Chapter Text
"Little sister," Andromeda stirs at Zöe's voice, at the feeling of her lieutenant's hand in her hair. "Little sister, come now."
She nods slowly, hauling herself up from the furs upon the floor. They really were comfortable, all bear and boar, and whatever else they had hunted and skinned.
She was traveling with Zöe's chapter of the Hunt, the chapter that Artemis led herself, though their Lady was off tracking that monster, the Ophiotaurus, yet again. Thalia had not joined them, had gone to a chapter that haunted and hunted upon the edge of cities, because she had said she was "better suited to clearing monsters in urban areas, finding demigods there too."
"Zöe," the new-daughter of Aphrodite murmurs, reaching blindly for her bow, her quiver. Her knives, always, were strapped to her belt, a paranoid habit she had gained in the weeks following the rescue of Artemis. It is fall of the next year now. She had never grown from it. "Zöe, I had—"
"Another nightmare?"
"It's— I just— he disowned me. Li— literally stripped me of his— I was dy—" Her voice breaks. "He just thought— he took it from me."
It is less of a sob and more of a wail, as she curls into herself, as Zöe wraps her arms around her, as Zöe presses a kiss to her temple in an attempt to soothe her.
It barely works, offers only a semblance of comfort as she heaves a sob, trembling under Zöe's hold.
"He took— he took it. He took—"
Her lieutenant holds tighter, swaying slow as she cries. She cries and cries, chest aching as she turns her head, burying her face into Zöe's neck.
It is self-soothing and on the edge of pathetic, because she is a Huntress, and— and should not—
She is a Huntress, one of her Lady's beloved girls, and should not be behaving like this, but she is anyway, even as she pulls back from Zöe, wipes her face with a bit-back sob.
She is so awfully immature for this.
"Uh…can we go? I'd like to— to start the day."
Zöe studies her for a moment, then squeezes her hands quickly, firmly. "Yes. Very well, sister."
There is nothing more, really, for them to say about this, because Andromeda simply does not want to talk about it. Not until she absolutely has to do so. That will be far in the future, if she has anything to say about it. It must be.
It must.