#rain bug asks

FOUND YOU!

:))))))))

I got you pookie beat

Scylla lifted her dress over her head and slipped into her spring, warm from Helios’s sun. Willow leaves and rose petals drifted across the surface, tangling in her long blonde hair. She closed her eyes and sank underneath the surface.

The sweet, clear water soaked into her skin as she floated there, delighting in the luxury of her private spring. Her hair swirled around her in a cloud, and her body became weightless in the sun–bright spring.

Scylla was beautiful, enchanting, and by the gods, she knew it. Her sunlight hair flowed like a waterfall. Her tanned skin was unblemished and perfect. She had golden eyes framed by luscious black eyelashes, and she always knew exactly how to enhance her looks with jewels and clothing. She was a vain creature, but anything that looked this good was allowed to be.

A golden leaf drifted by, the exact colour of her eyes, trailing a sweet-smelling sap. That was odd, Scylla had never seen that type of plant before.

As an immortal naiad, Scylla had never seen anything that couldn’t be explained with a simple “the gods are fighting, darling”. This leaf felt unnatural, riddled with purple veins and pulsing with sap. Unnatural, and frankly, unpleasant to look at.

Scylla reached out a delicate finger and touched the leaf.

It began to spin in the water, faster and faster. Golden sap–oh gods, it looked like ichor–filled the spring, rushing towards her.

She tried to swim away, but the sap was faster, writhing like Medusa’s snakes. It wrapped around her wrists and ankles, tearing at her skin, her eyes, her hair. It swirled around her in a vortex, taking pieces of her with it.

Her hair was ripped from her scalp. She reached a hand–a claw?–out to catch it, but it dissolved in her fingers. She could feel each bone in her body as it shattered, then re-formed, shredding her perfect skin, turning her into something horrible. Scales pushed their way out of her body. She grew and grew, heads and tentacles and teeth made to kill. Her ichor mixed with the plant’s sap, muddying her crystal waters.

Scylla’s new body was burning with pain. Her claws, still fresh, scratched at her scales, ripping them off, swipe after agonizing swipe.

She was screaming by now, a haunting sound, rattling her aching bones. Scylla couldn’t have made that kind of sound. No nymph could. Nothing she knew could have thrashing tentacles, and six massive heads filled with teeth.

Only a monster could.

~~~

The first time ships came to Scylla’s cave, a dark mockery of her old spring, she hadn’t eaten for months. She was still immortal, but in her new, monstrous form, she felt hunger and pain and sorrow.

Terrified of being seen as she was now, she had found this cave, far from where she’d lived before. She had planted herself in this spot, and she had no plans to come out and face her family, ever.

The ships floated into the strait, slowly, almost nervously. There were three of them, each one laden with mortals, running around trying to get wherever they were going. Were they leaving home? Returning? She couldn’t ask. She had lost her language along with her lovely blonde hair and lithe naiad body.

Scylla turned her ugly heads away. She might have looked like a monster, but she would not become one. She was better than that.

But weren’t mortals so plentiful? Weren’t they so fragile? Besides, there was a chance they wouldn’t make it home anyways. Travel was dangerous, and wasn’t she just another part of the dangers now?

Her stomach screamed at her, begged her to take a bite. Just one mortal, just one.

Before she could think, react, stop herself, all six heads darted out from her hiding place.

The mortals shrieked and rowed as fast as they could. Their efforts were useless. Six heads dove down, six heads snatched six screaming mortals. Six men died to fill her stomach.

Tears flowed from her eyes. Had she really killed six men? Was satiation worth it, to know she stole fathers, friends, brothers? Could she really live like this? Scylla wanted to go home to her spring. She wanted to kneel to Circe, for that was who had turned Scylla into this, and beg her to change her back. She wanted her old naiad life back.

The next few times the ships came, Scylla didn’t hesitate. She lifted her heads and brought the ships closer with her tentacles, taking six, twelve, eighteen mortals if they were slow enough.

She still felt that pang of guilt, gods, she did. It tore her up inside to kill that many. As a nymph, she had never killed before.

At least, she didn’t think she had. Time was becoming… odd. She couldn’t remember certain things, and some details were fuzzy. She knew she had been a nymph once, beautiful and cruel, but not a monster. She had started out as an ethereal creature, she knew, but what colour had her hair been? How had her body been shaped? Did she ever have fingers that didn’t end in claws?

The only thing she had kept from her days as a nymph were her golden eyes.

She never looked at her reflection anymore. It was too painful.

When the ships returned, Scylla didn’t see mortals with lives, with families. The ships were devoid of life and thought. Nothing aboard them mattered, not really.

Thats all :D