When I was small, I thought my sisters were gods.
Not in the way that stories tell you gods are-distant, terrifying, wrapped in lightning. I mean real gods. Living, breathing, laughing things with dirt on their hands and fire in their eyes.
Stheno was the loud one. She laughed like a war drum, climbed trees like a feral cat, and once broke a man's nose with a goat skull because he looked at me the wrong way. Her hair refused to be tamed-thick, wild, red-brown curls always tied back with whatever she found: ribbon, twine, once even a fishbone. She moved like she didn't understand fear. Or like she'd killed it already.
Euryale was the opposite. Quiet, calm. The one who could silence Stheno with a single glance. She had a way of folding into a room like smoke-never rushed, never loud, but always there. Her voice could cool your blood if it was boiling. She didn't argue. She didn't need to.
And then there was me.
Mortal.
Breakable.
Soft in the places they were sharp. Human in the ways they were not.
But they never made me feel like I was less. Not then.
They called me little star. They said I was born under a lucky moon. They held me like I was something sacred.
And I loved them more than I feared the world.
⸻
We lived on the edge of the cliffs, where the sea curled into the bones of the earth and the sky felt close enough to touch. Our house was carved into the rock-half-cave, half-cottage-small and solid, with ivy crawling up one side and a faded blue door that stuck when it rained. It smelled like salt and ash and wild thyme.
I always woke before dawn. The wind rattled the shutters, and the goats-yes, we had three-complained like old men waiting for breakfast.
This particular morning, Stheno was already arguing with the gulls.
"Get off the roof, you useless feather-sacks!" she shouted, hurling an olive pit into the air.
From the doorway, Euryale sighed. She held a bowl of figs in one hand and a folded linen in the other. "They're just birds."
"They're watching me."
"They're birds."
I stepped out, barefoot, wrapping my shawl tighter around my shoulders. The air was cool and soft, the sky still dusky.
"I don't think the birds are your biggest problem," I said.
Stheno turned, narrowed her eyes, and grinned.
"There she is. Morning, little star. You've got leaves in your hair."
"You always say that."
"There are always leaves in your hair."
I rolled my eyes, pulled a fig from Euryale's bowl, and popped it into my mouth before she could swat my hand away.
We didn't have much. But it was enough.
A fire pit. A few chipped clay cups. A patch of herbs that refused to die. Our mother had been gone long enough that her face felt more like a dream than a memory. Our father... well. He wasn't talked about.
But we had each other. And that felt like forever.
We spent our days where we liked-on the cliffs, in the olive groves, down by the tide pools where the water warmed in shallow stone. Euryale made ink from crushed berries. Stheno hunted with a sling and swore she could smell storms. I learned how to make salves and tonics. People came to me when their joints ached or their children burned with fever. They didn't say thank you. Not always. But they came.
