Harpy and I were born from the union between a goddess of nature and a god of humans.
While she was the black sheep of the family, I was the shining star who could do no wrong.
Opposite twins, our whole long lives.
Through history, you may have heard of us. Mostly written as hags, foul-smelling man-killers.
Of course, you can never believe the press. They only partially report the facts. The bits that suit them.
Our longer history was one of constant effort to remain on-guard as humankind consistently killed their gods and goddesses. Until my sister and I were the the tiny minority of powerful beings, hiding to preserve what left of our long lives.
If you could call constant hiding a life.
And now I had to reveal myself just to rescue the sister I hated.
(Part 3 of 3...)
Excerpt:
Harpy and I were born twin sisters, hatched from the union of a god of humans and a goddess of nature.
We were always polar opposites. She was the black sheep and I was the shining star who could do no wrong. So, too often when either of us would get into trouble for some prank, she was the one who got blamed.
I always came out smelling like a rose. And that name stuck: Rose. Simple, direct, innocent. My sister took our family name for her own, and never wanted to be called by her real first name.
Our hi-jinks didn't get us any good press with the humans we could deal with though. Even that little Odessey episode that was written-up with us as the horrible-looking and worse-smelling evil creatures that haunted "poor" Ulysses, his primitive boat and crew.
The real story was that we took pity on them, and protected them from all sorts of really stupid situations they got themselves into - by being so damned bull-headed. Anyone else would have given up after the first or second impossible challenge. But they just had to steal that golden fleece for some personal gain of a king who would be dead in a few years with or without their help.
Mortals are called that for a reason. And it's not a compliment coming from us goddesses.
But that was then, and here is now.
Somehow, Harpy had run onto the bad side of a 12,000 year old priestess that was trapped when Atlantis sank. That priestess finally figured out how to escape, by duping a human and the Earth goddess Gaia (who herself had slept most of the intervening years.)
One of the first things that priestess had done was to run across my sister Harpy and cast a spell on her that made her half-human. And then beat that human half to a pulp.
Yes, I felt all that. But couldn't do anything without giving myself away. Besides, it was over so quick, I could hardly unfold my wings before it was too late..
That priestess didn't know that all this did was to strengthen my resolve to end her as permanently as possible, just as soon as I could arrange it...