Chapter One
The salt air wrapped around me and whipped my tunic around me as I stood on the sea side cliff. I could almost see the wings of Zephyr whirling around me. His cloak was damp from crossing the blue seas in front of me and smelled thickly of salt and life. I could almost hear his laughter as he teased my long curling hair in a golden mane behind me.
"Medusa!" A loud cry made me turn from the West Wind back towards the little cottage where I grew up with my sisters. "Get back here right now!"
The commanding tone instantly made me recognize that it was Sthenno, the eldest out of the three of us, calling my name. Euryale would have come to find me and gotten lost on the way home.
I sighed and said my farewells to Zephyr and turned to make my way back to the cottage we call home. My barefeet made their careful route through the craggy rock cliffs, rough rock that could injury me if I wasn't careful or confident. This was my home though. Like a wild nymph of sea and woods I roamed around my home without fear of anything but man and death.
Out of all my sister, not just Sthenno and Euryale, but all the children of Ceto and Phorcys, I was born mortal. A curse on Ceto when she killed a hero beloved of a goddess. Thanatos, Death, has haunted my dreams since I've come to realize that one day I shall have to follow Hermes to Hades without my sisters. They shall endure forever. I shall turn into a mere shade and nothing of me shall last. Not even my name, for who shall remember a mere mortal grown on the outskirts of civilization with chthonic gods as my companions.
The waves broke steadily down below me, constant and soothing, as if to ease my mind of fears. The sea has always been my lullaby and I took comfort from it like nothing else. Even Euryale's stories didn't calm me like the oceans soft crooning music did. I looked out across the bright blue of the Mediterranean and smiled my love for the endless waters.
"MEDUSA!" Sthenno's calls were getting more impatient and so I left my reveries to continue towards home, complaining about annoying older sisters.
The little house was small but it brought a smile to my lips as I looked at it. So many memories centered in this house by the sea. Before I could even dwell on a single memory my sister's fierce countenance appeared in the doorway.
"Where have you been?" She demanded narrowing her churning blue eyes that always reminded me of the sea in the middle of a storm. "I have been calling for you all day!"
My sister had sharp features of elegant beauty, but when she glared and pursed her lips she looked more like a Harpy then anything else.
"I've been at the cliffs, playing with the wind." I told her truthfully trying to get by her into the house. I had been gone all day and my stomach was clenched in hunger.
"You watch out, Medusa!" Sthenno scolded, "If you keep leading Zephyr on like that he's going to carry you off and marry you before you can blink."
I looked up at my sister wryly, "As if you've never slept with a man or god? You're worse than Eury!" I've heard that in the town, Sthenno was considered a man killer for her way of making the boys of the village fall in love with her and then she drops them as if they mean nothing to her. Given, they don't mean anything to her. She enjoys their play, but her heart is here with me and Euryale.
Sthenno sniffed and turned away looking like a Harpy again, "That's different."
" 'Cause I'm mortal?" I snapped back. Sthenno could be a bit much when she was in dominating mode and my patience was running thin with her unceasing condescension.
She whipped around like I had burned her with the metal spoon I held in my hand to ladle soup into a bowl. In an instant her dark storm eyes were wide and she wrapped me up in her pale arms. "Meddy-baby," She crooned an old pet name into my ear, "I shouldn't be so harsh. It is different but I don't need to rub it into your face. I just want you to marry well and live happy."
"Nonny!" I returned with another pet name, I couldn't help the tears that were welling up in my eyes. "I don't want to go. Why can't we just stay here by the sea? I don't want to go tomorrow."
She crooned comforts into my hair but I knew my tears weren't going to make a difference. My mother had come early in the season and decreed that we would travel to Olympus for the gods blessing before my marriage in the fall. I had to leave my sisters, who I love above all, for a man I'd never met. Ceto, of the old nobility of Titans and goddess of the dangers of the sea, had little sympathy even for her daughters tears.
"What's this I see? Tears? On our last night!" Euryale's merry voice interrupted my sorrow, "Blasphemy!" She crowed her laughter that eerily made me think of a sea gulls rough call.
I turned to my perpetually smiling sister and couldn't help but laugh at her soaked figure. She had clearly been playing in the sea with the Naiads again. Her dark hair was soaked and dripping and her tunic was plastered to her body. She was a sea maiden through and through. We all were. But none looked the part like Eury did. Her hair, dark as the Mediterranean on a moonless night, looked wet no matter how much time she spent away from the water; and her eyes were true ocean eyes. A clear blue green that sparkled like the ocean did when Helios shines his light on it's waves.
"Medusa," She swept forward and grabbed me from Sthenno's comforting embrace and swung me around in a dance, "You're to meet the gods of Olympus tomorrow! Smile that beautiful smile of yours, sun-child. We'll be right there with you!"
"And after I meet the gods," I frowned at her gaiety, "I meet my husband. Whoever he may be."
"Oh my sour little sister," Euryale laughed her wild laugh and embraced me in a tight and soggy hug, "You think to much! Do you really believe that any man who you marry will be able to keep us away? I'll just set our fire-breathing dragon on them."
"I am NOT a dragon," Sthenno frowned from the other side of the cabin and glared her Harpies stare.
"Look in at yourself, Nonny!" Euryale cackled and made me laugh despite my low mood. Sthenno rolled her eyes in an aggravated manner but I could see that she was happy that I was smiling again. These sisters of mine love me. As I love them. That's why the thought of my near future drives me into a childish fit of angst. Who am I without these two?
"Come on!" Euryale grabbed Sthenno and I by the hands and dragged us out of our house, "We're going to spend our last night on the beach!"
I thought Sthenno would refuse but she grabbed by other hand and rushed forward with her wildest sister. I laughed at their excitement and began to run with them. We danced down to the beach as Helios's last light left the sky's realm and burned the ocean with violent red color. It was a beautiful sunset for our last night with our laughter and singing mixing with the oceans constant tempo to make my favorite song.