Kairos 76: The Curse of Freedom

The world was cold and her lover’s hands were warm.

Andromache’s tentacles coiled on the stone floor, while her hound-heads snapped at both Orgonos and Nessus. Even Kairos’ attempts to scratch them behind the ears didn’t appease them. Their existence was bound to the curse, and they sensed their doom approaching.

Even after centuries of cohabitation, Andromache still wondered if these creatures had a mind of their own or if they only echoed her buried emotions. Her anger was her anger, but sometimes they acted on their own without discernible reason.

“I will warn you one last time, child,” Orgonos said as his single eye shone with a bright eldritch glow. Nessus stood next to his throne, his arms crossed. “If you succeed, you will shed the curse like a snake with their old skin. But if you fail, the beast inside you will grow stronger than ever. You might irreversibly lose your mind. The half-life you have may be harsh, but it is still a life.”

“A half-life is a half-death,” Andromache replied harshly. “I would rather have a full life or a full death. Either way, I will be free of this burden.”

It already infuriated her that she would have to run this ritual while in her Scylla form, instead of her nymph one. She despised this monstrous body, this hideous mockery of nature's beauty.

Andromache was tired. Tired of living like this for centuries, an unchanging beast that belonged neither to the realm of men nor monsters. Tired of this existence of solitude and misery, with only a few moments of joy and respite. Any alternative was better than another century of loneliness.

Even death.

Her Kairos looked up at her with a thoughtful face. Andromache didn’t see any hint of worry in his eyes; just quiet confidence and unconditional acceptance.

Even in the face of a god’s skepticism, even though the Scylla had made peace with the possibility of failure, her other half never doubted her inevitable success.

Andromache couldn’t help but smile, as she lowered her human torso to face her other half. Her hands moved to his cheeks, her forehead touched his own with a gentle touch. He stroked her hair kindly.

“My other half,” Andromache whispered. “If I fail…”

“You won’t,” he said. “You are the strongest person I know, Andromache. You will win this.”

“If I fail,” Andromache insisted with a hoarse throat. “If I become no better than an animal… I want you to remember me and… and do what you must.”

“You can’t ask me that, Andromache,” he protested. “Even in the remote possibility that we reach that stage, maybe we could still undo it. There’s always a way.”

“Mayhaps,” Andromache agreed. “But how long would it take to find a new cure? Longer than a human’s life I imagine, and I would not bear to live as a feral beast for so long. As for you, you have your own wars to fight.”

“You are one of those,” Kairos insisted. “I will win it, or I will die.”

Andromache smiled, her lips touching her fangs. “Thank you, my love,” she replied, before whispering into his ear. “Kairos, do you remember our night in Vali?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, too low for the others to hear. Orgonos waited politely for them to finish, while Nessus had the grace to look away. “I hurt you.”

“I bled when you took me.” Andromache let out a sigh. “I am invulnerable, my love. I cannot be harmed. No arrow can pierce my skin, whether they belong to a satyr or Eros himself. My flesh is as strong as steel. No man’s caress could give me pain or pleasure, except yours.”

Kairos’ own hands moved to her cheeks as their gaze locked. They mirrored each other, like two parts of a greater whole.

“Before you came, I was dead,” Andromache admitted. “I breathed, but I had perished long ago. When you chained me to my own home, I thought you would kill me.”

“I intended to.” To his credit, he sounded well and truly ashamed. “If you hadn’t taken the oath, I think I would have. I never imagined that… that we would become a we. I should never have forced those chains on you, magical or otherwise.”

“I would have slain you if you hadn’t forced me to make that oath. I would have set your boat and house on fire, even if it meant courting death.” Andromache couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of their romance. “We were never meant to get together, Kairos.”

“No, we weren’t,” her other half replied, his tone strangely uplifting. “But we did anyway. We conquered our distrust of each other, little by little.”

“Yes we did,” Andromache whispered, “and I regret none of it. You gave me more than pleasure, my love. You gave me joy, pride, and hope. This battle is mine to fight, but you made it possible.”

“I would not be here without you either. We reached this place together, and I won’t leave it without you.”

“I know. If I do this, it’s so we can have a future together. And if I don’t come back… I want to say thank you, my other half. For everything.”

Their lips brushed against each other, in a kiss that might be their last one. Her hounds fell silent, and Andromache felt as if this moment stretched on for hours. She hoped it could have lasted forever, but all good things had to end.

“I love you,” she said upon breaking the kiss.

“I love you,” he replied as he slowly let her go. “Win this. For us, but for yourself most of all.”

Andromache nodded slowly, and faced the god of magic.

“Are you ready?” Orgonos asked with a slow and ponderous voice.

“Yes,” Andromache replied with a firm nod. “But may I ask a question first?”

“You wonder how I defeated Circe, though she was a [God]?” Orgonos glanced at Kairos. “Your lover gained a [Legend] by slaying a [Hero]. There is no difference in power that cannot be overcome. Sometimes, one must use their wits. At other times, one must be lucky and seize the right opportunity.”

“Is that all it took?” Kairos asked. “An opportunity?”

“I defeated Circe and Hecate not because I was a better mage, but because I did everything in my power to improve my odds. I choose the place and time with care. I trusted the right ally. And I seized the day when others would have hesitated.”

“Did Circe suffer?” Andromache asked. She prayed to all the gods old and new that Circe perished in agony.

“No,” Orgonos replied to her immense disappointment. “I needed her out of the way to deal with Hecate, and I had no wish to toy with my food like a cat. One of the main benefits of undeath is freedom from these distracting passions. I took no chance and slew her the moment I could.”

Fair enough.

“Go get them, girl,” Nessus encouraged Andromache. Though she was never close to the satyr, they shared the camaraderie of old veterans. “Circe is a ghost. Put her down for good.”

“I will.” Andromache closed her eyes, her hound-heads snapping their jaws. “I am ready.”

Orgonos spoke a word, and Andromache’s world shattered like glass.

Her body snapped in half like a needle, as if cut from below the waist. For the first time in countless centuries, the beastly rage festering in her waist vanished alongside the coldness of her tentacles. Her body transformed back into her nymph form, but her legs felt numb.

When Andromache opened her eyes again, Orgonos’ dome had changed. The god and his throne had vanished from her sight, alongside her Kairos’ reassuring presence. Even Nessus had disappeared.

A body of water had appeared where Orgonos used to be, with water as pure as crystal. A ring of verdant grass and flowers had grown at the pool’s edge, radiant in its beauty. Even after so many centuries, Andromache immediately recognized it.

“My pond,” she whispered. The waters that she had once called her home, before Circe bound her to the phoenix egg. The peaceful haven where suitors came to pay her homage with songs and flattery.

It was long gone. It only existed in her memories now, alongside her old life and joys.

Andromache looked at her legs and waist, and found them all too human. Her feet had five toes. When she licked her teeth with her tongue, she didn’t feel any sharp fangs. No beast echoed in the back of her mind, raging at the world.

Andromache should have found peace in this illusion, but she didn’t. A void had replaced the hole left by her curse, and her legs felt no more real than this place. She wasn’t whole yet.

The witch raised a hand and focused. A scepter appeared in her right hand, bursting with flames and heat. She snapped her fingers and summoned a rain of magical jewels, each as radiant as the sun. It would have taken her a kingdom’s budget to craft them all, but it only took an instant in the realm of her imagination.

Yet when she tried to compel her Kairos to appear, her love didn’t show up.

This place was an illusion shaped by her will, but still bound to limitations. Andromache could cast her spells and craft in the blink of an eye, but when she tried to collapse the dome with a thought, it stood strong. She could recreate anything her Skills could, but no more.

What was Andromache supposed to do now? Lord Orgonos had warned that she would face her curse, and she had expected Circe’s memories to haunt her from beyond the grave. Yet the witch’s ghost hadn’t shown up.

Andromache approached the pond and looked into its waters. She worried that her reflection would show her hideous Scylla form… but instead, her face was smooth and radiant. The witch’s shapeshifting spell was a pale imitation of her old nymph beauty, but here Andromache saw a glimpse of it. Like Narcissus, she couldn’t help but stare at her own image with longing and nostalgia.

It took her a moment to notice other forms behind her reflection. Andromache focused and distinguished familiar shapes: her other half with his faithful griffin and his mother Aurelia; Agron, that amusing minotaur; her mentor Euryale; and even Cassandra.

Is this my heart’s desire? Andromache thought. The people I love? The few friends I have made?

Then why could she see her reflection so clearly, while her loved ones looked like feeble shadows? Did something cloud her heart? Andromache touched the pool’s surface, water rippling with a discordant sound.

And then her curse emerged from the pool.

A black tentacle struck her in the chest like a whip, and unlike the rest of this place, the pain felt all too real. Andromache let out a cry of surprise as the blow broke a rib and sent her flying backward to crash and roll on the cold hard floor. She gasped for breath, and looked up as a monster rose from her pond with a screech.

A tangle of tentacles crowned by a ring of hungry hounds glared at Andromache, with no humanoid torso to give it a thin veneer of intellect. Only a festering wound remained where the nymph half had been, shedding a fountain of blood.

“Finally,” Andromache whispered as rose back to her human feet, her fingers tightening on her scepter. “I waited so long for this.”

The monster crawled at her with rage and bestial hunger, eager to devour her flesh. Andromache responded by raising her scepter and summoning a fireball. Her flames hit the creature in the face, burning its skin to crisp.

The monster’s howls of pain shook the walls and brought a smile to Andromache’s face, but the flames didn’t stop it. As its skeletal jaws emerged from the fire to lunge at her, the witch summoned a second staff in her left hand; one forged with the power of storms.

A whirlwind formed beneath her feet and carried her towards the ceiling, and out of the creature’s reach. The monster tried to seize the nymph with its tentacles, but its reach was too short.

Andromache watched with contempt as her curse incarnated fruitlessly wailed at her. From above, the beast looked pathetic. “How could I have ever feared you?” she wondered out loud while raising her fiery scepter. “I gave you power where you had none.”

This time, Andromache didn’t summon a single fireball. She instead rained a river of flames and brimstones, melting the monster’s flesh to the bone. Her fire incinerated the lungs it needed to scream, the hounds’ screams of pain turning into whimpers. The creature attempted to flee back to the pond and the waters’ safety, but its body collapsed beneath the witch’s onslaught.

“You will suffer as I suffered!” Andromache’s voice brimmed with fury and hatred. “Burn! Burn, burn, burn!”

Her searing flames turned the room as bright as the heart of the sun, and when the light died only a pile of ash remained.

Andromache slowly landed on the ground with a breath of relief. In this instant, she finally understood what Agron found so peaceful about arson. Watching the incarnation of her pain disappear had brought her great joy.

The witch felt satisfied and rested… at least until she looked at her pond.

Though the pool of water remained intact, her flames had burnt the flowers around it. The sight left Andromache feeling strangely sad, though she couldn’t explain why. These plants had perished centuries ago, long before the Olympians.

“It doesn’t matter,” Andromache muttered to herself. “It’s all a dream. I will make new ones in the waking world.”

Her love awaited her on the other side.

And yet, she didn’t wake up, to her utter confusion.

Doubt gnawed at Andromache’s mind, and she looked into the pool. To her horror, the waters no longer reflected her beautiful nymph face. Her mirrored image had grown fangs and claws, while her loved ones’ shadows had blurred.

“Have I done something wrong?” Andromache asked, but no one answered. “Lord Orgonos? Can you hear me?”

All she heard in response was a painful squeal.

The witch’s gaze snapped back at the ashes of her curse, to see a hound head emerge from them.

Andromache didn’t even utter a word. She simply snapped her scepter at the beast and incinerated it again.

But this time her magic did nothing. The monster regenerated from its own ash and weathered the fire, rising from the dead even bigger than before. The wound on its top extinguished the flames with blood, and its tentacles lunged at Andromache with fury.

The witch hastily flew away with a whirlwind, before switching from flames to thunderbolts. Her lightning blasted the beast’s heads left and right, only for two more to grow back like a twisted hydra. The creature pursued her across the dome, gaining more heads and tentacles with each spell.

“Enough!” Andromache summoned chains with the power of imagination, binding the creatures from all sides. She then crafted a rain of fire rods, blasting it away into nothingness.

The chains melted, but the monster grew larger.

Andromache couldn’t help but blink in horror at the horror before her. The monster emerged from the smoke not as her separated half, but as a deformed mass of dog heads, tentacles, and festering scars. It screeched with a hundred mouths, and caught its nymph half with a limb as strong as a dragon’s grip.

Andromache didn’t even have the time to react as a tentacle grabbed her midair and smashed her against the ground. She heard a loud crack and her vision blurred into a sea of stars, but the beast didn’t let her go. It slammed her against the ceiling and the ground, making her taste her own blood. Where it had played with her like a toy, it dragged Andromache to its hundred maws to feast on her flesh.

But though her body was broken, the sorceress’ will remained as strong as ever. A thought crossed her mind, and a floating ring of gems materialized around her head. They exploded in a bright flash of magical life, vaporizing the tentacle holding her and sending the beast reeling back.

When Andromache fell on the ground, she couldn’t even feel her legs anymore. Her broken scepters laid in pieces next to her crooked hands, and blood dripped from her mouth and skull. When the witch raised her head to glare at her monstrous half, she only saw with one eye.

Her beastly curse snarled as it recovered from the blast, but as it grew so did its wounds. Whatever regenerative ability allowed it to survive death couldn’t repair his scars. It was stronger than ever, and yet found no reprieve from its pain.

How do I kill this? Andromache wondered with rage. The more I hurt it, the more powerful it gets! Why won’t it die?

She looked at this horror, at this pathetic, odious ball of agonizing pain and mindless rage. The very sight of it revolted Andromache to the core of her being, and the idea of sharing a soul with it disgusted her. It was a poison in her flesh, a twisted mockery of herself, and an obstacle to her happiness. It stood between her and the family she wanted, the life she craved.

So why couldn’t it go away?

Andromache’s eyes wandered to the pond. The waters were clear, surrounded by a ring of ash. But the witch’s reflection had grown even more monstrous, and the shadows…

Only her other half’s shade remained, a paltry distant thing. Everyone else had vanished, from Andromache’s gorgon mentor to her mother-in-law.  Why did they go? Why was the curse getting strong?

Andromache glanced back at her beastly half, at its bleeding wounds and snarling jaws. Why did it recover no matter how much she hurt it? She had all the power in the world, the strength to defeat all her enemies. Why couldn’t she destroy this one? This monster already seemed to agonize on its own! It was as broken as she was!

…

Because it was a part of her.

Andromache thought about her snarling reflection in the pond, at her heart’s desire. It wasn’t the curse that had driven everyone away; it was her anger and fury.

She was a flame. Her wrath gave her strength and fueled her magic, but left nothing in its wake. Andromache only had to take a glance at the burnt flowers around her pool.

“It’s not you…” The witch whispered to the monster wriggling before her. “It’s me.”

Orgonos had warned her. The curse was bound to her soul.

It only had as much strength as Andromache gave it.

Having finally understood the truth, the witch called upon her magic while her beastly half let out a roar of defiance. But this time, Andromache summoned no flames or lightning bolts.

Instead, she crowned the hounds with a hundred hydra crowns. The regalia looked far better on her Kairos’ head, but their magic worked just as well. The healing power within the devices flowed through the monster’s wounds, closing them.

The beast’s jaws snapped at her in a mix of anger and confusion.

“It’s alright,” Andromache whispered, her voice low and soft. Her throat was dry, and it hurt to even speak. “I won’t fight you anymore. You are me, and I am you.”

The beast took heed of her words and crawled towards her. Its tentacles coiled around her like snakes, while its hound heads sniffed at her face. The bane of Andromache’s existence looked at her with fear and apprehension.

“Circe twisted you into this thing, but you were born from my wrath and it fueled you all these years.” Andromache raised her hand, and the creature recoiled in fear… but her fingers only caressed its fur. “The more I hate and reject you, the more I reject myself and others. And once everything has burnt… all that’s left is pain.”

To heal, she had to let go. Let go of the rage, let go of the bitterness, let go of the self-pity.

The creature whined as the witch’s caresses and thoughts soothed it. Its wounds closed, and it shrank back to its original size.

“It’s alright,” Andromache said, as its tentacles embraced her. Once they had been as cold as seawater, but now felt warm as her lover’s skin. “I forgive you.”

To accept others into her life, she had to accept herself.

Her beastly half let out a final squeal, and dragged Andromache into the pond.

The nymph closed her eyes as they fell into the waters, their bodies merging into one. The monster’s essence filled the hole in her soul; not with pain and anger, but with warmth and peace. The curse’s power turned against itself, the beastly magic transforming from shackles into a breeze of freedom.

When Andromache opened her eyes again, it was within Kairos’ gentle arms. Her lover looked at her with a relieved look, before kissing her on the forehead.

Andromache answered his love with a smile, but she sensed no sharp fangs beneath her lips. Her legs felt weak and fragile. She touched them with her fingers, delighting at the warm sensation on her skin.

You fulfilled your Quest. You earned 10 Skill Points.

Your [Legend] changed from [Phoenix Guardian] to [Witch of Freedom].

Your Legendary Skill [Invulnerable Scylla] changed to [Freedom of Form]. You sacrificed strength and invulnerability for freedom. You can reshape your physical form as you wish, though you cannot alter your body mass; this includes turning your body into unliving material such as stone or mist. Additionally, you are immune to all [Curses], even those cast by [Gods].

But it was the last line that brought tears to Andromache’s face.

Your race changed from Scylla (Naiad) to Nymph (Naiad).

She cried in joy as Kairos held her against his chest.

“It’s alright,” he whispered into her ear. “It’s over.”

Yes.

Andromache’s nightmare was over, and she had finally woken up.

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