Write by the Cards: Day Nine
A Moment of Reflection
If you’re new to The Rebel MFA Way, welcome! This is my daily work for my Write by the Cards: 30 Day Challenge that I’m hosting. Learn more here. Scroll down to the end to see my behind-the-scenes commentary and source material.
After learning the lesson, the character reflected on {draw a card}.
Alcimene and the Hydra
Alcimene had grown up with tales of the Hydra, stories of a beast so hideous and merciless even the gods feared it. It was said that Echidna, mother of monsters, had birthed it to be a vessel of wrath—a creature woven from shadows and ancient spite, its many heads bound to Lerna’s swamp by an enchantment that could not be broken. But to Alcimene, the Hydra was no mere legend. It was a call she couldn't afford to ignore.
For months, Alcimene watched her people unravel, swept into a storm of anger and fear. What began as whispers became arguments, old resentments taking root in family feuds, rivalries, and conspiracies that spread through the villages like wildfire. Even the great city-states had split, each side viewing the other as monstrous, until lines blurred and brother turned against brother.
As a leader, Alcimene had tried to calm the unrest, to bridge understanding, but her voice had been drowned out. Her pleas, once trusted, now fell on ears deafened by the noise of suspicion and pride. Each attempt to mend the rifts only seemed to feed them, until the strife itself felt like a many-headed beast growing stronger with every strike.
One night, as fires burned in the streets and cries echoed from the hills, Alcimene dreamt of standing on the shores of a dark lake. From its depths rose a shadow—an ancient creature with countless heads bearing expressions of rage, fear, or sorrow. It was the Hydra. As she gazed upon it, she knew: this creature was not just a monster—it was a mirror reflecting her homeland's turmoil.
The following morning, Alcimene left alone. She traded her last belongings for the road leading to Lerna through marshes thick with mist and forests heavy with silence. Here, beyond her people’s voices' reach, it felt as though she had stepped into a place outside time. She walked until the swamp opened up before her, thick and rank with stagnant fog. A bitter smell filled her lungs—the scent of decay, of secrets long buried.
As she approached the shore, the water stirred. From it rose the creature of her dreams. One head, then two, and then dozens of serpent heads lifted, coiling and twisting like roots seeking air. The Hydra was as much shadow as flesh, its many faces glistening in the pale light. A dozen sets of eyes glared down at her, reflecting raw and ancient emotions—anguish, rage, grief.
“Why have you come?” rumbled a voice from deep within the Hydra.
Alcimene’s hand rested at her side, feeling the familiar weight of the dagger she wore, but she knew striking would mean nothing here.
She spoke softly but firmly. “I am Alcimene. I come to ask what makes you rage, Hydra. My people are tearing themselves apart as your heads tear at one another. Tell me how this can end.”
A hiss filled the air as the Hydra’s heads drew closer. “You seek to end my rage? You think to calm the fire I am made from?” Its voice coiled around her like invisible threads. “You know nothing of suffering. I am bound to this swamp, my curse to grow stronger with each head lost. It is Echidna's fury that forged me into a weapon ensuring those who harm me only fuel me. Can you end what cannot be destroyed?”
Alcimene's throat tightened at the enormity of its anguish. She could see herself in each face—the rage that turned friends into foes, the pain that turned love into loathing.
She, too, felt bound to a cycle, a life where every effort to heal only opened new wounds.
“But what is your rage, Hydra? From where does it come?” she asked.
One of its heads leaned in close, its dark eyes fixed on hers. “I was made from the bitterness of gods—to punish and protect, to take on the anger of those who cannot die.” Each head writhed as it spoke, the weight of endless years heavy in its voice. “And so, I am a curse. I am rage itself, fed by those who would destroy me, and I cannot be freed.”
Alcimene felt the chill settle in her bones, but she did not falter. Her mind turned, searching, piecing together a path. “Perhaps, then, to be freed, one must not fight you,” she murmured. “To sever the heads would only feed you, Hydra. Perhaps to know your pain is to accept it, to refuse to stoke it further.”
The Hydra’s eyes narrowed, watching her with intense scrutiny. “You think mere acceptance can end me?”
“No,” she replied, her voice low but steady, “but perhaps acceptance could free me—and all those who carry your anger.” She lifted her gaze to meet the Hydra’s relentless stare. “Show me how.”
The Hydra stilled, and for a long moment, the marsh was silent. Its heads drifted as though in contemplation, the serpent necks curving back, mouths closing. Finally, the largest of the Hydra’s heads, with scales dark and polished like obsidian, leaned down until its eyes were level with Alcimene’s own.
“If you wish to break the cycle, listen well,” it hissed. “To face rage without feeding it, you must seek what lies beneath. For your people’s anger, just as my own, is a shadow that hides fear—fear of loss, fear of weakness, fear that will lash out to survive.”
Alcimene furrowed her brow as she absorbed the words.
“Gather your people. Take them to the place where their pain first took root. Let them speak what has been buried and name what they have feared.”
The Hydra’s heads began to sway, shifting in the mist, their gleaming eyes fixed on Alcimene with something she could almost call trust. “Know this,” it said, the voice now softer, yet tinged with a deep, dark wisdom. “They will not forgive at once. Rage does not die easily, even when spoken. But when rage is met with a silence that does not provoke, a silence that listens, its roots weaken.”
Alcimene nodded, her heart pounding with the weight of understanding.
“But how will I quiet those who will not hear?” she asked.
The Hydra’s gaze softened. “Those who refuse will see their rage reflected in others and feel the sting of their own venom. But you, Alcimene, must be a mirror, as I am. Do not yield to their fire; be the still water in which it is held.”
With that, the Hydra’s heads began to lower into the dark water, leaving a ripple that spread in widening circles.
“Remember, Alcimene—anger fed is anger strengthened. Anger understood is anger released. Go, and carry this wisdom to those who still burn.”
As dawn broke, Alcimene embraced a new warmth rising within her. She had come seeking an end but returned with the means to mend. She would gather her people and lead them to the place where all their fears and pains began. They would witness each other’s wounds.
She would be the mirror and the still water, as the Hydra had shown her, and in that reflection, perhaps the rage would lose its grip, its power undone in the silence of understanding.
Behind-the-Scenes Commentary
Goodness! Spirit and the Card Goddesses are shining down on me, because this was another myth that mirrors the state of the U.S. right now.
As I’ve been working with one of my mythic mentors, Maria Souza, her encouragement to consider retelling these myths through the understanding of all characters, but particularly the “monsters,” can result in a lot of fresh and unique ways to bring the myth alive.
That was the goal with this retelling in my mind — rather than seek to destroy that which scares us, to try to understand it. Learn lessons from what they have to tell us.
No one stops to ask the monsters what wisdom they have, people only seek to slay it.
I wanted to use Hydra as a metaphorical bridge for the protagonist to understand how she, only one little person, can begin to make a difference in the face of an what seems like an impossible task.