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The air was already thick with blood and panic, not like there was much else happening in the world besides this war. The only thing that made the smell worse was the burning flesh and metal — the result of ‘Clarisse’ getting hit by acid.
The spear had completely fallen out of her hand as she fell to the ground, the drakon occupying itself with another group of Demigods upon seeing the Ares cabin head completely immobilized. The girls vision and hearing blurred, the only thing keeping her connected to reality by now being the campers surrounding her in a frenzy. If they lost Clarisse this early on, after she just joined the fight, they were fucked.
Percy and Annabeth were quick to rush to her side, even if Percy hated her, he had to admit that she was an amazing fighter. He’d spent this long trying to get her into the fight at all, he wasn’t giving up now. The few remaining Apollo kids quickly following, along with a group of (by now) nearly manic Ares kids.
She twitched in pain on the ground, her breathing being broken up by harsh whimpers — a sound that startled Percy and even most of the Ares cabin. The first thing noticed by everybody who crowded the poor girl (besides the acid slowly melting the metal of her helmet into her skin and hair) was the blue eyes laced with fear, or the straight black hair that just barely peeked through. Two features Clarisse didn’t have.
Will Solace was panicked enough, between his brothers dying and then being immediately pulled away to help with Annabeth being stabbed, trying to pry the helmet off the girl while simultaneously not ripping off her skin wasn’t making it any better.
Everyone was trying to keep her grounded, talking to her while the Apollo kid worked. Everyone was just in enough of a hurry and just scared enough to not even think twice about the girl's blue eyes or notably smaller frame or the way her voice was much too high pitched to be Clarisse. Everyone recognized Clarisse’s armor anyhow.
A sudden sound and movement startled everyone and pulled them away from the girl writhing in pain on the ground — Clarisse running out of a chariot, followed by Chris.
That couldn’t be right.
Clarisse was on the ground, dying.
The sight of clarisse rushing to kneel next to the girl was enough to make everyone pause. The bracelet, the blue eyes, the long black hair, the high pitched voice, how small the girl seemed.
“No— no no no,” Clarisse rushed out, looking to the girl, then to her siblings, then to Will.
“Wait,” Percy started up. “Clarisse, weren’t you just—“
“Well obviously fucking not!”
He looked to the girl on the ground as she trembled while taking off her bracelet with a small charm of a serpent. The mark of Kronos’ army.
“I’m—“ the girl choked out, her voice pained and desperate. “I— I can’t— I tricked you.” Her voice was fragile and weak, as if saying anything at all was going to make her collapse.
The voice sent dread through everyone.
“Silena,” Clarisse said, her eyes watering. Chris went to put a hand on her shoulder and she slapped him away. “Not right now!” Her eyes had that signature soft red glow she had when pissed, though her gaze softened the second she turned back to Silena.
Clarisse gently held Silenas hand, having a tenderness that had only been seen with how she treated Chris after he was rescued from the labryinth. She fumbled the bracelet out of her hand.
“She was the spy,” Annabeth muttered under her breath. Silena made no move to disagree. Annabeth swallowed hard, trying to force herself to believe that Luke wasn’t actually as bad as he seemed as she watched Silena’s burns only get worse.
“I was working for him— long before I liked Charlie. He was so nice… so charming” She started, her breathing uneven and her heart beating so fast in her neck it felt like she might as well not have been breathing at all. “He promised me that I was saving lives.. he lied to me.. I wanted to leave his side.. he said that if I did — he was going to tell everyone anyway.”
“Silena — Silena, please no —“ Clarisse chanted her name like a desperate prayer. She was still holding her hand, wanting as much contact as she could get. Will's hands glowed and softly sparked as he tried to focus on enough magic to heal her and get her helmet off without damage. Though, the worry in his eyes didn’t make anyone confident in that plan.
“I’m — I had to.. they would only listen to you,” Silena’s gaze was glazing over, her vision unfocused.
Clarisse shot a glare up to her siblings, that red gleam in her otherwise brown eyes returning.
“And none of you fuckers noticed?! Not a single one of you!” She snapped, though tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks. “Can none of you fucking pay attention?!”
The Ares cabin all stared downwards, a guilt weighing heavy in the air as Clarisse screamed at them.
Will was able to tug off Silena’s helmet — though not without Silena yelping out And choking back pained whimpers.
Any part of her helmet that was touching her skin prior to the burn had melted into her skin. As the helmet was slowly lifted up, the first few layers of skin around her cheek was pulled up with it. It wasn’t bloody, but the deep red sheen still sticking to the top layer of her skin wasn’t something people could easily forget. Not to mention, the pain that came with the unfortunate chunks of hair that got stuck with those skin chunks.
The lingering acid seeped into the glossy, peeled skin causing her to cry in pain, her hand weakly clutching to Clarisse.
Everyone surrounding them looked in horror. They’d seen plenty of death within the last few hours, but watching someone’s skin get peeled away from their muscle up close and watching the acid cauterize the wound was on another plane of fucked up. The sight was enough to cause a few kids to turn around and throw up.
Her left eye went bloodshot with the skin that was pulled up, her tears running into the wound and mixing with the dying down acid.
Clarisse was quick to pull Silena out of Will’s arms — if he was protesting, Clarisse couldn’t tell. She pulled the smaller girl into her lap, gently running her nails through her hair. The feeling of her nails against her scalp hurt, but the comforting feeling of being in her lover's arms at all was enough to drown out the excess pain.
Everyone else around them tried to busy themselves with planning. They all just watched the aftermath of a major attack from the Drakon, it wasn’t even a large attack and it was enough to kill Silena in one go.
The only few who still stayed near as Clarisse tried to comfort a trembling and dying Silena, Will Solace and Chris Rodreguiz. Chris was there moreso for his best friend, Clarisse, and then Will was there to watch and see if there truly was any hope for her. The sadness in his expression wasn’t promising.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Clarisss kept repeating in an uncharacteristically soft voice. She didn’t believe her own words, but she didn’t want Silena to die scared. “It’s alright. You’re gonna be alright, love. You have to be alright.” Her words were occasionally broken up by sobs, an unsettling sight for everyone else. The only kids who had seen Clarisse cry (besides her siblings) had been Silena, Charlie, and Chris. Now, only one of those 3 could even actually see her cry now — Silena’s vision was too far gone.
Silena reached up a shaky hand, Clarisse caught her to stabilize her shaking as she helped guide her hand up to the side of her face. Her hand rested over Silena’s still half-armored hand.
“I don’t — I don’t regret what I did.”
“Please don’t say like it’s a goodbye,” Clarisse begged. She never begged. She had briefly forgotten about the way her dad would scream at her and call her pathetic for staying with her dying girlfriend instead of fighting. Killing the Drakon could wait a moment, she didn’t want Silena to die alone and scared. She’s already lost too much.
Silena weakly rubbed her thumb against Clarisse’s cheek, wiping her tears as they fell.
She lowered her hand, she stopped looking at Clarisse. Her blue eyes (or eye, considering the popped blood vessels in the other caused her eye to go red) went pale and the once bright light began to dim and her eyes went matte.
“Charlie.. see Charlie,” she choked out.
Clarisse gave up her pleading and her quiet reassurances as she felt her body grow heavy in her lap. Clarisse held her and sobbed, her tears hitting against her own armor on Silena’s now dead body.
Annabeth sighed as she joined the smaller group. She had essentially grown up with Clarisse and had never seen her this broken down. She kneeled in front of Clarisse.
She gently rubbed her arm to offer some comfort before running her hand over Silena’s face with care, closing her eyes. Partially to offer her some peace, partially to save everyone the pain of looking at her lifeless eyes — no matter how heartless that sounded.
Chris placed a hand on Clarisse’s shoulder, this time she doesn’t object.
They stayed like that for a long time. Longer than many expected.
The last rational thing she said as she gently placed Silena’s body on the cold, hard ground was,
“Kronos is going to fucking pay.”