knock knock

Mari woke to a quiet banging under her window. At first she thought it was because the sun was rising, but that idea lasted about a second before she opened her eyes and saw that cabin seven was still very dark. She nearly catapulted off her bed, like a star gymnast with a grudge against anything scaly before she realised she didn't hear any hissing, and if the snakes were about then they would already be trying to hurt her. She looked around cabin seven and frowned. None of her siblings snored (apart from Sean, but he still hadn't lost a tooth and he was adorable, so that was forgivable), so that couldn't be why she was awake. She was usually too sleep deprived to randomly wake up in the night either.

knock knock

She jumped and pulled the blanket around her when the knocking happened again. How were none of her siblings disturbed by this? Maybe she was the only light sleeper in the Apollo cabin.

Her window was open, which she thought was strange - she always closed the windows to make sure the snakes couldn't get in. It didn't stop them, but the habit stuck to the point where it became a pre-sleep ritual.

Mari slipped out of her bed and peeped out, trying to see if the sound was coming from any obvious source. She hoped she didn't squish any of the flowers on the window sill.

She guessed it was the middle of the night, because although there were occasional movements and flashes of dim light from the woods (she did not want to know), she could barely make out anything.

Maybe it was a squirrel that buried some nuts or something under the cabin, going to add more for hibernation. She'd had a foster father who was really into hibernation patterns in animals. In the six months she'd lived with him as a kid, she'd learned way more that she'd ever put into practical use about squirrels.

She looked back at the woods again, and frowned. Demigods to monsters probably tasted like takeaway food, and she knew they left mortals alone, but if they were hungry she didn't know how they'd feel about killing the squirrel. Maybe she could find it and keep it in the cabin to release in the morning. Nodding to herself, she headed towards the door, but stopped when her heart started pounding her her chest and she started to sweat.

No.

She couldn't leave the cabin. She didn't know why, but she couldn't. Not if she wanted to still be in the cabin the next morning. She could just go back to sleep and ignore the squirrel.

She retreated back to her bed and sighed, tucking her feet under the blanket. Nothing happened for a few minutes, but her heart was still having its own little disco party inside of her, and must have found something alcoholic because it was beating so fast that it was becoming painful.

knock knock

Mari put one of her two yellow pillows over her head and turned away from the still-open window. Why did she leave it open?

The knocking continued every few minutes. Mari held her breath and counted the seconds between each knock, kind of like people did to tell how far away lightening was.

chirp chirp

"Ugh." Mari took a deep breath and closed the window. How were these noises not waking up any of her siblings? She turned towards the bed next to her to wake up Lee but caught sight of something on her bedside table. Drys, in bracelet form.

Oak had loved nature.

Well, she didn't know that for sure, seeing as she spent less than twenty-four hours with him. But he was a Satyr, and a Satyr who didn't search for Pan. So it was almost certain that one of his more important jobs was to protect nature. And here she was, letting some kind of small animal potentially die because she had a bad feeling.

Mari forced herself to get out of bed, slipped Drys onto her wrist just in case, and looked back at her siblings. She couldn't see her siblings very well in the dark, but she could make out Sean, kicking his legs as he slept, and someone rolled over in bed. She opened the door and stepped out of her cabin and into the night.

She couldn't get over the thought that it might be the last time she ever smelt the faint sage scent for a while. A long while.

Camp was lit up by cabin eight, which was casting a silver glow over the rest of the cabins. The brazier in the middle was put out, and the ground smelled like caramel. She didn't need to wrap up in any of her new, warm clothes, since the magical barriers kept the camp warm, even at night. Then again, she was in America. Maybe it was always warm in America. She didn't notice that the door to cabin eleven was slightly open, jut a crack.

Mari crept around cabin seven. She could just grab whatever furry animal it was, dart back into her cabin, and wrap it in a shirt or something to keep it warm. Okay, maybe not a shirt. Those were new, to her at least, and she didn't want the animal to poop on one. Maybe she could see if there were any extra blankets...

"Ow!"

Something sharp stabbed her foot. At first she thought it was a snake, which caused her to fall back into the yellow flowers growing around the side of the cabin, but then she caught a flash of metal in the moonlight.

She tried to stand up again, and stumbled over herself. Her foot felt wet, and she looked down and nearly threw up.

Whatever the thing was, it had impaled her foot.

She heard the same chirping rodent sound again, coming from the same place she'd stabbed her foot. Or, what should have been the chirping rodent sound. It was kind of like the chirp came from underwater now, but it cut off halfway, and ended in static. Then there was nothing.

When Mari opened her eyes she screamed her lungs off. She was flying. She was bloody flying. Or someone else was, and their arms were around her. If they let go, she would fall.

"Sh! I'm sorry, you're fine!" She recognised the voice. It was Luke Castellan.

"What-what the fuck-" Mari couldn't finish her sentence as a gust of wind flew at her face, cutting off her words. Not that she had anything relevant to say. She'd been right. Or, her instincts had been right. Luke was doing... she didn't know what Luke was doing. What was even happening?

"What the fuck is going on?!" she screeched. They stopped in midair, and Mari looked around. She could see the lights of New York at night, and in any other situation it might have been something she would absolutely paint in her free time, but she didn't have enough time to think about future art projects when she was being dangled at what had to be a hundred metres above the long island sound, and the only thing keeping Mari from becoming fish food was a creepy son of Hermes and a pair of winged sneakers.

"Hey! It's fine, you're fine, just... let me explain. Please." Luke begged, and Mari noticed for the first time that there was fear in his voice.

"I don't want to hurt you, I swear-" He was cut off when Mari tried to headbutt him, but he just tightened his grip. "Hey! If I drop you, I cannot catch you in time. I really don't want that to happen," he said.

Mari looked down at the churning ocean below them and her heart dropped. She really hoped her father hadn't done anything to piss off Poseidon recently. "Then take me back!" she pleaded, her feet dangling into the air. She groaned as the wind brushed against her injured foot, causing her entire leg to twitch and spikes of pain to shoot up her nerves.

Luke ignored her plea, instead continuing to offer up his version of an excuse for kidnapping her and nearly killing them both by drowning. "Look, you're going to be fine. I'm taking you somewhere safe, where you'll be really well cared for. He promised me."

"Who promised you?!" Mari asked.

"My master. I'm sorry, but that's a need to know basis. And right now you don't need to know."

"What did you do, Luke?" she asked. That was the first time she'd said his name in the entire conversation, but she didn't like saying his name. It felt like she was humanising him. She didn't want to think of the person kidnapping her and flying her across the ocean as a human.

"I-I waited outside of your cabin and set a modified monster trap outside the window-"

"A what? I am not a monster, you're a bloody monster!" Mari interrupted. Luke continued as if she hadn't spoken.

"They were made by the Hephaestus cabin. We use them to lure monsters out of the woods for practice, usually at night. They're keyed to specific monsters using DNA so that not all of them come running. Only the monster it's keyed to can hear it, but it can be keyed to demigods, too. This is just the first time that's ever been done. I snuck into the camp waste basket and stole your old jacket. I got some of the blood, on your collar."

Mari gagged. She thought the clothes were destroyed... and how did he know it wouldn't be Oak's blood? Maybe it was a mixture of both... it's not like it would have ever worked on Oak anymore.

"WHY AM I HERE?!" Mari yelled, her voice carrying over the wind.

"Because. My master told me about your... abilities. You already don't trust me, and I can't let you ruin what he's helping me with by blabbing to that old horse." Luke said. Mari didn't know whether he was just calling Chiron an old horse out of spite, or because he didn't want to attract his attention by saying his name. But it gave her an idea.

"CHIRON!" she screeched.

"That is not going to work. Chiron is not a God or a monster." Luke told her. She didn't need to be able to see Luke's face to know that he was probably shaking his head in annoyance. Mari didn't give up.

"APOLLO!" she yelled, kicking her feet. It made her bad foot feel like it was being permanently stabbed, but she kept struggling. If the options were being dropped into somewhere where she was probably going to die slowly, or being dropped into the ocean, she wasn't entirely adverse to being dropped into the ocean.

She didn't know what she expected. Her father to come running to save her? He never had before. She started to be jostled up and down, and it took a second for her to realise that Luke was laughing. It wasn't the kind of laugh someone gave from a really funny joke, or a happy laugh. It sounded empty.

"Don't bother. It won't happen. Look at everything you've been through. Growing up in foster care, being attacked by a Dracaena, Oak Glader dying, right in front of you, all for nothing!"

Mari shook her head back and fourth. She could imagine Luke's face going red as he spoke.

"They don't care, Marion. They. Do. Not. Care."

Mari started to cry, and Luke stopped laughing.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I really am sorry. But I am not the bad guy here, they are. You're going to be fine. I'm taking you somewhere safe, where you can't interfere, and where you can be retrieved when my master needs your assistance."

"Like I'm going to help you!" Mari hissed. Luke started flying again, more slowly this time. "Oh, give it a couple years. See how you feel then. Nobody will come to save you. Not your father, not Chiron, nobody. They can't be bothered. You'll see that in time," Luke said darkly.

"If it's such a safe place, why would I need saving?!" Mari retorted. Luke ignored her. "Answer me!" she hissed, twisting around.

"For god's sakes Marion, do you want to drown? Look down," he told her.

Mari gulped and reluctantly did as she was told. Her blood went cold.

Directly below them, at the bottom of the ocean, was a huge, swirling whirlpool. It was surrounded by broken wood and debris. She didn't know how she could see so well, but she could still make out a few barrels swirling in the current.

"What is that?" she asked fearfully.

"That's Charybdis." Luke answered.

Somebody had mentioned Charybdis before. She didn't remember from where, but she'd heard someone talk about Charybdis at camp. Charybdis was a monster, who ate the ocean... or she was the ocean... Mari didn't remember entirely but the little she could recall did not sound good.

Her injured leg looked paper white in the moonlight. It was dripping blood down her foot and into the ocean. She wondered if Charybdis would end up tasting her blood, and shuddered.

"If you keep struggling, I can't hold on to you. Please, I don't want anyone to die. Nobody has to die for this," Luke begged her. Mari went limp, and whimpered when they started flying again, faster this time. She wondered if her siblings were all still asleep. Probably. The moon was still high in the sky, and unless someone needed the bathroom nobody would notice she was missing until someone, probably Sammy, woke up.

"What's your plan? Leave me and pretend you had nothing to do with it?!" Mari asked. Luke didn't respond, which was enough for Mari to figure out that this was exactly his plan.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked in a small voice.

Luke actually answered her this time. "Somewhere safe. My master has a deal with the Sorceress in charge, she'll train you and look after you. You could be very helpful to us in the future, Marion. I promise you'll understand. You'll be safe and happy until then. We're almost there. Look at the horizon."

She looked out at the skyline and saw a small tropical island in the middle of the ocean. There was a white marble building breaking through the landscape, but that was all she could make out from a distance.

"Where is that?" Mari asked.

"It's called Aeaea." Luke told her.

As the island got closer, Mari could make out docks off to one side, and palm trees swaying in the wind. Luke stopped when they rested over the island, and Mari realised that this was her last chance to convince Luke to suddenly grow a moral compass and take her back to camp.

"Luke. Listen to me. If you take me back to camp, I promise I won't tell anyone. I'll pretend none of this ever happened, and you can just, do whatever it is you were doing before, I-"

Luke shook her to shut her up and she screeched.

"I'm sorry, Marion. But I can't. It's too important. I can't let them have your instincts as an advantage, it could ruin the entire plan." He told her, and she looked up and finally saw his face. It didn't look aggressive, or cold like she'd imagined.

Luke Castellan was crying. He saw her looking and turned away, towards the sky. "Do- did you take Pegasi flying classes at camp? Do you know how to fall from a height?" Luke asked her, and Mari's heart nearly stopped.

"No, Luke, no! I didn't! I don't know how to not die, please don't drop me! Please!" she begged.

"I can't fly you down, I'm sorry. The sorceress doesn't like boys, she only agreed to let me bring you as part of the deal so that she can train you. Just plant your feet evenly apart and you'll be fine. She can heal you of any injuries." Luke sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself.

He dropped her.

Mari screamed and managed to grab his leg, the wings on his shoes tickling her fingers. She was ticklish, but her self preservation won out and she grabbed that foot with her other hand.

"Luke, please don't do this!" she begged.

Luke still refused to look at her. He started to shake his leg, trying to dislodge her, and Mari shrieked.

"No! Please!" she begged.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry..." he was looking in her direction again, but his eyes were closed. Anger filled her. He was perfectly okay with dumping her on whatever torture murder island this was, but he couldn't look at what he was doing. She wanted to yell at him, Coward!, but that probably wasn't the best strategy to employ if she wanted him to let her go back to camp. Gods, why did she not just listen to her instincts earlier and not go after the squirrel alone? She could be asleep in cabin seven now, none the wiser, and Luke could-

Luke would have tried again, until it worked. She would have always ended up in this situation. For all she knew, this wasn't the first time he'd even tried.

"I really am sorry! You'll be okay, I promise!" Luke told her, and then kicked her hands with his other foot.

She screamed as she fell through the sky, completely forgetting whatever Luke had told her about keeping her feet together, and caught a glimpse of Luke.

He wasn't flying away. He was starting at her as she fell, with wide eyes. His mouth was hanging open, as if he was shocked that dropping her caused her to fall. Somewhere in the back of Mari's whirring brain, she wondered if Luke had lived in the mortal world long enough to pass a class in physics. Wasn't it one of Newton's laws? He definitely had a lot of laws. Like, at least three laws. Maybe Newton was a child of Athena.

Her back hit the ground and the air rushed out of her lungs as she gasped. She was aware that she was losing consciousness, but she couldn't move. Her muscles felt stiff like clay, and she wondered if she was going into shock. She was looking up, and noticed that Luke had started to fly away now, his winged trainers flapping violently as he went. He wasn't looking at the island.

Then her eyes closed, and she fell unconscious. Again. Ugh.

Mason Ray woke up to panic.

Sammy was running around like a headless chicken, Lee was trying to stop Sean from crying and Amber and Viti were whispering in the corner of the cabin with worried looks on their faces.

"Oh, welcome to the land of the living! Have you seen Mari?!" was the first thing Sammy asked when Mason sat up. He shook his head in confusion, and their face fell in worry.

"What the Hades is going on?" he asked, kicking his legs out of the bed.

"It's Mari. She's gone." Michael told him, from where he was tapping an arrow on his beside table repeatedly in worry.

"What? Why?" Mason asked. It was usual for children from the Hermes cabin to go missing in the night, and he'd spent countless hours comforting Luke when his friends or people he suspected of being his siblings disappeared. He didn't like it, but it was a fact. But a child who was already claimed going missing? That only happened occasionally during capture the flag, or when they ran away to die on their own terms after being given an impossible quest.

"I woke up and thought she might be in the shower, so I thought I'd wait. I was planning on asking if she wanted help with her light before breakfast, but then she didn't come back for nearly an hour. Then I noticed that her bracelet was gone, and you don't shower with your weapons, so I looked for her. And I found blood on the flowers outside." Sammy told him, running a hand over their face.

Panic filled Mason. This could not be happening. Not again. He couldn't lose another... No.

"I'm looking for her. I'll find her, then we'll yell at her for making us worry," he promised Sammy. They shot up, but he was already out the door. "Mason, maybe you should-"

He took a step outside and saw the flowers. Then he gasped and fell to his knees.

The yellow flowers from his father's birth weren't yellow anymore. Half of them were covered in red blood.

It couldn't be anybody else but Mari. There was nobody else it could be. Selfishly, he wished that a kid from another cabin turned up missing too, just so that Mari could still have a chance. Even if it was a small chance.

But deep down, he knew there could never be one. One week. Less than a fucking week. Kids were surviving for less than a fucking week at camp now. Marion Carter was dead before anyone ever got to know her. He hoped she was in Elysium, but that was unlikely. She was probably killed by a monster, but she was so small... it looked like a massacre, and there was no possible way she could have gone out fighting. He imagined her in the fields of Asphodel, floating around some field with a barren expression on her face. For all eternity. He wanted to hit something.

"Mason? What's going on? Why are you crying?!"

Mason looked up at the voice of his friend. Luke was walking towards him, his face pale. He was shaking and he looked like he was sick. Mason didn't say anything. The blood spoke for itself.

Mason put his hand to his cheek, and wiped way a tear. He hadn't even realised that he was crying. Luke put his hand on Mason's shoulder.

"Who was it?" Luke's voice was hollow, and there was something off about it but Mason's mind was to busy to process things. "Marion." he said.

"M-Marion? Who is Marion?" Luke asked. Mason saw red. She was dead and Luke had the nerve to ask who she was. His head snapped up. "My sister! The one who we won capture the flag with, idiot!" he hissed. Luke, who usually had very good control of his emotions, looked like he was about to burst into tears, and Mason was filled with remorse.

"I'm sorry. It's not your fault, I just..." he choked up a sob. Luke wrapped his arms around him, and they both sat in front of the yellow flowers. Mason put his head in his hands and sobbed. "It's- she reminded me of Frankie," he whispered.

Mari woke up, opened her eyes and was tempted to close them again and pretend that whatever was happening was not, in fact, happening.

She was lying on something soft, with a pillow propping up her neck.

"Oh, you're awake! Fantastic," a voice said from somewhere on her left.

She groaned and moved her head to the side to follow the sound. Sitting on the couch opposite to the one she was lying on was a beautiful women in a dark, Ancient Greek dress. Her hair was braided with threads of gold.

The room had one wall made entirely of windows, looking out over the open ocean, and Greek columns in all four corners. There was a loom in one corner of the room, and pressed against the wall, facing away from the window on a low table was a green rodent cage. At least, she thought it was a rodent cage. There was a multitude of little squeaks coming from inside, and she wondered if you could sue Ancient Greek immortal beings for animal abuse.

"How do you feel?" the woman asked.

"Like shit. Where the fuck am I?" Mari asked. Physically, she felt fine. Her leg was somehow healed, and if Luke had caused any kind of wound she hadn't felt when knocking her out, that was gone too. She felt better rested than she had in the past three months, like her head had been dipped in Tylenol.

But that was only physically. Her instincts were all over the place. Her heart was attending its private disco again, and she was pretty sure that if she looked in a mirror (of which there were many in the room), her pupils would be dilated, like she was on drugs.

"My dear, we do not use such foul language in my sanctuary. Now, we have much to do!" The woman clapped her hands together like a small child in a toy store.

"Then you do it. I'm leaving." Mari crossed her arms, trying to look strong and competent, and began to march towards the door. She had to get back to camp, to warn them about... whatever Luke was trying to pull. And she maybe, slightly wanted to find a big stick on the way back if she could, and hit Luke in the face with it. The woman raised her arms, and the door slammed closed before Mari got within three metres of it.

"I think you are mistaken, Marion Carter," the woman said.

Mari froze. How the bloody fuck did this creepy woman in a dress that Drew would kill her for know her name?

"I think proper introductions are in order. Luke Castellan"- the woman's face contorted in disgust when she said Luke's name, which was the only sentiment Mari could agree on - "told me all about you, my dear. Your talents could really do you well, with proper instruction, you know." Mari bristled. The woman laughed, and put her hand over her heart. "Oh, by the gods! I've been so rude. Bestowing you with such information, whilst not even telling you my name. But I must ask, have you worked out who I am yet?" The woman's eyes glistened with a scary kind of mirth, like she was watching a mouse dance into a trap.

Mari glared at her. "I don't have a bloody clue who you are, but I don't care. Let. Me. Go." The woman ignored the last part, clicking her tongue in disappointment. "Well, I expected more from you. But I suppose it's understandable, you've suffered a nasty fall." She spoke as if she wasn't part of whatever deal stranded Mari here in the first place.

"My name is Circe, the immortal sorceress and a goddess of magic. Now, come. We have much to discuss."

I'm so hyped to get into my own plot stuff now! I have plans. Many very great and angsty plans. Happy reading! :