𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐄𝐓𝐇 》 LEO VALDEZ ¹

―twenty-six. earthborn? so, like, they came from a you-know-what?

◤                                                                           ◥
𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐒 𝐃𝐎
◣                                                                          ◢

CHARLIE LIKED TO CONSIDER HERSELF AS A STRONG AND CONFIDENT GIRL. And whilst the latter had always been true, she never really had the fighting expertise to back herself up, nor the strategy skills to go with it. Yet, she was never more confident than when she stood before a battlefield. There was something about how the enemy and her both stood on the same earth, shared the same air and were touched by the same wind, that connected them. They shared a destiny. Oddly, it put her at ease. A calm before the storm. There was also something else that came with it; suave and unconditional confidence whispering affirmations in her ear; about how this new tie would be severed by a devastating blow. A blow made by her comrades, or, something she was proud to say was growing increasingly frequent, a blow made by her.

Today, she was not confident.

Now she had the skills to back it up, she had the knowledge, the experience — hell, if you needed a CV to be a demigod, hers would've been accepted by Heracles himself. But now it was the surety she was missing. What was meant to be unconditional, was lacking, and she didn't know what to do, how to respond.

Softly, she was brought out of it. Fingers of electricity prodding at her wrist gently. She turned her head, ever so slightly. Leo. The others had spread out, getting a sense of what was going on from different perspectives, but Leo had chosen to stay by her side for a second longer, lingering. She turned to face him better, consequently the fingers slipped from where they were pressing into her hands, and slid up the back of her palm, before he moved them himself, hooking them over her pinky, weighing her hand down. An anchor.

"Tell me what's going on," he said. Soft-spoken, but commanding.

Charlie gulped, swallowing the lump of emotions that had begun to pile up at the back of her mouth, suffocating her. Clearing her throat quietly, for good measure, she brought her spare hand, pointing at the distance.

"That'll be his camp," she said, voice finding it's way as she gestured to the area she meant. Just over the ridge, in the shadow of the mountains final crest, was a forested depression about the size of a football field. Trees had bee cut down to make a towering purple bonfire — Charlie briefly wondered if it was reflecting her emotions — and the outer rim was littered with extra logs and construction equipment: an earthmover, a big crane thing with rotating blades at the end like an elastic shaver, a tree harvester, perhaps, and a long metal column with an axe blade, like a sideways guillotine, a hydraulic axe. "And I'm thinking you could tinker your way into those machines little robotic hearts and—"

The two fingers hooked over her little one gave a squeeze. She looked at him again. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Well, what did you mean?" She raised an eyebrow, purposefully giving him other subjects to point out and talk about, but it was useless. If he didn't want to talk machines, he certainly wouldn't want to talk about her expressions either. Despite how much he liked to try mimic them.

His brows narrowed and he tilted his head, "Don't play dumb with me right now."

"We'll reschedule then."

"Charlie... Charlie—" His hushed whispers were cut off, fingers forced to separate as she stood up from her crouched position, moving to Jason as she spotted Piper and Coach Hedge do the same, Raccoon Leo scattering after them from the trees. The boy cursed under his breath, having no choice but to follow after her.