Five Hundred Words on Friendship
Written for PJO Shipweeks 2014, Free Friendship Week
No one understood how or why but Clarisse and Silena were best friends. They were complete opposites. It didn't make any sense. The children of love and war should hate each other on principle. Clarisse was tall, muscular, and often looked as if she'd just rolled out of bed. Silena was narrow, lithe, and often looked as if she'd just rolled out of a Vogue photo shoot. But Silena was the one person who bothered to look for and cared enough to find the gentle goodness in hard-edged Clarisse. And Clarisse was the one person who bothered to look for and cared enough to find the fierce warrior in doll-like Silena.
They say that some children of Aphrodite have persuasive abilities, that they can persuade someone to do something by putting a bit more effort into their words. Some people thought that perhaps that was why the two girls were friends. Perhaps Silena was the only one who could get Clarisse to be nice to her because of charmspeak. That wasn't true.
Silena did not have any extraordinary powers except for perhaps her ability to always see the good in others. She was like her mother that way, an eternal optimist. She always say the glass half full and was aware of the potential in some people that others were not. When Silena looked at Clarisse, she didn't see a terrifying child of war, she saw a loyal friend. It explained why Silena was the only one to realize that Clarisse had feelings for Chris Rodriguez. No one else at camp would have imagined that Clarisse could love somebody. Silena knew it in a heartbeat though.
Clarisse would never forget Silena's offer to help her with Chris. Most of the other campers stayed for away from her and that was how she liked it. At first, Clarisse was horrified at the idea of letting Silena get close to her. The idea of asking for love advice was simply mortifying. But Silena wasn't like anyone else Clarisse knew. She was kind and patient and responded to Clarisse's taunting remarks with smiles instead of insults.
And thus, Camp Half Blood's strangest friendship was born. Clarisse taught Silena how to improve her sword fighting while Silena gave Clarisse tips on her relationship with Chris. If anyone dared make fun of Aphrodite's children in front of Clarisse, she smacked them with her spear.
When Clarisse found out that Silena was the one who was acting as a spy for Kronos it broke her heart. She felt as if she had somehow failed Silena. That it was her fault that Silena got taken in by Luke. But then she realized that it was Silena's own trusting nature that had caused the betrayal. It was a testament to their friendship that Silena's sacrifice was the only thing that could tear Clarisse away from her pride and anger. In that moment, Silena embodied bravery. Silena was the Patroclus to her Achilles and Clarisse would never forget her.