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Even death has a heart.
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–Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
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Once, in the French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré, there was a sanctuary which, much like Camp Half Blood, housed many demigods under one roof. There were many other places like this around the country and in fact around the world, since camp in those days was awfully hard to get to, but — although they were greatly protected — they could never reach the same level of protection as the main Camp itself, as the gods weren’t directly protecting it. The group of demigods which resided in the camp in the French Quarter called their building “Hopewell’s Landing” as a young demigod son of Zeus under the alias of Hopewell founded the sanctuary in 1760, only a few years before the French gave up their territory to Spain.
Generations passed and soon it became a tradition to have at least one demigod child in every generation so that child would be the heir to Hopewell’s Landing, which frequently changed as the years flew by, until finally it became a large, yet expensive looking apartment building with the penthouse belonging to the leader and his family. Many years passed and soon the running and ruling of the place was passed down to the last demigod born to the heir of Hopewell, Christopher Summers, a son of Poseidon who’d just entered adulthood. To say Christopher was a player would be an understatement. He managed to father four demigod children, Logan, a son of Lyssa, Louise, a daughter of Aphrodite, Aaron, a son of Asteria and Taylor, a son of Nike. Soon, however he fell in love with someone of his own occult, a daughter of Boreas, and married her; her name was Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was brought up in Hopewell’s Landing to the family closest to the successors of Hopewell and when she married Christopher her father said he could finally die happy. Elizabeth herself had a demigod child named Samira, a daughter of Hades. Elizabeth and Samira were very much alike, both saying ‘f*ck you’ to the gender roles the Landing imposed. Hopewell’s Landing, despite the changing times, often stuck to outdated, sexist stereotypes — women were meant to cook, clean and make clothing whereas the men were meant to fight off monsters and do the ‘manly’ stuff. Elizabeth caught Hades’ eye by being rebellious and taking control of her own life, dressing up in armour and fighting the monsters attacking their home. Samira followed in her footsteps.
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I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.
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”
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Samira wasn't close to many people. The girls thought she was attention seeking and the boys didn’t even like her, just envied her. Especially after her mother married into the Summer’s family. Things got worse from there. She didn’t get on with her step sister Louise and was often forced to do all the things she didn’t want to. Soon, Samira became awfully close with her younger step sister, Joanna, who could see through the mist and also, like her and her mother, had a wild streak in her and often accompanied her when she snuck around playing swords and the likes. However, it was often Samira who came back hurt and not Joanna. Eventually, Christopher died and it became known that Logan was to be the heir to Hopewell’s Landing however Louise disagreed with that, as well as all their other siblings and soon a whole out internal war happened. All the families took sides and soon the entire refuge.
Soon, the entire Landing cared more about the internal conflict, than for the external one from the likes of monsters and soon the entire building and hierarchy collapsed. People who wanted to survive fled and those who still thought their home was worth saving died. There were two buses filled with escapees. One for the females, one for the males. Samira was reluctantly walking towards the female’s bus when suddenly she was pushed into the wall by Ulrik, a man from Iceland who was about the age of thirty and looked about as hard as ice. Samira recognized him as the one man who always seemed to see her and Joanna were play fighting. He quickly disguised her as a boy by cutting her hair and putting her in more masculine clothes. He told her to go by Sam and pretend to be one of the boys that live in the basement (eg. the peasants/poorer ones) and told her not to tell anyone who she really was.
He led her onto the bus where he pointed at her to sit near the back beside a boy who she recognized from the armoury, Ben, and the two became really close. However, going through Georgia the bus broke down and the leader of the rescue mission Callum decided they’d be better to walk, despite the distance.
Ben was the first person to realize Sam’s identity. Mostly due to the fact she hid in the forest to pee and bathed on her own whereas most of the boys didn’t really mind about their privacy. It was about the same time when Ulrik took Sam aside to tell her why he had made her take on a different identity in the first place. He revealed that her stepfather was assassinated by a rival family. Of course, they didn’t expect their plot to lead to utter chaos. Later, still travelling through the country by foot, they heard news of her family. According to somewhat doubtful sources they were all dead, her mother, Logan, Louise; Aaron and Taylor had been transferred to Chicago as soon as Christopher was found dead, accompanied by Logan’s best friend, Ian, but he betrayed them, revealed their whereabouts to the enemy and they’d been executed. To say that Samira didn’t take the news well would be the understatement of the century.
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You’re in my body, and that’s where I think about you.
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”
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She raged, and punched, and kicked, and demanded Ulrik take her back to the Landing so she could investigate, but her behaviour was deemed childish. The only one that Sam could go to and vent was Ben, with whom she was becoming closer and closer by the day. Monster attacks were becoming more frequent and one of the group's commanders decided that they should split, taking most of the demigods who were 'important' under his wing, while the rest would go with Ulrik, who was old and unable to protect them all, essentially leaving them to their own devices so that monsters would stop attacking as much as they did.
Ben soon became frustrated with Ulrik's incompetence and while the majority of their group took the safe way and followed the road, he decided to go by forest. Sam couldn't bear to leave her only friend alone and joined him, along with a chubby son of Demeter, Eric, who had worked in the kitchens his entire life. They camped, making their own tents out of leaves and things were going well until they were approached by Sirene, a priestess of the fallen god of light, Hyperion, who helped lead a cult following the blasted god along with a son of Poseidon and a son of Zeus. The three didn't like the look of her, Sam especially tried to change Ben's mind, but they ended up following her anyway, beginning to run out of resources anyway.
Time passed. At first they were treated right by the strange cult, given food, shelter, even better clothes and some new weapons. Soon, however, Sirene took Ben away and tried to seduce him. Several weeks passed after Sirene took Ben away, and Sam was becoming sick with worry. At nights she'd try to sneak past the nymphs that guarded them to find him, but she never did. The nymphs and the demigod leaders of the cult were becoming more and more angry by Sam and Eric's behaviour -- they were treating them well, after all, weren't they?
The fire nymphs were especially touchy and Sam often fought with them when she tried to coax some information about Ben out of them. One night, one horrible, horrible night, Sam was woken by a low ringing sound in her ears. Along the years, she'd gotten used to it, it was a signal that someone she knew well had died, or was just about to. Considering how pretty much everyone in her life was dead, this was very weird to her, but then she realised that this was Ben's life being drained from his body. She woke Eric up and tried to sneak past the nymph guards again, but this time it didn't work out as smoothly, probably because of how panicked the thought of losing Ben made her. Enough was enough for the nymphs. They went ballistic, and soon the whole forest was catching fire. Forced to leave Eric on his own, Sam used what remained of her powers to shadow travel away from the forest, thinking of Ben, in the process.
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I’ll know my purpose. This war was worth this. I won’t let you down.
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”
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Maybe it worked, or maybe it was sheer dumb luck, but she appeared just a few feet behind Ben, who was being led out of the flaming forest by one of the two demigod leaders of the cult, the son of Poseidon. If she remembered right, his name was David. All thoughts of running into Ben's arms were shelved away as she tried to attack the older man, but Ben said he was an ally. He convinced her and she followed them, but their reunion was bittersweet. She was the first to spot Eric's lifeless body. From then on, it was all a blur. A monster attacked, but David defeated it. She didn't even talk to Ben anymore as David led them to an unknown destination. He explained about an organization called the Broken Covenant, and it took them several months to reach the Blue Ridge Mountains.
As soon as Ben saw the Forges, he fell in love with the place, and Samira didn't have it in her to leave him alone. She didn't have anywhere else to go, anyway, and while part of her feared that everything would go to hell as it had when they camped with the Hyperion cult, the anger that simmered inside her would finally have an outlet. After all, what good had the Gods done to her over the years? The time she had had to spend with the cult had damaged her from ever trusting someone properly. Add to that her whole family being betrayed and murdered... The Covenant would provide them shelter, and that was all she needed to plot her revenge.
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Let me in the ring, I'll show you what that big word means.
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”
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