𝔸ℕ𝔻ℝ𝕆𝕄𝔼𝔻𝔸 ℕ𝕀ℂ𝕋𝕆𝕄𝕐ℕ has always felt out of place. Her past wasn't the same as others' pasts, her name wasn't the same as others' names. But the most striking difference was that Andromeda was half god. She never asked to be a demigod, she...
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"medusa"
NOTING UPSET ANDROMEDA MORE THAN THE RAIN. Her hair was starting to get frizzy, and her clothes were soaked. She wanted to shake her fist at Zeus and swear to destroy him, but she knew she couldn't. She dug a hair toe out of her back and threw her hair up in a ponytail, hoping to keep the frizz out of her face. She trudged alongside Percy, with Grover on her right, and Annabeth on Percy's other side.
Percy slipped a little on the mud, and almost fell fast first into some one-of-a-kind New England sludge. The rain continued to pour down while the smell of the Hudson River invaded their noses. Andromeda tried not to gag.
Grover hugged himself, mumbling about the Kindly Ones they had seen while Annabeth yelled at them to keep moving. Andromeda didn't want to walk anymore, she was tired, wet, and angry, but she kept moving anyway.
Wet flowers curled around her feet, desperate for protection from the rain. She couldn't do anything.
"All our money was back there," Percy reminded Annabeth, "Our food and clothes. Everything."
"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-"
"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"
"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."
"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."
"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.
Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans . . . a perfectly good bag of tin cans."
The mud sloshed under them as they walked. The cuffs of all their jeans were soaked in mud, and Andromeda's hair grew more frizzy every second. Annabeth fell back into line with the others.
"Look, I . . ." she paused, "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."
"We're a team, right?"
She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died . . . aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."
"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" Percy asked her.
"No . . . only short field trips. My dad-"
"The history professor."
"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home."
Percy looked to Andromeda, raising his eyebrows. "What about you?"
She shook her head. She had never left camp. She had been homeschooled there, she had trained there. She hadn't been in the outside world for anything other than field trips since she was five years old.
