~ Stars in Her Eyes ~

LYKOS

How long has it been since he's been this close to humans? How long has it been since he was walking among them? The last time he recalls being near humans was when he and Katarina… and she…

Well, he's not in the mood for dwelling on the past. They have a job to do.

Lykos sticks close to Saphira's side, making sure that nothing comes between them. He's never been here before, but he knows this city. This is the heart of western civilization in this modern era. Looming over them, in the heavens above, lies Olympus and the immortal beings who dwell there. This powerful presence lures many monsters, drawn by the lust for the blood of the gods' offspring. If that isn't enough, there is more than just the monsters to be afraid of here. He may not have been part of human society for many centuries, but Lykos is no fool. He knows the world of man is no place of innocence. In his time, he has seen many horrible things; murder, genocide, war, torture, and… other terrible, gruesome things that make him sick down to his very core, things that if anyone tried to do to his companion, he would tear them apart.

No, nothing will happen to her, not while he breathes.

Aside from the threat of man and monster, Manhattan simply discomforts him. He's been in but two major cities as of this decade. Well, not quite in, but he has been near enough to know he isn't very fond of them. These structures packed so tightly together, crowding all these people, makes it feel like he is trapped with no room to breathe. While he may have been lonely before, Lykos at least appreciated the peace and freedom of the wilderness.

The only good thing so far is that the Mist appears to be doing its job.

"What a beautiful border collie!"

"Oh, what a nice-looking pup!"

"He's such a good boy!"

The comments of the mortals shower upon him every now and again, though Lykos is hardly appreciative of them. He knows it's not their fault that they cannot possibly know what he really is unless he chooses so, but still. He despises being compared to a dog. He may not have his human form, but he has his humanity. He is every bit a sentient being as anyone else.

Saphira seems to be paying the mortals absolutely no mind as she marches on, cutting through the crowds like a shark through a school of fish. Only the satyr remains a couple feet ahead of them, leading them to the place where he had last picked up the demigod's trail. Lykos hopes they find her soon so they can ditch this place and go home.

"How much farther, Terry?" Saphira asks.

"Not much farther. We're very close!" the satyr calls back over his shoulder.

Lykos sighs and pads onward. The walk goes on for another fifteen or so minutes, before Terry changes course and the trio steps into a narrow alleyway. Bags of trash and dumpsters line the walls. Litter is scattered across the ground -empty tin cans and discarded papers- and strange paintings of big jumbled letters decorate the brick walls.

"This is it. This is the last place I had picked up her trail," Terry says before taking a whiff of the air. "I can still pick up traces, but it's super faint. I don't think I'd be able to follow them, especially with all this stink. Gods, why do humans have to be so careless?"

Saphira is too busy looking around the alley to reply. Lykos knows what she's doing when she gets quiet and is scanning her surroundings like this. It's hunting mode. The pair stalk slowly through the alley, investigating every little thing. As much as the smells annoy him, Lykos puts his nose to work, sniffing for traces of the demigod's scent. It takes a moment for his mind to figure out how to ignore everything he doesn't care about and to focus only on what the scent could be, and the moment he picks something up, it hits him like a train.

The satyr is right. The trace isn't very fresh, however the demigod must be the offspring of someone very powerful, because this is no frail and weak scent. His more primal instincts tell him that much, as monsters can tell how strong a demigod is by their scent alone. It's why children of Ares or Athena, or the Big Three are targeted more than a child of Demeter or Aphrodite. This scent however… it's different. Powerful, but different. Lykos' first thought is that this is a child of Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades. It's that strong… but he knows of the pact. The Big Three haven't had any children aside from Thalia Grace, Perseus Jackson, and Nico Di Angelo, and all three of them have their identities and whereabouts known.

Not only that, but this scent is somehow stronger still. Even while not being fresh, Lykos' instincts are telling him quite loudly that this child is something else.

The question is what?

Lykos' nose leads him to a pile of trash bags. Saphira is right beside him, and she nudges his shoulder for his attention. He looks up at her while she gives him a questioning nod towards the bags. He confirms her answer with a nod of his own and steps aside for her to take a look.

"Um, what are you guys doing?" Terry asks.

"Seeing," is Saphira's simple reply as she prods the bags and moves them around. Leaning over the pile, her brow goes up, signaling to Lykos that she found something interesting.

He steps onto the pile and peers over to see what it is she has found behind them. At first glance, it doesn't look like much; an arrangement of rags stretched out over cardboard, and a bunch of newspapers, but Lykos has survived wild long enough to recognize a place of shelter and rest when he sees it. Someone has been living here. Saphira reaches down to pick up one of the rags and holds it up to examine it. She picks out something from the filthy garment; a strand of white, fine hair. As she studies the hair, she extends the rag to Lykos for him to sniff and he does. The scent is strongly embedded into the rag. This was where the child had slept.

"She's definitely been living here, though it seems like she's abandoned this place. Perhaps she sensed you had picked up her trail and left," Saphira says. Lykos is in agreement.

"Any idea where she might have gone?" Terry questions, poking around the garbage.

"To find another safe place to hide," she says. "She's clearly not stupid. She's smart and knows how to survive. However, I don't think she would have gone very far. Our primal instincts will always tell us to stick to what's familiar. She likely has another hiding place somewhere in this area."

Lykos' nose leads along the alley wall, following the scent. It goes up and over a dumpster, before suddenly going upwards towards a ladder hanging down from a fire escape. He rears up on his hind legs and supports himself with his front paws on the dumpster, keeping his muzzle turned up to the sky and taking a deep whiff of the air. She for sure went up this, perhaps to the roof.

He gets Saphira's attention with a soft woof and gestures with his head upwards. The Hesperide raises a brow and moves to stand beside him, gazing up at the ladder. She casts him a questioning glance and he nods in reply.

"Seems she went up there," Saphira says to Terry. "Smart girl, breaking her trail on the ground and using a route that not many would take, but she probably wouldn't stay up there. She had to have come back down on the other side of this building in the next alley."

"Wow. You guys are really good at tracking!" Terry exclaims with awe.

"Don't praise us yet. We still need to find her first. Come on!"

Saphira leads them out of the alley and back onto the street to circle around the buildings to the other side, where they find an adjacent alley. They don't need to step into this one, as Lykos smells the trail already leading out towards them and heading down the street, going north. He tips his head at Saphira and tosses it in the direction the trail heads to show her where it goes.

"That way?" she asks. He nods.

"That goes towards Central Park," Terry says. "Lots of places she could hide there."

"Lykos, you have her scent," Saphira says. Lykos nods to her in reply. "Lead the way."

. . . . . . .

It's not long before they reach Central Park. This is much nicer than the rest of the city, with the trees and bushes everywhere, lakes and ponds… it's almost like a small bit of the wild in this city. Granted, Lykos would still prefer the real thing to this.

He pads along with his nose to the ground, following the scent of the demigod. It's getting stronger and the strength he can feel coming off the trail is increasing more and more the longer they follow it. Lykos is getting more and more convinced that this child is no ordinary demigod. No child of the Olympians, not even the Big Three, radiates this kind of aura. This is something else, and Lykos finds it to be more than a little intimidating.

As well as concerning.

With this kind of aura, he is in awe that the child hasn't been swarmed by every monster on the continent. How has she survived on her own for all this time?

"I'll never understand humans," Terry sniffs as they walk. "They destroy the wilds, build this city, but then put this tiny little piece of nature back where it used to be… and it's still not the same."

"I fear it will only continue to get worse," Saphira says, studying the earth. She narrows her eyes as she examines a bush in their path. She pulls another strand of hair from the branches, and runs her hand along several that look to have been pushed around and broken. "The juice leaking from the branches is still sticky. She's been through here, recently, no more than a few hours at most."

Lykos sniffs the bush and nods. It's fresh alright. She must be in the park at this very moment.

"I can smell her now," Terry agrees, and after taking another sniff, he adds, "I also smell monsters."

That gets Lykos attention. He was so focused on the demigod's scent that he had subconsciously blocked out all other stimuli. Now that he's aware, he realizes he also can smell the foul stench of otherworldly beasts. He inhales more deeply and closes his eyes to process the intake. Filthy and reptilian… bronze, but regular, not celestial. It could be either weapons or armor. Very few monsters actually bother with utilizing either, and very few fit the reptilian stench.

Dracaena.

Snake women. They are not like other monsters, feral and savage. No, they are more civilized, at least as far as monsters go. They don't simply hunt demigods, be it for the thrill or to eat, though they certainly wouldn't be opposed to the meal. They are warriors, bound to battle. They wouldn't be looking for a child unless… someone else is making them.

Suddenly he feels a much more urgent drive to find this girl. Something deep inside him has started flashing warning signals that the pressure to find this girl has started to increase.

"Lykos! Wait up!"

Saphira's voice brings a halt to the quickened pace he didn't even realize he had taken up. His companions are jogging to catch up to him, as he had moved almost 30 feet by the time she had called for him. His first thought is to wait for her, but there is a tugging in his chest, as something is tethered to his heart, trying to draw him towards someplace or something else.

"Eager to finish this already?" Saphira asks once she catches up.

Lykos huffs and tosses his head, adding a gruff grunt to his response. He has no idea what's going on with him, but his instincts are telling him that time is of the essence and they need to move quickly. Saphira knows him well enough to recognize when he's in a sense of urgency, and she narrows her eyes at his response.

"What is it?" she asks.

He rumbles at her and scrapes his claws over the earth. He isn't even sure what he was trying to communicate in that moment, but she nods anyway and gestures back to the trail.

"Let's move."

The trio get going again, this time at a brisk jog with Lykos leading the way. Terry is struggling to keep up with his awkward satyr gait

"What's g-going on? Why are we hurrying?" he asks, already starting to sound like he's running out of breath.

"Lykos senses something, probably bad. I don't know what it is exactly but I trust his instincts," Saphira replies curtly.

"S-something bad?" Terry stammers.

"Don't worry," Hesperide says. "You have us. I'm sure we can handle whatever it is."

Lykos inhales deeply through his nostrils just as the wind shifts, sweeping the scent over him, as if the universe itself is trying to guide him faster to his goal. His trot quickens into a lope, forcing Saphira and Terry to speed up as well. The trail leads off the path and into the woods, and he doesn't hesitate to break off and dip into them. Saphira is right beside him, effortlessly keeping in stride while the satyr is falling somewhere behind them. It's a dance they've done so many times this past year; hunting mode. They move in sync with each other, weaving through the woods like serpents through water.

The demigod's aura is not the only thing that increases in strength. Lykos can smell that disgusting reptilian stench getting stronger, thicker, and coming from the same direction as the demigod's trail. They must be after her, getting close. With the sun beginning to set soon, more monsters will start to become active and in the heart of western civilization, that is not something they want to be around here for.

Bursting through the bushes, Lykos almost runs into the shaft of a long wooden pole sticking out of the ground at a slanted angle. He skids to a halt just before he collides with it, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. A blade-tip of regular bronze is attached to the bottom, embedded in the earth. It's a javelin. A brief sniff of the weapon detects the stink of dracaena. It must have been thrown at something and missed and never retrieved, which means that the thrower was chasing something and was in too much of a hurry to get it back.

"That's a dracaena weapon," Saphira says, noting the build. "Regular bronze, not celestial. This definitely didn't belong to a demigod."

Lykos growls and begins to slink around it to move on, when he hears it.

"Aaaaie!"

The shriek of a child, young and fearful, somewhere closeby. Saphira heard it as well as they both snap their heads in the direction of the sound going north. Just as Terry stumbles out of the bushes, having finally caught up to them with rasping heaves of his breath, do they take off again, leaving the whining satyr behind. Saphira unslings her bow from her shoulder as they sprint, cutting through the woods with Lykos taking the lead.

"Sssstop hiding and get out there, you little wretch!"

The hissing voice brings them both to a halt yet again, just before a break in the woods to a small clearing. Lykos and Saphira drop low into a stalk, moving forward quietly until the trees end and they are concealed only by bushes and grass. In the little clearing just in front of them, they spot the source of the voice.

Five dracaena; serpent-women with twin snake tails making up the lower half of their bodies. They bear armor and weapons, two javelins and three sword-wielders. Despite that, they pose no threat to Lykos. Only one metal in the world can hurt him, and they don't have it.

The dracaena are crowded around a single large oak in the center of the clearing, hissing and chittering at something in the roots.

"There issss no esssscape!"

"Give up!"

"One way or another, you're coming with usssss!"

Lykos doesn't need to see what they're talking to for him to know what it is. The scent is too powerful for that.

"We can take them," Saphira whispers, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Oh, yes they definitely can.

"Holy Olympus, you guys are fast!"

Terry's exclamation rings out behind them. Saphira whips around and snatches him by the shirt to yank him down into the bushes, drawing out a yelp.

"Hey!"

"Shhh!" she scolds him. He instantly hushes up with a worried look.

"What is it?" he squeaks. She directs his focus to the center of the clearing, and he gasps. Thankfully the snake-women didn't hear them.

"Dracaena! Well, at least it isn't a cyclops or something. Is that the kid with them?"

Lykos growls and nods his head. He's itching to tear through them and get the girl out of their reaches. Saphira must sense his anxiousness, because she squeezes his scruff.

"Take them down, Lykos. I'll grab the girl," she hisses. He doesn't need to be told twice.

The energy in his muscles explodes, propelling him forward. His burst from the bushes is unheard as he doesn't release his savage voice until the moment he's in range to strike. All the first dracaena can manage to do is catch a glimpse of him, just before his jaws close around her throat with a crunch. Her comrades gasp and shriek while she hisses, her serpent-half wriggling and thrashing about while she tries to feebly claw at his muzzle. Her struggle and their surprise lasts only seconds before he drops her body as it explodes into dust. Her foul blood stains his fangs, but he's not concerned with the taste at the moment.

"What are you doing?!" the biggest dracaena, who must be the leader, demands. She points her javelin at him. "We are on the sssssame ssssside, you dog!"

Same side? Since when? Lykos has little time to ponder the question before she thrusts the javelin at him, and the blade makes contact with his head-

-only for the tip to break and snap clean of the shaft.

Stupid serpents. They'll need silver if they want to kill him… unless they fancy trying to match him in a fight with teeth and claws.

"Hadesssss!" one of them curses, drawing her sword as if it would do any better.

"Ceasssse thissss! We have to take her to the lord!" a third insists. Why are they telling him this like it makes a difference?

"No, sistersssss! He isss not one of Lycaon. Hisss eyessss!" the first cries out. The others gasp when she makes this statement.

"The yellow-eyed Wolf!"

"The one who wouldn't stop killing!"

Now, Lykos is confused. How do they know him… and killing? Oh… it's clicking together now. He knows what they're talking about, and the memory rips through his mind like a silver dagger for a split second, and it's agonizing.

"Kill him! We can't lose the child!"

That snaps him out of it. In the next moment, he sees Saphira right behind them, crouching to reach to the roots of the tree where he suspects the girl must be hiding. He can't fail them.

One of the dracaena lunges at him, swinging her sword with a battle shriek. Pointless as it wouldn't have hurt him anyway, but he catches the blade between his teeth. Snarling and staring the dracaena in the eye as she struggles to free her weapon, he clenches the muscles of his jaw. The blade shatters as if it were a twig, startling the dracaena that she wriggles back into her sisters, nearly toppling all of them. Lykos springs at them, going straight for the now-defenseless dracaena with his paws slamming into her chest. She gasps, the force having knocked the air out of her when she crashes to the ground with him over her. Lykos bears down on her head with his jaws and thrashes, hearing a loud pop go off in her neck.

Leaving her to her death twitches, he whirls on the remaining three.

"Kill him!" one screams, and two of them launch themselves at him.

While their weapons cannot pierce him, he can still feel the blunt force. It doesn't hurt much, but it's irritating enough to anger him even more. Lykos powers through their blows, pouncing on one of them and taking her to the ground, but she stops his jaws from reaching her with her javelin.

"Get him off, get him off!" she squeals for help, but there is nothing her sisters can do. There is nothing she can do against his claws, even if his teeth cannot reach her, and he rakes them into her body, shredding through her bronze breastplate like paper, and her reptilian scales do nothing to protect her body either. She screams, instinctively breaking her javelin from his jaws in her efforts to fight back against his claws. His fangs close over her throat and he rips back to quickly switch targets.

One of them is fumbling for something while the other charges him with her sword. Lykos rears up to meet her and to her credit, she does not fall back, though she does nothing to harm him despite her flailing sword falling upon his pelt. The dracaena tries to shield herself with her arm, though she only deters him for a moment as his teeth crunch right through, severing it at the elbow. The dracaena screams in agony, and just as Lykos is about to close in for the kill, his attention is caught by the blare of a horn. He snaps his head towards the last dracaena, who has pulled a horn from her belt and is blowing into it with the nozzle tipped to the sky. She's calling for reinforcements!

Her call doesn't last very long.

Sssphht!

A flash of a silver projectile, and suddenly the shaft of an arrow is protruding from the back of the dracaena's skull. Her eyes go wide, with black blood dripping from her nose, before her orbs roll back into her head and she collapses into a pile of dust... Saphira.

"Noooo!" the final surviving dracaena wails as she clutches her stump of a left arm. She continues to wail, but not for long as Lykos quickly silences her with a slash of his fangs to her throat.

The five snake women are now gone, reduced to dust piles that are swept away by the wind. Lykos looks around for Saphira and spots her with her bow discarded on the ground beside her. She didn't waste much time after taking her shot in getting back to the task at hand. She's kneeling beside the oak, peering into what must be some sort of den within the roots. Lykos heads over to join her, bumping her shoulder with his nose. Saphira gives him a brief nod before returning her attention to the den.

"It's okay, little one. The monsters are gone. You can come out now," she says, her voice soft and coaxing.

"Go away!"

A little girl's fearful and angry voice shouts at her, though it sounds more like a squeak than a shout. Lykos anxiously takes a look around. That dracaena's horn was definitely a call for help. What else might be nearby to have heard it? With his ears kept on a swivel, he moves in to peer into the oak's roots as Terry finally joins them.

"Is she in there?" the satyr asks, but Saphira only waves him off.

"We won't hurt you, I promise," she coos. "We're here to help."

Lykos gently nudges her to make room for him to see, and when he finally lays eyes on the child, he is in awe.

She is a little girl, no older than nine years. Her complexion is a flawless cream, somehow still not ruined by the dirt and grime of living on the streets. Her hair is white, but now white like ice or snow, more like the white one would see of the light of a star. Speaking of stars…

Her eyes, at first, seemed a vibrant shade of violet. But a closer look shows that they are actually multiple swirling shades of purple, with tiny flecks of white surrounding her pupils which look like tiny burning supernovas. It's like her eyes are the cosmos itself.

When her gaze locks with his, he can feel something pass between them, some kind of… link, a tether.

Protect her.

That wasn't his own inner voice telling him that. That was not his instinct talking to him. That was… something else, something from outside speaking into his head. It was a woman's voice, deep but soft, powerful but soothing, and he felt every need to comply with the command. That he knows, but what he doesn't know, is what and why? What was that? Why does he feel the need to obey? Despite these questions, he has no intention of not following that command. Whatever it was, he cannot or will not fight it.

The little girl continues to hold his gaze, looking as if someone or something might be speaking to her in her own head right now, or maybe she's just contemplating her options. Even for a child so young, her eyes show great intelligence, wisdom even, yet somehow still displaying the innocence of a young girl. Then, slowly, she begins to inch her way out of her hiding place, squeezing out of the oak's roots to sit on her knees in front of them. Her hand trembles as it lifts and for a moment, Lykos isn't sure what to expect from the movement, but he makes no move to stop it, even as it reaches towards his face. With his ears pinning back, he leans forward and allows her small hand to rest on his muzzle, staring into the girl's eyes. It's almost like looking into a vortex. He's being pulled, tugged, captivated by its force.

Then, the girl's eyes flick to Saphira, and it seems like she too is being captured by the same spell, but neither she nor Lykos are so much as attempting to break free. This feeling… the closest thing that Lykos can describe it as, is fate itself.

"You are not monsters?" the little girl asks after what feels like forever.

"N-no," Saphira replies with a stammer, sounding entranced. She clears her throat and shakes her head as she regains her focus. "We're not monsters. We're here to help you."

"Monsters are always chasing me," the girl sniffles. "Snake monsters, big ugly monsters… some of them look like him."

She points at Terry, who looks surprised and offended.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demands.

Saphira chuckles. "Well, you satyrs were trying to find her and she kept evading you. She must have thought all you satyrs were like the other monsters hunting her."

Terry sniffs and crosses his arms. "We are not monsters at all, thank you very much."

"Do you have a name?" the Hesperide asks, returning her attention to the girl.

"I- I don't remember. I don't remember anything," the child replies. She frowns, looking genuinely confused, as does Saphira. Lykos tilts his head at the reply. He can relate to memory loss… he wonders if she is perhaps repressing something like he once did.

"You don't remember anything? Your parents, your home, anything?" Saphira presses on.

"Nothing. I just woke up by myself in the park. I don't know where my parents are. I don't know who they are. I don't know anything," the girl says with her voice cracking a little with emotion. She must be so frightened still, and who could blame her? Lykos had felt awful for not being able to remember his own birth name, or where he was from, before his memory was jogged, and he still has gaps here and there.

"Alright. What if for now, we just call you... Masie?" Saphira suggests, sounding unsure of the name. The little girl looks just as unsure, but she nods her head anyway, making the Hesperide smile. "Great. So, listen, Masie. We're all here to help you. We can take you to a very safe place, where no monsters will ever get you. There's other kids like you, so you can make friends too. Is that something you would like?"

"Like me?" Masie repeats.

"Like you," Saphira confirms.

"And no monsters?"

"No monsters. Just a really nice dragon who would protect you like he protects all the other kids."

Masie's gaze falls to the grass, seeming to ponder over this. Meanwhile, Lykos is still trying to figure out what it is about her that has him so intrigued. Saphira must have felt it too, when she looked into her eyes. She had to have felt something, from the way she froze.

"I think I want to go," Masie finally announces. Lykos sighs in relief. It would have been more difficult trying to drag around an unwilling child to get her to the camp… especially when they have no idea what she's capable of. Her eyes radiated not just intelligence, but power, as did her aura. This is no normal demigod. She is something else, something special.

"Great! Just follow us and we'll take a ride there. It'll only be a couple hours," Saphira says as she stands up while helping Masie to her feet.

Terry seems to be in awe. "I can't believe it. Weeks of trying to find this girl ourselves and you found her in a matter of hours!"

"We aren't called Hunters for nothing," Saphira replies. She takes Masie's small hand into her own. "Are you ready to-"

"Garhoooo!"

The sound interrupts her abruptly, echoing throughout the park. It makes Lykos' mane begin to stand on end, and he cannot suppress the low growl in his throat. It's not the melodic, eerie call of his kin, not that it makes him feel any better, but the hoarse baying of something that can be just as bad, if not worse.

"Hellhounds," Saphira growls. She and Lykos glance about, scanning the park for any sign of the mongrels. He sniffs the air, looking to pinpoint where those mangy Underworld dogs could be coming from, and gets a whiff blowing in from the north. He grunts at Saphira and gestures in that direction with his head, and she nods in reply. "According to Lykos, they're approaching north. We need to get back to the van, right now."

"Oh gods. Why'd it have to be hellhounds?" Terry whines, his voice trembling already with fear.

The gang saddles up and begins to move at a brisk pace with Masie in tow. Saphira has yet to release her hand, keeping her close with her free hand on her bow. Lykos asserts himself to the open flank on Masie's side. No point in risking something snatching her from an exposed side. Terry, meanwhile, brings up the rear, though he stays really close to them. Something tells Lykos his position and proximity are not because he wants to help cover their backs.

He's uneasy. Wolves are one thing. His brethren are savage and ruthless, but they are still at their core, 'human.' They have sentience, they can talk, think, hell, even transform to their human selves at will. Hellhounds however, are different. They're dogs. Vicious, mindless dogs with no true voice of their own. Wild or enslaved, they don't think much for themselves beyond running down their prey and eating it, usually while it's still alive. The small ones, Lykos could handle. He has been in fights with hellhounds in the past… but unlike Wolves, the mongrels can grow to monstrous sizes, much bigger than even Lycaon.

If one or more of those gigantic hellhounds are after them, they could be in serious trouble.

Lykos isn't much of a prayer. What kind of… well, monster -he hates referring to himself as such, but what else can he do- ever prays? Yet, now he finds himself doing just that, praying that they can make it back to camp safely. He mostly prays to Artemis, the one goddess who he feels most connected to now that he is her Guardian of the Hunt. Would she even be able to hear his prayer, with his being a Wolf? He does not know, but he prays to her anyway.

Please, let them make it.