Andy woke up early (well, early for her) and, not being skilled at cooking anything that involved more than a microwave or a toaster, grabbed a yogurt and a granola bar. She stumbled up to the deck, wincing at the sun's light seemed to stab viciously at her eyes.
"Good morning!" a bright voice called. She grumbled an incoherent reply at munched her granola bar. Where was her freezing cold shower to wake her up?
"Andy, is everything all right?" Robin sounded so concerned, Andy actually tried to open her eyes.
"Not morning person," she mumbled.
"I've seen her kind before," Nasim's voice said. "She will not be happy or truly awake until morning is over."
"Not funny," Andy groaned, as Robin laughed merrily. His high, clear voice made Andy wince and she retreated to the safe, dark quiet offered below deck. As she slumped into the seat, she could have sworn she saw a red flash out of the corner of her eye. When she opened her eyes and tried to focus, she saw that there was nothing there.
Andy got up and floundered toward where she thought the sink was. Tripping over the chair and stubbing her toe, she gave a sharp cry.
"Is everything all right down there?" Robin's voice called from above. Andy said something she hoped went along the lines of "I'm fine, my toe's just broken."
Robin's crow of laughter floated down, expressing no concern that her toe was probably snapped in half.
Andy raised her hands in front of her and located the sink by touch. Putting her head forward and down, she fumbled to turn on the sink.
"YEOW!" Andy wailed as cold water splashed down; she jumped up and hit her head on the faucet.
"What's wrong?" Nasim called.
"I'M AWAKE!" Andy yelled back.
Robin and Nasim's laughter rolled out. They were clearly able to interpret her meaning: "I'm awake, what else could be wrong?"
Suddenly harsh cries rang out from above. Andy swore, grabbed her sword and ran up the stairs, water still dripping down her face and getting in her eyes.
"Woah, Andy!" Nasim said, coming out of nowhere. Andy heard the cries croaked out again, just behind her and slightly higher. She whirled around, raising her sword - and slammed into an invisible force that froze her.
It took her a second to realize that both Robin and Nasim were laughing hysterically. Andy frowned; this was the fourth time this morning that Robin had laughed at her expense.
The water had run out of her eyes and she saw the clear blue sky of a late morning. Against this bright backdrop, white wings fluttered and voices cawed raucously. Sea gulls.
"The Strophades, where dread Celaeno bides, with other Harpies," Robin recited. "Birds seem they, but with face like woman-kind; foul-flowing bellies, hands with crooked claws, and ghastly lips they have, with hunger pale." His voice changed as he fell to a less formal speech. "Or, alternatively, not monsters but mere mortal birds."
"Okay," Andy said, glad to find she could still move her mouth. She was still stuck in the ridiculous posture of upraised sword and standing on the tips of her toes in a manner that shouldn't have been possible. "Number one, will everyone stop laughing at me? And b) will someone please let me go?"
"Fine," Nasim said, clearly trying not to laugh. There was a shimmer of purple on the edges of Andy's vision and she collapsed slightly. Her arms dropped and the sword pointed towards the ground.
When Andy turned around, Robin and Nasim had adopted somber, deathbed faces. On Robin, the expression was positively comical.
"Can't you like, talk to the vicious harpy-gulls?" Andy asked.
"Why exactly would you want that?" Robin asked, still trying to be serious.
"Cause they'll make a mess," Andy frowned.
Robin shrugged and threw back his head, "I!" He said it like a drawn out 'ee', but the birds reacted well enough, wheeling away and flapping back towards shore."
"I assume that's Swahili for 'be gone!'," Andy guessed.
"It's Latin, actually," Robin said.
"Why Latin?" Nasim asked. "Why not Greek?"
"Latin came to mind first," Robin shrugged casually. Andy knew Robin well enough to know when he was lying, but he was telling the truth now. Now she just wondered why Latin had come to mind first.
As Andy turned around to go back to her room and get into dry clothes, she saw the rowboat had been pushed aside and neatly tied up. Andy frowned; she couldn't remember Robin doing that last night. Maybe he'd woken up early and done it.
At lunch, when Andy had truly woken up, Nasim gallantly volunteered to cook them bacon and scrambled legs.
"I thought Muslims didn't eat meat," Andy said.
"You are Moslem?" Robin asked. "Like a Saracen?"
"It's Muslim," Nasim said, somewhat sharply. "And I'm an Arab, not a Saracen."
"Ah, then I am sorry," Robin nodded apologetically. "There is a grave difference."
"Uh, what's a Saracen?" Andy asked, feeling sort of stupid and hoping she wasn't being rude.
"The Aramaic speakers of Syria," Robin said. "As distinct from those who dwell in the Arabian deserts. It originally meant 'those not of Sarah', the wife of Abraham, who was in turn the father of Ishmael by another woman."
"Ishmael... 'Call me Ishmael'?" Andy asked, wondering why a whale had anything to do with Arabia.
"The first line of that book is 'I am Ishmael'," Nasim corrected, turning on the oven. "Muslims are the spiritual descendants of Abraham by Ishmael. And you are wrong, there are only a few meats Muslims cannot eat. Yes, pork is one of them."
"Then why...?"
"I'm not exactly a... devout follower," Nasim muttered. "My father is. He would not be happy knowing what I am cooking right now."
"What is your father like?" Robin asked.
"He is a good man," Nasim said, pulling a skillet over the burner and cracking an egg into it. "A good Muslim."
"They aren't the same thing?" Robin asked.
"... Once they were. And they should be still," Nasim said, but he shook his head. "The fact is, prejudice makes people think that they aren't."
"Prejudice?" Robin asked. "Still from the Crusades?"
Andy felt uncomfortable but together, haltingly, she and Nasim managed to explain the events of 9/11 to Robin. He didn't quite understand certain things - airplanes and buildings that were as tall as mountains - but he understood death. He even began to cry silently as they told him. Nasim finished making their lunch and Andy looked away uncomfortably as Robin used his sleeve to dash the tears from his face.
"My father came to this country many years ago," Nasim said. "We are Americans. We are like many other Muslims, and many other Arabs who were not involved in the attacks, but have been discriminated against. My father... he is a godly man."
"He met my mother, took her to the movies," Nasim smiled slightly and shrugged. "They started to date. He wanted marriage, she wanted out. He didn't know why until I was born and he found out exactly who my mother was. After 9/11 she came around a lot more, taught me spells. It was she who took me to camp the first time."
Andy took a couple more pieces of bacon and began chewing on one. "Yeah, my dad met my mom in a cemetery," Andy said. "Should have known then, huh? He was at his uncle's funeral and stopped by my grandmother's grave afterwards. A young woman, wearing black and looking a lot like another mourner, was nearby at another grave. They... comforted each other. From what I understand, it was a one night stand."
"You know," Andy chuckled, leaning back in her chair. "I'd always assumed that mom stuck around, was there when I was little. Dad always told me she'd died. Well, not exactly. He said he met her in a cemetery and that's where she'd gone. So I assumed that meant she died. But I think he was trying to tell me something all along."
Robin got up and got them some toast and jam. When he sat back down, it was to find that Andy and Nasim were looking at him expectantly.
"Yes?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Dude, we're bonding," Andy rolled her eyes at him. "You know, telling each other stuff about ourselves."
"I... lived in a forest the past two hundred fifty years," Robin reminded her, still confused.
"Oh, come on!" Nasim said, taking a piece of bread. "I told you about my father, Andy told us about her father... what about your father?"
"Oh." Robin sat back. "His name was Robert Martin. I was named after him." The boy stood and made his way towards the steps.
"Woah, there!" Andy said. "Hold your horsies! Name is not enough."
"You didn't give your fathers' names," Robin pointed out.
"Amal Sameer," Nasim said immediately.
"Finn Tiber," Andy followed quickly.
"I don't know what else to say," Robin admitted. He lightly bounded up the steps and Andy could hear his footsteps grow softer.
"Maybe we shouldn't have asked," Nasim said.
"He lived with his mother," Andy remembered. "He probably never met his father. At any rate, Robert Martin probably died sometime around the Revolutionary War." She paused, biting her lip, "You know, I always thought that Robin was named after Robin Hood," she admitted.
"I thought he was named after Robin Goodfellow," Nasim admitted as well. "You know, Puck from 'Midsummer's Night Dream'."
"I guess neither of us were right," Andy said.
"Perhaps we both were right," Nasim suggested. "After all, Robin Hood was a very famous character, many stories were told about him. And Calliope loves oral traditions; the Odyssey and the Iliad were both stories passed on by word of mouth before being written down by Homer."
"Okay, I'm starting to get used to Robin saying stuff like that, but not you," Andy said, picking up the plates and moving towards the sink.
"Hecate's Roman name was Trivia," Nasim said proudly. "As in Trivial Pursuit."
"Wait, the Romans invented Trivial Pursuit?" Andy asked, washing up.
"No, but they invented trivia: random facts," Nasim shrugged. "So her children know some really weird tidbits of information."
"Helpful."
"Not always," Nasim said. "Most of the time, it's just random moments and random things."
A/N: Footnotes:
Celaeno: Queen of the Harpies. Robin is quoting the Aeneid, book 3.
Saracen: a term used (incorrectly) to describe the Muslims who had control of the Holy City in the time of the Crusades
"I am Ishmael": the first lines of the book Moby-Dick, which is about a whale
Trivia: The Greek goddess Hecate was often seen working spells at the crossing of three roads. In Latin, three roads are "tri-via", hence their name for the goddess: Trivia.
A note on American Muslims: I have quite a few friends who have felt persecuted after the events of 9-11. Certain aspects of Nasim's story (a rock through a store window, feeling like people hated him simply for being Arabic) are true stories taken from the experiences of my friends. Mr. Riordan never included and Arab-American, or a character with any Middle-Eastern ancestry, so I brought in Nasim.