woke up the next morning, to the twins making a ruckus in the seating room. Honestly, at this point, I was quite used to it, but it still bothered me once in a while. Especially because, on this particular morning, the twins were fighting with swords. I clamped my ears shut with my hands, as I slowly pushed the blankets off me, and rose from my bed, a headache on the verge of forming.
Just a reminder, it was currently half-past four AM in the morning, so you can't blame me for being annoyed. I groggily walked into the room, as I irritably looked up at Laurel and Holly, who were still fighting. The clanking of swords, only worsened my annoyance, as I spoke up, unable to bear it anymore.
"HOLLY! LAUREL! Stop having a swordfight at 4:30 AM, when I'm SLEEPING!" The duo immediately froze, and looked at me, surprised to see me there. Satisfied that the noise had stopped temporarily, I removed my hands from my ears, as I rubbed my forehead, in pain.
"Oops, sorry," Laurel muttered sheepishly, as I glanced at her gingerly.
"We're terribly sorry, Sterling" Holly spoke up louder, glaring at her sister. "This won't happen again"
I sighed. " It's fine, and yes, please never repeat this again. Now, I'm going to go grab some Advil, for my headache." I said, walking away. "Oh and, since you guys made this ruckus, you're the one who's going be cleaning up for cabin inspections," I added, behind my back.
"No problem, we'll do it." I heard Laurel call out, as I stepped out of the room before I heard a 'thud', which probably meant that someone had been shoved to the ground. Oh well, it was better than a swordfight, so I wasn't arguing
I went to my bedroom, opened a drawer, and grabbed some Advil, before popping it in my mouth, and swallowing it with water from a cup on my bedside table. I sighed with relief, and then proceeded to change, and freshen up for the day ahead. I picked out a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, and some black leggings, before heading to the restroom to change.
Once I was done, I went to check on what the twins were doing, as we only had ten minutes till breakfast. Laurel was done changing and was sitting down on her bed, wearing some sort of a necklace with a few beads on it. Each bead was unique, and one of them was a mix of purple and orange.
"What's that?" I asked her, pointing to the necklace around her neck.
"Oh, it's a necklace with beads" She replied, looking up at me and smiling. "All campers get one every year, for completing a whole year at camp. Holly and I have two since we came only two years ago. Annabeth has the most number of beads, as she's been here since she was seven or eight. Or maybe it was nine, I'm not really sure. But, you'll get one too, next summer." I nodded.
"Cool" Was all I said, as I stuffed my hands into my pockets. Which, I realized, I didn't have because I was wearing leggings. So, my hands ended up slipping and slid down. I tried my best to play it off, but Laurel noticed because she began snickering at me, as I turned pink with embarrassment.
"What" I snapped. "Don't laugh at me" She put her hand over her mouth, to control herself, and stopped laughing, but started again, as she looked at something behind me.
"What are you laughing at now," I muttered as I turned. Stood there was Holly, her dark brown hair a mess. Clearly, someone was having a bad hair day. "Oh dear gods, Holly. What happened?"
"I really don't know" She mumbled. "I tried detangling it, but it wouldn't budge an inch"
"Here, let me try" I offered, my arm stretched out for her brush. She handed it to me disdainfully. "Laurel, we're probably going to be late. Why don't you go ahead, and inform Chiron why we're late"
"Nah, I'd like to watch and see Holly have her hair, nicely untangled." She replied, smirking.
"Laurel..." I warned.
"Okay, okay, I'm going. Good luck sissy" She said, before heading out.
"Okay, why don't you sit down on a chair, because we're almost the same height," I said, bringing her to a chair, and seating her down. "Okay, let's begin."
I started off by running my fingers through her hair, to remove any large tangled bits. Once I was done with that, partitioning her hair into three parts, I slowly began brushing from the tips of her hair and kept moving upwards at a leisure pace, to make sure she wasn't in any pain. Once in a while, she would huff, or open her mouth to silently scream, but no noises came out. After I was finished combing through all three parts of her hair, I asked her how she wanted her hair styled. She replied, saying a braid. I took one section of her now untangled hair, and placed it over the section in the middle, and repeated the process with the other side until I finally had a braid. She handed me a black elastic band, to tie her hair with, and then I was finished.
"All done" I happily said, placing her hair down her back. She stood up, and felt her hair, checking to see it's current state.
"Wow, you did a really good job. Maybe you should do my hair every day." She joked.
"Yeah, right."
"No, I'm serious" She replied.
"We'll see, I said, patting her on the shoulder. I check my wristwatch to see the time and gasped when I saw that it was around ten minutes past five AM. "Oh gods, we're late."
"Well, Ster, let's have our warm-up done early today, shall we. Race you to the dining Pavillion" She said, before sprinting out of the cabin.
"You naughty girl" I rolled my eyes, before running after her. I was so not going to lose, again.
I ran as fast as I could and soon, saw Holly right in front of me.
"Hey sister" I winked, before overtaking her. It definitely depleted my energy a lot faster and was a little more than a warm-up, but right now, I wanted to win. I grinned, as I kept going, my heart rate steadily increasing. I slowed down, as soon as I got within eyesight of the Pavillion, not wanting to attract attention. Most demigods were already present, with a few who were probably late, like us.
"Sorry we're late, Chiron" I apologized to the centaur, panting. "There was a mess that had to be taken care of" I glanced at Holly, who was right behind me.
"That's alright Sterling. Try not to let it happen again" I nodded and took my seat next to Laurel, who was lazily grinning at us.
"Heyyy sisters"
"Hi,Laurel" Holly took a seat beside me, throwing Laurel a dirty look. "When is it going to be our turn to offer food?" I asked
"In...right about now, actually" She replied, as our turn arrived. I quickly filled my plate with some food, and held it in my hand, as I put a portion of it in the fire, thanking my mother, and walked back.
As soon as the twins took their places, and everybody had sacrificed a part of their food, I immediately dug in.
"Wow, someone's hungry" Holly commented, smiling at me.
"Yeah, I am" I replied, once I had swallowed my food.
After we had our breakfast, and had our energy levels up, the activities for the day would start.
Today, I decided to go with swordfighting, archery, riding pegasi, and the self defense techniques class.
First up was swordfighting, so Laurel and I went to the arena, where we all assembled for the activity. Today, we had Clarisse teaching again, and those days, I learnt, were usually not the best.
However, Clarisse was in a surprisingly good mood today. She wasn't grinning and all, but she wasn't bullying all the newbies and "weak" demigods, (who in reality were stronger than me), and was instead actually trying to help everyone get better. I hoped that we would get to see this side of her more often.
"I wish Clarisse was like this everyday" I whispered to Laurel, as we were sparring partners. We had just finished trying out a new disarming technique, and was taking a break.
"Not every day. Although it would be much more peaceful, I'll admit, most of us would miss the true side of Clarisse. Who else is going to threaten to pulverise us every day?" She whispered back, and we chuckled together.
"What's so funny, huh?" A heard a voice ask us, and we whipped our heads to see it was Clarisse. Oh dear gods, we messed up.
"Oh, um, nothing." Laurel said, letting our a nervous laugh.
"That's what I thoguht" Was all the Ares camper said, before leaving us. We put a hand over our mouths, trying to cover up our smiles before she caught us again.
"No shoutings, or scoldings?" I asked, laughing in disbelief.
"Wow, she must be in an exceptionally good mood, then" Laurel said. I agreed. After that, we got back to swordfihting again, and before we knew it, the activity was over, and I had archery.
Neither of the twins took archery, so I was alone. But that was fine with me, because my goal was to focus on my archery, not on getting distracted.
I headed to the archery range, after saying goodbye to Laurel. As soon as I arrived, I saw a few hutners gathered, in their black jackets and silver shirts. Not to forget the silver circlet that adorned their head. The only one I recognized, was Thalia. Jason Grace's sister, apparently.
Along with her, stood two more hunters, who were unrecognizable. Everyone who usually took archery, were gathered in a small circle, a little away from the hunters. The boys especially, maintained quite a distance. I walked up to an Apollo camper who I talked to once in a while.
"Hey, what's going on? Are the hunters taking class today?" I asked him.
"Yeah. Everybody's pretty nervous. The hunters can be pretty brutal." She replied, looking at me.
"Thalia came to my mortal school, once. To take an archery class. She wasn't that bad, back then. But then again, we were amongst mortals, so I guess she had tone it down." She hummed, and replied.
"Yeah, but now they can technically do whatever they want. None of us are going to even try, and contradict them anyway"
"Yeah" I shuddered. "I wouldn't dare cross them."
Just then, one of the hunters walked away, as the other two turned to face us.
"Listen up everybody" Thalia called out to us. At once, all of us stopped talking, and immediately gave her all our attention. "We're taking archery today because Chrion requested us to, and because, it's going to be fun." She grinned after the last few words. I'm pretty sure we all had chills going down our spine.
It was just then, that I noticed that a lot of demigods that usually came for archery were absent. In fact, more than half were not there. There were only two boys, one of whom, looked extremely pale now. He wasn't prepared for this, that was for sure.
I guess some people expected this. I should have, too. But hey, maybe this wouldn't turn our too bad.
"Since we have a small number of you guys, each of you can take one target. Lydia, and I are going to be coming around, and correcting you. You can begin as soon as I say so" After we dispersed, we all picked out a target, and got our bow and arrows ready.
"Begin" She called out, and arrows went flying. Mine flew a few seconds later, as I wanted to get it right, instead of being in a hurry.
My arrow hit the inner ring of the target with a thud. I smiled, with satisfaction, before I picked up another arrow.
My next one hit one of the outer rings, so obviously, my aim was off. I rechecked my stance, and relaxed my shoulders, before giving it another shot. This time, I took my own time, and then released the arrow as I exhaled, once I had set my sights.
This time it hit the red bullseye, but almost missed it. I laughed with happyness. It had been quite some time, since it hit the centre.
"Good job" I heard Thalia say behind me. "Been a long time since I have seen a demigod at camp, who isn't from the Apollo cabin, who hit the target." I turned to look at her, lowering my bow.
"Thank you. How did you know I'm not an Apollo camper." I stupidly ask her. She snorted, and replied.
"Your black hair and grey eyes, definitely makes it clear. You must be an offspring of one of the minor gods. Lady Tyche?"
"Lady Nike" I corrected her, trying not to seem rude or arrogant. She nodded.
"Come see me later," She said to me, before walking away, to observe another camper. Did she just ask me to come meet her later? But why would she do that. And where was I supposed to see her. I couldn't just walk into the Artemis Cabin, demanding to see her. That would be absolutely wrong of me to that. Foolish too, not to forget. It would be like me asking for a death wish.
After that, I was distracted for the the rest of the session. Luckily, neither of the hutners saw me missing the bullseye by quite a distance, but I was still ashamed.
I walked away from archery, tired, mentally and physically. But I had to go for Pegasi Riding, especially because this was going to be my first time.
I went to the stables, to see Percy there, petting a black Pegasus. He was gorgeous. I mean the Pegasus, not Percy. But Percy was handsome, too. But my focus was on the Pegasus. I prodded over to say hi to them.
"Hi Percy"
"Hey Sterling" He said, turning to look at me, while continuing to pet the Pegasus. "This, is Blackjack. He's my Pegasus."
"Hi Blackjack" I politely greeted the Pegasus, who neighed at me. "He's yours?"
"Yeah. I rescued him from a bad situation during one of my quests, and he's chosen me, so ever since then we've been besties. Isn't that right, Blackjack." Blackjack muzzled Percy's hand, and he laughed. I mean Percy, not Blackjack. "I'll get you donuts next time, I promise."
"Wait, you can talk.to him?" I asked, shocked.
"Of Course I can. Poseidon created horses, so I cant talk to horses and animals in the same family. Sea creatures too." He added the last part, after a thought.
"That's cool" I said, raising my eyebrows.
"Do you want to pet him? Here, gove him a sugar cube, and he'll be good." He offered, and before I could reply, I was handed a sugar cube. "She's a friend, Blackjack. Be good" He instructed. Balckjack huffed in reply.
I carefully handed him the cube, and he immediately ate it form my hand. I almost pulled my hand back, in surprise, but I ended up only moving it a little. Then I tried petting him, on the neck, as Percy had advised, and Blackjack didn't try to move away from me. So I continued, caressing him gently, and I giggled a little.
"He seems to like you. Doesn't warm up that easily, although it could be because of the sugar cube." Percy paused. "Actually, Blackjack tells me that he doesn't mind you. Which, in our terms, means that he likes you."
"I'm glad" I grinned, and pulled my hand back after a while. "So, are you going to be taking today's lesson?" I asked him, hopeful.
"Nope. You've got another instructor" He said, to my disappointment.
"Pity. I was really hoping you would be teaching, I said placing a hand on my forehead, dramatically. He chuckled at my antic.
"I would love to, but I have some other stuff to do." He explained. "Anyways, I will see you around then"
I smiled. "Sure. Bye, then."
"Bye" He strode away. "By the way, since you are a beginner try riding Guido. He's very gentle." He advised behind his back.
"Thanks" I called out to him, as he left the stables.
I went around, to find Guido, and say hi. I found him a few pens away from Blackjack.
"Hi Guido, my name is Sterling." I introduced myself, offering an arm for him to sniff. I didn't knwo if this would work with Pesgasi too, but I think it did, because he sniffed it, and seemed to relax. "Percy told me about how nice you are. Will you let me ride you today? It's my first time" I asked him, petting him. I figured that telling him about Percy would help.
He softly neighed, and put his muzzle in palm. I laughed.
"Aww, such a good boy." I cooed.
"Yeah, he's a very good boy. Aren't you?" I heard someone say behind me, reaching over to pet him. I turned to see...
A/N:- Hope you've had a wonderful Christmas (for those who celebrate it). I have been busy because I'm moving houses, but now I will be updating more often. Posting another chapter very soon, because I'm in a really good mood to write (currently at a coffee shop).
