𝐖𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐒 | percy jackson

panic attack

"For fucks sake," Ciarda huffed when the 'Tunnel of Love' entrance stood proudly before them. She shouldn't have been so naive, demigods could never escape their bloodline. 

Percy and Annabeth walked behind her, bickering over Annabeth's lack of ever having seen a movie. Ciarda might have agreed if Luke and she hadn't snuck out into Manhattan and gone to see the cinema. They were 9 and 11 and had been kicked out for throwing popcorn at strangers who were talking during the film.

Percy's sentence abruptly stopped as he walked into Ciarda's muscular back. He stumbled backwards, holding his achy nose when he looked at her. She was stationary, her neck cranked so she could stare up. Whilst Annabeth's gaze turned to the pink neon sign, Percy's slid to Ciarda's hands. 

They were scratched and muddy, but most obviously shaking. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't prevent the toll of Ares' nightmares on her. He couldn't get her white eyes out of his memories. 

Percy pondered about what she had seen, but knew whatever it was, would never leave her lips; or her mind. Throughout their quest, Percy had barely chiselled into the first wall of her guard. It was like Chiron said, he was going to have to be willing to die for her before even the first barrier came down. She was calculated, and strong. Much stronger than Percy, in all sense of the word. 

His attention snapped from a daydream when her trembling fingers clenched into pure tendon, the shrill shaking mostly halting. "Okay, let's go," Annabeth decided, Percy racing forward into the bars. He didn't like the eery feeling an abandoned water park gave him and wished to leave, with Grover, as soon as possible.

"Wait, Percy, stop!" Annabeth said, but it was too late. Percy had pushed halfway through the barriers to get to the Tunnel of Love. He was stuck in a metal cage. Ciarda stopped considering her dysfunctional family and came rushing to their aid. Her mind couldn't stop reeling with thoughts. 

The creaking of rusty cogs echoed in the still air, grinding gears rolling above Percy's head. It looked deadly. "Percy, stay still!" Ciarda wracked her mind for anything she knew about her mother. There was a reason she had been sent here, on Fate's path. She was meant to know something.

"In the mechanism there, that's celestial bronze," Annabeth's intellectual voice broke through Ciarda's panicked thinking. Ciarda hated that something in meeting her Dad had caused years of training to dissolve. It left shredded ribbons of Chiron's advice. And perhaps that was what hurt, deep down. Chiron had to have known about the baby born to Ares and Aphrodite, and yet spent years facading her life to her. Lying. And so, she felt unbelievably weak. 

"Oh, fascinating. Annabeth, what is happening, right now?" Percy spat out sarcastic comments, unable to keep his ocean eyes off of the bone-crushing machine. Ciarda ambled forward, her fingers grasping the iron bars. Her knuckles were still briefly healing from hitting the vault door in The Arch repetitively. 

Percy tore his eyes away from the apparatus about to kill him, looking into Ciarda's. Her eyes said millions of words, nothing like he had ever seen before. The dull brown, usually void of emotion, was twinkling with the brim of every word she had ever wanted to say. 

Their moment was broken by Annabeth's monotonous voice. She spoke like a machine, thinking like Athena. "Celestial bronze is what your sword is made of. If you're a human it'll pass right through you. If you're a monster or a demigod..." 

Ciarda swallowed. Her tongue felt huge like it was taking up most of her throat. She felt a tightness in her chest expanding like a balloon. Her breaths started to come out in shallow bursts. Lightly, she put her head on the cool pipes Percy was trapped between. A feeling of anxiety weaved between her spine discs.

"Safe to say, this is not just some amusement park. A God built this." Annabeth and Percy were too busy with impending death to realise Ciarda's broken puffs. She didn't understand. Their arguments of what to do next faded, as the ringing pulse in her ears vibrated up her neck. 

Her mother. Her father. Everything had changed. They weren't like she thought. He was nasty and cruel and vicious and pathetic. Seven-year-old Ciarda had built her father up to be everything he wasn't. The war god was not brave, or heroic or soldier-like. All he liked was fighting. He didn't care about the proud spirit of battle. Or the fairness of a victory.

Her whole blood family, her brother's and sister's, were banded over a lie. That their father was some great being. 

And as sick as it sounded, in her heart, she still wished that he would love her. 

She was broken. The world had messed her up. She was like a shattered jukebox, an abandoned doll. Nobody wanted her. 

Her vision blurred when she let go of the railing, dizzily rushing off to a nearby merry-go-round. Sweaty palms planted themselves on the cool surface, sizzling away the rising heat. Edges of her sight darkened like the world was caving in. 

And Clarisse. God, poor Clarisse. They had done everything together, they had grown up doing each other's hair and making mud pies by the lake together. None of it was real - Clarisse was not her sister. Another lie this goddamn world had spoon-fed her.

Ciarda pressed a tanned hand to her chest, trying to anchor herself, but the ground seemed to sway beneath her feet. Every sound, every whisper, felt amplified, crashing against her like waves in a storm. The colours of the merry-go-round, the yellows and reds had dimmed. It didn't feel right. What was happening?

What else had they lied to her about? Chiron couldn't have meant it - not after the years of immense care he had honed. And Luke. Luke wouldn't have known, she knew that for sure. Their trust couldn't have been broken by the strongest God. 

Sweat beaded on her forehead, trickling down her temples. Her hands quivered uncontrollably, and she buried them into fists, nails drilling into her palms in a desperate attempt to find some semblance of control. This was unfamiliar, Ciarda was never out of control of her emotions. She kept them locked, in her own Pandora's box. 

"Please," She whispered into the air, every word reverberating around her skull. She tried to stand, her knees collapsing into the deep soil. It was rich, as though it had just rained. Flashes of her nightmares reeled around her. 

Annabeth and Percy were gone. Their voices dissipated in the wind. They had left her, like everyone else. 

The panicked face of Annabeth blurred into her vision before it became an indistinct mass. Then her friend's face returned into focus, her expressions unreadable. Ciarda felt exposed and vulnerable. Annabeth looked horrified.

Desperation was easily distinguishable when Ciarda clawed at Annabeth's arms. It was a frantic need to escape, to find safety, to breathe. 

"Ciarda? What's wrong?" Annabeth's concerned face faded when Ciarda looked over to Percy. He was out of the entrapment: so they had figured it out. He was calling out for her, but his words fell silent. His fists shook the iron, his curls bouncing with the momentum as he tried to communicate with her.

Annabeth helped her friend up, her hand naturally coming up to wipe the tears from Ciarda's face. Nobody was going to see her in such a state. It wasn't their right. She propped Ciarda's back against the bars of the trap.

Ciarda. 

Ciarda's ragged breaths paused, freaking out Annabeth. Silence filled her ears. Brown eyes scattered in random directions. Annabeth cupped her face, thumbs smoothing the wet tears from her red cheeks. "Percy, look for any other traps. Give us a minute," She ordered, not taking no for an answer. She was loyal to Ciarda, nearly more than anyone - perhaps second to her mother. And she knew her. She knew Ciarda wouldn't want anyone to see her in this weak state. 

Ciarda. Relax.

The smooth, buttery voice of a woman seemed to dull every flaming nerve in her body. Ciarda's muscles fell slack. 

I love you, my little girl. 

"Mom?"