(Author's note- I am beginning to feel vaguely crap-like again, so this is not as tightly edited as it might be- or will be, later. In the meantime, I beg your indulgence...)
Beautiful Killer, once out of the oracle’s cave, underwent an unconscious sort of transformation. His movements became a great deal more graceful, for starters: the sort of movements you would expect such fluid limbs to be capable of, rather than the awkward shuffling he’d displayed in the cave. Too, his shoulders came up and back, giving him an extra inch or two to his moderate height. The further he got from the female oracle, the more he began to look like he might actually be capable of killing, and not just of being decorative.
See, the thing was, women made him feel uneasy and self-conscious, and when he felt that way, well… it showed. Beautiful Killer was very bad at being anything but what he was in any given moment, and while that was a wonderful trait to have while swept up in the heat of battle, it was a something of a hindrance when it came to social interactions with the fairer sex. Not that they ever seemed to mind. Some of them even seemed to find it endearing, which of course only made things more horrible for him.
He repressed a shudder.
The oracle hadn’t been so bad, though. She’d been almost- almost- sexless, so he hadn’t felt the urge to flee as strongly as he often did around women. Women and their grasping little hands... And with the veil over her face, he couldn’t even see if she was ogling him, which was a relief in and of itself. He did get so very tired of being ogled.
He wondered briefly if he could somehow get more women wearing veils.
***
It took him less than two days’ march to find the place the oracle had foretold. It was at the top of a lonely sort of hill, in the middle of a roughly circular grove of olive trees. Standing there, Beautiful Killer had a perfectly lovely view of the surrounding plains plains (complete with misty peaks in the far-off distance), and he took a moment to enjoy it before turning his attention to his immediate surroundings. Someone had thoughtfully arranged a pile of stones, boughs, and twine that might be used to erect an altar just large enough for a young man to sleep under.
It made him very, very uneasy.
Oh he was grateful, to be certain- he hadn’t been entirely certain how he would make an altar without cutting down someone’s sacred something-or-other and getting himself in an even deeper mess- but the truth of the matter was this entire thing was just a little too ridiculously easy. Which meant that someone- and in this instance most likely a divine someone- wanted something from him.
Again.
Beautiful Killer sighed and began stacking rocks.
He was used to people wanting to help him, because of his looks. It was embarrassing, and also frustrating. It had made it exceptionally difficult for him to learn the art of fighting, because so many people kept letting him win- which of course taught him nothing. And then, too, he felt like there really wasn’t anyone in the world he could trust- because people inevitably had ulterior motives, when it came to him. Even if that motive was something seemingly benign, like trying to make him happy. Their idea of what would make him happy.
Not that he was adverse to happiness, of course. He just felt as though he ought to have more of a hand in earning it for himself. Take this whole “Beautiful Killer” thing. Oh, he was certain that the minstrel had thought he was doing a fine thing by exaggerating his minor exploits into a few epic poems, but the truth of the matter was that Beautiful Killer would much rather have actually done those deeds and not gotten credit for them, rather than the reverse. Especially once it started leading to the difficulties…
He shook his head to clear it, and refocused on the task at hand. The altar was taking shape, and he took a moment to fill in its underside with some conveniently located moss (he tried not to think about how convenient) so that he wouldn’t be sleeping directly on the dirt. Then, because there really wasn’t that much else to do when you’re waiting on a goddess, he went to sleep.
***
She showed up in his dream, almost as soon as he’d closed his eyes. Tall and terrible, the goddess stared at him until he began to feel his flesh creep, and he became uncomfortably aware of the fact that he could not move. Her gaze was different from the way most people looked at him- her eyes held no adoration, no covetousness- only a sort of cold calculation that made him long for a shadow to hide in. Finally she bared her teeth at him in what might have been considered a smile.
“How… ironic,” she said.
Beautiful Killer might have liked to say something in response, but the truth was that his brain seemed to have gone into the same sort of frozen panic as his body. Apparently the goddess did not require his opinion, however, because she continued with barely a pause.
“Unexpected, but not unwelcome. Here, take this- it will bring the beast to heel.” She shoved what appeared to be a golden bridle into his hands. He looked down at it, confused. Sure enough, it was a bridle, perfectly ordinary save for the fact that it looked as though it might have been woven from Beautiful Killer’s own hair. It did not look like the sort of thing to help him best a monster. His eyes must have betrayed his puzzlement, because she snapped her fingers imperiously and he found he could speak again.
“You… am I supposed to ride Kymera?”
“What? No, don’t be ridiculous- she would char you before you got close enough to try. That bridle is for the winged horse which resides there, on the muses’ mountain,” she pointed far into the distance. “It is only with astride him that you can ride to meet Kymera, and have any hope of survival.”
“Oh. Well. That’s very-“
“Wake.”
And he did.
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