"Send me! Send an army! Send a thousand ships! I don't care, just bring her home. I hate being without her."
[ PERCY JACKSON x FEMALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
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0020. | I WALKED WITH YOU ONCE UPON A DREAM
Life near the end of summer was always difficult for the children of Apollo, but this year seemed to hurt more than ever. As the evenings began to pull in earlier, when night became an inky blanket tucked to their chins and they urged themselves to bed and the tides altered as a lullaby, summer was coming to its close and Octavia was still yet to set her mind straight. She thought on the loss of Lee every day, and she wondered if this was what made the retreating sunlight so hard to feel, or if it was the heated shadow she now always felt at her back.
July blended into August, and not a word was heard. It was just like last time. Apollo could have thought nothing of it, or he could have mourned his child until the red cows came home, but the truth was that no one knew what he felt, or if he felt at all. There was no sound of grief from the Sun God and heat permeated their skin and drew sweat just as easily as it did every summer. Illness was not a thing outside of pollen sneezes, poetry was whispered, music was sung, but no arrows were drawn. Octavia gave them all time for mourning. Not even Chiron would enforce the campers into violence again so quickly. The respite of July was well earned and much needed.
And when August came and even Octavia's skin grew sticky with sweat, only the smallest glimmer of Apollo's grief could be felt. The hottest summer on record, and then, one morning before the dawn rose, a bouquet of hyacinths dropped on the porch of the golden cabin.
Not another word was muttered on the matter.
Somehow, that made it worse. The silence before had been manageable. Their whole lives, they had dealt with silence from the divine, but now, knowing that Apollo knew Lee was gone was heartbreaking above all. Their father, unlike any of his offspring, was being silent in his grief. And Octavia, so unlike her father and yet the spitting image all the same, brewed her despair into frustration.
The silence from the Gods was unbearable. Everyday Octavia dealt with the aftermath of the battle and not a peep was heard, even from Dionysus who had lingered at Camp longer than usual for Pollux's sake. The only presence Octavia knew was the heated shadow she felt looming at her back. Ares' eye was on her and the sun felt hotter than ever.
Octavia's silent cursing of the Gods were becoming more and more frequent in her mind. Every time the uttering came to her lips I hate them I hate them I hate them— she would look at her reflection in the mirror and remind herself that it was her thinking these things. Her reflection was not blond-haired, it was not blue-eyed, it was not golden-scarred. She was not him.
So why did her anger feel so familiar?
She knew it was real, too, because no visit came from anyone. Aside from Mr D's dramatic departure to continue rallying the minor gods and the wilting petals of the hyacinths in Michael's bedside vase, not a sound was heard from Olympus. The Gods knew of the precariousness of their situation, they had to know because even though their silence was not uncharacteristic, it felt potent. It was loud and sometimes, in the darkness of the quiet nights, Octavia would sit on the roof of Apollo Cabin and listen to the silence as loudly as a scream.
