Goodnight Moon ↣ P. Jackson + A. Chase

1.13

There was a certain ugliness to adding emotions to things where they didn't belong. It smeared the realities, covered the truths with hopes and desire, and pulled poetics out of nothing. It was a cover, a masked way to view the world, and it was a way that Kassandra couldn't help but think -- letting her emotions flutter and exist around her instead of holding it all back, holding it all in. 

It was hard to repress emotions when she liked to feel as much as she did because music was feeling, being with her family was feeling, seeing her friends was feeling. 

Betrayal was a harsh emotion, a harsh feeling of searing, of scorching through her chest that presented her with the memories of the friendship they had once had like a marathon through her mind -- too fast for her to grasp, too grasp for her to keep here, with her, as if it was some symbolic representation of that friendship lost. 

It was hard to repress feelings when blood slipped between her fingers and she stepped back, adrenaline still running high enough for her not to feel the pain, but she knew that the shocked state she functioned in wouldn't last her forever and she wouldn't be able t keep him away. 

Because Chris had stabbed her all because in the familiarity of the actions she had lost her footing and he had gained the swift and sudden advantage. 

And Kassandra wasn't wearing armour and this wasn't a training blade. His sword was sharp and deadly, and she was really going to feel it later if she managed to get back to camp like this. 

"Don't move," Chris tells her, reaching out a hand to keep her steady. 

She sneers, waving the arrow tip before her threateningly. "Don't come near me." 

He rolls his eyes, moving toward her again. "Are you seriously doing this right now?" 

Gawking stupidly, she wobbles back on the sand quickly to put more distance between them. "Are you kidding? You stabbed me!" She growls. "I don't want you anywhere near me." 

Chris jumps forward, snatching her hand and pulling her to his chest. She gasps, fire flaring up her side and through her chest. Her legs shake, collapsing under her as she cries out. Tears blur her vision and she grits her teeth. 

"Just shut up," he snaps. "If you weren't so stubborn, this wouldn't have happened." 

She folds into his arms as he swings her off her feet and into a carry. She had an arm close to her chest, arrow tip placed precariously near his throat in an angry instinct to protect herself, the other pressed firmly to her side. 

Blood slipped between her fingers, cupping against her hand and pouring over. She made a displeased sound, shoving against her side more firmly until a soft cry pulled from her chest.

 "My bow," she gasps, the weapon lying forgotten in the sand flashing in her mind. "Give me back my bow." 

"Are you serious right now?" he demands.

"Yes, Chris," she seethes. "I'm dying anyway, what harm is there in giving it to me." 

"You aren't dying," he counters just as angry, squatting down by the weapon regardless. She takes it in her bloody hand. 

"Oh, well my open side wound says otherwise," she says, pulling the weapon so that the string lay against her body, the grip hanging under her. 

He doesn't answer and had she not known better, she would say that he felt bad, but then she remembered that he did this and was a traitorous, betraying asshole and that couldn't feel bad even if he wanted to, probably. 

The sunset lay above her, the light disappearing in the distance in rays of pink and orange. Kassandra loved orange and the Hesperides that cast such beautiful colours against Apollo's ending days. Sometimes, she likes to imagine that they heard her silent prayers and listened, letting the evening birth with a beautiful medley of colours.