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The first time I stood at her doorstep, I had been feeling many things. Fear, mainly, at the idea of coming to her and asking for room and board. I’m a nymph. I wasn’t used to asking for things. I had also been feeling, though I am ashamed now to admit, a feeling of entitlement. I deserved to live in her house. I deserved this - what my childish mind saw as a vacation from the frustrations of the mortal world. A few minutes talking to her, though, crushed all my stuck-upness. She rebuffed me - told me to survive on my own on her terrifying jungle of an island. Aiaia, they called it. I now think back and laugh at my foolishness, but then I was petrified with fear.
I spent a year on that island. I learned how to survive. How to pick berries, which animals to avoid, which cave was nice and dry, which leaves made a good mattress. I did my best to never bother Circe - that is her name, after all, the sorceress who lives on this island - but occasionally I saw her from a distance. She did many curious things, but I didn’t watch for too long, for fear that she would turn me into a pig like she always did those disgusting men.
After a year I left, and came back to my kingdom. My father, Orestis, king of a small forgotten part of Greece, welcomed me back.
“Hello, Ainale. I do hope you have learned your lesson”.
The thing is, no one is sent to Aiaia without reason. I was the first of many - misbehaving daughters sent for punishment. I was sent specifically because I rejected the arranged marriage my father forced me into - with a disgusting mortal prince of one of the many Greek islands. He thought that a year with Circe would “fix” me. It didn’t - if anything, it only made me more hardheaded. But it also made me more prudent - and I knew playing along was my best course of action.
“Of course, father. I apologize for my past actions. I will marry this prince”.
He smiled at me. Not a smile of fatherly affection - no, he never had those for me. A smile of finally, this thing I own is working properly. That’s all he ever saw me as - a bargaining chip, a thing to sell off to the highest bidder.
That’s when I snapped.
I cursed him and his house and his marriage to my mother. I cursed all of the Greek islands and their stupid princes and kings. I cursed the Olympians themselves for allowing such injustices to exist in the world. I cursed the titans, I cursed Gaea herself for allowing this terrible world to exist.
Suffice it to say that he banished me to Aiaia forever.
The second time I stood at Circe’s doorstep, I was much more confident. I knew my place - but I also knew how to survive, if need be. I bowed low. Circe sighed.
“Ainale, you were supposed to leave a week ago”.
“I did leave. Now I came back.”
Circe looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then she laughed.
“Oh, dear. What did you do?”
“I may or may not have cursed out the entire universe.”
“Of course you did. Of course you did.”
Anyhow, that's how I came to be a handmaiden of the witch Circe. I stayed on Aiaia for as long as she did, and shared in her experiences. Only when she had Telegonus did I briefly leave - but it was not extremely long, and years go by very quickly for a nymph. And if you were wondering? Yes, I did marry. Another nymph, by the name of Nysa. Circe married us, and she and I lived in happiness for a very, very long time.