...
Monica lazily opened her eyes.
It was strange. Every time she came to this golden sea it felt less like a dream, even though she was increasingly aware of just how unreal it was.
'Unreal?' That was a curious phrase. Who decided what was real and what wasn't? What made this world any more real than the other? Was this world false? Was it a lie? Or was it just an alternative reality, just as real as the other, existing along another axis?
In any case, she took a deep breath of the water, another curious oxymoron, and let the pressure of the sea comfort her like a blanket while the light caressed her with its warmth. She was so comfortable that she could swear that if she closed her eyes too long she would fall asleep and enter some brand new dream within a dream- or, perhaps, as it suddenly occurred to her, she was awake already. She found herself imagining, though she didn't know why, two rooms, each on a long end of a hallway, where each room was a waking world, both as real as the other, and the hallway was the world of dreams. It was as if one could wake in the wrong world just as easily as she could wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
These questions rose as easily as bubbles in the water, and she could have easily spent the rest of her life pondering them in quiet contemplation, not because she was the philosophical kind, but because that was the kind of attitude that this severe tranquility inspired. More so than any walk in the forest, more so than any lazy sunbathing: a sensation comparable only to the deepest and most profound meditative trances. With this was a feeling Monica had never felt before, not even once: the feeling of belonging, as if she were exactly where she ought to be.
However, to her own chagrin, there was one question that refused to pop at the surface of her mind: it lingered and bobbled there, refusing to be ignored, and she cursed her own curiosity.
She had to know what happened to that island.
As her lazy arms and legs moved to pick herself up, she found there was no need. The moment she intended to swim upwards, a current rose from underneath her, gently lifting her up and turning her upright. It was as if this entire ocean existed for no reason other than to serve her. Although it was foreign to her, it also belonged to her, and was as much an extension of herself as it was completely separate. One more in a long line of paradoxes.
It wasn't long before she broke the surface and took a deep breath of true air. It was... disappointing. One would think that the air would be more refreshing than the water, but the opposite was true. Although the air was clean, fresh, and as rejuvenating as a misty fog on a mountaintop morning, for some reason the water still felt more real. The fact that she needed to breathe signaled to her that she didn't belong here nearly as much as she did under the surface, but that wasn't of any concern to her, in fact, she took it as a given. Besides, she wanted to find that island.
It took longer than she thought it would. She thought that, with the clear, citrus skies overhead and the waters so calm that it looked like smooth tile, it would be easy enough to find, but that wasn't the case. After some time, she did finally find it, although it looked as if it had fallen beneath the horizon, and the high column she had previously used as a lighthouse was crooked and nearly fallen over.
Just as she had before, she willed herself to move towards the island, and found that the water once again pushed her along. Just as had happened before, as she left the surface of the water, much of the ocean clung to her shoulders and solidified into the smoothest fabric one could ever feel, as if she were clothed by the wind itself- feeling at once both the freedom of nakedness and the security of clothing. Her girlish spirit couldn't help but marvel and feel at the wonderful dress, and this wonder kept her from realizing that she was now standing atop the ocean, and that it was moving under her, carrying her to her destination. She walked along the current, and arrived at the island in less time than it had ever taken her, soon stepping onto the soft sand and gravel with her bare feet. Along the way, she also realized why the island had been so hard to find: it had sunk beneath the waves. The cave that had sat atop the rising hill had collapsed, and, whether the island had fallen or the water level risen, much of the beach was gone, leaving only the rocks.
Atop these rocks, she saw a figure draped in white, with long, straight, magenta hair that covered not only his back but even the rock he sat upon. She immediately thought back to those winding caves, and remembered the prisoner within...
"Chrysaor!"
The figure laid a bare arm on the rock, and Monica saw not the terse and trained arms of a man, but the supple skin of a woman, and as the figure turned, there too was a woman's bosom, and, when her face came into view, there were the gentle eyes of, not merely a woman, but a mother.
Monica had been running, skipping along the rocks to meet who she thought was her friend, but, seeing the woman reveal herself, stopped in her tracks.
She didn't need to ask who it was.
Medusa smiled at her, and rested a hand on the rock next to her.
"I'm glad you came. Why not come and sit with me? We can watch the sunrise."
There were few in the modern day who didn't know the story of Medusa, at least in passing, and for Monica it was all-too personal. She remembered the cave, the acidic smoke, the look in Chrysaor's eyes when he turned, and the slow creeping of stone across Assassin's flesh as she silently screamed...
'She was a goddess, cursed to become a monster. After she was cursed, she and her sisters fled to the Shapeless Isle, a hidden island, and lived there for many years. But her curse began to progress, and she would eventually lose her sanity. In her madness, she devoured her two sisters, becoming the Demon Goddess Gorgon.'
This was Medusa, but it was not Gorgon. Gorgon had been killed, first by Perseus, then by herself- or maybe not herself but something close enough- and those eyes, the eyes that she looked down with, were not those of a predator. They were not the eyes which turned Assassin to stone, but the eyes of a woman far more gentle than any she had ever met- including her own mother in-particular.
Seeming to sense her hesitation, Medusa lowered her head with sadness and turned back towards the horizon, where Monica could see a morning glow breaking against the eternal dawn. Seeing the disappointment strike the mother's beautiful face, guilt stabbed at her heart, and she rushed forward to take her seat next to her friend's mother without thinking.
She saw relief twinkle in Medusa's rose eyes, but the goddess was fixated on the horizon, meanwhile Monica herself couldn't look away from the woman herself, and constantly flitted back and forth between the vastness of her eyes and the ground at her feet, afraid and ashamed at her own attraction to this woman. She had never expected to meet Chrysaor's mother, and neither did she expect her to be so beautiful and full of grace as she was.
She ached to break the awkward silence, "It's a beautiful sunrise. I can't remember the last time I ever stopped to watch it like this."
"Yes. It's the first sunrise to come here in a long time."
"How long?"
"Since his last friend left, I suppose, though even that may have been a trick of the light."
"How do we know this isn't, too?"
"Because when the sun finally rises, this island will sink below the sea, and I will die."
Icy shock shot through her veins, "What?"
"I will die. This island is where I've lived, and, once it sinks, so will I."
She remembered her own time in the golden sea, how she could breathe but also didn't need to, how it embraced her and comforted her- how it obeyed her, and moved with her whims. At the same time, she remembered those words the shadow had said to her so long ago, 'I, dear lady, am hardly more than a fragment of a memory: a dream once had but never forgotten.' Perhaps she was different, being a stranger to this place, but these shadows, these 'fragments of memory', were products of the sea, and so the water was a death sentence to them: like an ice cube dissolving in a glass of water. This was her theory.
"But- why? Why do you have to die?"
Her smile grew, and yet, there was sadness that wasn't there before, "He doesn't need me anymore, but don't worry. If a son couldn't leave his mother behind, then his mother failed to perform her duty. This day- the day he leaves me- is my greatest joy."
Even as she said this, tears began to trickle down her rosy cheeks.
Monica didn't know what to do, but she couldn't help herself. She flung her arms around the gracious Medusa and clung to her tightly. She only now realized how tall the woman was, since bringing herself in like she did, her face was smothered in Medusa's breast. There was comfort there, there was home there, and it occurred to her that her own mother had never held her like this.
Medusa's arms closed around the small of her back, and now Monica, too, began to cry. Tears of sadness and joy, tears of reunion and departing; of finding something you had always longed for and realizing you would lose it before the day was out. It was the tears shared by two sisters, two friends, a mother and her daughter. They were the tears of pride, knowing that you've reached womanhood, and tears of sorrow, leaving girlhood behind.
"Thank you," Monica finally whimpered from her bosom, "You've been a great mom. Chrysaor was lucky to have you."
Monica felt Medusa's chest jostle as sobbing turned into laughter, "No- no I haven't. How could I have been? I died before he was born. But you-"
She ran one hand through Monica's hair, letting the other press the girl deeper into her chest, "-You've been wonderful. I'm so glad he found you."
She felt her own chest tighten, "W-why though? I treated him terribly. He deserves better than me."
"That attitude-" Medusa pulled away to look her in the eyes, "-Is exactly why he needs you. Because you will never be satisfied. You will work constantly to give him a better life, the kind of life he refuses to pursue, and will never stop finding new ways to do it. What more could I ask for as his mother? And besides-"
She placed a finger under her chin, lifting up her face to look in her eyes, "He feels the same way about you. Neither of you care enough to make the effort for yourselves... but I have faith that you two can move mountains if you do it for one another."
Monica had never held on to hope. She found it so fleeting, so useless, but now, dangling before her eyes, she couldn't resist asking.
"Do you really think so? Does he really feel that way? And- besides that, what guarantee is there that it'll always be true?"
She found herself thinking of Perseus. Even as a fragment of a memory, he had been so persistent, so dedicated to his friend. Could she do such a thing? Was she capable of it? Would Chrysaor even let her? Surely he deserved someone more like him than like her?
"There is no guarantee of anything in life. But, there is something you should know." Her face became suddenly very serious, but then very light, even mischievous, "Perseus- he was able to manifest the sword and the shield, but no one has ever manifested the armor, not even him."
"-What?"
Her smile beamed, "Chrysaor doesn't even know the True Name of his Noble Phantasm- because no one has ever connected with him enough to bring out the true power of Geryon: the third born from two."
The dam of her heart broke loose, and her sobs became uncontrollable, salty tears streaming down her face and falling like rain onto the woman's breasts.
"So- so you're saying-"
"-Yes. There's a chance. A good one, I think."
Monica clung to the mother's chest even tighter than before, finding her body to be sturdy, supple, and endlessly comforting. The time slipped away as she cried tears of joy and anticipation, mourning and love, all the while the beautiful and gracious Medusa caressed her head and back as any mother would- with the exception of her own. They sat there for what felt like forever, and Monica kept her face buried in her pillow-like breast long after her tears had dried; wanting for nothing but the comfort of her body. She only pulled away when, suddenly, like the unwanted pinch of scuttling crab, a wave kissed her bare toe. Removing her head from its place, she looked out, Medusa's arm still around her and keeping her close, and saw the beginnings of the sunrise lifting its own head over the horizon, the rest of the island beyond her seat having sunk below the waves.
The snake goddess leaned in close while she was distracted, kissing her on the cheek and whispering in her ear,
"I hope to see you soon. Good luck."
...