"Please Don't Set the Satyrs on Fire"
Daniel
The Amphitheater had been packed long before their visitors had strolled through the barrier, but now with Greek and Roman demigods alike taking up the stone benches, Daniel was sure that they were breaking some sort of fire code.
Then again, the Hephaestus kids did that on the daily.
Daniel sat on a bench in the first row of the amphitheater, situated right at the center of the stage, with all of the other head counselors at camp. He was squished between Will Solace, the lanky blonde son of Apollo, and a sleeping Clovis, the son of Hypnos. Dan rested his chin in his hand while he waited for everyone to finish filing into their seats. His eyes drifted about restlessly, from the whispering faces of Nico di Angelo and Will, to the four demigods standing on the stage in front of them.
Three of the demigods, two guys and one girl, wore the typical orange t-shirt that all campers at Camp Half-Blood wore. The first of the two guys was the tallest, and had blonde hair and electric blue eyes. Just about everyone in camp knew who he was; Jason, the Son of Zeus (well, technically Jupiter, but Dan preferred to call them by their Greek names regardless). He was something of the new defacto leader of Camp Half-Blood, a role he took over from the son of Poseidon standing beside him.
Percy Jackson, with his dark unkempt hair and sea green eyes, was by far the most laid back of the two. It was a personality trait that typically put whoever he met at ease, at least until the snark began to slip out with his words. The two boys were chuckling over something Jason had said, but they were too quiet for Dan to hear.
The two girls, on the other hand, looked to be annoyed by the looks on their faces. The Greek of the two girls, Annabeth Chase, was a demigod that campers both revered and feared. It probably had something to do with the fact that she'd helped save the world twice, and that her storm grey eyes could bore a hole through your head, if you were unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of her glares.
The other girl, definitely Roman by the purple toga and Imperial gold armor she wore, actually managed to make Daniel feel more uneasy than Annabeth ever could. She had a face that was of hispanic descent, with hair the color of stygian iron braided down her back, and eyes that seemed even darker. He might have been Greek, but even Dan knew that she was none other than Reyna, Praetor of the Twelfth Legion. Everything about her, even her posture, seemed to say, I stand above all of you, and Daniel wasn't sure if he found that oddly alluring, or incredibly intimidating.
With the way her eyes scanned the assembled demigods with scrutiny, he figured the latter was more appropriate.
It wasn't until she locked eyes with him, that Daniel realized that he'd been staring at her. Her brow furrowed, and the Praetor was clearly displeased that his eyes had locked with hers. Panic began to well into Dan's throat as the leader of the Roman camp looked straight through him, as if he were made of some sort of flimsy paper. He wanted to look away; to avert his gaze and pretend that he'd never been staring in the first place, but instead the foolish son of Boreas only frowned back.
"What are you doing?" came the half whisper, half shout of Will Solace.
Without tearing his gaze away from the Roman, he whispered back, "Dude, I have no clue, help me!"
Dan wasn't sure how, but Reyna's gaze became even more intense. Like as if she were a wolf, and he a deer, and she'd just cornered him.
"Look away," Will advised, "just look away!"
Daniel, against his better judgement, did not look away. Instead, he held Reyna's gaze with his own, almost challenging her. To what, he didn't know, but he knew that the Romans respected strength, and he had the feeling that looking away would be akin to telling the Praetor, oh it's alright, go ahead and crush me under your heel. And Daniel was not a masochist, despite the fact that every fiber of his being seemed intent to prove otherwise, by engaging the freaking Praetor of New Rome in some kind of weird staring contest.
Dan wasn't sure how long he was going to be able to hold her stare, but he never got the chance to find out, as an elbow crashed into his temple. He let out a quiet curse, and rubbed the side of his head, as he turned to look over at the son of Apollo who'd struck him. Daniel shook his head at the blonde boy, and a visage of mixed confusion and curiosity crossed his face.
Will only shrugged his shoulders, "You told me to help."
Dan wanted to retort, but before he could, Jason began to shush the crowd.
"Alright, hey, I think it's time we got this thing started. Sooner we finish up here, the sooner you guys get to start trying to kill each other!"
He was obviously trying for a joke, and referencing the game of Capture the Flag scheduled after dinner, but Annabeth and Reyna just groaned. The majority of the rest of the demigods in the amphitheater, including Percy and Dan himself, let out laughs that echoed off of the stone benches and the stage.
"First off," Jason continued with a light chuckle at his own joke, "let me officially welcome the Twelfth Legion, and their Praetor, Reyna, to Camp Half-Blood. We're honored to have you here."
A mixture of shouts and claps emanated from the audience, from both Greek and Roman demigods.
Reyna spoke up in response next, "and let me be the first to thank the Greek demigods for their hospitality, and their kindness, on behalf of the Twelfth Legion. My only regret is that my colleague, Frank Zhang, couldn't be here to offer his gratitude in person; he chose to remain in New Rome to deal with some matters of the Senate."
What those "matters" were, the Praetor didn't elaborate on. But knowing how Roman bureaucracy worked backin the day, Daniel was sure it was something boring like zoning rights. Maybe UC Berkeley was getting a new McDonalds.
"But before we kick things off," Jason picked back up, after giving a nod to Reyna, "let's establish a few ground rules for both the Roman and Greek campers. If you're gonna fight, do it either in the arena, or in the middle of Capture the Flag. This goes for archers too; the archery range is meant for practice on nonliving targets! If you wanna shoot each other, do it in the appropriate locations!"
This got a few murmurs from the Roman demigods, oddly enough, as if they'd been expecting that they could just go at it in the dinning pavilion or something.
"If you wanna challenge each other to a race up the climbing wall, then by all means, go ahead! But there are no weapons allowed! Fist and kicks are fine though. Just make sure you don't stand around in the lava for too long."
Dan found himself chuckling a little at that one, as did some of the Greeks around him. Tackling other demigods off of the wall was a common occurrence, and one that usually ended with both parties being laid up in the infirmary for days.
"Also, please don't harass the satyrs or the nymphs if you're just looking for more bodies for a fight. Seriously, some of those satyrs involved in the last fight are still bald from the waist down. It's not a pretty sight, guys."
"No, seriously," Percy butted in, with his eyes opened wide with horror, "please don't burn off their fur again. They nearly stampeded through the camp last time, and satyrs aren't even violent for the most part. Just… just leave the satyrs alone."
A smile crossed Jason's face, if only briefly, "alright with that said, we'll cut you loose. Just remember, Capture the Flag is tonight, after dinner! And," Jason eyes looked down to scan across Daniel and the other head counselors, "head counselors, and centurions, if you guys would stay behind for a few minutes, there are some other things we'd like to discuss with you."
With that said, the massive cluster of demigods began to excuse themselves, and exit the ampitheatre in a wave of orange and purple t-shirts. The head counselors all stood up and spaced themselves out a little, with some standing and some remaining on the benches. While they waited for the rest of the campers to file out, Daniel approached the stage and looked up at Jason.
"Find that a little nerve wracking, Pontifex?"
The son of Jupiter gave off a small "hah," before sitting down and draping his legs of the stage, "you have no idea. I don't know how I used to do this stuff as Praetor. The whole audience seemed like a bunch of vultures. Or gorgons."
"I don't think you need to worry about monsters inside the camp's boundaries," Daniel said with a smile, "though the vulture thing is probably accurate."
"No kidding. I'm sure there were a few campers just waiting for me to slip up so they could laugh."
"Laugh? At the great son of Jupiter, Hero of Olympus?" Dan chuckled at the thought, "Dude, I'm pretty sure just about everyone here reveres you."
"Yeah, well," Jason rubbed the back of his neck, "I'm sure I stepped on some toes when I decided to juggle responsibilities to both camps, instead of choosing to settle down at one permanently. But forget about that, how's the new cabin?"
"It's pretty nice," Daniel admitted, despite his hangups with the exterior design, "we've got actual dressers now, so we don't have to keep all our stuff in bags. They're even enchanted to be bigger on the inside."
"No kidding?" Jason nodded approvingly, "I need to have a talk with the Hephaestus campers, or maybe the Athena cabin then. The coolest thing in my bunk is the ladder to the roof."
"You could always see if someone from Demeter would be willing to give you some plants. A ficus would be cool."
"Yeah," Jason didn't sound like he liked the idea, "but who's gonna water them when I'm in New Rome?"
Admittedly, Daniel didn't think about that. Nor did he have the time to come up with an answer, before Annabeth and Reyna called for everyone's attention. Dan looked around for a split second, and was surprised at how fast the other campers had made their exit. Jason stood back up, and the smaller group of demigods got into a circle, with the four completing it on the stage.
Percy was the first one to speak up, "so, with the Romans here, Chiron kind of wants us to include them in our daily camp activities."
"Kind of?" Annabeth echoed with a frown, "no Seaweed Brain, he was adamant about the idea."
Percy sighed, "look, my point is, we want the head counselors and centurions to join in and encourage everyone to… you know, do stuff together."
"A lot of us head counselors already teach classes, or supervise things like the climbing wall," Jason tried to elaborate, "but we want you guys to get involved with the more mundane activities like canoeing on the lake and-"
"Bro," Percy feigned being wounded, "did you just insult canoeing? Have you ever been on the lake? It's like, the most exciting part of being at camp!"
"You can talk to fish!" Jason exclaimed, "of course you think it's exciting! The rest of us can't just have a picnic at the bottom of the lake like you can!"
"Boys!" Annabeth's tone was enough to shut them both up, and she turned to face everyone else, "look, get the Greeks and Romans to cooperate and have fun together. This is about trying to help establish good relations between both camps."
Reyna nodded approvingly, and she turned to scan her centurions, "tell your cohorts to join in on some of the Greek's fighting exercises. While the way they fight might not be… uniform, they do excel in fighting on their lonesome. A Roman might not always have their cohort to back them up."
"Yeah," Percy agreed, "especially since quests can only be taken on in groups of three, unless you want to screw yourself."
One of the centurions below the stage, Daniel thought his name was Hank, spoke up, "I'm sure our campers won't mind taking some lessons, but they won't learn from just anybody."
"Well," Jason spoke up, "archery lessons are taught by Chiron himself, with help from Kayla from the Apollo cabin, so you shouldn't need to worry about that. Butch from the Iris cabin is the best equestrian we have, and that's including Percy over there, who can actually talk to horses."
A few of the centurions gawked at the idea of Percy talking to horses, and in the meanwhile, Percy himself grumbled about being considered second best. Butch looked a little smug.
"And, uh," Jason pointed a thumb at Daniel, who had to resist the urge to sigh, "Daniel here is from the new Boreas cabin we just built. He teaches most of the sword skill classes now."
Daniel eyed everyone with a bored expression (it was either do that, or the Romans might find out he was anxious about being the center of attention), as they all turned to look at him. Nobody looked all that impressed with him. Even Sherman, the buff head counselor of the Ares cabin, frowned at him. And then, as all Ares kids seemed to do, he opened his mouth to trash talk.
"Yeah, Dan is okay I guess, but he's no Ares kid."
That was all it took to make the Roman centurions, and worse, Reyna, frown at him.
"Hey," Dan was surprised to hear Will speak up for him, "Dan here is a better swordsman than anyone in the Ares cabin!"
A few of the other head counselors murmured in agreement, and Dan wanted to shout and stop them from propagating such a rumor. Because, it wasn't true. Sherman had bested him several times, both in the arena and during Capture the Flag, as had some other Ares kids like Clarisse. Dan wasn't the best at swordplay, he was just the only skilled swordsman that stayed at Camp Half-Blood full time that had the patience to teach it. In fact, Daniel would even go as far as to say that he was rusty now, compared to his skill level during the days of the Second Titan War.
Of course, now he couldn't say a word, or else he'd risk losing the respect of the Romans before he even had it. And, if he was being entirely honest, he really didn't want Reyna glaring at him anymore than she had when they'd locked eyes.
"Dan is a veteran from the Titan War," it was Percy who spoke up this time, "he helped us defend Manhattan from Kronos' forces. He's just as qualified to teach the class as any of us here."
Percy caught Dan's eyes with his own, and nodded at him. Dan nodded back, as a gesture of gratitude. Dan didn't like talking about the war with the Titans, or what had transpired when their forces besieged Manhattan, but he'd earned some respect that day. It was nice to know that someone appreciated him.
"Daniel was it?" It was Praetor Reyna who spoke to him this time, and Daniel nodded as confirmation, "if any of my legionaries make a fuss about learning from you, inform me or one of my centurions."
Her gaze was just as intimidating as it had been a few minutes before, but Dan forced himself not to look away from her dark eyes. If he wanted to earn respect from the Romans, it had to start here, with their leadership. If he couldn't make the praetor and her centurions respect him, then how was he supposed to make their legionaries respect him enough to learn from him?
"I appreciate the gesture," Daniel started, swallowing past his dry throat, "but if your legionnaires have a problem with learning from me, then they're welcome to spar with me. Once I've beaten them black and blue, I'm sure they'll be a little more open minded."
Daniel was in no way known for his gloating or boasting, evident by the looks on the faces of his fellow campers. The majority of them either gasped or had gaping mouths (even Nico looked surprised), while Annabeth and the Romans looked as if they were impressed by his words. He caught Percy, Sherman, and Jason smirking a little. Dan himself just felt a little silly.
"Bold choice of words," Reyna almost sounded like she was praising him, but her visage remained as neutral as ever, "are you sure you're not a Roman?"
Any tension that might have been in the air was lost in everyone's conjoined laughter.
Maybe, Daniel thought, the Romans being around wouldn't be so bad.
