Chapter Text
Thunder crackles through the night, lightning lighting the sky like day. Panic. Lyra’s hand slips as she falls in the mud. Will whips around to grab her again and help her from the ground. A harpy screeches from above and swoops down to grab one of the children but comes short, just catching their backs.
“WILL!” Lyra’s voice yells but it isn’t the little child in front of him.
Before he can figure it out he gets shaken awake and finds his twin's eyes glowing worriedly inches from his face. His heart is pounding as he reaches out to touch her, to make sure that she is real.
“Thank the gods you woke up.” She scoops him up into a hug as the realization that it was just a dream finally sets in, “You had another nightmare about that night.”
He takes a deep breath and holds on tighter to her as the memories flash though, tears start down his cheeks and pooling on her nightshirt. She brushes her fingers lightly though his hair letting him calm down slowly. She shifts slightly to a more comfortable position, successfully not cracking any joints in the process.
A very real crack of thunder echoes through the otherwise empty cabin, they both jump and cuddle closer.
“Why do Kayla and the others have to work tonight.” Will mumbles more to himself then Lyra but she still answers him.
“Because they don’t want us overworking ourselves, again.” The “again” sounds like she had just added it on to make sure they weren’t going to magically appear to remind her that it has happened several times.
Will sighs and buries his face into her shirt, “I know but it's lonely and they know we hate storms.” After a moment he takes a deep breath and looks up at her with his pale blue eyes, “Can we do the lullaby?” He asks innocently.
She laughs warmly, “Yes we can do the lullaby.” He beams at her though tear-stained eyes.
She reaches back and grabs her lyre, Will is already giggling about the irony of it. Her name is Lyra and she plays the lyre but isn’t a liar.
“Father certainly loves his word play.” She says absently at what she already knows was going through his head in that instant.
She cracks her knuckles, half to provide a bit of light so she can see the strings a little better and half out of pure habit. Gently she starts to strum the start of the lullaby, a relatively simple song, well for an Apollo kid.
“Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end…” They sing quietly.
The sound echoes smoothly though the empty and tidy cabin. Carrying to every corner and back again like a sound chamber creating an ethereal effect. This was their routine every time one of them had a nightmare about that night. Sing their lullaby in the empty cabin or infirmary, depending on circumstance, to calm down.
The song is odd for two Apollo twins to know by heart but it's their song, their secret like many other things from that night and the following nights. Secrets that they and the gods only know, and even then, the gods tend to forget and ignore. Maybe one day, someone else might know them too.