SMULTRONSTÄLLE | DEMIGODDESS | WC: 1,365

Being a demigod was nothing but tiring. The first few years, when she was ten, well it'd been fun then. But she'd hit 16 and nothing had changed, and her older siblings made it perfectly clear nothing was going to change. It would always be like this. Wake up in camp, learn how to fight so maybe they didn't die, learn Greek that'd never be useful to them, and have lessons about gods that wouldn't give them a second glance.

It fucking sucked. And then they got kicked out, pushed off into the streets without so much as a word of advice to learn how to live on their own. How were they supposed to learn how to live on their own? Chiron never said it in so many words, but they were useless to the gods after 19 for some horrible, inexplicable, reason. Useless at 19 and without a job or references or any way to get into college, without any way to get anywhere in life.

Lila left at 18, following her older brother, Matt. Two half-siblings of the second eldest god, abandoning camp in the hopes that maybe together they could figure out their way in the world. Two children of Demeter, with just about as much support as you'd expect for abandoned demigods.

That was a decade ago, now. They'd struggled for a bit, but being great with plants and crops was a skill, and there were people out there who knew just enough about magic and gods to welcome a demigod child of the harvest goddess. But they'd had to look, and look hard, and more than that they knew they couldn't tell any of the demigods still in camp about it, because it had only been after half-a-year of near starvation that they realized it didn't fucking matter that their parents were Greek gods, it didn't matter if someone was half-blood or mortal or monster if they were offering you help.

Now they'd been working on a farm owned by a clever Scythian Dracaena, Cynthia, who wore long skirts and dresses to cover up her tails and who always decorated her green-tinted skin with painted lines. Cynthia had a habit of eating meat as rare as she could get it cooked, but she'd never once made an untoward comment about eating Lila or her brother. Cynthia immediately shucked all of her responsibilities that had anything to do with interacting with humans off on Lila, while Matt got to take over most of the actual farming responsibilities, along with Cynthia's other minions.

It was probably the best job she could have hoped for. They didn't have to hide anything, though Lila and Matt tended to avoid mentioning the gods and camp, even though they didn't have anything to say anyways. They were as safe as they could be, and most hostile monsters tended to avoid Cynthia's place, and any who did stop by were always curious and teasing at worst, and not once did Lila have to pull out her dagger. Matt found a wife and had two young kids, and Lila stayed content with adopting cat after dog after cat to fill up the barn and kill rats. It was relaxing and, for the most part, uncomplicated.

Of course, uncomplicated hardly ever lasts. The redeeming factor was that nothing had happened while she was actually at Cynthia's farm. She wasn't sure what she would have done if it had. Leave, maybe? It would have sucked, but she'd have to move on and somehow set up a life all on her own again. She wouldn't have even asked Matt if he'd follow— his wife was a doctor who made more than enough to sustain their family, and even if he'd lost his job he'd been taking enough online classes to make up for some skill. He would have been fine.

Lila was still terribly glad her near-murder happened when she was out delivering food to a grocery store. She didn't usually deliver, it was far from her job, but the little grocer's was good about selling food from local farms, and the usual driver asked for a few days off after his surgery, and Lila hadn't seen any problem with it, except that they didn't have any back up drivers. But Lila did have a license and the ability to drive, so she had.

And she'd nearly been brained by a cyclops.

It was times like these, Lila thought as she sat in the alley next to the grocery store, shivering violently with her hand gripped tight around her tagger, gold dust sprinkling her cheeks and clothes, that she really wished she hadn't been born a demigod. Somehow she'd forgotten the sheer terror that came with being approached. The instilled panic as soon as a fight started. The way it felt to kill someone. And she didn't want to remember.

"Hey—" Lila heard faint footsteps approaching her, stopping by her side. The person crouched, but didn't reach out. "—alright? Are you alright?"

"M— yeah. Yeah. I'm okay," Lila responded finally, valiantly peeling her eyes from the gold during the asphalt alley.

"Are you a demigod?" Lila's head jerked back, smacking painfully into the grocery store wall. Apparently she was going to do a better job than the cyclops had at killing herself. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. My son is, too. I recognized your dagger. You look a little too old to be a camper, though, and my son has been insistent that that's where all the demigods are. I know better, of course, there's a lovely daughter of Dionysus who always has a stall at the farmer's market, and there's you, and the nice librarian with gray eyes. Are you feeling a bit better now?"

"Yeah. Thanks. Who's your kid?" Lila asked. "Maybe I know their name, news sometimes passes on from camp."

"Percy Jackson? Son of— well, son of Poseidon," the woman offered.

"Yeah. That's a name I recognize. 'Cept not from camp gossip. A lot of mean people are looking for that one," Lila warned as best she could, letting the woman pull her gently to her feet, collecting her bag and tucking her dagger away in the process.

"Unfortunately, I'm very aware. Our apartment is— it's protected, so there's no worries there. He's always got a sword at school and he's clever and… well he's growing up. I believe in him," Ms. Mrs? Ms. Jackson said.

"That's good," Lila said, fishing a square of ambrosia out of her bag and popping it into her mouth. She didn't usually carry them, but Cynthia gave them out occasionally as "bonuses," and they were remarkably good bartering material with other demigods. "Be careful, though. Make sure he has a way out of camp— we got… When I went, we got abandoned as soon as we were too old. There's a whole lot of demigods out there on their own, figuring out how to survive after camp in a trial-by-fire."

"I've heard that," Ms. Jackson agreed. "Are you alright now, though?"

"Oh, yeah," Lila laughed. "My brother and I got picked up by a dracaena with a farm and got hired on the spot. Enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that."

"Do you see the gods as your enemy?"

"No. Just… an unavoidable barrier. A hindrance. Nothing good has come from them, and nothing good ever will," Lila muttered. "No, the enemy is… as cliché as it is, the enemy is the system. Most monsters I've met haven't wanted anything to do with us demigods. And then we're stuck being told we have to fight or die. It's an unavoidable cycle— ugh. I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson, I don't mean to dump this all on you. Your kid… he'll be better off, no doubt. People care a whole lot more about children of the 'Big Three' than they do us."

"Ah—"

"Don't worry about it," Lila spoke over her, patting her shoulder "Look, thanks a lot, Ms. Jackson. Really. I was a bit out of it. Just be there for your kid, make sure he has someplace to go outside of summer. He'll be fine."