Thalia's Tree's Trek: The Motion Picture

Jack felt the need for a trek up to Thalia's tree. Because it's probably the most peaceful place, according to him, in the entire Camp, aside from the fact Peleus stands guard 24/7. But he was certain Peleus wouldn't kill a random demigod simply because he radiates fear and death and looks conspicuous on his way up Thalia's tree. Yep, Peleus the dragon wouldn't do such a thing.

Jack moved up the hill, his flaming machete strapped to his back. He was always cautious, bringing weapons everywhere he goes. Almost everywhere. He just recently ditched the old rusty Celestial bronze spear for this brand new flaming Celestial bronze machete, which is immeasurably much cooler and infinitely more dangerous. Strolling up the hill at a steady pace, the Golden Fleece caught his gaze. But he had no intentions of stealing it. After all, what good would it do for him? He wasn't wounded in any way anyway.

The trek from the cabin up the hill lasted in a short amount of time, barely over 15 minutes. Jack looked around at Camp from this point of view. Most of the camp was visible, save for the places that were covered by the immensely vast rows of trees. He enjoyed himself by putting his sword by his side, sitting down, his back leaning against Thalia's tree. Years ago, the tree was supposed to be sort of creepy, as Thalia's dead corpse remained. Now she was alive, up and kickin', there was nothing to be afraid of. It was just a harmless shield generating tree. Yep, everything was normal up here. Except for Peleus, standing guard not far away but the fierce dragon didn't give Jack a glance anyway. It did saw him, but no attention was paid.

Ken really knew she should have started her run earlier... but it was hard to resist a few more hours of sleep, especially on the rare days she didn't start the day off with some chore like helping her siblings organize their weapons or sharpening and polishing her own. Mars had been sleeping when she left, so he was at the very least safe from the kitchen harpies.

Clad in running shorts, sneakers, and a black tank top, sword securely strapped to her back in case she had to suffer through an impromptu fight, the daughter of Ares had decided not to run through her normal, relatively straightforward forest path -- but instead to try circuiting the camp, from the cabin areas to Thalia's tree, and then to the commons areas and then to the Mess Hall, where she'd treat herself to some ice cream (root beer float?) after her longer-than-usual run. Her endurance was pretty decent, so she didn't think she'd be dying.

Of course, then she realized halfway to Thalia's tree her sword hadn't been properly secured, so it sort of hit her as she moved. With a sigh, Kendall stopped and just took the thing off, holding it by the sheath in her hand as she approached the hill walking, hoping to maybe hide it with her best buddy Peleus before finishing her run.

As she climbed the hill, listening to the sonorous breathing of Peleus the dragon, Ken was planning out where she'd hide it -- right by his tail, where there was a little sort of hollow area in the tree -- when she noticed a boy with a machete sitting against it... as one does, so close to the man-eating reptile.

With a frown, she took a glance at the sleeping dragon before asking, perhaps a bit abruptly: "Bit close to Peleus there, huh? Don't think he'd light your head on fire for invading his personal space?"

Jack turned his head toward the sound. A voice called out to him, of a girl. A girl had ran at a jogging pace up the hill. She wore black tank tops, running shorts and sneakers. She didn't look threatening but yet rather athletic. "Yeah. Peleus would kill me in worse case scenarios. I would call myself reckless and stupid." Jack replied with irony. "The name's Jack. Who might you be?" he asked, standing up and straightened his stance, simultaneously sheathing his machete.

"Kendall. Ares cabin." She didn't really like the look of this guy, there was something about him that was rather... off. Maybe it was the machete, one of the most serial killer-ish types of weapons she could think of -- and as a daughter of the war god himself, Kendall could think of quite a lot. In fact, she spent a little too much time in the weapon shed and helping her siblings organize their own within the cabin; the diversity of weapon types was great, even though boo-boos were all too common. "But what are you doing here? Brooding? Tanning?"

Peleus snorted in his sleep, letting out smoke from his nostrils as he exhaled deeply.

"Relaxing." Jack said, stretching his arms and legs and yawning. "Stayed up late last night. Three cups of coffee ain't do sh!t. So I was just thinking I should do something for a change. A stroll in the woods or around Camp, for example. So I ended up sitting up here. It's surprisingly quiet and peaceful here, especially at this particular time of the day." he took a moment to gaze at his surroundings, before turning back to Ken. "Anyways...Kenny... Can I call you Kenny, because I tend to call people with a "Y" in their name, like John becomes Johnny or Lawrence become Larry, sort of like that? What brings you here, up to the tree generating the border shielding the Camp?" he raised an eyebrow. "From your outfit, I'd say that you went...running. Correct?"

Ken wanted to say that was absolutely obvious, but she didn't feel like picking a fight at the moment. It was sort of clear that both of them wanted a bit of peace and it clearly wouldn't do to bother Peleus and his flamethrower abilities in the midst of his beauty sleep. "Yeah, whatever. Just needed a change in scenery, the paths through the woods weren't exactly cutting it for me anymore... plus some of the wood nymphs are getting antsy because their relatives or something are having their schedules thrown off because of all the weird warm weather outside of camp. Something about blooming wrong or hibernation cycles?"

When she had gone running a week ago, she had overheard such a conversation -- the duo had seemed a bit worried, but Kendall didn't really understand most of what they were saying. It wasn't like she could help them much anyway, having no weather-related powers or connections to those gods.

"Meh, never interacted with those nymphs." he shrugged. "Sometimes, but I prefer not to. But I don't hate them. They're great."

Jack stretched his arms and legs further, yawning. Yo moyo!, he thought in Russian, at least what he guessed meant 'Oh man!", mental note: never stay up til' 2:47.

"I don't often stroll in the woods. Gives me the creeps." Jack admitted. "Obsessed ever since I played Slender: Arrival." The game was a horrifying experience. Slenderman pops up almost anywhere and stands there, slowly killing the player with his faceless face.

"Slender... what? Is that that Slenderman thing people kept talking about years ago?" Kendall could distinctly remember that even her younger half siblings had been excited about it, to the point where they had (temporarily) befriended some kids in the other cabins to discuss and play or something. At the time she had thought it was something like a more horrifying Pokemon or Call of Duty -- but she didn't play video games much. She probably couldn't even pull up Solitaire on a computer. "Let me tell you now, there are more horrifying things than some elongated guy in a suit wandering the forest."

"Slenderman. You play it and you'll know. But yes, there are a lot more things to be afraid of aside from Slendy, a faceless three meter tall slender man wearing a suit teleporting around the map and kills you by looking at his face." he nodded in agreement. "Things that can actually kill you in reality. But that, is something we can 'try' to handle." Jack said firmly, tapping his fingers on the machete. "It's not that we're powerless. And no, before you saying something like 'Don't underestimate us', just don't."

Slenderman... ah. What a weird thing to be afraid of; horror movies had never phased Kendall much, owing to the fact that most of the ones she ever bothered to watch with friends were terrible and solely watched to be made fun of. The good ones at least made her reflexively twitch and think of easy ways to outsmart/overpower the villain, but spur of the moment decisions were probably much more difficult for untrained mortals to make than a daughter of Ares. "Pfft, why would I ever say that? Have you gotten that reaction before?"

"On contraire, they always respond like that." he smirked. "I was simply taking a cautious step and attempted to provoke an argument. Perhaps I failed." Jack shrugged. "Perhaps I was mistaken in judging you, like many others before you." he attempted a monologue. "But if you thought I was afraid of him then you're wrong. I am the son of the god of terror. Slenderman can only make me feel creeped." he said, and he guessed the tone sounded sort of cocky. "Before telling me to drop the tone, then sorry if I got a bit cocky there, Kenny." Jack apologized. "Sometimes I get over the limits."

Cocky? Well, he came off as more of a pretentious Athena kid than some child of Deimos so she wasn't sure what he thought she was thinking at all -- Ares kids were stereotypically considered dumb, though, so maybe that was it. Damned muscleheads. Kendall scratched her chin and decided to let that go, rather than nitpicking his sudden college professor-esque vocabulary. "Uh, sure. Whatever. No need to justify yourself to me, I don't really care about elongated monsters in suits."

"Right, right." Jack shrugged. Then he decided to revert to a different subject from the Slenderman subject. He thought Kenny might got bored of it. "So anyways Kenny, how long have you been at Camp?" he asked, one of his eyebrows raised. Three years or more, he thought. His own time at Camp was absolutely marvelously amazing, for a demigod standard. Except for the conflict with his brothers and sisters.

She paused for a second as she slung her sword over her shoulder again. Kendall was eighteen, going on nineteen, and she'd gotten to camp around twelve or thirteen... even though that was a guess, she couldn't remember much of her life before she'd gotten to camp thanks to a nasty head wound she had when she first climbed up the hill so many years ago. All she could remember at the time was her first name and her age; anything else, Ken couldn't recall. "Five or six years, I think. I've seen way too much for a lifetime thanks to the wars, though."

"I always hated the demigod life. Always so dangerous. You sleep with your knife in your hand, by your bedside and another under your pillow, and you always keep one eye opened." he shrugged. "Not that I'm implying I did such things. I've met people who've been that cautious. They're simply overreacting. Maybe." Jack thought. If a monster came, then all the preparations would help a lot. And if none came, then it would be for nothing. "Your life before Camp, was it interesting?" he raised an eyebrow. He was sure his was. Ironically.

Ken scoffed, readjusting the strap on her shoulder so she wouldn't bother it too much. Even though the quest with Eric had been a long time ago, there were still times when she felt almost like she was in pain again, like the moment the brick had hit her shoulder when her damned brother failed to call out about his fire bomb in time. "Almost like I didn't have one, buddy; I just showed up at camp one day with a major concussion and head wound. Barely knew my own name."

"Oh…I'm sorry." said Jack. Concussion. It makes you feel oblivious and lost, like waking up from cryogenic. "Well hope you get it back anyway, although I presume it is permanent and unrecoverable." Jack shrugged. He also realized that Kenny was technically his aunt, but since gods don't have DNA, they weren't aunts and nephews.

"Hoping it's not -- or else how will I ever find my mom?" Or any parental figure, really, Ken wasn't going to be picky if she could find anything of her old life. The fact that no satyr or demigod guide had been with her had raised quite an alarm with Chiron, who suspected they might have been dead or injured by the time the daughter of Ares had wandered up the hill so many years ago. She really hated how helpless she had felt, lost and totally alone in a whole new world -- and barely grasping any memories of the old. "Maybe I should see a child of Lethe or something, they might help."

"Yeah. Perhaps you can find their aid useful. They might just find a way to pry open in your memory core, then you can, hopefully, bust your way inside and recover it, Kenny." Jack shrugged. He thought about the Lethe kids, as they had something to do with memories (obviously, the River of Lethe), often memories of oblivion. He wasn't sure if they knew how to access those memores in the oblivion section.

Memory... core.... What kind of weird scifi movies was this guy into? Ken was pretty sure, despite never listening to any Athena kids' rants about neuroscience for very obvious reasons, that such a thing didn't exist and that he was just being pretentious again.

Let it go, Kenny. Let it go.

"That... yeah. Thanks. Was your life before getting here as tragic as mine, or were you one of the lucky ones?"

"Tragic as yours? How do you know it was tragic if you have absolutely no memories of it?" he laughed. "But yeah, I'm not one of the lucky demigods. I lived, uhhh...tragically for a few years with evil relatives in Germany. Got malnourished very often, but mom took me back to the States. So things got better now." he said, stuttering slightly. Jack hated recalling those days back in Frankfurt.