La Lengua (One year ago) // circe&lore

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Language was a weapon, and words could be the deadliest of poison or the most healing of medicine. A language unspoken by those in your surrounding could guard a secret unlike any lock and key. When Circe spoke in tongues, the kind she had picked up from her mother, her words were coated in a layer of safety she had never felt before in the mansion where no secrets were allowed.

That kind of power made her smug. She knew she held freedom in her speech when everyone else was watching their back, never knowing who will sell their secrets for the better plate at dinner. A reason to keep to herself for her privilege would not help her popularity around her siblings. The tear between her mother and father, never fitting wherever she went, desperate for a sign that she would find her place in one of the homes. Her hand was forced, distancing herself out of protection…speaking in a language not welcomed by her father.

A part of her she wanted for herself, a piece of her own identity. Honoring a woman who never had her best interest at heart, still the greatest gift she had received.

bendiciones de su madre¹

Adriana’s blessing was nothing but a rose-colored curse. Setting her daughter up for the perfect failure. A man so in lover with control would despise nothing more than the inability to understand the daughter slipping from his grasp.

Circe ready to set fuel to fire, her brother, the only one who looked remotely like herself had convinced her to share her most sacred secret. For the first time, she dared trust another soul in the house. She had lived life long enough without someone to trust, paranoia would soon come knocking on her door.

“Empecemos”² she whispered with a careful smile on her face. A little leather-bound book placed in front of her, handwritten scribbles of everything she could remember. “Esta es una historia de una niña con una voz poderosa“³

It was her story, the story of a siren along the coast calling out to the sailors before violently drowning them. The girl her mother had hoped she would be, just another time Circe had disappointed her. Still, she held the stories close to her heart, protective in nature.

She hesitated before continuing, switching back to the tongue they shared.

“Are you sure, you want to learn? If you are not committed, I won’t teach you. This isn’t a joke, it’s important to me and I need to know you mean it.”





1: Her mother's blessing
2: Let's begin
3:This is a story of a girl with a powerful voice

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

l o r e

Lore doesn't remember a lot about his life before the Murdock house.

There are small things, gatherings, that's how he thinks about the memories, like the one in his mom's skirt when she'd lift it to go up a step. There's smells that he still chases, tastes that he can vaguely remember, the sound of singing in a rolling tongue and whispers against his ear in the time between sleep and waking.

That's mostly it.

But sometimes when his sister swears he hears his mother's tongue. It's a nice thing, a small kindness, to see a little of himself in someone else for once.

It takes a little bit of needling, a few little carvings left on her pillow and even some begging here and there but like most of his siblings, Circe gives in eventually to her brother.

His siblings are so unused to life beneath a ray of sun that the moment it turns on them, they bend. It'd be bad for them all if Lore ever came to understand his own strength.

He leans forward, his smile growing as his sister starts to speak. He doesn't understand what she's saying but that familiar feeling is back, sort of like deja vu, like a distant dream. Sometimes on the afternoons when he slips out to the docks to squirrel himself aboard Inga's ship, he hears bits and pieces but it's rough, from the mouth of sailors.

It isn't like this.

"Sí, señora," he nods seriously, smile fading only the littlest bit to show just how serious he is. "Have you ever seen me not give anything my all?" he hooks a thumb at his chest, "Besides, it's important to me too, okay?"

His smile returns, as if the sun has come out from behind a cloud. Lore can never stay serious for long but that doesn't diminish his sincerity.

"Also, what's empam... empess...that?" he asks, his brow furrowing as he tries to work it out, "You might have to slow down a little."

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Her brother had a very different understanding of serious. Circe never one to smile much in the first place, an act she deemed unnatural and never came to her with ease. She smiled when she was told, she pretended joy belonged on her face and never once had she felt it’s meaning. A smile was a weapon just like a language und just the same as her voice.

Circe was a weapon. Failing to recognize her own humanity as her brother would hold up the mirror right in front of her to see. Still, she remained blind, practicing perfectly placed tactics she had developed for her own survival. The emotions that came with her actions, constantly ignored for she could not grasp their meaning. Lore’s lightheartedness bringing forcing unease down her throat, the hesitation causing her fear.

Fear of what she could not control.

“Why? Why is it so important?” Circe continued with her interrogation unsure of her own why. The reasoning behind the wall she had built was not credited to a tactic. It was a sense of belonging she could not quite grasp, skeptical if her brother belonged in the same sense. The familiarity of his face, the color of his skin, the same curls she had seen on her mother once before. Traits foreign to the rest, still not enough to ease the insatiable selfishness mistaken for rightful sheltering.

The transaction had not been complete, and she would refuse to give up anything for free. Sharing a part of her, meant she expected the same kind of vulnerability. Mutual insurance she would not be stabbed in the back by her brother, Circe would have ratted him out to their father in a heartbeat. There was no such thing as enough insurance.

“Em-pe-ce-mos”

She repeated the word slowly syllable by syllable.

“Let’s begin”

Her stories may have been to advanced, too precious for a boy who could not understand. She closed the book, pulling it to safety in her lap. “Mi llamo Circe. ¿ Cómo te llamas?”¹ she resorted back to the basic. An introduction so simple she believed he would not need further instruction to answer. “Every story needs a character, and they need to introduce themselves…maybe a simpler start.”





1: My name is Circe. What is your name?

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

l o r e

There should be storm clouds in his heart, the same ones that haunt the rest of the household. Clear skies and a horizon line that cuts across his soul, straight down the middle. Waves of joy lap at his heart, overwhelm his shores as they follow the currents and then fall away from him with the tide.

He's careful when he has to be, he can make eddies when he needs to, but it isn't common for Lore to seem to be anything but happy.

It makes for an excellent mask.

"Because I want to know you better," he says.

It's just one of many reasons, maybe it's not all of them in one answer but it's just as important to him as any of them. His sister keeps herself separate from everyone else and Lore doesn't need to guess to know why. They both stick out like sore thumbs when the family leaves the yard. They're different from the rest of the Murdocks, it'd be better to be different together.

"And there's this song I sort of remember from when I was little, it was like-" he says, then stumbles around a melody, "dooo, do doooOOoo do?"

She seems to accept that.

"Em-pe-ce-mos," he repeats carefully, "Empe-cemos, empecemos!"

Lore bends forward over his notebook and writes the word down in long wobbling letters that look more like chicken scratch than anything else.

Let's begin.

A thrill runs down his spine.

"Thanks Circe," he says and lifts his head again to smile at his sister. She's off again, new words falling from her lips, Lore listens carefully, straining. He catches her name in there, the same word twice. Lucky for them both, Lore's never been all that afraid of being wrong.

"Mi llamo Lore..... my name is Lore?"

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

In an alternate universe, the answers Circe’s brother provides her would have made her feel safe or even loved. There must be a place where the girl does not build up walls whenever a person tries to see the world through her lens. There must have been a world where she was able to see color, a life where nothing was black and white.

Lore was performing a balancing act. Walking the fine line between malignant and benign, for Circe only knew how to see the world in those two categories. His words, a confession of what she would perceive as ill intent. His care was a warning, for she could not understand how anyone would want to know her… for her. No hidden agenda, still she searched for one in his eyes.

Circe was a bright girl, but she was no match for paranoia.

Her stance softening when she hears him speak, his pronunciation familiar. The way the language seems natural, not perfect but the way he speaks reminds her of how she struggled at the beginning. Her mother inviting her into a world she was free to build, offering her the sweet taste of freedom. The moment of weakness passed by quickly, her brother was a threat…a threat to her freedom.

Convinced of an ulterior motive in a world where nothing was as simple as it seemed. Her own intentions unclear as she hoped the exchange of knowledge would profit her in the future, there was always a why.

Ignorance is bliss unless it is love that a person has never experienced.

“No, Si quieres mi ayuda entonces dime la verdad.“¹ her words stiff with security, but the sound of panic left a sour taste in her mouth. Unwilling to translate until her brother would admit where his true intentions lie. Her walls building up quick, resorting to language she knew he would not quite understand but the tone of her voice unmistakable…the same commanding tone of their father.





1: No, if you want my help then tell me the truth

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

l o r e

He wiggles a little beneath her gaze, sometimes when Circe looks at him with that much intensity, it feels like he's a little bug pinned beneath a microscope. The Murdock glare is a mystery to him, it's like a code he can't crack, that he'll maybe never be able to, he just doesn't have the genes.

Or it's just that even with his callused hands, he still holds everything so tenderly.

He catches the moment she begins to shut down. He's seen it happen many times with his siblings. Maybe that's genetics too, the inability to believe that things can be what they say they are, the fear of fire and being burned.

This time it's not her words that tell Lore what she's saying but her expression, stiff and reserved. She pulls back slightly, he can feel it like the tide tugging at his ankles when he stands on the beach. The right answer is for him to do the same. This house breeds distrust between its children, a strange little trap for the crabs.

"Well... it's lonely to be different," he answers.

Lore raises his hands in front of him, and grips the shape of that idea as if it's a tangible thing. "Not just for you, but for me too."

People forget that when they look at him and see him all smiles, all sunshine, they don't think that beneath it there could be anything else. For the most part, there isn't. Lore is everything that he is on one page. He's genuinely happy ninety-nine percent of the time. He loves his siblings and the roof over their heads and even their parents to some extent.

He just lives with the constant reminder that he's strange for a Murdock. It's not just how he looks, but it's how he acts, how he moves, he's just always been the odd one out. Their mother made sure that he knew that too and growing up feeling that way stays with you. It's lonely.

That's something Circe can't fully understand, no one really can.

"I thought maybe if I could learn, then I'd feel more...," he gestures towards the window, "Attached? To the things I left behind, and to you- I could belong."

Then Lore grins again.

"Sí?"

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Circe suspicion was rooted in her gut, a feeling of unwell warning her with flashing red signs. Her mind racing as she rejected any sense of reason. Lore smiles, a sign of a white flag, his sister convinced it was a faux pas.

When the day came for Circe met her mother, she had worn a smile similar to Lore’s. Adriana had convinced her daughter with similar words, sweet whispers of belonging. Her mother’s face now flashing in front of her eyes, leaving a bittersweet taste in the spot of a distorted memory. Words shifting as they haunt Circe’s worst nightmares, ghosts of the past possessing the present. There was no where she could go, hopelessness was overwhelming, but Circe never saw herself as helpless.

A world in where everyone was out to get her meant she created her own monsters. Turning her angels into demons, and her trespassers into friends. Her father’s approval the one thing she trusted, doomed to ignore the one person with no hidden intentions.

The tug a war battle of her parents destroying the little hope she once possessed, choosing to believe the kindness of someone genuine only existed in the songs her mother sang. A melody that wrapped around her like a blanket, something gentle and calming. Through the worst of winters, a ballad would bring warmth. Through the panic she felt, afraid of her brother’s ulterior motivation (a figment of her imagination) Circe felt the simple melody arise. Humming softly, each ton as clear as the next, soothing her heart and controlling her breath.

She was in control.

Circe was the one who would decide what information she allowed him the privilege of knowing. She continued humming the siren’s song, lips finally forming a smile. A mere mimic of her brother’s expression, the warmth in his eyes was something she could not replicate for she still saw the world in black and white.

“Si”.

An empty agreement.

Circe doomed to repeat the behavior of her parents. Fighting a war with herself, counting casualties as victories and confusing loneliness with success. Lore’s role still undetermined, the panic may have settled but the fear was rooted so deep it had become a part of her.

Respira.¹

“My mother said music connects everyone, for better or worse. You don’t need to understand the words, you just need to understand the story.” Circe repeated the same speech that her mother had used to gain her trust. It was as if Adriana was there with her, one hand on her shoulder nodding with pride. Music was control, not only of herself but in every aspect. A performance sure to play to a person’s emotions, an art Circe has not quite learned yet.

“The song’s she taught me aren’t written anywhere; they are nothing like mediocre stuff they record in one. Sometimes the girls at the tavern dance, she says it is another way to communicate.”

She continued with her lesson, believing to be hiding behind the wall of illusion. Circe completely unaware that whilst sharing nothing she believed was personal, unintentionally she had laid all her cards on the table.

“We need to go somewhere where they can’t hear us; ¿confías en mí?²”

Circe did not trust him. She trusted the curious ears of her other siblings even less, but the house was neutral territory. There was one place, no matter what would happen, Circe knew she would have the upper hand.



1: Breath
2. Do you trust me?