Andromeda had experienced loss before, not just abandonment or family members vanishing, she had experience with death itself. Of course she had never been terribly close to her great aunt, perhaps most of her sadness then had been for Gaia's sake, it had been a hard truth for her sister to face, Natalya may not have always made good judgements in her opinion though there was no denying how much she had helped Gaia.
This was completely different though. Sigmarr, her brother was dead. He was far more important to her than her great aunt had been, and whilst they had grown apart in all of the troubles that the family had faced, Andromeda had never stopped caring for him. This was terrible news and it hit her hard from the moment the dreadful words left Kassander's lips. She had feared something bad had happened but this simply couldn't be true. Grief would consume her, the first stage, disbelief striking her quickly.
It wasn't a lie though, she could see, hear and even feel Kassander's pain and guilt, the destruction of the emotions eating away at him. He seemed a shadow of his usual self, he may not had ever screamed leadership material to many though the man stood before them now was a crumpled mess not the brave one that had once taken up the mantle of leadership to keep Ebony going.
Even with that thought in mind she couldn't have predicted Kassander's next words. Katja may have been present, but that thought pushed to the back of her mind initially, there had appeared to be far more important matters to attend to, little did the Olympus girl realise that the Viking woman was one of them. Ebony was lost now too. Her home was once more being pulled away from her.
Though Kassander was blaming himself, Andromeda wouldn't put the same pressure upon him. Even if she reached the anger stage of grief it wasn't likely she would ever blame him for Sigmarr's death itself. He may have escaped unscathed from the ordeal but the loss of Sigmarr itself was too much for her to even think about that fact.
She retreated deep within her mind for a few moments, barely paying attention to the fact that Kassander was moving away, seeking to hide from the crowd and that Katja had stepped up to address them all instead. It was only as her voice pierced the air that the golden hued Olympus was dragged back to the real world, the painful truths that life was once more falling apart.
Yfir hadn't treated her badly when she and her littermates had been captured by Katja but it had never been a home. Andromeda wasn't sure it ever would be either and right now a part of her shared in Kassander's wish to escape only it wasn't quite solitude that she hoped for but to unite with her remaining siblings, mourn this loss and work out what the next stage in their life could possibly be. She forced herself to glance around them now, seeking out their opinions on matters though she was fairly certain that most wouldn't want to stay in Yfir. |
