SANITY; heroes of olympus

04.4

"Yes." Donnie croaked, his voice hoarse. "She's in Greece, but I don't know why. I've never—I've never met her. I didn't even know she existed until thirty minutes ago."

Piper, who was sitting next to Percy, picked up the photo, her eyes scanning the face of the young woman with her light eyes and dark hair. The specks of pink in her eyes glowed faintly and the smallest smile pulled at her lips. It was like everything about her suddenly just...lightened, like a heavy weight that once sat on her shoulders disappeared.

She looked up at Donnie, "How did you learn about her? Some weird Apollo-y vision?"

"No, um, it was from a book that Andy had in her room. Well, it is actually a weird Apollo-y thing. It has all of these people from our family in it, like, going way, way back." The son of Dionysus, unknowingly, was picking at the skin around his nails so much that one of them began to bleed. Once he noticed, he wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt. "Only people related to Apollo can actually read the book, or something like that, and it takes blood to open it."

"Blood?" Frank cringed. "That uh, that's not normal, man."

"Yeah, well, nothing about being a demigod is normal, right?"

Zara, who had remained silent the entire conversation, nodded her head in agreement, yet said nothing.

—🌓—

Zara woke up to the sun rising, light blaring through the single, tiny window in her cabin. With a sigh, she forced herself to sit up and rub the sleep from her eyes. Looking down, she realised she was still in the same clothes as the day before, that she had never changed out of them.

So, with yet another deep-rooted sigh, she made herself get up and change her clothes and brush her hair and look like she had some minor semblance of life left in her, like she didn't have this gaping hole in her heart with her sister gone. She changed into a pair of light washed, loose jeans and pulled a maroon henley over her head. With her black Converse on her feet and the front pieces of her hair in braids, Zara exited her cabin at the same time Frank left his.

She paused and waved her hand, not even realising she was doing it until he waved back.

"How are you doing, Frank?" She asked.

He smiled gently, looking down. "Okay. Tired. There's a lot going on, is all."

"I get that." She responded softly. She opened her arms in an offer for a hug, and Frank, partially to her surprise, immediately took her up on it. He took two steps forward and wrapped his arms around her. "If you ever need to talk, Frank, I'm here. I've been told I've got great listening skills."

"Thanks, Z, really. And same here. If you need to talk, I'm here."

And together, with some small ounce of hope that would soon fade, they walked up the stairs to the deck.