ᴾʰᵒᵇᵒᵖʰᵒᵇⁱᵃ [ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ᴳʳᵃᶜᵉ]

ix.

Natalia's voice was a hiss, a cruel reptilian sneer pulling at her lips. It stung Aza's scratched skin almost more than her mother's words, "You are nothing compared to your friends; you drag them down. They hate you. They pity you. They know you will never be as great as them. They know you're a sniveling, pathetic coward who couldn't even jump into Tartarus to save your best friends. You are worthless. You should do your friends a favor and relieve the world of your presence."

Aza's mind was a hurricane and the tears flooded her cheeks, pooling in the small gaunt of her eye sockets and burning her flushed cheeks; she rocked back and forth, clutching at her hair - she yanked it, unsatisfied when it didn't make her feel better, and so she pulled harder and wailed, snapping at her knees.

She was nothing like the great heroes she had grown up listening about, nor the ones she had grown up with. Percy and Annabeth, her best friends - she had betrayed them; she left them to fall into the despicable depths of the Underworld; she had failed them. Her best friends, effortless heroes, had been so brave - they had told her to be brave, and yet she couldn't. Aza would never measure up to them; her friends were so uniquely talented, and Aza was only good for getting slammed into walls.

Natalia knelt down and gently stroked Aza's chin with her thumb and forefinger, forcing the daughter of Phobos to look into her mother's crystalline eyes. Aza thought she could see a small ring of brown towards the pupil, where the contacts didn't fully cover - but her tears blurred her vision, and her thoughts were lost the moment they appeared.

Her head swam and her vision blurred as she realized how lightheaded she felt. Around her, her friends' glassy eyes watched her ever-so-closely, but her surroundings were blurred by vicious tears. It was almost easy for her to forget that she sat on Broadway, in the midst of battle. Natalia didn't make eye contact with her daughter, but she forced Aza to look at her as she whispered, "You'll never be like them. You will always be different - a freak. You'll never belong. Why else would you guard your secrets so closely? Because you know your friends would hate the person you were, and the person you came to be."

Aza's head dropped back to her knees, and she squeezed her eyes shut, gripping at her throat; she choked for air, but she didn't care as she remembered how different she was from the other campers; even the children of Ares. They were afraid of her - they all were, and why wouldn't they be? When they looked into her eyes, all they saw were their greatest fears, and she understood. She understood why they all hated her, because Aza hated herself.

She released her grip on her throat and instead pounded her calves with her fists, sobbing and rocking all-the-while. As she cried, her mother laughed - a sound she had never heard before. It was cold and hollow, almost like Kronos's in her dreams, and yet it sounded just like Aza's.

Aza's voice was pitifully small; she could barely hear it over the battle that raged in Manhattan, "Why are you doing this to me? I already hate myself."

Natalia laughed again, and she clicked her tongue. She stroked her daughter's hair with another cruel laugh, staring at the top of her daughter's head and avoiding her eyes. Her voice was soft, like she was telling her daughter a kind secret; she leaned in close, almost like she wanted to embrace her child. Like she loved her daughter. "Aza-Everett, you will never hate yourself as much as I hate you. You were the mistake I could never take back. You disgust me. You always have, and you always will."

Aza cried harder, and she wiped pathetically at her eyes; but it was merely using a towel to protect against a tsunami, and she wiped her runny nose whilst she sobbed, scratching at the exposed skin of her calves. The flow of tears were merciless, and she knew it would never end; she felt trapped, like she would feel this self-hatred and angst forever. She would never be happy; Aza-Everett would only know pain.