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Briar rarely left camp. The few occasions where she had were to visit Olympus with the rest of the year-round campers. It hadn't been all that exciting, if anything Briar was bored seeing the gods. They were nothing but glorified beings controlling life for mortals and sitting back while their children die for them time and time again. The only good thing out of those visits was getting to see the way Zeus's fingers had minor tremors anytime she got too close. No repellent necessary. Of course her fun was always ruined by Annabeth and Luke ushering her away like she needed to be kept on a leash. Luke once made a joke that someday she would give the old man an aneurysm.
It was funny to think she had the power to scare a literal god while she wasn't even half his size. That had to be bruising his ego. Though not as much as it was frustrating herself. She had the king of gods afraid yet went on a quest for him — no, not for him, for Annabeth.
Briar watched through the tinted windows as they passed familiar buildings. Ones she hoped to never see again. Manhattan, the city that housed Leah Bardale, her mother who was no doubt lying on the couch puffing away on a lit joint and white powder under her nose. The image made the girl clench her hands under her knees. Briar could easily run to her old apartment from where they sat parked in front of the Greyhound Station. If she was feeling like seeing a ghost again, a shell. Leah probably wouldn't have been right in the head to even answer the door anyway. And as much as Briar can pretend to feel nothing, she was broken and couldn't handle her mother turning her away. Not again.
"I can't look at you without seeing him," her mother had said. "Sometimes I wish he were here instead." The words weren't malicious or meant to hurt but they dug a dagger through Briar's heart. She wanted to be strong and let the words roll off her like they meant nothing but she had been ten, just a kid wanting her mother to love her. Briar knew Leah's heart was shattered but so was her's.
She was left to pay the price of being the spawn of a god.
The four left the van, each wearing expressions of; determination, nervousness, pain, and contemplation. Briar took her own bag while Argus unloaded the others. The pink strap hanging over her shoulder as she stood off to the side, a wisp of a shadow dancing between her fingers as her eyes looked up at the sky. Night was falling, making Briar feel a little more comfortable in her skin. A child of the underworld. Child of Sleep and dreams. Granddaughter of Night and Darkness. The late hours brought comfort to the girl.
"Are you thinking of him," Annabeth asked quietly as she neared.
Briar glanced down at her, shadows moving to dance around the blonde instead. "Are you thinking of her?" Knowing they both meant their respective godly parents.
"I want her to be proud of me."
If she had been anyone else standing in front of Annabeth she would have given some bullshit lie that her mother will always be proud of her, but Briar wasn't going to hide her distaste for the Olympians or fabricate a lie to save Annabeth's feelings. That just wasn't who she is. "Athena only cares for her own pride," Briar's shadows coiled around Annabeth's wrist in a makeshift bracelet despite the blue haired girl trying to will them back to herself. "She doesn't care, Annie, none of the gods do."
