Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Character ages in this chapter:
Michael - 16
Kayla - 11

5) Kayla

"Ow!"

The cry came at the same time as the deadened sound of a string not releasing true, and Michael whirled around in alarm in time to see Kayla's arrow bury itself in the white of the target she'd been aiming at.

Kayla never hit white. Not unless it was on purpose.

"What happened?" he asked, hurrying the few steps from his own mark on the line to his youngest sister. There were tears in her eyes, light blue threatening to drown as Kayla sniffled. She didn't look hurt – a glance at her fingertips told him her tab was still firmly in place and there was no tell-tale red welt on her arm from a slap from the string – but she wouldn't be on the cusp of crying if she wasn't hurt somewhere.

She wiped at her eyes with her bare wrist, only succeeding in making her eyes water more, before the hand not gripping her riser with white knuckles tugged at her vibrantly-dyed hair. The accompanying wince told Michael that the action hurt, and he cursed, setting his bow down on the nearest stand. "Hey, stop that."

"It got caught up," Kayla sobbed. Her grip on her own bow slackened, and Michael grabbed onto it, coaxing it out of her grip and placing it on its own stand, Greek Fire-green to match both her riser and her hair. The younger girl rubbed at her temple with both hands, now that they were free. "I knew it was getting longer but I thought it was still short enough!" Her hands curled up into fists, starting to entangle themselves in her hair, and Michael gripped her wrists tightly, detangling her fingers from the green strands before she could hurt herself any more.

She was right that her hair was getting a bit longer; it still wasn't as long as Michael's, but it was starting to fall noticeably past her chin. Michael cursed himself for not noticing the risk, although in his defence, Kayla had been fine yesterday, and hair didn't grow that fast. It must have been a puff of wind or something that had pushed her hair forwards enough to get caught up in the twist of her bowstring.

"I need a haircut," Kayla mumbled, trying to yank her wrist back from Michael's grip. "I knew I needed a haircut. Where do I get a haircut here?"

"Stop moving," Michael told her firmly, although he let her have her wrists back. "Talk to the Aphrodite cabin about it after dinner."

He was under no illusions about who would actually be talking to Silena about it. Kayla was happy enough to be mouthy in the cabin, but she clammed up when faced with the other kids, especially the older ones. Michael was pretty sure her apparent shyness would disappear sooner rather than later, though.

After dinner also didn't fix their problem now.

"Turn around," he told Kayla, not waiting for an answer before he put his hands on her shoulders and swivelled her until she had her back to him entirely.

"Huh?" she sniffled, clearly startled, but to Michael's relief she didn't disobey him. "Why?"

Michael reached behind his head and tugged out his hair tie, scowling at the single hair that decided it had got caught on something and snapped. Plucking the black strand out from where it was twisted was easy, and soon Michael had the elastic looped around his hand.

"Stay still," he ordered. Instantly, Kayla went stiff where she stood. He sighed. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you." He caught her head as she tried to look back at him.

"What are you doing?" she asked him as he turned her head back around to face away from him, although the tension did drain from her shoulders. Michael let his hand trail down her hair for a moment before scooping up its short but thick weight in his hands.

"Getting your hair out of the way," he told her.

The green strands were a little snarled together, a consequence of a morning out in the breeze, as well as Kayla's penchant to sometimes forget to brush her hair when she got up if no-one reminded her, and Michael ran his fingers through the locks a few times, careful not to tug as he finger-combed it into something workable.

He could just put it up in a ponytail and be done with it – it worked for his hair just fine – but ponytails could have loose strands falling out, especially for short hair like Kayla's, and Michael wasn't letting her catch it in her string again. Instead, he split her hair in two, leaving half of it down for the moment while he divided the half he was still working on into three and twisted them together, tucking in all the loose strands so that even if they did stick out from the braid a little they still wouldn't be long enough to fall near the bowstring at full draw.

Kayla didn't try to turn her head once as he drew the braid around the curve of her scalp and looped his hair tie around the end to keep it together while he did the same on the other side. There was a stubborn flick of hair near her ear that really, really did not want to get braided in, but Michael was also stubborn and after a few passes, he had it tightly wrapped into the braid with its fellows as he drew that side, too, around her scalp to join the end of the first braid.

From there it was a simple matter to grip both ends with one hand, slip the hair tie off of the first braid, and then tie both of them together at the back of her head, far away from her face and a drawn bowstring.

"There you go," he told her and she whirled around fast enough for the end of the braid to lash around like a club, despite how short it was.

"What did you do?" she demanded, and Michael caught her hands as she went to touch the hairstyle.

"Just a couple of braids," he said. "Don't touch it or they'll come loose."

"Oh." She squinted at him. "What happened to your hair?" Michael shrugged, releasing her hands and reaching back to his own, now loose, hair.

"I don't carry spare hair ties on me," he said easily. "It's fine."

"But… won't yours get caught, now?" she asked.

He shook his hair out before bundling it up in his hands. "Unlikely," he assured her. "Unlike yours, mine is long enough to do this." It wasn't a perfect solution, and it wasn't the most comfortable, either, but he'd done it in a pinch. He twisted his hair around itself a few times until it made a makeshift bun then reached into his quiver pocket. He didn't often do competition shooting, or scoring, but it was always useful to have a pen around. With the practice of having done it several times before, when his hair tie had broken – and okay, maybe he should keep spare hair ties in his quiver, but that was a thought he always forgot when he was close enough to his spares to actually act on it – he stabbed it through the mess on the back of his head.

It'd hold for a while, at least.

"All sorted," he told his wide-eyed little sister. All traces of tears had long since vanished from her eyes, to his relief. "Now get back to shooting."

He bent down to pick up his bow again, only to get tackle-hugged by a bundle of green-and-orange.

"Thank you!" Kayla beamed at him. Michael squeezed her shoulder.

"You're welcome," he said. "Now get shooting."

She let go of him and scooped up her own bow instead, sending him a grin as she nocked an arrow, drew it back, and let it fly.

Gold, and not a single green strand anywhere near the string. Michael grinned and picked up his bow, returning to his own mark to keep shooting as well.

The last of the five Michael-done braids! And if anyone thought I was getting through this fic without my beloved Gremlin Duo... well, you were wrong :D

Thanks for reading!
Tsari