(copy) Alessa & The Magical Golden Feather

Once upon a time, long ago...

Two twins were born in the Ancient Greek city-state of Arcadia, daughters of the city state's queen and Zeus, the King of the Gods. Unfortunately, Hera, Zeus's wife, found out from Aphrodite, Olympus's most infamous gossip.
"Did you hear that the Queen of Arcadia had Zeus' child just yesterday?", Aphrodite gossiped, "I couldn't even believe so myself!" She started to slowly shake her head.
Hera immediately felt a surge of anger go through her body. "No, I didn't..." she said with a faraway look in her eyes.

It didn't take long for Hera to hatch her evil plan. The following night, she furtively flew down to Arcadia. She crept into the royal nursery and saw the child that was peacefully sleeping in the cradle.

"One of my easy tasks," she said in a low tone to herself, and quickly swiped the child from it's resting place and went away.
However, she did not know that the Queen had actually given birth to twins, not just one child. At the moment, Alessa, one of the twins, was having a bath, so she was not in the nursery with her twin. Hera had taken the other baby, Alejandra, and flown back up to Mount Olympus. Hera then passed on the child to her son Ares to dispose of, since she knew that if she kept the child in her care long enough to get rid of it, Zeus may have caught her.
But, fortunately for Alejandra, Ares was currently in a war with Athena who was the patron goddess of the city-state Athens. Athens was also at war with an island named Kea, who Ares was aiding, to prove that he was better at battle strategy than Athena, who was also a goddess of war as well as wisdom. So, instead of leaving the defenseless demigod on a mountainside or forest like Hera had intended him to,

Ares decided that he would use the demigod, who he knew would be powerful as a daughter of Zeus, as a weapon.
So, he gave her to the military leader of Kea to raise and train to fight in their army against the Athenians and her own people, the Arcadians.

Both princesses had become great leaders and fighters, beating everyone in their kingdoms in archery, running, and hand to hand combat. In the city state of Arcadia, everything was happy and prosperous, and Alejandra was almost forgotten about. But, every once and awhile Alessa would get a feeling that something was missing, though she had never been told about the missing princess.
Alessa's father, the King of Arcadia, who did not know that she was a daughter of Zeus, often praised his daughter and was constantly doting on her. However, that became a problem when instead of honoring Ares in a speech on the war god's feast and sacrifice day, he talked about his daughter's military accomplishments.

This infuriated the war god, who decided to turn Alejandra into a giant monstrous bird with a sharp curved beak, treacherous talons, and ebony feathers that resembled a deathly abyss to anyone who opposed the newly transformed Alejandra.

Then, using a golden magical feather, Ares possessed Alejandra to wreak havoc on the Kingdom of Arcadia. The feather was a hippogriff feather, the magic of which had been enhanced by Hecate, the goddess of magic, who he had stole the feather from long ago during a fight with Athens, where Hecate was often worshiped.
Almost immediately after the bird came to attack, being the brave and honorable princess she was, Alessa set off with a small army of Arcadia's best soldiers to attempt to slay the beast. But, as impressive as the team was, the monster seemed to be invincible, and it was able to wipe out the entire army with a swoop of its ginormous talons.

So, after she saw that defeat was inevitable, she went to her nervous father to ask for help, just as the monster swooped overhead and dropped an amulet, the same amulet that had been given to Alejandra and her at birth by the king and queen of Arcadia.

Alessa, thinking that it was hers, and that the monster must have picked it up during their battle, since she had a matching one, slipped it into her pocket, hidden in her chiton. She then asked her father what he thought that she should do, and took his advice to go bring Ares a sacrifice as a peace offering to persuade him to stop the monster from wrecking their kingdom. Ares refused, and flew into a fit of rage since she had "dared to come disturb him".
During Ares' fiery fit of fury, Alessa had fallen over and the amulet around her neck had fallen of. But, as she picked it up and reached to slip it into her pocket, she felt the matching one as well, and realized that there were two.

Surprised and distressed, Alessa barely escaped Ares’ wrath and made it back to the crumbling palace, where she found her mother tensely waiting for her return. "What is this?" she questioned her mother, "The monster dropped this matching amulet."

Her mother responded, "I've hidden this from you for so long, but your father is not...well, your father. Your father is Zeus, and you have a twin sister, but she disappeared soon after you were born. We do not know what happened to her. If the monster did drop the amulet though...it is possible that the monster could have eaten her. Or, though it would be strange, I always had a feeling that she was stolen from the gods. Maybe that jealous Hera or one of her monsters turned Alejandra, your sister, into a monster, though it is unlikely. Whatever the situation is with her, though, you must venture to the temple of your father and ask for his help in defeating the beast before it destroys the kingdom."

Shocked and indignant the princess then stumbled out of the palace and began to ascend the hill to her father's temple.