singing and dancing in the rain (private for moonmoon aka deme)

Mia was going to go for a walk, but as she stepped out into the rain and opened her umbrella, she completely forgot what she was going to do, so instead, she walked around the perimeter of the courtyard with her phone in her raincoat's pocket and her earphones in her ears. She put her free hand in the raincoat's pockets and began wandering aimlessly around the courtyard, not even considering a new plan for the day. She sang the songs that played on her phone softly, smiling whenever a song finished. There wasn't anyone out, so someone might think she was one of those insane girls, but she didn't care. Once she talked to them (which she did with almost everyone), the daughter of Circe appeared extremely likable and absolutely sort of normal. I mean, some people did hate her for her social skills or just her guts, but she could always try again some other time.

Fifteen minutes or so into her "walk", after five songs had finished playing, Mia decided to sit down and take a nice break to think about what she was going to do next. The forgetful demigod had nothing in mind, really, nor could she think of anything, so Mia simply sat back against the wet bench with her umbrella in her hand, perched upon her shoulder and listened to the music. Occasionally, she would look around the courtyard for any signs of human life she could interact with, but there wasn't any.

The rain continued pouring down. It usually didn't rain at camp, so this was quite an unusual day. Mia loved the rain, though, which was why she was outside. She never experienced that much rain. It didn't rain that much in California (hence the drought), nor did it rain at camp often. Don't get her wrong, she loved the sunshine, which represented her cheery personality, but something different once in a while was nice. Thus, she watched the raindrops fall hard to the ground as she softly sang whatever song was playing.

His clothes were sopping wet by the time he made it back to the courtyard from the Strawberry Fields, the rain managing to seep through everything during his walk back. The Dionysus kids in the field at least gave him a heads up before commanding the camp borders to shower in order to water their plants. Othello wasn’t mad at them of course, he was rarely mad at people that could be considered his friends. Even if he was, it wouldn’t be too bad because he had his music to run along to. There’s this theory, right? It’s that Apollo kids and their personalities do some weird things depending on whether or not the sun is out. Take Othello for example.
Othello would be technically classified as a contemporary dancer, maybe even jazz. In the rain, he had oddly skipped past his indie songs and covers and instead chose something a little more...assertive? Aggressive? He didn’t know the proper term, but he had already started dancing as soon as his sneakers touched the courtyard’s grass. The song wasn’t Counting Stars or Pompeii, not his usual choices. Othello was actually dancing to Mercy by Kanye West. As if this wasn’t weird enough, consider that the boy was dancing to this song in the rain wearing a soaked sweatshirt with an image of Tony the Tiger on the front. It was strange. Othello was having the time of his life.

ooc: we’re never mentioning this post ever again.

Mia saw a figure move in the rain from across the courtyard. It seemed as if...they were dancing? In the mud? Mia squinted through the drops of rain that were heavily splashing onto the courtyard grass to make out the figure. It was a male, she could see that, but she couldn't quite make out the face. Should she go meet whoever it was? That was the first question that had popped into her head. Of course, the answer was yes, as Mia was dying to meet anyone. This boy seemed interesting, too. A dancer who was willing to dance in the rain, where mud covered the grass of the courtyard. She stood up and walked slowly towards the dancing figure. It took her a few minutes -- the mud slowed her down and she didn't want to splash mud over herself.

Once she could make out the face of the dancing male, she could see that he was much taller than her (but who wasn't? At five foot three, it wasn't much of an accomplishment to be taller than her), he had dark brown hair and he was wearing tons and tons of drenched clothing (she probably should have gotten him to his cabin or something by then). Six steps closer, she could see that he was sporting Tony the Tiger on his soaked sweatshirt. Soaked...drenched...soggy...oh, right. She was going to go talk to him and get him to go inside as soon as possible so that he didn't get hypothermia or anything.

Mia ran up to the dancing boy and waved. She pointed at his ears, gesturing for him to remove the earphones. Then she would start speaking. Man, was she excited.

Now if you've ever been dancing, and you are feeling said dance, and someone appears in front of you then you're going to jump. And if you're an over dramatic little peach like Othello, well, you tend to jump pretty damn high and yelp a little when you're not expecting company. She had waved, then pointed to his earphones. He guessed that maybe she wanted to talk to him. Which was great! Othello loved talking!
"Oh, hi! I didn't...I didn't know that anyone else was here." Othello felt his face reddening as he took out his earphones. You'd think that he would check to see if anyone was in the courtyard before bursting into random choreography like in a musical. Hopefully he hadn't been bothering her. He was fairly taller than the girl...well, a lot taller actually. She was dressed appropriately for the rain, very much unlike Othello who was refusing to acknowledge that the rain existed. He sniffled a little bit and tried to stand up a little straighter.
"I wasn't bothering you, was I? I should've looked around." He chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. "Oh yeah! My name's Othello. What's yours?"

When the boy jumped back in shock and yelped, Mia jumped back a bit, too. Had she bothered him? What could he possibly have been doing other than dancing in the rain? What if she-

He started talking, greeting her as a normal person would and saying that he thought no one was there. Did he not notice her? Or did he see her and say that he thought no one was there just to make her feel better? But wouldn't that mean she was no one? She quickly brushed that thought aside before any tears could start streaming down her face. You could say that she could cry on cue, but that wasn't the case. All of the tears were real. None of them were forced. "Oh...um...that's okay," Mia responded, fiddling with her fingers near her waist.

At the same he asked if he was bothering her, Mia asked, "Was I- Did I bother you?" Mia found their synchronization to be mildly amusing, so she giggled softly. "No, you weren't bothering me," she answered, smiling brightly. "Nice to meet you, Othello! That's a nice name, and it's super fun to say. I'm Mia," she held out her hand to the boy -- Othello -- still smiling. Much of her previous thoughts had gone; she forgot why she was even thinking of tearing up in the first place.

Instead, another thought had popped up into Mia's head. What was she going to do again? She had to have come over here for a reason.

Othello noticed that she looked a little upset during the beginning of his apology and inhaled sharply, ready to apologize even more. Oh no, he didn't want to upset anyone!  It wasn't on purpose at all! Then when he did finally apologize more, he found that he and she were speaking at the same time. He shut up to let her talk, but couldn't help but laugh a bit himself. His nerves were easing back to normal and he felt his embarrassment and fear of upsetting this stranger mold back into his relaxed exterior. He mentally took a deep breath.
"Thanks, it's nice to meet you too!" Othello returned her bright smile with one of his own. This was great; everything was turning out fine. Plus, she liked his name which was always wonderful. It turned out that her name was Mia, and that somehow made Othello even more excited. Maybe he was happy to learn something about someone, which made them a good friend candidate. Who knows with this one? "I like your name too. It's really pretty and easy to remember."
Othello shook her hand, using his other to wipe the rain from his face. He sniffled again and had to let go of Mia's had to cover up a sneeze. Uh oh. He should have thought this through.

"Thank you! Honestly, if it wasn't so easy to remember, I'd be forgetting it every day," Mia joked, smiling even wider. Forgetting...hm...

As he shook her hand, he pulled away abruptly and sneezed. Right then, she remembered what she had previously forgotten. Hypothermia. Sick. Wet. Cold. The daughter of Circe was going to get him inside so he didn't die out in the rain. He probably was intelligent enough to go inside, but he clearly wasn't planning to as he was dancing. Maybe her interrupting him was a good thing. If she didn't, his body could've been found lying in the gross muddy grass of the courtyard. "You need to get inside, or you'll get hypothermia. Come on," Mia stated directly after she recovered the memory, grabbing his hand and dragging him to her cabin.

She opened the door of the cabin and gently nudged him inside. Mia walked to her bunk and pulled a towel out of her drawer. She tossed it to Othello and put a finger over her lips. Everyone was still sleeping, and there were a ton of kids in the cabin. If they woke up, they would see a stranger was in their cabin and freak. At least, that's what she presumed would happen. Her cabinmates could barely hold themselves together when they found out someone got together with another or even if they were having their favorite dish for dinner.

ooc: we will not speak of this post either

"Me? I won't get hypo -" He sneezed twice in a row, barely able to cover his face in time. Othello sniffed and shook his head to clear it, and next thing he knew he was getting towed away towards a cabin by Mia. Inside the cabin was warm, much warmer than outside in the sopping courtyard. He was shivering as soon as he crossed the threshold as if his body just realized that he was freezing to death outside. He hugged himself in attempt to stay warm, but it didn't help that his teeth were chattering. Mia handed him a towel. "Th-thank y-you."
He winced when he noticed how loud he was in the sleeping cabin, and how Mia put her finger to her lips to shush him. He was always loud. Maybe being in a cabin that had yet to wake was a bad idea. Othello tried to keep his mouth shut in order to stay as quiet as possible. Which was hard because he liked talking. He scrubbed his head with the towel, making his hair stick up in little spikes and fluffs, then wrapped in around his shoulders.
"Your cabin is really cool!" Oops. He even whispered loudly.

Mia nodded at the shivering dancer, giving him a warm smile in hopes that it just might prevent him from shivering any longer. She stayed silent, tiptoeing through the crowded aisle and finally reaching Othello again. "You're welcome," she whispered in reply, much quieter than he did. She did like talking, but she also got headaches from loud noises, so if the whole cabin woke up, she'd have a migraine for who knows how many days. Meaning she'd be cabin-ridden the whole time and unable to speak to anyone. She especially liked her new acquaintance. He was quite nice and entertaining.

"I know," Mia simply replied. She could've gone on and on about how great her cabin was or how terrible it could be, but she was taking extreme cautions to not wake up anyone. "What cabin are you in?" she whispered to Othello. "I could go get you some fresh clothes," she suggested. He was still soaking wet, and it was getting all over the cabin floor. Her cabinmates would surely notice it when they woke up. She looked at her digital clock. 7:30 A.M., it read. They were set to wake up in 30 minutes. Maybe Othello should go with her to whatever his cabin was. If they woke up and saw a stranger in the cabin, they would freak, and it wouldn't be a pretty sight for him or her.

Othello was tempted to either bother something in the cabin or sleep. The only reason he didn't do either was because there was no whereto lay down and because all of these other people were sleeping. It was just so darn cozy in here! He forced back a yawn and turned his attention back to Mia, who was asking what cabin he lived in. His eyes widened.
"No!" He shout-whispered again and he had to catch himself. "I mean, my cabin is really bad. Really really bad, especially in the mornings."
The Apollo kids woke up at, like, dawn and wouldn't be able to contain themselves if they saw someone else that was also awake. Some might start reciting haikus, others might get excited and perform a concert that woke up the whole camp. Othello shivered, this time not because of the cold. A bunch of Apollo kids bouncing around in the morning was enough to drive a new potential friend away. He looked down at his feet and realized that he was causing a huge mess because of the water falling off of him. He bit his lip; he was ruining this nice cabin.
"Okay, I'll just...I'll just show you where it is. Beforehand, I'd like to apologize greatly." A worried look crossed Othello's face just for a moment, then was replaced by one of his big sorry smiles. She'd find out his parentage soon enough.

Mia looked back at her bunk and realized she hadn't made her bed. Oops. If she didn't notice, she could expect a lecture from one of the neat freaks residing in the cabin. Looking back at a dripping wet Othello, she found he was looking around the cabin. She sighed softly. Hopefully he wouldn't disturb anything in the few seconds she turned her attention away from him. Turning back to the pillows lying on the floor next to her bunk and the blanket hanging off her bunk, she knelt down and picked up the pillows, as well as the various items she found on the floor, and-

She froze and looked at Othello when he had loudly whispered. She could hear a person turning in their bunk all the way across the room. Who knew what could happen if he slipped up again? She set the pillows and miscellaneous items down on her bunk to sort later and walked a few steps to Othello, who towered over her. "It can't be that bad..." At least, not as bad as this cabin in the morning. There were way more children of obscure gods than there were of Olympians nowadays. More people equals more noise. More noise equals more irritation. More irritation equals more fights. Some mornings could be absolutely brutal.

"C'mon then! We can't have you making the cabin a slipping hazard," Mia whispered loudly as she dragged him out of the cabin back into the courtyard. Her last words in the cabin may have woken up a few people, but they wouldn't notice she was gone. Mia opened her umbrella and handed it to Othello before pulling her raincoat hood over her head.