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Clarisse La Rue was a child of savaged fields and blackened pyres, born to a god of bloodlust and carnage, and a soldier well versed in war’s cold realities.
She had violence in her gold flecked blood, and legions of the fallen bound to her bones. Hell fire burned in the cage of her ribs, emerald and unnatural — wild and unforgiving. It was the same flame that burned in the eyes of her father’s mounts as he rode into battle, after battle, after battle.
Clarisse La Rue practically spat it like venom, even as a squalling infant.
Her mother, Marie, watched her with knowing eyes as she grew like a chained beast. But she said nothing when her daughter punted boys twice her size halfway through walls for daring to make fun of her friends on the playground.
She said nothing when Clarisse got suspended from preschool — twice — then expelled from kindergarten, then first grade, then second.
Why would she?
Her daughter had war in her demi-divine blood, and she had always been a defender. It was true from the moment she was six months old, and a strange man came to the house reeking like a battlefield.
Clarisse had rampaged, throwing her tiny self between the god and her mother, eyes barely developed, but clearly aware enough to know herself.
He had barked a laugh that grated like grinding shell casings, and scooped his infant child into blood stained palms without batting an eye.
“You know, I don’t have the best luck with daughters,” he informed her, eyes of hellflame boring into eyes just the same.
History loved to mention how the god of the sea and the god of war loathed each other so, and yet —
No one liked to remember why.
Clarisse La Rue bared her gummy teeth, fierce and wild. Did this godling think she didn’t know the dangers of being a woman? That face said, sneering and proud.
How arrogant.
He laughed again, startled — cannons over the casings.
“Maybe you’ll change that, hmmm?” he mused, cradling her so gently, for someone coated in so much phantom viscera.
Clarisse scowled up at the god that called himself her father. She gripped his shitty leather jacket that trailed motor oil and tobacco, and hauled herself up so she was standing on his stained, calloused palms.
“M’ pac’fs’t” she growled, butchering the syllables pretty badly without teeth.
This time, the god of war cackled, and Marie La Rue wouldn’t know how to describe that sound if you asked her on her death bed.
“My pacifist daughter,” the god crooned, even as Clarisse slashed her palm open with her nails, and tore his cheek open as well. Marie jerked as her daughter slapped the crimson wound over her father’s gold, her infant face feral and defiant.
“Well, how can I say no to an offering like that?” Ares rumbled, ancient and final.
And for the first time in her short life, Clarisse La Rue smiled. Marie mourned, because what infant’s smile was supposed to remind you of cracked, broken nails as you hauled yourself forward?
What baby’s joy was meant to echo grim, mad satisfaction as you crawled out of a pit with shattered knees, and a savage smile because you just put yourself through hell and won, gods damn it all —
So Marie said nothing when Clarisse defended her friends, and spit Greek fire like one of Ares’ undead warhorses.
She was her father’s daughter, at the end of the day.
No matter how red her blood ran.
—————
Clarisse watched her gym coach sweat in the Arizona heat, long pants hiding every inch of skin below his waist despite the fact that it was June.
In Arizona.
Yeah, okay buddy.
He looked like he had taken a shower, and if he didn’t have goat legs beneath those pants, Clarisse would eat her own shorts.
Damn, these monsters were getting out of hand.
She was in her second school of her second-grade career, courtesy of those twerps thinking Junie’s pigtails were prime real estate for their chewed up gum.
Clarisse usually hunted down the monsters that liked to hunt her before they infiltrated her school.
Or her house.
Or her mother’s job — etc, etc — anymore.
It wasn’t that hard, after all. Once she realized they all barked in ancient Greek, she studied mythology in the library.
Even if her dyslexia made the whole thing harder than it had to be.
Then all she had to do was track them down, and rip them apart.
Easy.
But damn, apparently she’d missed one.
Her classmates jabbered away, oblivious to the maybe-satyr-maybe-something-else in their midst. Clarisse kept her eyes locked on him as he sweat buckets, a club disguised as a baseball bat in one hand.
She wondered if it was for her.
“Alright, cupcakes!” He roared, slapping the club against his palm. “We’re doing a fitness test today. It’s an end of the year evaluation, so I better have seen some improvement, you hear me?!”
Oh, great, he was one of the ones that messed with time perception, then.
Clarisse bet if she asked someone where Mr. Thompson was, they’d look at her like she was insane — if she was lucky — or go tell a teacher she was seeing things again.
You know, if she wasn’t lucky.
Super.
Clarisse was gonna rip him apart, she decided, thumb idly twisting the ring on her middle finger.
It was a thick, heavy metal band made of fused shell casings, and branded with a ferocious spear and helm. Each twist brought a rush of Greek fire coursing through Clarisse’s veins, blistering and soothing in equal measure.
Another ring sat on the opposite finger, boasting a snarling wolf, and reeking like pyres on a blood drenched field.
She called it καταδίκη, or damnation — sister to οργή, or wrath.
Clarisse may not know how her mother fell in love with a god of war, but she’s always known what beast lay sleeping in her veins.
She did not question it when she found two rings in the fresh, steaming corpse of a Lamia. Not even as she pressed her shredded shirt against the gouges on her chest and neck.
Clarisse would always bear the scars, and she’d always bear the spoils of that particular battle.
Glory and gore go hand in hand, after all.
Clarisse watched her newest hunt with gun metal eyes, sharp and bladed as he droned on and on about presidential fitness scores.
Please.
Her mother dragged her to PT with her stupid friends in the morning, and then they did yoga and meditation at night to help with Clarisse’s apparent rage issues.
Pfft.
Clarisse wants to tell her mother to try half-remembering a past life, and then being born to a war god that gives you enough of his divinity that you’re a walking monster magnet from the time you can walk, and then they can talk about fucking rage issues.
But whatever, she’d play along.
She’d ace this stupid fitness test, and then kill the fuck out of this monster, and then everything would be chill again.
Ugh, this sucked.
Her rings pulsed, feral and comforting, steady and magma hot.
She blinked, watching the coach as she hauled herself over the pullup bar over, and over, and over, and over again.
Not stopping until they pried it out of her cold, dead hands.
The coach met her gaze, carrion corpses and blood stained earth — bone ash and hell flame in the solemn face of an old-young-mortal-not eight year old.
His mouth pinched, and his knuckles whitened on his bat-club, eyes shadowed as he watched her back.
Why did he reek like sorrow, all of a sudden?
Clarisse sneered, and dropped from the bar as the timer went off, striding over to the next station.
Her classmates wanted to praise her, but she didn’t want praise for something she was born to — something she didn’t work for, or earn.
This body was built to run, and rage, and move, and kill.
She was a weapon of her own craft, bred to blaze a violent trail through a cursed field.
Clarisse hated it, even as it pounded through her heart like the divinity it was.
“Oi,” the monster barked, cornering her after she blew through the mile run. Her classmates were still going, even the fastest all the way across the field. “You ever heard of Camp Half Blood, Red Velvet?”
Clarisse flashed her teeth, pearly and sharp — perfect for ripping out throats that dared press too close to her maw. “Is that supposed to be a slur, goat dick?” She shot back. “Are those the ones with the freaky spines? Or am I thinking of cats?”
“OI!” He roared, leaning closer as his brow twitched. He wore sunglasses and a New York baseball cap, but Clarisse could still see the lines of ire on his face.
She had that effect on people.
Hah.
“You listen here, punk — I don’t care who your daddy is, I’m here to get you to safety, and you’re going to do as I say, got it?”
Clarisse barked a laugh, rough and ugly. Just like her wild, rampaging father.
“And who says you’re not just another monster I need to hunt down and decimate like I’ve been doing for years, old man? Why should I listen to a gods damned thing you say?”
Her mother was the soldier of the family, after all.
Not Clarisse.
(Not again)
She didn’t listen to anything unless given a reason, and force wasn’t a valid one in her books.
(The old, dead parts of her remembered too many people using that on her Before. After enough times, the fear starts to wear thin, and the rage starts to grow cold, sharp, and deadly.)
The monster blinked, mouth a little ‘o’ as he stared down the eight year old that came up to his nose, because Clarisse was really tall for her age, and this guy was really short for his.
“You know about the gods?” He demanded, a little lost.
Clarisse snorted, and let the chokehold on her divinity go, just a little bit, relishing how the monster froze like a deer caught in her headlights. “I’d be an idiot not to know what war god’s wrath burned through my blood.”
The fake teacher began to tremble, and Clarisse clamped back down on the aura, letting her mortal side ease back over the vengeful sea. “I’ll ask you once,” she said softly. Calm. “What is Camp Half-Blood, and who do you think you are, giving me orders?”
The maybe-not-monster stared at her, pale but steadfast, grim and bullheaded. “My name’s Gleeson Hedge, kid. I think you should call your mom.”
Clarisse paused as she felt a calloused, gore covered hand rest on her shoulder — a red hot, phantom weight.
Hold, that hand said, ancient and knowing. Grieving. Listen.
And so she did.
—————
Her mother was a fair woman, and a kind caretaker, but she had never wanted children.
Marie was a soldier, and had always been very vocal about the value of condoms, contraceptives, and knowledge about fertility when any romance popped up on the television screen.
She had never wanted to be a mother. It wasn’t her plan to woo someone with magic fucking sperm that somehow defied safe sex practice.
It hadn’t been her intention to pull a war god into her thrall — she had simply been being her broken, torn-up self.
Ares adored it, and mortal-immortal procreation was wildly unpredictable.
So Clarisse was born.
Somehow.
Naturally, Clarisse wasn’t very surprised when her mother sent her off with a warm hug, but a very final goodbye. Marie was clearly sad, but not overly so to send her daughter away to a camp of demi-divine children.
Clarisse understood.
She would keep in touch, somehow — her mother seemed happy enough to be pen pals.
The goat man watched it all unfold with an unreadable face, mouth twisted in a complex knot as Clarisse packed her things in silence. Her rings were hot irons on her fingers, familiar comforts by her scarred knuckles.
The La Rue family lived in a small apartment by the army base, with rent subsidized by someone or something Clarisse didn’t think too heavily on. It was small, and cleaned with militant precision — corners tucked and shelves dusted.
Clarisse let the door close with a soft thump, and strode down the tobacco scented hall with her ‘satyr guide’ hot on her heels.
“You’ll like camp,” he said awkwardly, club slung over his shoulder. “There’s lots of activities, and kids your age. I think you have a few siblings too — summer’s almost in session, so there will be a lot of people.”
“Sure,” Clarisse grunted, shouldering her duffel bag. It had all her clothes, toiletries, and prized possessions.
Everything she owned.
“Ah, Hades,” the satyr cursed, scuffing his sneaker-clad hoof against the concrete as they stepped into the Arizona sun.
“You shouldn’t say his name,” Clarisse chided, even as she felt far off, long dead eyes peer at her across realms. “Not unless he gives you leave.”
The satyr cackled, stomping forward as if he would send his dominance all the way through the upper crust to the underworld. “Yeah, yeah, brat. So they keep telling me.”
Clarisse rolled her eyes. He was one of those, then.
Alright, not her problem.
She didn’t think the Silent One wasn’t much for petty rage, as much as he was known for grudges.
Maybe. She wasn’t sure if she trusted her memory.
“How are we getting to New York?” She questioned, trailing along after him.
“Well, you’re not going to be struck out of the sky, so we’ll probably just fly.” He said, vaguely relieved.
“Oh, gross,” Clarisse muttered, remembering free fall and broken bones.
(‘Don’t you trust me, ‘...’? It’s just cliff jumping, I’ve done it loads of times!’)
“Can’t we take the train?”
“What, are you afraid of heights?” Hedge demanded, totally baffled.
“No —
(Once you've fallen enough times, the fear becomes a grim resignation. Unwanted k-n-o-w-i-n-g that sits numb behind your face, cold and dead.)
“— but that doesn’t mean I don’t prefer trains.”
The satyr stared at her, unreadable once more, even as his fingers worried at the shaft of his club. “You’re a weird kid,” he said after a long moment, mouth still twisted unhappily.
Clarisse shrugged, unrepentant.
She was what she was.
“It’ll take nearly four days versus one day, and we already have plane tickets booked,” he wheedled, even as she stared.
Unmoving.
She would take the plane, and he knew it.
She just didn’t want to.
“There’s a higher probability of monsters on the trains,” he tried, even as her handcrafted necklace of teeth and claws glinted under the harsh sunlight.
Clarisse watched the wispy clouds drift across the sky, lazy and serene.
“You’re one of those, aren’t you?” Hedge grumbled, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Fine, fine! We’ll take the fucking train, are you happy now?”
Clarisse shrugged, a faint smile pulling at her lips. “I’m not unhappy,” she replied, even as she strolled beside him, shoulders losing their tension.
“I hope you like busses, too, because there’s no direct train to Long Island from fucking Pheonix, brat,” he huffed, kicking at the blazing concrete when it started to melt his shoes.
“You sure about that?” Clarisse mused, nodding to the cargo train trundling into the station. It was full of humvees, rations, and army labels. It reeked like tobacco, motor oil, and bloodstains.
Thanks, dad, she prayed, even as she jerked her chin at the satyr, and ambled over to the car with the cracked door.
She locked eyes with one of the conductors — saw nothing but carrion corpses, and battles hard lost in his empty, skeletal eye sockets.
Hah, yeah.
This one was their ride.
“Get in, loser,” she barked, tossing the satyr up in front of her. “My papa’s pretty great, for a warmongering fool.”
Yeah, this was pretty sweet, she acknowledged, even as the sky rumbled with war’s gunfire laughter.
How sweet, for such blood stained hands.
Hers would be no better, by the end. She didn’t need a lifetime of wisdom to know it.
—————
They made it to camp with only a couple more flesh rending teeth on her necklace to show for it.
Her guide was beside himself, muttering about bloodthirsty hellhounds, stupid kids with no self preservation, and something about hating skeletons something fierce.
Clarisse ignored him, strolling over the barrier with her duffel bag safely over her shoulder, and surveyed the rolling strawberry fields that greeted her.
The line of divinity was buzzing beneath her skin, warm and welcoming — a long tended hearth bound by blood, tears, and sacrifice.
The grass was verdant and plush, curling around her dirty shoes like it loved her, and any demigod with enough fire to carry them over the boundary.
She could feel gore coated, calloused hands on her shoulders — a feral grin stretching beside her ear as she took in the cabins.
Spotted one lined in barbed wire and crimson paint, guarded by a snarling boar’s head.
Dramatic, she sighed internally, amused despite herself as the hands tightened.
“Come on, Cupcake,” Hedge huffed, marching down the hill to a sprawling farmhouse. “You need to meet the camp director.”
“Sure, sure,” she agreed, wandering after her guide. Clarisse staunchly ignored the curious looks thrown their way by campers decked in bright, screaming orange shirts.
The sun was warm and kind on her face as she climbed the creaking steps to the porch — despite the torrential downpour on the opposite side of the hill — and Clarisse filed it away in her mind.
Another odd thing to add to the list of divine questions she had.
“Chiron!” Hedge bellowed, kicking off his sneakers to clop inside. “I got your shitty Arizona case!”
Clarisse followed sedately after him, eying the old, sagging floorboards and the paint-flaking walls. There were pictures of campers in chariots, armour, and weaponry, grinning like fiends across the campus.
The mechanical whir of metal spokes rattled the floor, and Clarisse watched a man no older than forty roll into the room, a hand woven blanket across his lap.
His chair reeked like magic, and his arms were corded with muscle beneath his shirtsleeves.
She raised a brow, and looked at Hedge.
“Ah, it’s nice to meet you, Miss La Rue. Gleeson informed me you’d be staying with us for the foreseeable future.”
Clarisse grunted, nodding once as his river rock voice crashed over her, gentle and gritty with an age she couldn’t hope to fathom.
What a fucking farce.
“He also informed me you already know about the Greek gods, though I must say, your scent is very well hidden for that to be true.”
Hedge muttered something Clarisse chose to ignore under his breath, doing her best not to roll her eyes at a probably-immortal-being.
“How else was I supposed to get the drop on the monsters?” She muttered. “They could smell me for miles, otherwise.”
She shoved down the part of her that felt the distant, divine eyes peering at her. Kept her focus on the being in front of her, even as she used whatever perception-altering magic the monsters used to make her look crazy to hide herself.
What was the saying? Stare long enough into the abyss?
“So you can use the Mist, then.” Chiron mused, patient and serene, even as Hedge threw himself onto a bench next to the entryway.
“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.” Clarisse grumbled, trying not to shift on her feet.
She wanted to move, damn it. This body was made for war, not travel — she was getting antsy; wriggling needles under her skin.
“Would you care to show me?” Chiron asked politely, easy and calm.
“No.”
It snapped out of her before she could stop it, icy and harsh, a knee jerk response to a strange man asking too many questions.
Showing too much interest.
Silence fell, thick and cloying, but Clarisse held his stare, gun metal eyes burning like her father’s warhorses in the cozy, farmhouse foyer.
Why would she ever think she could play house like this?
“Alright,” Chiron said softly, hands flat against the arms of his rolling, magic chair. “That’s alright, Miss La Rue, no one will force you.”
Clarisse narrowed her eyes, having read her share of Greek myths in this life and the last. Enough to know to take that with a grain of fucking salt if she wanted to keep her head on her shoulders.
But she also knew liars, and for all he was rueful, this being wasn’t lying at the moment.
“Sure,” she grunted, not breaking her gaze.
(That’s what they all say.)
“Are you guys coming in, or what?” A voice like mulled wine drawled, lazy and layered.
Chiron turned, rolling into the next room like clockwork, and Hedge stood, jerking his chin for Clarisse to join him. “Come on, Red Velvet,” he sighed, mouth twisted up. “Mr. D doesn’t like to wait.”
Clarisse scowled, but plodded along after him, letting her eyes drift and catch on ancient vases and new, disposable film alike.
Chiron sat in a cluttered living room with a weathered, scarred dining table. A stuffed leopard head purred above a homey fireplace, overlooking a well loved couch.
There was another man sitting at the table. A can of coke and a deck of cards laid in front of him as he let deep, violet eyes trail over their motley party.
Ah, Clarisse, thought. So this was Madness, then.
He wore the skin of a washed out, middle aged partier forced down a sober street, decked in leopard print, and centuries old glitter stains. Purple crescents curved beneath his eyes, and a grizzled mane of curls framed a drink abused face.
But Clarisse could feel the divinity wrapped tight against his bones.
Could taste the wine like blood on her tongue, a laughing haze as if she was spinning herself in frenzied circles in a moonlit clearing. The sweet, violent edge of ecstasy and insanity as is pulled the seams of her mind apart.
Danger, the old parts of her whispered. Never dance with men like him.
(Another part of her wondered if he could see the emerald flames burning under her skin.)
“Oh look, another one,” he sighed, sipping his soda like he wasn’t eying her subtly.
“Yes, this is Clarisse La Rue, Mr. D,” Chiron explained, pulling out a chair for Hedge. “She’s just arrived.”
Clarisse fought her sneer, both at someone else giving out her n-a–m-e, and for the farce of pretending the god of wine didn’t already know she’d stepped foot in his territory.
Mr. D’s lip twitched, as if reading her sneer anyways, and finding it cute.
A toothless tiger cub.
(The war in Clarisse’s veins boiled, even as her father’s laugh boomed in her mind)
“Are you planning on sitting, La Who?” Mr. D grunted, finally looking at her full on.
And, ah, she should be offended, shouldn’t she?
And yet…
She did not give him her n-a-m-e to use, and names have power here.
So he didn’t use it.
Clarisse gave him a sharp nod, huffing a breath as she climbed onto the rickety chair. It was clearly built for full grown demigods if she was struggling.
“I only know black jack, poker, and go fish,” she muttered, staring at the cards.
The god’s dark brow twitched in interest, and his hand hovered over the deck like a dealer at a casino.
“A little young to gamble, no?” He mused.
Clarisse shrugged, letting her gaze wander to the table. It had clearly been stabbed.
Someone had tried to cauterize the wound, and maybe stitch it with, like? Bronze thread? Demigods must be weird, if that’s what they were doing with their free time.
Her rings were made of that same bronze though, and she’d always admired the sheen.
No matter the level of teenaged idiocy it took to try to stitch a fucking table back together.
“Fine, we’ll play poker,” Mr. D huffed, sliding her two cards, and ignoring Chiron’s glower. “They said you’re from Arizona, so I’m assuming it’s hold 'em’ for you, no?”
Clarisse nodded, and swiped her cards up with probably too much ease for an eight year old.
She grew up on an army base, okay? There was only so much she could do before boredom sent her out of her skin.
“Get used to the caveman speak,” Hedge muttered, bleating angrily as he looked at his cards. “Only uses full sentences if it’s a threat, I swear.”
And that.
Well.
Clarisse couldn’t help the giggle that rasped out of her throat, all dying soldiers and nickering war horses. She wasn’t very talkative in this life, was she?
Hah, she hadn’t even noticed.
“Figures,” Mr. D sighed, even as he flipped the flop, not bothered enough to stop playing. “Call.”
Chiron folded respectfully, not even waiting for the fucking turn like a sensible person, what the fuck. Clarisse was almost scandalized, and didn’t bother hiding it as she kept her cards pressed against her chest.
Hedge cackled, throwing a few bronze coins on the table as he watched the horror line her face.
“Raise,” he laughed, smug and amused.
Like whatever those fucked up coins were supposed to be were meant to scare her, or something.
Clarisse sneered, a hand slipping into her shorts pocket to toss a few dollars onto the table. “Fucking bet, goat dick,” she grinned.
“There’s still two cards to flip,” Mr. D reminded them, something old and wry in his tone, even as something alive flickered behind his eyes.
“Is that you folding, Lord of Madness?” Clarisse taunted, sharp teeth bared in a feral grin.
“Ha!” He barked, meeting the bet, and flipping the next card. Chiron sighed in his chair, looking like he regretted every decision that landed him there.
They went around, and around again, until the pool had ten dollars, five pieces of gum, and twenty of those weird little coins. Chiron called them Drachmas at some point, Clarisse vaguely remembered.
Mr. D was definitely getting a little high on their absolute loose cannon, gamble happy playing styles, but Clarisse sure as shit wasn’t going to call him on it.
She did not win, and neither did Hedge.
She missed it by a suit, and considering she was playing against the god of ecstasy, wine, and parties, she was perfectly fine with the narrow loss.
She either really won, or really lost with how unafraid she was of risk in this stupid game, but honestly?
Ten dollars and some gum versus the fact that the god overseeing her new home was looking at her with a slightly warmer — if vaguely terrifying — gleam in his insane eyes.
Well, she thought her gamble worked out pretty well, at the end of the day.
“Are you sure you’re of War, girl?” The god demanded, hand curling possessively over his winnings.
His skin was failing.
Clarisse could see glimpses of a blurry faced, wild beauty beneath his veneer.
She thought of bloody fields, and the ring of steel against steel against skin. The scream of vultures circling, and the stench of carrion corpses — her veins boiling with emerald flames, wild and raging and fierce.
“Yeah,” she said grimly, nails digging crescents into her calloused palms. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
—————
Clarisse La Rue was claimed very benignly for any god except Ares.
She performed no great feats of glory, and faced no bloody trials visible to the campers.
No gore coated her form, no violence sang in her blood, and no war danced on her tongue as she spit fiery venom.
Clarisse La Rue simply went up to the brazier at dinner the night she arrived, having been led to the dining pavilion with the Hermes Cabin.
She ambled up to the brazier, tall and muscled for her age, sure, but she was a demigod — they were all a bit statuesque.
The fattest, juiciest pieces of her chicken went into the flames, and she let her bladed eyes close as she thought of gentle, viscera coated, warmongering hands.
Thank you for your aid, Lord Ares. Not bad for a violent, arrogant, foolish Papa.
She was going to drop a few grapes in for Mr. D, but she was startled out of the feeling of home by a pavilion full of gasps.
Clarisse cracked an eye, annoyed at the interruption of her time with motor oil, tobacco, and blackened pyres.
And that.
What?
“All hail Clarisse La Rue,” Chiron declared, solemn and grave as he bowed, a closed fist over his heart. Everyone save the god of wine was kneeling towards her, cast in a crimson, miasmic glow. “Daughter of the War God, Ares of Bloodshed, Bloodlust, and Violence.”
Huh, Clarisse mused, tilting her head to observe the ruthless helm-spear-boar combination floating above her head. There was war in her blood, and her father’s hands on her shoulders — his smile next to her ear as surveyed her campmates.
How possessive.
Her father laughed and laughed.
The favour of a god is no small matter, after all. War brands all of its most loved in terrible, gruesome ways. Glory and gore go hand in hand.
It’s why she was a pacifist.
Clarisse sighed, resigned, and shuffled over to cabin five, knowing damn well the claiming mark wouldn’t fade for a good while yet.
Another god had dared question her origins, after all.
This was going to take quite some time.