There is no way that rug is real leopard fur.
Then again, if it is, a purple leopard probably wouldn't be the strangest thing Juliette will see in her life. Especially considering she's known to turn into a big monster on occasion.
Juliette glares down at the (probably?)faux-fur rug in the den of the Big House, her irritation rising with the volume of the shouts booming through the wall at her back. What's the point of going to another room if you're just going to yell? It's not like she doesn't know what they're talking about anyway.
The thought makes her slump inward self-consciously. She's felt tensions rising in her cabin ever since she first got here. The longer she stays there, the more the building itself seems to reject her - doors slamming, bunk beds tipping, clothing shrinking inside wardrobes without explanation (that one got her a week of silent treatment from all of her siblings). Silena tries to help. She says it isn't Juliette's fault, but even she probably can't help clean up this last mess.
It had been a regular morning. Cabin 10's inhabitants were all returning from breakfast to get ready for the day's activities. Drew had just gotten back from the showers and was taking up all of the space in the western mirror as she blow dried her hair. Juliette was lagging behind the other younger kids, as usual, so when she entered, she entered alone - leaving no doubt that the spark which leapt from the hair dryer and set Drew's bunk alight had been caused by her arrival. The fire had been put out no problem, but Drew's temper had not. She had snatched Juliette by the arm and dragged her to the Big House immediately, Silena chasing just behind in an attempt to deescalate somehow. Percy had apparently caught wind of the situation because he'd stormed in almost immediately after, and Chiron had sent Juliette out of the room so the situation could be discussed.
So, here she is now...trying to channel all of her frustration into that stupid purple rug. Is there a god of bad interior design? If so, he and Mr. D must get along great.
It's then that the door to the office slams open, making Julie jump. Percy sweeps out of the room, stopping a few steps from the door and pausing to scan the area for her. Drew follows right after, a smug smirk etched cruelly across her face. She does not pause, roughly shoulder-checking Percy on her way past and sweeping out of the Big House without a glance in her younger sister's direction. Silena exits next, turning towards Juliette and waving Percy over to follow as she approaches and crouches in front of Julie's chair.
"Hey, dove. Drew told us what happened," Silena's voice is gentle, but nerves are swimming in her dark eyes. "Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
Juliette shifts uncomfortably. She can't bring herself to meet her older sister's gaze, so instead she watches Percy's hands clench and unclench angrily by his sides. "I didn't mean to do anything..." She whispers.
Silena's sigh sounds tired. "I know, Julie." Shifting closer, Silena takes Juliette's hands in hers. There's a long pause as she considers her words. "Listen. We've been talking to Chiron..."
Like I couldn't hear you shouting at him.
"...and he's worried that maybe you just don't quite fit in at Cabin 10. And that's okay!" The fake cheer in her sister's voice makes Juliette want to cry. "He's thinking that he can find you a room in here! And that way you can make the space all your own, too. It'll be..." Safer? Better for us? Lonely? "Fun! I'll take you out of camp, and we can find you some nice decorations."
"This is ridiculous."
"Percy, stop."
"How is this her fault? Why should she be punished?!"
"She isn't being punished."
"Oh, bullshi-"
"Percy." Silena turns around sharply, glaring at him. "I know this isn't fair. But, if Mom doesn't want her in the cabin, there is nothing any of us can do about that. Now, can you stop making this harder than it needs to be? Read the room, please. You're making her feel worse."
She isn't wrong. Juliette's eyes are stinging more with every word, but she appreciates the intention. Ever since he, Grover, and Annabeth had brought her here from Florida in June, Percy's stayed close by in case she needs anything. It's nice most of the time. He's good at redirecting attention whenever she does something particularly "reject of the Gods"-like in front of people, and he's seemed to make it his mission to ensure she feels welcomed in camp.
It isn't going well, but it's about the journey, she supposes.
"Do I have to?" Juliette feels instantly guilty after the words escape her. Silena's face drops and she bites her lip, clearly trying to keep her emotions in check.
"Yeah, dove. You do. I'm sorry."
Julie huffs, kicking her pink converse sharply at the floor. Her feet don't quite reach. "Why is she so mad at me all the time?"
The question is rhetorical mostly. She knows why. The whole camp had been present when Silena explained the meaning of Juliette's existence to Chiron (not one of her sister's most elegant moments), so really everyone knows.
"Can I still sit with you during campfires?" She asks timidly.
Silena squeezes her hands and nods emphatically. "And all of our meals. I'm not going anywhere, Julie." She leans in to embrace the younger demigod, running her fingers through Juliette's strawberry blonde hair. When they part, Silena's eyeliner is a bit smudged by her waterline. "I've got to go make sure the rest of the kids are at activities, okay? You take as much time as you need. Join us when you're ready." With a gentle kiss to Julie's forehead, Silena lifts gracefully to her feet and glides out the door towards the canoe lake.
Juliette shifts her eyes to Percy, who's still gritting his teeth angrily, a hand clenched around Riptide in his pocket. She feels bad. She doesn't like making him upset. He and Silena are really all she has. She looks back down at her lap and pulls absently at a string that's unraveling from her sparkly overalls.
"Do you...want to come do some climbing with me?" Percy asks.
Julie smiles a little. She's terrible at most camp activities - sword lessons are the worst of them - but, the climbing wall is a talent of hers. Probably from so many years climbing trees while living with the dryads. The thought sends a pang of homesickness through her chest. The mountain settlement where she was raised is hundreds of miles away now. Annabeth had been able to narrow the area Luke had taken Julie from to a section of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, but both she and Percy insisted that Julie return all the way to Camp Halfblood after they found her on the Princess Andromeda. Something about staying safe from monsters.
"Is Annabeth coming?" Julie quips, a little smirk growing.
Percy glares at her. "Why? You like her better or something?" When Juliette smirks wider, he pushes her arm playfully. "Shut up, you brat. No, she's not. She's...busy. With Thalia. They haven't seen each other in a while and...need some time to catch up."
He sounds more like he's trying to comfort himself now than Julie, so she pinches him. He yelps. "What was that for?"
"I'm supposed to be the one who gets to be sad right now. Stop being whiney."
"Whiney? I'll show you whiney!" With a deep scowl, Percy snatches the eleven year old around the middle, tossing her over his shoulder as she shrieks in protest. "Who's a whiner now?" He taunts as she struggles, ignoring her giggling complaints as he hauls her out of the Big House and towards the climbing wall.
From the doorway of the office, Chiron watches them go fondly. Dionysus clears his throat impatiently from where he's lounging at the desk, cards set up for pinochle. "She gonna be annoying to keep here?"
Chiron frowns at the god. "Juliette is a polite child. Besides, there is more than enough room upstairs."
Mr. D rolls his eyes. "No, I mean here. At camp. Because Ms. RomCom has been up my butt about kicking her out for weeks now. Why'd she even make the little brat if she's just gonna make her my problem?"
"Juliette had no control over the circumstances of her birth. She should not bear consequences for it now. We will keep her here where she is safe."
Dionysus slaps a card down on the table, looking over at Chiron expectantly. "Whatever. Heartbreak kids are always more trouble than they're worth, though. Mark my words, that kid's gonna cause chaos wherever she goes. It's in her nature."
Chiron looks back at the doorway the two demigods had just disappeared through. He's glad that they have connected. If anyone can understand the weight that little girl carries, it's Percy Jackson. However, he cannot help the twinge of apprehension he feels at the appearance of a Heartbreak Child so close to the arrival of two Forbidden demigods.
Chiron is an experienced man. He knows an omen when he sees one.
"We can only hope that she finds a path which allows her to use her strengths for good."
"Mhm. You gonna play, or not?"
"One moment. I've yet to look at my cards."
"Well, hurry up."
Silena helps Juliette move into the Big House later that evening, employing a few of their siblings to help move furniture despite their grumblings over broken nails. She makes good on her promise to have Argus drive the two of them out of camp for a few hours, and they come back with floral bedsheets and fairy lights to hopefully make Julie's space more welcoming. By the time they're done, the small room Mr. D was willing to part with is filled with a twin sized bed, an old wardrobe, and a vanity they'd found at an antique shop, all of which are decked out in shades of pink and lavender.
Julie is trying to be positive. She's never gotten to do this kind of stuff before. When she was living with the dryads, her home was a surprisingly ornate treehouse that she shared with some young ferns and flowering shrubs. Purple Aster had been a caring dryad, but material possessions had never been a priority in the mountains. Then, when she got picked up by Luke and Chris, their priority was her training and English lessons. There wasn't much time for anything else. Her room on the Princess Andromeda had been small and heavily guarded. It had been easy to leave behind.
She wants to be excited about having her own real bedroom for the first time. It still just feels cold and empty.
When curfew hits, Silena bids her goodnight and shuts the door gently behind her. Julie has never had issues falling asleep, but the first night in her new room, it seems impossible. The cleaning harpies have been long silent by the time Juliette drifts off, and when she does, it's anything but peaceful.
When she opens her eyes, it's raining. Not, like, drizzling - it is torrential downpouring. Thunder is echoing from the clouds, the sound clashing against the forest floor with enough intensity to send acorns tumbling from tree branches. Juliette looks around, startled, trying to figure out just where she's ended up. The vegetation around her looks different from North Carolina or New York, and especially different from Florida. She must be in a new part of the country.
"You're so puny. You're no meal!" A deep voice garbles from behind her. Julie nearly jumps out of her skin, whirling around to face the direction it came from. When she sees the creature, her bones turn to ice. A cyclops stands with its back to her, leaning over something on the other side of a large boulder.
Julie knows Tyson. Julie likes Tyson. But, Tyson is also 6'5" and wears exclusively bright orange camp tees. The monster in front of her now is at least 30' tall and decked in leather armor padded with raw sheep wool that it had clearly not harvested properly, as a layer of flesh coats the inside of the crude shawl it had made out of it. Its meaty hands are clutched around the handle of an iron spiked club, from which, red-tinged rainwater is dripping onto the grass below.
"Leave her alone! Your fight is with me!" A second voice cries out. The cyclops booms a laugh and reaches down, heaving up the boulder before it and flinging it across the clearing.
"Fight?! Mortals are so silly sometimes. You amuse me, Son of J-" A sudden boom of thunder makes Juliette clamp her hands over her ears. She's never seen a storm like this. If she wasn't so terrified, it'd be amazing.
The cyclops is grinning down at two figures by its feet now. Both are small, and Julie realizes them to be kids just a little older than her. One is clearly unconscious, a weaponless girl with long black hair that's currently soaked with blood spilling from a gash on her forehead. The other is a boy with blonde hair and electric blue eyes. He's dressed in a full set of armor, standing over the girl defensively with a golden sword held out in front of him in a form clearly much more advanced than the stances Percy has been trying to teach Julie in her beginner's lessons.
The cyclops moves to step on the two kids, but the boy reacts fast, scrambling to drag the passed out girl along with him as he dives quickly to the side. They narrowly avoid the sandal that comes crashing to the ground a moment later. He doesn't hesitate for a second, whirling around and slashing his sword across the Achilles tendon of the offending foot like it's butter. The cyclops howls, slinging its club towards the boy in outrage. The boy dodges again,. He rolls underneath the arc of the club and emerges beside the cyclops' other foot. He rears back to repeat the attack. Unfortunately, the monster guesses his move, and its unarmed hand swipes downwards sharply, slapping the boy away with enough force to slam him into the trunk of a tree at the other end of the clearing.
Julie knows she can't do anything, but she runs to the boy's side anyway. He's groaning, his shoulder having been wrenched at an angle that makes Juliette nauseas even to look at. His sword has been knocked from his grip and is resting a few feet to his right.
"YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THAT! I WILL FLAY YOU BEFORE I COOK YOU! YOU WILL DIE SCREAMING!" The cyclops is slumped on one knee, but it's rising slowly, dragging itself across the clearing towards where the young demigod is coughing painfully, trying to catch his breath. Julie looks on helplessly. Her hands hover over the boy's injured shoulder like she's expecting to suddenly develop magic healing powers like the Apollo kids.
To her horror, sobs start tumbling from the boy. His head is bowed, his left hand clutching at his dislocated sword arm. A tingling sensation begins in Julie's gut - the same one she feels whenever one of her siblings gets broken up with, whenever a camper scrapes their knee on the rock wall, whenever Percy waves at Annabeth and she's too focused on Thalia to wave back.
Power.
Strength floods through Juliette's extremities. She can sense everything around her to a higher extent. She feels her pupils dilate, her muscles harden. Waves of emotions are now rolling off of the boy and filling her senses: fear, hopelessness, pain. She feels alive. She feels powerful. Powerful enough that she somehow knows what she does next will work.
She reaches a hand towards the boy and touches his uninjured shoulder. He starts and lifts his head suddenly. He seems to search the area in front of him for a moment before his gaze focuses, and she knows he can see her. The boy's eyes are startlingly blue and framed by long blonde lashes that cause the makeup enthusiast in her head to coo with appreciation. The eyes in question widen in shock as they connect with her own.
"You have to get up," She urges. He nods at her dumbly, his eyes still wide in surprise. She breaks the eye contact for long enough to reach over and grab his sword, using all of her focus to maintain contact with the cool metal as her fingers threaten to fade through it. "I can't help any more than this, I'm sorry. But, you've got to get up. She's counting on you." Julie gestures to the dark haired girl laying about ten feet away, her expression a pained grimace. She looks back at the boy and watches his face harden. There's a thin scar running through his upper lip that she hadn't noticed from a distance. He nods at her stiffly, pulling the golden blade from her grip with his left hand and forcing himself to his feet just as the cyclops reaches their end of the clearing.
Even though she's in a dreamscape, the boy places himself in front of her as he stares down the monster. The cyclops' mouth is twisted in an ugly snarl as it reels back to ready another blow with its club, its large and beady eye trained on the golden boy before her. Julie's heart stops for a moment, her lungs refusing to take in more air as she watches in terrified anticipation as the club swings down, the boy's muscles tighten, and the dream is replaced by the dusty ceiling fan in her bedroom.