INTREPID ▸ connor stoll

[𝟐.𝟎𝟏] rage is a quiet thing

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chapter seven
rage is a quiet thing
┕━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━┙

Devi is grateful that a better part of her year is saturated with uneventful days.

Boredom is a luxury that a life like hers generally can't afford, for multiple reasons: being a child of a god warrants imminent danger almost every other day (but thankfully, Devi is one of the less powerful demigods and by extension, less appetizing to the monsters), having to work double shifts at a diner in her threadbare town that lies on one of the more popular travel routes means a new face to greet every day and not all of them friendly (but Devi has perfected the art of smiling like she means it, so she only looks genuinely happy when she's pretending), and weekends dedicated to teaching kickboxing to the neighbourhood kids who, over time, have started to view her backyard as less of a classroom and more of a Saturday hangout spot.

All good things, barring the incessant nightmares that she sweats through every time she sleeps and the hangover from each restless night that plagues her in the form of a migraine for the rest of the day. To take the more truthful course in this narrative, Devi has been wrestling back the rising dread of the approaching summer solstice and has not been faring very well in that regard.

Sherman's constant letters – a more recent, surprising development – have been habitual in their inquiries into her wellbeing and equally foreboding in their updates on Cabin Nine's project. He sends word of their cabin (not that she cares) and asks when is the earliest she can return.

She has been dedicated in her unresponsiveness to his missives. Devi knows she has displayed stubbornness at various points throughout her short, pathetic existence in an effort to maintain even the last bits of false autonomy over her own life after having so much of it taken away against her desperate prayers but this is something she stands by: she will not bend, not even for her half-siblings.

Anything and everything she does is by her volition, for her own (or Raj's) benefit and that may be selfish but Devi has foregone trying to explain her fears to everyone who has already cemented the image of her as a coward. (In this, at least, they do not err but they also refuse to listen.)

The best part about stepping outside of camp borders and spending a life tending to the half-human side of her is being able to put things into perspective; of course, that can be attributed to the clinical exactness of observation that is only borne by sufficient physical and emotional detachment, and Devi is a veteran of being the outsider looking in.

At least, in this, Clarisse has trained her well. Not that Devi blames anyone in Cabin Five for their unkind teachings – if she'd had the pleasure of being as strong and capable as them the first time she arrived at camp, she would have treated someone like her 12-year-old self just the same. It is just as well that she does not inherit her father's strength or his cruelty.

She is built for lesser but slightly more enjoyable things, like lazy days at this diner brewing coffee behind the counter, drawing cats with the latte foam, and having Raj seated in one of the tables in the corner where he's trying to finish all his summer homework so that he doesn't waste time at camp trying to solve simultaneous equations or explain cell membrane models.

The manager, Bonita, is a kind middle-aged woman who makes it a point to refer to both Devi and Raj as "my dear" and "sweet child", at which Devi suffers no adverse reaction like she normally would any term of endearment. Though that comfort is largely won through Bonita's unfailing genuine tolerance for Devi's reticence and Raj's loquacity.

Also, when the diner is empty in the late evenings once in a blue moon, and they're playing the 80's classics over the speakers, Devi gets to adopt the aisles between her tables to her one-man performance while she's mopping or cleaning up the tables. 4 years on the high-school dance team may have taught her very little (she did only join that team with the singular purpose of having the means to curate her body to accommodate for her fighting style and make up an excuse to work out every evening so she could avoid coming home to her mom) but it did teach her how to catch a beat and carry it within her.