Kassandra liked to think that she was above things such as her fear of the dark, she really truly did. She was almost fifteen, too old to have such childish fears, but the dark was like a terrible place that could never be escaped. And she had gotten over that fear years ago.

But here she was out on the open ocean with a fear in her heart set so deep that she was a young child again unsure if she should plead for her father's help or if she should curse him for not existing.

Back then she hadn't even known if the parent she was hating was a mother or father. She hadn't known a thing just as her parents hadn't.

She knew she was adopted, sure, her parent's had sat her down and told her as much when she was old enough to begin understanding and had continued to do so as the years passed and she had questions that needed to be answered -- but they hadn't had all the answers and she had believed that to be enough for now because they told the truth and she didn't think to ask for more.

And now, trembling in the dark like she was a child once more, Kassandra couldn't help the tiny part of her that whimpered for rescue from the empty moonlight. 

But the sun was long gone and night had fallen over the Sea of Monsters, and it left only the lack of light everywhere.

They sailed through the night, though, Percy commanding the ship like a one-man crew as Annabeth slept of seasickness and Kassandra kept him silent company by a collection of candles gathered at her feet.

"Are all of you afraid of the dark?" Percy asks, tactless as he takes a seat just outside her ring of candles. "Because of you dad?"

"No, but we can get uncomfortable when there's a lack of light," she says. "I've just, I'm not sure. I thought I was over it and then we left Circe's resort."

"Oh."

She grins at him, taking in his soft sort of confusion as he thinks. "It's not like Athena kids and spiders. We Apollo kids are scared of snakes, not the dark."

"Is that why you didn't want to go by Scylla?" his tone took on a teasing lilt.

"Scylla's built like a snake," she snaps defensively. "You gonna tell me that there's nothing that you fear irrationally?"

"Not off the top of my head."

Kassandra scoffs. "That must be nice."

"Yeah, well, if you view rational fears as something nice, then sure," he snarks.

Falling back into silence, Kassandra finds herself unable to look at him, gaze darting back to the water's semi-calm surface. They were rocked gently, the ship bobbing along the night as the occasional monster struck out at the surface sending a spray of water in tall plumes, the waves smoothing off reptilian scales something a hundred feet long.

It made her shiver, a crawling of skin as she acknowledged their presence. The sea was full of monsters that would be eager to swallow them up.

She figured Annabeth was lucky to have been down below resting instead of staying up in some twisted compulsion to assist the boy. She would have felt terribly guilty to leave him all alone even if she was used to keeping watch during the day as if that would make some sort of difference to her because of who her father just happened to be (not that she minded being able to actually sleep through the nights and be able to keep other from getting sick in the sun all day). 

"I didn't mean to upset you."

He exhales heavily. "I'm sorry, too." 

A moment of silence later, he adds: "You're really good with a bow."

Swallowing her laughter, she nods, turning to face him again. "I practice," she deadpans.

"No, no, it's just, back with Scylla. You couldn't hear it coming, but you moved like you knew exactly what was going to happen. You didn't even take more than a few seconds to aim," he corrects himself, struggling to find the words to explain. "It was the same on Circe's island. You had your bow drawn the moment Annabeth went after her."

"It's like I said, I practice," she repeats, shrugging. "Sure, Apollo gives us the ability to be good with a bow and arrow, but it doesn't really give us much if we don't train it. My brother Austin isn't that great at archery. He doesn't care much for weapons, prefers music. Victoria is just a bit of a mess. She's a little bit all over the place with her preferences. Sorta like me, if I'm honest."

Percy doesn't reply for a moment, jaw clenching as he looks out in the distance. "Did you ever... hate having so many siblings?"

She considers the question, idly reaching out to let her hand hover over the flame of a candle, the heat of it nice against the palm of her hand. "I hated it a lot at the beginning, but it was more that I hated them. They were all claimed long before I was. I had been with some of them in cabin 11 when they came, the ones that didn't know who their parent was already, and I watched them get claimed before me," she admits, unable to prevent the bitterness from seeping into her words. "When I was finally claimed, I was so embarrassed that I didn't even say goodbye before I felt. I just packed my stuff and left camp unsure if I was even going to come back the next summer. Michael and Austin convinced me to come back. They snuck out and tracked me down to my school one afternoon. They watched the entire orchestra practice."

"You weren't going to go back?" Percy blurts in surprise.

Kassandra frowns. "If I'm being honest, I was already considering it. That was going to be my last year. I wanted to focus more on my mortal life, my regular life," she tells him, voice dropping to a whisper. "I was leaving camp early that year. My parents called and told me about orchestra starting early and I had made first chair flautist, so they were coming to pick me up. I had decided I wasn't going to come back and Apollo decided to claim me right then and there as I was on my way to pack my stuff."

"So you were angry? That's it?"

"That's it? Percy, you can't honestly tell me that you aren't at least angry, on some level, with your father," she snaps, the heat of rage sparking through her. "Not all of us are at camp for a week and get claimed. As much as you might hate to admit it, but traitor or not, Luke has a point when he says that the gods don't give a damn about any of us."

The boy glances at the sky like he's scared that he's about to be struck by lightning just for sitting next to her.

"Nothing's going to happen. They don't listen to me and they don't care what I say."

He doesn't have a response to that, but he doesn't move away from her so that has to count for something as they sit in eery silence. It might be something he's comfortable with just because they're at sea, but it didn't settle well with her.

Kassandra didn't like the quiet almost as much as she didn't like the dark. Maybe that was why she was so uncomfortable, the lack of light and sound combined playing tricks on her mind. At home, she often played music to sleep; at camp, she could listen to the sounds of her siblings, to the other campers nearby, and even music from a small sun shaped nightlight that was kept in the darkest corner part of the room at the softest glow it could be set to.

"Having siblings isn't so bad, though," she eventually says. "Once I realized it wasn't them that I was mad at, it was like, a group of instant friends that aren't allowed to stay mad at you because you're related. We might not always get along or see eye-to-eye, but they'll always have my back."

"That must be nice."

She glances at him. "I, uh, heard from Clarisse that you got a sibling. I wasn't sure if it was--"

"Tyson. Tyson is- was, my brother."

"He still is. That doesn't change anything."

He glowers. "How would you know?"

"You aren't the only one to lose people, Percy," she counters, gentler than she usually would as she reminds herself that he's still relatively new to this. "But for what it's worth, I don't think the fates would be cruel enough to kill a child of Poseidon at sea. Hold out hope a little longer. It's custom to give people at least two weeks before we lose faith."

"Oh, only two weeks?" he asks bitterly.

"There has to be a limit at some point. Two weeks is a lot for people like us," she says, stretching out a hand to rest on his shoulder. "Either way, I'm sorry for what happened to him."

"Thanks," Percy says, standing and pulling away from her touch with the speed of a child of Hermes, putting distance between them as he hurries toward the front of the ship.

Kassandra found herself wondering why she ever bothered talking to the son of Poseidon in the first place as she heads below deck to get some sleep. Let him spend the night alone and miserable.

Shaking woke her and she groaned, shoving the hand at her shoulder hard before she realizes that she's not actually at camp and this isn't one of her siblings getting her up for some crappy reason.

She scowls as she sits up, glaring at Percy, vision still blurry, as she drags a hand through her hair. She'll have to do something about the mess that it was soon or she'll have to beg Paris and Bea to do something about it.

"What is it now?" she grumbles, dropping her legs over the side of the hammock.

He offers her a couple of pieces of candle wax. "Annabeth says that we're approaching the island of the Sirens. It's to block your ears."

Accepting them, she fits one into her ear as she drops to her feet with a stretch. "We should get back up, then. It's not a good idea to leave her alone when we're so close to them. It's best if we all keep an eye on each other."

Placing the other one in, she grabs her bow and arrows and her flute, trudging up the stairs to the main deck. Percy is a step behind her and the darkness is starting to raise around them. It was late in the night or really early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it, and Kassandra really could have gone for some more sleep.

Annabeth was gathering rope around the mainmast, leaning against it in different ways as she tried to find a way that fits most comfortably for herself. To tie herself to the mast, it would seem.

She doesn't say anything as she droops herself onto a barrel, letting the two do their own thing as she stared out over the water searching for the island through the thick mist. It was only a dark shape in the distance, not too far away, but enough to give her pause when she couldn't see clearly. Her bow would be no good to her here if she couldn't find a target.

The moment they get close enough for the song to be heard is clear to her as Annabeth begins to thrash against the ropes, pulling until it looks like her skin will be rubbed raw in her desperation to get free.

The thing about the legends of sirens was that they sang the most wonderful, beautiful songs that lured you to their death. They would draw you to launch yourself from the boat to either drown or be devoted, and you wouldn't know until it was too late because they had bewitched you so fully with the power of their songs.

Sitting in silence, with only the sound of her blood rushing through her head, was enough to make her want to risk it all, however, to throw herself at the mercy of her self-control so she didn't have to hear this continued nothing again.

But she didn't, couldn't, when she could watch the heartbreak on Annabeth's face starting to bloom, could see the pain and desperation that only continued to grow the longer the song continued.

She was calling Percy's name, pleading with him to let her free -- she could tell from reading her lips.

Making sure that Percy kept an eye on her, she out for the island again, hoping to spot the sirens and use them for target practice, but found that she still couldn't see a thing no matter how fast they seemingly went.

It was the fog that protected them, she figured, but had no means of knowing for sure unless she wanted to jump down there and find out, the rocks wouldn't allow for them for an easy pass if they sailed closer.

Checking back on them, Kassandra knocks over the barrel as she rockets to her feet, darting across the deck to grab Percy as she darts for the side.

Annabeth had left a heap of cut ropes and her bronze knife on deck.

Neither of them had noticed her escape.

She grabs at Percy, forcing him to look at her. "You have to go get her!" she shouts at him, pointing back at the water.

He nods, pulling his pen from his pocket, shouting something before he jumps.

Kassandra sprints toward the front of the ship, watching them as they pass. Annabeth's head boobing as she paddled close to razor sharp rocks, Percy not far behind. She still couldn't see through the fog.

Growling in frustration, she tugged her flute from her side, ripped out one of the earplugs, wets her lips and drew in a deep inhale before playing a sharp sound.

The siren song flooded her ears for just a moment, bursting around her before her flute took over, the shrill beauty of a battle song cutting scathingly through the air. It was painfully damaging, even to her own hearing, as she controlled the sound of the music to rip through the night and burn through everything else viciously.

And then the fog finally clears, the outlining of rocks visible with the ugliest creatures she had ever seen, flickering daringly with their attempt to focus their face of someone that she loved, missing the mark as their sound couldn't reach. She played louder, drawing out a terrifying sound of a sequence of chilling notes forming into a violent song.

Percy was screaming in the water, dragging Annabeth away from the sirens as best he could as she grew closer to the sirens.

She watches, fingers flying, and the moment that she saw them disappear under the water, Kassandra allowed her anger to flow freely, release itself, as speared forward, stealing the air from her lungs and making her knees weak.

The sirens burst apart as she dropped to the deck painting, the buzzing of sounds fluttering around her protectively, draining her energy much slower than it had before (and for a second she allowed herself to curse the darkness, curse the lack of sun that gave her a higher endurance and supply her with slow curls of energy.

Kassandra hadn't even noticed that they had moved away from the island until she found herself able to sprawl onto her back and rip out the rest of the wax from her ear.

"You okay?" she asks when she hears the thump onto the deck.

There was no answer and she props herself up to get a better look at them. "Annabeth? You okay?"

The blonde just silently shakes her head, curling in on herself.

"You want a hug?" she offers, pushing herself up further and opening her arms.

She crawls into her lap, curling inward as Kassandra's arms come to rest around her -- taking up a comforting camp song that she knows the Athena cabin tends to enjoy, for the most part, singing the words softly so that they're only heard between the two of them.

(And this might not be the best way to comfort a person, but it was all the daughter of Apollo really knew how to offer. It had always worked with her siblings, had always been enough.)

Percy stood by them awkwardly, watching the blonde in her arms with a distant look in his eyes.

She motions to her ears. "You can take out the wax," she tells him off-handedly, slowly so that he could catch her words clearly. "They're gone for now."

Annabeth sits up a bit at that, casting a look to Kassandra bringing the girl to hold up her bow a little for her to see. It's all the answer she needs as she drops her head back down, eyes half-closed as she worked through her thoughts.

"What did you do to them?" Percy asks eventually, tossing the wax over the side of the boat. She watches as the pieces soar into the water idly, tracking the trajectory.

"I don't carry around a flute just for fun. I've learnt how to weaponize music over time. It's hard and I'm still trying to get the hang of it, but Chiron thinks if I keep going and teaching the younger campers, it could become a fighting style that the Apollo kids learn permanently," she says, unable to help how pleased she sounds with herself. "We have an affinity toward controlling sounds. It's why I can work so well with Hermes kids at times. We sneak into places with their skill and I can either eavesdrop perfectly or make us go completely silent."

"That's actually really cool," he mentions. "Are all cabins hoarding secret skills?"

"A lot of them are personal things that they're working on. No one likes to boast of something that they can't yet do," she admits. "Not as cool as being able to breathe underwater."

"That's nothing," he mutters, a tad bashful.

She laughs, going to respond when Annabeth starts to sit up, mumbling a silent thanks to the girl as she gathers herself once more.

The girl is a whisp of her usual confidence, only a piece of her usual certain and wise self, that it makes her uncomfortable to see her in such a state of vulnerability when she didn't really know either of them enough for something like that.

"Hey, are you okay?" Percy asks, drawing to her as a sunflower turns toward the sun.

"I didn't realize," she murmured.

"What?"

Her eyes were the same colour as the mist over the Sirens' island. "How powerful the temptation would be."

It was like she was interfering, her presence unwelcome, and she supposed that it could be when she was originally supposed to be with Clarisse and they not here at all.

Glancing between them, she stands, grabbing her stuff as she goes. "I'm going to grab something to eat and head back to sleep. I'll leave a couple of protein bars out for you, alright?"

"Are you sure?" Annabeth asks, voice weak from screaming. "You don't have to go."

"I know," Kassandra says. "I'll see you in the morning."

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so my goal is to kinda give this darker vibes but I'm not sure if I'm exactly achieving that 

unedited

written: 2021-01-24

posted: 2021-02-27