Whew! Took me a little while longer than I wanted, but Chapter Two is up! I get to be at the top of the archive again, yay! This chapter sounds a lot less like I cheated and had Shrrg write it for me, to boot, and so you all finally get to hear the properly sarcastic, jaded wreck that Patrick is already starting to become!
It also occurs to me that, after reading a review, I made no indication as to Pat's gender before the very end of the last chapter. He's a guy, honest-and thanks to Emily Darkbow for pointing out the little goof-up of mine. (And shush, 'Manda; it's not youI'm killing here!)
Also I'm still alive. Boo. Fans of the Dysfunctionalverse get three guesses as to who Chiron is passing his greeting to, and the first two don't count!
Speaking of Chiron, I'll admit I'm still a bit iffy on writing him. Tell me what you all think of how I handled the scene, and I'll strive to improve! Furthermore, before I let you go, I'll try to set up an updating rate of a chapter between every one and two weeks, depending on how kind school and life are.
Now go read!
I wish I could tell you how I bolted up, ready for action, but I didn't-I really, really didn't. I just slumped back against the tree and breathed, and might have even forgotten to do that a few times as the past few hours started washing over me. The Greek myths... real, monsters... chasing me, Amanda and Sylvus... dead. Even without that sledgehammer of a realization I had a lot to worry about: no idea where I was, or how to get back home to Wisconsin, which I had the distinct feeling I was nowhere near. Hell, I'd even settle for my father in Chicago at this p-
Get up.
It took me a minute to realize that the voice in my head, the one driving me to survive, wasn't in my head at all. It was a very strong gut feeling that, if it had a voice, would probably be saying-
Get UP!
I didn't stop to argue, or even think, before shoving myself up off the ground. I came to my feet a lot more steadily than you might think after just having been hit in the chest, and finally started to process my surroundings. Of course, it's not like that was hard; all I could see was a bunch of trees! I started forward, figuring any direction was worth a shot at this point, because I really couldn't get morelost. I stopped after a few steps and looked around uneasily, suddenly unable to shake the feeling that something was watching me-a lot of somethings. I looked up...and only found more branches. The leaves played innocent patterns in the sunlight, as if they turned away when I looked at them.
Fine by me, the trees could watch me all they wanted. I was just glad they weren't trying to kill me.
It's a little odd that I began to relax so soon after everything that just happened, but... I don't know. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, maybe I had a better tolerance for earth-shattering revelations than I thought, or maybe the woods are just plain relaxing. Whatever the reason, this aimless walk through a strange stretch of woods was doing more to calm me down and let me think than that guidance counselor's lecture about why flooring the jock who got into my face wasn't something I needed to do.
She was perfectly right, of course; I didn't need to give him that black eye. But then again, he didn't need to get his jersey in a knot because I warned him off the cheerleader he was going to try to pick up. (Without going into too much detail, I knew she was playing him across the court, pardon the sports pun, but he decided to take an honest warning badly and came after me. Let me just say, even with the bruises I got, that hour-long detention was very worth it.)
It dawned on me that I probably shouldn't be worried about the people I didn't like when I could end up too dead to worry about them, and so I firmly recommitted myself to dealing with the fact that I was alone in a stretch of woods I had never seen before. Maybe if I managed to find a road...
… Is that thing made out of marble?
I took a cautious step past the treeline-funny how the forest went from dangerous to a safe haven, eh?-to get a better look. Maybe not marble, but what I was looking at was definitely large, stone and a pillar, kind of like the ones on the buildings in D.C. This time curiosity more or less overrode me, and I was marching toward one the columns for a closer look before I realized I had left the trees. I was halfway to one of them before I realized I was on path-an honest-to-god paved footpath with tall Roman... no, not Roman. Greekcolumns. Huh, I guess reading through the history book during the teacher's Charlie Brown lectures worked out for me. Now where in the world is there a stretch of woods that ends in ancient Greek architecture?
It probably wasn't a good idea to move closer to the tall stones, but I didn't really feel anything wrong or dangerous about them. I guess, seeing as there were mythological beasts running around schools and teleporting through trees, a pillar out of place was far from the most dangerous thing I could run into. So I followed my gut and took a closer look, and maybe I could even manage to get a better view on those buildings in the distance- gah!
Well, I tried to take a closer look, but I nearly walked straight into a tall, bulky guy I didn't even notice until I was eating his shirt. "Outta the gods-damned way," he grunted as he shouldered past me, sending me half-stumbling off to the side of the path.
I turned to glare at the guy and knew in an instant he was one of those jock types. After all, normal human beings didn't have shoulders that resembled a small truck, and the big 5on his back, like a sports jersey, didn't help his case. I bit back a comment as I remembered exactly how I had no idea where I was, and settled for imagining hitting him in the face with a basketball. As much as I wanted to ask what kind of tough guy wears a big orange t-shirt and dorky blue sorts, it didn't see like a good idea to be starting fights in strange places. Probably better to figure out exactly where I was before I start making people mad, right?
'Exactly where I was' was about as far up in the air as a stealth bomber, and slowly getting closer to low orbit with each step I took down the paved road. Greek columns, marble buildings off in the distance, and I was beginning to find people ambling here and there, moving things or going from Point A to Point B- and it was all organized like a perfectly normal summer camp! There weren't a lot of these apparent campers, but there were enough to let me draw the comparison. It dawned on me as I walked that there was still snow falling, but it was nowhere near as heavy as the Connecticut snowfall I'd been in only an hour ago. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining.
Soon I started getting a little too close to the huge ring of buildings up the path-almost like temples-for comfort, so I swung off of the path and crunched through the snow to explore in a different direction. More than a couple people had seen me as I walked by and none of them had tried to kill me yet, but the presence of swords and even a few spears was enough to convince me that starting that fight was definitely not a good idea.
The first thing I noticed once I picked my direction was that there was actually some kind of field down that way, blocked off by the waist-height wooden fences that you see in farms. You know, the ones every videogame character in existence seems to have difficulty hopping over. The second thing I noticed, as I got closer, was that there was a trio of people perched up on the fence. A few of them reached back to nab something off of one of the plants while the one in the middle leaned back to talk to someone on the other side of the fence, and I stopped to watch for a minute. The vague figure standing on the field-side of the fence was making some big gestures but nothing was exploding yet, so I figured being social couldn't hurt.
"... go worry about the rest of your field then, if the strawberries are so valuable, dear? You can't tell me Chiron will throw as big a fuss as you are if you drag him out here for a couple lousy pieces of fruit?" I heard as I walked within earshot.
The speaker and her tone of voice immediately made me frown, and after a a quick inspection I figured out why. Tall girl, jeans that looked about fifteen minutes old at absolute most, a pink hoodie tossed over her orange t-shirt, and sleek brown hair I could tell was done up with clips and conditioner even at a distance.
Great. Cheerleaders.
Of course she looked over and noticed me, eyes sweeping me up and down like people usually do when they're sizing up a piece of clothing as opposed to another human being. "Alright sweetie," I heard her say to the other girl just behind the fence, without really looking at her. A quick look confirmed that said girl was her exact opposite; light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, wearing scuffed jeans and an orange sweatshirt that was a couple sizes too big-why couldn't I have walked up on her side of the fence? "Get back to your little play garden before I start getting annoyed." I offered the girl with the ponytail an apologetic look, to which she just shook her head and shot a dirty look at the trio for my benefit before going off to get back to the strawberry plants.
In a display of entirely unnecessary grace, the tan-skinned girl hopped off the fence to saunter up to me, followed by a pair of flunkies I might have actually been able to tolerate were it not for their choice in role model. She wasn't tan, I realized as she put on a pearly-white smile, but of some kind of Asian ancestry or another, . "You must be new to the camp, hon. I'm Drew, daughter of Aphrodite and one of the more interesting people to know around here."
"Think he's been chosen yet?" one of the two girls just behind Drew asked in the ditzy blonde way that makes everybody with a working brain cringe. Drew shot the girl one of those looks over her shoulder, but I managed to piece a working answer together from what I'd overheard.
"No," I said, careful not to sound too quick but not lagging so much between each word it sounded like I was reading off of a script, "just got here a little bit ago. The satyr who brought me here is looking for Chiron, he told me to just wander around that ring of buildings until they found me." I paused for a moment, leaning off to the side for a cough to hide a momentary break in my story. "We ran into a couple of really, really big dogs on the way here, so Sylvus is letting me take it easy and catch a breather instead of carting me around the place," I said after coming back up. There, a little bit of truth in with the lie and with any luck they wouldn't figure out the difference.
Drew nodded, and it took most of my willpower not to let out a sigh of relief when she didn't call me on the lie. "I could show you around the place for him," she offered, pink-lidded eyes flitting from side to side to meet either of the other girls' for a moment. The two of them took a moment to giggle, probably at some joke I'd missed while I was listening to Drew, and headed off to go do... well, I wasn't really sure what. My attention snapped back to the dark-haired demigod as soon as she spoke again. "It's really no fun to be here without any good friends, after all. Besides, you look like an interesting guy, so I'm sure there's somethingwe could talk about."
I thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged my consent. "Why not? Been sort of a rough day, I actually could stand to just..." The rest of that thought was cut off by a voice in the distance, and Drew frowned as we both looked towards the source. A blonde guy about my size, clad in the same orange shirt I'd been seeing around the place and a pair of jeans that were just beginning to fade from age, was calling for Drew. As he got a little closer I saw the girl who'd been keeping an eye on the fields a few steps behind him and off to the side, walking along at the same pace. She must have gone to get the guy-
"Chris, could you please just sort this out before I end up with pink eyeliner on my knuckles and dishes for a month?"
So his name was Chris. Thank you, girl with the ponytail, and remind me not to mess around in your field from now on. "Alright, what's all the trouble?" he asked with a smile, though from the look in his blue eyes it seemed like he already knew the answer.
"Oh, it's nothing, " Drew told him before gesturing a pink-sleeved arm my way, "I just found a new guy wandering around. He looked a bit lost, I figured he could use a friendly hand and a delicate touch to get eased in."
"Well hey, at least you kept him out of the strawberry patch," he said with a grin, bringing an immediate frown to the Asian demigod's glossed lips. As if nothing were wrong he continued, "I can take him over to the Big House; I've got a free couple of hours right now. Don't you have some sword practice you should be doing, or did that end early?"
By now Drew's frown was something just shy of a scowl, and I narrowed my eyes. Who the hell is this guy, coming in and breaking up a perfectly helpful conversation? I didn't even get to introduce myself before he came over, and now Drew's pissed and walking off. "Hey, listen," I said, the fact that I suddenly had to adjust to talking to someone my own height not serving to make me any less annoyed. "I appreciate the offer, I really do, but she and I were right in the middle of talking."
The lightly tanned blonde guy turned to shoot what I'm assuming was a questioning glance back to the field-girl, because I saw her nod and then roll her eyes at whatever idea she'd just confirmed. "And I suppose she did a lot of the talking?" Chris asked as he turned back to me. "Alright, backtrack a little bit and just think about walking up to her again. Play that over in your head."
I wanted to bite at him with some kind of remark or another, but something did strike me as those first few moments started playing in my head. I saw her and her friends sitting up on fence as I walked up, that wasn't weird. The three of them were wearing a hell of a lot of pink, but it wasn't that bad. It was only a little annoying, not like all the cheerleaders at school who've got big globs of pink lipstick and eyeliner-
... Wait. She wasmade up beyond all reason, I realized as I went over her again-and it was no less annoying than usual. Come to think of it, a lot of things about her rubbed me the wrong way. They had as soon as I saw her, but then they didn't after I started talking to her.
Gah, why did I even stick around to talk? I knew she was unbearable as soon as I locked eyes with the girl in the orange hoodie! What the hell just happened?
"Welcome back," said hoodie-girl just a bit uncharitably. She came over to give me a friendly pat on the back, some of that unamused tone finally draining out of her voice as she asked, "Got your head on straight, now?" The look in her eyes was one of concern, though it was admittedly the kind of annoyed concern you might have for a guy who just stubbed his toe on that rock you told him to look out for.
I raised a hand to rub at my sinuses, grumbling incoherently for a minute. "I'm not sure my head's been on straight for the past three or four hours," I finally managed to answer, a little more snappish than I actually intended. "I just hiked through the woods for an hour after watching someone get killed by my flying English teacher, a guy with goat hooves kicked me in the chest so he could make a tree eat me, and good god why do I feel like I just quoted a book character, somewhere?" I finally finished that near-run on sentence by shouting the last few words, throwing my arms up in the air and letting them slap back down against my sides. There was some not-so-concealed giggling from the girl, and I whipped around to keep ranting at her when Chris caught my shoulder.
"Hey, listen," he started, raising the other hand as he began to speak, "Trust me, what you're describing isn't so odd around here. Pretty much everybody who's come through this Camp has had something at least that hectic happen to them before they got here." He gave me a minute to process that before continuing with, "Now that we've got you out of the hands of the Wicked Witch, I can get you to the Big House. You can talk to Chiron, get sorted out and take a breather for a little while, yeah?"
I let my head and shoulders slump at that, muscles showering me with a sudden gratitude I hadn't been expecting at the release of tension. The guy had a point, never mind that his voice was a warm, friendly sort that reminded me a bit of the nice feeling you get sitting in the sun on a spring day-scratch that, maybe early summer. I was already here, so I suppose getting an idea of what the place was about and talking to the guy in charge wasn't such a bad idea. "Alright," I said as I lifted my head back up, "as long as I don't have to talk to any hypnotizing cheerleaders again."
About ten minutes later Chris and I were coming up on what looked like the largest farmhouse in the world as he finished explaining, "... and right next to that is the tennis court. I'm convinced that the nets like to move a few inches while people are playing, but Chiron insists they're normal." I took a minute to stare up at the building, which somehow managed to be both comforting with its sky blue paint and simple construction, but entirely overwhelming with its size. I wondered how many cans of paint they had to buy to get this thing all done before what Chris-a son of Apollo, he told me as we were walking-said caught up with me.
"Am I the only person who's ever wondered how you can have things as drastically different as a tennis court and lava-covered climbing wall in the same camp?" I asked, brow furrowing as I tried to compare the two in my head. One was normal, and one was... suicidal. I tried to wrap my mind around the miles of difference between the two, getting as far as asking, "I mean, how does that even... ?" before I decided to just shake my head and stop wasting the bit of sanity I still had left.
The blonde just shook his head and laughed, gesturing toward the steps. "Chiron'll be in his office," he explained, right before Fate decided to prove him dead wrong. Thankfully, it was the 'voices from around the corner' kind of wrong, and not 'let's try to kill you again' wrong. We heard the sounds of earnest conversation as we walked up the half-dozen stairs to the wide wooden deck that seemed to wrap entirely around the Big House.
"... more or less finished getting everyone together, and I need to start getting the gear." The voice belonged to a tall man, clad in a light breastplate that actually looked like steel as opposed to what Chris had described to me as 'Celestial Bronze'. I noticed the mail pants and gauntlets he was wearing, sure, and even someone blind in one eye could pick out the sword on his belt, but my attention immediately snapped to something... well, unexpected. The man had a pistol holstered at the right side of his belt, somehow fitting in with all the rest of the medieval-looking gear, and just the sight of something so modern and normaldashed away the last bit of the surreal feeling that had been lingering in my mind since I got here.
I couldn't help but blurt out, "Is that guy carrying a Colt around?" as the man and the huge white centaur he was talking to got a few steps closer. It occurred to me how casually I just identified another used-to-be-mythical creature, but the guy with the gun was demanding more of my attention at the moment.
Both of them chuckled at that, and the centaur answered with, "I gave up trying to get him to hand it over years ago. A new arrival?" he added questioningly, hooves giving one final 'clop' against the huge porch as he came to a halt. Chris nodded in response, and the horseman turned brown eyes that were both kind and weighty with innumerable years onto me. "In that case, welcome to Camp Half-Blood," Chiron greeted me with a nod. "Just a moment, and I can help you get settled in."
"Ah, I'll get out of your hair," the armored man said as he brushed a strand of his own back out of the way. He took a moment to look me over before making a thoughtful sort of 'hrm' sound and looking to Chiron. "I can hunt down one of the Hephaestus kids on my own, you should get this one inside and sit him down; he's got that look about him, like there's one hell of a story to tell."
Chiron reached out to shake the man's offered hand as he said, "I wondered if I was the only one who saw it. Take care of yourself, Marcus, and tell Ariana I said to keep out of trouble."
Whoever Ariana was, the idea of her keeping out of trouble made the guy crack up as he walked away.
A handful of minutes and an introduction later and I was sitting down for what felt like the first time in my life, nursing a cup of coffee as if it were the last one on the planet. Trust me, when you sit down and find coffee after freezing and having your life threatened, you never, ever want it to go away. Chiron took a few minutes to slide his lower body into a mock-wheelchair with a pair of legs before rifling through a small filing cabinet next to his desk, and soon came back up with a sheet of paper and some kind of laminated chart. "First thing's first, Patrick" he said, setting the chart on the desk in front of me. "Do any of these symbols look familiar to you? An odd fondness, or a tug in your gut?"
I took another sip of the coffee as I leaned forward, lowering the mug so I could take a look at the chart. Trident, anvil, tree, a different tree... I shrugged and said, "Well, other than feeling like there's a few missing, I can't really tell you anything about it. You've got a sun and no moon."
The centaur gave me an odd look from across the table, as if he wasn't really expecting that answer, but took the sheet back without complaint. He set the second sheet in front of me, and the first thing I did was snatch the thing up and flip it over. Chiron chuckled, as if he'd seen the reaction in the past, and assured me, "There is only one side. It's just a short questionnaire, I promise."
I took another, bracing swig of coffee before setting the mug down, flipping the sheet back over. There was the basic line for name, age and gender on top, like any other survey you might find being passed around in school, and then a whole lot of questions about things I didn't even know could happen to a person outside of a crazy TV show or an acid trip. "I... can't answer half of this," I said, a frown tugging my lips down.
"I've seen all manner of strange things in my lifetime, Patrick. You don't have to worry about-"
"No," I interrupted, looking back up after another scan of the paper, "I mean I can't answer half of it. Nothing remotely close has ever happened to me, and I've even got baby pictures with both my parents in the frame. Same people I've been growing up with for the past seventeen years."
Chiron looked about the way Sylvus did when I told him the same thing: confused and incredulous. He didn't pry anywhere near as much, though, instead reaching down to go through one of the drawers of his desk. He muttered to himself, digging through who-knows-what for a few seconds, before coming back up with something in his hand. "Take a sip of this. Just enough to wet your tongue," he told me as he revealed the shiny bit of silver to be a small flask, offering it to me over the desk.
I looked at the flask for a moment, and then gave the centaur holding it a cautious glance, before reaching out to take it. After all, I figured as I unscrewed the cap and lifted it to my lips, I survived a pack of huge dogs and a teacher who could fly, why not-
I dropped the flask almost before I realized I drank out of it, coughing so hard I couldn't sputter the first curse to come to mind. Golden liquid spilled from the flask as it landed, splattering over the table and floor-and making me stand up so fast that my chair went skidding back, to get away from it. "What the hell was in there?" I managed, the words just a little bit thick on account of my tongue still throbbing like I'd dipped it in boiling water.
Chiron sat there for a moment, watching the faintly gold liquid drip down the edge of his desk before answering, in a tone of utter disbelief, "The nectar of the gods."
I was going to ask him why he just tried to burn my tongue off with magical acid when a decidedly unimpressed voice chimed in from by the doorway. "He's clearly not related to us if he can't even handle the watered down stuff, now is he?" I looked up to find a pudgy looking man in quite possibly the most ridiculous looking outfit I'd ever seen. Bright green shoes and a leopard-print track suit walked toward me, their owner looking at me like I was trying to juggle bowling pins and hitting myself in the head with them. "And you say you beat a Fury with your bare hands?" he asked in a similar tone.
I started to defend myself, and then realized I hadn't mentioned that to anyone since I got here. "Hrm? Oh, no, I suppose you didn't, I just picked that one out of your head, myself. My apologies, Paul," he followed up, in a way that just didn't sound apologetic at all. In fact, it was a little bit insulting that he got my name wrong, but pointing that out to a guy who could read minds didn't- "Seem like a good idea. No, it isn't," the man followed up, voice profoundly disinterested.
… God dammit.