Medusa

All monsters are hideous and fearful, but some are worse than others. There is only one whose hair is made of slithering serpents, only one with skin of scales, and only one whose very gaze can turn man, beast, or God to stone. Medusa, the Gorgon. Stories claim she was beautiful once. A priestess of Athena. Loyal and devout in action, but Poseidon was determined to make her his own. It was the fairness of her features, the golden of her hair, that attracted the Sea God. Medusa, a mortal maiden, could not refuse. When Athena learned of Medusa's betrayal, she punished the priestess. Those fair features were hideously wrought and those golden locks twisted to hissing vipers. Anyone that met her eyes was petrified – a statue for all eternity. Medusa fled, frightened, ashamed and furious. For years she hid from the world, nursing a festering hatred for all things, craving beauty but having none, seeing none, until she became the monster she appeared to be. She slithers now to the field of battle. Those wretched features concealed behind a cruel mask of porcelain perfection, eyes burning from within. All that she perceives, all that is wonderful in this world, she seeks to destroy. Perhaps then she will be the fairest monster of them all.