Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 16

Gallea hopped up. "We'll put together something epic. In the mean time, I think everyone could use the sleep."

"Yes." Pinna hopped up to join her husband. She had one of the softer cloths, a long and purple colored thing, wrapped around her head and neck, and she chuckled as she slid the fabric back and forth across her skin and fur. Many of their gifts had been fabrics, and Pinna indulged. "Not a soul in the city has slept for almost two whole days. Tonight, we should rest."

Medusa nodded, slithered into the corner between buildings where Chimera lay upon the earth, and coiled up beside him. "Let's."

Sophia nodded, as did Hieremias and Tritus, before turning around and guiding the remaining people away. A few of the crowd were still nearby, and they all smiled and chatted amongst themselves as they walked away, but not without the occasional glance over their shoulders back at their group.

A giant, a gorgon, two Fate's Children, two satyrs, and a winged horse. Her friends. Well, maybe not Pegasus, she barely knew him. And every time she glanced the horse's way, Pegasus returned it, and their eyes met for a bit longer than she was used to. She did not know why, but there was something there, something she did not understand. If only Pegasus could speak, what secrets could he share?

Darian pat the shoulder of the beautiful horse, before stepping over to join her. He looked exhausted. They all looked exhausted. But, Darian slipped off his armor, set it beside Chimera along with Otrera's armor, and lay beside her coils.

"What about Athena?" Otrera said.

"She still thinks I'm wearing the mask. No one is coming after us tonight. We can rest."

Rest. Medusa set her human half atop her highest coil, got comfy with her arms hooked under her head, and looked down at Darian. He looked up at her, his shoulder against her scales, one arm hooked behind his head, the other on the grass. None of them bothered to get their sleeping rolls set up, to use any of the blankets they'd been given, to start a fire, nothing. Exhausted did not begin to describe how tired she was, how any of them were.

So, she smiled down at her love, and watched him close his eyes. There was still a trace of sadness in his smile, of weight to his shoulders, but she'd fix that.

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~~Otrera~~

"Otrera."

The Amazon opened her eyes. Still night time, with roaming waves of quiet moonlight cutting through the roaming clouds above. Chimera was still next to her, sleeping, his slow, deep breath her lullaby. She could hear the sleeping breath of Medusa, and Pinna and Gallea, even Pegasus. But as she strained her ear, she could not hear Darian's.

"Otrera."

The small man got up, mask in hand, and he looked down at it, then her. He shook his head.

He hadn't said her name.

She blinked at him. Hard to see much in the middle of the night, but there was at least enough light to get up and walk over to him. Both in their bare feet, they stayed quiet and started to walk down the road and into the cover of the trees.

Just two Fate's Children going for a stroll in the middle of the night, with the mask of doom in their hands. Nothing to worry about, nothing to fret over. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at no one but herself. There was no mistaking the ice in the air, the chill on the spine, goosebumps on the skin. The breeze vanished, and the nearby crickets and birds silenced. Just being around the mask was making her insides unsettle, and her toes feel like they were touching frost.

Moros wanted to chat.

Five minutes of walking later, the two were far away enough from the city and their friends to be able to speak without waking anyone.

"I take it you can hear that," she said.

Darian nodded. "Yeah."

"So... long time no talk, Moros." She looked down at the mask in Darian's hands, and grinned at the hunk of odd metal. Easier to grin than to let the memories of what Moros did in the underworld get to her. "Just a scary whisper in the garden of the Hesperides, last we talked, long before I knew who you were. Long before I knew what you wanted to do. If I had know then how dangerous Andromeda's actions were, what she had stolen, what you were doing, I'd have killed her and thrown you into the ocean."

"You... I promised—"

"You promised me when my world came crashing down, a Fate's Child could wear the mask. Not my fault you got the wrong Fate's Child."

Darian smirked as well, and tossed the mask at the ground. It landed on its hooks and edges, face up, but it didn't bounce. Like dropping a heavy stone into mud.

"I saw the streams," Darian said, and he started to pace around the mask. "Remember? In your realm, I saw the rivers. No one could read all that, control all of that. Not even a Moirai. You act omniscient, but you're not. Just a parasite."

"Doubt... me?" The thing's icy, buried voice made the mask's mouth glow with each word, while its eyes glowed softly. Terrifying when Darian had worn it, but now that she looked at it, kind of pathetic as it sat on the dirt. Just a mask.

"Well, let's see." Otrera raised a hand and started counting down fingers. "Guessed wrong who would be hurt by the ordeal with Andromeda. Guessed wrong who'd wear the mask. And what do you know, you lost a battle of wills against a human."

She smirked at Darian. He returned it. This was kind of fun, taunting an ancient entity that had clearly oversold himself.

Not entirely oversold, Otrera. All the Moirai, all the gods, at his mercy? The Cerberus gates destroyed? He was the end of all things, if he'd had his way. If he had a host.

"Now that I think about it, we sort of indirectly saved the world, didn't we?" She squatted down beside the mask, and poked it a couple times with her finger, even as the cold, dead air surrounded them. It could try and scare them all it wanted, but sitting on the ground as a husk, it was harmless. "From what Charon said, you'd have destroyed everything."

Silence. The mask's eyes glowed, and bits of white mist slid down its cheeks. Almost like it were crying.

"... I can't say I blame him," Darian said.

"Say what?"

The other warrior squatted down beside her, and gestured to the mask. "You saw the underworld, Otrera. You saw the gods, the other Moirai. Leeches, manipulators, just trying to get their next feed. You couldn't see it, but I could see pulsing waves coming from the soul vortex, and I could see the gods sucking on it." He shook his head again, frown growing. "Imagine if they were your kin?"

"... you... me... understand each other... Bellerophontes."

She wasn't so easily convinced. "Give me a break. He's no better than them. You said it yourself, he delights in getting his hands dirty. Dirty being bathing in the blood of the human race."

"If your family was filthy rich and you couldn't stomach it, wouldn't you try and destroy their wealth?"

"I..." She didn't know. Her tribe and her had never been in such a situation, not even comparable. "Salt the earth and force your family to move on? Sounds petty to me."

"It is," someone else said.

She looked at Darian and raised a brow. He looked at her and did the same. The two of them looked at the mask, expecting it to do the same. Course it couldn't, but the two Fate's Children looked at it and each other anyway. A woman's voice, and it wasn't Otrera's.

The two Fate's Children stood up, and looked off the side of the road to a glowing patch of white upon the still grass. And both of them froze.

A twinkling of silver in a gentle waterfall of white mist fell upon the glowing earth. The light, small at first, spread out until it was a few feet wide, and it moved toward them to stop beside the mask. Like watching someone materialize out of fireflies, the twinkling lights grew bright, and merged together while blending in the darkness about them. As if the little lights were breathing the night.

A hand. A foot. Hips. A figure emerged from the silhouette of small stars, and both humans stared at the magic before them. Otrera could tell her heart was beating like crazy, and her body had gone colder still, but she dared not move. She could only stare as the beautiful woman stepped out of the small night sky that had come down to stand before them.

"The Moirai may not be as simple or as obsessive as the gods, Fate's Children, but they are just as juvenile, aren't they?"

Her voice, smooth and sultry, fell from pink lips and pale skin. She was of average height, but there was nothing else average about her. Her eyes were solid black, and they twinkled with starlight. Her hair, as long as her body and longer still, touched the grass behind her. It was solid black, and dots of white light disappeared and reappeared up and down its length, tiny lights, hundreds of them.

And of course she was naked, except for a single sash of see-through black that flowed in a non-existent breeze around her, covering nothing but a sliver of her hip and shoulder. Her frame was small, perhaps a touch skinny, maybe even a little weak, but her breasts were large, heavy, with light, pink nipples against her pale, smooth, hairless skin. She looked so beautiful, and frail, like an expensive amphora jar made to sit on a shelf, rather than hold any wine.

Like something to be admired from a distance.

"... you are... Nyx," Otrera said.

"Perceptive, Otrera, queen of a dead Amazon tribe." The soft creature walked up to her, and smiled. "If you had donned the mask, I am afraid Moros would have won your vessel. You are too human."

Otrera practically heard Darian's wince.

"Ah, do not feel ashamed, Darian." The night herself walked over, stood in front of Darian, and slowly reached out to put a hand on his shoulder and neck. "Moros called you damaged, but he spoke only to harm you."

She called him Darian? Otrera looked over her shoulder at her companion, but Darian was too busy staring at the gorgeous entity in front of him to look back. No lust in his eyes though; he was petrified.

"I'm... not... damaged?" he said.

"Of course not, sweet child. The Fates pick children who are different from most humans, who have lost something, but gained something else in return." She raised a slender hand, and poked him in the forehead. He didn't budge. "Where you do not feel as most would, you feel greater where others would not. Such is the way of your heroes, of those who often destroy themselves in their pursuits."

Petrified or not, he winced again.

"Destroy..."

Nyx — actual fucking Nyx — shook her head once more, and stroked his cheek before taking a step back. "You would be wise to nurture what you have obtained, Darian. Bellerophontes would have perished in the brutality of his own actions, while Darian would not. Not with Medusa to temper his rage and drive." She giggled, a lovely sound that made Otrera smile. "I do look forward to seeing how the centuries go by with you two to see them. The Fate's Child reborn, and the Fate's Child forged by the mask of Moros."

Darian and Otrera. The Amazon gulped, and looked between the starlit woman and the mask she stood beside. Moros was being eerily quiet while Nyx dumped colossal truths at their feet.

"Centuries?" she said.

"Indeed. Fate's Children rarely live past forty of your years, but only because their actions are met with death. Should they calm their desires, they would live as long as a giant would." She nodded again, and hovered her palm over Moros. The mask lifted, hovered into the air, and drifted into her palm. "As long as any god-touched would. The four of you—I'm sorry, five, with your dear Pegasus, could live to see the rise and fall of nations."

They were all immortal? Or at least, will grow as old as giants? She blinked, tried to swallow, but nothing happened. Chimera was over a thousand years old. A thousand! She couldn't even wrap her mind around a century.

"Release... me..." Moros's icy, distant whispers cut through the silence, but they earned only giggles from Nyx.

"My son, will you never learn?"

Son? Otrera stared at Nyx, and when the woman caught her glance, she winked, and raised her other hand to her own face. The mask of a Moirai appeared, but only for a flittering second, before it vanished.

"You... content to watch... passive... disgusting."

"Hush. You would destroy this world, after seeing the differences this time? The changes that have grown this time? Let the gods enjoy their meal, let the humans enjoy their growing civilizations, and learn your role, Moros. Only when your time has come are you to act, not before. You are to spin your threads as small, little things, gentle tugs like your sisters, not monsoons."

"... weak... worthless..."

"Enough." With a flick of her wrist, the mask disappeared in a tiny puff of white mist. "Locked within his mask and he still causes havoc. I will have to teach him his place personally this time. He will not bother you again... until it is time for his return."

Otrera managed a gulp this time. "Um... thank you?"

"No, sweet children, I thank you. I have watched this civilization grow, and for all the bloodshed, trust me, you are doing much better this time." She walked up to the two of them again, took a hand each into hers, and patted their knuckles. "And I should apologize for not interfering earlier. Moros is trapped in his mask, and I thought it safe. I did not realize he had found a way to touch dreams. Quite the tricky devil, isn't he?" The two Fate's Children could only blink at Nyx as she giggled again, and pat their hands again too. "But, my eyes are here now. And should the day come that any of you enter the soul streams, you have my promise you will enter the fields of Elysium."

"Elysium?" Darian said. "I... I saw it, above, but I... I couldn't..."

"Could not understand what you saw? Of course not, human. Rest assured, once you are within its embrace, you will understand, and you will be content. But, until then, your lives will be long, and I will ensure the gods and Moirai leave you be."

"T-thank you," they both said.

"You are welcome. Enjoy your gifts, Fate's Children, for that is what you are, gifted. I look forward to watching from above, and witnessing the ripples to come."

"W-wait!" Otrera said.

"Hmmm?"

"I... uh... what about Medusa? And... and Chimera." A giant, enemy of the gods.

But Nyx grinned at her. "I said any of you. The squabbles of the gods and giants are not my concern. Elysium is. You two and your lovers have earned your place."

Otrera found herself smiling; Darian not so much.

"You show up out of nowhere, and just... fix our problems?" he said. "Just like that? The Fates sent me on a suicide mission! Why didn't they, or you, just find Moros like I did, and get him back yourselves?"

"Then the story would have been but a minor note in history, instead of a grand tale," Nyx said with a smile. But it was a smile that made Otrera take a small step back.

"A story? So you agree with the Fates? You're content to manipulate us for a story? You risked Moros killing this world for a story? I—"

Nyx held up her hand, and give Darian a slow, squinting smile. For a second, Otrera thought the man would explode, like he'd done to the Erinyes.

"Your story is but one of many, Darian. And you may think a story inconsequential, but entire worlds are built upon them. Your civilization exists because people sat around a fire and told stories. Your music, your art, your walls, the very ability of your young, brutish race to talk with each other, is because of stories. So yes, little human, I let the Fates play their games, for hate them as you wish, they encourage powerful events, and cultivate the stories like gardeners. It is by their fruit that Greece exists." The night stopped, and touched her chin with a pondering glance upward. "Things got out of hand this time, as Moros managed to manipulate the dreams of a human, and trick her. A trick I did not teach him. But I am here now, and I will make sure Moros knows his place until I again release him to the world, if... when, the time comes that this world should die, and my brothers and sisters begin anew."

The longer she talked, the harder her voice grew, until Otrera felt the cold stars cutting through her. But done her speech, Nyx took a breath, smiled, and pat Darian on the cheek. He frowned and looked down, but the pale woman would not be so easily dismissed, and she pinched the man's cheek like a little boy's.

"But you are not wrong that they are in need of discipline. I will punish Moros surely, but Athena, I have the feeling Hera is teaching her a lesson as we speak." Another breath, another motherly smile, Nyx spun around once and ran her fingers along her sash. "So, sleep easy my children. You have earned a place of rest, both here in flesh, and among Elysium in spirit."

The night offered them each a nod, blew each a small kiss, and in a wisp of white mist and twinkling, tiny lights, vanished.

Otrera started breathing again, as if she'd been holding her breath the whole time, and looked at Darian. He mirrored her, and the two just stared at each other for a while, in the dead silence of the night, with only a few chirping birds and insects to fill it.

But, after a couple minutes of absorbing what just happened, Otrera managed a shrug. "Just when I think these gods, deities, Moirai, can't get any more ridiculous, or verbose... that happens."

"And... and she didn't have a host. Moirai need a host, so... what was she?"

The two Fate's Children looked at each other, and shrugged.

"She took the mask," Otrera said, "and... promised us a lot of stuff."

"We don't age."

"We don't have to worry about the gods or Fates coming after us for what you did to the underworld."

Darian looked down for a moment, but when he raised his head, he was smiling. "We don't have to worry about leaving Medusa and Chimera behind, life or death."

That got her smiling too. "Yeah."

"... you love him, don't you?"

"Fuck I don't know. How the fuck would I know that? Haven't exactly known him for long."

Darian leaned against a tree, folded his arms across his chest, and shrugged. "I didn't know Medusa that long either. But after a few weeks, it... it was obvious, you know? Obvious that I wanted to be with her, and just when I thought I'd scared her off or frightened her, she... yeah. Not sure what to tell you. It happened quickly with us."

Yeah, quick. How long had she known Chimera before the two of them had slept together? Started as sex, but before she knew it, she liked being near him when she slept. She liked the sound of his rumbling purrs. She liked the feel of his stone body, the heat and beastliness of his size, strength, smell. She liked the scars on his skin, similar to her own.

She was a grown woman with a long history, not some silly child. She knew what she liked. She liked that he was a thinker, over-thinking things to a hilarious and poetic degree. She liked that he was self-aware, wise, and sometimes, aggressive. She liked that he delighted in violence in an animalistic way.

He'd have been a good god of war.

"... let's get back to them. I... don't want to leave his side."

Darian nodded, and fell in step with her as they walked. "I know the feeling."

Smiles all around. Things were going sickeningly well, and she was afraid everything would collapse around them before she had a chance to enjoy it.

But when they got back, everyone was asleep, even the big giant who never slept. Still recovering, still healing, but breathing and growing a little warmer each day. The eye with the scar still looked ruined though, and it probably would be for all time. Small price to pay for getting crushed by a giant sea creature.

With a nod to Darian, she crawled along the grass to get back into the nook of Chimera's arm and chest, and snuggled into his side. Ear against his chest, the rumbles of his breathing became her lullaby again, and she let the darkness pull her under once more. No matter how exciting their life had been as of late, total exhaustion was an inescapable foe.