Wind blew, swirling around her hair and kicking at her hair. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, curling up in puffs of and swirls that tangled grey into the green, casting the scene into a one-sided battle won.

With a bow clutched in one hand, she shifts her weight forward until her toes peeked over the edge of grey metal and she was close enough to jump down to join them as they were brought aboard.

Annabeth was a sight to behold as she stepped foot on deck, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail with her signature Yankees cap pulled to the side. She was in shorts and a camp t-shirt, the string of her beaded necklace peeking out from the top of her collar. Her expression was tested into one of grim pleasure, as though she wasn't sure to be happy to see them or unhappy that they were nearly shot at by Clarisse.

Percy, on the other hand, was still the hot mess that he always was. Hair in a constant state of disarray, the teenage boy looked like he had been through a fight, had been dragged and fought tooth and nail to stand where he was now, ready to fight again. It was a good look on him, one of strength and powerful waves poorly held at bay within in shell of boy not human not god.

The one with them was tall with bushy, curly hair and a wide grin that she found herself copying. It was odd for two demigods to be travelling with a cyclops, but here he was in the burning orange of a camp t-shirt keeping close to Percy and Annabeth's sides as he cowered from the zombie and ghost crew.

She drops to sit on the metal, keeping one leg propped up and bent, knee tucked close to her chest, and the other drop to hang over the side. She kicked in small circles.

"Kassandra, what are you doing here?" Percy asks, surprise clear in his tone as he moves closer to her.

She leans forward, bending at the waist until she was as far down as she could go. "Clarisse invited me. Picked me up over near Maryland."

"Picked you up?" he repeats just as Annabeth asks, "What were you doing in Maryland?"

"I was in Maryland to meet up with Clarisse. I took a cab straight down after we got into contact," she tells them honestly. "What are you guys doing here? I was told this Tantalus guy was a nasty piece of work."

Percy scowls. "You've got that right," he mutters.

It's then that Clarisse comes over, commanding their attention once more, and Kassandra falls back to her self-designated post of sitting up top under the guise of keeping watch. There wouldn't be much for her to keep watch of with the sun setting but she could revel in the joy that she felt at watching it go, watching it sink from her sights with the glow of red and gold on the horizon.

Lady Artemis' moon would be rising in its stead, would be filling the night with nothing but peace and tranquillity of pale silver and greying white glow. She would feel the chill against flushed skin, would feel the cool winds as they intended.

In the meantime, she took her flute back to her lips, praying a quiet greeting to Artemis, before she went on to play whatever came to mind -- a flowing tune haunting and slow that swelled and fell into the night. It fell free from her as she let herself relax, unwind before she grabbed something to eat and ran off to rest for the night.

She had been at watch all day, giving Clarisse the time to relax while she could. Kassandra was always much more alert during the day and whether that was because she was Apollo's daughter or if just the fact that he was the god of the sun that followed her every movement with its bright, burning gaze, kept her on edge the entire. Regardless, it was best for her to sleep when they were coming upon the entrance to the sea of monsters instead of when they were to try sailing through it.

Playing until the sun was fully gone, she forced herself to stop and reattached the instrument to her belt. She grabbed her bow and slung it across her back, checking to make sure that her quiver was still firmly secured before she jumps down to the deck and goes off in search of the little tour group.

A tour, she was sure, that was meant to be more of a gloating thing than anything else, a way for Clarisse to show off that her father was just as good, just as kind in giving to his children as Poseidon (and the other Olympians, from the rumours that she's heard) seemed to be for the almighty Percy Jackson.

The thought of that alone made her crinkle her nose. He had so much favour with the gods, with the Olympians, and he wasn't even aware, he didn't even seem to care. From what she knew, he had stood in front of her father last summer at the solstice.

Suddenly, Kassandra wasn't all that content to see them here. The three of them could hitch a ride elsewhere for all she cared.

She found them sitting in the captain's quarters at the small table that was there. They were finishing up their meal of pb&j sandwiches, chips and soft drinks. Her plate was the only one left untouched, the food piled up in a way that clearly gave Clarisse away as the one to have served her.

With the limited space, Kassandra opted to just grab her plate and eat standing in the doorway, immediately digging into the chips with a hungry fervour that came from spending so much time out in the sun -- hours under the rays could make someone sick, but with unfortunate DNA that never was and always will be, she thankfully couldn't get heatstroke (or a sunburn) but she could feel tired at the end of the day (she wasn't sure if it was the same for her siblings or if their father just picked her as the least favourite).

"Tantalus expelled you for eternity," Clarisse told them smugly. "Mr. D said if any of you show your face at camp again, he'll turn you into squirrels and run you over with his SUV."

She nearly choked. "He did?" she asks, swallowing her laughter as Annabeth turns a glare on her.

Percy ignores her. "Did they give you the ship?"

"Not a chance," she snorts. "Your dad isn't the only one with sea powers, Prissy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demands.

"The spirits on the losing side of every way owe Ares tribute. This is their curse for being defeated and now they have to listen to me if they want to be freed. They'll do anything say, won't' you captain?" she asks, repeating the same explanation that she had given Kassandra.

The captain stood behind her looking stiff and angry. "If it means an end to this infernal war, ma'am, peace at last, we'll do anything. Destroy anyone."

Clarisse smiled. "Destroy anyone. I like that."

"Look, Clarisse," Annabeth starts. "We ran into Luke on the way here. He's after the Fleece, too. He has a cruise ship, a ship full of monsters, and he's heading south with the coordinates."

"Good! I'll blow that traitor out of the water!"

She frowns, lowering her plate a little as her stomach turns, nauseous. "You guys saw Luke with a boat full of monsters?"

The blonde flinches at her soft tone, turning to face her fully. "Kass... we saw him and a couple of others on the way here. We had escaped him an hour or two before we ran into the Hydra."

Her eyes narrow at the missing words, searching for what she wasn't saying because Annabeth had known her far too long to be foolish enough to tell a straight-up lie to her face. Knowing that she would find nothing, she turns to Percy, softening herself as much as possible as she takes a few steps forward.

"Percy, who else did you see on that boat?" she asks softly, meeting his sea-green eyes with brown ones that swam with the fierceness of a swirling inferno. "Was it someone from camp? From cabin 7?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Clarisse interrupts. "I saw your siblings when I left camp and the ones that weren't there I overheard Fletcher confirming their arrival with Chiron before they kicked him out."

"So who is it?" she presses. "Just tell me who decided to up and --"

"We saw Chirs Rodriguez there. That's who you would care about most," Annabeth says, voice raised to speak over the buzzing of white noise that was beginning to spread through the room.

Breathing in sharply, she grits her teeth, to bite down on the feral snarl that threatened to rip through her chest as a promise of war -- a declaration of anger that was gentle and careful in the way that it covered her like a cloak. The rage that usually hid within her, festering her bones with lingering traces of its poisonous whispers reared her head with curses to the gods with her instinctual desire, her need to pin the blame on them because the only other option was accepting that not one, but two people she had considered to be family had gone and become traitors, had gone and decided to crumble the protection that kept those that had never wronged them safe if only for the intention to anger the divine, to weaken their born and bred army.

She had spent so much time with them both in the Hermes cabin, had spent so much time listening to them gently voice their anger at the gods, and yet she had never thought that any of it would equal to this.

The anger fades and Kassandra nearly slumps to the floor with the sudden weakness that swept through her, washing out the warmth and light with nothing but endlessly freezing darkness in the emptiness of the humanoid shell felt behind.

"I'm not hungry," she murmurs, dropping her plate of mostly uneaten food to the table and turning swiftly on her heel. "I'm going to bed. Wake me if you need anything."

There's no answer as she goes, but she knows that Clarisse would come for her if she was needed. Her longtime friend knew how she functioned with certain information at times, knew that she required moments of dramatics that would fester and grow if she didn't temper herself quick enough.

(It was a trait that she blamed Apollo for. From all those who met him, they would exclaim how dramatic he was, how he had such a large ego that he could spare some for his children, that he could complain for days on end with crappy haikus.)

(Kassandra knew that it wasn't all him, she wasn't an idiot, she knew genetics worked, even if godliness made it unpredictable, and this knew that a lot of her personality was all her. She blamed him regardless simply because she could.)

And a temper she had, a pitiful thing that showed itself when her rage bloomed, blossoming into dripping blood and poisoned tipped arrows, into bared teeth, busted knuckles and the need to burn, destroy and consume -- for Kassandra had the desire to set the world aflame and beat back the monsters bare fist with a grin -- but she couldn't because no matter the beast, she didn't want to die.

But Chris... Chris wasn't a monster, he was not human not god just as she was and if she needed to beat against him with bare knuckles and deadly arrow point to make that little traitorous snake see reason, then she would.

Losing Luke was too much as it was, Kassandra was not about to lose another close friend that had acted as her brother for years in the place of her real ones.

Her dreams were a blur of mist and memories that pulled and pulled until she sunk and sunk to the place that she fit, the place that she was as herself and her own. Her dreams were of Cabin 11 and her little corner of the room, a tiny spot between Luke and Travis' bunk because she was only nine and she was still scared of the dark, terrified of the lack of light that she would wake crying and screaming because she just couldn't see.

Kassandra at nine years old had been just as bright as she was now, just much less refined and polished around the edges. She was choppy movements and abrupt turns, she was a feral child that had spent two months without proper guidance, letting fear guide her. That might not have been much compared to other half-bloods, but a month alone had made her fear the world and then a month being guided and chased by monsters with only a daughter of Ares as a protector, she had let her fear grow. Being separated by them had only reaffirmed her stance, but being rescued by a goddess, being saved by the kind Lady Artemis, had been what had truly opened her eyes to the gods.

So she slept on the floor between their two bunks because there wasn't all that much room in the crowded cabin for her to get her own bed, no matter how tiny she was.

Just like clockwork, Kassandra could feel the tiny version of herself claw at her throat with a cry, eyes searching out the light, the way out of the darkness that enclosed around her.

And like clockwork, Luke was there, a teenage hand dropping to the top of her head with a sleepy groan, ruffling her hair in a show of comfort and bringing her tears to an end as she turned her gaze back to look at him.

He looked so tired, looking back on it as the older her, she could see that, but there he was, hushing her fears in the dead of night, leading her away from her fear with a lazy smile of encouragement and the promise of fun games come daylight.

Kassandra could recall that being the first moment that she thought of him as being her family, as being the brother that she always wanted -- the one that the Hunters of Artemis had admit that she might find if she came to camp, family and answers. She had no more nightmares that night as she slept sitting up with her back against his bunk, holding his hand to the side of her head as a pillow as she slept.

The dream shifts with the memory and this time it's not her teenage version of Luke that was her brother, but a young man with golden eyes that glowed through endless, continuous, infinite darkness, calling her name in an angry plea, screaming at her louder and louder.

He reaches out a hand and Kassandra finds that she can move on her own accord this time, that she's reaching out just as he does, wanting to pull him back, to banish the power from his gaze, to strip him of everything that they hated even as she knows that it's not possible, but she could try, she could--

"Kassandra!" it comes out muffled, but strong and sturdy. Confident.

She blinks, whirling around, her hand aborted mid-motion in the air.

Sea-green blinks back at her, chiselled cheeks and cocky grin as he holds out a hand. There's a flash of sunshine blonde hair, a sweet giggle and a whisper of her name that sounds all-knowing, as if her secrets were being waved before the world and gone in a flash before they could be seen, showing the trust that was wrapped in the one motion.

Annabeth blinked at her from behind Percy's frame, ponytail hanging like a swinging pendulum that crashed against her like waves.

"Kassandra!" Luke's voice raged in desperation

Ocean eyes blinked back at her, mischief moving like hurricanes.

"You need to wake up," he says.

Light flared, the shine of the sun burning everything away as it burst from her chest, folding over the world with a scream of pain and a brush of fingers across her cheeks.

Kassandra woke to the sounds of the alarms ringing through the ship, jolting up in her hammock and flinging her legs over the side just in time to see Percy jerk awake.

She offers him a tense smile.

"All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?" the captain's voice shouts. "Get up, Yankee. Your friends are already above. We are approaching the entrance," he tells the boy before turning to her. "Orders, Ma'am?"

She purses her lips. "Find Clarisse, but make sure we monitor our way in. Keep the course until further orders," she tells him, sending him on his way. "And find Clarisse!"

Quickly gathering her weapons, she's about to leave when she spots Percy packing his bag. He catches her gaze, shrugging a shoulder.

"I get the feeling I won't be able to come back to pack."

Brows setting in a frown, she reaches for her own bag and stuff the few lingering items inside. She takes tightens it, ensuring that it won't just be coming off her shoulders if she needs to move, and slips her bow across her back.

"What entrance are we reaching?" he asks, following her up.

"The Sea of Monsters. You might be right about not having the chance to come back down or take our time. It'll be tuff navigating."

"Do you know much about it?"

She shakes her head, pouting. "No, only the basics that I had learnt at camp. Annabeth knows much more than I do, Clarisse too since she got all the information she needed for the quest."

"They didn't tell you?"

"I never made it back to camp, remember?" she says, a crooked gin forming as she glances at him. "Annabeth might be onto something when she calls you seaweed brain."

"Hey! I'm new to all this, remember?"

"Relax, I was teasing," she states. "Mostly. Boys can be so sensitive."

Percy reaches out suddenly, arm blocking her path as he quickly pressed a finger to his lips to tell her to keep quiet. He motions to a ventilation vent, peering down into the boiler room.

Anger puffs through her quickly, the desire to shoot an arrow through his red-tinted glasses almost too much. It was from his presence, she knew, his ability that made you want to pick a fight, but she couldn't help it when she felt she had a point to prove to the gods, like she was in a constant state of wanting to beat them down.

"I don't want excuses, little girl!" Ares growled.

"Y-yes, father," Clarisse mumbled.

Her fist clenches with the desire to protect her friend. She couldn't listen to this, she would never be able to hide it from her and with her sudden desire to start shit with Ares, Clarisse would surely know.

I can't listen to this, she mouths at Percy when she tugs his face toward hers, I'm going up. Don't let her catch you, please.

She goes before he could answer, knowing better than to try and convince stubborn Percy Jackson from doing anything -- even if it was minding his own business.

(Not that she really knew him personally. She had done a few activities with him at camp last summer, and she thinks she might have shot an arrow past his head in his first game of Capture the flag as a joke to startle the new kid.)

(It had been funny at the time, to keep Luke on his toes when it came to his new cabinmate, forcing him to split his attention from the game and make sure Percy didn't get hurt on his watch, but then the boy had been claimed by fricking Poseidon and it was no longer funny to play jokes on him.)

Making it aboard the deck, she took the binoculars that the nearest soldier handed to her and gazed out to the horizon.

From what she knew of Clarisse's plan, the storm must have been the monster Charybdis, one of the two monsters at the entrance of the Sea of Monsters. It was day here, the magic of its own realm working in strange ways, as she tracked the movements of the monster the best she could.

She really didn't want to go too near that thing, but just as stubborn as Percy was, Clarisse wouldn't be convinced against it, and as much as she might hate the sight of Charybdis and all those powerful teeth, she despised the thought of going near Scylla.

No sooner had she discovered the incredibly thin space between the two monsters, had Percy come tumbling onto the deck. Clarisse was a few steps behind him.

Kassandra quickly handed over the binoculars. "It doesn't look good," she whispers. "We should reconsider going the other route."

She goes ignored.

"At last, Captain! Full steam ahead!"

"Clarisse!" she calls, taking a step toward the girl as she continues to direct the crew, readying the cannons and she knows that this was the plan -- to blow their way through the monsters -- but it's much different now that they were looking at one of them. "Annabeth, you have to help me talk some sense into her."

And while they had never been very close, the other girl hopped to it, jumping over to her side as they both approached the daughter of Ares.

"Is that a hurricane?" she asks.

Kassandra lets out a very shaky laugh. "Charybdis, actually."

"Are you insane!?" Annabeth shrieks, face paling. "We'll never make it safely through. What about the Clashing Rocks?"

"The cannons won't work break the rocks. This is the only way we can get through. We can't break the rocks, but we can break monsters," Clarisse states, relaying the information like she had talked herself through it far too many times before.

'Why don't we just go around?" Percy asks, voice a few octaves higher.

"It won't work," Kassandra starts.

"Charybdis and Scylla will just reappear there. This is the only way through." Clarisse turned to the captain. "Set course for Charybdis!"

"Clarisse," Percy said, "Charybdis sucks up the sea. Isn't that the story?"

"And spits it back out again, yeah."

"What about Scylla?"

"She lives in a cave, up on those cliffs. If we get too close, her snaky heads will come down and start plucking sailors off the ship."

"Choose Scylla then," Percy said. "Everybody goes below deck and we chug right past."

"No!" Kassandra shrieks, stumbling back in spite of herself. "No Scylla!"

Clarisse insisted. "If Scylla doesn't get her easy meat, she might pick up the whole ship. Besides, she's too high to make a good target. My cannons can't shoot straight up. Charybdis just sits there at the center of her whirlwind. We're going to steam straight toward her, train our guns on her, and blow her to Tartarus!"

Annabeth puts a hand on her shoulder, almost reassuring as she mutters something about choosing the better of the two evils. Kassandra doesn't listen, could hardly think to as the sound of Charybdis gets too loud.

It felt like it was going to burst her eardrums, was going to split her skull in two. Her hands come to clamp over her ears in an attempt to drown the sound out.

The ship below her feet chugged and groaned, heat radiating from below burning closer and settling in her stomach. Every time Charybdis inhaled the ship shuddered like she was going to be pulled apart and every time she exhaled ten-foot waves would stretch high and imposing as they bracketed against the ship.

She whined as the horrible wet roar got louder the closer they got, rattling around her head. Her knees shook and she dropped. Arms wrapped tightly around her head, layering over her own hands in an attempt to drown out the sound.

"It's Charybdis!" She could hear Annabeth shouting beside her head. "It's too loud for her!"

There's more screaming and a reply that she can't hear and then she can't hear anything at all, a cold feeling washing over her as adrenaline runs high and a clap of thunder that rattles through her until she shoving Annabeth out of the way and falling forward to upchuck whatever remained in her stomach.

She puffs, heaving with the sound of her heartbeat until she brings herself to even her breath, calming herself as though she was about to run the track.

Looking up, she waves Annabeth's fluttering hands away and pushes herself to her feet. The girl's face is still pale, her lips moving. There are tiny drops of blood on her hands, and she's aware of a cool feeling as it runs down the side of her neck.

She shakes her head, gesturing to her ears in a way that tries not to show her panic. She looks around instead.

"What's going on?" she asks, unsure if she's shouting or not, and is incredibly thankful that she has ambrosia and nectar stashed in her bag for the moment that they were away from this.

Annabeth turns back to her. "We're coming upon Charybdis," she mouths. "Tyson went down to fix the engine."

"What's wrong with the engine?"

"Too much pressure. Clarisse is readying the cannons. Keep a hold of something we're getting close," Annabeth tells her, keeping a grip on her arm. "Do you think arrows will make any difference?"

"No way! There's nothing clear for me to aim..." she trails off, mouth falling open as she catches her first clear sight of Charybdis.

Water curled around a black hole like a whirlpool, spinning and sucking past jagged, gnarled teeth stuck with a boat graveyard and trash.

The cannons fired nearly toppling her over with the shake of the slowly exploding ship. Annabeth held her steady, pulling her along until she could grab at the railing to hold herself.

They held tight as they watched the cannons fire again, Percy leaning in close to the water, hands hovering as he tried to control the waves.

Annabeth slumped when the shaking of the ship stopped, momentary relief showing in grey eyes.

What happened next was a bit like a horror film, Kassandra would admit. Charybdis closed its mouth, the world froze, and then a wave so giant she couldn't see around it cam out and washed against the ship sending them spinning and whirling right toward the cliffs no matter how much Percy tried to slow them down.

Her face was gently tugged to the side, Annabeth commanding her attention. "We're nearing Scylla. We have to get the lifeboats ready," she mouthes the words slowly, purposely. "You have to keep the heads back. Arrows work better than cannons."

"But Scylla-"

"Scylla is not a snake! It just looks like a snake, but it's not a snake," Annabeth urges, glancing behind her quickly.

Nodding, Kassandra sends a silent prayer to Ares and Nike, to Tyche and Artemis, and readies her bow and arrow, nocking it in one swift motion and taking a few steps back from the railing for a better angle.

A column of reptilian flesh rose into the air, a flash of green and brown, and her vision sharpened. She was moving back in one step, loosing an arrow in another -- not bother to watch it hit its mark as she was already in motion to notch another arrow and take aim.

She's grabbed by the arm, tugged sharply by a familiar hand as Annabeth rushes to guide her toward the lifeboat and the next moment she gets what she's getting at. She jumps the railing and lands in the lifeboat as it pushed away. She begins to man the empty one that she had landed in as Annabeth runs off to get the others.

Boat steady, she nearly misses Annabeth jumping in at her side, waving madly at her and pointing to Scylla.

Moving fluidly, Kassandra turns, bow already at the ready, faster than she had ever notched an arrow before. She tracks the head as it lifts Percy, pulling him up at least a hundred feet. She lets the arrow land in Scylla's eye. The boy drops, and she's uncertain if he'll be landing on the deck when he hits.

And because Kassandra had thought things were horror film bad before Annabeth releases some sort of wind, the boat explodes, and she goes flying with the rest of the debris, losing track of everything as roughly hits the water and begins to sink in a miserable attempt to navigate herself back to the surface.

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i personally like to think that apollo goes around cursing when she does something stupid like taking on scylla without her hearing when its what she tends to rely on most in battle and then subsequently getting blown up :))

unedited

written: 2021-01-22

posted: 2021-02-22