Euanthe Nausikaa, The Hydragorgon

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Gender: Female ((She/Her/They/Them… its complicated))

Age: Unknown

Race: Hydragorgon

Nationality: Marsh Flats

Appearance: Euanthe has an appearance like none other. A singular creature of unknown origin. In a structure not dissimilar to a centaur, her lower body is quadrupedal and reptilian in nature. Legs, scales and claws like a semi-aquatic dragon with webbing between her talons. It has catlike posture and snake-like scales. From the end extend two barbed and whip-like tails. Where one neck would usually emerge on such a creature instead there are three serpentine necks that as they extend upwards form into three distinct humanoid female bodies with athletic builds. The outer two are more humanlike than the middle, they have smooth olive skin and eyes the color of honey. Their fingernails however are short bronze-like claws, and their ears are long, pointed and oddly feathered in shape, and when they smile sometimes, and always when they hiss, their fangs become more apparent. The middle one is more overtly monstrous. The scales of the reptilian body extend up her sides and along her neck. while her upper body is mostly skin the further down her arms the more her skin becomes the same scales and those scaled fingers end in long bronze talons. Her ears are webbed, and her head is crowned with a coiling nest of snakes instead of hair. Two tusk-like teeth protrude from her lower lip even when her mouth is closed, as if often is, and her fangs do not retract as far as the other two heads. Her tongue is dark instead of pink and her eyes… are a mystery because they are always obscured by a blindfold or other covering to keep them from being seen.

At a casual stand, the three heads are about 8 to 9 feet off the ground, the reptilian body being 4.5’ at the shoulder and about 10 feet long without the tail.


Personality:

((This personality brought to you by simplifying the results of a personality test into something vaguely cohesive and sprinkled with what little character details I know. It will be subject to change over time))

Euanthe is introverted, certainly, due to how long they spent in isolation.She tends to prefer fewer, yet deep and meaningful, social interactions and often feel drawn to calmer environments.
They can be imaginative, open-minded, and curious when her guard is down.
They tend to focus on hidden meanings and distant possibilities in the things presented to them be they actions, objects, or stories.

They would prefer environments of empathy, social harmony, and cooperation, were they not so withdrawn as to have nearly lost faith in any such things.

They can be decisive and thorough. Once a choice has been made they see it through to its end. They value clarity, assume predictability, and enjoy closure. However they are not adverse to spontaneity and have their own errant whims.
They are turbulent. Self-conscious and sensitive to stress. They feel a sense of urgency in their emotions when they let themselves feel them and tend to be perfectionistic about their own efforts and eager to improve.
They aim to understand themselves when afforded the chance. They often have deep if pessimistic insights into human nature, and they may someday attempt to use these insights to influence people around them, were they to find herself in such a place. Thanks to an innate sense of compassion for some, they would tend to do this with care. They can be sensitive to other people’s feelings, and would want to nudge the people around them in positive directions.

Because of what she is and how she is usually received, they carry around an awareness of being different from most people. They rarely fit in with those around them. This isn’t to say that she would never enjoy social acceptance or close relationships but usually they feel misunderstood and at odds with the world.

Euanthe often is troubled by injustice, and they typically care more about altruism than personal gain. They often feel called to use their strengths – including creativity, imagination, and sensitivity – to help others, frequently at cost to herself.

Because of this and many deep insecurities over what they are and what they have done they will more often than not neglect to care for themselves when there are others more deserving that could be helped.

Euanthe is highly sensitive to the treatment of creatures others might view as monsters or ‘mindless savages’ knowing from her own past that such is rarely the case. If there are stories of a princess trapped in a cave guarded by a dragon she is more inclined to believe the knights attempting to ‘save’ her are the villains bothering the dragon and its friend.

They do not open or trust easily expecting to be reviled and betrayed.
They have never had the occasion to consider love, romance or sex so such territory is unknown.

Euanthe can be passionately artistic and content on her own however a long time in isolation has made total solitude disquieting. There is a difference between voluntary isolation, and being alone because she has no choice.
She enjoys making pottery and working with paints and clay.

Eunathe is more trusting of women than men, and of monstrous races than more humanoid beings, though there is an exception for draconynh she keeps well distant of for her own reasons.

Those who get to know her will learn of her singing voice, and the peculiarities of how to interact with she who is three that are one.

While all three heads are not a monolith, they also are, they more are than are not and a more concise explanation is rarely offered.
The rightmost head seems more aggressive, assertive, hostile, and tactile than the other two.
The leftmost head seems uncertain and nervous but more diplomatic.
The middle head speaks less often but in a decisive tone the voice of consensus between her three selves. Though she is not an empty hivemind she has her own more subtle variations. It is her hands that most crave to make art and find other ways to express herself. When looking for subtle tells she is the part to watch.

If one head is referred to in exclusion of the others, this annoys her quickly.

The snakes act on their own though their behavior seems influenced by her emotion though sometimes on something of a delay.

She is fascinated by dogs, partial to cats, loves crabs, and is afraid of spiders. Gets scared of thunder and lightning and is tired of eating seafood.

History:

((Some sections have been hidden behind spoilers for implications about infant imperilment and death, and implied involuntary medical mutilation.))

Our memory is like an abandoned mosaic. Its large grand picture is fractured and full of holes where tiles have fallen away in the passage of time and turmoil.Something once complete and intricate worn away into suggestions of what once was.

One mind that is also three makes it difficult to put any pieces back together, but these are the parts of the picture we can see.


We remember the elf.
We remember her warm hands and soft tones. Even with eyes that had yet to open, her light was so bright it nearly hurt, and her warmth was near fire compared to the wet and cold that had been our whole world. We held fast to that warmth, to her, and she held us in kind.

We were not born to her but in her we found the mother we needed.

We remember the minotaur.
We remember how she fed us as she would her own babe. She too was warm and her voice gentle and low. She did not scorn us when we bit, our jaw still learning how it worked, not the first babe she’d fed, a replacement for a lost calf. We remember how she would smile at us. How she would smile at the elf as she held us, and how the elf would smile back.

We remember the man.
We remember how, he would coo at us and wiggle his finger letting our hands grab it, until our snakes tried to grab him. We remember how quickly his smile would fade when no one was looking. How he stared at the elf, and sneered at us. His face would make us cry, and then the elf would return and the world would be safe and warm again.

We remember the draconynh.
His green scales and staring eyes. Always staring, speaking little, gone often. We did not like the way he would stare, watch, and ask us strange questions before writing in his book. His odd questions, strange tests. He did not look at us. He looked through us. Inside of us. We could tell but did not know how.

We remember the accident.
Once we were weaned and walking, worried faces would look at one of the two of us. How we kept half our eyes shut. One of we two would not open our eyes, would not look. The elf worried, and when the elf worried the minotaur worried for her. She begged us to open our eyes, to look at her. Grasp was gentle but firm as she tried to open our eyes, to see if they were hurt or unformed. She stopped fighting as we struggled held us gently and hummed. We remember the song. We wept, the tears stung our cheeks. She would wait for us we knew not what would happen but we knew. We KNEW we should not. But we did, she asked so gently, said so many soft things, weak promises that nothing bad would happen, talked as if we two were one and one not two who are one. She urged we, our sister she, who was not she but we, to look just once, and we did.
We remember the warm smile on her face, the kind praise of our beautiful eyes and what good girls we were. We remember. We remember. That smile lingers in our mind forever as we recall the feeling of her warm grip turning cold, as the minotaur turned all at once to stone.

We remember the yelling.
There was so much yelling. Screaming and crying. The man yelled, the man screamed. The elf wept and held us fast and shielded us. We remember the baying of the minotaurs, the angry shouts that followed, the days and days of arguing, of hiding indoors, with the elf as she argued more with the man. We remember when the draconynh came again, with the man. He spoke in low tones with the elf how she gasped and slapped him, how the man stayed her hand and spoke harshly before scowling towards us, hidden in the corner of the tent. We watched as the draconynh left and then felt large hands from behind. We screamed as they tore us away from safety, away from the elf, through a hole they had cut in the tent. We screamed and struggled and bit and scratched and did everything we could except open all our eyes again
We remember how the elf fought for us, and failed.



We remember the escape.
We remember her plan. We remember the snakes that were sacrificed. Their bodies poor decoys for our own as the elf put them in a torn open sack and tossed it into the bog. We remember how the road was rough and uneven and how she rode through the dark, lighting her way with magic. Every bump sending fresh hell through our aching wounds. When the sun began to rise, the first rays of dawn lit the path ahead, and there the man was waiting.

We remember the argument.
We remember how he shouted, how she screamed back, how she told us to look away, how he tried to kiss her and she pushed him away. We remember not looking away as the elf fought for us again. Our mother won. The man lost, but did not die, and as we rode away we remember still him howling after us in promise of revenge
We remember the elf crying as she drove us on into the dawnlight.

We remember the ship, but only dimly.
Our body felt akin to fire and our mind addled and torn. The elf held us in secret and cried, while shushing us to keep quiet. The waves were not soothing then, the pain of our regrowth, our reunion, was too great to feel the rocking of the ship. We wept and suffered but in the end we were reformed. Not as one, or two as one, but three as one.

We remember the island.
Far away and undisturbed. We hid no more. Hand in hands with the elf, with our mother. We remember days and nights and strolls on the beach. We remember playing on the rocks and in the house she built. We remember picking flowers in spring, chasing fireflies in summer, dancing in the rains of fall, and sleeping by the fire in winter.
We remember joy that lasted for years.

We remember learning.
On the island far away. On our island, mother would teach us. We learned many things we still remember and many more we can not. We learned of magic and blades and words and numbers. We learned of languages and faraway places and people we would never meet. Our favorite was pottery, Mother’s was song. She made instruments and tried to teach us, but they would fall apart beneath our claws. We were better with a bow, hunting boar. We were better with our hands molding clay.
We should have tried harder with the instruments.

We remember strangers coming to our shore.
We would hide in the rocks, far away, until mother made them leave. They would come again and she would trade gold for some things and food for others. We remember pride when she traded one of our pots, and glee when she showed us one pantied with many colors. We wanted colors too. Colors for our clay things, for making pictures. We should have been content. We should not have asked for more. Our mother would trade for things we wanted, she would invite the strangers to return. In time, she would let them see us. They would say nice things to her, empty things, and most of them would stink of fear. Some would not. We should have tried harder to remember those ones. One panicked and drew a hidden blade and tried to fight. We knocked him down, Mother yelled, he argued and sailed away. We should not have let him sail away.

We remember the city.
The journey was long. Mother wanted us to learn more. To see more beside her, to journey beyond our island. Many of the nice ones were from there. She thought it might be safe. It did not feel safe. The elf tried to show us, tried to calm the ones that stared. Too many stared. Too many whispered. Too few faces were kind. We hated it. We wanted to go back to our island. We wanted to be safe and far away, and alone with the elf and our house, and our clay. remember the curious child that fell. We remember offering him a hand, trying to help him. We remember how he tried to stop them. How the elf called out to them, protected us with her magic. We wanted to leave. The boy returned and gave us a flower. The next time we came to the city, the people stared less. We went more often, in the spring, in the fall. The elf made us go made us speak to people that were not her, buy things with coin, trade our furs and leathers and painted pots, and sea salt we had gathered. Most of them stopped staring, spoke more to our faces and not our backs. Even as the years went on and the village and its people, like mother, seemed to grow smaller and smaller as time passed, they would greet us warmly, speak our name, buy our things, tell us stories.

We remember the plans
As the years went on. The elf wanted to see more of the world. She wanted to wander again. She wanted to bring us along, to show us wonders she had seen. We did not want to leave the island, but we wanted to see those things too. We were going to leave, to sail far away and see it all and meet people and learn things and it would be like the city again. They would be afraid, but they would learn.
We thought they would learn.

We almost didn’t remember the man.
His face wore a beard it had not before. It was mottled with streaks of gray like his once-dark hair. His face was weathered by time. He wore a hood at first but even then we recognized him by the hate in his eyes when he saw us. Mother was not fooled either. The elf demanded that he leave. The men with him pretending to be traders, drew spears and swords. We had to fight. In the end only the man was left.
We remember his laugh.

We remember the lie.
As the man knelt surrounded by dead warriors he told us what he had done. When he heard stories of us from travelers, he started his own story. A lie of a beautiful woman captured by an evil monster. The men he brought with him were heroes, beloved sons, and the children of nobles from other towns. Their homes would want revenge. Their blood would make his lie more true. We would be hunted wherever we went. We remember how the elf called out to stop us, we remember how he scowled at us. The glare he had so oft hidden was free to be seen. We remember looking back at him with all our eyes and watching that hate seal itself in stone upon his face before we shattered the rocks that made him.

We remember how the elf cried.

We remember the ships.
The way men came to the shores like seasons, when the weather was safest for them to travel. We remember blood and poison on the sands, our hands dirtied by their blind hate and vainglory. Mostly, they were men and elves, come to fight us with spear and sword and magic. The traders stopped coming to our shores and we could not return to the city. War had swept the world beyond our island. The would-be heroes not too fool to surrender would trade us news of the world beyond for their lives. We would learn of the war and of the lie, how it changed and grew into a new beast on its own. We were a horrible monster with yet more heads and scales and claws and wretchedly ugly with a foul smell and acid for blood in their stories. The elf was a virgin princess of peerless beauty who would wed any man that could save her. Despite the years that passed the stories made her sound ever younger. A kingdom that did not exist, was promised in the story to the man that saved her. None were willing to accept the lie for what it was when they were confronted by the truth. The seas were dangerous and the journeys long. Hopes and promises had been built on that lie and none would leave empty handed. Some had come not for the lie itself but to avenge others that had died for it. Some littered our shores as stone statues, and others fed the crabs in the shoals.
We do not remember most of them. They were far too many in number for far too many years.

We remember how the elf watched the horizon.
She no longer went to the beach, the more it turned into a living graveyard the less she cared for its sands. We moved the signs of battle away from her view from the windows, let her see a false tranquility to pretend for the times when we were unbothered, that it had all been some nightmare. It was not the life she wanted, a cruel fate for anyone. It was the only life we knew. We could see how it pained her, how she wilted like a flower slowly being denied the sun. She longed to roam, to be free, to see the world, to speak to other people, to live. She wanted to not be surrounded by death, isolated from the world. No new stories. No new faces. No one to talk to but us. She had saved our life. She had raised us, and loved us, and given us everything. She had watched over us while we grew. We would have wasted away in the mud in our infancy were it not for her. We loved her as a mother, as a friend. Even though she did not blame us, we knew she would resent us some day. We could not bear the thought.

We remember the girl.
A young elf, different from our mother. She did not shine like the sun. She seemed to us barely beyond childhood. Her shield was tarnished and her spear was worn and despite ourself when she climbed the shore and nearly tripped on her cloak we almost laughed. We watched from afar as she looked for us and then set up a camp with her meager supplies. We waited for nightfall and when she lay sleeping, we left her bread. The confusion on her face when she awoke nearly made us laugh again. We let her get beyond the shore before we revealed ourselves to her. When she saw us she was afraid but she did not run, and she did what those who had come before had not. She spoke to us. She demanded the princess. Then she hesitated and her demand became a nervously spoken polite request. “I’d like to save the princess, please.” We had to cover our mouths to keep from laughing and we told her to take a seat and tell us why.

We remember her story.
She was from the city we had once known. It was far from the same now. They were smaller and fewer than before. The war was hard and they wanted peace. They needed help, they needed protection. The girl believed the story, the lie. To others it was just a story, to others still it was true but an impossible task for princes and heroes to die pursuing. This girl did not want a throne, or a bride, or glory. She just wanted help from the kingdom that did not exist, to protect her home, her friends, and her mother. We asked her if her boat could survive the journey back, if she knew the way home. She assured us that she could but she would not return without saving the princess.

We remember our lies.
There was no kingdom, we said, not anymore. It had been lost to time long ago. We told her the princess could still help her. We told her about the elf. The truth of how she could fight, use magic, and was a teacher. We told the girl we were a guardian, meant to determine a true and worthy heart, that only a real and selfless hero could save her, and that she had passed our test. We told her to wait on the shore, to rest, keep hidden, and if she did, she would be rewarded.

We remember that day all too clearly.
It is ours to remember. Not to share. Never to forget.

We remember the plants we used to drug her wine.

We remember how light she felt in our arms.

We remember setting her in the boat beside the treasure we had given the girl.

We remember the lie we told of a spell that would break when she sailed far enough away.

We remember watching the boat sail towards the horizon, vanishing against the moon.

We remember how the tears stung our cheeks and the crushing weight of solitude that followed.

We do not regret setting her free of us. Children are supposed to outgrow their mother. Little birds leave the nest. We could not leave, there was nowhere for us to go.


We do not remember the years that followed.
Not well. They were a malaise of pain and isolation. Of sorrow broken only by bouts of violence.

In time we let ourselves forget how to be civilized. As our pets died of age and the wild life lived on. As storms and doldrums made ships sparse. We were glad when killers would come for us, if only to change the formless monotony of our days but it dragged on endlessly. No more kind faces, no more good hearted girls. No more traders or lost sailors. Just us and the island, interrupted infrequently by violence.

We remember the arrogant man.
He reminded us of the first man. Same jaw, same pride, same veiled arrogance and self importance. He came alone and thought himself clever. It had been so long since the last ship, we’d wondered if the world had forgotten. He found us in the cave, beyond the ruins of what had once been our house. We laughed as he saw no sign of treasure, or princess. The riches left behind by the boats we burned of men that came before had been cast into the sea long ago. What few things we’d kept of our mother’s had been buried in a box for none but us to find. Our clay things and colorful pots had been smashed to pieces, an idle hobby unbefitting the monster we were.

We remember his shiny shield and the ideas that formed in our mind.
We remember laughing at him to his face, as he made demands based on a lie that few left believed as more than a story. They had wasted their time and every sacrifice they had made to find us. We found his shattered dreams of glory amusing and we told him so. He boasted our heads would be fitting prize enough. Then there was no more time for words. We remember the battle, brief as it was, and the feeling of our body growing cold. We remember tearing him asunder as we slowly turned to stone. Our story finally at an end. We wondered if it would be changed further and a hero inserted, a new ending made for the princess, or if it would be forgotten.

We remembered our beginning.
It was too late to turn back, the stone had claimed too much of us.
The cold earth reclaiming us felt just like the mud. Alone with no witnesses, no one to remember we let ourselves scream as we once had, until we were naught but stone.

And still…


We remember.