mother stands for comfort

[mycursedface]

Atlantis is still, quiet; a marble shell of a city that is all ruined spirals and crooked curves. The scars of its death throes are still here, and the spiralling main street is lined with cracked reliefs of stars and wings and mathematics. Atlantis is still, quiet, but only as a contradiction. It is the home of fish and their kin, seeking shelter amongst the desert of the open ocean. It is the playground of sea-nymphs, sea-monsters, and all their laughing children who swim and shout and fill the seaweed and barnacle covered heart of Atlantis with watery giggles.

Their mothers never seem to mind that their playmates are ghosts as much as each other, and it is here that Ceto makes her home.

Ceto, whispered about by little men in their little boats because she is everything that they fear. Ceto, who is the coldness of drowning and the rage of a storm and the sudden terror of fins, teeth and tentacles in the dark. Ceto, who holds Medusa close with a mother’s protective embrace.

She kisses her daughter’s head with a mouth that has too many teeth, and whispers hush, my darling, it’s okay, I’m here, Meda in a voice that is the crash of waves and cracking of masts and it is not a very gentle voice. But to Medusa it is the voice who sang her baby self to sleep, the voice of love and comfort, and it is her mother’s voice.

It is, at this moment, the only voice in heaven, hell, earth and sea that Medusa trusts without question.

She had sworn never to sleep again; she had promised and chanted, I will never sleep again. Never. Never, ever again, but she is exhausted. It is still the same day after all. The same day that she was murdered and resurrected and lost her sons to her own mad anger and -

And she is safe, here in drowned Atlantis. She is safe in her mother’s arms, safe listening to her mother’s terrible voice, safe enough to fall into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

~

The second night she wakes up screaming, but she isn’t even surprised.

~

Time passes.

~

It doesn’t cure everything.

~

At first, it is bad.

Sobbing and then silence, she huddles in on herself and stares out into nothing. Ceto watches over her, worried as only a mother can. She watches and thinks, at least she doesn’t look blank as before. She watches and thinks, she’s older now, not so sheltered. She will think it all through. She likens her daughter to a wounded animal, that curls up and stays still until she either heals or dies, but Ceto never, ever says what she thinks.

She just waits, and rocks Medusa in her arms when the night-terrors hit.

~

Time passes, and if it doesn’t cure all it at least allows the memories and terror to blunten.

At least, a little.

~

Medusa isn’t entirely sure how Epimetheus would react to learning just how much of a mantra his assurance had become.

~

Slowly, Medusa pulls herself together. It’s slow, so slow, but the lack of definite seasons in Atlantis helps. She can’t be pressured by how much time she is spending below the waves if she doesn’t actually know how much time has passed.

Slowly, the bad months turn into bad weeks into bad days.

The bad days don’t vanish, but Medusa has resigned herself to thinking that they never actually will.

~

Of course, just because she is slow doesn’t mean that she can’t trip and tumble backwards.

~

She misses the world above. She misses air and flying. She misses eating cooked food, and she misses the way clothes feel against her (although to be sure, having the silky feeling of her hair against her skin back makes up for it). She misses the sun and wind.

She misses Stheno and Euryale with an ache that only another twin or triplet could really understand. They are her other thirds, the mind and heart to her soul, the other spokes on the wheel and other such things. Their secret language, spoken long before they knew any others, doesn’t even work with two, let alone one.

She just wishes that one day, she’d be able to think of seeing them again without crying for guilt. Really, she is sick of this guilt.

She finds, somewhat to her surprise, that she misses Milliways with its crazy, random appearing act. She’d made the beginnings of friends there, and it had been nice to look people in the eye. She misses Lucifer-Sam with a fluttering, twists-in-her-chest longing that made the softly-spoken Medusa go ‘oh, shit’ when she realized it, and her fingers went to her face with its mourning scars, and the swearing had continued.

~

The first day Ceto suggests that she’d might care to talk to someone else aside from her, Medusa screams ‘NO!’

~

The second time she asks, months later, Medusa is molting. Snakes with their skin, her wings of their feathers, and, really, the ever-beautiful Gorgon looks more terrible than pretty.

This time, the suggestion receives a snarled, ‘No!’.

Ceto doesn’t even sigh, she just looks at her. And then the sea-monster asks, “Why do they think that snakes are immortal, up above?”

After a long, confused pause, Medusa says, “Because they shed their skin. New skin, new body, new self. As far as I understand it, anyway.” Beat. “Why, Matta?”

“Just wondering, baby.”

~

Long after Ceto has gone, Medusa’s words play over and over in her head. The snakes echo it and echo it, and she bites her bottom lip.

~

The third time, Ceto just says, “Your father misses you, you know. You and Eno and Ali.”

“Alright,” Medusa sighs. “We’ll visit him.”

And her mother smiles.