Beating Hearts

Stolen Heart

Leo wielded a hammer and a barebones, miniature bazooka strapped to his forearm. The pyromaniac wore a strained smile, determined and desperate in the most brilliant sort of way. His armour was scorched where he'd summoned his flames for too long, and his arms moved heavily from overuse. Nevertheless, he continued to bash in the brains of anything that challenged him.

Still, all it took was one miscalculation for things to go awry. All it took was a single slip for the secret plan held only in the builder's forge of a heart to burn up. All it took was a second of obliviousness for a trapped titaness to collapse on her sands, struck with inexplicable knowledge that even if she escaped her island, something would always be wrong in her heart.

And so it was that a scream rang out, going all but unheard amongst the chaos of carnage despite its clarity.

Piper's scream.

"LEO!" she shrieked. Her lungs felt as though they were compressed, her rib cage tightening with fear, and yet her cry was still so loud.

What remained of her friend's body twitched unnaturally before laying still on the crimson-stained dirt. A glancing blow to the head had been enough to distract him for a moment– only a moment!

But that was all it took for a hyperborean to crush him underfoot, his limbs contorted and shaded cruelly.

She stumbled over, wielding her daggers messily so that her clothes– formerly relatively clean– were damaged by claws and blood. A blade sharpened with hatred and driven by fury swiftly found itself embedded in the ice giant's throat.

The daughter of Aphrodite screamed for the fire-wielder to wake up, pouring just as much emotion into her voice as she had for her boyfriend on their first quest. However, such pleas were to no avail.

Her throat stinging and her screech going hoarse, Piper merely continued to wheeze out the broken shards of desperate begging. Her fingertips clawed at her pockets, urgently searching for the vial, the cure, the one chance Leo had left.

In the end, her hopes were nothing but an illusion.

An empty cloth, and a wisp of smoke were all that remained.

Piper choked on her sobs, her voice having been worn away by her struggles. Fruitlessly, her hands frantically grasped at the saviour her mind knew didn't exist. Children of love would always have a more difficult time accepting the end, the truth, until it was felt in their heart. Once grief pierced the bloodstream, making it boil from the ice within it, the world collapsed around them as their minds were flooded with emotion.

Aphrodite's progeny knew finality all too well.

Perhaps it was because of her romantic bloodline that the story of two best friends came to a close clearly; miraculously, yet unnoticed by Piper herself, no monsters attacked as she mourned. It was a needlessly harrowing trial that the first truly heart-wrenching tale she witnessed the ending of was that of her dear companion.

Jason dropped to the ground beside her. His feet were too quiet, his breathing too steady and his eyes too stoic for such a madness-saturated scene. But where Piper felt too deeply the few times she'd been exposed to true death, Jason bottled up the blood of his comrades so deep inside that when it burst, there would be no way of telling that the glass shards ripped up the inside of his heart. Should the dark liquid ever be allowed to overflow instead, the hurt would never infect his head, not the assurance of his dust-coated fingers until he was out of the heat of battle.

He grew up knowing nothing but that of Rome, the land of making peace through strength. The land of making unity from war. The land of quelling the storm and riding the thunder. The land that would see honour in dying before being made a coward.