A Dash of Excitement.

Recollection

They sat in the clearing, one waiting for the other to collect her thoughts. She had told Dash she was going to tell her tale of how she became the way she was, but Euryale had no idea how she was going to portray it or where to start. She decided to start where it all began, the day Medusa started it all.

The day began as any other. The sun shone brightly, the birds sung their heavenly songs, the breeze blew. Everything was as it should be. Nothing was out of place, except...

"Wait, you're going to tell this like a story, aren't you?" Dash had a bit of a questioning look on her face. She didn't know if she really wanted to sit through a story of that length. It would take too long.

"Yes, why? Is that not o.k.?" Euryale was a little scared she would bore her new friend to sleep by the way Rainbow had said that.

"No, no. It's fine, it's just... I kinda was hoping more for a recap than a story. Stories can sometimes send me to sleep and I don't want to be rude to a pony I just met."

"No worries. If you do fall asleep we can just pick up where we left off tomorrow, deal?" Euryale really wanted to tell the story. There weren't many chances she got to do this.

"Kay. Deal."

"Hey, Stheno. Where is Medusa?" Euryale hadn't seen her today and they usually spent the afternoon together.

"I don't know. Where is our dearest sister?" The two began checking different places Medusa liked to be. The house... no. The lake near their home... no. In the Canterlot garden... again no. Medusa was nowhere to be found.

The pair headed for the palace to see if maybe Celestia had wanted to talk to her. A crying pony came trotting out of the royal gates. It was Medusa. Her wonderful golden mane flowing in the wind behind her.

"So you and your sisters weren't Gorgons from birth?" Rainbow was a little skeptical, but didn't want to say anything too severe before hearing the rest of her story.

"No and if you'll let me continue I'll tell you." Euryale picked back up where she left off.

"Halt sister. What hath happened." Stheno still used the Royal Canterlot way of talking even though it had started to dissipate to modern youth slang. The earth pony came rushing into the two of them, knocking them over. She hadn't even realized they were there.

The three sisters got up and Medusa ceased her crying so she could talk somewhat normally. The still sniffling pony walked over to a nearby bench, her head down in defeat. Her two sisters followed and took a seat on the either side of her.

"What happened 'Usa?" Euryale always had been the most compassionate of the sisters. She turned Medusa's head so she could stare her in the eyes. Her beautiful gaze, which could leave a pony frozen from its beauty, was something Euryale had always admired.

"I thought that her gaze would turn a pony to stone, which means you should have been turned to stone, right?"

"Medusa didn't develop the ability to do that till much later, during the transformation."

"Wow, hold on. Transformation? What do you mean transformation?" Dash was truly skeptical at this point. It all seemed fishy to her.

"I could ruin the story by telling you or you could wait and find out in a much more dramatic way?"

"Fine I'll wait. This better be good." Rainbow was actually anxiously awaiting the continuing of the story, but her bravado nature and lack of learning literally anything made her hide it.

"Oh, don't worry it is. Now where was I?" Euryale thought back and picked back up where she had left off.

"I messed up. I messed up horribly." Medusa was still teary and there was a bit of a choke in her voice. She looked back down, choosing to avoid looking at her two sisters. Stheno was never one to deal with trying to coax ponies out of a bad mood. She preferred force, it was quicker and most of the time more effective.

"Well, tell thou thy tale!" Yup, she definitely preferred force.

"Isn't Stheno the one who caused the most problems for you three when you were all out roaming Equestria?"

"Yeah, even before we turned into, well, this" Euryale pointed to her snake mane. "Stheno was always quite strait forward and aggressive. When we did have this little change she completely lost it and couldn't handle it. My beloved sister went on a rampage, destroying and contorting everything in the lives of the ponies around her. She intentionally targeted the royal family, probably the biggest reason for the three of us ending up imprisoned in stone for all those long years. Nevertheless, back to where we were."

"Hey! She'll tell us when she's ready to," Euryale looked down at her sister. "won't you 'Usa?" The eldest sister, Stheno, simply looked away in disgust from her two compassionate sisters.

"I simply do not get why thee just doesn't state thy topic instead of delaying the inevitable." Stheno stated plainly to her younger sisters who still embraced each other.

"I got invited." Medusa had broken the embrace with Euryale and wiped away her former tears. Now she had turned to her eldest sister.

"What do you mean you got invited? By who and also, to *where*?" Both Euryale and Stheno sat there with confused looks. Neither of them had any clue what Medusa meant.

"Well, you see I got a letter the other day sent from the royal palace. It was signed by none other than Celestia herself. So, like any normal pony, I went. When I arrived, I was escorted inside by the royal guard. They lead me to the most distant and disclosed portion of the palace." Her two sisters listened attentively, wanting to know more about what she had experienced.

"O.K. so she went in and found what? Ooh, was it a stockpile of WMDs? That would be totally AWESOME!" Dash's face lit up like a decorative tree. Apparently, Rainbow Dash had a bit of a fetish for destruction on a massive scale. Not totally surprising since she herself could almost replicate the shockwave of one with her infamous "Sonic Rainboom" Euryale had heard so much about when she had snuck into town when she first broke free. Even though that was a while before they escaped it was still big news around Equestria.

"WHAT?! NO! That most definitely didn't happen! Now let me tell you what did." The snake maned pony shook her head in disbelief. "Huh, WMDs. How absurd." She stated under breath, before continuing the tale.

"I traversed a series of staircases that lead into a secret area that only the guards of the palace and the royal family know of, all the while being escorted by the guards." Medusa quickly continued though, cutting off anypony from interrupting her. "We came to a chamber, it looked like an experimentation facility. In the room was one of Celestia's most trusted adviser and right hoof pony, Poseidon."

The two sisters began imaging the sky blue unicorn known as Poseidon. His cutie mark was that of a deep blue tidal wave. The mane he dawned was an even lighter shade of blue than his coat. The glasses that usually rested upon his head whenever he attended an announcement or formal event had become a bit of a trademark of his own. His mane resembled that of a magnificent wave his flank so proudly resembled. The same could be said of his tail. Overall he wasn't a very big pony, but had an aura about him that demanded both fear and respect from his sun goddesses's subjects.

"So this, Poseidon, fellow. He's was a bit of a big name during those times, huh?" Just the way Euryale described Poseidon made Dash guess the guy had a big part in the history of Equestria.

"Oh my, yes. He was the leader of Celestia's science division and made many great advances in the name of Equestria. Though later in his life, around the time all of my story went down, he had begun to go to far with his experimentations. You will know quite shortly what I'm referring to." Euryale looked at her rainbow friend with a look that indicated a hint of both fear and depression. What was coming next both shocked and bothered Dash...

Adaptive here again. I know it's again an awkward cliffhanger, but I felt it was necessary to find a stopping point before I got into any more plot line. This chapter would probably have run close to 3-4 thousand words if I didn't. Sorry. Nevertheless, I hope everybody who reads this has a nice day/night.