“Your grandniece Alin had told us many things about the history of your family as well as Cybele’s relationship with Attis and Sappho. However, she mentioned that her grandmother didn’t keep close track of everything that happened. Since your niece, Elisha, had said that you’re the closest sister to Cybele, we’re hoping you could fill in more details that Alin couldn’t tell us. Specifically, what is the entity behind the plague, what happened on the day before and of Cybele’s death, relevant details regarding Cybele’s and Attis’s relationship that explains why she cursed him, and how did Sappho’s relationship with Cybele break down, leading her to maybe be a spy,” Ryder listed.

"My, that's a lot of questions, deary."

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry. I guess-"

“It's fine, deary." Syrinx chuckled. "Will it be alright if I answer your questions in a chronological order of the events that took place? My answers will make a tiny more sense with context. However, if you wish to get straight to the answers, I can do that too."

"The first option, please."

"Alright then, deary. Since I don’t know what Alin told you, if you need clarification on anything I talked about, please don’t hesitate to stop and ask me about it.”

“Gotcha.”

“I shall start with what Sappho's relationship with my sister was like initially." She took a deep breath and spoke. "Even in my earliest memory, I remembered that she looked up to my sister. She was shy and was missing an arm, but my sister, despite being labeled as a freak, always had her head held high. It made sense why she admired Cybele and wanted to be like her. That desire of hers to become as capable as my sister led to her constantly comparing their achievement in and outside of school. If my sister had 99 marks on a subject, she would study until she collapsed to get 100; if my sister learned how to play a song in a week, she would practice until her skin came off to master it in half the time.

It seemed like an obsession to her to not only be as good as my sister, but better in everything she could do. It creeped me out to be honest,” she chuckled, “but my sister was always so supportive of her. Eventually, she grew out of her shy self and would start talking back against Cybele’s bullies. After Attis started joining them, the bullies began decreasing in number and would even actively avoid her. At first, I thought it was because Attis’ strength scared them off as he was strong, but I was wrong. The three of them would hang out often with each other until...”

The old woman’s smile faded and became silent for a few seconds. “During my father’s funeral, there was a woman who shouted… terrible things. At my deceased father, at my crying mother, and at my sister. Of course, she was immediately escorted out, and my mother told us to ignore and forget the crazy woman. All four of us did because we were too sad to care, but Sappho, who was also at the funeral, didn’t.

After the funeral, I was curious why she followed the crazy woman, so I secretly trailed her. When they entered an alleyway, Sappho confronted the woman. I couldn’t hear them clearly because I would've been found out if I got too close, but I could tell the woman started shouting at her. And then, the woman suddenly stopped screaming, and her face twisted in horror. All I could hear was Sappho’s calm voice, and moments later, the woman dropped to her knees and started kowtowing. She was doing it with such intensity that she was smashing her forehead on the ground, and didn’t stop even after she started bleeding.

That’s when Cybele found me and Sappho. When Sappho turned around, she had this… smile on her face and told the woman to apologize. The woman did so like she was begging for her life, and my sister had to calm her down before letting the woman go home. She was very unhappy with what Sappho did, and that was when I knew she was the reason why the bullies had stopped bothering my sister. She threatened them the same way she did with the woman.

Sappho’s smile faded as she became angry at my sister, angry at why she wasn’t using her power to punish the people who wronged her and our family. When my sister said her power should only be used for good, even for people in the city who didn’t treat our family kindly, Sappho exploded in anger. She said she was disappointed in my sister and left. While she did come by the next day to apologize, it was when their relationship began to crack. It was worsened when the two of them spent less and less time together as they pursued their own goals and fulfill their responsibilities in life.

In the following years, the only time Sappho and my sister really spent with each other were during musical competitions or events. As usual, Sappho tried to win against my sister, though with increasing zeal. She would gloat and provoke my sister to do better, which works more often than not. I thought she was being mean, but my sister assured me that it was friendly in nature, and it was one of the few things that kept her mind off of her guardian *cough* duties.” Syrinx started coughing.

Findir patted her back as Brown fetched a cup of water for her and helped her drink it.

“Sorry, dearies. Talking for so long *cough* really made my throat dry. Sometimes my age slips my mind when I get too focused.” The blue-ear smiled bitterly.

“Take yer time, Ms. Miuzika. Yer body’s health is more important. We can wait.” The yellow-ear caressed her back.

The old woman nodded and rested for a couple minutes before resuming her tale.

“Where was I? Ah, Sappho’s ‘friendly competition’. Before I continue, there’s something I forgot to mention about Sappho. She was a fanatic about love, according to my sister. Cybele theorized it's because she didn’t have a good relationship with her family, especially her parents, who neglected and abused her. Sappho would often talk about what she would do if she had a romantic partner and would describe her ideal partner in detail. Let me see how much I can recall. For fun.”

She smirked and curled one finger for each description she named, “Dashing, charming, can sweep her off her feet and carry her like a princess, can protect her from any physical danger, determined, understands her, share the same interests as her… I think that was close to all of it. Moving on, my sister would often tease Sappho about it. She'd tell her that she'll never find a man before her with that many conditions. But, like always, Sappho declared she would be in a relationship first, or at least at the same time as my sister did.

So, when Sappho arrived at our family house and saw Attis declaring his relationship with Cybele, I understand why there was such a horrible expression on her face. At her age, she was pretty much everything that people wanted. A respectable job, a big house, lots of money, a beautiful body, etc. Everything, except the one thing she wanted the most - love. And my sister, her lifelong rival, obtained it before she did, on the day she was going to tell us that the city will change its name to honor our family’s contribution. I have no doubt that day was the breaking point of their relationship for her.”