Beauty could be found in every aspect of life -- in every glimpse of earth and milling people, in greenery and blues and browns, in buildings and nature, in beachfront. There were beautiful people and beautiful things, there were things to see wherever you go.

But Kassandra didn't have any time for sightseeing, not when she was in a bit of a rush.

Clarisse was waiting for her, it seemed, always, and gods did she hate when people waited on her.

(Kassandra had so much experience with waiting, had so much experience with that endless hopeful feeling that always crested with the sunset on the horizon that left you abandoned and lost in the dark unsure and longing for that feeling of being loved and wanted and desired.)

And they had a time limit, a crunch of the looming threat over their shoulder, chasing them faster than they could go urging them onward to save them. She could almost imagine the pleading, crying voices of her friends, of familiar faces that called for their help -- that begged and wondered where they were, wondered why they haven't come back yet to help. So many were depending on Clarisse and Kassandra by proxy, that she didn't know quite yet how she was going to turn that pressure into action and action into success.

She was the daughter of a god but that didn't mean she possessed almighty strength. She was the daughter of Apollo but that didn't mean that she knew all as though she was an oracle predicting possibilities of a future through the rhythmic spew of senseless words that only truly made sense in hindsight.

And sure she was trained and honed the skills that she had, but that didn't mean that she had the gods favour -- least of all her father -- so she wouldn't count on him for a single thing in her life. Certainly not when it came to the lives of others.

Kassandra knew enough of the gods that she knew that they would not intervene when it came to the safety of their children, especially when a prophecy complicated the entire affair.

In Maryland, stood on the bank of some river that likely connected to some beach or ocean, holding her bow in one hand, the other hovering over her arrows, as she waited for the moment something would go wrong and she would inevitably be overtaken by monsters since her luck was never that good.

She sent a silent prayer to Tyche, asking her to spare a little bit of luck to her and their cause.

It was after a little while when it was night and she was gazing up at the moon through the branches of trees, that she heard the chugga chug that she had from the Iris message with Clarisse. The steamship, an ironclad now that she saw it (something that she only knew was because of Ares kids and their interest in past battles and the Athena Cabin lessons) that came up was much older. It was dented, almost, the phantom touches of battered beatings that no longer fully appeared.

Stepping up to the edge of the bank, she waved a hand in greeting, grinning at the fact that she would be away from mosquitoes.

"You got here faster than I thought you would," Clarisse calls to her, stomping across the deck to the railing. "Get her on board!"

Beings move. Those weren't ghosts as she had first thought. They were zombies, it seems, souls of soldiers that probably owed something to Ares.

Once onboard, Clarisse clasped her hand in hers, pulling her in so that their shoulders bumped together. She winced slightly at the sheer mass of muscles and strength that Clarisse used, an unconscious thing that she was used to from roughhousing with her equally as muscled siblings.

The children of Ares were strong, all half-bloods were strong in body without much trying, but they were weight builder type of strong. They were the burly, heavy-lifter, dead-weights type that made their strikes deadly, each blow could decapitate and each attempt at defence would make your arms ring and buzz with the strain, and none of that strength limited their ability in a fight, limited their potential for speed and precision.

Kassandra was not weak by any means. She was a half-blood, a demigod, and had the strength that she did from that alone, but more so the strength of an athlete that burned off her energy throughout the school year. Maybe it wasn't fair for her to be on the basketball team or for her to be in track, but it was something that she enjoyed just as much as she doubted that she was the only half-blood on a sports team. Kassandra's strength was lither, leaner and less full physical strength and more endurance despite the power that she possessed in her arms and legs regardless.

If she could, she would take some of that Ares strength as it was useful in a fight, but she loved the speed that she had. At times, she often felt like an elf, like Legolas all fleet-footed and good with a bow.

"I slipped them an extra drachma to encourage them to go faster," she answers, pulling back with a smile. "Where'd you get the boat?"

"I prayed to my father for transportation and he gave me a steamboat. The spirits on the losing side of every battle owe a tribute to Ares. This is their curse for being defeated. These guys lost in the civil war."

She nods. "That seems about right. I'm not an Aphrodite kid, but their clothes put them in the right time period."

Clarisse grins. "They'd throw up or cry if they saw the state of their clothes."

Snickering, she lets her friend start to shouts orders and direct her crew to get them moving again. She was a force to be reckoned, a natural when it came to yelling at people.

It was something that had first drawn her to Clarisse. She was ten, coming into camp for her second summer after she had originally run away all that time ago, and Kassandra was a little slip of a girl whose arms shook when she worked too hard in training, struggling to get her forms right because everything felt off to her body, wrong.

Clarisse, the daughter of Ares that cursed others with a fierce fire in her gut, had taken pity on her. It had been a point where the Hermes cabin had nothing planned for the day, letting the campers scatter to do whatever they wanted for a change, and as she watched Luke and the Stoll brother go off to do their own thing, she had found herself wandering to the arena where the Ares cabin practiced.

They hadn't been mean, exactly, not rude, but they were stiff and snickered behind her back when she stumbled and failed. As an unclaimed, they didn't mind helping her all that much either.

But it was Clarisse, tall nine-year-old Clarisse, that had explained to her the importance of stretching to make sure her body remained familiar to the movements, that had led her through the basics with an eager grin because she had never had the opportunity to teach anyone else before, that had earned the attention of Oriana, the same girl from a time that seemed so long ago, and had gotten them the push they needed in their skills.

As Clarisse had grown mean and angry at the people around her, Kassandra had stuck around recognizing the sense of being misunderstood. And as Kassandra had grown distant and bitter, angry at the gods, Clarisse had defended her to others until she found a way to work through it -- most of it -- herself.

She was angry and bitter still. She still hated her father, but she still felt more like herself, morphing that bitterness something that wasn't fully her, something that didn't fully consume her.

"I wonder what they'll think when they get my stuff dropped off at camp without me coming in?" she voices the sudden thought aloud.

"Those siblings of yours will probably curse you five ways to Hades and then instantly regret it and start praying to your father to keep an eye on you."

She rolls her eyes. "They'll have better luck praying to literally anyone else."

"You would be the one to know," says Clarisse with a shrug.

"I wouldn't really," she admits honestly, "Can you ever tell for these things? How do you even know if they pay attention to you?"

Clarisse looks slightly uncomfortable and the desire to complain burns in her chest at the way of her life. She forces it down, hating the utter sound of people complaining and hating being a hypocrite enough more.

"It's hard to tell. I think it feels different for everyone, but it's like a warm feeling to me. Like a presence."

A presence? Right, that didn't make much sense. A warm feeling? That was sort of vague to say to a daughter of Apollo. Warm feelings were common for her, especially when she was very much warm-blooded.

"That doesn't make any sense, but okay, I guess," she mumbles under her breath sarcastically. She isn't that surprised that Clarisse hears her anyway and barks a laugh.

In a moment of rare sympathy, Clarisse drops a hand to her shoulder in what is intended to be a supportive pat but is heavier than what is necessary. "It'll make sense to you in time."

"Yeah, well, I'm not giving something I don't want any more time," she grumbles. In passing, she notices how quickly that they're already moving and attributes it to magic or something the like. "How much longer do you think it'll take to get to the sea?"

"Not much longer, I figure. These guys make good time."

Kassandra nods, dropping down to sit on the neck with her legs crossed under her. She let her bow rest down at her side, the quiver of arrows attached at her hip moving to press awkwardly against her, and shrugged the bag off her back. It lands behind her with a quiet thump as she rolls her shoulders with a stretch.

"Long day, big baby?"

She snorts. "A bit. I've been up since the sun and then theirs the concert and that pit scorpion that showed up," she complains, unable to help the slight hint of a whine in her voice. "And those damn Gray Sister's are honestly crazy. I might have died six times on the car ride alone. And pit scorpions! Terrible. Remind me why I use a dagger instead of something long and useful again?"

"Because you'd die with a sword or a spear."

She pauses a moment, breathing deeply. "Good point."

"There are some hammocks in the berth if you want to rest a bit. We'll take shifts so that we can stay up when we get to the Sea of Monsters."

"Don't you want to talk more about what we're supposed to be facing?" she worries quietly, unable to help the sense of worry that something might go wrong.

"We'll talk when you get up. I'm not going to send you off to worry before you go to sleep," Clarisse counters. "I might not stupid enough to risk giving you demigod dreams or nightmares. Next thing I know I'm trying to wake you up and I'm shot with an arrow."

Grumbling, she shakes her head and follows one of the crew down into the berth for a nap. She takes her things with her, dumping them under the hammock and dragging herself in. She settles easily with the gentle sway, relaxing back as she fiddles with her hands by her chest.

Kassandra exhales a heavy, shaky breath. This morning her biggest concern was keeping her siblings out of her things and possibly meeting new ones. Then it was like the half-blood part of her reared its head and she was bombarded with a series of misfortunes that could only be due to her parentage.

The truth was that demigods simply did not have good luck. Fate hated them and they all knew it.

She knew that she wasn't the only one that was suffering, that all of them regardless of parentage had something shitty going on, but she figured that she was allowed to feel bad about things for Hade's sake.

There weren't many people that she was close to. Sure, she had plenty of acquaintances, friends, at camp, but not many were her best friends. Not in the sense that Percy and Annabeth seemed to be close, or Paris, Bea and Carter from Aphrodite were close.

The only reason she was so ready to go and meet Clarisse was that they had remained good friends over the years and she knew that no matter what silly promise they made when they were just kids, that Clarisse wouldn't' have asked her to come unless she really needed someone there.

The fact that none of her siblings were here with her was telling enough. Either her pride had gotten in the way or they hadn't wanted to go with her at all. Kassandra wasn't sure what she would say to Sherman when she next saw him, but it wasn't going to be pretty.

Because right now she was headed in the Sea of Monsters with very little knowledge of what she was honestly going to encounter other than the obvious monsters and the hint at a cyclops.

It made her shudder, a wave of anger passing through her and for a second she wondered if she was more Ares than Apollo, but the urge towards a flair for dramatics and complaints told her that was more the flashy god than the warmonger. That and the fact that she had the same abilities as the rest of his children as well as having been claimed (eventually) by him.

"Lady Artemis, please let my arrows fly straight on this quest," she prayed silently, a whisper on her lips as her gaze turned upward to the glint of moonlight through the tiny porthole. "Nike, let us be victorious, please, bless our battles. Let us fight clear-headed and strong, Lord Ares, let us win the war."

Her words are clear, slightly begging and pleading, and definitely a major suck-up, but whatever. That's what they were taught at camp, to pray to the gods for their blessings and help.

It was like no matter how much she hated them, no matter how much she left like have a person, because of them, she couldn't help the prayers that she sent.

Besides, it wasn't as if she hated them all, per se. Kassandra hated her father alone. Her distaste to the others was solely for the sake of the half-bloods that could not hate them themselves.

With a curl of her lip, a pouty frown, she took another glance to the porthole, tracking the journey of the moon across the sky. It was late and she wouldn't fully oppose to a bit of a rest.

It was a bit of a miracle that her parents had allowed her to just run off on a quest so easily. They hadn't signed on for a half-blood daughter when they adopted her, expecting the worst to perhaps be coming to terms with the fact that they weren't her real parents -- and of course, Kassandra had to overachieve and ruin everything.

The LeClaire's were good people, wholesome and kind and compassionate, and they loved her as parents should. It wasn't fair to them that she ran off at odd times throughout the off-seasons at times to do things that they knew for a fact were dangerous and then spent the entire summer doing even more dangerous things.

Pressing the fatty bit of her hand to her eyes, she slides herself down further, reclining as far as she could. It wasn't the worst place that she's slept, better than most in fact.

Kassandra drifts to sleep with the light of the moon casting silver streams across closed, tired eyes.

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unedited

written: 2021-01-21

posted: 2021-02-18