There's no sunshine when Kassandra wakes in the morning, the sky cloudy and dark with impending storm and she wonders if Mr. D will allow it to rain to inconvenience the campers or if she would get to enjoy it like she really wants to.

Somehow, she knew that this was her fault. She couldn't help the small nugget of guilt that she felt for ruining the day for everyone (because Apollo was dramatic enough to revoke the sun out of punishment).

If the dream was real as she thought that it was.

It was early, though, early enough for Lee to have woken and be missing from his place at her side, remains of bandages on a tray next to her with the scissors that he had used. He must have run off in the middle of changing them.

Kassandra stretched, sitting up slowly as if scared that her side would explode in pain, and stretched her arms above her head hesitantly. When no pain came, she swung her legs over the side, holding her breath waiting for the wound at her side to burn. It was tight, sort of ridiculously tender, but nothing that limited her movements. It wasn't restricting, almost comfortably healed and she awed at it.

There was a diagonal scar, be of pink and silver and impossible traces of gold, that went directly through her left side. It showed where the full width went through her and out the other side is not a hole that went through one end and out the other, but had done that halfway but ripped through her side as well. She couldn't see the back fully, couldn't really twist all that much without feeling her muscles spasm, but she could look down clearly and trace a feathery touch over the sensitive skin.

She hardly looks up when the door opens, too busy examining her side to care. This didn't make sense even if all of her siblings had combined their abilities to heal her together. She was practically fully healed -- perfectly so in a sense that she would be able to let the muscles that had been severed heal on their own as she eased them back into proper shape.

"Kass! You're awake," Lee exclaims, coming to stand at her side. His hair was a mess, clothes rumpled.

Will and Chiron were with him, and while she knew that her brother had plans to join her today, she figured that Lee had run off to get the centaur.

"You're almost fully healed," Will remarks, examining her side with great interest. "When did you get that mark?"

"What mark?"

The mark in question looked like an odd mixture of birthmark, henna, and tattoo as it was almost bruise-like on the surface level with darker marking in brown and added bits of colour that looked like a healed tattoo in the colours of the sunset -- all in the shape of a stylized, yet classy sun on her ribs just above the scar.

She angled the mirror in her hand to get a better look, gaping stupidly at the admittedly beautiful picture on her skin.

"It seems Lord Apollo blessed you with a speedy recovery," Chiron notes bent to get a close look. "He has taken your healing into his own hands."

"He heard our prayers," Lee says it like it's the greatest source of relief in his life. "I can lecture you properly know."

"You can give her a couple of shifts teaching archery," Will adds helpfully with the sneakiest grin that she's ever seen in her life.

Her brothers continue to conspire as Chiron reminds her to make sure that she still takes it easy and gets some rest.

She would take whatever 'punishment' they come up with for putting the fear of Hades into them with the way that she arrived, and it wasn't like instructing was the worst thing when they all had to do so once in a while anyway. As begin naturally gifted at archery, one of the Apollo kids would stay on the fields most of the time to assist the other campers when it was needed.

It would also give her that bit of rest that she needed still, apparently.

Eventually, Kassandra managed to convince them to free her from the infirmary for a quick shower and the chance t join the rest of camp for breakfast.

There was the upturn of cheers as she entered, her siblings pounding their table as even the Ares cabin took up in the celebration when Clarisse came up to greet her with a gentle nudge of her fist to her shoulder. They placed a laurel on her head, one of bright green leaves and golden pieces, as she was technically part of the quest too -- and what a shocking remembrance that it was that she had completed an official quest.

She was seated among them, pushing scrambled eggs around her plate with disinterest when she spoke. "I think I totally insulted dad last night."

Lee looks up to look at her slowly. "What?"

"Well, it was a dream."

"A dream," he deadpans

"I think it was a real dream."

"... A real dream."

"Yes, I think it was a real dream and I insulted him a bunch and yelled at him and said I wasn't his daughter and that I hated him," Kassandra breathes, forcing the dream out of her mind and the angry way that his eyes flashed, the way that he kept sighing at her.

(The sighing was the worst because that meant disappointment and wasn't that one of her greatest fears when she was younger? That she could never live up to the expectations of her father the god that already didn't seem to want her?)

"So I'm like either totally cursed or my powers are gonna fade and I'll like," she pauses, looking up the wooden ceiling of the pavilion, "die or something."

"Are you kidding me?!" Michael demands, voice deadly quiet as he leans over the table. There's a thunk from the other end as Austin drops his head next to his plate. "You just have to have a death wish, don't you? It's one of the first rules that were told, one of the first things that they warn us about and you just go and pick a fight with our dad?"

Beside her Will is muttering under his breath just loud enough for her to hear him, begging her forgiveness because 'that's my favourite sibling, please don't be angry with her dad' or something along those lines.

And wow, if her stupidity just continued to come around and slap her in the face then she might just take to wearing a label that declares it as a warning. Maybe get a t-shirt that says 'Don't listen to anything I say, I'm an idiot.'

(Not that it was her fault, entirely, but she wouldn't admit that to siblings that just didn't understand. Their father had made it clear that he liked them, had claimed them easily, almost immediately for some. They didn't know what it was like.)

(And it wasn't fair to expect her not to be angry and lash out when she could finally tell him, when she could finally, freely get everything off her chest. It wasn't fair for him to just show up like that out of nowhere and just expect her to act like it was some grande merciful act on her side.)

"Right, Kass, you will spend the day resting while keeping an eye on the archers," Lee informs her. "There shouldn't be many people out when they're working on their chariots. Take Christa with you. The rest of us are going to be ensuring the infirmary is prepared and working on our own chariot."

"Aren't you going to say something to her?" Michael demands.

"What do you want me to say?" Lee counters calmly. "Kassandra's just completed a quest. If she wants to insult gods, then so be it. She's made it this far without major issue."

"Yeah, but—"

"Finish eating. We have stuff to do," Lee interrupts.

The celebratory mood is gone and Kassandra knows that it was her fault.

(She doesn't feel bad for it, though, not when she doesn't regret the things she said when's he meant every word of it. She had wanted him to know everything on her mind, everything in her thought and the way that she felt because of him.

Had Apollo been a normal parent she could have expressed her feelings freely without any fears and wasn't that the terrible twist of fates.)

(And if she had managed to upset the entirety of her siblings as soon as she had returned, then too bad. They would get over it just as she had gotten over all of their shit.) 

The time passed in almost a blur of activity as camp life went on and Kassandra went around catching up with as many people as possible with Christa in two, the younger girl readily telling her everything that she had missed over the year and since the beginning of summer, shattering on incessantly as she practiced her archery with Kassandra's occasional guidance.

It was only when the Ares cabin left the archery field, having poked and prodded and teased until she told them all about the fight with Polyphemus and what it was like to be cut off from her sense of hearing as she held off a legendary monster, that she finally caught sight of Annabeth and Percy since the dining pavilion. 

They were taking a break from working on their chariot, apparently, having decided to team up, and had wandered their way over in search of her since she was out of the infirmary and off bed rest.

"I heard something interesting," Annabeth says as a greeting, looking down on the brunette and her position seated on the grass. "I overheard your siblings talking and I was so sure that it couldn't be true." 

"That's very vague, Beth," she says, twirling an arrow around her fingers. 

"They were saying that you insulted Apollo when he visited you in a dream!" 

Kassandra blinks, shrugging a shoulder. "That happened," she said. "I'm surprised they let you hear that." 

"Apologize!" Annabeth blurts, shrieking loud enough that Christa's shot goes haywire. 

Christa spins to look at them, blue eyes wide with worry. She shakes the girl off, sending her back to her practice. 

"Why are you yelling?" she asks in bewilderment. "What is happening right now?"

Percy cuts in somewhat smoothly but gliding in between the two girls. "She's just worried that you'll start having the gods bet against you. It would be even worse if it was your dad." 

Kassandra rolls her eyes, wishing that there was a way that she could just slip away from camp and not have to deal with this. It was so strange, really, when she had always been so excited, so eager to be here and see everyone at the end of the year, but after such an intense couple of days that was actually ten, she just wanted the monotony that was orchestra and English class and lunch with a few close acquaintances at their favourite ramen shop down the street from school. She wanted to see her parents, to have them hold her as she did when she was a child, rocking her soothingly in a way that Apollo apparently never had. 

"I can't apologize when I don't mean it," she says, "Literally. I must only speak the truth and he knows that." 

"Over my dead body!"

"That can be arranged!"

Annabeth looked ready to argue further when Percy gives her a silent look, a steady thing as they communicated silently -- their closeness something intangible, envious, as Kassandra could count all the people she had ever been so close to and how most of them were gone now, that connection tragically broken. 

He sits next to her gracelessly as he simply drops to the ground and stretched out with his hands behind him. Annabeth went to stand with Christa with her own bow, challenging the young girl to a friendly competition that had the seven-year-old preening and fluttering like a swan. 

"I saw Hermes earlier," he opens with.

She can't help her snort. "The gods just love to pop in on you, don't they?" 

Percy rolls his eyes hard, almost aggressively. "You don't know the half of it," he tells her. "But he told me something interesting, you know?" 

He doesn't say anything right away, waiting, and she turns to look at him, finding him looking at her with this deep understanding like he just knew exactly what was running through her, like she was everything open wide, a book with only pictures and no words. 

"Hermes told me that 'the hardest part about being a god is that you must often act indirectly, especially when it comes to your own children,'" he says bitterly. "I've been thinking on it all day, and I try to get where he's coming from, that intervening whenever they wanted would cause more problems, but that doesn't really help anything in the end." 

"I never asked for him to intervene all the time. All I wanted at first was to be claimed, to be acknowledged as his kid," she says, ripping up a fistful of grass. "And then later, I think I've only ever asked, really asked,  for his intervention once. One singular time, and when he couldn't even give me a glimmer of something, an acknowledgement to my pain... What am I suppose to do? Just apologize because people want me to? Because he's a god? That doesn't forgive anything." 

"I know, but maybe you could let him explain," he offers. "When I spoke to Hermes... you can tell that they cared for their kids. I let my dad explain things last year and it made things a little better." 

Kassandra rolls the grass between her fingers, idly comparing it to the incomparable shade of Percy's eyes. 

"He tried last night," she admits. "I couldn't let him get a word in without growing angry." 

Percy shrugs. "Tell him that. He's the god of poetry, right? He should understand emotion just as well as anyone." 

Gaping at the boy, she almost misses the way that Christa comes crashing toward her -- holding out an arm defensively before she's knocked to the ground. Annabeth grabs the girl instead, swinging her in around with a laugh. 

"You almost beat me!" Annabeth crows in her victory, "But you can't beat me yet!" 

She shakes her head. "When did you get so smart?" 

He laughs, eyes twinkling, and it's the same look from her dream from so long ago. "I think it's contagious. Annabeth is rubbing off on me." 

"You wish, Seaweed Brain!" 

Kassandra laughs, rolling to her feet to help Christa escape Annabeth, and issuing a challenge down in defence of the girl's honour. They shoot arrows until lunchtime. 

When it's night and she can no longer feel guilty about the sunless day, Kassandra sits squashed among her siblings as they lead the nightly sing-along, unable to bring herself to follow along as she sits back and listens. 

She had spoken to her parents sometime after dinner after having gone through her things and decided the magical bow and arrow would be better suited hung on the wall of cabin 7 (after an argument of which band poster to take down in which they couldn't decide and elected to just hand it right on top). They had been thrilled to hear from her to hear all about her quest and were more than willing to give her advice on what to do. 

Go with your gut, they had said, trust yourself and your feelings because no one else could tell her how to feel. 

And with everyone lacing different expectations on her, Kassandra could only sit silently and think about every moment in her life, every decision that had led up to this, and frown. 

What had happened to her birth mother? she wondered to herself. What had happened to the woman that could have given her the answers when it was time? 

She fiddles with the laurel wreath in her lap, picking at the leaves. 

The fire crackled, the sound of harmonizing voices playing around her and she closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of campfire and home, of summer air and saltwater from the Poseidon siblings sitting at her other side Annabeth and the rest of the Athena kids. 

Tyson was happily trying to sing along, not yet knowing the words, but he was happy and so were Percy and Annabeth as they made s'mores that they kept passing around. She didn't think she had ever eaten so many of them. 

It seemed that Annabeth was far too invested in the friend thing. She wasn't going to protest it.

Annabeth had always displayed very possessive tendencies over the years and she really enjoyed the thought that she had been claimed by someone so quickly.

Well, Kassandra thinks bitterly, her hand fluttering to her side mindlessly and itching scar that was all the visible proof of a once fatal wound that she had left, a scar that was touched with the healing of her father and the presence of a sun against her skin. There's no denying now who her father is with such a mark on her skin.

(When Kassandra was twelve, just a few weeks shy of thirteen, she'd just about given up on camp after a big year of four new children being claimed by their godly parents while still sleeping on the floor of the Hermes cabin, tapping out with Connor for a chance in an actual bed on occasion. 

She was tired of waiting constantly, of working each day with that doubt on her shoulders and pushing to make herself better, more skilled, worthy -- battling herself against cabin 7 as all the signs were there, all the abilities matched -- working to prove herself as useful and important and strong without him. 

So at twelve, almost thirteen, she decided that when she left, she wasn't going to come back. She wasn't going to stay in a place that constantly reminded her of how much she wasn't wanted. 

As luck would have it, that year she was to leave early. Her parents had reached out to say they were going to pick her up because orchestra was starting early and she was finally first chair flautist this year. Her pride over the position followed her with each step on her way to cabin 11 to pack her things and say her farewells. 

The claim came right then as she was passing the hearth at the center of the ring of cabins, clear for everyone to see and shining bright of gold that encompassed her with the sun glowing clearly above her head.

With only a few words to Chiron, Kassandra had grabbed her things and fled.) 

Sighing, she looks back to the laurel wreath in her lap. A sign of victory, a symbol of her father. Plucking off a few of the leaves, she holds them in her hand. 

I can't just forgive you. There's no way I can't just forgive you regardless of whatever you have to say, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry for the things that I said, Kassandra whispers her prayer. I meant everything, but I shouldn't have said them like that. I was reminded that the gods do everything for a reason, that communicating with their kids can be messy. I hope that maybe one day I'll be ready to listen to whatever you have to say. I hope you'll what for me to be ready.

The prayer feels awkward when done like this, when scent to her father for the first time in years, but it's like dropping a weight off her shoulders. 

That doesn't mean I'll stop blaming everything on you though. It's become way too strong a habit at this point and I kinda enjoy it, Kassandra continues, hiding a hidden smile.  Anyway, all that to say, thank you, Apollo. Thank you, dad.

The laurel wreath spins as she tosses it, aim perfect as always as it lands in the campfire as an offering. 

"Apollo," Kassandra says.

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unedited

written: 2021-01-28

posted: 2021-03-11