Andromeda

XI.

 The rest of the day passed strangely smoothly. Or at least as smoothly as a day could go when you were in the company of a literal celestial being that wasn't trying to hide the fact that she was "super-mega powerful," as Taehyung called her. As if to prove his point, Andromeda made a virtual basketball court in the middle of the roof - by virtual, I mean that both the backboards and ball were made entirely out of actual fire - and amused herself by throwing a ball of flames into the hoops. Taehyung and Jimin found this fascinating, but after one severe first-degree burn that had to be magically healed, the game sort of disappeared into thin air. Literally.

And I was confused. Despite being told a lot about Andromeda and her star-ness, I couldn't make sense of half of what was going on.

"How are you doing that?" I asked while she was fixing the accidental burn.

Jimin's hand had just been nearly burned off by touching the ball of fire. That seemed a little strange to me. After all, the flames had been red, not even blue-hot. Sure, a quick touch would hurt, but not scorch the skin to blackness. 

Jimin himself had been speaking absolute gibberish since the accident, switching between speaking in Korean and I believe some sort of heavily accented Japanese. Andromeda responded to him in kind, with soft murmuring words that I didn't think Jimin was really understanding, but they seemed to help keep him calm.

As closely as I watched, I couldn't figure out what in the world was happening with the healing. So far as I could tell, Andromeda was just looking at what had been burnt, occasionally lightly touching. And then the skin was just turned back to perfect, unburnt flesh.

When it was all healed, Jimin leaned heavily onto Andromeda with his eyes closed. She just smiled and combed her fingers through his hair.

"Doing what?" she asked.

I waved my hands around the general area, then pointed at Jimin's perfectly fine hand.

"Oh," she said. "You mean how am I controlling the elements."

I had no idea that's the question I was asking, but yeah, sure. That seemed to be a good start.

Jeongguk took Andromeda's moment of distraction to pounce on Jimin. Apparently, he'd been silently kept away from going near the injured boy. Jimin's eyes opened wide as he was tackled by the over-enthusiastic boy.

Andromeda's head whipped back to look where Jeongguk was smothering Jimin.

"Don't you dare hurt him!" she said. "I just fixed him!"

Jimin made some sort of gurgling noise. Andromeda looked back at me. "Have you ever heard of the elements created by nucleosynthesis?"

I stared at her blankly.

"Right then!" she clapped her hands excitedly. Both Jimin and Jeongguk groaned. "Shut up!" she snapped at them.

I laughed. The two boys shut up.

"So, I apologize if any of this comes out weirdly. The terms you humans use for this process are so complicated, but I suppose they would be. Considering that it's a theory for humans." She paused, tapping her fingertips against the pillow she was sitting on. I swear that pillow hadn't been there fifteen minutes before. "I suppose it's a theory for celestial beings as well. But it's easier for us to understand because we're more closely a part of it than humans and other creatures."

"You're not making any sense, Annie!" Yoongi yelled from where he was observing one of the fire backboards that had suddenly reappeared. The flames flashed blue for a split second, making Yoongi jump back in alarm. "Hey!"

"Why is everyone being such a jerk to me today?" Andromeda whined.

"I would give you a funny answer for that, but I don't want to get my ass charbroiled," Seokjin said from where he was sitting on the edge. Andromeda glared at him.