a sharp ax and a blurry girl

Maria was still trying to find out where she stood on this whole Greek mythology stuff. It was all just new and weird to her. The 14 year old took comfort in facts, in numbers and calculations. At first, she's been in denial of all this crazy parentage deal, but a glowing Hephaestus symbol floating above her curly brown hair was pretty convincing. Whether she admitted it to herself or not, Maria knew she would probably be living at this camp for a while; it wasn't like she could go back home. Still, it felt like she had a giant sign labeled 'NEW KID' taped to her forehead. She knew she needed to clear her head, and what better way to do that then to work on her brand new weapon? She'd always liked building and shaping things, so when she'd found out that the camp had a forge, she couldn't wait to check it out. Besides, she wanted to do a little work on the celestial bronze ax they'd let her pick out. The ax was great, but the blade was a little dull, and Maria felt like she could also shape it a little better so that it cut through the air smoother and faster when she was swinging it. Her hazel eyes scanned the blade, already making calculations of how to adjust the air resistance. Setting up a small station for herself, she heated the ax up on the fire and got to work banging the metal into a leaner shape, worrying slightly about annoying the other campers with the loud clanging she was producing each time the hammer crashed down onto the blade.

Sawyer walked into the forge and went to her usual bench, dropping her backpack at her feet. After retrieving her current project from its box, she resumed her work on it: it was a xiphos, size 6, pure celestial bronze, however she had added a few tricks to it like she usually liked to do. As she went to get some fennel oil, she noticed a younger girl working on an ax -- Maria, her new half-sister. Curious, she walked closer and assessed her work from a few meters away.

"Good choice," she commented with a nod.

OOC: She's very tall, almost two meters, and has the body of Dwayne Johnson. She has copper skin and dark hair (Brazilian origin), and with her crooked nose, large mouth, bushy eyebrows and half-burned face, she is the ugliest girl at camp. She's got a lot of scars, burns and bruises. Right now she's wearing a camouflage tee and boyish denim shorts with a pair of worn hiking boots, her greasy hair pulled back by a U.S. Army bandanna.

Maria turned in surprise at the sound of a voice behind her. Her first instinct was to apologize for disrupting whoever it was, but then she turned around and  recognized the source of the sound as a girl from cabin 9. Her name was something that started with an S... Was it Sawyer? She racked her memory of the last few seconds to try and remember what the girl had said, and finally responded nervously with, "Oh, um, thanks. I was really glad they let me pick out a weapon, but I'm still trying to add a few adjustments to the wind resistance and sharpness and angle of the blade. I guess you could say it's a work in progress." Looking at the xiphos the girl had,Maria asked, "what's that you've been working on?"

OOC: Hephaestus cabin is number 9 ;)

BIC: "Oh that thing," she waved her hand at it, "it's for an Ares kid. He wants something that shoots fire and acid. But let's see what you have here. May I?" she asked, extending a hand to the ax's grip.

OOC: oops!

BIC: "Sure," she said, handing over the ax, "It's nothing special, not yet anyways. Before I add any new abilities, I just want to make sure it's shaped nicely, and if I can get the angles of resistance and weight proportions right, I might just leave it as is. I don't know."

"Reduce it a bit more here and here," Sawyer advised, before grabbing a piece of chalk and drawing an outline on the blade. "This should cut down air resistance. Don't make it too thin, though, you still wanna slice through stuff," she added, giving her the ax back with a crooked grin.

She looked down at her weapon in a state of something close to shock. This girl had just solved her resistance problem after only a quick glance. She looked up at her older half sister in admiration and blurted out, "Wow. Thanks. Oh my gosh. That really helps a lot. I didn't realize it was that simple. Hey, have you been here at camp for awhile? You seem very experienced with the forge here."

Sawyer fished out her necklace from underneath her shirt neckline. "Eight years," she said, dangling the beads at her fingertip. "I know a good bit about the forge, but more so about axes because, well," she rummaged around in her pocket, retrieving something that looked like a USB stick and flipped it so that it grew into a huge streamlined tactical ax, "they're my weapon of choice."

Looking at the girl's ax, Maria couldn't help but marvel at the near perfect proportions of the handle and the blade, and the way it transformed into itself from a small USB drive was insane. In other words, she was impressed. Had she said she'd been at camp for eight years?? It made sense for a person to master the forge here if she had been around that long. "Oh my gosh, that ax is amazing! Have you had the same weapon for eight years and have just continued to work on it? Or have you had various weapons over time? And, just to make sure, your name is... uh... S... Sawyer, right?"

"Yep, Sawyer Ferreira, at your service," she confirmed. "I've actually had a few other weapons before this babe -- started out with a sword, like everybody else here. But since my fighting style is more of a chop, cut and hook kind of thing, I quickly switched to tomahawks and polearms." She absently stroked her weapon's carbon fiber handle. "This ax here I've had for, ffft -- four years? Whenever it was getting too small for me, I'd just switch out the parts I needed, added some stuff here and there, e.g. the three holes up here. Like a lot of my creations, this one's a constant work in progress."

Curious, Maria asked, "Why did you switch to using an ax? It seems like almost everybody here has some kind of sword or dagger. Why don't you?" She looked down at her own new ax, thinking of when she picked it out in the armory on her very first day at camp. It wasn't too fancy, but it was a solid weapon, and she couldn't wait to apply everything Sawyer had told her about how to cut the resistance while keeping the ax light and strong. Gesturing to the chalk markings, she said, "Thanks for showing me this, I really appreciate it."