"Mitéra! Theíes![1] I have come back from the market!" she called out, music in her voice and a basket in her hands.
The girl was both young and beautiful; she still appeared to be a summer or so away from her sixteenth birthday, though she was far older than she seemed. But now, her lively eyes flickered with doubt as she neared the cavern. Silence echoed.
Her carefree smile wilted slowly as she entered the entrance. This place had been her home for more than three hundred years, but never had it felt so…hostile. She froze in place as she felt her hackles rise; her hands shook as a shudder of sheer terror ran through her.
"Mitéra?" she called out again, more softly now, her hesitation creeping into her voice. She could feel it in the air—something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
As she focused her senses with a hesitant sniff, she almost retched at the strong scent of copper…no, the scent of blood. Then she heard it: a piercing, keening, grief-filled wail, recognizing instantly the voice of one of her Theíes coming from deep within their home. Her basket dropped to the ground as she moved fast as she could, sprinting down the tunneled hallway towards where her and her family usually slept together. She did not stop to think. The rough, stony steps chafed on her heels, but she was used to them; after all, she had traveled through these paths countless times over the past three centuries. Focusing now on her hearing, she listened for anything and flinched as she heard both of her Theíes cursing and wailing in the distance.
"The bastard will pay!"
"That wretched whore Athena's scent was all over him!"
She paled as she heard their enraged and grief-struck voices speaking out the one name that was taboo in these dark halls, especially around her Mitera. It made her run even faster, faster than she had ever run before in her entire life. Turning the corner sharply to the area where they usually slept together, she winced in pain as she had to catch herself on the sharp stone of the wall as she rounded the corner to steady herself as she stumbled. But the fresh cut on her palm was almost instantly forgotten; as blood gleamed in the dark light, her sun kissed skin paled, and all color was lost from her heart-shaped face. Her eyes drowned in tear-struck horror as they fell on the scene before her.
"Mitéra ?!" she croaked with terror and grief. Her skin was now paler than the clearest and whitest moon as nausea filled her and bile froze to the back of her throat at the scene before her.
Her Theía Euryale sat curled up in a pool of blood, holding a headless, twitching body. Graceful, familiar fingers shuddered on the rough stones, as if shaking in the cold; the gossamer of her, Mitéra 's skin had grayed to a lifeless sheen.
"Adamantia? No! Look away, dear snakeling!" Her Theía Stheno screamed in horror, frantically slithering towards her, wrapping her cold-scaled arms and warm feathered wings around Adamantia as she cradled her close to her scaled body.
Adamantia clutched her Theía absently, still in shock. Nothing made sense; her entire form shuddered, and her sanity quaked like a leaf in a storm as the headless form of her Mitéra flashed before her eyes yet again. Gone now was the amber gleam of her cheek, the patient curl of her lips, the familiar hiss of her discontent—never to be seen again.
"Theía Stheno…? What…happened to my Mitera?" choked out Adamantia as tears trailed down her cheeks like twin silvery rivers. Stheno stiffened, but it was her Theia Eurayle who answered.
"Per-s-seus!" Eurayle hissed slowly, venom dripping from her voice. "Perseus, the bastard son of Zeus! He murdered Medusa for her head, and those accursed gods helped him! He took her head for his trophy…!"
"Euryale!" snarled Stheno as Adamantia shuddered and flinched her arms.
"No, I will not withhold the truth from her! She deserves to know who murdered her Mitéra . The bastard that took our Adelfí[2] from us…!"
A brutal scream of pain and grief ripped itself deep from within Adamantia as her legs gave out. Sobbing uncontrollably as ugly tears wracked her slight body, a gaping pit opened up in her soul, screaming without end—and in the coolness of Stheno's embrace, Adamantia knew her Mitéra would never hold her again.
Nothing would ever be the same ever…
[1] Mother! Aunties!
[2] Sister