Our Great Veins Of Golden Blood

This Is Home

But little do we know,

The stars welcome him with open arms.

Sunlight. It warmed Harry's pale skin as its golden light streamed through the windows behind her bed and pooled on the pure white duvet that wrapped around the girl's sleeping body. A gentle breeze combed through her hair as she remained blissfully unaware of her unfamiliar surroundings; she snuggled closer into the warmth of the pillow beneath her head with a distant gracing her lips. 

Her hair vaguely resembled that of a lion, strewn messily around her pillow from when she had tossed and turned in the night. From what her mind was telling her to believe, she assumed that the past two days had been some kind of fever dream and that she would wake up today with her alarm going off so that she could rush off to babysit Delta. This train of thought was quickly forgotten when she heard a soft singing voice coming from across the room, raspy yet also smooth like fresh honey.

"Amicitiae nostrae memoriam spero sempiternam for,

Malum quidem nullum esse sine aquilo bono.

Serva me, servabo te,

Una hirundo non facit ver." The sweet voice suddenly stopped, and Harry cracked one of her sleepy eyes open to see what the disruption was. There was a boy who seemed to be about her age, with shockingly blue eyes that were almost shielded by his shaggy brown hair that was swept to the side of his face standing near to the door. A cold cerulean stare was trained on Harry as she slowly sat up, bringing the duvet with her so that she could cover her chest which - despite having a shirt on - felt exposed whenever she wasn't wearing her binder.

"That's not the whole song..." Harry mumbled to herself as she rubbed her eyes before they quickly widened when she heard what she said. She didn't even know the boy, let alone the song he was singing a few moments ago. The boy looked just as shocked as she felt - his wide eyes trained on Harry like she was giving him the cure to cancer - so she quickly thought of something to defuse the tension. "So...you know Latin?"

There was a brief moment of silence when some kind of emotion passed through the boy's eyes, but it quickly passed and he nodded so fast Harry was worried he was going to get whiplash. Her eyes were drawn down to the boy's arms and she realised that he had been singing to Delta while she slept. For some reason, that made a warm feeling stir in her belly. 

"Yeah, I know French, too. I learned it from my mum because she's Aphrodite, and knowing French is kind of a built-in skill for Aphrodite kids," he laughed awkwardly as he walked closer to her bed and handed her the small baby in his arms. "I'm Louis, by the way, it's nice to meet you." As Louis spoke, his eyes lit up and he moved his fringe out of his eyes to reveal eyeliner coating them. Harry tried not to seem weird by staring at them. She quickly was taken out of her trance when she realised Louis was holding a hand out for her to shake.

"Oh, sorry! I'm Harry. Thanks for getting Delta to sleep, she can't usually sleep without me or her mum holding her for, like, an hour," she laughed as they shook hands and put Delta in the bassinet next to her bed. "Where even are we, anyway? Is this where I'll stay from now on?"

Louis laughed and shook his head quickly, "So, different cabins are depending on which god you're related to. Now you, m'lady," Harry blushed at the name coming from the boy's accent, "are an Apollo kid. Now you're lucky. I've met the guy and he's sick, I just know you would get on well with him...well, I would hope so, seeing as he's your dad and whatnot." There was a moment of silence where Lou bit his lip like he was expecting Harry to say something miraculous, but when she just stared at him awkwardly for a few moments. 

The tense silence was broken by the sound of hooves outside the door, and the blue-eyed boy tried to silence his laugh with his hand, but he failed when he saw Harry's shocked face. The wooden door swung open to reveal a middle-aged man with greying brown hair and eyes the deepest brown that it made her feel like she was trapped inside a warm and comforting hug, but at the same time she was being suffocated in thick honey. A grey blazer fit snugly around his torso, complementing his white button-down shirt nicely.