"Birds don't chirp when they're made of stone."
That was the the quote that some nice, caring soul had thought to graffiti her front wall with. Years ago, when that wall had been untouched by paint and freshly chiseled from the finest marble this side of Olympus, the young man who had helped erect the wall had given her one of her last experiences with flirting before a jealous misunderstanding cost her everything. Even now, she often thought of him, that young, cocky man, so sure that he was invincible, so sure that he had a shot where even Poseidon had failed.
That same man had come back, and now found himself made of the same kind of stone.
That couldn't be why the woman, standing in her just her dress, was bitter though. After all, that man had been in her garden for some... four hundred years, now, was it? Or had it been four hundred years ago when she'd last thought of time eight hundred years ago? Nevertheless, his statue had long since begun to chip, here and there. Even though she protected her all of her victims from erosion, the statute had bits missing from cheeks and ears, the tip of its nose, and anywhere the birds started to peck before she could do what she would always do; Turn them to stone. A clever suitor long ago had caressed this statue's cheek and pecked at her heart like it were the statue that might bare food, but she had joined the men almost as quickly. No amount of clever could cure her curse.
Medusa had not always been a Gorgon, nor had she always been a curse. Still stuck in her rumination, Medusa recalled a time when, at the age of 13, she had seen a man casually pick up a woman's bag and start to stroll away. Then merely a child far from her fate, she'd dashed straight up to him, screaming that stealing wasn't the least bit right! The matching rings on the man and woman's fingers hadn't done a thing to dissuade her from trying to stop people from doing wrong. Practically a hero in waiting, she'd been.
Still, another memory arose; An older sister, drunk on her own self-worth after an apparently handsome, rich, young man had helped the elder sister back into her shoe while the younger Medusa still lay sprawled in the dirt, proclaiming that, "The world smells no better when viewed through rose-tinted glasses, sweetie."
Or, as Medusa had needed that translated, "Get real, idiot. The world's shit and you need to realize when a good opportunity lands at your feet. Or, more likely for you, you at it's."
Was that sister among the statues? She had not been given the curse of Gorgon, and perhaps she had wandered into Medusa's lair hundreds of years ago in search of her younger sibling. Back then, far more than now, Medusa had ignored the faces of the statues that she had collected trying to tell herself that they didn't matter beyond being targets for the pigeon's to aim for. Wasn't this a better purpose for them than being dead and buried?
Now, Medusa stroked the same spot a suitor once had, and remembered a newer memory; A few days earlier, a woman had wandered in.
Medusa, snakes nipping at her ears to annoy her more than to get her attention, had been tending to some of her squash plants. They were fat, and lumpy, and with nothing less than a massive sneer, Medusa conjured an unflattering mental image of the Goddess who had put her in this position. A snake on her head who had long ago stopped tormenting her bit her ear then, not to annoy her but to alert her that she was likely to gain a new art piece in nothing flat. It wasn't a big shop, and all the signs that practically screamed BEWARE THE MONSTER were hard to miss; Some still did, though.
As the young ancient picked her way out from the rows of plants, hoping to to frighten the visitor away before they found themself interned, a voice had caught her off guard.
"Excuse me? I'd, uh, heard your name was Meadow, and I just wanted to say that I think your hair is lovely! And I was wondering if you would, maybe, like to come out and get a cup of coff-" That was as far as she had gotten, but Medusa, more human than snake, had no problem deciphering the meaning. Her newest statue had died trying to ask her out on a date. Mentally wishing an eternity in Hades on a certain goddess, Medusa had puckered her lips in a grimace and set about placing her new ornament trying not to think about whatever the woman's name had been. No matter how interested the woman had been, she'd also been shy and nervous in the moments before she got stoned - What a terrible way to feel forever.
The Gorgon blinked, tearing her hand away from the new statue's flirty, uncertain gaze. "Foolish, that's all I am." Medusa muttered, forcing her focus onto what needed doing that day, whatever day it was; Everything. The squash were fine, the pumpkins were blooming meaning it must have been near what humans called Halloween. The daisy and rose, and the dandelions would stay where they were; And had been for the past however many years. The prettiest flowers never needed to be tended to, yet another reminder of what she herself no longer was.
She tended them well into the night, for what that was worth. Which was exactly squat when she couldn't sell her harvest, no more than she could eat it without throwing it up a few hours later. Still, when the moon shone, Medusa didn't slow; She could see then and she would never sleep again.
A few days after accidentally stroking the cheek of woman, a suitor, turned stone, the goddess of wisdom attempted to mock her further, yet.
This time, Medusa was sitting at the service counter that pretended to make her garden a store. It was covered by a thick layer of dust, and she wasn't doing much more than playing at being a store clerk and reading a book that a vengeful goddess had dickishly dropped in; How to Attract More Women Than Men, A Guide to Lesbian Attraction. Where the goddess had come upon that information… It wasn't too much to keep her from noticing when the young woman walked in.
Her hair was a stark, almost gingery, orange-red. She didn't wear much more than a bright red dress almost as simple as Medusa's pale white one, but she had sandals on which the Gorgon herself simply hadn't bothered with in a long while. Despite the woman's having just walked in through the door, the snakes around Medusa's head already carefully sought out the woman's eyes. Medusa could feel their disappointment at finding that the windows to this soul were staring directly at the floor and to Medusa's eye, she seemed far too focused for someone out on a casual stroll.
"May I help you, half-blood?" Medusa growled, her voice low and quaking. This woman, hell she looked to match Medusa's eternal 25 years of age, didn't deserve whatever the fates were conspiring to today; If she could, it would be worth the effort to scare her away before she slipped her gaze too high. Her strategy worked to a degree, granting the Gorgon a started yelp, though those eyes remained thankfully fixated on the floor.
"I… Didn't realize you would be right, y'know, right here." Medusa fought the automatic urge to roll her eyes, trying instead to read the woman's body language. Based on the clenching of every visible muscle, she was rightly terrified; Still, she remained in place, her hair covering her cheeks.
"I am bound by Athena to turn people to stone when they see me, where else would I be hiding?" The Gorgon muttered to herself, losing the fight against rolling her eyes. Carefully lowering her voice again, she almost snarled, "Why are you here?"
"I…" The young woman flinched at Medusa's voice, her hands clenching into even tighter fists, and Medusa wondered idly if her nails were long or sharp enough to leave marks in her palms. "I... Wanted to, uhm, talk."
Medusa felt her neck almost crack as her head whipped back in astonishment -when had the last half blood come here to doing anything but kill her?- and then her shoulders rolled forward in vicious suspicion -had she ever met a half blood who didn't want her head?- and, forcing her voice to return to a neutral, un-felt calm, murmured just loudly enough for the woman to hear, "... Talk?"
"Yes. I am not a member of any camp, I am not here seeking revenge of any kind, I am not any kind of fighter, and there is no one else here but me." The woman's voice was shaking, but the words flowed from her lips like a well studied speech.
"Do I look as stupid as you think I am?" Medusa's single chuckle was utterly devoid of humor.
"I don't know, actually." Now, the woman, the moron, sounded amused.
Even as annoyance, worry, and the earliest of guilt started to well in the pit of her stomach, Medusa almost laughed as she realized that this was the part where she was supposed to crone on and on about, 'Well, if you'd look up you could figure it out.' But she had grown tired of being an active villain. Instead, letting a hint of her amusement slip into her voice, the Gorgon cooed, "Does the floor make a suitable, visual replacement?"
"As opposed to getting turned to stone? I suppose it's not so bad." The redhead quipped, and Medusa frowned as she swore she could actually hear a vengeful goddess, somewhere nearby, yelling, 'ZING, BITCH!' Instead of wisdom incarnate appearing, however, the young half blood, continued, "But, I wouldn't really know."
"And, do tell, why's that?" Medusa droned, her frown deepening into a scowl. 'How much longer would the Gorgon pay along?' that's what the Redhead had to be thinking.
"Because… I have a theory." The redhead squared her shoulders, as though Medusa was going to listen to her theory, pick out the weakest points, and tear the whole thing to shreds as an unmerited waste of time.
Instead, Medusa fought down a groan as she realized, with almost dreadful certainty, who this woman's mother was. The last time a Daughter of Athena had died here, a small rain cloud had floated over Medusa's head for a decade; It agitated her snakes, who in turn tortured her more, it made it harder to maintain her garden, harder to read, harder to do everything that she managed to enjoy while locked in an already eternal torture.
"Well, then, are you going to ask Zeus to rain acid upon me? Do you theorize that would cure me of my stony curse?" Medusa sighed, loudly. As though she hadn't already begged for forgiveness, or a swift end, from that god before.
"You…" Was she about to tell Medusa that she deserved that curse? Daughter of Athena could be so melodramatic; Almost like they got it from somewhere. "The theory pertains to me, and my Sight."
Medusa felt her eyebrows draw together at the capital S affixed to the human word, and she slowly relaxed her shoulders as curiosity was piqued. "Your… Sight?"
Without warning, stupidly, the redhead's gaze snapped upwards, and the most interesting conversation that Medusa had had in centuries was over in a split second. Every snake on her head tried to lunge off of her head, she felt herself wince at the force the starving serpents exerted on her scalp. She marveled at how that pain barely cut a sliver of her attention away from the pool of guilt rapidly flooding her body, even as she braced for the mental white out -the usual flash- that kept Medusa from falling prey to the magic that petrified her victims.
Moments passed. Medusa felt the snakes curl slowly back around her face, not a one nipping at her own features as they usually did to, 'thank,' her for the soul they'd just shredded. As the minutes stretched out longer and longer, it occurred to the Gorgon that her eyes were still shut tight, but she really didn't want to open them before the process had occurred; Even though a human statue was horrifying, a human turning slowly into a statue as only their eyes reacted was far, far worse.
"Are you okay?" The woman's voice sounded almost as confused as Medusa felt, but her speaking finally prompted the Gorgon to slowly crack her eyes open to find… That the redhead just stood there, looking right at the Gorgon that nobody saw and lived to tell the tale, and then proceeded to just stand there some more while Medusa stared back at her.
"What the everloving Hades is wrong with you?" Medusa hissed after a few moments, although her own eyes had already answered that question for her. The dress the half-blood was wearing wasn't stone, nor was the skin that peaked out from her cleavage and upwards. Her hair remained a crimson glow of lovely locks, and then Medusa saw those eyes; A pale, almost glass like sheet covered them, but didn't disguise even a sliver of their beauty..
"I, Chaselin Annes, Daughter of Athena, am much more blind than a bat. And, I want to talk because I believe that you're lonely." The woman spoke, confidence now radiating off of her given her apparently correct theory.
On the other hand, the Gorgon's voice now trembled with uncertainty, as she cursed under her breath. "Fuck."