ii. and i felt immediately repulsed by all of it,
by men,
by aging, by humanity,
by my disgusting needs.
--- IN WHICH medusa's daughter joins the school for good and evi...
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Andromeda liked the way Summer felt.
She liked praising the way the sunlight sinked through her screen windows, and she liked picking flowers and pressing them into the yellowing pages of an old book, and she liked eating peaches, spitting the pits out when the flavor was gone, and leaving the fruit strewn across her front yard.
But, most simply, she liked Summer because it meant she had survived another year in this unmerciful world.
For a girl, soon to be sixteen as she was at the time, Andromeda was supposed to be experiencing some of the best moments of her life. Yet, she felt like nothing more than patent leather shoes melted into the hot concrete, cementing her in place.
Maybe it was the way her absentee aunt had not said a word to her after her mother passed, at least not besides when she had needed something.
It was always, "come help me move dis laundry befo' the rain gits here," or "you don't take a bit of interest in dis place. 'tain't no use in foolin' round in dat kitchen all day long." But never anything pertaining to her, as an actual person, rather than a maid, or something of the sort.
Or maybe it was because the women of the endless woods decided that pursing relationships with odd men, in search for marriage, was a better use of their time then attending school. Sometimes Andromeda couldn't even keep up with how fast people had fallen in love. She couldn't even imagine falling in love with just one person, but the frilly princesses seemed to fall in love with complete strangers all the time. Perhaps it was the loving that they loved.
Aunt Euryale called them foolish; she resented men, never-mind loathe as the word, and thought there was no use for them. Euryale was a Priestess in the Cult Athena, along with her sister Stheno, and late sister Medusa— Andromeda's mother.
Andromeda spent most of her days with the priestesses, hearing impossible tales of women conquering battles and owning lands. She often dreamed of having her own kingdom and filling it all with strong women.
Men seldom looked her way, terrified that she too could turn them to stone. They painted her mother as an evil monster, because men are often afraid of what doesn't serve them. God forbid a women asked to be left alone.
Aunt Euryale often pressured young Andromeda to joining the Cult of Athena, taking the oath to remain chaste and swearing her life to the goddess— but the same thing had always stopped her. The fear of her father. The fear of Poseidon.
Since the god had found out about the birth of his daughter, he had tried countless times to infiltrate her life. He often changed the seasons to her liking— as she hated the cold— and crafted her her own trident, and even tried to pull her into the ocean using a tidal wave.
Every time the young Andromeda refused his gifts, Poseidon grew angry... he destroyed houses with earthquakes, rained storms on the endless woods, caused mass destruction to Athena's temples. Aunt Euryale and Aunt Stheno garnered help from Athena to protect the daughter, but her protection would halt as soon as Andromeda had been accepted into the School for Good and Evil. Athena tells Andromeda it is time to forge her own fairytale.
And in a fortnight, she will be gone— sent to the school, placed on a side, and beginning the rest of her life. Andromeda, the daughter of snakes, the protector of women, the legend begins.
