mycursedface

One day, Medusa (who has entirely forgotten about being told what Valentine's Day is, and that a Certain Someone Forgot) finally decides that Lucifer Needs To Get Out More, and goes to Milliways to kidnap him.

Sam is very much not adverse to this kidnapping, possibly because Medusa is wearing a very pretty bodice.

Beyond Milliways' front door is an open area as would grace any farm; chickens in their house, a couple of goats stoped from their quest to eat the vegatables by a cunning wall, a shed and the peach-coloured wall of Medusa's own garden. There is another low building, too low to be anything but built partly under ground.

It's late afternoon, and actually fairly cool - autumn does that, even in North Africa.

And while she would give him a grand tour of the outside, she does have things cooking in the kitchen, so she leads him down some steps and around the corner. The kitchen is a large cavern, doubling as their main living space, and it is back up against the bathhouse. No sense in wasting heat, after all.

There is a large table in the middle, a working table, and it's a working kitchen for three people who love food and eat a lot.

"Welcome to my home."

Medusa is not, contrary to evidence, asleep.

No.

She merely has her eyes shut and is thinking.

While curled up on Sam's bed, head cushioned on her arm, giving all the appearances of being asleep.

Yes.

[thread contains adult content]

There are, it should be said, proper ways of doing things; throwing one's head back and yelling works for parents and siblings, but no one else. This is why Medusa, still with her ever-changing henna tattoos, still with her bangles arouund her slender ankles and wrists, dressed in a pretty, violet and sea-stained dress, is standing in a sheltered bay with the waves laping at her feet.

She's also calling, the formal words tumbling from her lips and sounding like music in her haunting voice.

"To Aphrodite. Heavenly, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, sea-born night-loving of awful mien; crafty, from whom Necessity first came, producing, nightly, all-connecting dame. ‘Tis thine the world with harmony to join, for all things spring from thee, O power divine. The triple Fates are ruled by thy decree, and all productions yield alike to thee: whatever the heavens, encircling all, contain, earth fruit-producing, and the stormy main, thy sway confesses, and obeys thy nod, awful attendant of Bakkhos God. Goddess of marriage, charming to the sight, mother of the Loves, whom banquetings delight; source of Persuasion, secret, favouring queen, illustrious born, apparent and unseen; spousal Lukaina, and to men inclined, prolific, most-desired, life-giving, kind. Great sceptre-bearer of the Gods, ‘tis thine mortals in necessary bands to join; and every tribe of savage monsters dire in magic chains to bind through mad desire.

Come, Cyprus-Born, and to my prayer incline, whether exalted in the heavens you shine, or pleased in odorous Syria to preside, or over the Aigyptian plains they care to guide, fashioned of gold; and near its sacred flood, fertile and famed, to fix they blest abode; or if rejoicing in the azure shores, near where the sea with foaming billows roars, the circling choirs of mortals thy delight, or beauteous Nymphai with eyes cerulean bright, pleased by the sandy banks renowned of old, to drive thy rapid two-yoked car of gold; or if in Kypros thy famed mother fair, where Nymphai unmarried praise thee every year, the loveliest Nymphai, who in the chorus join, Adonis pure to sing, and thee divine. Come, all-attractive, to my prayer inclined, for thee I call, with holy, reverent mind."

It had been good when she first came to Milliways. Curled up in Lucifer’s bed, in Lucifer’s arms, with the devil between her and the door, she could sleep. Oh, could she sleep. Damn straight she was good in bed, she had slept for days. Dreams, yes. Nightmares, yes, but…But it was sleep. It was good, too good, almost.

Too good to last, certainly.

As the nightmares began to increase, as they began to get worse and worse, it was too easy to fall into old habits and fall she did.

Lie awake for hours, staring at the door. Lie awake all night and if some of it is just due to her being used to a different sleep-pattern, most of it is just due to the fact that, well. She can’t get to sleep.

She doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Sleep means being unaware, sleep means being vulnerable, sleep means waking up to being murdered all over again. It feels the same, it always feels the same. Sometimes she’s drifting off, sometimes she’s drifting awake, but it’s the same; a sickening gasp, blind panic, and then her heart beating, beating, beating so hard with terror she is convinced that it’s going to break her ribs.

And if she does fall asleep, then it is either oblivion or nightmares. The oblivion is disconcerting; the nightmares are horrifying. Mostly, they are of being insane again, of seeing the world lawless and strange. The sky is purple, green, the trees lunge towards her and her mind is being eaten by rats. Sometimes, it is her murder; sometimes, it is her rape; sometimes it’s a strange mixture of the two, with Athena and Poseidon fighting and trampling her body underfoot (if she can scream, they never hear her, but being able to scream is rare). Mostly, though, it is memories of being crazy, and that is quite enough.

She doesn’t really need to sleep, anyway.

So, today Medusa stretches on the bed, rubs her eyes and then the cat (Shredie isn’t entirely sure what to make of this stranger, but the feathers are fun to play with), and gets to her feet. Jeans, sundress, bangles; kohl around her eyes because even if she hates looking in the mirror, even if she isn’t living in a desert, some things are habit.

And then her wire-framed glasses, and with a called goodbye to the boyfriend in the shower, she’s out the door and heading down the stairs.

After this:

Another girl would be wondering how to tell her boyfriend, whom she loves and adores with all the passion that only one who has been hit by one of Eros's (bullets) arrows can, how she ended up with a dead blonde girl who she has only met...once before, as a wife.

Medusa is just trying to remember what the symbol on Sam's door looks like.









The Atlantean isn't helping.

It's an interesting difference, what (sixteen hundred years) a month makes of a place. Cold and snow to warm sun, and if the air is still chillier than Medusa is used to, she at least won't get ill waiting for clothes and wings to dry off.

Gorgons and water, after all. Not that the legends ever mention that, but Gorgons and water are impossible to keep seperate.

Which is why Medusa is sitting outside on the grass with her back to the sun, jeans and yellow sundress still damp from swimming. Her gold wings are unfurled to catch every last bit of heat and, yes, it is mildly dazzling. This is mostly why she has her eyes closed, after all.

Mostly.

Because Medusa is also thinking. Oh, yes, is she thinking.

The Acropolis is burning.


It is night now, and the glow is turning the clouds above red. A nice red, really, glowing hot even from here, and fading into a dull red. The screams had stopped hours ago (all gone now) and now there is nothing but silence.

(burn, burn, burn the scene of the crime)

At least, from where Medusa is. She is sitting on a rock on a hill a little distance away, hugging her knees to her chest. She's been watching for hours, but the smile on her face is still as bright and guileless as the flames.

(burn, burn, burn away the memories)

Medusa had spent the morning sparring with Stheno (Euryale had run off to town). Hard and fast and nasty and, in the end, Medusa had snapped her sister's wrist. Stheno had kicked her into a wall; the Gorgon girls had always played rough.

Which is why it's a good thing that they can fix each other.

So, when Medusa walks into the library (a large cavern under the earth, floor to nearly ceiling bookcases with laders with wheels that roll across the shelves, and there are tall, narrow windows to catch the breeze and light), her curls are damp from a shower and she's rolling her shoulder back. Magical healing or no, you do feel sore.

"Lucifer?"

Today her nosering (India left a lasting impression, and it's a look that suits her) is a nosestud, a little golden spider with a ruby on its back , and her walk is marked by the chiming of the tiny bells around her right ankle. Not that it's easy to see said bells, given that Medusa's taste in skirts tends towards flowing things long enough to reach the tops of her feet.