A/N: This was in my drafts for the longest time, and I finally got round to posting it! More Hecate sibling feels featuring Lou Ellen and Alabaster Torrington! Please comment if you liked it!
"– And this is our cabin," Lou finishes, steering their newest camper, Alex, towards the place where they will be calling home for the next few years. "C'mon in."
It sits back from the gravel path and up a set of wooden steps, with a green lawn dotted with a variety of herbs. The outside is made of rough stone, etched with magical runes that glow softly even at night. The place itself is a large single room, with a sleeping area, sofa area and game corner. The ceiling is done up to resemble the night sky, while the walls are swathed in a pale shade of grey that shimmer with runes. The furniture and beds are all painted in a slick glossy white.
"We've got a magic room in the basement," Lou says, lifting up the carpet with the edge of her duct-taped black and white Jack Purcell sneakers so that Alex can see the ring that protrudes from the wooden floorboards. "Along with a pond."
"A pond!" Alex exclaims, sounding as though their wildest dreams have all come true. "And a secret tunnel!"
Their enthusiasm is contagious. Lou finds herself smiling a bright and delightful smile, filled with genuine warmth for her half-sibling.
Winking, she taps the side of her nose. "Well, technically, it's a secret basement, but almost all the cabins have one. They'll all deny it, though."
Alex takes in everything with wide, curious eyes that seem too large and round in their face. Lou plops back onto the mass of rumpled blankets piled on top of her bed with a smile, knowing exactly what is running through their mind. She'd been a nervous – and awestruck – camper herself several years back; only, her home had been in a sleeping bag in the Hermes cabin with her two best friends. There hadn't been enough beds, and more often than not, she'd ended up with an elbow to her face during the night, but Lou hadn't minded; not as long as she'd had them by her side.
Oohing and aahing, Alex starts wandering through the cabin, opening drawers full of crystals and dried herbs and powders. When they open Lou's bedside drawer that holds her prized possessions, they shut it quickly and sheepishly, cheeks coloring pink. "Sorry."
Lou thinks about how there's nothing in Alex's drawer, not even an orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. That they don't have one thing in the world to call their own, except for the torn and ragged clothes on their back. Her heart seizes.
"It's okay. You can look at my stuff if you want." Lou means it. Her stomach clenches for Alex, who has lost their home, and every single shred of normalcy in one fell swoop. "Not that it's very interesting, though."
Alex opens the drawers and carefully peers inside. They see a garden of dried flowers, several green jackets and hoodies, oversized Camp Half-Blood T-Shirts. They see white cue cards, a collection of pebbles, shells and feathers. They see a beaded necklace, not unlike the one around Lou's freckled neck. Alex gently closes the drawer, wondering at the odd collection of seemingly random trinkets.
Alex pipes up with a sudden question. "Who's that?"
Lou, lying on her very warm and soft bed, already half-buried underneath the covers, is drifting off into sleep when she hears Alex's question. In her startle, Lou nearly falls off the bed, and onto the floor.
"Who?" Lou hums, assuming that Alex is referring to their polecat, Gale.
Rubbing her gritty, burning eyes – how Lou regrets pulling that all-nighter – she sits up, pushing mussed brown hair out of her face and squints blearily at Alex.
Her smile fades away.
Alex is holding up a picture, framed by a ring of plastic flowers. The picture features a gangly, freckled boy with laughing green eyes, wrapping his arms tight around a beaming little girl, with chocolate brown curls that tumble down her back. Their cheeks are smashed together, bright smiles on their faces as they clown for the reluctant photographer, who'd only volunteered to photograph them so that he wouldn't have to be in the shot.
Ethan . . . Alabaster . . .
Lou shifts her back to them, shutting her eyes against the tears the question evokes, so that Alex doesn't see the moisture gathering in her eyes.
It's been several years since Alabaster and Ethan had left camp – left her – to join the Titan army. It's been several months since she's watched Ethan's plain, black shroud go up in flames. It's been even longer since she'd been forced to watch the Gods exile Alabaster, leaning heavily on Will Solace for support as warm tears had slid down her face.
She doesn't like talking about Alabaster; the very mention of his name, of all the happiness she'd once associated with him, is enough to rip open the wounds of grief she carries. They are no longer the raging hot coal of acute pain, because scar tissue has began building up around her heart.
Time will heal you. Yeah, right. Losing a loved one is akin to losing a limb. She's always aware of what she's missing, of the family she'd used to have.
Ethan's dead now. Alabaster could be dead, too.
Lou has to remind herself not to break down in front of the new camper.
" . . . Are you tired?" Lou tries to swallow past a tight, dry throat and winces at the painful sandpapery burn. When her voice comes again, it is barely above a whisper. "Would you like to rest or can we finish up the tour?"
"Um . . ." Alex blinks, but that's all the reaction they give to the sudden change in topic, or to their Head Counselor, whose eyes are ringed with red. She looks as though she's teetering on the edge of tears. "– Um, I'm fine?"
Feeling as though she might be sick, Lou tries for a smile that looks more like a grimace. "Cool. Let's go."
Alex, very wisely, does not broach the topic of the picture, but Lou Ellen is oddly quiet for the rest of the tour.