A Prince's Prophetic Switch

Christian (Actually this time)

Ishan rushed over at once. He felt a sudden surge of power as Christian glanced to his right, seeing that the owl, eyes now blazing blue, was sitting on a branch. Then, time seemed to stop. No, it did stop. Something was wrong, Christian knew it. But then...

"...a goddess?" he asked, starstruck. No, he reminded himself. That would be... impossible? But she's quite literally floating down from the Heavens, so what other explanation could there be?

Once the goddess reached him, skin nearly translucent, spear in hand, he realized he had been holding his breath. Only... he wasn't. Christian panicked. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe!

Except he didn't have to. Time was paused. Literally.

"Are you...?" Christian tried, looking at the grayness surrounding them. He tried again. "Were you sent by my father?"

The woman's face, usually so stone cold and still, twisted into a scowl. "Your father? Don't remind me of that bastard."

"Oh." Christian said. Well, we're off to a great start already! She probably hates me! "Wait..." he wondered aloud. "What did Neptune ever do to you...?"

"Child," she said, disgusted. "Do you really not recognize me?"

There was no response.

She tsked, and went on to say, "Maybe this," she swirled her hand, and smoke appeared, somehow visible while still matching the grayness around them, "will remind you."

There was an image of a woman admiring a statue of the goddess, one he recognized to be Minerva. She had brown ringlets and bright teal eyes. She was very tall. He then realized, wondering how it took him so long to notice, that she also had wings. The story wasn't quite clicking, at least, not yet.

He watched the girl in the image, 16, he would have guessed, turn her head. There was a man there, leaning against the door frame, staring at her. Neptune. Everything they said was inaudible, up until, "I will take one of those girls, you can pick which one, and I will take her to the bottom of the ocean and I will take her and I will rape her until she drowns. Is that what you want?"

"No."

"Unless you let me have you. Here, now, in this temple." he went on. Christian tried to look away, to close his eyes, anything, but he found that he couldn't.

"I will protect them." she responded, a single tear trickling down her face.

"They will fear you and they will flee you and they will call you a monster, just like they do your sisters."

"It doesn't matter what they think of me."

"So then why choose to protect them?"

"Because I can."

It was only when the image faded that Christian realized who it was. He spoke will a horrified, trembling voice. "Medusa."

The woman nodded. "Now," she said, swiping a hand through the smoke remaining. "Do you know who I am?"

"Minerva. But... why?"

Another tsk, another image appearing from smoke. "My daughter is in danger, and yet you are failing to protect her."

It took him a second to comprehend just what the goddess was saying. "Your daughter...? How?"

"Did you really think you were the only demigod on this quest?" A third tsk. "Neptune, always so arrogant. Did you really think I'd let you near--"

"I am not my father." He said, cutting the goddess off despite her power over the situation.

"I never said you were. But I did say, and am, quite clearly right now, saying this: You need to stay away from my daughter or else."

"I won't hurt her!" he yelled, but it was too late. The goddess was gone, the trance of time over. He cried at the ground, on her knees. "I will never hurt her." He said, punching the ground and curling up into a ball.