My Side - An Ariadne Retelling

Chapter 3

TW: Drowning

I was never able to go back to those stables, and to that room. Even if I had wanted to, it was heavily guarded and nobody would let me in.

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Eventually, a few days later, Daedalus came to see me. He told me that he was going to build a labyrinth, to hold the Minotaur, as they now called him. Asterion. I begged him not to. To set him free, into the woods behind our palace. I would cover for him, and would make sure he was safe. Asterion would be my responsibility, I was old enough, I could do it. But Daedalus said he couldn't do it. His son, Icarus, was being held captive by my father, because Daedalus had shown his disapproval of locking up Asterion. I was so angry, not with Daedalus, but with everyone and everything, and didn't know what to do.

So I decided to take things into my own hands. My father had kept him chained up, with little to no food and no human contact. I wasn't able to sneak into where he was being kept, so I had to wait a few months until he was put into the labyrinth. At first, after being thrown into the labyrinth, he couldn't recognise me. I tried to tell him it was me, but he had a crazed look in his eyes. I found that giving him food would calm him down, but I couldn't get through to him. The brother that I knew, that I had taken care of, loved, was gone. Maybe if I had tried a little harder, his human side could have been saved. But I gave up too easily.

At the same time, Androgeus had gone to Athens to participate in the Panathenaic Games, and won. And then immediately killed by a bull that had escaped from the games.

Isn't it funny? How bulls can cause so much torment in a single family. Maybe it was karma. For sending the stable boy to his death. For imprisoning Asterion. I don't think we'll ever know what the Fates have in store for us, they like to cut their strings randomly, no warning, no reason. I wasn't too bothered by his death, I hadn't really known him anyway.

But my father was.

He went crazy, started saying that Athens had sent that bull to kill him on purpose. He was so outraged, that he travelled to Athens to avenge Androgeus. Whilst on the way, he stopped at Megara, a powerful trading city. He learned that Nisos' (the ruler of the city) strength came from his hair, and made Scylla, Nisos' daughter, fall in love with him. She helped cut off her father's hair so that he could conquer the city. You'd have thought that he would've rewarded Scylla, even if he didn't marry her (like he had promised) he still would have helped her, right? But no. After he conquered the city, he punished Scylla for her treachery against her father by tying her to a boat and dragging her until she drowned. A horrible way to die. I guess I should count myself lucky, eh? But there'll be more on that later.

After arriving in Attica, he asked Zeus (his father) to punish the city (for doing absolutely nothing), and the god struck it with plague and hunger (really, if he wanted plague, he should've asked Apollo, much more exciting). An oracle told the Athenians to meet any of Minos' demands if they wanted to escape the punishment. Minos therefore asked Athens to send seven men and seven maidens to Crete every year, to be sacrificed to Asterion.

I never expected it to be as bad as it truly was. Their terrified faces, being escorted to the labyrinth, some trying to be brave, others crying and begging for mercy. I hated it, hated it so much. Maybe it would've been better if that stable boy had killed him then and there, stopping him from becoming a monster. I didn't go and visit him anymore, I couldn't bear to look at him. That thing was no longer my brother, but a monster.

And 6 years passed, slowly but uneventfully.