Wildfires, Heroes of Olympus ₂

005, no one matches her freak

CHAPTER    FIVE
FINLEY  BRIGGS

₊࿐࿔✸⋆｡° ⚘༉ . ⊹

There were a lot of misconceptions about Finley Briggs (in Finley Briggs's humble opinion).

First, of course, was that she enjoyed being referred to as Finley at all. Actually, she tried to go by Finn over her real name. The problem was—Romans didn't respect Finn much. And even if they did, they were still too serious and stringent to grasp the concept of nicknames. So, everyone here called her Finley.

There was only one person who actually listened to her requests of going by Finn, but he was also the last person Finn wanted to think about.

Another common fallacy about Finn had to be that she was just like her father—lazy and drunk. Which. Harsh, okay? Finn might not show that she thought those comments were harsh, but that was only because she grew used to them after nine years in the legion.

(You would think after nine years here she'd fit in with her peers at some point.)

The point was, Finn was not addicted to alcohol, contrary to popular belief. Her fellow Romans thought just because Finn had the rare gift of turning any drink to wine, copiously drank aforementioned wine, and constantly stumbled and slurred, that gave her a "drinking problem." Apparently she was "an addict."

She wasn't. She just liked fun, which apparently none of the other campers understood.

Sometimes, though, Finley Briggs was a little bit of her father's daughter: She enjoyed a good bit of partying, a larger bit of wine, and basically every form of theater out there. She had a slight twinge of purple to her eyes—which most people didn't notice, because even the thought of directly meeting Finn's eyes was unsettling. It probably had to do with the insane gleam also laid in them. Finn didn't really think it helped that she naturally looked a little crazed when she got too excited about something. Or that, when she felt that immense ecstasy, she accidentally made everyone else feel ecstatic as well.

Finn could admit—all of that was true. Unfortunately, Camp Jupiter did seem to know a good bit about her. Not that really they tried, but it was kind of hard to ignore her when she'd been living with them for nine years. Some facts about her tended to come about, whether it was willing or not.

Finn was just glad that was the only stuff they seemed to know about her. If they found out anything deeper...

She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about a lot of things. She downed another gulp of wine, in hopes that maybe the intoxicating feeling will take her mind off of everything else.

(Yes, Finn had promised Hazel she'd be sobered up for war games. But no one ever believed her when she said that. Sobriety was to Finn as sanity was to Octavian.)