Day 4: Death
Summary: There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.
As a daughter of Pluto, Hazel couldn't say that she was unfamiliar with death. As a concept, of course, not a person. Not to say that the Roman demigod wasn't familiar with the personification as well — after all, she had once been a a quest to save Thanatos, the Greek Death. Death was even less foreign when you took into account the fact that she had died once before in her own world.
No, Hazel was no stranger to death in any matter.
Her first death in the Convergence though, was a completely new experience altogether.
Hazel had met up with Reyna on the sandy beach of the island, laughing and talking as the two Roman demigods of Camp Jupiter caught up with each other. Then, the forest nearby had rustled mightily, and the trees were torn back to reveal a large, serpentine monster — a drakon.
For a second, both fell silent.
Then Reyna kicked into action.
The praetor barked orders at her automaton hounds, the artificial dogs snapping at the beast while the older of the two demigods urged the daughter of Pluto to stay back from the inevitably messy fight.
Hazel's time away from training had turned Hazel rather sloppy in fights and that much more stubborn, and the legionnaire wielded her golden weapon in one hand, running at the monster in spite of Reyna's shouts of protest. With a sharp skid to a stop, Hazel wound her arm back and threw her Imperial Gold blade forward like a javelin.
The drakon, distracted by the dual automatons, merely snapped at the flying blade before it moved, trying to dispatch of the pesky hounds that were attacking it. The spatha flew past it and landed in the ocean with a small splash, not a single scale of the large beast harmed.
Hazel cursed as the beast snapped at the hounds, tossing them away into the forest, and decided that she was its next meal. The sepentine beast snapped at her, narrowly missing her by an inch's margin as the demigod dropped into a roll and tumbled away from it, the tail swiping above her missing by a clear distance. The beast snapped at her again, this time getting too close for comfort, and as Hazel raised her arm to grab the hilt of her blade that she had been slowly, but surely pulling towards her, sharp teeth sank into her skin, tearing her arm open.
The dark-skinned demigod cradled her bleeding limb with her uninjured one, cursing softly as she grabbed the weapon up form the sand that it had dropped onto. Without warning, a dark cloak — Reyna's Aegis —was thrown over her, and Hazel lifted her gaze to see the praetor standing over her, the Imperial Gold spear in her hand and at the ready.
"Stay put, Hazel," the daughter of Bellona commanded sternly.
Hazel stubbornly shook her head, the hilt of her spatha firmly in hand as she leapt to her feet, not bothered by the open wound. "I know how to deal with it," the demigod insisted, forgoing the safety and protection of her cloak so that she could attack the beast once more. This time, her aim was much better without the drakon being distracted by the hounds, and sure enough, the drakon swallowed down the blade.
Without waiting for a beat more, Hazel pulled at the blade inside its stomach, willing it to rip through the insides of the beast and come back to her. She gave the drakon a wary glance, and paled when she saw the head of the beast lowering down, nearing her, and the jaws opened to reveal many sharp, large teeth that slowly closed around the demigod's head. With a panicked gasp, Hazel yanked on her blade. Hard.
Teeth buried themselves in her neck as the drakon was rendered to dust , and the demigod crumpled to the ground, sharp teeth pierced through her neck, and gasping for air. Her windpipe crushed, the dark-haired girl made a face and grimaced. The pain was non-existent as Reyna rushed over to her and started to shake her, ordering her to stay awake. Hazel managed a weak smile at the praetor as the older of the two started to scold the daughter of Pluto for her carelessness.
"It's... okay," she gasped. "I... won't... stay... dead..."
It was a different feeling as she lost consciousness. The water that had been burning in her lungs, that had drowned her before, it wasn't there, but her chest was feeling heavy, making it hard to breathe. There were no shallow cuts on her body, but there were deep, gashing wounds that barely seemed there. It hurt, but she wasn't all there.
And then, it all vanished.
Hazel woke up in the catacombs, unharmed and healthy.
Death. It doesn't mean much in the convergence world, but it still hurts.