Time's Darkness

Chapter 1 - Ebony and Audrey

A little FYI - everything will be in Ebony's POV, no more annoying switching.

And about Audrey, she's important later, she's just helpful to build Ebony's character for now, but remember her.

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I wandered through the camp aimlessly. I twisted a bronze ring on my finger like a girl twirled her hair. It was as mindless as I was as I sat down in the stands to watch some campers fight. 

I sighed as I stopped the useless twirling and leaned back on the hard back of the seat. It wasn't as if I had anywhere else to be. I didn't even have my own space at Camp. But that was the curse of my lineage. I was doomed to have no siblings or anyone who was close.

I curled my right hand into a fist and looked carefully at it, studying the bronze ring. It was the sole gift from my father.

I clenched both fists as the frustration nearly overcame me but didn't lose control. My powers banked on emotions and adrenaline and when I lost control it was bad. This happened every time I thought of my father. He was stupid and, well, not a good father. Or a father at all. I wouldn't call him one, for sure. Why would I bother calling someone dad who never did anything for me? The only thing he did give me, aside from the ring, was the curse of having monsters trying to kill me all the time!

"Hey, Ebony," said another camper, Apollo, I think. The greeting was cold. "Chiron wants to talk to you."

I nodded curtly as jumped down nimbly. For fun I did a flip and landed so well a professional gymnast would have been proud but I didn't even crack a smile before beginning to walk away. It was't impressive to me, anyway. I had been training with stuff like that since I was a kid, even before I got to camp, before my mother died.  It wasn't as if anyone cared, either. 

 "He wanted you to hurry," the boy said in the most condescending voice possible. 

Sadly, I took it in stride and began to sprint. I wished that I cared and that I got mad about it but at this point, I didn't bother. It was simply a waste of my energy. It wouldn't get me anywhere. I hadn't sprinted from the arena to the Big House in a while; I wondered if I still could.

"Chiron," I said, scarcely breathing hard. The windswept look of my hair completing my look of opposites. The white strands of my long hair, unruly from life and my perfectly opposite outfit that never changed. My outfit was precise, pristine, and extremely predictable. My hair never obeyed what I wanted it to do. 

I always wore my hair down, no matter what. I usually wore black combat boots but when I tried to look normal I wore brown. Black skinny jeans, normally, but sometimes blue. I always wore some type of black shirt. I would never be caught dead in orange. And sometimes a black sweatshirt.

Today was my usual. Black combat boots, black jeans and a black shirt, of solid black and then the sleeves and coating over the top were a flowing fabric but my no means was it frilly. It wasn't as if I was goth or overly attached to black or something. To me, black was just another color. Well, I guess I was attached. Everyone at camp had said I was dark, so I guess now it was simply habit. I liked it, the feeling of a habit. 

"We found a new demigod."

"What do you need me for then?" I snapped. I hadn't meant to. It wasn't as if Chiron had ever wronged me. 

"Ebony! You told me, recently, that you were tired of everyone at this camp hating you. I took the liberty of enrolling you at the school and you can protect her when the monsters attack and bring her here. She deserves to be with her family for as long as possible."

"Yeah," I said. My mother had died when I was seven and that's when I had come here. I barely remembered her and only had one name Gracia Colt and I looked just like her, according to a family friend, eliminating my father's side yet again. The memories that  I did have were the best of my life. I had been her world. Even though she knew I would be attacked on a regular base, risking her life, she still was with me all the time. Until she died. My world was destroyed in that one instant. I had been alone ever since, exempting the one time I had had a friend.