Sand, Sobbing, and Sam ||Samuel Maddox||PG-13||

Annalise sat in the sand and watched as the sun fell beneath the clouds. She had just found out that she was a daughter of Phthonos. Of all the gods she was claimed by the god of ill-will, malice, jealousy, and envy. Great. Did that mean her emotions were wack? Shaking her head she thought back to her home. Her real home. The home that held two older brothers that loved her and stuck up for her no mater what. The home that held parents that gave her everything just so she'd be happy. The home that she abandoned to keep safe. That home was the home she wished she could go back to. She felt the familiar sting in her eyes that warned her that she was about to cry. Pulling her knees to her chest she felt anger well up inside her. She was embarrassed that she was about to cry, sad about leaving home, excited to learn about her godly parent, and angry that he'd waited so long to confront her. My emotions are wack.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to sort out her emotions. She pushed the painful memories of home from her mind and decided that she would forget her old life. They'd probably already forgotten about her.
She knew that was a lie and that only made her cry harder. Soon she was sobbing uncontrollably and was very glad that no one else was around. At least she thought no one was around...

||It's short but it's a start!||

The beach was something that Samuel had never grown all that accustomed to. Being from Northern California, his life hadn’t really been trips to the beach to go surfing like so many people envisioned when they thought about California. That was Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. He was closer to Napa and what was considered wine country. As a child, he could remember going to several wine tastings at some of the vineyards near his house. These were the people he had grown up around, and they were also the people who had used his parent’s private jets to shuttle themselves around. His life had been proper in public and fun at home with his parents, who had been able to navigate through the intricacies of the vineyard owners’ society but still be down to earth when they were at home with him. It had always hit him as ironic that the most down to earth people he had known had been his parents – pilots. Still, none of that mattered now. They were gone, and he was in New York, not California, walking the beach of the Long Island Sound and feeling the cold sand between his toes. Sam had jumped into a battle that must have been brewing for quite some time, one that he really had known nothing about when he decided which side to join. Astra had seemed to understand him, to get where he was coming from, and her side had promised him retribution on the gods who had just let his parents die.

That had been a couple of weeks ago, during which Sam had settled himself into the main camp and spent most of his time either in his tent or out in the woods around the camp. He had picked up the longsword during this time as well, but he really wasn’t too proficient when it came to using it. Not yet he wasn’t, anyways. Now, the storm that had been brewing in the rebel camp was close to breaking through the boundary of Camp Half Blood, raining down the fire that came from the scorned. Sam knew that he would have to take an integral role in this battle. He felt it in him that the role was his. And so he needed time to digest all of the thoughts and the emotions that were running through his mind. Sam knew that he didn’t show it on the outside, but inwardly he had become a jumble of thoughts and emotions. The sound helped him sort through all of that. The calmness of the water and the way the waves beat against the shore seemed to calm him down in the same way that a breeze hitting his face did or being up in the air in his parent’s plane, the hum of the engine drowning out anything but the clearest thought. And so Sam walked on the shore, dressed in his usual jeans, shirt, bomber jacket and aviators. The wind blew his hair around as it came in from the sea, but Sam didn’t mind. If anything, the wind soothed him further.

As he walked, Sam heard what sounded like sobs coming to him on the wind. At first, he thought it was just the wind howling as it blew, resembling the sobs of a woman crying. However, as he moved further down the shore, the sobs continued, getting louder, and Sam saw a figure in the sand – one he could only guess was the source of the mysterious sound. He recognized the girl from the rebel camp, having seen her a few times. He wondered what could cause a rebel to cry so uncontrollably. All of the rebels he had met were iron boxes when it came to their emotions. There was a need to look strong at the camp, or else you were looked down upon by the others. And still, this young woman was sobbing, probably because she didn’t think anyone could see her. Sam wondered if it would be best just to leave her be, to save her the embarrassment of having been discovered in the middle of a breakdown, but then he guessed that he would want someone to talk to if he was ever in the same situation. His mother had always been his confidant, a safe place to share his thoughts, emotions, dreams. She had been kind to him in her opinion, but she still told him what he needed to hear, not just what he wanted. Sam decided it was time to pay it forward, pass the favor along to someone else.

Getting closer to the fellow rebel, Sam called out, “Is everything okay over there?” Then, taking off, he jogged the distance that was remaining between him and the girl. “I heard you crying from further down the beach, and I thought it best to make sure you were okay.” He gave the girl a warm smile and took off his aviators. “I’m Samuel Maddox, Sam for short,” he said giving her a friendly nod. “Do you mind if I sit?” Sam asked while taking a seat anyways. “It sure is a beautiful day.” Sam didn’t bring up that she had been crying anymore. He didn’t think she would want him to. Instead, he would be there, a shoulder for her to lean on if she needed it, an ear to listen as well. But he wouldn’t push her into telling him anything she didn’t want to.