NO MATTER HOW HARD AMBROSIA SCRUBBED, the blood wouldn't come off. She had tried simply rinsing it in the river, then rubbing it with leaves, then scraping with rocks; but despite her efforts, the tint of red was still there, taunting her as she scraped her hands raw.
"Maybe we should go explore a little bit?"
She shuddered and plopped on the grassy floor, staring at her hands.
"Yeah, sure! It's getting cramped in here, anyway."
It all happened so fast.
"Look over there! It's a butterfly!"
"A butterfly? This late at night?"
"Com'n, let's chase it!"
They ran through the woods for five minutes, following that butterfly to the best of their ability, but they lost it in the night.
"Maybe we should... take a break?"
"Uh, yeah, sure!" They sat down on a rock, idly chatting about camp and such. Both were highly aware of their surroundings, but as they kept chatting, their minds focused in on one another.
"Hey," Ambrosia started, flashing a winning smile, "You're pretty and I'm cute, together we'd be pretty cute." They both laughed, and Ambrosia's companion cackled, "That's good, but check out this one: Are you Wifi? Because I'm feeling a connection!" They both erupted into giggles at the pick-up line exchange, and Ambrosia noticed something on her back.
"Hey, is that a tattoo? " she asks, tilting her head. The other girl nods excitedly. "Yeah, it's a phoenix. I have no idea how the tattoo guy thought I was old enough, but he did it." Ambrosia smiled and asked, "But why a phoenix?" Just as the girl opened her mouth to answer, it happened.
Ambrosia felt bile rise up in her throat, a horrible reminder of her past self. She tried to push it down as tears stung her eyes, but if forcibly came up, and she puked into the river stream.
Someone came into the area of forestry and was gently patting her back, rubbing soothing circles and whispering to let it all out. Ambrosia puked until she was dry heaving, her body unable to find anymore food. Coughing and wiping her mouth against the sleeve of her jacket, she murmured a tearful, "Sorry."
The person behind her didn't wait a beat, simply saying, "You have nothing to apologize for."
"I'm disgusting," Ambrosia assured, only to which the other person responded, "No, you're not. Now, mind telling me what happened in that clearing?"
Turning towards the figure, Ambrosia allowed herself to soak in their appearance. His hair was a dark blonde, not dark enough for brown but not light enough for a classification of yellow. His eyes, which were a strange teal, shimmered beneath the canopy of leaves above their heads, swimming with emotions: Sadness, kindness, hope, and trust, all in a cyclone of feeling. She recognized him in an instance as she felt her vision blur further.
"It all happened so fast, Ashton. We strayed from the group 'cause we were talking and-" Ambrosia paused, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "And, and we were just there and then she wasn't and there was blood everywhere..." she broke down into a pitiful heap, stuttering through her words as fat tears slid down her cheeks.
"Hey, shush. Everything is okay. Your friend will be fine. Uh, what did you say her name was?"
Ambrosia sniffled. "Is, not was. She's still alive, remember? And– and her name is Cara, Cara Stewart. Daughter of Hecate."
Ashton nodded. "Do you want to see her? She's still unconscious and—" he hesitated, fighting an inner argument with himself. "And things aren't looking too good. I figured—"
Ambrosia interrupted him quickly, picking herself up off of the forest floor. "Yes. Oh, gods, let me see her."
Ambrosia always knew that deaths happened everyday, especially when you're the child of a Greek deity. Still, she had never seen something like that, the closest thing being the burning of a shroud on Half-Blood Hill. To see it all happen, to sit there helplessly as a near stranger (who she'd felt she had known all her life) bled out on the waving green grass.
Ashton offered a reassuring smile, standing up. "Sure thing, beautiful," he said, his flirtatious remarks slipping out in an attempt to ease the situation. Although it did little to make Ambrosia feel better, she appreciated the effort.
They half walked/ half ran back to the small clearing of rocks they had initially been dropped off at, Ambrosia gaining more composure as they grew nearer and nearer to the makeshift medical section, "the tent" as they called it (despite there being no tent). As soon as she saw her (dare she say it) friend, all calmness was lost in favor of a fit of tears and fresh memories.
Cara was laying, completely still, on the solid but comfortable dirt. Her entire midsection and lower area was wrapped in torn pieces of fabric. The boy were all shirtless and some of the girls' pants were torn in a desperate search for a gauze substitute. Part of Cara's neck was wrapped up— luckily, the orange fabric was only slightly soaked with the golden-sprinkled red, meaning Cara was bleeding less in that area. Unluckily, the other bandages were saturated quite thoroughly in their hastily applied fashions. An Athena girl was rewrapping some of the more mangy ones.
"Oh, gods..." Ambrosia murmured, holding a hand up to her mouth. She felt tears threatening to fall.
Your fault, the voice in the back of her head whispered, All your fault.
Ambrosia ignored it.
"Oh, gods..." she repeated. "Is she going to be okay?" Her tone was hushed, as if afraid to wake up the unconscious girl. The Athena kid who had been tending to her wounds looked up. Elisabeth, was her name? Elisabeth looked at her seriously, although her grey-blue eyes couldn't conceal her sympathy and worry.
"Cara... well, I won't sugarcoat it. She has some serious bites on her stomach and ribcage. Miraculously, none of the bites hit any important organs. The deepest one just barely missed the small intestines, so that's fortunate. She, uh, has a bite on her neck that's different than the others. It's not deep, just barely grazed her. But here's the weird part. The marks— they look like they would be made by a snake. Empusae don't regularly attack females, much less children of Hecate. Dracaena prefer cities and dark alleyways rather than forestry. So, my question is, what attacked her? And why?"
Ambrosia stayed still for a few seconds, absorbing the attack of sudden information. Finally she said dully, "I don't know."
Elisabeth looked surprised, but before she could speak, Ambrosia continued.
"I, uh, remember it, yes. But there's no way to describe it. There were definitely some empusa there–actually that's an understatement. There were a lot of empusa. And, and standing in the middle of it all was—"
Before she could force the descriptions out of her head and onto her tongue, a sudden gasp interrupted her. Cara inhaled thinly, desperately trying to get oxygen into her exhausted lungs. She heaved and rolled over into her side, heaps of half-digested food spilling from her mouth as she choked on what must of been blood. Red bubbled up around her lips and she desperately clawed at the bandage covering her neck.
Elisabeth reacted immediately, darting the short distance to where Cara was laying. "Shh," she soothed and rubbed small circles in her back, helping her sit up. Jealousy spread into Ambrosia's limbs, but she pushed it down. Not the time, she thought as her breath caught in her throat.
Rushing towards the girl she barely knew, Ambrosia knelt by her side, ignoring the panic she felt upon seeing Cara up close. "What can I do?" she forced a calm tone as she addressed Elisabeth, who was hardly older than her yet still seemed to know how to act accordingly.
Elisabeth paused in the soothing to push her blonde braid behind her shoulder. For a split second, she looked exactly how Ambrosia felt: vulnerable, and anxious, and just flat out scared. Ambrosia chose not to acknowledge it and focus on the bigger problem, the one with the neon pink sign screaming "FOCUS ON ME".
The look quickly vanished from Elisabeth's face and instead an expression of pure determination arose. "You see her wrist?" she asked, not pausing long enough for Ambrosia to answer. "Press down on it gently. The inner part, in, like, the middle. Yeah, like that. There's an acupressure point there that should help."
Ambrosia guided her hands to the space Elisabeth had directed, gently pressing down and massaging it. She had no clue what an 'acupressure point' was, but whatever. She trusted Elisabeth.
Slowly, the puking came to a stop. Ambrosia tried not to look at it, afraid that she herself would throw up again. Ambrosia tore a strip of her orange shirt to be used as a washcloth, gently dabbing it around Cara's mouth. It came back mango-tinted red with demigod blood.
"Concussion," Elisabeth explained as Cara blinked rapidly, and Ambrosia wasn't sure if the daughter of Athena already known or was just now realizing it. With Cara's eyes fluttering open, it was quite obvious, seeing as one pupil was inflated to triple the size of the other.
"What—" she rasped, throat hoarse and dry. There was a note of unfiltered panic in her voice that made Ambrosia cringe. Elisabeth hushed the formerly unconscious girl. "Save your voice, Cara. Just try to relax." she suggested, even though it was more so a demand than a request.
Cara nodded, relieved, as her shoulders slumped. She stayed that way for a long moment, face contorted in dull pain. Finally she opened her mouth, the words Ambrosia had been expecting on the tip of her tongue, before (yet again) Elisabeth intervened.
"I'm sorry, I really am," she apologized, looking slightly ashamed, "But, uh, we don't have any medication for you to use and I don't know enough about herbal remedies to give one to you. You'll have to deal with the pain until Apollo arrives." She talked slowly and loudly, keeping her voice controlled and steady. It seemed to take Cara a moment to process, but then she nodded and shifted her weight uncomfortably.
Elisabeth watched for a second before turning to Ambrosia, who promptly furrowed her brows. "I'm going to go see how they're trying to contact Apollo," she said, nodding over to a group of kids who she hadn't noticed before. One was holding a very old IPhone, elaborately trying to explain how to make a rainbow (likely according to WikiHow). The others were holding drachmas or pacing back and forth, obviously frustrated.
Elisabeth gave one final look towards Cara before pushing herself up with her powerful calfs, stepping around the body and marching towards the others. Ambrosia watched amusedly for a second before directing her attention back at Cara, who was blinking heavily.
"M'tired," she mumbled, barely audible. Biting her lip, Ambrosia decided that the injuries, as painful as they probably were, weren't severe enough for Cara to be comatose. "I know," Ambrosia agreed, offering a small, nervous grin. Cara took a deep, relaxing breath as she slipped back into the realm of Morpheus, her chest rising and falling evenly.
Sighing, Ambrosia leaned back onto her arms, allowing herself a moment of relaxation. The heels of her hands dug into the soft earth, dirt smothering them. Softly humming a Pocahontas song and staring into the blue corn moon (whatever that meant), she reminded herself of her situation.
Your name is Ambrosia Feint, and you're fourteen years old. You're the daughter of a man older than America, one of many children. You have black hair and brown eyes. Your favorite color is blue, because blue is the color of the sky, the sky that you've always wanted to reach. You're developing a crush on the girl you just met today, the girl who always just went and almost died on you. You don't know what it is that attacked you, but you sure as Hades aren't going to let it hurt anyone else.
Your name is Ambrosia Feint.
And man, things are going to get interesting.
xxUneditedxx
Yay!! At long last, Judy has finally updated!! Sorry for the unexpected hiatus... I honestly have no excuse. I was just too lazy to write, so I didn't. But today I was like, "You know what? Let's finish this!!" And, well, here we are. I didn't leave you with a cliffhanger for once, so I'll take any award you offer me. Thank you, thank you!! And good night!!
Oh, by the way, a quick disclaimer: I am no doctor. Everything medical in this chapter was researched for about two minutes on google. Sorry for all the puking, my dog has been sick and I guess she got into my head.
Whose POV next? Who attacked Cara and Ambrosia, and why was only Cara injured? Find out next time on (drumroll please) Hunters of Apollo!
Signed,
Judy Rush,
Unclaimed,
Slayer of the Chimera.