Ah, why hello to you too, Andronika23. I trust you are well?
And that, is the girl we follow for most chapters. Just a small little girl.
Well, she was small at the time.
She's not anymore.
It's been a few years.
I'm rambling.
Days passed at school. Anna's forming gut feeling did not settle. Nor did Apollo's, but the worried parents were given no reason to worry that they knew of. Their daughter had no friends- not that Apollo was surprised, many godly children had these problems- and the teachers were impressed by her reading and writing abilities, but tried to help her in her struggle with most other subjects.
It all seemed relatively normal.
Seemed.
"Seemed," my friends, is a strange, awkward word and one I particularly hate. It is very deceiving.
But I do love characters to be deceived in books.
It's quite fun, really.
It was only a few weeks after Aster joined school that strange things began to happen.
At first, Aster thought she was imagining it, so didn't bother to have much concern about it.
She was beginning to see things.
A common trait in demigods.
Once she thought she saw a girl in her class with leaves on the back of her neck, like growing in them.
Another time she could have sworn a fifth grade boy had hooves for feet.
But worst of the moments, she could have sworn her teacher had scales.
After a week of seeing things, Aster was beginning to become upset.
Very upset.
These things were not natural, and they were continuing to pop up.
She could have sworn her teacher even smelled around their table once as if to try and find a particular scent.
Like a dog.
It was very concerning, no doubt, to have this happen.
For the most part, she outwardly expressed no interest in what was happening.
Inside however, a part of her was scared, and another excited.
The excitement, the part of her that yearned for something to happen, was very strong and powerful in the young girl. This desire would almost override her desire to stay invisible in class. A few times, she would stop herself from crying out about these sights or to mention her suspicions about her teacher.
One day, at the end of class when the young children were being let out of school, Aster strayed behind, while her classmates waddled out alone.
Aster looked her teacher up in the eye, despite the height difference and frowned.
"Why do you look so strange?"
The teacher grinned.
"So you're the little sun child," she said. What was strange, however, was that it came out in a hiss.
Aster stared on, brave and possibly very ignorant to any danger that she was in.
"We've been looking for you for a long time." Her teacher smirked. "Oh, how lucky I was to find you first."
It was at this point that things started to click in young Aster's head.
This was not a good situation to be in.
Her teacher bent down and looked at Aster, nose to nose, and the girl noticed that her teacher's eyes were very yellow and very narrow, like a snake's.
"Thank you," she said, and opened her mouth wide to reveal fangs and an acid-like breath.
Aster took a step back, and just as her teacher lunged for her, she found her father standing in front of her.
The teacher wailed.
"Interference!" she cried angrily, shuffling to Apollo's side in attempt to reach for the child again.
"Maybe so, but this child is being protected not as my daughter, but as a child of a prophecy. The Fates have decided that it is not yet her time to die." He glared, and pointed to the door. "Leave."
The teacher hesitated. "Maybe you will not die today, but someday, young sun child, you will." With that, the teacher disappeared and never to be seen again by Aster.