REWRITTEN!

This took waaaaaaaay longer than it had too, but on the bright side, the chapter has become longer also.

Beta: trustingHim17


Chapter 8

"Mangos are golden, not orange."


As Rox walked up to the fire in the center of the pavilion, plate in hand, she felt eyes follow her every move as if she was a bomb just waiting to go off. She ignored them. One after the other, campers threw the best food - the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll - into the hypnotically beautiful fire.

"To Thanatos, and Hermes." She heard Daimon mutter as he threw a piece of meat and a couple of fruits into the fire.

Luke whispered from his place behind both her and Percy, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

Percy sent him an incredulous look. "You're kidding."

But the look Luke gave him warned Rox that it wasn't a joke, though she couldn't help but wonder why the almighty immortals (please note the sarcasm) would like the smell of burned food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

Then it was Percy's turn. He didn't say anything, but scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

Rox guessed she had to offer some of her food to her father, but she wasn't exactly feeling very pleased with his way of claiming her in front of everyone. Actually, she wasn't even pleased with the fact that he had claimed her - her eyes drifted over the undetermined -, but that was selfish thinking on her part.

She sighed.

Rox wasn't about to jump up and down because she finally got the parent she secretly longed for, and she most definitely wasn't going to suck up to him, but she'd give Hades some slack. After all, he couldn't contact her directly—he could, however, have sent Charon sooner. She was skeptical, and the small amount of happiness she felt at hearing he was alive was long gone, but (as said before) she would give him the benefit of doubt.

"This family is screwed up," she threw some cherries and the reddest piece of the beef - since she loathed red meat - into the hungry and waiting jaws of the fire. "I believe you figured that out by yourself, daddy dearest, though I do have my doubts whether you're completely sane yourself."

When she turned around to make her way back to table eleven, she caught sight of Chiron averting his gaze, along with most of the other campers. What did they expect her to do? Start a cult? Summon a demon? Though that would be rather entertaining, she doubted she could pull it off.

Head held high, Rox went back to her seat.

"Don't mind them," Luke said as he caught her looking back at some Apollo campers, who were glaring at her. "They should know better than to compare you to your dad."

She looked back down at her food and stabbed a piece of meat rather visiously. "It doesn't matter—I don't care what they think."

The way he looked at her didn't give Rox any doubts as to whether he believed her or not, but what irked her the most was the stare a girl from table ten was giving her.

The girl was pretty (just like all of Aphrodite's children), Asian, and even sitting down Rox could tell she was tall, like a model. She had dark brown hair and eyes, and jewerly adored her persona along with perfect make-up and (Rox could see it from where she sat) a ton of pink eyeliner.

Rox didn't know if it was the smug holier-than-thou attitude that seemed to pour out of the other girl's very pores, or the heated glare that her pretty eyes held as she stared at her, but she didn't like the girl. She had seen way too many girls like her; pretty, but a sure psycho.

The girl bared perfectly straight teeth in a pretty smile.

Something just wasn't right about that girl, and Rox wasn't about to let the other, older, girl get the better of her. She fingered the old, ornate, zippo lighter.

. . .

It was by pure coincidence that Rox found herself wandering outside the Big House. Dinner had gone by, but when she had entered cabin eleven, with Percy and Daimon, the other campers had looked at her with blank - almost dead - expressions, and fearful and attentive eyes.

She had left quickly after, feeling sick to her stomach by the looks she was given.

"Chiron," the voice was undoubtedly Luke's. He must've gone over while she was wandering around. "I'm sorry, but she can't stay."

Rox heard a heavy sigh, most likely coming from Chiron, and frowned.

"Why can't she stay? Is she that different from everyone else?" Chiron said lightly.

"I've tried talking to them, but some of the campers are too afraid of her to even see reason!"

Rox moved closer to the front door, walking quietly up the porch, and found it ajar. Looking inside she, indeed, saw Luke and Chiron talking, both of who looked rather sour.

Chiron shook his head tiredly. "Of course they are, the former children of Hades haven't exactly made any pleasant lasting impressions."

Luke's face fell, as his mouth became a thin line. "I'm sorry, I really am, but Roxanna will have to stay in the Big House from now on."

Rox should've normally been surprised, but she wasn't - in truth, she was used to the treatment. It was the same everywhere; the orphanage, school, the streets she used to walk in her free time, and now camp, too. She didn't know what it was, but it was like a magnetic field surrounded her, repealing people.

As said, she could count all her friends on one hand, but if she swallowed her bitterness and self-pity, it would go up by one.

Rox's tongue turned to lead in her mouth, dry and needless. She found it hard to swallow as her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She still remembered that day as if it had just happened yesterday. She was seven-and-a-half, the weather was cold and the sky overcast. She was home for the Christmas holidays when she found a little girl, barely five, sitting outside. The girl sat, curled up in a ball, leaning against the big tree in the back yard.

If you asked Rox (even now), she couldn't be borthered to take care of others, because why should she? She had no reason to as no one ever did anything for her - unless they actually got something out of it, like that one time...

The only things she ever looked after was the stuff that was precious to her - But when Rox heard the little girl's voice crack as she sobbed again, she felt something tightening- No, tugging at her heart. She walked over to the other girl. She was clenching a burnt, golden, pendant in her small hands, crying to herself. Rox hadn't seen her before, so she assumed the other was new.

Rox let herself remember. She crouched down in front of the little girl, asking what was wrong. She continued to cry. Rox uncomfortably shifted on the spot, not knowing what to do. How did you stop someone from crying? Should she hug her? No, that would just be awkward and she didn't really see how a hug would get her to stop crying. She shook her head bitterly, all those problems she'd gotten into just because of her.

In the end, the little girl had managed to gasp out between sobs that her dad died in a fire. The man had never been married, and there wasn't a girlfriend in the picture, who could take care of the little girl, so she had to stay at the orphanage. The only thing she had left was the broken pendant.

Rox (even surprising herself) had stayed throughout the whole ordeal, crouched in front of the smaller girl. "What's your name?" Rox asked after the little girl finished her story and began to cry again. The girl looked up uncertainly, tears running down her puffy cheeks. She sniffled. "De... D-Delilah..."

She blew a long puff of air out between pale lips. Delilah had been her first friend, she had been the one to drag Rox up from bed to be with her, and in return, Rox had been the one to take care of the both of them.

After two years, Delilah got adopted.

Rox was left, full of bitterness and betrayal, but some part of her knew Delilah wasn't to blame and- She locked her jaw stubbornly, teeth biting together.

Delilah had left her, and that was all she cared about. Rox was too stubborn to see reason.

She felt a shudder of rage run through her body and tightly closed her eyes, as she tried counting backwards from ten to zero, just like the multitude of therapists had told her, too, but soon found her hand moving towards the pocket of her jeans.

"You will have to talk with her first." Chiron's rumbling voice said.

Delilah had made her choice; it couldn't be undone now, and it never would be.

Rox pushed open the front door, stepping into the house, as she said, "It's fine by me, Chiron."

Both males turned to the young girl, surprise written all over their features. Luke opened his mouth, words ready to roll of his tongue, but the mask of neutral apathy on Rox's face made him click shut it again.

Chiron recovered first, expression turning stern. "Roxanna, what are you doing here?" his tone was surprisingly kind.

Rox pursed her lips in thought. What lie to tell, hm?

"I figured you'd want to talk to me." she answered simply, giving a one shoulder shrug.

Chiron gazed at the small girl, brown eyes piercing, but she didn't even blink. He sighed. "Then so be it, you will be staying in the big house."

"... Just asking, but does that mean I get to choose which team I want to be on this Friday?"

"Yes, I suppose so," was the reply.

. . .

She could say, quite truthfully, that an extremely big chunk of the Apollo cabin despised her very guts.

While moving her stuff to the Big House, she thought back to the Apollo cabin. One could say her first archery lesson didn't go too well, but Rox was willing to bet her zippo lighter that the girl who looked like Lee, whose name she later found out was Kayla (not that she cared), was deliberately trying to shish-kebab her. To boot, Percy nearly speared her throat, which was weird since she was standing about ten feet behind him.

Rox sighed, as Percy apologized for the nth time, and said, "It's fine, Perce. Just...warn me the next time you decide to hold a bow and arrow, will you?"

She never wanted to join any form of archery lesson again. Ever.

Pegasi riding was soon dropped as well, since she couldn't even hope of coming within arm distance of the creatures before they started whinnying and stomping their hooves. She tried javelin throwing next, but Rox couldn't even throw the stupid javelin very far, much less aim.

However, she found a gold nugget when she came to the weapon-making lesson, with the Hephaestus kids. She didn't make anything - she found herself a spot and observed everyone at work, relaxing -, but she liked the smell of smoke and metal, the scorching heat radiating from the big smelters in the forge and the dry air, which warmed her lunges with every inhale of oxygen.

She was, without a doubt, coming back.

When lunch came around Rox made her way back to her room in the Big House, since she didn't feel very hungry, or a need for being stared at. But along the way - she contemplated whether she should go to the strawberry fields instead -, she saw two boys who could have been twins - they looked near identical.

They both had the same mop of curly brown hair that hung into their cornflower blue eyes, and looked to be thirteen or fourteen. They were tall and skinny, and each of them were wearing one of those horrid Camp Half-Wit t-shirts. Like most of the other children of Hermes, they had upturned eyebrows, along with that certain mischievous gleam.

The only noticeable feature that told them apart was the height difference; one was just a tad bit taller than the other, of which the smaller was smiling crookedly, but Rox was sure she could only tell because they stood so close.

Whatever they were doing, they didn't want to be found out, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it) they had the grace of a slightly drunk elephant - Rox couldn't describe it any other way.

They were whispering in hushed tones, carefully looking around for any eavesdroppers as they went on their merry way and Rox let them. She turned her back to them and decided she wanted to go to the fields, where she could nibble on a strawberry or eight, if she got hungry.

She was nearly there when she saw it; two looming shadows enveloped her smaller one.

"Why hello, little lady."

"I don't think we've met."

It was the two look-alikes with the grace of drunken elephants.

"I'm Connor Stoll," said the shorter of the two with a crooked smile.

"And I'm Travis Stoll," continued the taller, eyes gleaming curiously.

"We're sons of the awesome god Hermes." The two brothers - they couldn't have been anything else - finished together, wearing identical grins, as both towered over Rox.

She wondered briefly if someone had suddenly decided to throw her down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland, because the two brothers truly reminded her of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If so, she couldn't wait to meet the Cheshire Cat.

"Roxanna Fleur," she finally said. "Daughter of Hades, but I'm sure you got the memo yesterday."

"A bit difficult not to," Connor said.

Travis continued, "with the way things went down."

The two brothers nodded, but then Connor spoke again, "My dear brother and I couldn't help but notice that you looked so alone."

"So we wanted to know," Apparently they had the habit of finishing each other sentences, which most would probably find extremely confusing, but Rox found it kind of endearing in a way. "if you wanted to help us come up with a new prank?"

Rox blinked once, twice, thrice before she answered. "Umm, sure."

The brothers grinned, each taking one of Rox's hands as they dragged her to the Hermes cabin, which was now deserted. The cabin seemed strangely different and weird, a lot more spacious, but that was most likely do to the lack of campers.

The brothers both made space in the middle of the cabin, when one of them (Travis) began to take out a variety of things from nowhere in particular as the other (Connor) closed the curtains. The cabin was drowned in darkness and Rox turned on the lights with the switch by the door.

Travis cursed and placed a rubber chicken in the ever growing pile, in the middle of the cabin. "I knew we should've snuck up on Olympus when the others went,"

Connor pouted. "We could have found so many things, perfect for pranking."

"You've been to Olympus?" Rox asked as she furrowed her brow in confusion.

"Nope, but the others visited during the winter solstice." That was Connor.

"The 'others' being the counselors," Travis chimed in.

Connor continued in their little dialogue. "They took a field trip to Olympus - it's kind of a thing we have."

"Us, completely normal and inferior campers," Rox's lips quirked up at the sarcasm. "usually visit during the summer solstice."

"But there's been a bit of a disagreement-"

Travis decided to put in his two cents. "'Disagreement'?"

"What'd you suggest we call it, then?"

"What about 'mayhem'?"

"I do love mayhem..."

The two sighed in content, moon-eyed and love struck. Rox let them, finding amusement in their current state and dialogue, but also because the topic somewhat peaked her curiosity. Who knew the campers could visit Olympus?

Snapping out of it with a shake of their heads, Connor cleared his throat and said, "Point is, we can't visit right now,"

"Since there's a bit too much mayhem up on Olympus." Travis finished and dumped the last thing in the pile on the floor.

Rox hummed in understanding and asked instead, "And who are the counselors?"

"Well, there's Luke, Clarisse, and Katie," Connor snickered and wiggled his eyebrows at Travis suggestively.

"Shut up." Travis looked away and crossed his arms over his chest, a big blush on his face.

"Then there's Annabeth, Lee, Charles, but everyone calls him Beckendorf, and there's Silena and co-counselors Pollux and Castor."

Question answered, they all looked down at the pile of junk. Rox didn't have any better words for it. There were only things she considered junk and miscellaneous. She poked a clown costume with her foot, wondering why they even had that, though she wasn't about to ask.

She carefully (who knows what the brothers could've done to it) picked up a book and read the title aloud, "'101 ways to put on clown make-up.' Really?" she raised an eyebrow, disbelief dripping from her voice. Shaking her head, she threw the book back, poking a lone bicycle's wheel with her foot. "Where the Styx do you hide all of this?"

Connor picked up a stop sign, twisting and turning it in his grip. "Oh you know, here and there,"

"Under the wooden boards," Travis said nonchalantly, examining the pile with a hand under his chin. "In secret cabinets in the walls, etcetera, etcetera."

Rox felt herself smirk at that. If she ever got her own cabin those two would be the first she asked to help her. She picked the spraying can up.

Eyeing the pile again, she smirked. "Got any specific victims?"

The two brothers looked up and over at Rox as two nearly identical smirks made its way onto their devious features, eyes gleaming.

. . .

Rox sat on the porch steps of the Hermes cabin, perfect vision to the Aphrodite cabin, as she was the one who needed to send the signals to Dum and Dee (nicknames she gave the two fun loving and weirdly endearing brothers).

Lunch was long over. Travis and Connor had sped off to their places, ready when she was, and now all the trio of demigods had to do was wait for the Aphrodite kids to be done with their archery lesson, so Rox could give the signal.

A book laid open in her lap, which she was "reading" while keeping a close eye on cabin 10. She didn't really know what it was about as she had been staring at the same word for six minutes now (couldn't they hurry up?) Something about the Greek ages if the title was anything to go by.

A little while later, she saw the Aphrodite kids walk into their cabin and closed her book (the first signal) when the last pretty camper went in the door. Connor came into view, making his way carefully over to the door and locked it. Meanwhile, Travis was sneaking up to a window, a golden mango in hand.

Rox waited for Connor to dart away right after he closed and locked every window besides the one Travis stood under, then set the book besides her (the second signal).

Travis immediately threw the gold mango inside cabin 10 and locked the window as, he too, ran away to hide. She, herself, was supposed to hide as well but Rox didn't want to miss this - she had the best view, after all.

A nerve-racking couple of seconds after, a lone stiletto broke the glass of a window and set off a cacophony of screams and yelps.

If Rox looked closer through the windows, she could see Gucci - along with other expensive brands - shoes, lipsticks and jewelry flying around the place. Aphrodite campers ripped at each other's clothes, and - Rox couldn't keep the grin off her face - she saw one throwing a chair at another.

Who knew they could be this violent?

She allowed herself to chuckle, grinning toothily, but quickly had to wipe it off her face as other campers came to look at the commotion. She saw one camper, who got too close, getting hit in the face by a mirror that went flying out the window. A second got a lipstick in the eye.

Loud pounding sounded as the door to the Aphrodite cabin shook with each hit.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Rox leaned forward, waiting for the cage to give out and the monsters to be let loose.

Bang! Bang! Bam!

The door flew off its hinges and the crowd waited with battered breaths, blocking Rox's view of the inside of cabin 10, as they cautiously took a step forward and then... a high pitched screech sounded throughout the camp.

The crowd quickly fled after that, running away from the horrible sight of-

Rox muffled a laugh with her hand, the other wrapped around her stomach that began to ache.

The horrible sight of the usually graceful Aphrodite campers.

It looked as if a toddler had decided to do a make-up session, using the normally pretty campers as test subjects. Lipstick was smeared onto their faces making them look like harassed clowns, fake eyelashes hung from the ends of their lashes, some even stuck to their cheeks. With ripped clothing - showing stomachs, legs, thighs, bras, boxers - and broken shoe heels, they looked like they just had a fight with a wild horde of cats...

The scratches didn't help.

Hairdos tangled into birds' nests, some even using foundation as wax, all the Aphrodite campers breathed heavily as their eyes zeroed in on cabin eleven.

Frankly, she wouldn't be all that surprised if one or two had a bald spot somewhere.

"Pfff-" Rox tightened her hand over her mouth.

Quickly, and quite angrily, the harassed clowns made their way over to her with eyes burning. One after the other (one more harassed then the other) nearly ever one of them stood before her, drilling her down with heated gazes.

She smiled politely up at the comical faces. "Yes?"

The girl who stepped forward was the pretty Asian with a ton of pink eyeliner, and Rox nearly raised the book to cover her nose as the girl smelled like she just took a roll in a pile of nutmeg and pine branches, giving off an overall smell of Christmas.

It would have been a rather pleasant fragrance had Rox been any other girl, but, well... Rox wasn't overly fond of Christmas.

In the girl's hand was the golden mango, but Rox didn't need to look at it to know what was written on it.

'For the hottest' indeed.

The Asian narrowed her eyes. "Where are they?" she demanded coolly.

Rox looked up at the girl, removing her hand from her mouth, and tilted her head to the side as she said, "Where's who?"

"The ones who did this!"

"Honestly," Rox shook her head in mock disappointment, clicking her tongue once as she did so. "How should I know who's responsible for doing whatever that's wrong with you? I'm not psychic, you know."

But before the Christmas elf could answer, someone shouted, "It was Connor and Travis, I'm sure of it!"

"Dum and Dee?" Rox asked politely.

Perhaps she was enjoying this a bit too much.

"If by Dum and Dee you mean Connor and Travis, then yes."

"I do."

"Good," the Asian girl hissed. "now, where are they?"

"Dunno." Rox shrugged nonchalantly. "But, if don't mind me asking, who got it?"

The other frowned. "Got what?"

"The Golden Mango. Who's the hottest?" Rox nearly applauded herself for managing to look like she actually cared.

The Asian girl puffed her chest out, holding the gold mango up in front of her, and Rox was briefly reminded of the whole 'To be, or not to be!'. "I got it, of course."

The others didn't seem to agree with her, dark looks crossing their pretty features. As one, the harassed campers yelled in protest and started pushing their way up, as they tried to snatch the mango for themselves.

"What!"

"I'm the hottest!"

"You look like something that came out of a clown's garbage bin!"

"No! I am the hottest!"

"Shut up!"

"You don't have any fashion sense!"

"Oh please, look who's talking!"

The fight started anew, and this time, Rox had a VIP seat.

The whole of cabin 10 ripped and gripped at each other's clothes, though (luckily or unluckily, take your pick) they didn't have anything to throw, so they bit and scratched anyone they could dig their fake nails in.

She smothered the grin before it could show. She hadn't at first thought it would work, but her opinion quickly changed as she asked about who got the mango.

She quietly slid off the steps, easily sneaking away. Walking past the other campers, then past the stone-lined fire pit, and past the cabins, she found herself at the outer edges of the forest.

Connor and Travis jumped out from hiding and pulled her into the greenery, both wearing gleeful and wicked grins.

"That was brilliant!"

"You got them to start fighting again!"

Each of the brothers exclaimed, grinning down at their new partner in crime. Rox smiled impishly up at the two in response and laughed.

The three hid from the Aphrodite campers, who were looking everywhere for the trio, so the three went where no Aphrodite camper would ever go willingly, which included the armory, the forge, the denser part of the forest and Zeus's Fist (otherwise known as the Poop Pile, but the campers weren't allowed to call it that as Zeus apparently didn't have a sense of humor).

The trio of troublemakers choose the cluster of boulders that looked like deer droppings.

As they sat on top of it, eating the popsicles (hyped up demigods were the best kind as the two brothers put it) that Connor and Travis had smuggled in, Rox shifted in her seat between the two brothers. She dangled her feet over the side, and listened with content as the brothers went on and on about new ideas for pranks.

"We could get some snap bangs."

"Use some tape to hold the snap bangs in place under the toilet seat."

"Put the toilet seat down."

"And wait for the victim!"

Rox pictured an oblivious camper going to the toilet, slowly sitting down, and then…

BANG!

She chuckled even though it wasn't a very pretty picture, but it sounded fun.

The sun climbed its way across the sky as time went by. Light filtered through the leaves of the trees and Rox hummed happily as she bit into the popsicle, and listened to the others talk.

Travis told her that they had to go back before it got too dark, because even though the forest was nice in the daytime, it wasn't as safe at night.

Connor then told her about the one time they had snuck out after curfew to go into the dense greenery. All had seemed fine at first, until they heard a rusty roar and saw two glowing red eyes coming towards them.

Apparently, ever after, they only stayed in the forest as long as the sun was bright in the sky.

. . .

Rox said her goodbyes to the two brothers and made her way to the climbing wall. But as she passed by the back of the mess hall, she heard a voice.

"-the other campers are taking it like you thought." That was definitely Daimon.

She didn't hear anything answer him back, but he continued nonetheless.

"She says camp is okay, but she's in the same situation as me, so she probably won't think that for long."

Silence, and she took that opportunity to get closer, taking light steps until she was hidden behind a column. Leaning on her right foot, she carefully peaked around the object hiding her.

Daimon stood with his side to her, looking nervous with his eyes trained on something she couldn't see. But if she got even closer...

A voice, too deep and strong to be Daimon's, said, "Hm, continue." It was almost like the voice wrapped around her, weighing her down.

"She's..."

Rox leaned forward, wanting to see just what Daimon was talking to, and slowly took a little step forward.

"She's stubborn and put herself in danger to save a friend-"

Snap!

She winced, quickly pressing herself back against the column, and looked down at her foot. It was just her luck, stepping on a twig now of all times. Seriously, just who had she pissed off in her former life to deserve this?

Then she noticed it, Daimon had stopped talking.

Rox cursed silently.

"Anyone there?" he called out, walking towards her.

She could hear him, step after step, closing in on her hiding place and she held her breath. What the Styx was she supposed to do now? If only she could teleport, or something.

"Hello?"

She stiffened, almost too sure that he was just on the other side of the column now.

Oh gods, she was done for.

He leaned on the column, about to peer around it as he said, "I know you're there-"

She closed her eyes tightly, wishing intently for anything to happen that would distract him.

"Daimon?"

Grover!

Rox could almost burst out screaming in relief, if not for the fact that it would ruin it all. She steadied herself against the column, feeling suddenly weak.

She was going to buy Grover all the enchiladas he could eat the next time she got the chance.

"Grover? What are you doing here?" Daimon stepped away from the column and her, walking over to Grover.

"W-well, I was trying to find Percy. Have you seen him?"

She didn't bother listening to the reply, too set on getting away to think of anything else. Her steps became quicker and quicker the further away she got from the mess hall.

Was Daimon working for someone? He must be, because Rox could only see the previous conversation as a report - a report about her, if she wasn't mistaken. But the question was, who? Who was he working for? Who wanted to know about her?

. . .

Rox found herself changing her course of action when she saw a lone figure sitting on the beach, and ran on over. As she closed in, she slowed down to a saunter and stopped besides the boy.

"Hey." She said softly, feeling something was off.

Percy didn't take his eyes of the calm waters. "Hey."

Rox didn't like the way his eyes were distant, lost in memory, and the frown that was almost engraved in his usually calm features didn't set well with her.

She frowned down at her friend. "Spit it out."

"It… it's my mom…" he sighed. "What now? Am I going to live with Gabe?" A bitter laugh bubbled up from his throat as he ran a hand through messy locks.

Rox sat down, keeping quiet. She didn't know what to say. Sure, she could offer him a place at the orphanage she stayed at, but that wasn't a place for Percy, and she wasn't too comfortable with this place.

"She just disappeared." he continued, unable to stop himself now that the dam had been broken. "Just like that! She dissolved into yellow light, right in front of my eyes. I'm pathetic - I couldn't even save her. I should've- Ow!"

Rox had slapped him over the head.

He rubbed the back of his head, having a weird mix of anger and depression on his face. "What the Hades was that for!?"

Curtly, the words rolled off her tongue without her consent. "Stop blaming yourself. Besides, the last time I checked people didn't dissolve into yellow light when they died."

Percy's mouth opened but closed just as fast, the anger and sadness gone only to be replaced by a hopeful glint in his eyes. "So you think…? I could maybe bring her back?"

She shrugged, neither wanting to demolish the happy expression on his face, nor wanting to promise the impossible. "I don't know, Perce, but if you're going to the Underworld, you're gonna need help." Rox smirked and mock saluted. "Roxanna Fleur, Daughter of Hades, at your service."

Percy smiled, grateful, and a companionable silence settled over them as they both turned their gazes to the ocean. The water glittered like diamonds as it reflected the sun's rays of warmth and Rox sighed in content. It seemed like years since she last experienced something as nice and peaceful as this.

Wanting the moment to last longer, she tilted her head back as she exposed her face to the sun and warmth. Though she wasn't expecting to get any color (that was impossible, it seemed), it was still nice - as long as it didn't last too long, otherwise she'd end up looking like a lobster.

Suddenly, she clicked her tongue. "I nearly forgot." She took out a blue popsicle and held it out for Percy to take. "I know how much you like blue, so here."

It had been a leftover from their little "picnic" on Zeus' Fist (aka the Poop Pile). They had said they didn't need it as they had a whole stock back in the cabin, so she got to keep it if she ever wanted a 'little extra energy' - Connor and Travis' words.

"Thanks." Percy carefully unwrapped the popsicle, and Rox almost laughed as his whole face lit up when he bit into it.

She was definitely going to help her friend, no matter what - after all, he was one of her precious people.

Rox smiled. "You're welcome."


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