An old English story...

While in grade 11, we started to look at poetry for some reason. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I've never really been interested in poetry. Mostly because I could never understand it. Where was I? Oh right. So we were doing poetry, and the English teachers thought it would be great if they could somehow test that we could interpret poems. Thus we were giving a writing assignment.
We needed to pick a poem from our book, and write a short story on it. The hardest thing was finding a poem in the first place for many people. Lucky for me, I write lots of stories and always have three at the ready for a moments notice. So all I had to do, was find a poem that matched the story (in my view). Now I love mythology, so it's no surprise that many of my stories take on qualities from those stories. So flicking through the book, my eyes land on a familiar name. No, not a poet/author, but a character. Andromeda from Greek mythology to be exact. Reading trough the poem a few times, every time going "This is perfect! I can use this!" until I decided enough of the reading and more editing.
Now, my teacher was the English teacher that doesn't like me (so I don't like her), so anything that I write will automatically get graded lower. To prevent this, I showed my story to another teacher. The head of Senior English in fact. Everyone loves this teacher, her enthusiasm about the subject infects others and she's chatty outside the subject too. Anyway, this teacher once said to show her my work because she loved reading them. And I showed her the poetry/short story assignment. The next day I get it back in the morning - It had a smiley face at the bottom of the page and ticks on every paragraph (It was the final version of the story so all editing had been done).
The next term, the teacher I don't like handed me the assignment back. The page had the teacher's remark on how childish it was and some other criticism, but had an 'A' on it. I think I only got that 'A' because I showed it to the other teacher.
Thus my habit for paying out poetry started, but that's not what this post is about (although I have rambled on for long enough... Sorry)

Anyway, the monster in this story I found in a monster book (which was constantly borrowed out under my name), so the info for it I got out of the book.
Here's the poem:

Andromeda

She was the first pin-up.
Naked and bejewelled,
she was chained to a rock,
then thrown by heavy-breathing
winds into wild postures:
at each new angle, lightning
popped like a photographer’s flash.
The gold circling her neck
matched her hair, the emeralds
her eyes, the rubies her nipples,
and the amethysts those bruises
covering her skin, once pearl-white
as for all princesses.
In lulls of wind, she pulled
against iron, stood almost straight.
The sky was a mouth swallowing her,
the sun a glimmering eye;
lolling in the tide, a sea-dragon
slithered and gargled like
some vast collective slob.
From afar, Perseus saw her first
as a creature writhing on a rock;
close up, she was a whirlpool
of rage and terror and shame.
The dragon he changed to stone
with hardly a thought. But
his strength almost failed him
in breaking those chains.
Looking away from her nakedness,
he smooths her ankles, wrists.
She waits for the moment
when he will meet her eyes.

Note that the teachers said how we interpret the poems, that means what we individually feel about it... Right? So anyway, enjoy the story (and I'm sorry for the ramble above)

The two poked their heads out from behind the pillar and wall that they were hiding behind. The creature gave a stifled yawn and turned its attention to the treasure behind it at the back of the room. Leon slipped over to Moselle as some of the treasure was sent flying around the room, hitting the walls and leaving dents behind.

“Right, what’s this one then?” He asked and peered over Moselle’s shoulder as she flipped through her book. All her nervous energy evaporated as she scanned through the book and matched an old, carefully hand-drawn picture to the creature in front of them.

“A ‘Vouivre’,” she said and continued to read the passage that accompanied the image, “All are females and can only see by the gem that sits between their blind eyes. They guard large amounts of treasure and lurk in ruined castles, monasteries or mountain caves.”

Leon nodded and peeked at the creature again, “Anything else?”

“They only attack people that wear clothes, so the best defence and offence is to be naked, then she’ll make a run for it,” Moselle concluded and shut the book firmly and wrapped the cords securely around it. Then she realised what she said and a very visible shade of red crossed her cheeks and Leon’s well.

“N-naked?” He asked uncertain and somewhat nervous.

“T-that’s what… I-it said…” Moselle mumbled and curled up into a tighter ball than before, as she hugged the book closer to her chest and hid her brightly flushed face in her knees. The two stayed silent as the clanging of thrown treasure continued in the next room.

“I t-think you should d-do it,” Moselle stammered out and choked on her words as Leon gave her a dirty look back, she realised what she had said and her eyes widened as she tried to explain, but her voice decided to take a break from working.

“W-why?!” He partly demanded, and shot up from his squatting position, taking care to not appear from out of the wall. Moselle shivered slightly and tried to keep her nerves in check as she gripped onto the book harder for the confidence it gave her.

“Well… For one reason… You’re a boy, Vouivre are girls, and I think a naked boy would freak anyone out…” She reasoned. Leon calmed back down, but remained standing.

“I think a naked girl would freak out anyone has well,” he reasoned back, turned red again and sat back down, “There has to be a better way then to strip off…”
He pondered for a moment and his eyes became hazy and unfocused as he tried to think of something, and smiled as his eyes lit up. He turned to Moselle.

“Hey, listen, keep watch here, ok? I’ll be back in a sec,” he said before he slipped off around the corner at a startling speed. Moselle calmed down as Leon left and uncurled herself, her recognisable blush instantly dieing down. She breathed out and gazed around the wall to the Vouivre, who had decided to sit up on the very top of the tower of numerous different treasures. 

A little while later, the sound of footsteps got Moselle out of her trance of sketching the creature and she turned and looked up to face Leon, in what appeared to be nothing. Her face instantly flared back up into the colour red from before and she quickly pulled up the book to block her vision.

“I-I-I-” she tried to form a sentence, but she kept forgetting what she was meant to say, since the situation had just transferred to her brain, and there were many responses that bounced back.

“I-I-I d-didn’t me-mean for y-y-you t-to…” Moselle tried to convey her embarrassment across to Leon. She felt him kneel in front to her and try to pry the book away from her. After a slight struggle, he succeeded in doing that; only to have Moselle clamp her hands across her eyes.

“Haha, come on Moss, it’s not what it looks like,” he laughed and rubbed his arm against her skin. ‘It’s covered in fabric…’ Moselle realised and reluctantly opened a small gap in her hands so she could get a better look. Sure enough, Leon was wearing a skin colour fabric tightly around his body. The shadows fitted the correct areas and whatever body muscle Leon had showed through the fabric. ­Moselle didn’t dare to look lower until one thing was cleared up.

“You are wearing u-undies, r-right?”

“Ah, the big question in life… Is the boy in the nude suit wearing undies, and to answer your question, yes I am wearing undies.”

Moselle lowered her hands and gave a small annoyed sigh while crossing her arms.

“Tell me next time you do a stupid stunt like this!”

“Alright, alright, calm down, I promise I’ll try,” Leon attempted to calm her down, but she flared up again and made a face between a pout and an angry look. Leon gave up and gazed to the creature behind Moselle. He stood up and motioned Moselle to stay hidden. As he moved forward, she quickly grabbed his hand, forcing Leon to look down at her as she mouthed ‘She has a ruby in her forehead’ and let go of his hand.

He smiled and nodded, “Maybe she’s short-sighted.” 

Leon made his way to the entrance of the room and picked up a piece of treasure next to him. He threw it into the air, caught it, looked at in all its wonder and splendour, and then hurtled it at the head of the creature with a grunt. It hit right in between the eyes, but missed the red gemstone etched in its forehead. The Vouirve gave a startled cry and reared its head at him. Its eyes took a moment to adjust to Leon and upon realising what he looked like, yelped in surprise and moved hastily over to the window, which it slithered out of. Leon ran over to the window and looked down below to see nothing but the bottom of the tall mountain they had climbed up to get to the monastery. He sighed and hauled himself away from the window to face Moselle.

“Nude suit works then,” he stated and Moselle nodded as she wrote down on a piece of paper and slid it into the page.

“And appears to need glasses,” she added on sarcastically and smiled confidently at Leon. He rubbed the back of his neck and grinned sheepishly.

“Hey, um… Moss, mind doing me a favour?” He laughed nervously.

“What?” Moselle asked politely.

“Um… There is a lot of sweat in here, can you get my clothes from around the corner?” He pointed back to where they originally were. Moselle turned her head around to see and faced back to him. She left without a word and when she was around the corner, Leon quickly unzipped the suit and pulled it down to about his waist. He waved his wands in a fanning motion to cool himself down and turned to face out the window. He forgot where he was until a startled yelp came from behind him. He turned around to see Moselle hiding her face in his clothes and he slightly blushed.

“I’m going to need those,” he commented and walked over to her. When he halted a metre in front, she gave a low bow and brought out the clothes from underneath. Leon had just grabbed onto the clothes when Moselle withdrew her hands and ran away back around the corner, tripping several times while she was at it.

“Thank-you!” He called out; sure that she was probably hiding in the book again. He sighed and focused on getting out of the suit, while keeping an eye out for the Vouirve, or else he might actually be nude if it decided to come back up. 

That's it! What do you all think of it? Thanks for reading, and have a nice day everyone!