[Thera]

Thera was beginning to feel something odd, an unfamiliar sensation that she hadn't felt in any of her remembered life. She was.... comfortable. She was clean, warm, well fed, and had a warm cloak wrapped around herself as she huddled near the fire that Medusa often kept going at all times.

She adored the way the fire crackled and popped as the sap went up in little detonations. She had never felt with silence well. Her parents had figured that out early and had implemented the quiet room when she had been only seven. She wasn't thinking about that, though. She was curious about the sound of rustling paper that came from the center of the room that was Medusa's favorite place to lounge as far as Thera could tell.

"What are you reading?" The question slipped from Thera's mouth without thought, and she cursed herself. All she did was take up space and food. Now, she was even taking up Medusa's personal time. She had always hated when her mouth blabbered the thoughts she wished would stay hidden.

Medusa, for her part, didn't seem particularly bothered. There was the smallest pause in the rustling sound of the paper and an almost curious hiss of Medusa's serpents. Then the rustling continued as Medusa let a small chuckle echo around the quiet room.

"How did you know I was reading little mouse?" Like every time Medusa used that particular nickname, Thera forced herself to remember that Medusa didn't know how much it hurt her to hear those words. She wished her savoir would just call her by her name, that she could be seen as a person and not a scared little animal.

"I can hear the paper. It makes a sound when you turn the pages, and...." Thera didn't really want to say the rest, but she didn't see how it could hurt, "and you mumble the words under your breath. Oh, and also, you tsk when the page ends before starting again on the next page."

Thera's brain caught up with her mind a little too late, and she clamped her mouth shut, Medusa probably didn't care about all of the little details. To Thera's surprise, Medusa made a small snorting sound, followed by another chuckle.

"Quite a talent you have, girl, you hear all of that?"

Thera nodded, "Since I can't see, my hearing and smell are better to make up for them. Like I can smell the wine you were drinking and hear your serpents, you have...." she listened and counted, trying to hear the minute differences in the hisses and the sound of scales sliding off one another. She strained her hearing and her mind to tell figure out this little puzzle. She liked puzzles.

"Are their.... fifteen snakes? No... seventeen? It's a bit hard to tell," she muttered as she tried to do a bit of math in her head. She had been so consumed with the thoughts that she hadn't noticed Medusa had moved from her space in the middle of the room. Slithering to lay out in front of the roaring fire, stretching out like a massive cat to absorb the heat of the flame. Her tail extends like a curving river, nearly twenty feet long. She lay on her side, watching Thera amused as the girl tried to keep count and separate the sounds of her snakes.

Thera nearly jumped out of her skin when Medusa spoke, so much closer than she was prepared for.

"Twenty-one actually," Thera felt her heart nearly jump from her chest at the sudden closeness. She lunched backward clumsily and found herself tripping over something large and scaled. Thera reached down to see what it was, feeling a thick bundle of muscle covered in a layer of scales. She slid her hand on it for a few seconds before she finally realized what she was stroking.

"I-im sorry sorry, i didn't.... I didn't mean to!" Theras hand shot away from what she realized was Medusa's long and muscular tail. She lowered her head on instinct and braced herself, tensing up and backing away. As always with Medusa, no strike landed. No slap or blow to serve as punishment for her constant clumsiness.

[Medusa]

Medusa had been surprised when the girl had touched her tail, but she wasn't really angry. She knew the girl explored the unknown with touch most often, but that didn't lessen the sock of the girls warm hands stroking gently across her tail and then the girl retreating into herself. What took her mind away from the shock of the touch was the increasingly familiar way that Thera seemed to prepare for a punishment at the slightest inconvenience she caused to Medusa. Hades, the girl would do this even if she hadn't done anything. She didn't want this, not now. Tonight, she was far too deep in a wine bottle to allow this girl to be scared and silent again.

"Poetry!" She blurted out. She wanted to distract Thera, didn't want to hear the girl cry herself into sleep again, "you asked what I was reading earlier..... it was poetry."

Medusa found that the admission felt good, that talking to another felt good after so long. She had always liked to talk about these sorts of things..... she used to read poetry with Athena. To her own surprise, she felt no revulsion for the memory, no sudden hate for the hobby. This was hers, something Athena wouldn't ruin and that Medusa wouldn't let be tied to the so-called goddess of wisdom.

She saw the girls face raise slightly, and she knew what to do. She began to speak.

"It's a poem by Sappho, a poet from lesbos. It's a love poem, but I also read others," her train of thought was hardly involved as she simply just wanted to distract Thera. She wanted to keep the tears from her cheeks and the tremble out of her voice. She wanted the girl to be ok. Deep down, she also just wanted to talk to someone about what she liked, to share something beyond fear and hate.

Thera was tilting her head with curiosity, obviously interested. She tilted her right ear towards Medusa and straightened from her slumped position. Medusa found it was like trying to coax a wild animal to follow her with a trail of crumbs.

"Can ..... can you read me some? Please?" She could tell that asking wasn't easy, Thera had built up a well of courage to ask for this smallest of things. Medusa, to her own surprise, found this almost endearing.

"Fine.... but don't expect bedtime stories. Now, let me find a good one," Medusa grinned to herself as she saw the content little smile for across Thera's usually sad little face. She looked through the poems, this one was too sappy, and that one was too confusing. She finally stopped on one that felt just right. It was about Aphrodite and Medusa found that the frivolous goddess of love was nowhere among her long list of hated gods.

"Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind,
child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
   O lady, my heart

but come here if ever before
you caught my voice far off
and listening left your father's
   golden house and came,

yoking your car. And fine birds brought you,
quick sparrows over the black earth
whipping their wings down the sky
   through midair—

they arrived. But you, O blessed one,
smiled in your deathless face
and asked what (now again) I have suffered and why
   (now again) I am calling out

and what I want to happen most of all
in my crazy heart. Whom should I persuade (now again)
to lead you back into her love? Who, O
   Sappho, is wronging you?

For if she flees, soon she will pursue.
If she refuses gifts, rather will she give them.
If she does not love, soon she will love
   even unwilling.

Come to me now: loose me from hard
care and all my heart longs
to accomplish, accomplish. You
   be my ally."

[Deathless Aphrodite by Sappho of lesbos, a real ancient Greek pom]

Medusa let the words roll from her sibilant tongue without a care in the world, loosing herself in the words and keeping her mind focused solely on getting every beautiful flow of the poem correct. Once she finished, Medusa looked up to Thera. The blind girl had a soft and beautiful little smile across her freckled cheeks, her red hair reflecting the smoldering firelight. With a gentle grin of her own, Medusa closed her book and placed it down in a small alcove where she kept her pilfered writings.

"That was beautiful," Thera's little voice was full of wonder for the first time in her short stay in Medusa's home. There was no lingering fear in her voice, just quite joy. Thera moved gently to her bed roll nearby and began to prepare herself for sleep, "thank you, Miss Medusa."

[Lucius]

Lucius knelt down by the side of the road and lifted the small golden disk up to his eyes. It was a compass, an ornate, and beautiful trinket that bared the a lovely engraving of a peacock of Hera. Oh, what he wouldn't give to dive into that devine taste. To hold down the queen of the gods and take her, despite her godhood, she was still only a woman.

Lucius thought of the many women he had had over the years, grinning as he remembered each one, most common whores and the needy. The easy prey were always satisfying, but the ones he had to work for were his favorites. He thought about all the conquests he wanted to make.

"Oh, after I take the blind girl, I think I'll pay a visit to Queen Penelope. Compare the younger lamb to some aged meat," he murmured to himself as he found what looked like a faint trail for footprints at the bottom of the hill by the road. They were small, but he could guess that they belonged Thera.

With a grunt, Lucius slid down the hill to the bottom and began to follow the prints. He followed them for hours as they meandered this way and that through the thick woods. The girl had been wandering blindly in a snaking path with no rhyme or reason. She even passed just outside of a village but never strayed inside. She made her way from there almost directly into the valley of typhon, the valley of monsters. It was even whispered that the gorgon Medusa made her home here. Lucius let his mind play with that idea, of plundering the serpents depths. Maybe he could have fun with that serpent hair of hers. He shook his head and tried to refocus on the task at hand, plenty of time for fun later.

[Artemis]

Artemis watched the man from a hidden spot in the trees, her antlers blending in with the surrounding branches and her green tinged skin breaking up her shape to the less observant. She knocked an arrow and aimed, sighting the shot to between the man's vertebrae and his skull. She knew she could hit without even trying, and oh how she wanted to make this man suffer.

"You know the rules, Arti, we can't interfere," the maiden goddess swung in surprise and aimed her bow at voice, only to find the grinnig face of Hermes.

"So I should disregard my duty because of a stupid game that I'm not even a part of? I made no bets on the mortal's war, and I will not abide by letting this man harm that girl! You will not stop me messenger!" Artemis drew her bow to its full draw and placed the tip against Hermes' throat.

"You misunderstand me, darling. I'm not saying we can't help her, far from it. I'm only saying that we must be subtle about it. Otherwise, mister thunder bolt will be on our arse about it. I'm rooting for the girl, and Aphrodite would never forgive us if we let someone ruin her newest obsession," With an impish grin, Hermes swiped the arrow right off of Artemis' bow string and twirled it around his fingers, "now, I'll warn the gorgon, I have ways of making sure that zues isn't privy to the details of my messages. Confidentiality and all that lark."

Hermes grinned and tipped his odd metal hat before dashing into a golden blur in the direction of the old temple of Athena.

[Hello hello, first off, I'd like to apologize for how nasty Lucius' section is. I'm uncomfortable writing it but it's important to show his character.  Second, I hope yall enjoyed. This was an absolutely adorable chapter to write, and I'm glad I got to include some Sappho. I've been reading all her poetry and it's been a great inspiration. Please leave a comment as it helps a ton]