Indigo Eyes

Prologue

That had made her feel a little better, but no less scared, especially with the sight of her hands that wouldn't stop emitting a purple glow, at least until a man with a loud leopard print shirt approached her as she sat up on Half-blood Hill.

Gleeson had simply returned the nod that the man gave him, acknowledging the silent message of thanks as Cressida began scooting away from him, worried that she'd hurt someone else. But the man didn't seem scared in the slightest when he simply knelt down near her and offered her his hand.

Cressida Lynn learnt a very important lesson that day.

She learnt how little the residents of Camp Half-Blood knew about their Camp Director. Yes, he was the god of wine, theatre and pleasure, but he had many more attributes, one specifically, that everyone, even his own twin sons forgot about until they met Cressida.

Until he took her little hand and the purple light faded from her hands before he helped her to her feet and a man with half the body of a horse knelt, the rest of the campers following suit.

The centaur's voice had then boomed across the valley as he'd said, "Hail, Cressida Lynn, Daughter of Dionysus, god of wine, theatre and madness."

Madness.

The ability to drive a person mad by fracturing their identity, by destroying everything they knew about themselves and leaving them unable to distinguish fantasy from reality, to discern wrong from right or loved ones from enemies.

That was the power that Cressida possessed and the power that made her next five and a half years at Camp Half-blood equally as miserable as her time before camp.

Actually, that was a lie. Her brothers made it better. Dionysus didn't have to tell them to take care of their sister, they just did. They made camp fun. They would train together, eat meals together, and no one, no one messed with their little sister.

Not that anyone would want to.

After her entrance to camp, people were sure to steer clear of her. Even when her brothers left camp to go to school in the outside world. Her brothers were fortunate enough to not possess the same powers as their sister, they could control grapevines in accordance with their will, a skill they were trying to teach their sister during their magic classes. However, her magic classes by herself, during the year when she was interim senior cabin counsellor, was focusing more on trying to harness her madness powers, a feat she had yet to accomplish.

She liked having her classes by the canoe lake, the sound of the water crashing onto the shore a calming sound to help keep her emotions in check. Her father wasn't allowed to help her. He'd tried once but the sky had rumbled with thunder and torrential rain began pouring down on the camp. Zeus apparently wanted her to figure it out herself, the best Dionysus could do was verbally guide her every once in a while. And she had made enormous progress. Her powers were influenced by her emotions, ones like extreme fear or anger triggering her powers unconsciously, but other than that, she had complete control over them, over her ability to manipulate the mind and control her victims. The only skill she had yet to learn was being able to undo her madness magic, her father also unable to help her with that.

What her father did do, however, was give her a present on her ninth birthday. By the time she reached her second year at camp, Cressida was pretty set in what kind of weapon she liked to fight with, actually, there were two. A spear and a staff, one offensive and another defensive. But her father's gift was both and neither. He'd given her a simple golden bracelet with a pinecone charm, a weapon he said was forged by Hephaestus himself. Because when she pulled the pinecone charm from the bracelet, she was left with a glimmering thyrsus in her hands, her father's weapon. And a weapon that could shift to a staff or a spear, or even have the blunt end of the thyrsus become sharp, depending on her will.

It was the best and only present she'd ever gotten in her life.

And when her brothers discovered that, she came back to her bunk covered in dozens of presents. They were silly things, touristy things from Manhattan, little gag gift grape-themed trinkets they found and even a few they made. In all honesty, they were kind of stupid, but Cressida treasured every single one.

And despite the fact that she grew to like her solitude, her resentment also grew as well. And not her resentment towards her father or even to Zeus as one might think, but her resentment for her fellow demigods.

Because every time they welcomed a new recruit be they claimed or not, her bitterness grew, because she never got a welcome like that and she didn't think she ever would. She didn't even care anymore. Because she waited for the day, they needed her help, and she could watch the despair on their faces when she said no. Because no one was there to help her learn how to use her thyrsus. No one was there to help her learn how to climb up the lava wall or teach her how to properly read Greek or tell her that her ADHD was actually battle reflexes yearning to be used. No one but her brothers was there for her, so why should she be there for them?

At least until the summer of her 12th birthday. The summer when everything changed.