This Dark Night ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase¹

―i. purple codes and silver linings

YOU WOULD THINK, after months of begging her godly parent to claim her, Naomi Murphy would be thrilled to finally know who her mother was. 

And you would be very wrong, because she wasn't thrilled in the slightest—she was pissed.

No one knew what to think of Persephone's claiming. Chiron had been thoroughly shocked, which was a strange look on the centuries-old centaur. Most of the year-round campers were waiting for her new stepdad to burst out of the grass a-la the myth of Hades and Persephone and kill her for simply existing. Chiron tried to assure Naomi that likely wouldn't happen, but even he couldn't hide his worry. 

Naomi's popularity due to her successful quest shifted into a morbid fascination due to her parentage. She couldn't go a single day without someone staring at her or people whispering about her just out of earshot. She'd lost count of how many times Clarisse and her siblings teased her about being Persephone's bastard (as if half the kids at camp weren't their godly parents' bastards). 

But, luckily for Naomi's sanity, there were silver-linings. 

The day after Naomi was claimed, Miranda—the year-round counselor of the Demeter cabin—had gotten a dream from her mother, Demeter, saying that Naomi could move into the cabin with her half-aunts and half-uncles. The cabin was a lot roomier than the Hermes cabin (even with a tree growing right through the middle of it), and while Naomi was a bit sorry to leave her new friends in Cabin Eleven—namely Ethan Nakamura—she liked the fact that she actually got her own space in the Demeter cabin.

But there was only so much damage control one silver-lining could do. Naomi was still pissed—she'd thrown out the bouquet of lilies she'd gotten from Olympus as soon as she'd recovered from her shock, and she'd even tried to throw away the ring that had come with it (stupidly, now that she was looking back—a ring-sword was too nice a gift to throw away). Luckily, the ring was like Percy's pen, in that it was enchanted to return to her, so she was stuck with it. 

Naomi hated everything to do with her parentage. She hated going to the greenhouse with her new cabinmates. She hated being able to grow flowers out of the dirt at will (it was a neat trick, really, but her new mommy issues ran deep). She hated constantly shivering and being more prone to colds in the fall and winter despite the camp's perfect year-round weather, all because her godly parent had taken her trip down to the Underworld for half the year. 

Part of her hoped Hades was as pissed as she was. If she couldn't give her mother an earful, maybe her new stepfather would.

(Or maybe he'd just try to kill her daughter—who could say?)

Everything that reminded her of her mother—flowers, natures, nymphs, pomegranates, pollen—made Naomi upset. She used to love bees and ladybugs and butterflies, but when Miranda pointed out they probably liked her because they were all pollinators, she started to ignore them whenever they came around. Part of her felt bad, but a much larger part of her wanted to act like a bratty teenager. 

Which led her to her current predicament, three months after her mother claimed her.

"It's gonna be okay," Miranda said, though she didn't sound sure at all. "It's gonna be fine. We can fix this." 

"Can we?" Naomi asked. 

"Of course!" Miranda said, forcing a laugh. "Just put the scissors down, okay?"

Naomi set the scissors down on the bathroom counter, looking at Asher—one of the more honest of her cabinmates. "How bad is it?" 

Asher looked from Naomi to Miranda, the latter glaring pointedly at him. He returned his attention to Naomi. "I'm not gonna lie to you, Naomi, it's... not good."