How to Make a Fruit Smoothie in Three Easy Steps

Mina disliked grapes and strawberries, so she didn't know why she had bothered to come here at all. She was standing by the northern edge of the strawberry field, staring in disgust at the rows of little strawberry bushes (they were bushes, right?) that seemed to stretch on forever to Mina's reckoning. The Demeter and Dionysus kids were probably at fault for the grape-and-strawberry overload; they could have grown anything with this climate and their wonderful powers, but they chose grapes and strawberries instead, of all things. Mina silently mentally cursed them in colorful terms for their poor choice in good fruit.

Reaching out with her foot, she nudged a ripe strawberry still hanging on to a nearby plant. Ugh. Mina had gone looking for something to do, but instead she'd found herself wandering all the way out here. Wanderlust was a disturbing thing, sometimes; it could lead you to the oddest places. Mina didn't like being cooped up in camp with basically nothing to do but make fun of people and their idiocy -- yet that could only go so far. Sighing, she raised her foot and stomped hard on the strawberry, crushing it into the ground underfoot. There were plenty of strawberries out there; losing one or two or maybe a thousand wouldn't do much to the camp's income and all.

Elaina wasn't one to wander about by herself; in fact she preferred to surround herself with people, so they would talk and she wouldn't have to. Not like she could anyway, or would.
The air was fresh, and Elaina's vibrant hair danced around in a light breeze. It was a perfect day. Anything could happen. Elaina liked it this way. See, she wasn't a person to sit around and do nothing. If maybe someone was in trouble or there was a cause she was really, really into. She would even speak up if she absolutely had to.
A light smell drifted towards Elaina. At first she couldn't identify it. Strawberries don't have a strong smell. But when she looked down, red and not quite ripe green berries surrounded her, and when she lifted her foot she discovered pulpy berries sticking to her shoe. Ew.
Elaina looked up to see three other kids; two girls and a guy. She gave them a slight nod and looked down at her feet.
ooc: sorry im getting distracted

Mina raised an eyebrow, not sure how she really wanted to respond: by using the rude, haughty persona she was so used to using or by just being civil enough to not raise any suspicions of her true feelings for this.... situation. She preferred approaching people, rather than having them approach her; she liked deciding for herself what kinds of situations she wanted to throw herself into and deal with. Obviously, she mentally sighed, I'm not going to be able to get rid of these people anytime soon.... Unless I can hide their bodies in the field? Hm. That was an enticing thought, but she didn't have the true temperament of a murderer nor the skills to escape the situation with all her limbs intact. Instead, Mina's mind drifted toward the brighter possibility of simply blowing them off with a few rude gestures and words that shouldn't be repeated, but she didn't know if any of these other demigods had a knack for getting into fights over the stupidest crap; you could never tell anymore with all these idiots running amok.

After a brief pause, the girl decided just to be civil; if they tried getting buddy-buddy with her, she'd insult them colorfully and leave. She folded her arms across her chest and, forcing a smile (or a wince, it was hard to tell), drawled, "Well, hello to you too.... Amy and Royce? Oh wait, no.... Amity and Ross, right? Sorry, I suck with names."

Elaina looked up. The guy had spoken.
"Your name is..?"
She blushed, as she had taken a few moments to respond. Quickly, she took off her backpack and rummaged through it. Where is it..? Where IS it, Elaina? Her face grew brighter as she took longer to reply, but soon she found her notepad. Flipping it open, she wrote:
Sorry! I'm Elaina.
Elaina didn't quite know what else to say. She wasn't social, and was horrible with starting conversations, or even pitching in to speak in one.
ooc: would post more but i gtg

Rather than replying to Ross at first, Mina watched that Amity girl run off in a hurry and trip all over herself, suppressing an urge to laugh. She liked making people nervous; she guessed it was a bit of a cruel streak in her, to like subtly mocking people into a nervous state of mind even though this time hadn't been on purpose. She had just sincerely forgotten their names within twenty seconds of being introduced. Mina supposed it wasn't a major problem, though; a lot of people had it worse, and sometimes people just had really forgettable names. Didn't really matter to her whether they had a ridiculously common name like John or a really unique name like Sapphire or whatever -- if Mina forgot a name, she'd forgotten it and there was little hope of retrieving it from her memory unless you continually reintroduced yourself to her.

Looking back at Ross with a slightly amused expression on her face, she replied: "My name is Mina Lewis, daughter of Phrike." Mina hoped she wasn't exuding that horrible aura to them; it was more of a curse than a power, to make people around her feel a subtle sense of terror. She guessed it was off-putting enough, but sometimes, people could ignore it just fine, and that was okay by her.

ooc: Agh
bic:

Elaina watched the boy leave, and then she looked back up at the Mina girl. She didn't seem like she was so nice. And was she... Was she forgetting people's names on purpose? It wasn't that bad of a deed, but to Elaina that was a pretty low way to be mean to someone, like, come on,  forgetting someone's name isn't going to bother them that much, unless they're some kind of weird egotistical maniac. Elaina flipped open her pad. Hey, Mina. So, what brings you here? Elaina looked at the paper for a minute, wondering if that was the best way to write it, or if she should give it to Mina at all. But, in the end she handed it to her. Sometimes Elaina wanted to be able to speak so badly. Wouldn't it be nice to hear her voice? Elaina had forgotten what it had sounded like, and she was a bit ashamed of that. But her vocal chords were sealed.

Mina looked over curiously as the other girl, the one she was now alone with, handed her a note. Too bad Ryan/Ross couldn't stay, he seemed like a person who could have given her some good conversation. She flipped it open and stared at the note, taking a long moment to decipher the message; her dyslexia wasn't as bad as the average demigod's, which was probably one of the reasons she got decent grades at school, but that didn't mean she was fast or good at reading and writing -- it just meant words were a bit easier to decipher and understand to her. It was always a sore point for her; most people who knew her knew they shouldn't mention how slow she was at reading (to her face, anyway) if they wanted to keep their face in order. She clucked her tongue when she finally got it: Hey, Mina. So, what brings you here?

Easy enough to answer, though it would have been ten times easier for the girl to speak to Mina rather than write to her -- unless the girl was mute or just really shy.

"Well," Mina replied, folding up the note again, "I'm here because I wandered here. Don't know why I'm still at this place, I don't even like grapes and strawberries."

Elaina smiled. She flipped open the notebook and wrote, I'm not a fan of strawberries, but I came to just relax. Elaina tried to keep the paragraphs short. She knew most demigods were dyslectic. What a shame it was to be mute at this camp. Half of the time she couldn't even read her own writing. After awhile of silence, she left.

ooc: finally replied, eek sorry, and im clearing her out, sorry :(

ooc: It's fine.

bic:

Well, everybody was gone now, thank Zeus. Mina watched the girl leave, feeling relieved that she was now alone with this... field. This field of stuff she hated. Ugh. She shot a look of disgust at it and slowly walked between the rows of fruit bushes and vines, heading back to camp and maybe her cabin; she didn't know where she was headed, but knowing her wanderlust she'd probably end up in another stupid place with more people who made for bad conversation.