「001. stupid bronze bulls 」
CADENCIA DIAZ is pretty sure nobody wants to be a half-blood. because being a half-blood is dangerous. it's scary. most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. she hadn't been killed (yet) but still, the consensus showed, nobody wanted to be a half-blood. especially her. when she had shown up to half-blood hill on said fateful day, she never expected... whatever she was currently in for to well... happen. she really was a lil' shy. she kept to herself (usually) and had two friends (which is very cliche of her). when she found out she was already 'special' and a demigod, she wanted nothing but to run back home to california and stay there, preferably having a few tostones by her side. she did not want to be a half-blood.
and it all just got so much better when she was given a prophecy. honestly, cadencia, or 'cadie' as her two friends called her, wanted nothing to do with it. sixteen years and sixteen days? jeeze, way to give her ten-year-old self some solid nightmares. thanks, fates.
there's also one thing you need to know about cadie (it's probably more than one. but again cadie really wasn't that smart. not like those athena kids) is that, she has a lovely talent of messing up things. maybe it's the fear, she doesn't know. but she probably got first place for being the biggest screw up. (she likes to polish that trophy daily, along with the one for being her first place award at being the worst demigod).
she was meant to keep her accidental (well, not accident. but the way she found out her prophecy was an accident) life-changing 'death song and sixteen years and sixteen days' prophecy to herself. but then again, she got first place for being the biggest screw-up. it was bound to happen. honestly, she should've seen it coming.
after that prophecy of hers, she was claimed. a daughter of euterpe. moved to the apollo cabin for ease and 'similar godly parent things'. she didn't mind them. granted, they had very strong opinions on romeo and juliet (and she couldn't blame them. romeo really needed to buy a better personality), and they would never stop singing (again, she didn't mind. she literally was the daughter of the muse of music. it was in her blood and prophecy to play music and sing). but apart from that, they were a really nice cabin. one of the largest with the most siblings, but they couldn't have been more welcoming.
things got worse when she started having flashbacks. you see, normally (or maybe the gods just loved making her look like an odd one out. maybe they placed bets how horribly shit her life would turn) if your former life chooses rebirth, said person doesn't remember their 'past lives'.
somebody call underworld maintenance, because cadie did.
she'd get flashbacks to their lives. all about how they died. all linked to her (or their?) prophecy. every daughter of euterpe before her, the same fate. sure, it wasn't like it was all children of euterpe. but for some reason, all of her past lives (well, from what chiron had told her) were daughters of euterpe. apparently, there had been hundreds before her. (some true avatar: the last airbender shit).
really, her life couldn't get worse. (hah, good one). actually,it really could. because here, the antisocial (to some extent) music-obsessed daughter of euterpe gets noticed by her 'fascination'. and honestly, it all goes downhill from here.
cadie diaz didn't like the new border patrol set-up. neither did her other friend, cameron anderson (but she calls him cam because that's way too much of a mouthful). she, however, could get out of doing it because she wasn't memorable. cam, however? yeah, try getting out of border patrol when the person running it is your big sister. as a son of ares, he was basically obligated to join. and as a 'pacifist' (which he really wasn't. well, sort of. he just had certain 'violent' moods) he basically didn't want to do it at all. his excuse to get out of it (usually) was that his prosthetic leg was acting up. which around one hundred percent of the time was a damn lie. his leg had literally been a gift from his dad, made by hephaestus himself.
he was also a terrible liar.
cadie and cam (a horribly sung song typically sung by lilly) both hated border patrol. but today, cam couldn't use his excuse again. and he was sent to border patrol. thank the gods cadie wasn't.
for most of the morning, she'd been off in the forest, playing a few pieces on her celestial bronze flute. she wasn't much of a 'fighter' which her set of weapons clearly showed. what was her weapon, i hear none of you ask? car keys.
well, not really. more so, enchanted car keys that morphed into a few setting options. they doubled as keys to her car too (we'll get back to the whole thirteen-year-old owning a car shortly). she had a few options for weapons, a flute (her most used one) used usually to play songs that had magic mixed in them (pro tip, never ask her to play hold back the river. the canoe lake was dried up for days), a piccolo (basically a baby flute), a fiddle (don't ask. the fiddle comes out on rare occasions) and a sword (her least used weapon).
after her morning fiasco of lilly (or lilian as they called them when teasing them) spooking her and causing her to play a 'c' sharp instead of an 'e' flat (which by the way, caused a rock to explode), she had put her flute back into car key form and hooked it around a loop of her shorts. she wore her camp half-blood t-shirt reluctantly for the whole day, itching to run back to her cabin and grab her ipod (which the hephaestus kids had tampered with to hopefully throw off monsters) and plug in her earphones and drown out the world.
she didn't end up doing this. and as she was about to walk to her cabin to actually get said ipod, a gust of wind caused her hair to fly into her face. she pushed her wavy brown hair out of her eyes and mouth before frowning in the direction of the wind.
which wasn't actually wind. but lilly. as a hermes kid, you'd think the mischief and unluckiness for the whole camp would stop at the stoll brothers having amazing gambling skills. when really, the cherry on top was lilian's speedy powers.
"i told you to stop doing that lilly!" complained cadie, "i thought we were on the agreement no running and i won't, you know, charm your whole cabin to-"
"it's important," interrupted lilly, "i mean it this time, cadie. no travis and conner prank. border patrol."
"you're not making me go there, are you?" whined cadie, grabbing onto her taller best friend's arm and shaking it, "please lilly, you know i hate border patrol! those big ares kid's scare me!"
"well cam is one of those stupid fucks," grumbled lilly, "and currently his leg is being used as a chew toy against a couple of bronze cows. i think they're playing piggy-in-the-middle with it."
"cows?"
"well, bulls, actually. but, same thing," muttered lilly before patting her back, "c'mon."
"i hate your piggy-backs!" complained cadie.
"suck it up, band geek."
mythologically speaking, cadie now hated bulls. no offence to normal bulls, but she hated the colchis bulls with a burning passion. lilly and her and literally zoomed across most of camp to where the chaos was taking place. cam was currently hopping on one leg, swearing vehemently at one of the bronze bulls, yelling, "give me my leg back you fucker!"
the bronze bull proceeded to throw the prosthetic leg currently in it's mouth off the side of the hill. down below.
"oh for fuck sake!" yelled cam, before adding, "anybody got a timer? one minute and that leg should return back!"
the rest of the campers there ignored him, and his siblings sent shouts of apologies before they formed a phalanx formation. cadie didn't know if this was a good ida or not, but judging by cam's face, it probably was. there were around three colchis bulls, running around and causing complete havoc.
"what do we do?" cadie spoke frantically, "gods i hate it here! this is why i never wanted to be a demigod!"
"nonsense!" grinned lilly, dropping her on the floor before saying, "i'm going to go and get cam's leg."
within a second, lilly was back holding what looked to be a human leg from the knee downwards. when really, it was actually made of a lot of celestial bronze and rumoured to store fireworks in the heel and a pipe bomb in the pinkie toe.
"what do i do? what do we do?" repeated cadie, "what do we do?"
"i'll distract one of them!" yelled back lilly, jogging (like, normal jogging. lilly actual jogging looked like some olympic athlete in a sprinting race).
"what about me?" cadie yelled back.
"play rockabye baby!" suggested cam as lilly handed him back his leg and he quickly put the leg back in place and scrambled to a standing position, "make 'em fall asleep!"
"ther- there are people here!" responded cadie, already pressed the symbol for her flute on her car keys, her car keys glowing and morphing to form her celestial bronze flute, "cam i can't do this!"
"sure you can!" he responded, "pretend nobody's watching!"
"that's not how stage-fright works you idiot!" she screamed back, jumping and barely missing getting punctured by a bull. she scrambled up, running away, hoping to find a good bush to cower behind.
she didn't end up finding a good bush to cower behind. instead, she ran around, not trying to distract the bulls, but to try and run away. she just happened to distract them. she continued to run, getting out of breath way too quickly as she stumbled. she tripped and fell to the ground. she got up quickly, her eyes widening as she saw a bull wheel around behind clarisse la rue (a big scary ares kid. who surprisingly was actually sort of nice to talk to if you got over how scary she looked), veering towards her unprotected side.
"behind you!" she yelled at the same time as another voice.
"look out!" finished the other voice, which she immediately recognised as percy jackson.
you see, if you heard anything about percy jackson and cadie's thoughts on him from lilly and cam, those treacherous gremlins she called her friends would say she had a 'crush' on percy. stupid really. she just was fascinated by him. how was his hair messy but effortlessly perfect? how was he so sociable when she could barely talk to somebody outside of her small friend group?
"di-di there's a bull right behind you!" yelled lilly "hold up-"
with a flash and a gust of wind, cadie was slung across lilly back and tugged across to the other side, the bronze bull seriously confused. in the corner of cadie's eye, she saw percy lunge at clarisse and drag her away from one of the bull's who would have trampled the both of them.
she felt something itch at her, she saw cam run at one of the bulls in full greek armour with his sword held high, screaming curse words such as, "i'm about to fucking turn you into a bronze patty!" and "i will destroy your fucking power output you metalic bitch!"
(he says he's a pacifist. again, he has violent moods).
for some reason, she felt something come over her. her flute was still in her right hand, and she had the sudden urge to put it away. which by the way, was a horrible idea. some of the bulls had travelled further down the hill and she was pretty sure percy (and by the looks of the blonde-haired girl) and annabeth had run after them. the third one was still up on the hill.
and that's when cadie had this crazy idea. which was her first sign that something was wrong. because cadie never usually got ideas. she just sporadically played something wrong and ended up blowing up the jello supply at camp (long story. don't ask).
"go," she said simply to lilly, "get cam and peddle your asses down that hill and try to get the other bulls."
"are you dumb?"
yes, she thought to herself, i'm pretty sure i am.
"no."
"do you have a concussion? i've never seen you so-"
"just do it lils," cadie interrupted before adding a, "please. i know what to do."
she really didn't. but her mind was working way too quickly (which wasn't normal. part of her wondered if athena had suddenly taken pity on her and gave her a blessing or something). the cogs in her mind ran too quickly and her body moved on autopilot.
it should be warned before i describe what happened next, that cadencia maria diaz (please never use her full name. it scares her) never shouted. or sang. well, she did sing. just not in public, in front of people. and if she did, it was hardly ever. stage fright and a cursed prophecy loved to stab her in the back like that.
"good luck then," shrugged lilly before adding, their tone shifting to a more serious note than her usual goofy one, "please be careful."
"i always am," responded cadie.
well, turns out she wasn't always careful. exceptions and mistakes were made. such as now.
she pressed an indent on her flute and it returned to her car keys. she hastily shoved them in her short pocket before turning to a bull, and yelling as loud as she could, "hey, bull guy!"
it really wasn't that great of a taunt. she should learn from percy. from what she heard, he was really good at taunting monsters. probably why he attracted so many. (ok, maybe 'attracted' was a poorly chosen word).
the third bull and what seemed to be a snout-chopped second bull turned to her. both of them tilted their heads as if saying: 'she's really gonna offer herself up that easily?' gods she hoped she wasn't.
mind, you better have a damn good reason for putting me in danger, she grumbled, fuck you.
she imagined her mind would respond with 'fuck you too'.
she grabbed a stick and threw it at one of the bulls. it did nothing, but she yelled, "come get me, big boys! or are you too afraid?"
honestly, where had all this sudden confidence come from? and why did she have the sudden urge to sing?
the bulls turned to each other, as if shrugging, like: 'guess she wants to die'.
she really didn't.
she ran around, shouting insults and throwing sticks. and when the bulls had thoroughly gotten cadie-insulted, they began to move. they travelled in straight lines, quick as freight trains, slamming into random things, missing her nimble and small body by great distances. she may not have been a fighter, but she was a damn good runner. (she had practice).
after two minutes of running around and yelling insults, the bulls seemed to be majorly annoyed. she was panting and huffing, her caramel skin needed with sweat. she ran around the top of the hill some more, before she (accidentally, she promises it was an accident) backed herself into thalia's tree.
"shoot," she grumbled, "i- why do i-"
and then she began to sing. the small itch she had had before formed words. and unfamiliar yet familiar words sprang from her mouth. ancient greek poured from her mouth. and the birds flying over them dropped to the ground, dead.
lyrics of a warrior in battle sprang from her mouth. the bitter harmonies of a major key swarming and mixing with the minor key it swept to halfway. the sour words of an old warrior dying for their country flowed from her mouth. the hum in the air stopped around her. and she felt her body temperature raise before cooling, the ups and downs following the melody. she'd sing a high note and the bulls would crash into each other, and her body temperature would spike.
the verse was long, and continued, speaking of the warrior dying. shot in the neck by an arrow. as she said the words, she felt pain shoot to her neck, and she collapsed against the tree, feeling like fire was running through her veins. like poison. the lyrics of the first verse of a song continued. a harmoniously sad tune ended with death claiming the soldier. through strength and bravery did his life end.
there was a large blur in her mind, her neck was killing her, as if somebody had shot her in the neck, like the soldier had felt. she felt the poison they had felt. she numbly put a hand to her neck, as if checking some camper's archery arrow had gone that astray.
nothing.
she gasped, her throat feeling on fire, goosebumps crawling up her skin. in front of her were three dead birds (a pidgeon, a crow and a raven) and two bulls. their ruby red eyes fading like they had ran out of power, sparks flying from their bodies.
her head was pounding and she stumbled, the loud hums of the world swirling her brain around like it was some sort of milkshake. she stumbled around, disoriented and confused. had that been her? that urge to sing had caused this?
"wha-" she spoke, before she fell onto the floor, looking up to the sky as her head hit the grassy ground.
she heard shouts (or at least she thought she did) around her and footsteps. her vision was swirling, her throat still on fire. it was becoming unbearable like poison was seeping around her. she clawed at her throat, her nail catching on one of her two camp half-blood beads. she began to shake and she felt somebody grab her shoulders.
"cadie! cadie! cadie!" yelled cam, "gods dammit you antisocial bitch, answer me!"
she blinked hard and opened her eyes again. the fire in her veins died down, but the stinging pain was still there. she cleared her throat, before her suddenly raspy voice croaked out, "w-what happened?"
"i don't know," answered lilly, on the other side of cadie, "you started singing. we heard you from down the hill. i-it was amazing. but, i just. i felt-"
"cold," said a new voice. cadie looked up and saw a blonde girl, annabeth, "like life had been taken away. you just killed two bronze bulls."
"with your freaking voice!" added a voice she knew to be percy's.
"i-i did what?" she spoke quietly, not even recognising percy to be in front of her as she tried to move, hissing slightly, "i- i've never heard the song i sang. i've read through tonnes of ancient sheet music-"
"your prophecy," lilly spoke quietly to her, "do you think-?"
"she needs to be taken to chiron," whispered back cam, "he might be-"
a smouldering clarisse interrupted cam by yelling at percy, "you-ruin-everything! i had it under control!"
"good to see you too, clarisse," grumbled annabeth.
"argh!" screamed clarisse before nodding to cadie, her tone changing for a second as she said, "i know you. you're cadie."
"i-"
"you were saying, clarisse?" prompted percy, "something about me ruining everything ?"
"don't try cheek with me, jackson!" clarisse seethed, "don't ever, ever try saving me again !"
"clairsse!" interrupted annabeth, "you've got wounded campers!"
that seemed to properly sober her up, and finally cadie stopped feeling like a whole orchestra was playing in both her ears. she managed to sit up, and look around, her neck still stinging, and her whole body feeling like she'd went through six rounds of each activity at camp and a marathon.
"i'll be back," growled clarisse, "cam, you're in charge."
he really wasn't.
"you didn't die!" grinned a tall (very tall) boy who looked suspiciously like a baby cyclops, "i am sorry. came to help. disobeyed you."
"disobeyed?" asked lilly, "jeez big guy, cool it. we dictate ourselves and only ourselves in this camp."
"whatever," muttered annabeth, seeming to grow more against the idea of lilly as every second passed, she turned apologetically to percy and said in a stiff tone, "my fault. i had no choice. i had to let tyson cross the boundary line to save you. otherwise, you would've died."
"that was a lot to watch," noted cam, "gods almighty."
cadie, as if just registering the fact percy jackson had been there, let out a loud squeak. she looked to her two friends, her eyes wide as she said, "i-oh my gods that's percy jackson."
"now she notices it," laughed lilly, their bright demeanour returning to her as her two friends lifted her up, causing cadie's shocked expression to quickly morph into one of pain.
"yeah, she definitely needs to see chiron before he goes," nodded cam, "gods cadie, for someone who has the anatomy of a stick, you sure are heavy."
rosie speaks!
i found a chapter i
posted before ?? and i
kind of like it so i only
edited and added stuff to
it. but i suddenly just like
remembered how much i miss
and love writing cadie she's
just so awkward and sarcastic
and just a mess it's rly funny.
anyways— thoughts ??
word count: 3,613 words