Rating: PG-13 for content in later chapters.
Summery: The story of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece from Medea's point of view. She's telling this after everything is all over, and it's a kind of stream of consciousness looking back at what happened to make her end up where she is. This chapter, she helps him for the first time.
Disclaimer: I do not own any myths, Greek or otherwise. I do not own Jason, I do not own Medea, but I do Theokleia.
-------Chapter 2-------
The nights. They are the worst when you are alone, they drag by so slowly, each second an eon in and of itself. The days are easy, you can busy yourself so that you are unable to think. But the nights. The nights when you can do nothing but lie there and think, longing for sleep but unable to sleep for the thoughts that keeping dancing around your head, mocking you with your inability to muffle them, giving you no rest awake then haunting your dreams asleep. Yes, the nights are the worst when you are alone. My nights to come will be bad, now that he has betrayed me, and left me alone.
I dread the night.
That first night, it is burned into my memory forever. That was the night I learned how hateful nights can be.
I was awake in my room for hours, struggling with my conscience, trying to convince myself not to love him.
I made the mistake of thinking the word "love". Once you let open that floodgate, those waters can never be recalled, they cascade through your life and create as much havoc with it as a true flood would, they drown all other feelings. Even if you manage to close the gates, the water is still there; dormant, slowly turning into swamp, but there; and it has still drowned everything else. It just turns ugly. It starts to stink. I thought that word, that small fatal word, and there was nothing more I could do.
If I had just managed to keep my thoughts still, I might have saved myself a world of pain. But I had admitted that I loved, and so I hurt. I wanted to die, to end this agony of hurting for him, for what he would be feeling on the morrow; this agony of conflict between my duty to my father, the King, who wanted this band of thieves gone, and my love for him, a perfect stranger, whom I nonetheless fiercely desired. But I could not die, Theokeia had made sure of that by removing all objects of temptation.
It might have been better if I had died that night.
In the early hours of the morning, not that long before Dawn begins to spread her cloak over the sky, Theokleia came in to see if I was still awake. I was. She was annoyed.
"By the God's!" she snapped. "If you care that much about what happens to this Greek stranger, go and help him! Do you have magic or don't you?!"
Ah, Theokleia, you only meant to help me then. You always cared for me. I doubt you would have said what you did if you had known where your advice would lead me. But you did say it and I listened.
Without pause for thought, I snatched my herb packets and the tools of my craft and went to find him. I was determined to help him, whatever the cost to me. I should have looked closer at the price.
I had not gone far before I ran into him.
One of my nephews, Phrixus' son, had felt ashamed that his grandfather would lie so vilely to guests, committing what was tantamount to murder and thereby dishonouring the whole house. And he had been kind to this same boy earlier in the day, so that my nephew felt indebted to him. Therefore, this nephew went to the foreigner's encampment and told him about me, about my magic. He advised him to seek me out and win me over to my cause. His followers, who had been trying to stop him from acquiescing to my father's demands, found this sound advice and urged him to follow it, which he agreed to do.
So I found him looking for me, not far from my apartments, as I went in search of him. His thought: to beg the favour from me that I was about to beg him to accept.
And so it started. A man desperate for his kingdom, his honour, and his life (in no particular order); a girl made desperate for said man; a meeting in the middle of the night; an agreement. A fatal agreement.
I gave him an ointment I had, which, when rubbed all over a person's body, would render him invulnerable for a day. He thanked me graciously.
When he took the box from me, our hands met.
I could not help looking up into his eyes. I found him looking back into mine. Those eyes seemed to contain all the world, all the mysteries that make up life. I could have lost myself in them forever, and been happy there.
But there was more to tell. Eventually I made myself speak, explain how to defeat the army of dragon men he would sow the next day. He solemnly promised to head my words. Then he turned to leave.
The thought of him going through me into a panic, and I spoke without thinking.
"When you go back home, remember me. Remember Medea, as I will remember you forever. When you go home I will sit here longing for you, but the thought that you will remember me will bring comfort."
He turned around again, his bright smile gentle. "It will be impossible for me to forget you. Should you come to Greece, you shall be worshipped for what you have done for us. Come with me, Medea. Come with me, and only death shall part us." Then he came close, oh so close!, and whispered to me, "I believe I love you."
I was so happy then. I believed he meant it.
Well, maybe he did mean it, then. Maybe he did. But does love betray that which it loves? Without even just cause?
He did. If he even loves me, if he even ever loved me. Well. You said death shall part us, and it has. The death of your love, the death of your common decency, the death of that honour you cared so much for: that is what has parted us.
You forget. I am a witch. You think me your kept sorceress, but sorceresses have teeth, and if you give us cause, we shall bite. You have given me cause, and my bite is poisoned. I shall teach you what it is to fear the night.
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A.N: Same grammar/style points as before.
In the myth, the whole nephew thing was a lot longer with a lot more of the unnamed nephew running back and forth between Jason and Medea and setting things up between them. Also, it's pure speculation that he is Phrixus' son, because the myth doesn't tell us that. It was way too drawn out for the way I'm writing this (as this style already draws things out really long), so I shortened it up a bit. Other than that, it follows the myth.
Next chapter, Jason does heroic things with bulls and dragon's teeth.
