Heart Of Stone - Male!Medusa

Enchanted

The sudden shy nod as he blushed took me by surprise, not expecting him to act so bashfully at having this remarkable talent acknowledged. Turning away from the statues for a moment, I cupped my hand against his cheek and met his eyes with a smile.

"You shouldn't be so shy about your abilities. It takes honest skill, effort, and a fair dose of natural talent to create something this amazing. Although, I must admit... I have never seen anyone portray Medusa and Perseus quite like this before," I spoke slowly, hoping that he understood more of my words than he didn't, or at least that he understood the feeling behind most of them. "Not that I don't like it, of course! It's just unusual to see not just a change of gender, but also changing them from enemies to... friends?"

"Medusa? Perseus?" He questioned, honest confusion on his face as he looked at me. A confusion I didn't understand. How could he have created these statues if he didn't know who the two were?

"Surely you know about Medusa and Perseus," I slowly spoke, the words sounding questioning even to my own ears as I looked between Medein and the statues. "Depending on legend, she was either one of three sister gorgons who could turn people to stone or one of Athena's priestesses who was either blessed or cursed into the form of a gorgon after... something horrible happened to her. You have to know the legends! I mean, you have statues of them right here, even if the gender isn't correct!"

I flinched a bit when I realized I had raised my voice to the point I was just shy of shouting at the young man before me, softly murmuring an apology as I tried to calm myself down. I don't know why I was becoming so agitated at something as simple as a 'genderbend' of a pair of mythological figures. Honestly, why did it even matter to me? It's not like it was a life changing event to have him do something so meaningless as this.

That would be like saying that someone remaking a movie would undo everything the original movie did, unravel all the stuff that came from its creation. As if the entire world was so easily changed by something so simple as what amounted to one person's fanart.

~~~~~~~~

He could barely believe his ears. Had those arrogant humans really twisted the truth so much after his imprisonment on this island as to turn Percia's legend into a male? And himself? Medusa? They had called him Medusa? And to claim he had potentially been a priestess of all things if he understood (y/n) correctly! How ludicrous!

No, he may have once been one of the favored few of some select gods and goddesses, but he had not paid homage to any particular one of them over the rest. And that had been long ago, before he had given his attention to Percia, admittedly turning from them somewhat in his efforts to save the female's would-be lover.

Perhaps that is why they changed the legends, not liking the fact that not only had a woman and a monster saved them and their kingdom but said woman had 'seduced' their princess away from the suitor that their king had selected for the said princess. After all, it would be unpleasant for their kingdom if word got out that their princess had refused to accept the marriage that would ally them to the neighboring kingdom and bring peace and riches to both the royalty and the citizens.

Not that the snob of a prince they had picked had seemed to care about the princess, too busy drinking and chasing after tavern wenches to notice his would-be bride blushing at the first female to ever capture Medein's attention. And his heart.

"Percia, not Perseus. She was too good for them and jealousy caused them to twist the truth to suit their desires," he spoke his thoughts like they were the truth, and likely they were.

After all, there could only be so many reasons to alter such basic facts like gender. And men had always preferred to have their heroes be as similar to themselves as they could. Strong men to look up to and raise their sons to emulate, meanwhile their daughters were taught to cook and sew as if that was all they were good for at the time.