One day at the door to Medusa’s lair.

Knock knock knock.

A frail hand banged softly against the heavy door (that still sported a small hole in it). Then it repeated this action. Again. And again. Eventually it found a certain musical rhythm to its banging. Then a foot began tapping in a complementary beat. A low hum escaped that girl’s throat.

A long groan clawed its way up to the entrance and then got interrupted by the creaking of the opening door. A certain snake woman was rubbing her eyes while her snake hair was dangling down as if dead.

“What is it? Why do you feel the need for this musical performance in the middle of the night?”

“Good morning Lady Medusa!” Eugenia greeted her unperturbed by the annoyance in her voice.

Medusa narrowed her eyes to look outside and realized that the sun was rising already. Not that this fact would make a difference to her. The chipper girl in front of her balancing on her tiptoes was already brighter than the solar circle behind her.

“You will never believe it.” Eugenia said excitedly. “I just found something incredible among the cargo!”

“More shameful human games?” The Gorgon asked tiredly.

“N-no! You didn’t want to try out the rest with me.” She pouted. This girl actually had unexpected expectations of her. “Rather I found something special even for my hometown’s standards.” She extended her hand and showed off a small hemp sack.

“Marvelously crafted. Very interesting. Good night.” Medusa turned around to close the door.

“Wait! I’m talking about what’s inside!”

Medusa sighed. She begrudgingly turned back.

“Well?” She crossed her arms and waited.

“Look at these.” The priestess opened the small sack and poured a few strange looking seeds onto her palm.

“Plant seeds?”

“Of course, but I have never held any like these before.” Eugenia said excitedly. “The note that came with it said that these do not grow on any common soil and are worth more than an entire ship full of olives!”

“What is the merit of seeds that do not grow?” Medusa asked with a yawn.

“I am sure these are incredibly rare vegetables from a distant land. We should plant them in the garden and see what grows by autumn!”

“You believe this old soil will be able to grow anything that outlandish?”

“We just have to try! That’s the most exciting part, don’t you think?”

“I think that you should not have woken me from my slumber.” Medusa rubbed her tired face. “Go forth and plant your seeds as much as you wish. The garden is yours; did I not tell you so? No need to ask for permission.” She was already sliding down the steps subconsciously.

“You should be there to plant them with me!” Eugenia said exactly what Medusa didn’t want to hear.

“No.” Medusa closed the door and toppled back into her lair.

The next day.

Knock knock knock.

“Good morning Lady Medusa!”

“Haaawhat… do you… want?” Medusa muttered under her yawn.

“The mother hare has just given birth! You need to touch those fluffy little babies~!” She was shrill like a town girl that had just gotten proposed to.

“Don’t play with your food.” She banged the door shut in front of the priestess.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

“Good morning Lady Medusa!”

She didn’t even respond.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I want today?” She tilted her head to the side expectantly.

“It is something meaningless and inane, I am sure.” The Gorgon’s brow twitched strongly.

“No way! This really is important.” She gave her a serious look.

“Do tell then.” Medusa knew it was too optimistic of her, but she had to at least hear her out. Perhaps there really was something important going on.

“I went fishing today, but instead of a fish I caught this shoe!” She pulled it up from behind her back. Didn’t she seem too relieved that it wasn’t a fish?

Medusa’s expression became even more stoic.

“I think this might be one of Zosimos sandals! Do you think he lost it while sailing through the storm?”

Medusa shut the door so heavily that it almost broke out of its hinges.

Knock knock knock

“ENOUGH!” Medusa burst the door open which made the knocking girl fall flat on her behind. “This has gone on for long enough. You think yourself clever or something?”

“What?” Eugenia was clearly confused.

“I told you to never enter my lair while I slumber and you promised to heed this warning. Yet you believe you can exploit a gap in the agreement by waking me from outside whenever you so please? In the early morning?!” She was glaring daggers at the girl on the ground.

“But you sleep so much, Lady Medusa.” The priestess sat down in a prostrating pose, similar to when she prayed. “I thought you would be missing out on all the happenings of the world.”

“I have lived here for over one hundred years. This mundane monotonous life has nothing to offer that could justify disturbing my slumber. I am not your playmate. I am not your governess. I will not entertain you. Do you understand?” Her words were an ultimatum and filled with contempt.

“…yes.” Eugenia lowered her head with a torn up expression.

“Never disturb my sleep again. Swear it on your beloved goddess.” Medusa was dead serious.

“But-“

“Now.”

“I swear on my love for- For the great and wise Athena. I will never willingly disturb your sleep again.” Eugenia swore with a miserable voice.

“I shall wake and come out when I please. If there is something you need to bother me with, wait for such a day.” The Gorgon seemed satisfied, although still embraced by frustration. She slammed the door shut for the last time.

Eugenia sat in front of it for a long time.

The next day Medusa did not wake from her lair at all. Just as the day after that. To the human girl living on the same island, it felt like she truly was stranded all alone.

She could not understand why Medusa indulged such a long slumber for days at end. The Gorgon had very few mortal limitations. Eugenia already knew that she needed not to eat or drink, sweat or sleep. Everything Medusa did was for her own satisfaction, but in the end, how did she truly feel about this? Her tone, her actions and her deep rooted melancholy, they were all enigmas to the priestess.

How was a girl of now seventeen summers to understand someone who had seen ten or even a hundred times that amount?

She brushed her hair absentmindedly atop a fallen over pillar. The wind was strong today, so it made her bangs flutter. This island was usually dry and hot like the southern provinces of Greece, but its weather was even more unpredictable than the sea surrounding it.

Today she could even smell the humidity in the air. The sunlight on her skin was repeatedly blocked out, meaning that many clouds had gathered above. Eugenia expected rain soon. The distant cracking of something in the sky unnerved her deeply. This was a full-fledged storm. Lord Poseidon was furious about something again, as he was known for his ill temper. Many things could attract his ire and sailors feared him just as much as they revered him.

On this small island a storm could be quite terrifying. More so than in a small village even. There were rumors of storms that flooded and crushed entire coastal cities in the past. Such events were rare however, so Eugenia did not feel too tense.

Thanks to the interior garden, the so called Greenhouse, she had a place that she could find shelter in during a rough shower. To that end she rose from the pillar and made her way through the ruined temple. The wind was picking up yet again and she felt a shiver down her back. Such freshness was unusual around here with the exception of night time, so she had gotten weaker to it over time.

Inside the Greenhouse she felt a lot safer already. The stone walls and glass ceiling were sturdy enough to keep out most of the wind and especially the sounds. She was most thankful for that last part.

It didn’t take long for the clouds to drop their contents on the island. The prattling of rain and the occasional creaking of the large wooden door were all that seemed to reach Eugenia for a while. There was of course the hole in the wall that let a stream of water flow into the garden, essential for supplying the plants with the nectar of life, but it also let in other noises.

RRRRUMBLE!

The girl sprang up in shock from the sudden tremor in the air. Thunder struck the world and her ears. It was louder than expected. Zeus was throwing lightning across the sky today!

Eugenia put a hand on her left arm to suppress its shaking. She was surely safe inside here. All she needed to do was sit it out. If she blocked her ears and laid down, she would perhaps manage to sleep through the terror, just like Lady Medusa.

The storm got worse. Much worse.

Water was flowing into the garden as if the floodgates of a dam had been broken. Eugenia soon found her feet becoming wet on the formerly coarse earth. The mud stuck to her sandals and made her shiver from the cold. Next thunder shook the entire Greenhouse.

Stumbling towards the wall, Eugenia held on to the bricks with a tightly shut mouth. If she opened it, she felt that she would scream.

Just when she finally loosened her grip on the wall, something horrible happened. It was so loud that it seemed to shatter her eardrums, but in truth what shattered was one of the windows above! Glass shards rained into the garden alongside a magnitude of water. Eugenia bit her lip so strongly that she drew blood. The taste of iron made her nauseous, but the sudden impact of the noisy storm that had penetrated her protective shell was far worse.

The wind had picked up something heavy, a rock perhaps, and crashed it into the glass ceiling above. It was far too fragile to resist such force. Eugenia finally realized that the wooden covers hadn’t been there just to limit the scorching sunlight, but also to protect the ceiling from storms!

Without delay she rushed to the lever at the east side and pulled it up. With a low rattling, completely drowned out by the storm, the wooden planks moved back across the ceiling. They covered each of the windows respectively as they should - until a horrible screeching filled the air.

Eugenia could not see. She could not feel or smell or hear what had happened. She was truly unable to perceive what was going on. But her mind was not limited to her senses. Although she had never encountered such a construction before, she could make a good guess of what had transpired. One of the planks had gotten stuck on something. No, perhaps the rope that dragged it across the ceiling got tangled up?

If she didn’t do something about this soon, the glass ceiling might have gotten hit again, until it finally shattered completely.

“No.” She could not allow that. No matter what, this was a place she needed to protect!

It was unwise to leave in this current weather, but she had to at least try to loosen the rope and allow the mechanism to complete its purpose. Otherwise Lady Medusa’s garden, the one she was entrusted with, would be destroyed. With that burning thought as motivation, the young woman pushed open the wooden entrance. It resisted far more than ever before, despite not being locked.

Soon Eugenia realized that it was because of the insane wind force pressing against it. She barely managed to slip out due to her thin frame, before the door loudly shut behind her. The moment she stepped out she was assailed by strong winds filled with enormously large rain drops. In a matter of seconds her clothes were soaked as she got pelted.

Putting up a hand in front of her face, she made her way around the walls. Although her eyes needed not be opened, her ears were just as troubled by the heavy rain. It was so loud and fast that it just echoed inside her head like the pounding of a drum. The droplets hit her like small rocks and hurt her skin, aided by the fact that she was losing her body heat quickly.

She painstakingly trudged alongside the wall until she reached the western side and the outer part of the mechanism that controlled the planks. The rope had indeed been tangled up between gears and poles! She extended her hands through the cutting wind and grabbed the rope. It was tangled up badly, but she could manage. Just as she tried to undo the knot, the wet rope slipped through her hands and scraped them open.

“Ahhh!” Eugenia sank to her knees and held her burning hands into the cool rain. She wanted to cry from the pain, but knew there was no time. Her legs felt weak, but she pushed herself back up and held on to the rope with all her might. Using her entire body as a weight, she dragged the rope back and then kicked the knot with her foot. There was no time or leeway for subtlety here; she just needed this rope to untangle, no matter how!

With a final kick she could feel the knot unwind and the rope instantly shot out of her bleeding hands. A loud noise above signaled the continuation of the mechanism. The protective planks were all in place.

The force of the last kick had made her lose her footing and she fell headlong into a giant muddy puddle. Eugenia pulled her face out of the murky water and spat out some of the muddy soup. Her entire body was covered in it already, but right away the rain did its best to spill it away. Her clothes were so soaked that she felt nothing but cold and wetness across her skin. She was soaked to the bone.

Shivering and miserable, but relieved that she had accomplished her goal, the priestess walked back to the entrance. The currents of wind and rain seemed to keep her away, almost intentionally, but that must have been a figment of her tired imagination. She dragged her heavy clothes over a small collapsed wall and flung herself into the former hallway connecting to the Greenhouse.

She reached the door, reached out for the door, reached the door to her sanctuary-

KRA-KOOM!

Lightning. Thunder. Death.

Eugenia’s mind blanked out in pure fear. She sank to her knees and held her head like a fearful child. Before she even realized minutes had passed. Her perception had been drowned out by the all-encompassing horror of thunder.

Before her the world had changed. The darkness that had swallowed her faded, but what it revealed was a large pile of broken walls. Lightning had struck the ruined temple and what little was left of the old hallway ceiling had collapsed in front of her. One more step forward and she would have been crushed. Just a puddle of red in the rubble.

Her wet hair was stuck to her face and exposed shoulders, making her feel like she was tied up in vines. Everything was spinning. The tension and the anxiety were overpowering her. There was no way she could get inside now, there was nothing she could do at all.

“Lady Medusa!!” She cried out. There was nobody else that came to mind. She only had her.

The exhausted girl crawled across the wet floor and made her way towards the southern courtyard. Just a little more, she just needed to drag herself there, so she could…

Her mind blanked out.

What would she do if she reached that place?

Her ears picked up nothing but incoherent noise anymore. She felt lost physically and mentally. Her hands could feel the muddy earth of the courtyard ahead, so she just needed to crawl a bit further, but her heart was as far away as Athens right now.

Eugenia held a hand to her freezing face. What was she doing? Hoping to find shelter in there? Lady Medusa’s lair? The Gorgon’s lair? She was just as foolish as the lady of the isle always accused her of being. A promise had been made. She had sworn on the one thing she loved most. Neither could she wake the slumbering Gorgon, nor could she ever enter her lair, her world.

Amidst the incessant rain, the bone chilling thunder and the growing puddles, she finally understood what she had been trying to deny to herself all along. She could never reach her and would never be able to pull her towards her side of the door either. There was a wall between them, invisible even to those who could see everything. She had been blind to it out of her own volition.

She coughed violently. Her body felt heavy as lead and numb as ice.

Her dirty, scraped hands stopped dragging across the courtyard. With a heavy head she moved back. Close by she fell into her bedstead, merely a layer of animal skins and wool. It took all her remaining strength to move below the pile, shivering and teeth rattling. The skins were too thin, even piled atop each other. The wind penetrated unexpected gaps and the rain dribbled on every exposed part of her final sanctuary. And the thunder? It was inescapable.

Each boom across the sky made her curl up with tears in her eyes. Memories swelled up like great waves in a disturbed lake. She didn’t wish to remember anything, but she could not even blend out her own ragged breathing among the swirling noises in her head.

“Please please please…” She repeated the word with compulsion and pain.

The breeze dragged away the few layers she still had between her and the storm. She did not even feel the difference anymore.

Consciousness began to fade. It was not the pleasant voice of Hypnos’ sleep that enveloped her however; she could feel her body strength wane. Her rapid heartbeat was slowing down in her hurting chest. Her limbs she felt no longer, her head pulsated strong enough to overpower even the sound of the rain now. She was slipping… away…

She was alone once more. All alone.

Alone.

“Foolish girl.” A voice cut through the storm and even reached her fading mind.

The rain’s hail, at first like arrows, now ceased entirely. The wind, like sharpened blades, did not even touch her skin. The storm had been pushed away by a protective bubble. At its center lay Eugenia, weak and mystified.

What she heard made no sense to her. The sound of flapping feathers, the low friction of scales on rock. She was surrounded by something.

“Me…du…sa?” She forced it out of her burning throat. The swirls of rain in her mind were blocked out by a protective layer, which she now realized were wings so large they surrounded her entirely. Something long and gentle picked her up and wrapped all around her. The long snake tail was not at all rough, but rather comforting.

“You are ever miserable on your own.” The Gorgon spoke quietly as she held her up with her tail and shielded her from the storm.

“No, the promise… can’t…” She was in delirium already, but the one prevailing concern in her mind was this. She could not break her vow.

“Do not worry. I will not make you break your promise.” Medusa said softly. “I will not drag you to my lair. Instead I will stay with you.”

Eugenia’s heart stopped for a moment, but then she forgot herself and began to cry.

Completely unlike her usual harshness, Medusa allowed her to show weakness. She even embraced her. The Gorgon’s warmth was unfaltering, unlike the frozen body of this frail human girl.

“Me…dusa… you’re cold… rain…” Eugenia’s fading consciousness did not allow her to form full sentences, but her concern was obvious as she pressed herself against Medusa’s chest.

“Have I not told you countless times? I am not frail like you humans. This storm does not even faze me in the slightest. Can you not feel the warmth of my flesh?”

“Yes…” Eugenia felt the warmth all too strongly. It seemed to burn her numb limbs and face. A heat permeating all through her body and soul.

This genuine warmth of another was calming her hurting heart.

RA-KOOOM!

Thunder struck the air and shook everything.

Eugenia tensed up, her nerves at the breaking point. She had already spilled all her tears until they mixed with the rain and soaked even Medusa’s clothes, but she still could shiver more, tremble more!

“Thunder? Are you afraid of the thunder?” Medusa whispered a question into her ear.

The fearful girl nodded frantically.

“I see. Zeus is battling something today, but let it not shake you. None of his bolts will reach you.” Her words were so comforting that it made Eugenia want to cry again, but she shook her head. Medusa contemplated it for a moment and then understood. She was not afraid of the lightning; she could not even perceive it after all. Only the thunder made her tremble.

Knowing exactly what to do, she tightened her embrace, closed in her wings a bit and then settled Eugenia’s head in front of hers. Slowly the snakes on her head wrapped around the girl’s ears and blocked them out completely.

Her lips moved, saying something, but Eugenia could not hear anything anymore. It was a wonderful feeling of kind silence.

The storm lasted through the whole day and the following night. When the clouds finally cleared, they seemed to do so only reluctantly. The argument between the heavens and the seas had finally come to an end.

Sunlight meekly pushed itself into the open and covered the ball of feathers and scales in the center of the temple. The ball was dripping with water, but the inside was as dry as could be. Eugenia’s clothes had dried in Medusa’s embrace and her coughing had stopped during the night. Her sleeping face was gentle and pure.

With a large flap Medusa opened her wings and shook the rainwater out of them. Then they promptly retreated into her back. Without waking the girl in her arms she slowly released her from her tangled tail and then leaned her against the steps she had carefully swiped with said tail beforehand.

Just as she was about to let her go from her arms, Eugenia sprang up and held unto her. At first it seemed she was acting in her sleep, but then she opened her mouth.

“Thank you.” The priestess said with all her heart.

“Tsk.” Medusa peeled her off and pushed her down on the dried ground. “You were foolish enough to save my garden, but not yourself. Instead of following your greedy human nature, you kept your promise to stay away from my lair. If you view it from that perspective, it would have been me who ended your life by making you swear something impossible. That would break my vow not to harm you. Keep your thanks for someone who requires it.” Her rejecting words were accompanied by an averted face and a restless swing of her tail.

Of course those did not slip by Eugenia, but she did not feel like pointing out her dishonesty. Not this time.

“Then in the human way, selfishly, for my own satisfaction.” She stood up with renewed energy. “Thank you.” And kissed her on the cheek.

Medusa froze and seemed to be lost for words. Then she just as suddenly swiped he tail after the girl, who had already ducked ahead of time, completely expecting this reaction.

“You have some nerve! Treating a monster like a mere child!” She said with a twitching right eye and seething tone. Naturally kissing a child on the cheek was a parent’s privilege, which meant this foolish girl thought herself above the Gorgon.

“I owe you my life.” Eugenia said, ignoring the accusations. “It is hard for me to express how much you saved me.” Her words were unusually deep and serious.

Medusa stopped her usual antics and just took in the sight of the girl sitting in front of her. “You were afraid of the thunder. There is more to it than merely loud noise, is there not?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to talk about it?”

“Do you really want to hear me out? This is none of your concern, right?” Her words were certainly unfair. She used the Gorgon’s own philosophy against her now. The reason was obvious, though, she was afraid to talk about her past.

And she was right; Medusa had always insisted not to inquire about anyone’s past. The less she knew, the less she connected and the easier it would be to part eventually.

Her old and weary eyes could see the hesitation on the priestess’ face, but also her longing. After what Medusa had done, it was hard to argue that she had already invested herself in this mere human. She could make excuses and rationalize it as much as she wished, but she knew this truth already.

“Tell me as much as you dare.” The Gorgon curled up her tail and sat down on it. In the light of this new day, she would seriously listen to the girl’s story. That was her decision.

“I am not good at telling stories, so please bear with me.” She smiled with deep melancholy and then began her tale.

Finally, the priestess would open up about her past and the Gorgon listened ever so intently. The short life of a human held more adversity than many an immortal would ever understand.