"Gods, Sash, I warned you you'd fall!" Jonathan told her for what seemed the hundredth time. Of course, Sasha owed him her life, so she figured she'd just let him rant until he was done, but she was seriously growing agitated. "I know, and I already said sorry, and I already said thanks, and I already said I won't do it again." She said, exasperated, and Jonathan sighed. "You know I'm pretty sure you broke your arm when it smashed into Daisy's back," He warned her, and Sasha cringed. When Jonathan had seen Sasha falling, he'd shot down to catch him on Daisy, his Pegasus, so she wouldn't smash against the ground like a pancake. Unfortunately, she'd landed on the horse's spine and her arm had shattered like glass. Even the smallest of movement sent a searing pain up her veins, and she bit down on her lip. "Guess it serves you right though." Jonathan said, beginning to wrap a bandage around her arm. Sasha rolled her eyes and winced as he finished with the bandages and moved on to the cast. "So how long do I leave this on?" She asked, already dreading the next few months. "Around a week or two. See, we've been working on this thing where we dip the bandages in nectar to heal the wound faster." He said, and Sasha raised an eyebrow, shocked, but said nothing. "There," Jonathan said, stepping back to admire his work, "Damn, I'm good."

Sasha assumed demigods didn't usually break their bones, because everyone kept shooting her odd looks. Unaffected, Jonathan led Sasha over to the archery range. This wasn't the first time Sasha'd used a bow and arrow, but the cast was a pain. In fact, after several attempts, they decided archery was out of the question until Sasha's cast was removed. Obviously annoyed, Jonathan took her to the sparring range. Since her right arm was broken and Sasha was left-handed, Jonathan figured they'd give it a shot. He handed her a basic sword, telling her to test it out. "You have to feel comfortable with your weapon, it has to feel so natural it's like an extension of your own arm." He told her. She took it, and her whole arm was weighed down. "Damn that's heavy!" She said, kicking it aside, and Jonathan snickered.
"I know."
"Then why did you—ugh forget it."
Jonathan laughed, picking up the sword and placing it back against the wall, grabbing another.
"Try this."
This one was more slender, with edges that curved inward like a rainbow, giving the point a shape similar to a diamond. The pommel of the hilt was shaped like a crescent moon overlapping the sun, the moon gleaming silver and the sun gold, while the blade itself was a bronze identical to the previous weapon.
"The metal used to forge the weapons is called celestial bronze," Jonathan said, answering her unvoiced question, "demigods use it to kill monsters or other immortal beings. There are other types of metals that work to, but celestial bronze is the most common and most affective."
"You can kill gods?" Sasha asked, weighing the weapon in her hand.
"No, but you can banish them to Tartarus for a time. Monsters, too."
"Oh." She swung the weapon, and Jonathan ducked with a yelp. None too soon, either. Had he been a split second later, Sasha would've sliced his head off clean. She dropped the weapon, her mouth forming an O, bending down to kneel beside him.
"Sorry! Oh Gods, I'm so sorry! I swear I was just testing it out. Oh my Gods, are you okay? Please say you're okay. Jonathan?"
He laughed, smirked at her, and stood up. He offered her his hand.
"Sasha, you didn't even hit me." He said, smiling.
She sighed. "Well, this one's too slippery a grip."
Jonathan beamed. "Awesome. Try this," he said, handing her a different kind of weapon. This one was also a sword, but more imposing. To her eyes, it looked like a bulky, imposing chunk of metal that had been sharpened to a point. She warily took it in her hand, slightly surprised it wasn't so heavy she dropped it like the other. It balanced well in her hand. The hilt was intricately carved with a design like fire, and a dark purple stone was set in the pommel. The cross-guard was curved up, twirling into delicate vines. She regarded the weapon carefully, aware that the blade of this sword was a shining black.
"This doesn't look like celestial bronze to me," Sasha noted, averting her gaze to the boy.
"That's 'cause it isn't. Stygian iron is the type of metal children of Hades and the other gods down in the Underworld use mostly. It's like a boost for their talents, it can make them stronger."
"So you want to see how I react to it to see if my dad's a god of the Underworld, basically?"
Jonathan shrugged. "In a nutshell."
She nodded and turned to face one of the practice dummies, and swung. It hit the dummy so that if she'd been battling an actual person, she'd have sliced them in half, from the torso up. As it was, the impact was so powerful it felt like all the bones in Sasha's arm were shattering. Then the broken feeling was gone, replaced with fire. Burning, agonizing fire. She gasped, releasing her grip of the weapon. As soon as it fell from her hand, all pain ceased to a numb throbbing.
"Well," Jonathan said, "I guess that answers that."

At some point Jonathan and Percy swapped places, so that Percy was trying to help her learn to fight and use a weapon. They'd decided on a basic training sword for now, and Percy was showing her some beginning maneuvers. Annabeth sat aside, her expression slightly amused as Percy attempted to teach her how to parry a block. Eventually, Annabeth decided to come to Sasha's rescue and relieve her of Percy's horrible teaching.
"Percy, remind me to tell you you'd make a horrible teacher" She told him with a smirk.
He scowled. "You'd be a perfect teacher. You're cranky, uptight, and everything has to be perfect with you." He muttered.
"Well that's complimenting yourself, since you are my boyfriend."
"Hey, you only pick the best."
"Oh whatever" She mumbled, giggling.
Turning to face Sasha, her expression grew serious. "Alright, let's start from the very beginning."
The next couple hours they spent sparring, and all three of them were drenched in sweat by the time they'd finished. Percy and Annabeth walked her over to the Hermes cabin, which was a run-down log cabin packed with crazy kids, and introduced her to Travis and Connor Stoll, Hermes' co-councilors. They stole a camp tee shirt and some shorts from the camp store for her, and she showered and changed before they made their way down to dinner. At the dining pavilion, the Stolls showed her that she needed to scrape some of her meal into the brazier for the Gods. Settled down at the crowded table, Sasha sat next to Ryan, who seemed to have already made friends with everyone. They were all joking and laughing, and Sasha just sat there, awkwardly picking at her plate.
"Boo," a voice behind her whispered, and she jumped, dropping her fork so it clattered against her plate. Ryan raised an eyebrow and smirked, then turned to say something to the other campers, no doubt something funny at her expense. She turned to looks behind her, and raised her eyebrows when she saw nothing but the dark of the night outside the pavilion. Shaking her head, she turned back to her meal, her cheeks growing hot.
"Sasha, it's rude to ignore people," the same mocking voice whispered into her ear, and she set her jaw, stood, turned, and lightly punched the speaker in the shoulder.
"Damn you Nico" She hissed, and he laughed in response.
"What do you want?" She asked, more venom in her tone than intended. She turned back to the table to see Ryan and the rest of the table watching them and placing bets. Sighing out of exasperation, she marched off towards the woods, Nico following a few paces behind her.
"You know you didn't have to punch me," he said, breaking the silence. They'd stopped some ways into the woods and all lights from the camp had faded, so that now it was mostly dark. Crickets chirped, filling the air with noise. Nico moved toward her, and she could just make out the outline of his black hair. Suddenly, light burst into her vision, just around Nico's hand. As it turned out, he had a flashlight. She shrugged.
"It seemed fitting at the time." She said, and he narrowed his eyes.
"Really? Punching me?"
"Oh stop being a sissy, I barely touched you."
He beamed. "I know. So how are you? I heard you were let out, then you show up at dinner with a cast? I don't remember you breaking your arm."
She averted her gaze so she wasn't looking at him.
"I fell off a Pegasus."
"I was told you fell off Hurricane."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I fell off Hurricane, even though Jonathan warned me not to ride him. I broke my arm because when he caught me out of mid-air, after Hurricane had knocked me off, on his horse's back I landed on it too hard." She explained, and he nodded.
"Get well soon." He said simply, no emotion or sincerity in his voice, and Sasha rolled her eyes.
"Thank you." She muttered, also without any true meaning to the words. She waited for him to say more, but when it was obvious that he wasn't going to, she shoved her hands in her pockets and retraced her steps, making her way, through the dark, back towards the rest of camp.

After dinner Ryan pulled Sasha aside, while all the rest of the camp made their way to the amphitheater for the 'sing-along session of doom', as Percy had put it.
"Can I help you?" Sasha asked, her irritation dripping in her tone. Her brother was always annoying, and Sasha found it even more annoying whenever he made her a laughing stock in front of a bunch of strangers. Which was very often.
"Woah, chill it sis" He said, spitting out the word like he did whenever he was truly, utterly annoyed with her. She raised an eyebrow.
"What did I do to you?" She asked, still irritated but also confused.
"You go off into the woods at night, in the middle of dinner, to make out with the freak in camp?"
She stared at her brother, bewildered. "WHAT!?" She asked, her mind blown to little pieces and scattered around like dust.
"Well duh! What the hell's wrong with you? And why, oh dear gods why, do you have to be my sister?"
Sasha glared at him, rage boiling up inside her. "For your information, you ass hole, we didn't make out. We didn't even talk, alright? Second off, there's nothing wrong with me other than the fact that I have your sorry ass for a brother. A shitty brother, I might add. Oh, and it isn't all that great to be known as your sister, I figured you should know." She snapped. She whirled to walk away, then, almost instinctively, turned back and slapped him across the cheek before storming off.

The fact that she couldn't avoid her brother forever was the most annoying truth in Sasha's life. In reality, she only had a couple hours until he came back to the Hermes cabin with the rest of the campers. She decided to just completely ignore him. Which she assumed wouldn't be hard, since if she had to guess, she'd say he'd be trying to avoid her too. When the campers began to arrive from the amphitheater, she curled up into a random bed and pretended to be asleep, since with all the noise the kids made it was impossible to actually dose off.
"Aw man! She passed out in my bed!" One kid whined, and Sasha assumed he was talking about her.
"Get over it dude," Connor said dismissively, and Sasha heard the other boy sigh.
"Whatever. As long as her and death-freak don't make out on it, I'm good."
It took all of Sasha's will power not to get up out of that bed and punch the speaker in the nose so hard she'd break it. 'Calm down, beat the shit out of him tomorrow' She told herself. She was so shocked she nearly opened her eyes to make sure her ears weren't deceiving her when she heard Ryan defend her.
"Shut up Blake, they didn't even make out."
"Dude you're the one who said they were both into each other."
"Are you blind? Do you not see the red mark on my cheek? She slapped me, you asshole, and when she finds out you're talking shit about her behind her back, I suggest you run for your freaking useless little life."
Sasha heard some snickers from some of the other campers, and she resisted the urge to smile.
"Whatever man, you're a freak just like your sister."
At this, Sasha opened her eyes, ready to beat the punk to a pulp, when she saw Ryan had already punched him in the gut, and was cussing him out so bad Sasha wondered what their mom would do if she'd heard him. Probably wash his mouth out with soap countless times, she assumed. She slowly, gracefully, made her way over to her brother and Blake. When her brother saw her, his voice trailed off and he stood aside for her, obviously curious as to what she was planning. She glared down at the sorry excuse for a demigod on the ground and smiled.
"You're bed? Mine. You ever even look at me again and I'll slap you 'till you're bleeding. You ever say one word about me or my brother again, and I'll make you suffer so badly you'll wish you were dead. Understood?"
Blake nodded hastily and she smiled sweetly, kicking him in the gut before turning around to face the rest of the campers. A lot of them were laughing at Blake and staring at her oddly, as if they didn't know whether to respect her or fear her. Ryan smiled and came up to whisper in her ear.
"It's so obvious you're bluffing," He said, and she laughed.
"If they couldn't tell, I'm doing a good job at hiding it." She said, before saying goodnight to him, Travis, and Connor, and falling into her bed, exhausted.