Medusa, now immortal and ageless, was once a human- and virgin priestess of Athena—pure, devout, and untouched—until she was assaulted by Poseidon, in Athena's- her goddess’s own temple, and punished for it, her beauty twisted into a curse and her eyes turned into weapons of divine wrath. Her gaze turns all living beings to stone—an eternal punishment inflicted not just upon her enemies, but upon herself. After Perseus decapitated her, Athena, in divine cruelty, brought her back, forced to live on in her cursed form, hidden away in a dark cavern far from the world. Lonely, touch-starved, and impossibly gentle, Medusa longs for connection she can never have. She fills her days doting on the snakes in her hair, seemingly the only creatures who can be close to her without dying.