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Manon knows why they’re in this formation.
Every time, it’s the same. Dani is beside her, Megan and Lara flanking the other side, Yoonchae and Sophia forming the rear. It’s a near-impenetrable triple-duo arrangement, one that looks perfectly strategic on the blackboard they had back at the red team base.
It’s also just a formation that happens to feel really humiliating for her in practice.
Dani is next to her because Manon needs the help. No one says it out loud, but everyone knows: Dani is competitive, ruthless, and frighteningly good at everything capture-the-flag related. And when under the blessing of Nike, Dani can hold a single line of defense against an entire cabin by herself.
Manon, on the other hand, is certain that even with the blessing of all the major gods, she would still find a way to fall behind.
Dani never makes her feel bad about it, which somehow makes it worse. None of them do, really. She loves the girls, they’re possibly her best friends at camp, and she’s lucky that they get along so well and never judge her for her lack of fighting abilities, despite the fact that she’s the oldest of all of them. Instead, Dani always shouts encouragement over her shoulder, Sophia gives her pointers about her stances without condescension, and Megan’s always ready to step in front of blows meant for Manon without hesitation. And at the moment, Manon watches at the others establish a line of defense around her: Dani alone is fending off four campers at once — Hephaestus kids, but still relentless — while still glancing back to make sure Manon hasn’t been overrun by the single preteen Nemesis kid that she’s struggling to keep at bay.
She would feel less exposed if the others were struggling too, but Lara moves like she was built for this. The younger girl has become their group’s de facto healer — she slaps on bandages when needed, passes ambrosia every time someone’s fighting results in an injury, and still lands a couple of well-place hits on their attackers when necessary, voice calm even as her partner — Megan, who seems to summon her dad’s blessing every time she strikes with her double broadswords, and who is currently performing her second Spartan kick in the last ten minutes with perfect form, probably in part due to that blessing of Ares — throws herself into danger with her self-sacrificing fighting technique.
Even Yoonchae, who’s younger than all of them and who seems to break out in sweat every time she has to lift her woldo polearm for longer than ten minutes, is contributing to their cause. While Sophia guards their group’s rear, summoning up half a whirlwind with her winged shoes and combinations of parries and strikes, Yoonchae swings her woldo around until she’s tired, and then summons half a dozen undead warriors from the forest floor, skeletal hands clawing up to intercept enemies before they get close.
Manon has charmspeak. And, like, on a good day.
It’s just really embarrassing that she finds out today is not one of those good days when she’s trying to charmspeak by yelling “stop!” to a preteen who’s about to whoop her ass.
Sophia darts past her, fast enough that Manon only catches fragments: there’s wind, motion, a flash of her winged shoes. Manon ducks as the Nemesis kid in front of her swings at her with a club, and she turns just in time to catch the irritated look on Sophia’s face. Someone must have yanked one of her shoes off mid-flight, because Sophia is losing height, falling down — and she lands weirdly, stumbles, and lets loose more Greek curses than Manon ever knew existed, all in just a matter of three seconds. Sophia curses again, and Manon feels like she’s witnessing something special — the daughter of Hermes, who’s usually so lax, suddenly furious in a sharp, focused way, all because of a missing shoe. Manon’s not complaining, however; Sophia looks kind of devastatingly beautiful, too, because of it. Manon’s attention is slipping because of it. She’s trying to find the right words to write in her journal later.
Maybe angry and brilliant and entirely out of reach could work.
That brief moment of distraction is all it takes.
Manon doesn’t see the blow coming, and later when she’s in the infirmary, with her siblings fussing over her, she will still hardly even remember what actually happened. All she knows is something hitting her jaw, the ground rushing up to meet her, and her world suddenly and violently jerking sideways. Her helmet hits against the earth, and white light explodes behind her eyes. For a moment, she can’t see or breathe. For another, she can’t remember where she is. And then, the aftermath immediately hits — there’s a sharp ringing noise in her right ear, a pulsing beat on both sides of her head, a painful ache in her left jaw, and a tight feeling in her chest that makes her want to rip her lungs right out.
The momentary shock doesn’t stay for long, though. Dani’s still cornered by the other Hephaestus kids, and Manon closes her eyes for a moment to slow the ringing in her head, but she can feel an arm wrapping around her waist, hauling her up from the ground. Lara’s a few steps behind her somewhere, and Manon can hear her calling at Dani to fall back. When Manon finally is on her feet again and with her eyes open, Megan is looking at her, expression somewhere between concerned and frustrated.
Manon hates that she needs saving.
She also hates that Sophia hasn’t looked back at her once at all, which shouldn’t make any sense at all, except it does.
Somehow, for the rest of the fight — which consists of about another fifteen minutes of Sophia flapping around on one winged shoe, Dani breaking all the machine gadgets the Hephaestus campers have employed against her, Megan accidentally knocking out one of the older campers, and Lara trying to stabilize Yoonchae, who accidentally overused her summoning powers and looks ready to pass out — Manon manages to stay on her feet the entire time.
By the time Dani’s rallies the group enough to start bringing the leftover Hephaestus kids to their makeshift jail at the red team base, which means a fifteen minute walk back to a heavily defended woody area where they’ve put their flag, however, Manon’s head is spinning, and all she feels is a terrible sense of nausea settling into her stomach. Dani’s got the blue team campers in a single file line in front of all of them, and they’re leading the way, with Lara and Yoonchae, who’s also now looking a little less pale and sleepy, following closely behind. Megan and Manon herself are right behind them, and Sophia is supposed to bring up the rear, like always.
They don’t make a bad team, to be honest. They could be a better team, however, if Manon could just learn how to pull her weight and use her charmspeak.
Manon manages to take a few steps forward, following behind Megan, who’s carrying the camper she accidentally knocked out, and she lasts about the length of a chariot before falling to her knees and trying to keep her lunch down.
“Manon?”
An angelic voice seems to have materialized right next to her, and Manon pushes herself up with her arms, looks up, and it’s Sophia standing next to her. She looks great, a little sweaty from the earlier fighting: her hair is still pulled back in a ponytail and her armor perfectly neat, except for a small dent on the lower half. If this were a normal day, Manon would probably say she looks stunning, framed by the backdrop of the sun — there’s also been this rumor that’s been going around, something about how when Sophia arrived at camp, she was carrying the blessing of both Apollo and Athena, yet claimed by Hermes, and Manon’s starting to wonder if her own mother blessed Sophia, too — but all Manon can do it wince as Sophia shifts her weight onto her other foot, and all of a sudden, sunlight pours onto Manon’s face and triggers something in her head that makes it pound. She looks away from the beautiful, kind face that’s now coming closer as its owner also kneels down, a hand reaching out to Manon — Manon, who jerks back, because Sophia’s so close, her hand brushes Manon’s bare arm, between the Celestial bronze armor pieces, because Sophia’s always like that: an attentive leader, a caring friend, a kind soul, and it kills Manon every time, just thinking that she’ll never —
“I’m okay!” Manon summons the words hastily and shakily, brushing Sophia’s hand away, and Sophia stops where she is, hand now suspended midair. “I’m — I’m okay.” This time, it comes out a little steadier. “I just…”
Wish I was better at all this. Wish you weren’t so nice to be all the time. Wish you could see me. Wish you felt the same. Wish I came close to even having a chance.
“Needed a moment,” she manages to get out, after a deep breath. “I just needed a moment.” She takes another deep breath and looks up. Sophia seems hesitant, ready to say something, but she seems to change her mind and fully withdraws her hand in silence instead.
“Okay,” she says, slow and uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Manon says, nodding her head rapidly, which jsut makes her head hurt more. “Yeah, I’m fine. I can get up. By myself, yeah.”
She pushes her palms into the dirt and rises, ignoring the way the ground seems to tilt beneath just one of her boots. For a split second, she catches Sophia’s face again, caught somewhere between concern, confusion, and something like doubt. The look lands harder than the physical blow from the club did; the look feels sharp and humiliating, both at once, and because Manon is also proud, her pride flares stupidly at the other girl’s expression, and she straightens her shoulders on instinct, ready to prove herself to be fine and that she is not a weak link. Her feet feel steadier when she finally stands.
She manages about five steps before the nausea crests — and then she’s veering toward the nearest tree and doubling over, one hand pressed against rough bark. Everything comes up at once, harsh and burning, her body retching with a force that makes her head hurt even more. The sensation is overwhelming enough that her vision blurs with tears for a moment.
Manon reaches up automatically to pull her hair back and keep it out of her face, but her fingers close around empty air.
To her surprise, her hair is already secured, held neatly away from her face. The realization lands a heartbeat later; Sophia is there, closer than Manon realized, one hand steady at the back of her head, and she looks more concerned than doubtful or confused now.
Manon can vaguely hear the other girls’ voice behind them, sharp with alarm. Lara reaches her second later, asking, “What just happened?” and Sophia says, “She just threw up,” while Megan supplements a helpful, “It’s probably because she got hit in the head earlier.”
“Okay,” Sophia says. “Dani, Megan, Yoonchae, you three get the others back to base. Manon — let’s sit you down for a second.” Warm hands guide Manon away from the tree, easing her down to sit on a clear patch of grass, and Manon feels even worse with the fact that she is thinking about whether she wishes to have those hands on her, in a different context, for different reasons.
Once she’s seated, Lara kneels in front of her almost immediately, careful fingers already checking her eyes, her pulse, and the sides of her jaw and neck. The attention makes her chest tighten painfully. She feels useless again, and something like a fraud or a burden. Her stomach is still churning, her head is still throbbing, but now something sharp and aching is also starting to bloom behind her ribs.
“You’re probably concussed, Manon,” Lara says gently, but with certainty. “Sorry, I’d heal you, but I already spent too much energy getting Yoonchae back to normal earlier.”
“It’s okay,” Manon vaguely hears herself saying. “I’m fine.”
She doesn’t get words back the other two, but both of the girls in front of her look at her incredulously before pulling her up and wrapping each of her arms around one of their shoulders. Gentle hands wrap around her waist from both sides, and she shivers involuntarily at the touch, even though separated by a layer of armor and another of cotton cloth. Sophia is on one side of her, and Lara mirrors her on the other, steady and careful, murmuring quiet instructions whenever Manon stumbles. Together, they keep her upright and moving, and they keep her from emptying her stomach again onto the forest floor.
The hike back to base camp is miserable. Every step sends a fresh wave of nausea rolling through her, and her stomach pitches like it’s trying to turn itself inside out. The world won’t stop tilting, and the pounding in her head and jaw has settled into a merciless and unpredictable rhythm. She’s vaguely aware of the fact that she’s probably making small, pathetic noises — half-groans, half-whimpers — that she is absolutely going to be embarrassed about later, assuming she lives long enough to feel embarrassed.
Somehow, they make it back to the temporary infirmatory at the base camp. Manon remembers being lowered onto a cot, the canvas sagging beneath her weight. She remembers the smell of dirt and sweat and strawberries and hand sanitizer, the distant shouts bleeding in from the edges of her awareness. Someone presses something warm and sweet against her lips — ambrosia, probably, since it tastes like those nostalgically delicious brownies that her dad had always baked for her birthdays — but she only manages a small bite before the world swims too hard for her to tolerate more.
Time seems to fracture after that. She drifts in and out of headaches and catches pieces of conversations without context. Someone’s turned the lights down in this infirmary set up, thankfully, but the voices are all so loud and overlapping. The Apollo healers are arguing with her own Aphrodite siblings, and they don’t show any signs of stopping.
“Can’t you give her more? She doesn’t look any better at all — ”
“No more ambrosia — she’s already taken enough, it’s better to wait until tomorrow to see if she needs more — ”
“Girl, have you seen her jaw? That bruise is massive, it’s going to look so bad tomorrow morning — ”
“She needs rest, not people hovering and talking about what she looks like —”
“Well, I’m just trying to make sure she’s not screwed over for tomorrow —”
Manon wants to tell them all to shut up. She wants to tell them she’s fine, that she’s always fine, and that she doesn’t need this many people fussing over her. The effort of forming the thought alone, however, feels exhausting.
“Out, all of you,” Lara’s voice breaks through the other ones around the cot. “All of you being loud is just going to make it worse.” A cool hand presses against her forehead. Manon opens her eyes and immediately closes them, because even with the lights down low in this place, it’s still far too bright for her. It’s Lara, though, that she saw staring down at her.
“Manon?” Lara speaks again, withdrawing her hand now. “Do you think you can drink some water for me?”
Somehow, she recalls nodding, still with her eyes squeezed shut, and then someone’s helping her pulled into a semi-reclined position, and calloused hands are on her unharmed jaw, tilting her head in a direction, and Manon just blindly follows the scent of strawberries and lemons —
Her eyes fly open again, because Sophia’s there supporting her, keeping Manon upright with her own half of a body, and she’s saying, “water, ahh,” like Manon’s a just another camper under her leadership, just another child under her care, and Manon finds that her face suddenly feels very hot, because Sophia’s so close that she can can see the gloss on the other girl’s lips, which somehow miraculously was not disrupted during the fighting earlier. Or maybe it was, and Sophia had reapplied it. Manon’s not sure; she is only sure that Sophia still looks breathtaking, regardless of whatever happened.
“Water, Manon,” Sophia repeats, with a bottle in hand. Lara’s moved across the room, so it’s just the two of them on this side now. “Drink, or else you’re going to regret it.”
“Your lips look red,” Manon says dumbly and immediately regrets it. “Sorry, I don't know why I said that.”
Sophia manages a small laugh at that and says, “I think they got you bad with that hit, Manz,” and Manon both melts a little at the nickname, and her chest hurts a little more now, because this is it. This is all that she’ll ever get from Sophia: friendship and camaraderie. It’s not worth the risk for any more — for all she knows, Sophia is straight, her mother is cruel, and demigods don’t live long enough to have happy families or lives anyways.
But by the gods, she wants, and she wants, so bad, for so long, perhaps ever since Sophia first showed her around camp, when she first introduced herself to Manon and asked Manon how to spell her name so as to make a name tag for the girl. And ever since that day, two years ago, Manon has felt the same. Every time Sophia comes by the Aphrodite cabin for morning cabin checks, she wants; every time they share a lesson on teaching the younger campers how to swim at the lake, she wants; every time she looks over her siblings’s shoulders and across the Pavilion to sees Sophia laughing at the Hermes table, she wants; every time Sophia joins Lara in leading the campfire songs, she wants; and every time Sophia walks past the other more seasoned veterans to be in her group for capture the flag, she wants.
“Manon?” Sophia’s speaking again. “You still with me?”
Manon is considering saying something, but all she has in her is this want, so instead, she takes the bottle from Sophia’s hand, with a demure, “thanks, Sophia,” and drinks the bottle fast. She can feel the other girl’s eyes on her, and she wishes she couldn’t. When Manon hands the now-empty back, her fingers shake despite her best efforts, and she hates that Sophia seems to notice.
Manon blinks hard. The world swims, and suddenly her eyes feel sting and vision blurs, tears gathering without permission. She swallows, jaw tightening — which also still hurts like hell.
“Hey,” Sophia says immediately, concerned lacing her voice. She shifts closer, arm around Manon's back, leaning forward and peeking at Manon’s face. “What’s wrong? Do you want to throw up again?”
Manon shakes her head too quickly, then regrets it as pain spikes behind her eyes again. She lets out a weak, breathy laugh instead.
“No,” she says. “No, I’m — I think my head just… really hurts.” She lifts a hand in a vague gesture toward her temple. “Like, really hurts. Which is probably my fault, because apparently I’m ass at fighting and even worse at charmspeak.” She tries to smile, self-deprecating and practiced. “Taken out with a club — literally supposed to be using charmspeak but yelling ‘stop’ at a twelve-year-old like I’m telling them to stop bullying me or something. What an embarrassing way to go.” She forces a dry laugh at herself.
Sophia frowns, not amused in the way Manon hopes she’ll be. Instead, she looks thoughtful, earnest.
“That’s not fair,” she says, optimistic as always. “I think you did fine out there.”
Manon scoffs softly. “I absolutely did not.”
“You stayed on your feet after getting hit,” Sophia counters. “That counts. Plus, Jax has been at camp for a whole year longer than you. He could probably even give Dani a good spar.”
Manon’s throat tightens. The kindness in Sophia’s voice is so uncomplicated and so sincere, and it makes the pressure behind her eyes worse, not better. She presses her lips together, nodding like she agrees, like that’s enough.
“You’ll get better,” Sophia continues, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ve already been getting better. I can see you trying. That’s, like, half of it already. I believe in you, I really do.”
Manon feels something inside her crack, slow and quiet. She wants to cry harder, wants to fold in on herself and admit that caring is the problem, that caring about Sophia is the problem, but she doesn’t. She just nods again and blinks until the tears spill anyway.
“Sorry,” she says quickly, wiping at her face. “Headache. I’m not — I’m not being weird.”
Sophia doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t push. She just shifts closer again, steady and warm, like she always is. “It’s okay,” she says seriously and softly, looking at Manon with those expressive eyes. “I think I get it.”
Do you, though? Do you know what you’re doing to me? Do you know that I have never wanted someone or something more in my entire life?
Lara’s voice cuts in from nearby, softer now.
“Manon, you should try to rest. Like, I mean sleep. I won’t be able to heal you until like tomorrow evening earliest.” Lara’s voice is coming closer, and Manon sees her head pop up on her right side. “I’ll get Yoonchae to get you back to camp after,” Lara adds. “You shouldn’t be moving much.”
Sophia helps Manon lie back, careful and gentle, guiding her shoulders down until the world tilts into something dimmer and more manageable. She adjusts the edge of the blanket, tucks it around Manon’s sides like it’s instinct. Manon’s chest painfully squeezes again.
“I’ll check on you later, okay?” Sophia says quietly. “Want me to bring you dinner tonight? We can eat in the infirmary, it’ll be quieter.”
Manon nods, eyes already fluttering closed. “Okay.”
Sophia leaves soon after, and Manon feels the absence immediately. But with the raging headache and the way her eyes ache and her ears keep ringing, sleep takes her not long after. In it, everything is soft and warm.
Later, she will wake up to a still-swollen jaw that she’ll pretend not to care about, even as half her siblings gasp in alarm and tiptoe around her like she has a contagious disease. She will wake to a wide smile and Sophia’s updates about how Dani and Yoonchae provided the game-winning distraction. Later, she will remember how Sophia’s hands felt steady at her shoulders, and how her voice sounded when she said, I believe in you, I really do, like she meant it.
Later, she will wonder — too much, and for too long — how many other people see Sophia in the same light she does: beautiful, genuine, and deserving of the best.
For now, however, Manon sleeps.
For now, the headache dulls into something distant and manageable as dreams take over. The ringing in her ears fades, and the world softens at the edges. In her dreams, Sophia is close, smiling, lip gloss bright against the curve of her mouth. The scent of summer lingers in the air, warmth pressing in on all sides, and Sophia’s hand is in Manon’s.
Two days later, when Manon is back to normal, she will scrape half her plate of food into the Pavilion’s largest brazier and make an offering to Morpheus. She will think of him and say, thank you, and you are kind. Then, at night, she will dream of cherry-red lips, winged shoes, and strawberry lemonade.
She will wake and do it all over again — every fumble, every mistake, every moment of embarrassment.
Regardless, Sophia will come to her, still carrying enough optimism and kindness for two.
Regardless, it will always leave her on the verge of tears and wanting more.
Regardless, for now and always, this will have to be enough.