... [ Give her a minute to finish this melting misery of an ice cream bar before she clears her throat and shifts, a bit uncomfortably. ]

He told me I was a medusa, and when I asked what that was, he said... a 'horrifying monster. A terrifying beast'.

And I... didn't know he thought that way about me.

[ It hurts much more now that she remembers never wanting to be a monster, the discrimination she'd faced, and that Styx had understood her, being different-- she'd thought. ]