Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 15

And bliss turned into orgasm as the woman arched her back, and dug her fingers into the grass.

"Otrera?" Darian said.

"I... I uh..."

The woman lifted her gaze, caught Otrera's, and smiled an exhausted, sweat-dripping smile. The man behind her did the same. A lovely young man, with nice shoulders and a hard chin.

"We don't know you," he said. "Come join us?"

Strangers inviting strangers for sex, without even bothering to ask names. If this was the Asphodel Meadows, what could Elysium possibly have better?

Always thinking with her thighs.

Darian took her hand, and dragged her away. "Come on, one look at sex and you break like a neglected wife."

She frowned, and pushed the man a couple feet away, but fell instep beside him anyway. "I'm a grown woman! I—"

More groans stopped her, and she forced herself to keep walking as she looked by the windows. Most of the homes had a pair of people fucking. Some had triplets. More than one had half a dozen people, with arms wrapped around each other, pushing their bodies up against walls so Otrera could see them through the windows. And one window had a woman leaning out through it, her hands on the sill, her large breasts dangling underneath her and bouncing with the rhythm of a long, gentle fuck.

This time Darian stopped, and took a few moments to stare. Otrera couldn't see through his mask of course, but she knew what was going on in his big dumb head.

"You really like tits," she said.

"What, you don't? I saw the way you looked at Medusa."

"Hey! I... I love a good pair of tits, except my definition extends to a lot more than only big ones." She frowned at him some more, even tried to scowl a little, but it all sort of washed away, and turned into a laugh. Darian laughed as well, and the two forced themselves to walk past the woman clearly enjoying herself.

Otrera did take a glance back though, and grinned as the woman gave her a tiny wave. Everyone was so damn happy. The kids — in a different section of the city than the sexually crazed, thankfully — were running, playing, wrestling, throwing rocks in the river, and the adults were chatting, telling tales of their lives, and fucking like rabbits.

Some of the people faded out as they approached, often mid action, and a new person replaced them doing something different nearby. Overlapping afterlives? She couldn't tell, all she could tell was she was seeing more people than the city would suggest she should be able to see.

It wasn't exactly right for the two of them to be having a nice evening stroll, with Medusa's fate as it was, and she could tell Darian wanted to move faster. But at the same time, he was the one setting the pace. Maybe he was lost, or just struggling to figure out how to use the mask? Medusa had a thousand years in Tartarus before her, and Athena had only brought her to the afterlife that same day. Five minutes to peek around and see what the afterlife was like wouldn't—

"Otrera?"

Otrera froze. Ice in her veins, feet turned to stone, petrified, unable to move as the voice resonated in her mind, in her memories, and made her grow faint. But, after a couple seconds of silence, she turned to face one of the windows.

"... Aeryn?"

Aeryn, moderate height, fit like any Amazon, with long blond hair, and a sharp chin to match her sharp wit. One of her best warriors.

And of course, Aeryn was naked, her pert breasts on display and her nipples blatantly hard. She was leaning forward against the window on her elbows, and she was smiling. Not a typical smile, not a 'hello friend' smile, but a blissful smile. And as Otrera stepped in closer, she blushed. Two other women, and one man were in there too.

"Nallia. Jonnah. What are you two sluts doing?" she said as she got closer.

The other two Amazons got up from their squatting positions around Aeryn's legs. They were wearing their loincloths, but that was it. A couple of brunettes, Nallia was a short thing like Otrera, but with large enough breasts for the two of them, and then some, while Jonnah was a tall woman, thin, with a nasty scar down her chest.

There was no scar.

"You two look great," she finally managed to say. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

"I can't believe it's you, Otrera. We... we looked for you! You never came." Aeryn held out her hands, and Otrera took them. She squeezed, and stared down at Aeryn's fingers, at how they filled Otrera's hands like fingers should, at how they were warm, and pulsed with life. Slightly see-through though. She was dead, no mistaking that.

Nallia and Jonnah got into the window too, elbows on the sill, and they each took Otrera's hands to squeeze them.

"Queen Otrera," they both said. They all looked aroused, and ready to fuck at a moment's notice. Their queen visiting them didn't seem to spark an ounce of shame or shyness in them — good. She'd hate herself if she spoiled their fun.

Darian had stopped a few feet down the path, and when she looked his way, he nodded, and leaned against a nearby building. She had a few minutes.

"Who's that?" Otrera said, and she gestured to the naked man standing behind Aeryn. At least he wasn't fucking her anymore; even Otrera would have found mid-sex dialogue a little awkward.

"This is Vasilis. He was a fisherman, when he was alive. Poor fool never had a wife or lover. Lonely man, too nice. We like to keep him company."

"H-hello," he said. "Your friends have spoken much about you."

"Have they?" Otrera laughed and grinned at the man.

While her sisters of battle were comfortable with the situation, Vasilis was not. He was blushing even more than she. An older man than the girls, maybe in his mid forties. He was in good shape, but that seemed to be something that just happened in the Asphodel Meadows. He had a soft look to him, with a short beard, long blond hair, and quiet, brown eyes. And from the look in his eyes, she could read him clear as day; he didn't have a mean or aggressive bone in his body.

Not exactly her cup of tea, but the girls seemed to be having fun spoiling him, what with Aeryn sticking her ass out for him, and the other two girls around their legs. Maybe she should have died and stayed dead, if this was what awaited her?

"You're still alive," they said as they looked her up and down. "What's going on?"

"Um, er... well, that's the guy that killed you." She gestured to Darian. He stood upright, shocked no doubt, but she waved him off. "I was saved by a sorceress, and long story short, she turned out to be a bitch. Bellerophontes and I worked together to kill her, and now we're here to save his lover. She shouldn't be dead."

"Oh! So romantic!" Nallia leaned out the window, huge breasts jiggling — focus, Otrera — and waved at him. "You were such a beast in battle, little man! And... what's with the mask?"

"It's, um..."

"Longer story again, don't worry about it." Otrera shoved Nallia back through the window by the forehead. "So... Asphodel Meadows."

"Yeah. Sorry Otrera, but none of us got to Elysium. And judging from the people we see, so few do. Dying in battle isn't enough, you have to... well we don't know."

Darian sighed and looked to the sky. "You have to... change the world... to get in there."

They all raised a brow at him. Something on his mind, she'd ask him later.

"But," Otrera said, "you girls seem to be having fun."

"Oh, it's such a nice place Otrera. No hunger, no thirst, no disease, wounds are healed, everyone is healthy, horny, and friendly. Something about this place, it... it brings people together, in whatever way lets you be happy. Some people have even stayed for decades, content to enjoy the different faces."

"Stayed?"

Aeryn nodded and continued. "When we want to leave, and be reborn, we can. Any time we want. When we feel refreshed, revitalized, and ready to go back to the living, try life again, we can. Until then, we get to relax here, and just... be happy."

Maybe she really should have died. But then, she'd never have met the big dumbass she left in Aethiopia.

"Do you remember anything from your previous lives?" Otrera said.

"No, not really. Some hazy images, but that's it. But I can feel my previous lives in... well, my soul I guess."

"You want to... come join us?" Jonnah said. "Been a while." With a wink, she stepped back toward the man they'd captured, and leaned in to put a kiss on his cheek as she pressed her breasts against his arm.

Vasilis started to visibly tremble, and Otrera winked at him. She'd break the poor guy.

"Nah. Really want to, but can't. I have to keep going. And besides, you girls could use the break." And I have a lover.

"If anyone deserves a break, it's you, my queen." Aeryn squeezed her hand again, and patted her knuckles.

"Maybe someday. Not today. Have you seen the other girls?"

"A few have gone back to the world. Many are around, enjoying themselves as we are. The Asphodel Meadows will bring us together sometimes, and sometimes it keeps us apart. Whatever will best let us relax, and be content."

Thank you Asphodel Meadows, for not bringing back her entire tribe for her to face. She'd break down into a sobbing mess if she had to look each sister in the eye again.

"I must go," she said. Aeryn squeezed her hands again, and Otrera found herself not moving. Frozen again.

But Darian walked up to her, put a hand on her shoulder, and gave her a little tug. It was enough for Aeryn to let go, sigh, and give Otrera a salute, fist to her chest.

"You don't want our help?"

Otrera shook her head. "You can't help, not where we're going."

"Then... we wish you luck in your journey," they said.

She nodded, returned the salute, and started walking. No long goodbyes, no crying, hugging, and no fond farewells. Just get moving, and don't look back.

Darian started walking beside her, and the two resumed moving down the grass-and-flower street. But she could feel the tears on her cheeks already. Her eyes were exhausted, she was exhausted, and every step weighed her feet down like mud and sludge. At first it'd been because she was recovering from the battle on the bridge, but now...

The masked man took her hand again, and squeezed it.

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~~Darian~~

That must have been horrible. Nice, but horrible, to see your old comrades, to get to say goodbye to some of them again, see how they were doing. But digging up memories like that was tearing the Amazon up inside, and he reached out to take her hand, squeeze it, and smile at her.

Course with the mask on, his smile — best smile in the world — was useless. And it wasn't even a good smile anymore. Better she couldn't see it.

But she returned the smile anyway. She squeezed his hand as well, and wiped away her tears as the two of them walked up one of the hills.

"Do you wish you could have seen anyone?" she said.

"... no." Thank you Asphodel Meadows, for not destroying him with the faces of the past.

At the crest of the hill, the two stopped and looked down to the valley. The white flowers started to die out toward the base of it, and the grass turned to black and ash deeper into what became a canyon of rock. Huge, deep and far, the canyon cut into the perfect landscape, well and far away from the perfect village, but close enough that any of the dead could have strolled up the hill to witness the entrance to Tartarus.

It wasn't a natural canyon. Someone had cut it into the landscape. And someone had put a doorway at the end of it. He could see it, feel it through the mask's eyes, feel the cut in the world the entrance made. Didn't know what it looked like, didn't know what was in store for him, only knew the entrance was somewhere ahead, in the valley below. And something was in the valley.

"Be careful," he said. "Stay close, in case anything attacks us."

"Attacks us? It's the afterlife. People here are already dead, so how does that work?"

He shrugged, and started walking down the grassy hill. "If I had to take a guess? You die, heal, so you can die again."

Otrera shuddered and readied her bow. "But you—"

"We'll be fine. I... Moros... we'll be fine."

The two Fate's Children stepped onto the rock of the canyon opening, and started the descent. Where there had been grass, there was rock and dirt. Where there had been flowers, there was ash. Up the walls of the canyon and around them, the rock was stained dirty, a touch red, a touch black, as if someone had rained blood upon the canyon, and then scorched it with fire.

That probably was what happened.

The canyon accepted them with dead silence. Nothing to greet them, nothing to roar or screech, just the stones and silence. A pleasant change from the underworld's fondness of death cries and banshee wails. But, as they went deeper, and the ground around them grew darker with the shadows the walls cast, silence faded away, and was replaced with moans.

Not the moans they'd just left behind; those had been a pleasant sound of sex and joy. These were the moans of pain and agony. And the noises only grew louder the deeper they went into the scar of the afterlife. Chains rattled. More groans. And as they went deeper, what light was lost by the high canyon walls was regained in part by the glowing of red.

Red fire in braziers dangled from hooks jutting from the canyon walls. And beneath the fires, were people. They were the source of the rattling chains, as their wrists dangled from them. Many were on their knees, groaning, staring down at the rock beneath them. Their tunics were mangled, dirty, and soaked in blood and gore. Their skin bore cuts, infected, with pus oozing from swollen flesh and boils.

Every so often, one of them cried out as a drip of red fell from the fires above, and splashed against their skin. The sound of sizzling sweat and flesh was the precursor of a ear-splitting scream, and as the two walked deeper, it only got worse. Just like in the Asphodel Meadows, the people here were slightly see-through, and they faded in and out sometimes to be replaced with different people.

They weren't even in Tartarus yet.

Darian stopped, and looked down at one of the people dangling. Would he find Patrius this way? Probably not, the bastard had only done what a goddess had asked of him.

Otrera did the same, and occasionally stopped to look at one of the tortured. Some of them were dangling from chains so high, their feet couldn't touch the ground. Some were chained by their ankles, and they were smashing a rock against the binding black metal. Their desperate attempts to escape cut into their ankle, bones, and spilled their blood over the stone. But that didn't stop them. And the deeper they went into the canyon, the more desperate the tortured became to free themselves. Some had cut their ankles down to the bone, and they cried as they continued to crack rocks against the metal. Some were using their teeth to try and gnaw themselves free, but as far as Darian could see, their flesh healed faster than they could chew through it.

Ahead, the canyon opened up, but the walls closed over them. A cave swallowed the two of them, and they walked into its mouth. Literal mouth, as a row of sharp teeth both above and below greeted them, and they were forced to step between the large protrusions to continue on.

"Walking into the mouth of Tartarus, I'm guessing," the Amazon said.

"I—"

He blinked, and stared ahead of them. Where the cave went on and on, filled with the screaming dead and the hanging fires that scorched their flesh, there was a gold light. Deep in the cave, gold mixed with red, casting pulsing waves over the walls and the bleeding bodies. The light was getting closer.

Darian snarled, put out a hand to block Otrera, and stepped forward. A gold mask cut through the shivering black and red, and overwhelmed the fires as it came toward them. A wreath like an olive branch circled her head, and a small snake dangled from around her neck. An owl sat upon her shoulders, and it stared ahead to the two Fate's Children with reflective eyes, catching the fire and gold.

The virgin goddess, Athena. War and wisdom.

Darian stepped toward her, and she stopped. Her golden mask was similar to his, but where his was black with swirling, chaotic lines of silver, hers was golden with the same silver markings. She was a beautiful creature, Athena, tall, curvy, with a layered chiton of shining white hanging from her shoulders. Long brown hair, and alabaster skin.

She raised a hand to her mask, and slid her fingers from top to bottom. The mask vanished, exposing her beautiful face beneath, her youthful appearance, her tender, blue eyes, her shocked expression.

He was going to tear her apart.

"Athena," he said, and he stepped toward the woman. The cave was large, plenty of room for them to fight if it came to that. But he knew fighting wouldn't be an option for her, goddess of war or not.

"... Moros? How... I... You should not be here! You found a vessel? But... how?"

"You were tracking Medusa, weren't you? Following her movements." He came closer, and Athena took a step back. The goddess waved her hands in the air, and summoned armor, a spear, a shield, all that looked like his own but for the gold color instead of black.

He stuck out a hand, and ripped them from her. Still a hundred feet away, but it didn't matter to Moros. With his palm facing the woman, he squeezed, and her weapons, her armor, they exploded away from her and knocked her down onto her ass.

"Moros! Wait, please!" She started to back away, butt still on the cave floor. He stuck out his hand once more, and as he walked after her, he willed the owl upon her shoulder to die. It did, and the creature squawked once before it melted into a splash of blood and feathers down the woman's chest. He willed the snake upon her neck to die, and the creature hissed as it turned inside out, before being torn to pieces of flesh and scale over the goddess's chiton. He willed her wreath to perish, and it fell apart as ash over her trembling face.

"Where is she?" he said. Growled. More of Moros's voice was coming through in his own; and that was ok. He wanted it. He wanted to feel the death and doom he could bestow, wanted to let a little bit of that vile creature out, indulge in some wanton ruin.

"W-who? Moros, I don't—" The goddess blinked at Otrera, and then back to Darian as he came closer. "... Bellerophontes?"

He stuck out his hand again, and Athena cried out as an invisible force cut through her chest. She spilled blood, but it was not red. Whatever the liquid was that flowed from her skin, it was white, with the tiniest tint of silver.

"You've been watching us, what we were doing. What set you off? What pushed you over the edge, and decided to have Medusa killed? Patrius could have done it at any moment, but you waited. Why?"

Athena kept backing up, until he drew his arm back with a yank, and the goddess was yanked forward along with it. She fell onto her face and skidded along the cave floor, past the bleeding, screaming dead, past the fires, until she was at his feet. Being thrown to the floor wouldn't hurt her or damage her; even her clothes were unsoiled for the journey. But when he swiped his hand to the side, and pinned her against the cave wall with still ten feet of empty air between them, he pointed his other hand at her, and scraped his nails down through nothing.

Her dress tore at the leg, and exposed where nothingness cut into her, shredded her godly flesh, and left her spewing more silver blood over the rock, and onto the nearby deceased. The ghosts didn't seem to care or notice, preoccupied only with their misery.

"I said why!" Again he clawed at the air between them, and again Athena shrieked as a part of her arm was split open, as if claws were dragging along her skin. He came closer, until only a few feet separated them, and he looked at the silver blood that leaked from her skin. It looked delicious.