"Get off me," I told her, she did as I told.
The girl rolled off me with, no grace at all, in fact she looked drunk, she placed her hands on the ground and had to slowly steady herself upright.
Now that I could see her properly, I took in more details. She was definitely taller than me by a few inches, maybe six feet to my five-seven, she looked to be around seventeen.
Her crimson hair was cut in a choppy, almost wild style that looked like she'd done it herself with a dagger, and there were small braids woven throughout with what looked like tiny grape leaves. Her red eyes weren't the glowing, supernatural red of Eudoxia's, they were more like dark garnets, kind of similar to my own auburn hair.
The giant tooth-shaped blade strapped to her back was easily as long as her back, and I couldn't figure out how she moved so quickly with that thing weighing her down agaisnt the hydra.
Her clothes were practical but worn, dark leather pants, a burgundy tunic that had seen better days, and an orange shirt that had a pegasus on it and was the only thing that didn't look about to break down. She also wore boots that looked like just as worn as everything else. She also had a necklace on which six marbles where strung, each had some kind of picture, which I didn't have the care to describe.
"That wasn't charmspeak by the way, I did that cause I wanted to," the girl said, brushing dirt off her pants with one hand while the other held yet another wine bottle that had materialized from nowhere.
I dusted myself off, wincing as the movement pulled at my still-tender ribs. My back ached where I'd been slammed into the tree, and I was pretty sure I had new cuts from when the explosion had sent us flying. Great just healed from one fight and already got fucking injured.
May I repeat. Worst days of my life.
"So whatcha doing here?" she asked, steadying herself before taking another swig
"I'm here on vacation, what do you think," I told her as I finally circled Vampire Killer around my waist again.
I grabbed my jacket, noticing how large the part I had sliced of had been.
Fuck. At this rate I'd have no more jacket by the end of the week. The part I'd torn off for the molotov cocktail had left a ragged edge, and now there were burns and tears from the explosion.
May I repeat. Good thing this was March so the possibility of freezing to death was small for now.
"You look like you're thinking too hard, plus the plan from before, you definitely don't feel like an Aphrodite kid."
I snapped my gaze at her, my train of thought derailing completely.
"What are you talking about?"
"Uh," she scratched her cheek with her free hand, leaving a small streak in the dirt that had accumulated there. "Aphrodite kids aren't exactly the brightest tools in the shed, they're super into themselves, kind of annoying, especially because they are all so wine damned beautiful," she looked at me, her garnet eyes scanning my face, in a way which had been similar to Euxodia's which made me step back. "I guess you fit that at least."
Beautiful? Me? I'd always thought I was pretty average, auburn hair and pale green eyes, I looked at the drinking chick. Yeah she was crazy or drunk, or both.
"Either way charmspeak is rare so good for you."
Again that word charmspeak.
"Wait, wait, what is charmspeak?" I asked, stopping her just before she could take another swig.
"Hmm, you don't know? Weird," she asked back tilting her head.
"And where do those things keep coming from!?" I asked, gesturing at the bottle that had literally materialized in her palm.
"Crazy magic," she answered, drinking again as if that explained everything. Which, given the day I'd had, maybe it did.
I stared at her for a moment, trying to process this.
"So how'd you get here?" she asked, settling back against the trunk of the tree she'd been leaning on. The bark was charred from our impromptu fire show, but I noticed that no fire was actually lit as if the fire had dissolved along with the mist, and now that I thought about it, I couldn't even hear the screeching of the Hydra.
Just what had happened.
A lot f questions, and as I looked at the drunk girl in front of me, I realized she was the only one who may be able to answer me. I started with the simplest one.
"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before asking questions of someone else."
"Oh, duh," she said smacking her forehead hard enough that it reverberated in the silence. "Name's Lyssa, Lyssa Alcock, daughter of Dionysus and head counselor of the Dionysus cabin back at Camp Half-Blood. Eh maybe not any more, I've been in here for a peloponnesian minute."
Camp Half Blood. That's where Artemis had told me to go. Okay that answered a few things, not many, but still a few.
"You're from Camp Half-Blood?" I asked, a smile forming on my face.
"Uh huh," she said pulling at her orange shirt, "Don't you see the shirt, eh maybe the design changed already."
"Shirt?" I asked.
She looked at me weirdly. "Yeah a shirt, they give them out for everyone, unless dad finally convinced Chiron to not do that anymore. Nah Chiron's a good centaur."
Chiron, centaur. I needed to stop her before she could spiral out even more.
"Stop please," I said, her face didn't go blank. "I'm new to this whole demigod thing, so I don't know a lot about camp half-blood, I honestly just got told it's existence by Artemis, I met her by chance and before I could even get there, I fought an empousa and was stranded here."
She whistled. "You met Artemis even before going to camp, talk about lucky, not that I'd ever become a hunter, I mean no..." she stopped herself as she looked at me. "Nevermind, I guess that's why you didn't know about charmspeak. It's a cool ability to make people do as you say or at least compel them too, it's rare as Hades only the bitch-," she caught herself again. "Only the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin had it, and yours feels way stronger than hers."
She took another swig from her constantly refilling bottle. "Still not as cool as making wine bottles appear in your hands though, but then again, nothing is as cool as that."
Wait a second. That made sense. Why the Wilsons believed what I told them when I came home with cuts and bruises, or why Eudoxia had answered my questions even when she clearly didn't want to, or why Zoe had shut up when I told her to, and why Brad and his cronies always seemed to lose interest when I told them to leave me alone. Every other similar instance came flooding back to mind.
"I can make people do things?" I asked, my voice almost joyful. I couldn't help but grin at the possibilities. I mean making people and monsters leave me alone with a simple sentence, that would be the life.
"Well, yeah," Lyssa said, as if it should be obvious. "It's not like mind control or anything, you can't make someone do something completely against their nature. But you can make them more likely to agree with you, or to want to help you, or to believe what you're saying, then again yours is especially strong or at least stronger to any I've encountered which again is just one, so I know fuck all."
I grinned even wider at that.
"You're really crazy huh, I'm betting you wanna make people jump off cliffs, don't ya."
I looked back at her.
"Stop imposing your weird views on me, I wasn't thinking that."
Her eyes squinted, she inspected me.
"I'm a daughter of the god of madness, I know a crazy person when I see one."
"Then look in a mirror or something."
She didn't mind my comment instead she continued. "You're definitely crazy, I like that."
She continued to drink, without a care in the world. It was maddening, it kind of made me want to strangle her even though I had just me her... wait could I make her strangle hers-
"You're thinking of something crazy."
"I'm not!" I yelled back, getting frustrated again.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I calmed myself. I had to be calm. Just be calm.
A few seconds went by, I breathed out one final time. Ready to ask her my next question.
"Why are you here?" I asked, wondering if her circumstances were the same as mine. Had she also been teleported here by Euxodia?
"Stole Hecate's twin torches."
"What?"
"I stole Hecate's twin torches," she repeated, as if that clarified anything.
Hecate. That name was familiar, but I wasn't sure so I asked.
"And who is this Hecate?"
She looked at me like I'd just asked who Zeus was."You really are new to this, huh, I mean I know you told me already but the way you handled the hydra didn't seem like you were new, so I kind of forget that you know basically nothing."
"It's complicated," I answered, which was becoming my standard answer for everything lately.
"Ha," she laughed, that crazed smile returning to her face with full force. "Ain't that true for anyone who has the misfortune of being a demigod. Either way, Hecate is the goddess of the Mist and magic, I stole her twin torches cause I kind of lost a bet against my dad. Safe to say she caught me and put me here."
A bet with Dionysus that involved stealing from another goddess. Yeah, that sounded about right for someone who carried a sword the size of a surfboard and made wine bottles appear out of thin air.
"And where is here exactly?" I asked, even with all the information I had know I couldn't exactly make a good guess.
She smiled, that crazy smile that was becoming worryingly familiar.
"This is Hecate's island, also known as the island of crossroads where past, present and future meet. You saw that mist right? When it rolls in, it brings pieces from different timelines together, people, monsters, sometimes whole chunks of landscape from different eras of this island get smooshed together in one place. Then when the mist clears, anything within about a hundred feet of you stays put and continues on the new timeline or road you're on. But everything else? Woosh!" She made a dramatic sweeping gesture with her bottle. "Gets scattered to a different timeline or road. Sometimes if you're unlucky enough, even if they are outside the 100 feet they still end up in the same timeline as you, just somewhere else on the island."
She took another swig emptying the bottle, which refilled magically, after which she twirled it in front of me like a baton. "So pretty boy, tell me what year do you come from?"
A/N: Double chapter woohoo!! I love writing this fic, it's so much fun, also yeah a few answers have come up, like where Julius and Richter are. It's an idea of my own but I think it makes sense, at least I hope I explained it in a way which makes it make sense.
If you have any questions about the island I'll answer them, unless they spoil something plot relevant, but anything else is fair game. Now the next question is what time is Lyssa from? Past, present or future. Questions, questions.
Oh and if any of you are wondering, the Hydra actually belongs to a future timeline, like super into the future, it was placed there by Hecate, and by timeline I don't mean mutliverse level shit, but just further in time or in the past, but it's all the same timeline.
That's pretty much it for today, send those stones, reviews, anything and everything.
Thx for reading. Author out.