A/N: The true story of Echo. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Echo or the story of Echo; both are elements of Greek Mythology.

The Curse

In a cave, deep inside the crevices and hidden catacombs of Gaia, Mother Earth, stands a statue. Surrounded by mildew and green moss, which clings to the craggy rock walls and glowing blue stalagmites and stalagtites, the statue is the only object within the cave untouched by time, weathering, and erosion. Not even the mosses and fungi dare touch it.

The statue itself is a true work of art. The eternal look of pain and long-suffering etched on her lovely, thin face looks as if she has been suffering all this time, lonely and silent, with no one to see her convulsions of expressive agony. She sits hunched over, legs folded diagonally underneath her, hands resting slightly curled on her lap, delicately tapering fingers grasping a love once lost in hopelessness with palms up. Her body is covered by an uncharacteristically short, apparently thin Chiton, a mantle draped haphazardly across her shoulders. Her voluminous folds of long, smooth hair fall around her in pools of silk. She wears no shoes or jewelry.

Yes. In this secluded cave, deep inside the comforting womb of Mother Earth, where no mortal has penetrated since centuries and perhaps milleniums ago, lies the stone statue that was the mortal container of Echo, the oread doomed to forever haunt the earth with her mournful repetition.

When I used to haunt the world as an innocent, pitifully un-feared nuisance of senseless repetition so many years ago, a form which young children gawked at and older ones ignored - such arrogant beings, humans are, to have forgotten the lesson that my own curse taught - I heard stories about me. Mostly in the homes of those in my old country, Greece. My story differs so much even now - especially now, after millenniums of oral tradition - that sometimes, when I think about it, I have to give a smirk and a laugh to myself.

They say I fell in love with a man named Narcissus and either pined away for the arrogant human till I was nothing but a voice, or that I was turned to stone and my ghost haunts them today in the form of a harmless voice. They say I was punished by the cruel and unforgiving Hera for providing a distraction as her husband eloped with my sisters. They say I was a wonderful singer, dancer, temptress, and that the lecherous forest god Pan punished me for my rejections of his love, having his followers tear me to pieces and scatter me about the world.

What they, silly, arrogant mortals, do not understand is that they are all right, and that they are all wrong. My story began hundreds - perhaps thousands, for I have lost count - years ago.

As they say, each folktale has a snippet of truth.

I was born so very long ago, when Gaia was young, to Zeus, the great king of the gods, and Dino, one of the inexplicably lovely Graeae.

I and my sisters, other oreads, frolicked among the mountains and sometimes were treated to a hunt with the great Artemis and her followers, nymphs themselves. We sprinted on the clifftops, chased the high-flying mountain birds, and ran with the speedy bucks that galloped past us on their glorious hoofed journey. Under the influence of the ever-chaste nymph companions of Artemis, who were my role models, I learned to scorn men and any of their foolish lust and fake love.

I was and would never be afraid to proclaim my superiority over my sisters in the areas of voice and performance; I gladly spent pleasant days entertaining Hera - who, if you were on her good side, really wasn't all that bad - with long yarns spun of fancy and true love, while Zeus frolicked with my love-hungry sisters. I was glad to do my father a favor, as long as he left me and my chastity alone - he was not above lusting for his own kin - over the years I had become more scornful of lust and tall tales of true love and more prized of my abstinence and chastity.

I was young then and had so far escaped the wrath of Hera for distracting her as her husband frolicked off with others of my kind, young and foolish and lucky to have never met a man that could overpower me or catch me on my quick feet or - in summary - take me by force.

Then the moody forest god Pan, who was a lovely musician, came to the mountains in a good and lecherous mood to entertain the great huntress Artemis and her nymphs, as well as a select few of the favorite oreads. We oreads were favorites of Artemis already - we were, of course, mountain nymphs, and the goddess of the hunt preferred rocky areas for her sport. I, even by the standards of my jealous sisters, the very mistress of voice and performance, was voted upon to help Pan to perform a lovely duet.

It was, I suppose, after he saw my lithe form dart across the makeshift stage and heard my clear-as-a-bell voice cut across the atmosphere that Pan decided I would be his, whether I liked it or not.

After the show, Pan cornered me in a little clearing, wearing a big, lustful, false smile as he complimented my performance. I, respectful of the gods, thanked him politely and showered him also with compliments, pretending to be flattered and showing him more dance moves when really I was cleverly trying to dart away whenever he got too close for my comfort. Eventually Pan, moody as he could be, got bored of our little game, as I was afraid he might.

My scream as he pinned me to a large oak tree at the edge of the clearing was loud and clear and distinctive enough that it brought Artemis herself running. The goddess found herself staring at me, my Chiton and mantle ripped in unsavory places, pinned down behind Pan. With a thunderous word of godly fury, Artemis banished Pan from those particular mountains where I and my sisters resided. I thanked the goddess of the hunt profusely, genuinely.

After that experience, my chastity became even more prized and I, like Artemis, began to shun men in general. I thought that I had experienced terror and pain then, but it was only the beginning - I was still oh so young and innocent, although maybe not as much as before. And had I known Pan better, I would have known he would have his revenge.

My pain was only just beginning.

As my luck was, less than a short decade later, Hera, queen of the gods, goddess of marriage, and consort of the mighty Zeus, went from being my sometimes-friend and audience to my very worst enemy and hater. She had, as luck would have it, found out about her husband's elopement and of my favors to him by keeping her busy.

Who had spilt the ambrosia?

None other than the grudge-holding Pan himself.

When I arrived by invitation at Mt. Olympus, presumably to once again entertain the unforgiving Hera, I was met by a party of all the men I had ever turned down, among them Pan, as well as Hera and even, for some reason, Aphrodite.

Here before me were all the people I had wronged - plus Aphrodite, whose purpose I still did not know.

They held a council as I watched, helpless, deciding what my fate should be for the wrongs I had done to Hera and the refusal I had offered to Pan and the other men. Aphrodite, as I soon discovered, was there because she was angry with me for being one of the only beings to be able to escape the binds of love - as well as for breaking the hearts of all these men. (Back then, men were much fewer, and the ones whose hearts I had ruptured were a bigger deal than they would be in a few milleniums.) She was infuriated for my stirring up romantic trouble in the first place - love chaos was her pleasure to indulge in, not mine.

As I watched with my stomach knotting up tighter by the moment, they reached a decision: to kill several birds with one stone. A prayer had come up recently from a girl wishing to get revenge on an arrogant, selfish man named Narcissus, wishing that he would meet with unrequitted love as he had done to so many others. They decided that I should pay for the hearts I broke and the love I resisted by getting my heart broken and my love resisted. This was enough to satisfy the cruel-hearted suitors and Aphrodite, who was confident that after the experience I would not meddle with romance again. However, Hera and Pan were still not appeased. They decreed that, quote, "The voice that has captivated so many will become now only a mockery of those that come before it and the lithe dance she once joyously performed will be no more, her movements hampered and clumsy." And last of all it was Pan, in a cruel mood apparently, who asked Hera if I could die - not one - but multiple painful deaths. Hera, of course, found this perfectly fitting, and I was sent back to earth to my fate without Zeus ever knowing that his time to repay my favors to him had passed, and now nothing could save me.

From then on, wary of the curse that had been put on me, I stayed away from males at all, terrified of my fate and trying to escape it by any means possible.

However, it was inevitable by the decree of Destiny and the Fates that I would find Narcissus anyway.

Of course, I had also been exiled from both the mountains that had been my home and the favor of Artemis and my sisters, the other oreads. So, I was one day, like every other day of my near-immortal lifespan, wandering aimlessly and trying to avoid anyone of the opposite gender.

I was so lost, wallowing in self-pity, that I did not notice that I had wandered to the edge of a special clearing until I looked up - and my curse was fulfilled.

He was truly beautiful; he had waves of white-blond hair that fell perfectly around his chiseled features and fine, square jaw that was gorgeously clean-shaven. He had a perfect figure, tan skin and muscles, his rainbow-glinting eyes staring off into a dreamy space. His lips were bow-shaped and dark, his nose perfectly straight and centered, his cheekbones high and even. He was so very perfect.

As the curse decreed, I immediately fell in love with Narcissus.

But I could not say anything until he said something first, because I was cursed to repeat others and not say anything of my own voice. I rustled behind the oak tree, causing the beautiful Narcissus to look around.

"Who's there?" he called, beautiful dark brow furrowing.

"Who's there?" I repeated, my voice a bit raspy from disuse. My heart was beating faster than a hummingbird's. I could hardly breath because the rapidly pumping mass of flesh was shooting around my chest in a ricochet, zooming up my throat then back down to my stomach in an endless dance with the butterflies that danced - more gracefully than I had ever done so - in my stomach. All I knew at that moment was that he must be mine, and I his, and to Tartarus with chastity. I wanted him so badly, and if he was not mine soon I would die of suicide if nothing else.

"Narcissus," he said.

"Narcissus," I repeated, voice warming up as my heart beat still-faster, watching him. Wanting him so badly it felt as if the beating mass that was my heart was going to explode from my chest either way, unable to keep away for much longer.

"No," he said discontentedly, "I am Narcissus."

I did not dispute him by repeating him and saying that he was not Narcissus, but that I was. Instead, as I could hold myself back no longer, I darted as fast as my now-clumsy, hampered form would allow towards him and into his arms. I was about to expire as for that moment I was pressed against him, could hear his heartbeat which felt so sluggish compared to my own, could feel the warmth of his skin, the flow of his blood as it coursed through his veins...

Was this love? This, hot, passionate, overwhelming sensation?

"Wha...?" Narcissus said, looking down quite bewilderedly at me, the dark-haired nymph clinging to his chest for dear life. "No," he said. "Get off of me... Leave me alone."

Instantly my heart plummeted and stopped as he threw me off, stumbling backwards into the grass as my eyes brimmed with hot, salty tears. He, a bit confused as to my reaction, stumbled backwards until he was out of view.

I followed him, determined not to give up. Not even remembering that Hera and Pan and perhaps Aphrodite and my other suitors were watching me and laughing.

I found him, after an hour of searching, staring flirtingly into a still pond. Confused, still-hurt, and with my heart hammering once again, I crept silently as my clumsiness would allow to see what he was doing.

He was looking at his own reflection in a stream.

"I love you," he told his reflection.

Eager that I now had something to tell him, I repeated it:

"I love you."

Narcissus smiled winningly into the water, almost making me faint, not even having noticed me and probably thinking that the gorgeously mesmerizing person in the water had spoken.

"You do? I love you too."

I knew he was not talking to me, but I so much wanted to believe him. I repeated part of his phrase, which was my only freedom in speech:

"I love you too." I said.

"No, I love you." He replied.

"I love you."

"Noooo, I love YOU."

"I love YOU."

"I love you more."

"I love you more." I choked out, realizing that my endearing words meant absolutely nothing to him, and that he was simply talking to the reflection.

I stayed with my sweet, vain Narcissus. He did not leave the pond. He did not move rather than to breathe, blink, and move his lips to utter sweet nothings unto the pond. I fancied my heart broke a billion times over watching him. I tried to feed him, but it was like I was not there. He waned away until his face was saggy and white and his muscles soft and pudgy, but I still loved him.

Eventually he starved to death, unheeding of the food I pushed to his mouth and the growling of his empty stomach.

And I was left alone.

Sobbing, crying, dying, I ran as fast and far as I could until I fell, exhausted long beyond the point of death. There I collapsed and breathed my last, pining away for the lover that never was.

I wasn't supposed to wake up again, but I did.

I woke up surrounded by savage, wild-eyed satyrs, Pan at the head of them, staring down at me, my hands and feet bound by magical means of imprisonment.

"How does it feel?" he asked with a wicked grin. "Love unrequited."

"Love unrequited," I repeated with the nastiest expression I could muster, reminding the cruel satyr-god that I could not answer, and that this was his doing.

Not at all phased by my mocking, he answered, "Oh. I forgot. The pretty Echo no longer has freedom of speech. Oh well, it was a rhetorical question. Must be absolutely terrible."

"Absolutely terrible," I confirmed wryly, feeling tears spring to my eyes now that the beautiful Narcissus had been brought back to my consciousness.

"Too bad about that, love," replied Pan, bending down to pat my cheek, which I recoiled from, disgusted.

His expression no longer playful now, he told his party of followers: "Have your way with her. Then rip her into pieces. I want to find no limb within a mile of eachother on Gaia, hear me?" The satyrs nodded as my belly filled with dread.

I would never like to look back on that particular memory, for it was full of pain and violation.

I was even glad for being scattered across the earth, for it meant that event was ending and that I could finally be at rest, forget my sorrows and my life as I drank from the river Lethe.

But no, Gaia, Mother Earth, gathered my pieces, putting me back together and, as I lay weak and tired and desolate in one of her crevices, consoled me as best she could. Perhaps Dino was my true mother, but Gaia was everyone's mother, and from so much experience on the job, she was good at it.

"Echo," she said to me, knowing I could not reply. "Your heart is not broken. Love via curse can never be true, my dear; what you felt for the vain youth Narcissus was petty lust and infatuation." However, as I still ached and pined for him, this seemed untrue.

"Fine," Gaia had told me, her voice hardening to be as firm as the rock she was. "You do not wish to heal yourself, you wish to die over again. Go ahead. I tried to help you, and my words were true. Remember them."

I did not move from my spot in that crevice and after years of death not coming, I finally experienced the third of my multiple demises: simple turning to stone, as my heart had been doing for the decades I had lain in sorrow and self-pity and bitterness. And as my heart had hardened, so had my body.

A broken heart either heals or hardens. Either way, it is never the same.

When I died for the third time, I was not resurrected.

I felt my spirit leave my body, but no longer did I wish to forget my past and my pain and my sorrows in the river of forgetfulness, Lethe. No. My heart, turned bitter, longed for revenge, and seeing as it was impossible that I take revenge on Hera and Pan, I was content to set off for the other gender of which I now not simply had an aversion to, but hated without mercy.

For those first few years - perhaps almost a century - when the echo - I would always laugh bitterly at the word originated from my name, my curse - was new to the world, I drove many men insane. They could not stop the voice in their head from repeating them, on and on. 'Who are you? Who are you? Stop it! Stop it!' They repeated and were repeated, and they thought it was demons unknown, haunting their minds when really it was little old me. Sometimes, for those who would particularly strong-minded, I would reveal myself to them in ghostly, translucent splendor to give the illusion of seeing things - ghosts, spirits, horrors.

Then, as few escaped my wrath, leaving madness in their wake, news of the echo, the spreader of insanity, reached the ears of the humans and for precious decades and perhaps centuries more I was among the most feared forces - aside from the gods themselves - on earth.

I wandered and I was invisible to them, the humans, because I so chose to be, but I had my fun; enjoying the cruelty and chaos and madness I spread around. Enjoying my general power.

But then? Then a horrible thing happened. Then people, faithless, unreligious people, began to ask questions whose answers were not satisfying to them. They refused to believe that I was real. They searched for true answers, and in an ironic turn got a fake one. They came to the conclusion that I, the echo, was caused only by sound bouncing off smooth surfaces. That I existed only in caves and other enclosed spaces.

Lies, lies, lies.

But alas, these lies were believed, and what once once a feared force of chaos and madness was now a common nuisance.

Very sad, if you had asked me then.

Now no one went insane as they heard my voice repeating their words. No one cared at all. Everyone thought that my voice was simply a fact of 'science', harmless and useless.

Oh, I knew Hera and Pan were laughing then.

My time on the earth was done, for I could do nothing else to affect mankind. But as it was I and my heart of stone were not quite ready to leave.

However, I still did not know how I was going to keep sating my unquenchable thirst for revenge.

I was granted my answer one day while morosely wandering around northern Europe - England, to be specific, somewhere around the capital around the 1250s.

A young woman who looked about the age that I appeared to be walked with a young man about the age and build of my oft-remembered Narcissus - instantly, the young male became hated with a vengeance in my mind for reminding me of my lost love. This was what I had become; what I had resorted to. Hate empty of action because I was powerless to do a thing. But I watched on.

"John," said the woman, who was a lovely, big-busted blond. "We need to talk." I had heard that line before, and knew what was coming next. Eagerly I awaited it. "We need to break up. I can't take this anymore," she continued. 'We need to break up,' I mouthed silently, feeling my invisible eyes widen as I found my answer. Still, I loved these scenes, so full of pain and sorrow and agony that came almost close to perhaps a fraction of the pain I myself had felt for Narcissus, so I stayed through the end.

"But Mary Jane... you said... that you... loved me... We're going to be... married..." The man looked desperate and lost, clutching the hand of the woman.

"I know what I said, John, and then I thought I did love you. But I don't... and I can't pretend anymore..." Mary Jane said, a tear rolling down her cheek as she jerked her hand out of John's.

This was followed by many 'but's, and in the end, it was the young man who left, tears clearly in his eyes. The woman, Mary Jane - what an incredibly stupid name - looked sad and guilty as she walked from my view. Because of that, in my mind she was as pitiful as he.

'Now I understand', I thought, 'I've figured out how to get my revenge... The more they love you... the more it hurts... when their own hearts get stomped into the ground...'

My plan, simple as it had seemed, was to simply start to reveal myself to the humans at all times, capture the heart of an individual of the opposite gender, then crush it beneath my heel as I moved on to the next. So simple, so beautiful, so seemingly easy. However, as I would soon realize with my first tries to put my plan in action, it was not as simple. My permanent ghostly form was, for one thing, was intangible - and touching, kissing and the likes played a big part in capturing a heart. Plus, I was translucent, which was apparently a big turn-off...

So, I decided rather childishly and recklessly, it was Zeus's turn to repay the favors I had done him by distracting his wife while he was free to make love to any woman he chose.

Even the King of Gods couldn't undo my curse - one god was not allowed to reverse or destroy the doings of another - but since my contract, for lack of a better word, had been painfully specific and narrow, it could be circled. Hera had stated specifically that my voice would only repeat and my grace would be gone, but she had not specified that I had to possess my repetitive voice, just that it must repeat. Nothing was said against it wandering the world on its own. She had also stated that I would die multiple deaths, but who was to say that I was forbidden to walk the earth as a mortal once again after those deaths?

I found him frolicking and eloping with young maidens, as usual, in northern Europe, just north of where Berlin would later be, I believe. He took the mortal form this time of a blond youth that came close to being comparable with my former unrequited love, Narcissus. Hated my love and all males, I did, but even I was not in enough denial to brush off Narcissus's beauty. Perhaps deep down the passion I had felt for him still smoldered.

In any case, he was playing a childish game of hide-and-seek with a young dark-haired, olive-skinned pretty. However, she was barely past childhood and I could only help but wonder if Zeus meant to spirit her away until she was more mature and becoming. She had great potential. Invisible, I waited until Zeus bid her goodbye - she had to get home - and promised to meet her here tomorrow. It was strange how the usually impatient and arrogant lustful Zeus could summon such patience when it came to the actual women.

Never mind.

As the sun set and he prepared to go wherever he was going to spend the night, I showed my ghost to the King of Gods and watched as his youthful blue eyes widened in surprise.

"Echo?" he asked, recognizing me even though I was dead. "Is that you?"

"Is that you?" I repeated to him.

"So it's true," said Zeus, stroking the stubble on his firm jaw. "Hera did get to you."

I nodded.

"I apologize," Zeus said, "That you are cursed as such on my account simply for granting me a favor-"

I shook my head, eyes apathetic and distant. "Granting me a favor," I said, repeating the last part of his words.

"Ah... you wish me to repay you for your favors?" Zeus inquired, eyebrow raised as I nodded. We both knew I had been incredibly reckless to outright ask - one might even say demand - that he return to me a favor that I had granted him. With Zeus's uncertain temper, to approach him in a bad mood would have meant a punishment worse than my curse. But, since I had no purpose anyways if he refused it did not matter to my heart of stone. This was how reckless and bitter and vengeful I had become. Years ago when I was young and stupid I would have been repulsed and horrified of the beautiful monster I would later turn into.

But now I stood, unashamed, staring evenly back at the King of Gods who had the power to put me through unimaginable pain...

Who smiled devilishly and stroked his stubbly chin, feeling merciful this day as his wooing of the innocent, unsuspecting, too-young maiden who had just left was going well. He had just agreed to our contract.

And once I managed to explain to him my plan...

I would reap my revenge for the rest of eternity.