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“Here. This will allow you to use a bit of my power to move heavy objects. Now, shake your tail feathers and—”
Athena’s well-articulated, very well-rehearsed speech came to a screeching halt by a literal screech. She narrowed her eyes at the shuddering form of Fenyx’s chosen champion, watching as she cradled her hand against her chest, completely flabbergasted.
“Did you just burn yourself?”
Ash whimpered pathetically.
“We are literally surrounded by lava, we are standing on an actual volcano, and you burned yourself?”
“Athena, be nice,” Fenyx’s voice said. Then, to Ash, “Are you alright?”
“I’m— I’m fine,” Ash said, despite the tears brimming in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m sure you didn’t, Ash,” Fenyx said gently. “We aren’t mad.”
Athena sighed, hopping over. “Let me see.”
Ash hesitated, looking nervous.
“I’m not going to peck your fingers off,” Athena said. “Let me see.”
Slowly, Ash held her hand out to Athena’s open wings.
It definitely was a burn. It reached over the top side of Ash’s right hand, from her knuckles to her wrist, bright red in color. It was a large blemish, but there were a few surrounding speckles from flying spatters of lava. No wonder Ash was so close to crying. Athena felt bad for snapping at her; she had to remember how young Ash was, still a teenager. A teenager without a family, no less. She was no different than Fenyx when Fenyx was on her own journey, except Fenyx at least had parents now. Ash didn’t. Still, she was a strong child.
“I’m sorry,” Ash said. She tried to pull her arm back. “We can continue now. We shouldn’t waste time.”
“Oh no,” Athena said. “This needs to be treated or else it’ll become infected.”
“But— but Hestia needs us!” Ash argued in a woebegone voice.
“If Hestia were here she would say the same thing,” Athena argued back. “Artemis once burned her hand on a hearth and Hestia fussed over her for almost a week. She’ll understand.”
“Don’t even try arguing with her, Ash,” Fenyx put in helpfully. “Once Athena is set on something, nothing can change her mind. Trust me, I know. I’ve been mama birded so many times.”
“Do not call me that,” Athena said.
“But what about the ember? At the top of the volcano?” Ash said.
“You can get it afterwards,” Athena said. “Worry not, Champion. You’re in good wings.”
Athena went down to the nearby bay with Ash, where overhanging rocks provided shelter from the heat of the setting sun and the sight of any lurking monsters. She had Ash dunk her burned hand into the salty island surf, causing the child to squeal in pain and jerk away, but Fenyx coaxed her into holding it in the water again. It was obvious that Ash looked up to Fenyx, despite only knowing her for three days at best, and she would do anything the goddess said—for better or for worse. A strange personality to have, indeed. Fenyx had been the same way, a complete and utter people-pleaser. The pomegranate didn’t fall too far from the tree with these two. Were they secret sisters?
“It stings,” Ash whimpered, her voice nothing more than a squeak of a baby mouse. She was a lot like a mouse now that Athena was thinking about it. Or maybe a bat pup. Something small with big eyes.
“It’s saltwater, Champion,” Athena said. “It’s going to do that.”
“I know it hurts, but it’ll be alright,” Fenyx said. “The salt will flush out any bacteria so the wound won’t get infected. You’re doing so good, Ash!”
The praise seemed to relax Ash a little more and she stopped squirming.
Eventually, Athena decided that it was done soaking and had her pull her arm back. The burn didn’t look any better. In fact, it seemed pinker than before, raw in the light. There was definitely some swelling all over the hand. If it wasn’t treated properly, it could cause some serious issues further into the journey with Ash needing to hold things.
“I think I saw some marshmallow when I was flying around, scouting for Hestia,” Athena said. “I will go retrieve it. You stay here and, please, try not to get set on fire.”
Strangely, a panicked look overtook Ash’s expression. She went erect in her seated position in the sand, purple eyes widening.
“Can’t— can’t you just stay here?” she stammered. “My hand is fine!”
Athena hooted a laugh. “You dummy. No, it’s not. Your face is still red from crying.”
Ash’s gave then went red with embarrassment and she ducked her head away. Athena opened her wings.
“I won’t be long,” she said. “Just stay here.”
“Wait— don’t go!”
But Athena had already taken to the sky.
Ash turned into a simple silver speck so far below when Athena flew off. She soared across the Hearthlands, feeling the heat of the volcano even when she was so far above the land. It chased her as she went towards the more rugged terrain of the island, where the earth became rigid and craggy like chimera teeth. There, on the side of a rocky cliff, she found a cluster of flowers growing out from the stone. She knew her memory had been right.
She grabbed as much marshmallow as one of her talons could hold, then also picked up a rock for smashing the plants to make a proper poultice. While she was there, she took a beakful of moss as well. It could be useful for dressing Ash’s wound.
On the fly back to the bay, Athena heard a distressing noise on the wind. It almost sounded like something a baby goat would make, or maybe one of Leto’s wolf pups. But she hadn’t seen either of those things on the island, so it couldn’t be that. So that meant it was the only other thing capable of making those kinds of sounds.
Athena landed on the warm white sand, sure enough finding Ash with her legs tucked to her chest and her head in her knees. Her shoulders were shaking and her breathing was coming out in sporadic gasps. She appeared to be having some kind of attack.
“I was only gone for a moment,” Athena said after setting the moss in her beak down. “Will you calm yourself?”
Ash’s head whipped up. Her eyes were red and tears shined on her cheeks. She was, in fact, crying.
“Why are you weeping?” Athena asked, tilting her head and squinting at the girl. Sure, she had been burned by literal lava, but it was strange to see her getting worked up over it again.
And then Athena realized this wasn’t about the burn. This was about something entirely different. Something deeper than the injury she had received.
“I— I—” Ash stammered, shame edging the corners of her voice. Everything about her body language exuded embarrassment- her hunched shoulders, her red ear tips, the way she wouldn’t meet Athena’s eyes.
“You were fretting the same way when I tried to leave,” Athena noted. She tilted her head in the other direction. “Do you, perhaps, not like being alone, Champion?”
Ash winced, her eyes darting away; it seemed Athena had struck her cause.
Now that she was thinking about it, she did remember the way Ash had squealed like a wolf pup when her connection with Fenyx was severed, when Athena first appeared to the girl in her owl form. The fright she exuded in that moment was more than just fear, more than just a little shock; that had run further than anything she could have initially thought of.
“Oh, Ash…” Fenyx’s voice said sadly. “It’s alright! There’s nothing to be ashamed of!”
“Separation anxiety,” Athena said. “How interesting.”
“I’m sorry,” Ash whispered, still not meeting Athena’s owl eyes.
“Nonsense,” Athena opened one wing. “You can’t help the things your brain makes you feel. Mortal emotions are strange, overpowering things.”
“Isn’t being arachnophobic also considered a ‘mortal emotion’?” Fenyx pointed out.
Athena ruffled her feathers. “That is entirely different! ” she squawked.
“Is it really?”
“Yes!”
Ash giggled softly, which was an improvement of her emotional state. Athena was surprised at just how much she was worried over the girl, especially given her initial hesitance to even choose her as a Champion.
“I will not go anywhere for the rest of the evening,” Athena told Ash. “So there is no need to worry.”
Ash nodded softly.
“Now, let me see what I can do about that hand.”
Athena, with her deft owl talons, cut up the marshmallow roots and then used the rock she had picked up from the cliffs to smash the pieces into a fine white pulp against the blade of Ash’s axe. She instructed Ash to rub the paste onto her burned hand, telling her that the marshmallow root would help heal the wound quicker. Ash did so obediently. She may be no Apollo, god of healing, but that was relatively good injury care if she did say so herself.
“I’ve always been like that,” Ash’s voice then said, snapping Athena out of her pride. She looked up at the girl.
“What?”
“Clingy,” Ash specified. “Nervous about being alone.”
She huddled herself against the back of the rocky overhang. Athena settled beside her to listen to what she had to say, as it seemed like she had something on her mind.
“My parents had to bring me everywhere with them, or else I would cry nonstop and disturb the whole village,” Ash said. “When they would take me to their vase shop with them, they got me into pottery to try and distract me from my anxiety. It was working for awhile, but then—” She became choked up, dipping her chin low to hide her swelling of tears.
“It’s alright, Ash,” Fenyx soothed her. “You don’t have to tell us.”
Ash shook her head. “No. I want to. I— I have to get it off my chest.” She waited a moment, taking a few breaths and containing herself, then continued, “But then they died. And all my progress kinda…shattered. Like the vases we all made together. I didn’t know what to do after they were gone, I didn’t know where to go. I wanted to be with people so badly, but I didn’t want to intrude. That’s why I took shelter in the temple. Even though it was abandoned, the statues made me feel a little less alone. Like they could actually replicate human contact. As pathetic as that is…”
Athena frowned. She knew the child’s parents had perished in the disasters rampaging across Greece, but she wasn’t sure why she wasn’t expecting the wounds left behind to still be so raw. Clearly they were; Ash wasn’t not devastated over the loss of her mother and father, she was just very good at hiding the grief for the sake of her championship. It made Athena’s heart go out to the girl.
“So now,” Ash continued, “Now that I have people again—people I can maybe call my friends—it just scares me when they go away. Like how Fenyx’s connection with me was messed up for a little while. I thought she was gone forever. And then when you, Athena, flew off…” She hugged her knees. “I don’t know. I get so nervous. I just want someone in my life to stay for once.”
The beach was silent for a moment, both Athena and her younger sister taking in all the heartfelt information about their champion.
And then, Athena was nuzzling her head against Ash’s arm, hoping to comfort her. It wasn’t much, given her owl form, but it was something. Ash seemed to appreciate it with the small smile that ghosted her lips.
“I’m so sorry, Ash,” Fenyx said. “If I had known, then I would have tried harder to not ruin the connection—”
“No, no!” Ash said quickly, frantically. “It’s not your fault, Fenyx! You couldn’t have known!”
“I know, but still. I didn’t mean to worry you so much. You already have so much stress on you with the whole ‘find the gods and save the world’ thing. I don’t want to add onto that.”
“Really, Fenyx, it’s okay, I promise!”
“You two are hopeless,” Athena sighed. She looked up at Ash, then pulled her head down to her level with her wings. Ash blinked at her, then nuzzled her cheeks against her soft feathers. “I will try to be around more often. To keep you from worrying. Will that help?”
Ash nodded.
“Good.” Athena leaned forward to bump her head against Ash’s. “Very good.” She pulled back. “Now, it is getting late. Tomorrow we can retrieve the ember at the top of Hestia’s volcano and hopefully find her on the next island. And this time, try not to burn yourself.”