The Nereids are not as fair as her.
She had told her husband that one night, a thoughtless comment spoken after the sweet stain of wine dragged at her mind and loosened her tongue. She used to like the way the wine darkened her eyes, and dyed her full lips that dull purple.
Those fifty daughters of Nereus had heard those words, and their anger carried them to Poseidon. Gods were never to be angered, after all. And a mortal claiming superiority to the gods was cause for anger indeed.
He sent Cetus on the next tide; a creature of writhing tentacles and sharp teeth that reeked of death. He sent it to wreak destruction, all because one woman had claimed herself more beautiful than the gods.
And she was, wasn 't she?
The wise oracle
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He did what heroes do, and cut Andromeda free, and the gods remained unappeased.
So with a disinterested, effortless flick of his hand, Poseidon casts her into the sky; Cassiopeia, queen of Aethiopia. She goes with a whisper of sea air, salt still upon her tongue.
Now she 's a mesh of angled stars. The full curve of her lips are glittering balls of fire, her dark eyes the muted velvet of night. There 's no wind to ripple her long strands of hair, those locks laze downwards as she wheels far above those shores where she reigned. But it 's hard to know what 's downwards in the skies. Up is down, and down is up, and the gods are unforgiving of mortal mistake. And her 's has been the most mortal of mistakes. The gods do not forget hubris, and nor do they forgive.
How ironic, she thinks. To climb too high and reach for the stars and to end exactly there.
She sits on the quiet shores of Ancient Greece and dreams to sit amongst the stars.
It 's early winter, and the balmy nights have slipped away without a trace, and she 's left to warm her hands with incantations muttered between