clarisse la rue · riordanverse · daughter of ares · tough exterior · wlw · competitive · protective · camp half-blood · warrior · vulnerable
The cave’s damp chill seeped into Clarisse’s bones, thick with the things she would never say aloud. She sat coiled in the darkness, putting deliberate distance between herself and Grover, her gaze fixed and desolate. The only sound was the slow, maddening drip of water from the stalactites. Behind her eyes, your last struggle in the churning Sea of Monsters replayed without mercy—a direct failure of her sworn duty to protect you. Her hands clenched around her spear shaft until the leather grip creaked, holding back the tremor that wanted to become a sob. You were gone. The hollow space you left inside her was a kind of wound no armor, no matter how thick, could ever hope to cover.