#hylla

Hylla liked the present. It was loud and insistent and refused to be ignored. It was difficult and sometimes painful, but at least it was honest. It didn’t lurk in shadows like the future, nor did it bare its stomach in invitation only to bite in punishment like the past. Hylla lived in the present, armed to the teeth and ready to face the future while she stubbornly refused the past any attention. Unfortunately, the past was once the present, and sometimes it remembered its demand to be recognized. 

Hylla’s past came to her in chains, wearing the face of a boy who’d once ruined her life and carrying the mark of a sister she often pretended to forget. 

Hylla was in her office alone now. She’d won the challenge, defended her throne, and promptly dismissed everyone from her sight so that she could sit in silence with a name too big for any room. Reyna. The name didn’t shout, Reyna herself didn’t shout. It sat with a sort of still, serious composure in the back of her mind, not asking for attention, but unwilling to be moved. Hylla was wearing the ring she’d taken from Percy Jackson’s neck, spinning it around her thumb without quite meaning to. She knew why she was doing it, but she refused to recognize it.

Unbidden, the ring’s history swam to the front of her mind. Goddesses didn’t frequent Circe’s Island, and war goddesses least of all, but Bellona had come one day. Whether it was for strategy or magic or simply a trip to the spa, Hylla never knew, but her mother had stood before her, ten feet tall and glowing. She didn’t smile, but she nodded at Hylla and slipped a ring off her pinky and into Hylla’s cupped hands. Hylla had taken it with quiet thanks and reverence and shown it to Reyna that night in their dorm and told her about the encounter. Reyna had stared at it, eyes wide and shining in wonder, and in an instant, Hylla knew what to do. She took the ring out of her palm and put it on Reyna’s thumb. It didn’t quite fit, but Hylla knew they could make it tighter later with string. 

“Are you sure?” Reyna had asked, cradling her hand to her chest like she was worried Hylla might take it.

Hylla had reached out and pulled her forward until their foreheads touched. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. Take care of it, hermana.”

Now that same ring was in Hylla’s hands again after being delivered by the very demigod who had destroyed Circe’s Island. The thought made her sick, but at the same time, she recognized the severity. Reyna had guarded that ring with her life for years, diving off the side of a pirate ship after it on one occasion. If she’d been willing to part with it, just to send a message, Hylla knew exactly what that message was. Her sister needed her, and the demigod she sent should be trusted, whether Hylla liked it or not.

So, against her better judgement, Hylla led her warriors south. The Amazons came to the aid of Camp Jupiter, and for the first time in years, Hylla fought at her sister’s side, the two of them falling into rhythm just as easily as they had on Blackbeard’s ship when they’d first learned what their heritage meant. She realized with dawning horror, that the past had its teeth in her and it wasn’t going to let go any time soon.

After the battle, Hylla found herself walking the streets of New Rome with Reyna at her side. Reyna was just as quiet, just as watchful as the little girl Hylla had all but raised, but she was different now. She held her chin up with confidence, but her shoulders were tense with the weight of her duty and her eyes were hollowed with grief. Her hand didn’t flash with silver. Hylla couldn’t fix everything, but she could fix that. Without a word, she took Reyna’s hand and slipped the ring onto her thumb. It fit her now, no string required, and the sight made Hylla’s heart clench.

“I had assumed you’d kept it when Percy came back without it,” Reyna said quietly. She kept her hand in Hylla’s hold and searched her face.  “Are you sure?”

Hylla smiled at Reyna. Her darling sister who she loved so much. The brave Praetor of New Rome who had her eyes set on the future and never wavered. She brought their foreheads together. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

Reyna didn’t cry, not exactly. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep, measured breaths. “Thank you.”

Hylla pressed her lips to Reyna’s forehead in a brief moment of affection that neither of them would have allowed with an audience. “Take care of yourself, hermana.”

Hylla and the Amazons left the next day. New Rome wasn’t their home, and it was steadily marching towards a future that didn’t include them. That was okay. There was one Ramírez-Arellano leading them into the shadows. The other turned her sights towards the past. Seeing Reyna come into her own had sparked a thought in Hylla’s mind, one that had refused to leave it, just as Reyna’s name had days before. Perhaps, if she reached for it before it could bare its teeth, it wouldn’t bite. She was determined to find out. Her first stop was a quiet little town in Puerto Rico full of ghosts she was choosing to remember.