Our Great Veins Of Golden Blood

Defenceless

I come running to you like a moth into a flame,

You tell me "take it easy" but it's easier to say.

It had been about an hour since Harry had arrived in the Apollo cabin and started talking with Zayn as she took in her current situation. Apparently, Zayn was a son of Apollo who was somehow related to Athena, however, nobody knew his exact connection to her because of how weak the powers he inherited from her were. The boy seemed very intrigued about how Harry had been claimed right away and hadn't stopped speculating about the various possible reasons for it happening. 

Time seemed to fly by like a hawk on the hunt because by the time Harry next looked out the window the yellow rays of sun that had been seeping through the curtains had turned gold and were illuminating the room in an orange glow. Distantly, she wondered what time dinner was in Camp Legacy as the clock on her wrist told her it was nearing six o'clock in the evening. As if on cue her stomach rumbled angrily, making her flush while Zayn chuckled to himself.

"Dinner is normally ready by..." he looked down at his watch, "We have about an hour." Harry tried not to roll her eyes, because when she had gone to live with her grandmother and stepfather she had to prepare her meals herself despite only being six years old. She would have usually finished eating her macaroni cheese by now. "I should probably warn you, the food here is proper healthy. Everyone has to eat stuff like strawberries and grapes mixed with some type of fucking leaf." 

"That doesn't sound too bad, though," the girl mused as she leaned back on her hands where she was sitting down, "Maybe I forgot to mention I'm a total health nut." Look, if she was talking to anybody else then she wouldn't be this confident, but this was her brother, and she finally wasn't completely alone in the world despite how lost she was. If this guy was her brother, though, surely she should tell him about the most important part of her?

Zayn seemed to notice the quick change in her demeanor and he immediately quieted down to let her speak. She was thankful for Zayn. "I have to...I gotta tell you something," she started, and Zayn nodded encouragingly for her to continue, "So obviously I was assigned a girl at birth, but I'm not a girl. Not all the time, anyway. I'm saying I'm genderfluid, which means sometimes I'm a girl, sometimes I'm a boy, and then sometimes I'm in the middle."

In the following moments of silence, a strange feeling of shame settled in the air while Zayn looked down at the quilt covering his bunk and nodded slowly. Harry's breath caught in her throat when the truth registered in her brain, which caused blood to rush to her face. She was just about to get off the bed and climb into her own when Zayn looked up at her with alarm and grabbed her hand.

"Hey, where you going?" he asked, and the girl looked at him incredulously as she planted her hands down on the bed. A faint scoff came from the boy, and anger decided to join the mix of emotions in Harry's stomach. Her feelings must have been obvious on her face - which probably looked similar to that of a five-year-old - because Zayn sighed and grabbed her hand, cupping it in his own. "Sorry for not saying anything for a while, that made me look like a right arse," he admitted, looking straight into her eyes, "but I'm not transphobic or anything like that. I don't mind that you're genderfluid."

Much to the girl's relief, that's where the awkwardness ended because they spent the rest of the day talking about the camp and the different activities. Zayn had told her that Delta would probably be staying at the Big House until they brought her back home, which wouldn't be too long. It made sense, but Harry felt a sharp feeling of sadness at the thought of never seeing Delta again. What didn't make sense was why she was so attached to the tiny baby after only being her babysitter for a few days. She would look into it later.