The whole idea of the original Orpheus and Eurydice story is young love. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s powerful and that’s all apart of what makes it so tragic when its lost. But I think there aren’t enough stories about old, desperate love, when two people find each other late in life and feel like they have to do everything they can to stay together. Even if there isn’t a "the one," this person feels like the last "one" they'll ever find. It’s their final shot at having something meaningful, something beautiful. And there’s something very real about wanting that kind of love at the end of your life. 

Part of the tragedy of young love is that it’s not supposed to end in death. It’s supposed to end in heartbreak, or drifting apart, or life taking you in different directions, but not in death. Not yet. 'They’re too young'. But with old love, we just accept that death is the natural end. That’s how old love ends: not with a breakup, but with one partner dying. 

But that’s what makes Orpheus and Eurydice so powerful, It’s that refusal to accept death. Orpheus says: “No, I’m not going to let this be the end.” He keeps fighting. And  maybe in the new version he’s already so old and the journey to the Underworld brings him so much closer to the grave that even if he succeeds, they’d only have a week together. But I think he knows that. And to him, that week would be worth everything. There’s something deeply moving in that, choosing to fight for love even when time is nearly out. Especially because time is nearly out.

When Eurydice dies, Orpheus’s response isn’t just grief or sorrow because in Witchbreed, souls don’t simply disappear they gather and linger some and in some cases they become visible in the phenomenon known as the Southern Souls, or Stars of Styx which will play a key role in guiding Orpheus to the underworld. From then he would follow the Southern Souls southward, to Pandemonium, a city in the Underworld, where souls can briefly become corporeal again. In Pandemonium, souls become something tangible, but only for a short time before they are lost forever/ pass the veil. This moment gives Orpheus a window of opportunity to reconnect with Eurydice.

I think im going to make it so when a soul sheds its mortal form, its memory begins to fade or more accurate its ability to recall memory fades without the body’s structure the brain’s chemistry and this means that when Orpheus finds Eurydice, she’s already forgetting who she was. I want to make it so souls retain only the most essential emotions, the core driving force the time before their death. For example, a warrior might continue charging into the afterlife, still obsessed with battle. A mother might call out the name of her lost child, even if she doesn’t truly remember who they were. The critical thing here is that these souls don’t retain who they were; they retain what they were, anger, love, loyalty, pain.

This is where Orpheus’s role as a musician becomes central. His music is a tether his way of expressing the key emotion still present in Eurydice, Love. My plan is to have him be writing her a ballad in her last days which she has heard in parts but he never completed it until he had reached pandemonium. I think the most surprising twist that separates this rendition from the original is that, this doesn't end with tragedy.

I think there’s something really powerful in the idea that they’re both old, not just because of what that means emotionally, but because of how it changes the way Orpheus tells his story. It becomes harder for him to play his song. His fingers don’t work the way they used to. His breath catches. His voice cracks. Especially if there’s an instrument involved, like a guitar or a lyre, it’s only a matter of time before he physically can’t play anymore.

And that’s why I love the idea of him recording his final song, one last performance, captured on a gramophone (potentially a gramophone originally owned by Hades). A song so full of memory and love that it echoes into the Underworld, playing on a loop. It’s the only thing that can keep Eurydice from fading entirely, from crossing the Veil. And I love the image that when you enter the Underworld, one of the first things you hear, maybe faintly, maybe from far off, is that gramophone. Still playing. Still looping. Orpheus’s last song, refusing to let her go.