011───────ஐ〰ฺ･:*:･✿fallen stars

      LUKE CASTELLAN (years ago, before he'd been exposed as a traitor) once asked Lila and Annabeth what the worst way to die was. Lila remembers that at the time, she had thought it a rather morbid question, especially from Luke, who had never so much as bared his gold-plated teeth at another demigod before. But, thinking back, Lila figures he only wanted to know what would be the worst kind of torture for them both. Whether they'd find it worse to starve to death or to be slaughtered mercilessly by a hoard of Cyclopes. Luke really was a jerk. 

      Annabeth had said water, which had ended up ironic considering her close friendship with a son of Poseidon, of all people. Lila had laughed that off, and told her fire was more terrible. Burning alive was worse, right?

       Well, years later, Lila figures the gods are mocking her, the Fates pulling their silver string with a wicked smile. It has to be fate that she'd end up drowning in a volcano, of all places. Lila had secretly been terrified she'd die in the lava spewing from it. It ended up that she drowned in the water. (Lila's still not sure how she managed to die, but not die. She's just going with it, for now, she supposes. She'll see how it goes.) 

       Perhaps it was Posiedon, mocking her for underestimating just how dangerous the water could be. Maybe she really did deserve to drown. It really does feel as though the gods are laughing in her face.

        They had all just watched while she died. Hecate, Hera, whoever else was keeping an eye on Lila. They had seen her drown and sink, seen water fill her lungs and air evade her grasp, and they had let it happen. And now whenever she tries to close her eyes, all she can see is the pitch black of that soul-crushing weight, the water forcing itself down her throat. 

The gods don't care about us, Luke had warned. 

        Lila never considered it before, but he does have a point. 

      ONE NIGHT, Lila finds herself lying on the ground outside the cabins. Not for any particular reason — she just woke up at two am, and thought that it was a good idea. In hindsight, her clothes are now slightly dusty, and her hair is a mess, tangled and interwoven with random strands of grass. But the stars are beautiful tonight, thousands, billions of cataclysmic explosions thousands of miles away, distant to everything. It's almost comforting to see them flicker — to know that there's probably some life out there, and they wouldn't have to worry about any of the problems Lila finds herself grappling with. Her problems are inconsequential enough that the stars above remain untouched. 

      Those stars make up constellations of the worst Greek myths. Zoe Nightshade is up there, somewhere, though Lila's never been good at spotting the patterns. Maybe one day Lila might find herself there too. Lila doubts that, though — she's probably never going to do anything interesting enough to equate to a constellation. Perhaps Annabeth or Percy though.

      "Li?" A familiar voice drifts through the shadow of the other cabins, and Lila jumps a little, though she doesn't move from the ground. Shadow falls over her face as the silhouette blocks out the moon for a second, before dropping down to lie beside Lila. "What are you doing?"

     Lila gives the barest of shrugs, playing with the grass beneath her hand, a daisy worming itself beneath her fingertips. "Just watching the stars."

     Silena shifts closer, placing a trembling hand on Lila's arm. "I've always loved them. It's like we're looking back in time, you know."

      Lila does not know. "What do you mean?"

      "Well, they're so far away, right? See that star, right there?" She points. Lila's not quite sure what she's pointing to, but she nods all the same. "That's Sirius. It's about nine light years away, which means that the light from it takes nine years to reach our eyes. So what we're looking at is actually what the star looked like nine years ago." 

       Lila stares back up at the sky, squinting a little. It's a hard concept to wrap her mind around. "So, in nine years we'll see what it looks like right now?"

       "Yeah, exactly." 

       "We should do that," Lila suggests, turning her head so she can see Silena's face. The daughter of Aphrodite has dark circles under her eyes like she hasn't slept well for weeks. Lila doesn't blame her —  there's the war, Lila's quest, and Chris Rodriguez to worry about. "In nine years, we should come back here and stare at the stars." 

        Silena gives her a genuine grin, her entire face lighting up. Lila hadn't realised how drawn and worried she had looked beforehand, but the difference is stark. The dark circles almost seem to fade away, melting into Silena's flawless skin. "That does sound nice."

       They stare up at the sky in silence for a moment, and Lila can't help but think (pessimistically) that they might not be alive in nine years time. Well, Silena probably will, but Lila might not. Silena knows exactly what she wants to do, who she's going to love. But when Lila imagines nine years into the future — gods, she'd be twenty-six — nothing comes to mind. Hell, Lila barely knows what she's going to do in the next year, let alone the next nine. 

      It's alright, though, she promises herself. Even if tomorrow feels like a decade away and she has no idea what to do with herself now that Percy's missing, she'll manage. She just has to take it one hour at a time, step by step. Only thinking of the next few minutes seems like the only way to survive, and avoid perpetual disappointment. 

       "Everyone always asks how I know this stuff," Silena breaks the silence after a few minutes, her voice tremulous with sleep-deprivation. Her face has lost it's happy tone, and the moon has shifted away so she's left in shade. "They always wonder why I know it. Which boy I learnt it for."

       Lila's not sure what to say to that, so she says nothing.

       "I'm not stupid," Silena says quietly, her voice taut with something similar to frustration, but far more deeply hurt. "Just because my mother is Aphrodite and I like boys doesn't mean I can't read." 

         "Nobody thinks that," Lila says, a little confused. Everyone respects Silena, right? Everyone loves her and appreciates her —  Lila can't imagine anything else, considering that the camp would be a mess without her. "We all respect you." 

       Silena gives a quiet laugh — not her usual gentle laugh, but one that almost sounds mocking to Lila's ears. "Maybe I don't deserve it." 

     Lila frowns. "What are you talking about? Of course you do."

     Silena says nothing, only looking away. A faraway look has drifted into her eyes, like she sees something beyond the stars and is trying to keep sight of it, though it evades her line of vision. "I'm sorry," she says quietly. She apologises a lot, Lila has noticed. A lot of the time it is unwarranted. "I didn't mean to get into this when — when you've just lost Percy." 

     Lila huffs out a quiet laugh, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach, and how suddenly she can feel the rocks beneath her back, pressing into the skin. "He's only missing, you know. Not dead." Yet. 

      Silena's face is unreadable. She probably thinks Lila is in denial — which she's not. Then again, that's exactly what someone who was in denial would be thinking. Maybe she is in denial. "Lila, he was in the centre of the volcano. There — there's no way — " 

     "I survived," Lila points out, her voice a little brittle and defensive. It's not Silena's fault — she does make sense. Lila just knows she's wrong. "I know he's not dead."

     "How?"

     Lila shrugs, barely. "I don't know, I just do; it's like an itch at the back of my neck, or a voice in my head. I can feel it. He'll be back soon, I'm sure." Okay, now she sounds a little ridiculous, and Silena is giving Lila a look of extreme pity. Lila just wants to curl up and cry. 

     Silena somehow manages to sense Lila tiptoeing on the edge of panic. "It's okay to be afraid of death, Li."  

     "Are you?" Lila asks unthinkingly, changing the subject. "Afraid of death, I mean." 

      "Maybe," Silena reflects quietly, brushing a stray strand of hair over her shoulder. "I think I'm more afraid of grief, of what it would feel like after everyone else is dead. I think it would be worse to be the last alive, than the first dead. I don't want to live after everything I love is gone."

      Well, that's a macabre take on an already terrifying war. Lila gulps. "It's a little scary," she admits. "Everything is changing so fast. One minute Percy was beside me, and now —" — her throat clogs up, she chokes. "Now he's not, I don't know where he is. In less than an hour. What will happen next? I'm —  I'm scared of it." 

     "It only takes us seconds to die," Silena agrees quietly, her eyes dark and sad. "Life moves so slowly, and then suddenly it just stops."

      "I don't think it moves slowly," Lila says, pulling at the daisy beside her. With a flick of her fingers, five more bloom from the ground beside it, springing up from the ground. "It's moving too fast for me, I don't know how to stop it."

      "We can't stop change," Silena quotes, and Lila gets the sense that she's read this somewhere. "We should embrace it." 

       "I don't want to embrace it," Lila says, even to her own ears sounding like a petulant teenager. "I wish it could just go back to how it was before. I don't want to live the rest of my life feeling like this."

       "Grief is like that," Silena agrees. "Death only takes a few seconds, but grief lasts forever."

     LILA DROPPED THE PLATE. 

     (It wasn't her fault.) She had been walking from breakfast over to the Big House, where Clarisse is watching over Chris Rodriguez, who, over the course of the days spent in the labyrinth, drastically deteriorated. Honestly, Lila isn't really sure what else to do with her time. Not that Clarisse is a second choice — she isn't — but after Percy's death was announced, a strange sort of sombre mood overtook the Camp. Now, Lila's no lawyer, but Percy's body was never found. Surely that means he might be alive, right? There's no evidence to prove otherwise.

     When she had voiced her suspicions to Annabeth, the girl had scoffed and told Lila that statistically there was no chance. Privately, Lila thinks that Annabeth is just a afraid to get her hopes up. But it's fair enough — Lila's probably going to be disappointed in the end, anyway. 

     Problem is; there's nothing she can do. Percy's missing, the quest is on hold, Luke is preparing to attack the camp, and Lila's back at the same place she always is — disappointing herself. 

     Everything seems to be going wrong — she saw a magpie (Lila's not superstitious, but she knows the rhyme; one for sorrow, two for joy), she tripped over the steps of the Big House, and dropped the carefully picked breakfast she'd grabbed for Clarisse after breakfast. According to Silena, the girl hasn't eaten since Chris began to deteriorate. 

    The plate stares mournfully back up at Lila, shattered over the ground. Lila mutters a curse and shoves it into the bin. Typical. At least she still has the basket of strawberries, which by some grace of the gods, she'd managed not to drop. 

    Sure enough, Clarisse looks like hell. Her hair is slightly matted, and flat on one side like her head has been resting against something for a long time — probably the side of the chair, based on her lopsided posture. 

   She's awake, though, her face contorted in a natural scowl as Lila walks through the door. "Lila. Heard you were back."

     ". . . Yeah," Lila agrees awkwardly, not sure how to respond. It feels like she's kind of rubbing salt into Clarisse's wound, seeing as she's not turned insane yet like Chris. "Uh, I brought you a sandwich." 

     Clarisse blinks at the strawberries, her sleep-deprived brain taking a while to register what Lila's on about. "Those are strawberries."

     "Yeah." Lila admits, holding out the strawberries. "I dropped the sandwich." 

     Clarisse looks thoroughly confused. "What?"

     She takes them, though. Even if only to nibble on the smallest. "Have you eaten much?" Lila checks, wondering if she should go back and steal more food. Or ask Connor for something from his secret stash. "I can go back and get something else." 

     Clarisse shakes her head. "Not hungry." Lila raises an eyebrow. There's a rumble, and it definitely comes from somewhere near the bed. 

     "Well, unless Chris is up for a trip to Pizza Hut . . . "

     "Seriously," Clarisse insists, with the sort of tone that probably would've added a lot of conviction, if she hadn't simply been too exhausted to argue. Lila thinks that she could probably nudge the girl, and she'd fall straight over. "If I eat anything, I think I might be sick."

     Lila chews her bottom lip, filled with some anxiety over Clarisse's state. "You can't wait here forever."

      "I can wait as long as I need to," Clarisse forces out petulantly, her chin tilted out slightly, jaw setting with stubbornness. "I'll be here until he wakes." 

     What if he never does? Lila thinks, but she manages to stop herself from speaking the harsh words. From the way Clarisse's eyes are sparkling, she knows exactly what Lila is thinking. It's what everyone else is saying, after all. "There are ways to love without killing yourself," Lila says instead, her words surprisingly insightful. 

     Clarisse's teeth grit together, a clash of enamel and gum. "How would you know?"

     Okay, fair point. Lila's no daughter of Aphrodite. But someone has to slap some sense into Clarisse, don't they? "Silena agrees with me," Lila adds, incorrectly. Silena would agree, if she were hearing this conversation. Lila's pretty sure. "Two hours. Come with me for two hours."

    Lila can feel Clarisse's will bending. She's probably too exhausted to put up much of a fight right now, seeing as she hasn't slept in a real bed for days.  After a moment of silence, Clarisse speaks, and then Lila knows she's won this conversation. "Will has to come and watch over Chris. Where are we going?"

     Lila grins, adrenaline spiking. "The sword-fighting arena."

a/n: EW. I HATE THIS CHAPTER AND IM SO SORRY YOU ALL HAD TO READ IT BUT I CANT PHYSICALLY BRING MYSELF TO EDIT IT IM REALLY SORRY

yeah i didn't update for two months and then gave you THIS er i suck

exams were hard, i think i did ok though ! got 100% in english literature and the creative writing segment of the english language, so apparently i can write, but that then sucked all the creativity out of me for two months. 

the next chapter WILL be better frs because we're finally getting to the good stuff :)) this chapter was a pain. mostly foreshadowing. more plot to come && frequent updates. hoping around this time next week xx percy comes back (spoilers) 

lyra