Sing, O Muse [Percy Jackson]

three

DO not settle for writing the stories of others. Those were the words with which Kronos had first beckoned Clarion closer, as summer's softened fingertips had granted them only utter betrayal. Their fears had risen with the temperatures as their borders had failed, and she had seen the first seeds of conflict sewn in the evergreen forests. But he hadn't only granted her visions of justice and power; he had given her wretched possibilities of death and bloodshed - epics that could only end in tragedy; such despicable things that she would never want to write. Clarion promised herself they were far away - not only specks in the distant future - but they were nothing that would concern the Muse's daughter, who most had long since given up hope trying to train into a warrior.

But the night before, she had seen herself, not much older, wearing ornate golden armor that she could only liken to the frigid sarcophagus, with her face painted into a sneer more gruesome than the carvings on The Crooked One's tomb. She wondered if she had truly written the greatest epic the world had seen, but at what cost? Clarion didn't think she could ever forget the image of the bronze-armored bodies by her feet. The thought of so much blood on her hands was more terrifying than anything the Titan could offer.

She pushed away her nightmares as the morning grew distant, but something about the quietness of her cabin seemed less comforting than it usually was. That was until Ellis Wakefield barged inside with Connor and Travis grinning behind him like children on Christmas. She was in the middle of painting with her desk-top easel when the son of Ares grabbed her and hoisted her over his broad shoulders before she could even think to scramble backwards (but then again, her reflexes weren't often good and instead of fight or flight she often froze). Too perplexed to do anything else, she let out a startled splutter and weakly pounded on his back.

He carried her out the cabin with the Stolls followed behind. Travis hesitated for only a moment to grab her lyre for reasons beyond her understanding. They two grinned and wiggled their fingers from behind her, wishing they had a camera to capture her miserably perplexed face, or the shadow that came across her face when she realized Ellis was carrying her down the path to the sword-fighting arena.

It had been Lee's idea. Ellis had been sharpening the practice swords in the arena for the lesson he taught before lunch when the blonde approached him and said that, as much as he loved Clarion, if they were to stand any chance of winning against the Hunters, everyone had to at least know how to handle a weapon. Ellis felt like an idiot for not thinking of it first. He rarely ever thought about Clarion - it was only to laugh at the concept of so many silly art goddesses - and he pretended not to notice when she skipped lessons, even when she would wave at her cabin mates and him whilst she meandered around camp.

But then the Hunters had flat-out refused to share the basketball court with him (even though he could've taken them in a twelve-on-one any day), and he was already having a tough time since Clarisse hadn't been heard from for weeks. He definitely wasn't worried - that was for sissies - but he wanted to know where she was. Ellis needed an outlet - something to focus on, some people to pummel - and he wouldn't let any of the campers drag his team down, even if he wasn't the captain (stupid Percy and Thalia). Even Silena had woken up early to hack at the training dummies, and the daughter of Aphrodite agreed that the Muse's daughter had to fight.

Clarion often didn't think about her oak-wood heirloom before her dream. She typically preferred to use one of the golden lyres on the wall, because it felt... strange to handle the same instrument her very-much older brother used; the same lyre, passed down through the millenia, all of her far older siblings used. But she still instinctually yelped like a wounded puppy and strangled the air when she spotted Connor and Travis tossing it back and forth whilst they walked behind her, without so much as a single thought for how delicate the ancient instrument was.