The canoe dock was surprisingly quiet. I hadn't been at the camp for a long time and I'd been conscious and fully aware for even shorter, but I knew that this place could busy. Not the canoe dock, but camp itself. There were a lot of people there which seemed a little odd due to the concept that there have been two big wars in the past 15 years. That's what Freddy had told me, at least. But it was busy. I had nothing to compare it to, but if I had been through two wars in 15 years, I wouldn't be this…buzzing. Unfortunately, that was all I could think about as I was attempting to meditate for the first time in my life.
I laid there next to Lindsey for what seemed like an eternity before anything happened. I took a deep breath to try and renew my relaxation. Then I scratched my arm. And then my leg. And it seemed like the hardest thing for me to do was to meditate. Lindsey seemed to be doing just fine though. If meditation had a progress bar, hers would be flying along while mine would be frozen so long that you have to ctrl+alt+del and open the task manager. And then close it down and start over. She was visibly meditating. I don't know if that's a thing, but she was. Just looking at her made me calmer, but it still wasn't enough. After about 5 minutes of ventured silence, I finally cleared my throat.
"So…" I started, but she quickly put a finger up to hush me.
"You're so bad at this!" She said, sitting up. "It's like you can't sit still or shut up. Ever."
"That seems a bit harsh…" I said, sitting up and leaning my back against one of the dock posts.
"Okay. We started 5 minutes ago. The first minute, you hummed very quietly. The second minute, you spent adjusting to try and get more comfortable—"
"I was scratching my back!"
"The third minute you scratched your arm and your leg and your whole body. The fourth minute, you cleared your throat four dozen times. The fifth minute, you spent staring at me."
"I think it has been established that I suck at meditating." I said with a sigh.
"I didn't even know that was a thing. Meditating doesn't take anything and somehow you are unequipped." She said, reaching forward and grabbing my head and squeezing it. "Just calm down!" She said with a bit of a laugh, but her hands seemed to glow a soft pink and it was like everything disappeared. I wasn't asleep and I wasn't dead, but it was calm. There were no sounds. No itches. Nothing else. I closed my eyes quickly before the sensation went away and I tried to remember what it was like to control the fire. To feel the heat coursing through my body and I felt deep down inside me that same heat. Sitting in the pit of my stomach. It was like a pool that was simply waiting for me to draw from it. I kept going and went deeper and deeper until I felt Lindsey's hands move from my head and she gasped loudly and I was suddenly snapped back into reality.
"What just…"
"I don't know! I'm so so sorry!" She said, looking at her hands. I thought for a second then look down at my hand, a small ball of flame flickered to life in my palm and I smiled at it. I extinguished it then brought it back again and again, knowing that I could do it now. I didn't know what I had just gone through. If Lindsey had temporarily killed me or what, but she fixed my problem.
"Lindsey! Thank you! Thank you!" I said, standing up. "Don't touch me, though. Thanks." I said happily, but taking a step away from her. She put her hands behind her back.
"I don't know what just happened, Peter…"
"I know. It was weird, but I've got to go tell Jillian!" I said, turning to leave.
"Hey! Hello? Kind of having a personal crisis here?" She said, holding her hands up. "You're kind of the only person I know here."
"Umm…I'm kind of about to be sent on a quest where I face death. Sorry, but that takes priority. I'll talk to you later." I said before running back toward camp. I felt a little bad for not staying and helping Lindsey. Especially after what she had just done for me, but I needed to show Jillian and Walker that I wasn't completely useless. I should specify that I was useless in close quarters combat. I had my slingshot and now I had that fire control thing down sort of and outside of combat I brought a quick wit and a wide variety of cutting rhetoric. Like verbal weaponry. Sassitude +5.
I reached the mess hall and was about to walk straight to Jillian and Walker who I spied at the Ares table, surrounded by all of their scary looking siblings. I got in line instead and got a trayful of food before sitting down at the Hecate table. I was warmly jilted by Carl, Maddison, and Sophie who scooted a few inches away from me as I sat down.
"Whoa…New blood…" A guy at the end of the table stood and looked directly at me. He was covered in tattoos on his arms of varying symbols, some old looking, but others more familiar. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm…Peter." I said, raising an eyebrow at the sudden quiet that fell upon the table. "I'll be sleeping in the Hecate cabin for the foreseeable future."
"Oh, so you were claimed by our mom?" He asked, leaning over the table a little bit.
"Well, no, but…I'm sorry. Who are you?" I asked, casually eating my food. I wasn't scared of the guy. I didn't really have any reason to be. I had dealt with buttholes like him before and from what I could tell if you didn't act afraid then it would disarm them completely. "That Thai symbol on your elbow says chicken wings, by the way."
"These are spells! Magical spells! If you couldn't tell!" He said, reciting a word and waving his hand as my food turned to jell-o. I shrugged and continued to eat. The barbecue jell-o was kind of gross, but the apple tasted nice.
"Well, I'm not your brother, so I didn't know." I said with a shrug, taking a sip of Mountain Dew. "I don't know any of that…magicky, Harry-Pottery stuff." I say, waving my hand. The guy started walking toward me and I finally saw that the name on his necklace said Aarón.
"What are you doing here, then?" He said, looking menacingly at me. I rolled my eyes and then raised my hand, like I was stretching, but I coated my hands in fire. "Oh, right. I can do this though." I say, waving my hands in front of his face. He jumped backward like he thought I might injure him or something. He must have been the only one not afraid of me in Hecate cabin and now he was included with the rest of them. "I'm not going to hurt anybody and I imagine that we would get along just fine, but I can't get along with all of you, by myself. So until then, I will be feared." I say with a nod. "Now, can I have my food back to normal, please?" I said, looking down at my plate. A second later my food was food again and not jell-o. Though my strawberry jell-o was now just a strawberry. I nodded and then finished eating, the entire table silent.
"Peter, finish up. We need to talk." I turned around and found Walker and Jillian approaching me. I nodded and stood, grabbing my tray.
"Okay, guys. You may now resume your normal everyday functions and Carl, thank you for making eye contact with me for that one second. It really meant a lot to me. I feel like we have a connection, now." I said with a nod. The table remained silent. I turned away from them and took care of my dishes.
"That was…impressive." Walker said from behind me as we left the mess hall. "You've been here for that long and you've already got the whole cabin on red alert for you."
"Thanks, Walker. I get it." I said with a sigh.
"No, Peter. You don't know Walker very well. He actually is impressed." Jillian said quietly. I looked back at Walker who did seem genuinely impressed. I shrugged and looked at Jillian who looked more disappointed than anything, but she seemed hard to read. She always did. I wondered If that was a conscious effort or just a natural occurrence.
"Well, it's pretty obvious they're all scared of me, so until I can be seen as not scary then I will maintain this persona." I said, looking at Walker.
"Leadership through fear." Walker said, clapping his hands together. "You could learn something from that, Jillian." He said. Jillian turned to him, giving him a look that made it pretty obvious she was trying to make him explode.
"Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry." She recited, looking Walker in the eye. "Winston Churchill said that. Dictators. Get. Eaten. I will not lead the Ares cabin by fear." She said, turning toward the arena.
"Is there something going on in the Ares cabin?" I asked, following her. She stopped and turned to me.
"My cousin was a big deal in Ares cabin. She fought in the war. She slew a drakon. She was just an amazing warrior. She's gone now, raising a family, but when I came to camp, I became a shoe-in for head counselor by the mere fact that I was her cousin. So the previous counselor, Louis, just stepped down and I got the job. I've been doing it ever since I got here two years ago." She said, ending with a sigh. She clenched her fist and then turned toward the arena again. "Clarisse was hard. She was tough and she didn't let much slide. She was a strict leader, but during the war and after she met Chris she…softened and everyone knew. Not that she stopped caring or anything, but she wasn't as tough as she was."
"So, what's the problem?" I said, touching her arm.
"The problem is that our brother, Julian, is a real doucherocket." Walker said, his hands shoved in his pockets as he followed.
"Julian is preparing to challenge me to be head counselor." Jillian said with a sigh. "Which he has the right to do. He's been here longer and he already has people backing him up, believing that he will be a better leader than me for the sole reason that he promises to be strict and ruthless. Something that I refuse to be." She said, looking down at the ground.
"So, what happens when he challenges you?" I ask.
"A one on one fight. Between him and me." She said, walking to a wall and sitting down. "It'll be a tough and I think I can beat him, but it all doesn't matter if we succeed in this quest."
"Why? What's that matter?" I say, sitting down across from her.
"Someone can only challenge to be the head counselor if they have been at camp longer, are older, or have more quests under their belt than the current." Jillian explained, slipping her hand in her pocket and removing a toothpick which she stuck in her mouth. "Ares hasn't gotten a quest since Clarisse went to get the Golden Fleece."
"So, that means you have to be at the top of your game." Walker said, patting my arm.
"So, if we go on the quest and come back successfully, then you remain the head counselor, but if we go and fail…"
"Then we're most likely dead, making it unimportant, anyway." Walker said plainly. I look up at Jillian.
"That's why you need to be ready. You need to be able to fight, not only because of this, but because if you can't fight then one of us could get hurt." She said, her voice catching at the last moment, but it quickly went away.
"I'll be ready." I said with a nod. "I promise."