Sun falling, a day of exile ending. Feet blistered and raw, her sons limping. Strange peace. A light breeze in evening, the air cooling. It might be better if they never reach another city. The four of them only, wandering across the earth, walking farther each day until there is no speech or thought, only movement. This might be how she and Jason could know each other and no longer betray.

They spend the night under oak trees near a dry stream-bed. Leaves like small hands blotted against a darkening sky. Lobed hands, silent, black on blue, a multitude. Her sons pushing in close. She lies on her back with her arms around them, their heads on her breasts. To spend the entire night together like this is a gift she had never imagined possible. To hear them breathe and feel their tugs and kicks in sleep, burrowing in deeper.

Jason a shadow somewhere else on this ground, separate.

Trees looming above thick like a second surface, and stars filling every gap, traces of a great golden fleece hung unreachable, known imperfectly from below. All that one could ever dream of is here. Body of Nute, without end.

The next day, Jason ranges far ahead, even with the burden of his sacks. Valley floor, dry yellow grass, occasional oaks, and this lone figure bare under the sun receding. Something in him that would never stop but only keep walking, toward nowhere. Lost husband, lost father. Medea doesn’t know what would bring him back. Nothing in her, certainly.

Empty world same as when it began, unchanged, without time. Medea and her two sons might be waiting a thousand years before Hatshepsut will be born. No sign, nothing to give reference.

Aeson and Promachus, names used again, lives returned and repeated. Names that would take away more than they would give, her sons burdened by ancestors. She doesn’t know why she allowed this, but perhaps because she had no ancestors at all herself, beyond her father, and missed their weight. Some comfort in reaching back, some assurance, but these were unfinished lives, cut short, and won’t they demand something still?

Shape of her sons’ lives unknown. Released now from slavery, begun again. Remnants of Aeetes, walking in a foreign land, and will they ever see Colchis? Is it possible to be from a place one has never seen?

They walk this long valley for three days, staying away from settlements, avoiding all other humans. Medea has too much time to think of great Aeetes. Endless valley, sound of her own footsteps lost in the steps of these two sons, and she has spread his seed, serves him still. Heirs in another kingdom, his influence widening. How can she end all kings when she has carried them within her, betrayed by her own womb? Can any king ever be killed? Pelias, too, lives on through Acastus and so many daughters. His heirs will multiply. He will never be fully erased.