Mari woke up at sunrise.
She stretched, yawned and ran a hand through her hair. She was still wearing Drys as a bracelet. She was pretty sure somebody would have stolen the backpack had she not been using it as a very inadequate pillow. In fact, she was still pretty surprised that nobody had tried.
She was as quiet as possible as she left the cabin with her backpack in tow (Hermes was the god of thieves) and tiptoed along the rows of cabins. Drew had told her where everything was on the way to dinner, but she hadn't been given a tour.
They were all Ancient Greek style, with columns at the front and that weird roof art. But other than that they were completely unique. There were two huge cabins facing the others. Made of marble, they looked more like small temples than actual cabins. A few particularly stuck out.
One cabin was glowing. Well, kind of. Every time the sun hit it the cabin would light up, which made it difficult to miss. She hoped it wasn't like that on the inside, since she imagined its inhabitants would have to constantly wear sunglasses.
Another cabin looked like it was made entirely out of coral, but she might have been wrong since she was pretty sure coral couldn't survive on land. Then again it wouldn't be the weirdest thing she'd encountered.
The third cabin to catch her attention had an intricately carved owl on the door.
"Are you running away?" a voice asked.
She jumped three feet. That might have been over exaggerating. But she definitely jumped.
It was Luke Castellan. He had his hand on the closed door of the Hermes cabin as if he'd just stepped out.
"No, I-I was just going for a walk," she stammered.
"So was I. It's always good to get fresh air." Luke smiled but there was something cold in that smile. Like he was just going through the physical motions of grinning, but there was nothing behind it. Maybe it was just her imagination.
"I agree," Mari said.
"Glad to know it's just a walk. It would be a shame to lose another camper so fast. At least wait a few weeks to see if you get claimed."
Mari narrowed her eyes. He made it sound like they murdered unclaimed campers. They didn't actually murder unclaimed campers, right? "What do you mean 'lose another camper'?"
Luke sighed. "Sometimes kids who don't get claimed by their godly parent run away to try and prove themselves in the real world. They don't ever come back. I think the last one to leave was a girl called Adela García-Sánchez. That was a year ago. She was six."
Mari took back her previous assessment. His eyes did have something behind them. She didn't know what, but she realised it was something she felt more than saw, a horrible sensation in her nerves any time he spoke. It was as if she was being prickled with phantom pins, which kind of reminded her of those insane celebrities who went for stuff like needle therapy or vampire facials to make themselves look younger.
She clenched her muscles, trying to avoid looking like she was obviously in pain.
"And you said Adela García-Sánchez was also unclaimed?" Mari asked.
Luke nodded. "Most kids who run away are. Either that, or they're the child of a minor god or goddess. Every once in a while an Olympian kids runs, but that's usually when they have an impossible quest and want to die on their own terms."
Mari shuddered. "Oak..." She still couldn't really say his name without a painful pang in her chest, but it had only been a day. "Oak said camp was safe," she said.
Luke's entire demeanour changed, like he was putting on a mask. "Well, whatever happens, you'll always have someone to help you through it! We're like one big dysfunctional family here. And you'll be ok as long as you learn fast. Most do." There was nothing fake about his cheer this time, and if Mari hadn't just been talking to him and she didn't keep getting awful feelings around him, she probably would have been fooled.
But she wasn't. "I should go. I need to shower and stuff," she said. The fact that he was able to go from cold to friendly so fast freaked her out. She didn't really want to stick around to see what his next change in demeanour would be.
Luke nodded, waving goodbye. She walked slowly even though every instinct was screaming at her to sprint.
She hoped he wasn't offended, but he was slightly unnerving to talk to. Then she remembered what happened last time she didn't follow the freaky instincts. And who paid the price.
She wouldn't realise until much, much later that he hadn't been in the Hermes cabin at all that night.
Mari had kind of gotten into a routine.
She was still very new, so Chiron let her avoid capture the flag for the rest of the week until she was used to how life at Camp Half-Blood worked. She also suspected that the leniency might have had something to do with that way she had arrived.
But she'd been at camp for five days and it was Monday. The start of a new week. She might have woken up three times the night before from remembering Oak's death in very vivid imagery, but that didn't mean monsters would give her a break.
She actually needed to train to continue being alive, and it was starting to piss her off.
Lizzie gave her armour that didn't quite fit (the armholes were too big) and led her to a clearing in the middle of the woods. The Hermes cabin was partnered with the Athena, Aphrodite and Apollo cabins.
Mari almost laughed when she heard that, since the initials of all four cabins spelled out HAAA, but she didn't say that out loud since it was probably stupid ten year old humour, as Jean used to tell her.
The aim was to get the enemy flag across the border of your 'area' without being caught, and to avoid having your own flag stolen. Chiron walked between the two groups bases to check how things were going. Mari didn't know how he stopped getting campers to follow him, but that could have been a centaur thing. One with nature and all that. Mr. D was probably somewhere in the big house, drowning in a puddle of diet coke. Or wine if Zeus was distracted.
"Everybody, the Aphrodite cabin will be guarding the flag," the head Athena counsellor announced.
Mari and Drew looked at each other sadly from across the clearing. They'd hung out a few times over the last week, and Drew had suggested grouping together for Mari's first capture the flag. That plan was out now if Drew had to stand guard.
"I want all of you in groups of two, or if you're younger three. Go out and look for the other flag but stay with your group. If you find the other team's flag, don't go for it. Wait until you see other members of our team. Two or three of you won't be able to do this on your own. Try to use your wits to distract the enemy. If you can."
That last part was directed at three Hermes campers, who were trying to use each other as a ladder to climb a tree instead of listening. Mari was glad she hadn't joined them, even though she'd thought it looked fun.
She looked around for a partner and spotted Mason Ray on his own. She skipped over to him and shook his elbow.
"Can I go with you?" she asked. She used her best puppy dog eyes, since she was a scrawny ten-year-old and he probably had his own friends.
It seemed to work. "Sure, I'm sure we can find someone-"
"Hey, room for one more?" a voice called from a few yards away.
Despite the hot summer day, Mari felt like she'd just been shoved into a tub of ice water. And snakes.
Luke Castellan jogged over and Mason grinned. "Sure, man! Mari won't mind, do you, Mari?" He looked at her.
"...No." Mari choked. Mason didn't notice, but Luke shot her a confused look. She wanted to kick herself for being so obvious.
"Well, let's go find ourselves an enemy flag!" Luke grinned, which sent chills down her spine. That was probably the opposite of the desired effect.
They headed into the woods, leaving the flag behind with the Aphrodite cabin (which she wasn't very upset about since the counsellor looked like she knew sixteen different ways to kill her with an eyebrow pencil and not get caught).
"So, where do you guys think they have the flag?" Mari asked.
Luke shrugged. "No idea, but the Ares cabin are loud. If Georgina is right then we should hear them before we see them."
"Who's Georgina?" Mari asked.
"The head counsellor of the Aphrodite cabin," Mason explained.
Mari nodded. Her heart skipped a beat, not because of anything Luke related this time. She had her same feeling again, and it was telling her to go left. "Wait! We need to head past that gap in the trees, with the orange and pink flowers." She pointed.
Luke raised an eyebrow at her. "That's back towards camp. The game has to stay in the woods," he said.
Mari shook her head. "No, you don't understand. We have to or we could lose." She stood where she was and stomped her foot for extra dramatic effect.
Mason shrugged. "I don't see why we can't go along the edge of the woods."
Luke nodded. "If it means that much to you, but we're not going to find anything."
They headed left, and Mari skipped along between them, trying to ignore the knocking in her chest and icy feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she looked at Luke. It was like she was being dunked in water that was first cold, then boiling hot, at such a quick pace that her skin didn't know what temperature it wanted. But she was still breaking into a sweat.
No. She wasn't going to let herself think about this.
When they got close enough to the tree line to notice the cabins, Mason grabbed her shoulder to stop her, and Luke began to turn around. "Okay, we're here. There's nothing. We should find a trail or something. We might be able to spot enemy footprints and follow them back to the other team's flag."
"No, we have to follow the tree line! Please, trust me. Please." Mari turned to Mason. "Please. You trust me, right?" She did her best to look adorable and innocent, hoping she didn't mess up and look like she really needed to pee instead.
"C'mon Luke," Mason said. "It doesn't matter that much. Just for a few minutes."
Mari grinned, proud of herself. Luke rolled his eyes but it looked like he was secretly suppressing a grin. That grin didn't make Mari feel any better around him.
"I guess a few minutes wouldn't hurt," he agreed.
Mason led them along the edge of the woods, and Mari played with the fabric of her bracelet. They'd listened to her, and they both seemed like experienced campers. If she could persuade them to listen to her instincts, why had she failed with Oak? She hadn't been able to save him. She wouldn't ever be able to change that.
She didn't even have the comfort that he would be in Elysium, since he was a Satyr. He'd be that Poppy for the rest of time, or until it died and his life went back into the soil. And she knew that if he had been a demigod, he would have gone to Elysium. He was a hero.
"...just saying, this is a bad idea." The voice came from up ahead.
Luke somehow managed to silently dive behind a rock and Mason pulled Mari behind a tree trunk.
"It's so not! Look, everyone will be on the other side of the woods by now, looking for the flag. If we can sneak it past their camp and get back without being noticed, then they won't know to look on the other side of their own territory."
Mari frowned. That was actually a decent plan. She'd file that away for later.
"We'll get caught!" the first voice hissed. There was a scoff in response. Or at least what Mari thought was a scoff. It also could have been a very weird burp. "We won't. They won't be expecting this."
"That's because they won't be expecting us to essentially throw them the game! Come on, let's just give the flag back."
Mari froze. Two members of the other team had the flag, alone. She had been right. She had been right. She had been right and she had led them to the flag with her-
With her what? She still didn't have an answer to that one.
She noticed Luke gesturing to Mason, folding his fingers down silently.
Three...
Mari pointed to herself, trying to ask soundlessly, 'What do I do?' Luke tapped his wrist and she looked at her own hand. Drys. She nearly groaned. Luke wanted her to fight with him when the idea of sleeping in the same room as him make her feel like she'd just been hit by a truck.
Mari steeled herself and nodded.
Two...
Mason squeezed her shoulder to reassure her.
One...
Luke gave the thumbs up, and they charged.
The two people in the clearing were closer to Mason and Luke in age, one with short red hair and a leather jacket over his camp shirt, and the other with blonde hair in a ponytail and a red flag draped across his back like a beach towel.
It was three against one. And Mason, Luke and Mari had the element of surprise. It was over in less than a minute. Probably less than half, actually.
Mason grabbed the one with a shield and double axe and and kicked him in the face, not even bothering to use any weapons. The camper crumpled to the ground in pain.
The other one tried to run with the flag but Mari leaped onto his back and refused to let go, like those fish things that cling to rocks. Limpets.
She wrapped a part of the flag around her wrist and held on while Mason grabbed the poor guy's hands and Luke brandished his sword at him.
"Sorry about this," Mari said. She wasn't trying to quip for once. She did actually feel bad. The guy had probably just wanted to impress his cabin and now he had cost them the game. As if to confirm her thoughts, the guy let out a stream of curses worthy of some of the men that used to loiter outside of one of the local pubs back in Trowbridge.
"Hey, not in front of the ten-year-old!" Mason warned the guy.
Mari decided to try and get him off the hook. "Fuck!" she said cheerfully.
"See? One sentence and she's already remembered the f word. Chiron is going to flay us alive and let the harpies make us into soup. You know how he feels about teaching kids to swear." Well, that was the opposite of what she'd been hoping for.
Mari jumped off the guy's back and onto the soft earthy floor. She even got the landing right (not some kind of complicated gymnastics, she just managed not to trip).
Mason and Luke tied the guy to a tree branch with his knocked-out friend and patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks, dude! Really appreciate it," said Mason with a grin. Mari half-heartedly waved as Mason led her away.
"Hey! Those kids have the flag!" the one they had tied up screamed. Crap, they forgot to gag him. They were idiots.
They took off running as more shouts were heard a few feet away and footsteps (or stomps, they sounded angry) crashed through the plants towards them. Mari wasn't as fast as the other two, so Mason slung her, flag and all, over his shoulders and took off.
Mari laughed. She was sure that her eyes were full of barely controllable glee. "Giddy up, horsey!" she shrieked. Mason laughed as he ran with both of them. For a second, she even forgot Luke existed. It was a nice second.
"C'mon, just a little further..." Mason panted from carrying both of them. Whoever was chasing them was gaining on them, fast. Mari hoped it was someone on their team, but if her life decided to follow its usual trend of giving her the middle finger in the face, then it was probably someone from the other team.
"We're not going to make it!" She was right. They were nearly ten meters away from their base and the other team was getting closer and closer to them.
Mari made a split-second decision and gathered the flag in her hands like a football. "Georgina!" she called. The older girl looked at her suspiciously. "Can you catch?" Mari asked.
She didn't give Georgina a chance to answer, but hurled the ball as far as she could and watched in amazement as it sailed right into Georgina's waiting hands.
"Yes!" Mari cheered as Georgina sprinted to the middle of their base, and stood waving around the flag and grinning. Chiron reached the clearing. He looked at Georgina with the enemy flag and blew his horn to signal the end of the game. The flag shimmered and went from red to silver with a Caduceus in the middle. When she'd first been told what a Caduceus was, she'd kept calling it a cactus instead.
"Interesting. Capture the Flag usually takes an hour at least. We haven't been playing for more than twenty minutes. How did it end so quickly?"
Mason reached the clearing a few seconds after Luke, and Mari heard panting breaths as the people chasing them stopped at the edge of the territory in defeat.
"How about you ask Mari? She somehow knew exactly where to go to find the flag." Luke narrowed his eyes at her, and she slid off Mason's back, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the clearing (Luke).
"Hm. Child, have you been taking any tracking lessons?" Chiron asked her.
Mari shook her head. "N-no... I just had a feeling." She admitted this sheepishly, rubbing her hand up and down her arm to try and distract attention.
Chiron nodded. "What feeling? What did it feel like?"
Mari gulped. "I can't really explain it... I guess you could say it's kind of like a knocking in my chest, but also not. I've been calling it the knocking in my head ,though."
"You've been calling it that? Marion, does this knocking happen regularly?" Chiron asked her.
Mari nodded. "Yeah, kind of... since I found about about this whole demigod thing, that is."
Chiron was about to say something else, when the clearing filled with a soft golden light. Mari's hands warmed up, even though it was already hot outside. The little spaces in between her fingers started to get sweaty.
The banner in Georgina's hands shimmered again, this time changing from silver to golden with the image of a lyre in the centre. In a couple of trees, owls started hooting, which Mari thought was weird since it wasn't dark yet and she was pretty sure owls were nocturnal.
She looked up to see Mason grinning at her, and a movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention. A seven year old girl who somehow looked even scarier than Georgina, with blonde hair, grey eyes and a navy blue baseball cap hanging from her belt nudged Luke. "I told you," Mari heard her whisper.
Mari lifted her abnormally warm hands so that they were in her direct eyeline.
They were glowing.
She looked back up and everybody was kneeling in front of her. She put her hands to her mouth and instinctively took them away, thinking they might burn her but they didn't.
Drew had told her that this was tradition. That everybody bowed when a new camper was...
When a new camper was claimed.
Her glowy hands were back over her mouth again in shock.
Chiron smiled. "Hail Marion Carter. Daughter of Apollo, God of the Sun, archery, music, healing, poetry and prophecy. Legacy of Athena, goddess of strategy in warfare, wisdom, and reason."
Hey, so I'm not going to make Mari overpowered because she's a legacy as well. She's not going to get any powers from Athena (apart from a mild fear of spiders, but that's not very helpful).