A/N: Written for the 100 drabble challenge on the HPFC forum! There should be 101 chapters by the time I'm finished, each based based on a different prompt. This prologue is the exception. I'm not having this story beta'd, so please let me know if you notice anything. Reviews are always appreciated.

Quotes throughout come from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Prologue

O! Virgin, worthy no such chains to prove,
But pleasing chains in the soft folds of love;

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How so very often it is that children become cursed with the woes of the generation before them. It is a tedious exercise of circularity, and not even a will of Herculean proportions can break it. Blame by association; everyone is guilty by name and nature.

A blushing beauty chained to a rock, bare for all to see; oh, how the sea tumbles and plumbles around her. Cassiopeia's confidence becomes her own undoing! - does the wrath of a higher deity no longer spare the innocent?

Hark, watch for the flight of a hero to swoop in with the power of glimmering stone. Oh, how swiftly he emancipates the fair maiden from an atonement that belongs naught to her.

(one set of restricting chains exchanged for another)