Climb (Percy Jackson x Reader)

thirty-five

✺ AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE ✺

"I thought I'd find you here."

(Y/N) looks up at the sound of Jason's voice. She huffs a quiet chuckle, carefully stroking one of the poppies that surrounds Cara's cenotaph. A gentle pulse drums into her fingers, mirroring the beat of her heart.

Jason kneels beside her, and she sits back on her heels. He touches the stone briefly, lowering his head and closing his eyes. (Y/N) merely watches as the golden accents on her flowers twinkle in the morning light.

Overhead, the sky begins to lighten. Orange seeps into pink, and honeyed brushstrokes gleam on every cloud.

"She was brave," Jason says, looking to the sky. An angle of the sunrise touches the corner of his glasses.

(Y/N) swallows, her shoulders loosening. "She was."

Her spine aches with the memory of the dragon.

Cara had been frozen with shock when the monster had arced in the air and soared directly towards her. (Y/N) had rushed forward, grabbing her and falling to the ground. She'd landed on her back, Cara close to her chest, just in time to hold a hand out and block the dragon's spurt of fire.

Even after she'd nearly died, even while armed only with Vesta's blessing and a dagger, Cara had leapt to her feet and charged. She had no godly abilities—hell, no godly blood—and she had launched back into the fray. She was gifted with enhanced senses and an aura of comfort, and in spite of her disadvantages she had grown into a warrior.

(Y/N) was certain that without Cara's determination to fight, the dragon wouldn't have been killed.

And after they'd won, she had knelt beside the campers who lost their siblings. She had comforted them. Given them peace.

(Y/N) closes her eyes.

Cara had tried to give her peace, too. A victim to Basilisk poison, a child brought face-to-face with her final moments—and she had thanked (Y/N) for blocking the flames, for holding her as she slipped away.

She was only fourteen. And unlike (Y/N), she couldn't be brought back.

Perhaps it would have been kinder if Vesta hadn't blessed her. If she had been taken by the illness that plagued her as a newborn. If she had been spared the life that god-graced children were doomed to live.

Somewhere on the edge of (Y/N)'s focus, Jason speaks. "She was a fighter, too," he says.

And she was.

After everything she'd been through, everything she'd witnessed, everything she'd been cursed to bear, she fought. She was a human living a life that never should have been hers—that never should have been anyone's. And she still chose to see each day through, with a weapon in her hand and a spark in her eye.

"She was good," (Y/N) breathes, looking bleakly at the poppies. "More so than I think any of us can ever try to be."

Jason nods, his jaw tightening.

"She knew everything that she was up against. Everything that would put her at risk, be it the world or just her nature." (Y/N) shakes her head. An incredulous scoff escapes her throat. "Almost anyone else would turn heel and run."

Jason's head hangs as he sighs. "She served the legion well. And her friends." He lifts a hand to (Y/N)'s shoulder, squeezing briefly. "Elysium honors her."

"It shouldn't have to." Under his hand, (Y/N)'s muscles tense. "She was a kid."

Jason pats her shoulder. He stands, looking down and holding his arm out for her. As she takes it, rising to her feet, his focus shifts to the stone.