Continuing with Piper's journey learning about Camp, and meeting new problems...
I mean people! Meeting new people.
The characters of Hoss Brandt and Cadmus Vind belong to 'advictorem'. Here is their first appearances! Should anyone want an OC to make an appearance, PM me details.
Disclaimer: I don't own "Percy Jackson the Olympians".
Not for the first, or the last time, Piper appreciated her comfortable shoes. For the first time, but also not the last time, Piper also was learning to appreciate she had very nice long legs for her age that meant that Lacy had to jog to keep up with her. Briefly she wondered if this was how Clarisse was with everyone; the Amazonian girl (briefly Piper had to consider if Amazons were a thing) had forced her to jog when she led the impromptu tour about the Camp. Even though it was a nice reversal, a requirement of finishing this tour was that she still needed someone to lead her to where she needed to go. So she found herself slowing down for Lacy, wondering why she bothered wearing ballet-flats at a summer camp, with the need for strenuous activity all around them.
"Sorry," she apologized as he skipped to her side. "You sure you don't want tennis-shoes or sneakers..?"
"Nah," Lacy waved her concerns away nonchalantly, giggling. "Not with these shorts."
That made as much sense to Piper as the rest of the decisions that the Aphrodite kids... that her brothers and sisters made so far, which was to say little to negative-points in common sense. There would have to be changes made, internally as well as externally, as far as this camp was concerned. If she was going to get people to take her seriously, she'd have to get them to take all her brothers and sisters seriously too. Which, yes, that would be hard since they lived in a giant dollhouse with when everyone else was training to literally go medieval (okay, Ancient Greek, but whatever) on monster-butt.
The thought of turning Camp Halfblood around though, just in time for Jason to get back? That was too tempting to say 'no' to, and Clarisse really had faith in her.
If she was being really honest with herself, Piper would have to admit that she never had someone who believed in her before. Well, her dad said that he did, but then he just kept acting so disappointed whenever she'd act out, or 'borrow' something like a new jacket or a car for just a quick drive. No matter how many times he convinced her, fooled her into thinking that he'd always be proud of her, she'd remember the times when he'd listen to a publicist or his bitchy parasite of an assistant (stupid stupid Jane) and push her away to make room for his career.
Dad wasn't the only one who was disappointed with their arrangement. And now that she found out her mom was a Barbie-doll of a Greek goddess, well, that meant that both parents kinda disappointed her. Didn't mean she had to be a disappointment too.
Clarisse had faith in her to make the Aphrodite Cabin something to be proud of again, like it was with Silena. And her brothers and sisters were counting on her. And Jason? She could have faith in him to save her father, even if he was being weighed down by someone like Drew. When they got back, Jason would see all the good that she had done, and Drew would admit defeat and the children would sing 'Hallelujah' throughout Camp. Or something like that.
It would be so glorious.
"Are you okay?" Lacy was waving her hand, snapping her fingers in front of Piper's face. "You danger-zoned out there for a bit. What are you thinking about? Anyone I know?"
"Not thinking about anyone," Piper lied, putting thoughts of impressing Jason on 'hold' until she had an actual plan going. "What cabins have the most to offer?"
"Like what?" Lacy asked.
That was actually a good question, and Piper thought about it for a bit. "You have activities and stuff here, right? Capture the Flag-?"
"-super big deal," Lacy nodded seriously.
"-then who's picked first?" If she could get the most prominent cabins to respect her, maybe just hear her out, then the rest of the Camp would be easier to convince. "They'd be the ones I'd like to talk to about starting up the mediation thing. And then work our way to the smaller cabins."
"Good thinking!" Lacy cheered, voice a tad shrill with excitement. It made Piper wince, but she powered through, Lacy was getting ready to talk again and maybe, just maybe, she'd have good advice. "Who have you met so far?"
"Well," Piper thought back. "Clarisse showed me the first few cabins. It's a little weird that the biggest ones are empty."
"Yeah well," Lacy bit her lip, bounced nervously. "You going to try to give Zeus a smaller cabin? That's not smart. Those are practically, like, their temples. Only less bloody animal gunk all around being sacrificed, we usually just parcel a bit of lunch or dinner. But mom likes egg-whites. At least, I think she does. Sydney slid a few poached egg whites one breakfast into the, you know, official fire braziers and then it was ta-da, no more blackheads on her nose... so, hint hint, right?"
"Yeah, but this is a Camp, filled with people. I mean most of the cabins are seriously overflowing." Piper crossed her arms, thinking. That could be the first thing she'd do to fix things. And fixing a serious problem like that was bound to make a difference.
Clearly it was a more serious problem than people were willing to admit... Lacy was nervously biting her perfectly manicured nails. "Which cabins have you seen?" She asked again, desperate for a change in conversation. "Maybe that'll help. You know, give an idea on how they're suppose to be with, like, people in them?"
"Well," Piper admitted, she was curious, and Clarisse wasn't exactly the best tour-guide. "I didn't get a chance to meet anyone in the Apollo cabin. Clarisse said they were useful but kinda flaky."
To that, Lacy pouted. "Oh. Well, like, I guess she would. They had an argument a year ago during the war."
"Clarisse get in a lot of arguments?"
"Yeah, well, yes but..." Lacy's pout intensified. "This got worse, like feuding bad. Like, Romeo and Juliet with Montague and Capulet bad. Except, none of the good stuff like the love story."
"That's the good part of the story?" Piper blinked, trying to see how anyone could spin the double-suicide of two teenagers as 'good stuff' in any story.
"Actually, I mean arguably... well, Silena and Clarisse were close and stuff..." Lacy paled, jumped up and down. "No no no, I didn't say that. Silena had a boyfriend, Clarisse had... um, sorta has a boyfriend-"
"I got it, I got it." Piper assured. And no, actually, she didn't get one word of that. Though it was interesting that Clarisse had a boyfriend, she hadn't mentioned it. "Clarisse didn't mention seeing anyone."
"She's not really," Lacy confirmed softly. "He's older, got into college and moved away and I don't know. You can't tell anyone I said anything about anything like this."
"Alright, I promise." Honestly, who did Lacy think she'd tell? "You know, um, Lacy, I don't know anyone here very well yet."
"Well don't talk about that with them." Lacy snapped, bouncing on her heels still, a fit of nerves. There was blood on her braces from when she bit her lip too hard. "It's not something we talk about."
"... what part?" Piper weakly asked, hopelessly confused.
"Any part." Looking around, Lacy took a breath. "Silena and Clarisse were friends, like close close friends, and Silena set her up with her boyfriend Chris who she liked even though Chris Rodriguez was a member of the Titan army and when Silena... well Clarisse was having this feud with the Apollo cabin and she pulled out all her brother's and sisters. Her whole cabin, and we needed the Ares cabin because we were in the middle of the war."
"You were in the war too?" That was... wrong. Lacy looked like she weighed eighty-pounds soaking wet and that was with an imagined pair of used army boots on. That anyone expected a meek little blonde girl with pigtails and braces to fight... fight actual monsters was frightening.
Again, Lacy waved it off like it was inconsequential, less important than changing her shoes even. "Point is Silena convinced the Ares cabin to go, she put on Clarisse's armor and led them into battle and she got... she got, like, a-a-acid in the face from a drakon."
A blink, and Piper felt sick, remembering how that boy with stringy brown (no special colors this time, just brown... weird) had mentioned how someone could get burned with acid, right in front of Clarisse. "Selina died a hero."
"... yeah." Lacy wiped her eyes hurriedly. "If you were wondering why Clarisse hates Drew so much, and wants you to do better, that's why."
"It came up in conversation once or twice." Piper admitted, thinking back to Clarisse's talk. "Didn't realize she might still blame herself."
"Oh, Clarisse blames herself for a bunch of things." Lacy nodded sagely. Immediately she looked fearful and contrite.
This time though, Piper was ready for the babbling pleas. "I won't say anything." She assured, tiredly, grateful that Lacy was so forthcoming with gossip/information. "I promise."
"Cross your heart-?"
"-cross my heart." Piper solemnly nodded. "So... Apollo cabin?"
Lacy grinned, looking a touch crazy.
As soon as Piper finally met the children (especially sons) of Apollo, she saw exactly why; even though she had yet to see a genuinely ugly person here at Camp, the Apollo children (did she mention the boys?) were especially hot. Like, smoldering 'sons of the sun staring straight at the summer son'-type hot. She was pretty sure her mouth had gone dry, and she was having trouble swallowing, and speaking, and that if one of them took off their sleeveless t-shirts (it was winter outside the Camp, but always perfect weather at Camp thank goodness) she would pass-out and have very vivid dreams involving surfboard wax and melting ice-cream cones-
Ooh wow whoa whoa, where did all that come from?
"Heey Will," Lacy giggled, flouncing onto the porch of the lightly glowing cabin. She was all of, well what Piper guessed was twelve or thirteen, and already she was actually speaking and tossing her hair and putting on a show for these (supernova hot) boys. Honestly, did she have no shame? Though, admittedly, none of the boys (or the girls, who were all tanned and leggy and had shimmering hair and bright smiles-NO, this was going too far) seemed to mind.
Will, about six-feet tall and a bit less muscled than Jason, with brighter blonde hair and sun-kissed skin, smiled warmly. Maybe, just maybe, Piper would let Lacy off the hook this once; that smile was giggle-inducing. A definite dreamboat. "Hey girls. What are you up to?"
'What do you want us to be up to?' was the first thought in Piper's head, and that was when she suspected something was seriously wrong with her. It took her a bit to realize that Lacy had said her name, was talking about her.
"-taking over Silena's old job," Lacy nodded sagely.
"That's really good," Will brightened. He seemed to actually, visibly grow brighter when he smiled. "We could use some input for our next mix."
"You're doing the mixes again?!" Lacy squealed. "That's, like, amazing!"
"It would be," Will muttered. "We can't decide on a line-up and if we can't agree than we're not going to get it made for the Camp store in time for all the summer arrivals."
"Why aren't you with your parents?" Lacy asked, curiously. "They on vacation?"
"Cancun." Will confirmed pleasantly.
"We'll keep you in mind. That in mind. Lovely to meet." Piper had to physically drag Lacy away.
"um, what are you doing?" Lacy blinked. Blinked again, looked at her shoes, gasped. "Besides ruining my favorite flats-!"
"I'll fix them later," Piper promised, no real idea how to do that but not caring in the slightest. "What the hell was that?"
"Was what?" Lacy forgot about her shoes, looked concerned.
"That... all of that!" Self-conscious, Piper felt her face, and it still felt too hot to her, like all the blood was boiling up inside it. "I couldn't think and my heart was beating too fast-"
"They're hot," Lacy giggled. "Honestly, you've never been around hot people before? Like, supernova handsome?"
"No," Piper admitted. "I mean, sometimes... no." She thought of Jason, tried to remember when there was that spark. "I don't... I'd remember."
"... wow." Still looking worried, Lacy considered her ballet flats, brushed mud off of them. "Well, Will and the Apollo kids sell mixed-CDs at the Camp Store every Summer, this theme is 'Hero' so we're going to have to weigh in there."
"Is that really the most important job we have at Camp?" That couldn't be right, the way Clarisse told it Piper assumed there was something a lot more wrong with Camp Halfblood, a serious need for an intervention.
When Piper brought up 'intervention' though, that was when she was shown the Dionysus Cabin. It was really very pretty, green with dark vines growing all around, creeping up the walls and on the roof, with bunches of grapes hanging down. From there though, things got worse. When they knocked on the door, it took a while to answer, and Piper almost asked Lacy if no one was there (which wouldn't be too far off, everyone should be at lessons and such). Then a young girl answered them, still in her pajamas.
"Lacy!" She squealed, opening her arms wide in excitement.
"Suzy!" Lacy greeted right back, high-pitched voice going up an octave.
'Piper!' Piper thought to herself, but pulled back the sarcasm in time. The two girls babbled, after hugging and going through a series of compliments that seemed terribly routine, except for when Suzy mentioned Lacy's shoes and how they were 'the cutest', which got Lacy giggling uncontrollably.
"No..." Lacy waved off coyly.
"I mean it!" Suzy squealed, "they're to die for!"
"What, these?" Lacy blushed. Now, Piper had a theory that her brothers and sisters could blush on command (she could since she was seven), and this seemed like evidence. "I just threw them on, leading my big sister around Camp. She hasn't been to all the cabins yet."
That got Suzy's attention off the shoes. "You're taking her to all the cabins?"
"Well... um..." Now Lacy looked unsure. "I mean, no reason to go to all of them-"
"-yes," Piper insisted. "All of them."
"But-" Lacy looked ready to protest but ended up pouting, shivering. "Well... a-a-alright... I think I could manage."
"Thank you," feeling sorry for the younger girl, Piper put a hand on her shoulder and flashed a smile. "I really appreciate you taking the time to do this Lacy."
She didn't smile back, and surprisingly this didn't feel like hiding braces; Lacy looked genuinely worried. "It might take all day... I wouldn't want to miss all of my activities."
"Tomorrow we'll all catch up." Piper assured, and after a moment's consideration, she added, "we're not going to have anyone in the cabin playing hooky, everyone'll attend what they're supposed to." And, come to think of it, how was Suzy still in her pajamas? "Why aren't you attending things?"
The younger girl coughed, embarrassed. "I'm too little for a lot of the bigger stuff, like the climbing wall and sparring and... well I'll try but they don't take me seriously and stuff."
"Don't you have brothers and sisters to help?" Piper asked, worriedly. If this little girl had to be in a cabin all by herself, that was just terrible. Why, she had felt sorry for Jason when she found out he had to be in Cabin One all alone (and had fantasied going in to keep him company, maybe a kiss) and he was much older and powerful a demigod. At least she had felt sorry for him at first; after meeting the rest of her sisters and brothers, she envied Jason for having peace and quiet and a room that she hoped didn't smell like cheap perfume and body-spray.
"One sister," Suzy assured. "And two brothers, but Pollux isn't feeling very well today."
"Is he sick?" asked Piper, growing more concerned.
"Chances are he's going to be." Suzy matter-of-factly told Piper, and then elaborated by saying they weren't allowed in, her brother Pollux was sleeping off a rough night. Then Suzy, maybe eleven, barely reacted when they all heard stumbling, cursing, and lastly vomiting in the bathroom. Or what Piper hoped was a bathroom.
"... what was that?" Piper demanded of Lacy when they were walking quickly away. Very, very quickly away.
"Well Suzy's pretty young to be here, normally it's thirteen at the least," Lacy assured. "But for some kids, this is the safest place they have to go, and sometimes their parents travel or get sick. I think her mom has like, cancer of something or maybe leukemia-?"
"That's not what I... wait, wow, that's really sad but I mean... I meant..." Struggling, Piper threw up her hands. "Wow. Guy. In the cabin, was he... like," Piper stressed, hoping Lacy would get the message of how annoying always using 'like' in every sentence really was. "Drunk?"
"Pollux? Yeah, everyone knows about that."
"Well, why doesn't anyone do anything about it?!" Piper snapped. "And where does he even get alcohol? This is a camp for children-!"
"Black market," suggest Lacy, way too calm about this. "Or maybe he makes his own. Or he buys it off of Lenny."
"... who is Lenny?" Piper asked, certain she'd hate this answer. "Another demigod?"
"Halfblood." Lacy corrected.
"That's actually pretty racist sounding," Piper pointed out.
To that, Lacy just snorted. "Well demigod sounds pretty, like, arrogant, so... oh, and Lenny's over there. Hi Lenny!"
There was a college-age man sitting by the Camp fire, in a pizza deliver outfit overtop a Hawaiian shirt. He waved only vaguely in Lacy's direction.
"That's Lenny, Lenny Bishop. He's a pizzaboy who got really, really lost this one time, or maybe someone here ordered mozzarella sticks and he somehow managed to get through, but ever since he keeps stopping by with stuff. He's not bad or anything, just a little out of it." Nodding sagely, Lacy was about to continue on when Piper stopped her.
This needed clarification, or at least Piper thought it did. "... why? Why doesn't he..? How is he not freaking out right now?"
"Well either coming through the magical barriers that separates us from the world fried his brain, somehow, but a lot of people are like saying its um," Grimacing, Lacy mimed smoking a cigarette... or at least, Piper thought it was a cigarette. "I mean it, he's really, really out of it."
Oh...
... Ohhh.
"That's pretty messed up." Piper admitted, feeling a headache coming on. "And that guy-?"
"Lenny?"
"No, the Pollux, his name is Pollux? Why doesn't anyone do anything about his drinking?"
For a while, Lacy was quiet.
"It's because of who his dad is, isn't it?" Piper scoffed scornfully. She had seen plenty of that sort of favoritism in a dozen different schools.
"Actually, his twin brother... Castor." Lacy sighed. "He died during the war and after that Pollux kinda was... not the same. Guess we let him get away with... stuff because we, like, just feel sorry for him and, well, stuff like that."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
If the earth swallowed Piper right this minute, she'd welcome it. She never felt so horrible in her life. "That's... Oh... wow."
"No kidding, right?" But apparently, it did get worse, Lacy leading Piper to the Hephaestus cabin. It was large, brick-stacked rather than stone or wood, and looked like it set in the earth, squat and sturdy... a bit like the Posiedon cabin, or that strange Hades cabin, but larger and busier. Had to be busier judging by the smoke that was spiraling up out of the chimneys. Piper counted five, maybe six, but Lacy was dragging her so fast she wasn't sure if she was counting right. She didn't have to pull so hard, maybe Lacy was looking to revenge her ballet flats. Nothing too bad about that, maybe Piper shouldn't have freaked out by all the guys at the Apollo cabin.
And the one girl, with the crop-top. She had body-glitter on her cheekbones-
Whoa Whoa WHOA... No, not cool. That was not cool. Step back for a bit. Cool the brakes.
Cool the steamers.
Cool the boilers...
... holy hell, or Hades, or whatever, someone cool down something.
The Hephaestus cabin was pretty average looking. Smaller too, smaller than it should have been, seeing how wide and squat it was from the outside. Which was odd, because Piper thought they had a large number of occupants, a lot of Hephaestus kids running around. And that was odd, because she thought that Hephaestus was supposed to be kinda ugly compared to the other Olympians, so how did he end up having that many kids? But that didn't matter, people loved who they loved, and maybe Hephaestus was only ugly by the Olympian standard and was normal-looking as a regular guy? Well, maybe. You couldn't help who you fell in love with!
As soon as she stepped inside (Lacy reluctantly followed, already looking uncomfortable) she was taken off guard by how hot it was inside the cabin. Where was all the heat coming from? Did nobody open a window? It wasn't even hot outside, and the weather was perpetually spring-to-summer range of heat. It looked pretty average, like the Aphrodite cabin but with less room and less pink paint on the walls.
There was also a privacy screen drawn up, they had sheets and such like that for her cabin too. No one seemed to be here. "Um, hello?" She called out, looking through, careful not to step on anything. There were a lot of stuff, parts and tools mostly, littering the floor. "Is anyone here?"
"Oh, hey... um, come in." Called a rasping, weak, but friendly-sounding voice from behind the screen.
Against every instinct that was telling her this was majorly sketchy, Piper approached the screen (Lacy tagging along like a lap-dog) and peered behind.
There were three people there, two young men (or at least she assumed, one was covered in bandages sitting up in bed) and one young woman (at least she assumed, it was hard to tell but she thought she heard Leo call her his 'new sister'). What was her name? Nissy, Nyssa? Nyssa, that was it. "Um, hello?"
"Hey." The one with the bandages 'smiled', though it looked like a pained grimace. "You're the new Aphrodite kid. What's up?"
"He means, what are you doing here?" Nyssa quickly accused. "Which means, for Aphrodite kids, what do you want?"
"I... we don't want anything." Piper assured, taken off guard by the sudden hostility.
"Well," Lacy piped in, "I wouldn't say 'no' to a new pair of earrings-?"
"SHUSH," Piper glared. Judging by how Nyssa barely reacted, and the unbandaged boy was looking through a drawer, this was a daily occurrence. "We don't want anything, and we're not going to ask for special treatments anymore. No Lacy," Piper interrupted, seeing Lacy's crestfallen look. "Aphrodite use to mean something here, before Drew, is that right?"
"Right." Lacy nodded, reluctantly. She could see the earrings being put back in what looked like an overflowing drawer full of them.
"So we're going to start by pulling our own weight and not asking people to do things for us." She nodded, feeling vindicated already. "Hi, I'm Piper. And I'm going to be leading the Aphrodite Cabin from now on."
"Because Drew is away." The bandaged boy nodded.
"Yes, and when she gets back I'll still run it." Piper frowned.
"Sure you will." He didn't sound convinced, at all. "Until then, I'm Jake Mason, and before Leo showed up I ran the Hephaestus cabin. But then this happened." He gestured to... his entire body.
"Yikes. Um, what happened?" Piper asked, nervously looking over the injuries. "I thought demigods healed fast?"
"Halfbloods," Jake insisted. "Demigod sounds kinda preachy-" Piper ignored Lacy's 'I told you so' look- "and I tried to tame the mechanical dragon. Well, repair the damage to his frontal mechanisms but amounts to the same really."
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Just wasn't up to it I guess. Leo's a friend of yours?"
"We know each other." Sort of... Piper couldn't actually remember much of Leo beyond his pranks and wise-cracks. Maybe there was more to him than all that, but she didn't think so. But she never thought Leo could repair/tame a dragon either before, so maybe she didn't know him as well as she had thought
"Cool." Jake nodded, winced at the effort. Nyssa gave him a glass of water with a bendy-straw in it, while the other boy gave him more notes, looked like production figures.
"Nyssa," the big girl nodded, holding out a calloused hand. It was so calloused Piper thought maybe she was wearing gloves at first. She was darker skinned, from what Piper could tell under the grease and soot. It was the middle of the afternoon, but she looked like she pulled graveyard shift at a steel-mill. "You've met Jake, the dragon-bait-"
"I'm never going to live this down." Jake chuckled self-deprecatingly.
"-and this is my brother Hoss, who needs to stop giving away our stuff." Nyssa glared disapprovingly at the other boy. He didn't respond, which made him braver than Piper would have been if Nyssa had glared at her like that.
"It's mostly scrap we dolled up anyway." He confessed blithely. He declined to offer Piper a hand either, which was for the best. He was enough more grimy than Nyssa, and his hair (what was left of it with a hasty crew-cut) and skin could have been any color under the soot and ash. "Nice to meet you."
"You too." Piper considered the bulging drawer of jewelry. "Do you all make those in Arts & Crafts?"
They looked uncertainly at one another, then back at her. "You know that there could be another war going on, right?" Nyssa asked, cautiously, like she was afraid she'd scare Piper off. But Piper would think that she was made of stern stuff than that, and nodded once. "Well," Nyssa shrugged, "we've been taking a lot of the slack from other cabins, keeping up production just in case."
"It's what we're good at," Hoss nodded. "Makes sense for us to do what we're best at to help out."
"Where do you work? Is everyone at the forges?" Piper asked, remembering her activities sheet.
"Some," Hoss shrugged, enigmatically. "We've got our own though."
"Your own what?"
"Maybe you should see this for yourself." Nyssa nodded. "You think you can change the Aphrodite cabin for the better?"
"Yes," Piper boldly nodded. "I really do."
"Then we'd really appreciate some more helping hands so we don't have to keep things crowded down here." Nyssa nodded, and led Piper do a door she hadn't seen, in the hottest part of the room, and when she opened it to look down a narrow set of steel stairs-
... was a hellish mess. After Leo had fixed the dragon, or mecha-dragon, Piper thought maybe that his brothers and sisters would relax a bit, but she was wrong. Everywhere she looked, they were working a billows, or pumping a lever, or swinging something to clang on something. It was so loud, and it was so unbearably hot. And Piper wondered if she should be wearing a gas-mask, it was too damn... it reeked. It truly honestly reeked of B.O. and soot and rotten eggs, and she was horrified that some of the Hephaestus children, younger than her, were working in these conditions. She nearly lost it when one put his whole hand into a furnace, and then pulled it back out like nothing happened.
Leo... Leo was fireproof, he had to be, made sense that so were his... so were his siblings... no need to panic. She needed to say something.
Yes, that was what she was supposed to do. She needed to say something to these... nice, steel-working, arm-in-furnace, Terminator-tough children.
The work didn't stop; everywhere around her, there were hammers pounding, drills punching holes through still-hot sheets of metal, and sparks falling, with steam and smog belching out of crevices and split metal seams in the multiple furnaces. But she could see that they were turning to face her, not bothering to stop but working simultaneously as they forged, judging her.
Piper remembered how Drew behaved around these kids, how her sisters behaved so snooty, and even sweet Lacy took for granted how much they worked, took advantage of their gifts to get free stuff. They probably had a real problem with Aphrodite kids, which only increased with the history between their parents.
It was definitely time to break out the charmspeak and wow these kids, to assure them that the future of Camp Halfblood was in good hands, and that they wouldn't have to worry about being bullied or belittled ever again-
But that fell short of reality. In actuality, real-life, as soon as Piper opened her mouth (she already was feeling dizzy from the heat and tight corridors) she inhaled a lungful of smog and what felt like brimstone, and fell into a raucous coughing fit.
"I'm... I'm so sorry-" she tried to apologize, doubling over, lungs feeling like they were on fire, feeling like she was turning into a furnace, and then she hit her head. It took a bit of blinking, eyes watering, to see through the smoke and see the tar-stained ceiling. She must have fallen over without realizing it.
She felt being dragged again, and when she came-to, Lacy was clapping her ballet flats vigorously. Dirt and soot came off in a multicolored cloud of filth.
"W-what happened?" Piper sat up, still groggy. She noticed that they were in a new cabin, Lacy standing at the door to avoid her dust cloud getting inside. That one boy, Hoss, stood over Piper, bending low to peer at her under a cramped bunk-bed. Looking up, Piper could see someone had taped a poster of a model-turned-actress on the bottom of the above bunk. Piper even recognized her, the actress who had played the Queen of Sheba opposite her father's King Solomon in a 'bodice-ripper' disguised as a Bible epic.
Lacy sighed, looked forlorn over the befouled ballet flats, convinced the grime and soot would never come out of them now. "You had fainted a bit." Lacy confessed. "Might have been the heat, we took you to another cabin. Are you alright?"
"She'll be fine." Hoss interrupted. "We were worried about the head injury, but you weren't even bleeding. Just bumped a bit. Still though." He looked suspicious, disappointed even. "You sure you want to be replacing Silena?"
That caught Piper off-guard and she felt ashamed, embarrassed, and angry. But Hoss already was leaving, Lacy edging away to avoid getting soot on her clothes when he passed her by. As soon as he was gone, Lacy navigated over dirty laundry, discarded junk, and the oddest odds-and-ends she had ever seen. "Are you going to be alright?" Lacy repeated, not having to kneel to face Piper like Hoss did.
"I think so. I don't know but I can't believe I fainted." She didn't have time to be embarrassed, she had more pressing concerns. "How can they stand it?" Piper asked, outraged.
"They like work," Lacy assured, "but it's getting to be a bit much. Everyone is nervous or worried because there might be a war happening. You know how that is."
"It's not right." Piper swore. "You have kids who...who are breaking their backs working, making things and then there's kids who do nothing, or drink-"
"Well that's not fair, everyone pitches in at what they're good at," Lacy defended, frowning. "Some people are just better at harder things."
"Then some people just need to work harder," Piper retorted.
"Yes." Lacy nodded. "Like the Hephaestus kids."
"No," Piper shook her head, "like us. Like the Aphrodite kids who need to work harder to make sure no one thinks worse of us for not being automatically good at fighting or forging, and not... face-painting."
"Face-painting?"
"Make-up," Piper corrected, "and beauty treatments and being lazy."
"And pretty." Lacy added insistently.
"Well, some of us." Piper muttered. Immediately she felt horrible. "I am... so sorry, I don't, I honestly don't know where that came from."
"It's alright." Lacy meekly shrugged. "Silena got like that when people annoyed her too. And Drew's like that all the time, the 'Inner Tyrant' popping out every now and then."
"Do you really call it that?" Piper grimaced. "The 'Inner Tyrant'?"
"No," Lacy admitted, "We call it 'Bitch Behavior', but this is a camp for, like, kids, remember?" Lacy stuck out her tongue.
Piper laughed, then took notice of their surroundings. Messiest cabin yet, a little larger than the Aphrodite or Ares cabin, the largest ones she had seen so fair (outside of Cabin One where Jason lived, and Cabin Two where no one lived at all) with many, too many, bunk-beds. "Where are we now?"
"Hermes cabin," a new voice answered. He was a slight boy, but with a heavy, almost pouting face. He introduced himself. "Cadmus Vind, son of Aeolus. Welcome to my humble abode."
"Nice to meet you." Piper smiled. Cadmus smiled back. He had impressive dimples. "If you're a son of Aeolus though, why are you in the Hermes cabin?"
"Everyone who isn't claimed ends up here." Lacy explained.
"Yes," Piper frowned. "But people who are claimed..?"
"Aeolus doesn't have a cabin here at Camp." Cadmus glowered, lips looking heavy and distinctly frog-like. "A lot of the minor gods and goddesses are too minor to be worth a whole new building."
"But... I thought that was the rule." Piper objected.
"Yeah well... ain't no big thing." Cadmus shrugged. "I'd be all by myself anyone if my dad did have a Cabin. That's starting to look better every day though," he admitted, looking around at the interior of the cabin. Piper knew what he was talking about; it wasn't just crowded, as in no elbow-room. It was crowded to the point where there wasn't much of a ceiling left, just top-bunks. In the corner she saw an ambitious, ill-conceived attempt at a triple-bunk.
She considered that for a bit. "What if one of the other cabins offered space? Those that don't have as many kids?" Yes, as she said it aloud, it sounded like a better and better idea. "We could space it out so that everyone is a little more equal. There must be a lot of crowded cabins."
Both Lacy and Cadmus nodded, and Piper (watching her head, low bunks) got up to continue. "We'll have to talk to some of the new cabins though." Piper nodded.
At that, Lacy groaned. "But this is taking forever! Can't we wait?"
"Just one more stop then," Piper nodded, considering. Her trip with Clarisse was enlightening, and she knew who would be the most trouble. "Does Eris have a cabin?"
Clearly she did and it was bad news.
"... I... I need to go to Arts & Crafts." Lacy abandoned Piper in a hurry, tripping over dirty-laundry and an overturned shield in her haste.
"..." Cadmus took a deep (very deep, Piper was shocked by how much air he could take in) breath, and exhaled (she counted... ten... fifteen... thirty seconds!) before he smiled weakly. "Hey, they're not so bad."
"Really?" Piper raised an eyebrow. "I heard they were kinda terrorizing everyone."
"Well, I'll go with you." He assured, and Piper smiled at the thought of a new friend.
Her smile vanished when he promptly armed himself with shield and short-sword.
"... okay," he amended, scratching the back of his head, "they're pretty bad. Just stay behind me."
"Wait," Piper looked around for a mirror, which was new for her, and was disappointed when she couldn't find any. That was also new for her. Part of her wanted to blame it on the same Aphrodite instincts or something that was creeping in, giving her color-specificity and girly-thoughts (sometimes about other girls), but the truth was she wanted to make a good impression. More practically, because she was aiming to be practical as opposed to her sisters and brothers, she worried about that bump on her head. If half of what she had heard about this Eris cabin was true, if she showed blood they'd act like sharks or junkyard dogs. Without a mirror, she just checked reflection in a badly polished shield that was laying on it's side against a bed that was mostly made.
"Take your time," Cadmus muttered, tapping hands on the hilt of his short-sword. "Um, I get what you're trying to do, and I appreciate that someone is trying to really fix problems. Like, down to the nuts-and-bolts of how the whole... structure works. Sorry if that makes you sound like a Hephaestus kid."
"It's not a problem," Piper assured, "they seemed really nice." Actually they seemed like a bunch of hostile, antisocial workaholics with poor hygiene but Piper wasn't going to say that. The goal was building bridges with the other cabins, and she wasn't going to screw that up with gossip.
"I gotta ask though," Cadmus swallowed nervously, "why Eris?"
"Have to talk to one of the minor god cabins," Piper pointed out in what she hoped was a reasonable tone.
"Yeah, I get that." He adjusted his shield-strap nervously, making Piper wonder how necessary that really would be. "Just want to know, why them?"
"I guess..." Because she wasn't afraid of a challenge? Or because she wanted it to look like she wasn't afraid of a challenge? Or she wanted to fix the biggest problem-cabin before moving on to the rest of the Camp? None of those sounded like good reasons, but she'd come up with something, given time. "Why don't you have a cabin?"
"You ever heard of Aeolus?" Cadmus asked her dryly.
"Um... most of what I know of Greek myths... I mean, the gods," Piper corrected herself, thinking that the gods might not take too kindly to being called 'myths' by their children. "I know about them because of movies."
"And movies don't do the best job." That seemed a sore subject for Cadmus (though later Piper would learn it was a sore subject for everyone at Camp, demigod, god, nymph, satyr, etc.) "I get that. Well he was a king who Zeus put in charge of controlling the winds."
Piper wondered if Cadmus knew his father was messing up, thinking about Dylan, the wind-monster that attacked her after disguising himself as a major jerk. "So he's a god of the wind?"
"Nope," Cadmus grimaced. "Not technically a god. Just an immortal... guy who controls the wind."
"Not very well." Piper frowned.
"What?"
"er, nothing," Piper assured, hoping a Cadmus didn't press the issue. "Well I'm sorry you don't get... a place of your own."
"Place is fine." Cadmus assured. "I live with a big mortal family, bunch of cousins. But that's home, and stuff. I'd like to have a place of my own as... not a place apart because my dad isn't... well I matter and that'll make things better if that got recognized and stuff, and seriously why the Eris cabin?"
"Because they need the most help," Piper nodded firmly. The Eris kids she had met, or had seen briefly as they ran away either with stolen goods or from a small fire, were a dirty and loud and rude bunch of kids who all seemed younger than her. "Everyone seems afraid of them. That can't be easy."
"Everyone's afraid of them because they're psychos." Cadmus stressed. "It was pretty bad when they were a bunch of unclaimed and stuff, but when you get claimed? You don't just get a make-over or a blessing, you change in your head. They get the idea to... well they stir up trouble because it's what they think their mom would want."
"That can't be right."
"Actually," Cadmus froze, and Piper realized they must have come to the right place, "it's pretty on the nose."
Calling the... structure a cabin was a little overly generous. Hell (or Hades, whatever) calling it a structure was giving it too much credit. It barely looked like it could stand on it's own. The Hermes cabin was a little mediocre compared to the other cabins, and a little 'well-loved', but it was unmistakably a normal, livable cabin that just housed too many messy, ADHD riddled teens with powers. This (Piper referred to it from here on out as the 'dwelling') was a monstrous hodgepodge of loosely connected metal, half-rotten-half-preserved/petrified wood, what looked like cardboard, and an entire dead tree with a chimney stack jammed up out from the top of it all plastered/welded/squished together with car-windows and mosquito-netting to make something of a... something. It looked like a cross between a derailed train, a crashed space-ship, and an unsafe amusement park ride all begot one impossible, simultaneous child on a haunted Lego house and then tried to pull it apart in an ugly custody battle.
"...oh" Piper, who wasn't sure what she was expecting but certainly wasn't prepared for this.
"... gulp." Cadmus, not faring much better, even though he had seen this at least a dozen, a hundred times before.
"Why?" Piper asked, weakly. She wasn't even sure why 'why?' was the one word question she had chosen. Maybe 'what?' could have been better, like 'what is this thing?' or 'how?' as in 'how did they build this thing?' or 'who?' like 'who are these people again?' because she had severely underestimated the crazy.
"We really didn't want to spend gold and stuff on giving Eris' kids a base of operations," Cadmus admitted, looking a little guilty. His talk of not feeling included seemed a little hypocritical when he had to admit that no one wanted these children to have their own cabin. "We didn't count on them building one. We didn't think they could, but here it is; Cabin 00."
"They built this." Piper was having trouble imagining people building this too. To do so would have taken a hateful determination not unlike the Ares cabin, and rudimentary skills with tools, though nowhere near that of the Hephaestus cabin. It looked like a determined breeze could knock it part, like it was held up by rusty staples, super-glue, and spite for the laws of physics. "Huh."
"Yeah," Cadmus nodded. "'Huh'."
Crreeak... creeaaaak... a noise took them both by surprise, and a small girl climbed out one of the windows. Apparently at least one could open, but judging by the sound it relied on a crank that brought to mind a torture-rack. She was a small, underfed and dirty looking girl who had either dirty-blonde or tangled-brown hair held back by a filthy checkered bandanna. Piper couldn't tell the color, and for once that wasn't a relief. The little daughter of Eris couldn't have been older than eleven, but she was dressed like she survived a collapse of some sort of civilization, dressed in ragged jeans and layers of tattered shirts, over-sized sneakers that squeaked, and a belt that looked like it was made of ninja-stars with a tortured looking rubber chicken hanging on her hip.
Piper was concerned when the dangerous looking, miniature ragamuffin took out a pack of cigarettes from her bandanna and started to light one.
Cadmus was far more concerned when he recognized the little girl. "Oh crap, Erin."
"Eris?"
"No, Erin, she's... um, just get behind me," he insisted, bracing himself behind the shield.
"Is she in charge?" Piper asked, thinking that there had to be someone older in the cabin.
"What? No, she's just bad news-" Cadmus insisted.
"Oh for gods sake," Piper cried, throwing up her hands. "She's a little girl. Who is smoking, and I wish that was the worst thing I've seen today. Excuse me? Excuse me!"
The ragamuffin, Erin, looked up. Spied Cadmus and Piper, but didn't wave. Tucked the cigarette behind her ear without bothering to snuff out the ash. And she smiled, and it looked like...
... like a cross between a little girl who was given a present and a piranha that spotted a bare bottom. And then she scuttled back inside.
"She seemed," Piper searched for the right word. "Happy?"
"Yeah." Cadmus nodded, looking queasy and just full of dread.
If she were being honest with herself, Piper wasn't feeling so hopeful either. But she couldn't back down, not after the poor show she had given today.
Maybe it would be better if she had; a few seconds later, from another impossible entrance in the ramshackle dwelling, Erin popped out with some brothers and sisters looking like a mob of feral dogs squeezed into abused thrift-store clothing.
One of them had what Piper could only guess was a bazooka. She guessed right.
Whew. Long one. Hope it was worth the wait.
Sorry to leave it here, seemed like a worthwhile hook.
I have to admit, I'm a little disheartened; a lot of my favorite stories in this fandom are being abandoned.
Well, not abandoning any of my fics, as of yet, and I hope that everyone who takes the time to read them is entertained.
Please review, and I still am accepting prompts and OCs (within reason) via PM. Thank you!