A Study of the Hero
Orpheus
There was a disconcerting moment when she realized her feet were firmly planted on the ground but Underground. There was a sky above her but presumably also a world hanging over her head, since this was not Anotherground but Underground. There was the simultaneous sense of claustrophobia and agoraphobia on that desolate hill outside the Labyrinth's gates and it distracted her to the point that she almost forgot to mind the fey king who'd transported her.
Like Hermes, that dratted male relayed his message and took off as if on winged feet – one minute beside her and speaking, the next just disappeared. Strangely, this impossibility grounded her spinning head and brought her attention back to the sprawling, shifting Labyrinth before her.
Superstition, that sense ingrained in her by her books that ran cool fingers down her spine, prevented her from looking over her shoulder to try to locate the window she'd been beside moments ago. Instead, she fixed her gaze forward, gathered her courage, and set off.
Hippolyta
The lioness stirred again, a purposeful shift of muscle and temper. She could see the wall. She could see the gate keeper. And yet, the way remained closed to her.
The gate keeper was less than impressed with her temper, outright contemptuous of her admittedly misbegotten attempt at kindness towards the fairies, and downright cantankerous, to her eyes. He was trying to run her in circles with half-answers to her questions and that just wouldn't do.
Eventually, she asked the right question and gained entrance to the Labyrinth – and then the unhelpful little man proved just as disrespectful and contrary when she asked for advice, continuing to purposely avoid answering her intended questions and focusing on twisting her words about. Well, fine. She only had time for one Labyrinth to solve – and he clearly was not the priority.
Leaving the grumpy, grumbling man to himself, she stalked off. Help would have been appreciated, but if she had to be a one-woman siege, so be it.
Daedalus
She tried not to let the long, boring corridor frustrate her. There would be a turn somewhere, an opening, a twist or curve – hell, it was very possible that the path indeed curved, but curved so slightly that she hadn't realized that her bearing had shifted.
She knew mazes and she knew labyrinths – as if this were the only she'd ever encountered! – and wondered which this kingdom really was. Should she take it at the king's word – call it a labyrinth, as he did – or was it a maze?
The difference, she knew, was in intention. A maze was made to lose people. A labyrinth guided them to a predetermined destination – usually the center. Despite her frustration with the path she was currently on, if this was truly a labyrinth, then which path she took wouldn't alter her course at all.
If she was wrong, if this was a maze…
There was no time to consider that now. It was entirely possible that the twists and turns she'd seen within contained both – the long, winding path to the center and the confusing jumble of turns to throw her off track and drain her time.
Stubbornly, she kept walking for what seemed like almost an hour – sometimes jogging, sometimes walking briskly, trying to dodge the felled branches and slick moss – keeping an eye out for another path. By the time the Worm stopped her, she was more than ready to risk taking another route to the center.
Hector
The Worm, she found, was much friendlier than the gate keeper. He wasn't necessarily any more helpful. He, too, ran his words in rings, but once she caught the gist of what he said, she found him rather more amiable.
Half-heeding his words, she charged off, heading into the Labyrinth, aiming for the heart of it. So quick was she to be in the thick of things that she didn't stay to hear out the little adviser's final words. Had she not been quick on her feet later on, her error could well have been fatal.
Oro: I'm trying to keep these more or less in chronological order... that's rapidly falling apart. If chapters after this are anachronistic, it's because I'm trying to arrange this by incidents and heroes first and by timeline second. Odysseus, I'm afraid, will be outside the time line entirely - or rather, far more woven through it.
Hob: See you soon!
Quill: (crunching on something that sounds suspiciously like a disclaimer... let's pretend he's eating a mouse instead, shall we?)