DINNER TIME THAT NIGHT!
Claire had struck up a conversation with another of the Apollo campers, a sixteen-year-old girl named Jasmine Huang, arguing about the benefits of two different ways to fire flaming arrows. Luna was trying to ignore them both and was making small items chuck themselves at the Aphrodite and Ares table because she was bored.
Shade picked his head up disgustedly. "You are really bad at throwing," he said, shaking grapes out of his hair. He tossed one back at her.
Luna pointed at it and it fell to the ground. "I'm not exactly a pitcher," she answered.
Shade grinned, and sat beside Luna. "At least my tosses are accurate," he said. "Want to play me in Archery sometime?"
Ayden, beside Claire but close to Luna shook her head. "No." she mouthed. "He gets a perfect bullseye almost every time. But don't tell him I said that," Ayden switched to talking. "Cause he'll get a swelled head."
Luna eyed Shade. "Mhm. No thanks." Changing the subject, she asked Ayden, "So what'd you name your sword?"
"Tide." answered Ayden. Then she burst into giggles. "And guess what Rino named his? Firedancer. Can you think of a more... yah know... name?"
"Depends on what you mean by that," Luna half-smirked. "For example, Claire named her first teddy bear Ember. Then again, she did set fire to it the next day..."
"And it was fun too!" Claire interrupted her own conversation before resuming arguing about flaming arrows and all that.
"And Rino intends to do what? Set it on fire and start doing the hula? I'm outa here if he wants to do that."
Luna winced. "Mildly disturbing," she decided. "Convince him to rename it something else?"
Rino sighed beside Ayden. Sliding his fingers towards himself, he thought for a moment. "How about... Hesperos?"
Ayden shrugged. "Seems better than Firedance to me, but Evening Star? Get real."
"Fine. Pyphoros?"
"Fire-bearing? Better..."
"Pyripnon?"
"Rino, swords don't breathe fire."
"True. How about Aidelon?"
"Hmm... Destructive fire?"
"I like it."
Ayden sighed. "Fine. Go ahead. I like my Tide."
"That's boring."
"What's Tide in greek?"
"It's Palirroia, I think."
"That sounds right. I like it." Ayden decided.
"It's better."
"It's mine."
Rino shrugged. "I have Aidelon, you have Palirroia. What a pair."
Ayden rolled her eyes. "One is copper, one is steel with a ripple pattern. Think, Rino."
Rino grinned. "True."
"Firedance would have been interesting," Luna said. "Then we could've seen what nickname Claire would've come up with." She examined a chicken wing before peeling off the skin, continuing, "Though copper seems too soft to be a sword, if you have the choice of steel or celestial bronze. It isn't solid copper, is it?"
Rino shook his head. "It's celestial bronze on the inside, with a copper sheathing. Tyson thought of the design - looks pretty and has a deadly effect on halfbloods, gods and monsters. And it can be seen by and scare a human. It just can't hurt them."
Ayden shrugged. "Mine's bronze too, with a temperament to it so that it appears silver and has the wave pattern I like."
Luna eyed Rino strangely. "Celestial bronze already does that. Why would you want it...Never mind. Swordplay isn't my specialty, so there's no point. Have fun with your special swords, then."
Rino sighed. "The Mist works on celestial bronze, but not copper. Copper is ordinary, a human metal. Celestial bronze isn't normal, so the Mist shields it."
"Yeah, whatever," Luna shrugged. "So what do celestial bronze arrows look like?"
"Bronze arrows. What else?" Ayden tried to think of a different answer, and came up blank.
"Really deformed gun," Luna informed them both.
Rino shrugged. "I wonder what our fire looks like. Maybe they just can't see it." Rino snapped his fingers and a little tongue of flame shot out of his thumb. "Hey Ayden, should I give myself a hairdo like Hades has in the Disney movie Hercules?"
Ayden sighed. "Do what you want – it's your hair."
"Please do. It'd give us all a good laugh," Luna stated, miraculously managing to maintain a straight face.
Rino frowned for a moment, then his head was alive with flickering green flames, all but obscuring the tousled brown locks below it. "You like?"
Ayden punched her brother. "Why green?" she demanded. "I thought it was more my color." her brother replied sensibly.
Luna shrugged. "Hang on a minute." She turned around to face the rest of Camp Half-Blood, who had obviously noticed the light show. Some were awed, some were freaked out and some were indifferent (coughDionysuscough). "Anyone have a camera?"
Rino grinned. "It'll stay for as long as I want it to," he said.
Ayden sighed. "And what if I don't want it to?" she asked.
"Don't even think about trying to blow it out," Rino said smugly. "I made sure that that won't work."
"Dump him in the lake!" called a Hermes camper. He turned around and high-fived another camper, grinning widely. A son of Ares cheered, "Dump him! Dump him!" His sister - coughClarissecough - joined in, along with many of the other campers.
"Drat it," exclaimed Rino. "I hate it when they think of new things." Shade started laughing uncontrolably, and flicked his fingers. Rino was paralyzed in an instant.
Shade turned to the Hermes camper. "Go ahead - dump him. He won't protest now, and it'll give us all a laugh. Rino, as long as you're still good natured after, I'll take this off of you when you come out, alright?"
"Now all we need is a parade," Luna observed, watching the gaggle of campers swarm around Rino and pick him up. She noticed Claire and Jasmine were among the followers, and sighed. "Hey, will he drown if he can't move?" she asked Shade. Someone had to consider it.
Shade nearly giggled. "Now. Do you really think I want to kill Rino? No - he'll float like a cork."
Ayden sighed and followed everyone else. "You know, Shade," she said over her shoulder. "He's gonna be really mad when you release him." Shade gave her a wicked grin. "I know. I know very well." he shouted back, looking rather pleased with himself.
Luna sighed. Might as well go watch the chaos. She paused and glanced back to the head table, where Mr. D and Chiron were eating. "Aren't you going to stop them?" she asked Mr. D, mildly curious.
He looked up from his cheeseburger and rolled his eyes. "Gods no, girl. These campers deserve what's coming to them."
Chiron looked up as well. "You know as well as I do that Rinario can take care of himself."
Dionysus chuckled. "Rinario? Hestia named her kid Rinario? Wow – I'm impressed."
Tyson laughed beside Luna. "Mr D never interfers." he said. "He thinks us funny. Right?"
"Of course I do, Cyclops," Mr. D sighed. "Now go help them push the kid in."
Tyson gave Dionysus a wide eyed stare from one large brown eye. "But that's mean!" he protested. "It's mean to push other people in lake! I can't do that!"
"Then let's go watch, at least," Luna sighed, heading off. "Come on, Tyson! Unless you want a staring contest with Mr. D."
"And gods know I don't," Mr. D added.
"True." said Tyson. He followed Luna to the river bank.
"MMMPH!" said Rino by the river. "MMMMMMMMMPPPPHHHHHH!! MMMMMPPPHHH -" Rino was abruptly cut off by the shockingly cold water. He popped up quickly, spluttering through sealed lips the indignity of it all. They pushed him under again, and he floated back up. Still screaming. They repeated the process until Rino went limp in his invisible bonds and stopped protesting.
Shade strode to the edge of the river. He shoved his way through the gaggle of half-bloods, and pulled Rino out. He took the bindings off Rino, and Rino instantly rose up and tackled him, attacking Shade with furiously injured pride. "RAR!" he screamed as Shade easily fended off his wild attack, but made no move to knock him off or out.
This was the point when people started shouting suggestions and bets. Yes, bets, and were arguing over who would beat who. Most people were in Shade's favor.
Claire was giggling. "He said 'RAR!'"
Rino looked up, distracted by Claire's outburst for the briefest moment. That was all Shade needed. He flipped Rino over and pinned him down with one hand resting on the fire thrower's throat. But Rino wasn't finished yet. Somehow he managed to knock Shade's balance off, and they ended up rolling in a cloud of dust. When the dust settled, Shade had pinned Rino once more, and Rino was in a dazed, trance like state from some point when Shade rapped his knuckles against Rino's head. Shade wasn't even breathing hard. "Never make the first move. If you attack me again, I won't be so nice." Shade clambered up and hauled Rino to his feet, although Rino was in no condition to stay like that. Shade handed him to Ayden, and headed back to his hamburger.
Jasmine Huang promptly went off to heckle the Hermes camper, who'd started the whole mess and had taken bets, for money.
Claire muttered something about overpowered annoying emo boys while Luna was doing a good job of ignoring the latest stream of nonsense from her twin.
As he passed by Claire, Shade stopped and looked her in the eye. "Stop being annoying." he said.
Claire stuck out her tongue at Shade and then declared, "I'll be just as annoying as I want to be!" Unfortunately, she said it like it was a good thing.
Just then, Alex came by and saw Shade. "Hey!" she said. "Why are you all dusty!?" Looking around, she saw Rino. "And why can't he stand up? What happened?"
Shade sighed. "Ask her," he said, handing the nine-year-old to Claire.
Claire explained cheerfully, "Rino did something stupid with his hair. So some Hermes guy gave everyone the idea of dumping him in the lake. So emo-boy here helped. And when Rino got out, emo-boy got jumped and then they fought and then emo-boy pulverized him."
"Oh." said Sky.
Rino, hanging limply in Ayden's arms, noticed then that his hair was still green, but lying rather flat because it was wet. Concentrating briefly, he made his hair flame up again and yah. That was that. Now he was just wet AND weird. Alex goggled at his head, nearly tripping over Sky when the big centaur/satyr stopped short to stare at the green flames as well. Sky started, then turned around and herded Alex off. "Its time for us to go to sleep. Come on - I can't reach the hay in the cabinet at the stables, and I want some and Blues'll prolly want some too."
Shade raised his eyebrows at Claire. "You'll be just as annoying as you want to be... until I threaten you with an hour of silence?" he said.
Claire squeaked like a mouse and covered her mouth with her arm, though both were highly exaggerated and she was still smirking at Shade. Luna sighed. Her twin just didn't know where to stop.
"I could make it two," Shade bargained. "Or add paralysis to the deal. Do you really want to try me? I could also have you go comatose for a day or so - no one would really miss you all that much..."
"Hhhhhmmm." Shade whirled at the unexpected sound, nearly barreling into Chiron. "Get some sleep," the centaur advised. "We go talk to the gods in the morning. And leash Luke to you, Shade - I don't want there to be any... trouble. Understand?"
Luna sighed, dragging Claire away. "You are way too lucky," she informed her twin.
"Maybe," Claire agreed. "I think we're going fighty soon."
"...I was under the impression we already were..."
Shade thought about silencing Claire anyway, but didn't. Instead he went and caught up with Luna and tapped her on the shoulder. "There's something I have to say," he said quietly. "Privately." He was dearly hoping Claire hadn't heard him.
Of course, as the two were walking back to the Apollo cabin together, that was a bit too much to hope for, especially after Claire had demonstrated her incredible talent to hear things most people didn't want her to hear. She had already opened her mouth when Luna elbowed her. Hard. Claire took an involuntary breath and glared. "Fine. Not a word to anyone," she sighed, adopting an exaggerated limp and heading off the rest of the way to Apollo on her own.
Shade wrung his hands together. Now that they were finally alone (sort of), he had no idea how he was going to say what he wanted to. "Luna... um... I just... ah... wanted to say... um..." For a rather sure-of-himself guy, this was big. He couldn't even put together a sentence. "Well... thanks, for one... for just... well... you know... and I also wanted to say... well..." Shade fingered the Invisibility cloak that Hestia had given him. It was in his pocket. He was struck with an idea - thank you, Athena. "Well... I wanted to say... well... you can use this for any time you want to get out unnoticed and well... Luna... I love you." And with that, Shade disappeared.
Okay, if Luna had been expecting anything, that wasn't it. She stared after him, completely bewildered, with the cloak still in her hands. It was uncertain how long she could have stayed like that, but then her sister came and snapped her out of it.
Jasmine Huang walked up, a satisfied smirk on her face and her pockets clinking merrily with drachmas. She noticed Luna almost immediately, and called loudly, "'Ey, Moony. Where's your un-shadow?"
"...Un-shadow?"
"Well, you're the quiet one, and you two are pretty much always together, I thought," Jasmine shrugged. "So, what happened?"
"Ahh...nothing..."
Jasmine eyed her dubiously. "Right. I believe that. Not. Come on, Moony, back to the cabin." Luna sighed, having realized she wouldn't be shedding the nickname any time soon and had decided not to say anything about it. She stuffed the cloak into her jeans' pocket, mildly impressed that it managed to do so since it seemed too large.
Ayden went up to Luna. "Did he say what I think he said?" she asked. Rino sighed and tried to drag her away. It didn't work.
"I think he diiiid," Jasmine Huang announced to the Hestia twins.
"How would you know?" Luna asked.
"Meh. The Aphrodite kids aren't that bad. Silena's okay, and Jon-Jon (he hates it when I call him that, hah). And they talk. A lot. About stuff." She flashed them a cheerful smile. "So anyway, did he?" she demanded.
"Maybe, maybe not," Luna shrugged.
Jasmine grinned. "HE DID!" she practically shouted, then quickly covered her mouth. "Oops."
Ayden's jaw dropped. "Oh my gods! What did you say?"
"What I just said..." Luna answered.
"Oh. Are you meeting any time soon?"
"How should I know?" Luna shrugged. "Does Chiron normally enforce lights-out?"
"That's more of Mr. D's interest, and he has the harpies...oh crap! Come on, I am not getting caught by the dodo-ladies again. Was horrible last time," Jasmine shuddered. "Had to kill them all and then got chewed out major-ly." She grabbed Luna's wrist and practically towed the other girl to the Apollo cabin, waving over her shoulder at Ayden and Rino but not slowing down at all.
Rino paled. "Harpies?" he breathed, and dragged his sister to the Hestia cabin.
Shade shimmered into view on his bunk, head in his hands. He wondered how Luna had reacted - he hadn't stayed long enough to see. He sat and waited for Luke to start questioning him.
"So, how'd it go?" Luke asked, from his position in the bunk below. He'd been waiting with considerable interest, since he wasn't supposed to go out and had to have his dinner in the Big House, which was boring.
Shade decided to answer Luke's question another way. "Dinner was fine. They dumped Rino in a lake. Big deal. I had to paralyze him first. Then, after I took it off, he lunges at me. He's not that good at fist fighting. It was too easy. Anyway, Chiron caught me afterwards and made me promise to leash you. I won't though, if you promise to act like you're leashed."
Luke sighed. "Never mind. Your love life sounds pathetic, though. I suggest you go threaten one of the Aphrodite kids in the morning. 'Night."
"Look, all I did was give her my cloak, alright? Now, do you promise to behave or should I leash you in the morning?" Shade wasn't in the best of moods.
Luke sighed. "I let it go already, in case you couldn't tell. You should too. 'Night."
Shade grumbled. "You are so getting leashed to a column." he said to himself, and rolled over and went to sleep.
