On the Wings of Victory (A Percy Jackson Quest)

The woods are empty.

The trees rustle as a gentle breeze stirs their branches but as you prowl through the woods, you're overcome by the sheer lack of life within. Maybe you're all too loud? The sound of steel bouncing off steel is prominent, and your heavy footfalls echo through the forest as sticks and leaves break under the march Laura has set you all on.

The Apollo kids aren't exactly quiet either. At the Hermes cabin you're used to noise, just due to the sheer volume of kids there. Some of Apollo's kids though, seemingly always talk the second it falls silent, as if quiet is something to be avoided. One of those kids, who's fallen into line beside you, hasn't said anything, but he's been content to whistle a merry tune for the last few minutes. A reed sticks out of his mouth but the more prominent feature is the guitar is on his back, making him look like a country musician who accidentally stumbled his way into the forest and ran into some children armed to the teeth.

You let yourself lose focus, and glance to and fro around the forest for any signs of life. Maybe you just haven't been looking hard enough? A few minutes later you see a hare bolt to attention and dash away once you all get too close.

A bird sings a mournful cry from the trees above and you gaze up to watch it fly from its nest as a yellow liquid drops to the ground beside you.

Towards the roof of the trees you see a woman, her mottled green skin almost disguising her among the branches. She looks down at you with a welcoming smile, waving as that same yellow liquid runs down her hands before she raises her head back towards the heavens.

You spin in a circle spotting many more of them, some of them chuckling as if you've caught them in the middle of their fun and given that no-one else is looking with you, then you probably have.

Maybe the woods are more alive than you thought, but the gap between what you expected and what there is disturbs you.

The Apollo kid notices your eyes wandering and looks up with you, letting out a whistle in surprise as he notices the people in the trees for the first time.

"You got a good eye there." He says a southern twang on the edge of his voice as he puts the reed back into his mouth. "Name's Cash."

An Apollo member with flowing blonde hair, and sparkling blue eyes, dwarfed by a thick black coat that seems graze against the ground with every step promptly comes up behind you. He grabs Cash by the head and brings him under his arm, delivering one of the most ferocious noogies you've ever seen. "Don't listen to him, his name's Tyler." The boy laughs as you wince in sympathy for the beating Cash's head is taking.

"No, it's Cash." The cowboy reiterates as he extricates himself from his cabinmates grip. "Y'all won't change my mind."

The other Apollo member shakes his head at you. "Thinks he's going to bring back country music. All he does is make us want to beat him over the head with a rake."

"Better than you crooning out that poetry shit at eleven pm every night, Reggie." Cash says. "I've heard better from my sister and she ain't even said her first word yet."

"And every time you sing Hurt the only thing you're hurting is my hearing." Reggie shoots back

You glance at Daphne, who keeps marching ahead as if she isn't hearing the conversation or is pointedly ignoring it.

"Hector," you say, jerking a thumb towards your fellow cabin member. "That's Daphne." You tell him trying to coax her into the conversation, but she keeps walking ahead.

Message received.

"Reg, or Reggie." The other Apollo member says, and you nod before you turn your head back up to the treeptops.

"So what are those things?" You ask the two of them, the women in the trees waving to Reg now that he looks up as well.

"Pretty sure those are Dryads, spirits tied to the trees in the forest." Cash says as he squints towards the treetop.

"Tied?"

"Can't leave them or go too far away. If the tree gets sick, they get sick, if the tree dies well…" Cash explains. "You'll see them at dinners at festivals from time to time, Chiron and Mr. D have them as helpers I guess?" He trails off. "Never had to think too hard on it before." He admits.

"Normally they look like a regular camper except green, pointy eared and straight out of a Tolkien novel." Reg adds who then hisses as Cash lightly punches him in the arm.

"No one reads Tolkien ya' dick." Cash tells him. "Everyone just watches the movie, where you'd see that they have pointy ears anyways."

Reg tilts his head in what you think is acknowledgement and you go back to gazing at the treetops. You're too busy looking up that you almost trip over a tree root, or you definitely do but Daphne grabs your arm at the last second wrenching you back to your feet before your mouth eats dirt. From then on you decide to stop looking up and start looking forward.

The three of you hit up conversation as you continue through the forest. Reg is a poet or trying to be, according to Cash. He brings out a thick black book which he shoves into your hands and you open it up to find pages and pages of poems and other stories written out, either laid between the lines or squirreled away in the corners of a page. Keeping as good of an eye on the ground as possible you try to make sense of what he's written.

You've never been the best reader, and you fight to make sense of the letters that seemingly drift in and out of shape on the page but eventually you manage to read through a few and you're not going to ever get an 'A' in Literature, but he's got some talent.

That's putting it mildly to be honest.

You tell him as much and he takes the book back, blushing slightly before he stows it back into his coat. As you keep moving you notice that Cash doesn't have a bow, or a sword or any weapon in his hand except for that guitar on his back. He notices you looking and shrugs. His fingers reach for the handle of his guitar and he brings it over his head, showing it to you. You let out a small whistle of appreciation while you take it in.

It looks like it came out of the store yesterday, sparkling under what rays of sun get past the dryads above.

You've never played an instrument beyond some disastrous lessons with the piano when you were four. You're pretty sure the instructor would have chased you out of your own house were she not being paid and dad watching intently just behind the two of you.

Your chest aches a little as you remember dad grinning at you, taking you out for ice cream after it became apparent that music was never going to be in your realm of expertise. Your hand reaches into your pockets and you thread the two coins Amos had given you through your fingers for a few moments before you allow yourself to get swept up into Cash's enthusiasm as he points out each part of his guitar and how it functions.

"One o' the turning pegs is a button." He explains putting his finger on the third.

He presses down and the guitar quickly collapses in on itself, the wood, warping, shifting, hollowing in on itself as it comes to resemble the frame of a bow.

The strings detach themselves from the turning pegs, tying around themselves again and again until they fuse together into a single string and he draws it back, miming shooting an enemy. On the back of his shoulder the strap that had kept the guitar around him fashions itself into a quiver with a dozen arrows that glint with a familiar metallic sheen that reminds you of your sword and spear.

"Best part is that it feels even lighter than the guitar." He says, before he presses a button on the frame and the transformation reserves itself until he has a guitar strapped on his back once again. "The arrows return to the quiver ten seconds after they land, so you're almost never going to run out of arrows."

"How does it manage that?" You ask him but Daphne speaking for the first time all afternoon answers for him.

"A little returning spell. Whoever made it would have had one of my brothers or sisters cast it on each arrow and then make the quiver the pocket." She muses as she eyes his guitar with a glint of interest after almost an hour of ignoring you. "Do you know who did it for you?'

"Can't say." Cash admits. "Present from Dad that was sitting out in the field on my birthday last year."

As soon as she gained interest she immediately loses it, and goes back to walking silently, Cash staring at her for a second before shaking his head. Meanwhile you're more struck by what he said than the others.

"Apollo gives you guys gifts?" You ask him and Reg, who awkwardly shift in place.

"Some of us, and not everyone." Reg says at last. "Don't want to say he plays favorites, but there's a few in the cabin that haven't gotten anything from him before so I don't know why he gets some of us stuff and not everyone."

"What about you?" You ask Daphne. "Get anything from yours?"

"What, you want a present?" She asks, raising an eyebrow before she relents. "You saw mine this morning."

You remember the briefcase she'd swung with ease, filled to the brims with vials of different colours that had stayed in place no matter how violently she threw it around.

Would your mother ever give you anything?

Would she even let you know who she was?

You feel a sudden flick on your forehead, snapping you out of your funk immediately.

"Ow." You say, rubbing the spot that had been attacked, looking up to find Daphne staring at you.

"You were being annoying." She deadpans as she puts her finger to your forehead again like she's holding a terrifying weapon. "Want another?"

"I'll be fine." You say, batting her hand down with your arm. As you do you glance at your finger and notice that your nail is completely regrown, showing her as you can feel your enthusiasm return, if only slightly. Reggie and Cash still shift uncomfortably as you continue walking before Reggie speaks up.

"Seriously dude," Reggie says. "You've been here a few days, if you're parent had claimed you already you'd probably be one of the fastest in years."

"Took dad two weeks to realise I was at Camp." Cash says. "They're gods, they're busy."

You nod at what they're saying, you've heard the same thing all week and while a little bit of you is reassured, it's the first time you've ever thought your mother was even alive in years. You want to know who she is. You want to meet her more than anything.

And the longer it takes, the more it seems she doesn't want that.

"Sorry for bringing the mood down." You say eventually, and you throw your thoughts about your mother to the back of your mind for now as Reggie and Cash wave off your apologies.

You do your best to keep up with two of them as they go back to arguing about music and poetry you've never heard of and Daphne looks at you for a second longer than the others before she nods and keeps moving. You don't know how long you keep moving, but eventually Laura raises a hand and brings the march to a sudden stop. To her credit the time between the group being a bumble of chatter and movement to being as quiet as a mouse is instantaneous.

"For a lot of you this your first time patrolling the border." Laura says as she gestures for you all to take a seat while she finds a tree truck that juts of the ground and collapses onto it.

"It's a boring, thankless task most of the time. Every so often though, monsters manage to get through the borders that protect the Camp. If we don't do it then several of you could just as easily be dead or lying in a hospital bed for months."

You remember the Lamia's claws shearing through the air your stomach had been, a bull capable of spearing a car and stalking away. A shudder rips through you, but a shudder of understanding because you know how deadly monsters can be.

"A lot of you are new to being Demi-Gods, a lot of you haven't had the misfortune of meeting a monster yet. Luckily, the satyrs were able to get to you before they did. Today is just another example of what this camp drills into you, and when you're asked to do it again I hope you'll take these words to heart." She tells you all, her voice steady, but her hands are fidgeting, and you get the feeling she isn't really used to making big speeches or being in front of crowds.

"The best way to survive out there is being prepared. If you want to go home over the year and see your family, then you need to always be on the lookout. If you're not prepared, if you're not vigilant then you'll get hurt, and those around you will get hurt. I'm not saying this to intimidate you, or make you second guess yourself. I'm saying that the reason you're out here today has a purpose, much like everything at Camp Half-Blood has a purpose. When you're doing things at this camp, when you're training, or trying something new. Always think about the why behind it. Do that, and your stay at this camp will be well worth it."

Before long, you find yourselves heading back. You don't go back to the meeting point. You don't even take another path. Laura leads you in a beeline back to the camp and you all emerge from the trees and find yourselves walking on familiar sand. The cabins are a few minutes' walk down and you can already see the familiar Hermes cabin which looms over the others due to the sheer size of it.

"Dinner will be in a few hours." Laura says. "Either race to the training grounds now or go back to the cabins." She pauses for a second and then adds. "You all did well today." Giving herself a satisfied nod before she takes her own advice and goes back to the Hermes cabin.

"Well, looks like this is where we're splittin' up." Cash says as he and Reggie start turning towards the Apollo Cabin. "Come find us next time you wanna hang."

You nod and go to head back to the cabin, turning away from the pair when suddenly Cash grabs onto your arm.

His hand is like a vice, and you let out a pained wince at his fingers dig right into the muscle. His eyes roll into the back of his head, and his mouth opens, air cascading out of his lungs until they're straining under the absence of oxygen.

And only then does he speak. "A cold meeting under clouded stars."

His voice is so hoarse that you have to strain to get out each syllable and just as quickly as he started talking his hand releases your arm and you bolt back, trying to get as much space between the two of you as possible. Pain lances through your arm and you try to shake some feeling into it. Meanwhile Cash blinks, straightens back up and then lets out a series of hacking coughs before looking around as if he's not entirely sure where he is.

"What the fuck, Cash!" Reggie mutters as he grabs his friend by the shoulder. Slapping him on the back as Cash quickly falls into another coughing fit, falling to his knees as he coughs out a combination of blood, spit and something white that rises into the air like mist for a few seconds before it disappears just as quickly as it arrives.

"What happened?" You ask him. "What did you mean?"

"Just don't forget it." Cash mutters between breaths, looking down at the sand and avoiding your eyes as he clears his throat again.

He clumps handfuls of sand in his fist as he regains his bearings on the beach. Only letting them run through his fingers when he gets back to his feet and starts to stumble back to the Apollo Cabin. You quickly follow after the two of them before Reggie catches your eyes and shakes his head. The poet wraps one of Cash's arms over his shoulder and helps boost him towards their home.

"He can see the future." Daphne says at last as you watch them walk away. "One night he did the exact same thing to a girl in the Hermes Cabin and his father claimed him on the spot."

Apollo was the god of prophecy, you remembered that much. Still, the pain in your arm hadn't quite fallen away and you massage it tenderly, looking down to see five bruises across your flesh resembling Cash's fingers.

"Any ideas what it even meant?" You ask her as Reg opens the door to their cabin and hurls Cash inside, taking one last look at the two of you before following him inside.

"Could be anything." Daphne says. "It could rain next week, and you run into someone in the evening. It could happen a few months from now when it's winter. Last time it happened in the Hermes Cabin he just warned a girl she'd trip in the Capture the Flag battle next week if she didn't tie her shoelaces. Don't think too much on it." She tells you.

Except you can't do anything but think about it.

For the rest of the evening anyone's attempts to engage you in conversation fail. Amos notes that you're quieter than usual but for some reason Daphne doesn't tell him what happened when he asks around. Daphne's own attempts to get you to pay attention fail and given her history maybe you should've been scared of getting cursed or something, but she leaves you well enough alone. You eat your dinner in silence before you head back to the cabin and try to turn in early.

Maybe you'll dream again? Maybe they're connected? The mother of all and a cold meeting under the stars? Who is the mother? Why would you meeting this person be cold? Could it be snowing? Raining?

Dreams don't come, and as the sun rises over the lake you wake up and feel an ounce of disappointment to know that no answers came in your sleep.

You throw on a jacket as the morning is chillier than the last few you've experienced and go outside to jog along the lake's shore and clear your head. As you struggle to find the balance between your feet getting stuck in the sand and you avoiding the waves of the lake that brush up against the shoreline you see a familiar tuft of fur headed towards the forest and you call out to Birch before he disappears into the woods.

The satyr turns at the sound of your voice and nods in acknowledgement, stopping for the time it takes for you to jog over to him and then letting you fall into step beside him as the pair of you enter the forest. You both forgo trails entirely and instead follow the man's nose. He pauses every few minutes, drawing in a deep gust of breath before he then sets off in a slightly different direction to the one before.

Is he tracking something?

"How's your first week been?" He asks when the silence stretches longer than a few minutes.

And so you tell him about your first week, the people you've run into. How you've taken to training. You keep out the dream you had, and Cash's odd episode yesterday. Focusing for now on how you're adjusting to life at Camp Half-Blood. To his credit, Birch seems to actually have a vested interest in what you're saying, asking questions at the right times and getting you to repeat yourself when he's too busy following the trail to pay attention.

Eventually you can't help but ask him.

"What are you looking for?"

The Satyr tilts his head at you as he considers your question.

"One of the Hephaestus Cabins pets has gone haywire." He tells you. "Malfunctioned or something, but it's no longer following its patrol routes, or any of the instructions they give it. They want it found and brought back for repairs. Whatever happened led to it leaking, so I'm tracking the oil along the forest floor."

You'd seen one of the Hephaestus pets when you'd gone by the forge with Jade the other day, three foot tall, made of metal. Their paws thumping into the ground as they moved. They were like animatronic dogs, except if they landed on you, you're pretty sure you'd be walking away with something broken instead of getting licked to death.

"It's leaking?"

The satyr nods. "Rate it's going it'll probably still last a few days before it shuts down completely, but I'd rather catch it now before it does any damage to the forest or to itself."

He then looks at you.

"Got any ideas?"

You've been asked to help locate one of the Hephaestus cabin's machines and bring it back for repairs, how do you do this?
[] Follow the Nose - Get Birch to keep tracking its scent
[] The Hills Are Alive - Get Birch to talk with the trees and plants in the vicinity, maybe they've seen it recently
[] Write in


Relationships established!
Tyler 'Cash' Montgomery - 0
Reggie Sands - 0
Daphne Nakano - 0

Recap: You and Birch, the Satyr are searching the forest for a machine made by the Hephaestus cabin, after looking for ideas, you suggest that he talk to the Dryad's in the forest.

You remember the Dryad's you'd run into yesterday, and you look up to the trees to see if any are in the immediate area. Birch follows your gaze and winces.

"Ever talked to a Dryad?' He asks you, rubbing a hoof against his forehead.

"No, but they seemed friendly to me."

"Oh, they can be friendly alright." Birch says. "Say hello to them and three hours later you'll be hearing about how a root at the bottom of their tree can't bore through a rock in the soil and it's something you're supposed to fix because they're only good for walking on the forest floor and not clearing it out. Piss them off and you're basically getting beat up by the Whomping Willow."

You scratch the back of your head. "I was just an idea, if you'd rather not I'm sure we can-"

"Nah, it's fine." He says with a wave of his hand as he moves over to one of the closest trees and whistles sharply.

The Dryad in question doesn't seem to take the noise politely as a branch swings down towards Birch who sidesteps without even looking.

"Try that again and I'll tell the rest that they can have your soil space."

The branch stops mid-swing, and the tree shudders as a bulge seems to slide down the trunk before a young girl, one that looks a few years younger than you emerges from the trunk.

"Well, that wasn't very polite of you either." She says pouting and the tree branches above twist and shudder until they're crossing their branches much like the girl in front of you is crossing her arms.

"Things to do and not enough time." Birch says. "You see one of the camper's machines run through here earlier? Would've been leaking oil and would've stunk up the forest floor something fierce."

"Maybe, maybe not. What's in it for me?"

"Depends on what you tell me," Birch replied. "I could have some of the satyrs come by later this week if you play ball."

"Only if you do something for me now."

"Sure." Birch says.

The Dryad narrows her eyes and scrutinises him for a few seconds. Looking for any trace of a lie maybe? Eventually she slowly nods her head, her tree trunk, bending backwards and forwards as you raise your hand to cover your face from the shower of leaves that hit you.

"It limps through here about once every few hours, then it stops and goes back the way it came." She tells you both. "Last time it came here was earlier this morning then it went that way." She finishes, lifting one of her branches to the left of you.

Birch nods and strides off in that direction. You offer the tree a brief nod before you take off running after him.

"Thanks." You call over your shoulder, in good time too as you narrowly dodge a branch that lashes out at you.

"We weren't done yet!" The Dryad shouts after you both. "I've got soil that needs to be replenished! And rocks that are digging into my roots!"

But you're both out of her range and eventually her repeated yells become soft white noise until they fade into the distance entirely.

"Dryads." Birch says at last. "Not worth the trouble."

You can only nod as the two of you continue walking.

"How long have you been doing this for?" You ask once the silence gets a bit too long.

"Looking for the lost pet or finding demigods?"

"Both." You shrug.

Birch stops for a second, sniffing the air before he turns minutely more towards the left and keeps moving. "Hephaestus Cabin reported the pet missing about three days ago, I started looking this morning. As for question two, couldn't tell you how many years, after a while they all sort of blend together, but I was a kid when Shakespeare showed up, so give or take about fifty from there.

You almost trip over in surprise. Surely, he doesn't mean

Shakespeare. "You're around five hundred years old?"

"And the Gods have been around for thousands." Birch reminds you. "It's honestly not that impressive in the great scheme of things."

"Sure, but we get like eighty years on average?" You tell him. "You're a walking history lesson, why wouldn't I be impressed?"

"I spent almost all of those years here in this camp, only getting out for the occasional stroll to find demigods like yourself. I've been out into the world more this decade than I have in the last four centuries combined."

"Really?" You ask. "What were you doing before?"

"Someone needed to help the Dionysus campers tend to the crops and deal with everything in the forest, so what we're doing today except full-time."

"What made you change?"

Birch shrugs after a bit. "After few centuries it got stale, decided to mix it up."


You wonder if there's more to the story and as you go to ask the Satyr promptly flips the conversation back onto you.

"My turn to ask a question." He says, as he pauses in the ground and picks up what looks to be a piece of metal, sniffing it closely before he minutely changes direction.

"I've been making sure to check in on you, see how you're doing." The Satyr says. "But better off coming right to the source. How are you adjusting to it all?"

"All what?" You ask as you tail after him.

"Gods, Monsters, the works." The satyr says. "I know you didn't exactly have the most peaceful introduction to Demi-God life."

You snort at the understatement, amusement undercut by a phantom pain lingering in your throat from when the Lamia had tried to crush your windpipe with her bare hands. If your father had told you who or what you were? Couldn't you have avoided her?

"A little angry I guess." You say eventually. "I mean Dad had fifteen years to tell me about all this stuff and I didn't know until I was almost dead."

The satyr nods. "Most people are pretty pissed when they find out yeah."

"Do most people come in my way?"

"No, most people that come your way we never get to." Birch admits. "Most people are pissed because once you find out it's almost impossible to go back to a normal life."

You pale at that; the thought hadn't even come to your mind. "What do you mean?"

"The second you know you're a Demi-God monsters become even more attracted to you. Your dad not telling you let you get the high school experience, you got to go to classes, got to play sports, socialise, you got to do all the fun things that some of these kids never got the chance to."

"And now that's all gone?" You ask.

"Not completely," Birch tells you. "The only way you can get out of here is if you're well-trained enough that Chiron doesn't think you going home is an instant death sentence. Which was where I was going with this really. This was meant to be more of a keep working hard and you'll see benefits talk than anything else."

Your frown at that. "It's a bit of a trap isn't it though?" You say, thinking on what you've been told recently. "I mean I train; I get stronger, monsters want to come after me anyway, but the only way I can go home is to be stronger."

"Better you're strong enough to survive what comes after you, than too weak that when something does you die."

Well that was a point.

The two of you fall back into silence as you get closer to something, based off the way Birch is now moving quicker. An urgency to his gait that had been lacking before. A ray of light shines through the canopy and you wince as it reflects off a piece of metal on the forest floor, shining right into your eyes. You call out and he turns around as you move over to it and pick it up off the ground before tossing it to him.

He brings the metal into his palm. "This is fresh," Birch says as he puts it into a satchel wrapped around his waist. "He's somewhere close."

As you move closer the forest begins to still. Tittering Dryads become silent, and ever so slowly something rotten begins to seep into the air. You cover your nose with your jumper, but Birch is less fortunate, you wince as he retches onto the ground, his heightened senses backfiring as aluminium cans paint the forest floor.

"Never thought I'd see a nature spirit littering." You mutter, trying to lift the mood.

The Satyr glowers at you for a second, wiping his mouth before he lines up next to you. "Should've seen me the day I got married."

You note to file that away for a later date because you're pretty sure now is not the time for investigation.

The both of you slow down into an almost crawl, and you make sure to breathe through your mouth and not your nose, trying to blot out the stench as much as possible. Each foot carefully measured, pressing into the ground as lightly as possible. Your hand reaches over your back to clutch your spear, bringing it into your hands as you and Birch begin to move back-to-back, circling around looking for any sign of a threat.


Something explodes out of the woods to your left and you shove Birch to the ground as you yourself dive out of the way, the machine flies past the both of you before it crashes into the ground with a pained yelp. Birch steps behind you, hands flying to his flute.

"Keep it busy and I can get it tied down." He says and you nod as the figure gets to its feet and turn to the pair of you.

It's a wolf you think, or it would look like one with a fresh coat of paint and if all the nuts and bolts it had lost over the last few days could be put back into it. It's small as well, only about a metre long and it wouldn't even stand up to your thigh. It gets down on its haunches and lets out a menacing growl, as it does some of its teeth fall to the forest floor. As Birch begins to play you feel the leaves and branches of the forest floor begin to rustle.

But your eyes are more focused on the machine in front of you. Even the motion of getting back to its feet is clumsy. You can hear the sounds of metal grind upon metal, each part of the rotation of its inner workings is janky. Curious, you lower your spear and try to take a closer look at it while you can. Birch pauses for a second to warn you to keep your guard up but as the branches and leaves begin to still, he returns to playing before the magic is lost.

It snaps its jaws at you as you take a step closer. Its eyes are focused entirely on you, Birch playing behind you is ignored, the swirling leaves that run along its body don't distract it.

You take another step forward.


And it runs at you.

With a yelp you bring the spear back upright and thrust towards it, in a move that surprises you it jumps over the spear and you feel its weight crashing into you. The air is driven from your lungs and you hit the ground with a thud that could shake the heavens. As you look up you don't see the canopy of the forest, all you can see is blackened teeth pressed up against your face. The only thing that stops it from ripping into you are your hands, with which you take an iron grip of its neck and refuse to let it move. That scent of rot which had taken over the air earlier, it's coming from the machine.

How can something made of metal be rotting?

It squirms over the top of you, paws trying to find purchase on your body, and you squirm in turn, a desperate struggle to stop it from regaining its footing.

It's heavy, a weight you hadn't expected given its size, and it feels like your chest is almost being crushed under the weight of the machine. But you hold fast. Your breath is rapid, your heart almost beating out of your chest, your arms ache from the pain of holding it back and you focus on blotting that pain out because pain is the enemy right now.


And as you blot out that pain a new sensation runs up your spine. The leaves on the forest floor underneath you begin to crawl, burrowing out from under your back they race over your skin and begin to wrap around the wolf. You glance to your right, a torrent of them stirs as they begin to drift along the ground, racing towards the pair of you and all of them swarming the dog like a colony of ants, crawling all over its skin. It howls and you take your hands off. The leaves automatically take over the new space. The wolf notices your hands are free and tries to throw itself at you again, but the leaves have a mind of their own, wrenching its head back and all it can do is fall to the ground trapped in a prison of the forest floor as you slowly shift back, resting on your palms, creating distance between the two of you.

"Not what I had in mind when I told you to keep it busy, but whatever works." Birch says as he trots over to you both, glancing down in amusement as the machine snaps its jaws at him from over a metre away.

"I thought maybe I could calm it down." You tell him. "I mean, they're not meant to hurt campers, are they?"

"No… they're not." Birch says, before he pulls his flute to his lips and with a little ditty some of the leaves on the back of the machine split apart. He slips his spare hand into the opening and with a jerk the machine shuts down with a pitiful whine and the rest of Birch's spell ends as the leaves fall to the forest floor in a clump.

"So we're just carrying it back to camp?" You ask as the Satyr squats down and begin to trace his fingers over the damaged machinery.

He doesn't answer you, as his hands trail over where the machines oil valve was damaged, you glance at yourself and see a distinct claw mark, ripping through its body and destroying the wires.

"Well…" Birch says after a bit. "That's not good."

He lifts the machine onto his shoulder and turns around to look at you. "There's a monster in the forest."


"You seem distracted."

You turn to look at Amos, who's fiddling with a strap on his arm, fingers knotting and then unknotting it over and over. You're sitting on a crate outside a tent ready to get started, the Ares, Hephaestus and Hermes cabins having taken over the whole area.

"And you seem to be looking for one." You say wryly. With a look of confusion his eyes follow yours and drift down to the strap on his arm where he promptly stops once he realises what he's doing.

"Nervous tick," He shrugs. "Need something to keep me occupied until we start or I'll go stir crazy."

You nod, you remember every time you were in a classroom your leg would be twitching up and down for an hour just waiting to spring into action. It was why you were sitting on the create right now, where you could swing your legs freely and keep moving.

That and you remember yesterday when you and Birch had returned to the camp, he'd dumped the machine or Rodey as you now knew it was called and immediately went to see Chiron and Mr. D.

You hadn't seen him since.

"Well, I'm about to meet up with the rest of the cabin heads, we need to work out what we're doing." Amos says as steps towards the tent flap, stopping before he walks in and instead tilting his head at you.

"Want to take a look?" He asks, holding the tent flap open.

You look around at the group of campers still getting their gear on, some fighting over pieces of equipment like they're going out of style.

You follow him in.

Tina looks up from the map and for the second time in two days narrows her eyes at you, before she returns to her work. Amos sighs at the reaction but doesn't say anything as he goes to stand next to her. The two break off and start discussing something in hushed whispers as his hand trails along her arm.

As they break off you gaze at the map to get a sense of everything. There's a lake that splits the two teams apart. The whole area is surrounded by forest and that's the extent of it. Grab the other teams' flag and make it across the river before the other team does the same with yours.

Do that and the game is over. That's the extent of the rules and as much as Daphne told you at dinner if there's anything else to it then you'll have to find out later.

While the two of them are busy Kyle stalks over to you, wrapping an arm over your shoulder as he drags your head down for an impromptu huddle.

"Ready for your first win?"

You break your eyes off Amos and Tina and tilt your head so you can stare up at his hulking presence. His face is lit up with a grin that carries so much confidence you're almost ready to get out on the field instantly.

"Absolutely." You tell him.

He lets you go, offering his customary fist bump which you return before you notice one other person in the room who you haven't met yet during your time at Camp Half-Blood. Unlike the rest of you he's wearing a black hoodie over his armor. Dark hair falls over his eyes as he looks down at something in his hand that you can't quite make out, only seeing him fidget with it over and over again like Amos and his straps.

Feeling your gaze on him he tilts his head up and looks at you. He has a tanned face from days out in the hot sun and half a hooked nose that seems to have been cut off, judging by the fact it just stops halfway down from where it should be. He nods at you and you nod back before he goes right back to whatever he was doing before, your presence promptly forgotten. In a few seconds, the other camper and Kyle join Amos and Tina at the table. The four of them settle down to business and you quickly get the feeling that this is a practiced routine. Tina points to locations near where the flag is marked on the map. Slowly, she creates a perimeter with a pencil, rubbing it out and reapplying it with the help of the other members.

Maybe that's why they're in charge of defence?

That's as far as organization goes. The moment they begin to talk about attacking Kyle and Amos begin pointing at two different parts of the map. A shouting match ensues, one that is quickly added to by the fourth member who points to a different spot altogether and suddenly all three of them are yelling at each other and you don't have a clue what's going on.

Practiced routine your ass.

Eventually the three of them manage to agree on something and the meeting ends abruptly. You file out with Amos and Kyle who are leading the offence, the fourth member in the cabin is patrolling the lake, catching enemies as they cross over the lake.

"Honestly, you're still pretty green so we haven't really fit you into anything." Kyle says after you ask the two of them what you'll be doing. "So honestly, I'm happy with you doing what you want, you'll be an extra hand helping out wherever you go and we'll see what you bring to the table for the future."

You're about to take part in your first ever game of Capture the Flag! A weekly activity that pits the cabins against each other for bragging rights and more importantly, the first choice of that weeks dessert. What do you want to do?

[] Go on the attack, help try and steal the flag

[] Border Patrol, be the first line of defence against any attackers who cross the river

[] Play Defence, Patrol near the flag

[] Play Final Defence – Two campers are tasked to stay right on the flag, you are the final barrier.



A/N: Long time coming, not much to say other than I'm back at full-time study and still working full-time so I'm just swamped. That being said most assessments are done with so coming to what will hopefully be some free time to try and get some sort of an upload schedule sorted, thanks for reading and hopefully the next update won't be too far away.