Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 13

"Otrera! Chimera is alive!"

Otrera got back up from setting the unconscious woman down against the wall, and blinked at Medusa. "What?"

Medusa motioned for the Amazon to come join her near the cliff edge, and once she managed to slither back to where she was, she pointed out to the shore. The sun was breaking over the horizon now, and everything was bathed in a warm orange glow. No mistaking the group of people huddled around the big guy, each of them trying to figure out how to handle the damaged and mangled giant.

But he was alive. One of the people tending to his wounds even waved up at them.

"He... he's alive?" Otrera collapsed onto her knees, palms to the ground, and stared out over the edge. "Gods damn it, he... I... fucking Tartarus."

She started to cry. Darian could see she was fighting it, but she raised a hand up to her eyes and wiped away the growing tears. No matter how hard she tried, more joined them, and she blubbered a chuckle as she stared out over the people below, and waved back.

For a moment, he was envious of her. What did that feel like?

Medusa started to cry too — she already was of course, but Otrera's sounds made her cry doubly so. Even Patrius managed a small sniff, and he looked to Darian and Pegasus, then back to the people below, before he waved Darian's sword through the air for the onlookers.

"I killed Andromeda," Otrera said between sobs. She leaned back, laughed, and held up the Moirai mask to Darian as she wiped her tears away with another. "Should have gone easier on her, if... if I had known he... Gods he looks like shit. I have to get down there. I have to help him, and they're too weak to even lift his arm."

"But he'll live!" Medusa said, and she too raised a hand to wave at the people below. "He's like me, he'll heal from anything, even faster!"

Darian set his forehead to rest against Pegasus's neck, and held out his hand in front of him to behold the Moirai mask. The swirling, chaotic lines of silver against a thick metal body. Open eyes, open mouth that could be seen through, it looked like nothing more than a hunk of fancy obsidian metal. The silver symbols and lines were similar to those found on his armor though; definitely a Moirai mask.

All this for a mask. A tool of great power, according to the Fates, according to Gallea. And Andromeda had been using it, sacrificing people to it, and powering her magics with it. He gulped, and stared into its eyes; but it had nothing to say. Did it understand? Did it know how much trouble he'd gone through to get the damn thing? Was it alive, as were the other Fates, or was it just a tool and nothing more? He chuckled, and lowered the mask. Quest complete.

"What will you ask Athena?" he said.

"Athena?" Medusa looked over Patrius's head toward him, and her jaw dropped as he showed her the mask. "I forgot! I... I don't know! I don't know, I... I just want to talk to her. I—"

"You want to speak to Athena? Directly?" Patrius said.

Medusa nodded. "It's part of the deal we have with the Fates. They'll let us — Darian and me — speak to Athena once we return the mask."

"... I see." Patrius lowered his gaze, and looked to the crowd below again. He shook his head a few times, and opened his mouth to say something, before silence took him. "Athena's angry," he said a few moments later.

Darian blinked at the man. "What?"

"I—" Patrius stopped himself, looked up at the sky, and sighed. For a single second, his eyes had a green glow. "I understand, Athena."

Everyone turned to him, eyebrows raised and some heads tilted. Medusa still had one of her arms hooked around the man, and offered a confused smile for him as each snake on her head looked at him.

Patrius raised Darian's sword, and put it against Medusa's neck. "I'm sorry."

Darian's blood ran cold. Heart froze. Body refused to move. Everything went still as Patrius swung the blade down.

It was a sharp blade, a magical blade gifted from the Fates themselves, sharp enough to cut through metal given a little force. Medusa's neck provided no resistance as Patrius threw his weight down into the cut.

Otrera jumped him, and Pegasus spun around to try and knock the man over. Patrius found himself pushed toward Otrera by the horse, and then knocked onto his back by the Amazon as she jumped him and pinned his hands to the ground. Darian's sword fell out of Patrius's hand, and it scattered along the mountainside road as Otrera subdued the man.

Darian's eyes followed the blade as he fell over. Pegasus turning around had knocked him down as well, onto his hands and knees, but he barely noticed. He only noticed his sword, skidding along the stones and rocks of the road, and the splattering flesh red it left behind.

Medusa's head rolled a few feet across the stones, until she came to a stop next to his sword.

"Why! Why did you do it?" Otrera said.

"Athena demanded it! She commanded it of me. I had no choice. I—"

"Is that why she sent you here? We know she sent you the same time we set out for Aethiopia!"

"I didn't know! I was sent here to help these people! Only now... only now did she tell me to kill Medusa."

Kill Medusa.

Darian reached out for his sword, but stopped short as his hand drifted closer to Medusa's head. Her eyes were still open, and her mouth was open too. Blood poured over the stone. Her snake hair did not move.

His hand found her. Fingertips drifted into her hair, and as he pulled himself to sit on his knees, he held her on his lap. Her snake hair didn't coil around his fingers, didn't nuzzle into his knuckles, didn't lick and tease his palms. And Medusa herself didn't meet his gaze. She just stared into nothingness as blood dripped from her neck. One of his hands drifted down to her face, and his thumb nudged at her lips. Nothing.

"... Medusa?" he said.

Nothing.

Darian looked beside him. He'd dropped the mask, and it'd skidded a couple times along Medusa's blood. Crimson dripped from its jaw, and along the silver lines that swirled its contours. It stared at him with the same empty eyes of Medusa. Each drop of blood from her neck took an eternity to land upon his leg, and each drop struck him hard, until they pierced through him into his core. Until all he could feel was the wrenching of his insides.

He held her head until the drops slowed, until each was a distinct and crushing mass against him.

Medusa's head — but not her.

He looked behind him. Medusa's body — but not her. It was something else, something that looked like her. Medusa's body lay along the street, as lifeless as Perseus's legs. Bleeding, but not moving.

He looked to Pegasus. His old friend stood there beside Otrera, neighing loudly, stomping his hooves. Otrera was shaking Patrius hard, screaming at him, punching him, demanding answers. Darian couldn't understand any of it anymore. All he could hear was noise.

He looked back to his love. Not his love anymore, just a body. Closing his eyes and forcing down the rising ache in his gut, he set Medusa's head down beside the mask, and got up. Someone had done this to her, turned her into this lifeless thing, this pile of scales and flesh and blood. Someone had taken her from him. Someone had taken everything from him.

His body raged at him for daring to move. His arm was barely able to function, and the cuts and bruises along his shoulders and waist demanded he sit back down. He must have had at least three broken ribs, and something in his wrist wasn't working correctly anymore. Probably had a serious head injury too; shouldn't be going to sleep anytime soon.

But it all faded away. The choir of pain became white noise, soft and soothing in the background of his thoughts as he walked toward Otrera and Patrius. Otrera was punching the man hard enough to bruise him, break his nose, give him a black eye, and otherwise leave the old soldier unable to fight back. Not good enough.

Darian grabbed Otrera's shoulder, and threw her off him. She fell back onto the road, and he reached down and lifted Patrius up by the neck, fingers around his throat, squeezing. He walked him toward the cliff wall of the road, and pinned him there.

Patrius stared down at him, eyes wide. And for a moment, Darian remembered his wife, his children. Like insects, memories of their time together as comrades in Tiryns swarmed. Even the bad memories of Patrius's refusal to believe him about Stheneboea vanished, and the good memories grew brighter. Sitting around a fire in the woods while they scouted nearby areas. Fishing on days the city was mostly empty. Training. Meeting his family.

"Bellerophontes," Patrius said through a split lip, "please, listen to me. I had to. I had no choice. Athena... she—"

He swatted the memories like flies. His eyes glowed white until everything was a blur, until everything on the edge of his vision was pure white. The only thing in focus was the dead center of his gaze where it sat on Patrius, and where his fist collided with the man's body.

And collided. Hit, after hit. Punch after punch. He ignored the man's cries, ignored the cries of his own damaged body, ignored it all, and punched harder. All he could see, all he could feel, was acid in his chest, and the impact of bone and muscle against his knuckles.

Bone and muscle until there was nothing left, until he was punching the blood-soaked cliff where Patrius's body should have been.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun was setting.

Everyone was tense. They were supposed to be having a party, a celebration. There was a huge bonfire in the city center, beneath the red sky of dusk, in the open area where the districts and roads met. Everyone had gathered, everyone was talking, but no one was happy. Many were crying, holding each other as they mourned their dead. And many more besides mourned the dead gorgon, the monster who'd given everything she had to save them, save Rhea, only to be betrayed at the last moment.

A tiny part of him, a teeny voice buried deep, told him to be happy people were upset about Medusa's death. It's what Medusa wanted, for people to stop hating her, stop fearing her. If anything, her death allowed her to meet her goal.

He squeezed the rock in his hand until it cracked and crumbled.

The curse was gone. The people of the city were free. The manticore were dead. The undead were proper dead once more. The sea creature was a stone testament to the struggles of the people, and it stood tall in the bay next to the acropolis mountain. A happy ending for these people.

Darian, Otrera, and Pegasus sat a ways off from the city center, close enough to see it but far enough they were near the woods by the main road. They had an open area for themselves between some buildings, a big area normally meant for storing carts. Empty, it was plenty of space for Chimera to lie down on the ground.

Otrera stared down at the giant. He lay upon the grass, eyes closed, breath coming in slow and steady. Bandages all over him, new scars; and the eye with the scar was truly ruined this time. His face was barely holding together, and any human would have died purely from the inability to breathe. But Chimera was a powerful man, and he'd heal with time. He'd heal the ruined face — probably not the missing eye though — and his broken body.

The corpse of Medusa next to them would not.

Getting her corpse down from the mountain, down the broken bridge, across the water, and into the city, had been... sobering. Darian tried to cry, tried to let tears flow and let the pain hit him. But nothing came. Even as he had picked up her head with his hands soaked in Patrius's blood, his insides had petrified. Stone. Her gaze turned him to stone.

Darian and Otrera, side by side in the grass, stared at the bodies before them. Pegasus stood by the building near them, but when Darian glanced his old friend's way, the horse lowered his head and took a step back. Afraid of him, maybe? No, Pegasus was too strong to be afraid of him. But their reunion was most definitely not what either of them had probably planned. And Pegasus probably felt guilty for that.

Darian glanced Otrera's way. She looked happy, and sad; at least she wore her emotions on the outside, easy to ready. When she looked Chimera's way, a smile peeked its way onto her face, and took over all her body language. When she looked to Medusa's body, it fell apart, and her head dropped.

At least she was feeling something. Darian sighed, and stared at the corpse before him. He was numb.

"... Darian."

The two Fate's Children looked down the road toward the city center to the new voice. Gallea and Pinna.

"I... I wouldn't," Otrera said, and she raised a hand to dismiss the two.

Darian said nothing.

"Please," Gallea said, and he hopped a little closer. "Please, we... we wanted to pay our respects. We wanted to—"

"Did you know?" Otrera said. She got up off the ground, and stepped onto the road near the two satyrs. "Did you know about Athena and Patrius?"

"How could we have known? You said yourself Athena's order came only upon the mountain..." Pinna came closer with a hand held to her chest. "We didn't know any of this would happen! We didn't know what Athena was going to do."

"I'm sure it'll make a great story." Otrera drifted closer to them, until the two satyrs took a step back with a gasp, eyes wide. "A tale that will spread for all time, of Patrius's valiant sacrifice to kill the horrible monster maybe? Or perhaps you'll spread the story that Medusa willingly gave her life after helping free Athena's people, as her way of redeeming herself? Hmm?" Fingers found Pinna's throat, and Otrera lifted the satyr into the air. "How will you twist this so that Athena and the Fates are to be worshipped!?"

"Hey! We won't—" Gallea's words cut short when Otrera kicked the satyr in the stomach hard enough to send him back onto his ass.

"Otrera," Darian said, "just... don't."

The Amazon humphed, and threw the woman down next to her husband before coming to sit next to Darian again. She sat a little closer to Chimera this time though, close enough she could reach out and stroke the unconscious giant's hand.

Queen Otrera loved the giant, Darian could see. He didn't know if she knew — she probably didn't — but it was plain on her face. The mindless and complete adoration. The total commitment to the other. Maybe when Chimera awoke, the two would grow in that way, admit their feelings, and live happily ever after.

He choked down the bile in his throat again. He wanted to kill her, every bit of him wanted to kill her for daring to have that.

Misery loves company. He wasn't stupid enough to let the rage consume him to the point of killing those who didn't deserve it. Medusa wouldn't want him to do that, and he wanted to make her happy.

He stared at the mask in his hand. The Fates wanted him to get this, a Moirai mask, a tool of great power. But he was no sorceress, neither was Otrera, or anyone he knew. And even if they were, he could not do what Andromeda did to bring Medusa back. Sacrificing people to resurrect her? It'd be the same as killing her.

He'd have her back though...

No, you fucking idiot. No. No no.

He got up, and walked off with the mask in his hand.

"Darian?" Otrera said.

"I... just need to be alone for a while. Tomorrow, Gallea and Pinna can summon the Fates, and we can..." He took a deep breath, deep until he could feel the rock in his gut, and walked off into the woods. Pegasus trotted after him, but he looked back at his friend, and shook his head. The poor horse neighed, but nodded, and instead walked over to stand by Otrera.

He could hear them talking behind him as he walked away. At least they weren't arguing anymore. Otrera's anger was understandable, and she was letting out her emotions, they all were.

But him. After he carried down her corpse, stared into her lifeless eyes, all he could feel was stone in his chest.

He wandered for a while, still in his armor but without his helmet. No sword either. He couldn't touch it, not after what Patrius had done with it.

As he got further, and further into the wood, further, until he was well and truly alone, he looked up. The sky was clear again, just like last night. The sun was slowly setting, and the red of the few clouds was bleeding away to expose the stars. The sort of night Medusa and him would have laid themselves out on the grass, and just stared up.

He'd never get to do that again.

He looked at a nearby tree, a large one, and raised a fist. He looked for the fury, looked for the burning white in his mind that would set his eyes glowing, unleash the power of his curse, and let him punch solid wood into mulch. None to be found. He looked down at his knuckles, still split and torn from where he had punched Patrius again and again, until the dead man had fallen apart, until limbs had given away, until he was in several pieces and Darian was punching only the cliff rock. The fury was gone, and all that he was left with was loneliness.

He laughed, and fell to his knees. The mask rolled away, collecting dirt on its bloodstains, and settled a few feet from him. It blurred as tears sneaked their way into his eyes. He sank his fingers into the earth until bits of dirt cut into the skin under his fingernails, and he cried. Just a few sobs, just the softest, little chokes of noise caught in his throat.

Had he ever cried? Genuinely ever cried? Not when he'd killed his brother. Not when his family had sent him to Tiryns to receive punishment. Not when he'd discovered Proetus had actually tried to kill him after years of faithful servitude.

It was a foreign feeling, to let the tears grow, drip down his cheeks, and overwhelm him. The tightening in his chest released, and a louder sob came out of him as he fell forward, clutching his chest as his forehead fell to the ground. Curled up, like a whimpering child, he rocked back and forth, and let the strange feeling engulf him.

He screamed. With his voice caught on a sob and tears growing until they were streaming down his face, his voice came out a mess of broken noises and shrieks mixed with yells. He'd heard the sound before, in men he'd killed in painful ways. A whole body scream that left him gasping for air, and unable to get it as more sobs ripped the air out of his lungs. Fingers clawed at the ground more, and his other hand held his chest where it felt like he was ripping in half.

"Medusa... I can't... I—"

"So... he can... feel."

He sat up, body stiff with reflex, ready to tear apart whoever was talking. He looked left and right, and found only the darkening forest. No one had followed him down the main road either. No one was there, no one but him.

But the mask, staring up at the sky, had a subtle white glow in its eyes and mouth.

"... Bellerophontes."