A Touch of Destiny

by Lady Dawson

Chapter Four: First Battle

The next few days were some of the happiest of my life and some of the miserable. I was happy because I was finally somewhere where I belonged, somewhere with others that were just like me, and I liked Camp Half-Blood. It was amazing and I liked learning how to use weapons that nobody used anymore. Granted, I was still horrible at using a sword and was proving to be hopeless at it and hand-to-hand combat wasn't exactly my forte, but archery I was really good at.

Stefan kept his promise and helped me find a better sword for me, but I was still pretty bad at sword fighting. My new sword was light and straight, fitting easily into my hand. It was easier to use this sword and I was a little bit better with this one, but even then, I wasn't very skilled.

And the reason why I was so miserable? Well, I think you can pretty much guess why. I felt guilty about being happy when my dad was gone and the fact that my dad was gone meant that I no longer had a home outside of this camp. I knew Dad would want me to be happy, but he had been gone for less than a week. It felt like I was betraying his memory somehow.

Mom still remained a mystery to me, not even bothering to send me a sign to tell me who she was, but maybe she was waiting for something. I didn't want to think that she wasn't sending me a sign because she simply didn't care. That couldn't be it.

But other than that, I was having the time of my life. Stefan, who was proficient in ancient Greek, tutored me during our free time, helping me to learn the language that was supposed to be my natural language, but while I could understand it somewhat, it was just as hard as English was.

But it wasn't until Friday, when we had a game of Capture the Flag, that anything out of the ordinary—I know how strange that sounds, but what I mean is out of the ordinary for camp—happened. I wasn't sure exactly what to do, so I stuck close to Stefan, who had been here for a few years, as the teams were split up. Thankfully, the Athena team was sided with the Hermes one, so he kept me under his wing.

"Keep a close watch out for the Ares campers," he warned me, but I didn't need the warning. All of them were big and mean-looking. One guy in particular looked like he had just hopped off of a biker gang before he came here, complete with tattoos and piercings, some of them in places that made me shudder, wondering why he would put himself through that torture to begin with. "They're the best fighters, but they don't have much in the way of brains."

"In other words, keep my wits and use it against them?" I suggested. Stefan grinned.

"Exactly," he said, nodding. "You stay with Caroline on defence. Don't let anybody get to that flag," he warned me, nodding towards the blue flag that Caroline, one of his sisters, was guarding with about five others. "Don't worry, she'll look after you."

I did as I was told, seeing as I wasn't sure what exactly I was supposed to do, and kept my bow and arrow at the ready, waiting for the red team to come anywhere near us.

To be honest, I was really hoping that I wasn't going to have to get into a fight. For one, I wasn't anywhere near ready for a fight . . . well, not to the death, since Chiron said that deliberately injuring somebody was against the rules, but definitely not ready for any kind of battle, even if it was just pretend, just training. And for another . . . those Ares kids were really big and really scary.

Unfortunately, wishes were definitely not horses today, because a bunch of the Ares campers came plunging out of nowhere, as it they had heard my hopes and decided that they wanted to smash them then and now by coming straight for us.

"Swordsmen, to the front!" Caroline yelled. "Archers, at the ready!" she shouted to all of us that had bows.

The swordsmen and women moved to the front to shield the archers from and upcoming attack while we pulled our arrows back, finding a target and releasing them, being careful not to hit anyone in any critical areas that would only suffice in killing them. I managed to down one of them, but another of the Ares campers, a big girl with a lot of muscle, singled me out and launched a full out attack at me, though Valentine from the Aphrodite cabin tried to block her, but Valentine wasn't much of a fighter. Like the rest of her cabin, she was very beautiful and good on the gossip and stuff, but she wasn't a fighter, again, like the rest of her cabin.

I ducked underneath the girl's sword, using my bow to hit her in the face, managing to make a direct hit. She hissed at me, looking very annoyed as I jumped backwards, springing off of my hands and landing on my feet a few feet away, grasping an arrow and pointing it directly at the girl—Nichole, I think her name was—who sneered.

"Pretty good at that bow," she said offhandedly as she circled around me. "Personally, I think that anybody who prefers archery is just a coward. Not good enough to get right into the fight, preferring to just stay as far away from it as possible, staying a good safe distance away. Isn't that right, new girl?" she taunted me. "You don't much like using that sword, do you?"

I'll admit it; I was pretty peeved. "What's it matter what kind of weapon I like?" I snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of fighting with a sword."

"Prove it," she countered, moving in and I automatically took a step back. "Scared of me, aren't you, new girl? Come on," she said invitingly. "Let's see what you're made of."

My temper got the better of me and I shoved my bow and arrow back into my quiver, pulling out the sword that Stefan had gotten for me, holding it defensively in front of me, my mind working through all of the training that Stefan had gone through, trying everything and anything that I could think of to stay alive, because at that moment, this didn't feel like training; it actually felt like a fight to the death.

There was clashing of swords all around me and Nichole as we circled around each other. I could hear them, but I kept my gaze on her, not willing to remove my gaze from her. My heart was pounding in my chest in fear, but I refused to let it show on my face, keeping it still and impassive as we moved in a circle.

You know how in movies, when two characters are about to face off, you hear that foreboding music in the background, warning you that something bad is gonna happen? Well, I could have sworn that I heard something like that as Nichole and I were getting ready to fight.

She made the first move. Letting out a battle cry that would have made a lion proud, she lunged forward, shoving her sword straight at me. I moved, pushing my own in between us to prevent myself from getting slashed and moving as fast as I could, using the old gymnastics techniques to get out of the way as soon as I could and leap to avoid her sword.

There was no way that I was going to defeat her in battle. Nichole was the daughter of the god of war. I had no idea who I was, but I was no good at sword fighting. This was going to end very badly for me, possibly ending up with my in a hospital bed for six months. Three, tops.

"Stop jumping around, you little freak!" she shrieked, her brown eyes dangerous as she slashed at my arm that was holding my sword. I let out a sharp cry as I dropped it, gripping my arm that was now bleeding before glancing around for my sword, laying a few feet away.

Now that I was disarmed, Nichole moved fast to kick my leg, sending a sharp pain through it. She might not be all that smart, but she made up for that in strength.

Smart . . .

What was it that Stefan had told me? I thought frantically, trying to remember our conversation before the game had started.

"They're the best fighters, but they don't have much in the way of brains."

I glanced up just before Nichole slashed me through the ribs, moving sideways and flipping twice, somersaulting over her and landing on my feet, running for my sword, but it was conveniently stuck between two rocks and I couldn't pull it out. Looking around at Nichole, I desperately tried to come up with a plan and fast.

"It looks like I win this round," Nichole said, grinning as I snatched my bow out of my hand, an idea forming in my mind as I studied her attack position and the way she had parried earlier. As she lunged for me, I made my decision, moving sideways as she thrust her sword through my bow and I used it to knock the sword out of her hand and kicked her backwards; she stumbled and fell backwards as her sword sailed through the air and I caught it with my left hand.

I heard a few gasps of surprise coming from around me, but I didn't turn around to look at the other campers as I pointed the sword at Nichole. Her brown eyes were wide with shock and a mixture of fear and disbelief, her mouth open and outraged, but she didn't move.

"Get up," I told her, my breath heavier than usual. The battle had taken more out of me than I had expected, but I hadn't realised until that moment that the game was over. Stefan, along with one of his brothers and a couple Apollo campers, had snuck around the line and had captured the red flag while Nichole and I were battling and almost everybody had crowded around us to watch the fight, curious as to how it would play out.

I don't think that Nichole was going to like me very much after this, I thought tiredly as I tossed her sword onto the ground next to her. Her siblings looked like they were going to give her a lot of grief about getting her butt kicked by a girl who was at least two years younger than she was and half her size.

Actually, that wasn't the only thing that they were going to tease her mercilessly about, because something happened just as I moved through the crowd and managed to pry my sword from between the rocks.

Just as I managed to pry it loose, I heard another gasp and looked around for the source of the noise, which was one of the Hermes campers named Clara. She wasn't the only one who was staring at me, though; everybody was . . . staring at something above my head and I looked up for the source of the disturbance.

Floating above my head, rotating in a perfect circle was a pink dove, circling perfectly directly above me. I didn't know what was happening at first, until someone called, "She's been claimed!"

"Daughter of Aphrodite," Alexia said, clearly looking astonished. I didn't really blame her; that was probably the last thing that anybody expected, because none of the Aphrodite campers were really good fighters.

I was speechless and my gaze was completely fastened on the pink dove that was still radiating above me, but was slowly beginning to vanish until there was nothing left and I was left standing there with the entire camp staring at me until Valentine, the counsellor for the Aphrodite cabin, came up with a broad smile on her face, clasping my shoulders tightly and beaming at me.

"We have a new little sister!" she said, her smile so wide that it was almost contagious. The rest of the Aphrodite campers—my brothers and my sisters, I realised with a jolt—all cheered as they swarmed around me, all of them eager to pull me towards their cabin.

Overwhelmed by their overzealousness, I spotted Stefan through the crowd, standing by the red flag and holding it with an amused look on his face as he was watching me, grinning wildly.

"Help!" I mouthed at him, but he just grinned even more wildly as I was pulled towards my new cabin.

The next couple of hours was made up of Valentine showing me where I could put all of my stuff—my suitcase was brought a few hours later by Eli, who congratulated me on being claimed—and where my new bunk was. Like everything else, the blankets were a bright, vivid pink and were shiny and sparkly. There were frills and bows everywhere and I almost gagged at the massive amount of perfume that filtered through the air.

Instead, I just thanked Valentine as I pushed my suitcase under my bunk, hanging my bow and arrows on the head of my bunk. A few of my sisters kept trying to pull me into the girls' bathroom and give me a makeover, but I managed to elude them several times before dinner was called.

It wasn't that I really had a problem with makeovers; if girls—or guys—want to completely change their appearance and fuss over it and whatnot, that was fine by me. That was their priority. But I was perfectly fine with the way that I looked and I didn't like fussy over it the way that my siblings did. And I preferred art to shopping and when I did go shopping, it wasn't overabundant and it was usually for artsy stuff.

But my siblings were way too excited to have a new sister to even notice about any of that. They didn't really care, to be honest, though they were a bit put off that I wasn't a really traditional Aphrodite girl.

Still, it was hard to get them all to calm down enough to go to sleep when lights out came and went and even with darkness hovering around us, I could still hear them whispering excitedly and it took several hours for the chatter to down die enough so that I could go to sleep.

But I went to sleep with a smile on my face; I knew who I was. My mother had reached out and claimed me.

I was a daughter of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.