So who by percentage was the most attractive r6 op? Who had the most votes?
That is hard to say because some polls have only 20ish or even under 20ishs votes, and some got over 30 votes. I guess I can make another poll to hold a massive one where people pick the most attractive one like mirror mirror on the wall, but HEY I can give you the links to other polls that needs more opinions!
Are these Year 7 and Year 8 fellas, and Valkyrie and Blackbeard attractive? (Azami, Sens, Solis, Brava, Fenrir, Ram, Tubarão, Valkyrie and Blackbeard) - only 18 votes so far
Are these Year 5 and Year 6 fellas attractive? (Iana, Oryx, Melusi, Zero, Flores, Thunderbird and Thorn) - 20 votes
Are these Year 4 fellas, Deimos and Skopós attractive? (Gridlock, Mozzie, Nøkk, Warden, Amaru, Goyo, Deimos and Skopós) - 17 votes
The first few days since they left on their quest together were tense, to say the least.
Mira realized early in their journey that everything that had happened still hurt her deeply. With each step they took, more painful memories of what had happened on her first quest resurfaced. And everything only got worse after the first attack.
They were all older demigods now. All with the strongest scent. All three of them with the blessings of their godly parents, all three of them attracting the attention of monsters, and only two of them could actually fight while Mira held her celestial bronze spear, trembling in place, unable to move.
Rumi prevented anything from happening. Rumi injured herself protecting them from attacks that were too fast, and this made Mira feel like a deadweight on that quest. She couldn’t fight against small two-eyed pests, and the mere thought of encountering a cyclops on that journey made her tremble.
She had a panic attack before they could even continue their journey, and while Zoey didn’t know what to do, she just watched Rumi crouch down and stay close to Mira, gently helping her regulate her breathing. It seemed like a different Rumi, even. The only Rumi Zoey knew didn’t seem capable of such kindness, yet there she was, caring for Mira after a panic attack, completely indifferent to her own injuries.
Zoey had heard stories about who Rumi used to be, a Rumi who was indeed kind and cheerful, and now Zoey realized she was getting to know Rumi’s true self.
Zoey didn’t know if she should offer to help with the injuries scattered across Rumi’s body—a few scratches here and there, but she stopped herself from approaching when she saw her apply some antiseptic to the wounds and pretend it didn’t hurt when she resumed their walk, this time following behind them, like a bodyguard.
Zoey preferred to offer help to someone she knew would accept it, which led her to remain embraced with Mira for much of the way until they reached a high hill where they set up camp. Before Zoey could even offer to stand guard, Rumi told them to rest while she began to patrol the area.
Mira spent much of the night restless, risking shy glances in Rumi’s direction. She wanted to thank her for the help, she wanted to apologize for not being able to fight, she wanted to tell her to sleep while Mira stood guard, but she couldn’t do anything but blush when Zoey told her that the two of them needed to talk about things a little beyond what had happened earlier.
The following days, as they followed Zoey’s coordinates to where the prophecy had directed her, were as tense as that first day. Rumi fought like a demon whenever she heard or sensed the presence of monsters, annihilating them with such ease that Zoey and Mira could only watch, gaping, as they tried to move to help, only to see Rumi decapitate monsters as if she were reaping wheat and then casually walk away as if nothing had happened.
That pattern continued for a long time after they hitched a ride on a cargo truck westward, and the silence between them wasn’t so uncomfortable now that they were used to Rumi’s short and quick answers. Zoey didn’t even try to talk to Rumi, to tell the truth. Every night she would stand guard until sunrise, and then she would rest for an hour or two while Zoey and Mira had breakfast. They were worried, but every time Mira tried to offer to switch shifts with Rumi...
“Not today.”
“I won’t sleep anyway.”
“No. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“You better rest.”
Zoey had already given up trying to talk to her by then; most of the time Rumi avoided the effort of having to speak. Mira still asked Rumi to wake her up in the middle of the night so they could switch shifts, but Rumi continued to watch over them all the time without worrying about her own sleep at all.
That unhealthy dynamic had been working for a while.
Until one night, when they were looking for a good place to spend the night, they ended up in an abandoned warehouse. They set up camp on the highest part of the place, on top of stacked containers. They were almost asleep when Rumi heard footsteps and asked them to be quiet, then crept closer to the bridge to see who might be down there when she saw two cyclopes with demigods trapped inside a huge cauldron.
Rumi couldn’t tell Mira what was waiting for them down there, but just her look was enough for Mira to be sure that her nightmare was about to return to haunt her. Rumi and Zoey started whispering plans, but while Zoey insisted they should try to help the imprisoned demigods, Rumi countered that they should run while they were distracted—for Mira’s sake, she wanted to add, but she didn’t have the courage to say it aloud.
Of course, their whispers caught the attention of those Rumi wanted to avoid.
And although Rumi managed to take down one of the cyclopes, the other ended up chasing Zoey and Mira. Rumi warned them to run, but Zoey was moving awkwardly, her steps clumsy, having difficulty descending. Rumi had always noticed that she was too slow to move, but she figured that in a moment like that she would realize the urgency to escape as quickly as possible.
Panic left Rumi paralyzed in place for a few seconds before she reacted and yelled for them. Warning them. Telling them to be careful, to run faster. She tried to draw the cyclops’ attention to herself, but he took advantage of a moment when Mira stopped to help Zoey down and grabbed her in his palm.
Rumi roared with rage and yelled for him to let Mira go, wielding her sword with such fury as a red aura enveloped her body, and although that cyclops fell before Rumi’s wrath, although Mira was alive, breathing, trembling, with her heart pounding… Rumi still turned to Zoey with eyes full of anger and asked her what was her problem.
When they needed to flee, Zoey messed around, moving lazily as if there wasn’t a cyclops chasing them. When they needed to escape, Zoey made Mira the target of a cyclops, and although Zoey cowered at first, although she felt insecure and wanted to leave, she just clenched her jaw and threw her prosthetic leg at Rumi’s head.
Which, well, technically helped explain why she hadn’t reacted in time to escape the cyclopes. And it also made Rumi shut up and look a little embarrassed by her outburst of anger.
But what really made the two stop sniping at each other was the sound of a sob.
Mira was still trying to recover as she knelt on the floor, trembling so much, crying so much. Rumi and Zoey exchanged glances before Rumi helped Zoey adjust the prosthetic leg back into place and then carried Mira bridal-style out of there.
Zoey helped the demigods who were inside the cyclops' cauldron before reaching Rumi and Mira, who were a short distance from the warehouse. Rumi was now walking at a slow pace so that Zoey could keep up with her without straining herself too much.
That night, neither of them slept.
Rumi stood guard in the middle of the forest while Zoey held a trembling Mira in her lap, and the two of them just clung to each other, thinking about all the “what ifs” that haunted them after what had happened. They couldn't help but think that they had almost lost each other.
And Rumi watched them from afar, with the same thoughts running through her mind.
━━━━━━━━━━
If Rumi had found it difficult to sleep before, since that night she almost lost Mira she hadn’t slept at all. She barely rested, and for three days pure panic, fear, and despair had kept her awake.
Mira and Zoey tried to sleep despite the nightmares, now so close to each other that the warmth emanating from Zoey kept Mira warm all night. Night after night, Zoey noticed Mira awake watching Rumi before sleep overtook her, and Zoey always told her to talk to her. But Mira slept without being able to do so.
Despite things between Zoey and Rumi being even more awkward since the episode with the cyclopes, Zoey couldn’t help but worry. Especially when she looked at those open wounds on her body.
One morning, while Mira was preparing sandwiches for them, Zoey simply pulled Rumi’s injured arm close without asking questions and began tending to the wounds while Rumi tried to pull her arm back, telling her she was fine—but all it took was for Zoey to press on an abscess in the infected wound for Rumi to bite her own tongue and hold back a groan.
Mira managed to smile seeing them not bickering for so long while Zoey tended to Rumi’s wounds and bandaged them afterward.
Usually, Rumi would just stand guard while Mira and Zoey ate. She preferred to eat while they followed the trail marked by Zoey, walking behind them so she could pray unnoticed, but that morning Zoey simply pushed the sandwich and water toward Rumi without asking if she wanted it or not, telling her to eat.
Rumi could have argued with her and said she wouldn’t do what she wanted.
But she simply took two pieces of the small sandwich and threw them into their small campfire, beginning to pray immediately afterward. She knew she would find Mira and Zoey staring at her closely as soon as she opened her eyes, but she didn’t care, choosing instead to eat what was left of her sandwich while worrying about their journey becoming too long for that small amount of food.
She was beginning to get annoyed with Ares for losing his spear on the other side of the world when she heard noises in the surrounding woods and managed to grab her sword just in time to defend herself against an attack by Laistrygonian Giants.
She cursed loudly and chattered her teeth, blaming herself for letting her guard down to the point where they got so close. She drew a second sword from its sheath and yelled for Zoey and Mira to gather as much belongings as they could and run while she held them off.
Mira froze when she heard the command and gave Zoey an apprehensive look, waiting to see what she would do, ready to fight alongside her to help Rumi this time.
And Mira appeared with her spear just in time to send one of the giants back to Tartarus before it could injure Rumi with a huge rock.
They had a good advantage until more monsters appeared. Their scent, along with the mess made by the Laistrygonian Giants, had attracted others. Zoey cursed under her breath before grabbing her backpack and pulling Rumi and Mira down the ravine.
They tumbled down the slope, scraping themselves with each impact against branches and rocks, but hey! Now they were far enough away from the monsters to think about where to go next.
That was when Mira said she knew where they were and where they should go if they wanted to hide from the monsters.
Zoey and Rumi almost wondered whether they should follow Mira’s plan or devise one involving monster annihilation when a fireball flew past their heads and struck the nearest tree.
Rumi ended up carrying Zoey on her back as she followed Mira through the woods, and Zoey occasionally would defend them from monsters that were too close with her bow, or throwing daggers straight into the eyes of other creatures that approached Mira further ahead. She would probably run out of ammunition very soon if they didn’t find shelter in time.
Mira turned a corner that led them straight to several vines in front of what appeared to be a huge rock, but Rumi didn’t stop running when she saw Mira enter a cave right there. Zoey took advantage of the passage to pull vines and make rocks above fall, which probably wouldn’t stop monsters from following them, but would certainly delay them considerably.
Zoey squeezed Rumi’s shoulders and cowered as they passed through the lower parts of the cave. They were about to ask Mira where they were and how she knew the place so well when they saw her running straight towards a path that led them to a giant mansion right in the center of what must have been the property of the richest person in the world.
They had to follow Mira despite their apprehension. The run to that mansion would have been long if they hadn’t been trained for quests like that, and soon Mira was passing security guards shouting, “If anyone asks if my friends and I passed through here, say we ran west! Please!”
The security guard simply accepted the order with a smile on his face, and Mira was soon waving to the guards at the door and asking them to let her in, with the most beautiful nervous smile ever on display.
Rumi and Zoey exchanged somewhat alarmed glances at seeing Mira use her charm for trespassing, but they didn’t ask many questions since it meant they would be safe inside an extremely secure place.
What really shocked them was that as soon as they entered the mansion, Mira moved through the hallways perfectly well, as if she already knew the place. To confuse them even more, one of the security guards was soon informing Miss Kang that her brother would be joining her soon.
Rumi dropped Zoey onto the nearest sofa and threw herself onto the rug right after, panting as she stared at Mira with doubt glistening in her eyes.
“This house is yours?” Rumi asked, stunned.
“Mansion, you mean,” Zoey added, her admiring eyes wandering around a living room the size of her old house.
Mira’s brother seemed infinitely more confused than Rumi and Zoey. He entered the room so distraught that he froze in place the moment he saw Mira before hugging her and starting to cry.
The half-bloods knew that Mira had been at the camp for years. She had never left since she arrived. She had always told everyone that she had no family or a place to return to… and now they had discovered that Mira used to live in mansions like that one with a brother who liked her.
But they discovered shortly afterward that Mira had been kicked out of her house by a father who no longer existed. Both he and his wife had already passed away, and now Mira’s brother was trying to keep the family business afloat.
Learning that that immense mansion in the middle of nowhere was just their vacation home made Zoey’s jaw drop.
The upside of Mira being super rich and lying to them? They ate real food and got even more for the rest of the trip, and the smell of the various humans in that mansion masked the scent of the demigods there.
After a good shower, Zoey changed Rumi’s bandages and forced her to lie down to try and rest, once again giving orders without even asking if she wanted to, and this time Rumi was so exhausted that she fainted on Mira’s bed.
Zoey took a shower right after making sure all of Rumi and Mira’s wounds were clean and bandaged.
Zoey put on clean clothes and went to organize her backpack and weapons to check how many arrows she had left, but she needed to go to the nearest window and smile at the starry sky while asking her father to leave her some arrows before his shift guiding the sun across the sky began.
The three of them managed to truly sleep that night, at least until Rumi woke them up with painful screams.
Zoey imagined that must be the reason she avoided sleeping, she just didn’t imagine it would hurt so much to see her having a panic attack while actually trying to wake up from the nightmare.
Zoey and Mira had slept on the fluffy rug on the floor and let Rumi occupy the big bed, but while trying to calm Rumi in the middle of the night they ended up falling asleep together there.
And they woke up without Rumi between them, although they could still smell her scent impregnated in the sheets. Antiseptic, blood, and dried beef. Yeah. Rumi had totally been sleeping between them just moments before. The bed was still warm.
As warm as Mira and Zoey’s cheeks when they realized what had happened after they took care of Rumi.
Mira’s brother prepared breakfast for them, packed food for their trip, and offered a chauffeur to take them to their final destination.
It was a surprise for Rumi to find a human so willing to help demigods, but the way he hugged Mira and asked her to come back and visit him, saying he was sorry for what had happened years ago, saying he missed her… it seemed genuine.
Mira refused the chauffeur’s offer, but accepted a borrowed car—making it clear she probably wouldn’t be able to return it in one piece, and her brother just hugged her again and said he didn’t mind the car if she came back to visit him.
Rumi and Mira exchanged glances in the mansion’s garage when they saw six luxury cars parked side by side. If there was one thing their demigod training hadn’t taught them, it was driving.
But Zoey was already twirling a key on her index finger, grinning from ear to ear, as she climbed into a convertible to play with the top and test the engine, saying she was paying to see some monster catch up to them once she stepped on the gas.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zoey watched the convertible sink downstream, tears streaming down her face, whimpering at the loss of her beautiful car.
Mira patted her back, comforting her and saying that at least they had survived the attack.
Then they turned their gaze to Rumi as soon as they heard her grunt in pain, a hand firm on a wound that was bleeding onto her shirt.
Zoey wondered if she had some kind of magnet for disasters as she stitched up Rumi’s hip. Mira gave Rumi sips of nectar and nibbles of ambrosia now and then, trembling since seeing the amount of blood.
She lectured Rumi too, for always getting into the worst scrapes trying to fight alone to protect her, for always trying to protect her.
Like she had done on Mira’s first quest.
And Rumi apologized in a whisper before collapsing from exhaustion.
Mira also had some injuries that Zoey needed to clean and bandage, and soon after, Mira’s gentle hands helped Zoey with the scratches on her cheek and arms.
She didn’t know how they would get food, but that was a problem for them the next day. At that moment, Zoey was just cleaning their weapons while humming and keeping watch so Rumi and Mira could somehow rest their heads.
Zoey began to hum as she checked the few provisions that were left after the attack that caught them all off guard. Their car had been thrown off the top of the bridge straight into the river meters below, and they had to abandon the car mid-air to avoid breaking their bones in the fall. They couldn’t get anything from the car, but at least Zoey’s fanny pack—where she kept some first-aid items, ambrosia, nectar, and gold drachmas—was intact.
When Zoey stopped singing, distractedly gazing at the stars, Rumi woke up and stared at her in doubt, wondering why she had stopped singing, and she blushed when she realized she had said that out loud.
“Are you going soft on me, Rumi?” Zoey teased.
Rumi gritted her teeth and looked away at the sky, trying to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but now that she was awake she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep so easily.
“Say please and I’ll sing again.” Zoey teased, her eyebrows wiggling provocatively.
And Rumi just narrowed her eyes and said the same as always. “I don’t beg.”
“Does Miss “I don’t beg” don’t even know how to ask for a song? It won’t hurt, you know?”
Rumi didn’t ask for the song.
Zoey sang anyway.
And Mira smiled as she pretended to continue sleeping, unable to ignore how sweet it had been to hear Rumi so shy that she hadn’t responded to Zoey with any rudeness.
Mira knew what was happening to her heart during that quest.
And even though years ago she had promised herself that she would never again give in to feelings like that…
She realized there was no going back now.
━━━━━━━━━━
That quest was already starting to piss them off. They had walked so far to get closer to the place where Ares had lost his damned spear, and now that they were close enough, somehow everything was making Rumi even more angry.
Rumi could already imagine that bastard entering that abandoned theme park with Aphrodite for a date and dropping his spear anywhere.
She just couldn’t imagine why Ares hadn’t returned to retrieve the spear on his own.
But as soon as she took two steps closer to his spear, the park floor began to tremble, and what should have been rides were now transforming into giant robots that would make their quest to recover the damned spear even more difficult.
Rumi wasn’t in her best when the first attack happened, but she realized she no longer needed to defend Mira or Zoey. Mira held her spear firmly in her hands, fighting the robots fiercely, and Zoey had her daggers, advancing against Hephaestus’s toys alongside Mira. The three had learned to fight together, in a synchronicity that would have been perfect if they weren’t so exhausted. The journey to that theme park was more exhausting than the battle itself.
They were wounded. All of them. Rumi still felt pain in her hip, the stitches threatening to open with each movement, and a small distraction was enough for one of the robots to send her flying into a hot dog stand.
Mira and Zoey shouted her name, worried, and Mira told Zoey to go check if she was alright while she dealt with the last robots, but as soon as they separated they were surrounded by Hephaestus’s creations.
The fact that it was dark at night certainly didn’t help them get a better sense of the battlefield.
Mira didn’t even realize that while she was defending herself and fighting, she was being guided directly towards the roller coaster. The moment she got close to the seat, she was pushed inside, and Hephaestus’s invention came to life and began to shrink, trapping Mira inside. With each passing moment, the space inside decreased and heated up—perhaps a perfect trap to punish and torture the gods. But Mira was already screaming in pain as burns formed on the exposed skin of her arms and legs. She was curled up in a fetal position, avoiding movement to prevent further burns, calling for Zoey and Rumi, and unconsciously calling for her mother as well.
A prayer made in a moment of despair that seemed to reach no one.
Mira fainted while screaming in pain, unable to even perceive a metal hand carefully and forcefully tearing through that hot prison. Rumi fought against the heat and her own pain, forcing herself to reach Mira in time to prevent something irreversible, but by the time she pulled her out of there, she was already unconscious. Her hair and clothes were damaged. Arms and legs covered in first-degree burns, shoulders and feet covered in second-degree ones.
Rumi held her in her arms, feeling her heart pounding in her throat, completely desperate. The only thing on her mind was that she needed Zoey’s fanny pack, she needed ambrosia and nectar, she needed to help Mira.
But a glance in Zoey’s direction and all Rumi saw was her unconscious on the ground, so many open wounds that she was losing blood too quickly.
Of course, Rumi’s damned godly parent hadn’t returned to retrieve his spear because Hephaestus had taken advantage of the theme park to set traps that would catch Ares and Aphrodite in the act.
The damned gods always playing with their lives as if demigods were disposable, to the point that they would risk themselves for something as stupid as that spear.
Rumi laid Mira and Zoey side by side on the floor, her trembling hand searching for her sword as she watched the robots approach, determined to destroy the last remaining beasts.
Rumi roared, running with the blade of her sword kicking up sand, destroying robots in her path until she reached Ares’s magic spear. The moment Rumi wielded the god’s weapon, Ares’ blessing fell upon her, driving her into a rage that led to the destruction of everything around her.
But now that she could tend to Zoey and Mira, now that she could give them ambrosia and nectar to help them heal, she opened Zoey’s fanny pack only to find nothing more than a few drachmas and some bandages.
They had used the remaining supplies to tend to Rumi’s wound after the battle on the bridge.
And now Rumi was falling to her knees on the floor as she watched Zoey and Mira losing vital signs and there was nothing she could do to save them.
She only needed ambrosia and nectar.
She would heal them if she had ambrosia and nectar.
But all she had at the moment was Ares’s stupid spear.
Rumi gritted her teeth and planted her own sword in the ground, raising Ares’s spear to the sky and shouting her godly parent’s name.
“Ares.”
“You better be listening to me now.”
“Come here.”
“Very presumptuous of you to think you can summon me with such arrogance, kid.”
Rumi glared at him scornfully as her father’s human form materialized near her, a hand raised towards her, looking at her with a smile that seemed proud.
“Thank you for retrieving my spear. I did well to bless you, after all.”
He asked for the weapon at the same time that Rumi narrowed her eyes and chattered her teeth, so much anger overflowing from within her that the god could feel her wrath.
She didn’t return Ares’ spear even after the third time the god asked for it.
Instead, Rumi bargained.
“Give me ambrosia and nectar and I’ll give you your spear.”
Ares raised an eyebrow at his daughter’s insolence, then lowered his gaze to the ground and saw the daughters of Aphrodite and Apollo practically dead there.
He even tried to approach her and take the spear himself, but stopped when he saw Rumi wielding his weapon with mastery, transforming it into a double-headed sword, threatening the god without hesitation.
“Give me ambrosia and nectar.”
“Let me save them.”
“Or I swear by the River Styx, Ares.”
“That I will use your spear to destroy all of Olympus.”
The god of war straightened his posture and studied the girl’s expression with a mixture of pride and anger. He had truly created a huge threat to his own existence, he was certain of it.
Thunder rumbled overhead to seal the promise the next instant, a warning that more gods were watching their conversation. Rain clouds were already forming high above the theme park.
Ares frowned at the sound of an eagle and, of course, didn’t want to hear any lecture from Zeus at that moment.
But he only snorted irritably at the second thunderclap. A clear warning: Control your daughter.
“Fine, kid.” Ares reached out to her again, choosing to calm things down, although a part of him wanted to see how far Rumi’s fury would go.
He exchanged the magic spear for ambrosia and enough nectar for the two demigods and disappeared from the place the next instant.
Rumi trembled as she held Zoey’s face delicately, lifting her head slightly so she could drink the nectar without choking. She moved with all the gentleness she could muster, trembling as she held Mira with all possible care to avoid hurting her further.
But it didn’t matter that Rumi had already offered them the maximum amount of ambrosia and nectar, Zoey and Mira were still unconscious and didn’t seem to react to the food of the gods.
It started to rain the instant Rumi realized they were still losing vital signs. The instant she realized she was losing them.
She didn’t know how to heal them.
She couldn’t heal them.
Rumi stared at the little ambrosia and nectar that remained, nothing more than a sip of nectar and a small piece of ambrosia. Rumi herself hadn’t even tasted the food of the gods, more concerned with helping them.
But even so, Zoey and Mira still had their eyes closed, their bodies so limp that when Rumi laid them on the ground their heads tilted to the side.
Losing pulse.
So wounded.
Rumi began to feel a lump forming in her throat.
And the first sob escaped her.
“Please.”
Rumi lowered her head, hands on the ground, completely kneeling, prostrating herself on the floor.
“Please.”
She trembled and sobbed, her heart aching.
“Hestia, please.”
“They are my home.”
“Please.”
Then,
“Hades, please.”
“If you’re going to take them away from me, I beg you to take me too.”
“Hestia, Hades, please.”
“I beg you, please.”
Rumi sobbed and screamed so loudly it seemed to match the sound of relentless thunder, her face already covered in sand as she knelt completely on the ground.
“Aphrodite, please!”
“I love them, please.”
“Aphrodite, listen to me, please.”
“Apollo, they need help. Please, Apollo.”
“Apollo, heal them. I can’t, Apollo. Please!”
Rumi clenched her hand into a fist, gathering sand in her palm, digging her nails into the ground so hard it hurt.
But nothing hurt more than seeing the ones she loved dying right before her eyes.
“I apologize.”
“Please.”
“Haven’t I suffered enough?”
“I can’t bear to lose them too.”
“I fulfilled your wishes.”
“All my life I have served you.”
“So please.”
“Hear my plea and bring them back to me.”
━━━━━━━━━━
Rumi continued praying until she lost her voice, crying so much that the sound of her prayers reached the Olympus, and even without Zeus’s direct approval, Apollo descended from the sun chariot and went to them.
A lightning bolt hadn’t struck him on his way to them, so he assumed that that was a good sign. Perhaps Zeus realized that after testing Rumi for the past few years, he would finally need to stop before she became a real threat to his reign.
“You can rest now, Rumi,” he had said the moment he arrived where they were, but Ares’s daughter was already unconscious, even with her body so tense in that position.
Even though their vital signs were low, Apollo wasn’t worried about the other girls after tending to their wounds and realizing that the ambrosia and nectar were gradually helping them recover.
The three would be fine when they woke up. He just needed to get them to a safe place now.
Perhaps Apollo got a long lecture, and perhaps he had to help Zeus with his favorite cattle for weeks after what he had done, but he didn’t regret intervening and leaving Rumi, Zoey, and Mira under the care of a mortal he trusted.
━━━━━━━━━━
Rumi woke up in a bed with a scent she knew well, a bed so comfortable and that brought back such painful and lovely memories that all she did was cry.
And she cried even more when she left that room and walked through the house, trembling as she went to the other side of the hallway, where she found her old room exactly as it used to be.
Even the walls that had been destroyed that night were standing again.
And right there in the kitchen of her old home, Rumi found her helping herself to some cinnamon tea.
“Mama?”
Celine thought she could manage not to cry.
Apollo had taken the girls to her house some days ago, had protected them for the past few days, and had told her that the girls would be unconscious for a long time after what happened.
Celine had taken care of them, had changed their bandages, had wiped away their sweat with wet wipes, had put plaster on small scratches, and had checked their stitches.
And even though she had already seen her sweet Rumi so many times in the last three days while Celine tended to her wounds, even though she had already cried so many times in the last few days…
She still broke down in tears when she heard the sweet sound of her voice.
Rumi ran to her when she noticed her mother struggling to move her wheelchair. Rumi hugged her so tightly yet so carefully, burying her face in the crook of her mother’s neck and crying a little more, sobbing in her arms, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and coffee emanating from her.
After all these years, Rumi discovered that her Mama had survived when the minotaur invaded their house.
After all these years, Rumi was in her mother’s arms once again.
And she didn’t care if she was showing vulnerability, didn’t care about putting her walls up and not letting herself be weak. She was just too tired of being strong. She just wanted to cry and hug her mother while apologizing for not being able to save Miyeong, but all Celine did was hug her, shushing her softly and showering her with tender kisses on the top of her head.
All that mattered to her was that now she had her daughter back.
Now she could see her daughter again. Now she could cup her cheeks and kiss her head. Now she could hug her and hear her voice.
How time had flown.
Her sweet Rumi was all big and strong now.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zoey and Mira woke up at nightfall and found Rumi sitting right next to their bed, looking at them with such concern and tenderness that they almost asked what had happened and where they were, but the words that escaped Rumi’s lips left them paralyzed in place.
“You’re really here with me.”
“You’re okay now.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Zoey and Mira remembered that crying voice. They had heard Rumi’s pleas, they had distant memories of that painful moment, they remembered how they had tried to wake up and tell Rumi that they would be okay, but they couldn’t move back then.
Now that they had regained consciousness, they knew they would need to talk about everything later, but they preferred to just melt completely into each other’s arms at that moment.
━━━━━━━━━━
All that pain they had gone through continued to haunt them for a long time after Rumi, Mira, and Zoey left Camp Half-Blood.
They had said goodbye to the campers when they returned to confirm that they had completed the quest, and during that night of celebration around the campfire they received laurel wreaths on their heads while half-bloods from Cabin 7 sang camp songs.
The following morning, they packed their belongings and bid goodbye to their half-siblings, promising to return sometime during summers to help them with their training.
But now they needed some peace far from the madness of the gods.
They didn’t want children, none of them. Even years after starting that relationship, they had talked several times about their family and agreed that they wanted things to continue exactly as they were.
But life surprised them one night when they heard a meow on their balcony and found a one-eyed white cat outside, with dirty fur painted blue and some scratches, even limping.
Zoey took him in and said he was grumpy like Rumi, but after a few days they realized he was a sweetheart of a cat who had just been too scared before.
It was a long journey to heal the open wounds in their hearts, but they were managing to find happiness in the little things while they were together supporting each other.
They spent some holidays with Mira’s brother.
Christmas always with Celine.
They visited Zoey’s little brother at her grandparents’ house once or twice a year.
Rumi would slam the door in the gods' faces whenever one of them appeared seeking help.
But Zoey and Mira would only give her kisses on the cheek before going to answer the door with a bit more courtesy—despite clearly being annoyed by the visitors.
They grew old together living among mortals, taking care of little Derpy and taking care of each other. And although some nights they still had nightmares, they always woke up safe in each other’s arms in their big, comfortable bed…
The first few days since they left on their quest together were tense, to say the least.
Mira realized early in their journey that everything that had happened still hurt her deeply. With each step they took, more painful memories of what had happened on her first quest resurfaced. And everything only got worse after the first attack.
They were all older demigods now. All with the strongest scent. All three of them with the blessings of their godly parents, all three of them attracting the attention of monsters, and only two of them could actually fight while Mira held her celestial bronze spear, trembling in place, unable to move.
Rumi prevented anything from happening. Rumi injured herself protecting them from attacks that were too fast, and this made Mira feel like a deadweight on that quest. She couldn’t fight against small two-eyed pests, and the mere thought of encountering a cyclops on that journey made her tremble.
She had a panic attack before they could even continue their journey, and while Zoey didn’t know what to do, she just watched Rumi crouch down and stay close to Mira, gently helping her regulate her breathing. It seemed like a different Rumi, even. The only Rumi Zoey knew didn’t seem capable of such kindness, yet there she was, caring for Mira after a panic attack, completely indifferent to her own injuries.
Zoey had heard stories about who Rumi used to be, a Rumi who was indeed kind and cheerful, and now Zoey realized she was getting to know Rumi’s true self.
Zoey didn’t know if she should offer to help with the injuries scattered across Rumi’s body—a few scratches here and there, but she stopped herself from approaching when she saw her apply some antiseptic to the wounds and pretend it didn’t hurt when she resumed their walk, this time following behind them, like a bodyguard.
Zoey preferred to offer help to someone she knew would accept it, which led her to remain embraced with Mira for much of the way until they reached a high hill where they set up camp. Before Zoey could even offer to stand guard, Rumi told them to rest while she began to patrol the area.
Mira spent much of the night restless, risking shy glances in Rumi’s direction. She wanted to thank her for the help, she wanted to apologize for not being able to fight, she wanted to tell her to sleep while Mira stood guard, but she couldn’t do anything but blush when Zoey told her that the two of them needed to talk about things a little beyond what had happened earlier.
The following days, as they followed Zoey’s coordinates to where the prophecy had directed her, were as tense as that first day. Rumi fought like a demon whenever she heard or sensed the presence of monsters, annihilating them with such ease that Zoey and Mira could only watch, gaping, as they tried to move to help, only to see Rumi decapitate monsters as if she were reaping wheat and then casually walk away as if nothing had happened.
That pattern continued for a long time after they hitched a ride on a cargo truck westward, and the silence between them wasn’t so uncomfortable now that they were used to Rumi’s short and quick answers. Zoey didn’t even try to talk to Rumi, to tell the truth. Every night she would stand guard until sunrise, and then she would rest for an hour or two while Zoey and Mira had breakfast. They were worried, but every time Mira tried to offer to switch shifts with Rumi...
“Not today.”
“I won’t sleep anyway.”
“No. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“You better rest.”
Zoey had already given up trying to talk to her by then; most of the time Rumi avoided the effort of having to speak. Mira still asked Rumi to wake her up in the middle of the night so they could switch shifts, but Rumi continued to watch over them all the time without worrying about her own sleep at all.
That unhealthy dynamic had been working for a while.
Until one night, when they were looking for a good place to spend the night, they ended up in an abandoned warehouse. They set up camp on the highest part of the place, on top of stacked containers. They were almost asleep when Rumi heard footsteps and asked them to be quiet, then crept closer to the bridge to see who might be down there when she saw two cyclopes with demigods trapped inside a huge cauldron.
Rumi couldn’t tell Mira what was waiting for them down there, but just her look was enough for Mira to be sure that her nightmare was about to return to haunt her. Rumi and Zoey started whispering plans, but while Zoey insisted they should try to help the imprisoned demigods, Rumi countered that they should run while they were distracted—for Mira’s sake, she wanted to add, but she didn’t have the courage to say it aloud.
Of course, their whispers caught the attention of those Rumi wanted to avoid.
And although Rumi managed to take down one of the cyclopes, the other ended up chasing Zoey and Mira. Rumi warned them to run, but Zoey was moving awkwardly, her steps clumsy, having difficulty descending. Rumi had always noticed that she was too slow to move, but she figured that in a moment like that she would realize the urgency to escape as quickly as possible.
Panic left Rumi paralyzed in place for a few seconds before she reacted and yelled for them. Warning them. Telling them to be careful, to run faster. She tried to draw the cyclops’ attention to herself, but he took advantage of a moment when Mira stopped to help Zoey down and grabbed her in his palm.
Rumi roared with rage and yelled for him to let Mira go, wielding her sword with such fury as a red aura enveloped her body, and although that cyclops fell before Rumi’s wrath, although Mira was alive, breathing, trembling, with her heart pounding… Rumi still turned to Zoey with eyes full of anger and asked her what was her problem.
When they needed to flee, Zoey messed around, moving lazily as if there wasn’t a cyclops chasing them. When they needed to escape, Zoey made Mira the target of a cyclops, and although Zoey cowered at first, although she felt insecure and wanted to leave, she just clenched her jaw and threw her prosthetic leg at Rumi’s head.
Which, well, technically helped explain why she hadn’t reacted in time to escape the cyclopes. And it also made Rumi shut up and look a little embarrassed by her outburst of anger.
But what really made the two stop sniping at each other was the sound of a sob.
Mira was still trying to recover as she knelt on the floor, trembling so much, crying so much. Rumi and Zoey exchanged glances before Rumi helped Zoey adjust the prosthetic leg back into place and then carried Mira bridal-style out of there.
Zoey helped the demigods who were inside the cyclops' cauldron before reaching Rumi and Mira, who were a short distance from the warehouse. Rumi was now walking at a slow pace so that Zoey could keep up with her without straining herself too much.
That night, neither of them slept.
Rumi stood guard in the middle of the forest while Zoey held a trembling Mira in her lap, and the two of them just clung to each other, thinking about all the “what ifs” that haunted them after what had happened. They couldn't help but think that they had almost lost each other.
And Rumi watched them from afar, with the same thoughts running through her mind.
━━━━━━━━━━
If Rumi had found it difficult to sleep before, since that night she almost lost Mira she hadn’t slept at all. She barely rested, and for three days pure panic, fear, and despair had kept her awake.
Mira and Zoey tried to sleep despite the nightmares, now so close to each other that the warmth emanating from Zoey kept Mira warm all night. Night after night, Zoey noticed Mira awake watching Rumi before sleep overtook her, and Zoey always told her to talk to her. But Mira slept without being able to do so.
Despite things between Zoey and Rumi being even more awkward since the episode with the cyclopes, Zoey couldn’t help but worry. Especially when she looked at those open wounds on her body.
One morning, while Mira was preparing sandwiches for them, Zoey simply pulled Rumi’s injured arm close without asking questions and began tending to the wounds while Rumi tried to pull her arm back, telling her she was fine—but all it took was for Zoey to press on an abscess in the infected wound for Rumi to bite her own tongue and hold back a groan.
Mira managed to smile seeing them not bickering for so long while Zoey tended to Rumi’s wounds and bandaged them afterward.
Usually, Rumi would just stand guard while Mira and Zoey ate. She preferred to eat while they followed the trail marked by Zoey, walking behind them so she could pray unnoticed, but that morning Zoey simply pushed the sandwich and water toward Rumi without asking if she wanted it or not, telling her to eat.
Rumi could have argued with her and said she wouldn’t do what she wanted.
But she simply took two pieces of the small sandwich and threw them into their small campfire, beginning to pray immediately afterward. She knew she would find Mira and Zoey staring at her closely as soon as she opened her eyes, but she didn’t care, choosing instead to eat what was left of her sandwich while worrying about their journey becoming too long for that small amount of food.
She was beginning to get annoyed with Ares for losing his spear on the other side of the world when she heard noises in the surrounding woods and managed to grab her sword just in time to defend herself against an attack by Laistrygonian Giants.
She cursed loudly and chattered her teeth, blaming herself for letting her guard down to the point where they got so close. She drew a second sword from its sheath and yelled for Zoey and Mira to gather as much belongings as they could and run while she held them off.
Mira froze when she heard the command and gave Zoey an apprehensive look, waiting to see what she would do, ready to fight alongside her to help Rumi this time.
And Mira appeared with her spear just in time to send one of the giants back to Tartarus before it could injure Rumi with a huge rock.
They had a good advantage until more monsters appeared. Their scent, along with the mess made by the Laistrygonian Giants, had attracted others. Zoey cursed under her breath before grabbing her backpack and pulling Rumi and Mira down the ravine.
They tumbled down the slope, scraping themselves with each impact against branches and rocks, but hey! Now they were far enough away from the monsters to think about where to go next.
That was when Mira said she knew where they were and where they should go if they wanted to hide from the monsters.
Zoey and Rumi almost wondered whether they should follow Mira’s plan or devise one involving monster annihilation when a fireball flew past their heads and struck the nearest tree.
Rumi ended up carrying Zoey on her back as she followed Mira through the woods, and Zoey occasionally would defend them from monsters that were too close with her bow, or throwing daggers straight into the eyes of other creatures that approached Mira further ahead. She would probably run out of ammunition very soon if they didn’t find shelter in time.
Mira turned a corner that led them straight to several vines in front of what appeared to be a huge rock, but Rumi didn’t stop running when she saw Mira enter a cave right there. Zoey took advantage of the passage to pull vines and make rocks above fall, which probably wouldn’t stop monsters from following them, but would certainly delay them considerably.
Zoey squeezed Rumi’s shoulders and cowered as they passed through the lower parts of the cave. They were about to ask Mira where they were and how she knew the place so well when they saw her running straight towards a path that led them to a giant mansion right in the center of what must have been the property of the richest person in the world.
They had to follow Mira despite their apprehension. The run to that mansion would have been long if they hadn’t been trained for quests like that, and soon Mira was passing security guards shouting, “If anyone asks if my friends and I passed through here, say we ran west! Please!”
The security guard simply accepted the order with a smile on his face, and Mira was soon waving to the guards at the door and asking them to let her in, with the most beautiful nervous smile ever on display.
Rumi and Zoey exchanged somewhat alarmed glances at seeing Mira use her charm for trespassing, but they didn’t ask many questions since it meant they would be safe inside an extremely secure place.
What really shocked them was that as soon as they entered the mansion, Mira moved through the hallways perfectly well, as if she already knew the place. To confuse them even more, one of the security guards was soon informing Miss Kang that her brother would be joining her soon.
Rumi dropped Zoey onto the nearest sofa and threw herself onto the rug right after, panting as she stared at Mira with doubt glistening in her eyes.
“This house is yours?” Rumi asked, stunned.
“Mansion, you mean,” Zoey added, her admiring eyes wandering around a living room the size of her old house.
Mira’s brother seemed infinitely more confused than Rumi and Zoey. He entered the room so distraught that he froze in place the moment he saw Mira before hugging her and starting to cry.
The half-bloods knew that Mira had been at the camp for years. She had never left since she arrived. She had always told everyone that she had no family or a place to return to… and now they had discovered that Mira used to live in mansions like that one with a brother who liked her.
But they discovered shortly afterward that Mira had been kicked out of her house by a father who no longer existed. Both he and his wife had already passed away, and now Mira’s brother was trying to keep the family business afloat.
Learning that that immense mansion in the middle of nowhere was just their vacation home made Zoey’s jaw drop.
The upside of Mira being super rich and lying to them? They ate real food and got even more for the rest of the trip, and the smell of the various humans in that mansion masked the scent of the demigods there.
After a good shower, Zoey changed Rumi’s bandages and forced her to lie down to try and rest, once again giving orders without even asking if she wanted to, and this time Rumi was so exhausted that she fainted on Mira’s bed.
Zoey took a shower right after making sure all of Rumi and Mira’s wounds were clean and bandaged.
Zoey put on clean clothes and went to organize her backpack and weapons to check how many arrows she had left, but she needed to go to the nearest window and smile at the starry sky while asking her father to leave her some arrows before his shift guiding the sun across the sky began.
The three of them managed to truly sleep that night, at least until Rumi woke them up with painful screams.
Zoey imagined that must be the reason she avoided sleeping, she just didn’t imagine it would hurt so much to see her having a panic attack while actually trying to wake up from the nightmare.
Zoey and Mira had slept on the fluffy rug on the floor and let Rumi occupy the big bed, but while trying to calm Rumi in the middle of the night they ended up falling asleep together there.
And they woke up without Rumi between them, although they could still smell her scent impregnated in the sheets. Antiseptic, blood, and dried beef. Yeah. Rumi had totally been sleeping between them just moments before. The bed was still warm.
As warm as Mira and Zoey’s cheeks when they realized what had happened after they took care of Rumi.
Mira’s brother prepared breakfast for them, packed food for their trip, and offered a chauffeur to take them to their final destination.
It was a surprise for Rumi to find a human so willing to help demigods, but the way he hugged Mira and asked her to come back and visit him, saying he was sorry for what had happened years ago, saying he missed her… it seemed genuine.
Mira refused the chauffeur’s offer, but accepted a borrowed car—making it clear she probably wouldn’t be able to return it in one piece, and her brother just hugged her again and said he didn’t mind the car if she came back to visit him.
Rumi and Mira exchanged glances in the mansion’s garage when they saw six luxury cars parked side by side. If there was one thing their demigod training hadn’t taught them, it was driving.
But Zoey was already twirling a key on her index finger, grinning from ear to ear, as she climbed into a convertible to play with the top and test the engine, saying she was paying to see some monster catch up to them once she stepped on the gas.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zoey watched the convertible sink downstream, tears streaming down her face, whimpering at the loss of her beautiful car.
Mira patted her back, comforting her and saying that at least they had survived the attack.
Then they turned their gaze to Rumi as soon as they heard her grunt in pain, a hand firm on a wound that was bleeding onto her shirt.
Zoey wondered if she had some kind of magnet for disasters as she stitched up Rumi’s hip. Mira gave Rumi sips of nectar and nibbles of ambrosia now and then, trembling since seeing the amount of blood.
She lectured Rumi too, for always getting into the worst scrapes trying to fight alone to protect her, for always trying to protect her.
Like she had done on Mira’s first quest.
And Rumi apologized in a whisper before collapsing from exhaustion.
Mira also had some injuries that Zoey needed to clean and bandage, and soon after, Mira’s gentle hands helped Zoey with the scratches on her cheek and arms.
She didn’t know how they would get food, but that was a problem for them the next day. At that moment, Zoey was just cleaning their weapons while humming and keeping watch so Rumi and Mira could somehow rest their heads.
Zoey began to hum as she checked the few provisions that were left after the attack that caught them all off guard. Their car had been thrown off the top of the bridge straight into the river meters below, and they had to abandon the car mid-air to avoid breaking their bones in the fall. They couldn’t get anything from the car, but at least Zoey’s fanny pack—where she kept some first-aid items, ambrosia, nectar, and gold drachmas—was intact.
When Zoey stopped singing, distractedly gazing at the stars, Rumi woke up and stared at her in doubt, wondering why she had stopped singing, and she blushed when she realized she had said that out loud.
“Are you going soft on me, Rumi?” Zoey teased.
Rumi gritted her teeth and looked away at the sky, trying to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but now that she was awake she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep so easily.
“Say please and I’ll sing again.” Zoey teased, her eyebrows wiggling provocatively.
And Rumi just narrowed her eyes and said the same as always. “I don’t beg.”
“Does Miss “I don’t beg” don’t even know how to ask for a song? It won’t hurt, you know?”
Rumi didn’t ask for the song.
Zoey sang anyway.
And Mira smiled as she pretended to continue sleeping, unable to ignore how sweet it had been to hear Rumi so shy that she hadn’t responded to Zoey with any rudeness.
Mira knew what was happening to her heart during that quest.
And even though years ago she had promised herself that she would never again give in to feelings like that…
She realized there was no going back now.
━━━━━━━━━━
That quest was already starting to piss them off. They had walked so far to get closer to the place where Ares had lost his damned spear, and now that they were close enough, somehow everything was making Rumi even more angry.
Rumi could already imagine that bastard entering that abandoned theme park with Aphrodite for a date and dropping his spear anywhere.
She just couldn’t imagine why Ares hadn’t returned to retrieve the spear on his own.
But as soon as she took two steps closer to his spear, the park floor began to tremble, and what should have been rides were now transforming into giant robots that would make their quest to recover the damned spear even more difficult.
Rumi wasn’t in her best when the first attack happened, but she realized she no longer needed to defend Mira or Zoey. Mira held her spear firmly in her hands, fighting the robots fiercely, and Zoey had her daggers, advancing against Hephaestus’s toys alongside Mira. The three had learned to fight together, in a synchronicity that would have been perfect if they weren’t so exhausted. The journey to that theme park was more exhausting than the battle itself.
They were wounded. All of them. Rumi still felt pain in her hip, the stitches threatening to open with each movement, and a small distraction was enough for one of the robots to send her flying into a hot dog stand.
Mira and Zoey shouted her name, worried, and Mira told Zoey to go check if she was alright while she dealt with the last robots, but as soon as they separated they were surrounded by Hephaestus’s creations.
The fact that it was dark at night certainly didn’t help them get a better sense of the battlefield.
Mira didn’t even realize that while she was defending herself and fighting, she was being guided directly towards the roller coaster. The moment she got close to the seat, she was pushed inside, and Hephaestus’s invention came to life and began to shrink, trapping Mira inside. With each passing moment, the space inside decreased and heated up—perhaps a perfect trap to punish and torture the gods. But Mira was already screaming in pain as burns formed on the exposed skin of her arms and legs. She was curled up in a fetal position, avoiding movement to prevent further burns, calling for Zoey and Rumi, and unconsciously calling for her mother as well.
A prayer made in a moment of despair that seemed to reach no one.
Mira fainted while screaming in pain, unable to even perceive a metal hand carefully and forcefully tearing through that hot prison. Rumi fought against the heat and her own pain, forcing herself to reach Mira in time to prevent something irreversible, but by the time she pulled her out of there, she was already unconscious. Her hair and clothes were damaged. Arms and legs covered in first-degree burns, shoulders and feet covered in second-degree ones.
Rumi held her in her arms, feeling her heart pounding in her throat, completely desperate. The only thing on her mind was that she needed Zoey’s fanny pack, she needed ambrosia and nectar, she needed to help Mira.
But a glance in Zoey’s direction and all Rumi saw was her unconscious on the ground, so many open wounds that she was losing blood too quickly.
Of course, Rumi’s damned godly parent hadn’t returned to retrieve his spear because Hephaestus had taken advantage of the theme park to set traps that would catch Ares and Aphrodite in the act.
The damned gods always playing with their lives as if demigods were disposable, to the point that they would risk themselves for something as stupid as that spear.
Rumi laid Mira and Zoey side by side on the floor, her trembling hand searching for her sword as she watched the robots approach, determined to destroy the last remaining beasts.
Rumi roared, running with the blade of her sword kicking up sand, destroying robots in her path until she reached Ares’s magic spear. The moment Rumi wielded the god’s weapon, Ares’ blessing fell upon her, driving her into a rage that led to the destruction of everything around her.
But now that she could tend to Zoey and Mira, now that she could give them ambrosia and nectar to help them heal, she opened Zoey’s fanny pack only to find nothing more than a few drachmas and some bandages.
They had used the remaining supplies to tend to Rumi’s wound after the battle on the bridge.
And now Rumi was falling to her knees on the floor as she watched Zoey and Mira losing vital signs and there was nothing she could do to save them.
She only needed ambrosia and nectar.
She would heal them if she had ambrosia and nectar.
But all she had at the moment was Ares’s stupid spear.
Rumi gritted her teeth and planted her own sword in the ground, raising Ares’s spear to the sky and shouting her godly parent’s name.
“Ares.”
“You better be listening to me now.”
“Come here.”
“Very presumptuous of you to think you can summon me with such arrogance, kid.”
Rumi glared at him scornfully as her father’s human form materialized near her, a hand raised towards her, looking at her with a smile that seemed proud.
“Thank you for retrieving my spear. I did well to bless you, after all.”
He asked for the weapon at the same time that Rumi narrowed her eyes and chattered her teeth, so much anger overflowing from within her that the god could feel her wrath.
She didn’t return Ares’ spear even after the third time the god asked for it.
Instead, Rumi bargained.
“Give me ambrosia and nectar and I’ll give you your spear.”
Ares raised an eyebrow at his daughter’s insolence, then lowered his gaze to the ground and saw the daughters of Aphrodite and Apollo practically dead there.
He even tried to approach her and take the spear himself, but stopped when he saw Rumi wielding his weapon with mastery, transforming it into a double-headed sword, threatening the god without hesitation.
“Give me ambrosia and nectar.”
“Let me save them.”
“Or I swear by the River Styx, Ares.”
“That I will use your spear to destroy all of Olympus.”
The god of war straightened his posture and studied the girl’s expression with a mixture of pride and anger. He had truly created a huge threat to his own existence, he was certain of it.
Thunder rumbled overhead to seal the promise the next instant, a warning that more gods were watching their conversation. Rain clouds were already forming high above the theme park.
Ares frowned at the sound of an eagle and, of course, didn’t want to hear any lecture from Zeus at that moment.
But he only snorted irritably at the second thunderclap. A clear warning: Control your daughter.
“Fine, kid.” Ares reached out to her again, choosing to calm things down, although a part of him wanted to see how far Rumi’s fury would go.
He exchanged the magic spear for ambrosia and enough nectar for the two demigods and disappeared from the place the next instant.
Rumi trembled as she held Zoey’s face delicately, lifting her head slightly so she could drink the nectar without choking. She moved with all the gentleness she could muster, trembling as she held Mira with all possible care to avoid hurting her further.
But it didn’t matter that Rumi had already offered them the maximum amount of ambrosia and nectar, Zoey and Mira were still unconscious and didn’t seem to react to the food of the gods.
It started to rain the instant Rumi realized they were still losing vital signs. The instant she realized she was losing them.
She didn’t know how to heal them.
She couldn’t heal them.
Rumi stared at the little ambrosia and nectar that remained, nothing more than a sip of nectar and a small piece of ambrosia. Rumi herself hadn’t even tasted the food of the gods, more concerned with helping them.
But even so, Zoey and Mira still had their eyes closed, their bodies so limp that when Rumi laid them on the ground their heads tilted to the side.
Losing pulse.
So wounded.
Rumi began to feel a lump forming in her throat.
And the first sob escaped her.
“Please.”
Rumi lowered her head, hands on the ground, completely kneeling, prostrating herself on the floor.
“Please.”
She trembled and sobbed, her heart aching.
“Hestia, please.”
“They are my home.”
“Please.”
Then,
“Hades, please.”
“If you’re going to take them away from me, I beg you to take me too.”
“Hestia, Hades, please.”
“I beg you, please.”
Rumi sobbed and screamed so loudly it seemed to match the sound of relentless thunder, her face already covered in sand as she knelt completely on the ground.
“Aphrodite, please!”
“I love them, please.”
“Aphrodite, listen to me, please.”
“Apollo, they need help. Please, Apollo.”
“Apollo, heal them. I can’t, Apollo. Please!”
Rumi clenched her hand into a fist, gathering sand in her palm, digging her nails into the ground so hard it hurt.
But nothing hurt more than seeing the ones she loved dying right before her eyes.
“I apologize.”
“Please.”
“Haven’t I suffered enough?”
“I can’t bear to lose them too.”
“I fulfilled your wishes.”
“All my life I have served you.”
“So please.”
“Hear my plea and bring them back to me.”
━━━━━━━━━━
Rumi continued praying until she lost her voice, crying so much that the sound of her prayers reached the Olympus, and even without Zeus’s direct approval, Apollo descended from the sun chariot and went to them.
A lightning bolt hadn’t struck him on his way to them, so he assumed that that was a good sign. Perhaps Zeus realized that after testing Rumi for the past few years, he would finally need to stop before she became a real threat to his reign.
“You can rest now, Rumi,” he had said the moment he arrived where they were, but Ares’s daughter was already unconscious, even with her body so tense in that position.
Even though their vital signs were low, Apollo wasn’t worried about the other girls after tending to their wounds and realizing that the ambrosia and nectar were gradually helping them recover.
The three would be fine when they woke up. He just needed to get them to a safe place now.
Perhaps Apollo got a long lecture, and perhaps he had to help Zeus with his favorite cattle for weeks after what he had done, but he didn’t regret intervening and leaving Rumi, Zoey, and Mira under the care of a mortal he trusted.
━━━━━━━━━━
Rumi woke up in a bed with a scent she knew well, a bed so comfortable and that brought back such painful and lovely memories that all she did was cry.
And she cried even more when she left that room and walked through the house, trembling as she went to the other side of the hallway, where she found her old room exactly as it used to be.
Even the walls that had been destroyed that night were standing again.
And right there in the kitchen of her old home, Rumi found her helping herself to some cinnamon tea.
“Mama?”
Celine thought she could manage not to cry.
Apollo had taken the girls to her house some days ago, had protected them for the past few days, and had told her that the girls would be unconscious for a long time after what happened.
Celine had taken care of them, had changed their bandages, had wiped away their sweat with wet wipes, had put plaster on small scratches, and had checked their stitches.
And even though she had already seen her sweet Rumi so many times in the last three days while Celine tended to her wounds, even though she had already cried so many times in the last few days…
She still broke down in tears when she heard the sweet sound of her voice.
Rumi ran to her when she noticed her mother struggling to move her wheelchair. Rumi hugged her so tightly yet so carefully, burying her face in the crook of her mother’s neck and crying a little more, sobbing in her arms, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and coffee emanating from her.
After all these years, Rumi discovered that her Mama had survived when the minotaur invaded their house.
After all these years, Rumi was in her mother’s arms once again.
And she didn’t care if she was showing vulnerability, didn’t care about putting her walls up and not letting herself be weak. She was just too tired of being strong. She just wanted to cry and hug her mother while apologizing for not being able to save Miyeong, but all Celine did was hug her, shushing her softly and showering her with tender kisses on the top of her head.
All that mattered to her was that now she had her daughter back.
Now she could see her daughter again. Now she could cup her cheeks and kiss her head. Now she could hug her and hear her voice.
How time had flown.
Her sweet Rumi was all big and strong now.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zoey and Mira woke up at nightfall and found Rumi sitting right next to their bed, looking at them with such concern and tenderness that they almost asked what had happened and where they were, but the words that escaped Rumi’s lips left them paralyzed in place.
“You’re really here with me.”
“You’re okay now.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Zoey and Mira remembered that crying voice. They had heard Rumi’s pleas, they had distant memories of that painful moment, they remembered how they had tried to wake up and tell Rumi that they would be okay, but they couldn’t move back then.
Now that they had regained consciousness, they knew they would need to talk about everything later, but they preferred to just melt completely into each other’s arms at that moment.
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All that pain they had gone through continued to haunt them for a long time after Rumi, Mira, and Zoey left Camp Half-Blood.
They had said goodbye to the campers when they returned to confirm that they had completed the quest, and during that night of celebration around the campfire they received laurel wreaths on their heads while half-bloods from Cabin 7 sang camp songs.
The following morning, they packed their belongings and bid goodbye to their half-siblings, promising to return sometime during summers to help them with their training.
But now they needed some peace far from the madness of the gods.
They didn’t want children, none of them. Even years after starting that relationship, they had talked several times about their family and agreed that they wanted things to continue exactly as they were.
But life surprised them one night when they heard a meow on their balcony and found a one-eyed white cat outside, with dirty fur painted blue and some scratches, even limping.
Zoey took him in and said he was grumpy like Rumi, but after a few days they realized he was a sweetheart of a cat who had just been too scared before.
It was a long journey to heal the open wounds in their hearts, but they were managing to find happiness in the little things while they were together supporting each other.
They spent some holidays with Mira’s brother.
Christmas always with Celine.
They visited Zoey’s little brother at her grandparents’ house once or twice a year.
Rumi would slam the door in the gods' faces whenever one of them appeared seeking help.
But Zoey and Mira would only give her kisses on the cheek before going to answer the door with a bit more courtesy—despite clearly being annoyed by the visitors.
They grew old together living among mortals, taking care of little Derpy and taking care of each other. And although some nights they still had nightmares, they always woke up safe in each other’s arms in their big, comfortable bed…
In fact, your work has given me a sense of what was previously missing in my writing.
For years, I blamed it on a lack of inspiration to start writing.
No, I just needed an author like you to begin delving into the characters psychologically.
Understanding how a person's mind works, with all its traumas, uncertainties, and fears, is something that slips through my fingers, and few people write as well as you.
If it's not a secret, how do you do it? I never thought someone else's work could stick in my head like that, making me reflect on actions and consequences, fears and shame, denial and understanding. I have so many questions for myself that I'm still searching for answers and finding them.
I distract myself from my anxious thoughts by writing, testing how this or that course of events would work. For me, this is a huge, painstaking task.
I'm curious, what inspires you and helps you write?
I’m flattered that my writing has helped you with yours. I never thought it could have an impact on someone aha.
I don’t have some big, grandiose answer to what inspires me, unfortunately. For the past few months I haven’t really had much motivation to write and have had some bad writers block, which is why I’ve fallen off the weekly updates I was managing to do before. I was able to do those mainly because I had written so far ahead of what was published, so even though my writing fell off, I still had chapters to post. But now what I have already written and the posted chapters have caught up to one another.
I can’t say I was inspired by anything in particular. For EtS, it was the response of the fandom that had me write and write and write. I was like a machine during the course of that fic and well into WATN. So I guess the fandom inspired me to keep writing.
In terms of how I came up with the ideas, there was no inspiration. For EtS I was just doing some chores at home and the thought of “what if Rumi was mute?” came to me. I then sat down and wrote out a rough plan. Then I kept writing.
For WATN, two scenes came to me late at night. So again I sat down and I wrote out the two scenes, then I planned the fic around them. Both of these scenes are the next two chapters of the fic waiting to be finished writing and posted. However, because of how much the fic has changed since I wrote these two scenes, I’m having to rework them to fit the new narrative.
For example: The fic was originally planned to be 15 chapters. I quickly realised while writing that it wasn’t possible to tell the story effectively in that many chapters. (We are now on chapter 20 and (SPOILER ALERT) Rumi has only just kissed Zoey)
Zoey also wasn’t supposed to be as much as a character in it as she now is. She was literally just meant to be the catalyst that starts the whole plot off, be Mira’s girlfriend and cause havoc.
She is still Mira’s menace of a girlfriend ofc, but she now has a backstory and a plot line that is entirely separate from Rumira. That wasn’t in the original plan. It flowed out of me when I started writing Zoey’s first POV chapter.
I don’t know what possessed me to decide Rumi was engaged to Jinu and that she and Mira had an unspoken love. It just came to me and I thought it would be interesting to explore how they got to this point (the point of the two scenes that came to me)
In terms of what helps me: As mentioned before, EtS was very much helped by the fandom response. I was so excited for the readers to see what happens next and what their responses would be. I still am! Which is what is making this writers block so frustrating. I know what needs to happen but the words just aren’t coming.
Music helped me a lot with WATN. I would be listening to a song and be like “this is so Mira/Rumi/Zoey in WATN coded” so often that I ended up making an entire playlist filled with songs that fit them as characters and the vibe of the fic. So when I’m writing a chapter, I usually have that playlist on to help me get into the headspace.
In terms of the psychology of the characters, I literally just think about how I would react if I were them. Rumi in EtS was easiest because I based a lot of her off of myself, especially when it came to the chapters that show her depression, or her anxiety around her body etc.
WATN was trickier in a sense because Ive never been in this specific situation before, but I like to think I’m an empathetic person so I was able to tap into their emotions etc. Oddly, Mira has been the easiest to write because I have been in the situation where there’s this odd unspoken thing between me and a “straight friend” (the difference here being that Rumi actually does love Mira back) so I could draw from how I felt during that time in my life to write Mira’s POV.
so yeah, there’s no big, oh I was inspired by this book, or this author etc. The ideas literally just came to me as I was going about my day. Like, even the half cooked idea I have for my next fic I may or may not write came to me at like 4am when I couldn’t sleep.
And what helps me write? Currently nothing lmao because I have writers block. But previously it was fandom response, music and the fact I just had to get these words down on to a page.
Zoey lives with the weight of her past—which torments her every day—, and a tremendous sense of inferiority as well. She hasn't truly lived for a long time—she's been surviving her days, dragging herself along, stopping herself from ending her own suffering to avoid hurting the only person she has left.
Apollo kept her alive, pushing away those self-deprecating thoughts that so disturbed Zoey's mind every day.
But her past remains a weight on Zoey's shoulders. Every time memories return vividly to her mind, Zoey wants to forget. She wishes she could forget it all. She wishes she wasn't a burden or a person who brings misfortune wherever she goes, but that seems to define her as a person.
She was guilty of everything that ever happened to her, after all. She brought every ounce of misery into her own life simply by existing. And every day she reviews the decisions she made and blames herself for acting that way.
She simply fails to understand and respect herself. Zoey has forgotten she was a child back then. And the guilt only seems to grow stronger each day inside her, corroding her from the inside out.
She feels so inferior that she doesn't realize what her mere presence is capable of doing.
Unconsciously, even with all that pain weighing on her, she hasn't stopped illuminating every place she goes. She doesn't know how she's able to encourage people to keep trying. She doesn’t know how much the way she keeps her warm aura emanating helps hearts that need it. She doesn’t know that she is a sun.
Maybe someday she could forgive that little girl who so desperately needs a hug—that little one who kept crying over the loss of her parents, who keeps blaming herself for the wounds on her grandparents' and little brother's bodies the night before she ran away.
All little Zoey needs is a hug.
And all Zoey needs is someone who will accept her even with all the pain and excessive worries of that restless mind.
All Zoey needs is a home.
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Mira
Mira hates herself a little for her arrogance.
But she also doesn't like to give in.
She doesn't want to be an easy victim. She doesn't want people to think she's fragile and sweet. No. She's not an idiot, she can't let anyone get close. She doesn't need anyone. Mira is enough on her own.
Mira doesn't need gods. She doesn't need Aphrodite or that damn charm and blessing. And most importantly of all, she doesn't need love.
Holding grudges has been a big problem since she ran away from home. Mira can't forgive. She prefers to keep the lump in her throat and the pain it causes. She prefers to live with it rather than give other people an opening to hurt her again. Prefers to be called mean and nonchalant than to open up to someone again.
Even though her heart still calls out for Rumi. Even though every time Mira sees her at the lake she wants to approach her, be comforted, and say she's sorry and wants to talk about what happened…
She doesn't do it.
And every time Mira considers changing that, even when she thinks about overcoming and forgiving, she remembers the pain. How painful it was to deal with what had already happened. She doesn't want to have to heal another pain. Not when she hasn't even healed those open wounds in her fragile heart.
And although Zoey was able to warm that jagged heart, Mira can't allow herself to open up to it. She tries to remember that she doesn't need anyone. That she doesn't need love.
But Mira also knows that her heart yearns for Zoey and Rumi with every beat.
Maybe someday she'll learn to forgive and let go.
But Mira would avoid that day with all the strength she can muster.
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Rumi
Rumi used to suffer from the strength of her loyalty. She knew herself well enough to know that she would let the world and Olympus burn if it meant the life of someone she loved.
And she knew she would face any monsters for the people she loved.
But she had already lost everyone who mattered to her.
Every day that pain grew.
And when she lost herself—after that time she was punished by Zeus and suffered wounds beyond the physical—Rumi had forgotten who she was.
Fury consumed her. And the grudges she harbors against the gods are unleashed against everything and everyone who bothers her. Whether it is a child asking for help with equipment, a half-sibling calling her to discuss combat strategies, or a satyr asking her for a favor, Rumi responds to all of them the same way she responds to one of the few gods who still dare to ask her for a quest.
With arrogance. Being rude. Without feelings.
She isn't interested anymore. She doesn't care. She doesn't want to.
Rumi isn't the same person anymore. Just a tired and angry version, too disillusioned to care about anything.
And although she has been changed so much by grief, she still strives to keep the promises she made to the people she lost. She still wants to make sure that the Cabin 5 continues to maintain its glory, as she had promised herself when she took the position that once belonged to Jinu as their head counselor. Rumi struggles to keep her prayers constant, for she had promised Hestia and Hades that she would never stop thanking them for everything they had done for her and the people she loved.
But Rumi hates herself for not fulfilling the only lesson that reminds her of her mothers.
She could still hear Miyeong and Celine telling her that she should be kind and strong.
But Rumi doesn't want to be strong.
And she is exhausted from being kind.
She just wants a little peace. She wants to be able to sleep without being tormented by nightmares. She wants to be able to wake up without fearing an invasion at the camp.
Rumi just wants a home.
A home she lost the moment Mira left her. A home that could no longer exist, and she couldn't even blame the gods for it. She only blames herself.
And now, whenever she is guided to that sweet voice that had recently begun to sound every morning at the lake, Rumi sees Mira with her.
With Zoey.
Zoey and that smile that irritates her so much. Zoey and that damned voice that charms the other campers. Zoey and that excess of positivity that pisses her to her bones.
Rumi is aware that she will die soon if she doesn't control her own anger and learn to forget those grudges.
But she hasn't seen any hope for herself in a long time.
Rumi didn't have many memories of her family other than two pics in an old locket.
The thing she hated most about her life was not being able to remember her mothers' voice.
Memories of her last day with her omma and mama were the main cause of her nightmares.
She remembered the way Miyeong fought to save her from a Minotaur on their way to the Camp Half-Blood. She remembered her screams telling Rumi to run after putting that locket around her neck.
But she doesn't remember her voice as it should have been. Gentle, calm, happy.
She had nothing to hold on to anymore; the only thing she remembered since losing Miyeong was that she hated her father.
"Ares, protector of women." What a bullshit. Miyeong was screaming for mercy in that forest, and no one moved to save her. No one bothered to help her mother
What would Rumi do to save her? She was only five years old.
She had vague memories of that day, how Celine stayed behind trying to fight the Minotaur and told Miyeong to run away with Rumi. She remembered her mothers doing everything they could to take her to the CHB safely.
Did she lose her mothers because Ares couldn't take her himself to the camp that would train her to kill monsters like that? Couldn't Ares, the protector of women, have done anything to help them?
All her nightmares since that day remind her why she hated the gods.
Rumi was one of the youngest children to arrive at CHB. She was only 5 years old when Chiron took her in, and she’d spent days without speaking to anyone.
She listened to all the older demigods talk about the events that led them to the camp.
Some had been led by a guardian Satyr, others found their way with the guidance of their godly parents. And some demigods wondered why Rumi had been pursued by a monster so soon. A daughter of Ares. Her scent wasn't even that strong back then.
She was so young, so tiny.
The head counselor of Cabin 5 took her in immediately, caring for his little sister, hugging her when she couldn't sleep at night.
But Rumi didn't want to be there. She wanted to go home. She wanted her mothers. She didn't even know who Ares was or what she was doing there.
She opened that locket every day, crying as she saw her moms. There were two photos in the locket. One with Miyeong holding little Rumi when she was an infant. The other was from when Celine joined their little family last year. Rumi wanted her omma and mama back. It wasn't fair.
That was why she tried to run away. leave that camp and go home. It couldn't be true. Her mothers must be so worried, right? She could still go home and have a cuddle time with her mothers.
She needed omma Miyeong's cuddles to fall asleep. She wanted to play with mama Celine again
But Dionysus was keenly aware of the child's movements as she began to wander off into the forest at dinnertime. And the god followed closely behind, even though he hated his life there and those kids, he didn't want to let the little one go. She would die.
Rumi hated not being able to escape. Hated when Dionysus told her her mothers were gone. Hated going to sleep and having nightmares about that night over and over and over again. She didn't want to learn to fight. She didn't want to go on quests.
Jinu, head counselor of Cabin 5, didn't let anyone force Rumi to do anything she didn't want to do. He embraced her and helped her adjust to life there, caring for Rumi and carrying her on his shoulders when she didn't want to walk. Getting the best food for her, making her smile
Slowly, Rumi began participating in the campfire. She learned the camp songs. She made more friends, other little kids from Cabin 11 and Cabin 6.
She wanted to learn how to wield a sword like her older half-brother, he was so cool! And he promptly got a wooden sword for her.
Jinu laughed when she tried to wield his sword and fell under the weight of the weapon.
He taught her how to braid her hair. He took care of her all the times
And one day Rumi managed to go a whole day without crying.
A night without nightmares.
A week of smiling and having fun.
She participated in her first chariot race and they won, but it was all thanks for her half-brother! She learned that Jinu was the strongest guy in the CHB, and she wanted to be like him too.
But her nightmares came back the first day Jinu didn't sing her to sleep.
He was away on a quest. Their father needed Jinu.
Time skip
She couldn't understand why the campers who went on the quest with Jinu gave her his sword, saying he wanted her to keep it.
Why was there now a new head counselor who wasn't her favorite half-brother?
Why didn't Ares protect Jinu too?
Why didn't any of the gods seem to care about their children?
Why were there fewer demigods in the camp with each quest?
━━━━━━━━━━
She grew up filled with fury for each of the gods.
She learned to wield the sword Jinu left her.
She was chosen as a quest leader for the first time at age eleven. She returned to the CHB with a Minotaur horn as a trophy from a successful quest.
And with each new mission she was called on, she met with her friends upon her victorious return for a celebration at the campfire.
She was loved by all her half-siblings, Satyrs, Centaurs. Every younger child in the camp knew Rumi would welcome them and teach them how to wield any weapon.
She became known as one of the kindest demigods there. Ironic that she was a daughter of Ares, wasn't it?
But she also grew known for her fury while fighting monsters.
Demigods who accompanied her on quests would say Rumi fought like a demon.
She enjoyed collecting trophies from each monster she slew.
And she always disdained the gods. She confronted them directly.
The gods warned Ares that his daughter needed to start respecting them. A demigod shouldn't speak that way about any of them.
Ares needed to control his daughter.
Instead, Ares learned to love Rumi's fury.
He blessed her. Proud of each of her achievements.
He appeared to her in person once, presenting her with a new sword and a strong shield. but she narrowed her eyes and said she didn't need him.
that made Ares smile.
So arrogant.
But it wasn't exactly a problem. She continued to serve the gods; she was their perfect weapon.
Rumi kept going on quests whenever she was called. Whether leading or helping campers, she didn't mind.
She just wanted the CHB to keep helping kids like her.
She helped the youngests, was there for the older ones, trained everyone patiently, and was always kind, always smiling
She loved her family now. The memory of the family she once had was now distant, the pain had become a memory.
She still kept her mother's locket with her. Every day she remembered how they had protected her. Jinu's sword was also special for her, something precious.
━━━━━━━━━━
At 15, she became the head counselor of Cabin 5, caring for her half-siblings with patience and affection, leading them, and winning every game at camp.
A great camper. A great friend. A great person. But she didn't respect the gods, and Zeus wanted to teach that girl a lesson.
the gods began to realize that no matter how they approached Rumi, she would never welcome them.
Athena's advice was always ignored.
Hera's approach was rejected with scorn.
Apollo insisted he could approach her, but Rumi maintained the same demeanor as always.
She always completed her quests despite this. And everyone knew why. She didn't care about pleasing the gods; she wanted to keep her home. CHB was all that mattered to Rumi, and as long as she remained standing to help her family, she was happy.
She would never abandon her family.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zeus remained annoyed, though. Of all the demigods at that camp, none had ever dared to ignore his offers.
How could she never visit Olympus? He’d sent Hermes to invite her, and Rumi refused. Said she'd be busy brushing her teeth or something. Ridiculous.
But she still served him. She always completed the quests he asked. So he let her continue living despite her petulance.
Until that day.
He was watching her return to CHB after completing a quest when Rumi said something that deeply angered him—and now she shall be punished.
How dare she question Zeus? Tell him he should start solving his own problems? That demigod needed to learn her place.
Zeus didn't think twice before throwing a lightning bolt at her, expecting to kill her instantly.
But he was surprised to see her defending herself.
A shield raised, an impact that didn't result in death but satisfied him nonetheless.
His lightning decimated the shield, turning it to dust, and her hand was injured. He watched her fall into a position that broke the bones in her legs and sent her face-first into a rock.
Damn the campers who gave her ambrosia and nectar. But hey. She won't walk anymore— She won't fight anymore?!
Who will do the super-difficult quests Zeus needs? That wasn't fair. He needed that demigod back.
Maybe he should send Apollo to help her.
━━━━━━━━━━
Zeus heard Apollo's news with some anger. Why couldn't Apollo fix her legs? But it was okay. Rumi would be cared for at CHB, and she would soon return to serving the gods.
━━━━━━━━━━
.
.
.
Rumi wanted to walk again.
She wanted to go to the 600th floor of the Empire State and destroy everything.
━━━━━━━━━━
From the moment she woke up, that damned daughter of Aphrodite kept telling her everything would be fine soon.
That she'd be able to walk again after rehab.
Rumi laughed humorlessly with each new word.
Her weapons were destroyed.
She broke her legs.
She lost sight in one eye.
She lost hearing in one ear.
She lost a hand.
She felt pain all over her body.
And that damned girl wanted her to calm down?
She was lucky Rumi couldn't move, honestly.
Rumi told her to shut up and told her she wouldn't do anything Mira asked.
She didn't need anyone to tell her how to feel about what had happened.
She knew how she felt.
She knew how much she hated the gods even more now. But she kept quiet. She closed her hand around her locket and silently thanked that it hadn't been destroyed that day.
She could forge another sword like Jinu's, but she could never lose that locket.
What really struck her was seeing Aphrodite's daughter come back to check on her every day, even though Rumi was rude to her at first.
Rumi felt bad for every rude response, regretting treating her badly.
Mira just wanted to help.
But Rumi couldn't help but feel angry.
She took her anger out on the wrong person.
Every visit from Mira ended with Rumi telling her to leave—asking her if Aphrodite's princess didn't have a spa day to attend.
She was being stupid. Rumi knew it. And she needed to stop.
Mira didn't deserve to be treated like that.
Rumi began choosing silence over being rude to others. No one was to blame for what happened to her. No one but Zeus. It was all the gods' fault, not her family's.
Mira was a good camper. She may never have left CHB since arriving, but Rumi remembered her participating in activities and helping with the strawberry harvest. She took care of their home too.
━━━━━━━━━━
.
.
Staying in that bed was horrible. Every night she had nightmares about all the people she lost. Every friend who didn't return from a mission. Jinu. Her mothers. Rumi couldn't sleep anymore.
Sometimes she cried until exhaustion consumed her. Maybe it would have been better if that lightning had killed her. But she didn't talk about it to anyone.
She forced smiles so as not to worry her half-siblings, promising them that she would walk again soon.
She wasn't so sure about that, though.
A son of Apollo had warned her that her injuries were too serious. And the pain Rumi was feeling made her aware that her life might never be the same again.
Mira continued to visit her every day. And at some point, Rumi found herself waiting for her.
It was strange to be around Mira; there was something about her that deeply enchanted Rumi. Her care, cleaning Rumi's wounds and keeping her company, made Rumi a mess.
Mira didn't flinch at the sight of her scars and wounds. She cared for them all, willing to be near Rumi, no matter if the daughter of Ares wanted her there or not.
And then Mira became a frequent figure in Rumi's life.
Mira made Rumi feel safe.
Rumi didn't mind being vulnerable around Mira.
She could blame her charm for making her so soft, but deep down, Rumi knew it wasn't about the charm.
Mira simply emanated a lightness and kindness that made Rumi want her always around.
Mira was with her when the casts were removed from Rumi's legs.
Mira stayed with her during her rehabilitation. Months of encouraging her, of helping her eat and continue living.
Rumi didn't know what she did to deserve Mira, but she was grateful she had appeared in her life.
Rumi's half-siblings began teasing her whenever Mira arrived at their cabin's door, and Mira had to admit that Rumi's pink cheeks were adorable.
They became inseparable. And Mira never stopped helping Rumi for a moment.
Rumi was falling in love for the first time in her life
She felt pathetic. She didn't know how to act around Mira anymore.
But she appreciated Mira. The way Mira cared for her made Rumi fall even deeper in love with her; she wanted to continue cherishing her forever.
Rumi would pick flowers and give them to Mira
Rumi would say the silliest things possible to make Mira smile. Rumi loved her for simply existing.
━━━━━━━━━━
The rehabilitation actually showed good results, and thanks to Mira, Rumi now had a new hand. She adapted to these changes. She learned to live this new life.
She was truly happy.
━━━━━━━━━━
Their first kiss was at the lake. They were training to help Rumi wield her sword better using her metal hand.
Later, they went into the water, started splashing water on each other's faces, and when Rumi hugged her, she rested her forehead against hers. And it just happened.
Now Rumi slept smiling and she would wake up every day with an even bigger smile on her face.
She was already so loved by all the campers, but since her good mood spread, everyone was happy for Rumi, and their fears about approaching her disappeared.
Rumi and Mira were just SO adorable together.
the next few months flew by. Rumi didn't even realize she was already turning 18. Maybe she had lived longer than expected for a demigod with so many years at the CHB, LOL. But she was grateful. and she was ready to try a real life out there. She wanted to invite Mira to live with her.
They could have a home together.
She could return to CHB during summers. It would be so cool. After 13 years there, she felt ready to live a normal life.
But Mira was called to lead a quest.
And suddenly Rumi remembered that their life couldn't be normal.
Mira had only been at CHB for five years. She was a great camper. She knew how to fight. But Rumi couldn't stop worrying. Imagining a life without Mira hurt too much. She couldn't bear to lose her too. Not Mira. Not to a damned quest.
Rumi couldn't let anything happen to Mira.
And of all the times Rumi saw someone leave her, that was the one that hurt the most. Mira didn't want her anymore. Mira was alive and survived the Cyclopes attack, but she didn't want her anymore.
Rumi ruined everything.
Rumi didn't trust Mira.
Rumi might not deserve happiness.
━━━━━━━━━━
Children were no longer welcomed by the head counselor of Cabin 5. Rumi had changed a lot since that quest.
So serious.
So quiet.
So angry.
Rude.
A broken soul. after everything that had happened to her.
Now Rumi knew that she would never have or deserve happiness.
Mira placed an empty jar on the counter, the sign "swear jar" right in the center, but Rumi couldn't read, so she just stared at the jar with a question mark flashing above her head.
Right next to the jar, Mira placed some bills along with some coins, and she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes as she looked at her wife.
Rumi had been swearing a lot in front of Yuna ever since she learned to use swear words, and Mira wanted to avoid it so that Rumi wouldn't end up talking like that even outside the house, or worse, inside the house when their nieces and nephews were visiting. Yuna is old enough to understand that she shouldn't swear, but the younger ones would probably repeat everything they would learn and say it in the middle of breakfast as if it were a good morning wish.
After Rumi stared at her in doubt for a long time since Mira had placed the money and the jar on the table, Mira uncrossed her arms and, pointing to the money first, began to explain.
"This is your allowance, and this is a swear jar. Every time you swear, you owe a coin to the swear jar. And every fucking time you tear your clothes to shift into a wolf, you owe a bill. Understood?" Mira may have added the second rule at that very instant when she remembered all the clothes Rumi had been destroying lately.
Rumi paused to think about the instructions her mate had given her, all quite clear to her, of course. She knew what swear words were and she knew what money was, so it was easy to fit the information into a little box in her mind.
"Understood?" Mira spoke again, a little more sharply this time.
"I— I understand!" Rumi stammered and bobbed her head up and down rapidly, always so frightened whenever her mate raised her voice an octave.
But Mira smiled at it the next instant, and that reassured her. "Good puppy."
Rumi bounced on her heels at the praise, but she paused to think about the rules again, and about what Mira had done. She ended up scratching her head remembering everything Mira had said.
Reluctantly, she called out to Mira. "Jagiya?"
"Yes?"
Rumi glanced around the kitchen, unsure if she should even say that or if the rules only applied to Rumi herself, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Maybe she would even earn more praises if she showed she understood the rules correctly, right?
She hesitated a little before whispering, "...You owe a coin to the swear jar."
Mira raised an eyebrow doubtfully as the silence settled between them, wondering why Rumi thought she should put a coin in the swear jar when Mira remembered she'd let slip a swear word while lecturing Rumi about not swearing.
Oh well.
She blushed as she reached into her pockets for a coin and found none, and Rumi subtly pushed one of her coins toward her mate on the counter while whispering, "Here, I'll lend you one."
"Okay. Thank you. Sorry for cursing." Mira put the coin inside the jar, still a little embarrassed by what she had done, but Rumi didn't seem to mind much at the moment.
Mira thought Rumi seemed to be enjoying the situation, actually.
/////////////////////////
Rumi was still thinking about the new rule when she went to Mira to clarify a doubt.
"Jagiya?"
"Yes, hun'?" Mira put down her book as she saw Rumi approach with the swear jar in hands and a confused look.
"If I swear while we're having sex, do I put the coin afterward or do I have to stop touching you to—?"
"Don't you fucking stop!"
Rumi paused for a moment to process the new information about the rule, assuming she should only put the new coins after sex.
But then she remembered that Mira had swore again.
And she opened the lid of the swear jar and extended one of her coins to Mira.
"...You have to put a coin again, jagiya."
Mira blushed as red as a tomato, her cheeks, ears, and nose completely red as she took the coin from Rumi's hand and threw it into the jar.
And if she threw her book at Rumi's head while she closed the jar with an amused smile on her lips, Rumi didn't say anything about it—she was busy laughing at her mate's antics.
this is a deleted scene from my Polytrix fanfic "come running home to you" !
Rumi agreed to go back inside for the first time that night. Her shifts were still a little out of control; her body was starting to adjust to the fact that she wouldn’t be in wolf form anymore, her fur was still scattered around, and her tail... it hadn’t stopped wagging from side to side since Zoey agreed to stay.
Zoey took her hand and led her to their room. Every now and then she looked back just to make sure Rumi was there—even though she could feel her hand in hers, she wanted to see her close. So, she walked slowly to the bedroom, where she imagined she would find Mira sleeping in the middle of the bed, or perhaps reading while waiting for her, but what they saw there when they arrived was even more adorable than they expected.
Mira had taken Yuna to their room, and the two were sleeping peacefully, together in bed, enveloped in that barrier of sheets, pillows, and clothes. Zoey saw Mira doing one of those that morning, when Zoey had made the bed after she woke up, but the moment Mira saw the folded clothes and the pillows put away, she just threw everything back on the bed and went back to arranging everything the way she wanted.
Zoey noticed that Rumi also thought it was adorable; her tail wagged even more now.
“There’s room for us if you stay close to Mira and I close to Yuna,” Zoey suggested with a small smile. Rumi couldn’t take her eyes off the bed; the idea of sleeping in a nest with her whole pack made her immensely happy, and she was about to take the first step towards them when she remembered that she hadn’t showered in days. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Hmm... I need a shower,” Rumi admitted, then raised one arm and sniffed herself to see if there wasn’t an option to wait until the next day, but if she got into bed smelling like that, Mira probably would throw her off the balcony.
“Uhh…” Zoey tugged her own shirt close to her nose when she remembered that she’d spent the last minutes clinging to Rumi and, well, she needed a shower and a change of clothes too. “Yeah, me too…”
Rumi’s tail stopped in place, a shiver running down her spine as Zoey gave her a giddy look followed by a smirk before whispering, “We better take a shower then, puppy.”
She closed the bedroom door with a soft click to avoid waking Mira and Yuna, and quickly pulled Rumi along toward the bathroom at the end of the hall, and all Rumi could do was whisper, “Yes, mate,” in response.
this is a deleted scene from my Polytrix fanfic "come running home to you"!
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AO3 is currently down. We do not have an estimated return time currently. We're looking into it with one of our third-party support providers and will update when we have more information. Thank you for your patience!
We've identified the problem and are working on a fix. We expect to remain down for several more hours. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience!
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