Disclaimer: As usual, PJO and HOO characters belong to Rick Riordan, and the Greek mythology figures belong to Greek people and culture.
My author's note will be at the end of the story, so you can read it if you want to after you finished reading the story. Enjoy!
MARK AND TRACY
He let his body fell and lean on the wall of a dim, narrow alleyway. Slowly he touched the wound on the side of his stomach and winched when the pain shot up from his own touch. To make matters worse, his left upper arm also had a wide gash that made that hand virtually useless for fighting.
Slowly he slid down and sat, panting from running and also keeping the urge to scream in pain. His mind played a very colorful vocabulary of curses, both in English and Greek.
"I should've known," he scolded himself. "No way a girl that hot would want to have anything to do with someone like me."
He was going out to town to spend some time hanging out with other boys at the town's park. He felt really lucky when at the park he met a girl that somehow very welcoming toward him, and they started flirting with each other. But when they moved away from the crowd to get to 'know' each other better in private, the girl suddenly changed into a monster and attacked him.
He was angry at himself for not being ready to face a surprise attack by a monster. He was supposedly a son of Ares, the Greek god of war, and yet he foolishly fell to such a simple ruse by a monster.
More than that, he also cursed his stupidity for not bringing any weapon. As a camper at Camp Half-Blood, he was supposed to know better than going to town unarmed against monsters.
Suddenly a hissing female voice said, "There you are, my demigod prey. I hope you are ready to become my sssupper."
He frantically tried to stand up and run again, but the pain from his wounds were too overwhelming and he fell down again.
"Aaaww... Already ran out of strength to run are we?" the woman's voice asked in a mocking tone. "Sssuch a ssshame. I like it better if my prey could put up more fight than this."
Finally the source of the voice showed herself. She had a normal woman's body from the waist up, and a snake's body from the waist down.
Slowly the monster slithered its way toward the teenager and lowered itself so that they could see eye to eye.
The teenager threw a spit toward the monster's face as a sign that he didn't give up, but the monster already expected it and it easily dodged the spit.
With an very quick movement, the monster's hand grabbed the boy's face and forced him to look at the monster's face.
"It isss sssuch a pity," the monster said in a way that somehow sounded sincere. "You have a decent face. I'd love to have you asss a lover. Unfortunately I am hungry for a demigod's flesh, ssso I will eat you instead."
The teenager just kept staring at the monster's eyes, refusing to back down.
"Ahh... defiance until the very end. How noble," the monster smiled, showing her saw-like row of teeth. "I ssshall gladly tell all of my next preysss about how brave you acted in your lassst momentsss."
After saying that the monster finally started to strike. Its face slowly came closer to the teenager's neck. It is obvious that the monster was going for the teenager's jugular. Maybe it was because it wanted to drink the demigod's warm blood first before devouring his flesh, or maybe it was meant to be an act of mercy to make sure the demigod won't suffer too long.
"Heyaaa...!" Suddenly a girl's yell rang inside the alley, echoing by bouncing on the walls.
The monster quickly moved away, and the demigod saw a flash of brownish glow rapidly approaching toward his chest now that the monster already moved away.
Fortunately whomever delivering the strike was in complete control and stopped her strike right before her celestial bronze dagger hit the demigod's chest.
The demigod looked up to see who was it that just saved him from the monster's jaw, and at the same time nearly killed him.
What he saw was a girl close to his own age with blond hair that was tied in a pony tail and wearing braces on her teeth.
"You... you're one of Aphrodite's cabin member," the demigod said.
The girl that he spoke to paid close attention to the demigod's face for the first time and she said, "Mark? What are you doing here?"
"You're one of Aphrodite'sss daughtersss?" the monster asked grudgingly. "Well, the more the better. I get to eat double ssservingsss of demigodsss today!"
The girl scrunched her nose when she looked at the monster. "Eww... A Dracaena? You are the worst monster there is!"
"And you are the worst and weakest demigod there is!" spat the Dracaena. "A daughter of Aphrodite are always useless and weak. You only know how to groom yourself, and admire your own image on any reflective surface that you came across."
The girls face was red with anger, but she was able to control herself and said, "Well excuuuse me for being beautiful, you pathetic excuse of a monster! At least other monsters are creative and always uses different methods to kill demigods, unlike you who only depended on using the mist to hide your true ugly self and lure demigods to kill and eat them! Even if I really am useless and weak, at least I'm not an uncreative and dumb monster like you."
The monster gritted its teeth and then screamed, "You dared calling me dumb?!"
The girl raised her eyebrows and something dawned on her mind. A wicked smile bloomed upon her beautiful face when she said, "Tsk tsk. Looks like I hit a sore spot there. As a beautiful blond girl I'm used to be taken lightly as just another dumb blond by other people, but it doesn't bother me because I know I'm not dumb. But look at you, oh great dracaena, I just mentioned the word 'dumb' in passing and you're already snapping at me. I guess in your case, it's true, you are dumb!"
The monster was already fuming and seething at that moment, so the girl strikes again by saying, "You're dumber than a cyclops. Or maybe even dumber than the frosted giants. But even they have an excuse, they are frosted nearly all their life, it's understandable that they're dumb from losing so may brain cells because of the cold . But you? You are fat, ugly, pale, scaly, slimy, AND dumb. I wondered, what made you kept yourself alive? If I were you, I'd rather go to Tartarus and hide myself there for all eternity. Oh, but I'm sorry, there's no way you'd be able to think of something like that... because you're dumb!"
The Dracaena finally lost her patience and it attacked the girl with a lightning fast strike. Mark, as a boy and as a son of Ares instinctively wanted to intervene and protect the girl, but his wounds made it impossible to move and he was only able to look helplessly as the dracaena attacked. All he could see was a green flash moving in a slithering movement, and the next second, the dracaena was already standing behind the girl.
The girl herself was unable to do anything, too. She could only turn slowly toward the dracaena that was standing behind her, with her face full of shock.
"Not ssso dumb, am I, now, daughter of Aphrodite?" the dracaena said triumphantly.
"You are fast, I'll give you that," the girl said. "But wow. Just... wow... I know you're dumb, but I never thought you're THAT dumb. You're not just dumb. You're one imbecilic, moronic, idiotic, or maybe even downright brainless monster."
The dracaena's face was so contorted with rage that Mark couldn't help but winched a little in disgust when he saw it.
"I could've shredded you into a thin strip of toilet paper!" the dracaena yelled in anger and frustration. "Why are you still calling me dumb?!"
The girl shook her head slowly in disbelieve. "Holy mother Rhea... You really need me to explain? Wow! You're very stupid that your body itself needed so long just to process the fact that it was dying! Look at your chest, moron! My dagger is sticking out of it!"
The dracaena's face went blank from confusion before it looked down to its own chest where it saw that it was true. The girl's dagger was really sticking out of its chest, right on the spot where its heart was suppose to be, if it really had a heart to begin with.
Finally it dawned on the dracaena that it was dying, and with a shrieking scream her body exploded into a rain of golden dust that sprayed all over Mark and the demigod girl, leaving the girl's dagger behind that fell clanking onto the concrete floor of the alley.
The girl sighed a sigh of relieve. She walked toward her dagger and picked it up before turned and ran back to Mark.
"Are you okay?" the girl asked while kneeling beside Mark. "How're you feeling?"
Mark tried to put on a brave face, but his wounds are really quite bad so his pale and sweating face betrayed whatever charade he was trying to put on.
"Let me look at your wounds." the girl asked.
"What's... what's your name?" Mark finally asked in a gasping voice as the girl lifted up his t-shirt to look at the wound on his stomach.
"Lacy," the girl answered. "And as you've already known yourself, I'm a daughter of Aphrodite." she added after she assessed the severity of Marks's wound while smiling and showing her braced teeth.
Lacy quickly put down her heavily decorated backpack on her side. She rummaged inside it for a few moments and took out a sealed plastic bag of ambrosia, a small bottle of nectar, and a big roll of bandage.
"Okay Mark, you'll need to take off your t-shirt so that I'll be able to tend your wound properly." Lacy said while opening the sealed bag.
"Wh... what? But..." Mark tried to refuse.
Lacy looked at him and asked in an amused tone. "Are you shy?"
"What? No! But... You're a girl!"
"Yes, I'm a girl. I appreciate the fact that you noticed it, thank you very much. But if you want me to bandage you wound, you'll need to take off your shirt. Now don't be shy and let me help you taking it off."
Mark wasn't exactly agreed with Lacy, but he finally let her helped him taking off his t-shirt.
"Oh, okay. Scratch whatever I just said." Lacy said after Mark already leaning back to the alley wall. "You don't need to feel shy, but at least you could've warned me about how hot you looked, shirtless."
Mark's face was flushed red and he tried to take back his t-shirt from Lacy's hand, but she was faster and pulled it away from his reach.
"Come on, now. I was just teasing you. I've had enough of seeing hot boy's body, just from my cabin alone. My brothers are all children of Aphrodite too, remember?" Lacy said laughing a little.
Mark didn't say anything. He just kept quiet, trying to hold back his feeling of shame.
Lacy raised her eyebrows in amusement again, and she said, "Well, at least I managed to make you look not so pale anymore."
After that, Lacy started tending Mark's wounds. First she gave a block of ambrosia for Mark to eat while she was cleaning the wound on his stomach using the nectar. She also asked Mark to drink the last few drops of nectar after she finished cleaning up his wounds. Fortunately both of his wounds, although quite deep, but not deep enough to cause an immediate life threatening condition.
The bandaging process was a little bit more tricky, but after a few minutes Lacy was finally able to dress the wounds on Mark's stomach and upper left arm.
After that, she took Mark's t-shirt, sit right across him and started stitching the ripped parts of his t-shirt.
"You don't need to do that." Mark finally said.
"This?" Lacy raised his t-shirt in her hands. "Oh, it's nothing. I don't really expecting you to keep it later, but you'll need a decent looking t-shirt to go home with. Walking around town with torn and bloodied t-shirt... It's not a very good fashion statement for any era that I know of. Covering the blood is going to be a bit tricky, though... But whatevs. I like a little challenge."
"You really like to talk, don't you?"
"Me? Nah... Not as much as some of my cabin mates. But compared to your cabin mates, well, yeah, I guess I am quite talkative."
After hesitating a little, Mark finally said, "I never knew that you're that strong."
"Hmm?" Lacy had a thread in her mouth, so she wasn't able to answered immediately. But after she put the thread into the needle, she asked, "Strong? What are you talking about?"
"You just killed a dracaena with a single strike. I never knew that Aphrodite's kids could be that strong."
Lacy laughed a little and she started her stitching. "I'm not strong. I was able to do that because it was distracted by anger, and that made its defense opened up like wall-mart doors on the morning before Christmas day."
"It did?"
"Yeah." Lacy nodded. "In dealing with monsters with enough intelligence to understand what we're talking about, what we need to do is to make it angry. It distracts them, and the next thing that we need to do is just to exploit it as best as we can. And more over, it was not one of the legendary dracaenas. Maybe it was just one of the younger generation of dracaenas. If it was one of the ancient ones, I think we won't be here chatting like this."
"How did you learn to taunt like that?"
"Like what i did to the dracaena?"
Mark nodded.
"We didn't exactly trained it. It's just something we developed."
"So... taunting monsters is some kind of Aphrodite's kids' powers?"
"Not exactly..." Lacy answered. "No, really. It's just that... Well... The members of our cabin were kind of liked to put off one another using words. We... we criticize each other, and in some instances, the critics was really meant to hurt us rather than just to tell us about what we've done wrong."
Lacy sighed a little before she continued. "Well, sooner or later we learned how to use the same tactics against the others. It's just like how the members of Ares's - your - cabin likes to rough-house with each other, but instead of using our bodies, we used our speech to rough-house each other. In the end, we kind of immune to insults, just like you guys got kind of immune to some degrees of physical pain."
"It's really that bad in your cabin?"
"I don't think it's too bad. Well, it hurts the first time we got slandered right to our faces, but just as I said, we became immune sooner or later. And besides, we're family, and for some of us, the cabin members are our only living family members, so we tried not to hold grudges against each other."
They were silent for a few moments after that, but then Mark said, "You came prepared."
"You're referring to my bag?" Lacy asked.
"Yeah. It seems to me that you have everything that a demigod might need for a quest in there."
Lacy laughed a little and said, "Well, you know, Aphrodite's children are amongst the weakest when it comes to fighting. So we always prepared for the worst anytime we leave our houses or the camp. It's just common sense, you know. Because we're weak in fighting, we just need to find other ways to survive. And always being prepared is the way for us."
"You mean, inside the girly bags that your brothers always brought everywhere also consists of the things that you have?"
"'Girly bags?'" Lacy frowned a little but then she laughed again. "Yeah, I guess they do looked girly aren't they? But, yes, inside those bags are all the emergency provisions that we might need."
"And we really thought that it's filled with mirrors and beauty products..." Marks said to himself.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. We do have those self grooming products in there. But we also have everything else. For us, beauty products are also part of emergency provisions, you see."
Lacy finally finished stitching the ripped parts of Mark's t-shirt, and then she took out a red marker pen from her bag and started drawing little patterns around the blood stains.
Mark stayed quiet while Lacy was working, because he saw that Lacy was really concentrated on what she was doing. She somehow looked very beautiful when she got serious like that.
Then Mark snapped out of it. He remembered that Aprhodite's children are naturally radiating enticing beauty. Every demigod knows that they needed to really control their feelings when they're around Aphrodite's children.
"Done, and... done!" Lacy finally said. "It might look a bit too showy for your style, but at least you won't freak anybody by wearing a t-shirt that was clearly just got ripped apart by monsters."
Mark received his t-shirt back from Lacy. He saw that the stitches was barely noticeable, and even if somebody noticed it, they won't think that it was ripped by a monster's nail. The blood stains are also disguised by Lacy's drawings, and though it might looked a bit showy, but it really wasn't a bad handwork.
"Thanks." Mark said.
"You're welcome." Lacy said while smiling and putting all her equipments back into her backpack. "How are your wounds? Can you move your arm now?"
Mark tried moving his left arm. It looks like the ambrosia and nectar already done its charm, because apart from a little bit of soreness, Mark was able to move his injured arm quite freely now.
He was also able to move his torso without so much pain now, so he put on his t-shirt.
"Can you stand up?" Lacy asked.
Mark tried to stand up slowly. He was still a little wobbly from losing a bit of blood, but at least he was able to stand on his own.
"Where do you live? Do you need me to accompany you home?" Lacy offered.
"No, no thanks. You've done enough already, really." Mark said hurriedly. "My house is not too far. It's only about five blocks from here. How about you? Where do you live?"
"My house is across town from here. I came here to visit a friend's house, and then I saw you and that dracaena when I was walking toward the bus stop to get back home."
"Well..." Mark hesitated a little, but then he made up his mind and offered. "How about if I walk you to the bus stop and accompany you until you get a bus."
Lacy shrugged her shoulder and said, "If you want to, and if you really feel up to it, I guess I'm okay with it. Yea, it'll be nice to have a company while waiting for the bus."
And so Mark accompanied Lacy to the bus stop. They were alone there, so they were able to chat about the camp while waiting the bus for Lacy.
"So, Mark, do you have someone that you particularly like?" Lacy suddenly asked.
"Wha... what do you mean?" Mark completely did not expect such a question from Lacy.
"You know what I mean." Lacy said while grinning. "My mom's the goddess of love, so I kind of liked to know about things like that."
"It's... it's none of your business." Answered Mark.
"Okay then, you don't have to be so snappy about it, though. I was just asking." Lacy said while acting like she didn't really care.
Mark became uneasy, so he asked, "Why do you want to know, anyway? Apart from what you said about being the child of the goddess of love."
"Well..." Lacy thought about it for a moment. "It's just that everybody is becoming someone else's boyfriend or girlfriend these days. Percy with Annabeth, for one. Then there's Chris and your cabin counselor, Clarisse. Even Grover is having a steady relationship with Juniper. And also... Silena and Beckendorf, although theirs ended quite tragically, but what they had was beautiful. So I was just wondering, who else in camp is having special relationships."
Mark stayed quiet for a moment, and then he answered, "I don't have anyone special. At least in the context that you're talking about, I don't have one."
"Oh, and do you have someone in particular that you're interested in right now?"
Mark just shook his head and added, "Even if I do have one, I won't do anything about it."
"What?" Lacy said in shock. "Why?"
"I..." Mark hesitated a little before he continued, "I don't feel that I've earned the right to be... loved."
Lacy was quiet while looking at Mark's face from the side. She saw that even though Mark put on a neutral face when he said that, she could feel that there was a bit of sadness in the way he said it.
Suddenly Lacy laughed, like as if she just heard a hilarious joke.
"Why are you laughing?" Mark asked, a bit of indignation in his tone. "You find what I said as something funny?"
"Well..." Lacy tried to calm her laugh, and continued, "Yeah, what you just said is funny to me."
"Okay then, thanks for listening, and I'm glad that at least you found it as something funny." Mark said in apparent sarcasm.
"Hey, don't be angry, Mark." Lacy said. "You don't understand why I found what you said as something funny."
Mark was still seething, but he finally said. "Okay, why?"
"Well, you said that you hadn't done anything to deserve love. You make it sound like you put the feeling of love on equal footing with trust or respect."
"From my point of view, it is."
"Well, let me tell you a secret then, Mark. It doesn't. Love is not on the same level with trust and/or respect."
"But..."
"Let me finish." Lacy said, sounded thoroughly serious this time. "Trust and respect are important factors in a love relationship. When you're in love with somebody, you usually trust them, and respect them. But that doesn't mean that love is something that you need to 'earn' like trust and respect. Love is to be given, and received. Unconditionally. It is something un-tangible and un-logical, so you can't really earn it. You're not even suppose to do any calculations on it. If you love somebody, then you love that somebody. If somebody loves you, then that somebody just loves you. Period.
"The main thing is. Once there's love in your live, you have to fight to keep it. That's the hard and tricky part. It came after you love and be loved by someone. Not before it. If you have to work to 'earn' love, then it's not love. It's something entirely different. I don't know what, but it's just not love.
"So, yea, stop thinking that you need to 'earn' love. Seek love, give love, receive love, and fight to keep love alive, but never 'earn' it. Love is not a salary, you know. It's not something that you earn after you've done something. That kind of love only exists in fairy tales. The prince must fight to save the princess, and in return, the princess fell in love to the prince. What in the name of Hades is that? That is not love, that is more like a 'payment'."
Mark was stunned, because Lacy sound so emotional and passionate while she was saying all that.
After that, they stayed quiet. Not because of awkwardness, but because Mark was pondering what Lacy just said to him. They stayed quiet until finally Lacy's bus came and Lacy stood up to get on it.
"Well, goodbye Mark. Think about what I said. Never think that you can earn love. You fight to keep it alive, but never to earn it. Okay?" Lacy said. "Oh and one more thing..."
Lacy took out her dagger, the one that she used to kill the dracaena, and she gave it to Mark. "We'll never know. You might encounter another 'you know what' on the way home. Don't worry, I still have another one in my bag. You can return it to me at camp, or if you don't feel right coming near my cabin, you can just ask one of the nymphs to give it to me once you're back at the camp, okay."
Lacy climbed into the bus, and turned to look at Mark right before the bus' door closed and said, "Bye, Mark!"
Once the bus departed, Mark was alone in that bus stop. He stood there for the next few minutes, just looking at the dagger that Lacy lend him.
Finally a smile crept upon his face and, smirking, Mark said, "Well, Miss Lacy, I guess you're right. I'll be fighting to keep love alive."
After that Mark turned and leave the bus stop, walking home with somehow lighter steps than usual.
A/N: Well, hello there! This is a story between two minor characters in Percy Jackson and the Olympians (PJO) and Heroes of Olympus (HOO) universe. I chose these two characters because SOMEBODY said that I should try and write a story from one of Aphrodite's children's point of view. It was a tricky process to choose which Aphrodite's child that I was going to use as the main character, but I finally chose the one that had never even been mentioned before The Lost Hero.
But then I stumbled on another problem… I've never tried writing from a girl's point of view before. Well, Hestia's a girl, but not a human girl, so if she acted strangely and un-girl-like, you'll easily dismiss it as her godly quirks. But this is a demigod girl! I tried writing with her as the first character, and I end up with a somewhat creepy girl. So, I took the long way around, and used a boy (Mark, son of Ares, he was only mentioned in passing once in The Demigod Files) as a catalyst. It's easier for me to write in the style that the girl was just reacting to something rather she's the initiator of a scene. I really don't know what girls would or wouldn't do! *sob*
Oh, and another thing… This is also the first story that I ever tried to write about love as a subject. So I understand if you find it very cheesy (so cheesy that your cholesterol numbers will shoot up through the heavens just by reading this story). Even I find it cheesy myself! But it was unavoidable, since this is a story involving a daughter of Aphrodite. It'll be weird if I didn't talk about love at all in this story, right?
So, I hope you enjoyed the story. Comments will be greatly appreciated, including flamers (but please, be gentle, I'm an old man with a very weak heart *hacking cough*).