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[unironically]

COMPARED.

"C

ompared to the Lesbian singer," the saying goes. Lesbos has seen many singers, Gorgo thinks, but knows to whom they are referring. It is not her.

Gorgo is the youngest daughter of the powerful aristocratic family, the Polyanaktides of Lesbos. Being one of seven siblings, five of whom are girls, there has never been the same pressure on her to marry - whatever branch of Mytilene politics that her father needed to influence, he has influenced through his sons and the other four girls. So, Gorgo was left to be trained in the lyre, in song and performance, in sacred rituals and other things by which she can support herself now, as an adult.

For quite a while, the slightly older and much more celebrated singer, Sappho, made her the second choice of just about everyone in the city, but now that Sappho has been sent into exile, Gorgo is finally free to define her own reputation and her own legacy as one of the only prominent singers in Mytilene whose family hasn't gone foul of the reigning tyrant, Myrsilus.

She has vowed to make the most of this.

One of Sappho's former pupils, Gongyla, otherwise bound to return to Colophon, seeks her out for further training and Gorgo takes her in. Little does she know, this young woman will become the bane of her existence, to such a degree that she will fight tooth and nail to become yoke-mates with her, to make it possible for them to take each other for spouse and never marry a man, either of them.

PERMISSIONS ✦ CANON ✦ LINK