STRENGTH
━━ act one, chapter three.
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
NEWS OF PERCY'S QUEST HAD SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE. It was the talk of the entire camp. Nabi had heard it had to do with Poseidon and Zeus — Zeus believed his brother had stolen his master bolt, declaring he'd go to war if it wasn't returned by the summer solstice, whilst Poseidon demanded an apology for such an accusation on the same day.
People at the camp had started taking sides, and tension was heightening between different cabins, especially with the hellhound attack that had happened. Speaking of, the hellhound incident had died down a little, but people were still uneasy about a possible... traitor amongst them. The demigods were brewing up new rumours, and the likeliest would've been Hades had sent it from the Underworld.
Apparently, the god of the dead had something to do with it — he was said to have stolen the lightning bolt. Nabi didn't really know how to feel about that. The man that was speculated to be her deadbeat father, who still hadn't claimed her, was possibly the reason the whole world would be destroyed? She didn't want to believe it... could her father really be that bad of a man?
Had he left Nabi because he hated her? Had he left her because he didn't want her to be blamed for his actions; for stealing the lightning bolt? Had he left her for no reason at all?
Nabi tried not to dwell on it.
Throughout the past few days though, Clarisse had been even more sulky and agitated to other campers. Nabi was fed up with her behaviour. She had let Clarisse be for a while, due to her broken spear, in hopes that she'd cool down and return to normal eventually. But she hadn't.
So one night, whilst everyone was eating dinner, Nabi made her way over to the opposite side of the pavilion, grabbed Clarisse's wrist, and dragged her all the way to an empty Ares cabin. Clarisse muttered protests and gave her a bewildered look as the rest of the camp watched the interaction with amused glances and hushed whispers. Clarisse questioned, "What are you doing? Why are you taking me back to my cabin?"
"To talk, Clarisse." Nabi huffed.
Clarisse opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Maybe it was the way Nabi's voice drawled, or something else that made her stay quiet. Nabi might've heard her mumbling something along the lines of, "Oh my gods, shut up brain."
Nabi didn't comment on it. Maybe she heard it wrong — it made no sense for her to say such a weird thing.
When they got to the Ares cabin, Nabi had shut the door, hovering in front of it so Clarisse couldn't leave. Then Nabi gave her an expectant look, folding her arms. "Well?"
"Gods," Clarisse scoffed, "What is it?"
"What's your vendetta against Percy?" Nabi asked, "Why him? I thought I'd finally gotten you to stop bullying people, and then— and then this happened!"
Clarisse scowled. "Of course it's this. Why is it such a big deal? I don't get it."
"It's a big deal because it's not right, Clarisse," Nabi said, her voice slightly more gentle when she'd uttered her name, "I want you to tell me what the problem is, please?"
If it were anyone else, Nabi knew she'd push right past her and head back to the pavilion. But Clarisse sighed, and sat down on her bed. "Fine. I'll say it."
Nabi sat down next to her, their knees touching as she waited patiently. Clarisse took a deep breath, and began her explanation, "I thought, y'know, new camper — whatever, I'll just ignore them or try not to be too mean like you ask me to. But he showed up after killing the stupid minotaur. That's— that's an opportunity. Then, Percy gets claimed by Poseidon in less than a week. And he breaks the spear — the only thing Ares has ever given me. His dad noticed him so fucking fast, and he has the chance to get all this glory, and he doesn't even want it like I do."
Through her rant, Clarisse had rested her head on Nabi's shoulder. The latter had wrapped an arm around her to rub circles on her shoulder, comfortingly. Clarisse exhaled shakily, yet Nabi knew she refused to cry, even if she were to reassure the Ares child that she was allowed to. She continued, "My dad doesn't— Ares doesn't see me, Nabi. He doesn't ever see that—"
"I see you." Nabi mumbled.
Clarisse lifted her head up, and suddenly her brown eyes seemed to twist Nabi's stomach into knots. Nabi swallowed, "I see you for everything that you're worth. I see you for everything that you are. Clarisse, you're so strong, and so brilliant. He's so lucky to have someone like you as his daughter, and— and if he doesn't see that, then he's... he's more blind than the cyclops Polyphemus!"
Clarisse laughed weakly at that, a sound that made Nabi's head feel fuzzy. "You're such an idiot."
"Well apparently, idiots are able to cheer you up, hm?" Nabi retorted, smiling.
"Yeah, apparently they can," Clarisse murmured, "thanks, Nabs. That... helped."
"Good," Nabi said, "but you have to apologise to Percy when he gets back."
"If he even makes it back alive." The curly haired girl snorted.
Nabi swatted her chest. "When he gets back. I have faith in Percy! And be nice to him — I mean it. Instead of taking your anger out on him, talk to me. That's all I ask. Okay?"
Clarisse sighed, pulling her in closer. "Okay."
"We're fine, then?"
Clarisse seemed to contemplate about asking something, but sighed and gave in, "Yeah but... I feel better when we hang out, we should leave the camp grounds — go somewhere like the cinema or whatever."
"Would Chiron even allow us?" Nabi asked.
Clarisse rolled her eyes. "I'll convince him. Or maybe you can, I don't know. We should just go."
"Sure, since it'll help you," Nabi nodded, still smiling softly, "but you're paying."
The Ares girl simply chuckled, and stood up. Nabi got to her feet too. Clarisse said, "Yeah, alright. Let me walk you back to your cabin."
They exited cabin five just as some Ares kids started making their way in — dinner had probably ended. Both of them didn't mind the silence as they walked side by side. It was soothing.
Nabi and Clarisse said their goodbyes, with Nabi entering the Hermes cabin to get ready for bed. She had to wait a bit since everyone always took turns getting changed in the bathrooms, but fortunately, they were all quite quick. Nabi had slid into her favourite pyjamas, and then lifted her pillow to look for her journal — she always did her journalling before bed.
But her journal wasn't there. She frowned. That was weird, since she always made sure not to let anyone know where she hid it, and even then, the Hermes campers weren't mean enough to purposefully steal belongings that were super important.
"Has anyone seen my journal?" Nabi asked, "It's a blue one with red poppies on it."
A chorus of responses rung through the cabin, yet none of them answered with a yes. She was particularly sad about it because so far, since starting the hobby at the very beginning of the year, she hadn't missed a single day with documenting her weeks. Plus, Annabeth had gifted it to her for camp's Secret Santa last year, and Nabi promised her she wouldn't lose it.
When she'd searched everywhere around her bunk bed, which she was fortunate enough not to share with anyone, she asked for permission to look near other people's beds. There was no luck with that either.
Nabi went to bed early with no journal for her to write in that night, disappointed and a little in panic that she'd lost something so valuable to her — it held a lot of memories, and a lot of her thoughts.
...Where could it have gone?
【 🦋 】
"LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT," Silena said, applying makeup to Nabi's face, "you're going to the movies with Clarisse... just the two of you?"
"Yeah, why?" Nabi asked, making sure not to move too much so Silena wouldn't mess up her eyeliner.
"And you barged into the Aphrodite cabin because you had to look pretty," Silena continued, "for something that's... not a date?"
"Why would it be a date?" Nabi was confused, but flushed pink at the suggestion, leaning back so Silena could do the other eye, "And I can want to look nice for normal stuff. Can't a girl want to get their makeup done, just because?"
"A girl can," Silena agreed, finishing her makeup. She made Nabi turn around to tie her hair into a bun, brushing some of Nabi's hair to the side so her bangs would fall into the right place, "but usually, they don't burst into a cabin panicking."
"It's not a date," Nabi objected, "and I was not panicking. Besides, dates are for people who like each other like that, and we don't."
Silena pursed her lips, and pretended to believe her. "Whatever you say."
The Aphrodite girl made her stay still to use a lip liner. Nabi thought she might've been imagining it... but Silena took a little too long staring at her lips. When her eyes flitted back up, she gave a look as if to say, 'You're blind, babe.'
"It isn't." Nabi frowned, her face a little warm.
"I didn't say it was that time." The Aphrodite girl raised her hands up in a surrender gesture. She finished doing Nabi's hair, and brushed her bangs with a hand out to frame her face.
Nabi pouted. "You gave a weird look."
"I didn't," Silena said, "anyways, you look stunning. You feel stunning?"
"Mhm," Nabi nodded, "thanks for making me look nice, Lena."
"No need to thank me, m'kay?" Silena faltered, and Nabi didn't know why, but she shrugged and smiled, "You— you always look nice. I was just helping you accentuate it. Not that you need it."
"You think so?" Nabi bit her lip, doing a self-conscious spin so that Silena could get a good look of the outfit they'd picked out together — dark blue cargo jeans and a knitted, lace-trimmed white top from Silena's closet that she was borrowing.
Silena rolled her eyes fondly, taking Nabi's hands in hers. She brushed her thumbs against them, her cheeks pink. "I know so. You look lovely, Nabi. Now look at the time, go! Can't have Clarisse waiting!"
Nabi huffed jokingly, but hugged Silena and got up to leave. She wanted to go early anyway, so that she could avoid the rest of the Aphrodite cabin's odd giggling. When she'd told Silena about her and Clarisse's plans for the day, the entire cabin started pressing for details — it was like being surrounded by incessant paparazzi. Nabi didn't really know why, because her and Clarisse were only hanging out. They hung out all the time. Nabi hung out with a bunch of people all the time.
It wasn't different between them.
Nabi met with Clarisse at the camp's borders next to Thalia's tree, waving to her. Thalia Grace was the daughter of Zeus who had died whilst on the journey to camp — she had sacrificed herself to get her friends, who were Luke and Annabeth, to safety. Afterwards, her father turned her into a pine tree that stood at the crest of the camp's hill, protecting them from monsters as a magic barrier.
The other girl was, thankfully, changed out of the camp's t-shirt into something more casual — a hoodie with baggy jeans and converse. It made Nabi feel less stressed, she didn't want to be the only one that looked like she put in the effort of getting dressed. Clarisse smiled, "You look, uh, you look pretty. You are pretty."
"You look really pretty too." Nabi thought her words were an understatement — Clarisse was really beautiful. She felt herself redden slightly, but grinned and offered her a hand. "Let's go?"
"Someone's eager, huh?" Clarisse's previous smile curled into more of a smirk, slipping her hand into Nabi's as they left the camp. "But yeah, come on."
Argus — the one-hundred eyed giant who worked as the camp's head of security — drove them to a bus stop. From there, they took a bus to a cinema in New York city.
Nabi was bouncing with excitement, since just like most of the people who stayed at Camp Half-Blood, she rarely ever left the camp grounds. She had fallen ill when a bunch of campers had went on a previous field trip during the winter solstice — on a tour of Olympus, where the gods resided. Nabi had been petulant for a week when it had happened, since everyone went on and on about how amazing the trip was. Going out with Clarisse was the first time she was leaving camp in ages.
Once they entered the building, they lined up to buy their tickets and some popcorn.
"Can we get sweet popcorn? I'm not a fan of salty. I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Nabi said. Clarisse nodded as she left.
When Nabi was finished, walking back and closing the bathroom door, she accidentally stumbled right into the janitor who worked there — knocking his mop out of his hands. Sheepishly, she apologised, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going!"
He was tall and handsome — with flowing black hair and honey eyes — wearing a stereotypical blue jumpsuit, probably only in his thirties as he picked his mop back up. If he wasn't too serious about the janitor job, Nabi thought he had a good chance at becoming a model. The man smiled, "No, no, it's fine."
She was going to step to the side to let him enter the toilets, but he laughed, shaking his head like he was thinking of a funny memory. Nabi gave him a puzzled look, to which he noticed and said, "My apologies. You simply remind me of a woman I knew. She was full of life. Very beautiful, like you... a woman full of burning passion and fire."
Lowkey kinda creepy, in Nabi's opinion.
"Oh," Nabi didn't really know how to respond to that, so she just awkwardly nodded and smiled politely, "um, thank you? She sounds lovely."
"She was." He replied in a wispy tone, his words full of nostalgia. Nabi didn't fail to notice the use of past tense this time, and couldn't help feel a twinge of sadness for the man as he murmured, "I had to leave her, but let it be known that I cared. I cared."
For someone quite young looking, he spoke very weirdly — appearing wise beyond his years.
He looked down at the ground, and Nabi followed the man's gaze to a silver bracelet on the floor. The janitor asked, "Did you drop this, miss?"
"Hm? No, that's not mi—" Nabi halted when he picked it up and plopped it in her hands.
Somehow, the bracelet had her name on it. She was speechless, staring at the letters in shock as they gleamed innocently next to a dangling butterfly charm.
"Nabi is a lovely name. I suppose that the butterfly charm has to do with it?" He asked.
Nabi was confused, as she stuttered, "I'm— what?"
"Your name," He repeated kindly, "it means 'butterfly' in Korean, does it not?"
She took a moment to process his words, her lips forming an 'o' shape as she did so. Nabi knew she had some Korean roots, although mostly Japanese, but hadn't actually known her name's meaning until he'd said it. She shook her head, "Uh, sorry—"
"Nabi!"
She turned around to see Clarisse, strolling over to her with a container of popcorn in one hand and a large drink in the other. Clarisse said, "I got the tickets, why'd you take so long? You fall in the toilet or something?"
Nabi laughed. "No, I was just talking to the..."
Her sentence died down when she turned and he wasn't there. The janitor had disappeared. She paused, then looked down to check if the bracelet was still in her hand, to make sure she hadn't imagined it — the silver jewellery was clasped around her wrist now. Nabi's brow pinched together, shocked. She hadn't put it on herself... How...?
Clarisse muttered, "Yeah, well, you took so long that a weird woman started talking to me. She didn't seem normal. I think she's following me."
Sure enough, a brown haired woman was standing a few feet away from them. From afar, she seemed like an unassuming lady. But she was smiling a little too sinisterly for Nabi's liking, holding a big blue bag that seemed to be... shaking? Rattling like whatever was inside of it was about to lunge out.
Nabi felt her heart speed up, a terrible fear encroaching.
"She gives me a weird vibe..." Clarisse glowered, "come on. Let's hurry up so she doesn't continue following."
They went further into the building, giving their tickets to a worker at the front so they could slip inside of the movie theatre to watch the film — Clarisse had picked a cheesy romcom, much to Nabi's surprise. Nabi was the type of person to enjoy those kinds of films, but she thought Clarisse would've picked a horror or thriller, since she usually preferred those. Huh.
When they made their way to their seats, Nabi breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully, the creepy lady wouldn't follow them inside. She found herself chewing on the popcorn before the movie had even started, and Clarisse chucked a bit of it at her. Nabi pouted when one of the popcorn pieces hit her face. "Hey!"
"Serves you right for eating the first few pieces when I bought it." Clarisse said, teasingly.
She threw a piece back at her, with Clarisse dodging her horrible aim. Then Nabi perked up with an idea, "Wait, open your mouth so I can try and throw popcorn into it!"
They were the only ones watching that particular movie, having the place to themselves, so Clarisse stood up. Nabi chucked pieces into Clarisse's mouth, laughing as she failed to throw one in. Eventually, after a million tries, Clarisse had swivelled her head and caught one, balancing it on her tongue and showing it to her. She bit it slowly to emphasise her win with a crunch, then grinned, "See? Total pro."
"Total dumbass." Nabi corrected, jokingly. The lights dimmed, and Nabi patted the seat next to her. "Sit down! The movie's gonna start."
The film was actually pretty good, in Nabi's opinion. They took turns grabbing popcorn from the container, laughing at how cliché some of the scenes were. Clarisse always claimed she never liked romcoms, but Nabi knew better. She totally loved them too.
Sometimes, she caught Clarisse's eyes drifting away at the movie to look at her. Maybe because Nabi was hogging all the popcorn.
Near the end of the movie, Nabi saw from the corner of her eye that a woman was walking up the movie theatre's steps towards them. The dreadful feeling came back, rippling in her chest.
Something about the lady sent Nabi into fight or flight mode. She mumbled, "Is it just me, or is that the same woman from earlier?"
"Yeah," Clarisse whispered back, "it is."
The woman had made her way to their row, and wasn't at all polite about talking over the film. She said, "Ah, excuse me children... I saw you both earlier and had to ask an urgent question."
They eyed her, wary of what she could do. The lady plopped the bag on one of the seats, next to Nabi's, who inched away from the bag as the growling inside of it grew louder. The woman's eyes, for a moment, looked like a reptile's with sideways slits.
There was no doubt about it — she wasn't a mortal. She had to be a monster.
Clarisse stood up, and Nabi did too when the woman chuckled darkly. They didn't bother letting her ask whatever it was she wanted to.
"What are you?" Clarisse growled. She took out a dagger from her pocket, one that she brought to places since she couldn't exactly carry around a spear. It was mandatory for every camper to have one on them whenever they were permitted to leave. "We can take down any monster with ease, and you're no exception. Either walk away or you'll get turned to dust."
The woman merely laughed, the caged dog or... whatever it was in her bag began whimpering. "How cute. You demigods are always identical to each other — brash, stupid."
"Shut up." Clarisse clenched her jaw, raising her weapon to threaten the lady.
The woman hummed. "Your parents never teach you any better. The son of Poseidon from a couple days ago had said similar words... before my precious baby and I had thrown him off of the St. Louis Arch..."
Nabi froze. "You— you met Percy?"
The lady waved a hand dismissively, then began to unzip the bag ever so slowly. Nabi took her own dagger out, as well. The two demigods backed away before they got into fighting stances, on edge and awaiting the monster's actions. She sighed, "Of course. He was no match for my darling in here... I'm sure you'll be no match, either."
Nabi's heart was pounding. She watched in terror as, unbelievably, an entire creature began forming and taking shape — it couldn't have possibly fit in a bag that size, but some sort of sharp tentacle emerged out of it, lashing at Clarisse. In return, she deflected the attack with her dagger, as the rest of the creature slid out.
When Nabi blinked, in front of her was a mammoth-sized monster with the head of a lion; the horns and body of a goat; and a poisonous snake tail on the creature's behind. It made a petrifying, predatory sound between a roar and a hiss, as it raised its cobra hood to threaten and intimidate them.
The intimidation, at least for Nabi, was working pretty well.
"My precious baby might not be as experienced as my other children, but a good mother always helps their children grow. Don't you agree, half-bloods?" The woman taunted, "She's quite hungry... she has an appetite for 'heroes' and other demigods such as you two... you'll be her next meal."
That's when it hit Nabi — she knew who this was. ECHIDNA, THE MOTHER OF MONSTERS, AND HER CHILD, THE CHIMERA.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
𝗥𝗜𝗞𝗔'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘𝗦!
જ⁀➴ some cutesy stuff for you guys + echidna!? ironic that nabi's out here saying she's not blind because she sees clarisse... then proceeds to NOT see how clarisse looks at her... girl? me when i'm judging my own character... 🤧 this is gna be slowburn btw despite how obvious they are ,,
uhm ... the finale of s1 came out whilst i wrote this and it ruined me guys i'm so unwell...! 😄
y'all plz tell me if i'm doing okay with the characterisations of everyone because i still want clarisse to be HER but like ,, soft and stuff you know? and ofc the other characters like luke or percy. also someone yell at me to write a chapter for my other book because i'm lowk neglecting it uhm anyways, thanks for reading guys lmk your thoughts! see u in the next one!