perhaps when one becomes too familiar with war,
they forget that peace exists.
[ book one -- storming universe ]
[ Sierra Machisse -- book one ]
[ sea of monsters -- titan's curse ]
{ 03 / 29 / 2020 -- ? }
( Percy Jackson x Female OC )
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IF IT HAD BEEN A MOVIE, MAYBE SOMEONE WOULD HAVE CAUGHT HER. A dashing hero would have charged forward and carried her off into the sunset as the mountain exploded behind them. She remembered watching movies like that with her mom. Curled up on the couch under a thousand blankets. It used to be when she felt closest to her mother, and every year on her birthday, without fail, they'd watch Brave, the Disney movie while they ate the cake they inevitably ran to the store to by as her mom would always fail at baking their own. So maybe if she'd been in one of those movies, or maybe if life had been a little kinder, someone would have caught her.
Sierra wouldn't have made hard impact with the sand. She wouldn't have tried to land on her own two feet, and as a byproduct screamed out with the sheer pain of feeling her left knee snap out of its socket and her ankle shatter.
As it was, Sierra was so accustomed to pain, she didn't even pass out. She just lay on the sand groaning and blinking up at the sky biting back to urge to cry. She didn't cry, ever. She'd simultaneously broken half her rib cage and slipped a disk in her spine once and hadn't even shed a tear. Sierra Machisse does not cry.
So she didn't, she just stared straight up at the sun blazing above her and wondered why her bones seemed to like breaking so much.
"Sierra!" Percy dropped to kneel beside her, and then nearly threw up when he saw the direction her foot was bent. She managed to force herself to sit up, Percy tried to help but she was already upright by the time he looked away from the horror show of her ankle.
Sierra gritted her teeth tightly, gripped her foot, and took a deep breath in. The resounding crack of realignment echoed over the beach.
"Oh gods," Percy gave groan of his own and looked away, now looking like he was genuinely about to loose his guinea pig kibble on the sand.
"You're a freaking menace, Jackson," Sierra muttered, "a fucking tropical storm or some shit."
"And you aren't?" Clarisse rejoined them on the beach along with Andy and Grover. Apparently the boat had fully sunk. "Ankle?" Clarisse asked, kneeling down to study the damage.
"Popped back, it's the knee," Clarisse nodded, and gripped her calf, watching Sierra and waiting, she made a small groan in the back of her throat at the contact but forced a sharp breath out, then in, and nodded. Another crack rolled over the beach, mixed with a screamed "motherfucker!" From Sierra and a yelp as Grover sat down beside her just in time to get punched from how hard she flinched. "I hate you," Sierra stated firmly, and Clarisse stood with a smirk. Annabeth dropped down in a heap on the sand and slipped the fleece off her shoulders, dropping it on Sierra's leg. She tried to shove it back but the blonde shook her head.
"I'm all healed, you're not," she let her put it over her injured leg and tilted her head back to look at the sun above them.
"How are we going to get back?" Andy asked, voicing what they were all wondering.
"We can't summon another ship so soon after the last," Clarisse spoke up, which was not exactly a mood lifter.
"Ask Dad," Tyson voiced, and Percy and Andy both looked at each other in mild discomfort. Sierra understood that, Poseidon had guided Tyson to camp, given him a hippocampus friend who saved his life, and over all just seemed to reply to Tyson more often. Never mind that Percy and Andy had nearly lost their mom, as far as Sierra knew Andy's ADHD was no bad she couldn't even go to school, and they'd both died about a million times over the last year.
The three Poseidon kids moved down the beach, clearly not wanting to have the 'you're the favorite child' discussion in front of an audience.
"Nice move, with the tree," Clarisse commented, and Sierra nodded, her eyes still focussed on Percy where he seemed deep in conversation.
"strategy, war plans, that's always been your forte Sierra" Her father had seemed so sure. If she was being honest, Sierra had never really understood why she seemed so strategy driven. Ares wasn't the god of battle strategy, that was Athena. Ares was the god of untamed war, violence, rage, uncontrolled and volatile with no really reasoning. Sierra had never really been able to enter a fight and just, fight. She'd always felt the need to plan out how to win, it was how she beat twenty year olds when she was barely reaching double digits in her own age.
Sierra turned back to her sister, finding her looking wide eyed down at her outstretched legs. Apparently the fleece's magic made people tired because Annabeth was out cold, her head resting on Clarisse's legs and Sierra's sister looked so uncomfortable it was comical.
"Oh, yes!" Sierra turned to find the three Poseidon kids up to their knees in the water, still completely dry, and Andy jumping up and down and whooping as four lines appeared in the surf racing towards them.
"Pick up your girlfriend La Rue, our ride's here," Clarisse glowered at her sister but did shake Annabeth's shoulders and then help the blonde to stand and walk to the surf. Sierra was about to pull herself up, or try, when a hand grabbed her shoulder and forced her down. Percy knelt down in front of her.
"Nope," he said, "you just broke pretty much everything. I'm helping you," Sierra would have loved to argue, but she couldn't really. So she let Percy slip an arm around her waist and haul her to her feet, letting out a small noise of pain as her ankle and knee screamed at her. She gripped the fleece with the hand not around Percy's shoulders for support and let the son of Poseidon help her sort of walk, mostly shuffle towards the hippocampi.
He helped her on first, before climbing on behind her, a strategic move she knew because now he could make sure she didn't fall off cause of her weak limb. Clarisse did the same to support Annabeth and then Grover and Andy climbed on their own. Andy was practically vibrating with excitement despite having already ridden a hippocampus earlier in the quest and Tyson was hugging his own hippocampus and muttering something about rainbows.
The fish horses kicked, or rather flipped up water as they started riding away from Polyphemus' island and Sierra felt the ceaseless tension in her shoulders ebb the smallest bit as they distanced themselves.
"You should have killed him," Sierra spoke up after a few minutes, and could feel Percy tense behind her. "I think I figured it out, why my dad asked me to protect you. You're a good fighter Percy, that's not your problem, it's you unwillingness to actually do what you need to. He wasn't just gonna let us go, and Luke won't just turn good again. When you come face to face with him, you can't hesitate, cause he won't."
They went in silence after that, and Sierra didn't try and force him to talk. He knew she was right, just like she did, they didn't need to enforce it. She doubted he'd actually change, his stubborn optimism was a personality trait that wouldn't be easy to shake, so Sierra wouldn't try. She did know it was going to make her job more difficult, if at every turn Percy seemed to be trying to get himself killed by believing in people who weren't worth it, but she also had a feeling that his optimism might just save them in the end. After all, her pessimism had destroyed her, maybe having the opposite view, might just do the opposite for him.
