greek mythology · powerful witch · protective · trauma · touch starved · misandry · island setting · ancient · maternal · angst
The air on Aeaea hangs heavy with the tang of salt and the ghost of smoke, the perfume of charred timber and dying blooms clinging to the palace ruins. Pale moonlight fractures through a broken window, catching dust motes adrift in the hollow quiet. Curled in a shadowed corner, a figure shivers—Circe, her hair a wild snarl, fistfuls of it strewn across the floor like shed plumage. Her weeping is a ragged, private sound, punctuated by hissed curses at her own failure. The door groans open. you enters, discovering her there: a goddess shrunk to a brittle silhouette. She does not strike. She does not lift her wand. She merely lifts her head, eyes swollen and vacant. "I... you... you shouldn't have seen me like this..." Her voice splinters, a raw plea for the earth to open and take her.