..." the harpist looked up and was silenced by what she saw. The sorrow in her admirer's eyes matched her own. It looked as if he were on the verge of tears. She was astonished that a human could show such empathy for the death of a tree.

"I... I'm sorry," he croaked. "Truly sorry," he emphasized, a little louder.

Stinging from revisiting her painful memories, the harpist didn't respond. She simply turned back to her harp and began an impassioned battle hymn with aggressive slices across the strings. It would have been a rousing performance, were it not for the bitter grief so obviously haunting the musician.

Epimonos tentatively picked up the empty bowl and went back down to the brook in the garden. He took his time, wanting to give the harpist some space. By the time he returned to her, the music had softened to a slower, calmer melody with a chorus that made Epimonos feel a little sad.

He held the bowl of water in his hands as he waited patiently for her to finish. She took the bowl without looking at him -- accidentally grazing his fingers with one of her spindly digits. She drank the water slower than normal, like she didn't have much of an appetite.

"So?" she asked, dryly. "What do you want to know now?"

"Nothing," Epimonos answered solemnly. The harpist looked at him, seeming confused. "No questions. This is just something I want to do for you. No conditions. No charge."

The harpist was touched by his genuine kindness.

"Would you like some more?" Epimonos asked.

"Uh, Yes. Please," the harpist said. "It's very refreshing."

"Okay," Epimonos said with a warm smile as she handed him the empty bowl. As he started down the hill, the harpist began a new sonata, much more uplifting than the last.

He soon returned with the bowl refilled. Once the harpist had finished it, he made another offer to fetch her some more water, which she graciously accepted. After consuming the next bowl, Epimonos asked her for a third time if she would like some more.

"Not at the moment," the harpist answered politely. "You've been marching up and down the hill with a heavy bowl full of water for most of the morning. Why don't you sit and rest a while?" she suggested after an awkward pause.

"Thank you. I believe I shall," Epimonos agreed.

He settled in to his usual spot and watched as the harpist played a gentle melody that filled Epimonos with a wonderful sense of tranquillity. He sat there enjoying her music in silence for almost an hour. Then as she came to the end of a sonata, he spoke.

"May I ask you a question?" he asked.

"Must you?" the harpist replied, with more facetiousness than impatience.

"Do you have a name?" he inquired, gazing at her intently. The question seemed to catch the harpist by surprise.

"Few of you men-folk care to know our names," the harpist quietly remarked, almost to herself. "I do," she replied in a more engaged tone. "I am called Ponane."

"Ponane..." Epimonos repeated with a kindly smile. "Such a lovely name for a dryad."

"Really? And what would you call an ugly name for a dryad?" Ponane replied, deadpan. Epimonos paused for a moment to think.

"Cerberus," he answered with a decisive nod, referencing perhaps the most fearsome beast in all of Greek legend. He noticed the smirk of amusement that Ponane failed to suppress and felt a little proud of himself.

"Ponane. Ponane, Ponane, Ponane..." Epimonos sighed dreamily, letting the name grow on him as Ponane began her next sonata. "My name is Epimonos."

A thoughtful look washed over the dryad's face as she heard his name. Epimonos closed his eyes to focus better on Ponane's new sonata. He didn't see her lips softly mouthing his name, and smiling.

By the time the sun had climbed to the middle of the sky, Epimonos felt hungry. He picked up the empty water bowl and politely excused himself from Ponane's presence.

"I'll take my leave to go fetch some fruit, but I'll return as soon as I'm done," he promised.

"Oh, I'm sure you will," Ponane replied in an exasperated tone as she plucked the beginning notes of her next sonata.

Epimonos smiled. He had a feeling that Ponane had grown fonder of him than she let on.

With the bowl in-hand, Epimonos made his way down the familiar trek to the main garden. He gathered a variety of fruits from the plentiful trees, at first storing them in the empty bowl, until he had collected enough for a satisfying lunch. Then he headed for the small brook, where he transferred the fruit into the folds of his toga and filled the bowl with water. Having not had anything to drink all day, he drank several mouthfuls of the cool, fresh water himself, before topping the bowl up and starting back to Ponane.

As he walked through the garden it struck him just how perfect the harmony was between Ponane's distant melody and the songs of the birds in the trees. He continued to muse on this as he approached Ponane, thanks mainly to a flock of chirping sparrows in the large ash towering over her.

Epimonos gently laid his offering of water at her feet as he'd done many times before. Without interrupting her sonata, she turned to him and gave him a friendly smile; only briefly, before feigning her usual no-nonsense demeanor. It seemed she had come to enjoy Epimonos' company. But it also seemed she was averse to acknowledging such feelings, perhaps even to herself.

Epimonos simply returned a warm smile of his own and returned to his usual position, where he began eating his lunch.

The sonata was fairly long and concluded with a lively chorus from the sparrows in the branches above. When the music stopped, Ponane drank from the water bowl.

"One of your finest pieces yet," Epimonos complimented.

"If you say so," Ponane replied, seemingly indifferent to his opinion.

"I do," Epimonos said with a jolly grin, still undeterred by her distant attitude. "I think it's marvellous the way you follow the birds so precisely."

Ponane guffawed, almost mockingly.

"No, I do!" Epimonos asserted in a much more serious tone. "I can appreciate how difficult it must be!"

"I do notfollow them. At least, not very often. I compose for them. They are my choir; they carry my notes all throughout the garden and beyond; they share my melodies with all the wilderness of Greece," Ponane explained.

"Surely you jest," Epimonos incredulously replied. "Those tiny birds sing on cue like rehearsed bards?"

"I speak the truth!" Ponane insisted, slightly offended by Epimonos' suggestion to the contrary. "It's the magic of the harp," she said, stroking the golden instrument lovingly. "Its notes resonate within the spirits of the birds, guiding their song, even if they are many miles away."

"Really?" Epimonos asked, still doubtful.

"See for yourself," Ponane replied in a clever tone.

She extended her hand towards the tree and a large blackberry suddenly sprouted from the heel of her palm like a blister or a wart. Then she sang to the tree canopy with short bursts of musical scales in flawless pitch. Before long, a little sparrow fluttered down and landed in her hand. He gobbled up the tempting blackberry on her palm and then Ponane gently tipped him on to the frame of the golden harp. He bounded merrily up to its apex, and then whirled around to watch Ponane, as if awaiting instructions.

Smiling fondly at the lively little bird, Ponane plucked a sequence of three strings. When she had finished, the sparrow mimicked her notes perfectly, in both tone and duration. Ponane played another brief tune, this time faster, and with seven notes. Again, the friendly little sparrow repeated her melody back to her. Finally, Ponane played a complex interlude of no less than two dozen notes. The sparrow trilled the exact same tune right back to her.

Ponane bowed graciously to her tiny singer, then turned to Epimonos with a sly smirk and eyes that said, "See, I told you so!"

"Amazing!" Epimonos muttered under his breath as he nodded in concession.

Ponane proceeded immediately into her next sonata: a slow, enchanting piece. The little sparrow followed her for several bars, before leaping off the harp and fluttering back into the canopy, carrying Ponane's song to his flock. Remarkably, the flock was able to maintain the natural chaos of many birds singing sporadically, while somehow maintaining a harmony with Ponane's silvery strings.

"So how is it that you come to have such a magnificent harp?" Epimonos inquired. The sun had sunk low in the sky. The western horizon was already developing a golden glow. "It's quite an oddity -- the only man-made object in this otherwise untouched grove. And made of solid gold, no less!"

Ponane glared at him with a frostiness Epimonos hadn't seen from her for nearly the entire day. It lasted only a moment. But it was clear that she was suspicious of his sudden interest in the precious harp.

"It was a gift," Ponane answered in a casual tone, "from Hera."

Epimonos' brow rose with intrigue at the mention of the queen of all Greek gods.

Anticipating his obvious follow up questions, Ponane continued, "It was at the dawn of spring. My sisters were finding mates and blossoming. Hera heard that I could not take a lover. So she visited me, here in the grove and conjured up this enchanted harp. She said that if I would not bloom like the others, then I could have the honor of playing the melody of life."

Ponane smiled with a subtle sense of pride as she spoke those words.

"...No doubt because my fingers are so well suited to plucking harp strings," she surmised, holding up her unusually long, spindly digits to illustrate her point.

"I doubt that's why she gave you that harp," Epimonos softly remarked, shaking his head.

"Of course it is! They're ideal for the task," Ponane argued, once again showing off her inhuman fingers.

"They're ideal for plucking the cords, I agree," Epimonos conceded as he rose to his feet and slowly approached the dryad. "But you aren't simply an adept harpist, Ponane, you're a musical prodigy. The songs you play are utterly sublime - without exception! I think Hera gave you that harp because she sensed the remarkable depth of your soul," Epimonos said in the sincerest of voices.

Ponane's gaze broke from his and plummeted to the ground as a look of distress grew upon her face.

"Surely she must've been aware that you had it in you to compose such ambrosial music; that you were capable of pouring it upon those strings constantly, from dawn till dusk," Epimonos argued. "Hera wouldn't have gifted such a magnificent harp to you, simply because of your fingers. Because how could those fingers do that harp justice, if you had no songs in your heart?"

"You arefar too kind," Ponane replied in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "I am simply a gifted freak. One with deformities that just happen to be as practical as they are unsightly.

"It's the harp that makes this...'ambrosial music', as you call it. It's magical and very well forged. I simply pluck the notes from its strings. I can't take credit for their sweetness."

Standing right beside the shy dryad, Epimonos simply shook his head with a thoughtful smile upon his face. He was sure her modesty was sincere, but he was also sure it was misplaced.

"No," he argued. "I can't believe a mere instrument could create such marvellous music, no matter how divine the spells upon it are."

Ponane didn't respond.

"Earlier, when you called that little sparrow down from the tree, you sang to him," Epimonos recounted. "Only a few notes, but they were lovely.

"Would you sing one of your songs for me?" he asked, after a long pause.

Ponane seemed horrified by the request. There was an awkward off-key bar in her sonata, but she quickly regained her composure.

"No," she asserted, shaking her head in denial while lifting her gaze to look Epimonos straight in the eye. "I'm a harpist. I play songs. I don't sing them."

"Please?" he responded. The warmth in his smile was unmarred by her refusal.

Ponane said nothing, but her eyes became sterner.

Epimonos sighed. Still smiling, he bent over and picked up the empty bowl at Ponane's feet and began walking back towards the garden. Predictably, he returned with the bowl filled several minutes later. He laid it at Ponane's feet and although she didn't want to accept it, she couldn't resist the water's promise of delicious refreshment.

When her sonata was over, she picked the bowl up and drank. She drank slowly, savouring every mouthful, for she knew that this drink came with a heavy price. Once she was finished, she placed the bowl back on the ground and turned to Epimonos to await his inevitable request.

"Please?" he repeated, humbly.

Ponane could tell that he wouldn't have been grossly offended if she refused him yet again. But things were different now than they'd been when they first met. She no longer harbored that harsh resentment towards him. She didn't want his gesture of kindness to go unrewarded.

"Very well," she agreed with a huff of displeasure.

"Thank you," Epimonos softly replied. He took his seat on the ground, just a few yards in front of Ponane, while she psyched herself up for the performance.

Her lips remained sealed while she plucked out the introduction. Then soft peeps began to slip out.

Epimonos furrowed his brow at her feeble effort, goading, almost teasing her to overcome her insecurities. With a hint of frustration, Ponane raised her volume until Epimonos seemed content. Now singing at a very audible level, she accompanied her harp music with a slightly different tune that nonetheless maintained a harmony with the harp.

Her transitions were a little awkward -- as if she was overthinking each note. Yet Epimonos was already captivated by her grace and absolutely perfect pitch.