Rachel's throat felt dry and parched as she woke, it's moisture drained into the air through the prior hour's breathy pants and following choked sobs. Over the mid day hours, her thrashing had thrown the blanket from her form where it had assumedly been placed by Percy; now it lay almost entirely off one side of the bed. Reaching over, she pulled it back on, drawing the soft fabric into a pillowly lump that she tightly embraced, wrapping her legs and arms around the comforting throw. It reminded her of Percy. It was not meant to comfort her this way, this was not its purpose as a blanket, that was to keep her warm. But her much younger self had found the very same thing in Percy. He wasn't supposed to be her escape, he wasn't supposed to be the person who comforted her, he wasn't supposed to be something she needed so badly when he was a 20 year old who had never known peace and was soon to fight for the survival of his world. He had better things to do than serve as social relief to a rich girl he had stumbled upon while attempting to rescue his then best friend. And yet now, only about a year later here she was, a concubine in his harem, who's only job was to spread her legs when she was told and serve him until the end of time.
And instead he served the very aspect of comfort that she was supposed to provide to him, to satisfy her desires in bed and friendship, and to caress her caterwauling form and console her crying soul. She screamed in frustration into her pillow. Her dad had killed a peaceful god with his tyrannical business ventures, and she had watched the deity die with her own eyes, and he had been so kind despite the daughter of his killer standing only meters before him. She had burst into this world of myth, and with it dragged her problems along like a pernicious chain, slowly wrapping around throats and weighing down the shoulders of others with her sordid woes. She didn't belong in this world, and yet here she was, the Oracle of Delphi, a pivotal piece that influenced all that she touched.
She shook her head, as if to rid her idling brain of these thoughts. It was of no use, only serving to worsen the headache that began to creep over her. Releasing the blanket from her grasp, she rolled onto her other side, gazing on the wall as it was lit with the afternoon sun. Had it really been that long she'd been asleep? With a drowsy sigh, she slid off the bed, and stumbled over to her dresser, fishing out a bottle of Ibuprofen and downing the two coral colored pills dry. After slipping on a fresh t-shirt and jeans, and running a comb through her messy hair, she propped open the door, threw open the windows, and propped up a fresh canvas on an easel, leaning back and letting the fresh air flowing through clear her head and inspire her mind.
It wasn't right. Something was just off today, no matter the angle she looked at the canvas from, or the usual prompts that kick started the turbines of her mind, the splash of excitement was missing. Her mind felt...subdued, chastened by creatures of the deep of the ocean of her mind that were just out of reach. It was the nymph, Palirroia, walking past her door that finally forced her hand. She wasn't going to sit her stagnant for any longer, and as such she burst from the room, chasing after the gracile oceanid and grabbing her by the hand.
"Palirroia, was it? Come on, I want your help!"
"But I need to-" she didn't give the nymph time to even finish her sentence before dragging the timid creature back into her room, towing the trailing woman in front of the canvas, before darting through the room, hastily gathering a palette, a can of brushes, a jar of water, and a box of basic paints, rapidly setting up the easel as her acquaintance attempted to convince her she was needed elsewhere.
"Come one, the cleaning can wait. Percy's birthday is in just over a week, don't you want to make him something? It's not like you can buy him anything, and you've already given him yourself."
The nymph stopped, seeming to think on it, her light form seeming to be ready to bolt from the enthusiastic girl in front of her. For a second. For a second, she could swear there was a calculating edge behind the timid waver of her eyes, but the moment passed and the nymph nodded, acquiescing to the redhead's request.
"I...okay, I suppose I need to do so...but what would I paint? I doubt there's anything that you couldn't do better…"
Rachel grinned. "Paint him the island then. I barely know it at all, but you seem to be quite familiar with it. Give him a bird's eye view of his paradise."
Palirroia looked pleased by this, and after a short survey of the tools at her disposal, she daintily picked up a light sketching pencil, and began to draw. Her sketch slowly filled the canvas, lines put on lightly, as if she was scared to damage the pencil or the canvas, or make the slightest mistake. Thinking about it, she probably was. Despite her cautious pace, the time seemed to fly, and before long the frame of the island was in place, looking down on it from the sky far off, a generous angle giving ample view of the sides of the mansion and expanses of water.
Looking to Rachel, her eyes quietly requested counsel, and the artist was all too happy to assist her protege, barely holding back her voice as she gently demonstrated mixing colors, and the basics of brushing, and simplistic shading. She knew she could often come off a bit more…enthusiastic than she meant to, and extra anxiety was not something that would help the timorous girl to paint her first picture. Deciding to let her learn by doing, she stepped back, and watched the girl work.
She was a natural, if not polished now, she definitely could be if she tried. Delicate strokes of umber and mocha, tan and tawny strokes flowed across the rapidly forming topology of the island, colors both wan and wonderful filling the canvas with soil and sand. The mansion came next, carefully brushed on, and then bunches of trees draped across the landscape, each one carefully detailed with arduous patience. Even Rachel herself didn't know if she could have done it for that long.
Washing her brushes and patting them dry, Palirroia mixed a moderate grey, thinned slightly with water, took a brush dipped in it to the ocean area beneath the island and… paused. She stood stock still for nearly a minute, before, almost as if in a trance, extending her brush to the canvas, and slowly, as if scared it would hurt her, beginning to paint a pattern. Gentle curves of grey formed on the canvas, beginning to resemble, of all things, a chain? The nymph seemed to shake herself of her stupor, hastily painting over the ocean area and pattern with a uniform gray, before hesitating once more as she reached for the deep, ocean blue before her.
"You're an oceanid, right?" Rachel leaned in, steadying the shaking hand of the nymph, "It's alright if we don't do the ocean for now. Trust me, I can empathize with not wanting to remember my home. We can just do the sky, and Nimba's cloud."
She seemed to calm at that, and Rachel grabbed the blue and white paints. She was going to help her mix it after all, despite moving to the sky it was obvious the darker blue represented something she wished not to remember. Frowning, she rummaged through the box of paints. There was enough blue, if barely, but no white to lighten it. Walking back to the closet, she grabbed a large, new bottle of white, a brand she had yet to try, and handed it to Palirroia to take the seal off of. Cursing, she rapidly squeezed the bottle of blue, attempting to get the last remnants out onto the bottle and onto the canvas, when a bubble came through the nozzle, spraying droplets across her compatriot's arm.
Palirroia froze. Trembling, she examined her arm, fixated on the droplets of viscous blue fluid coating her wrist.
"Are you alright? You look… unwell… " she questioned only for the nymph's redirected attention to loosen her grip on the now unsealed and topless bottle of white paint. The bottle hit the ground, the white spraying in a fine shower of droplets across her azure shins, and the nymph screamed. She fell to the floor, quaking, scratching at the white liquid on her legs so hard she left scratches. Rachel tried to help, but her touch seemed to alarm the nymph even more.
"Dinner's ready, le-what..oh. Leave her, go to the table." Ashe, having just come to the doorway, pushed the red head out of the way, glaring at her as she tried to object. Holding the now rocking nymph in both hands, she jerked her head towards the door, and faintly nodding, Rachel left for dinner, troubled by what she had seen. She had worked with the nymph on painting before, but it had always gone…smoother than that.
Her head pounded as desert was brought out. She had long since shoved the main course out of the way to make room for her head on the table, she hurt way too much to be eating now. Blood pounded in her ears, an invisible clamp tightening down on her temples. She could almost feel her skull creaking under the pressure. It was too much.
"MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP!" she wailed, pounding futilely on the table, the sound of dishes shaking and the upset snap from Drew doing nothing to stop the pain. Getting up, she staggered towards her room, clutching her head with one hand and feeling for walls with the others, busting into her room and slamming the door. Frantically shaking out pills from the bottle she had left on her counter, she threw four into her mouth, bringing her up to 12 in the last few hours. Kicking a chair out of the way, she collapsed on the bed, hugging the blanket once more and staring blankly into her dimly lit room as she prayed to her patron god to let the pain go away. Her eyes sweeping the room, she found solace in her world of pain.
Her carefully crafted murals of Percy were her biggest pride on this island, though she was by no means unaware of the irony of a shrine to the master of the island. Although she was not one to brag most of the time, her paintings were something she felt had been done especially well. They seemed realistic, perfectly made, their placid form a sharp contrast to the raging migraine that was running rampant through her head. Infact, she could even see the movement portrayed in the paintings, as if they were animated through some trick on the eye.
The young Percy, freshly acquired minotaur horn grasped in hand, turned towards her, stumbling forth. Inky black marks of his darkened shoes drew lines across the floor, small splashes of blue rain seeming to form around him, as if the weather followed him from the painting. And then he collapsed, exhaustion overcoming him, his figure lying face down in the intricately painted grass that had sprung to life at his feet. Rachel lay, frozen, eyes darting back and forth between the young Percy comprised of her own careful brushstrokes that lay on her floor and the empty scene on the wall from whence he came.
The sound of a single drop of liquid falling to the floor drew her attention to the aged Percy, Riptide in one hand and the other holding the nosebleed that summoned the primordial god from the earth below, but now there was no primordial god at his feet, only the small splattering of red paint. And then he was emerging from the labyrinth, Tyson and Annabeth in tow, running towards her in a desperate attempt to flee Kampe, but making no ground. He was standing off against Hyperion, and holding up the swirling sky that had formed from her ceiling and so desperately wanted to meet the floor below.
Rachel screamed, diving for the nearest paint can, the pain in her head desperately vying to hold her back, but it could not control her. She screamed tears of vengeance and sorrow and regret and remorse for the lives she had ruined, flinging black paint at the manifestations before her, but the black simply merged with the ghouls, and the world was getting darker.
And then her friends were there, standing near the door, desperately attempting to placate her and relieve her of the terrors of the illusions before her. Black paint had spattered them too, and as they wiped it from their faces, she could have sworn to see the traces of paint beneath wipe from them. They are real, they are real, they are real, they are real, they...they are...THEY AREN'T REAL, THEY ARE FAKES, THEY ARE DEMONS OF PAINT THAT HAVE COME TO ENACT VENGEANCE… She screamed, desperately flinging paint at them, but as they wiped the black goo from their faces it was wiped across the corner of her vision, and her head pounded so badly, and she wanted to crawl up in a ball on the floor and that's what she did.
The black paint crept over her vision and all was dark.
Rachel needed that brush. It's fine, delicate red bristles, wavy to the point of almost curly, it's curvy, smooth handle and the polished brass ferrule that reflected the world so perfectly she could see through it what she could not with her own eyes. She lurched forward, grasping it from the stand, but as she grabbed it the world came down on her. She already had other problems, people were mad at her, and she didn't know why, she was just put here, inserted into a conflict she hadn't started but she had to endure. Clutching a fragile brush to her chest, she cried out as fists and purses and canes rained down blows across her back, but she had to protect the brush, even though it had just come into her life. It was her duty to protect it.
Pushing through the crowd, she ran to her easel, whetting the brush in a fine gray, barely keeping her hand straight as she let the bristles paint their dreams, even though the burden and assault upon her was only mounting. She needed this painting, but the brush wasn't giving it, and no matter what she gave it remained at it's own pace, refusing to cater to the slightest of her issues.
Yet again, she was ripped from her surroundings. She was on the ocean, it's vast cerulean expanse surrounding her on all sides. Her feet stood, as if hovering, with the ripples of water barely brushing the underside of her feet. A violent mist poured in from the east; like a raging sandstorm it engulfed the vast space, wetting her skin and reducing her vision to an uncannily perfect haze. Through the sun's glowing rays through the fog, she saw two figures fighting. The unmistakable style of Percy was present in one, only confirmed by the trademark glow of the xiphos he wielded. The waters turned a virulent violet, and the other figure forced Percy beneath the surface. He spoke, his voice a smooth, careful drawl.
"I never liked you, brother in the sea. We have only met shortly before, but you still haven't failed to irk me. I have risen the deep watery palace, from your oceanic home, in which you refuse to take your role as king."
A familiar oceanid emerged from the fog, standing by the side of the upper figure, her purple eyes shining brightly through the fog as a tear dripped forth from one. "I'm sorry, Master, but I must fail you. I cannot help with this..
The fog thickened, paling, and the water beneath her feet formed into wet tile, the fog a steam of the shower she was stepping from. Wrapping a towel around herself, she grabbed a second and dried her hair. Staring into the mirror, she listened to the pitter of drops on the tile, each one a distraction she shoved from her mind, the steam her clouded thoughts being sucked away into the fan in the ceiling.
Her name was Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She was a clear sighted mortal. Greek Gods existed. She was a concubine of Perseus Jackson. He loved her for who she was. She was an artist. She was a friend. She was...smelling smoke?
She burst from the bathroom into her room in New York. Fire roared through the room, rapidly reducing her precious work to ashes, swelling behind her and forcing her forth. Her father stood in the middle of the room, his back to her, watching as the flames licked her lavish lounge, a portrait of Pan already burned on the edges. He turned to her, flicking closed a zibbo in his hand monogrammed with a combination of their family crest and his company's logo.
"Why… " she stammered, her voice failing her, "Why did you do this?"
"Why did I do this?" He chuckled. "No, no, no, my darling Rachel. I didn't do this. We do this. We burn what doesn't respect us, what spites us, we make it fuel for our forward advance."
"This is people's lives you're burning!" tears began to form in her eyes, "THIS IS MY LIFE YOU'RE BURNING!"
His eyes narrowed, and he threw the lighter to the side. "You are me, and I am we Rachel. You don't have a choice in the matter. You are still the failure you made yourself in my care, before I could beat the doughty dolt and deific dame dichotomy out of you! This is not your life, you never had your own life. You are doomed to watch as your life crumbles before you because you strayed from my guidance!"
He moved closer, his voice lower, raspier.
"You are not a muse my dear Rachel… "
Sulfurous green snakes of mist poured from his eyes, his ears, his mouth, his nose and swarmed over her, and his voice rang through her head once more.
"You are nothing but my manifest, nothing more…"
And Rachel hit the floor.