Characters Based on the Percy Jackson Series

Scarlett Connolly - Daughter of Lyssa

My father, Cadan Connolly, was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1964 to Protestant parents. His home life was as good as could be expected, until “the troubles” began. I will not bother with the history lesson, but in 1969, when my father was only five; his parents were murdered in a riot that had broken out in their city, one of many riots that had broken out around the same time, all over Northern Ireland, killing over a dozen, leaving hundreds wounded or homeless. My father was sent to an orphanage for Protestant children, but as he described it, it was more or less a place to try to reform them to Catholicism.

As he grew, so did his anger towards the UVF, RUC as well as the British government. He was treated awful at the orphanage, though he never went into details, I suspect it could have been anything from sexual violence to physical violence. In 1980, at 16, my father ran away from the orphanage, and joined up with the Provisional IRA, hoping to help fight. My father was so full of rage and fury, I have always suspected that was what drew my mother, Lyssa, to my father, but I will never know for sure, my father died before I found out. In 1990, she disguised herself as a female member of the provisional IRA, and began courting my father. When he found out that she was pregnant with me, he started talking about giving up his position within the IRA and settling down. However, for some reason, Lyssa did not want to see Cadan give up the fight, so to add fuel to his anger, after my birth, she faked her death, making it seem as if the RUC was responsible.

Therefore, my father fought on within the PIRA, for most of my early childhood I was raised by our neighbours, or by other families within the PIRA. When I turned 11, things changed, my father was arrested, somehow evidence came out that my father had been one of the men responsible for the 1996 Manchester Bombing, he was sentenced to life imprison and I was sent to live in foster care. For two years, I was shuffled from home to home, I had a tendency to have outburst, and no one wanted to deal with me. At 13, while on the way home from school, was when my life changed forever, a massive freakish looking dog thing lunged at me.  One of the older kids at my school stepped, and was suddenly brandishing a sword, before I could comprehend what was happening, he stabbed the thing, and it turned to dust. He explained to me that he was a demigod, and that he thought I must be one too, for the thing to attack me like that. I did not want to believe him, it was utter nonsense, but he gave me a pen, and said that when I needed it, it would help me, and a phone number if I changed my mind and wanted to hear more.

Two more years passed, I had nearly forgotten what that boy had told me, until after school one day, our substitute teacher turned into some weird looking thing with wings, and attacked me. This time, this thing with goat legs stepped in and passed me a sword, I did the best I could, trying to remember what the boy had done two years earlier, and managed to kill the thing with only a sprained wrist and mild gash in my knee. This time, I was ready to listen. The satyr explained everything to me and arranged to take me to America, to a camp where he said I could learn to fight monsters.

For five years, I stayed at camp, fighting, learning, going on quests, and for those five years, I watched campers come and go, many of whom were killed in battle. I started to hate the idea that it was because of the gods that we had to live like that, constantly having to fight for our lives. I mean, life was hard enough for mortals, but throwing all of these monsters and things into it, and it was damn near impossible. I left camp, and travelled around, when I came across the group that called themselves the Broken Covenant, they told me of their goals, and I found they had a mutual hatred of the life the gods had doomed us too. I immediately joined up, and hope to someday bring down the gods, who have made us, and who do nothing to help us in our daily struggles.