QUEEN OF HEARTS drew tanaka

epiales' revenge

Chapter One:
epiales' revenge

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She screamed in agony.

A searing hot pain was spreading round her body and she wanted to die just so it'd stop. Thrashing round in her bed, the rest of her siblings in the Ares cabin heard her screams and awoke to watch her writhe around, sweat beading down her forehead, tears streaming freely from her obsidian eyes, hands clenched into fists with tiny beads of blood seeping through the gaps between her fingers as nails pressed into flesh so tightly that they broke the surface of skin.

Clarisse frowned deeply— the nightmares hadn't stopped. She jerked her head at her brother Ellis, who scurried out of the room to the bathroom to fetch a bucket full of water, and, with scarily gentle motions, Clarisse poured the water steadily over Suki, wincing as her sister's knuckle slammed into her jaw violently in response.

"Fuck... what the actual fuck Clar?" Suki groaned, glaring daggers at the blonde in front of her, "What's wrong with you fuckers? Short of a few braincells? Fucking dumbasses," she grumbled, sitting up sharply, and swearing at the mess of her bunk. She glared at her siblings angrily, the rage in her chest begging her to snap, begging her to react, but she didn't (well, except from pulling Clarisse in a headlock, and wringing her wet inky hair over her sister's flaxen strands mirthfully).

When she stood, she clicked like a glowstick and she sent her sister Roxy a joyless grin. There's one thing Suki hated (obviously other than her father, the gods' superiority complex, her mother's mother, and Percy mcfucking Jackson) was pity— and right now, after a horrid nightmare, her siblings were staring at her as if she'd break, as if she couldn't beat their asses for breathing too loud.

She hated pity.

Shouldering past them, she stormed out of the cabin, obscenities flowing off her tongue freely as she noticed how early it was— it was clearly past the asscrack of dawn as she could hear the hustle of the Apollo cabin roaring to life. She yawned suddenly, her limbs heavy. Suki also loathed nightmares, they made her feel weak (which she clearly wasn't) and they made her feel like shit as she couldn't snap herself out of it, she had to rely on someone else to drown out the poisonous scenes flashing through her head.

Picking at a scab on her elbow, she surged down to the training area, snatching a sword from the shed, frowning at the shoddy workmanship and blunt edges (No offence to the kid from the Hephaestus cabin who made this, she thought quickly, it's just a bit shit, I can work with it, it's just shit) and continued to where the dummies were lined up. Grinning wildly, she grabbed one by the throat and dragged it away from the others, picturing her dad's smug face plastered over the stitched-up fabric, and with that, she swung the sword into the dummy's 'jugular' so hard that the head sliced off. She stood there, frozen, staring at the decapitated dummy and then at the sword— huh, not so blunt, sorry then kiddo, it's not shit.

She stood there for a bit longer, the sword weighing her down on one side, eyes fixated on the ground, not caring to tie her damp hair out of her face, blinking slowly. She felt calm. That was a rare feeling, she'd thought she felt the closest to happy when she was fighting someone (only to discover it was pride, not happiness) so whenever she felt relaxed, she felt happy, really happy. She felt happy. The laughter bubbled out of her throat uncontrollably, tears gathered in her eyes, falling over her lash line and she lifted her head up to the sky, lips curved into a wide grin, happiness and peace flowing through her veins instead of red-hot unadulterated fury. But soon enough, her euphoric tears formed into something else— sadness.

Then she was stood staring at the sky sobbing, each sob racking through her body, shuddering her shoulders, clawing from her throat and she wanted to scream. So, she did.