A/N: I always saw people shipping Connor and Miranda (maybe 'cause Tratie is kind of a "popular" ship) and I know many people shipped her with Lou Ellen, but then TOA happened.

I never payed much attention to her, but after reading THO and CHB Confidential I wonder which kind of relationship they must have. They seem very opposite to me.

Don't really know much about them but I tried. Hope they are not too OOC. And if anybody reading this happens to like Cecil, I swear I have nothing against him. He's just a victim of a crazy fanfic writer who doesn't want to create an OC.

Everything belongs to Rick Riordan.

Sherman did not expect to find Miranda Gardiner. Let alone have a strange kind of 'heart-to-heart' with the Demeter girl.

He and Ellis, his half-brother, had decided to go to the woods after some monsters to slaughter. Now that the war against Gaea was over and the Greco-Roman conflict was solved, life at camp became somewhat tedious. At least for the children of Ares.

At some point along the way, Sherman lost Ellis and assumed that if he went back, he could maybe find Ellis.

On his way back – at least he hoped that was the same way –, his eyes caught a figure in the middle of the woods.

His instincts took control over his body almost automatically. In his fighting position, ready to attack, he approached the figure as stealthy as he could be (a Hermes' blessing could be quite useful sometimes) trying not to make a sound. He almost let his sword fall when realized the figure was from somebody familiar.

He recognized the girl, Miranda Gardiner, the head counselor of Cabin 4. She was for sure not her cabin's best fighter, but she had great willpower to learn and was always determinate to improve her fighting skills.

Miranda had her head resting on her knees, and while Sherman couldn't see her face he knew she wasn't on a good mood; different types of flowers (cause Sherman did not know much about flowers or plants in general) were spread on the grass and withered.

Normally children of Demeter didn't appreciate a vision like that – a mess of different dead flowers. Obviously. But Miranda didn't seem to mind that, which made Sherman frown. You know, as a son of Ares he never really did care that much about the Demeter Cabin or Miranda in general. But the girl was sure acting weird and he was dying out of curiosity.

"Miranda?" He sat down next to her.

She raised her head, surprised by his presence. "Sherman?"

"What happened?" he asked in the nicest tone he had.

"Why do you care?"

Oh yeah. He forgot he was acting completely out of character right now.

He must have looked surprised because Miranda shook her head and said, "It's something stupid. It doesn't matter."

"Well, it does matter if it made you ignore the withered flowers in front of you."

Miranda sighed and said, "Cecil Markowitz played a prank on me."

"Oh." There wasn't really much Sherman could say. Hermes' kids played pranks all the time and the campers of the Demeter cabin were their favorite target since the chocolate Easter bunnies prank.

Most campers never took Cabin 11's pranks seriously. Sure, at the moment they blast out in anger and chase after them, but the next day they are laughing at their jokes.

But Sherman could feel this was something else.

"It wasn't just a prank, right?" he asked and Miranda nodded her head, trying to hold back the tears.

Whatever Cecil had done this time, Sherman was going to punch him for making that girl cry. He didn't know Miranda very well, but he knew enough to know that this wasn't her normal self. She was always so full of life and cheering. To see her like that – she appeared so fragile, about to break at any moment… No, that wasn't Miranda.

"Billie's sick and I was taking her a bouquet. Some nymphs helped me make a beautiful flower arrangement with her favorite flower and some get well flowers. But as I was heading back to my cabin, Cecil appeared and then–" She sobbed.

Man, he was definitely going to make Cecil pay for this.

"Look, if you don't want to tell me what he did, that's okay." What in Hades was that? He was being nice? He wasn't nice.

"I started to pick up the flowers from the ground while cussing him. I think he got pissed when I said something about his cabin's stupid pranks on me and my other siblings. He said that… He said that Demeter's children are a bunch of stupid crazy plant weirdos whose best ability is to make flowers for graveyards.

"He said other stuff too, but I don't wanna repeat that. I told him so many nasty and harsh things I can't barely even recognize myself now."

Never-mind what he had mentally said he was going to do with Cecil before.

He was going to kill that guy.

"Well, he deserved to hear them," he said.

"No, he didn't. I shouldn't have said anything about his cabin. I deserved everything he said."

Once again, Sherman couldn't find the words to comfort her. He was a son of Ares and not Aphrodite. He didn't know how to deal with other people's feelings. Comfort wasn't something you'd see among Ares' children.

"I shouldn't be crying," she said while standing up. "Katie never cried. She always kept firm and smartly fired back whenever she had the chance."

"But you're not Katie," he said.

Sherman knew how it was like to be compared to your cabin's previous head counselor. His half-siblings would never say it to his face, but he knew they were always comparing him to Clarisse behind his back.

"Exactly, I'm not Katie. She wouldn't be whining about this." She started to collect the flowers from the ground. "Anyways, thanks for listening to me, Sherman. That was really sweet of you."

He could feel his cheeks burning. "Y-you're welcome, I guess."

"I'm gonna make another flower bouquet. See ya."

He stood there and watched as she disappeared between the trees.

"Hey, man. I finally found ya," Ellis said coming out of the bush behind Sherman. "What are you doing sitting there? Waiting for a monster to kill you?"

"Hey Ellis, man, Watcha think about giving Cecil a little gift? Courtesy of the Ares cabin."

"Miranda, you have got to see this," was all Billie said as she grabbed Miranda by her arm and dragged her out of the Arena.

Since it was off-season Miranda took some time to train. While she survived two wars she still felt as if she wasn't doing enough. Sure, her powers were amazing (at least she thought they were) and her fighting skills were descent, but they could be better. What if she was in a situation where she couldn't depend on her powers and had to rely on her physical strength?

"Billie, you're sick. What are you doing out of bed?" Billie didn't answer. Instead, she kept walking while dragging Miranda along with her.

She took Miranda to the front of Cabin 11 where a crowd of campers were gathered around. Miranda noticed Chiron beside Connor Stoll, who was trying – without any success – to take Cecil out of the roof of the cabin.

Yes. Cecil Markowitz. Hanging from the rooftop of his own cabin.

Miranda noticed three Ares boys (one of them being Sherman Yang himself) laughing hysterically while Cecil cursed and yelled at Connor to get him out of there quickly.

Now, let's raciocinasse with Miranda: The previous day Sherman had found her and she had told him about Cecil's prank and their little argument, if you could call that an argument.

The next day Cecil was given a hanging wedgie by someone. Classical school bully thing from movies? Yeps.

It's true that Hermes' children like pranking anyone, even each other. But this occasion did not seem a typical Hermes' camper prank. It was made by a much tougher and harsher demigod. Or demigods.

Miranda might not be any daughter of Athena, but she was able to connect the dots. And Cecil yelling threats to the Ares cabin made it even more obvious.

Miranda approached the Ares boys and asked, "You're the responsible for this, aren't you Sherman?"

The three boys stopped laughing but were smirking, except for Sherman who was smiling uneasily. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I just find it funny that yesterday we had that conversation and today Cecil's… Well… You know exactly what you did."

The other two boys looked back and forth between them.

"So you punished him for me?" Miranda asked teasingly and not believing it at the same time. He was a jerk. Period. But he could be a sensitive jerk when he wanted to.

She noticed his face was getting even redder.

"I–Uh–Well–You see–"

"So that's why you chose Cecil, huh?" one of the boys – Ellis, maybe – said still smirking. "Did little Cecil mess with your girlfriend, Sherman?" Miranda felt her cheeks getting warmer with the comment.

"Shut up, Mark!" Sherman said.

"Look, it was really sweet of you to avenge me and everything, but I would really appreciate if you'd help Cecil."

"I didn't do it for you! I did it 'cause Cecil was getting on my nerves." And quickly after saying that, Sherman stomped to where Cecil was hanging.

Connor backed off when he saw Sherman approaching and even Cecil stopped yelling.

"Hey, Stoll, help me to take this punk out of the roof," he said.

Miranda grinned while the other campers – including Chiron – were confused with Sherman's attitude.

A/N: I know some people ship Cecil and Ellis (I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up as a couple) so Ellis agreeing with Sherman's "punishment" would be… yeah. But this story takes place before CHB Confidential, and I think they weren't that close until a little before the whole THD story happen (just read The Ares Peacetime Challenge and take your own conclusions). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna hide under my bed after this.