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demigodsanswer · 4 years

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Clarisse and the Labyrinth

While she had been on a mission from Chiron to investigate the Labyrinth in Manhattan, she hadn’t been planning to actually enter the maze. She ended up stuck in the maze relatively unprepared. She had her backpack with her, which had nectar, ambrosia, and enough food and water to barely last her a week if she very carefully rationed it. But she knew she needed to get out.

She figured the only way out was forward once she lost the exit into Manhattan. She was the first modern demigod they knew of to enter the maze, so she didn’t know what to expect.

She ended up trapped for what felt like 9 days. Each day, she cut a strip of fabric from her shirt and tied it to her necklace to keep track. On the 8th and 9th days, all she could do was take a sip of nectar every few hours to stay alive.

She had already had an uncountable number of monster attacks. Three of them had nearly killed her; she only barely escaped. One of the more deadly one got a good swipe at her braid, pulling her by her hair until she was able to get a hold of her knife to cut her own hair off. She was weak, tried, starving, and dehydrated. She was pretty sure she was going to die in there.

And then she finally, finally, by the grace of something, she found a way out. She found a delta insignia and the maze opened into an abandoned building.

The first things she noticed was that it was hot and bright.

She stepped out of the building on weak and weary legs, and almost cried when she saw where she was.

She was in Phenix - she was maybe two blocks from where her mother was a dance teacher. She made her way, injured and thirsty, down the street until she got there.

She must have looked awful, because the woman working the desk clearly didn’t want to let her in. But Clarisse said she was Madeline’s daughter and asked if she was working and the woman looked shocked. She said Madeline wasn’t in, but that she would call her to pick Clarisse up.

While she waited, Clarisse drank so much water from the fountain she thought she might throw up. The woman working the desk offered her the first aid kit or an ambulance, but Clarisse refused. She would be okay once she was home.

She hadn’t been home since she was ten. She would turn fifteen in March. She and her mom had talked in the meantime, but they were so different in every way except their stubbornness and temper than their relationship had always felt strained. They loved each other, but they didn’t particularly like each other.

But while she was in the maze, all she could think of was how she had never told her mom what she was doing. Her mom wouldn’t understand if she died. Her mom didn’t understand demigod things.

When her mom showed up, Clarisse saw her through the dance studio’s glass doors, and she ran out to greet her. Her mom is sobbing as soon as she sees Clarisse. Her mom, she realizes, is looking at her like she’s just come back from the dead.

She was. “I thought you were dead!” Her mom yells. She held her tighter, “Oh baby, what did they do to you?”

“I’m not dead,” Clarisse assured her.

“Chiron called me two weeks ago and told me you were missing and that you were likely dead.”

Clarisse was crying and holding her mother too, until she realized what she said. “Two weeks ago? No, I’ve been in there for 8, maybe 9 days?”

Clarisse’s mom shook her head and said, “No, when they called me, they said you had already been missing for a week.”

“What day is it?”

“November 21st.”

Clarisse almost fell over, and not just from exhaustion and hunger. She had gone into the labyrinth on the 1st. She had to call Chiron.

“Can we go home? I’ll explain everything there.”

Clarisse isn’t sure how her mom drove home, she was crying so much. When they got to their home, Clarisse went right to her mom’s room, so to avoid her grandfather. Her grandfather was sick with dementia, and Madeline hadn’t told him that they thought Clarisse was dead - she didn’t want to until she decided to have a funeral. So she didn’t want him to see Clarisse torn up and injured. She told Clarisse to take a shower and put on her robe, she would go to Walmart and get her something to wear and eat.

When her mom left she called Chiron, not bothering to shower first.

Chiron looked like he might pass out when he saw her.

When he asked what happened, Clarisse thought she might break down. Thinking of the things she fought, the number of times she almost died for the first time was a lot to handle.

She’s always been someone to wear her emotions on her face if she didn’t consciously control them, so Chiron could tell she had been through something traumatic. He told her she didn’t have to tell them yet.

The one thing she did tell him was that it was nearly unsurvivable. “I survived the sea of monsters and my father. If I barely lived, few others will too. If Luke is sending demigods in there, I don’t think we have much to worry about yet. Not unless they find a way to navigate it.”

Then she told him that she wouldn’t be going back in. “I can’t do that again. I won’t survive again.”

He says he completely understands and that he will arrange for a flight to take her back to camp.

“I’m not coming back. At least not right away. I’m staying in Phoenix. At least until the new year. I haven’t been home in four years,” then she started to cry despite her efforts. “All I could think of while I was in there, dying, was that I hadn’t seen my mother in years. I miss my mom. You should have seen how she looked at me. Like I was back from the dead. I can’t ... I can’t come back right now. I need to stay here. And heal. Not just physically.”

Chiron nodded, understanding. He assured her that when she wanted to come back, they would arrange for it. “Sherman has been running your cabin. He refused to burn your shroud last week when it had been two weeks since we had last heard from you.”

That made Clarisse smile. “He’s always been on my side. Tell him he’s in charge until I come back. Tell them I’m alive and okay. But tell them not to call me. I can’t ... not right now.”

Chiron understood that too. “They’ll be happy to know that you’re okay.”

Clarisse just sniffled and thanked him, She said that she would try and investigate the opening she had found and see if she could close it. Chiron thanked her for that, and then told her to get some rest, and call if she needed anything.

Clarisse spends most of the time in the shower, scrubbing off grime. When her mom got home, she changed into pajamas and fell asleep on the couch until her mother woke up up to eat something.

The two of them pretty much cried the entire day, with it coming in short bursts. Clarisse tells her mom that she wants to stay, and her mother cries and tells her to stay for as long as she wants.

The first two weeks are great. They hardly fight (and when they do, it’s low stakes and just the result of their temperaments), and Clarisse likes getting to spend time with her grandfather.

But in the third week, early in December, she’s investigating the opening to Labyrinth, and she finds Chris.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck me, fuck me, fuck, fuck, fuck.” she mutters to herself as she walks up to him.

When she gets closer, she realizes that he doesn’t recognize her - in fact, he doesn’t seem to recognize anything. He’s insane, she realizes.

She brings him home before he can be arrested and institutionalized. She calls Chiron, and realizes that the fates have decided that her vacation is over. It’s time to get back to work.

It takes over two weeks for them to figure out how to get him back to camp. He couldn’t get on a plane, and a long car ride with a madman seems like a bad idea. A flying chariot isn’t ideal - he might panic and try and jump.

For the two weeks Chris lives with them, Clarisse and her mom start to call their house “the asylum” because of her grandfather and Chris. Twice, Chris forgot how to speak English, and her grandfather heard him speaking Spanish and called 911 claiming there was an “illegal” in his home. Clarisse had to hide in her room with him, trying to keep him quiet. She learned that if he was watching Star Wars, he would pretty much be quiet for the duration of the film.

Finally, Beckendorf and Lee Fletcher designed a larger sized chariot, meant for four, with one section enclosed and comfortable for Chris to rest in. They decide that Will will travel with them to help keep Chris calm and maybe heal him. it would be Chris, Pollux, Will, and Clarisse on the chariot.

"You should find a way to get a portable DVD player. He likes Star Wars,” she told them.

They manage to get him back with only mild struggle. When she gets back, she learns that Annabeth and Percy had a few hunters have gone on a quest.

Chiron asks Chris if he remembers anything, if he remembers why he was in the Labyrinth. When Chiron hears him mention “string,” Luke’s plan becomes clear. Clarisse realizes they can’t be done with the Labyrinth. But she won’t go back in, she tells Chiron. She’s done. She’ll share what she knows, and help where she can. But she can’t - she won’t - go back in.

Chris scares her, she admits to Will one day. They don’t know what specifically drove him mad, but it’s not hard for her to believe that it would happen. She had hardly had a good nights sleep since she got out - she had been plagued by nightmares and memories. The dark and tight spots had become triggers for anxiety. Someone accidentally turned the bathroom lights out when she was in the showers at camp and she had a full-blown panic attack. She worried she would go mad next.

#clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez #Will solace #lee flethcer #charles beckendorf #luke castellan #chiron #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians

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