Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 01

The old thrill crept up Darian's spine like dancing fire. He clenched and released his fists slowly to listen to the cracking of his knuckles, to breathe deep the kill, the sensation of flesh and bone breaking under his grip. He looked down at the collapsed fool, his backward head, and he put his bare foot against his breastplate in the most primal act of victory.

A familiar white started to blur the edge of Darian's vision, an old friend that hid in the corner of his eyes whenever he let the monster out. Time for another kill.

The crack of the warrior's neck was so loud in the dead silence of the temple, both Medusa and the single remaining warrior looked his way. Darian knew he was in the shadows, and would only be a silhouette to their eyes. He also knew they would be able to see his eyes, and the white glow that filled them. He must have looked like a spawn of Tartarus come to kill them. And it made him smile.

He reached down, grabbed the sword of the man he'd just killed, and started to walk toward the remaining warrior.

"By Zeus! Who are you? You... Marcus! Marcus!" they screamed. Raged flooded their face, overriding their fear, and blood-drunk with anger, the warrior charged Darian.

Darian gripped the sword with both hands, and slammed it down toward the oncoming sheep. The Athenian blocked the attack as expected, but the warrior did not expect the power Darian put behind it. Darian's attack was not only enough to knock the fool to the ground, it was enough to push Darian up into the air a few inches before gracefully landing upon his bare toes. The shield rang loud until the temple echoed the force of the impact. Darian took the opportunity to jump forward, and with both hands, slammed the sword down at the fallen enemy.

But the warrior was skilled, trained, and rolled to the side. Darian's stolen weapon broke against the stones, the blade flying off into the shadows, leaving him weaponless. Damn. The warrior saw the opportunity, roared with courage, conviction, and all the typical garbage Darian expected of an obedient peon, and charged Darian again.

Darian stepped into the charge with the speed of a striking viper. There was a sudden moment of shock on the warrior's face, and Darian used it like a sign. How many had he killed with that expression on their face? That single second of shock that costed them their life? Every time, it was the same result, and every time Darian danced in that single second where he ruled. He drove his right hand, open-palm, straight up into the larger man's neck, and gripped his throat tight. His left hand was free, and he used it to grip the man's sword wrist, and squeezed. His wrist snapped with a loud, dull crack.

The warrior tried to scream in pain, but Darian's grip was absolute. He squeezed harder, hard enough to strain the warrior's muscles, tear at skin, and block his breathing. He pushed up harder too, hard enough to lift the larger man into the air, and then walk him back against a nearby pillar, where Darian pinned his body. The fool was so surprised, he did not bother to kick at Darian, or hit him with his shield arm. All he could do was grip at the fingers crushing his throat with his only remaining hand. Futile.

"You come here," he said, and he squeezed both hands harder, "to kill in the name of Athena? Or some other god? Or for some king? Or just because you want glory?" He shook his head, and stared into the panicked eyes of the dead man. "I heard her, you heard her! She just wants to be left alone!" He could taste the kill, beckoning him, burying any mercy he may have had in a torrent of adrenaline and bloodlust. "So fuck you. Fuck your gods. Fuck your kings. And die."

A crushed throat was too good for this filth. A crushed throat was a warrior's death, and this warrior deserved an insect's death. Darian raised the man higher, grinned at him, and slammed him back against the pillar hard enough to crack his skull inside his helmet. He let go of him then, and the man collapsed onto his butt on the floor, only for Darian to put a hand against the side of his helmet, and smash it against the pillar again. And again. And again, until the blood was pouring from the bastard's nostrils, and Darian was sure that all could be found inside his helmet was pulp.

He stepped back from the dead man, and breathed deep. Two more kills, and they tasted sweet. He wanted more, but when he glanced over his shoulder, the sight of the wounded woman struck him sober. Get air into the lungs man, calm down, let the blood settle. The white that circled his vision started to fade. The hunger in his hands for violence dripped away, along with the blood of his kill onto the temple floor.

Until, after several moments, there was nothing but the silence of the temple, his quiet breaths, and the panicked breathing of Medusa.

"D-don't... don't come near me! Get away!" The great serpent tried to slither away again, but was struck with enough pain to make her scream in frustration and misery. The trails of curved blood stains she left behind were plentiful.

He turned to face her, but lowered his eyes when the reality set in. He scared her. He had scared her, him, he had scared Medusa. The gods were probably laughing at him.

"I... I'm not going to hurt you Medusa. Please." He walked toward where the half-spear till jutted out from her scales, and reached for it.

"Don't kill me! Please, just leave me alone... I...." She was terrified, terrified and bleeding to death. Her massive snake half was pooling red blood everywhere, and he had to stop it if he wanted to save her.

And of course he wanted to save her, like a damn fool. It made him smile again, but he washed the smile away quickly, and reached out to steady her snake half. Her scales were so beautiful, even where blood was smeared along the vibrant green.

"I'm not going to hurt you... well, removing this will hurt. But please, Medusa, I'm not going to kill you." No use in bracing her for it. Just get it over with. So before she could even respond, he yanked the spear head from her body.

She screeched again, pain making her whole snake length -- damn it was long -- shake and wriggle with muscle convulsions. But, after the worst of it passed, and Medusa's noises had reduced to whimpers instead of cries, she stopped trying to slither away.

"I... you... I don't believe you! Liar! Li-"

"I'm not lying! Look!" He gestured to the two dead warriors, and then to the V on his forehead. "I have no desire to hurt you, or get back to Athens. I... just please listen to me. Come on, I have to dress these wounds before you bleed out. Are there any dressings in this temple?" he said, and he walked up to her human half.

So close, he found himself staring, and his mouth parted a sliver. Her hair of snakes were green like her snake half, with black patterns of spiraling triangles, and their eyes were yellow like hers. Her belly scales were a soft bronze, not unlike the sand of a beach, and her human skin was pale, a stark contrast to his. Her lips were gentle pink, and her eyebrows were actually two subtle lines of scales. She wore a common white wrap tight around her large breasts, and her hips sported a tight white wrap too, covering where her human half and snake half met.

She was beautiful.

"You're... not.... going to... kill me?"

"No! No but if you don't tell me where I can find some dressing, you'll be dead anyway!"

"I...." She was staring at him, jaw dropped. He could see her huge fangs curled back inside her mouth, and her forked tongue. "Um... there are blanketsss. They are very old, but-"

"Good enough."

He knew the temple structure well. He still had no idea why it was so obviously a temple dedicated to Medusa though, with its crying Athena statues, snake carvings, and gorgon colossi -- none of those things were found in temples dedicated to Athena -- but at least he knew where to check in the back for the rooms temple servants would use. The temple was almost entirely just the nave for worshiping, but there were at least several rooms, including a vestry, and they had blankets. Old, but still sturdy.

When he came back out into the nave a few minutes later, it was very dark, with only a bit of fire light from the Athenian's dropped torches in the distance, and it took time for his eyes to adjust. Medusa was still there, but she had managed to bring her snake half closer together into a loose coil. With over thirty feet of snake length, and a human half, she truly was massive.

She looked at him with the same shock as when she first saw him, but her breathing slowed a little after a moment, and after she saw the several blankets he carried in his arms. "You're... you're real."

"Of course I'm real." He approached the first wound he could see, closer to the tip of her tail. It must have been the first wound she suffered in this encounter. "We'll need to wash these later, but for now...." He reached down, lifted her snake body up -- she flinched openly when he touched her -- smiled at the sensation of her smooth, dry scales along his skin, and wrapped the blanket around the wound before tying it into a tight knot. He'd never dressed the wound of a snake before, and he barely knew how to dress a wound in the first place. He could only hope it was better than nothing.

"You can't be real." She shook her head and tried to stand, or at least what a gorgon would do when standing, but she just collapsed back onto the altar at the Athena statue's feet again. "Your eyes... are you a ssspirit?"

He laughed, softly; it seemed like the right kind of laugh for the situation. "I am no spirit. Flesh and blood, same as you."

"But... I don't underssstand. How did you...."

She had a hard time with her words, he could tell. She hissed a little on some of them, and considering how much solitude she experienced on the island, and how long she'd been on the island, she probably didn't talk much. Her voice was soft.

"Marooned here. I had no idea you were here."

"Oh...."

"I had no idea you were even real. Thought you were just a myth. A one hundred-year-old myth."

"One hundred years... has it... been that long?" She raised her hands and looked at them. They were perfectly normal, human-looking hands. And she herself looked no older than thirty. It was quite the curse, that she must live for so long like that. And yet...

"You don't look a day over twenty-five to me." He smiled at her, the nicest smile he could muster behind his dirty face and ruined beard, and moved toward her next wound with another blanket.

She blinked at him, and a mixture of expressions crossed her face, as if he'd said something unfathomable. So he just kept smiling -- what he did best after all -- and tied another blanket around her snake half, nice and tight.

"I... I don't...." She shook her head, and the snakes on her head drifted around as if bewildered. "I don't understand. Why are you helping me?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because! Becausssse... because I am cursed. Athena's curssse."

Darian rolled his eyes and moved to the final wound. This time, he had to step over a couple loops of her body to get in the center of her coils, closer to her torso again, and he grimaced a little when Medusa recoiled. Any time he moved too quickly, lifted a hand too fast, she braced herself for an attack. So he kept his movements slow, and started to wrap her wound with as gentle a touch as he could muster.

"Athena can fuck a goat. Athens can go fuck a goat too," he said. "All I know is the story of Medusa. And... I heard your pleas." And I could never say no to a woman begging for mercy.

Real, genuine anger crossed the gorgon's face. Darian's heart stopped, and for a moment he thought his life was over. All she had to do was hit him with that serpent's gaze to instantly kill him, but it apparently drained her horribly to use it. And, as her anger faded, he breathed a sigh of relief; she didn't seem to want to use it on him anyway.

"What... is the story?" she asked.

Oh, she didn't know. Shit. Shit shit."Um... that... Athena cursed you for defiling the temple," he said, and gulped before the final part, "... because Poseidon..." raped you in it.

Her eyes opened wide, and again he thought he was dead. But she reached out, and this time it was her touching him, her tight grip on his shoulders. "They... they sssay that? They all know!?" Then, over the course of painful seconds, an invisible weight dragged her down and made her shoulders slump. "... of courssse they know. I should... I knew but I didn't want to...."

"Um, they-"

"I... I... Poseidon, he...." Her head lowered then, her fingers released him, and she collapsed back onto the altar. He wasn't sure if she was exhausted or furious, but after a moment, he could hear her crying from behind where she laid her head in her arms. Her snake hair laid flat against her neck and shoulders, and their yellow eyes cast their gaze downward, in what could only be a snake's way of showing sadness.

Her wounds were bandaged, as best as he could manage anyway, so he got up, and sneaked out from her coils with careful steps between each loop of her length. She was sobbing, and it was because of him. He shouldn't have said anything about the legend; he never did know when to shut up. People were shit for just accepting Athena's punishment of the victim, god-fearing shits.

"I..." He scratched at the back of his head where his hair had grown long, and was matted with dirt and strands. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry!?" She screeched at him again, putting her fangs on full display along with her forked tongue, before lowering her head back to her arms again. He froze, deathly still for that moment he thought he was dead -- again. Her energy was returning, at least.

He looked at her with a tilted head, let out a slow, heavy breath, and turned to leave.

"W-wait... I'm... sorry," she said.

He looked over his shoulder. Her yellow snake eyes reflected just a fraction of light in the dark, and tears were on her cheeks. She pushed herself back to sit up straight, if being coiled up could be called sitting, and tried her best to give him a smile. She failed horribly, with tears dripping off her chin.

"Please. Don't go." She looked out to where he'd bandaged her, and put her hands on the improve bandages. "You, you're... the first one in so long, and... please. Ssstay."

Gods, her snake eyes were so damn beautiful, and seeing them ache with sorrow the way they did tore his heart apart. He really was so damn easy to break; all it took was a sad woman's eyes to turn him into a helpless fool. But, right then, he really didn't mind.

He walked over to her, and sat down on the altar next to her. A grave insult to the gods, but that was half the reason he sat on it. "Have you really been on this island for a hundred years?"

She wiped away her tears, but nodded, and even managed a tiny smile. "Yessss." The drawn out yes was accompanied with a small flicker of her tongue, as if it was perfectly natural to taste the air with your tongue. "Athena cursed this temple... and me. All I remember is a great white light, and then the temple had changed." She gestured to the crying Athena statues, and the coiled snakes on the pillars. "It was the middle of a ceremony, and...." She gestured to the array of stone bodies that filled the temple.

She was struggling to say it, Darian could tell. The words must have stung in her throat, and as she said them, he could see more tears build in her eyes. Was he really the first person she'd gotten to talk to about this, or in general, since it happened?

"That's horrible," he said.

She nodded again, and her snake hair nodded with her. Darian tried his best to not smile at how ridiculously cute that was, it really wasn't the time.

"She cursssed me, because-"

"You don't have to say it. It-"

"No!" she said. Darian went wide-eyed at her sudden volume, but she looked desperate, as if she had only this one chance to speak to him before he vanished. "One hundred years ago, I served this temple. I served the gods! And one night when I was alone here, Poseidon, he...," she looked away, and the shame on her face was palpable. "I am cursed for his crime!"

Darian clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked. It wasn't right for him to embrace this anger as if he was personally slighted, it was arrogant of him and greedy of him, but he couldn't help it. It was all fuel for the fire.

He didn't say anything though. It wasn't about him. This was about her. The least he could do for the poor soul was listen. When she looked up to him, him still sitting on the altar, he offered her a weak, sad smile. What else could he do.

"You...." She forced herself up a little, until she was a little higher up leaning against the altar, and she wiped away her new tears. "You... you're...."

He tilted his head to the other side, and waited for her to speak on her own.

"I've.... I've always wanted to... tell someone," she said. "For so long, it's just been people... coming for my head. They never listen to what I have to say."

Even if they had listened, Medusa, they already knew. It wouldn't have stopped the mindless sheep from serving their gods, and trying to kill you.

"I'm sorry. I can't imagine what that's like," he said.

"And you, you...." She gestured to the bandages he'd made for her, and the corpse by the pillar. "You... out of nowhere, you show up, and... your eyes... your strength."

Darian tried to hide his frown. Medusa was pointing out the obvious he was ignoring: this wasn't a coincidence. He escaped Zeus, escaped Poseidon, only for... no, don't think about it. Just ignore it. None of it mattered. They couldn't get him here. Hopefully.

"W-who are you?" she said. "How did you get here? You sssaid you were marooned?"

He pointed at the V on his forehead. "Slave, marked for life." And of course, that was a story he didn't want to tell, and he hoped pushing past the subject was enough of a hint for her. "I was on a trade ship and being taken to Athens, when something in the sea attacked it."

"Something in the sea?"

"A creature of some sort. Big enough that it destroyed the whole ship. I washed up on the shore here." He gestured at himself, his dirty, bloody rags, horrible hair, scraggly beard, and tanned-to-burnt skin. "I doubt I would have tasted good."

Medusa giggled, just a soft, tiny noise mixed with a quiet cough and residue sob, but an actual laugh nonetheless. "And your strength? Your eyes too; I thought for sure a demon had come for me. Are... are you related to Cadmus?"

"It's... it's a blood thing, yeah. Probably not Cadmus, but you never know." It was true, sort of. He could tell her the details later, just not now. No reason to drag her into it. "Something in the blood that lends me the strength of a... well, not a god, but enough to deal with vermin like them." He motioned to the dead warriors.

"... you must really despise the gods."

"You don't?"

She looked down at herself, then at the warriors, and then to him. "I did, and I do, but it's been so long, and... with only myself to talk to for ssso long, I...." She leaned out over her coils, and put a hand on one of the wounds to press against where it bled. "It faded away."

Faded away. He chewed on the idea for a moment. Letting the hate fade seemed wrong, but then, he hadn't spent a hundred years alone. Damn, it was such a long time to be alone.

"I'm Darian."

"... Darian." She smiled at him again, tear-filled yellow snake eyes on full display. "T-thank you."

"You're welcome." He hopped off the altar, and started to walk to the recent dead. "I'll deal with the bodies. Some sailors were waiting by the dock, and-"

"They come every decade or so. They will leave when their heroes do not return."

He nodded. That made sense. "Are you going to be ok? You were stabbed... multiple times."