Now that I knew the name of my father, I hated him all the more. A deep, unending loathing as fathomless as the bottom of the sea. Ironic, right? I could finally put a name to the source of all my rage, though not a face, because that asshole still refused to come visit. After wanting so long to know who his dad was, I could tell it had had the opposite effect on Percy than he'd hoped, because now he was miserable again, and so was I. After being moved into cabin three, we felt desperately alone, because we'd both grown used to the crowded floor of cabin eleven where there was zero privacy, but it was always warm and welcoming, and the kids always chatted away. Now there was silence, and I hated the fact that I had to stay in this cabin dedicated to my dad. In fact at first I had refused to move, argued even with Chiron however he put his foot down and practically ordered me to cabin three. Well, hoof.
A lot of things did make sense though after the big reveal, such as Percy's incident with the toilet, and also the reason why Zeus had tried to kill me as a kid. Thinking back, I could remember a lot more about that day than before. I remember that it had been a warm and sunny day, and I'd spent almost all of it playing in the surf, always in sight of my mother. I could have sworn I'd seen faces in the water, beautiful smiles gazing up at me as I'd giggled, laughed and played chase with them with my mom none the wiser, though when she'd called out to ask me what game I was playing, I'd told her flatly I was chasing mermaids. She'd just waved it off as a child's answer, thinking that it was my imagination. I wonder if she'd known who dad really was, if he'd ever told her his real name. If he had, maybe things would have been very different. Anyway, the rest is kind of hazy, but I'm pretty sure I recalled it getting really dark all of a sudden, like a storm suddenly coming out of nowhere and the waves had gone from flat to towering hands that had grabbed at me as I'd run from them, screaming for mom.
I remember seeing her face as it turned, the rush of fear in her eyes as I tried to outrace the waves only for there to be a bright burst of light, so fierce and intense that I couldn't even remember being in pain before I'd blacked out. It explained my aversion to the sea and large bodies of water, considering that apparently dad had tried to kill me too. Whatever I had done, it had clearly pissed off both Zeus and Poseidon, though I was glad Percy was left out of it. Maybe they'd struck a deal or something? That Poseidon couldn't have two kids, because one was already one too many, and that dad had to choose which kid to get rid of, only it hadn't exactly worked. I don't know, those were pretty dark thoughts, but my head wasn't in the best of places at that time anyway. Everyone avoided us from that day onwards, only Grover and Luke willing to come near us. I don't know what I would have done without Luke, because he was the only one who didn't change his attitude towards Percy and I, except maybe to train my brother harder.
He was still working with me too, but rather than going hard, he pushed me to perfect my technique and work at my own pace, because there was no other way to go about it. The sword I was using started to become a problem, because it quickly grew heavy in my grasp and I'd struggle to move as quickly as I wanted with it. A knife was too light and didn't have enough oomph behind it to hold off Luke's attacks, so I had the same problem as Percy who required a custom sword. Other than training with Luke, I went back to being quiet and sullen. Seeing as there were only two of us in the cabin, it didn't really make any sense to name a cabin counsellor or anything, so we just did our own thing. Activity wise I attended those that were mandatory, because I got into huge trouble if I attempted to skip, but other than that I just sat listening to music. One thing I was grateful for? Plug sockets. If I hadn't been able to charge up my iPod, then I would have been in a far worse mood. However, I soon reached my breaking point, and it was all because of Clarisse. She and a few of her siblings from the Ares cabin happened upon my hiding spot, and seeing as I was alone, I was easy pickings. "Hail to the Daughter of the Sea! What's the matter princess? Not enough seaweed in your breakfast?" Clarisse crowed and I immediately felt my sprits darken all the more. I did not want to deal with her right now, so I got up and started to walk away but her siblings quickly overtook me and before I knew it, I was surrounded. What was it Luke literally just told me last lesson? Never let your enemy surround you. Oops. Well I guess I messed that up. "Where are you going Fish-Breath? Are we not good enough for the likes of a child of the Big Three?"
"Leave me alone, Clarisse. I mean it." I warned her, because right now I felt like I could snap her in two with just how pissed off at the world I was. I heard Clarisse snigger before someone shoved me, causing me to stumble but I quickly regained my balance. All that work with Luke meant that my footwork was pretty nifty now, so I turned and the next time they tried to shove me I neatly dodged and instead, slammed my elbow into their nose. With that person grunting and clamping their hand down to staunch the flow of blood that burst from their nose as I could smell it in the air, I dashed forwards in order to escape, but Clarisse smartly hauled me back. They shoved me back and forth like a ball, laughing and snorting like pigs even as I tried to fight them off, but I just didn't have the strength for any of my punches to make any impact against their meaty hides. I stumbled again and felt a tug on the cable of my headphones whereby I immediately dove my hand into my pocket for my iPod, only to find it was gone. It had fallen and slipped free from the cable, so I threw myself to the ground in order to desperately search for it, but Clarisse got to it first.
"What's this? This piece of junk is so old, couldn't your daddy afford something better, Fish-Breath?" I felt rage burn through me as I realised Clarisse had my iPod. I demanded she give it back, launching myself at her but I was held back by two of her siblings where I started to struggle like mad. I hissed and seethed, swearing that if she didn't give it back right now then I was going to make sure she showered in toilet water for the rest of her life. This was evidently not the right moment to remind her of her past humiliation at the hands of my brother, because next thing I knew, I heard the sickening crunch of something breaking in half. "Oops. My bad." She flung the remains of my iPod as I balked in shock and disbelief, feeling a tearing loss hit me. The iPod struck me in the chest and I somehow managed to grab it as the other Ares kids let me go, and it broke completely in my hands. I even nicked my thumb against a sharp edge of the now destroyed ridges of plastic and inner workings, causing me to flinch as I felt a sting in my thumb before it began to bleed. "What are you going to do now, Fish-Breath?"
An indescribable feeling rose through me then, some kind of potent mixture of fury and madness that caused my mind to go completely blank. I stepped forwards and stomped my foot down, intending to fling myself directly at Clarisse and pummel her bloody, but before I could do so, the ground suddenly quaked underneath me in a powerful cascade of vibrations that caused it to rumble and groan. A fiery heat was rising through me as I remained perfectly unaffected, but around me I heard the kids all scream as I realised that I was bellowing with such a sound as I had never made before. In my hands I clutched the two pieces of the iPod so tightly that I carved into my own skin and drew more blood from my injuries, but I didn't feel pain. I was just so completely enraged that it didn't matter to me. I just bellowed and screamed until I felt everything had drained itself out of me, and nothing remained.
When I closed my mouth the quaking stopped, and I realised that before now, any time there had been a minor tremor in the past must have been because of whose daughter I was. It made me feel sick. I laboured for breath and I was utterly convinced that I was going to breathe fire or something next, I was still so angry. Around me the kids groaned, all of them having been thrown to the ground and forced to endure the rollercoaster I had sent them on, and I heard several of them throw up. I hoped Clarisse was one of them. No sooner had things settled, I heard people come running with Chiron in the lead, but I wasn't in the mood to explain myself to him or get punished for subjecting the camp to an earthquake. Instead I flung the broken pieces of my precious iPod to the ground and stalked away, hoping that nobody had yet seen me. I kept on walking until I heard the trickle of water signifying a creek and after a few moments to gather my thoughts and listen to my surroundings, I realised that I was somewhere near the arena midway to the woods with the cabins not too far away. I didn't want to go back to cabin three, so I hid somewhere and stayed out of sight as I pressed my fingers into my hands in order to staunch the blood. I figured someone would come looking for me sooner or later, and sure enough I heard Percy calling out my name, looking for me. I didn't answer him, but clearly I hadn't hidden myself well enough because he spotted me and came over. "Lils? What happened? Was that your earthquake just now or did something really upset one of the gods?"
"It was me. Clarisse broke my iPod." Beside me I heard Percy curse under his breath as he sat down with me, then noticing the blood. He tried to persuade me to go to the water in order to heal, telling me that when he'd gotten cut during capture the flag, the water had healed the injury so that there wasn't even a scar. I didn't even register the fact he'd told me he'd gotten hurt, I just didn't want to go anywhere near the water. I didn't want anything to do with my godly heritage, I'd give it up in a heartbeat if it meant I didn't have to acknowledge such a sucky father and asshole relatives who apparently thought about nobody other than themselves. Percy insisted, however, practically pleaded with me as he took me by the wrists and hauled with all his might until I begrudgingly allowed him to take me to the nearest source of water, the creek.
"Go on. Put your hands in, it should heal." He directed me so I did as he asked, opening my hands in order to place them into the cool waters of the creek, only I felt disgusted to do so. The water washed away the blood, but when I started to feel a pull on my stomach I instinctively rejected it, refusing to acknowledge that it was there. I wanted nothing to do with any gifts, blessings or powers given to me through my father, and as I squashed down that sensation, my hands continued to bleed. "I…I don't get it, it worked for me."
"It doesn't matter." Quickly pulling out my hands, I returned to clenching my fists so that they didn't bleed so much. "Is Chiron angry?"
"No, but Clarisse is claiming that you attacked her and the others then made that earthquake. Chiron doesn't believe her, of course, because who would? But also there was a wood nymph who happened to be resting in a tree nearby who saw everything. She's on stable duty with the three others for an entire week and they can't have dessert." Percy supplied, probably hoping that hearing Clarisse got her punishment would make me feel better, but it didn't. I had no music now, so I couldn't drown out the world when it was getting too loud, which only made everything all the worse. I sat down on the ground again and Percy joined me, fiddling with some pebbles and absently tossing them into the creek. For a while neither of us said nothing, but I began to figure that as the big sister, I should at least try and make Percy feel better if nothing else. I didn't want him miserable for the rest of the summer, or even for the rest of his life.
"Hey Perce…how're you doing? I mean, you seemed happy back at the Hermes cabin, but now you're as miserable as I usually am. And that's saying something." He didn't laugh, so I reasoned he must be pretty low.
"I hate it. Everything's changed just when we were starting to fit in. Why couldn't dad have just left us alone? He's done that all our lives until now, now he's messed it all up." I was surprised to hear Percy say this, because until now he'd always defended dad to me, but I guess now that the truth was out, dad didn't have the excuse at apparently being 'lost at sea', so all Percy's imaginings about him were shattered and reality had now taken place, and he saw him for the kelp-brained jerk that he was. "You know, we shouldn't even exist? The Big Three were supposed to have sworn a pack together a long time ago not to have any more demigod children, but here we are. I think it's part of the reason why everyone's avoiding us like a disease." That part I hadn't known, but it only made my opinion of dad all the worse.
"Well, at least we have each other so it's not so bad. I know it feels like hell right now Perce, but it'll get better. People will get used to us, and then things will gradually go back to how they were. It's probably just a shock to them, seeing as they weren't expecting kids of the Big Three. I mean, for a while we thought our dad was going to be Hermes, right?" Reaching for him until I found his shoulder, I scooted in closer until I was hugging him from behind and trapping him against me, doing my best to smile and joke as I ruffled his hair and refused to let him go as he weakly fought back. "Cheer up. Maybe you'll turn out to be an awesome hero, then everybody will think you're totally cool. If not, I'm pretty sure we can just threaten to flood everyone's cabin with toilet water. If they shan't love us, then they shall fear us! What do you say little bro?" Finally I got a little snort out of him, a smirk rising as he imagined probably flooding cabin five with the water from the toilet plumbing, and everyone else who hacked us off. Mumbling he agreed that it was a good backup plan, before he then insisted that we went and got my hands treated.
I accepted this, because I knew he'd fuss and worry if I didn't. Of course when we got to the infirmary everything went deadly quiet, and the person who cleaned and bandaged my injuries did so with shaking hands, so I was glad to escape from there. I'm pretty sure Clarisse was now utterly adamant in her loathing of Percy and I, but it was her own fault and seeing as she had broken my iPod, I was more than happy to declare an eternal war with her over it. I could feel her glower at my back as we sat down to dinner, though afterward neither Percy nor I fancied the sing-along, and instead just went straight back to the cabin though Luke caught up to us, calling out my name as he came jogging over. We stopped and I turned slightly, though Percy just said to me that he'd carry on, though I could have sworn I heard a tone in his voice that made him appear like he was smirking for some reason. Whatever, I guess. "Hey Luke. Not into singing tonight either?"
"What? Oh no, I just wanted to see if you were alright. I noticed you have bandages on your hands. Something happen earlier with Clarisse?" I explained that I'd cut my hands on the broken pieces of my iPod, making him wince with a slight hiss. "Ouch, that must have hurt. Sorry about your iPod, I know it meant a lot to you." Still mourning for my loss, I just shrugged, folding my arms before frowning slightly.
"Was there something else?"
"Well…I was just going to offer you a break for tomorrow. You've been training a lot, and considering today, I figured you might want to take a rest. Your heads not in the game, and it shows through your training. You were all over the place today." It sucked because it was true. Today was a day where I got my butt thoroughly whipped by Luke, because I just couldn't concentrate at all, but the thought of taking a day off freaked me out all the more because when I was training I wasn't thinking, and when I wasn't thinking I didn't have time to consider how messed up my emotions were at the moment.
"No!" I answered a little too quickly, startling Luke so I cleared my throat and tried again. "I mean, no but thank you. I want to carry on. It's the only time I can try and focus on something else. I'll do better tomorrow, I promise." I assured him before feeling prompted to smirk, Luke's infectious brightness clearly at work on me. "Unless it's you who needs the break, because if that's so then I don't mind going easy on you tomorrow. I'm sorry, I should have realised how exhausted you must be, if it's ever too much for you then just let me know." Now Luke was laughing, looking at me in such a way that I couldn't help but grin further as I felt his gaze on me.
"Me? Me need a break? Oh you're so going to regret those words tomorrow. Be ready, Lily Jackson, because now the gloves are coming off." I laughed and rose to the challenge, telling Luke to bring it so he collared me, slinging his arm around the back of my neck and wrestled with me a little until he had me firmly trapped with no escape so that he could rub his knuckles into my head until it hurt, squealing with laughter and wriggling to try and get free until I finally jabbed him in the softest part of his torso, right below the sternum to wind him and he doubled over, not having expected me to hit him. "Ow! Good punch, you see? We'll make a hero out of you yet." Luke let me go then, placing his hand more gently on my head as I sensed his worry for me deepen his tone slightly, but only marginally. He wasn't the kind of guy to be overly concerned and plaster someone with sympathy, and I liked that about him. He was kind and understanding, but didn't take much nonsense, and was more likely to keep on encouraging you rather than pandering to your sorrows and woes, which was the kind of person I needed. I hated it when people just smothered you with false sympathies. "Okay, I'll leave you to head back. Know where you are?"
"Yeah, I can find my way from here. Thanks Luke." I felt him smile before he then let me go and walked away, letting me head back to the cabin and I felt a glow of pride that he didn't stick around to see me back. It meant he trusted me to know my way, that he knew I could manage it on my own and it brightened my spirits somewhat, walking lightly back to the cabin where Percy was already in bed. I felt him look at me as I entered, heard the smirk in his voice.
"Someone looks happy." I scowled at him.
"Oh shut up."
