Scylla & Charybdis

Death. Destruction. Hunger. Ever consuming loneliness. In another life, Scylla might have grown accustomed to it already. Gods, in another life, she wouldn't even have been in this situation. Cursed by a witch she had no relations with, over a man she had never wanted. Glaucus, that empty-minded imbecile.

They had met only once, in the early morning hours of a late midsummer day. She had strolled along the beaches of Calabria in search of seashells and shark teeth, the likes of which she used to craft necklaces and little decorations for her home in her spare time. It had been quiet and nice until she saw him walk up to her. "You are beautiful.", Glaucus had said as his eyes grazed over her face and he reached out his hands to hold onto hers, "More beautiful than any other." But Scylla was not smitten by him, had had her fair share of experience when it came to men trying to court her. This one would be no different. So she sent him on his way, rejecting his proposal of marriage.

Oh, but Glaucus was a fool. He had been stupid, so stupid, that day when he had sought out the sorcerer goddess Circe on her island, practically begging her for a potion of love that would open Scylla's heart to him. Asked the very person that had loved him in secret, for longer than she could remember. And poor Circe, she tried to enchant him with her honeyed words, told him to forget the 'silly nymph' and pleaded with him to stay by her side, here, in the gardens she tended. To father her children and make her his wife instead - Glaucus had simply refused. A mistake only Scylla would come to be punished for.

She could remember it clearly, the day Circe cursed her. The sun had been sinking into the horizon, painting the sky in indigos and pinks and oranges and the sea water on her skin felt refreshing as it pearled down her body. The thing that first caught her attention was the fact that she couldn't move when she tried, was stuck to the spot in the water where she was sitting. The next thing she noticed had been the pain suddenly flaming up in her legs, the shock when Scylla felt her bones bend and twist and snap apart. It had started in her legs, but the pain crept up through each nerve and sinew, her body contorting and reforming until the nymph was gone and a big, horrifying looking creature with multiple moray heads pushed itself into the sea; Charybdis, as Scylla soon found out.

It's your own fault., she heard the monster's voice in the back of her mind as she floated through the water in the dark murky cave she called her own. In a weird sense, it was like they had come to form an understanding over the years, with Scylla being able to inherit her own body and the monster only taking over when it wanted to feed. "It's not.", Scylla answered out loud, arms outstretched as she stared at the ceiling and felt the little drops that had formed along the stalagtites drip on her face, "It's his." Glaucus.

The two of them fell into an argument, one they had had for hundreds of times before, where Charybdis would whisper in her mind and Scylla answered out loud into the darkness, her voice echoing off of the stone cave walls. This particular time, they noticed late that the water around them had began to stirr with soft ripples. The familiar noise of oars hitting water. "Visitors.", Scylla said. Sacrifices. Fooood. Charybdis immediately answered. Slowly, the nymph approached the boat. It was known that passing through her lair had a cost, one that no one would take lightly.

Her pale fingers brushed over the side of the boat, feeling the wood and the algae that clung to it, before she gave it a firm shake. Circling around the vessel and causing it to softly shake and spin around itself, she popped her head out of the water. "We are hungry."