07-25-2021, 12:53 PM
The horrible Undead, raised by magic and blood mixing in the seawater that swallowed them, tear Carcinus to pieces, but Sintra, half-eaten, losing blood and consciousness as the shallow surf swirls around her, cannot watch for long. Her vision grays out and the tumbling roar of the ocean in her ears becomes a dull hum, and then she falls back into the woolen black embrace of Death. Unlike in her homeland where Death is nearly just another sort of Life, in this place, it’s nothing, not even darkness or silence. Perhaps the Men here have an Afterlife, and maybe even the animals, but she is not part of this world and her soul would not know where to go, or perhaps is not inclined to find the Way.
Inclination, though, does not matter to Hera. There is nothing at all, and then there is Hera, burning bright against Sintra’s sluggish brain. Fury crackles across her livid brow like electricity, it makes her glow like a dying star, casting light against the backdrop of Nothing and Nowhere, and Sintra, unwillingly aware of the goddess, looks instinctively away. Her stilled heart has no strength to face divine rage. She accepts the blame readily, though, almost eagerly. Her fault. Yes. That black head nods stiffly. The iridescent rainbows that coat the Undead are enough to damn her in anyone’s eyes. It does not matter that she is sorry, that she had meant to be the only one that died. It does not matter that the gods are the ones that brought her here in the first place, because the gods will always do as they please and she, mortal and powerless, will always be the one that is punished.
Dull, reverent, acceptance is not the companion of bravery. Fear thrills across Sintra’s skin, cold fingers stroking her skin and her throat and clenching her heart in a boney, crushing fist. Her breath trembles when she draws it, quickly and unevenly, into lungs that a moment ago were full of saltwater and still burn with the Life that billows into them again. Again.
She’s whole again, but strange. Normal and strange, her skin opaque, flecked grey-blue like her dam but littered with golden scars. One long-missing eye has been replaced (she cannot see, but, like the god-healed scars, it is a golden orb that flashes in the bright Mediterranean sun) and the span of her vision takes her aback. Only for a moment. Only long enough for her to see the arena, to see the lion and the thunderstorm of Hera’s dazzling, disorienting face.
Slay the lion, comes the voice that rings in her hidden bones, and you can go home.
Sintra does not need to see her heart to know how it quails at this demand. She is tired of killing, and there is so little reward in the promise of home. The golden cat stalks forward, brazen and unafraid, and the sun-bright hairs of his mane are full of terrifying music when he shakes his head, when he lifts it in the air and draws in the scent of her flesh. He is hungry and confident, as monsters are, and as tall as the roan mare whose attention he commands.
No need to rush, his gait suggests, tail slipping lazily through the air, deadly promise in his fangs. He does not charge her when she looks away, when she finally tears her eyes away from his unbreakable skin and casts about the ring for a plan, an escape, a way. The sides are steep and slick without an entrance or exit – which is no impediment to the gods, but a death sentence to a frightened mare – the ground within torn up by cruel claws, littered with rock and bone and a few well-scratched pomegranate trees for shade. He does not charge but continues the measured, inexorable approach, knowing that there is no escape and he need only avoid her hooves until she is too tired to use them.
The roan draws back until the scarred trees scrape against her flank and their fruit-laden boughs drape across her neck and back. There’s a sense of safety here, an unwarranted one, she knows, but it blossoms in her chest even as the lion and Hera’s fury grow ever larger and ever closer. Her gaze, violet and gold, flicks between goddess and monster, master and servant both reveling in her destruction. Sintra does not want to go home. She does not want to kill the lion or the crab or the men. Hera’s anger over Carcinus does not match the pledge that hangs over the lion’s neck, and if she were not so tired, then the little mare might be more suspicious of it. It would not make any difference, though. She will not kill the lion, she will not even try. Her bright teeth close only on the bitter flesh of hanging pomegranates, sweet juice stains her lips like blood as she tips her head up, offering him an unspoiled view of her delicate throat, of the windpipe he crushes, of the deep arteries his teeth find and pierce. Tears like seawater and gold spill across her dark cheeks and blood, like dark wine, pulses from her ruptured throat. Nobody else needs to die today, she is a willing sacrifice; repentant, and full of sorrow.