Cursed Forest: Sightless

A new Family

The morning went well enough. After I finished dressing, Patra combed my hair. I could do it to a point, but alas I can't see. Sometimes I make it worse. It was short for my own sadness. It was a wavy mess just past my chin.

"Your hair is so smooth!" Patra had claimed. "I'd look really great longer."

"It's all knotted up." I complained.

"Knotty indeed. Do you ever brush it? But yet, certainly after brushing it, it's very smooth and silky," Patra had said. Her hands were covered in scales and lacked fingernails. She had straight up claws instead. It was weird, certainly when her fingers ran through my hair.

Patra led me back down the hallway and through another. I ran my fingers along the wall. I noted the hall with my new room was closest to the outside. The rooms themselves had the outside walls and windows.

This hallway was closer to the center and windowless. I liked the way the walls felt. I guessed it was either stone or something close to it. It was a little grainy though. I didn't know much about building materials. I wondered if there was a garden where I could work

A door on my side of the hall, my left, opened. Patra made a noise that was oddly high pitched for the way she had talked to me all morning. Though the morning she seemed very chill, and the noise gave me the opposite impression.

"Good morning Patra." The stranger yawned. He seemed nice. Though his voice gave me weird impressions. "And Good morning to you, Tracy. Breakfast is cooking. Medusa is in the dining room. "

"Good morning,I guess," Patra said, annoyed.I felt her clawed hand on my arm. "This is cross, our cook." To him she added: "Put on a shirt for goodness sakes."

"I don't see why I have to. We don't have anything to cover. I've got scales for that." Cross muttered. Patra led me farther down the hall past Cross and the door he had opened. He patted my shoulder and slid back into the room.

"That means all you've got left to meet are the twins, Rhea and Bellene." Patra purred into my ear. I liked her voice. I liked Medusa's too. Patra's voice somehow reminded me of my mother's. "We live here with her, unaffected by her curse, the only ones so far."

"Does it have to do with your race? How you are all Gorgons?" I asked her. I could tell by a slight gasp that she was slightly surprised.

"No....We're not the only gorgons who've come to seek the forest's protection. We were the only ones who were able to look into Medusa's eyes." Patra said, she sounded slightly sad. Maybe she knew an unfortunate gorgon? "Not even blood is safe. She has two sisters. Medusa I mean. Stheno and Euryale. Euryale has a stone hand right now, it had just been a glace. So she didn't turn to stone completely."

"What exactly is her curse? Why does she have it?" I questioned as we opened another door at the far end of the hallway. Patra sighed and patted the arm that She had been holding,

"Well, I'd say that'd be a couple of things. She has eyes that turn people to stone. ...She kills even though she doesn't want to and she's stuck here, in this part of the forest...for...ever." Patra said. I wondered if she'd let me map her face. For how did her face feel as she said such?

We walked into a much larger room. I heard what sounded like a table being set, plates and silverware being set down on a wooden table.From what I could hear, there were three people readying the table.

"Good morning" Chimed to voices, which were alarmingly similar. There were only two people the voices could possibly belong to. Rhea and Bellene, twins, which would account for their similar voices.

"Tracy, I like your clothes." Medusa purred happily. "Better dressed then some certain others."

"I chose them because I like the way they feel." I muttered, slightly annoyed.

"Exactly why it looks nice, because you look comfortable in them. What feels nice to you, tends to look good." Medusa huffed in response. "You have no concept of looks. You have no need to either. Don't worry about your appearance."

"Medusa!" One of the twins said in a sing-song-like voice. "Please, have some manners! Offer the poor man a seat!"

"Oops!" Medusa giggled.She took my hand. "Please sit, we are waiting on breakfast."

I took a seat in the chair I was led to. I heard the squeak of more chairs being adjusted as the others sat. The chairs themselves, or at least mine, was different. It was longer and taller. Made for one without a butt, or legs, but rather a long tail.

" Do you see anything at all?" Asked one of the twins. I could not tell if it was the same one who spoke before. I was sure if I stayed I'd be able to tell the difference. I couldn't help but wonder what it meant for twins to be if they were gorgons.

"I am a little sensitive to light." I answered.If I looked at the sun, I could tell where the sun was. Sometimes I could correctly guess if it was day, but most of the time it was not that good. It was the slightest thing. Though light did really hurt my eyes at times.

"It's really sad, that you can't see. But I can't feel sorry for you." Patra noted. She was across from me at the table. "You don't need nor want my pity. It would not help you. You only know what you've had. Sometimes I think people, like you who were born without something like that, sight or hearing...I think sometimes..they know more."