medea, honey

her fingers trail along his jaw, stubbly and speckled from the harsh colchis sun, her voice dips in a whisper, trembling, quivering. “i can’t”

his answering rumble chilled her blood.

“it’s the only way.”

he asked, with the sweetest hint of malice,

“you love me, don’t you? if you love me, i will love you too.”

_____

blood pounds through her ears, sunspots cloud her vision. she sees her brother, face tight with betrayal and grief-stained wrath, chest puffed out in a hapless attempt at intimidation; blinks back tears and memories of a chubby, fair-haired boy hugging her tightly around her middle as her father and his advisors argued in the next room, as battles raged around her home and her gilded world began to crack and melt slowly around the edges. blinks them back as the same fair-haired man strides towards her now, boots clanking on the ship deck, soon to be inked red and black with his blood.

she knows already those stains will never really wash out.

(“medea. return at once to corinth. please, come home. leave this foolish bastard behi-”

blood spatters the wood. her eyes blurs with tears and her mind swallows itself in waves of pain, but her traitorous hands grasp the blade /stabbingstabbingstabbingstabbingstabbing/fleshandskinandbone/weavetogether/inalurid

masterpiece/

and her lips twisted into a bright, manic leer.

those lips, which she had kissed her brother goodnight with countless times, bade goodbye to her mother, said “i love you father” every night like the filial child she was. those red lips were now pressed against jason’s, tongues thrashing, a display of desperate fervent crazed passion and love. because this was love, wasn’t it? this embrace, blood painted across her arms and offal embellishing her robes, hair a rat’s nest, and all she could see were his blue, blue eyes.

in the background, a steady plop, plop, plop sound as her brother’s arms, legs, torso were tossed into the seas.)

he did have a name. absyrtus, her baby brother, her bloodline.

but he is no more, and all she knows is jason of the argonauts. jason, her hero, with she, his heroine.

——

but readers, who know the rest of their damned passion, cemented in mythology; you see, don’t you?

jason broke his promise. he strayed for another woman, and when he did, he tossed medea aside. left her stranded outside of corinth, her only home, with nothing left and no-one to trust, the blood of her brother crusted in her fingernails, the tears of her kingdom salting her eyes, and the black ink of remorse splitting her heart.

and so she didn’t really owe anything to him, or his pretty little lady, or anyone else, did she?

she was a free fucking woman now,

and free women always had the most fun.