Sorry for the wait guys. I know it sounded lame, but my brother spent some time in the hospital the week after I last posted (which I was conveniently at a girl guide camp for), which totally threw me off about all this uploading-my-stories thing and made me think this one was up already. Tee-hee, it wasn't.

Anyways, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Reyna, Hylla or Circe's spa. Or Camp Jupiter. Ooh, but I own the goddess! YES!

4

Dreaming up a Plan

Midnight had become my favourite time of the day.

If I made it to midnight; it meant I'd gotten myself one more day on this ship, same for Hylla, and we'd made it.

And midnight equalled swordfighting.

Here's what Hylla had discovered about pirates while she was tied to the mast for them to celebrate the fact they'd escaped from Circe's; after such a long time without spotting an enemy ship and maybe a little hint from us, they'd realised that they weren't in competition to be the scourge of the seven seas now; they were the only pirates. So they took everything so much less seriously; they often got drunk at night. And those who weren't passed out a little everywhere on the ship slept like logs.

Which meant they didn't wake up.

Not even if we made a lot of noise.

So every midnight, Hylla and I dug the weapons out from under the stack of hay and practised.

We had four daggers and one sword- we took turns with the sword. I was scared the first time. My experience with blades went to butter knives and occasionally chopping vegetables. What if I was too weak to hold the weapon up? How did I even hold this thing? I'd never been allowed to even watch when other people came to the island, and they were the only ones armed. Peeking through windows with Hope shoving me for her turn wasn't a good way of observing sword fighting as they tried to resist.

I still missed Hope- the only person on the island I'd really talked to apart Hylla and Circe. I didn't know if she'd walked the plank, if she'd been brought as a prisoner to be sold as a slave on another ship or if by some freak miracle she'd survived. I wasn't sure which one I'd wish on her more; Hylla and I stealing weapons was one thing- but Hope? No, she wouldn't be able to do it. I hadn't thought I would, but just thinking about Hope doing that… It didn't work in my mind, like a kind murderer or a philosophical psychopath.

Hylla couldn't give me any advice because her guess was as good as mine, and I was the first one to use the sword. She was trying to make up to me again, and I appreciated it- because as scary as it was (what if we got discovered?) this was exciting beyond measure for me. It felt like I was doing something I was born for. I didn't have a clue how good I'd be, if I'd even be somewhere 'acceptable' on the scale of skills, but it was exciting.

It turned out that it was in my head already. How to hold a sword, how to swing, the reflexes to lift the weapon and block Hylla's blade… I could do it if I just let my mind go on auto-pilot. All those tricks and feints in movies; no, not at all. Those came with time, but the basics were already, like some violent and pretty awesome instinct.

It didn't hurt that it was also fun like hell.

I swung the sword and disarmed Hylla, who was defending just as much as I was. I whipped the sweat off my forehead.

"Good Reyna," Hylla said. She knew a thing or two about swordplay from the movies she watched, the ones I hated but wished I could see now. Oh, and sheer instinct.

I hesitated and she saw it.

"What's wrong? Do you think I'm going easy on you again?"

"No," I said. "It's just that… We've got instincts. They've got years and years of strength and technique training. What if we're not enough? Feints and all that… even the easiest and worst ones will surprise us if we ever do fight them."

"We're going to be okay." Hylla insisted, tilting her chin up.

"I don't want to risk it."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"We need to see the pirates fight and learn from what we see." I told her, just as soon as the idea burst into my head.

"You're kidding? Reyna- the only reason they'd ever take us above deck was to give us a taste of the cat!"

"Exactly." I said, "So let's deserve it and get it done."

Her jaw drop.

"Reyna don't you dare do that! You'll have to stop training if they hurt you and then you'll fall behind."

"How are you going to stop me, exactly?" I asked crossing my arms. She might be my sister, she might be the best I had right now; but she wasn't going to stop me.

"I won't let you put yourself in danger." Hylla said. "What if they decide they've got enough of the cat and throw you overboard? Reyna- they're getting restless about keeping us, and feeding us."

"Then they'll attack us when we're stuck in this cell anyways! And when they do, I won't stand like an idiot who doesn't know what she's doing!"

"You do know what you're doing! Reyna- you're better than anyone I've seen landed on the island or anything!"

"Well that's not enough! Stop thinking that everything is enough Hylla- it was enough on the island, now we're here; I don't want it to be that it was 'enough with our instincts' and then we're both dead!"

Immediately I realised how harsh my words were.

"Okay," Hylla said finally. "I'll…" She struggled for words.

"Thank you." I told her because I couldn't say 'sorry'.

"Rest up then. Let's hide the weapons and sleep."

"It's not even sunrise yet." I said.

"Sleep." Hylla said so firmly I didn't dare argue.

We didn't bundle up against the cold as usual, and I didn't think for a second that Hylla was asleep. I felt like we were back to square one- ignoring each other. I guess the common enemy and worrying about each other, being left depending on one another for company, support and so forth had done good to us. It had brought us together in a way we'd never needed to be together in the first place.

That worried me. What if we kept drifting apart after we learned to use weapons? When we got our sea legs and were able to stand on our own? The thought gave me shivers and made me feel horrible- two things that I soon learned nobody should feel as they fall asleep. Especially half-bloods.

I was standing in large fields, and if I squinted I saw buildings and what looked like a fort in the distance.

"The fields of Mars," a voice said behind me. "They fight here."

I spun around as fast as the wind to face the voice.

The woman was tall and she stood straight, with dark eyes and hair pulled in a bun. She was wearing an army uniform, the cap pulled over her head. She had an M16 over her shoulder and a short sword at her side- which was the only thing that seemed out of place in her army uniform. Her eyes made me shiver- like Hylla mad, except I hadn't learnt to live with this woman when she was mad. Something told me that nobody was left to learn to live with it when she was mad.

"Of course, none of it is real. Some of the action lacks because the adrenaline doesn't pump as it would in a war, but it's as close to a fight as I'm going to get in –oh, I'd say a few years." She examined me and I immediately straightened up more than I already was. I met her eyes and she nodded, like she approved of that.

"Hello Reyna," she said. "I'm Bellona."

"My mother." I said. Suddenly her resemblance to Hylla made sense.

"Yes," she nodded. "And I must say I'm quite proud to be your mother right now."

I waited for her to go on because I didn't understand that. I was caught in the cell of a pirate ship with no plan, no future, and at the mercy of disgusting slobs. If that was her pride and joy, I didn't want to see the rest of her life.

"You've never touched a sword your whole life, not even a knife, you've went from five star living conditions to the pirates, you've toughened up, you've adapted… Like a warrior." She said, and I knew what she was talking about.

For a second I didn't want to talk because I wasn't sure how she'd take it. How did the Romans treat their gods? I had no idea. I'd never even watched a movie on it, or read (then again, I'd barely read anything, period).

"Permission to speak," the goddess requested.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If you break your spear in combat; you need to be able to take out your gladus and run them through with that. If their numbers were bigger than yours; you need to go from offense to defence. If they surround you, worst case scenario is an orb formation with your cohort." – "Whatever a cohort was- "See, a battle is never a straight line or scripted. It's like a snake in the grass- it slithers and slithers until it bites. And sometimes, yes, they're venomous and you drop dead in a matter of hours. But that's what warriors do."

"Warriors win fights." I said.

"No," Bellona said. "They try. And if they don't try, they die. And sometimes even when they do try they die."

"Well I don't want to be a warrior then, I want to be a winner. I need to win this- if I don't… They're not going to be merciful like this forever, sooner or later they'll have enough and they'll kill Hylla, then me. Or me then Hylla. Probably me first since they have a thing against Hylla before they have it in store for me and it would really throw her off and shake her up before they…"

I stopped talking. That was a horrible thing to say! Freak, I didn't want my sister to go through mental and emotional torture!

"You're thinking like a soldier," Bellona nodded, as if to urge me on. "That's good, very good Reyna…

Blackbeard… Child of Mars, one of your ugly stepbrothers I'm afraid. Those can't even respect a warrior's honour or tactic outside their ranks, as long as it works for them and it involves blood. So yes, I'm afraid that you are going to have to be exceptional with this."

That wasn't very encouraging.

"But you can do it."

"How?"

"For one thing; listen to your sister. She's not wrong, you know. Hylla's barely ever completely wrong- instincts are key. You can know every move in the universe, every feint, every manoeuvre- but if you can't figure out when is the right time to raise your sword, you might as well not. But she's not completely right either- instincts aren't everything. You need to know how it works."

"So… you want me to go get myself the cat tomorrow?"

"What I want shouldn't matter." You've got an M16, I thought. What you want matters plenty.

"I'm not the boss of you- you're the one who's going to be out there. You decide if you want to take another taste of the cat or not. You adapt. I'm big on that; adaptation. I was a Sabine goddess at first, but then the romans adopted me as they took my original people into slavery and prostitution, although most of them died right there and then. Do you know how the Sabine fought? Never mind, you don't. You'll have to look it up one day. Anyways, it's a lot different than Roman fighting. But I figured it out, became one of their most powerful minor goddesses and I even beat up Mars nowadays. Maybe you'll beat up someone who looks impossibly tall too."

Blackbeard, I thought. He was the jackpot.

On a smaller scale; I'd like to punch that boy in the jaw again. That was strangely satisfying. Maybe I could even break it.

"So what are they going to beat up?" I asked, pointing towards the fort. Bellona squinted.

"I'm not sure yet. Something bad is on its way. An old fight with old spoils and new blood will come. It has haunted the gods who were there for the first round came and passed and they've ruled in fear of it. A primordial fear, one that lives inside of your gut and won't go no matter what you do and how much of it you do."

Like Blackbeard and me.

"And now; we wait for the comeback." Bellona said. "You want to be around when it happens? Try making it through breakfast first, okay?"

I sat tight and waited for the pirate to come give us breakfast, telling myself I didn't feel like throwing up.

Hung over pirates in the morning –or anybody in the morning- were easy to provoke, so I was hoping that that would be the case both with our warden and with the ones on deck.

I heard the keys jingle outside the door and Hylla went to the wall. I didn't. She looked at me urging, but then remembered last night and turned her head. She didn't look at me. Not even a wink or anything.

I turned back towards the door, not looking at her either.

The door opened and the pirate in the doorframe raised an eyebrow, the boy holding two trays of food standing behind him.

"You're being daring again, wench." He scolded.

"Don't call me a wench."

I had no idea what 'wench' actually meant in old pirate talk. It sounded a bit like 'wrench' but I doubted that he even knew what that was, and it could just be my horrible skills as understanding people through thick accents hearing 'wench' instead of 'bench'. Either way it didn't sound like something I'd like to be called. There was an old trick that Circe told me about; it said that if you could put 'attorney in law' after your name, it was good. I didn't like 'Reyna Sabourin attorney in law and wench'.

The pirate raised an eyebrow.

"Shut your mouth and get back to the wall before I come in."

"Make me." I said- which was the ultimate taunt for the population of five years old and up.

"You'd be sorry if I did."

"You'd be sorry if you messed with me!" The scars on my back started tingling and I immediately knew I was in for it.

"I 'aint taking this from you. Boy! Go wake the provost."

I saw the sailor boy behind the pirate and I immediately felt bad again. He was like a trigger to a gun with my mood.

He hesitated.

"Must I?"

"We don't keep you 'round for your pretty face!" He barked. The boy hesitated, obviously afraid. The pirate smacked him so hard our food went flying to the ground and he staggered back against the stairs. My heart beat faster, like violence was the blood in the water, and I was the shark.

"Go!" He barked again.

The boy scrambled away and the pirate grabbed me in a head and arm.

I could've done a few things to get out of it. I could've wiped his hand off the back of my neck and freed myself.

But I didn't do that, I didn't fight, I barely resisted.

My head stuck under his arm, my nose begging me to cut it off so I wouldn't smell the horrible alcohol (twenty dollars this guy was one of those 'aggressive drunks') and sweat, he dragged me up the stairs and I kept hitting my ankles against the staircases. But I still let myself get dragged like a sack of flour.