Medusa's First

          Medusa kept to herself at the party, quietly sipping her fruit punch and taking care not to meet anyone’s eye. She could feel Athena’s eyes from across the room, the Goddess deep in conversation with Poseidon and Zeus, and retreated even further in the kitchen. One more mistake, one more accidental servant turned to gray stone, and Medusa knew Athena was mere moments away from cursing her to oblivion.

            So Medusa kept her eyes downward as she moved through the party. She could feel the whispers from the partiers around her, even from the creatures widely shunned for their own hideous natures. Even a few of the harpies-gray, withered hags with black wings-had dates and openly insulted her. Medusa ignored them, tempering the snakes roiling on her head so they wouldn’t leap out in venomous fury, and moved past them.

            “Why did I even come here?” she told herself sadly and set down the drink. It was her sisters who’d persuaded her to leave that cavern she called home to see what life had to offer beyond stalagmites and the occasional warrior who wandered in.

            But that was a life she had to accept now.

            “Hello there?”

            She instinctively looked up and met the striking red eyes of a man before she realized her mistake.

            “No! Don’t look at me!”

            The man laughed and gently pried her hands away from her face. Her snakes leapt to her defense before they realized he wasn’t hurting her or attacking her or calling her foul names beneath his breath.

            No, she realized, he was smiling at her. A sincere and warm smile.

            And he hadn’t turned to stone!

            “Oh. You’re blind, aren’t you?” asked Medusa and nodded sadly. Just her luck: find a handsome man only to find he’s blind.

            “Blind? Not at all,” he told her and she couldn’t help but admire his rather eye-catching red hair and the red gleam to his eyes. “Dad’s just part basilisk.”