Blessings from Khaos

|It Was Only Ever Yours To Break Anyway|

Drew slept through dinner and Lea sat at her side the entire time.

Though Lou Ellen, Lee Fletcher, and Will Solace all assured her that Drew's slumber had nothing to do with her spell, Leaneira was still drowning with guilt.

And truthfully, their reassurances did not make the guilt any easier to bear though waiting for the younger girl to awaken had given Lea time to have a breakdown about Ethan and his disappearance.

Wonderful.

He was her first friend at the camp and even if he was a backstabbing, traitorous, heart-breaking, assholish fake friend, she still cared about him—still loved him.  The simple fact that he was missing and Alabama could not recall the exact moment that he disappeared did not sit right with her.

To add on to her incredibly horrible day, her aunt was missing; an aunt she had never met unlike Hestia and Ceres, but an aunt nonetheless.

And to add insult to injury, the cherry on top of it all... her Brother was also missing.

(Hermes was also out of contact, but the mark on her chest still thrummed with energy and she made him swear on the River Styx to never bother it again so she wasn't too pissed off about that. Much.)

(Who was she kidding? She was going to gut him like fish and skin him like a snake the next time she saw him!)

Drew woke up.

There was no fanfare. Between one blink and the next, the girl awakened.

And Lea burst into tears, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

"Neira? I'm fine," Drew murmured, voice hoarse from sleep. "I'm okay. I promise." The girl kept murmuring reassurances which really only made Lea cry harder. After being fucking possessed, she was consoling Lea.

Lea pulled away, wiping at her face as she smiled hesitantly. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Drew said immediately. "But, uh, what happened?"

So, Lea explained as she helped her to her feet and passed her the food that Lee had set aside for her alongside a nice glass of nectar.

"Huh," Drew mused, downing the glass of nectar. "Still don't see how it's your fault."

"You're blinded by sentiment."

"And you have a guilt complex."

"Gee thanks."

"You're welcome," Drew smiled before reaching for the clothes that Brinkley brought her to change into some kind of vintage faux-fur coat dress shawl thing with a bowknot. "Now, let's go to the campfire. I want some smores and I'm staying in your cabin tonight. I don't... neither of us should be alone."

Lea sighed, following her out and waving a hand of mageia over her form to change her own clothes.

Lea thought that she was good at deflection though she knew any conversations about Ethan and Hera body-snatching her were far from over.

The amphitheater steps were carved into the side of a hill, facing a stone-lined fire pit. Fifty or sixty kids filled the rows, clustered into groups under various banners. Drew immediately went to her siblings, sitting down as gracefully as ever under a rose-colored banner with a dove emblem. Lea, herself, took a seat under the green banner with a trident emblem which coincidentally also put her beside the Sixth Cabin sitting under their blue-colored banner with an owl emblem.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Percy's khaos-mates were in each cabin. Nooo, nothing at all.

Standing in front of the fire, half a dozen campers with guitars and strange, lyres were jumping around, leading a song about pieces of armor, something about how their grandma got dressed for war. There was entire duet with Eliza and Kayla going on as they tried out perform one another. Everybody was singing with them and making gestures for the pieces of armor and joking around. As the energy level got higher, the flames did too, turning from red to orange to gold.