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by Neqi 9/26/2013, 12:35 am. : B A S I C I N F O : . Name: Philenia Devany Reed. Gender: Obviously female. Date of Birth: 30th of June, 1996. 17 years old and still alive. God Parent: Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, sorcery, crossroads and the night.  |  |  . : O T H E R : . Mortal Parent: My father, John Reed, is 45 years old and the CEO and primary shareholder of a multi-million dollar company specialising in construction and property. I’ve been told I get my personality from him, and if you’ve met me, you’ll know he isn’t that pleasant of a guy. The best thing he has ever done for me was marry Simone, my stepmother, who is as far as I’m concerned more of a parent to me than my father will ever be. As you can see, we don’t have a very warm relationship. Place of Birth/Hometown/Last Residence: I was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and grew up in the Bridle Path, an extremely wealthy neighbourhood in the north of Toronto. If you’ve ever heard of it, you’ll know that the houses there are no joke. My father bought our home before I was born, back when he was living alone, and I ask you – for what purpose does a single man need a 6 bedroom, 8 bathroom mansion with two pools and a literal home theatre? Thankfully, now there are three people living there – my father, my stepmother and my six-month-old half-brother, Demetrice. Race/ethnicity: Half Vietnamese, a quarter Spanish and a quarter English. Accent: Truth be told, I’ve never paid attention to Canadian accents, much less my own. Simone has lived in the United States for a lot of her life, and she says that the accent in Toronto among ‘the young and trendy’ sounds like a neutral American accent – an accent somewhere from the midwest of the United States, like Michigan or Washington. In any case, when I used to watch the mainstream American TV shows that were always airing on Saturday nights, their accents never seemed that different from my own. Skin Tone: My skin is olive just about everywhere except for my face, which varies between tan in some parts (forehead), ruddy red in others (like my cheeks and around my eyes) and olive in the rest. It looks about as stupid as it sounds. Thank the gods for BB cream. Eye Color: My eyes are naturally dark brown, almost to the point of being black, although I’ve noticed after doing particularly taxing pieces of magic that the colour lightens several shades to a light hazel. It’s rather unnerving, actually. Although I don’t have real proof, my theory is that this is visible indication of how much energy I’ve lost during a spell, because after I’ve gone and had a snooze, my eyes return to their natural shade. Talk about eyes that are the window to the soul. Hair Color: As black as a stack of black cats, and about as fuzzy, too. Hair Length: Let me get one thing straight. What’s on my head is not hair. It couldn’t possibly be considered hair. It’s almost down to the centre of my back, and it’s just a mess of waves, curls and kinks. It’s a wonder I haven’t shaved it all off yet. No matter how hard I try or how many products I put into it, it will not stay nice and straight. I’ve pretty much given up on it, and now I just let it have its way. Mark my words – one day it will run so wild that I’ll resemble a poodle. Height: 5’1”. Still waiting for the extra seven inches I wished for on my 16th birthday. Weight: 51kg. Body Type: For all the physical flaws I’ve got, I’m glad to say that at least my figure turned out okay. I can’t help being short, but I’ve got curves where they matter, which is decent compensation. I’m not overweight, but all those curves are fat, if that makes any sense – I doubt there’s any muscle at all in my body. If I had muscle, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have failed PE back in the seventh grade. |
. : D E T A I L S : .
Appearance:
I’m short, much to my consternation, standing at a (very) petite 5’1”. I have incurably messy black hair, dark eyes and olive skin. I have a 5cm birthmark the shape of Mexico on the small of my back (in case you’re wondering how I saw it, I used the good old two-mirror trick), and another 2cm one on the inside of my left wrist, which is boringly shaped like a big blob of nothing. My body is littered with tiny scars – remnants of the cuts and pricks I have had to make to provide the blood for my magic. These scars are located mainly on my fingers and on the inside of my palm.
Attire-wise, you’ll usually catch me in dresses, skirts, coats, cardigans and lace. Lots of lace. If I have to wear shorts, they’ll always be high-waisted and never denim because denim shorts are literally the bane of my existence. Jeans will always be skinny, and always in either a pale blue wash or black. I love wearing heels, but because they aren’t exactly the most practical type of footwear when learning to slay monsters, I’ll either wear ballerina flats, sandals or some flat boots.
Most of my wardrobe consists of light and pastel-ly colours, which probably goes against some ancient Child of Hecate rule, but seriously. I wouldn’t want to be limited to dark colours for the rest of my life just because my mother is a goddess of the Underworld, would I? I bet she wears turquoise too, sometimes. Maybe.
Powers:
I don’t know if I would call it a curse or a gift, but I have the ability to do Blood Magic. I don’t really recall how I found out, but basically, I need four things: willpower, Ancient Greek, energy and my own blood (emphasis on the fact that I can only use my own blood to do magic). If I spill my blood and then speak what I want to happen in Ancient Greek, it usually happens with varying degrees of success – I’ve been keeping a journal to track what happens when I experiment, and I’ve pretty much deduced that the more blood I use, the more powerful the spell is or the greater a feat I can achieve. I also need to be concentrating completely, otherwise I get half-baked results like that time I tried to heal a deep scrape on my knee and ended up healing it but giving myself an identical one on my other knee.
I’ve done lots of research on Blood Magic since I became aware of my power, and I’ve discovered that it is closely related to life. While it’s gotten a bad reputation over the years (hello, Voldemort), I’ve come to realise that the power in Blood Magic is that is requires a sacrifice. Sacrifice is an important part of life, and is the catalyst for all the good that occurs. Blood is the perfect medium, because blood is life, basically. My magic can only be used for things that directly involve life or death – so far, I’ve only been able to use it for healing, growing things such as plants, protective spells and (once) communicating with a dead spirit. I've only managed to heal wounds, though, and only blood and flesh wounds at that (which means if I break a bone or something, I'm pretty much useless - stupid, right?).
The dead spirit happened when I was trying to contact my mother, since I had always just assumed she had died. Instead, I had gotten the spirit of a man who had been run over by a tow-truck. That was one of the more interesting conversations I've ever had in my life, although it was abruptly cut off around the ten minute mark. He disappeared suddenly in the middle of his sentence, so I'm guessing he was called back to the Underworld by the all mighty Lord Hades. I believe ten minutes may be the extent of every episode of 'Daily Conversations with the Dead', but I haven't tested it. I'm pretty sure if I tried, I could summon more, which would make my life a lot more fun. Three at most, maybe, or five if they're newly dead since that will make them easier to call. No one else should be able to see them, since it's my energy they're feeding on, but I'm not about to go and find out. Once I start training to contact dead spirits, I probably won't be able to summon many. Growing plants has come the easiest to me. I can grow most types of flowers, bushes and trees; the biggest plant I've grown was this massive blueberry bush which grew about five times the normal size of a potted blackberry bush. I think I must've put too much blood. That monstrosity took three days to full mature.
Protection spells are a whole different matter. I have to actually write the Ancient Greek on my body with my blood (which would scare anyone who's ever watched any kind of horror movie before, so I make sure I hide it beneath my top or pants or something) and then put the power into the words. I get this tingly sort of sensation which is hard to explain - it's sort of like when someone blows gently into your ear or on the back of your neck. I can't see the magic, but I can definitely feel it covering my whole body, like when you go out into the sun after staying indoors for a long time and the sunlight just engulfs you. The spells usually last for five to ten minutes, and have protected me from minor scrapes, cuts and bruises before. It's sort of surreal, actually - if I bang my leg into a table really hard, it hurts like heck but my skin doesn't bruise at all. It's never protected me from serious wounds - the reason I managed to cut part of my pinky off once - but I have experimented with spells that, while not stopping me from getting cuts or wounds, will protect me from feeling pain. It was a concept I thought of after watching a horrible documentary about abused children, actually. I did the 'bang-leg-on-table' test and didn't feel a thing, but the bruises came up this time. Eventually once I have enough control, I'll be able to do protection spells on other people. Hopefully I'll be able to hone my skill enough that I can protect people from proper wounds.
Anyway, with my powers, necromancy would be the next logical step, but I don’t have the willpower, energy or control to do it. While the areas in which I can use my powers in are limited, I believe my magic is much more effective and powerful in these selected fields than other types of magic.
Of course, I can’t keep doing it forever – believe me, I’ve tried. When I begin to get drained by it, I become emotionally unstable, tired, hungry and more irritable than usual. This usually occurs after three or four small spells, one or two medium-powered spells or one major spell, all without adequate rest. Adequate rest can mean anywhere from six hours to a day or two, depending on my health at the time, as it takes longer if I’m sick, stressed, already tired, etc. After extensive use of magic, after a particularly powerful or potent spell or after spilling too much blood, I become dizzy and heavily exhausted. I have to sleep for at least a week to recover; the last time I did so, I didn’t a week and a half. I’ve managed to avoid this since then, though – most small spells need around three drops of blood, while the biggest spell I’ve ever done required me to fill a small thimble with blood. That was the time I cut off about a centimetre off my left pinky (long story), which is the worst wound I've ever been able to heal, and it took a whole hour and a half of me just sitting there and staring at it to finish healing.
After doing magic, my eye colour goes all wonky and weird. I’ve looked at the patterns in my journal, and I think that the more energy I lose doing magic, and the more blood it takes to do that magic, the lighter my eyes get, until they’re a very light shade of hazel. It doesn’t take much – using a single drop for a very minor spell leaves my eyes pretty much the same as always (black, pretty much), but after three drops of blood, they lighten to the colour of rosewood. My eyes return to normal after I’ve had a good R&R.
Weapon:
I’ve never considered myself a violent person, much less a person who would take to carrying a bladed weapon around with her in everyday life, but when I came to camp and they told me I would need a weapon if I wanted to stay alive, I really didn’t have a choice. My magic just wasn’t that useful in the heat of a battle, and me being me, I didn’t want to be disadvantaged.
I managed to find a small dagger, made of celestial bronze. It’s nothing special – plain, with an 8-inch blade – but I don’t plan to be using it in any kind of fight since I’m really not one for combat. I’m hoping I won’t need to use it for anything other than slicing my hand open to do some hocus-pocus, but I’ve heard that the average demigod experience isn’t too accommodating for those who can’t fight.
Armor:
I make do with a Celestial Bronze helmet. Anything else would only slow me down, and I need to be prepared in case I need to do a bit of impromptu magic.
Pet(s):
Ew. While some animals are nice to look at, I wouldn’t want one crawling into bed with me every night like I hear some familiars do. No pets for me, thanks.
Personality:
Think of me as a detox diet. Better yet, for something more relatable to any of you pockmarked teenage sacks of hormones, think of me as an acne treatment. It gets worse before it gets better, yes? Same with me. I’m not intentionally mean, but if you aren’t close to me and don’t know what I’m like, my sarcasm can be enough to send you running. What? It’s not my fault if you can’t take a bit of sharp humour.
If not that, maybe my ego will do it; I’m not arrogant in any really obvious way (I haven’t reached Draco Malfoy level yet, believe me), but I can be extremely judgemental and self-righteous, and I like to believe I’m always right. If I’m not right, it’s hard for me to admit it. It sounds conceited, but I’ve also always believed I was destined for something much, much greater than being the sad little rich girl with daddy issues. If it isn’t the arrogance, it’ll probably be my overly sensitive/melodramatic nature – its okay for me to belittle myself, but if you’re the one who criticises me, get ready for me to take my claws out. They’re sharp, and they come out to play whenever I’m hurt or angry.
If you stick around, though, and gain my trust, that’s a whole other story. It’s not something I do on purpose, you know – it’s not like I woke up one morning and thought to myself, ”Okay, Philenia. Anyone who’s a close personal friend of yours and has gained your trust will be treated with the utmost love and respect. People who don’t fall under that category, you have permission to treat like poo.”. It just happened. I’m still sarcastic, but I’m a lot nicer. I can be very protective of those I love, and I won’t hesitate to do anything for them within my power. You still have to put up with the less pleasant aspects of my nature, though. (Un)Fortunately, there are few people who fall under this category.
If nothing else, I like to think I have a good heart under a thorny personality.
Skills/Talents:
Academics: I’m very good at academics. Although I have dyslexia, the exclusive boarding school I attended employed special teaching techniques for me, and I passed all my subjects with high grades. Well, all except for PE.
Quick Learner: Generally, I can pick up skills that don’t require a lot of physical activity quite easily if I put my mind to it; things like languages, baking and painting.
Memory: Because I wanted to succeed in school in spite of my dyslexia, I had to learn how to absorb and remember things with images in my mind efficiently. My memory is nowhere near eidetic, but I can hold specific images in my mind for a long time.
Flaws:
Let’s see…personality flaws. I always think I’m right. I can be very selfish. I’m sarcastic. Arrogant. A perfectionist. Overly sensitive/melodramatic. Obsessively curious with a need to know everything. I hate it when I don’t get my own way. If you really wanted me to list them all, you’d probably get a book bigger than the Bible. As for physical flaws? Take your pick. There’s the skin on my face, which can’t decide if it wants to be tan, olive or red; the bird’s nest I’ve got for hair or my extreme likeness to a dwarf in both height and general pleasantness.
My one fatal flaw is the part of me that always wants to get even. I know it’s such a bad trait to have, but if you ever wrong me…well, prepare to get wronged back. It’ll probably serve me right if I attack some girl who irritates me and it turns out she’s a daughter of Ares. Honestly, it’s going to get me killed one day.
Strengths:
I’m hard-working, determined and ambitious, characteristics I gained because of the high level of performance I expect from myself. I have a strong sense of right and wrong (although I don’t always follow it), and I can be empathetic, especially in issues that really matter to me. I also have observation skills and an attention to detail that seem to manifest subconsciously – I could be having a conversation, completely engrossed in the topic, and later on when I think back on it, I’ll remember details that I never even noticed at the time.
Weaknesses:
I’m pretty damn bad at athletics, unless I’m running for my life, of course. I’m just not made for marathons or high jump or anything like that. Come to think of it, I’m not made to do most sports – the only sport that I’m somewhat decent in is volleyball. I also have a hard time with weapons and fighting – a dagger is pretty easy to use, I suppose, but when I tried my hand at archery and sword-fighting, the results weren’t promising.
I’m not very good at making friends, either. Living with my father fostered a sort of emotional detachment in me, and it’s hard for me to approach people and express feelings other than scorn and sarcasm, really. It’s not that I don’t want to make friends. I just find it incredibly difficult to open up to people. That’s probably why I spent most of my time at boarding school without real friends.
Also, if you must know, I have an incurable weakness for dresses.
Likes:
shopping, getting my own way, sitting outside under the moon, chocolate cake, other sarcastic people who understand my brand of humour, the amethyst Panamera 4 Porsche that Simone bought me for my 16th birthday
Dislikes:
denim shorts, crop tops, spiders, my father, big confrontation, onions, most types of people
Fears:
My greatest, real, true fear is ending up alone in the world, but I know it won’t happen. I’m friendless now, but that’s only because I choose to be. I haven’t met anyone worthy yet.
…No, I’m not in denial. Not at all.
Social Status:
Average. I was reasonably well-known at my boarding school, but while there were certain people I’d usually hang out with, I didn’t have any real close friends. Its pretty much the same here.
Summer or Year Rounder:
Year rounder. Now that I know what I am, I’d much rather stay here and learn how to stay alive than go back to boarding school.
Years at Camp:
Three months.
Life Before CHB:
You’d think that the life of a rich girl living in the most affluent neighbourhood in Canada would be interesting. Every TV show I’ve ever watched about a young teen girl living the life of the wealthy has had drugs, extreme shopping sprees and the odd Gossip-Girl-esque scandal. Pfft. I wish that would happen to me.
But no. Before I found out I was a demigod, I was a good girl. Maybe not a sweet girl, but I never did anything really bad. I never felt the need to ‘rebel’ or establish my own rightful independence or whatever – there was no point. I already had all the freedom I could want, and even that which I didn’t. My father didn’t care.
The relationship I have with my father isn’t overly complicated. Before I arrived at Camp Half-Blood, my school terms were spent at a boarding school in Ottawa. I’ve been in boarding schools since the first grade, only returning home for the holidays. When I came home, my father would either be working or working. There was no other option, except for eating. When we ate, he ignored me and I didn’t talk. He wasn’t interested in me, and I wondered many times why he never just threw me out or gave me up. Maybe he was scared of angering my mother. I’d be too, if I were him – I wouldn’t want to run the risk of my mother sending over the empousai.
When I was eight years old, at home with a hired nanny to look after me while my father was on a business trip, he came back with a new girlfriend – Simone Bourgeois. They married the following year, a day before my ninth birthday. Simone was the closest to a parent figure that I ever got; for the next eight years, she became a mother figure and occasional confidant to me. Over the years, she seemed to mellow my father out somewhat, and I noticed that he took a bit more interest in my welfare. Nothing major, but at least he asked me how school had been when I returned for break.
Once I turned fourteen, my school vacations were spent at home alone. Simone and my father would go on holidays most of the time, leaving me to my own devices. Let me tell you, after three breaks in a mansion all alone, the novelty of being allowed to do whatever you wanted faded quickly. For those two week breaks, I literally had no contact with the outside world. None of my friends from boarding school lived anywhere near Toronto, and even if they had, I doubted I’d have gotten much help from them anyway. We had fun at school, but our friendship didn’t extend to inviting each other over for slumber parties. It was during one of the breaks during eighth grade that I first discovered my magic.
Nothing really changed until around a year and a half ago, when Simone announced that she was pregnant with my father’s child. I wasn’t thrilled at first, but because Simone refused to go overseas anymore for vacations, preferring to stay home and read about parenting, we bonded over my school breaks. My father was still working obsessively, but Simone and I spent the summer painting the bedroom we had converted into a nursery.
Demetrice Laurent Reed was born on the 3rd of March, during my 10th grade. I had been at school then, but when I returned home for spring break, something happened that had never happened before. My father called me to his office, and told me he wanted to speak to me about something Very Important. Naturally, I was insanely curious – after almost seventeen years of blatant disregard for me, what could he possibly want?
Then he mentioned my mother.
We never talked about my mother. We rarely talked about normal things, like how I was, how school was and what we were having for dinner. He told me there was a place I could go to learn more about her, that she had told my father to tell me about it when he thought I was ready. Well, I reckon he just wanted to get rid of me so he, Simone and Demetrice could be one happy family, but honestly, I didn’t mind too much. I liked Simone and had grown to love baby Demetrice, but I wanted to learn more about my mother. My father basically told me he didn’t care if I only went there for the summer or decided to stay there permanently, so I chose the latter, even without knowing what I was getting into.
I arrived at Camp Half-Blood with a hastily scribbled note that said:
“Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141
Long Island, New York 11954
- Ask for Hecate.
Good luck. ”
Role-playing Example:
That her mother was a goddess should have surprised her a lot more than it did, but the fact was, after a couple of days of mulling over the prospect, she had settled into this new knowledge quite easily. Philenia had always known she was destined to do something with her life, and now that she knew she was a demigod, she recognised the opportunity for what it was. It was her chance to be someone, not just plain Philenia Reed, and she’d be damned if she didn’t take it.
So no, the fact that she was the progeny of an immortal being didn’t surprise her as much as she thought it would. What did surprise her was her subsequent discovery that there was literally a whole camp for weird human-deity hybrids like her. Seriously, she’d bet there were over a hundred demigods there, and they were all learning how to survive. Apparently, here in the United States, demigods were frequently hunted by monsters and killed before they reached adulthood. It was rather exciting, as morbid as that sounded. Maybe the monsters just didn’t like Canada, because she had never noticed anything weird like freaky Math teachers who wanted to claw her eyes out, or cheerleaders bent on ripping her into itty-bitty pieces. She’d been told the stories, of course. Percy Jackson was somewhat of a legend at this camp, or so she had heard.
There were a couple of problems with her new found heritage. Firstly, monsters from stories like dragons, chimaeras and minotaurs were actually real (she really hoped this didn’t extend to Edward Cullen), and they were literally out for her blood. She’d been told she would need to learn how to fight them. The thing was, she had failed PE. She was horrible at sports and anything athletic, and when she had tried out sword-fighting and archery, it had been much the same. She knew she’d have to work diligently if she wanted to overcome that (and if she wanted to survive), but it was hard to learn how to thrust with a xiphos when an Ares kid was five metres away, mutilating a dummy and smirking at her in superiority.
Secondly, in the span of a couple of hours, she had gained a whole fleet of half-siblings. Her mother must have been really busy to have that many children, all with such similar ages. All the children of Hecate had special abilities, like her, but their powers ranged from shooting lightning from their fingertips to throwing balls of fire at people. She was even related to a sorceress who turned men into guinea pigs for fun. She didn’t know how to feel about them. There didn’t seem to be that much sentimentality between people who had the same godly parent – they acted towards her the way people acted towards the new kid at school. They were nice, but there wasn’t any gushing about the new sisterhood she had joined, or any particular closeness at all. Never having siblings of her own (except for Demetrice, but he didn’t count), she didn’t know if this was a normal thing or what. She had been under the impression (had been hoping, really) that her half-siblings would welcome her with open arms and friendliness, and that they’d be the best of friends soon enough. That obviously hadn’t happened, which was disappointing.
Well, she’d deal with both of these difficulties. She was strong. She knew what she had to do. She was the daughter of a goddess. She wasn’t going to let things like that stop her from becoming a Person to Remember. She was going to work for it, and they wouldn’t know what had hit them. She was going to be the greatest daughter of Hecate this camp had seen.
I’m short, much to my consternation, standing at a (very) petite 5’1”. I have incurably messy black hair, dark eyes and olive skin. I have a 5cm birthmark the shape of Mexico on the small of my back (in case you’re wondering how I saw it, I used the good old two-mirror trick), and another 2cm one on the inside of my left wrist, which is boringly shaped like a big blob of nothing. My body is littered with tiny scars – remnants of the cuts and pricks I have had to make to provide the blood for my magic. These scars are located mainly on my fingers and on the inside of my palm.
Attire-wise, you’ll usually catch me in dresses, skirts, coats, cardigans and lace. Lots of lace. If I have to wear shorts, they’ll always be high-waisted and never denim because denim shorts are literally the bane of my existence. Jeans will always be skinny, and always in either a pale blue wash or black. I love wearing heels, but because they aren’t exactly the most practical type of footwear when learning to slay monsters, I’ll either wear ballerina flats, sandals or some flat boots.
Most of my wardrobe consists of light and pastel-ly colours, which probably goes against some ancient Child of Hecate rule, but seriously. I wouldn’t want to be limited to dark colours for the rest of my life just because my mother is a goddess of the Underworld, would I? I bet she wears turquoise too, sometimes. Maybe.
Powers:
I don’t know if I would call it a curse or a gift, but I have the ability to do Blood Magic. I don’t really recall how I found out, but basically, I need four things: willpower, Ancient Greek, energy and my own blood (emphasis on the fact that I can only use my own blood to do magic). If I spill my blood and then speak what I want to happen in Ancient Greek, it usually happens with varying degrees of success – I’ve been keeping a journal to track what happens when I experiment, and I’ve pretty much deduced that the more blood I use, the more powerful the spell is or the greater a feat I can achieve. I also need to be concentrating completely, otherwise I get half-baked results like that time I tried to heal a deep scrape on my knee and ended up healing it but giving myself an identical one on my other knee.
I’ve done lots of research on Blood Magic since I became aware of my power, and I’ve discovered that it is closely related to life. While it’s gotten a bad reputation over the years (hello, Voldemort), I’ve come to realise that the power in Blood Magic is that is requires a sacrifice. Sacrifice is an important part of life, and is the catalyst for all the good that occurs. Blood is the perfect medium, because blood is life, basically. My magic can only be used for things that directly involve life or death – so far, I’ve only been able to use it for healing, growing things such as plants, protective spells and (once) communicating with a dead spirit. I've only managed to heal wounds, though, and only blood and flesh wounds at that (which means if I break a bone or something, I'm pretty much useless - stupid, right?).
The dead spirit happened when I was trying to contact my mother, since I had always just assumed she had died. Instead, I had gotten the spirit of a man who had been run over by a tow-truck. That was one of the more interesting conversations I've ever had in my life, although it was abruptly cut off around the ten minute mark. He disappeared suddenly in the middle of his sentence, so I'm guessing he was called back to the Underworld by the all mighty Lord Hades. I believe ten minutes may be the extent of every episode of 'Daily Conversations with the Dead', but I haven't tested it. I'm pretty sure if I tried, I could summon more, which would make my life a lot more fun. Three at most, maybe, or five if they're newly dead since that will make them easier to call. No one else should be able to see them, since it's my energy they're feeding on, but I'm not about to go and find out. Once I start training to contact dead spirits, I probably won't be able to summon many. Growing plants has come the easiest to me. I can grow most types of flowers, bushes and trees; the biggest plant I've grown was this massive blueberry bush which grew about five times the normal size of a potted blackberry bush. I think I must've put too much blood. That monstrosity took three days to full mature.
Protection spells are a whole different matter. I have to actually write the Ancient Greek on my body with my blood (which would scare anyone who's ever watched any kind of horror movie before, so I make sure I hide it beneath my top or pants or something) and then put the power into the words. I get this tingly sort of sensation which is hard to explain - it's sort of like when someone blows gently into your ear or on the back of your neck. I can't see the magic, but I can definitely feel it covering my whole body, like when you go out into the sun after staying indoors for a long time and the sunlight just engulfs you. The spells usually last for five to ten minutes, and have protected me from minor scrapes, cuts and bruises before. It's sort of surreal, actually - if I bang my leg into a table really hard, it hurts like heck but my skin doesn't bruise at all. It's never protected me from serious wounds - the reason I managed to cut part of my pinky off once - but I have experimented with spells that, while not stopping me from getting cuts or wounds, will protect me from feeling pain. It was a concept I thought of after watching a horrible documentary about abused children, actually. I did the 'bang-leg-on-table' test and didn't feel a thing, but the bruises came up this time. Eventually once I have enough control, I'll be able to do protection spells on other people. Hopefully I'll be able to hone my skill enough that I can protect people from proper wounds.
Anyway, with my powers, necromancy would be the next logical step, but I don’t have the willpower, energy or control to do it. While the areas in which I can use my powers in are limited, I believe my magic is much more effective and powerful in these selected fields than other types of magic.
Of course, I can’t keep doing it forever – believe me, I’ve tried. When I begin to get drained by it, I become emotionally unstable, tired, hungry and more irritable than usual. This usually occurs after three or four small spells, one or two medium-powered spells or one major spell, all without adequate rest. Adequate rest can mean anywhere from six hours to a day or two, depending on my health at the time, as it takes longer if I’m sick, stressed, already tired, etc. After extensive use of magic, after a particularly powerful or potent spell or after spilling too much blood, I become dizzy and heavily exhausted. I have to sleep for at least a week to recover; the last time I did so, I didn’t a week and a half. I’ve managed to avoid this since then, though – most small spells need around three drops of blood, while the biggest spell I’ve ever done required me to fill a small thimble with blood. That was the time I cut off about a centimetre off my left pinky (long story), which is the worst wound I've ever been able to heal, and it took a whole hour and a half of me just sitting there and staring at it to finish healing.
After doing magic, my eye colour goes all wonky and weird. I’ve looked at the patterns in my journal, and I think that the more energy I lose doing magic, and the more blood it takes to do that magic, the lighter my eyes get, until they’re a very light shade of hazel. It doesn’t take much – using a single drop for a very minor spell leaves my eyes pretty much the same as always (black, pretty much), but after three drops of blood, they lighten to the colour of rosewood. My eyes return to normal after I’ve had a good R&R.
Weapon:
I’ve never considered myself a violent person, much less a person who would take to carrying a bladed weapon around with her in everyday life, but when I came to camp and they told me I would need a weapon if I wanted to stay alive, I really didn’t have a choice. My magic just wasn’t that useful in the heat of a battle, and me being me, I didn’t want to be disadvantaged.
I managed to find a small dagger, made of celestial bronze. It’s nothing special – plain, with an 8-inch blade – but I don’t plan to be using it in any kind of fight since I’m really not one for combat. I’m hoping I won’t need to use it for anything other than slicing my hand open to do some hocus-pocus, but I’ve heard that the average demigod experience isn’t too accommodating for those who can’t fight.
Armor:
I make do with a Celestial Bronze helmet. Anything else would only slow me down, and I need to be prepared in case I need to do a bit of impromptu magic.
Pet(s):
Ew. While some animals are nice to look at, I wouldn’t want one crawling into bed with me every night like I hear some familiars do. No pets for me, thanks.
Personality:
Think of me as a detox diet. Better yet, for something more relatable to any of you pockmarked teenage sacks of hormones, think of me as an acne treatment. It gets worse before it gets better, yes? Same with me. I’m not intentionally mean, but if you aren’t close to me and don’t know what I’m like, my sarcasm can be enough to send you running. What? It’s not my fault if you can’t take a bit of sharp humour.
If not that, maybe my ego will do it; I’m not arrogant in any really obvious way (I haven’t reached Draco Malfoy level yet, believe me), but I can be extremely judgemental and self-righteous, and I like to believe I’m always right. If I’m not right, it’s hard for me to admit it. It sounds conceited, but I’ve also always believed I was destined for something much, much greater than being the sad little rich girl with daddy issues. If it isn’t the arrogance, it’ll probably be my overly sensitive/melodramatic nature – its okay for me to belittle myself, but if you’re the one who criticises me, get ready for me to take my claws out. They’re sharp, and they come out to play whenever I’m hurt or angry.
If you stick around, though, and gain my trust, that’s a whole other story. It’s not something I do on purpose, you know – it’s not like I woke up one morning and thought to myself, ”Okay, Philenia. Anyone who’s a close personal friend of yours and has gained your trust will be treated with the utmost love and respect. People who don’t fall under that category, you have permission to treat like poo.”. It just happened. I’m still sarcastic, but I’m a lot nicer. I can be very protective of those I love, and I won’t hesitate to do anything for them within my power. You still have to put up with the less pleasant aspects of my nature, though. (Un)Fortunately, there are few people who fall under this category.
If nothing else, I like to think I have a good heart under a thorny personality.
Skills/Talents:
Academics: I’m very good at academics. Although I have dyslexia, the exclusive boarding school I attended employed special teaching techniques for me, and I passed all my subjects with high grades. Well, all except for PE.
Quick Learner: Generally, I can pick up skills that don’t require a lot of physical activity quite easily if I put my mind to it; things like languages, baking and painting.
Memory: Because I wanted to succeed in school in spite of my dyslexia, I had to learn how to absorb and remember things with images in my mind efficiently. My memory is nowhere near eidetic, but I can hold specific images in my mind for a long time.
Flaws:
Let’s see…personality flaws. I always think I’m right. I can be very selfish. I’m sarcastic. Arrogant. A perfectionist. Overly sensitive/melodramatic. Obsessively curious with a need to know everything. I hate it when I don’t get my own way. If you really wanted me to list them all, you’d probably get a book bigger than the Bible. As for physical flaws? Take your pick. There’s the skin on my face, which can’t decide if it wants to be tan, olive or red; the bird’s nest I’ve got for hair or my extreme likeness to a dwarf in both height and general pleasantness.
My one fatal flaw is the part of me that always wants to get even. I know it’s such a bad trait to have, but if you ever wrong me…well, prepare to get wronged back. It’ll probably serve me right if I attack some girl who irritates me and it turns out she’s a daughter of Ares. Honestly, it’s going to get me killed one day.
Strengths:
I’m hard-working, determined and ambitious, characteristics I gained because of the high level of performance I expect from myself. I have a strong sense of right and wrong (although I don’t always follow it), and I can be empathetic, especially in issues that really matter to me. I also have observation skills and an attention to detail that seem to manifest subconsciously – I could be having a conversation, completely engrossed in the topic, and later on when I think back on it, I’ll remember details that I never even noticed at the time.
Weaknesses:
I’m pretty damn bad at athletics, unless I’m running for my life, of course. I’m just not made for marathons or high jump or anything like that. Come to think of it, I’m not made to do most sports – the only sport that I’m somewhat decent in is volleyball. I also have a hard time with weapons and fighting – a dagger is pretty easy to use, I suppose, but when I tried my hand at archery and sword-fighting, the results weren’t promising.
I’m not very good at making friends, either. Living with my father fostered a sort of emotional detachment in me, and it’s hard for me to approach people and express feelings other than scorn and sarcasm, really. It’s not that I don’t want to make friends. I just find it incredibly difficult to open up to people. That’s probably why I spent most of my time at boarding school without real friends.
Also, if you must know, I have an incurable weakness for dresses.
Likes:
shopping, getting my own way, sitting outside under the moon, chocolate cake, other sarcastic people who understand my brand of humour, the amethyst Panamera 4 Porsche that Simone bought me for my 16th birthday
Dislikes:
denim shorts, crop tops, spiders, my father, big confrontation, onions, most types of people
Fears:
My greatest, real, true fear is ending up alone in the world, but I know it won’t happen. I’m friendless now, but that’s only because I choose to be. I haven’t met anyone worthy yet.
…No, I’m not in denial. Not at all.
Social Status:
Average. I was reasonably well-known at my boarding school, but while there were certain people I’d usually hang out with, I didn’t have any real close friends. Its pretty much the same here.
Summer or Year Rounder:
Year rounder. Now that I know what I am, I’d much rather stay here and learn how to stay alive than go back to boarding school.
Years at Camp:
Three months.
Life Before CHB:
You’d think that the life of a rich girl living in the most affluent neighbourhood in Canada would be interesting. Every TV show I’ve ever watched about a young teen girl living the life of the wealthy has had drugs, extreme shopping sprees and the odd Gossip-Girl-esque scandal. Pfft. I wish that would happen to me.
But no. Before I found out I was a demigod, I was a good girl. Maybe not a sweet girl, but I never did anything really bad. I never felt the need to ‘rebel’ or establish my own rightful independence or whatever – there was no point. I already had all the freedom I could want, and even that which I didn’t. My father didn’t care.
The relationship I have with my father isn’t overly complicated. Before I arrived at Camp Half-Blood, my school terms were spent at a boarding school in Ottawa. I’ve been in boarding schools since the first grade, only returning home for the holidays. When I came home, my father would either be working or working. There was no other option, except for eating. When we ate, he ignored me and I didn’t talk. He wasn’t interested in me, and I wondered many times why he never just threw me out or gave me up. Maybe he was scared of angering my mother. I’d be too, if I were him – I wouldn’t want to run the risk of my mother sending over the empousai.
When I was eight years old, at home with a hired nanny to look after me while my father was on a business trip, he came back with a new girlfriend – Simone Bourgeois. They married the following year, a day before my ninth birthday. Simone was the closest to a parent figure that I ever got; for the next eight years, she became a mother figure and occasional confidant to me. Over the years, she seemed to mellow my father out somewhat, and I noticed that he took a bit more interest in my welfare. Nothing major, but at least he asked me how school had been when I returned for break.
Once I turned fourteen, my school vacations were spent at home alone. Simone and my father would go on holidays most of the time, leaving me to my own devices. Let me tell you, after three breaks in a mansion all alone, the novelty of being allowed to do whatever you wanted faded quickly. For those two week breaks, I literally had no contact with the outside world. None of my friends from boarding school lived anywhere near Toronto, and even if they had, I doubted I’d have gotten much help from them anyway. We had fun at school, but our friendship didn’t extend to inviting each other over for slumber parties. It was during one of the breaks during eighth grade that I first discovered my magic.
Nothing really changed until around a year and a half ago, when Simone announced that she was pregnant with my father’s child. I wasn’t thrilled at first, but because Simone refused to go overseas anymore for vacations, preferring to stay home and read about parenting, we bonded over my school breaks. My father was still working obsessively, but Simone and I spent the summer painting the bedroom we had converted into a nursery.
Demetrice Laurent Reed was born on the 3rd of March, during my 10th grade. I had been at school then, but when I returned home for spring break, something happened that had never happened before. My father called me to his office, and told me he wanted to speak to me about something Very Important. Naturally, I was insanely curious – after almost seventeen years of blatant disregard for me, what could he possibly want?
Then he mentioned my mother.
We never talked about my mother. We rarely talked about normal things, like how I was, how school was and what we were having for dinner. He told me there was a place I could go to learn more about her, that she had told my father to tell me about it when he thought I was ready. Well, I reckon he just wanted to get rid of me so he, Simone and Demetrice could be one happy family, but honestly, I didn’t mind too much. I liked Simone and had grown to love baby Demetrice, but I wanted to learn more about my mother. My father basically told me he didn’t care if I only went there for the summer or decided to stay there permanently, so I chose the latter, even without knowing what I was getting into.
I arrived at Camp Half-Blood with a hastily scribbled note that said:
“Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141
Long Island, New York 11954
- Ask for Hecate.
Good luck. ”
Role-playing Example:
That her mother was a goddess should have surprised her a lot more than it did, but the fact was, after a couple of days of mulling over the prospect, she had settled into this new knowledge quite easily. Philenia had always known she was destined to do something with her life, and now that she knew she was a demigod, she recognised the opportunity for what it was. It was her chance to be someone, not just plain Philenia Reed, and she’d be damned if she didn’t take it.
So no, the fact that she was the progeny of an immortal being didn’t surprise her as much as she thought it would. What did surprise her was her subsequent discovery that there was literally a whole camp for weird human-deity hybrids like her. Seriously, she’d bet there were over a hundred demigods there, and they were all learning how to survive. Apparently, here in the United States, demigods were frequently hunted by monsters and killed before they reached adulthood. It was rather exciting, as morbid as that sounded. Maybe the monsters just didn’t like Canada, because she had never noticed anything weird like freaky Math teachers who wanted to claw her eyes out, or cheerleaders bent on ripping her into itty-bitty pieces. She’d been told the stories, of course. Percy Jackson was somewhat of a legend at this camp, or so she had heard.
There were a couple of problems with her new found heritage. Firstly, monsters from stories like dragons, chimaeras and minotaurs were actually real (she really hoped this didn’t extend to Edward Cullen), and they were literally out for her blood. She’d been told she would need to learn how to fight them. The thing was, she had failed PE. She was horrible at sports and anything athletic, and when she had tried out sword-fighting and archery, it had been much the same. She knew she’d have to work diligently if she wanted to overcome that (and if she wanted to survive), but it was hard to learn how to thrust with a xiphos when an Ares kid was five metres away, mutilating a dummy and smirking at her in superiority.
Secondly, in the span of a couple of hours, she had gained a whole fleet of half-siblings. Her mother must have been really busy to have that many children, all with such similar ages. All the children of Hecate had special abilities, like her, but their powers ranged from shooting lightning from their fingertips to throwing balls of fire at people. She was even related to a sorceress who turned men into guinea pigs for fun. She didn’t know how to feel about them. There didn’t seem to be that much sentimentality between people who had the same godly parent – they acted towards her the way people acted towards the new kid at school. They were nice, but there wasn’t any gushing about the new sisterhood she had joined, or any particular closeness at all. Never having siblings of her own (except for Demetrice, but he didn’t count), she didn’t know if this was a normal thing or what. She had been under the impression (had been hoping, really) that her half-siblings would welcome her with open arms and friendliness, and that they’d be the best of friends soon enough. That obviously hadn’t happened, which was disappointing.
Well, she’d deal with both of these difficulties. She was strong. She knew what she had to do. She was the daughter of a goddess. She wasn’t going to let things like that stop her from becoming a Person to Remember. She was going to work for it, and they wouldn’t know what had hit them. She was going to be the greatest daughter of Hecate this camp had seen.
Code by: Neqi. Do not use without my express permission, unless you want to be used as a chew toy by a chimaera. ;o
Last edited by Neqi on 10/4/2013, 6:18 am; edited 5 times in total
