...and watch it burn

[mycursedface]

There is an army in Greece. Many armies, many cities so many armies but this arm isn't like that. It's from across the sea from where Troy used to be, well beyond that. It's from the deserts where it snows and sometimes she thinks she can understand the soldiers' babble.

The soldiers talk of 'Sparta' and 'Athens' and even as she hates the last, loathes it and wants to scrub the memory of (his rough hands) what happened there off her body but soldiers mean destruction and she is what she is.

She follows

She picks off the dead, the wounded, those straying too far because meat is meat and she watches with eyes closed.

(she hears the Spartans, hears their king brave and sardonic say molon labe to the Great King's messager, and they did come and get their weapons but she grinned for they died well)

On, and on, and on and this is Athens.

She stops, swaying, claws digging into her arms because she remembers oh Gaia, oh Pontus, she does, she does, she does but then she stops. She gazes out towards the city, barely even breathing before

(the sky is full of smoke, glowing red and she can hear the sceams from here but
it's burning
burning
burning down
I curse you Medusa
the Acropolis is burning)

Medusa throws back her head and laughs.