Origins of Olympus S2 One-Shots

Bri's Memories

(this is written as if Bri forgot all memories of Austin son of Apollo and got them back all at once)

Bri curled up against the wooden wall of Austin's room, balancing on the steps and avoiding thinking too hard about where she was. She was on Moku, in her sorta new home, in the son of Pele's room. Not Austin's.

He wasn't Austin. Not the one she now had intruding memories of. Wholesome, bright, heart wrenching visions of a past she forgot and wished she still did.

She didn't want to think about it, about any of it. Every new memory that returned was a stab in the heart, too painful to even register before she forced it to the back of her mind where it belonged. Maybe if they hadn't left in the first place, it would be easier. It wouldn't hurt as bad.

But all at once? It was too much. And all Bri wanted to do was hide away until the sadness she thought she had never felt went away.

The bedroom door opened and the son of Pele carefully poked his head inside. "Hey um, I brought you a smoothie from Colin and some apples from Seek." Bare feet stepped up to set them both on the stairs. "They were worried but you said you wanted your space but Seek still wanted to come see you so his coco threw him into the ocean.

"Then Colin went in after him because that sea crab, lady, thing tried to eat him. But the food was just laying there on the deck so I decided to bring it to you and see how you were doing."

Bri raised her head just enough to look from the food to his face. She tried to focus on the magma infused half, covered in bright markings the Greek demigods she knew didn't have. "Thanks, I guess," she said with minimal enthusiasm but gratitude nevertheless.

"You, uh, feeling any better? Do you want coco to stay with you? They're really good listeners. They've always sat and listened to our problems. Well, they listened while we complained about each other until they forced us to stop fighting by threatening to tell our parents, but they were really attentive about it."

Bri tried to smile, to show some sign of normalcy. But her eyes betrayed her, sneaking out of trained focus, and she caught sight of the other half of his face. Blue eyes that were only a slight shade darker, but the same brown hair, the same concerned expression with his mouth twisted to the side.

She quickly turned away, lifting her feet up to the same step and facing the wall. "I'm sorry, it's just... difficult to look at you right now. You look too much like he did- does."

The son of Pele moved off the stairs but didn't leave. Instead, he sat down on the other side of the pole holding up the next floor, scooting out of her view. Back to back with a plank of wood separating them.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"This way you don't have to look at me," he answered simply.

Bri's mouth twitched. "It's not just that, to be honest. You sound like him, too."

There was a pause and Bri thought he had left when she heard scratching and a paper was pushed in front of the bottom of the stairs. She leaned against the pole and reached down to pick it up. 'Is this better?' was scrawled on it in red crayon.

"What's this?"

A red and black hand shot out and took the paper from her. More scratching and it came right back. 'If we talk like this, you don't have to hear my voice.'

A giggle escaped her and she hid her face in her drawn up knees. "Stop making me laugh, doofus."

She almost expected him to blow up at the insult but instead his voice was surprisingly calm. "Did he do that a lot?"

"Do what?"

"Make you laugh."

Memories of picnics and long travels appeared despite her agonzining struggle to keep them at bay. Her face clouded over but they still forced a small smile out of her. "Yeah, he did. Whether I wanted to or not."

"Sounds like a wierd guy."

"Oh he was. The first thing he did when he saw me last Summer was call me his girlfriend."

"You sure it wasn't Sekah you're remembering?"

Bri laughed and for the first time since her memories came back, her chest felt as light as her wings. "I'm fairly sure, yes. Seek is a hard person to forget."

But so was Austin.

The air in the room dropped along with the mood. The growing, ever present ache returned as Bri retreated back into the part of her mind that was the farthest from her emotions as she could get. Potion ingredients, recipes, spells she could and couldn't pronounce. Words and images that took all of her attention to focus on.

She didn't know how long she sat there, reverberating the lectures on proper cauldron stirring. The light in the room started to dwindle as the sun neared the horizon outside. Seek and Colin must've been back from the ocean by now, or they had gotten eaten.

The paper serving as a poor means of communication was slipped from its place. Bri waited patiently, listening to the crayon being dragged across it until it slid back into view.

'Is it painful to remember?'

"I think painful is an understatement. I didn't even know if I had ever felt sad and now... it's all I can feel."

'What about good memories?'

"It's not even the sad parts. Thinking back on the good times I had with him are just as hurtful. Times we can never have again.

'Would it have been better to have never gotten them back?'

Bri thought about it. The blissful ignorance she mistook as annoying amnesia. The aching affliction losing it so suddenly had caused. The terrible parts of camp and the events during that now plagued her at every conscious moment.

The person her boyfriend had been. And what he had done for her. Everything he had done for her. Good and bad. The person who had never left her side even in the face of possible disaster that they had both inadvertently caused.

"...No. Even if I was the only one who forgot him, Austin didn't deserve for anyone to forget who he was."

Bri laid the paper back onto the floor, leaving her hand on top of the child-like handwriting. "One of the last things I said to him was that I loved him."

"Don't tell Seek that."

They sat in comfortable silence while the muffled sounds of his brothers and the cocos floated in from outside. The son of Pele covered her hand in his, only grazing her skin with his lava burnt palm. Bri rolled her hand over and threaded their fingers together.