Grief is a funny thing.
There are so many - layers to it.
The first one is softer than most, almost fleeting.
It is the kind that lingers in every drawn breath, a small veil over the child's eyes that makes everything duller. The colors lose their shine, lose their pigment, and if before Adora could marvel at the beauty of the ocean, now, it is only a blue coffin that awaits her, bereft of the azure spots and navy blanket Lily used to wax poetry about.
The second is tangible, the kind that is stuck behind her throat like barbed wire. The kind that makes it harder to breathe.
Grief is what remains of love.
Ruins, a corpse that has been abandonned to rot and now its stench lingers everywhere.
It is almost funny how something so beautiful, so sweet Adora could choke on it, turns into something so loathful to see. Unlike her daughter however, Céleste Delacour has made a home in her grief. Has taken its wretchness and made it hers, like a necklace to wear, like a cross to bear.
Grief is the ruins of a love turned rotten.
Perhaps that is why Mother would warn of it. Do not love, Adora, she pleads.
Adora had never understood it.
It is like asking her not to breathe.
But in the same way that it burns when you run out of air, love has painted Adora a violent shade of red.
She still drips of it, leaving a small trail of crimson print in her path. Like breadcrumbs begging to be followed. Like a trail for Death and her mother's ghost to never lose sight of.
Adora stands on the edge of a cliff.
She does not remember how she got there. She must make a striking picture. A small girl, alone in the world, with her mother's blood still coating her knees. Her hands. Her everything.
The cliff she stands on is a tall one, in an isolated corner of the world most will never see. A place forgotten even if it is beautiful. And around it, all there is lies the ocean.
Endless.
Blue and dark.
A coffin of azure and salt.
Adora cannot help but notice that the sea's color isn't quite the color of her eyes. It lacks its godly shine, the hue of tragedy she has come to associate with sapphire. For that, the young girl is grateful. Mother had always hated its shade, after all. perhaps she would have loved her more if she didn't have them, perhaps mother would have stayed then
No, instead of brilliant and bright blue, it is darker.
It churns and moves, never faltering, and flashes of turquoise sometimes flicker when the sun hits the water rightly. On the surface lingers soft white foam as the waves crash onto the rocks that make up the cliff.
It is interesting to see something so unyielding and brash as a wave shattering upon the unforgiving edge of the cliff. The water breaks, shatters before retiring back into the depths, a vicious cycle, one that the water seems never willing to break.
One might wonder why.
Adora guesses it is because there is beauty in breaking. She breathes in, closing her eyes.
The sun kisses her skin. Lovingly.
She thinks it is her mother's caress, the one she would sometimes gift when her memories are locked away.
I'm here, my love.
Adora can almost hear her mother's voice in the wails of the oceans and the screams of the wind. At least what she remembers it to be. It is sweet, gentle but sometimes Adora forgets how that sweetness turned venomous and gentleness was forgotten in favor of cruelty.
it is a recurring thing to do. to hold on like a drowning man to whatever good she remembers because the truth - the hurt of never being quite loved, of walking off eggshells and glass and hiding from the loud anger of her parents - is something she can't quite bear.
Adora misses her mother.
Truly.
Adora misses her mother like one would miss its heart.
And what do you do when you no longer have a heart to call yours?
Simple.
You break.
You die.
Adora feels like she had.
In fact, she is dead, and if anything, it is only Father's selfish will that keeps her body from realizing it died days ago.
No matter how much the skin mends or the absence of a wound, it does not change the fact that every breath is agony.
Every step, something she should have never taken.
Tiredness weighs heavy on her eyes.
They flutter open, taking in the beauty of the scene before her. It is hard to see beauty when monsters nip at your heels, bloodlust thick and their eyes and fangs bared at you for your only sin to be born from a God's seed.
It is hard to see beauty in grief.
But for once- Adora can see it.
The sun is bright. Gentle on her shoulder, like a hand ready to give her the smallest and gentlest nudge forward.
Don't leave me. Come back to me, Adora, she hears Mother plead softly. Just like always.
Just like always.
Since Adora was born, it had always been so.
Adora and Mother.
Mother and Adora.
They are so intricately woven together in their shared pain that comes with having a God for a parent. Similar in taste, scars from growing up in bloodshed almost a mirror of each other.
(but adora is a child, a child and she had never known how to build back the shattered pieces of her mother without cutting herself on the sharp edges, her work clumsy and still broken)
But now, there is only Adora left.
Only Adora left, with wounds she had never understood, a rottenness carefully fed to her in the guise of medication lingering into her lungs till it hurts to breathe.
The waves at the bottom of the cliff sing, their song sweetly calling out Adora's name.
Maman, Adora thinks, shoulders no longer drawn tight, her spine straight as steel. Wait for me
And Adora takes a step forward.
The sea welcomes her in the same manner as life did.
Violently.
Its embrace is cold.
That is why she cannot help but flinch at the warmth that suddenly surrounds her, warm arms picking her up as if she is something - dares she say - precious.
Adora cannot open her eyes yet.
Death is still in the process of rejecting her.
Some of her bones are still shattered.
But she still hears him. She would know his voice blind.
Oh, Adora, it whispers. Something that almost sounds like sorrow lingers in his whisper. What have you done?
The dark-haired girl does not understand his question. She just wants to be with her mother and things to return to the way they were before Lily's death.
Back when the life of a half-blood was but a cautionary tale. Not a life lesson. Not a dead sentence.
Oh, little godling, Father. That's Father. His voice. His sorrow. His reject. Why must you run after me so desperately?
Because Adora is alone in the world and an unloved girl is a dangerous thing.
Desperation makes people shed their humanity, shed the softest parts of them till there is only something twisted that remains.
desperation makes monsters of them all. A monster of longing. And give such a monster a crumb of love; it will swallow the whole world in search of more.
The next thing that Adora knows, she wakes up in a bed.
It is soft, and it smells of aseptic and coldness.
Almost like what Adora imagines as the smell of a hospital, though she has never visited one, for Mother dislikes anything to do with her Godly father. Her eyes flutter open as sunlight kisses her. They weight heavily, as if already tired, wishing never to open again.
"You're awake."
Adora sits up, turns her head to the side, and Sapphire meets Sapphire.
It is like something is caught in the edge of her throat at the mere sight of it, the recognition of something more than mere blood ties, the feeling of home.
But it is not home.
Home is emeralds and sweet kisses.
Home is sunlit rooms that echo with laughter and piano pieces.
Home was Mother. There is no home but her.
but that home is gone.
The blonde smiles at Adora.
She feels her lips curve, too, a reflex long since carved into her mind because a girl has to be sweet, a girl has to be nice to be liked.
"That's great," the blonde continues, jutting down something on his notepad. Somehow, she does not feel his so-called relief. In fact, Adora cannot feel much at all. "I thought we lost you for a moment."
That had been the goal, yet it seems that Death has rejected her once more, has taken a look at her, and found her lacking.
Adora knew it to be an almost foolish hope: to remain in the seabed, among other corpses and sunken ships, salt and water drowning her lungs every time she comes back, welcoming her back into the Underworld again and again till its gates finally open to her, and there, her mother will welcome her with a hug and a murmured welcome back, little love.
She wants to ask where she is. Who the blonde boy is. Why does have her eyes? Is he cursed like her? Instead, something that sounds like a groan escapes Adora's chapped lips.
The blonde sighs. "Right, you must be thirsty. Here's some water." He places a glass of water in her hands, with a care that most would find odd to find in a stranger.
Water greets her lips, cool and fresh.
Adora swallows it.
There is no salt, a sheer contrast to the watery grave that had welcomed her not too long ago. Adora finds that she misses it. The promise of death. The promise of an embrace that will never let her go, even in death, even in her life. Finally, something tangible that will not leave her behind.
She misses it.
She keeps drinking.
"Drink slowly, or else you might ch-" Adora splutters, coughing as she inhales and water splatters on her lap. "-choke," finishes the boy.
He almost sounds amused, and Adora sends him a quick glance, quick at the mockery she hears lingering in his words. She feels like she would have been quicker to rage - in the same way that Father takes offense in the simplest words sometimes and lashes out - yet it glide on her skin like rainwater.
"Where am I?" Adora asks, voice hoarse.
The blonde blinks. She thinks he looks almost her age, noticing how childhood still clings to his cheeks. The crease of his brow shows his concern, however fleeting for a stranger. "Yeah," he drawls, taking the smallest step back. "I'm gonna go get Daniel. I didn't sign up for the orientation. I'll be right back."
And he stumbles away.
Adora blinks.
Barely ten minutes later, she wishes she had never asked.
Ignorance is bliss, after all, and her Father's abandonment is bitter and cruel to swallow.
I have spent my entire life waiting with bated breath for my parents to remember their child. Waited with blood beneath my nails - born from trying to tear myself apart for their eyes - and an ache in my ribs.
Not quite heartache.
Not quite grief.
I waited for them.
I did.
I still am.
And now, I am suffocating.
A week passes by.
Adora does not notice.
It is a boy who tells her so.
She averts her eyes from him.
His eyes are kind.
She wishes she could gouge them out and then do the same to hers, for kindness looks rotten in divinity.
Don't be so kind, she thinks as the older boy - Daniel, he had said - smiles gently at her. Kindness isn't in our blood.
But hatred is in hers.
It starts slow.
The small degradation of a child.
Like a rock by the ocean that is eaten away bit by bit, wave by wave, till a shell of itself remains. You wouldn't recognize it till you do, till someone assures you that it is the same rock you saw as a child.
Lily probably would have never recognized her. Would have never recognized the girl who avoids the shadows of musical instruments and crowded rooms. maybe that is why Father leaves her unclaimed.
She's no longer the bright and dutiful child, no longer his little godling he would take pride in. only a daughter, more of a background character who must fade or shine according to the new play that her father wishes to live by.
Adora wanders into the camp.
Like a ghost without a grave, like a child without a mother.
She follows meekly the careful guidance of others. She tries the activities they ask her to and lets her limbs be maneuvered like a puppet on strings.
maybe you will be claimed, they try to persuade her as she tries yet another activity. maybe, if you shine, your godly parent will love you.
mine did, Adora thinks. mine did and it did not save my mother
Much to no one's surprise, including Adora's, archery is one of her forte.
The little girl takes some comfort in the archery range, in the stillness of the world as she draws the string tight, focuses, and releases yet another arrow. In those moments, she sees no one but her mother, who beams ever so proudly. My daughter, she applauds.
However, it does come with its drawbacks, like all soft things in life.
The archery ranger, after all, is under the careful jurisdiction of Cabin 7, and the more Adora lingers in it, the more the crowd whispers. It has never been something new to the young girl, to hear their speculations, to feel their eyes digging into her flesh as if hoping she would crumble and pour herself out for all to see.
There, she meets family, or the nearest thing she has that still breathes and bleeds the same as she does. She understands now why Mother sometimes could not bear to look at Adora.
One would think that they are different.
Death and Light.
Reaper of soul and healer.
Yet, despite the darkness of her hair, Adora has their eyes. Their talents.
Adora wishes she had never learned to play the piano.
Wishes she could shed everything that holds a God's touch, everything that makes her something more than just her mother's daughter.
but doesn't she know? The mother's injuries are to be handed down to the daughter, the mother's unhappiness is to be paid by the daughter and the mother's burdens is to be the daughter's: it is as if the umbelical cord has never been cut and Céleste Delacour is a daughter of a God too.
Chiron puts her more frequently in the archery range once she beats the best of Cabin Seven. Maybe he had thought she would find solace there, find company yet Adora does not. Instead, she finds quirked brows, sapphire eyes, and a boy who looks at her as if she ruining everything every time she wins the shooting bout.
The boy glares at her and likes to shove past her whenever he can.
It makes Adora almost smile a sardonic smile.
Don't worry, she thinks as the blonde stomps away with a snarl. I don't want your father's love. You can have it
(Sometimes, Adora wonders what would happen if someone were to shoot an arrow at her chest. Would she bleed? Would it puncture anything? Would it kill her? Or would it guess the hollowness of her body and simply reject her plea the way that her father has?)
Adora forgets her father sometimes.
It is easy to do so among the Unclaimed.
There, she is but a wound among the countless injuries, all of them raw and bleeding, left to fester as their Godly parents continue to ignore their existence. There, she is but a misfortune among thousands.
But then, she catches sight of her reflection, noticing darkness where it should have been sunlight, where there is the shadow of Godhood instead of childhood.
Her father's face looks right back at her.
It looks frightening.
To see its sharp features dip into apathy, drawn taunt as hunger gnaws at her stomach, though Adora ignores its call with frightening ease. And maybe one day, her heart will stop aching at the sight of it.
Once, Adora wakes up from yet another nightmare.
Another of her deaths. She dreams of those often, as if a taunt showing that she knows the agony of death but will never taste its sweetness and liberation. Will never be able to reach her mother's ghost.
But this nightmare is different.
A bit more vicious.
The dark-haired girl wakes up in the middle of the night with the word mother on her lips like it is both salvation and damnation. And there, she catches sight of her reflection in the window.
She looks like her father. That has always been a sore spot for her. To wake up with her mother's murderer's face every morning.
(she knows that her father did not kill her mother. but there is a part of Adora- the one who is still a child, the one who thinks the world ends and starts with her parents - who thinks Mother would have been alive if it wasn't for him. For her.)
Adora looks like her father. She had never asked for it. she does not want it.
Adora does not realize what she is doing until someone stops her: Victoire, daughter of Hecate. She is older, another claimed child who was left to rot alongside the unwanted.
How useless that victory must be: to be loved enough to be claimed but unimportant enough never to have a Cabin to truly call home.
The older girl is holding Adora's wrist tightly as if she is afraid Adora will disappear if she ever lets go. Her fingers dig into the flesh, with an urgency that makes Adora stop.
The dark-haired girl follows Victoire's gaze to the knife she is holding.
It's a small knife and its blade glints as it is pressed to her cheek, ready to draw blood. Ready to abandon her face, ready to tear it apart in search of something that doesn't hold her father's shadow.
"What are you doing?!" Victoire hisses. She looks worried, gnawing on her lips till they are bloodied.
Adora blinks.
"I look like him."
It escapes her like a confession.
Victoire furrows her brows. "Like who?" she questions.
Another blink.
"Like my father."
Something that almost looks like heartbreak paints itself over Victoire's features. It makes her eyes older than she is, her features soften to grim acceptance. (Or maybe all halfbloods have those eyes when they realize what it means to be a child of a God)
Victoire doesn't ask any more questions. Instead, she gently takes Adora by the wrist and guides her to her sleeping bag. "It might not be much, but," she whispers as she braids Adora's hair, threading through the ebony locks with a care only Mother has ever shown Adora. "But I understand."
Thousand more words echo in Victoire's silence. Adora understands none. Yet it lingers.
I understand.
Adora's hair turns blonde. Like Mother's hair. Freckles dot her cheeks. The sharpness of her features softens into an almost gentle roundness. Father's face disappears into the features of a much more beautiful stranger.
I understand, Victoire had said.
And for once, Adora looks at herself in the mirror and smiles.
It lasts three days.
Three days of never flinching from her reflection.
Three days of following Victoire in every step she takes with fragile-like eagerness while the older girl drags her often in the gardens that Demeter's children tend to.
It takes three days for Father to realize that his daughter no longer resembles him.
It must have been a great insult.
Chiron comes to Adora with Victoire in toe. The centaur has the look of someone with grave news, the look of someone in charge of breaking dreams. Victoria, on the other hand, looks like someone attending a funeral. The older girl does not respond to Adora's timid wave, if anything, she studiously avoids her gaze.
"Your Lord Father has asked us to end the spell," Chiron says. He sounds almost apologetic. Victoire is still avoiding Adora's eyes. "He is most displeased that his -" there, Chiron hesitates. "-daughter would collude with a daughter of Hecate and deny her heritage. Victoire."
It is like the ground has opened into a maw and tries to swallow her whole.
He is displeased that - she does not look like him? Not that his lover - his daughter's mother - is dead and his daughter, unclaimed?
Victoire steps forward.
She touches the crown of Adora's head, fingers gentle though the younger girl can still feel their tremble, their hesitation as if simply touching Adora will bring her misfortune.
It stings.
"Please don't do it," the daughter of death pleads. Her hands are shaking, shaking fists clutching at the orange material of her too-large shirt, a hands-me-down of another Unclaimed. She takes a step back, the smallest falter of a child that realizes that even now, her father must stain her happiness with his presence, must taint its brightness with the selfishness of an adult.
Victoire bites her bottom lip.
She is trembling, too.
They both are. Both weapon for Gods who will never love them as children should be.
"Please, don't take this away from me." Adora's plea echoes, and she knows that Victoire understands what she means.
"I look like him," a child says to another child, a blade to her skin, desperation and loathing thick in her eyes.
Don't make me look like him again, a child begs, but this time, the world does not listen, nor does the girl who had shown her kindness.
Victoire doesn't look at Adora as she breaks her spell.
Gold turns to ebony.
Something in her chest shatters.
"See that it never happens again," Chiron says. He then hesitates as if searching for a comfort that he does not know how to procure. No words come to him. After all, what can you say to an unwanted child who must abide by a stranger's rules? Victoire bows and leaves, too, following Chiron with a lowered head.
Adora's hand raises slightly.
Ready to call out the older girl, to make her look at Adora.
A thought haunts her. Why - why are you taking his side?
(But what Adora does not get is that a mortal can never dare to stand against a God. Not even for a child. Not even for a friend.
And that's the thing, isn't it?
Because Victoire and Adora are not friends.)
but they could have been.
Daniel cares a tad too much.
It has always been a problem of his.
A mother hen, his classmates liked to tease him. Maybe it had been more an insult than a compliment, but Daniel takes it as one. He does not deny it.
He nags, he worries easily. sometimes he wonders where he has learned it.
Regardless, the nickname follows him even in camp as he enters Camp Halfblood.
Camp Halfblood is not much of a home; Daniel quickly realizes it.
Instead, it is a factory churning out soldiers instead of children, weapons too quickly made and too quickly broken instead of innocent kids. It is an injustice, the embodiment of a cruelty that kids should be kept away from instead of being thrown into the ocean, left to drown till they learn how to swim.
But that's the thing about injustices.
Few if any care.
Chiron might do his best, but he is immortal and has long since accepted that his charges will die. And for an immortal being with divine blood, is it any surprise if Daniel suspects Chiron not to see any difference between a halfblood dying at sixteen or at thirty?
Daniel cannot accept it.
It might be treason to curse the Gods for abandoning their children, but nothing has been said about allowing them to know what it should be like—to know of a gentle touch, to have something more than the identity of their parents' godhood and expectations.
He is the son of Apollo, the God of healing.
It is almost as if it is Daniel's calling: to soothe invisible wounds that children bear, to slowly build back the children who are the shattered mirror of those who birthed them. Mama used to gush about it, about this tenderness he seems to hold despite the abundance of violence he has seen. "You are the best of me and your father," she would say. but what is the best of wretchness? what good is there in this God who abandoned Daniel?
Camp Halfblood is the home of demigods.
It is a broken place, though it does not seem like it. It is a rustic camp in which venom slithers into the cracks. The Cabins are so lost in their own bitterness but unwilling to blame the Gods that they will turn on each other. Children starved for a love that will only come with spoils of war, with their bloodshed and their childhood, a sacrifice to the Gods.
It is sickening.
But a mortal child cannot change the world with only indignation.
If so, then maybe this world would have never turned as cruel as it is now.
His mother would know.
"Listen, Dani," Mama had told him. Mama was a badass most of the time, the kind of woman who led man by the leash, and she wore it like a badge of honor. She led them with her beauty and tore them apart with her words. It was what had appealed to his dad. "The world won't stop for anyone. But it will linger for someone strong."
It's another lesson of his.
Kindness means nothing if it is not built on strength.
Kindness has no place in this world.
Well. Daniel will just need to make one.
It takes grace to remain kind in cruel situations, they say.
Please.
Let me swallow this world whole, and spit it out with bloodstained teeth
When Daniel first meets Adora Delacour, there is something telling, begging Daniel never to let her go.
One might wonder, but Daniel, go where?
He could not say, though he could draw guesses, can see the muted blue of her eyes and think of the same tired eyes that used to look at him from across the dinner table. Maybe that's why the blonde makes sure to keep an eye on her, makes sure to know where she is. Like now.
Adora has left camp for the cliff overlooking the camp, the tallest one surrounded by the ocean. She makes a sad picture there, the newest camper curled into herself, alone on the cliff's edge, a tragedy wearing the softness of a child.
Some don't know what to feel before the embodiment of the Gods' failure to care for their children. Sure, Annabeth is another case similar to Adora's, coming at only seven years old to camp, but the younger girl has been quickly claimed and has most Athena children and Luke Castellan by her side.
But Adora?
Adora is young, a trampled flower that none had cared enough to try and make it bloom once more. A young child with no protection, no care. Daniel wonders how she managed to survive before. Especially when she looks ready to embrace Death at any moment. Most would not notice it, but Daniel is Head of Cabin Seven, a Healer, a son who lost his half-brother to demons he could not touch, much less destroy.
"What are you looking at?" Daniel asks, sitting next to Adora. The smaller girl barely turns to him, as if registering him as one would register a shift in their world, small but nevertheless, unimportant. "Do you want to go swim in the lake? You seem to look at it often."
Something ironic gleams in her eyes, the same ones they both share. "I don't know how to swim," she answers.
"Do you want to learn?"
She shakes her head, once again silent, her sorrow drifting in the air and settling on her like a warm blanket, thick and opaque. Small fingers play and pick at the skin, as if searching for scarlet. Daniel refrains himself from stopping her. Instead, he notices the time and points out, "It's almost time for archery. I've heard you're really good at that."
She doesn't answer.
The smallest tilt of her head is the sole indication that she is still listening, that Adora is still here.
It makes Daniel's chest ache.
The small child has always worn her sadness almost like a taunt, a bone-deep sadness that can only be uprooted as the heart is carved out of the child's chest. As a healer, it is a hard truth to swallow. But sometimes, wounds are not a stranger's to heal. "I even heard you beat Lee." Which is not something that surprises him much. After all, Adora's eyes are his own, and as soon as she picked up a bow, he could see the training, the effortless movement that only come with doing the same thing a thousand times.
It is obvious that she is of Apollo's blood and if not, is a legacy yet his father does not claim her. Daniel had always known him cruel, but to deny the small girl a glimpse of family is more than Daniel expected from a God. "That's impressive," he adds.
"Thank you," Adora says quietly. She fiddles with her fingers, tapping them almost absentmindedly on her calves, tapping at a melody only she hears.
"Do you play piano?" Daniel asks.
As a child of Apollo, he is well familiar with all musical related things, and it does not help that one of his siblings, Edward, is quite often struck by inspiration at the most random moments and must try out his new pieces, be it in the middle of the night or even in the middle of a shower.
"Yeah, since I could remember."
Her shy offering of information steals a smile from Daniel.
One step at a time.
"Yeah? Do you want to be a famous pianist when you grow up?"
Adora shakes her head.
"Then, what do you want to be?"
"In the future?"
Daniel nods. Smiles softly. "In the future," he repeats.
She shrugs, almost as if distraught in not knowing. Daniel pats her head softly. The younger girl is never one to refuse them, and Daniel finds it almost adorable how she gazes up at him, blinking as the fog in her eyes thins ever so slightly every time he pats her head. "It's fine not to know," he reassures her.
Only when he is about to leave the cliff does she answer, her answer reaching him.
Hesitant.
Small.
The small bud of a wilting rose, persistent when the world wants it dead.
"I want to be free."
Lee Fletcher still remembers the first time that he sees Adora Delacour.
He had been the one assisting Daniel in the Healing Cabins when Chiron brought their newest camper.
She hadn't been much at first. Simply a small girl, more bone and skin than anything else, more a blank canvas that the world has deemed unworthy to paint in colors. Yet, she had been a striking sight, and even now, Lee still remembers it.
After all, Camp Halfblood usually welcomes teenagers, the odd twelve years old there and here. Yet, it is obvious that this little thing drenched to the bone and with lips tinted blue, is much younger than that. Half the people who saw the centaur carry the new camper thought he was carrying a corpse to burn.
A young corpse, a heartbreaking sight, but Death isn't new to Camp Halfblood.
And Lee, well Lee had been worried.
After all, Adora Delacour is his first patient.
And she didn't wake up, even in the following days.
"Do you think I killed her?" Lee asks anxiously as he frets around the girl's bedside, chanting yet another hymph in honor of his father.
What a legacy that would bring.
Lee Fletcher: the boy who killed his first patient before even killing his first monster.
Daniel huffs a laugh as he puts his hand close to the younger girl's mouth. A small puff of air kisses it. "Your patient is still alive," he assures Lee. Lee sighs in relief. "For now."
"For now?!" Lee exclaims, huffing in annoyance as his elder brother's chest shakes in laughter, stifling his laugh in a way Lee never could.
As it turns out, however, Daniel was right, as he usually is. Adora Delacour woke up. It should have been the end of it.
Impossibly, it isn't.
You see, Adora Delacour isn't the first Unclaimed Halfblood of the Year nor will she be the last.
Her arrival to camp is, at best, anti-climatic, though some had liked to speculate what happened for the eleven-year-old to appear half drowned at their doorstep. But she is the first corpse that comes and graces them.
Ah.
That is unkind to say.
Yet, it is the first thing that comes to his mind. M
aybe it is because he has never seen her truly smile. Maybe it is because, though they share the same eyes - and Lee is puzzled because Father usually claims his children within the first week, yet it has been a month, and Adora remains Unclaimed - hers have dulled, dulled till sapphire has become muted blue.
Lee isn't the only one who notices it.
Most notice the silence she has holed herself in, her grief plain for the world to see. But as much as they see it, register it, few understand how tangible it becomes.
They've all lost someone.
They are all carved by a pain that only halfbloods know.
But the world will not stop.
Not for the little girl that has joined Camp Halfblood still drenched to the bone, not for the boy who lost his best friend to the Gods.
"She's not eating," Luke Castellan remarks.
Lee crosses his arms, gazing up at Luke. They are all seated around the campfire and Daniel, their Head of Cabin, is strumming along, building a melody for the people to join. He glances right, and sure enough, Adora, swallowed by her orange camp shirt, is sacrificing her entire meal to the Gods, scraping meticulously all of the food into the fire.
Most would call that filial piety or whatever.
Some claim she is begging for her Godly parent to claim her and her meals, necessary sacrifices to catch her parent's attention.
Regardless, Luke, being a son of Hermes and sharing his table with her, would know, and his concern is evident. Quite frankly, Lee can't relate. "
Maybe she's not hungry?" the blonde suggests half heartily. Luke pinches his lips at his answer, a hand ruffling his dark hair as if in thought. Lee smothers a small smile at his gesture. It isn't often one can find Luke Castellan anything other than the camp's Golden Boy and Lee treasures any true glimpse of Luke without the glamor of the favored son.
The son of Hermes stands up, picking up four sticks of grilled marshmallows as he does so, jaw clenched in determination in a way one would think he is about to embark on a quest.
"Luke," Lee hisses, trying to take back at least one stick from the other boy's hand to no avail. "Luke! Don't take all the marshmallows, man!"
Yet, his complaint seems to fall on deaf ears because the younger boy leaves with Lee's precious dessert in hand, approaching a small, dark-haired girl shyly, offering two of Lee's dessert as a peace offering.
It is an odd, if heartwarming, sight if Luke hadn't taken away the remaining treats.
And for Adora Delacour, of all people?!
"Here," the smell of grilled marshmallow fills Lee's nose, and he perks up like a golden retriever in front of a particularly fascinating tree branch. There, low and behold, is a stick of grilled white goodness, perfectly done and not cruelly taken away by a fellow friend. The blonde snatches the stick with greedy hands, biting into it and throwing out a thanks as he does so.
Daniel huffs a laugh. "Don't go burn yourself with that," he warns as he sits down next to Lee, his guitar strung to his back, its melody already replaced by the singing of Apollo's Cabin most musically inclined.
Lee checks quickly, and sure enough, Edward is leading the singing with all of the seriousness of a fourteen-year-old obsessed with musical perfection.
"Yeah, yeah," Lee brushes off Daniel's mother-henning tendencies with a casual flick of the hand. He is well used to it, living almost 24/7 with the older boy. "Say, since when does Luke care so much for Adora?"
Do not get him wrong.
Lee likes Luke as much as another fellow camper and perhaps even more. The other boy was already there, three months fresh from the streets, when Lee arrived, and he has always been kind, if perfectly charismatic.
But to truly hold Luke's attention enough to warrant more than a polite glance? Is that even possible if your name isn't Annabeth Chase?
"Ah, so you noticed it too?" Lee glances at Daniel with a quirked brow and a tad of judgment. "I'm not blind, you know."
The older blonde chuckles, a small grin on his lips as he answers. "I know. But most didn't notice."
"Cause it's capture the flag soon." Daniel nods, conceding Lee's point. "No, but seriously," Lee insists. "What gives?"
"Maybe Luke just found someone he finally liked."
Lee quirks a brow, his judgment is heavy and plain to see. Because he knows that he is considered naive by some, age playing a large factor into it, yet he isn't that naive.
Daniel relents, as he tends to do whenever a younger camper is concerned. "Adora saved Annabeth from Cabin Eleven's prank. With the spiders," he elaborates as he catches sight of Lee's puzzlement.
"What?" Lee stares. "Why would she do that?"
"Because she saw a terrified seven-year-old and acted?"
"That's so weird. Adora's bitch, it doesn't make sense."
Daniel clicks his tongue. He seems almost disappointed, and the sheer thought makes Lee freeze. It is instinct as the child feels the love he so craved being taken away. "Try not to insult a fellow camper, Lee, will you?"
"I'm trying, ok?!"
It escapes Lee a bit more aggressively than he had meant to. He crosses his arms, lips pursed. "She's just so unlikeable."
"Don't make me repeat myself," Daniel's voice is harsher now. Something in Lee flinches, yet his dislike for Adora still holds firm. He juts out his chin, stubborn to the core, much to his counselor's exasperation. "You never directly talked to her. How would you know?"
Lee scoffs. "I just need to look at her to know."
"Sounds awfully arrogant of you, Lee. Do you now have Father's seer gifts, now? Do you now know everything?"
Lee doesn't answer. "
I mean, you never did like Adora," Daniel continues. The older boy has always been at this, harsh and biting like the winter wind, yet he never realizes the wounds he creates, "You didn't like her from the moment she beat you in archery. Are you scared that Father will pay more attention to her than you?"
"No," Lee whispers.
Daniel scoffs. "You know, at least Adora doesn't stink up the place with her petty jealousy. Just face it, Lee, Father won't spare a glance at you. You're too young."
That's not fair, Lee thinks.
"That doesn't mean he doesn't love me!"
Daniel shifts, pausing, as a hand rubs the back of his neck. Something almost like heartbreak glints in his blue eyes as his lips purse. "Sorry," he apologizes, looking heartbroken at the sight of Lee's teary eyes, at the desperate denial that bleeds into his words. "You know Father loves you."
ya right love him like he loves so many others?
"He doesn't even know I exist," Lee's protest slips from him, frail and childlike.
Like a child wondering why the squirrel is running away from him even though he is holding nuts. Daniel's words have twisted into his gut, twisted and drawn blood and Lee can almost taste it in the back of his throat.
Daniel sits closer, tugging at the blonde's arm till he settles at his side, patting his shoulder with a warm, kind hand. "He does, Lee. Father loves you. Of course he does; how could he not?"
"Because I am useless?"
Daniel clicks his tongue. "Don't say that," he admonishes softly.
Adora is a lost thought now, overshadowed by Lee's want for his Father to know his name.
"You're a great kid and Father is lucky to have you as his son."
Lee doesn't answer. It is not as if he can answer much, having never met his godly father though the God of the Sun had claimed him within the first week at Camp. Compared to that, Daniel - with the years of quests for their Father's honor - knows him better than most of the rest of the children of Apollo.
As such, you could believe whatever he said.
Well, when Daniel's thorns weren't ready to draw blood, that is.
"We are lucky to have you." The counselor then pauses. "And I'm sorry for what I said. You know I don't mean that."
Of course, Lee knows.
Grown-ups tend to do that, after all. He had noticed it. Words escape them swiftly and cruelty is something that comes to them as easy as breathing. He shrugs. "Is fine," he mutters.
After all, objectively, the younger son of Apollo knows that Daniel does not mean it. He does not mean the sharp edge of his words that escapes him whenever he is tired.
But even knowing that it is not done out of malice or a desire to hurt does not change the fact that Daniel is good at it.
At tearing them apart with only his words.
"It's not," Daniel objects.
"No, really, Dani," his nickname escapes Lee's mouth like an assurance, like a hug. "It's fine."
"I shouldn't put my anger on you," the older boy objects. Dani has always been one to hold himself to impossible standards, be it as a warrior or as their counselor.
"Wouldn't be the first one too," Lee remarks.
"It doesn't make it any better, Lee."
Yeah, but it also means that Daniel shouldn't beat himself over it. Cabin Seven know well that though the older boy tends to be harsh sometimes, tends to use his words more like a dagger, he does care.
Daniel Mendez is Camp Halfblood's heart, after all.
"Why don't you try and give Adora a chance?" Cabin Seven's Headboy changes the subject, much to Lee's dismay.
Lee grimaces. "Do I have to?" he whines.
"Maybe she just needs a friend."
"More like someone to beat sense in her." Daniel shifts, putting down his guitar and giving the younger boy all of his attention. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Lee breathes. He cracks his neck, then his wrist. "She's just so - arrogant, ya know? She thinks she's so good and ignores everyone like we don't matter! Like - like we're worthless."
"Does that make you angry?"
"YES!" Lee stands up, agitated and feeling restless. He starts pacing back and forth in front of Daniel, words tumbling from his lips. "Like, I get it; something happened to her, big deal! Something happened to me, too, but I'm not sulking about it! I'm not looking down on everyone because I'm good at something! She's an Unclaimed kid, what makes her think she is so better than us?!" Lee finishes his angry rant with a pant, his chest puffing from all of the frustration he had swallowed till it had festered.
His main grievance echoes.
Adora Delacour is Unclaimed yet shines brighter than Lee Fletcher, a son of Apollo.
Adora Delacour is Unclaimed, yet she is not reminded every day, as she catches sight of her reflection, of a Father who doesn't even know his child's name.
It isn't fair.
Why does she not chase after her parent's love?
why is there pity in her eyes every time she catches sight of Lee practicing in the archery range? Adora's eyes glimmer. Lee cannot stand them as they mock him.
Why does Adora not care -
why does she
It is only weeks later that Lee Fletcher gets his answer in the form of a scream.
It is only weeks later that Lee realizes that maybe, at the end of the day, they are all beggars for their parents' love.
Only, some have already given up.
I think that she was drowning and never cared to learn to swim.
Instead, she survived, got out and jumped in once more.
Knowing only peace in the storm, only realizing that she lives
as she struggles not to die.
Looking at her now, you wouldn't know she had been a happy child
who had known of brightness and tenderness on the sharp blade of a parent's knife.
Look at her and see the pain that has blossomed in her lungs
into pretty blossoms till it suffocated her.
look at her pain and remember that there is no scar to show from happiness
because we took it for granted, and now,
we weep, not remembering its sweetness