maniae
Legacy Name: maniae

I am one, known as Lyssa, daughter of Nyx, borne of the blood of Ouranos. I am one, spirit of mad rage and frenzy, I curse your animals with rabies and your children with temper. I am one and I have turned men to murder and women to torture. I have other names; Ira, Furor, Rabies but I am one.We are three, known as the Erinyes, borne of Mother Earth and the blood of Uranus, sisters to the Meliae nymphs of the Ash Trees. We are three, avengers of perjury, infernal goddesses, those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath. We are three, named often as Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. We are three, we hear the words of mortal men and punish those who sin. We are three and we are Mistresses of torture, prolonging death until you beg for it, weep for it, dream of it. We are known as the Furies and we are three.We are many, the Maniae, daughters of Nyx. We are many, spirits of rage and fury, crazed frenzy and insanity. We are many, we suckled the god Eros and grew with the goddess Lyssa. We are many, we work with the Erinyes and cause the insanity that makes men beg. We are nameless and faceless and we are many.I am one of many, one of the Maniae. I create my identity, choose my name, become myself, begin my life, work alone. I am one of many, I am one alone. I am insanity, I am rage, I am fury, I am crazed frenzy, I am one. I am created, I am begun, I am nothing and all, I am one of many, I am one.I don't remember the day I chose to leave the Maniae. It could have been a day ago, it could have been a year ago, a hundred years, perhaps even a million. I remember that at first it was lonely. I don't know how I learned that word. Lonely. It felt alien on my tongue the day I learned it, and yet it felt right. Having been with a hundred sisters, all daughters of Nyx, I had never been alone. I knew nothing of the world the day that I left. I only knew that I needed to strike out on my own.We are the slaves of the Erinyes, children of Nyx, made to do their bidding. We turn no man of our own accord, we turn no man for our reasons, only for reasons of sin and spite, at the whim of whichever man or woman has had their sensibilities offended and has begged audience with the Furies. We are slaves to vengeance and we belong to others, no longer our own selves. I choose the life of freedom, the life I have craved, a life of my own design.I left my home in Tartarus, that dark abyss as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the Earth, left the torturous screams of the Titans in their prison, left the realm of Hades and Hecatonchires and the sinners who have slighted the Gods, their punishment in accordance with their crime. I left my sisters to continue to aid the Erinyes, to continue to grow with Lyssa, to continue to live the way they knew.I left the Gods and walked among mortals for the first time. I smelled the air, saw the brightness of their world, felt the beauty of every living thing that I had never touched before. The air was cooling to my so often flushed skin, the light too bright for my eyes to adjust to quickly. I sat on the still damp grass so close to the Parthenon and breathed deeply, closing my eyes and raising my face to the beauty of the sun.I do not choose to run and jump and dance and sing as many would in my position. I did not kiss the grass. I did not scream my freedom from the rooftops nor sing my pleasure to the heavens. I merely observed. I watched the children sing and dance. I watched the lovers walk in silence, content to stroll together. I watched families and individuals without bias. Watching them all and wondering how the Erinyes choose the victims, who is less worthy of their sanity.Is it that man, with his wife and child, who has just ignored his neighbour? Or that boy who has just pushed the girl over and laughed when she scraped her knee? Or perhaps that girl there, listening to them men cat calling her and trying to ignore it? I don't see the way they react, only how they could if I could just reach out to touch them.I stand slowly, watching as people seem to fade away as I focus on the first person who seems to shimmer and shine. She is what we call Dunamis. She is beautiful and we see her heart and soul and how it can be turned to the flame of anger or the ice of distrust. We are taught as children that Dunamis should not be turned. We are not told why, only that they should not be turned to insanity. But I have abided by these rules too long.The world rushes back into focus and I take a proper look at the first person I have chosen. She is not particularly tall, not particularly skinny, not particularly anything remarkable among the beauties of this world. But I have chosen my mark based not on how she appears but on what she can become. The first Dunamis turned by a Maniae in many hundreds of years. And she is mine.Even though I have turned my back on the ways of the Maniae, I am still happy to use the powers that come with that title. I walk three steps before making my physical form fade from memory and sight. No one remembers my dark hair, my olive skin, the flames in my eyes or the spark of fire in my lips. No one sees me shed this more human form for the form that is as beautiful as it is terrifying: the golden wings, the hair of fire, the ethereal form that one can neither touch nor understand. No one sees and no one remembers. I do not disappear. I just never was.I follow my mark, careful to keep a few paces behind her. I am a perfectionist. I must wait and watch and choose my time with precision. I walk behind her, past men who jeer and call out to her, past women who turn up their nose and ignore her, past children who giggle and titter and dance around her as if she is naught more than a tree bedecked with ribbons rather than this Dunamis, this nymph I see.I walk behind her as she turns out of the parklands by the Parthenon, touching none as I walk slightly out of time, still there but mayhap a half second outside of the time they live in. The gift of the Maniae, the gift of all of the daughters of Nyx, the gift of being beyond and present at once. I follow her through the winding streets, past the bigger houses to the plush apartments, past the apartments to the familial houses, past the familial houses to the suburban mass accommodation, the slums, an area of deprivation and poverty.I frown, assuming she is visiting those less fortunate, expecting this to be charity work, wondering if perhaps this is why we do not turn the Dunamis; perhaps they are too good, too pure, perhaps our work is wasted. She reaches into her purse, selecting a single plain key on a ring of metal from the main pocket. She walks slowly, treading softly as though she is hiding her footsteps from someone or something. She turns, seeking out that which frightens her and, on seeing nothing, continues on her way.In the next second, a noise like that of Cerberus when he is famished echoes around the plaza and my Dunamis stopped as a great black brute, more bear than dog, bounded towards us. She sighed, held up her hand and commanded the beast stop with the single word "No!" I shimmered into the beast's focus briefly and appeared in my full glory, wings spread, face a demons mask, fire and sparks and light and burning. My Dunamis could not see me but she seemed surprised as the creature turned with its tail tucked between its legs and fled back to where it had come from with a yelp.She walked quickly, as though she was afraid of the beast. I followed behind, no more than a reflection out the corner of her eye, once more between the now and the past.The door she walked to was old, the paint peeling, the wood slightly warped. The lock was rusty and the whole door jammed as she pushed it, sticking against the mat so that she had to kick the door to get it to open. I slipped between the door and the frame, still that half second out of time as she pushed the door closed. She sighed, resting her head on the cool wood and her shoulders slumped as she began to mumble to herself, praying for strength and begging for hope.My eyes lit up as she walked past me, the hairs on her arm the only sign she was aware of my presence at all as they stood on end. She rubbed her arms, a shiver across her neck and shoulders causing me to frown slightly. She dropped her bag on the floor, took off her lightweight jacket and stared blankly into space. This was my Dunamis? This was a being of power so strong that her whole soul shimmered and shone? This was what we were told never to touch or taint with our powers? She was defeated, lost, blank...she was nothing special. Why was she so feared?She removed her shoes, stepped into the room at the end of the hall and ran the shower. It felt strange to so intrude on her personal space when she was so unaware of me but I felt I needed to see what exactly was going on. I stepped into the already steamy room and peered into the shower. Her head rested against the cold tile, the water sluiced over her back and her shoulders shook as she cried. Her hands pressed against the tile and I backed away as the crying became great wracking sobs and the glow of power from her soul sparked and twisted, a burning amber-gold. My skin prickled and I began to feel uncomfortable, running from the room like a coward. I stood and stared at the room as it filled with her amber-gold glow, unsure what to do. This was my mark, my target, but never before had I felt so uncomfortable. I knew that I should change my mark...but I have always been more temperamental than my sisters. I steeled myself as I heard the water stop and she walked out of the bathroom clad in only a towel.I watched as she dressed impractically in a set of pyjamas, twisting her hair into a semblance of a bun on her head as she sat on the sofa and picked her telephone up from the side table. She dialled her first speed dial and held the handset to her ear, a frown between her brows as the phone rang. She started to talk quietly to the person on te other end of the phone and I watched with some mild trepidation as she clenched her fist, her voice dropping to little more than a growl. She clenched her eyes shut and looked like she was about to cry. Her shoulders slumped and, when she opened her eyes, they were completely blank. Because I was outside of her time, I was unable to hear what she was saying but whatever it was, she was unhappy.It is never safe to turn someone to our way when they are unhappy. It is interesting to watch however. I smiled to myself as I leaned towards her. The touch of a Maniae is not a literal touch. I stay outside the time she is in. I do not touch her. Instead I breathe fire into her heart, sparks into her eyes, flames into her breath and embers into her soul. The rivers of golden fire burn through her and pool into a mass in her centre, spreading through her veins like blood. I watch as her eyes widen slightly and I can almost hear her mind snap as her mouth opens into a twisted smile. She screams, one long note, her eyes rolling back in her head as I watch the amber of the Dunamis spirit war with the gold of the Maniae way.The patterns it creates are beautiful, twists and spirals and gold and fire and embers and sparks, all dancing around each other. Her arms spread and she throws the phone against the wall, breaking it into a hundred pieces of plastic and metal and glass. Her eyes widened and she stared through the flames and sparks I had put there, seeing the world in all its furious and twisted glory. Madness corrupts people in different ways - some become angry with the world, some become angry with themselves, some become violent, some become passive-aggressive, some hear voices of those long since dead, some see things the rest of us cannot see...but I have never seen the reaction of a Dunamis. I pray I never will again.She did not scream. She did not yell. She did not cry or become violent against herself. She did not let her soul burn up and perish as so many do. She took the fire inside and made it hers, nursing it, keeping it strong. She stripped her clothes off and dressed herself hurriedly in jeans and a t-shirt, nothing fancy, nothing powerful, not dressing for an occasion, dressing for normality. She walked out of the apartment and slammed the door behind her. I followed, keeping pace with her. No one had ever taken the fire of a Maniae and used it. It was expelled or it destroyed. It was never used.Her own golden glow fought with the Maniae amber-gold fire and neither won, a battle ongoing, seeming eternal as she strode purposefully across the courtyard in the direction the black beast had run after seeing me. She strode to a door that looked much newer than her own, freshly painted and shiny. I watched her take a deep breath and the colours swirled strongly again. She raised her hand to knock on the door and it echoed around the courtyard. The door opened and a young man with dark hair and dark eyes stood in front of her, holding the collar of the black beast we had seen previously, confirming it was a dog and not a bear. I watched her lips, determined to read what she was saying as I could not risk shimmering into view now, not when there were two humans in front of me.Lip reading is particularly hard when you are not used to the words of mortals, to their language. Our words are ideas, thoughts, memories and feelings psychically linked to the group, a hive mind, a controlled and beautiful chaos. Her words were strong, determined, quiet. She looked at him with innocence in her eyes and bile in her throat, Her tongue spoke words made of granite, diamonds, treasured words that conveyed more than even our psychic link. Her words were passionate and her body as still as the night sky. She showed no movement as she told him all the things he was to do for her in order to make her home better. There was no wavering in her voice, no trepidation, her strength shone through every pore.He finally nodded in awe, silent as she turned and walked away, away from her apartment, away from him, back towards the place I had first seen her only a short number of hours ago. We walked through winding streets, past children who had teased her, who now ignored her as their parents herding them into their houses. We walked through the larger roads, past bars and taverns where the men who had catcalled and jeered sit drinking a hard earned pint of beer or glass of something stronger, who now ignore her, content to spend their time with their own gender through fear of rejection. We walk past shop fronts in the Plateias where the women who had giggled and smirked stand staring longingly at the beautiful trinkets that they could never afford, discontent with their lot as they are.And still we walked on, towards the Parthenon, majestic and lit up with beautiful white lights reflecting off the Pentelic marble, white and stark against the bluish-black of the night sky as we pressed on, her pace hurrying as the colours swirled within her soul. The breeze picked up as we climbed towards the Parthenon, her hair whipping around her as she smiled brilliantly when the building came into view. She moved inside in silence and stood still in the Naos, half way between the entrance and the altar of Athena. She looked towards the door, out over the city of Athens. I watched her smile as she raised her arms to point directly at me, feeling my body shimmer unwillingly as she forced me out of hiding. She smiled and made no move to come closer."You are beautiful," her voice rang out, louder than I had expected, echoing around the pillars. She moved her arms t point them sideways, still and steady as a cross as she looked up at the roof. The colours grew stronger, brighter, more beautiful until I had to look away for fear of being blinded. I found my eyes drawn to the shadow of her, surrounded by flames and gold and a swirling mass of beautiful colours. I watched her move her hand to her lips, blowing a silent kiss to me as the colours consumed and burned her out, bursting so bright as to make the lights inside the Parthenon themselves appear golden and less stark. Her form in shadow faded and I saw in front of me...my sisters...myself...A single thought came into my head as she stepped towards me, taking my hand and dragging me home.We are many, we are all, we are forever and always. We are Maniae