#nightlyarrows

He looked over to Tristan and his lips tugged upwards in a gentle curl. “Evening. I take it the room just isn’t cutting it for the night? I don’t mind company.” He offered the other chair nearby for Tristan.  “C’mon, sit.”

he swallows down the ambrosia in artemis' honor, in a way to connect with her.

it takes a few moments, but then it happens.

his vision gives way, the temple of the god’s falls away in front of him. there’s a forest, branches thick and broken, low to the ground. the scent of blood and death lingers in the air. 

a flash, the vision shifts.

he sees a stag, twisting antlers spanning eight feet wide, flesh and gore dripping from them. purple eyes stare into his soul, black smoke radiating from the beast like a swirl of mist. 

it steps forward, the ground shakes.

tristan falls to his knees, pleading, desperate for something, anything.his fingertips dig into the earth.

he hears the disconnected voice in the back of his mind and it rips through him like a wave. it’s all grief and pain, anger and fear. a twisting amalgamation of emotions that he can’t make sense of. he screams as the voice fills his mind, broken, raw.

“you abandoned me for her.”

the stag lunges forward, antlers ready to stab through tristan.

the vision breaks and he falls to the floor of the temple of the gods, unconscious and alone. 

abandoned.

THIS WASN’T A LAND FOR GAMES ANYMORE. At first the idea of being descendants of gods may have seen lighthearted, but Tristan grew up from those juvenile beliefs. While he was hardened a bit, he still had a soft aura around him when he heard newcomers had arrived. The news of Kaz did unsettle him, but he couldn’t let that stop him. Hearing that this was a new demigod entirely, he didn’t even know about Boreas from the books that he had read, his curiosity was definitely high. Finding the other out in a part of nature only made this interaction all the more better.

As he approached the other he didn’t even know why he was motioning with his hands as if he could have done something with it. After speaking with animals Tristan had seemed to pick up the habit of trying to be more representative with his body when it came to his wording as well. He cleared his throat a bit and then offered the other a small wave, hoping to get his attention. The last thing he needed was to spook anyone.

A small smile spread across his face as he stepped closer. “Hey,” there he was going to go with his cliche introduction. “I’m Tristan, son of Artemis.” He stopped walking, giving them a bit of space. “Nice to see a fresh face around. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

A SENSE OF BELONGING RESTED IN HIS BONES. The more he allowed the gentle breeze to flow over his skin, the more he stayed stationary, feet planted on these new grounds, eyes closed to take in the sounds and the scents of Camp Half-Blood, the more he felt at ease. Days ago when his life was turned on its axis seemed far away and he wondered to himself if he could be the son of Boreas like he was told.

He'd like to be, maybe. But first, he needed to settle into his new life. Which meant two things: find himself and find people he could call friends, family.

the darkness around him sims to only grow darker, as if the moon and the stars vanish. a chill in the air, much colder than the winter breeze that settles in norway, racks through his bones like he’s diving into a frozen over lake. 

it chills him to the bone.

then, in the back of his head, he hears a voice.

“you wish to know if you are connected to the night bringer?” it rolls down his back, to the pit of his stomach, and sinks like a stone.

“so be it.”

pain bursts through him, the feeling of a dagger in his gut, ripping flesh skyward, crawling to his chest, his throat. he doubles over with an attempt to scream but nothing comes out, not a sound. 

the silence isn’t even the worst part.

it’s the vast darkness that follows when he collapses to the ground, surrounded by these items dedicated toward the goddess of night, the mother of chaos. 

he wakes up hours later, covered in snow. 

and once again there’s the silence.

but this time it’s different. it’s an aching feeling, as if something’s missing, as if something’s not there anymore. he looks down to realize he’s visible now, swathed in the darkness of the night. 

he stands up and tries to go invisible once more.

there’s a feeling of pain once more that starts in the center of his chest and spiderwebs outward, to the tips of his fingers and toes.

it fails.

so be it.

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓. 𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐋.

the sound of footsteps cannot be heard, nor seen, as something makes its way toward the artemis cabin. with doors and windows secured shut, the figure, almost invisible under the night sky, sinks into the shadows.

the door is no obstacle for the divinely chosen.

it moves throughout the cabin until it finds him. it stares at the sleeping figure of the son of artemis, the moon child and dagger thief. in the darkness, the faintest smile of moonlight bright teeth can be seen, dark and twisted, malicious and cruel. it slinks, as quietly as can be, toward the bed, two blades drawn, curved edges smiling in the moonlight.

the ambrosia tastes bitter on his tongue as he gulps it down without thinking. that familiar sense of drunkenness doesn’t hit him the same, it takes much less for some odd reason—maybe the fractured connection is effecting him more than he’s realized. 

and then he begins to pray, to plead to his mother. 

he falls to the floor before his mother’s alter, the dagger of nyx before him. his words are a hoarse cry that fall upon deaf ears. his eyes search his mother’s statue as if they’ll give him some form of clarify, some sense of self worth that’s been lost due to this strange fascination with a goddess who wants nothing more than to see the night kill the last ounce of hope in the world. 

then it happens once more. 

the temple fades and he’s brought back to that same dark, ghostly forest. the stag’s purple glowing eyes stare him down as if it can see right through him. the gorefilled antlers tilt down as its massive form shifts, getting ready to charge. 

but it doesn’t. there’s nothing there, no words of abandonment, no disconnection. just the visceral image of a large stag, black wisps of mist cascading from large shoulders, around the large antlers, to the forest floor they stand in. 

tristan can’t move as he stares, a feeling of emptiness growing in the pit of his stomach until his vision fades out again. 

he’s back at the temple of the god’s, the dagger still before him. tears have cascaded down his face, fallen to the marble. 

he loses track of time, a throbbing headache overcomes him as he sits before his mother’s statue, every now and then pleading for her forgiveness, for her to accept him back into her life, to accept her son.

the hours tick, the darkness because to turn light, and then, just before dawn, he feels it.

that sliver of hope that blossoms like a seed, flourishes throughout his body like a garden. a river of joy rushes through him as he looks up at his mother’s statue, his head still throbbing, his chest still aching, but it’s there.

the connection.

it’s there.

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐔𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐘𝐗'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐃, 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘. 

you take a few moments to examine this strange doll underneath the silvery glow of the moon. there’s something eerie about the way the beady eyes look back up at you, motionless and empty. there’s a strange energy trapped in this doll that you pick up and as you attune to this item, the wind gently picks up around you. the sand around your feet flurries, creating a tiny whirlwind before it dies like nothing happened. then, you see her, a figure of a little girl standing just a distance away, made completely of living shadow. two silvery orbs where her eyes should be glint at you. for some reason, you don’t feel threatened.