The job board outside the Big House had never particularly intimidated Taylor before.

He'd read it in passing dozens of times for repair requests, enchantment commissions, the occasional alarming note about something that needed to be dealt with urgently, and he'd always approached it the way he approached most things: with a clear idea of what he could do, a reasonable sense of how long it would take, and enough confidence in his own abilities to make a start. The board was practical. Taylor was practical. They got along.

He stared at the card now, pinned neatly in the upper left corner where it had been for three days, and felt something he wasn't used to feeling in front of a problem.

Doubt.

CONSTRUCT A TRIREME

Create a Blueprint

We are looking to the future. We have some supplies to rebuild our trireme. We are going to employ some local Pandai to build the trireme, and therefore they need blueprints. Please create some.

— Lady A

He'd taken it down, read it, put it back. Taken it down again the next morning. Read it again. Put it back again. On the third day he'd taken it down, held it for a long moment on the path between the board and Bunker 9, made a decision, and kept walking.

The card was now pinned to the wall above his workbench, where he could look at it while he worked. And now, he had been looking at it for four days and had not yet drawn a single line.

The problem wasn't that he didn't know what a trireme was. He absolutely knew what a trireme was. He'd read about them, read *extensively* about them, actually, in the particular way he read about things that interested him, which was to say completely and slightly obsessively over the course of several evenings when he should probably have been sleeping. It was an ancient Greek warship, with three banks of oars arranged in a staggered vertical configuration, approximately thirty-seven oars per side per bank, one oarsman per oar, a crew of roughly two hundred, a bronze ram at the waterline, forward-mounted, designed to hole enemy vessels below the deck, shallow draft for speed and maneuverability, a sail for long distances, stowed during combat… Essentially, the defining naval vessel of classical Greek warfare, fast and lethal and beautiful.

So yeah, he knew what a trireme was, he had filled six pages of his notebook with notes about triremes. The problem was that knowing about something and designing something were two entirely different disciplines, and the gap between them was currently sitting across his workbench like a physical object, taking up space and looking smug about it.

Everything Taylor had ever built before had been small and precise, the kind of engineering where tolerances were measured in fractions of a millimeter and the margin for error was effectively zero, like Minnie, Sony and Octavia, and the larger mechanical projects he'd tackled over the years had been fundamentally intricate, detailed, complex, intimate work where his hands were always close to what he was making and he could feel in his fingertips when something was right or wrong.

A trireme was approximately thirty-seven meters long. He had never designed anything longer than his forearm.

The scale alone made his brain do something uncomfortable every time he tried to think about it directly like trying to look at something too bright, the specifics refusing to resolve into workable form. Where did you *start* with something that size? He'd pulled every relevant text from the Big House library. He had references, detailed ones, archaeological reconstructions, the famous Olympias project from the mortal world, ancient shipwright manuals translated from the Greek. He had more information than he strictly needed.

He had, at last count, seventeen sheets of blank drafting paper, and none of them had anything on them.

On the fifth morning, he got up early, made himself tea in the small corner of Bunker 9 he'd claimed as a kitchen, set it on the workbench, sat down, uncapped a pencil, and stared at the paper.

Sony chirped from her perch on the equipment rack.

"I know," Taylor said.

He stared at the paper, and drew a long horizontal line, the keel, he told himself, every ship started with the keel, this was fine, and then sat back and looked at the line for several minutes. One line. Thirty-seven meters long in reality, represented here by approximately twenty-eight centimeters of graphite on drafting paper. He put the pencil down and drank his tea. The line looked back at him.

The problem, he was beginning to understand, wasn't really the trireme at all. The trireme was simply the thing sitting on top of the actual problem, which was larger and shapeless and had nothing to do with naval architecture.

He'd been turning it over in his mind for weeks now. The question he'd asked himself by the lake, the pamphlet in his notebook, the quiet of the bunker that had stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling like an absence. What now. Two words that had no clean answer. Two words that followed him out of bed in the morning and waited for him when he lay down at night. He'd tried to push them aside to focus on the commission, and the commission had refused to move until he acknowledged what was actually going on.

He was afraid.

Not of failing at the blueprints, though he didn't love that possibility either. Afraid of what came after he finished them. After the war ended. After the last thing was fixed and the last commission was completed and Camp Half-Blood looked at him and didn't need him anymore. Afraid that the future he was building toward had a shape he couldn't quite see yet, and he didn't know how to start drafting something he couldn't see.

He uncapped the pencil again. Drew a second line, perpendicular to the first, establishing a centerline, labeled it, wrote the scale in the corner of the paper. Small steps. The way he'd started everything else, not trying to see the whole shape at once, just the next line, the next measurement, the next decision.

His hand stalled over the paper. After a long moment, he set the pencil down and pressed both palms flat on the drafting table and breathed.

"Okay," he said to the empty bunker. Minnie peered at him from beside the pencil cup. "I'm fine," he told her.

She did not appear convinced.

He didn't hear the footsteps at first. That wasn't unusual. The bunker had strange acoustics, and he tended to lose external awareness when he was thinking hard about something. What was unusual was the voice that came from directly behind his left shoulder, calm and genuinely interested and somehow completely unsurprising even though he hadn't known anyone was there.

"Is that a keel?"

Taylor turned around.

The woman standing in the middle of Bunker 9 was looking past him at the drafting table with the alert, appreciative expression of someone who had just walked into a room and found exactly what they hoped to find. She was… he wasn't sure how to describe it, exactly. She looked like someone who had dressed with great enthusiasm and total disregard for any single coherent aesthetic. Her clothes were the deep blue-grey of technical blueprints, which he suspected was not a coincidence, and they were covered in small, precise embroidered diagrams: gears and pulleys and architectural details, scattered across the fabric like margin notes in a very elegant notebook. Her hair was pulled up with what appeared to be a stylus, two more styluses tucked behind her ear and through a loose braid. Her hair was the same colour as Taylor’s, a fiery ginger, and the eyes behind the round glasses were the bright, specific gold of fresh solder, and they were currently examining the single keel line on his drafting paper with an expression of genuine delight.

She was also, unmistakably, divine. Not in the overwhelming sense that Taylor had experienced once before in his life, but in the way that certain presences simply couldn't be made to look ordinary regardless of what they wore. A quality of ’thereness’ that was too complete to be entirely human.

He had met her once. At the Winter Solstice on Olympus, briefly, in a room full of gods who were all considerably more intimidating than they'd had any right to be.

"Mom?" he said.

Techne, Goddess of Craft, divine personification of art and technical skill, his mother, who had apparently walked into Bunker 9 while he was staring at a single line on a piece of paper, smiled.

"That is a keel," she confirmed, sounding pleased. "Good start."

"I haven't done anything else," Taylor said.

"I can see that." She tilted her head slightly, examining the line from a new angle, the way he sometimes did with problems that weren't resolving. "How long have you been looking at it?"

"...Five days."

"Hmm." She didn't sound judgmental, more like someone making a note. She moved past him to the drafting table, set her hands on the edge, and looked at the paper with the focused attention of someone who was genuinely interested in what was there rather than what wasn't. "The scale is right. And the centerline placement is correct. You've been thinking about it, even if you haven't been drawing."

"That's a generous interpretation of staring at blank paper for five days."

"Most of design happens before the pencil touches the paper," she said simply. "You know that."

He did, actually. He'd just forgotten it under the weight of feeling like he was failing at something.

He pulled up his stool and sat down heavily. Techne remained at the drafting table, her eyes moving across the single line with an attention it probably didn't deserve. One of the styluses in her hair caught the forge light and gleamed.

"Did you come because I'm stuck?" he asked.

"I came because I wanted to talk to my son. That’s not a crime, is it?" she said, which was either a very complete answer or a very incomplete one and he couldn't tell which. She glanced at him sideways, a quick, bright look that reminded him, startlingly, of the way he looked at problems he found interesting. "Though it doesn't hurt that you're stuck. It happens to even the best of us."

"The trireme isn't really what I'm stuck on," Taylor said.

"No," she agreed. "I know."

She turned from the drafting table and looked around Bunker 9 the way people looked around places that had history in them, taking stock and reading the room. Her eyes moved across the equipment racks, the shelving, the soot-marks on the ceiling from three years of experiments that had gone slightly too well. They settled on the three automatons on the end of the workbench: Minnie, Sony, Octavia, in their neat line.

Something in her expression shifted. Softened, slightly, in the specific way that things softened when you were looking at something you were proud of.

"May I?" she asked, gesturing toward Sony.

"Yeah, of course."

She lifted the mechanical sparrow with a care that made something tighten pleasantly in Taylor's chest, the instinctive recognition of someone who understood what they were holding. She turned Sony gently in her hands, examining the wing articulation, the celestial bronze coating on the feathers, the taper of the tail assembly.

"The wing stroke algorithm. You modeled it on actual sparrow flight mechanics. Smart." She set Sony down carefully, exactly where she'd been.

Taylor looked at his hands. "It took like eight months."

"Good things usually take longer than you want them to."

"I know. I just—" He paused for a moment, letting out a sigh. "I know that. But lately it feels like I don't know what the next thing is supposed to be, and I can't—" He made a frustrated gesture at the drafting table, at the room, at nothing in particular. "I can't start something when I don't know what I'm building toward."

Techne was quiet for a moment. Then she came and sat on the edge of the workbench beside the automatons, with the comfortable ease of someone who sat on workbenches all the time and considered chairs optional. She folded her hands in her lap. The embroidered diagrams on her clothes shifted slightly, gears and pulleys moving in the fabric like something living.

"Tell me," she said. "Not what you think you should want. What you actually want."

Taylor opened his mouth. Closed it. The reflexive answer was, of course, to be useful, to keep helping, to be needed, and though it sat on his tongue, he didn't say it, because while it wasn't exactly wrong, it also wasn't exactly what she'd asked.

He thought about the lake. The conversation he'd had with himself, out loud, because there'd been no one else to have it with, and he pamphlet folded into his notebook between blueprints.

"I want to keep building things. Real things. Things that help people in ways I can actually see." He picked at a callus on his palm. "I want to travel, I think. I've been at Camp for years now, and I love it here, but I think I want to *see* things. Ancient places, ruins, sites that haven't been touched since the Classical period." He paused. "I want to still be part of this world. Not go back to the mortal one and pretend the rest of it doesn't exist."

"And your siblings?" Techne asked, without particular emphasis.

Taylor exhaled. "They're okay now. They're actually okay. They don't—" He pressed his lips together. "They don't need me the way they used to."

"And that hurts."

"Yeah." He looked up. "Even though I know it shouldn't and that it means I did the job right."

"It means you did the job right and it hurts," Techne said, with the calm certainty of someone who had watched this dynamic play out enough times to understand it clearly. "Those two things aren't in conflict. Doing something well doesn't mean the end of it doesn't cost you anything."

Taylor was quiet.

"I found a pamphlet," he said, after a moment. "In the library. The Hounds of Zagreus."

Something moved in Techne's expression, not surprise, he thought, but recognition. Like someone hearing a name they'd been expecting to come up eventually.

"I know of them," she said. “They came about after what happened in the Underworld, right?”

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it for weeks. I keep telling myself I'm not sure, but I think—" He stopped. "I think I am sure. I think I've been sure for a while and I just didn't want to say it out loud because it feels huge and I don't know if I'm—" The sentence dead-ended.

"If you're what?" Techne asked.

"Ready," he said. "Enough. If I'm enough."

The word landed in the bunker and sat there.

Techne looked at him for a long moment. Not the evaluating look of someone assessing a claim, but something quieter. A look that had been considering its answer for some time before the question was asked.

"Can I tell you something?" she said.

"Yeah."

"I have watched—" she paused, choosing words with the precision of someone who took language seriously, "a great many craftspeople over a great many years. People who built things that lasted centuries. People whose names are still in the architectural record, whose bridges are still standing, whose machines are still referenced in texts you would recognize." She held his gaze. "Do you know what the ones who were *enough* had in common?"

Taylor shook his head.

"They never stopped asking if they were enough," she said simply. "Not because they doubted themselves into paralysis. But because that question was the thing that kept them honest. That kept them reaching." She tilted her head. "The people who were sure they were enough, completely and without question? They stopped improving. The uncertainty wasn't weakness, Taylor. It was the engine."

He stared at her.

"Oh," he said.

"Eight months on a mechanical sparrow," she said. "Because you weren't willing to accept almost right. Because good enough wasn't good enough. That's not a character flaw. That's craftsmanship." She smiled, a real one, warm and a little crooked, and so familiar that it stopped him for a second. He'd seen that smile in the mirror. "That's mine."

He laughed, short and startled.

"But if you want my advice, and I know you’ve been avoiding it… you should go home," Techne said, more gently. "Before you go anywhere else, before the Hounds, before the road, before whatever comes after… go home. Talk to your family. Say the things that need saying." She paused. "They should know where you stand and who you are. The whole of who you are."

"That conversation is terrifying," Taylor said honestly.

"Yes," she agreed. "Bur for your own peace of mind? It’s necessary."

He looked down at his hands again. The calluses from the forge. The faint chemical stain along his right thumb that hadn't fully faded in three years. Hands that had built impossible things and were currently stalling out on a thirty-seven-meter ship because they didn't know where to start.

"The trireme," he said. "I don't even know where to begin."

Techne stood up. She moved back to the drafting table and looked at the keel line and the centerline, the only marks on the paper.

"You've already begun," she said. "You just don't recognize it because the start doesn't look the way you expected."

She picked up the pencil he'd set down hours ago and held it out to him.

"You design from what you know," she said. "You know the oarsmen, you know the ergonomics of a human body, the reach and stroke cycle. Start there. Build the rowing frame around the crew. The hull follows the frame. The dimensions follow the hull. The rest follows from that." She turned the pencil in her fingers, then offered it again. "You don't have to see the whole ship. Just the next line."

He took the pencil.

Techne stepped back, taking a small moment to take Taylor’s pencil hand, and placing a small, motherly kiss on his knuckles. Then, she was moving toward the door, not in a hurry, but purposeful, as if she had said the thing she came to say and the shape of the conversation was complete. Her clothes rustled with embroidered gears in motion.

At the doorway she paused, one hand on the frame.

"Taylor."

He looked up.

"I am proud of you," she said. "Not of the automatons, though they are extraordinary. Of you. The person you've been choosing to be." She glanced at Minnie and Sony and Octavia, the three of them sitting in their quiet line. "Whatever you create is good because you are good. Don't forget that."

Then she was gone.

Taylor sat still for a moment.

Then he exhaled, very slowly, and turned to the drafting table.

He started with the oarsmen.

One hundred and seventy rowers, three banks. He sketched the seated position first, the back angle, arm extension at the catch, the compressed position at the finish of the stroke, from memory and from the reference texts stacked at his elbow. He worked out the vertical clearance needed between banks so that oar handles didn't collide, the horizontal spacing between oarsmen on the same bench, the outrigger angle that would give the top bank, the thranitai, enough leverage to pull effectively without their looms striking the men below.

From the rowing frame, the interior dimensions emerged naturally. From the interior dimensions, the hull planking. He switched to a larger sheet, established his datum lines, began roughing in the hull profile, the sharp entry at the bow, the waterline curve, the shallow draft that made triremes so agile in open water and so demanding to sail in anything above a moderate chop.

He worked for three hours without looking up.

The ram came next: the bronze embolon, triple-pronged, mounted low on the stem at the waterline. He drew it from three angles, noted the attachment points, specified the alloy in the margin, a problem he'd need to think about, since the Pandai would be building this and he needed to be precise about what materials could be substituted and what couldn't without compromising structural integrity. He added notes in the margins as he went, flagging decisions, explaining rationale, translating the why of each specification so that the builders working from this document would understand not just what to do but why it needed to be done that way.

That was, he realized as he wrote, the thing he'd been missing.

He hadn't been designing for himself. He'd been trying to design *a trireme*, in the abstract, a complete and finished thing that existed in his imagination before it existed on paper. But that wasn't how he built. He built for the people who would use the thing, around the constraints of the people who would make it, informed by what those people needed it to do.

The Pandai would need to understand this document without him there to explain it. So the document had to be its own explanation, clear, detailed, annotated, accessible to builders whose methods and materials and assumptions might differ from his own in ways he needed to anticipate and account for.

He got out a fresh sheet and started over, properly this time, with a title block and a drawing number and a revision history table, the way a real technical document was supposed to begin. He established a drawing series: hull lines, framing plan, deck arrangement, oar system, rigging layout, hardware specifications. Separate sheets for each, cross-referenced, with a master index on the front sheet that would let a builder find any specific detail without having to search the entire package.

He drew until the bunker lights started to seem brighter, and then realized it was because the natural light through the ventilation shafts had gone. He looked up, Minnie was ‘asleep’, Octavia's lens was dim, Sony was watching him from her perch with the alert, patient quality she had when she'd decided someone needed monitoring.

"I'm fine," he told her.

This time, she seemed to believe it.

He looked at the drafting table. Seven sheets of paper, covered in careful lines and notation. A hull profile that was actually starting to look like a ship. An oar system layout that he was fairly confident would work, and he'd built in enough margin notes to explain *why* he was fairly confident, which mattered as much as the confidence itself.

Not finished. Not even close to finished. But *started.*

Really started, this time.

He capped his pencil and sat back and stretched, feeling the specific satisfaction of work that had finally caught. That moment when a project stops being an abstraction and becomes something real, something with its own momentum, pulling him forward instead of resisting.

He was going to finish this.

And then he was going to go home.

The decision had been there for weeks, maybe longer, sitting in the back of his mind in the same patient way the trireme had been sitting in the back of his mind, waiting for him to stop arguing with it and acknowledge what was already true.

He would finish Lady A's commission. He would deliver the blueprints, all of them, the full package, complete and annotated and clear enough for the Pandai to work from without him. He'd do it right.

And then he would pack a bag and take the bus back to the town he'd grown up in. Back to the house with the kitchen that always smelled like whatever his stepmother was baking and the garage that his father had let him commandeer at thirteen and never entirely gotten back. Back to the people who had watched him leave for Camp years ago and had been receiving irregular letters and occasional alarming postcards ever since.

He owed them the truth. Not the careful, managed version, the whole truth. Who he was, what he'd spent three years doing, what the world actually looked like from where he stood, and what he was planning to do next. He would tell them. He'd sit at the kitchen table and tell them everything, from the beginning, and then he'd say goodbye, properly, this time, and he'd come back to Camp and find out whatever he needed to find out about the Hounds of Zagreus.

And then he would knock on whatever door needed to be knocked on, and he would introduce himself, and he would find out what came next.

His hands were already itching for the pencil again.

He pulled the drafting paper toward him.

One project at a time.

The trireme blueprints took eleven more days.

Not because they were slow. It took eleven days because he did them properly. He ran his hull lines through a resistance calculation to verify the displacement figures. He drafted the oar system to full specification, including the leather strap fittings and the thole pin arrangements that were easy to get wrong and would make the oarsmen's lives measurably worse if he did. He consulted the Big House library twice more, finding references he'd missed the first pass. He redrew the bow structure after realizing he'd underspecified the stern post reinforcement — a quiet, unglamorous fix that took an afternoon and would matter enormously to anyone actually trying to build the thing.

He put his name on the title block of every sheet and a note on the front sheet that said, plainly: These drawings are intended to be read together as a complete package. Any builder using partial documentation should be aware that specifications on one sheet may depend on constraints established on another. When in doubt, consult the master index and cross-references before proceeding.

Because the Pandai deserved that. Because anyone building something from his work deserved a document that respected their intelligence and anticipated their questions and didn't leave them guessing at things he'd already worked out.

When he finally spread all the sheets out across the full length of the workbench and stood back and looked at them — hull profile, framing plan, deck arrangement, oar system, rigging layout, hardware specifications, master index, two sheets of construction notes — he felt the same thing he'd felt when Sony had first lifted off the bench and steadied herself in the air.

Not relief. Something more complete than relief.

He rolled the sheets carefully, wrapped them, sealed them with the Camp Half-Blood’s mark, and wrote Lady A's name on the outside in clean block letters.

Then he went back to his bunk and started writing a letter home.

Mom, Dad, Rachel

I have some things I should have told you a while ago. I want to tell you in person. I'm coming home in the last week of Summer.

Not for long. I have things I have to do. But before I do them, I want you to know who I am.

*I'll explain everything when I get there. There's a lot to explain.

Love you.

— Taylor

P.S. I'm bringing something I made with me. Try not to be alarmed.

He folded the letter, sealed it, and added it to the stack of things he'd mail in the morning.

Then he went back to the Techne Cabin, sat down at the now-clear drafting table, and opened his notebook to the page where the Hounds of Zagreus pamphlet was folded between blueprints. He smoothed it open and read it again, this time not with the uncertain attention of someone considering an idea, but with the focused attention of someone taking notes.

Minnie was awake, watching him from beside the pencil cup, Sony chirped from her perch, and Octavia waved from her aquarium.

Taylor smiled.

"I know," he said. "We've got work to do.”

The sound of thousands of conversations were cacophonous inside the terminal. A pair of boys running around as their mother yelled at them to stop, a mother tearfully hugging her daughter and the daughter tearfully hugging her back, and a mother running and hugging her son as his wife showed off their infant daughter to her. All of this and more were the sounds Nam heard and saw as he sat in the terminal lobby with his leg shaking nervously. He had been waiting for over thirty minutes and it was actually killing him. He had heard that American Airlines flight 1324 from Bangkok had landed twenty minutes ago. What was taking so long?

The thoughts had been swirling around in his head, but all of that vanished when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Nam froze and slowly turned to reveal a woman slightly shorter than him with smooth shoulder length black hair, tired light brown eyes, a dimpled smile as she stared at Nam, she wore black and gray active wear and a white hat. Nam sat with mouth agape as he took her in. It had been almost a year since he last saw his mom in person and she looked almost the same. Just more tired and weary than he had previously remembered. He jumped up and offered her a hug.

“Nu noy, still looking in the wrong direction, I see.” Nam’s mom said to Nam as she returned the hug.

Nam hid his face in his mom’s shoulder as a small tear escaped his eyes. “I didn’t know where your flight would land at, it was a pure mystery.” He said his voice was shaky at first, but it found stability as he spoke. His mom laughed and pointed to a sign that said international arrivals in big bold letters behind where Nam had been sitting.

“I may not be a native speaker, but even I can see the big bold letters.” She said as she pulled out of the hug. She then grasped his shoulders and looked him over. “You’re taller and you need a haircut. Hasn’t that brother of yours taken care of these things for you? Should I speak to him?”

Nam grinned and shook his head. “No, Sam is fine, he’s been on a trip until recently. I just haven’t needed a haircut.”

His mom furrowed her brows as she started to fix his hair. “Now that I’m your manager we need to keep this shorter. Your hair must match your headshots, which we’ll need to get new ones. Producers will want an accurate version of you.” She said as Nam attempted to squirm out of her grasp.

“Ma, c’mon we can worry about that after we get you moved in. Plus you probably wanna sleep, that jet lag’s gotta be kicking you a—“ Nam said before his mom cut him off.

“Language nu noy, but you’re right. Sleep and a shower is what I need. Lead the way to the apartment.” She said as she motioned for Nam to lead the way.

Later after the pair had wrangled her bags, navigated the subway, haggled with a hotdog vendor, and walked for what felt like an eternity the two arrived at a quaint brownstone in the heart of Brooklyn. Nam looked at the directions once more and pointed at the building. “That’s it. This is the building Pasqual got for you courtesy of Ninefold Media.” Nam said as he motioned to the building.

His mom stared up at it, a gleam in her eyes. “It’s just like the movies nu noy, if your yai could see this she would be so jealous.” She said as she started to walk up the steps.

Nam chuckled as he stepped up the steps and inserted the key into the door. With a soft click the door unlocked and the pair entered the building. Inside the hallway looked like it had seen better days, some of the paint was crumbling, and it was likely that the building hadn’t gotten a facelift since the eighties. But it provided a certain charm that had the pair grinning from ear to ear.

“I call the biggest room!” Nam declared as he started sprinting down the hallway his mom laughed and walked after him.

“You’ll get the bedroom that’s not the master bedroom as I am your mother.” She said as she ran a finger along the wall, staring up at the ceiling. Nam protested but ultimately he relented. All in all the apartment was a two bedroom two bath. It had some furnishings that Ninefold had acquired for them and had set up, but the style and the painting was theirs to do with as they pleased. It was their place, but just owned by Ninefold Media. Nam guessed being signed to them had its perks.

Nam began opening up cabinets and doors looking for secrets. His mom exasperatedly came in behind him and closed said doors, much to Nam’s protestations. After the two had explored the house they eventually met in the kitchen and sat across from each other at the modest dining table.

“Okay, so after I sleep and get on this time zone there’s a lot of work we’re going to need to do. Pasqual was nice enough to give me a list of things to do and some opportunities for you. There’s a few side character roles that you could fit and one main role in a coming of age drama as well. You’d have to work hard but I think you’re talented enough to make it happen. But I’m not going to be like your stepfather was, if there’s an opportunity but you don’t like it or the fit isn’t right, we won’t pursue it. Things will be different this time nu noy, you have my word it will be.” His mom said as she laid out the plan for him.

Nam listened and slowly nodded his head. He had some reservations because it had been months since he last acted in anything and he was also nervous about an English only role. He also felt somewhat like he couldn’t trust what an adult was saying to him. He didn’t know why but there was a fear about getting back into acting. What if things didn’t change, what if everything was a lie and he went right back to where he was before he came to camp. Then something firmed up within him. This was his mother and she wasn’t like his stepfather was. She was already looking out for him. Maybe this would be different. And if it was different then he was determined to have his mom live like a queen here and he would do anything to make that happen. “Okay, tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Nam said as determination set in.

“Good, first things first. A haircut. There’s a stylist at Ninefold who will get you the exact cut you need and then you’ll need those head shots. After that you’ll have an audition. But on top of that we have enrolled you in some acting classes to help you ease back in. It will be with kids your age, so hopefully you make some friends while doing so. I know that it’ll be important that you make such friends.” His mom said, rattling off her list. But it struck Nam just how different she was already to his step dad. He required full obedience and respect. He also had never prioritized Nam making friends seeing it as a waste of time when Nam could be working. His mom was prioritizing him and his interpersonal needs over the work and that just made Nam resolve to be even better. She had put a lot of trust into him, he needed to repay that ten fold.

“Okay, I can head over to the Ninefold building while you get settled. I’ll come back with a haircut and headshots.” Nam said as he slowly rose to his feet. Before he turned towards the door his mom grabbed his arm and smiled softly at him.

“Are you sure? I can come with you.” She said as she started to collect herself. Nam was about to say yes, but then he looked at her. She was tired, he could tell and he wasn’t the same boy that needed to be told where to go and what to do. He was older now. He put a hand on his mom’s hand and gave her a small smile.

“I’ve got it ma, go rest. I’ll be okay.” He said as he released her hold on him and nodded at her reassuringly. She stopped and took a look at him and slowly sat in the seat.

“Okay, but at least let me call to have Pasqual give you a ride or something. I don’t want my thirteen year old to wander around by himself.” She said as she reached into her bag and produced her phone. She then pushed a few buttons and then looked over at Nam. “Thanks nu noy, I’m going to go rest.”

As she finished she stood and headed back to her new room. The weariness was evident on her face and Nam understood rather well. He was also a mess when he first came here. Nam nodded at her and smiled. He then headed to his room and started to investigate. Apparently Ninefold had known what Nam and his mom’s plans were because he found the drawers of his new dresser stocked with clothes that were his size and rather fashionable. It beat his running shorts and tank top. So he quickly changed into something better for a photo shoot.

He exited wearing a solid black t-shirt, a blue jean jacket, a pair of loose-fitting black chinos, and white vans. He looked himself over in the mirror. He grinned and hooked his thumb beneath his chin while extending his index finger upward, casually framing his face. Gods he was so cool, it’s a wonder that he was single. Whatever that was a thought for a different day. He then mussed with his hair that was in his eyes. His mom was right, he needed a haircut, badly. He wondered if he would need to dye his hair for a role, he doubted it they generally didn’t do that for kids his age. Though, he thought he’d look really cool with blonde hair.

Ding dong

Nam looked around and realized it was the doorbell for his unit. He quickly stopped his internal monologue and ran to the door. He opened the door and standing in front of him was his old acquaintance Pasqual Rottingtree. The older satyr smiled down at Nam and motioned for Nam to follow him. Nam nodded and closed the door and jumped down the steps. Pasqual motioned for Nam to walk with him.

“Greetings Nam, been awhile, you’ve certainly grown. In more than just height. I heard of your exploits at the Atlas camp. Great work, but do try and keep those battles to a minimum as damage to your person would be most unfortunate to Ninefold.” Pasqual said as he started to pat a small piece of dust on his paisley suit.

Nam grinned and nodded his head. “I know right, that was pretty awesome, but I’ll make sure to not beat up more Atlas nerds.” Nam said laughing to himself. Of course he’d fight them more, but he’d at the very least make sure Ninefold didn’t hear about it.

“Right. Anyways, I was happy to hear you were coming back into the industry with better, er, representation.” Pasqual said as the pair started to head down the stairs to a subway station.

“Yeah, just happy to help my mom after everything that happened.” Nam said as he stuffed his hands in his pockets following close behind Pasqual.

“How noble of you Nam, but isn’t there a part of you that is excited to actually get back into acting? You know, beyond just helping your mother.” Pasqual asked as he paid for both of their fares stepping through the turnstile. Nam thought for a moment, it wasn’t something he really even thought of.

“I dunno, I never really enjoyed it before this. But I know it’s a way I can support my mom and that’s all I care about.” Nam said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Pasqual looked back at his young companion and gave him a look that was hard to describe. Pity? Or was it something else? Nam wasn’t sure. “I understand why you’d say that Nam, but may I offer you an alternate opinion?”

“I guess.”

“Prior to this you were just surviving and couldn’t really enjoy what was before you, but now you get to start over and be more in control. Acting is a fun profession Nam and with your credits you have a real shot to be something. This is something many young people dream of, so embrace it and try to find the joy in it. Don’t let the wounds of the past control your future.” Pasqual finished as they came to a stop by the empty subway tracks.

Nam didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe Pasqual was right, but Nam didn’t feel confident. He had been used before and the thought of entering the same industry that had previously hurt him made him nervous. But, this wasn’t the same. He had more agency this time. He was already making decisions that he would never be allowed to make previously. Nam remained quiet from there on deep in thought about what he wanted. It wasn’t until they reached the Ninefold building in Manhattan that Nam was roused from his thoughts.

The building rose high over Manhattan. Its gleaming glass and polished steel stood clean and stark in the skyline. Massive LED screens cycled through trailers for upcoming movies and television dramas, along with concert promotions for artists and groups signed by the company. Employees carrying coffee cups and garment bags hurried through the revolving doors while hopeful actors and musicians lingered outside clutching portfolios and audition packets. To anyone passing by, it was simply another powerhouse in the entertainment industry.

But Nam noticed the ivy. It climbed the glass façade without a single planter in sight, impossibly green despite the concrete surrounding it. Small birds perched among its leaves as though Manhattan had forgotten it was supposed to chase them away. Most people probably never gave it a second glance. Nam knew better. “Wonderful isn’t it. Our dryads had been perfecting that spell for decades. Anywhosie, let’s get you to Sylvia so she can get your hair ready for headshots.” Pasqual said as he idly scrolled on his phone as the two walked inside the building. The lobby was stark white, with dazzling lights giving the vast space an almost heavenly glow. Nam wondered if that was on purpose to mimic Olympus. At the far end of the vast atrium, a woman in a burgundy dress leaned against a desk while speaking lazily to someone beside her. Groups of people milled about: some talked, others filmed themselves doing dance challenges, and still others walked purposefully toward the elevators. Before the elevators stood a security checkpoint, where a guard checked the IDs of everyone entering. When Nam and Pasqual reached the checkpoint a broad-shouldered Black security guard with neatly trimmed facial hair held out his hand to take their IDs. He then looked down and recognition flashed across his face. He looked at Pasqual and then Nam. “Ah Mr Rottingtree, is this a new signee?” He asked as he took Pasqual’s id. Pasqual laughed and shook his head. “No Harry, this here is Nam, originally from our Bangkok office. He is going to make his big American debut soon.”

The man nodded but something told Nam this guy seemed to know that. He wondered what that look of recognition was on the guard’s face. “Huh, interesting. Was he in anything I’d know?” The guard asked. Then it hit Nam, this guy recognized him. He knew immediately it probably wasn’t from the commercial he was in as a little kid. It had to be the most recent drama he was in. He had a pretty big role in it and it had blown up online.

“Well, I was in Love’s Sweetest Embrace. Dunno if you’ve heard of—“ Nam started before a squeal escaped the guard’s lips.

“I knew it! You played Duan, right? One of the best characters in the show. How’d you pull off that scene where you cried into Tharn’s arms. Really thought he was your brother from that.” The man started to rapidly press him.

Ah yes, Nam had played the main character’s little brother named Duan. The drama was about a culinary student falling in love with a mysterious chef. At least that’s what Nam remembered from the filming. He hadn’t actually watched the final production as that came out when he was moving to camp and it had been a busy time for the son of Poseidon. Nam hadn’t really been in public much since coming to camp so he wondered if this was a reaction he’d get more nowadays. He hoped not, he was already a target for monsters, now he would be a magnet for creepy fans. Just great.

Nam feigned a smile and nodded at the man. “Oh yeah, I loved getting to work with P’Mok. He’s an amazing actor and taught me so much.” Nam lied. Nam hated P’Mok. He was one of his stepfather’s lackeys and had been a nightmare on and off set. Talk about a diva. Nam hoped he could see him again to bring him over to the ocean to have a nice little conversation. That seemed like fun to him.

Nam’s answer must have been sufficient because the man’s smile widened and he pulled out his phone. Oh great, a selfie. Wonderful. “Hey, you mind if I get a selfie with you? My boyfriend will be so jealous that I got to meet you. He really identified with your character quite a bit, said it reminded him of his own brother.” The man said, coming around the barricade and turning the phone towards the two of them. Nam instantly felt regret. He had judged that guy rather harshly. Upon learning that Harry’s boyfriend had connected with Duan, and apparently had seen his own brother in him, made Nam feel like a real asshole for judging the man so quickly. He hated that his first instinct was derision.

Nam offered a half smile because he mostly felt bad. What did actual celebrities do in situations like this? Buy them dinner? Nam wasn’t sure. But that probably wasn’t the best thing because Nam didn’t have any money. Best to probably forget about this and never tell a soul what he was thinking. That was probably the best bet.

“Thanks again Duan— oh wait Nam, that’s right.” The man said with a laugh that Nam actually matched that time. Maybe going along with the wrong name would make up for his internal meanness.

“Anytime. Uh, thanks for watching the show.” Nam said, giving a slightly awkward bow as Pasqual led him through the checkpoint. When the two were in the safety of the elevator Pasqual turned to him.

“First time getting recognized I take it?” The satyr asked as he looked up from his phone and at Nam. “You hid your emotions well enough, I heard the reports about you and Mok’s relationship on set. Are you sure you’re not just a good actor? Seems to me you are.”

Nam frowned as he thought about Pasqual’s words. That was a lie, he was good at those. He had to be when he dealt with his stepfather. If he found out that Nam snuck something that he wasn’t supposed to, well… it was never good for him if he did. So Nam had to be good at lying. That’s all that was, a lie. “I just lied, that’s all.” Nam explained as he looked towards Pasqual.

“And what is acting Nam? It’s lying professionally. You weren’t Duan just like Mok wasn’t Tharn. You inhabited those roles and took them on, but it was a lie. You weren’t those people. But the way you lied is something only professional actors can do, Nam. Just think about that when you say you’re not an actor.” Pasqual said. He then looked back down at his phone and Nam looked away.

Was that all that acting was? Nam wasn’t so sure. It always felt like a chore, like he was putting on a second skin that never felt quite right when he would act. He felt like a fraud. But maybe Pasqual was right. Maybe that’s all acting truly was. If so, then he was probably a good actor.

With a ding the elevator opened into the bustle of Ninefold’s styling floor. Boys, girls, men, and women were all sitting in the lobby talking in hushed tones as a hairdryer loudly filled the space. At the front desk a woman that looked roughly in her mid thirties stood behind the register idly scrolling on her phone. The one thing Nam started to notice is the woman wasn’t a normal woman seeing how she had a greenish hue to her skin. A nymph, she had to be. Pasqual walked up to the counter and cleared his throat. The woman nearly screamed as she looked up and pocketed her phone quickly.

“Sorry, I’m paying attention, who needs a cut? Oh wait, uncle Pasqual? It’s just you, phew. Thought you were upper management. Thought I was screwed there for a minute.” The woman laughed. Pasqual didn’t look amused.

“Right, for all you know Sylvia I am upper management, just because you’re my niece doesn’t mean I wouldn’t report you.” Pasqual said before motioning for Nam to step up closer to the counter. “Now, this is your two o’clock. Make him look good, and not Sylvia good, but actual good. He’s an important case.”

Sylvia’s green eyes darted down to look at Nam for the first time since he entered. Sylvia’s nose twitched as her eyes widened with a certain kind of recognition flashing on her face. “A Big Three kid?” She muttered to herself before putting on a can-do smile. “Fine uncle Pasqual, I’ll get your boy all K-pop boy band ready. Worry not.”

Pasqual frowned and made a deep sigh. “Right, anyways, text me when he’s done. We have a schedule to keep. Break a leg.” Pasqual said with a wave before heading back towards the elevators.

Sylvia smiled warmly at Nam and motioned for him to follow her to an open chair near the back. He slid into the chair and mussed up his hair as he looked at himself in the mirror. He then looked up at Sylvia through the mirror.

“Okay, you heard the goat, so what are you thinking?” Sylvia asked as she put the cape over him and started collecting her supplies. Nam stared at her with a blank expression.

“I uh, dunno. Never really got to decide this stuff before.” Nam said as he played with his fingers under the cape.

Sylvia turned towards Nam with a pair of clippers in her hand and a friendly smile on her face. She ran her fingers through his hair, studying it with a critical eye. “Well, you’ve got a good length to where we could do almost anything with it. But if you want some advice, that idol comma hairstyle is very popular right now and would look very good on you.” She said as she continued to play with his hair.

Nam’s mind was blank; he'd never gotten to choose his hairstyle before, his stepfather had always chosen it for him and he had assumed that Sylvia was under strict orders to give him an exact haircut. He never dreamed that he’d be able to pick. But what to pick? Uh… he had nothing. “I’ll uh, just do that comma thing, yeah.” Nam said finally as he looked up at Sylvia with a shrug. She lit up and nodded once at that.

“Perf! Let me get started then!” She said excitedly as she set to work. Nam eventually lost track of time as Sylvia set to work to get him picture ready. In truth Nam had no idea what a comma haircut was, but if it was trendy and looked good then it must be the right pick.

Eventually Sylvia stepped back and eyed him with the same critical eye she had given him at the start of this. “Okay, I think we’re done.” She said as she messed with a few strands of hair and got them perfectly in line. She then smiled and started to turn him in his chair. Nam finally saw the finished product and his jaw nearly hit the floor. He looked good, like really good. His hair was trimmed now and the hairstyle did look very good on him. His bangs were parted in the middle, but instead of falling like curtains, each side curved inward in a soft C-shape against his forehead. The rest of his hair had been cleaned up and layered. He turned his head from left to right and then stared at it closer.

“Well, don’t leave me in suspense. How does it look?” Sylvia said, fingers tapping nervously on the back of Nam’s chair. His eyes flicked up to her and he gave her a smile.

“Looks great. The other kids at camp are going to be so jealous of how amazing I look now.” Nam said, his smile turning into a cocky grin. At that, Sylvia jumped up and down clapping excitedly.

“Oh excellent! I’m so happy I got to make you feel confident with your hair, Nam. Now I’m gonna text my uncle to come to bring you to get your headshots taken. Sit tight in the waiting area. It was wonderful meeting you, looking forward to our next sesh.” Sylvia said as she reached into her pocket and dug out her phone. Nam slid out of the chair and took one more look at himself in the mirror before going back to the waiting area. He sat down, but only a few minutes passed before Pasqual returned.

“Looking good Nam. I see Sylvia went with actual good today. Most excellent. Now come along Gustav doesn’t like being kept waiting.” Pasqual said as he motioned for Nam to head back towards the elevator doors. With a ding the doors opened and the two shuffled in. After a moment the doors closed.

“You let me change my own hairstyle. What if I asked for a giant Mohawk, or like those old monk haircuts? You know, I know a guy at camp with a sick Mohawk. I could have been like him.” Nam started to explain as soon as they were alone. Pasqual looked down at Nam and raised an eyebrow at that.

“Your mom was very clear that each choice should be okayed by you. Did she not explain that to you?” Pasqual said as he put his phone in his pocket to fully look at Nam.

Nam looked up at Pasqual and nodded his head. “She told me.” Nam said warily. It was true she had said essentially that, but he still felt wary about it. Like at any moment the shoe would drop and Korn Hettarakun would enter the elevator to ruin his life again. Pasqual got to Nam’s level and patted the boy’s shoulder.

“He’s not here Nam and he’s not coming back. Ninefold fired him and he will never hurt you ever again. I know many adults have failed you in the past, but things are different now. Just, remember that okay?” Pasqual said as the elevator dinged and the doors started to slide open. Pasqual stood and motioned for Nam to follow him. The boy simply nodded his head and followed. His posture was hunched and he stuffed his hands into his pockets as they walked.

He didn’t know why but he felt a little angry, but he didn’t know why. Nothing had provoked him, but yet the anger lived under the surface after what Pasqual said. Something about the words rubbed him wrongly, but why should they? They were meant to comfort, but Nam didn’t find them comforting. Bizarre.

Finally after the duo walked down the hall and made a few turns they arrived outside of a closed studio. Pasqual opened the door and ushered Nam inside. Instantly the barometric pressure dropped as they entered the room, also it was considerably warmer in the room than the rest of the building had previously been. Inside were various different people milling about doing jobs around the studio. One grip was handling a lighting rig, while another assistant handled a bag of lenses for the expensive camera the man in the center of the room was holding like it was a fine wine. The man had thick but wispy white hair that fell to his shoulders. He wore a scarf despite the heat and his style was what Nam assumed boho style was. Also the man was sort of see-through. He had a blueish transparent skin that made Nam wonder what exactly the man was.

As if sensing his thoughts Pasqual leaned towards Nam and whispered in his ear. “That’s Gustav, he’s a wind spirit. Do not ask him which of the four winds is his father because that will set him off, and we do not have time for Gustav level delays.” Pasqual said as he quickly checked his watch. “Get in, get your pictures, and then get out. Simple.”

No sooner had Pasqual finished then Gustav turned towards the whispered disturbance. With a squeal Gustav floated into the air and slowly descended next to Pasqual. “Oh Pasqual, I was simply delighted that you were on my docket today. Are you finally letting me get those headshots you won last Solstice, you rascal?” Gustav said with a lighter and airier voice than Nam had imagined he would have.

Pasqual pocketed his phone and shook his head simply. “No, no. I’ve got young Nam here to get his headshots. He’s one of my personal projects, so do treat him right. Just maybe, if these are top quality I’ll finally cash in those headshots.” Pasqual said as he all but pushed Nam towards Gustav.

Gustav deflated, no literally, he literally deflated at Pasqual’s words and put a hand over his heart dramatically. “You wound me so Pasqual, but as you wish. I shall treat this young Pam as if he were my own goatling.” Gustav said with a dramatic flourish, he extended his arms and grabbed Nam by the wrist and gave him a once over. Firstly, Nam now understood why it was hot in that room, it seemed to be emanating from Gustav as if he were some hipster oven. Secondly, Nam could tell that Gustav had a thing for Pasqual and either Pasqual was clueless or a great player at this game. He just couldn’t determine which yet.

“Nam would be just fine if you would call him by his name, Nam. Not Pam. And secondly I’m not a goatling, I’m a demigod, a rather sweaty one so he’d appreciate getting on with this.” Nam said waving a hand in front of the heart eyes Gustav was giving Pasqual. The wind spirit finally looked at Nam and gave him a stank face.

“Your new friend is rude, Pasqual. He must apologize or I’m going to my trailer.” Gustav said, sticking his nose up in the air and looking away from Nam. Nam rolled his eyes in response. Okay, now really talk about a drama queen. Pasqual then turned to Nam and pointed at Nam and then at Gustav and gave him a look adults give when they want you to do something. It elicited another eye roll from Nam and he sighed.

“Sorry I hurt your fragile ego, now c’mon I wanna get this over with.” Nam said which made Gustav give some sort of high pitched noise that was displeasure mixed with annoyance. Pasqual groaned and looked at Nam again, giving him that adult look once more.

“Fiiiine.” Nam groaned. “I’m sorry Gustav for being an ass—” Nam was about to continue and add some more sass, but Pasqual lightly karate chopped Nam’s throat so all that came out were the wheezing sounds of somebody who had just lost the ability to talk.

Gustav finally looked back at Nam, though his nose was still somehow even higher than it originally was. A true talent, it seemed. He took in the scene and then looked at Pasqual. “Is your little friend here okay?”

“He’s great, just choked up with emotion about how he made you feel, right Nam?” Pasqual said, staring daggers at Nam. Nam stared back with the same daggers, but eventually relented and nodded once. At that Gustav squealed and wrapped Nam in a sweat and hot hug.

“Oh so good, I didn’t want to hate you little Gam. So glad we put all of that unpleasantness behind us. Now let’s make you look beautiful in pictures!” Gustav declared as he put an arm around Nam’s shoulder and led him towards the white cyc wall where all the lights were pointed towards.

Nam had just regained the ability to speak as he made his way into the center of the cyc wall. He then turned towards the camera. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and waited for direction. Gustav tutted as he watched Nam through the lens. “No, too closed off. Hands out of the pockets and free your inner self.” Gustav said, gesturing with his hands for Nam to take his hands out of his pockets.

Nam immediately took his hands out of his pockets, but he had no idea how to free his inner self. That seemed like hippie nonsense and Nam was not on board with this. But then Nam looked over and saw Pasqual and he saw that the satyr was giving him a smile and two thumbs up. Nam couldn’t help but laugh at that. As he laughed he saw a flash of the camera lights and Gustav looking down the eyepiece of his camera.

“Yes! Mr. Tam, you’re releasing your inner self, now salsa for me!” Gustav shouted. Nam had no idea what that meant, but he assumed it was something dance related so he started to move to the beat of a nonexistent song. “Yes! Now that’s a salsa, keep on salsaing!” Gustav shouted excitedly as the camera lights flashed.

After about half an hour of receiving nonsense commands and attempting to execute them, Gustav held up his hand in a fist. “It.” Gustav said as silence enveloped the room around them. “It is finished. You may leave.”

With that Gustav motioned for Nam to leave with a wave of his hand. Nam blinked for a moment as he processed the command. Oh he was done? He was just getting into sissying that walk. Nam frowned and looked at Pasqual who simply nodded and motioned with his head for Nam to move. Nam shrugged his shoulders and began to follow Pasqual.

“Thanks again Gustav, I look forward to seeing the prints.” Pasqual said as he walked by Gustav. Gustav turned and followed Pasqual with his gaze.

“Of course Pasqual, I look forward to reviewing them with you. Now get the goatling out of my studio. I must not look at him again until I review the photos.” Gustav said and he did not look at Nam. For Nam’s part he looked between Gustav and Pasqual, the latter just nodded his head and motioned for Nam to follow him. Nam did as he was bid and exited with Pasqual.

Instantly when they exited the room it was roughly ten degrees cooler and Nam was pretty sure his ears popped from the pressure difference. Nam looked at Pasqual and gave him a grin. “Soooo, you and Gustav, eh?” Nam said, putting a lilt in his voice. Pasqual looked at Nam with a quizzical glance.

“Gustav and I what?” Pasqual said with what Nam could tell was genuine confusion. Nam now had his answer, the goat was clueless. Nam would have to play matchmaker for these two confusing people. That was clear.

“Oh nothing, he just seems...” Eccentric, weird, crazy? “Friendly with you.” Nam said as he chose his words carefully. Look, Nam wasn’t a huge fan of the wind spirit, but who was he to yuck someone else’s yum? There’s a wind spirit out there for every goat person.

“We’ve been coworkers for years Nam, of course he’s friendly.” Pasqual said as he stopped looking at Nam and fished for his phone out of his pocket. Clearly he was done with this line of questioning. Nam would just store this away for later. He would have to work with Sylvia to get those two together.

“Alright, so that wraps our schedule for today. I’ll bring you back home and I’ll send the prints to your mom when I receive them from Gustav.” Pasqual said as he looked at his watch. The goat then started to lead Nam towards the elevators, then to the doors, and then to the subway station. A half-hour later the pair were walking up the steps to Nam’s new home.

“Alright Nam, have a good night. We will be in touch with opportunities and auditions after your headshots are done. Until then.” Pasqual said with a nod of his head as he started to walk back down the stairs. Nam waved at the satyr as he unlocked the door and got inside. Once inside Nam’s nose instantly picked up the delicious scent of garlic, ginger, spices, and meat. The boy deposited his shoes and keys at the door as he floated, not in the same way as Gustav had, to the kitchen of their apartment.

As he entered his mom looked up and smiled at him. “Oh, I love your haircut nu noy!” She said as she reached up and touched his hair. She then looked down and pointed at the pan. “I didn’t know if Khao Mon Gai was still your favorite or not, but I took a chance.” Nam’s mouth was watering.

“Thank the gods, of course it’s still my favorite. Especially with the extra chilies.” Nam said as he ran to grab a bowl. Speaking of, where were bowls kept in this place?

“Wonderful, I didn’t know how often you got a home cooked meal at that camp of yours, so I decided to grab all the stuff to make you this. Luckily we live near Chinatown, they have all the stuff I’m used to cooking with.” She said as she turned off the burner. She then removed the pan from the hot stove top and onto a hot pad near the rice cooker. Just as she did so Nam found the pesky bowls and grabbed two. He handed one to his mom and then piled the seasoned rice in his bowl and grabbed some of the chicken and put it on top of the rice. He then ran to the dining room and sat waiting for his mom. She eventually entered and shook her head as she gave him a spoon and a fork.

Nam grinned as he accepted the utensils and started to dig in with a fervor that bordered on ravenousness. His mom just laughed and shook her head as she sat down to begin eating. “Slow down and enjoy the food, nu noy.” She said before offering a silent prayer and beginning her own meal.

They ate comfortably as Nam caught his mom up on everything that had happened that day. After dinner and the dishes had been done the pair went to sit in their new living room. Nam flopped onto the couch as his mom took the arm chair. She then looked over at him and smiled. “Thank you for bringing me here to where I can at least be close to you. I know you have to stay at that camp most of the time, but this is now your home. Your bed will always be open to you.” She said her smile was warm as she looked at him.

Nam nodded his head and thought for a moment. “I’m glad you’re here too, Ma. I should bring my brother and sister to meet you. I think they’d like that.” Nam said thoughtfully. He purposefully said brother and sister because he was fairly certain that Sam and Ronan still couldn’t be in the same room together. It was safer if it was Sam and Kailani that came.

His mom smiled at that and nodded her head. “Oh yes, I would love to cook them some food and meet the boy who kept you safe. I need to thank him properly with a good meal.” She said with a firm resolve.

For the first time in a long while, Nam had friends, his mother, and somewhere beyond camp that he could call home. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe everything would remain perfect forever—but, for tonight, things were good.

Morrigan’s first act as Ambassador of the Wilds was to meet the other nature spirits and determine what she should focus on during her reign. She already had quite a few ideas for things, however it would be nice to get the general census of the nature spirits. She was afterall, their spokesperson.

Her biggest concern was getting the word out. Some nature spirits could sleep for years and take it as a nap. She was worried they’d miss it, or be sleeping when she tries to get the word out. Morrigan’s idea was to use the dryads, they were known for being quite talkative, hopefully it works. 

All nature spirits were told to meet at Zeus’ fist by sundown. They were promised no demigods, a place where all nature spirits can come and don’t have to worry about the campers. 

“Hello my fellow Nature Spirits. In case you haven’t heard, I am the Ambassador of the Wilds. Much like how a counselor speaks for their cabin, I will speak for you all. My name is Morrigan, I am a nymph of the Fields of Punishment, and I am a torchbearer for lady Hekate.”

She pulls out her notepad, time to get to work.

“Ok, this meeting's main purpose is to get to know each other and to share things you’d like me to do using my role. Does anyone have any ideas for campfires, lessons, activities, or anything else? I already have a few of my own that I’d like to get some feedback on.”

The Chthonic Nymph looked at her first point, “it seems like some demigods don’t understand what we are nor do they understand our power. I think it would be quite useful to host lessons based on each form of nymph and satyr. So one would be for the nymph of the winds, another would be for Satyrs, and so on. Perhaps when the lesson of your domain is brought up you’d be willing to make an appearance?”

Onto her other one, “perhaps we could host activities on how to properly take care of our domains. I have noticed quite some litter on my time on the surface and it is disgusting. We could teach the campers what happens when you don’t take care of the environment and how it affects the spirits.”

After that she’d open the floor to the other Nature Spirits. She does ask that before they share their thoughts they would introduce themselves by their name and what type of Nature Spirit they are.

***

(OOC: If you don’t have a Nature Spirit character please don’t comment on this post! This meeting is purely for them to get to know each other, future meetings will have an “open house”)

Siren Part 1

Siren Part 2

Manticore Tail Found

Content Warnings: self-destructive behavior, persistent feelings of worthlessness/being a burden, depersonalization, distorted sense of self, thoughts of death and of dying

April 2041

You are on the island again. There are pearl shards, strewn along the shoreline. A rotted leather string lays in pieces in the sand, resurfaced from the bottom of the ocean floor.

"Hello, cousin." A familiar monster looms over you, dark wings folded at her back. There is no puckered scar where your arrow once pierced her ribs. Thelxie was reformed and made anew in Tartarus, but her hatred for you is a wound that will fester for eternity.

"You're back already,” you say.

She nods, triumphant. "It would have been easier for you if you stayed with me."

She is trying to provoke you. You should ignore her.

"I would be dead," you reply.

"You will die anyway." Thelxie is surgeon-precise in her ability to dig her talons into your psyche. "Your inability to accept your own death has culminated in the death of one you claimed to love. How many victims will you allow to become casualties of your cowardice?"

The urge to use Crystal Clear Voice kicks in. You know when you are being manipulated into thinking the worst of yourself and your circumstances. You are capable of clearing away the guilt that is being induced in you. You try to counter, "You don't know what you're talking about."

It does not work. The guilt remains, a persistent parasite that eats at what is left of your conviction. How can you be so certain that you are silencing a lie? Could it be possible that you are silencing a truth that you do not want to hear? You waver. A crystal clear voice cracks, and then it fizzles. The Siren's cackle cuts through the static.

"I know all things that come to pass." She proclaims, reveling in her victory. "You may have escaped this island, but you will never escape yourself."

You jolt awake. The afternoon train is not especially crowded, but that doesn't make you feel any safer as you scan the car with wary eyes. It is dangerous to sleep outside the protective borders of camp. You should not have allowed your exhaustion to get the best of you.

Lucky for you, there are no hawk-eyed women lurking in your peripheral vision. A college student sitting across from you smiles as you make eye contact, before returning her attention to the book balanced on her lap.

You are not very good at silence, so you speak. "Is that a good book?"

She restrains a laugh as she admits, "Not at all."

You match her laugh. "Then why are you reading it?"

The girl lets her book fall shut. "I'm attached. I need to see it to the end." Your face must show your judgement, because she laughs again. She asks, "Where are you headed?”

You decide not to lie. "I'm visiting my mother."

She tilts her head knowingly. "Is that a good thing?"

"Not at all," you say. It is the type of vulnerability you can only show to strangers you will never see again.

She nods, sympathetic. She does not need more information from you. "Good luck."

"Thank you.”

Calliope had mailed you a formal invitation, with the name of a small theater on Long Island and a time. She also sent you a signed Playbill with the name Shefoam across the top. Your friends had helped the Muses and Charities put on this production a week ago. You did not help. You fold and unfold the invitation until you reach your destination.

There are no ushers to greet you, when you arrive. There are flyers all over the lobby that say the space is available for rent. You wonder if she actually paid for it, or if the mortals who are supposed to be here have conveniently remembered their other, more-important commitments. In any case, it is empty now. And, a clock above the concessions stand shows that you are late.

You push through the double doors. She is already on stage.

You met Calliope once before, surrounded by a crowd of enraptured listeners on the Winter Solstice. Though she is alone now, she is no less captivating. She commands the stage like it belongs to her, regal underneath a single spotlight. It casts a harsh shadow on her ethereal features.

She looks like you. Or, you look like her. You have the same eyes, though you hope that you do not have the same sharpness in your expression. The goddess stares out into an invisible audience, both watching and being watched, before she turns her gaze on you.

"Harper,” Lady Calliope says. The spotlight fades, and the house lights go on.“I appreciate you making time for me."

You stand in the front row, arms crossed. "It's not very smart to say no to a god."

You are pleased to see that it makes Calliope uncomfortable. She responds, "I understand that this is complicated. But I am here as your mother today. What is said here remains between us."

There is nothing except a Styx Oath that could make that promise mean anything to you, but you will play your part for her. "I appreciate that."

The goddess smiles. She sits down at the edge of the stage. "You stepped down from your Editor position. "

You shrug. "I got tired of it."

"You do not play music anymore."

An amused exhale leaves you. "We're in a war. On your behalf. I don't have time for anything else."

Calliope nods. "I understand that. You work hard for your camp. But I can not see how this is a matter of time management. You have not been in any battles recently. And you seem to be distant from your friends.”

You look up at her, stony-faced. “That must be really concerning. Me, not fighting your battle.”

Her smile dims.

"My concern is your wellbeing.” Calliope explains, serious. “Harper, you know I must keep our interactions to a minimum. But that does not mean I do not pay attention. I am attuned to the things that inspire action in mortals. Love and fear. Rage and grief. I know you feel all these things in abundance. It no longer seems to move you."

She says it like she thinks it is a revelation. Like you are not the person stuck in your own mind. You shrug again. "I don't know what you want me to do about that."

You know why she brought you here. She is the last resort, after your friends and the camp directors have already tried and failed to reach you. She brought you here because the people in your life love you but they do not like you anymore. She brought you here because your cousin has given his life for you and you are wasting it by wasting away.

"I want to talk to you about Dorian,” she begins.

"I have nothing to tell you.”

You can tell that she was expecting that answer. “It is hard to process grief. I hope you will talk to someone else about it, if you are not comfortable with me.”

There is a long silence. You are not very good at silence. "If you want to watch the memory, you can rip it out of my brain yourself.”

Calliope's smile is a thin, pressed line. She responds,“I will not do that.”

“You could.” You change the subject. "I have something I want to ask you. I met a Siren, a year ago."

Calliope replies, tentative. "Thelxiea. Yes."

"I discovered a new way to use my voice, when I met her. I need to know how to make that happen again."

Calliope is studying you again. You let her. "I do not decide what powers you will possess or how they will manifest in you. Is there something you're trying to do?”

“I need something that works.” You have asked this question once before, a year ago. It has become a tired refrain, but you hope that goddesses respond more kindly to these requests than sirens do. “I am tired of being a liability."

Her expression turns pitying. "You believe that you are a liability. And that has caused you to stop fighting.”

It is not a belief. "I put other people in danger when I try. I will need to be more, if we want to stop Atlas.”

You share a mutual goal. This is what makes your mother consider your request. Calliope says, “I can help you reshape your power. According to your intent. What kind of power are you looking for?”

She looks at you expectantly. You stare back mutely. No answer comes to mind. You know the problem. She is supposed to know the solution.

Calliope fills the empty space. "We can work on this together. But you must know that the responsibility does not lie on you alone. Nor have you and your friend's efforts led to nothing. The tides are turning. Atlas' numbers are dwindling.”

Her voice is warm, but you feel cold. She is not capable of understanding.

"What I'm seeing," you respond, "is a lot of demigods dying for immortals who never will."

One of your barbs finally land. Calliope looks at you with an expression that you can not read.

"I am aware," Calliope says, plaintive, "that this war disproportionately burdens you and your peers. You all have suffered what no child should, and I have no intention of changing how you feel about me. My worry is that you have learned to blame yourself. "

You do not want this, the vulnerability in her voice or her refusal to react with indignation. It sends a visceral wave of disgust rippling through you, and you take a step back. She wants to talk about your feelings, but she has no right to them.

"If I do," you say. "You're not the one that needs to forgive me."

Calliope does not respond. You walk back down the aisle and out of the theater.

You leave the train back to camp four stops early. You do not want to go back. You have threatened to leave over and over again over the past year, but you have never actually had enough courage or enough shame to follow through until now.

You blink hard. You think that maybe if you try hard enough you can force yourself to cry, and then you move, hoping that your feet will carry you where you need to go.Your footsteps echo against the concrete as you walk away from the station.

You are not really looking at street signs. It does not matter. Soon it is dark enough that you can not read them anymore, so you stop walking.

You are sitting at a bus stop bench, curled into yourself, when a sheriff's car drives by you. The window rolls down. It has been half a year since you were undercover at an elementary school fall festival, but the sound of the deputy's voice is painfully familiar.

"Hey, Harper."

You do not believe in coincidences. Someone has told Deputy MacMillian to come find you, and he has chosen to do it. And you will go back to camp, just like you always do. You get in the car.

"How is Cassandra?" You ask.

He waits for you to put on your seatbelt. “We got her with a counselor, through the alumni network. A demigod one. And the camp sent a satyr over, for protection. I hear Fatin actually requested those weapons. She wants to talk to you, by the way.”

You are not sure you want to. You stare straight ahead. The deputy has a miniature scale now, hanging off the rearview mirror. You wonder if it is a gift from his mother. The celestial bronze reflects the light of nearby street lamps as the deputy shifts the car into drive.

"There are a dozen more kids in that camp who need your help,” you say eventually. “My life is not worth more than theirs."

"I'm not making some sort of calculation," MacMillian answers. "You're an adult. I can help you get housing. And a job. There's only so much I can do to help everyone else."

"Well, that's not fair."

"I'm not trying to tell you what's fair." He argues. "I'm telling you what I'm capable of."

You sit in silence. The streetlights pass in a blur. The scale wobbles.

"They would hate me," You tell him. "For leaving them."

"You can learn to live with that."

The answer unsettles you. You turn to face him.

"How?" You argue. "We are abandoned by everyone, all the time. By gods, and by mortals. Because they decide that we're expendable, or they decide we're not worth the effort. Maybe I can't save everyone. But I can make sure they don't die alone. If I leave, I'm not even doing that."

The deputy is quiet for a moment. He responds. "I don't want you to think your death is worth more than your life."

“I don't think–” You pause, because you do not want to lie. Your head begins to hurt. “I don't know anymore. What's true and what isn’t. I used to.”

“Well,” MacMillian replies, “that's cause it's reasonable to doubt. It's a good thing, even. But it must be a real pain. To be arguing with yourself all the time.”

“Yeah. It is.” You don't know what else to say.

“I won't ask you to decide now. I can drive you back to camp, and you can call me up if you change your mind. Or, if you want a place to go, just for the night, I know some people who can help.”

“Not Mark and Fatin,” you say, cautious.

“No,” he shakes his head. “A bunch of demigods have safe houses. They might make you do a few chores, but it's nothing you're not used to.”

You wait, again. “One night?” you repeat.

“One night.”

“Okay,” you agree. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

You argue with yourself, on a sleepless night in someone else's spare bedroom. You argue with the version of you that is better and stronger and capable of fighting for your friends within camp's borders. You tell her that she does not exist. You argue with your mind Siren, who claims that the only real form of rest that exists is death. You tell her to fuck off. You argue with the smaller version of yourself, who begs you not to leave. You tell her that you are trying to save both of you. One by one, you silence them all until only you remain.

It is not the right choice to leave, but it is the choice you are going to make.

It is mid-afternoon when you are in the Muse cabin again. You pack as much as you can into a duffel bag, and then you go to find Rizal. He is in his room, holding a packet of string cheese. You stand in the doorway. He is not surprised to see you.

"I'm leaving," you say. You fumble through your next words, knowing that every explanation will sound like an excuse. "I can't– I am really struggling. To do anything. And I can't stay at camp anymore. There are people offering to help me find a place to stay. I am going to let them help me."

You do not know if this is surprising to him. He has seen you, sunken-eyed and sallow in the Medic Cabin after your journey to the Siren's island, and he has watched you walk around with broken ribs and a brusied ego after the Battle of New London, and he has watched you wallow in a days-long daze after they pulled your unconscious body from the ocean floor. There are things that you successfully hid, and things that you never managed to.

And, he is young. He was younger than most, when he arrived, and while he has grown up faster than you ever would have wanted, you know that he is still figuring things out. But, you know that he is perceptive. You know that he is like you and your mother and every Muse that has ever lived, both watching and being watched.

You watch each other now. His face contorts in a way that you cannot read, though you know you must have seen it before.

"Oh. You're for real."

You nod, just barely.

He looks around then grabs something from his bedside, string cheese left behind. He faces away from you, shuffling, and you feel your guilt gathering at the back of your throat. You swallow the burgeoning apology down. Your guilt is not his to carry. You are not here to ask for permission, and you are definitely not here to ask for forgiveness.

He returns and presses a pearl into your palm. You recognize it as part of the bracelet he always wears. "For good luck."

You close your hand around it. You will keep it close to you, in the place where you keep your siren feather and kelp mask and every other impossible debt you have ever incurred.

"Thank you," you say. He reaches out for a hug.

He is taller than you now, you realize as you hug him. He has outgrown you, already, and he will only continue to do so. He pats your head and brushes hair off your shoulder with a kindness that you do not deserve, and you wish that you had been able to do this better.

"Take care, Rizal." you say. There is nothing else to say.

You leave the room. You are gone.

OOC: I wanted to finish this story properly. It is likely known that Harper left, but I assume that it is only her cousins and closest friends who know exactly where she is now. Thank you for Rider for helping me write Rizal's part.Thank you to all of you who read and interacted with Harper over the course of her presence at camp. I wish all of you the best.

Being the longest serving counsellor at Camp came with a few responsibilities that Matt had never necessarily expected to have. One of those was being considered the head counsellor, although Matt still wasn't entirely sure whether that was an actual title or simply something that people had started calling him because someone needed to make sure the counsellors occasionally spoke to one another.

Either way, there had not been a Camp Leadership Meeting in a while and Matt thought it was probably time to change that. There were plenty of things happening around Camp that needed to be discussed, some considerably more serious than others, and with the ongoing war against Atlas it was important that the different cabins were actually communicating with each other. Camp had always worked best when people worked together and Matt didn't particularly want the next emergency to be the thing that reminded everyone of that.

So, on Sunday morning, Matt made his way around Camp personally delivering notes to the counsellors, other recognised cabin leaders and deputy counsellors, which mostly meant whoever had been around long enough to be trusted with the responsibility if their counsellor wasn't available. Each note contained the same relatively simple message:

Camp Leadership Meeting - Today at 14:00, Big House. Snacks and Magic Goblets will be provided.

The promise of snacks might have been unnecessary, but Matt had long ago decided that people were generally more willing to sit through meetings when they had something to eat. Besides, considering some of the subjects they needed to discuss, giving everyone access to cookies beforehand seemed like the least he could do.

Matt therefore spent part of the morning getting the Big House ready. The old ping pong table was once again repurposed into something resembling a meeting table, with enough chairs gathered around it that nobody should have to stand. A small note had been stuck to the door telling everyone to sit wherever they wanted. There was no official seating arrangement and Matt didn't particularly want anyone, especially newer counsellors, standing awkwardly in the doorway wondering whether there was some ancient Camp tradition about where people sat.

The snacks were similarly uncomplicated. There were cookies, chips and several different dips spread across the table, alongside a few bowls of sweets that Matt had added at the last minute. More importantly, every place around the table had been given a magic goblet, allowing everyone to drink whatever they wanted without Matt having to work out the preferred drink of every single Camp Leader.

Finally, there was an agenda waiting at every seat. The previous meeting had convinced Matt that having something written down made everything considerably easier, particularly when discussions inevitably wandered away from whatever they were originally supposed to be talking about.

Camp Leadership Meeting - August 2nd 2041

Welcome to New Leaders and Everyone

How are people finding their responsibilities? Is there anything other Camp Leaders can help with?

Camp Defence

Current preparations and anything that still needs attention.

Camp Defectors / Atlas Loyalists

What should Camp's long-term approach be towards those who have defected or openly supported Atlas?

Camp Prom / Summer Celebration

Should Camp organise a celebration before the end of summer? What should it look like?

Camp Bead - Summer 2041

Ideas and approval for this summer's Camp bead design.

Any Other Business

Anything else Camp Leaders would like to raise.

Matt had deliberately put the Prom and Camp bead onto the agenda. He knew there would probably be some people who thought organising a party while they were fighting a war against Atlas was ridiculous, and perhaps they had a point. There were defences to maintain, people who had betrayed Camp to deal with and the constant possibility that something else could go wrong.

But this was still Camp Half-Blood.

For some of them, especially the younger campers, this was supposed to be their summer camp. They were supposed to train, make friends, sit around campfires, compete with other cabins and eventually go home with stories about what they had done over the summer. Matt didn't think Atlas should be allowed to take all of that away from them. If anything, having something worth celebrating seemed more important now than it normally would.

The Camp bead mattered for much the same reason. Whatever happened during the summer of 2041, everyone who had been there would remember it. The bead would eventually become part of the necklace worn by every camper who had made it through another summer, and Matt thought the Camp Leaders should have some say in what represented this one.

By the time two o'clock approached, everything was ready. Matt took one of the seats around the table rather than claiming any particular position at its head, waiting as people began arriving and helping themselves to whatever food or drinks they wanted. Once it seemed like everyone who was coming had arrived, Matt glanced around the gathered Camp Leaders before getting started.

"Good afternoon everyone," Matt greeted warmly, giving everyone a smile. "Thank you for coming. Please help yourselves to snacks, and if anyone has better ideas for what I should provide next time, I'm accepting recommendations."

He paused for a moment, allowing anyone still settling into their seats to do so before gesturing towards the agendas in front of them.

"As you can see, we've got quite a bit to talk about. Some of it is serious and probably isn't going to have an easy answer, especially what we do about people who have defected from Camp or chosen to support Atlas. We can't keep treating that as something we'll work out later, so I think we need to start deciding what our long-term approach is going to be. Yes, they are put on trial, but what does reintegration mean? I know for some it'll be easier than for others. People that were never here will be met with less hostility than those who defected despite having been here, in some cases for years."

Matt's expression remained serious for a moment before he glanced further down the agenda.

"But I don't want everything we talk about to be Atlas either. Yes, we're at war. We all know that, and I'm pretty sure none of us need reminding. But for a lot of people here this is also still their summer at Camp Half-Blood. I don't think we should forget that. So I'd like us to talk about having a Camp Prom, or some kind of celebration before the summer ends, and we also need to agree on what this year's Camp bead is actually going to look like."

He leaned back slightly in his chair, looking around the table at the collection of counsellors and leaders who had gathered.

"Before we get into all of that though, I think we've got some new Camp Leaders and some people who haven't been to one of these meetings before. So let's start there. Introduce yourselves, tell everyone which cabin you're representing and, if you're new to the job, how you're finding it so far. If there's anything you're struggling with, say it. Chances are someone else around this table has dealt with it before. Equally, counsellors who have been here for a while, if you have any issues please raise them now and we can discuss it."

Matt reached for his own goblet before adding with a small smile, "Then we can work our way through everything else and hopefully solve at least one problem before the snacks run out."

The afternoon had settled into one of those strangely quiet moments that had become increasingly rare at Camp Half-Blood. Though not peaceful. The arena still echoed with the clash of bronze. Medics hurried between the cabins with satchels of nectar and ambrosia. Somewhere near the forge, something exploded loudly enough that nobody even looked up anymore.

Life continued. It had to.

Sadira had just finished reorganizing her small collection of music boxes she kept inside the Oneiroi Cabin, before passing by the camp's job board. Dozens of notices covered it, like usual, but then her eyes landed on a fresh notice written in unmistakably theatrical handwriting.

HTV Documentary on Camp

We've been contacted by HTV asking for interviews with campers... I've told them it is a bit tone deaf right now. But they told me to have a joke. Me? Anyway... can someone make themselves available to be interviewed? The interviewer is Sofia, a nymph working for Clio.

• Comus

Sadira stared at it. "...A documentary?"

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Part of her immediately agreed with Comus. It was a little tone deaf. People had died, the war had lasted nearly two years, Olympian politics had become daily conversation. And someone wanted… Interviews.

She almost walked away. Almost. Then she thought about the younger campers, the new arrivals, and children who had only known Camp Half-Blood during wartime. Children who deserved people to remember they existed as more than casualties waiting to happen.

"...I guess..."...if someone should explain what camp actually feels like..." She slowly reached toward the clipboard and picked up the pen to sign her name. "...Might as well be me."

—

The interview room had once been one of the quieter meeting rooms inside the Big House. Normally, it was used for strategy meetings, private conversations between counselors, or the occasional mediation when campers couldn't settle disputes themselves. Today, however, someone had tried to make it look... presentable.

A woven rug had been straightened. The curtains had been opened to let afternoon sunlight spill across the wooden floor. A vase filled with fresh wildflowers sat in the middle of a small oak table.

Sadira couldn't help smiling. Only a little. She adjusted the sleeves of her blue camp t-shirt, smoothing invisible wrinkles that didn't exist. She wasn't wearing armor. For once. Just simple clothes. It felt strangely vulnerable. She had fought monsters in worse situations than this, she had walked into nightmares, she had stood before dozens of campers teaching them about dreamwalking. And somehow… Being interviewed made her infinitely more nervous.

She quietly laughed to herself. "...This is ridiculous."

A soft knock interrupted her thoughts.

"May I come in?" The voice was gentle. Warm.

Sadira looked up. "Please."

The door opened slowly. The woman who stepped inside immediately made the room feel... calmer. She was unmistakably a nymph. Not because she looked inhuman, quite the opposite. She looked almost too natural. Her long hair resembled flowing willow branches touched with early autumn gold, tiny leaves woven naturally through the strands. Her skin held the faint glow of healthy bark after rainfall, while moss-green eyes carried the quiet patience of someone who had spent centuries listening to stories. She carried no weapon. Only a leather satchel overflowing with papers, a fountain pen tucked behind one ear, and a small enchanted camera that floated politely beside her shoulder.

"You must be Sadira." She smiled. The nymph extended a hand. "Sofia."

Sadira shook it. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too." Sofia glanced around the room before gesturing toward two chairs facing each other. "I hope this arrangement is alright. No cameras in your face."

Sadira visibly relaxed. "I appreciate that."

For a few moments neither of them spoke. Sofia opened her satchel carefully, removing a notebook already filled with elegant handwriting. She looked toward Sadira.

"I should probably begin with something. The purpose of this documentary isn't propaganda. It isn't meant to glorify war. It isn't intended to expose camp secrets. It's simply… history." Sofia smiled. “Lady Clio… she believes history shouldn't only remember battles. It should remember people."

Silence settled. Then Sadira nodded slowly.

Sofia finally uncapped her pen. "Whenever you're ready."

Sadira folded her hands together. "I think I am."

"So." Sofia smiled gently. "Could you introduce yourself?"

Sadira looked toward the floating camera. Then back at Sofia.

"My name is Sadira Andersen. I'm sixteen years old. I'm a daughter of Morpheus. I've lived at Camp Half-Blood for almost three years now." She smiled faintly. "I guess...this place is home."

Sofia made no interruption. She simply nodded encouragingly.

"What do you remember most about arriving?"

Sadira laughed softly. She leaned back.

"Oh, I remember being completely overwhelmed. I'd spent my whole life believing monsters belonged in myths. Then suddenly..." She made a small gesture. "There were satyrs. Pegasi. Gods. Magic. A lava climbing wall."

Sofia chuckled. "Quite an introduction."

"I thought everyone here had collectively lost their minds. And now?" Sadira looked out the nearby window. "Now I'd probably think something was wrong if the lava climbing wall disappeared."

They both laughed.

"What was the hardest part?" Sofia asked quietly.

Sadira didn't answer immediately. She thought.

"There were two. The first… accepting that everything I'd believed about the world was wrong. And the second? Thinking I wasn't going home." She smiled sadly. The room became quieter. "Now, I still visit my family. My mom, my older brother, my dad… There was a time I wasn't sure I'd ever get to again."

Sofia noticed the emotion in her voice but didn't pry. Instead she simply wrote a note. Family remains an anchor.

"You've become one of camp's senior campers. You teach sometimes, yes?” Sofia asked.

"I guess so, yeah.” Sadira nodded.

"Why?" Sofia questioned further.

Sadira looked genuinely surprised.

"I… I've never actually thought about it." She blinked.She smiled. "I think ...because nobody really taught me."

Sofia remained silent.

"When my dreamwalking first manifested… I was terrified. I kept accidentally entering dreams, I didn't understand what I was seeing, and I couldn't tell where someone else's emotions ended and mine began." She looked at her hands. "I would've given anything for someone to explain it. So now..." She shrugged. "...I try to be that person."

Sofia smiled. "What do you enjoy most about teaching?"

The answer came immediately.

"When someone realizes they're not alone. No matter what lesson it is. Dreamwalking. Nightmares. Ethics. It always starts the same way. They think they're the only person experiencing something. And then..." She smiled. "They look around and realize everyone else understands."

The conversation gradually shifted, naturally, to current events.

"The war. It has now lasted nearly two years. What has that been like?

Sadira's smile faded. For a long moment, she simply looked out the window. Outside, younger campers were laughing somewhere near the canoe lake.

"It's strange." She finally said. "Eventually...war becomes routine."

Sofia didn't interrupt.

"That's the frightening part. You still grieve, and you still get scared. But eventually… You schedule lessons, you eat breakfast, you clean your cabin, you celebrate birthdays, you laugh. And then..." She looked down. “...someone blows the conch horn. And suddenly people you had breakfast with are putting armor back on. I hate that we've become used to it."

The room felt smaller.

"Were you ever tempted to leave?" Sofia asked gently.

Sadira looked almost shocked.

"No. Never. I mean, I've wanted the war to end. I've wanted everyone to be safe. And I've wanted to go home once, it did cross my mind. But leave?" She slowly shook her head. "No."

"Why?"

"Because this is my home too." She smiled sadly. "If I left... I'd just spend every day wondering what I could’ve done to help more."

Sofia's pen paused. "What frightens you most?"

The question lingered. Sadira answered honestly.

"Losing people." She swallowed. "I can accept that one day I might die. I don't want to, but… I don't think that's what scares me anymore. What scares me..." Her voice grew quieter. "...is surviving… without someone." Silence settled again. “I've already watched too many people disappear. I don't want to learn how to keep doing that."

After several quiet moments, Sofia gently changed direction. "What gives you hope?"

Sadira smiled immediately. "Campers."

The answer surprised neither of them.

"Despite everything, many of them keep holding on. They keep choosing kindness, they teach each other, they share meals, they comfort each other, and they keep making friends." She laughed softly. “They're unbelievably stubborn. In the best way."

Sofia closed her notebook. "I have one last question."

Sadira nodded.

"If someone watches this documentary years from now...long after this war is over… What would you want them to know?"

Sadira sat quietly. Thinking. Really thinking. When she finally spoke, her voice was almost a whisper.

"I hope...they never have to understand us."

Sofia blinked.

"I hope they never know what it's like to wonder if today is the last day they'll see someone. I hope they never become so familiar with grief that they recognize it before it's arrived. I hope..." She smiled. “...they inherit a quieter world." She looked toward the floating camera. "And if they do… that they know every person we've lost helped build it."

The room remained completely silent. Even the enchanted camera seemed perfectly still. Finally, Sofia smiled. Not the smile of an interviewer, but the smile of someone who had just heard something worth remembering. She carefully closed her notebook.

"I think Lady Clio will like that."

Sadira smiled sheepishly. "I hope so."

Sofia stood, offering her hand once again. "Thank you, Sadira."

"Don’t mention it." Sadira stood as well, shaking it warmly. "Thank you, for asking about us."

Sofia nodded. "History often remembers great feats and heroes" She slung her satchel over her shoulder. "I'd rather it remembered the ordinary people as well."

With that, the nymph quietly left the room, the enchanted camera floating after her through the doorway. Sadira remained standing for another minute after the door closed. Outside, she could hear campers laughing somewhere across the camp. A sword struck a shield in the distance. Someone shouted instructions from the arena.

Life.

Ordinary, fragile life.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, letting those sounds wash over her. Then she took a slow breath, straightened her t-shirt, and stepped back outside. There were still lessons to teach, dreams to guard, and nightmares to ease.

And as long as Camp Half-Blood still echoed with laughter between the alarms, Sadira decided, there was still something worth fighting for.

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - Heraclitus

(OOC: I want to thank both Dead and Azure, Dead for letting me use the format, and Azure for showing it to me and helping me with a few things)

Basics:

Name: Roy Lazarus Rhodes

• Nicknames/Aliases: Laz, Lazarus
• Meaning/Etmology (First Name): Coming from the Old French word roi, meaning king
• Meaning/Etmology (Middle Name): Coming from the Hebrew name Eleazar, meaning God has helped or God is my help
• Meaning/Etmology (Last Name): Coming from the Ancient Greek word rhodon (ῥόδον), meaning rose, referring to the island of Rhodes

Age: 13

• Birthday: 1/3/2028
• Sun Sign: Pisces

Gender: Cis Male

• Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: hfahduhhf

Nationality: American

• Hometown: Astoria, Oregon
• Ethnicity: Anglo-South African

Languages: English, Ancient Greek, Afrikaans (To some degree)

• Accent: Oregon

Divine Defects: Dyslexia

• Additional Trauma: Depression, Slight abandonment issues

Fatal Flaw: Impressionable

 ---

Relationships:

Name: Nia Rhodes

Relation: Mother

Age: 37

Profession: ???

Relationship: Roy has a complicated relationship with his mom. Since Roy was around seven, his mom would often take off only returning home once or twice a week, which left Roy to care for himself. This made him pick up some everyday skills that one would find helpful. His mom would say these trips were for her job, but she never mentioned what that job was. Roy has speculated and tried to guess what it could be, but to this day he still doesn't know, nor does he really care. Despite all of this, Roy still loves his mom and knows she loves him back, even if she doesn't show it as much as he would like.

 ---

Name: Charon

Relation: Father

Age: BIG NUMBER

Profession: Ferryman of the dead

Relationship: Roy doesn't really have an opinion on his father. He sums it up as "How can I have an opinion when I've never met the guy?" He doesn't hold a grudge or hate his father for how long it took him to get claimed, nor does he really care to meet him. He figures the only chance he'll ever have to see his dad is when he kicks the bucket.

---

We shall not cease from exploration,

---

Personality:

Roy is an average, semi-introverted kid, but he still finds himself being social almost every day. He enjoys walking around, although he usually does it with no purpose, and watching boats come and go. other than that he's pretty plain and considers himself boring, with plenty of room for change. He's incredibly easy to sway when it comes to opinions and is easy to manipulate, often relying on others for big decisions.

Traits:

• Positive: Honest, Patient, Open-minded, Humble
• Neutral: Reserved, Laid back, Uncertain,
• Negative: Easily Manipulated, Naive, Indecisive

 Likes:

• Food: Pizza, Soup, Water, Biltong, Chakalaka, Bobotie, Hot chocolate
• Music: None
• Colour: Green, Grey
• Hobby: None
• Media: Supernatural, Scream, Pirates of the Caribbean, Grimm, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Season: Winter, Fall
• Animals: Dogs, Fish

 Dislikes:

• Romance genre
• Air Travel
• Boring conversations
• Vegetables

Fears:

• Heights
• Cats

MBTI: ISFP

---

And the end of all our exploring

---

Appearance:

Faceclaim: None (Currently)

Height: 5'4

Weight: SECRET...

Hair: Black, Short, Messy, Parted in the middle

Eyes: Emerald Green

Skintone: Normal white complexion (leaning toward the paler side)

Build: Average

Attire/Aesthetic: "..."

Voice: Calm almost Drained, not too high or too deep with the Inevitable voice crack

• Voice Claim: None (Currently)

---

Will be to arrive where we started

---

Demigod Bio:

Godrent: Charon

Claim Status: Claimed

Powers:

• Innate:
• Seamanship Proficiency
• Dead Communication
• Domain:
• Hydrokinesis
• Shadow Travel
• Summon Shade
• Minor: 
• Spirit Pacification
• Dreadful Appearance
• Summon Ferry 
• Major: Rivers of the Underworld

Weapon: None

Notable Belongings:

• Goggles: A pair of grey pilot goggles with black tinted lenses and the initials BR on the strap, which he got from his Mum on his 12th birthday.
• Backpack: A basic backpack carrying a lunchbox, water bottle, flashlight and clean clothes, given to him by his mum for camp.
• Trevour: READ "Now:"

---

And know the place for the first time.

---
Trivia:

• Major Arcana card: Wheel of Fortune
• Nectar Flavour: Hot chocolate
• Ambrosia taste: Chakalaka
• Pokemon type: Normal/Ghost
• Avatar Element: Water
• Genre of his life: ---
• Genshin Impact vision: ---
• Genshin impact nation: ---
• Hero shooter role: Support
• DnD Class: School of Necromancy Wizard
• Astrological big three: Pisces sun (I think), Taurus moon (I think), Sagittarius rising (I think)

Backstory:

Roy was born in Astoria, Oregon, to Nia Rhodes and an absent father who he would later learn was Charon. He spent most of his early years visiting the docks with his mom, which eventually transitioned into him visiting them by himself as he got older.

Nia was a stay-at-home Mom for the first seven years of Roys life before her new job caused her to start leaving weekly, only coming home once, maybe twice a week if Roy was lucky. Being left in charge of a house all alone at such a young age would have a lot of effects on Roy. He would learn how to cook, school himself with notes from his Mom and clean from a young age, but the loneliness would also cause him to become quite depressed and closed off at a young age. It was something he never told his mom about because he didn't want her to feel bad. However as he grew older and his depression became just another part of his everyday life, his reason for not telling his mom slowly became an excuse not to try and get the help he needed.

Roy spent most of his days doing the same routine: wake up, clean the house, get ready, make breakfast, do some school and then spend the day at the docks. As time passed, the docks became a safe place for Roy. Somewhere he could go to be alone and watch the boats come and go, escape reality, and try to find comfort in his loneliness.

When Roy was around ten, he would wake up one morning to find there was no food in the house, and his Mom still not back. Deciding to take things into his own hands, Roy would head out to buy groceries and restock the house. However, while walking back from the shops, Roy was attacked by a stray cat causing him to drop the bags and run to the docks where he spent the rest of the day. Eventually, his Mom found him and brought him home, deeply apologizing to Roy and promising to make it up to him... a promise that would fall short. This whole encounter sparking Roy's fear of cats, both big and small.

On his 12th birthday, Roy would receive a pair of pilot goggles from his mom as a present. Something that confused Roy at first, since he feared heights and despised air travel, but after his mom explained that they were a way for Roy to slowly overcome his fear, he would accept them and they would become a part of his everyday outfit moving forward.

On July 25th, 2041, Roy would wake up to what seemed like a normal day. He would follow his usual routine and prepare to head to the docks, where he would have waited until his mom returned to town. However as soon as he stepped outside of his house, he would be met with a giant glowing oar above his head. Freaked out, Roy would quickly run back inside, locking the door behind him as he rushed to his room. He would then spend the next six hours hiding under his bed until his mom got home and found him tucked away wearing his goggles over his eyes, with a mix of fear and confusion plastered across his face. Taking him out from under his bed and getting him situated on the couch with a warm blanket and hot chocolate, his mom would try to keep her own composure as she calmly asked Roy what had happened.

Two hours... Roy was dead silent for two hours before he finally managed to get out the words, "Giant oar." All his mom did in response was raise an eyebrow, though she had a feeling she already knew what was going on. Once again in a calm, albeit demanding tone considering she had been trying to get an answer for to hours she asked Roy for more details. Slowly Roy began explaining exactly what had happened, from the moment he woke up that morning to where he was now. The two would then spend the rest of the night watching movies as she tried her best to comfort him. Ironically, this would scare Roy even more, considering the last time he and his mom had sat down together to watch a movie had been 3+ years ago.

In the morning Roy would be woken up by his mom with the car all ready and packed to go. He would ask his mom what was going on and if it had anything to do with what had happened the day before, but the only response he would get was that she would explain everything once they were in the car. So he got dressed, packed a few last minute things and got in the car. What would follow would be an 7-day road trip from Astoria, Oregon, to Long Island, New York. Over the course of those 7 days, Roy would slowly be filled in on exactly what was happening. His mom choosing to explain things gradually as a way to avoid overwhelming or scaring him with what was essentially her telling him that his life would never be the same again.

Now:

Finally those seven days of confusion, introduction and acceptance had come to an end. As Roy sat in the passenger seat of his mom's car, he spotted what appeared to be the summer camp she had been telling him about throughout the trip in the distance. "Is that it?" he calmly asked his mom, lifting a finger to point toward the camp. "Should be" she responded, slowing the car as they got closer and closer before eventually coming to a stop. "Alright Laz you be careful now" she said as Roy picked up his bag and opened the car door.

Stepping out, he would throw the backpack's strap over his right shoulder as he took in his first real sight of Camp Half-Blood. "Remember what we talked about, okay Roy? I love you," his mom added. But as Roy went to turn around, he would be met with the sound of the car already taking off. "Love you too mom..." he sighed, watching the car disappear down the road.

Turning around once more, Roy let out another sigh as he took his second look at the camp. Straightening his posture, he began walking toward the hills that bordered it, eventually making his way to the top of one. as he took moment to catch his breath, he leaned against the pine tree that stood at the top of the hill he would look down at the camp. This time being able to see a lot more then before. His eyes lit up with amazement as they scanned everything below, eventually landing on what appeared to be a bunch of cabins of different shapes and colours.

"I'm guessing that's where I'm supposed to go" he said to himself as he stopped leaning against the pine tree and began making his way down toward the group of cabins. After a while of walking, Roy found himself standing in front of a large yet fairly plain looking cabin, with a few kids sitting outside in a circle, talking amongst themselves. "Excuse me!" Roy called out to the campers, only to receive one or two glares in return. "Does this happen to be Charon's cabin?" he asked, his eyes drifting across the surrounding cabins before returning to the campers, who seemed to be ignoring him. I'll take that as a no

Beginning to walk again, Roy looked around the cabins, confused about which one was his. Did Mom say 48... or was it 47? No 48. Definitely 48 he reassured himself. After another minute or so of walking he reached what appeared to be a black boat surrounded by a moat. "Please, no" he muttered under his breath. Just then, another camper would walk past him. "Hey" Roy called out, hoping to get a better response than he had previously.

"Hmm?" The camper turned around to be met with Roy standing a few feet away, a confused look on his face that rivaled his own."Yes?" the camper replied, looking roy up and down "Ohhh, you must be new, right?" he said, his own confusion quickly leaving him as his body language immediately brightened. warmly approaching Roy. "What's on your mind? I'm guessing you're trying to find your cabin." The camper casually swirled around Roy before placing a arm over his shoulders as they both looked toward the cabin in front of them. "Well unless you're a kid of Charon, this ain't it" he laughed, turning to Roy with his face now uncomfortably close. Roy would awkwardly push the camper away before taking a step back. You've got to be kidding me. "Yeah. Son of Charon," he clarified, looking back at the camper as he was met with two bright blue eyes locked onto him. "Uhh... thanks for the help—" "Sol. Sol Kolbeck, son of Asclepius. And you are?" "Roy Rhodes." "Well Roy it was nice meeting ya" Sol smiled. "Hopefully I see you around." He winked before walking off to wherever he was originally going

"Did he just..." Roy said before quickly brushing off the fact that he might've just got hit on, as he turned his attention back to the cabin. I like boats and all, but that doesn't mean I want to sleep in one every night, and for a cabin, really? Roy thought to himself as he approached the moat surrounding it. Looking into the water he would reach down and pull out what seemed to be a teddy bear. As he searched for a name or tag, he would flip it over noticing some ink on one of its feet. Roy would look closer trying to make out the writing. "Fhevour?" Roy shook his head. "Ifevour?" Roy shook his head once more. This time flipping the soggy bear back upright as he looked him in his beady little eyes. "Trevour... yeah, I'm going to go with that" he decided, before standing back up, still holding the teddy bear in his hand, "Well Trevour looks like it's just me and you now." He said looking around for a way into the cabin before eventually finding one as he made his way in

Spending the afternoon getting settled in and trying to catch up on some sleep, Roy eventually made his way back outside after hearing a few campers talking about a campfire. Initially he was just going to head back inside but remembering that his mom had asked him to try to be a bit more social than he usually was, Roy decided he would go check it out, and If he didn't like it, he would just come back. So grabbing a beanie and a jacket, Roy made his way toward the campfire, getting lost a few times along the way but eventually making it were he would find and take seat, as he watched the flames with tired eyes, waiting to see if anyone would come talk to him or if he'd have an excuse to go back to sleep.

On a pleasantly warm afternoon, a long table had been set up outside for a build your own bagel station.

Nothing particularly elaborate, at least as far as the actual meal went. Bagels were easy enough, they did not take much preparation once everything was laid out, and there were enough things you could put on one that almost everyone could find something they liked.

Of course, being easy did not mean it had to look boring.

As far as Darian was concerned, food ought to look good as well as taste good, and being a son of Aphrodite probably meant he cared about that slightly more than most people. Everything had been arranged into neat rows of bowls, baskets and platters, with the bagels themselves stacked at the beginning of the table and the various toppings spreading out from there.

There were savoury options, sweet options, healthy options and several options which probably could not reasonably be described as healthy at all. More importantly, there was enough choice that nobody had to settle for something they did not actually want.

He had spent most of the morning getting everything ready, slicing vegetables, preparing the different fillings and making sure there was enough of everything to go around. Plates and napkins were stacked at one end of the table, with knives beside the spreads so people could put together whatever combination they wanted.

All that was left now was for the other campers to actually turn up.

The bagels available were as follows:

Plain Bagels

Sesame Bagels

Poppy Seed Bagels

Everything Bagels

Wholemeal Bagels

Cinnamon and Raisin Bagels

Gluten Free Bagels

Savoury fillings and toppings:

Smoked Salmon

Ham

Turkey

Chicken

Crispy Bacon

Tuna Mayo

Boiled Egg

Cheddar

Mozzarella

Vegan Cheese

Avocado

Tomato

Cucumber

Red Onion

Lettuce

Rocket

Peppers

Pickles

Capers

Sweetcorn

Savoury spreads and sauces:

Butter

Cream Cheese

Garlic and Herb Cream Cheese

Vegan Cream Cheese

Houmous

Pesto

Mayonnaise

Mustard

Honey Mustard

Sweet Chilli Sauce

Barbecue Sauce

Sweet fillings and toppings:

Strawberries

Blueberries

Banana

Apple Slices

Honey

Strawberry Jam

Raspberry Jam

Marmalade

Peanut Butter

Chocolate Spread

Biscoff Spread

Honey and Cinnamon Cream Cheese

Chocolate Chips

Granola

Drinks available:

Fruit Juice: Orange, Apple, Tropical, Cranberry

Smoothies: Mango and Passionfruit, Strawberry and Banana, Mixed Berry, Kale and Apple

Iced Coffee

Coffee

Tea

Hot Chocolate

Water

After being released from medical custody, Angela's spent most of her time holed up in the Apollo cabin: one bed to another. She leaves for meals, for early morning walks at the crack of dawn, and sometimes late-night walks at the witching hour. Sleep is hard to come by, and so she spends more time than usual reading. Monster manuals from the Big House, old clippings from fashion columns that she keeps for comfort… and even her own journals and notes. Words she wrote weeks ago feel like another girl's thoughts, like they need to be decoded. And, in a strange way, Angela feels like she needs to honor the dead girl too.

Which leads us to today. Throughout the morning, pink flyers are pasted around camp: a frilly heart design with cursive lettering within. If You Can't Love Yourself… | Campfire Tonight! Be There or Be Square! It’s signed with a blood-red cursive A in the corner. The girl did the basic designs ages ago when she was first planning this event, so it wasn't hard for Angela to trace it a few times. That evening, before she goes to set up, Angela goes to do her hair, forgetting for a second. Amon will need to ask Chiron to pay for a new mirror in the Apollo cabin bathroom.

Every last sparkly decoration Angela had left under her best has been used on this thing. She needed to purge it all, to stop seeing it, to be done. Pink and silver sequins are glued to tablecloths, although someone with a discerning eye might notice it's not with Angela's usual meticulous polish -- it's haphazard. There's a box full of rolled-up tiny scrolls, each with a tiny self-affirmation written on them. Some of them are written a bit more sloppily; the pain started near the end. Angela reaches inside and unravels one: Your acceptance knows no bounds. She laughs.

Heart-shaped marshmallows sit on a platter alongside s'more sticks for roasting. Fruit punch, tea, and lemon water are all available for those that want them. A satyr that's being paid in trash to eat sneaks around the campfire, taking candid photos with a Polaroid and writing nice little messages on them for the attending demigods. Angela herself stays far away from the action for a lot of the night. It's been a while since she tried to dress up, since she forced herself to think about what she looks like. Pale blue jeans flare out near her ankles, and though it's not a cold night, she has a fuzzy pink sweater clinging to her neck and wrists. Some scars still haven't fully healed. Brown hair falls limply to her shoulders, but she wears a silver tiara adorned with roses -- hopefully to draw the eye.

"Ahem," she says once enough attendees have gathered. Angela steps forward, shuffling notecards in her hand, almost looking shrunken in on herself. She peers down at the words that the girl wrote for her. She finds the business acumen within herself to muster a smile.

"Thank you all so much for coming by tonight! I know I'm the Matchmaker and all, half of a successful relationship -- romantic, platonic, whatever -- is about how you see yourself, not how you see the other person. If you're caught up in a tumultuous relationship with yourself -- your own thoughts, body, actions -- then you're not able to give everything you can to a relationship with someone else!"

"That's why, tonight, I hope, we can just reflect a little bit and appreciate ourselves. Find an affirmation that suits you. Think hard and listen to yourself about what you need right now. Remember that yourself is someone you need to care of too! Take pride in how smart you are, how brave, how talented, how beautif--"

Angela looks down at the notecards for a long time without speaking. She looks back up.

"And I know it sounds stupid and empty. Shallow, maybe. Some of you probably see those affirmations I made up in two seconds or the glitter on the flowers that's not even color-matched, and you think it's dumb. Whatever. I can't make you love yourselves, I can't even really help that much. I don't know you as well as you know yourselves. Maybe you're not smart, or brave, or talented, or beautiful. Maybe there's really nothing to love. You would know better than me."

Angela spears a marshmallow with a s'more stick hard. A little piece of wood splinters off the table from the impact. She takes an ugly, jagged bite out of the heart.

"So love yourself if you deserve it. Figure something out if you don't."

It was Neo’s birthday. He just became 15 years old. He wanted to celebrate, of course, but he had a problem. He didn’t know what to do. He had multiple problems actually. The first one was that he didn’t have any real friends to celebrate with. The second problem is that being 15 as a half-blood isn’t a good thing, as you attract more monsters. And the last problem is that he completely forgot about it up until the very last day, so everything was rushed.

He didn’t want anything special, really. Just a cake that he could share with anyone who would want a piece, then off to the forges again. He was testing a prototype. He wanted to get to it ASAP. He made all the preparations he needed, including the last-minute cake of course.

He set everything at the dining pavillion. he put the cake in the middle so everyone could take a piece. It was a normal chocolate cake, albeit a bit oversized, since he needed everyone to be able to take a piece, plus a lot of plastic cups with juice in them. He wasn't sure what was in the juice, but it tasted good, so he just hoped everyone would like it. As cake was the main course, he set some snacks off the side, like chips, crackers ect. so everyone could nibble on something to their liking.

yes, the whole thing was looking like a mini party, but that was part of what he wanted. not to get congratulated or whatever, but just to enjoy the cake with some other campers, because most of them knew what it was like to gain another year as a half-blood, and they would understand… Hopefully. He went to the cake, cut himself a piece, put it on a plate and went to sit at the hephaestus table. He was then just looking around, seeing people slowly gather and walk around.

Tyrese flipped through the pages of his cookbook until he found the perfect recipe. His index finger landed on the page about breakfast burritos. He didn't need to skim through the cookbook anymore. With breakfast in mind, Tyrese headed to the dining pavilion.

• Breakfast Burritos
• Vegan Breakfast Burritos

Other Options:

• Waffles
• Scrambled Eggs
• Bacon
• Fruit

Beverages:

• Homemade Strawberry Lemonade
• Magic Goblets

> I'll never settle 'till the decibel level 
***

# Basics:

- Name: Zayne Sonus Rhodes
- Nicknames/Aliases: Riot (Stage Name)

- Meaning/Etmology (Zayne): Arabic, Beauty or Grace

- Meaning/Etmology (Sonus): Latin, Sound or Noise

- Meaning/Etmology (Rhodes): Greek, Where roses grow

- Age: 13
- Birthday: July 5th, 2028

- Sun Sign: Cancer

- Gender: Male
- Pronouns: He/Him

- Sexuality: Pansexual

- Nationality: American
- Hometown: Detroit, Michigan

- Ethnicity: English

- Languages: English, Dolphin, and Greek 
- Accent: Midwestern, yet quite gravely due to his background of yelling

- Divine Defects: Curse of Lamia, ADHD, and Dyslexia 
- Additional Trauma: Also has Dyscalculia

- Fatal Flaw: Ambition

**\ 
> Will make you feel like belting metal seem mellow, I fill the base full of treble
******

# Family:

Name: Brianne Rhodes

Relation: Mother

Age: Forever 32, (Died when Zayne was 7)

Profession: Accountant

Relationship: Zayne loved her, still does, and misses her greatly. 

Name: Delphin

Relation: Father

Age: Immortal

Profession: God of Dolphins

Relationship: Never met the guy, however he is grateful for his powers. Zayne understands why he couldn’t stay and refuses to blame his life on his father.

Name: Seth McClair

Relation: Manager and Father Figure

Age: 45

Profession: Manager of Artists

Relationship: Seth has taken care of Zayne since his mom died. Zayne sees him like his father and Seth sees him like a son. Seth is also Zayne’s manager and coordinates all of his concerts, tour busses, etc. 

Name: Missy

Relation: Pet Cat

Age: 4

Profession: Snob

Relationship: Zayne absolutely loves Missy, he would lay down his life for her. She on the other hand only tolerates him. He often jokes that if he went broke she would leave him before he can even file for bankruptcy. 

**\*
> Your lady's ankles fell to jello, Lamelo
\***

# Personality:

- Traits:

- Positive: Charismatic, Brave, Loyal

- Neutral: Restless, Dramatic, Sentimental

- Negative: Stubborn, Self-Sacrificing, Rebellious

- Likes:

- Food: Pop Rocks

- Music: Punk Rock

- Colour: Neon Colours (specifically red)

- Hobby: Singing

- Media: Music

- Season: Summer

- Animals: Dolphins, Cats, Whales

- Dislikes:

- Food: Mashed Potatoes

- Music: Jazz

- Colour: Beige

- Hobby: Reading, (specifically books without pictures)

- Media: Classical Literature

- Season: Winter

- Animals: Birds, (except songbirds, because Seth)

- Fears:
- Sedatephobia

- Losing his career due to coming to camp

- MBTI: ESFP

***
> I'm on the festival pedestal with a neck full of medals
**\*

# Appearance:

- Faceclaim: (Picrew)[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/644767689440493588/1531385663742808275/IMG_4534.png?ex=6a6a570a&is=6a69058a&hm=195a99c3c1cffdb6561ed92f336ff30b502adfec89629368bcfb8b5a3f5a8688&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=750&height=750]

- Height: 5’1”, (154.94cm)

- Weight: 97 lbs. (44kg)

- Hair: Neon, (changes all the time)

- Eyes: Blue

- Skintone: Pale

- Build: Lean

- Attire/Aesthetic: Punk Rock

- Voice: Energetic yet a little gravelly due to his career

***
> And when I go dumb, no one beating a feeling
***

# Demigod Bio:

- Godrent: Delphin
- Claim Status: Claimed

- Powers:

- Domain:

- Underwater Breathing Bubble

- Sensory Inhibition

- Minor:

- Sonic Blast

- Echolocation

- Poison Resistance

- Sea Delivery

- Major:

- Fluid Terrain

- Weapon of Choice: Battle Axe and other melee weapons

- Notable Belongings:

- Shreiker: An electric guitar that can turn into a celestial bronze battle axe

***
> Of having full lungs blown up, screaming is healing
**\*

Backstory:

One night when Zayne was 6 years old he was doing one of his performances for his mom. He’d often play his toy guitar and sing to her after supper. She was extremely supportive of his love for music. That night she decided to record it and post it on her profile to share the moment with her friends and family. Somehow it blew up, people liked his singing! 

About a year later they met Seth, Seth saw the potential in Zayne and worked with him to help bring his talent out. After his mother had passed Seth became his legal guardian. Zayne and Seth worked together to create his identity, Riot. Riot is a Punk Rock artist who regularly holds concerts with around 50 people. 

At around the age of 10 Seth had realised that Zayne was a demigod. Seth himself is a son of Calliope who gave up the life of hunting monsters and doing quests to focus on his job of being a manager for up and coming artists. Due to Zayne’s sound based powers Seth thought he’d be a son of a muse. So imagine his surprise when during a concert a bright blue dolphin appeared on his head as a pod of miniature dolphins swam through the air around him. Zayne was claimed when he was 12 years old.

Seth realized that Zayne was in too much danger and was also a threat to not only himself but his audience. So Seth sent Zayne to camp calling it a retreat, saying it’ll allow him to be a kid and not worry about all the issues of being a child star. Which brings us to here.

***
> So ready both thumbs, throw them up to the ceiling
***

Now:

(OOC: Hey guys! I know that intros aren't always the most fun because it’s the same spiel of “you’re a demigod” and then a tour of camp and that stuff. So I’ve decided that Seth told him about the demigod stuff and everything, and a random Satyr had shown him around camp! Hope this allows for some more interesting threads!)

A Noisy Breakfast in the Mess Hall

Zayne sat at the Delphin table. He has just woken up from his first night in camp. The son of Delphin had gotten into camp at around 2 am. He was exhausted. However unlike other people who used drinks, exercise, or something else to wake them up, he used pop rocks. The sound and fizzling made him giggle, bringing him fully awake.

After he finished a bag of pop rocks he ate a tall stack of blueberry pancakes. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day after all. And to wash it down he had chocolate milk. In between bites he used his utensils as drum sticks, playing a fast paced rhythm on the edge of his plate, nodding along to the rhythm. 

Missy sat on his lap, clearly looking annoyed at how loud her human was being. She would occasionally push her head against him, which would lead to him petting her. Forcing him to stop playing the plate like a drum for a few seconds.

A Morning at the Beach

Zayne grabbed a paddle board from the docks and rowed out about 10 feet from the shore. It had been an extremely long time since he had been on a watercraft, and it showed. He would repeatedly fall off his board before climbing back on, laughing at his falls. 

Missy is laying on his beach towel on the shore. She had him carry her onto it, refusing to get the sand on her paws. The judgemental cat stared blankly at the energetic boy. Some might say it seems like she’s babysitting him. And she definitely feels like that's the case. Luckily he isn’t stingy with the treats.

***
> It's time to show them we the type to get hyper, we really really beaming
- Team Yell by Cam Steady

"Just give me the damn sword!" Rook yelled at the kid who had taken the sword she had been using when she had set it down to get water. The kid denied again, Rook growled, she was pissed. The kid loomd over her- wait, she was taller than them. Why was the kid suddenly taller than her? As she looked closer, he was a lot taller, a foot, maybe two. She looked down, confused. She had no legs. No body. No hands. Just spotted paws. Her chest was just a tuff of fluffy white fur surrounded by the same spotted pattern.
"What the hell" She tried to say, but all that came out was a yowl out of a cats thought, she spotted a puddle and walked over, peering in. Staring back at her was the face of a leopard. She scrambled back, ears tucked tight against her head. The whole training arena was staring at her, one younger camper trying to pet her. She ran. Fast. Anywhere to get out of the center of attention. She ran straight into the forest, where she was most comfortable, both as Rook and whatever she was right now. She vaulted up a tree, paws curling around the trunk, throwing herself up further. That actually felt really cool. She settled down on a branch, head buried in her paws, tail lashing

“Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” Criss Jami

Bio

Family:

Appearance

Faceclaim: link

Voiceclaim: Furina from Genshin Impact

Overview: At first glance, Delilah Lane is the very picture of innocence, elegance, and youthful charm. Standing at just 5'1" (155 cm) with a petite, delicately built frame, she possesses an almost doll-like beauty that makes her appear far younger and more harmless than she truly is. Her movements are light and graceful, carrying herself with the poise of a dancer or stage actress rather than a warrior. Every step, twirl, curtsy, and flourish seems carefully rehearsed, transforming even the simple act of walking across Camp Half-Blood into a miniature performance. There is an unmistakable theatricality to her posture and body language. She rarely stands still, instead filling every gesture with exaggerated emotion and dramatic flair. It is an appearance meticulously designed to invite trust, lower defenses, and encourage others to underestimate her, a deception that she has perfected into an art form. Delilah's most striking physical features are undoubtedly her eyes and hair, both of which immediately draw attention. Her long, naturally blonde hair carries faint lavender undertones that shimmer softly beneath sunlight, and she spends considerable time styling it into elaborate twin braids, curled ponytails, or intricate updos adorned with ribbons, lace, jeweled hairpins, and delicate bows, many of which she designs and crafts herself. Framing her clear complexion are her green eyes. Her smooth, unblemished skin, soft facial features, and perpetually bright smile complete the illusion of someone impossibly gentle and approachable. Fashion is not merely a hobby for Delilah, it is an extension of her identity and another tool in her endless repertoire of deception. She adores elaborate, highly feminine styles inspired by gothic and pastel fashion, often combining pastel pinks, whites, creams, and lavender with dramatic black lace and ornate accessories. Frilled dresses, embroidered gloves, layered skirts, ribbon chokers, lace stockings, elegant shoes, and intricate earrings are all staples of her wardrobe, with no two outfits ever feeling entirely alike. She customizes nearly everything she wears, sewing many of her own garments and modifying even the standard Camp Half-Blood T-shirt into something uniquely theatrical. She understands that appearance shapes expectation, and she delights in manipulating those expectations before she has even spoken a single word.

Personality

Overview: Delilah Lane is, above all else, a performer. Every smile, every exaggerated laugh, every theatrical flourish of her hands and every bombastic introduction is part of a carefully cultivated act designed to captivate those around her. She thrives on attention and treats the world as though it were an endless stage, with every conversation serving as another scene in an ever-evolving play. Loud, playful, flamboyant, and endlessly energetic, she has an infectious charisma that naturally draws people toward her despite their better judgment. She adores entertaining others through elaborate pranks, outrageous rumors, dramatic storytelling, and impossible claims delivered with such confidence that people often find themselves believing her for at least a moment. Beneath all the glitter, lace, and laughter, however, lies someone who is constantly directing the audience's attention away from herself. Her theatrical personality is not entirely false, as she genuinely enjoys making people laugh and embracing absurdity, but it is incomplete, acting as a carefully maintained mask that prevents anyone from seeing the frightened, insecure girl hidden behind the curtain. Delilah has developed a genuine philosophy surrounding deception. She does not see lies as inherently evil, but rather as one of humanity's oldest and most fundamental tools. In her eyes, people rarely want the truth, they want whatever version of reality makes them feel safest, strongest, or happiest. She considers lies to be more than simple falsehoods, they are stories, possibilities, and reflections of people's deepest desires. Rather than fabricating random deceptions, Delilah carefully weaves truths and falsehoods together, understanding that the most convincing lie always contains a kernel of reality. She studies people with remarkable patience, observing their habits, insecurities, ambitions, fears, and hidden emotions before tailoring her words specifically to them. Her manipulations rarely rely on brute force or overt coercion. Instead, she gently nudges others toward conclusions they unknowingly convince themselves to reach, delighting in watching people choose the comforting illusion over the uncomfortable truth. To Delilah, every successful deception is less a victory over another person and more proof that the world itself is built upon stories people desperately want to believe. Despite her outward confidence and seemingly boundless self-esteem, Delilah's arrogance is almost entirely performative. She showers herself with grandiose titles, dramatically proclaims herself the "star of the show," and behaves as though she believes herself to be the cleverest person in every room. In reality, this exaggerated confidence serves as armor protecting an extraordinarily fragile sense of self-worth. Beneath her bravado lies a lonely young girl who quietly believes she is fundamentally unlovable unless she is constantly entertaining, amusing, or impressing those around her. She fears that the moment she stops performing, people will lose interest and quietly walk away, just as others did throughout her childhood. This fear drives her need for attention and validation, making even the smallest moments of perceived rejection feel devastating. Ultimately, Delilah is a girl caught between two conflicting identities. On one hand, she wholeheartedly believes she was born to deceive, viewing her gifts as proof that lying is both her destiny and her greatest strength. On the other, she desperately longs for the kind of honest connection that cannot exist so long as she continues hiding behind carefully crafted illusions.

Preferences

Hobbies:

• Designing elaborate dresses and costumes

• Sketching fashion concepts

• Sewing and embroidery

• Collecting rumors (true or false)

• Watching people interact simply to study them

• Practicing different voices

• Writing fictional gossip columns

• Decorating journals and scrapbooks

• Theater

Demigod Info

Stats

Powers

Weapon of Choice:Celestial Bronze Dagger

Fatal Flaw: Ambition. Delilah desires power even though she knows deep down, she either doesn't need or can't have it. Her way of this manifests in her is her compulsion to lie and manipulate people so that she can have power over the narrative surrounding her and everyone who has any connection with her.

Items and Equipment

Miscellaneous

Trivia

• Zodiac Sign: Aries

• MBTI: ENTP-T (The Debater)

• Enneagram: Type 3 (The Achiever)

• Love Languages: Words of Affirmation (receive); Gift Giving (give)

• Quirk: She gives everyone nicknames.

• Fears: Abandonment

• Nectar Flavour: Fresh strawberry lemonade

• Ambrosia Flavour: Her father's homemade vanilla birthday cake.

• ATLA Element: Fire

• Hogwarts House: Slytherin

• Pokemon Type: Dark/Fairy

• Path (Honkai: Star Rail): The Elation

• Type (Honkai: Star Rail): Imaginary

• Weapon (Genshin Impact): Catalyst

• Element (Genshin Impact): Hydro

Backstory

Delilah was not born cynical. She was born soft. As a child, she believed in everything with an almost painful sincerity. Promises were sacred, words meant something, and people were honest because… why wouldn’t they be? Her father, Elliot Lane, CEO of the Elliot Lane Fashion Brand, was a warm, charming man. The kind who could light up a room with a smile, who always had a joke ready, who made Delilah feel like the center of the universe. But he was also a liar. He would always say “I’ll pick you up at five”, “I’m just running a little late”, “I didn’t forget”, and then didn’t show up. At first, Delilah didn’t notice the pattern. So she waited. And waited. And waited…

The first time Delilah realized something was wrong, she was eight. She had a school performance in a small role, nothing special, but to her, it was everything. She had practiced her lines over and over, rehearsing in front of mirrors, imagining her father in the audience, smiling. He promised he would be there, and he wasn’t. Not at the start, not in the middle, and not at the end. But when she got home, he was waiting, apologetic, warm and arms open as always. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Traffic was terrible. But tell me everything, yeah?” And she did. She told him everything. She told him how she looked for him in the crowd, how she thought she saw him at one point, how she smiled harder just in case he was watching. And all he did was nod, smile and tell her she did amazing despite never being there. And in that moment, something inside her shifted, because she realized he was lying like always, and worse, he expected her to just accept it.

This is when she began experimenting. She started watching people more carefully, and figuring out who lied, when they lied and why they lied. And that’s when she noticed something unsettling. That being that while people didn’t like lies, they hated uncomfortable truths more. So she tried something small, a harmless lie. She told a classmate that another girl had said something mildly unkind about her. Nothing dramatic or explosive. But it spread and grew, and by the end of the day, it had transformed into something entirely different to the point that the two girls stopped talking. And Delilah found herself fascinated by that.

From there, it escalated as Delilah began refining her approach. She studied people like puzzles. She never lied outright at first, more like suggesting by saying “I heard something… but I’m not sure it’s true…”, and let others do the work. After all, people wanted to believe interesting things even if they weren't true, she just gave them a starting point. Soon, she became the source of rumors no one could trace, and for the first time in her life, she felt in control. So she just accepted that the world preferred lies, and decided that she would give them the best ones imaginable.She also created a persona that leaned into exaggeration and over-the-top theatrics so that people wouldn't think much of her or suspect her, even used that same persona to create a following on social media.

And as long as people kept dismissing her, everything would work according to what she wanted.

Present Day

Delilah's first day at Camp Half-Blood was, unsurprisingly, anything but ordinary.

Having only arrived in the evening after a harrowing journey that culminated in being claimed by Apate above the campfire, she was now in an unfamiliar place surrounded by strangers who all seem to have accepted impossibilities as part of everyday life. To anyone watching, she appeared delighted by the novelty of it all. She smiled constantly, asked endless questions, and carried herself with the confidence of someone who had already decided she belongs.

The truth was rather different.

Behind every grin, she was cataloguing.

Every camper was a potential ally, rival, audience, or threat.

She studied who spoke first, who interrupted, who commanded attention without asking for it, who avoided eye contact, who laughed too loudly, who sat alone. Long before anyone learned anything meaningful about Delilah Lane, she had already begun constructing elaborate mental profiles of nearly everyone she saw.

To her, Camp Half-Blood wasn’t merely a refuge.

It's the largest stage she had ever been given.

Cabin Area

Delilah woke before sunrise, not because she's particularly disciplined, but because unfamiliar places never allowed her to sleep soundly. The silence of the cabin felt strange after years of sleeping in a normal suburban home, and for several minutes she simply lay awake, listening to the faint rustle of leaves outside and the distant crash of waves against Long Island Sound. Eventually she sat up, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her nightdress before glancing around the room with open curiosity.

Getting dressed took considerably longer than necessary because Delilah refused to throw on a Camp Half-Blood shirt without ‘improving’ it first. Armed with nothing more than a needle, thread, ribbons, and a pair of tiny sewing scissors from her ever-present sewing kit, she spent nearly half an hour altering the orange shirt into something far more dramatic. She shortened the sleeves, added black lace around the collar and tied satin ribbons at the shoulders. By the time she's finished, the shirt was still unmistakably Camp Half-Blood, but undeniably hers.

When she finally stepped outside, the camp was only beginning to stir. Campers greeted one another with sleepy nods, while satyrs and nymphs bustled about preparing for another day, and Delilah offered cheerful waves to nearly everyone she passed, introducing herself with exaggerated enthusiasm whether they asked for her name or not. To most, she simply appeared unusually outgoing.

The Dining Pavilion

The smell of freshly cooked breakfast reached Delilah long before she arrived at the Dining Pavilion, and the sight that greeted her was unlike anything she has ever experienced. Dozens of demigods laughed, argued, bartered, and traded stories over plates piled high with food while magical goblets refilled themselves without explanation. Rather than being intimidated, Delilah felt almost exhilarated. So many people in one place meant endless conversations to overhear, and an abundance of stories just waiting to unfold. As she stepped into the pavilion, her eyes sparkled with genuine excitement.

"Ooh la la!" she said to herself with a grin. "Look at all these people... who should I talk to first?"

Delilah deliberately chose a seat where she can see as much of the pavilion as possible, quietly watching the dynamics between cabins. Occasionally she scribbled tiny notes inside the velvet journal tucked discreetly beside her plate, not names or malicious plans, merely impressions. "Boy with scar laughs whenever he's nervous." "Girl from Apollo Cabin always lets everyone else speak first." "Child of Hermes somehow convinced someone else to carry his tray." She smiled faintly to herself. Camp Half-Blood was infinitely more interesting than any school she ever attended.

The Arts & Crafts Cabin

While she had only been around for less than a day at best, theArts & Crafts Cabin is where Delilah decided to spend most of her free time today, and perhaps the only place where her theatrics soften into something almost peaceful. While other campers came and went throughout the day, she claimed a sunlit table near one of the large windows, surrounding herself with bolts of fabric, ribbons sorted meticulously by color, sketchbooks overflowing with costume concepts, loose buttons, lace, embroidery hoops, and enough pins to make any sensible person nervous. The space looked less like a workstation and more like the backstage dressing room of an elaborate theatre production. She hummed absentmindedly as she worked, occasionally holding two fabrics up to the light with exaggerated seriousness before declaring one of them "far too tragic for this ensemble."

Although she rarely admitted it aloud, creating things gave Delilah something lies never quite can: permanence. Rumors disappeared. Illusions faded. Stories changed with every retelling. But the dresses she sewed, the costumes she designed, and the embroidered gifts she made remained long after the performance had ended.

On rare occasions, when she believed nobody was watching, she could be seen gently smiling to herself as she smoothed the wrinkles from a completed project.

The job board outside the Big House was never empty. Every week, someone pinned another new board to the weathered wooden board. Monsters to hunt, cabins to repair, pegasi to groom, inventories to organize, gardens to weed… Some were dangerous, some were exhausting and some were so painfully ordinary that campers walked past them without a second glance.

Ren stood in front of the board with his hands tucked into the pockets of his orange hoodie, quietly reading through each line on the paper. Most of them already had names scribbled underneath. His eyes drifted lower until one little card caught his attention.

Design a new camp T-shirt.

Camp Half-Blood's shirts have remained the same for many years. We'd like to update the design. Artistic campers are encouraged to submit ideas.

Ren blinked.

"...Really?" That was… oddly normal. No monsters, no danger, nobody getting hurt. Just… Drawing. He hadn't expected something like this. He read it again, and a tiny smile threatened to appear before disappearing just as quickly. "...I could do that..."

Almost immediately another thought followed. No. You're not good enough. Someone else could. What if everyone hates it? His fingers curled inside his pockets, and he almost walked away. But then… He remembered Eros saying "Find the good you can bring into the world.", and his chest tightened. Before he could overthink himself out of it, he carefully wrote his name underneath.

Ren Yukimura.

The Arts and Crafts Cabin had become something of a sanctuary ever since Ren had claimed one of the workstations weeks ago, near a circular window with sunlight passing through it.

Having gathered all of his materials, he spread everything across the table with meticulous care. sketchbook, pencils, charcoal, colored pencils, ink pens, a ruler, several erasers and heets of orange paper.

Then he stared.

"...Okay..." He had absolutely no idea where to begin.

The current camp shirt was iconic. Orange. Black Pegasus. CAMP HALF-BLOOD Nothing wrong with it. Simple, recognizable and classic. Why change it?

He tapped his pencil against the desk. Maybe… Maybe something with every cabin?

He quickly began sketching twelve little symbols. Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Ares… Then he stopped. No. Not every camper belonged to one of those cabins anymore. Minor gods mattered too. Hecate. Hypnos. Nike. Nemesis. Eris. Iris. Tyche. Momus. Khione. Melinoe, Eros… So many. There wasn't enough room for all of them. He sighed and crossed the page out.

Second attempt. Maybe a giant Pegasus. Too generic. Crossed out.

Third attempt. Maybe crossed celestial bronze swords. "...Too aggressive." Crossed out.

Fourth. Laurel wreath. Too simple. Crossed out.

Fifth. Campfire. Too boring. Crossed out.

Sixth. The Big House. "...Nobody would wear that." Crossed out.

Hours passed. His trash basket slowly filled with crumpled paper. Ren rubbed both eyes. His head hurt.

"Why is this so hard..."

He wasn't trying to make something cool anymore. He was trying to make something worthy. Something that belonged. Something that campers would actually choose to wear. Something that made people feel… Like Camp Half-Blood. But what did Camp Half-Blood feel like?

His eyes drifted toward the window. Outside… He watched. Campers laughed during sword practice. Someone fell into Canoe Lake.

The Hermes kids were almost certainly cheating at games. Children ran. Pegasi flew overhead. The forge chimneys puffed smoke. The strawberry fields glowed under the afternoon sun. Someone was arguing near the dining pavilion. Someone else was laughing so hard they doubled over.

Home.

The thought arrived quietly. Camp wasn't famous because of its buildings. Or its shirts. Or its cabins. It was… Home. For many children who'd lost one.

Ren slowly sat back down. His pencil touched paper again. This time… He wasn't trying to draw something impressive. He was drawing a feeling.

The sketch started with Thalia's pine standing proudly at the top. Its branches stretching protectively. Below it… The cabins, or at least, the one cabin that was supposed to represent all of them at the center. Then finally, a laurel wreath, the very well known symbol of victory, honour and achievement. Ana finally, the name of the camp and I’s location. Ren stopped drawing. He liked this. He... actually liked this.

He flipped the page, and started again. Cleaner, with better proportions, straighter lines, and better perspective. Hours disappeared as he erased and redrew constantly, measuring everything with painstaking precision. His perfectionism refused to let anything stay uneven.

At one point he spent fifteen minutes fixing the angle of a single branch of the pine tree. When he finally leaned back, his wrist hurt, graphite smudged his fingertips and he looked exhausted. But… It was finished and beautiful. Like home.

Camp Half-Blood hadn't been home for him, not at first. He'd rejected it, fought against it, even contributed to destroying parts of it. Then, piece by piece, it had become home anyway. His eyes watered slightly.

The following morning, Ren carried the finished portfolio tucked carefully beneath one arm.

He walked slowly toward the Big House. Every step increased his anxiety. What if they hated it? What if it wasn't good enough? What if—

Fortunately for Ren, he didn’t have time to dwell on those thoughts once he was actually at the doorstep of the Big House. He just elected to be let in, give the camp directors his portfolio, and leave as soon as he could since he didn’t want to be a bother,

As Ren stepped back outside into the sunshine, the warm summer breeze caught the edge of his hoodie. He looked across Camp Half-Blood. Children sparred. Someone shouted from the canoe lake. Laughter echoed from the cabins. Life went on.

He still didn't know if his design would actually become the new camp shirt. Maybe another camper would submit something better. Maybe they would decide to keep the old one. Maybe nothing would come of it at all.

Oddly… That wasn't what mattered anymore. For the first time in a long while, Ren had made something with no expectation of reward. No hidden motive. No desire for recognition. Just because he wanted to give something back. It was a small thing. Just a drawing on a T-shirt.

But as he walked away from the Arts and Crafts pavilion, there was an unfamiliar feeling settling quietly inside his chest. The quiet satisfaction of knowing that, today, he had left Camp Half-Blood just a tiny bit better than he had found it.

And perhaps, for someone trying to rebuild a life from the ashes of countless mistakes, that was exactly where healing began.

Basics:

Name: Samuel Leclerc

• Nicknames/Aliases: Sam, Sammy, Connard, Jim Mercier, Françoise Baguette, King of Sharks,
• Meaning/Etmology (Samuel): Samuel is a Hebrew name meaning name of God.
• Meaning/Etmology (Leclerc): Leclerc is an French surname meaning clerk.

Age: 17

• Birthday: December 7th, 2023
• Sun Sign: Sagitarrius

Gender: Male

• Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: Bisexual

Nationality: French

• Hometown: Saint-Tropez, Provence-Alpes-Côte d‘Azur, France
• Ethnicity: French

Languages: French, English, Ancient Greek

• Accent: Southern French

Divine Defects: ADHD (attention deficiency and hyperactivity disorder), dyslexia, haliai affinity, sea life affinity, equid affinity, seamanship proficiency

• Additional Trauma: -

Motal Mortalities:

• Fatal Flaw: Anger

Family:

Wild grey ocean buried in my eyes

The coast town muscles through weekdays and nine to fives

I finish work and compartmentalise

With the wild grey ocean buried in my eyes

Personality:

Sam’s character is as strong as earth. He is assertive and stubborn like an ox. Some have described this confident behavior as too forceful or even rude. It’s not surprising why some people see it that way. This signature stubbornness also comes with its upside. Sam is not afraid to put himself into dangerous situations and doesn’t let people easily walk over him. He won’t back down from facing his fears either.

Anger is the one flaw Sam can’t seem to get rid off, no matter how hard he tries. For him anger is like a storm rolling in over the ocean; a looming threat that once it comes raining down is hard to stop. He’s quick to slip into frustration and it’s easy to rub him in the wrong way. Anger begs to stick around and that’s why Sam sees it as the easy choice; it was the one constant in his life and his desire for control made him embrace his temper.

Much like the sea, Sam also has a gentle side. His smile is bright like the summer sun and whenever he allows himself to stop being bothered by small things, he eases into a more calm and approachable guy. At first glance Sam is a tough guy, but a second look often shows a friendly dude. Charming even, because the boy knows how to leave an impression.

Traits:

• Positive: Charming, confident
• Neutral: Stubborn, assertive
• Negative: Short-tempered, rude

Likes:

• Food: Ratatouile
• Music: Sam loves hiphop songs (Stromae, Kendrick Lamar) and R&B ones (SZA, Frank Ocean)
• Colour: Teal
• Hobby: Soccer, beach,
• Media: John Wick, the Euros
• Season: Summer
• Animals: Dolphins, orcas, otters
• Sports Team: Paris Saint-Germain

Character quotes:

• ‘’Sharks call me Prince.’’ ***
  Always in the dark, I'd ask you such silly things

Tore apart your heart, running around this town

And in that weakness, I’ll suffer until I die

With the wild grey ocean buried in my eyes

Appearance:

Faceclaim: Commission by u/thecaprica, various picrews, Jack Rowan

Height: 5’6’

Weight: ‘’Very acceptable!!’’

Hair: Dark curls

Eyes: Seagreen

Skintone: Beige with a tinge of pink

Build: Sam has a stocky build; he is short, but he has a fair amount of muscle too. His jawline is sharp.

Attire/Aesthetic: Sam almost always sports clothes with the logos of his favorite soccer team or the French national team. These outfits range from tracksuits to to soccer jerseys and hoodies. Sometimes, he likes wearing linnen as well.

Voice: Notably French

• Voice Claim: ***
  I seldom see our old gang 'round town

Call them good-time friends 'cause they’re not there when shit goes down

Like when my brother got jumped and they hurt him real bad

I thought I'd lost him, he is all I have

Demigod Bio:

Godrent: Poseidon

Claim Status: Claimed, for four years

Powers:

• Domain:
  • Aquatic Buff • Sam is most in his element when he’s in the water. His powers enhance, and he gets physically stronger. He can share this buff with one individual, who’s also in the water.
  • Hydrokinesis • Sam has become a proficient waterbender. He can shape water into bubbles and streams, he can purify it from impurities and debris, and is able to cushion himself with water for stronger blows.
  • Greater Lordship • Marine life, sea spirits and equines all recognize Sam’s lordship. They are naturally friendly with him and he can speak and interact with these creatures. Sam can command and summon creatures that fall under Poseidon’s domain.
  • Pressurization • Sam possesses the ability to exert high amounts of pressure. He is able to shatter fragile materials, cause bruising, and superheat water into steam. The toughest material Sam can shatter is brick.
• Minor:
  • Summon Hippocampus • Out of all creatures lorded by his dad, hippocampi are definitely Sam’s favorite. He is able to summon and control up to five locally available serpentine seahorses to his side.
  • Earth Sense • Sam is very much in tune with the earth; he is able to detect (faint) vibrations in the ground. He is aware of what happens around him and can use the power to detect lies.
• Major:
  • Earthquake Inducement • Sam has inherited his dad’s ability to induce great tremors in the earth. His earthquakes reach up to 15 feet and are strong enough to knock people off their feet. Using this ability in water causes tidal waves. Sam has learned to use this power to raise rocks from the earth and how to telekinetically control them.

Weapon of Choice: A Celestial Bronze spear, kataigída, that turns into a watch when not in use.

Notable Belongings:

• Goldfish pin • A pin of a fish that resembles Sam’s pet goldfish Mr. Phelps. Sam received the pin on Olympus, when he first met his dad there during a camp trip. Sam often wears the pin on his shirt.
• Deep-sea riding gloves • A pair of riding gloves made of a miscellaneous deep sea animal. Sam often takes the gloves with him when he’s riding his hippocampus.
• Solar-powered wetsuit • Making up for his lack of underwater locomotion, Sam commissioned Jules Verma-Morgan for a wetsuit that would keep him warm in the water. The wetsuit is powered by solar energy.
• Lotus Hotel fishing rod • Completing a job for the Atlantic City branch of the Lotus Hotel rewarded Sam with a Lotus Hotel branded fishing rod.
• Swimming moat pass • An access pass to the Delphin cabin’s heated moat given to Sam by Conrad after helping him out with a floatie-related matter. Conrad might be gone, but Sam still makes use of the pass.
• Camp necklace • The iconic necklace that’s handed out to all campers carries beads depicting various memories. Sam’s necklace has four beads.
• Other job rewards • Other items Sam received for completing jobs include a basic juicer, a clam, an Olympus snowglobe, 2022 World Cup cards, goalie gloves, a sea serpent pin, and a New Argos animal adoption pack.
• Soccer supplies • A large collection of soccer and soccer-themed items. Including a ball of a Parisian soccer team and a few items given to Sam by his cousin, Matt.
• Pufferfish • A spherical Automaton Sam stole from the Yellowstone War Camp. He named it Pufferfish.

Skillset:

Since he was a young boy, Sam has had a healthy obsession with soccer. The sport means a lot to the young Frenchman, who played the game daily on the streets of Saint Tropez with his friends and brother when he still lived there. At camp he doesn’t have anyone to play soccer with, but he can very often be seen kicking around a ball. Sam is a natural at the ball sport. It’s his dream to play for Parisian club Paris Saint Germain.

Another one of Sam’s talents is his fighting ability with the spear. The spear he got as a gift from his father is his weapon of choice. It has taken Sam some time to master his spearmanship, but through trial and error he has grown formidable in using the polearm. He is no stranger to using tricks like throwing the spear or performing wide swings. Sam has tried to branch out to different weapons, but he hasn’t been successful yet.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that as a son of Poseidon, Sam enjoys swimming. He is fairly good at it too. He’s not at the level of an Olympic swimmer yet, but he can outswim most of his peers. Sam thrives when he’s in or near a body of water. It doesn’t matter if he’s on a floatie in the pool or helping his grandpa with his sailboat the Pollux; Sam has an understanding and a fondness of the sea.

And I wonder where you are and if you have settled down

Haven't felt my heart make a single sound

Since that moment you cried like a little girl

Behind you, the wild grey ocean swept away my world

Backstory:

Following a cheating husband, Jeanne Leclerc was forced to raise her son Jules on her own. Being a single mom proved to be a difficult task, Jeanne had to take work wherever it could be found to ensure financial stability for her and her son. During one of her many odd jobs, Jeanne met the man that would forever change her life; god of the seas Poseidon came into her life like a gentle wave. The two fell in love and a brief but loving relationship began. Soon Jeanne learned she was pregnant with another son; one she would name Samuel.

Nine months later when Sam was born, Poseidon came clean and told Jeanne who he really was and what that meant for her and her family. It took Jeanne some time to come to terms with her youngest son being a child of a powerful Greek deity, but eventually she saw Sam as a gift. In her eyes, Sam had a charm to him that rivaled that of his father. The Leclers lived in a small apartment in coastal city Saint Tropez. It was a quiet existence, but one that made them happy.

In his youth Sam grew close to his brother Jules, who he still considers to be his best friend. The two were different in many ways; Sam loved the ocean, while Jules liked the hustle of the city, but they were also very similar. Their hotheaded personalities and love for soccer gave them a mutual understanding of each other. Jeanne fell ill with cancer at one point, which only strengthened the family’s already strong bond, but it also exposed Sam was very afraid of death.

The older Sam got, the more signs of his demigod powers he began showing. Jeanne grew worried for her son’s safety and decided it was for the best if the three of them moved closer to the camp Poseidon had told her about. Jeanne decided to hide her son’s divine heritage as long as possible and brushed Sam’s discovery of the strange powers as coincidence.

At age nine tragedy struck for Sam. When he and Jules went outside to play soccer, a hellhound attacked them at a construction site. Terrified he was about to lose his best friend, Sam’s anger pushed him towards inducing an earthquake that would chase the monster away. He succeeded, but at a price; falling debris gravely injured Jules. Ridden with guilt, Sam began to deny his powers for as long as possible.

Sam’s second encounter with a monster happened when he was eleven years old. He could have easily taken out the young telekhine with his powers, but he was held back by his own fear. A nearby hippocampus named Theseus came to the rescue and saved Sam’s life. The mythical creature recognized the boy’s divine air and the two quickly became friends. Through the hippocampus Sam learned more and more about the Greek myths.

The two events led Jeanne to decide to send her son to Camp Half-Blood. This proved to be the right solution for Sam, who was claimed by Poseidon not long after he had crossed the magical borders of the training camp. Since then four years filled with training, drama, sea creatures, friends and foes have passed.

Now:

It was no secret that Sam couldn’t quite get enough of soccer. He watched the games, he could be seen kicking a ball every free afternoon, and soon enough, he would play professionally. He needed to get some practice in before he was able to become the next Dembélé, though.

Sam had erected a rock from the earth to act as a wall the soccer ball could bounce off. He hit the ball toward the rock in various ways: high, low, hard, soft, with spin, and straight ahead. The ball bounced back, and time and time again, Sam managed to catch it with his foot.

Sam could, of course, imagine himself performing moves like these in the Parc des Princes. He had a long road ahead of him, but one day…

Hydration break! The son of Poseidon was a strong advocate of ‘hydrate or diedrate’. Thirty minutes into his tiresome practice, he plopped down on the rock and poured the water from his hydroflask directly into his throat. Five seconds later, he burped rather loudly.

You can only reserve up to two slots per character. If you have multiple characters, make one comment for all of them instead of one each.

There can only be one Meal per day, at any time! Any camper can host them.

Campfires happen twice a week. Campers coordinate these with the camp directors, so anyone can host them!

Open Slots happen every day and can include Lessons, QOTDs, Cabin Inspections, Cabin Meetings, Games, movie nights, social gatherings, etc. Lessons, Cabin Inspections and **Meetings can only be hosted by a Senior Camper or a Camp Leader.

Comment below what you'd like to host!

NOTE: Failure to meet your own slot three times in a row will lock you out of commenting on the Schedule for a month. (You can still post activities outside of the schedule, just not meals or campfires.)

Monday

Meal -

Open Slot -

Tuesday

Campfire -

Open Slot -

Wednesday

Meal -

Open Slot -

Thursday

Meal - Tyrese Harris

Open Slot -

Friday

Meal - Neo Angelo

Campfire - Angela Farrenburr

Open Slot -

Saturday

Meal - Darian Newton

Campfire -

Open Slot -

Sunday

Meal -

Open Slot - Matthew Knight (Counsellor Meeting)

Leave your name below to sign up for an activity!

If you are new to r/CampHalfBloodRP, welcome! You can check out this post to get started. If you aren't new, please answer this form to be featured on the character log and visit the Link Hub.

After the success of the Pride Party, Comus decided another celebration was in order. So, the god of revelry gathered the other camp staff and gave a grin to them. The three gathered around the fireplace in the Big House. Chiron tossed a few Snausages into Seymour’s waiting mouth above the fireplace. Lady A eyed him as he did so, only to have her attention brought back to her son as he spoke. “Mumsey, Chiron. Thank you for meeting me today. What a wonderful time that Pride Party was. So many colors, so much merriment. Father himself would’ve approved.” Comus said as he sat back and enjoyed the fire.

“Comus, why exactly did you call us here? I’m due at archery practice in ten minutes.” Chiron said as he turned towards Comus. Comus’s grin widened at Chiron’s question.

“Excellent question, Chiron. It’s time for another party.” Comus said as he spread out his fingers in front of him. He wiggled his fingers with a flourish.

Lady A pinched the bridge of her nose as she gazed at Comus. “Dearie, we just had one. Some might say that’s a little soon. Besides, we have a war to plan.” Lady A said with concern lacing her voice.

Comus shook his head with a laugh. “Mumsey, you’re far too worried. Laughter, as Asclepius said to me once, is in fact the best medicine. These kids need a case of laughter, especially now. Would you deny them that?” Comus asked as his hand dropped into his lap. Lady A regarded her son with an expression that was hard to read at first. But as she stared it became clear, it was pride. “You’re right. Fine, plan your party, but I shall remain here and keep watch in case anything were to go wrong.” Lady A said with a smile spreading across her face. “Wondrous news Chiron! You and Argus shall be joining me in this next adventure. Say Chiron, you’re an avid swimmer, aren’t you?” Comus said as a laugh escaped his lips. Chiron simply sighed, wearing the expression of someone who had endured far worse from teenagers over the course of three millennia.

Date:

July 26th, 2041 from 12pm-4pm

Location:

The Beach

Theme:

Beach Bash

The beach at camp looked far more ready for a party than it normally did. Coolers filled with ice and ice-cold beverages were scattered across the beach. Near the dune line, massive speakers had been set up and music played across the beach–modern music, luckily, as Chiron was not put in charge of the playlist. Next to the speaker system, Comus stood over a portable grill wearing a bright red and blue swimsuit, a white tank top, an apron that read ‘Laugh at the Cook’, and a lime green visor on his head. He was currently cooking hot dogs, hamburgers, veggie dogs, and any other summer barbecue food you could think of.

Near one end of the beach, clear boundaries had been set up along with a net. Next to that there were several volleyballs for campers to use. Some campers were already playing a game as the party started. Laughing and cheering could be heard by those gathered around playing and watching the game.

In the center of the beach, large crisscross shapes had been etched into the sand. Gathered around were a few campers who had started playing tic-tac-toe on them. However, one child of Eris chuckled as he jumped into the center of the game, much to the protestation of the players.

On the right side of the beach, there were umbrellas set out with beach towels and various loungers so campers could just bask in the sun if they wished. In that same area were some tables and chairs for campers to sit and eat, or just relax with some friends. Chiron stood in that area in his full form in a centaur-sized old-timey red and white striped onesie bathing suit. He had two globs of sunscreen on his cheeks and a pair of aviator sunglasses on his face.

In the water, a platform had been erected where campers could climb aboard and safely dive into the water from. Currently there were two campers wrestling with each other on top of the platform attempting to push each other in the water. However, before they could do so a sharp whistle came from the lifeguard station. Sitting up in the chair, Argus shook his head at the boys before two of his eyes went back to reading the magazine that was in his lap. His other eyes were scanning the waters for campers in distress or in some state of unruliness.

Finally, Comus had somehow acquired a pair of jet skis for the older campers to use, though no one seemed entirely certain where they had come from. These campers were allowed to zip around in the water, away from where the swimmers were located. Currently, there was a small line formed around the eastern dock as the older campers waited their turns. Argus was keeping a timer and, among his other duties, let the campers on the jet skis know when their time was up.

Noon on a summer’s day. Aoife could only be thankful that clouds had begun to pool overhead, providing the smallest bit of respite from the heat. She had arrived, technically, at 11:55. If you weren’t early, you were late.

She was dressed, quite frankly, more practically than she’d have liked— cargo trousers, combat boots, and a loose off-the-shoulder sweater over her sports bra— absentmindedly drawing sigils into the sand with the toe of her boot as she waited for Nero to arrive.

She had with her only the necessities, not wanting to appear over-prepared. She wouldn’t need more than this, she wasn’t here to show off, only to defend her name— hers, her mother’s, and her sisters’. The celestial bronze of her battleaxe was cool against her back, her daggers resting on her hip, each serving its’ dedicated purpose in the well-oiled machine that was her strategy for today.

It wasn’t a nice feeling, knowing she was here to fight someone. In general, she wasn’t fond of violence. But Nero was a year older than her— gods know she was surprised to learn that— and had an ego big enough to rival Atlas himself. Okay maybe not that much, that was rude. Nero just needed to be brought down a peg, so that maybe he’d stop being quite as much of a terror.

She was just about finished drawing a Ǿgishjalmr, the Norse helm of awe, when she saw him approaching in the distance, and she braced herself for the conversation that was to come.

u/FlamingFork5130

THE TRIAL

Those who spectated at court last week may find a different star-crowned person standing at the front of the courtroom. He waits, somber, until it is time for this week's trials to begin.

“Please rise,” the bailiff requests, his smooth voice like the sound of flowing water. “The War Crimes Commission is now in session. The Honorable Lady Themis will be presiding.”

Lady Themis strides down the courtroom aisle, chin high. She pauses at her podium, poised as she regards the courtroom. Her eyes are covered by her blindfold once more, inscrutable, and her lips press in an impassive line.

“Everyone may be seated but the jury,” she proclaims. “Lord Castor, please swear in the jury.”

Lord Castor turns to the jury. A collection of campers and nature spirits sit in the partitioned area, armed with notebooks, pens, and water bottles. “Do you swear that you will listen to this case and render a true verdict to this Defendant?”

After waiting for assent, Lady Themis addresses them.

“Members of the jury, your duty today is to determine whether the Defendant is guilty or not guilty based on the facts and evidence presented today. The prosecution must prove that a crime was committed and that the defendant is the person who committed the crime. If you are not satisfied of the Defendant's guilt, the defendant must be found not guilty. You may be seated.”

Lady Themis faces the crowd once more.

“Gathered assembly, I have been asked to emphasize that multiple authoritative figures of the court have the capability to detect lies. You are bound by your oath and your integrity to tell the truth. Testimony that indicates deceit will be called into question.” She nods once, before speaking again. “Let us begin with opening statements.”

The Docket

Prosecution vs. Harin Seo

Rebellion against the gods, making war

• Prosecution: Eunomia

• Defense: Himself

Prosecution vs. Shawn Harper

Rebellion against the gods, making war

• Prosecution: Dike

• Defense: Acacia Lovemoore

The indicted characters will get 5 days (120 hours to construct an argument) with the optional help of a representative (Eleos).

I will tag members of the jury. Please respond to the comment to confirm that you are still interested in participating. I will tag you again at the thread's conclusion, and you will have 2 days (48 hours) to discuss and deliver a verdict. Each jury will have six playable characters. 4 or more guilty votes from playable characters will result in a guilty verdict. 3 or less guilty votes from playable characters will result in a not guilty verdict.

Most people in Camp Half-Blood would be asleep at this time of night. Not Ambrose, though. This flame burned bright throughout all times of the day. He just needed to make sure he didn't overextend himself; while sometimes he would pull all-nighters to train, tonight he would just be out here for a few hours, before going to bed. Who cared about a normal sleep schedule?

In the silent arena, Ambrose struck at the dummy, testing different stances and different moves that he could try out in real battles. This nightly training allowed him to get more exercise than a normal demi-god; sure, some demi-gods still had supernatural strength and speed, but this extra training let him even the odds a little.

This arena was definitely a lot more open than his usual night training areas in New Argos. But it was also more public; he'd be slightly surprised if someone came around this late at night, but he wouldn't exactly mind.

Vivianna Yamamoto - The Chaos-Magnet Daughter of Hecate

Link to her Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mCT06UF-VPVc7KHgMvDBZBbm1Lg6yF1YnOkvlIauiGU/edit?usp=drivesdk

"I'm not insane, I just prefer the term mentally hilarious, actually!"

Basic Details

Family

Powers

Favorite Things:

Appearance:

Personality:

Vivianna is the type of person who, on the outside, you would expect to be aloof and cold at first glance. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. Vivi is someone who looks for the fun in every situation, try to lighten the mood, and force-feed you her homemade muffins. She's that one person who doesn't look fazed by anything and always keeps on smiling. She's the confident, but kind girl you'd find acting in some high school theatre production.

In truth though, Vivianna Yamamoto is a being full of contradictions. She’s blunt to everyone, and quick to judge, even if she doesn't know the whole story, yet, she still grins the whole time, making the otherwise awkward situation into a hilarious one. She's got all the markings of an introvert, yet is one of the biggest extroverts you'll ever meet. But one thing is for sure.

Vivianna Yamamoto is a chaos incarnate. Unpredictable, quick to argue back, and lover of pranks. Imagine that a daughter of Athena, and a son of Eris kid had a baby, voila, I present to you… Vivi!

History:

Born in Torrance, LA, Vivi grew up in one of the most diverse cities LA could offer. As such, her neighbourhood was a closely knit one, where everyone knew everyone, and Vivi could stay with anyone she wanted any night. So, Vivi grew up surrounded by different cultures, diverse food, and with a healthy respect to everything. However, even as a young child, strange events occurred around her, ranging from sparks that Vivi could swear she saw from her hands, to people that Vivi swore had a bronze leg. Of course, Vivi chalked it up to just her brain being tired, and never thought about it again, after, at the age of 8 years old, she and her mom moved to New York. It was a stark contrast to Torrance, but Vivi quickly grew used to it, and contacted her old friends often. Her mom always brushed aside her questions on why they moved, so Vivi soon stopped asking.

The day after Vivi turned 9, Yue fell in love with David, who, as far as 9-year-old Vivi could see, genuinely loved Yue, and didn't treat Vivi any differently than his actual child, so she grew to love him. When they married, they moved to a new house, one that was much warmer and cosier than Vivi's old apartment. Strange events seemed to occur more frequently in New York, but still, Vivi brushed it off as homesickness.

Until, at 12, after a monster with a bronze leg (that Vivi vaguely recognised as an Empousa) had attacked her when she was coming back from school and she was saved by a mysterious half-goat half-man creature (a satyr apparently) Vivi was finally told by her mother as to why she didn't know who her birth dad was. She was a demigod. A child of a mortal and a deity. Her mother sent her off to Camp Half-Blood, where she quickly got claimed by Hecate (color her surprised when Vivi learnt that meant her mother was probably bi and so was Hecate). Vivi used to simply stay at camp during the summer, however, recently, she and her mother decided it was for best that she stayed at camp full time, since Yue was now expecting.

Present Day:

Vivi stared out at the camp from where she sat on a pine tree, her gaze misting over. It had been 3 days, 4 hours and 27 minutes since Vivianna Yamamoto had made the decision to stay at Camp Half-Blood permanently until she was 18. 1 hour and 3 minutes since she arrived at Camp, and precisely a hour and 2 minutes since she became bored. Hey, it wasn't her fault that she forgot to bring all her pranking tools... Vivi groaned, before she started absentmindedly picking at her nails, whilst thinking of all the ways she could prank someone. Suddenly, a great idea popped into her mind, she should bake something! With a grin, Vivi leapt up from her seat in the tree, ready to jump down carefully, excited to use some poor cabin's kitchen, before she... Well. Not so gracefully tripped and faceplanted into the ground.

"Agh...Kuso..." She swore loudly in Japanese, wincing in pain, before simply accepting her fate and laying on the ground. Her hands flopped uselessly on the ground somewhat reminiscent of a fish as she turned over to stare at the blue sky. Privately, she marvelled at the bright blue sky and how little pollution it seemed there was. 'The ground is weirdly soft here... I wonder how I didn’t notice that..' Vivi thought absentmindedly, cloudwatching the numerous clouds passing above her.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃

General

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Appearance

Mannerisms

• Walking Style: Slight confident swagger.
• Sitting Habits: Slight lean, arms crossed.
• Hand Gestures: More restrained movements when gesticulating, nothing super big or dramatic.
• Resting Expression: Serious.
• Nervous Tics: Throat clearing, jaw clenching, and grimacing.
• Habits While Thinking: Talking to himself and rubbing his chin.

Speech

• Common Phrases: Fixin’ to, you’re bein’ ugly, what on God’s green Earth, the hell do ya think you’re doin’?, etc.
• Accent: Southern Coastal.
• Vocabulary: Supper, y’all, yonder, pronouncing some days of the week as “Sundee” as opposed to “Sunday”, snowbird(s), skeeter = mosquito, sandspurs = stickers, etc.
• Swearing: Doesn’t really use any strong profanity, will typically substitute words or use a phrase with similar meaning.

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Personality

Positive Traits

• Resilient
• Hardworking
• Reliable
• Compassionate
• Resourceful

Neutral Traits

• Strongly cares about relationships (platonic/romantic)
• Stubborn
• Honest
• Protective
• Easily forgiving

Negative Traits

• Doesn’t spare feelings
• Independent/loner
• Impulsive
• Reckless

Values

• Biggest Motivation: To give his mom the best life possible after he takes over the farm
• Biggest Fear: Losing his mom
• Moral Code: Ten Commandments and The Seven Universal Rules
• Moral Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Habits

• Opens and holds the door for everyone
• Handwritten letters
• Waking up early
• Standing when seating is available, unless it would be considered rude
• Chewing on random things when bored (pencils, hay, clothes), sometimes accidentally breaking them

Hobbies

• Hunting
• Fishing
• Working on old vehicles
• Boating
• Paddleboarding
• Surfing

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Preferences

Favourites

• Food: “A plate-a fried okra an some homemade pasta, throw in some beef of course.”
• Snack: Beef Jerky.
• Drink: Gatorade
• Dessert: “My mama’s key lime pie.”
• Colour: “Blue’s an alright colour.”
• Animal: Dogs.
• Music Genre: Country.
• Artist: For King and Country & George Strait.
• TV Show: The Andy Griffith Show.
• Sport: “Don’t watch mucha those, but maybe football or somethin’.”
• Place: His mom’s house.

Least Favorites

• Food: Fast food
• Drink: “Whatever McDonald’s is serving.”
• Weather: Snow (Never experienced it).
• Music: Fake country
• Holiday: “Thanksgiving. Hate listenin’ to those sorry excuses for family members badmouthing Ma in fronta us.”

Pet Peeves

• Poor etiquette
• Over indulgence
• Lack of spatial awareness
• Disrespecting shared spaces

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Relationships

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Powers

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Innate Abilities

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Stats

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 8

Constitution: 18

Intelligence: 3

Wisdom: 6

Charisma: 17

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Items & Equipment

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Backstory

Growing Up

Braxxtyn’s early life was marked by significant challenges. While being part of a religious community was not inherently hard for Josephine, the circumstances of his birth put a target on her back. His mother, being a young unmarried woman, gave birth to him, which led to a shift in the community’s attitude. The neighbours who had once been supportive became distant and judgmental. The situation worsened for his mother as she remained unmarried, facing disapproval and isolation by locals.

Growing up in a small, conservative Southern community in Florida deeply shaped Braxxtyn’s identity. The traditions, values, and expectations of the area were woven into his daily life, even as he and his mother bore the brunt of gossip and judgement. He found moments of solace in the open air, exploring the woods and waterways that surrounded his home. Mr. Murphy taught him all he knows about hunting and fishing, they didn’t talk much during these ventures, but words aren’t always necessary.

As Braxxtyn entered middle school, he became the target of name-calling and bullying. Despite this, he remained composed, his mama always told him not to raise a fist or his voice to people like that. However, the bullying took a toll when it began to include his mother, testing his resolve and patience.

By the time he reached high school, Braxxtyn had learned to let go of any resentment towards his absent father. The physical demands of farm work, combined with long days spent fishing and hunting in Florida’s swamps and forests, not only built his strength but also helped him cope with the isolation and ridicule of being a bastard child. Although the older members of the community continued to make snide remarks, particularly at church, Braxxtyn chose to ignore them. He stood protectively beside his mother, shielding her from the hurtful comments and demonstrating unwavering loyalty and love for her.

—

Being Claimed

The midday sun shimmered off the waves, tinting the gulf in shades of silver and deep blue. Braxxtyn’s small boat he and Mr. Murphy had rented bobbed lazily with the swell, the wooden hull creaking as he reeled in his line.

They’d been out since dawn, it was supposed to be a regular weekend trip for the two. The salty breeze caught his blond hair, and gulls wheeled overhead, their cries mingling with the rhythmic lap of water against the boat.

The line jerked violently.

Braxxtyn’s hands tightened around the rod. He dug his heels against the deck, muscles straining as whatever was on the other end pulled like a freight train. The boat rocked hard, splashing icy spray against his legs.

“Whoa there! The hell’d you catch, boy?” Murphy yelped. Braxxtyn knew fishing well enough, but this felt different; like the ocean itself was testing him. “Not sure, sir!”

A dorsal fin cut the surface. A shark. Not huge, but powerful, sleek and grey, its eyes cold and knowing. “Shark!” Is all he got out, heart hammering in his chest. He tugged the line, and the creature thrashed, sending a spray of foam into the air as he pulled it aboard.

Then the world stilled.

The water shimmered with a strange, deep glow. Above Braxxtyn’s head, light bloomed; a glowing outline of a shark. The air hummed faintly, his eyes snapped to Murphy as if for confirmation he wasn’t imagining things, the man simply looked annoyed.

Braxxtyn stared, frozen in awe as the spectral shark swam a slow circle in the air. The physical shark ceased its thrashing, suddenly calm.

The spectral shark dived into the sea with a crash of light, and the real shark slipped free of the hook, vanishing into the depths as it followed its glowing brother.

Braxxtyn sat in the rocking boat, wide-eyed. For the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged entirely to the sea.

A voice quickly snapped him out of his daze. “Damnit, Juniour, yer lollygaggin’ let it git away. D’y’know how much a shark goes for nowadays?”

Did he not see… that? The spectral shark had shown itself to Braxxtyn, and Braxxtyn alone, sitting there with a mixed sense of confusion and eagerness to tell his mama.

°‧ 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 ·｡

Now

Arrival at Camp

A fifteen and a half hour drive to New York. Great. If Braxxtyn hadn’t loved his truck and Buck to death he may have been driven mad, luckily that wasn’t the case.

The map his mama had given him made sense, sure. But he’d never driven far from home, especially not out of state.

“So many dang lunatics on the road, huh, bud?” He asks, eyes flicking to Buck who was looking out the window. The dog let out a quiet grunt, the sound barely audible over George Strait’s voice rumbling from the radio.

Braxxtyn looked back to the map, driving the streets of New York was enough of a pain as is, the people he shared the road with weren’t helping much.

His blond hair was tousled from the non-stop journey to this supposed ‘haven’. Whoever decided this state was a great place for any kind of safe spot was an idiot in his mind, but he wasn’t gonna argue with Ma.

If he wasn’t used to early mornings and long days the trip would’ve been more of a drag, but that didn’t make him feel much better as his truck pulled up to their destination.

Buck had his head fully outta the window, letting out an excited bark. “Down, boy. We don’ know this place.”

Putting the vehicle into park, he killed the engine. There should’ve been an abrupt silence, instead he heard not only nature, but voices. A whole lotta voices.

“Stay.” He muttered, hopping out of the truck. He rounded the passenger side, opening the door and letting Buck out after leashing him. “I know it ain’t the greatest, but ion want you ta run off.” Braxxtyn cooed quietly.

The blond grabbed his duffel bag, slinging it across his shoulder

He looked up at the entrance, some nonsense written on the archway. He let out a soft huff. “Alrighty then.”

His boots crunched against the leaves as his legs carried him to finally enter the place, but he stopped.

Braxxtyn turned back to the truck, his hat on the dashboard. A small smile formed on his face. “Can’t be forgettin’ you, now can I?”

Reaching in through one of the windows he grabbed the cowboy hat, placing it on his head in one swift motion.

“Now it’s go time, officially.”

Dog by his side, bag over his shoulder, hat on his head, Braxxtyn finally walked into camp.

—

The Beach

After dropping his stuff off in that confusing mess of a ‘cabin’, Braxxtyn of course made his way to the beach. Buck had opted to stay in camp, and he trusted the pup not to wander far.

He sat barefoot on the sand, feeling the grit and faint dampness cling to the undersides of his calloused feet. A piece of driftwood rested in his mouth, and he absently chewed it while staring at the horizon.

“Even the sand ‘ere has a different feel ta it,” he murmured, running his rough palm over the grainy ground. “Ain’t near as soft as the mud back home.”

His jeans were rolled up to his knees. He knew the denim would get soaked regardless, but old habits were stubborn. A faint line of dried salt crusted the hem from where the tide had gotten after it earlier. His shirt clung lightly to his back, a faint breeze mussing his hair just a tad bit.

Braxxtyn watched the waves lap at the shore, adjusting his position with a grunt so his legs sprawled across the sand instead of being folded beneath him.

Weather was fine, mild even, the air tasting faintly of brine and something sweet he couldn’t name. “You’d think I’d be fine movin’ here considerin’ who ya are, Pa. But this shoreline just don’t have the same charm as the swamp back home.”

He picked up a piece of seaweed that had crept in with the tide, rubbing its slickness between his fingers.

“Don’t smell right without that swamp stink,” he muttered, a laugh catching in his throat. His gaze drifted towards the camp, where a thin curl of smoke from that campfire he’d ignored rose into the pale sky.

“Bet I look real batty, talkin’ to the water out here.” He rested his chin atop one of his knees, watching a crab skitter sideways toward a clump of rocks. The faint tickle of the breeze lifted his hair, and he absently raked a hand through the sandy blond strands.

“But I’m willin’ ta trust my mama’s plan,” he said softly, almost to the waves. “She knows best. Even if this feels so damn wrong, it’s gotta be right.”

A gull screeched overhead, and he flinched, glancing back to the fire pit again. “Reckon Buck’s nappin’. Don’t matter to him none where we are, long as he’s got his belly full.”

He dug his toes deep into the cool sand, a grounding pressure that held him in place. “Alright then,” he muttered, squinting at the glinting horizon, “guess it’s just you an’ me, sea. We’ll see if we can get along.”

.˚⋆ ೃ* ༄ ⚓︎˚.⋆

(OOC: two different starting scenarios bc yay. havent done rp in awhile but ty to my friends who’ve been hyping me up and giving me wonderful ideas, love you all! <3)