Just as she had promised Cyd, Medea handed over the Golden Fleece to her father the next morning.
Aeëtes, king of Colchis, had woken to the grim sight of his scorched land, blood-soaked soil, and a missing dragon. The whole place looked like the aftermath of a war. Which, well, it kind of was. He'd all but resigned himself to despair. The Fleece was gone, the guardian dragon slain, and the only explanation he could piece together was: some madman of a hero had stormed through, slaughtered his prized beast, and vanished without a trace.
He'd even begun to grumble bitterly to himself, "If you had the strength to kill a dragon, why bother with trials and rituals? Just take it and leave!"
But then—Medea appeared. Standing in the flickering torchlight of the palace hall, her arms cradling something familiar. Golden. Alive with a divine shimmer.
The Fleece.
Aeëtes leapt to his feet so fast he nearly tripped over his own robe. "You—what? How?!"
And so, with that same calm resolve she'd had the night before, Medea laid it all out for him. The truth, nothing held back.
She told him about Cyd. About how he'd shown up out of nowhere and somehow tamed the fire bulls. About how he scattered the dragon-tooth warriors like leaves in the wind. About how he fought—no, slayed—the guardian dragon. Alone.
Then she told him how Cyd gave her the Fleece, handed it over willingly, and vanished without asking for a single thing in return.
Cyd, now many miles away, probably sneezed without knowing why.
Aeëtes, meanwhile, just stared at his daughter, eyes wide, jaw practically on the floor. The story sounded like someone had stuffed five epics into a scroll and set it on fire for dramatic effect. Too much. Too fast. Too absurd.
A hero blessed by Apollo—and possibly other gods? Who broke into his daughter's chambers without him knowing? Tamed sacred beasts, outsmarted war-spirits, and slayed a monster so ancient even the gods forgot its name?
And then gave away the prize.
Just… gave it.
No demands. No glory. No hostage princess.
"What kind of idiot…?" Aeëtes murmured, blinking at nothing.
And yet, something shifted in the king's expression. Where panic had lived just moments ago, something like relief settled in. Hope, even. The dragon was gone—but so was the threat of war. His kingdom had its treasure, and the world now had one less monster.
And the hero? Already gone.
Aeëtes didn't breathe a word about who truly returned the Golden Fleece. He simply called for his scribes and poets, declared a royal celebration, and ordered a tale to be told—a tale of a mysterious snow-haired hero who slew a dragon and saved the realm of Colchis.
Elsewhere in the palace…
"Sorry," Medea murmured to the wind, her hands gripping the windowsill. "I was never really good at playing the obedient daughter."
Outside, the horizon stretched in golden streaks of sunrise. Somewhere out there, Cyd was walking—maybe stumbling—toward whatever crazy quest came next.
She had planned to leave with him. Hoped for it, even. But when Cyd returned the Fleece to her instead of escaping with it, something inside her cracked and reshaped itself. For the first time, she realized: he wasn't just helping Jason win. He was helping her.
And now? Her father was happy. The kingdom was safe. No one was hunting Jason and his crew. But Cyd…
He walked away from it all.
Honor. Gold. Power. Her.
Medea clenched her fists. He gave up everything—and I'm not going to let the world forget it.
The name "Cyd, the White-Haired Dragonslayer" spread like wildfire through the ports and hills of Greece. Poets fought over the details, but one thing was clear: someone had single-handedly slain the Colchian dragon and disappeared like a ghost.
Jason, still aboard the Argo, was the first to hear the news after the crew made landfall.
"Wait… what?!" Heracles nearly choked on his olives. "He killed the dragon by himself?!"
"Man, I told you he was weird," muttered Orpheus, strumming a tense note.
At first, the other heroes were annoyed. After all, dragon-slaying made for perfect storytelling material—and they'd just lost it to a guy who wasn't even on the ship anymore.
Jason, however, just stared at the horizon.
He wasn't angry. Not even jealous. Just… amazed.
The guy he'd kicked off the ship had come back, saved the mission, and then vanished again without a single word of recognition. Jason shook his head and chuckled to himself.
Then he did something none of the crew expected: he summoned a bard.
"Write everything," Jason ordered. "The real story. Don't make me the hero—write about him."
The crew objected, of course. "What if people start thinking he was the captain?" "What about our glory?"
Jason simply held up a hand and asked, "Did any of you kill a dragon alone?"
Silence.
Exactly.
Meanwhile…
Cyd trudged through a dense thicket, guided only by a half-cracked compass and the occasional sarcastic breeze. He had no destination—just a growing list of gods who either wanted to bless him or kill him.
So far, he'd survived Ares' death trial (barely), made a weird deal with Athena (several times), and somehow won the favor of Hestia without even meeting her. Hephaestus promised a full blessing—if Cyd collected twelve others first. Typical.
Some gods were easier than others. Poseidon's blessing had practically fallen into his lap. Artemis… well, she kept showing up uninvited. Zeus and Hera, though? Yeah, right. They were basically Mount Olympus's final bosses.
Then there was Hades.
The Lord of the Dead.
There were myths, sure—about mortals entering the Underworld and coming back. But none of them explained how to talk your way past a three-headed murder-dog.
Still, if he was going to survive this journey, Cyd knew one thing for sure:
The hardest part wasn't the gods.
It was walking away from people like Medea.
And pretending like it didn't hurt.