As someone that's lived in New York for the past couple of years that she didn't care to count, Kassandra was awfully familiar with things like crowds or all sorts. There were subways and streets, parades and school, there were the crowds at camp -- all sorts of places -- but this, this place with a giant party for no real reason, was not the kind of crowd that she liked. 

She was all for celebrating success when it was warranted, but this quest wasn't call for celebration. People had died, Bianca and Zoe were dead, and she was not just about to party with a bunch of people that were debating killing her friends. 

No, Kassandra was sore and tired and she just wanted to be away from here. 

(it had everything to do with the fact that she was surrounded by gods, surrounded by the beings that she despised, begins that ruined her life and turned her into some sort of creature that couldn't move on or let go, some sort of thing that stuck and held tight, that didn't care for the world around her as a whole because she would watch it burn and crumple if she had the option of getting rid of them.)

Kassandra had no love for the gods and she didn't want to pretend to. 

So at the first possible moment, she left. Just straight up walked out the door into the brightly light streets of Olympus that seemed to pick up onto the party mood as festivities began to spread. 

Stood in the inner courtyard that they had landed in, Kassandra breathes deeply, tossing her head back with closed eyes. There was a horrible pressure behind her eyes and she couldn't tell if it was a growing headache or if it was that stupid precognition. 

Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry at the edges, curling with smoked. The streets were empty, silent, but she could hear rapid talking around her, healing hymns and shouts for bandages. She could see blood drops and splatters on the roads. 

"No," she snarls, snapping her head to the side and wiping through the air around her as if it would chase the image away. "These damn visions are getting old." 

When she opened her eyes again, everything was back to normal as her senses were flooded with sound and blurring people as they moved. 

"I didn't think you would leave so quickly," Annabeth's voice calls out to her. The girl comes to a stop at her side to join her. 

"I didn't think anyone would notice." 

"Of course I would notice you leaving," she says it like it's the simplest thing. 

Despite herself, she smiles, facing the blonde. Grey eyes were already watching her already, brighter than before -- alive again with that spark of genius and knowledge that was uniquely Annabeth's. 

She reached out, gently touching the strand of silvery grey mixed into the blonde at the front. "I'm glad you're okay, Beth." 

"Yeah, me, too," she says. "I was worried when you stood between Percy and Atlas that you weren't going to move." 

A humourless laugh escapes her. "I wasn't. I had a dream of him killing me. Instead of moving, he just went and tore right through me," she admits. "I guess... I guess everyone was right. There are just some things you have to let go of and move on." 

"You don't have to move on if you don't want to," Annabeth says, defensive on her behalf. 

Smiling, she lets go of the bits of hair that she held her by. "I know, but I think I might want to try. Apollo could have chosen not to answer me today. I prayed for his help twice and he answered both times... maybe I might have been holding on to the past in all the wrong ways," Kassandra admits. "But that doesn't matter. You... Gods, you're so brave, Annabeth. You held up the sky! And for so long! I just... I'm so, so sorry that I couldn't get to you in time. I should have been faster--" 

"Kassandra, better it be me than you." 

"No. No never. If you have any crazy plans, we do them together or not at all." 

"Crazy like fighting Atlas?" Annabeth half-teases. 

"Hey! in my defence, I was momentarily under the impression that I was supposed to die," she says. "Also, I ended up with my father's blessing which made me a bit of a badass." 

"Yeah, yeah, let's just not do anything stupid," Annabeth says. "Like holding up the sky or fighting titans." 

Nodding, she leans her head against Annabeth's. "Annabeth Chase, the fifteen-year-old that held the sky. They're going to tell stories of you later. Everyone is going to be looking at what becomes of you." 

"That's not really something I'm interested in," she says, wincing. 

"Not even if you became a world-renown architect and household name?" 

She gets a gentle elbow to her side, so soft she barely even felt it. "Shut up," Annabeth mutters, gazing over all that they could see of Olympus. "It's so beautiful. Look at it... it's so beautiful." 

"Meh, you can do better, though, right?" Kassandra says, completely serious, completely honest. "One day, you'll make something so fantastic and beautiful, that they'll create something like it here to commemorate you. Annabeth, the great daughter of Athena." 

"Yeah, well one day the Muses will be playing your music," the girl says, linking their arms together. "Which is why you should come back inside. We left Percy to fend for himself." 

"We should sneak him out so that we can all leave together," she grumbles, but still, she turns back around to follow the other girl back in -- albeit, reluctantly. "Why are we even partying?" 

"Because the gods like to party," Annabeth says. "I know that you don't like it here, but stay here with us, with me." 

Sighing, she follows her back into the mess of gods, demigod, nymphs, and every other type of Olympian. She knew that there was likely more that Annabeth wanted to say to her, a deeper reason for bringing her back when she clearly would rather be anywhere else, but that was all forgotten when she saw Athena talking to Percy. 

"Oh, gods," Annabeth mutters, dropping her head. 

"Go save him before he says something stupid to your mom," Kassandra says. "It's probably best I don't go over just yet."

"Did you fight with my mom, too?" she asks in disbelief. 

"Eh." 

Groaning, Annabeth tells her firmly to sit still, tells her not to get lost in the crowd and force her to go on the hunt, and runs off to save the boy. She huffs, shaking her head as she heads off in search of food the moment that the blonde is a few steps away. 

She nabs a bit of ambrosia, taking a bite with a happy hum, wrapping the rest in a napkin and placing it into her jacket pocket. She moves on to the other snacks, grabbing a bunch of grapes to pick off. They were somehow even better than the ones Dionysus grew back at camp. 

"You know, sun child, I personally didn't expect you to roll in here looking like war itself," A familiar growled voice says at her side. "That's one nasty cut you got there. It'll turn into a wicked scar." 

A hand comes up to her face, hovering just over but not touching. "Yeah, well, it could have been worse," she says, meeting Ares's covered gaze. "You really don't like Percy, do you?" 

His lips curl into a sneer. "That little brat will get what's coming to him one day." 

"Yeah, well, I really hope that he doesn't," she says, holding out the bunch to him. "Grape?" 

He snorts. "You're a riot, girl, and you fight like wildfire." 

"I would have said riptide," a man's voice says behind her.

Poseidon came to stand near them, almost between. His eyes were dark, stormy, as he bears down on the god of war. "Don't you have other people to entertain?" Poseidon drawls, gaze unwavering. 

Ares leaves with a snarl, grabbing a handful of grapes before he goes. 

She's silent for a moment as she watches him. "Was that what I think it was?" she asks, looking to the remaining god for answers. "Because then ew." 

"He likely didn't mean anything by it yet. Ares can tell when a woman will become a force to be reckoned with." 

"A riptide?" she asks in amusement, arching a brow. "You know, I never thought so many gods would want to stop and speak to me. I haven't been very welcoming. It's a little... baffling to meet you, Lord Poseidon." 

Poseidon nods. "When Apollo would go around whining about the daughter that hated him, you are not what I was expecting. I had certainly never thought you would become friends with my son." 

"Percy's really cool. I'm very happy to have be his friend." 

His smile is amused, pandering. "Yes, friends. Still, I must thank you for saving him, Kassandra." 

"I didn't do anything that he wouldn't do. I wasn't going to just stand there and watch him die." 

"Yes, and for that, I must thank you," Poseidon says. "It is comforting to know that he has friends like you." 

Something dark and bitter rises in her, a nasty thought of 'well he has to have someone since he doesn't have you' but she bites it down and swallows it back. Instead, she says, "I try to be the best person I can, a good friend. You know, I think you should get him a shirt like that. He'd look great in it." 

"Oh?" 

"Oh yeah, seriously. I actually really like it. Do you think I should get one for myself?" 

"Don't you even think about it." 

Kassandra groans. "Is it just going to be a turnover of gods that want to make small talk?" she complains, turning to glare at her father. "What are you going to do it a get one of those shirts? Hmm?" 

He pouts and it looks a lot like Christa when she's trying to con you into something. She doesn't budge. 

"Nothing,"  he says because he has no right to tell her not to wear something. "But I would hope that my daughter would have better taste." 

Poseidon rolls his eyes, giving her a look before leaving -- a look that she doesn't quite understand but thinks means that she should try talking to him as much as she didn't really want to since she didn't have to be here. 

She sighs -- and she was sighing far too much tonight -- and glances around the party. "Do you think... Do you mind if we can go somewhere quiet to talk?" 

His expression softens into something gentle, but the blue of his eyes look like a sunlit sky that glowed and shimmered with golden light. 

They move out of the throne room converted party center, taking a side hall past fresco-covered walls depicting the greatest feats of the gods and their favoured heroes. She slowed as they passed a few, taking in a frieze of the Trojan and Herculean Amazonomachy that loomed high over the doorway. It was one that she was familiar with from books found in cabin 7. 

"Am I seeing what you want me to see or does this place just shift based on who's passing through?" she asks, breaking the relative silence that he had granted her -- something which apparently took great self-control for him based on what she's heard of him. 

"What are you seeing?" he asks, even if she could tell from his tone that she already knew. 

"Part of the Bassae Frieze from your temple. Achilles was always one of my favourites."  

"I never cared much for him." 

She nods, looking at her father from the corner of her eye. "I know. You unleashed a wicked plague upon the Greeks." 

"The Trojan War was--" 

"They kinda deserved it. I mean, they were so up the asses of the--" she trails off, glancing at her father once she realizes what she says. He only grins at her in good humour-- "gods back then that they really should have known better than to go around pissing them off." 

He doesn't give her an answer. She didn't want one. Instead, she followed him further into the palace, leading her into a room with a steepled roof and sculptures of both bronze and marble everywhere. 

It seemed endless, thousands upon thousands of statues of the gods in no real order that she could tell surrounding them from all ages while still looking like they were brand new only yesterday. 

"Artemis told me to ask you about Eliana. She said it was supposed to be my name," she says as an opening to the conversation she wasn't sure she wanted to have. 

(Because how could she face him, hear excuses when she was so angry, so sad? Kassandra didn't have the room in her heart to take pieces apart and put them back together, she no longer had the strength to shapeshift into something new. She wasn't a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, couldn't be when she was torn and broken and non longer pretty on the surface.) 

(There was no denying that she housed a dark ugliness in her soul, a box of plagues and sickness that shook and raged with violence. Kassandra has killed people before, has warped herself until she was morally grey and no longer cared if people didn't think her good.)

"That's what your mother and I had decided on. I normally let the mortal parent find a name that they like and give my final approval," he says. "Jasmine had been very happy to present it to me -- 'Daughter of the Sun' was a bit on the nose, but it would have suited you." 

She swallows thickly. "My mom's name was Jasmine?" 

"Jasmine Adlawan from the Philipines. I met her on a slam poetry night. She presented spoken word and told me that my haikus were terrible." 

"They are terrible." 

He continues as if she hadn't said anything. "There was an accident, Kassie. Your mother passed quickly and when I went to find you they had said that you didn't survive either, that you passed from your injuries. I never got to meet you." 

"Where were you? Were you not allowed to be there?" 

"It was around that time your friend Percy was born. Not only had Poseidon broken his oath, but he was slacking off on his duties to be with his son," Apollo says. "My father Zeus took action. He called meetings where we would all fight it over, but in the end, it was decreed that the gods would have interaction with their mortal offspring. You were born while I was away and by the time I had returned..." 

Kassandra gaped at him, trying to make sense of everything that he had said. "So that's it? I was left unclaimed because you thought I was dead?" 

"By the time that you ran into my sister, I had only seen glimpses of you from my chariot. You only travelled during the day and had clung to Artemis more than any child had before," he says, eyes glinting with gold as he gazed unseeing at a statue of some goddess. "No one claimed you, but you looked so much like your mother that I could only hope that you were my child." 

"Hope? I spent years crying and begging for someone to claim me, praying to anyone that would listen because I couldn't understand why no one would want me," she seethes, fists clenching at her side. "I thought I was worthless! I thought neither of my birth parents wanted me because I was nothing! Because I wasn't good enough! Do you know what that's like?" 

She turns, passing away as she forces her hands into her hair. She ignores the pain that rakes through her shoulder. "I spent years thinking that I was worthless, watching as people came into camp already knowing their godly parent or finding out a lot sooner than I could ever hope for! Why didn't you just claim me? Why couldn't you just say that I was yours?" 

"I was afraid to hope at first. I had thought dead and I didn't wish to believe it was truly you unless I was wrong. By the time that I knew that it was you for sure, I was uncertain of what would occur if I had claimed you. It is as I said to you, I can see the staring moments of my childrens' lives upon first touch, but you, I knew nothing. You were a mystery," Apollo explains. "I didn't know what would become of you, and it was a mistake that I will always regret. I should not have made you wait." 

"Then why? Why did you make me wait?" she demands, eyes watering. 

Apollo moves her hands from her hair, clicking his tongue softly as he gently touches the left side of her face. She winces, flinching away from him at the sting. 

"I don't have a proper reason, Kassie, but I am very sorry to have made you wait so long. I had no intention of ever making you feel as if you weren't good enough. You will be one of the brightest half-bloods of your age. I've seen it. I'm proud." 

For a moment, it's like the air is knocked out of her even with a blow so gentle that she could feel it surround her like a gentle comfort. A lump swells in her throat as her heart clenches painfully. 

Those words. Those very words that she had been waiting for so long, for so many years, she had wanted to hear them, hear that praise and acknowledgement. Kassandra had wanted nothing more than to be told that she wasn't just thought of as some grande mistake for years. 

Her lip quivers and she launches herself at him. She hugs him around the middle, squeezing as tight as she could with her good arm with her forehead planted to his chest. 

"Dad," she breathes, tears heard in her voice. "I'm still mad at you." 

"I know, my little Kassie," Apollo says. "I can feel a haiku coming on--" 

"No, thank you," she interrupts. 

"My daughter hugs me

Apollo has the best kids

Let's party all night." 

She doesn't say anything for a moment, letting the words speak for themselves in the silence, before she slowly pulls away with a grimace. 

"That was really bad," Kassandra finds herself saying. "Apollo doesn't know chill, I am embarrassed." 

"Haha nice, but also, rude." 

She snickers, ducking her head to hide a flash of a smile. "You know, there were a lot of things that I had wished to say to you over the years. I would have told you about my concerts, game, or meets," she says, face going slack and trailing off slightly as she thinks about it. "I never prayed to you or anything. I was always sure that you were never going to answer -- it was the biggest shock of my life that you answered today and twice at that -- but I liked to think that you were watching me through the sun. I did everything thinking you were watching and somehow I was sticking it to you." 

"I was looking out for you. Whenever I could, I look for all of my children." 

"You'll have to forgive me for not quite believing you," she says. "But I'll tell the others that when I see them. They'll appreciate the sentiment of it." 

(Never would she admit to the warmth that bled through her at the thought, that familiar burn of the sun in her veins that could sweep over her at moments and bring her to do a little happy shimmy. 

She certainly didn't care if he was watching after her.) 

(Even more, she didn't want to acknowledge the burning rage that struck through her at the thought of him watching her. If he was watching, then why had he never done something sooner? Why had he waited so long when he saw that it was tearing her apart?) 

"Sentiment, yea, yea, I have something for you!" Apollo claims, running his hands down the front of his open leather jacket. 

He holds out a hand that flares and flashes with light. There, perfectly balanced on the tips of his fingers was a golden bow -- one that was a perfect mirror of the silver of the hunters and likely a lesser, plainer model of his. On each of the limbs was a softly carved laurel wreath that she wouldn't have even noticed had she not run her fingers over it with a feathery, reverent touch. A golden-brown quiver hung from a strap on his palm filled with the same arrows that she carried now. 

"The arrows return to you, just like the one that you carry now," he says patiently as she looks over the bow. "I stole the model from Artemis. It appears when you call on it." 

"This is for me?" she questions in awe. She takes the bow gently, lifting it in a mock aim and pulls on the string. The balance was perfect and the tension in the string overwhelmingly right. "You got this for me? Just for me?"

"Put it away. I want to see where it goes," he says like an excited child. 

Lowering the bow, she just sort of... will it to go away, asks for it to fade. It does with a shimmer of dawn light, fading from her hand. A brown leather cuff appears on her left wrist. It was a mix of a bracer and a guard and much smaller passing a regular bracelet. It was a replica of the one that her father wore. 

(It wouldn't do much good having it as a cuff when she'd still get snapped by the string when it was a bow.) 

She moves it around her wrist, checking it over. She took it off and it remained a cuff, but it shifted back into a bow and when she asked for it to appear in her hands. The weight of another quiver appeared on her back, messing with the other items already there -- the weight pressed uncomfortably against the cut on her shoulder. 

It turns back into a cuff as she hissed in discomfort, shifting her shoulder away. 

"Do you think you can do that thing where you..." she gestures vaguely to her shoulder and face sheepishly. 

She gets one of his cocky grins in response, arrogance that he had been trying hard to suppress seeping to the surface. He lifts a hand, motioning for her to get closer. He leaned a hand on her shoulder, heat burning through her like a thousand suns at the contact. 

Gasping, she shudders at the feeling -- crying out as light burst across her face, scorching over her. 

It'd done in a moment, fading away to nothing and she hastily wipes at the tears that slipped free. 

"You're going that have that scar," he observes, swiping a finger from her hairline, over the tip of her eyebrow and down her cheek. "And one on your shoulder as well. You still look very pretty. A bit like me in that sense." 

"Right," Kassandra snorts. "Thanks, though, Apollo. For everything. I really mean, everything. I- you answered my prayers today when I really needed you most. I don't know what I would have done if we couldn't save Annabeth." 

"I must be honest. The first one hardly counts with the sacrifice. The real prayer... You called for me as your father and I was not going to allow you to die," he says seriously, eyes glinting darkly. "You were very brave." 

"No, facing death like that... you know, I had lost my hearing before. In the sea of monsters, I went deaf. It was worse than any death I could have imagined," Kassandra says, curling her fingers into the material of her jacket. "It was the worst thing that could have ever happened. Finding the courage to face death was nothing in comparison." 

Apollo hums. "How does a God die? You deprive them of the thing they love the most. You steal their senses, rob them of the world, art and beauty divine. They shall not die, but they will wish that they had,"  he says, tone soft as he speaks poetics. "Your mother wrote that. It was the line that had caught my eye in the first place." 

"Maybe you can tell me about her one day," she suggests tentatively.

"I can tell you now. I remember every moment, of course, I have an excellent memory." 

The speed that he offers nearly knocks her over, red flags rising in her mind as a wave of exhaustion washes over her and her temper starts to wither as he starts to act more like a god and less like a father. 

"Apollo, dad, maybe now isn't the best time..." 

(What she wants to say is how new all of this is, how against her very nature it is for her to be talking to him and having a conversation when she had been cursing his name for years, going out of her way to make sure he knew that she hated him.) 

(The truth was, Kassandra wasn't ready. She was tired and nervous and she didn't know what to do in this kind of situation. It felt deep, endless, like she would have to rewrite her entire code from the start -- refigure out how to live with this new knowledge and knowing.) 

(Honestly, she needed the distance. She needed time to think.) 

The god stares at her for a moment, blue eyes flecked with gold. "You have a point. There's a party going on and people that are missing a dance partner." 

"What?" 

"Oh, don't try to hide the truth from me. I see all. There are a pretty blonde girl and a green-eyed hero waiting for a chance to dance--" 

"What? Ap- Dad, NO!" 

☼ ☼ ☼

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Oh man ! this feels a little bit ooc for kass but then again she had like 3 reality checks within the past few chapters which is like a day for her? And like... all the gods just turning up going heyo! So basically, she had some adapting to do to her schemas so that the world makes sense again!

unedited

written: 2021-03-01

posted: 2021-05-01