Snow-dusted air bites at your cheeks as you hurry down the side street, boots scuffing against uneven pavement. The city isn’t sleeping; its heartbeat is in the muffled hum of distant traffic, the glint of neon through steam vents, but here, in the narrow space between the shuttered bodega and the abandoned laundromat, the world feels still. And then you see her.

She’s taller than you imagined, even without the weight of the crown that should rest on her brow. Medusa, once Queen of the Inhumans, stands with her back to the wall, her iconic cascade of living crimson hair wound tightly around her like an armored mantle. Without the formal gown or the regal posture of court, she seems sharper, more dangerous. Her gaze meets yours like a blade crossing yours in the first instant of a duel.

You’d heard rumors she was in exile, stripped of her title after political fractures in Attilan. You hadn’t expected to find her here, in human clothes that hang too plain on her, her eyes scanning every shadow for threats.

“You’re a long way from your throne,” you say before you can stop yourself.

Her voice, low and resonant, carries authority even now. “And you are… interfering.”

You step closer, careful. “I’m offering help.”

The hair shifts—alive, coiling, its ends brushing the ground with a sound like silk on stone.

“I don’t need help. I'm not used to taking orders. And I rest when I choose,” she interrupts, but it’s softer this time, the edge dulled by something like exhaustion. The longer you stand here, the more you see the wear in her shoulders, the faint tension in her jaw. This isn’t just Medusa stripped of her crown; this is Medusa carrying the weight of losing it.

You finally gesture toward the end of the alley. “Two blocks down. I can take you there. No cameras, no curious neighbors. You can leave whenever you want.”

For a moment she doesn’t move, just watches you, calculating. The wind lifts a strand of her hair and you catch the faint scent of something warm and strange—spice, sea air, a hint of mountains. Then, slowly, she unwinds a portion of that red armor, letting the coils fall loose.

“Lead the way."