*wiggles fingers in a wave* Hi, guys. Please don't kill me.
So, so unbelievably sorry that I've been MIA for the past month. And, like, a half. Sorry. Wow.
I've been struggling with depression, a consequence of family issues and anxiety/panic disorders (yes, I have those), which hence caused extreme writer's block.
I can't write when I can't really feel anything except for frustration. And then, not being able to write, and seeing everyone's disappointment at no updates, week after week, makes the depression worse.
Vicious cycle, guys. Vicious cycle.
Next week is my finals week, and last day of school, and this week is Senior finals and graduation. My second older sister is graduating this year, and her graduation party is this upcoming Sunday, so with that, and studying for finals on top, I doubt I'll have much time to write.
Starting this summer, though, I'm hoping to finally get really started on this fanfic, and maybe then we'll start getting some regular updates going.
I'm not going to make any promises, though. I can't, at this point, when things keep getting so bad.
Most of the family issues are being caused by the graduating sister, who's dating a high school dropout (a year younger than her) that's been expelled, gone to juvie, and many other things to disapprove of. She wants to move out when she turns eighteen and move in with him. She's broken numerous rules to go and see him, and when new rules have been set, she breaks them too, no matter how reasonable they may be. My mom already has instability issues because of her past, and this has made things infinitely worse, because one of her daughters is making many of the same mistakes she made (and hates herself for).
There's a lot of yelling, which has made my minor anxiety to grow into full-blown anxiety and panic attacks that occur anywhere from two to five times a week, made worse by the stress and pressures of school. I haven't been eating as much, because the anxiety makes me nauseous all the time, and am almost always tired because of it. I have a speech tomorrow that's going to be 20% of my grade which I'm not at all ready for, and I chose a topic that I just know I'm going to be mocked for (Ancient Egypt-seems okay for an informative speech, but when I give speeches like this one, everyone snickers and refuses to pay attention. Not a good confidence builder). And I have to do my driving test during finals week because I'm already late to get it done, and I'm not at all ready for that either.
I feel unprepared and frustrated and very extremely stressed.
Sorry for the rant and the talk about my private life-if you don't wanna know, you didn't have to read it. But I thought you guys might want an explanation about why I'm having trouble updating as consistently as I used to.
Again, sorry. Issues.
But anyway-here's the third and final part of The Battle of Half-Blood Hill. Enjoy.
Battle of Half-Blood Hill Part III
Grover
Grover spends the battle leading the nature spirits-the ones that aren't completely disoriented by Gaea's rise-in defense of the strawberry fields. They block one side of the monster army and keep back stragglers or camp invaders.
It's not one of the biggest jobs, but then, they aren't one of the biggest forces. There are maybe two dozen assorted wood nymphs, dryads, and satyrs that were up to fighting form, and that's looking at it optmistically. Realistically, there are only about twenty-one, including Grover.
Juniper is up here too, right at this moment, passing out water and helping with minor injuries. She agreed when he asked her not to fight-it's never been her sort of thing, and he couldn't stand it if she got hurt.
He chews nervously on the end of his wooden club, waiting for another group of monsters to decide they look like easy pickings and break off from the others.
During the lulls, all he can do is worry-wondering constantly about Percy, and Annabeth, and the rest of the Seven, over in Athens fighting their own battles.
The past few days, he hasn't been able to get anything over the empathy link. It's like the rope connecting them's gone dead, except he can still feel it when he searches to find Percy's mind and reassure himself that his best friend is still alive.
And now, even when he knows that Percy is currently fighting for his life, miles and miles away, that's still all he can feel-nothing. Zero. Except that he's alive-for now.
But he doesn't know anything about how the others are doing, although he reassures himself that he'd feel something over the empathy link if Annabeth died.
It's not the best reassurance.
A warm hand clasps his shoulder, and he turns to smile down into Juniper's face, immediately raising his hand to clasp over hers. She rests her head against his shoulder, kissing his cheek. His face goes red, like it does every time, and she giggles, the tips of her ears turning green under her bushy red hair.
"Are you okay up here?" She asks, suddenly sober, her eyes worried, peering anxiously into his.
"I'm fine." He tells her softly. "How are things in the infirmary?"
Her cheeks pale. "I don't really go in, since I'd be no help with the bigger things like that, but it's bad. They're running out of room."
Grover turns to look over at the battling armies, relieved to see no enemies have tried to sneak up on them while he's been talking. "I hope the Seven end this thing soon. I'm not sure we'll be able to hold out much longer."
Juniper nods, and then catches his eye again. "Worried about Percy?"
Grover sighs. "Is it that obvious?" She nods again, and smiles.
"But you wouldn't be you if it weren't."
He shakes his head, upset by the link's inactivity. "I haven't been able to feel anything from him in days."
"Nothing?" Juniper repeats, her brow furrowing in confusion.
He reaches for the empathy link to check again while he answers, "Yeah, I-"
But he can't finish, because he's suddenly flooded with a feeling of such agony that he nearly falls down, staggering backwards, eyes wide, blinking rapidly because he can't see around him anymore.
"Grover!" Juniper shouts, grabbing onto his arm to keep him upright, but her voice is faint, like it's coming from far away, and the rush of blood is overwhelmingly loud in his ears.
Inwardly, he launches himself toward the link, pulling along it until he finds Percy's mind at the end.
What he finds terrifies him, because most of Percy isn't Percy-and then he finds his best friend underneath everything else, and hears his thoughts as if he was right next to him, speaking normally.
I have to do it for Annabeth. Percy thinks, pained. For Annabeth, and Piper; Leo, Frank, Hazel, he falters, his mind recalling grief, and then adds, and Jason. I have to do it for everyone. This is all me, this is my responsibility-I told my dad I could do it. He told me he knew I could.
Percy! Grover tries to shout, and feels his friend's attention turn to the link.
Sorry, Grover. Percy thinks softly, and then, somehow, the pain becomes even more excruciating-Grover feels his legs buckle, and Juniper trying to hold him up and keep him from collapsing completely, but this pain is beyond anything worldly. How Percy isn't absolutely obliterated by it, Grover doesn't know, because he's only experiencing it secondhand and he's on the verge of reincarnating into a patch of daisies.
Something happens-something irrevocable, something that Grover can't reverse no matter how much he wants to, and suddenly everything is being shredded apart and Percy's being pulled away and the empathy link is dissolving between them.
Now you're safe. He hears, whispered in Percy's mind. Now you're all safe.
And then he snaps back into his own head he gasps, opening his eyes, reeling, trying desperately to find some shred of the empathy link still intact, because for it to be gone could only mean one thing-
"Grover. Grover! Are you okay? What just happened? Is something wrong with Percy?" He hears Juniper yelling, and he looks up at her, about to cry, tears filling in his eyes, and sees the sudden understanding in her face. The shock.
"Oh, no..." She whispers.
Grover shakes his head, trying to hold back the tears, and scrambles to his feet, knowing he has to do something-and that he has to find out, that he has to know, if what he felt is real.
"I-I have to-I have to go, and, and-and find Rachel. Maybe she saw something, maybe she knows-" But Juniper's already nodding and steadying him on his feet, composing herself and turning her expression into a mask of determination.
"Go-she's down in the infirmary, trying to help. I'll stay up here and keep everything together." She tells him.
He hesitates. He doesn't want her to get hurt, but she shakes her head warningly as soon as he opens his mouth to protest.
"Don't you even dare say it. You and I both know I'm just as capable as you of being up here. I just sat out because you asked me-and because you were so sweet about it." She reminds him, smiling a bit. "Now hurry-find out anything you can. Or-or tell someone. But hurry, we still need you up here."
Grover nods, and tries to smile at her, before taking off through the fields back down the hill, towards the infirmary, weaving his way past traps and trenches arranged by the Hermes cabin, trotting as fast as his goat legs can carry him.
He can't help but stumble, and his vision is blurred with tears.
My best friend. He thinks. I've known Percy for almost six years. He can't be gone. He can't.
A hazy memory of that pain surfaces and he runs harder, practically blind, only thinking of what terrible fate could have befallen his best friend.
He has a vague sense of flying by the cabins-passing someone that jumps out of his way with a cry of alarm, and then he's at the infirmary steps and he trips and would fall except that someone catches his arm and pulls him back onto his feet.
"Whoa, Grover, what's the big hurry?" Travis asks, his tone easy, friendly, and then his brow draws together in concern when Grover can't answer for his gasps of panic. "Man, you're not hurt are you?"
"Is Juniper okay?" Connor steps forward, looking him over with worry. "Grover, what's going on?"
His eyes start to fill with tears again, even thinking of it, but he tries to control his gasping enough to answer them-"Something-empathy link-Ican'tfeelPercyanymore."
Connor freezes, his hand stiff on Grover's arm, and Travis blinks in confusion. "What?"
"There was-and then-something's wrong-something happened-"
Suddenly, as if to back up his claim, a shudder runs through the Earth, nearly knocking them down, and they hear the ground cracking and snapping as if it's all about to burst apart underneath their feet and drop them straight to Tartarus.
And then-it stops. Dust rises from the ground in puffs, but it's as rock solid as it ever was.
Tears well in Grover's eyes, blurring his vision, and he sniffs, his throat tight from holding in sobs. "I think-" he heaves, now not bothering to hold back his tears, "That Percy's-dead."
And now he can hardly talk, and he pulls out of their grip to avoid seeing that look of disbelief and sudden crushing grief in their eyes, stumbling up the infirmary steps, pushing his way inside-behind him, he can hear Travis, in a stunned, numb voice, repeating, "Shit. Shit." Over and over again, and it makes him sob harder.
"Grover-Grover-what's wrong-what happened, Grover?" He can hear others asking him, and then he sees Rachel's head of red hair while she absentmindedly dabs at a sleeping demigod's forehead with a damp cloth, craning her head to see what the commotion's about.
As soon as she sees him, her face turns white as a sheet.
"Rachel-" Is all he can say, and then he bursts into violent sobs and she's pulling him into a hug. After Percy, she and Annabeth are his two best friends in the entire world. They've been there for him for a really long time.
"The empathy link-everything hurt-and then Percy-Rachel, I think he's really gone. I think he's-I think he's-" But he breaks off into even harder sobs and can't finish speaking and she's suddenly crying too and there are other people there asking what's going on, but they have no idea and this is not something that they can fix. This isn't any kind of outside hurt.
"I saw-something-" Rachel starts to tell him, her voice halting, choked by tears but not quite as violent as his own, "I had a vision, and I drew it out, but I was hoping it was wrong, or that I hadn't seen everything, because if I was right, it meant-it meant that Percy was going to-to die. But Grover, if you can't feel the empathy link anymore, I don't think there's anything we can do to save him anymore."
"But now my-my head hurts-I shouldn't be here, I don't know why I'm still alive, or functioning, except that Percy somehow dissolved it in the last moments before..." He chokes on the word, can't get it out. "But that isn't supposed to be possible..."
His voice is getting fainter, and Rachel pulls back and looks at him with concern even as tears run down her face. "Come on, Grover, I think you need to lie down." She helps him over to a cot, which he collapses onto, and as he falls into unconsciousness, he hears her say, "Just go to sleep-right now, that's probably best..."
Nyssa
They're losing, losing, losing, even with Pelorus dead and gone and no clear leader to guide the monster army. They're spread out and isolated in smaller groups and even though Gwen is trying to regain some semblance of control and order throughout the legions, it isn't working very well. Too many monsters to fight to get back to each other, too few in each isolated group for a team effort to work.
Nyssa slams her hammer against the earth in frustration, crushing the scorched grass. There aren't any monsters nearby, fortunately-she's on edge of Half-Blood Hill, near the right side by the woods. She sought higher ground to get a better view of the battle, and she's equal parts glad and regretful that she did.
If the camp's army could get it together, maybe their aid would be enough to dig the Roman army out of the slight problem they've found themselves in. But any hint of order fell apart the minute Clarisse went bloodthirsty-berserk after Chris' death, and now they're scattered all over, always more prone to get caught up in independent fights rather than fight as a whole.
They need a leader; they need Clarisse-but she's waded too far into the enemy army, stretched the distance between the others and her that no one has virtually any chance of reaching her.
Except that Nyssa thinks she might be able to. And she's certainly the only one willing to, so she hefts her hammer, unbothered by the weight of it, and jogs back into the thick of it.
The shield slung across her back comes in handy numerous times, but as a general rule, she keeps it behind her to protect her undefended side from cowardly enemies that are more than happy to slip a knife between her ribs.
Clarisse sees her coming out of the corner of her eye as she fights her way through the horde of monsters mobbing the daughter of Ares-fortunately, or Nyssa might've ended up decapitated, which would've been a mild inconvenience.
"What are you doing?" Clarisse growls, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, but filled with a deep-set anger.
"Saving your life." Nyssa nods over her shoulder. "Go left."
Clarisse dives left out of the way without asking questions, and Nyssa's sword bites into the thick neck of an Earthborn, dissolving the ugly brute into dust.
"I'm fine." Clarisse spits at her, blocking a downward stroke from a dracaena without even looking. "I don't need your help."
"Maybe not." Nyssa acknowledges. "But the others need yours."
Clarisse looks up at that, her eyes seeking the scattered groups of what was originally a disciplined team. Her face grows troubled.
"You left them leaderless when you went charging off in your blind rage, and they're being slaughtered. Most of them can't hold out much longer." Nyssa tells her, not bothering to soften her tone or sugarcoat the truth. "And your revenge would be better achieved if you crushed this army with one of your own, instead of going out a berserker after being overwhelmed. Because they will overwhelm you, eventually, and then we're all dead."
Clarisse's jaw tightens, and her fingers clench and unclench around the hilt of her sword. Finally, she turns back to Nyssa, squinting one eye against the sun. "Got a plan?"
Nyssa smiles. "It'd probably be a good idea to reunite all those scattered groups, don't you think? Which means killing a helluva lot more monsters. You up for it?"
Clarisse smiles grimly, shadows of grief dancing under her eyes. "Try and stop me."
"Then we call a retreat and regroup behind our own lines. We have to hit them hard, and we can't afford to lose the energy it would take for the groups to fight their way back to each other. Understand?" Nyssa explains to her warily, uncertain how the daughter of Ares will react to the idea of retreating.
Surprisingly, she just grunts. "It's the best course of action. I don't like retreating any more than the next soldier, but sometimes it's necessary."
And with that, they throw themselves back into battle.
They find Gwen first, trying to fight herself back to one of the other groups with the majority of her legion following close behind. It doesn't take long to tell her about the tactical retreat they're gonna call, and she immediately starts to focus on holding the front lines instead of struggling to reunite the groups through the enormity of the monster army.
They help clear a path of retreat for each of the groups in turn, telling them to switch to defense until they can all regroup and launch an offensive that counts.
"Do you have any previous plan in place for something like this?" Nyssa questions while they fight.
"For a retreat?" Clarisse grunts, pulling her sword out of an Earthborn's neck. "Yeah. There's at least one person for every dozen campers that knows Morse code. We make sure to place those people evenly throughout our advance, and then pass messages by flashing light off of compact mirrors we all carry. Probably it would work. But it might not, since we're so scattered and cut off everywhere. Still-if Grover sees the message, or someone with him, he's supposed to send up a flare to signal to everyone else."
"So just focus on aiming the message to him. Just repeat it until he responds with the flare." Nyssa advises.
"Could work..." Clarisse mutters. "Hold on a sec, I've gotta get the mirror out." She fumbles with a small bag strapped to her belt, her sword point hovering over the ground-Nyssa watches around them for any threats, lashing out at any monsters that get too close.
"Got it." Clarisse says triumphantly, and sheathes her sword to properly hold the small mirror and flashlight in her hand. "The flashlight's in case we end up fighting at night, or during a storm. But it helps during sunny days, too, if you don't have time to focus on angling it right against the sun-which we don't."
"Go ahead and flash the message to Grover." Nyssa urges, adrenaline rushing wildly as her anxiety rises. They're vulnerable like this, and she doesn't like it. "Hurry." She adds.
Clarisse doesn't hesitate to listen. She uses the flashlight to flash a message once-then pauses for about ten seconds, and repeats it.
Grover doesn't respond, and Nyssa's agitation increases. "Try it again."
In the middle of the fifth repetition, an orange flare flies up and explodes over their heads with a burst of bright light, visible even with the partial sunlight.
"Think that'll work?" Nyssa asks.
"Guess we'll find out." Clarisse says, putting the mirror and flashlight back in the bag and redrawing her sword.
For several minutes, it seems like nothing's happening-but then something shifts, and the armies start to withdraw, backing up to the border of the battlefield in a subtle way that the enemy wouldn't be likely to notice.
"Good thing the monsters don't know Morse code." Nyssa comments, and Clarisse smiles.
"Ready to fight?"
"Always." Nyssa tells her, and they hurry to join the retreat, swinging their swords in unison to part the wall of monsters blocking their way.
When they get to the others, Clarisse quickly finds the cabin counselors-they're battle leaders, as well-and explains the plan to them. By the time the monsters realize they're all regrouping, it's too late to stop them, and it isn't long before they're all properly formed up, Romans standing next to Greeks, each scattered among the ranks of the other as if they've always belonged.
Each leader, when told the plan, asks where they'll be.
Every time, Clarisse gives them a wicked grin-though, if you looked closely, you'd see it as not entirely sincere-and replies, "We'll be everywhere."
When Clarisse signals the advance, they move slowly at first-and then they hit the opposing army with more force than should be humanly possible.
But then, none of them are quite human.
As per Clarisse's words, she and Nyssa are everywhere; shoring up the front line, hauling the wounded back through the ranks to be passed back to the rear of the legions, cutting down difficult enemies-on and on and on.
A dracaenae hits Nyssa across her left side with an iron shield, sending pain shooting through the bones of her face and shoulder, and she whirls on the snake woman with an anger that doesn't even give her a fighting chance.
When she turns back, Clarisse is staring at her with a marveling look in her eyes.
"Do you even feel pain?" She asks incredulously.
Nyssa grins. "Must be the Russian in me."
Clarisse raises an eyebrow. "You're Russian?"
"On my mum's side." Nyssa replies calmly. "She's a mechanic-got a thing for cars and robotics. She mostly does it as a hobby, out of our garage. I'm not sure where she got the fascination for it from, considering she never knew her dad and my grandma is the type that's more into beating up thieves in the supermarket or arm-wrestling the Queen of England."
"Arm-wrestling the Queen of England?" Clarisse asks incredulously.
"It's a long story. But yeah, she did that once."
"Who won?"
"No idea. Neither of them will tell."
Clarisse just shakes her head, and with that, they're back to battling in silence.
Nyssa takes a bad hit to her right arm from an Earthborn's club that makes her unable to hold her sword properly, so she switches to her left hand and fights equally as well that way. Clarisse takes a hit to the torso that couldn't have possibly left her without a few broken ribs, and receives a gash on her left calf from a hellhound's tooth-it tried to take a bite out of her leg and got a mouthful of Celestial bronze instead.
Faceless Ancient Greek villains resurrected by Gaea turn up occasionally, and one lodges his dagger in Nyssa's shoulder before she registers his presence behind her and decapitates him.
She doesn't even feel it.
They go on like that, and the adrenaline rushing through her seems bottomless, unending. She could fight forever.
So that's what she does.
Clarisse
snapping out of her grief as Nyssa dies, reminding herself what she's here for, passing Nyssa's body off to one of the campers tasked with carrying dead and wounded off the field before calling everybody together and developing a last minute strategy that involved a wedge and pincer movement that completely crushes the enemy
When Clarisse and Nyssa are both panting hard, Clarisse notices a slight rise near them that might provide a brief respite from the fighting, and catches Nyssa's eye before nodding to it.
Nyssa nods back, and they cut their way through a few more monsters until they find themselves resting on the fringes of the battlefield, leaning on swords, trying to catch their breath.
Clarisse regards Nyssa with more respect than she knew she could feel for a person, and wonders how the daughter of Hephaestus isn't completely drained by now. Clarisse has her grief to push her on-there's a stabbing pain in her heart as she thinks of Chris, and she forces it down-but what does Nyssa have that drives her so relentlessly?
"You have a knife sticking out of your shoulderblade." Clarisse notes, breathless.
Nyssa shrugs-probably not the best idea, and Clarisse winces at the thought of the way that would grind the blade against her bone, but she just bares her teeth at Clarisse in a grin.
"Your arm is also most likely broken." She continues, and Nyssa pulls her injured arm closer against her abdomen, unconcerned.
"Most likely." She agrees.
Clarisse raises an eyebrow. "But you're not going to go to the infirmary, are you?"
"Not a chance." Nyssa replies, grinning again. "Shall we?"
There's something in her eyes that tells Clarisse she knows the injuries she's accumulated will catch up with her eventually. With the added ones she'll no doubt receive throughout the remainder of the battle, she'll probably die.
But there's not a hint of fear-instead, there's a fierce fire there that demands to fight tooth and nail in defense of her camp as long as there's a single drop of blood in Nyssa's body. It's the only home she's ever known.
Clarisse nods, and knows that a matching fire burns in her own eyes. "It's time to make them pay."
And they have, already, but they fight on, plunging back into the thick of it without a single thought except for destruction.
They fight for what seems like hours-and maybe it is, but maybe it's only minutes. All Clarisse knows are the faces of the enemies in front of her, the threat to her camp that she must destroy, the people responsible for the death of the one person she'd opened up to that must pay for it.
Chris is her motivation. Chris' smile, Chris' laugh. Singing silly camp songs together alone in the woods after Mr. D healed his mind. How his hand felt in hers-they were both calloused, from years of practice fighting monsters, but Chris' hands were soft, with long fingers that would've been suited to playing piano, had he wanted to. She always felt self-conscious when he reached for her own hands, because they were rough, scarred, ugly. The nails were cracked and chipped, and her hands were actually bigger than his.
But he didn't care, and she loved him for it. She loved him for helping her through the stages of grief after Silena's death-moved her on from constantly blaming herself, comforted her on the nights when she couldn't sleep because the dreams were so bad...They had a spot on the roof of the Big House porch, a place they reaches by climbing up the trellis and hauling themselves up, that they would meet when either of them had a bad day or just wanted to talk to the other.
Clarisse never thought of herself as someone who could be loved, or as someone who could truly love someone else, but Chris proved her wrong. He proved her so wrong.
She doesn't know when she starts crying, but there's a point during the battle when she realizes that tears are mixed into the mask of twisted rage and grief on her face. Nyssa must notice, but she doesn't say anything, and they go on, and on,
and on.
Eventually, Clarisse starts to tire. Battle has never seemed so long to her. She's never felt so drained before. And suddenly she's so sick-sick of fighting, sick of constant attacks, and she takes her frustration out in an excessively forceful swing of her sword to slice through a hellhound.
But she leans forward to far, and loses her natural, ready balance, and finds herself tripping.
She scrambles to keep herself upright, but she's already falling, and she throws out her left hand to break her fall. She's flipping herself over to get back up, turned onto her side, struggling to get up with one hand while the other grips her sword.
And then-a shadow, and there's a glimpse of light reflecting off the blade of a sword in the corner of her eye-and then there's Nyssa.
A small gasp, and Clarisse can't hear anything else as she pulls herself the rest of the way up-
Nyssa's falling. She's falling, eyes scrunched with pain, and a sword-a sword meant for Clarisse-lodged in her abdomen.
Blood roars in her ears, and she focuses on the face of the sword's owner-another resurrected villain from Ancient Greece, one she doesn't know, with blood from his previous triumphs splashed across his armor-as he contemptuously pulls the sword from Nyssa's stomach and leaves her to fall.
Her vision blacks out and she screams in rage, and when she comes back to herself, there's a sword in the dirt and a cloud of golden monster dust surrounding her where before there were dozens of enemies.
She's breathing hard, anger still coiled in her stomach, but she drops her sword and runs to Nyssa, pulling the girl's head into her lap, trying to lift her-but Nyssa's hand on her shoulder stops her.
"I'm fine." She says, and Clarisse almost laughs at how untrue that statement is, but there's something close to peace on Nyssa's face as she says it. Maybe those words are only false to Clarisse.
"I can get you to the infirmary; I can get you help-" Clarisse starts, but Nyssa glares at her.
"No you can't. I'll be dead before we get there, and you'll get yourself killed trying to haul me through-" she coughs, and there's blood on her lips, but she gestures around them, waving to the hordes of Gaea's monsters. "that."
"Why-" Clarisse's voice breaks, and she clears her throat. "How are you so calm?"
Nyssa meets her eyes. "I had a dream." She answers.
"You're not allowed to die." Clarisse whispers. "I can't lose another friend today."
Nyssa's lips twist up into a wry half-smile. "You'll be fine. You always are." Her eyes flicker back to Clarisse's. "Just-one thing." Her voice is sore and strangled, and there's so much blood, everywhere, everywhere, soaking into Clarisse's cargo jeans-belatedly, she remembers the dagger Nyssa had stuck in her shoulder. It would've been driven even deeper in when she hit the ground.
"Anything." Clarisse tells her. A stupid thing to say, but there are more tears in her eyes then there have been since Coach Hedge first found her to take her to camp. Her heart feels like it might explode with grief.
"Tell my family-" She stops, heaves a hitching breath that is the first thing that hints to Clarisse she might be more afraid than she seems, "tell them in person. Tell them all what happened. My siblings-can tell you where to find them."
"I will. I will, I promise." She can do that. She can promise that. Whoever Nyssa's family is, if she's a part of it, then they deserve to be told what happened here in person. "Do you remember them very well? You haven't seen them in years, have you?"
Clarisse doesn't remember much of her own family. What she does remember are things she wishes she didn't.
But Nyssa's lips curve up in a soft smile, her eyes closed as she remembers. "I remember everything. I have a little brother, Nick. You'd like him; his favorite thing to do is wrestle. He likes to help my mom in the garage-he knows his way around in their better than in the house. He spends more time there than in his own room. He's funny; likes to joke around. My mom loves him to death, even though he eats more than all of the rest of us put together. He'd be-14 now, I think. Talks about being the man of the family, since his dad didn't stick around after getting our mom pregnant. Very protective. Gods, I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts."
Her voice gets quieter, and it hurts Clarisse to hear it.
"My mom used to make breakfast every morning. Eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, pancakes-every breakfast food imaginable. Breakfast was our biggest meal of the day. She'd arrange the food in shapes on our plates, or use metal cookie cutters to make the pancakes in funny ways. She made Nick a kangaroo once, except it was kinda lopsided, and he laughed so hard that we all ended up laughing too..."
She stops abruptly, and opens her eyes to look at Clarisse. "Clarisse?"
"Yeah?"
"Give 'em hell for me, okay?"
"Always." Clarisse promises, and Nyssa smiles before continuing to talk about her family, eyes closed again.
She talks until her voice cuts out, and then her lips still move, but finally her chest stops moving up and down with her breathing and her head rolls to the side on a limp neck, and when Clarisse grabs at her wrist for a pulse, she doesn't find one.
She swipes at her blurry eyes, smearing Nyssa's blood across her face.
"Goodbye, Nyssa. You'll get into Elysium, I know it." Clarisse whispers, and stands.
She can't leave Nyssa there. Not where something could happen. So she reaches to pick her up and carry her back to the others, and another hand comes into view, gently pulling Nyssa's body away from her and lifting her up.
When she looks up, she meets the grieving eyes and sad smile of Jake Mason, Nyssa's half-brother.
"I've got her." He says gently. "You're needed here."
There's a lump in Clarisse's throat that makes it hard to talk, but she says, "Take care of her, okay?"
Jake's jaw is set in steely determination as he nods to her. "I'd never let anything happen to her."
You already did, Clarisse wants to say, but she just turns away and plunges back into the fighting, focusing on nothing but swinging her sword. If she lets herself think about anything beyond the battle, she'll collapse.
Octavian
Battle is ugly. Octavian thinks, regret swirling in his chest. There's nothing glorious or heroic about this.
He's watching through an Iris message in a room off of the infirmary-an office of some sort, he'd guess. He wandered into the infirmary earlier-he's not even sure why, but they saw him looking lost and took him here.
When he asked how the battle was going, they gave him a drachma and pointed him to a small fountain in the back of the office-more of a shallow basin.
It was strange, willingly doing something the Greeks came up with, but for some reason, he didn't care anymore.
Now he's slumped tiredly in an office chair that was behind the desk, arms crossed over his chest while he blearily watches as more people get killed and injured.
This isn't right. He thinks to himself. This isn't what I wanted.
Isn't it? Another voice in the back of his head whispers. You've done so much to get here...to see the Greeks and the traitors destroyed...
No, he protests, this isn't what I meant. Not the legions-I only wanted to destroy the Greeks to protect us...
You wanted to rule them. The voice whispers.
Shame washes over him, along with grief and an overwhelming remorse. A tear falls from the corner of his closed eye, and his thoughts wander to memories he's been careful to stay away from for years...
"Marti said you're going to stay with Lupa tomorrow." August lilts childishly. She blinks up at him from where she's playing with her stuffed wolf, Lily. "Can I come?"
Octavian looks away and stares at Lily. The wolf is missing one button eye, with a stitched in x in its place, and there's a frayed place on one shoulder where stuffing is starting to fall out. It used to be his, but he gave it to her when she was a baby and couldn't sleep through the night. It seemed to help, and she dragged it with her everywhere after that...
"Tavi? Can I come? I wanna play with the puppies too." She asks, pleading, staring up at him with her big blue eyes. "Please?"
"Sorry, Gussi, it's just for big kids." He tells her, and her face falls. "But that's okay-you'll get to go in a few years. It won't be that long. You'll be playing with the puppies before you know it."
Her eyes light up, and she hugs Lily to her chest, smiling. Then she surprises him by lunging forward and tackling him in a hug. "Really, Tavi? You mean it?"
"Yeah, Gussi." He answers softly, carefully hugging her back, scared she might shrink from him at any second. "I promise."
Octavian blinks, and feels more tears slip down his cheeks. He didn't keep his promise very well.
"Gussi-" He tries to say, but she pushes him away, backs away from him.
"YOU PROMISED!" She screams, her cheeks red, eyes puffy as tears fall endlessly from them. Her face suddenly crumples inward, and she hugs Lily to her chest, suddenly small. "You promised."
"Gussi..." Octavian whispers, his voice rough. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know this would happen."
She falls onto the floor, just lets herself fall into a sitting position, and starts sobbing.
He approaches her cautiously, quietly, keeping his voice and actions gentle. "Gussi, I didn't know. I swear I didn't know. I think they should let you. I don't agree with them. It isn't fair. I know it isn't fair."
He sits down slowly next to her and pulls her into his arms-to his surprise, she lets him. He supposes he shouldn't be so surprised-she always lets him hug her, it's just others she won't accept physical contact from.
"Tavi." She sobs into his chest.
"I know, Gussi. I'm sorry." He murmurs.
"Fix it. Make them let me go. I want to go see Lupa too. I want to practice with all the other legionnaires-Vitellius says I'm getting really good with my sword!" She insists, still crying.
"You are. I've seen you. But mum and dad don't want you to go. They don't think you're well enough. I've tried to change their minds; they won't listen to me."
"Can't you change the rules?" She asks miserably, and he's about to give her the same answer, his lips even start to form the word "No," but then he realizes...maybe he can. He'd been asked to train as the new augur, as a legacy of Apollo, and that could be a position of power...
A plan starts to come together in his head, and he looks back down at his little sister, sniffling against his chest.
"Maybe I can, Gussi. Maybe I can." She lifts her head to look at him, and he smiles.
She returns it, wiping her eyes, and snuggles back against him. "Promise, Tavi?"
"Promise." He tells her. And this time I'll keep it, no matter what I have to do. He thinks.
Was that really how it started? Octavian wonders. It was such a small thing...so innocent to begin with. He'd never thought then, never even guessed, that it could lead to this. Where had he gone wrong? He didn't remember. He couldn't remember. Things just started happening so quickly...and he got more and more paranoid, wildly accusing...he remembers feeling as if he was losing control, like he was going crazy.
"I have to fix this." He murmurs to himself. August is back at camp, all alone...Lupa and her pack are the only ones guarding it. I hope she's okay...gods, I hope she's okay.
He's wearing armor, having absentmindedly put it on this morning as a precaution in case the monsters broke through the camp borders. His sword is strapped to his belt, along with a long dagger...
"Here, Tavi." August says happily, handing him a package. It's badly wrapped, the bow starting to come undone, but he smiles at her.
"I wonder what it is!" He exclaims, and she giggles while he opens it.
It's a dagger-her dagger, that she charmed the armorers into making for her years ago.
"It's for luck. It's a special dagger-it'll keep you safe." She tells him.
"Gussi, are you sure you want me to take this?" He asks, cradling it like something precious in his hands. Which it is-something precious-because she gave it to him.
She nods happily. "I have my sword still. I want you to have it, okay?"
"Okay." He agrees, and she bounces up and down on the balls of her feet.
"Good luck, Tavi." She tells him, and then stills for a moment to look seriously up at him. "Are you changing the rules? Do you really think so this time, Tavi?"
He smiles waveringly at her, feeling his thoughts slip again like they have been for months now. "I really think so this time, Gussi."
He waves a hand through the Iris message, dismissing it, and then runs his fingers through his hair, walking through the door and weaving his way out of the infirmary. He hears people talking-Rachel, the oracle, the head of the Apollo cabin here, a few others.
"He should be find-he might sleep for a while. Dissolving an empathy link is difficult enough when both people are together-I can't imagine what this did to his mind." A healer is telling Rachel, and the Apollo counselor nods, confirming his words.
"But he'll be okay, right?" Rachel asks anxiously. "His mind won't be...damaged?"
There's a pause, long enough that Octavian slows his steps, curious what the answer will be.
"I don't think there will be any permanent damage, no. But I've never seen Grover that distraught before. Never. It might take him a while to recover."
"I hope he's wrong." Someone says abruptly, interrupting the conversation. It's one of the Hermes kids-one of the brothers that look like twins. "I really, really hope he's wrong."
"We all do, Travis." The counselor says softly, and Rachel wraps her arms around herself. "It won't mean anything good for anyone if Percy's dead."
Octavian stumbles, barely catching himself in time to keep from falling, and then rushes out of the infirmary so he doesn't embarass himself further.
Percy's dead? He thinks incredulously. Percy can't be dead.
Isn't that what you wanted? That cruel voice is back, but he pushes it away, shaking his head and drawing a wavering breath.
"I hope he's wrong." He mutters. "I hope he's very wrong." He closes his eyes, bracing himself, and starts to walk towards the hill-towards that enormous pine tree, and the Athena Parthenos next to it.
Can't you do something? He thinks silently at it, pleading. Everything is falling apart.
"I have to fix this." He repeats to himself. "I have to fix this."
He's distracted, and nervous, and he's never been a very good fighter, but he walks for the battle anyway, pausing at the top of Half-Blood Hill, as they call it, to catch his breath, resting his hand against the rough trunk of the pine tree.
The battle is a disaster. Complete chaos...and maybe they're not losing, but they're not winning yet either. And they're tiring. For every monster they kill, there are three more.
He's shaking, and his hands are clammy with sweat. Everything about him feels wrong, and that voice in the back of his head fights against doing this, but he ignores it and keep walking. He has to fix this. For August.
Something catches his attention out of the corner of his eye, and he turns to see Gwen, separated from the legions, surrounded by a deadly mixture of Laistrygonians, horned centaurs, Earthborns, and hellhounds. She's fending them off now, but she can't last much longer like that.
Octavian doubles his speed, and soon he's wading through the ranks of monsters, who ignore him, for some reason he doesn't understand but doesn't mind, either, crashing through them to get to Gwen.
I killed her once. He remembers with a jolt. Sometimes it's an easy thing to forget, since she's alive and whole and not at all dead now...But he owes her his life because of it. He owes her more than that. What he did was beyond despicable, and he's suddenly filled with such a powerful self-loathing that when he finally reaches where she's trapped by the monsters, he runs a Laistrygonian through and then decapitates an Earthborn before thrusting through the chest of the horned centaur, all in less than 30 seconds.
Gwen looks up, her eyes tired, lips moving to form a thank you to her savior, and then she freezes when she sees him, instinctively moving back a few steps, only to jump forward again when a hellhound slashes at her ankles with a razor-claw-tipped paw.
He moves around to take care of it, too, and then makes short work of the rest of the monsters. When he turns back around, Gwen is pulling her sword from the crumbling corpse of a dracaenae, eyeing him warily. She doesn't lower the weapon as he walks closer.
"Octavian..." She says, warningly, warily, and he stops, looking at her with tired eyes.
He's so tired...
"Did you know I have a sister?" He asks abruptly, and her face registers surprise.
"No." She answers, and he nods.
"Not very many people do." He pauses, lets the silence drag on for longer than he should. "Her name is August. She's eleven."
"Shouldn't she be in legionnaire training by now?" Gwen asks, puzzled.
"She's autistic." Octavian replies simply. "Or, my parents think she is. I don't think so. I think she's just a little different. She doesn't see things exactly like everyone else..."
Gwen is regarding him with a strange look on her face, and he hurries on before he loses the courage to try and explain himself.
"They wouldn't let her go. They tell her she's 'not well enough,' that she wouldn't be good in the legion anyway, that everyone else would always have to protect her and that would weaken the whole cohort, and she wouldn't want that, would she?" He says, his tongue stumbling over the words. "She cried for days, and screamed at me because the night before I went to Lupa I promised her she'd be able to go to." His lips curved into an unamused smile. "When she was speaking to me again, she kept asking me to fix it. She wanted me to change the rules-and since I broke my first promise to her, I made her another. I told her I would change the rules and make it so she could go to Lupa like I did, and learn with the legionnaires.
"It was just going to be a matter of gaining influence so I could convince the others to give her a chance. But my parents didn't want her in public view; they didn't want people to know that they'd produced a kid that wasn't one of the best. They said if I said anything about her they wouldn't support me anymore.
"So I decided I had to gain more power, more control. And I've never been popular, I've never been the kind of person that could make friends or inspire loyalty, and I needed to hurry so August didn't miss her window to start training..."
He looks up at Gwen, and she's staring at him with something like a mixture of shock and pity in her eyes. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean for it to happen like this. I don't know how things went so far..."
"Octavian, why are you here?" Gwen asks softly.
He looks at her, not understanding how she couldn't realize. "I have to fix it. It's my fault, I have to fix this."
She opens her mouth to reply, but before she can, an Earthborn rises up behind her, oversized club in hand, and begins to swing it down at her.
Octavian jumps into action before he can think, shoving her hard in the chest and pushing her out of the way. "Go!" He yells. "Get back to the legions, they need you to lead them!"
She runs, and he turns to face the Earthborn, but he doesn't even get the chance-its club connects with his leg, and agony bursts through him as the bone cracks. It might be the most sickening sound he's ever heard, and it sends him to the ground, sword clattering out of his hand. His head smashes against a rock, and blood starts pouring from the gash it creates.
His vision starts to black out, the pain overwhelming him, but he claws August's dagger out of its sheathe at his belt and scrambles backwards, trying to get away from the Earthborn, trying to stand and failing spectacularly.
But the giant tries to go around him, to go after Gwen, and he lunges up and thrusts the dagger deep into its chest before collapsing back to the ground, his vision not even lasting long enough to watch the monster crumble to dust and ash.
He lays there, waiting for some monster to realize he can't get away and deliver the final blow, but it doesn't come.
Go on, kill me. He thinks, urging the monsters on. I deserve it.
Suddenly, the ground ripples beneath him, and he hears a cacophony of howls and guttural whines of pain from the monster army, suddenly cut off...
"They're retreating!" He hears someone yell. "They're leaving; we're winning!"
That's good. Octavian thinks dully. Percy didn't die in vain. There's blood soaking his pant leg; his bone must have broken the skin, or something...
But it doesn't matter. They're winning, he fixed things...
Through eyelashes coated in golden monster dust, he sees August's dagger resting in a pile of the stuff close by, and smiles.
Thanks, Gussi.
Everyone else that has finals this week or next, or maybe later than that-Good luck. I hope you pass all your exams with flying colors, and know what you need to so well that you're as confident as you could possibly be and not nervous at all. You guys deserve that.