storm the gods and shake the universe (Game of Thrones/Greek Mythology)
Once upon a time in Lannisport, a young girl was pushed down a well.
No.
Let's rewind back a little. Even better, let's halt the clock and travel to a land where people still use the sun to tell the time.
Once upon a time in Colchis, a princess fell in love with a hero. More than the daughter of a king, she was a powerful sorceress, and used it to help her beloved on his quest. When her father attempted to renege on his promise to reward him with the object he sought to prove himself worthy of being his uncle's heir, she killed her own brother to distract him and fled with the man she loved. When Jason's uncle denied him the inheritance he was promised, she tricked the man's daughter into killing him too. They fled once again, and in the land they settled in, Medea and Jason married and had multiple children.
But the hero was fickle, and in the new land they settled in, he found another princess he wished to court. He cast aside Medea, the sorceress who loved him. He did not think that the woman who killed her own brother for his sake would seek vengeance for this betrayal. He was a fool; rendered mad by heartbreak, she killed her hero's new love and their own children. Before Jason could take his revenge, Medea fled on her grandfather the sun titan's golden chariot and settled in Athens, where she married the king Aegeus. With him she had one child. But once again her happiness was threatened by another; Aegeus' lost heir returned and threatened her child's inheritance. Medea tried to kill him, but Aegeus thwarted her. She once more fled, this time with her son.
She returned to her homeland, where she found her father was deposed in her absence. She thrived to put him back on the throne, and make her son his heir. She worked to repair their bond, shattered by her foolish love for a man who did not deserve it. Since she met her last husband, her son, father and grandfather were the only men she allowed in her presence. After long years of atonement, she passed in her sleep, dreaming of her dead brother and children. Her father only forgave her in death, but he raised her son to rule Colchis.
Although Jason named her accursed, Medea was beloved by the gods. But her sins were too great and her soul too tremendous for the world she lived in, so she wandered through the cracks between realities, beyond the stars of the constellations she knew and into other epic tales.
For a long time she stayed an observer. Until she heard the voice of a child cry out for women scorned.
Curious, she searched, and found a girl on the verge of drowning at the bottom of a well.
A curse echoed around her, taunting.
Worms will have your maidenhead. Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close.
"Cersei!" the girl howled in between gasping breaths. "Come back, I swear I'll find you-- Cersei! Brotherfucker, I'll take everything you have! You won't know peace, I swear it. Cersei!" And when no one answered, she still wasted her air to whimper. "I only wanted him to love me..."
"Oh," murmured Medea, watching this little girl cry out for love and hate when she was at death's door. "She is just mad as I am."
And the sorceress smiled terribly. Her violet eyes flashed, and she let her spectral body float forward and meet the gaze of the child.
She was a pretty one, though her features were twisted by hatred and hopelessness.
(She looked like the only daughter she had by Jason. Her baby looked scared like that too, before she killed her.)
Medea lifted her from the water. The child coughed and trembled. Suspended into the air, she looked up to the sorceress with wary hope.
"Who...?" she croaked.
"I am Medea, child. You called out to me," or more accurately, she howled her betrayal so loud the fabric of the world shook with it, and the interloper who had been curiously observing the way magic was shaped in this reality heard it. It was not often that someone she resonated with also had such potential for magic, "and I answered."
The girl looked at her incomprehendingly.
Medea made a dismissive gesture of her hand. "No matter. Know that I am a... maegi, like the woman who cursed you." The word tasted strange on her tongue, like it was not quite accurate. The child flinched at it. She ignored it. "But I am much better than the horror you met. I could curse the people of an entire island to never say the truth. I could foretell the crowning of a helmsman as king, heal mortal wounds and restore infirms to health. I could protect men from fire, brew draughts that put dragons to sleep, bring men and monsters alike to the brink of madness. I was blessed by the gods. The magic in your blood is thin, child. I cannot teach you all I know, but I can give you three boons."
She started counting on her fingers. "One is a gift of memory. A tale of my past, so you can learn from my hubris. I know betrayal as well as you, and I learnt the hard way that sometimes both love and hatred can lead you too far to turn back. The second is a craft for the present. I will unlock within you the magics you will need to break free of this place and carry out your vengeance. And last, I will give you a warning from the future. A taste of what this world will come to be, to forearm you against ill tidings."
"Why?" murmured the girl, though her eyes turned covetous at the mere idea of it.
Good girl. She was right to be cautious.
"Because I can. Will you accept my gift?
"What will it cost me?"
"Your innocence. It is a hard price to pay," she warned.
The child looked down at the well water before raising her head again.
"I will pay it."
Medea grinned, cupped the child's face with her hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. With it, she shared her story. Then she pierced her own skin with her nails and fed the blood to the child. With it, she shared her craft. Finally she put her hands back on the girl's cheeks and sang a song of ice and fire. With it, she shared her warning.
For a second, the whole world heard the sound of a splinter. The sky fractured, and with the howling winds came a cry.
What have you done, interloper?
Medea clicked her tongue.
"Ah. It seems the gods of your world have noticed me. Farewell, child, and may your vengeance be terrible."
"Wait!" exclaimed the girl as she was about to remove her hands. "Will I see you again?"
Medea tilted her head. Why would she want that, she wondered, were the gifts not enough?
Then she read the despair and loneliness in the child's eyes and understood.
She softened. "I will come seek you out when you die. I hope you'll have a good story to tell."
She smiled wryly, then lifted her hands away. The child bit her lip and nodded.
"Farewell, Lady Medea," she said. "And thank you."
Ah.
Maybe Medea hadn't just recognised the plight and potential of this girl. Maybe she'd just wanted a companion who understood.
(Maybe she wanted her daughter back.)
"Farewell, little one," she crooned, before the dropping the girl back into the water.
She watched as she crashed, as she gasped and struggled, as her eyes then turned violet when she commanded the magic she was gifted to grant her the strength to scale the wall.
Medea left, satisfied that the girl would survive.
Melara Hetherspoon was declared missing the Year 276 After the Conquest. As an orphaned ward of House Lannister, she had no one to mourn her. Her lands were returned to her liege lord, and her name soon forgotten.
The girl of three and ten who crawled out of the well left the Westerlands, then Westeros entirely. She only reappeared two years later, aboard a ship who should have sunk in Shipbreaker Bay. The other passengers, Lord Steffon Baratheon and his wife Cassana chief among them, believed the dark-haired and violet-eyed girl they were escorting to King's Landing to be Maelora Maegyr, daughter of one of the Old Blood of Volantis.
They would present her to court soon enough, where she would be evaluated as a potential fiancee candidate for Rhaegar Targaryen.