Sorry it's so short, chapter 4 should be longer ^.^
Chapter 3 Ψ
We walked over to what looked like an arena- or I should say Chiron trotted and I ran to catch up to him. Inside the arena were two people who were having an intense sword fight. The girl managed to knock the guy's sword out of his hand and kicked him in the chest. She grinned triumphantly and stuck her sword in the sand. Chiron clapped and walked over to the two.
"You're making excellent progress Sofia." Chiron complimented her and she beamed. "Crimson this is Sofia daughter of Aphrodite and Paris son of Apollo." Sofia had this angelic look going on for her. Everything about her seemed perfect, from her softly curled blond hair to her flawless tanned skin. She stuck her hand out to me and I shook it tentatively.
"So you're the one everyone's been talking about. Glad to see that you're still alive." She flashed her perfect smile and laughed. Paris stood up and wiped the dust off his shirt. He gave me a hard stare, with the sun behind him he looked like a god. A dangerous, powerful and very attractive looking god.
"Paris will be teaching you sword fighting and Greek."
"Whoa, I actually get to fight with a sword?"
"Well obviously, how else do you want to fight? Empty handed?" Paris sneered. Wow his special power must've been making people feel stupid and awkward. Jerk.
"Well I'll leave you two to get started; I'll be back in an hour." Chiron gave a short wave and then left the arena.
"So where's your sword pipsqueak?"
"Hold on, let me check my back pocket. Darn it! It's gone, must've fell out on the way here." I said sarcastically, two could play at his jerk game.
"Haha, you're hilarious. Really." He said flatly. "Sof, give her your sword. Let's see what the tide swept in." A mischievous look twinkled in his eyes. I took Sofia's sword and weighed it in my hand. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. It actually felt right. Paris twirled his sword in his hand and then slashed my upper arm.
"Gosh, what the hell? I thought you were supposed to be teaching me, not maiming me!" I stepped back and held my arm.
"This is how I teach, if you're too chicken to learn then there's the door, feel free to use it." He smirked and I felt a huge need to defend my pride. I narrowed my eyes at him and swung my sword, aiming for his face but he blocked my hit. He was really quick and I barely dodged his next attack. Fighting him was making me sweat like crazy and I was in pain from all the slashes he'd managed to land on me.
"You're nothing special, I don't know why everyone is making such a big deal out of you. You'll never be as good as your brother was." Paris was sweating and panting slightly so I don't know what the hell he was talking about. He seemed pretty winded.
"Hey, let's try something. Here Crimson have some water." Sofia interrupted and threw me a bottle.
"Oh my gosh thank you. I've been dying for some water." I unscrewed the cap and greedily drank the water. Energy coursed through my body and I felt ten billion times better. Paris narrowed his eyes and went in for another strike. I raised my sword and blocked his hit. I dropped the empty bottle on the ground.
"Nothing special huh? We'll see about that." I raised my eyebrow and then kicked him in the gut. I followed that with a slash to his face. Our swords clashed several times in attempts to attack the other. He cut my leg and I graciously slashed his chest, then used the flat part of the blade to knock his sword out of his hand.
Neither of us said anything, I just marveled at how I'd managed to somehow win.
"Wow, twice in one day Paris? I think you're getting rusty!" Sofia laughed as she approached us.
"Yeah whatever, I was going easy on her. Tomorrow she won't be so lucky." Paris wiped the sweat from off his upper lip and walked out of the arena.
"What's his problem?" I collapsed on the floor and handed Sofia back her sword.
"Oh don't mind Paris, he's just cranky cause you totally kicked his butt! That was awesome thought, for someone who's never picked up a sword before you were amazing." I smiled at Sofia but couldn't help turning to watch Paris. The sun really did wonders for him, it made his hair look like gold.
My creepy staring session was cut short when Chiron came back into the arena with a bow and arrows strapped over his back.
"I take it the session went well? Considering how you aren't horribly disfigured."
"It was awesome, she totally wrecked Paris. She's quite a natural." I felt kind of uncomfortable with all the praise, it just felt so weird. For some strange reason I felt like I didn't deserve it either.
"Let's see how well she does at archery. Come on Crimson, your day isn't over yet." It took all the energy I had left in me to get myself off of the floor.
"Couldn't we just call it a day?" I huffed as I caught up with Chiron.
"Monsters don't care how tired you are, they'll keep going until you're destroyed. You really need to build endurance and we don't have that much time."
It turns out I was really awful at archery. Somewhere near the end of the session I actually managed to his part of the target and not some innocent camper walking by, that was totally going to get me some brownie points. Not!
"At least you didn't run anyone through." Chiron chuckled lightly. I won't lie, I felt a bit discouraged that I sucked horribly at archery. I guess Chiron sensed that because he gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Don't worry Crimson, you'll get better. In the mean time you should go freshen up and then get ready for dinner."
"Yeah that'd be great, only one problem though. I don't have any clothes except the ones I'm wearing." Speaking of clothes, having a sword fight in a skirt is freaking hard. Just saying.
"Oh I'm sure Sofia can help you." A soon as Chiron said that, Sofia appeared out of nowhere. This girl was like beetle juice.
"What's wrong?" God was she always this peppy? If her day went anything like how I'd started training today, she had serious powers of happiness.
"Oh well I kind of don't have any clothes other than this stupid uniform which is pretty messed up at this point." I looked down at my tattered skirt and torn shirt. Gosh I probably looked horrifying.
"Oh that's no problem! I've got tons of clothes you can borrow." She grabbed my wrist and led me away from Chiron. We walked to a clearing where several cabins were arranged in a U shape.
"Well to cabin ten." Sofia opened the door to the cleanest and most well groomed cabin I'd ever seen. The beds were made perfectly and everything was color coordinated. The air smelled sweet and fresh, kind of like strawberries. Sofia walked over to her dresser and pulled out some shorts, jeans, shirts and pretty much everything I'd need.
"We're about the same size so you should have no problem fitting into them." She handed me the neatly folded pile of clothes that practically hid my face.
"Thanks Sofia." I said but I'm pretty sure it was muffled by the clothes.
"Don't mention it; if you need anything else you know where to find me now!" Damn this girl was seriously nice.
After I showered I took a good look at all the cuts that I'd gotten from my fight with Paris. They were pretty gross and relatively deep. I was getting messed up before I even got down to Tartarus. It'd be nice if they had a special potion that would get rid of these, they were definitely going to scar over. On my way back to find Sofia I bumped into a girl with chocolate colored skin and short curled hair.
"Oh sorry!" I lent her my hand to her to help her off the ground; she gave me an amused look, almost like she was laughing at me. She grabbed my hand and pulled herself up.
"Sorry about that, this pile of clothes makes it impossible to see."
"Hey don't worry about it pipsqueak, I'm not made of glass." She laughed, but her laugh was nothing like Sofia's. It sounded more genuine.
"I'm Nikoleta and if I remember correctly you're Crimson right? I've actually been looking for you."
"That's me!" I was surprised people actually called me by my name and not 'freak'. It felt nice.
"Hey uh, I hate to bother you but could you show me where my cabin is?"
"That's why I was looking for you. Chiron said that since you haven't been claimed yet you should stay in the Hermes cabin for now."
"Oh alright, well let's go over there." Nikoleta was pretty cool, she liked to talk a lot which was fine by me since I was more of a listener.
"Here we are, cabin eleven." Nikoleta opened the door and an arrow whizzed past her head.
"Whaat?" I peeked out from behind the pile of clothes and raised my eyebrow. A boy with a mischievous grin and an elfish face appeared from behind the door.
"Haha, sorry about that Nik, next time don't get in the way." He laughed hysterically then stepped outside.
"You're hilarious Travis." Nikoleta rolled her eyes but smirked. "This is Crimson, the newbie. Since she hasn't been claimed yet Chiron says she'll stay here."
"Ah, well come on in Crimson, you can put your stuff over there." He pointed to the bottom bed in the corner. I dumped the pile of clothes onto the bed.
"Wow, those are some wicked cuts you got there." Travis whistled. I stared at my arms and legs again.
"Yeah I know, it's pretty gross." I tugged at the hem of my camp half-blood shirt.
"Well you better get used to it cause you're going to be getting a lot more. Being a demigod isn't glamorous." He smirked again.
"I've seen that, but I think I can handle it, especially since everyone is counting on me to bring Percy and Annabeth back."
"You'll be fine kiddo, that is if the things in Tartarus don't get you first." My eyes widened and Travis let out another laugh.
"Oh stop it Travis, come on it's time for dinner and don't be late. I'll see you later Crimson." She smiled at me and gave a short wave before running off.