Chapter Text
Father.
The word is the first thing that curls onto her tongue. Later, it burrows into her ribs and lands unceremoniously on her shoulders.
Clarisse is not one to do ceremonies.
Her love is the kind etched into the flesh, no ceremony needed for the faceless man who sharpens his claws on her mother's soul even after years of absence.
Her mother. Gloria. A whisper of a woman, a warm but insipid mist that loves her with a calmness she cannot emulate.
Clarisse is eight years old and difficult. Terrible, sometimes, something ferocious that her mother shouldn't be able to conceive. She screams and kicks and bares her teeth, protesting against something that hasn't finished being spat out yet. Her mother tries. She floats around her like a leaf in the half-dry creek near home. She kneels before her, offers the first adoration Clarisse knows, the first prayer, perhaps. She begs.
"You need to stop. You need to breathe," Gloria said, trying to tame the beast beneath her skin, pressing her daughter's face with fearful devotion.
Clarisse's rage was a burning arrow piercing her flesh. But, amidst that crimson breath of her daughter's existence, a remnant of her own soul had squeezed itself through her bones; Clarisse looked at her with her own eyes, sometimes, and tried to contain the beast. It escaped in her hands, always strong, in her face, a beauty of steel, in her hair, beautiful and desperate like herself. She tried.
Clarisse was beautiful, and Gloria would always hate Ares for that curse. For that want.
Most of the time, Clarisse wanted a lot. She wanted glances, she wanted applause, she wanted her father.
Gloria was the one who had stayed. Stayed and raised that insolent, angry little creature, an ironic gift after the encounter at the bar where she worked security. Gloria was the one who carried Clarisse's undisguised anger around, she was the one who sat in school meetings, and she was the one who had to soothe Clarisse's bloody nightmares.
But Clarisse always wanted her father.
Her destructive bloodthirsty father.
Gloria watched her from afar, fascinated and fearful of that kind of power walking the streets of Arizona. Looking for fights. Disrupting classes. Making the air vibrate in an unforgivable way. Hugging too tightly. Crying way too beastly.
Clarisse was a lot.
She loved Gloria. With her usual desperation. With awkward silence or ostentatious gifts, with a bone crushing attachment and soul wreking screams.
But Clarisse also hated Gloria for her complacency with her mistakes.
Reading was difficult, and having friends was difficult, and existing was difficult when no one else saw what she saw, and Gloria didn't seem moved enough by her failures. Her mother saw her weaknesses and let it be, let her stumble and hurt and destroy on her own, perhaps confident that she could handle it, perhaps hating her, perhaps knowing that she didn't belong. Never yelling.
Clarisse, however, always yelled out for her father, always called him with a tug on the fragile rope that she felt bound them.
"Don't call. He might answer. Blood always answers"; was the sentence her mother would proclaim whenever she slammed doors.
At eight, the creature at their door is the last straw.
Gloria, hands violent in her terror, hands Clarisse a golden knife from the top of the cupboard. Clarisse takes it. She plunges the knife into the thing's back.
No tears, no reluctance, no disgust. It's not like tests and teachers. It's instinct. She's made for this. She kills and then she thinks.
"It’s okay ," she says at the end, trying to calm her mother, who sees her shining with the glow of destruction, always her father's daughter.
"Thank you, princess."
She leaves not as a princess, but as a perfect tribute to war, a gift for an ungrateful father.
A sacrifice, Gloria thinks.
Clarisse is a happy offering. The satyr is kind and she is not mean, too content to need to displace her anger.
Her mother bids her farewell with relief, with a joy she cannot hide.
From the bus window, Clarisse notices. Her heart clenches, but she smiles nonetheless, pressing the knife against her chest.
Her father. That's all that matters. He's taking shape now. Her father will love her, she thinks, her father will accept her, will allow her to make him proud as she knows how, will want to get to know her.
At Camp, Clarisse reflects her father's nameless war for a week.
It's not easy. The place is crowded, messy, too noisy the way she is when something burns. Resentment and grief. Absence. An army destined to entertain cruel forces. A little of their cruelty trickles down to their offspring, who growl at each other from time to time. Clarisse growls louder. Hermes's kids recoil with their empty antics and slender bones and leave her in peace.
She Is claimmed at dinner after pushing a noisy boy.
Ares.
There is a name. There is a God. Greater than all others. One who makes you bleed, one who destroys, one who is her father.
What a father. What siblings.
Siblings with teeth as sharp as hers, hands as strong as hers, and red blood like hers.
A daughter.
Her brothers size her up, shake their heads in disappointment, but go to her anyway. Clarisse is escorted home by her thirteen siblings. There was a fifth girl once, who died two years ago, whose photo remains pasted on the neatly organized wall of the cabin.
Clarisse gets her bed. Amara's bed. With the teddy bear sheet.
Like wolves and generals, the children of Ares look out for one another.
Without many words, her three other sisters help her with the practical side of things. She is still small, the youngest among them. They make her bed, lend her things, braid her wild hair.
Her brothers make room for her. They talk loudly, move loudly, exist loudly.
All the while, her eyes scan the room.
Clarisse sees the world as a battlefield, and, in this one, her sisters are the weak links.
She can't help but notice the way her brothers look at them with... pity, complacency.
It's not easy being a daughter.
It doesn't seem easy for her sisters, who dance a complicated dance of leadership and evasion, all at the same time. There's an entanglement of shame woven into the very core of Ares' daughters.
Through her own eyes, the reflection in the mirror and the harsh words of her sisters, Clarisse realizes that she is beautiful. This realization leaves a mark, something that penetrates her skin and doesn't go unnoticed. On a few days, it's a blessing. Her skin is radiant, her hard smile is adored, her hair is a crown. Most of the time, it's a punch in the gut, a look of contempt, belittling words masked as affection.
For the daughters of Ares, beauty is a punishment until it can become a weapon.
Clarisse wonders what crime she's paying for every time she hears the whispers of Hermes' kids questioning her father, every time she's ignored, every time she's treated with a particular kind of cruelty. Every time Ares doesn't show up.
So Clarisse, out of necessity and desire, becomes the worst among them. She cultivates a kind of hatred that is quieter than her siblings. More dangerous. Slowly, she grows up, the cruel force around her ever stronger.
At Camp Half-Blood, they don't really hurt each other. They bark without biting. They take pictures and frame them. They bleed and die at the hands of the gods' indifference. They help each other. They cultivate a venomous resentment, a rage inherited from their divine parents. Clarisse grows and growls louder, fights with more hunger, glows with the brilliance of hatred, and she waits. Her companions bleed the blood she spills, and camp knows her iron fist. Clarisse is punished again and again, and she is not kind. She punishes too.
(Clarisse buries two brothers and a sister before meeting her father).
At twelve, she is the glory of Camp.
At twelve, Ares shows up.
"Girl," he says, casually, as he climbs up the hill. Leather jacket, guns slung over his back, a familiar way of walking.
Clarisse, in a panic, kneeling and stumbling over words of adoration, wonders, " Does he know my name? "
A fierce fear settles in her throat. At first, it's the immortality, the vibrating air, the unstable power. The violence. Then, it's her father.
She's a complete mess, a total disaster. Discipline is important in war. But Clarisse didn't put any effort into her hair today, her blouse is stained with chocolate, and her last throw went wide.
"Get up." His voice echoes, once her knees start to ache. Clarisse is terrified, she's desperate, she's furious. She's fascinated.
Ares just stares at her for a long time. Something eternal and terrifying shimmers beneath his eyes. Blood blooms on the grass from time to time. Against her will, her wounds open so he can examine them. Time becomes watery. His eyes burn. She can barely stand it. Clarisse wants to run and wants to scream and wants to slap the face of the father she adored before she knew he was a god.
"It could be worse, little girl," he says finally, almost laughing in a way that confuses her. Her expressions become confused as she tries to imitate his. Suddenly, then, his face hardens again, and Clarisse wants to look away, wants to cover her ears. "From my girls, I expect the best. I don't accept anything less. Don't you dare offer me anything less."
The severity is a ice that Clarisse had never experienced against her skin before.
"Father." That's what she says, with her head down, again.
He won't accept her unless she offers him her best, Clarisse hears and despairs. Ares places a spear in her hand without ceremony and leaves.
She doesn't move for a long time, trapped in attempts to decipher Ares's desires.
That's what she does for the rest of her years.
It's not enough.
Ares appears, eventually, as the years go by. With each new child, an apparition to one of their siblings. A warning. An order. A thousand threats they sense before they hear them.
"You take care of him. Too much trouble already, you calm him down," he says to James, before Mark.
"He needs to toughen up. You're going to help him with that," are his words to Dario about Ellis.
"He's your brother. You're going to make him a soldier," he growls at Clarisse, before Alexander.
Her brothers, with their chocolate skin and bared teeth. Haunting things that imprison the rage of worlds. The hatred of ages runs beneath their skin, always tormented by that restraint of flesh and bone, those rules and those elaborate social conventions that ferocity doesn’t know. They are part burden and part light, Clarisse thinks.
She becomes head counselor of the cabin. Her blessing is the final word that draws peace or spills blood.
Clarisse is adored by her brothers. (She wonders if it's because they know she 's just a daughter).
Her brothers buy paintings of puppies from Apollo’s kids to decorate the window closest to her bed. From the real world, they offer her questionable gifts. Ellis brings her cosmetics, delivered in a carefully sealed bag. Mark helps her braid her hair with the skill of his mortal mother.
She receives an awkward cake to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Clarisse grows up.
Then, one day, Percy Jackson breaks her spear. Exposes her terrifying weakness and sets off on a mission before her. Clarisse cries in the bathroom until she calms down from the destruction she causes, falls to her knees in the arena after hours of brutal training that is always a punishment.
Time passes anyway.
Her mother sends letters occasionally, but she always forgets to reply. Clarisse forgets if her mother ever loved her.
Mary rarely appears now that she has finished growing up and feels ready to live without Thalia's protection.
And then, Luke. Who decides to tear the world apart with his fist of resentment. Luke, the same one she used to play cards with and the same one who took care of Annabeth Chase.
Dana is a too resentful of a thing. She leaves with Luke, along with James and Dario, her older brothers. They take too large a part of Clarisse's soul with them, and she roars with a bestial pain as she realizes they’re gone.
Dana, who brought her real-world music. James, who carried her on his back after a victory. Dario, who helped her with her reading.
On the border, on her knees, before dawn, she growls a powerful hatred that awakens Camp.
Wherever they are, her siblings feel her scream in their bones, Clarisse knows. She vows to put an end to Luke's hatred, which is tearing her family apart.
Now, Ares only has one daughter left in Camp. She better be cruel, she better be beastly. In those times, Ares always appears, delivering his brothers, burdens and light, directly to her.
Viktor and Sherman and Phobo and Cristian and Teo. Children and children left at her feet. Ten-year-old Kalleo, who bites her and ends up kicked into a corner. Thirteen-year-old Aidan, who tries to confront her and ends up crying in the bathroom.
Clarisse, who tries to keep them alive, who treats wounds, who pushes them and yell at them and watches out for fevers and colds.
Clarisse, who knows that her siblings are sacrifices, children she needs to pack into warrior bundles.
Clarisse, who only met Ares when she was twelve, but who has heard her brothers recount their encounters with him since early childhood.
She cries as she cleans a weapon, while plotting a dirty trick. She wonders if Ares sees her weakness.
At night, she sits witch her brothers by the door of their cabin, always ready to howl that strange pain out.
"What did he say to you? When I arrived," she whispers to Mark one of those nights, after the others have left.
Mark doesn't ask who. The children of Ares only have one hero.
"That you were a little girl," is the whispered reply, few words to convey the abysmal helplessness that comes with it.
Silence.
They let the wound re-open, once more, neither of them unaccustomed to pain. For Mark, Clarisse knows it's the scarcity of words, the indifference. For Clarisse, it's the word, the tone. She lowers her head.
A little girl.
It's not easy being a daughter. All her brothers know that.
Mark, who arrived the same year as her, knows Ares's casual cruelty. He knows the confusion of emotions he evokes, the dances they all dance for any glance from him. He knows the tone he uses with Clarisse, something too cruel to be love, but too gentle to be detachment.
A little girl.
Mark looks closely, even in the dark. He sees his sister, with her cruel words and trembling hands, her violent love and boundless rage. His sister, who led them before she lost all her baby teeth, who throws blankets to the new children, who is attached to them by a bond too strong to bear, at times.
"That we were supposed to take care of you."
It's not a band-aid. They don't do anything that way. Clarisse lets out a hollow laugh, shaking her head to ward off tears. Mark gets up.
"He doesn't like you any less," he declares. There is detachment, there is disbelief, there is an uncommitted anger.
There's a "he doesn't like any of us" that Clarisse hears.
She wonders. If Mark would leave her like Dana did, if he would go with Luke, if he would further inflame that wound, if he would bring down the heavens for the denied love of Ares.
"It's just us. We like you, you little shit, stop dwelling on this shit. We like each other. Get a grip, Clarisse. This is the only loyalty you should be worried about."
Things end on a bitter note, as always.
"Shut up."
"Go to sleep. Or tomorrow I'll kick your ass in training," Mark says from the doorway.
Clarisse breaks bones and breaks her soul, every day.
Something revolting boils just beneath her skin, and suddenly Clarisse is mortified by the way she thinks about Chris Rodriguez, from Hermes.
Chris, who welcomes the new children. Chris, who looks at her without flinching, who listens to her without expecting anything from her. Chris, who smiles when he knows she's cheating at card games.
"I'll let it slide" his soft voice would say.
He always let it slide. If Clarisse was having a bad day or if she knocked on his door looking for junk food, Chris never seemed bothered. His words had that elusive charm of Hermes’s kids, but they were still... gentle. In a way she rarely saw.
He watched her silently, almost all the time, without much fear of her reaction. During training sessions, card games and campfires. Sometimes, she could feel the subtle agitation of his presence, the blood of Hermes coursing through his veins, making everything fast-paced, making everything seem funny.
So, Chris Rodriguez is the only name on Clarisse's mind for some time.
Clarisse's attention, however, is not serene. She doesn't do anything like that. Her attention is indecent, excessive, sometimes bordering on obsession, declaring her fixation all the time. Her eyes following him, her venomous words in a different tone, their skin always touching; for the children of Aphrodite, the whole thing is a spectacle.
"From what I know, you're definitely his type," Silena says one night in line for the offerings. "But I think you're everyone's type."
"What are you talking about, Beauregard?" is her mechanical reply, her shoulder already lightly brushing against Silena's, who follows her to a bench. "The question is rhetorical. Because I don’t give a fuck about the answer."
"A great looking couple, for sure. Classic beauty. With his jawline and that hair of yours... The babies would be stunning."
And the thing with Silena is that Clarisse stares at her a lot, too, some soft voice warns her. Maybe it's the gentle Aphrodite’s magic. Maybe something else. Not exactly like it is with Chris, but. Something vague and pink and shapeless in the corner of her mind. Silena runs a hand through her hair. Clarisse pushes her arm away, moves back on the bench.
"Back off with the cheap magic. And with this stupid ass talk."
"I'm sorry. My whole cabin is freaking out. Nobody had the courage to tell you, but everyone is kinda rooting for you guys."
"Yeah? Are you?"
Clarisse doesn't know why those words came out in that tone. Often, she doesn't know the reasons for her actions, which doesn't particularly bother her. This time, an embarrassment clings to her body. She stands up, half expecting Silena to be intimidated and prepare for an argument, half preparing to run.
Silena almost never gives up her territory; with her soft face, her gentle curves, her easy gentleness, she remains seated. Silena, whom she has known forever. Silena, who changes her appearance a lot, but who always has something strange in her eyes.
She smiles. Clarisse moves even further away.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"
"Like I said, my love, a beautiful couple. I'd say that about you with anyone, though. With a face like that, the other person can relax and be ugly in peace. Aphrodite wouldn't even care. The beauty tax is paid."
Clarisse remains silent. Silena always has a different way of speaking, as if she sees into her inappropriate beauty and doesn't notice how out of place it is.
So, there's Chris, and there's Silena, and there's a mission that Percy Jackson tries to ruin.