WARNING! MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR LIE HEREIN!

Been writing a lot of dramatic pieces lately, so I'm super glad to have this up. Yeah, it's a little bit spare. Hopefully it's also a little bit sweet. These two were meant to be BFFs.

Script dialogue borrowed from script in game for Persephone in Winter.

Another rehearsal later, Grigor thought wryly to himself.

Still alive.

This operation was a two-front war, taking into consideration the art reproductions along with the play performances.

And they weren't even doing good on the cover front.

Xenia hadn't directed before. It showed.

Thanos never came to rehearsal.

And Niobe...

He winced.

She'd done a fantastic job on the backdrops, which didn't really surprise him after everything he had heard of her work.

But on stage, she wasn't nearly as avante-garde as she was on canvas.

It wasn't that she couldn't act, either. Grigor knew those types—the left-brained bankers and office workers who showed up to acting lessons and auditions mono-voiced yet deceptively eager, usually in some sort of mid-life crisis, carrying blank stares in abundance as he tried to explain the spirit of acting to them. They couldn't be taught. Or they could because theoretically anyone can be taught, but it would take about a lifetime.

Niobe was just too terrified to try.

Speak of the devil, Grigor muttered as Niobe finally finished up gathering her things on stage and started his way. He tried to look as if he hadn't just been thinking about her.

Her eyes and face set rigidly forward, Niobe continued to the backstage area. She hunched slightly, closing off her whole body. When she was close she looked up at Grigor, who smiled at her. Her eyes returned to her destination.

Niobe's reluctance was the opposite of inspiring.

Suddenly he got an idea.

Following her, Grigor stepped past the fly system and waited for her to finish what she was doing. Even if she stayed characteristically stubborn on this proposition, it was still worth a shot. "Hey, Niobe?" he asked after she pocketed some rubber-banded pencils.

Niobe jolted. "What is it?" she asked peevishly.

"I just… I wanna help you out."

She crossed her arms. "Why? Because I'm holding up the production?"

"No, because you look so miserable every time. Acting is fun!" Grigor protested.

"Not for everybody," Niobe muttered.

"Look, Xenia's great, but she really doesn't have a lot of experience directing people. It can be a headache. And she doesn't have a lot of time to work with you one-on-one."

"And you do?"

"I've got a few minutes."

Niobe placed her arms at her sides and looked at the ground. "Fine. But I'm behind on the art. You're going to have to help me with that."

Great, Grigor thought to himself. Then again, why had he thought this was going to be anything but excruciating? In rehearsal, Niobe kept throwing out incendiary remarks about his character approaches. It wasn't as if she was going to be more responsive now.

Head bowed, she picked up the lift remote from where it lay discarded on the light board. Then she walked toward center stage. Grigor followed.

The light above the stage disappeared so quickly that a part of him was worried he'd return to ground level and find that the stage didn't exist. Or the museum close by. Of course, the museum wasn't what really mattered to him. He enjoyed acting more than forging.

And, he thought as he regarded the silent Niobe, he enjoyed talking a lot more than not talking. "Bit dark in here, isn't it?" Grigor offered. "I'd say break a leg, but then I'd be afraid you actually would."

Niobe didn't laugh. When they reached the workshop, she pushed the door open for herself without bothering to hold it for Grigor.

Apparently she preferred silence.

"Okay." He turned to face her as soon as they were inside. "First things first. Where's your script?"

Her eyebrows rose inquisitively. "My…?"

"Script. Where is it?"

"I left it on stage," Niobe replied, lifting a vase out of the cabinet.

"I know. It was a rhetorical question." With a sigh, Grigor pulled her script out of his bag and handed it to her. "You can't keep leaving it behind. I know that acting's hard for you, but you can't just pretend you don't have to when you're not doing it."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, we're off book on four days."

Niobe paled. "Off book," she repeated. Obviously she wasn't too familiar with theater jargon, but that one was pretty easy to piece together.

Grigor could tell that the prospect of actually having to acknowledge the audience without a script blocking her face terrified her. "How much do you have memorized?" he asked.

A tell-tale silence followed.

"Okay," Grigor laughed nervously. "Lesson learned. Because now you're going to work on this outside of rehearsal time. And I suppose this counts."

"Fine, but can I finish this vase first?"

Grigor shrugged although he thought it was a bad idea. He went to the cabinet to pick out a vase for himself. At least with two people working they'd save time.

For about thirty seconds or so he watched her paintbrush. Niobe worked quickly, but not recklessly. It was as though she knew where the brush would go and she was completely unconcerned about it. Now, he noticed, she looked… calm. The expression was weird for her, or at least it was weird for her for him, since he only ever saw her on stage when she was panicking.

Niobe stopped painting. "Are you going to watch me, or are you going to help me?"

Grigor shrugged again. "Just trying to learn."

"There isn't much to learn. Just do."

For a few more seconds he stared at the vase. Then, telling himself to calm down, he got started.

Or tried. His hands shook every time he tried to copy the design.

Finally he sighed roughly and put down the brush.

Niobe peered over his shoulder. "Stop worrying. It inhibits the artistic range of your work."

"Aren't you worried, like, all the time?" he shot back.

Niobe frowned. "I channel the worry."

"Okay. Can you channel it into your acting?"

"And how do I do that?" she asked coolly.

"You gotta stop being Niobe."

She scoffed. This really was the last straw. "Sure, just as soon as you stop being everybody else. But then you don't even know who you are, do you?"

Grigor flinched.

Niobe flew around to continue on her vase. Grigor was skilled, that was for sure—probably more than anyone in the troupe. Especially Xenia and her stupid melodramatic inflections. Before all this, Niobe remembered well how many paintings that had taken months, painting and repainting intricate designs to get the essence right before she painted over them. And then it was the same process, painting over paint until the texture exuded what was beneath. As an artist, she appreciated subtlety.

Xenia didn't.

Anyway, Grigor may have been a tortured genius he was so good, even if he veered off sometimes without direction—which Xenia also failed to provide, at least good direction. Or even adequate.

Darkly Niobe forced her grudge against Xenia out of her mind. Maybe Grigor was a tortured genius, but genius was always hard to work with. Geniuses were a dime a dozen in the art world, surprisingly more common than the connotation implied. Only a handful of them were successful. She'd met so many in her life, and, by Hera, was she sick of putting up with them.

But he was trying to help.

And she was being a little terrible.

Even for an artist.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, turning her head slightly to acknowledge him.

"Being defensive isn't a bad way to be," Grigor shrugged. "Especially around these people."

"Right?" Niobe's eyes widen once she realizes she's found a confidante. "Thanos scares me so much I can barely get any work done."

"It's okay," Grigor laughed wryly. "If things go asunder, you're not the one they'll kill."

Her eyebrows curve upward in an expression of concern. "What do you mean?"

"That doesn't matter. What does matter," he continued, "is your acting."

"I know, I know. And I shouldn't snap about it, but… Xenia's asking me to do something I can't do."

"Sure you can. What's stopping you is you're scared."

"Yeah," Niobe replies incredulously. "Of course I'm scared."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm…" Niobe twisted her hands. "Ever since my career tanked, I have very bad recollections of those last galleries. Being surrounded by people who wanted to see me fall apart instead of see my work." Her voice rose. "And I don't want to be surrounded by people who hate me, who come to critique me and not the art as if I'm supposed to be perfect. I can't act for them."

Grigor considered this. "Would it help if you didn't have to face them full on? I could talk to Xenia about putting you in half and quarter profiles during your monologues."

Niobe shrugged. "Maybe. I would love to stop being Niobe," she admitted. "But being Demeter seems worse, somehow."

"Well fortunately you're not Demeter full-time." Grigor offered a small grin. "Wanna give this a shot?"

"I guess so." Niobe said, putting her brush behind her ear. "All finished."

"Good. Okay. So. A lot of people take a lot of different approaches. You, I think…" Grigor thought. "Hmmm. I think you should focus on forgetting who you are. Not trying to relate. Not trying to find the daughter you lost in your life. But being Demeter, convincing yourself that you have lost your daughter. Read the Homeric Ode and lose yourself in it. But in the meanwhile, we can try some technical stuff."

Lines disappeared from Niobe's brow. Finally something she could get excited about. Technical points. Detail.

"First let's talk about actions and objectives. Here." Grigor handed her his pencil. "We'll start with a smaller scene. One of our scenes. We could work from the beginning to the end, but for you we should probably work backwards from the end to the beginning. That makes it easier to track the emotional build." He pulled out his own script. "Okay. What's your last line? 'Daughter, hear my voice?'"

"Yeah."

"What do you think she's doing there?"

"She's trying to make Persephone hear her."

"Okay. But what does she want?"

"Her daughter back."

"There's your objective. What's she feeling?"

"Fear."

"Sure. So, you'd say, she's fearing."

"I guess."

"Where do you think it starts?"

"Where she's shouting."

"Good. So go above that line and write, 'To fear.' That's the action in connection to your objective for the end of the scene. Now, for your first line…"

"'To command,'" Niobe murmured as she wrote.

"That works. And for the next ones?"

"'To rage.'" She frowned at him. "What's the point of all this?"

"Makes it easier to keep track."

"You don't ever write in your script."

"I know that. But a lot of actors do. Keep in mind that what I'm offering you is suggestions. You don't have to write in your script, but we're trying it and seeing if it works."

"It won't."

"Why are you so sure?"

"Because nothing does!" she snapped.

"Listen, just hear me out. Now let's talk about intentions. Objectives are what you want in a scene. Actions are what you do to get to the goal. Intentions are your character's personal motivations. Why she wants what she wants. What she's trying to do with the action. See, like, I can tell you wanna chuck that vase at my head right now." He pointed at a vase that had been out when they got to the workshop.

"Not that one," Niobe grumbled. "It's an original." She picked up the one next to it. "But this one…"

Grigor stepped backward and waved his arms. "Gah! So violent!"

Niobe sighed. "I was joking. As in, ha-ha."

"I know. I was, too…" Grigor pinched the bridge of his nose and echoed her sigh. "Yeah, never mind. Let's warm you up with some dialogue. The energy comes from all of the people on stage and their interactions. So work off me. Let's go…" He flipped around. "End of page 10. My line. 'I'm afraid to say she's already lost.'"

"'She has not been lost. She's been betrayed. Daughter! Hear me daughter!'"

"She can't hear you," Grigor said, matching her volume.

"'Daughter! Hear me daughter!'"

"She can't hear you, Demeter," he shouted over her.

"'Daughter!'" Niobe shrieked, her voice ringing off the walls close by. "'Hear my voice!'"

Grigor glanced at his script. "And then Persephone says, 'Mother? Are you near? I don't want to stay! I want to be home with you! I want the vineyard, I want the sun and the stars, please, please help me!'"

Niobe clasped her hands in front of her.

"That was good!" Grigor smiled encouragingly. "Remember what we said? She has to be loud and scared. That last line, you were both."

Briefly she looked up at him before wiping her eyes.

"You want to take a break?"

"No."

"Crying is good. I know you were trying to earlier. It's good for—"

"That wasn't acting," Niobe said bitterly.

"What do you mean that wasn't acting?" he asked, blankly.

"I'm crying because over the past few days everyone has been saying, 'Louder!' 'What was that?' 'More energy!' 'I don't believe you mean what you are saying!' And I'm trying, and I can't!"

"You just did."

"I wasn't in character."

"If this is just about the acting, then why haven't you been crying during all of the rehearsals? I saw something there, Niobe. You weren't you. Maybe your own problems helped you, but in that moment you had a daughter, and your daughter was gone."

Niobe furiously wiped her eyes again and drew a dry brush aimlessly around the rim of the vase she's working on. Then, once she found a good starting point, she worked. For the next half hour they painted in silence.

Surprising himself, Grigor didn't even worry about it. They were doing something they needed to do—according to Thanos and Xenia at least.

And being here wasn't quite as much of a bore as he'd expected.

His eyes alternating between Niobe and his vase, Grigor finally came to grips with the fact that he wouldn't be able to paint as quickly as she did. After all, she had years of experience on him.

After a little while Niobe gaze flickered over to his design. "You're doing better," she noted.

"Yeah. I think I just had to slow down."

"Cool," Niobe said. Shortly after returning to her own thoughts, her face fell over her paintbrush. "It's so sad this is the reason why we're working. It's the most common thing, art for money. And then is it art?"

Grigor didn't say anything.

"The only thing we have left for art qua art is the play, and I'm going to wreck it."

"No you won't," he replied quietly. "That's not going to happen."

"Yeah, well..." she trailed off.

"Maybe that's what it feels like now. But you're doing okay. Besides, we're actors." He grinned. "We can improvise."

Niobe shared the smile.

"Qua," Grigor said thoughtfully. "Is that a word?"

"Yeah. Latin. Means 'in the capacity of.' Art in the capacity of art is just the… the essential qualities of art, the qualities no art can exist without, whatever those are."

"Oh, okay."

Looking at him, Niobe continued, "There's going to be actual art somewhere before this fiasco is over. I'll make sure of it."

"That's the spirit!" Grigor grinned at a line of Greek square spirals he was working on. "What do you think it'll be?"

"I have no idea."

"Neither do I."

They didn't talk for the next few minutes, but Grigor felt Niobe watching him paint. Just when he was starting to lose patience with it, she spoke. "Finish up with that, then can we keep working? I feel like I'm going to forget things if I wait too long."

"Yeah, okay. Let me just," Grigor painted another Greek key at the bottom of the vase, copying the one he'd just painted at the top. "Okay."

Niobe picked up her script.

Grigor took one last look at the vase and set down his paintbrush, satisfied. He turned pages in his script on the table, then straightened once he found the page number he was looking for. "Now some of this you're going to have to work on alone," he said to Niobe.

Niobe's eyes shot up and locked on his. The fear was palpable.

Still Grigor pushed on. "Let's work on your monologues."

"Ugh. Those monstrosities."

"May I remind you, monologues are the cream of the crop for us actors."

"Well, I'm not one of you actors."

"You are today." Grigor smiled impishly.

"I'll never be able to do this. I'm telling you, it won't work." Her voice broke again.

"You haven't even tried anything yet."

"Yes, I have! For the past few days I've been trying! And it has resulted in nothing!"

"Look." Grigor's voice softened. "The monologues are big and scary. But if we start with those, we crack Demeter wide open. Then everything else, all of the dialogues, it just… comes."

"I said it before," Niobe said in deep, strictly level tones. "She really wouldn't keep talking if she were truly sad! She wouldn't have the energy!"

"What if it's just her thoughts? What if she's talking to herself?" Grigor picked up his script. "Go."

Niobe took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Here. I'll lead you in," said Grigor. "Page 20. 'Persephone… is safe. This, I promise.'"

Niobe paused long.

This could be interesting, he thought to himself. Xenia, like most actors, hated pauses. They drained the energy out of an ensemble. Grigor didn't believe that, at least not in all cases. He let her take her time.

"'The fruits and grasses, do you know how they came to be?'" she asked with a quiet smile. Her eyes starting to glitter again, Niobe looked up at the ceiling. "'They come to me in dreams.'"

To his astonishment, Grigor saw that she was seeing the dreams. He didn't have to remind her to. Demeter roamed beneath her eyes.

"'Each night I dream. I dream of being new and small, warm in the soil, wet with rain.'" She didn't stumble this time. "'Slowly waking as the warm face of Helios fills my soul with restless joy.'"

Grigor could read the actions as clearly as if she had written them down in her script for him to see. Most of the time he could read the intentions, too, which would subtler by nature.

Sometimes Niobe would blank and she'd have to remind herself. But she was working at it.

"'I begin to listen, moment by moment I become aware of the unknown world above,'" she continued, slightly more blandly. Then she blinked, and Demeter was back. "'I feel the wishes above the grass. The hare wishes for clover… perhaps I will grow to be clover." She laughed a beautiful, open, full, Demeter laugh. "The man wishes for an olive tree to grow near his home. Oh! If I could be an olive tree I would! And when I wake and step into the day, my dreams take root. It is not what I do, it is who I am."

Then abruptly she stopped, squinting at the page. She looked up to Grigor, breaking character. "What is a…" she asked apologetically, looking down at her script. "Beat?"

"Change in objective," Grigor said quickly, frustrated with himself for not explaining it earlier. "Go. Go on."

"'When Persephone was growing inside me, she joined me in my dreams. We grew together in the soil each night.'" Niobe's words rushed out in her eagerness to keep going and get this right. And even though the first few seconds were Niobe, the acceleration of her words added something to the monologue. A momentum that was wholly Demeter's, wholly indicative of the power she held as Goddess of the Harvest. "In those dreams I taught her how all things grow. Seed by seed we'd grow strong into the sky together, and when I woke she continued to dream…'"

Looking down at the script, Niobe wasn't stopped or intimidated this time by the beat. She rolled into it. She knew.

"'The night before she was born,'" she remembered wistfully, "'she appeared as the girl I had yet to meet, and she took me by the hand.'" Niobe swallowed, the next recollection bringing her pain. "'She led me towards a tree I had never seen before, it was small and wild, a spray green dotted with red bulbs.'" She closed her eyes. "'She plucked the strange new fruit for me,'" she mourned. "'It was her creation. It was her gift to me.'"

"'She is a very special young woman,'" Grigor's soft voice startled her. "'I understand how you must feel.'"

"'You don't understand.'"

This time it was Grigor's turn to be startled. She'd all but spit the line.

"'Now, again, she's in my dreams.'" Anguish wrapped itself around her tight words. "'Only now she's slipping into death, we're not quiet seeds waiting to bloom, we're prisoners, clawing through stone.'"

Bam. It was all clear again. Objectives, actions, intentions, words that fit like a glove and could've marked her script page. Grigor was tempted to mark them all in his own blank script and then give it to her to copy.

She was snapping at him, and he couldn't be happier.

"'Every night I dream of digging down,'" Niobe's voice caught, "'tearing the very earth apart with my hands until the bones break, the skin rubs away and I've bled all the blood left in me, and at last when I break through, I reach down for her,'" she sped up again, "'I feel her fingers. Her reaching out as desperately as me - and I pull with every bit of strength I have - and when I wake, when I step out into the day I see that I have only pulled more death into the world.'"

In a beautiful moment she turned to Grigor, sharing the monologue with him. Thanking him, in a way.

"'I don't know how to make the dreams stop,'" she confided.

"You have to let her go," Grigor said—or Hermes did—with sorrow. Regret at his own decision to throw her daughter into Hades.

"'These flowers don't die.'" Her voice turned icy. '"All else does, but not these flowers. That is how I know she was taken from me here."

Grigor felt the chill. For the first time he was afraid of Niobe.

Or Demeter.

He bit back a triumphant smile.

"'Until she returns all life will frost and crumble, torn down to dry bone and rock,'" Niobe promised quietly, "'the wind will spit dust but these flowers will never die.'"

For a few seconds Grigor missed his cue. Then, finding himself again, he spoke. They went back and forth for the rest of the scene, Niobe using some of the approaches she used in rehearsals, using some others she had just picked up.

When they got done, Niobe asked, "How was that?"

Grigor paused, contemplating. He could've just told her she did a good or great job. But this had been such a struggle and such a long time coming. He was excited. And Niobe needed all the encouraging in the world.

"Well?"

He looked at her, and a part of him died, returning to the world of non-acting after going lock, stock, and barrel in a scene.

And he's never gone lock, stock, and barrel in a scene with Niobe. He's never been able to.

"That was art," he replied.