You don't have to match this. I can't match this. I couldn't match a post matching this.
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Medusa crept through the barren remains of what was once lush, verdant forest. She knew that the brittle blackened things standing in the ground were once trees, were living things. She couldn't wrap her mind around it, couldn't get herself to believe they were anything but twisted statues, some perverted idea of a madman's tree. A low laugh escaped her maw. She knew the business of madmen. A dark thing stirred in her mind and chuckled with an oily tinge. The woman felt it slide down her spine and drift through her body as all functions within slowed down. Heart beat, breathing - simple things that he could force to stop - him, the Narrator. That presence who never failed to leave her, touching her mind in ways both blessed and cursing.
She didn't want him to remain in her mind, had often considered taking a rock to her skull to cut a hole and force him out. At the same time, she knew it wouldn't work. Why, though, did he exist? The snake-god lover of the Zmija Kraljica shouldn't remain inside the mind of a mere mortal practitioner, especially one who had long since left the church. She still respected the goddess, though. She prayed to the Zmija Kraljica daily.
Of course, Medusa remembered what they said in the fortress the church was based in. She heard their whispers, the rumors that floated in her constantly twitching ears. They said she was the earthly incarnation of the goddess, there to save her followers, her nest of snakelings. The mark was the Narrator, he was the Kraljica's consort, the lover to last her all eternity.
The very male leader of the church had decided he was the living consort, so he had every right to Medusa, in the name of religion. She shuddered. No lover of hers, predestined, god, or earthly, would take what they wanted by force. Not would they be male.
Medusa simply couldn't be the goddess. She was supposed to have an eternal lover in a male. If the woman was really the Kraljica, then why would she be dangerously close to falling in love with Ksenija, a female? Medusa had always been fond of the female form, finding soft curves enticing. A male was just terrifying for her.
Besides, even if she did like men, she would have far better taste in them then the Kraljica did. The snake-god had often whispered chaotically to her, telling her to hurt, to kill. He had wanted her to slaughter her entire family with her bare hands. All the men, women and children of the clan ad Kathari would be mice to her mighty serpent.
So she had left and was now in this land, kicking around dirt and bits of charred whatever. Her toes were beginning to acquire a dusting of coal, the muted gold becoming a dull grey. Her hands clutched at her cloak, holding the tattered purple silk tight around her body. She left the snakes at the camp she and Ksenija had set up. Medusa decided she wanted to be alone, without even the company of her beloved pets.
She sneezed quietly and sat down, not wanting to kick around the dirt and scuffle about pitying herself. She found a stick and began doodling nonsensical lines and shapes in the dirt before her.
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