awkward beginnings and even more awkward potential endings

It was awkward learning that you were the child of a Greek god after being attacked by several giant dogs. It was even more awkward when a bunch of random teenagers fell out of the sky to save her and bring her to this camp -- on a cloud. The awkward feelings peaked when they all found out that Bee, too, was one of them, but with a twist: she was the child of the Greek Titan of bees and honey -- not memory or the sky or magic or anything, but bees. She was sure that head-honcho blonde girl was going to either faint or die laughing when she saw the holographic symbol of a bee over Bee's head.

And of course, the irony of Bee's own nickname had not failed to show itself, either.

So there Bee sat in the Titan cabin on her bunk, clad in an orange Camp Half Blood t-shirt and a pair of blue cotton shorts, part of the wardrobe her mother had sent over when Sarah (Serena? Stina?) went back to get her things for her. She hadn't really had an in-depth conversation with any of her cabin-mates yet, but she certainly was dreading the possibility. Within three days of getting to camp and being claimed, she had seen them engage in at least five fights that they had provoked -- and won them all with surprising ease. Frightening? Totally. What was worse was that they had begun to gently needle her into practicing her powers more, provoking this weird "demititan gang or DIE" argument as if that were the end-all reason for trying to include her in their nefarious schemes.

Did they treat her badly? No, Bee thought to herself, hugging her knees to her chest as she eyed the dagger sitting on her pillow, but they certainly could drop less hints about getting her into training. She was pretty sure Serena was glaring at her from her own bunk as she sat there, spinning her finger and making little clouds form above her head as the older girl waited, probably, for Bee to touch the dagger and thus be initiated into their... gang.

Was magic amazing? Yes. Until you're sitting in a room with several hostile magic-users who would probably not hesitate to cut you.

Crystal had just gotten back from her monthly shopping spree, with less clothes than usual this time. She would often have at least seven bags or so, and she would force Gabe to carry them in for her while she threw out the clothes she had from last month. She'd only keep outfits if she felt like she would wear them in the future, which she didn't exactly like to do. I mean, half of the clothes in her closet currently were so last month, and the other forty-nine percent she found were disgusting (for her standards, that is). Today, she only had three bags, meaning that she would have to keep a lot of the clothes from last month. She sighed as she walked into the Demititan cabin.

Where did she get the money to buy such clothes? ...You didn't have to know, but let's just say it had to do with boys.

Stepping into the cabin, she glanced around to assess her surroundings. She saw Stella sitting on her bunk making clouds of all kinds above her head (probably for fun), but she saw that Stella was glaring in a certain direction. Either she was thinking about her hunky boyfriend, which was highly out of character, or she was thinking of a way to kill someone. Following her gaze, Crystal found that Stella was watching the new girl -- Betty or something. Huh. Oh well -- it wasn't her problem. The Demititans minded their own business most of the time, not wanting to interfere with each other and most likely get into a fight that would lead to the blowing up of the whole camp. Crystal walked past the new girl's bunk and sat down on hers. She had convinced some Hephaestus boys to build her a walk-in closet next to her bunk with a passcode lock. All of the demigods were like dogs, honestly. Give them a treat and they'll come right to you. They sure acted like animals too.

Crystal entered the four numbers in, and a door slided open, revealing a decent-sized closet. She threw her bags in and shut the closet door. The Queen Bee daughter of Theia decided that she would deal with the clothes later. Running around a mall was tiring, and she needed her beauty sleep so that she could look on fleek tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. You get the point.

She sat down on her bunk once again and pulled out her phone from her purse before laying down on her soft pillow (which she convinced some Athena dude to make for her). Crystal closed her eyes and tried to block out the rest of the world.

While Bee was still deep in existential crisis mode, another blonde girl walked into the room laden with several heavy-looking shopping bags. Briefly, she wondered where the hell she would have gotten money for all of those clothes -- was she like one of those rich Aphrodite kids she saw always running around in Chanel and Gucci and grossly over-priced hats? Maybe. But she thought the demititans would think it below them to even compare themselves to other demigods, so Bee quickly tossed that thought out of her right ear before it tried to make its way out of her mouth, just in case the Shopping Queen ended up being one of the very dangerous and murderous people in her cabin. Bee was not in the mood to run for the hills today.

As the other girl went and opened up some sort of futuristic closet to throw her clothes in, Bee's eyes drifted back over to cloud girl on her bunk; in response, Sarah/Stina seemed to raise her eyebrows and grin slightly before calling out to her friend Cristen: "Shopping trip not go so well, Crystal?"

Aah, so her name wasn't Cristen. Whoops. Bee hadn't really paid attention when she was being introduced to everybody, so she only caught maybe the first syllable of everyone's names before blocking out the rest. She didn't really know their god parents, either, but what she did know was that they were making her uncomfortable as hell by their very presences. Like, she could almost feel something weird emanating off of them, some strange aura that made Bee slightly afraid of just looking at them. She'd heard the whispers, had seen the damage they could cause -- her cabin-mates were definitely not people to cross. She shifted uncomfortably and tried to avert her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Would that kid ever get the damned hint? Stella had been sitting there for at least half an hour now, waiting for Bee to at least examine the dagger the daughter of Ouranos had so kindly left on her pillow while she was at breakfast, like some sort of fearless house cat. If the little kid was gonna survive, she at least needed a weapon. It was uncharacteristically kind of her to even consider doing such a thing, but hey -- the kid was only thirteen, she needed a kick in the right direction. When Bee had first gotten to camp, she had actually asked when she could go home as if the entire monster thing had never happened back in Maryland. No demititan so young would ever go home as long as they were untrained, and Stella just wanted to make sure that Bee would end up remaining at their side before some stupid damned demigods tried to convince her that the demititans were murderous tyrants that such a little angel as her should not be around. (Was that the truth? Yes, Stella definitely considered herself murderous and a tyrant. But Bee didn't need to be scared -- as long as she at least tolerates the things that made the Titan Cabin infamous in the first place. Stella had never tried to outright kill another demititan before, but she certainly was open to the possibility.)

It had been a week since Stella's trip with her little duckies had gone awry, resulting in them picking up Bee and kicking the butts of at least six hellhounds the size of Harley Davidson motorcycles and a few other assorted monsters. She hadn't really expected the trip to go as planned -- especially after Montana, gods -- but she hadn't expected the very existence of the daughter of Melisseus, either. Like, of all the Titans, too, they had found the daughter of the Titan of bees and honey. How useless was that? Why was the guy even a Titan? The gods were weird.

But no matter, she thought to herself smugly as she flicked her finger and made her clouds disappear, Bee would tolerate them soon enough. If Ferro could, then the younger girl definitely would. Languidly, Stella turned herself fully to face the new girl and asked her languidly: "You gonna take the thing or what? It's gonna collect dust if you don't pick it up."

Bee looked up at her for a second, frowning, before replying evenly: "I don't want it. I'm not gonna be here for very long, anyway."

"Didn't I tell you before? You can't go home, kid. You know those big dogs nipping at your heels? They'll be back. And other monsters like 'em too. You're stuck with us until you learn to fight and even then, I don't think you'll be ready for the real world." Laying down the truth, one tile at a time. Go her. "Pretty sure every one of us thought that at one point. Crystal might have said the same thing when she got to camp, too -- right? For different reasons, anyway. Princess doesn't seem to like this dirty old hovel."

Crystal glared at Stella when she asked the question. As she passed the daughter of Ouranos' bunk, she muttered, "Sure, whatever you wanna think," and went on her way to the closet.

----

Crystal laid in her bed, her eyes shut. It had been about five minutes since she had laid down, and the cabin was silent, even though she knew there were people in the cabin. Thank the gods. She could hardly get any sleep anymore. Well, it wasn't her fault she spent her nights on her phone. Just as she was about to finally drift off, Stella had to say something. Crystal's eyes fluttered open and she sat up, turning around to face the new Demititan and Stella. "You should just pick it up before she goes bats*** crazy and kills you...then goes to kill everyone else," Crystal said to the young Demititan. It was true, I mean, Stella was the implied leader because if anyone defied her, she could easily rip their limbs off one by one. Basically, if you didn't follow her orders, you'd be removed, and that's why the others did, and so did she. Stella wasn't likable by any means, though. In fact, even though Crystal didn't have anything against the daughter of Ouranos, she found her to be unlikable, even by her standards. Half the guys Crystal had a fling with were unlikable, and she never really called girls unlikable.

"Oh, yeah, I hate this hellhole, but I'd rather be here than out there. Fighting monsters daily is not good for my nails," Crystal stated. "Now, if you're going to be killed, can you do that outside so I can sleep? And so that there's no chance that blood will spill on my sheets."

Killed? Well, Bee wasn't exactly taken aback by the threat thanks to the very nature of the camp, but it still made her shift uncomfortably on her bunk whilst averting her eyes again. It was weird how normal it was, to mention killing things without so much much as a crack in the voice. They were cold-blooded killers, weren't they? And so she'd be, too, after a couple of months in this hell-hole if she didn't watch herself.

She almost felt sorry for those hellhounds who had tried to kill her. Could they help it? Was it basic instinct? Maybe she could train a few to be nice, keep them like regular oversized dogs....

Bee snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the creaking of a mattress and light footsteps on the wooden floor: Sarah was walking towards the door, eyeing both Crystal and Bee as if they were two little bratty kids she couldn't leave alone for a second. Her eyes rested for a moment on the daughter of Melisseus, before turning to Crystal and saying evenly: "Watch her. Dazzle her with your stunning beauty or something, I'm gonna go get some jello." And in what seemed like a blink of an eye and an inexplicable gust of wind despite the shut door and windows, the older girl was gone.

Shivering slightly, she turned her head again to look at the dagger on her pillow. Chiron had said they used Celestial bronze here at camp for all their weapons, not regular steel or iron or anything. Was that practical? What was its melting point? Bee couldn't tell you, but she sure as hell wouldn't touch any gift from her so-called new best friends in the Titan Cabin. Maybe it was booby-trapped and was rigged to blow up in her face. She wouldn't put it past any of these guys. They thought they were gonna rope her in on everything they did, they thought she was going to be complacent and go along like a good little doggy. Who did they think she was, trying to control her before she could even --

"What a b*****." The words had come out of Bee's mouth before she could control herself. The pent-up annoyance at her cabinmate's persistence and anger at being forced to abandon home had, for some days, been boiling dangerously since her rescue; she missed home, missed her friends, normalcy in her life. It was almost heartbreaking, but Beatrice knew she wouldn't be going home anytime soon. All she had to do 'til then was survive.