Megara had been chained up, imprisoned, and tossed around so much that she took her first moment of freedom to pounce on someone responsible for her imprisonment. She could quietly disappear if Hercules chose to leave her for another woman, but the unholy, ghastly things that woman had been saying…
There had been many times Megara had attempted violence and more that she'd hurled threats. But she'd always been aware of her physical limitations. Most people could overpower her with minimal effort, and she'd adapted to that.
This time, Megarion had stood by, the only person who could have restrained her in that moment of pure rage, and silently whispered to her that it was fine. She could do whatever she wanted. She was free. Nobody constrained her to act, nor did anyone restrain her.
Let the fangirls back in Thebes hear tales of how Megara had snapped the head off a rival's neck and then see if they'd break into her house again! Megara was sick of people using her as a pawn against Hercules and of people treating her Wonder Boy as a product to consume.
That thought tumbled through her mind, only for her to recognize the weight of what she'd done and how she could never go home. So many gods had witnessed the savagery of the attack, and she'd murdered a queen in public.
Regicide carried with it a sentence the Furies themselves would track her down for. The only thing keeping them off her literal tail at the moment was probably her head start. But they'd come screaming out of the Underworld at any moment, and then she'd get pulled down there again!
For just a few weeks, she'd been free. She'd been married to the greatest man in the cosmos, and she carried his child.
Now what?
She'd get grabbed and taken down to Tartarus and… the child…? Would she carry and birth her daughter among the damned? Would her daughter ever see the sun? What were the ramifications Thanatos had mentioned for a child of Olympus who never got to walk under the sky?
The Furies wouldn't care how vile the things Omphale said before her death had been or how credible the threats were. They wouldn't care that Hecate had transformed her into a voiceless nightmare and left her subjugated to a malicious mystical cabal.
Murder would matter above all, and with no arbiter in the Underworld but Hecate, her life was officially over.
No matter how detestable her actions had been, the rage that took over had been so freeing. She'd felt so righteous in the moment. Telling the Furies how blinding her rage had been and how easy it had been to give over to the instincts of her Empousa body would do no good.
She was a monster, and she'd killed. Before then, she'd been a mistreated human in the shape of a monster, but that was over now.
People fled from her in all directions.
Good, that was the appropriate response to a walking nightmare. She was the creature people in this city would warn their misbehaving children about. In fact, one day, someone may warn her own child about the horrific creature her mother had been, and that child would pray she never looked upon her mother's face.
Faces… yes… that reminded her. She was still carrying Omphale's head in her jaws. They'd been locked tight since the event, and she hadn't thought about it.
Where to put the severed head of the woman who tried to exploit your husband and make you watch?
Megara turned to either side and recognized a drain along the road to carry away the refuse of cart horses and oxen. That would do. She dumped the head and kept walking.
There had to be some part of this city she could walk in without so many people shrieking and running away.
She was so tired. If only she could find a place to sleep before she spent the rest of her pregnancy fleeing the furies. Or worse, before Hercules was sent to cull her because she was his responsibility.
A wrenching agony seized her that had nothing to do with her emotional turmoil. All her limbs shook, dropping her in the center of a street, where people had to dodge in all directions to avoid trampling her or getting sliced by her claws.
It hadn't been long at all since she gained control of her limbs, and now they betrayed her.
That tingling sensation that had overtaken her when the original transformation took hold, every pore rejecting empousa fur and scaly flesh.
She stared into the clouds overhead, hallucinating shapes that turned into Hercules, theater masks, or the waves of the River Styx. The world seemed to move in a circle, but the clouds remained steady.
In the distance, someone started laughing, and Megara laughed along. No… no, there was only one person laughing. It was her.
There were many voices contemplating what they were watching, and she wished any of their voices could form coherent speech so she could figure it out. What was wrong with all these people?
After some time, the pain receded. She rolled onto her side and felt the weight of her hair, matted thick with blood. Her shaky body was heavy against the hard stone street, and she knew it would bruise.
Fine. She'd had worse.
Her head felt like a jar of olive oil, with the contents sliding against the perimeter and shifting the burden's weight.
As she wobbled in place, she recognized she was only wearing part of a dress. Lovely. It was just like when she'd been a cheerleader, except as a surprise.
This place was too exposed.
She was too exposed.
She and her daughter needed to get somewhere safe. If they couldn't get out of the city, they may have to find the closest equivalent: somewhere, there weren't enough people to pose a threat. It wasn't Thebes, but any big city had forgotten places. She'd find them and decide what to do when she could concentrate again.
Except that her legs were wobbling.
She caught hold of the edge of a display along the street and went crashing to the ground with her hand still holding onto the cloth she'd seized for support. Her fingers spasmed around it, and she laughed again.
It was all so silly, after all.
"What are you doing? You… you… take it!" the shopkeeper babbled. It didn't matter. The world was so funny. It didn't have to make sense.
One thing was foremost in her mind as she wrapped herself in a new cloak and tripped into the city's back alleys: she had to hide and sleep. Her whole soft, scantily-clad body was drenched in blood, and her heart was racing to the point she was lightheaded. She had to get moving. How was she supposed to get moving, hiding, and fleeing if she kept dropping and sliding around?
She took the back alleys, grateful for the embrace of shadows as a retreat from the sunlit streets. They welcomed her as an old, familiar friend. Like Thanatos.
Time slipped by again while she tripped and stumbled on shaky legs like those of a newborn foal. Without sandals, the grit and pebbles in the road bit into her feet. If she had more awareness, she might have cared. A taverna with a broken door that hung off its hinges offered itself as a candidate for escape from the world. There could be a bed in there.
Maybe there was, but Megara didn't make it that far. She discovered, in what felt like a blink after entering the taverna, that she was lying curled up on the floor, cocooned in her blanket.
This wasn't a bed, but it felt so good not to move that she didn't care.
She heard her name on the breeze. At first, she thought it was an illusion, one last cruelty of her frenzied mind, but instead, it was Hercules, or was it? He sounded frantic, as if… as if he actually wanted her back. Hadn't he seen what she did?
She'd seen the Furies at work a few times. She didn't know if they made it a habit to mimic someone to lure their prey, but that didn't mean they never did.
Or it could be a dream. She might still be dreaming.
She raised her head, her mind unable to truly comprehend what was happening. She was still there, safe in the darkness she'd wrapped herself in, and the voice of Hercules was calling her out of it.
Better not to risk it, she decided and covered her ears in the cloak.
One day, what seemed like a lifetime ago, she'd been at a party. She ran away from Hercules, and he came for her. She'd tried not to love him, but he was the most lovable being in the cosmos. If he'd gone after her then, of course, he'd do the same now.
It would make sense, sure, but that didn't mean it was true. She would sort through it another time. Maybe. She'd sleep, and then, eventually, she would handle this mess.