Chapter 22

Clarisse.

She sat on a sandy rock, tying her boot back up after retrieving her hidden dagger. Her leg had stopped bleeding due to half of her cargo pants she had sacrificed to tie around it tightly. She had set Kayla down on the floor, letting her use the soggy backpack for a pillow. “That ambrosia kicking in?” She asked, glancing up through her lashes.

“Yeah, I think.” Kayla replied, gazing up at the swaying palm trees above. They had made it to some deserted tropical island, from what Clarisse could tell. Once they’d recovered a little, she planned for both of them to journey through the mountains and see what exactly was here.

“Atleast your dagger is still in its holster, huh?” She tried to spark up a meaningless conversation, receiving nothing in reply. “Hello? I’m not talking to anyone else, Kayla,”

Clarisse heard the crickets chirping. “Hey!” She kicked a pile of sand at her, giving her a dumbfounded look.

“Huh? What? There was no need for that, what is your problem?” Kayla whined as the sand was thrown at her, making a sound of disgust.

“I was talking to you.”

The girl hummed, looking up in thought. “Okay, I’m waiting. What?”

“I- oh my… nothing, I just said atleast you have your dagger.”

“Dagger? Yeah, i have my dagger.” She huffed, putting an arm over her eyes.

“Yeah, I know. Dumbass. Try standing up.” All of ten seconds passed with no response. “Kayla!”

She jolted, covering her right ear and slowly sitting up. “What?”

“What is wrong with you?” Clarisse stood up and stormed over, peering around her as she hovered above. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes… you’re right above me.”

Clarisse huffed, crouching down. “Which ear?”

Kayla went quiet. She had heard this time, ofcourse. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, turning her head to the side slowly and tilting it back. “It really hurts, and I can’t hear anything. Might be water stuck-“

“It’s from the sounds, on the ship. The roaring and screaming.” Clarisse butted in, moving her hair out of the way and leaning closer. “You can’t hear anything? At all?”

“What are you saying? I can feel your breath, what the hell are you doing so close?”

She pulled away, huffing. “Directing my voice into your shitty ear, dimwit.” She spoke loudly. “Burst eardrum doesn’t cause full hearing loss, not usually.” If she could have been bothered, she would have tried to ask questions to get a full answer, but she couldn’t be bothered with raising her voice to have Kayla answer every question with a ten seconds delayed response.

Kayla turned her head back towards Clarisse, who backed her face up more. “Come on,” She tapped her knee. “Up, I wanna see if that ambrosia has helped your ribs any.”

Clarisse helped her up with both hands, steadying her awkwardly with both hands on her upper waist. She huffed and brushed them on her cargos after taking her hands off, like Kayla had given her some sort of Kayla-germs. “Okay, get your wings out too.”

Her wings sprouted out from nowhere, making Clarisse shake her head in another look of confusion, despite seeing it happen many times.

“I mean, they’re still sore, but i can walk now.” Kayla nodded, rubbing her ribs gently. Clarisse nodded and walked infront to snap a tree branch off, using some smart purposeful move to make the end deathly pointy. “Okay, good. Let’s go.”

…

It didn’t take them long to figure out where they were.

Bingo. Boom. Bullseye, every victory word Clarisse could think of.

They were on Polyphemus’ island. In the very distance atop a hill, something shined gold, like a mirror was being reflected at the sun and they were seeing it’s shine. But no, it was very obvious with the way it hung over the only tree on that specific mountain. Underneath it, the mountains were covered in small caves. One bery specific, somewhat larger one had a boulder over it.

Sheep grazed the grass of the island, to say it was tropical- there was alot of healthy, green grass. “Atleast Luke hasn’t gotten to it yet.” Kayla mumbled, walking at a slow pace just behind Clarisse.

“I suppose,” She replied, swatting a bush away with her makeshift spear. “Where’s the cyclops at though? And why are those sheep looking at us weirdly?”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

Clarisse rolled her eyes for the millionth time, pausing to look around as she took in the sheep. They varied in sizes. Not normally. Not like, baby sheep and adult sheep sizes. They all looked the same, yet some were tiny, like Chihuahuas. And others looked as big as great Danes. It was uncanny, especially how they seemed to acknowledge her. Kayla bumped into her shoulder. “Come on,” Clarisse mumbled, tapping her wrist. “Keep moving, up that hill.”

“Why are those sheep looking at us weirdly?” Kayla asked, causing Clarisse to groan, pushing her back mildly rough. “I just said that! Atleast you see it.”

“Well, yeah, they look… oddly senient and aware. Stop being mad, dude, I cannot help my burst eardrum.”

No Burst eardrum is that bad, Clarisse whined in her head, going thin-lipped.

“Didn’t Annabeth say something about sheep in that survivors diary? The one she read back to back about fiteen times in ten minutes on the ship?” Kayla asked, padding forward to walk besides her.

“Sheep? I though that was about those flesh eating animals. Don’t see any of those, these are just sheep.” She reclined her head into her neck in confusion.

“I thought the flesh eating animals were sheep.”

“No, they were some hairless animal, with fangs. That diary said they looked like sheep.”

“Skinned animal, Clarisse. As in- shaved wool? Like, maybe they were freshly shaved, hello?”

Oh. Well, maybe that was wrong. She hadn’t thought about the fact a “hairless animal” could have quite possibly been a very naked sheep. “Stop… theorising, Kayla.”

Kayla groaned, looking up at the sky. Clarisse ignored her. She shook her head in dissaproval and- hang on, was that a deer? Kayla walked right into her shoulder with an ‘oof.’

A deer trampled delicately into the grassy valley, minding its own business with no regards for anything. The sheep around turned their divided attention completely onto the deer. They all bleated around the same time, and in the blink of an eye- raced towards it. A flurry of fluff and grass was thrown up in the air in the crowd around the deer. Like when rugby players form a ruck to compete for the ball. Ten seconds flat, then the sheep started to back up, going back to grazing and bleating happily. Where the deer was once stood, now lay a pile of squeaky clean white bones.

Clarisse’s swallow sounded almost comical. “Let’s… Let’s go,” Clarisse grasped Kayla’s arm, pulling her along. “Now.”

It was like the sheep could sense fear. As soon as they saw the two girls had witnessed such a thing, they started their war-cry of bleats again. Clarisse and Kayla wasted no time in becoming track-stars.

“RUN FASTER!” Kayla yelled, shrieking as Clarisse lacked behind with her leg. As if Kayla was much further infront. She wasn’t.

The ground below them started to move. Assuming the sheep were making that racket, Clarisse told herself she would rather die from bleeding out with a reopened wound than being eaten by killer sheep. “WINGS! USE YOUR WINGS!” She screamed, hopping over a log. Kayla had used that log to gain flight in the air, yet had to make a giant U-turn with the lack of experience and the size of her wings. She pushed herself up on a giant rock, didn’t stop printing, then jumped off as if she trusted Kayla with her entire living being. Come on. She had seen the girl pull off quite a few things with her Thanatos powers before.

Luckily, Kayla caught her- only with one hand. It was short lived victory. With her broken ribs and Clarisse’s weight, Kayla couldn’t pull them up very far in the air. Her hand slipped from Kayla’s, yet she could have sworn she was holding on tight, why hadn’t Kayla come down with her? No, it was ragged from Kayla’s. Suddenly, Clarisse was bundled up like a present in a gift sack for Christmas day. Except the one eyed, ten foot, ugly bearded cyclops was not Santa.

“Food!” He bellowed. “I want the bird!” The cyclops stared at Clarisse for a second through the rope sack, a disgruntled look on his face. Kayla had fallen down onto the ground with shock and pain, shaking her head in fear. “Put her down! Not food! We’re-“

“Wings would taste yummy plucked and fried! Like chicken! Polyphemus hasn’t had chicken in a long time!” He yelled, starting to stomp towards Kayla. Clarisse tried to kick him through the sack, get to his eye and poke it, but it was no use.

Kayla let out a squeaky yelp, scurrying up onto her feet and starting to run again. She flapped her wings, stumbled, then took of in the air clumsily, flying into the forest of tropical trees.

“Sheep must find Polyphemus’ chicken wings!” He ordered the sheep. “And you will make good dessert with Strawberries.”

Clarisse had never said so many peofanities in her life up until then.

…

Kayla.

Kayla found herself back at square one. Infact, screw that, less that square one. More like, square minus ten. Considering she was back in pain and had no Clarisse now, either. She sat against the life boat on the beach, groaning and gasping for breath. Flying with wings when you had recovering ribs and your chest was trying to adjust to having wings was not ever something Kayla wanted to do again.

She had panicked. Maybe if she had focused, she could have tried to drain Polyphemus’ life force. Would she have held up after trying to drain something so big as to escape though? But what if Clarisse was dead now? Was he already cooking her? Kayla hoped not. She didn’t want to see Clarisse burned to a crisp with cyclops-sized chunks taken out of her, nevermind think of it. Kayla did not want to witness Clarisse-kebabs. Not today.

She cursed. Clarisse had that goddamn ambrosia sealed tight in her pocket. Kayla was screwed.

“Get up, Kay,” She prompted, seething harshly. She pushed herself up with a grunt after getting rid of her wings to reduce weight. No doubt those sheep were coming to trample her to death.

She pushed the life boat back into the water, grabbing the metal pole Clarisse had used to push them at times, and hopped in. Maybe she could make her way around the island.

“Kayla?” Kayla turned her head from where she had collapsed in the life boat, confused. She bet half her life it was a Cyclops tricking her.

But no- when she lifted her head up with a whale sound full of pain, she eas met with a… pirate ship? This is getting ridiculous,  how had she not heard that? A few yards infront. Inside… Percy and Annabeth?

“You guys- are alive?” She spoke in a strained voice, groaning.

Annabeth and Percy were quick to move boats after throwing an anchor over the sude, instead transferring whatever they had and themselves onto her boat to save the effort of having her move. “I have never been so happy to see you, Jackson. In my life.”

“Uh. Thanks.”

“Percy, your bag, we need ambrosia and bandages, now. We leave the Queen Anne’s Revenge here, and we’ll come back around for it after, okay? This boat it probably better to get closer to the cliff sides anyway.” Percy shook himself out of his confused state, rummaging through his bag for supplies. He paused when noting the other bag on the boat. “Wait, those are Tyson’s glasses… and that’s his bag!”

“Percy!” Annabeth ordered, snatching the bandages up quickly. On her shoulder, Kayla sported a deep, bloody gash, a bit of palm-tree wood sticking out of it gruesomely. “I think I hit my arm when I tried to come down from flying.”

“Why were you flying around Polyphemus’ island?” Percy asked, eyeing Tyson’s bag.

“Sheep, and… him, and… he has Clarisse. She’s gonna be eaten, and he wanted my wings, and-“

“Okay, okay,” Annabeth pulled the big splinter of wood out of Kayla’s shoulder, starting to wrap it up efficiently. “Percy, steer the boat around so the boat isn’t seen, we’ll have to climb up. You can stay in the boat, okay?” Annabeth shoved some dried ambrosia into Kayla’s mouth after she had evolved onto heaving for breath from her ribs. Unfortunately, nothing could reslly be done for those ribs except for ambrosia.

“I’m coming.” Kayla argued, shaking her head. “Like Hades you are, no way.”

“I can still help, and that’s final. I just watched Clarisse get stuffed into a Cyclops bag and be told she was food, and I don’t want her dying because there wasn’t enough help,” Kayla finalised, trying to control her breathing. “This ambrosia will kick in fast, I’ll just climb up last and take my time.”

Please vote!!

QUESTION
How do some of you feel about a Clarisse x fem OC ff that is based on less war and more of an AU on if camp was all mainly happy and jolly but mixed in with a bittersweet plot that has faint hints of nostalgia?? There would be fluff from the very start. Like it would have a genuine plot but the main genre would be ROMANCE and not lots of serious adventure. Does that make sense? I wrote the first chapter today but it won’t be out for a while.
If yes, I can post some sort of blurb that I already have perfectly written out.