five years and five pokemon games ago [private]

The wind was gentle today -- much unlike it had been back in Kansas during the tornado season. Ha.

Laying on her back floating about ten feet in the air above the lake shore, Stella was staring up at the clear blue sky idly nibbling on a lollipop stick; the cherry flavored candy part had long since been eaten up. Her eyes had adjusted well to the sunlight, but that must have come with her god parent: Ouranos, primordial god of the sky who was, supposedly, a bunch of chunks scattered across the world. Something like that. That's what she'd been told when she had first been claimed almost eight, nine months ago.

The memory still burned angrily in her head whenever she thought about it. Her father deserved so much more -- and so did she.

Tossed into an old cabin in the woods, far away from the rest of camp, Stella resented the way the camp tried to shove her and the few other demititans away, as if they were out of sight and out of mind in the forest and as if they were robots who wouldn't mind such treatment. It wasn't like they were to be respected, as if they weren't the children of the few primordial gods or Titans who created the damned world for the gods to take over and treat as a playground. Those stupid demigods -- stupid, stupid --

Her tongue felt something fuzzy in her mouth, separate from the lollipop stick; spitting at the ground, the stick and a small, separate piece of its tip landed a foot or two beside her on the sandy-rocky shore. She almost laughed at herself: what did it matter that she had almost bit the stick in half? She could do so much more damage to anything if only she trained more and more until -- until... until she could wreck this stupid camp, wreck these stupid gods and all their stupid superiority complexes. Their kids were nothing compared to her, they'd never be able to tear her down without calling to their idiot parents for help.

Stella exhaled deeply; the winds were picking up the more she thought about this. She needed to control herself.

The skies were clear, the sands were warm, and the sun was shining brightly. Yes, today was a very pleasant day, very pleasant indeed. Quiet, crisp, and fresh. It was what one particular girl would call a golden day.

This girl in question was currently switching between skipping and walking along the shore line, humming a random tune as she flounced about. Yes, Ferro was very grateful for the fine weather. Much better than a blue day, after all.

Ferro's day scoring system was something simple to understand, once you stepped into the mindset of a three year old. The darker colors were the harsher, colder, or more unpleasant days, and the lighter colors were the happier, warmer, or more enjoyable days. The best days received a metallic ranking. She was pretty proud of the system, to say the least, and was thinking of trying to find some way to patent it.

Anyway, here she was, freshly twelve and peppy as always. She'd spent the entire day wandering camp on her own, not really worrying about getting lost in the new, unfamiliar area. She was looking for something to happen in this odd, unexplored place. She'd already seen stables and a scary-looking climbing wall, which involved a bit too much lava for her taste. After a while of staring at the pegasi, she'd decided to see if anything could combat them at the lake. Maybe they had mermaids.

She was a bit disappointed at the clear waters, free of fish people or anything else of the kind. As she turned to head back towards the camp, though, she caught sight of a person not too far away. And she was floating.

After her two-minute mind-blown staring fest, she quickly covered the distance between herself and the girl--well, the horizontal distance, anyway. She tilted her head up and waved lightly, a smile as big as the ocean plastered on her face.

"Hello!" She greeted, rolling onto the heels of her feet and back.

The demititan hadn't noticed the girl approaching, too lost in her own plans about decimating the camp slowly from the inside-out until she heard somebody speaking to her from below: a girl.

Stella twisted her head and torso around to look at the ground where, about five feet below her, she could see said girl waving up to her smiling at the demititan brightly, looking ever-so-disgustingly happy with herself and the world. Who the hell could she be? She scowled and glanced about her: nobody else was here to witness this. Perhaps a... gentle push into the lake would suffice to get her away.

"Anndddd.... Hi? What do you want?" It was almost snappy the way she had said it, but Stella had sufficient reason to be pissed off at the camp and everyone in it. Nothing had gone her way since she had left home: her satyr had mysteriously died (ha), she had been claimed by some god who was supposed to be a million pieces of flesh and bone and all scattered across the world, shoved off into an old dusty cabin in the woods, and treated like a freaking walking taboo. Nobody would talk to Stella face to face, but they sure as hell liked to talk about her behind her back: the winds brought such whispers to her whenever she went anywhere, and she sure as hell didn't leave without giving the idiots a piece of her mind.

She was sure, very vaguely, that this girl below her was mocking her. Clucking her tongue, Stella slowly turned and let the winds lower her to the ground sl-- and no. Her concentration had been broken suddenly by a stray gust of wind blowing her hair into her face, forcing her to leap to the ground and land awkwardly.

Stella blew the strands out of her eyes and glared at the girl: she was about her age, maybe a bit shorter than her but she definitely looked like a strong gust of wind could send her flying straight into the water. Perfect, really. "Are you lost or something?"

The other girl replied with a bit of attitude, though Ferro didn't pay it much attention. She probably was just having a bad day. Ferro decided to try and cheer her up a bit.

As the girl began to lower herself down, Ferro began to answered her question. "Well, actually, I just kind of thought--Oh, no! Are you hurt?" She began, before stopping as the girl fell and landed very ungracefully. She seemed fine, though, but Ferro couldn't help but feel a bit bad for causing the whole interaction in the first place.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother you. I just thought that floating thing looked kind of cool! Do you think I could do that? I'm unclaimed right now, so I guess it could happen, right? Who's your parent?"

Stella waved her off, grumbling a quick "I'm fine" as she settled her feet back onto the ground. She hadn't twisted her ankle like she had when she'd first been claimed, having accidentally fallen off the climbing wall during a Hermes cabin activity and ended up floating a mere foot above the lava pit before the symbol of Ouranos -- a clear blue sky, complete with a small cloud and sun -- had appeared above her forehead, after which she completely flubbed the landing on safe ground by letting go too early. Oh, that had certainly caused a stir.

She glanced at the girl and gave her a once-over. She looked slim and delicate, but if Stella knew anything, that would probably be a good thing for flying or some other type of air travel. The girl must have been new, not to have a faint inkling of who the demititan was and had been claimed by: good for Stella, perhaps, but not so much for her.

"Maybe you could, maybe you can't. There's, like, six major air gods versus hundreds of other gods." She definitely didn't pay attention to any mythology lessons from those snobby Athena kids, ha. "My dad is Ouranos, primordial god of the sky. Rarest of them all." A definite point of pride for her, being the only child of said god in this entire stupid dump.

The other girl seemed to study her for a bit. It seemed like people had been doing that to her a lot, not that she really minded. She could only assume that they were trying to decide whether they'd want her in their group or cabin. From the few headshakes she'd observed so far, she wasn't going to be very well accepted by the Ares, Aphrodite, or Underworld cabin. Once again, she didn't mind. After all, she was pretty used by now to having people reject her, and thought pretty much nothing of it. Anyway, she couldn't exactly be accepted everywhere, right? And she just knew that the people she did end up with would be just like her, be really nice to her and be like the siblings she'd never had.

She was kind of disappointed by her reply on the likelihood of her being able to float, seeing how the odds weren't really in her favor, but she perked up kind of quickly, figuring there were plenty of other parents out there. "Oh, wow! You must be like some kind of legend around here! That's so cool!" She nearly jumped at her final words, and a light tad of her french accent poked out with her excitement. Wow, maybe she was some kind of celebrity in the camp or something. Kids probably worshipped her.

"I'm Ferrofox, by the way," She added with a smile, offering her hand. "Most people call me Ferro, though. Or Fox. Or whatever they want to call me, really."

OOC: Just tell me when we should claim her, I'll wait for your okay on it so its not too early or late or anything and my timing on things sucks

Well, the ego-stroking from the girl was nice enough -- that much Stella could admit, however painful that may be for her. It was so rare to find someone outside of the Titan cabin who was in the least respectful of her heritage, rather than derisive and hostile towards her because the Titans were gone for a reason, yadda yadda yadda, go back to Tartarus where you belong you brat. Perhaps this girl would be nice to have around as some sort of cheerleader, or some sort of weird acquaintance who would work well enough as some sort of eccentric distracting presence to let her and her fellow demititans do... stuff. She hadn't planned too far ahead yet.

Ferrofox was a weird name, though. Like, did her mom or dad pick her name out of a science textbook or something? The first part sounded vaguely familiar, but the "fox" part was unmistakable. It was probably some science-y thing, like chemistry or something; she had never paid any attention to science class in part because the teacher talked like Lurch from the Addams Family and because of her ADHD. Both equally valid excuses.

She offered her an awkward smile, perhaps a bit artificial because of how damned cheerful this Ferro girl was -- which threw the demititan for a loop. Such optimism was... disgusting, in a way, because it showed they were too damned innocent. Hesitantly, she reached out slowly and shook her hand. "Er, yeah. Stella Acerbi."

[ooc: Cue claiming or something. Explosions of lights! Cameras! Action! -- doesn't have to be too special or whatever, unless you want her to accidentally use her power on Stella or w/e and that's how she gets her Mnemosyne symbol triggered]

She took her hand happily, grateful to have someone willing to talk to her for even such a short period of time. While she never really cared about being on her own, talking with someone always felt surprisingly good, maybe even better than being on her own.

"I guess I should be going, then. After all, I still have a lot of camp to see. That tour doesn't really show you everything," She suggested, realizing that Stella would probably want to continue her floating away from the public eye. Wouldn't want anyone bothering her or anything.

She stepped away with a bit of a wave, before stopping in her tracks. She hadn't even tried to do it this time, she swore she hadn't. It hadn't happened in a while, at least not within the last month. But she supposed that didn't matter much, as here it was, coming up again, and probably about to ruin a perfectly good relationship.

The flash of the memory only lasted a few seconds, before Ferro forced herself out, but it was enough to leave her a bit worried on how this new Stella would react. She might not be able to tell what had happened, as some people recognized when it happened to them and some didn't, but she would certainly know something had transpired due to the sudden change in Ferro's expression, which had gone from loose and happy to still, frozen, and kind of nervous.

That was around the time she noticed that there was some kind of glow directly over her, and she looked up curiously. She was greeted with a brightly shining gray tablet, etched with words in all sorts of languages. She recognized it quickly, mainly from early memories from textbooks, as the Rosetta Stone. She gasped loudly, and with a quiet shriek that probably couldn't be heard over that of a mouse's, fell on her butt, not letting her eyes leave the hovering symbol.

It hadn't been more than thirty seconds after Ferro had moved away that something went wrong -- sort of.

Stella didn't know, exactly, what had happened. There was a brief flash of something in her mind's eye, an old memory she hadn't even really remembered in the first place: her baking with her mom about two years ago in their kitchen, an orange birthday cake for her little sister Aidan which she had frosted herself. But the image faded almost as soon as it began, and the demititan found her mind slightly muddled and running a mile a minute as she looked around, disoriented at the sudden memory and how it almost felt like there was some sort of pressure in her brain. Stella slowly lifted her hand to her forehead and rubbed at it, trying to piece her mind together again and figure out why, suddenly, she had remembered such an irrelevant thing at this moment. What the hell?

Ferro was still there, but her cheerfulness had suddenly disappeared, replaced by a nervous, frozen facial expression that instinctively made Stella assume the worst: it was her, wasn't it? She had done something to her almost as soon as she'd walked away from the daughter of Ouranos, some sort of mind power and she knew she had been caught -- was she really unclai--

"You," she snarled, taking a step towards her, "what did you d--"

She couldn't finish.

A glow had appeared over Ferro's head, a small holographic symbol that instantly answered Stella's angry mental rambling and checked her approach: she had really been unclaimed, but.... It was just a stone with lots of weird symbols on it. The demititan stared up at it, slackjawed at the suddenness of the holograph, of the memory flash, of everything -- but she remembered, briefly, talking about something like this at school back in Kansas, some sort of translation stone from Egypt or the like.

And then it hit the daughter of Ouranos fully that she knew exactly who the tablet represented, mythology lessons or no. Not just a Muse, no, but somebody higher -- as important as the stone tablet in the hologram. "Goddamn. Do you know what this means?"

Ferro winced at Stella's anger, moving her eyes away from the image above her to watch the other girl. "I swear I-I didn't...I don't" she began a stuttered apology, not letting her gave wander from Stella. But Stella didn't seem so furious anymore. Instead, she switched her focus to the symbol over Ferro's head.

Ferro watched as her face transitioned from shock, to disbelief, and then to realization.

Then Stella said something, and it took her a few seconds to understand. She shook her head a bit, standing up slowly, as if trying to keep herself from hitting her head on the image, and brushed herself off as she registered what had been asked.

"I have no idea," she replied in a bit of a whisper, "but some clarification would be greatly appreciated."

At that moment, the symbol disappeared, leaving Ferro very relieved, but also a bit startled at its departure.

Stella's mouth snapped close again to glare at the other girl when the image above her head had faded, the girl who so clearly was out of the loop about even the most basic camp events that it was almost pathetic. "You just got claimed, Ferro. And you know by who? A Titan, just like me."

Her mind was better now, recovered from the previous invasion perhaps due to the shock of the image above Ferro's head or because her anger at the event had forced her mind back into full capacity. Either way, her mind still wandered back to a small statue in the Titan cabin in the woods of a beautiful woman, holding a stone very similar to the one that had appeared above Ferro's head. She was a demititan just like her -- but... did not act in the least like her? Every Titan kid seemed at the very least contemptuous of the camp and its weak demigods, but Ferro was... so damned cheerful, like she had no care in the world.

She sighed in defeat: she wouldn't be rid of her, but she could certainly try to mold her into that image of power and regality all demititans exuded. Maybe none of them had started out so hateful, but certainly their treatment by the rest of camp would check Ferro's happiness?

"It's Mnemosyne," Stella said almost hoarsely, "Titaness of memory and language. Congrats."

Ferro's already huge eyes grew larger as Stella answered, and before she knew it, she was smiling so much it hurt. "Really? Like, really, really? Oh, wow, that's amazing! That's so, so, so awesome!" She exclaimed, jumping around a bit in excitement.

She obviously thought that being the daughter of a fricking titan was totally stellar, but that wasn't the only reason she was so happy. She'd always wondered a bit as to why she was so different from other people, why she was always shoved away. She'd never had enough gathered focus at once to stay on the thought, but she figured that this might just be it. Maybe she was different because she was different. Now she would be with people like her, and she wouldn't be quite so different. She'd have somewhere to belong, and people to be with. She'd never really minded being alone, but she could admit that it probably felt better to have someone, like how a middle-class family could be perfectly happy, but could definitely say that having a mansion would be pretty cool. Ferro felt like she'd just been given her own mansion. She'd finally have a group, have her own friends, have something, and she could only imagine how amazing that was going to feel.

Then she noticed that Stella didn't seem quite so cheerful, and her happiness was subdued a bit as she gave her a questioning glance. "Something wrong?" She asked innocently, rocking back and forth on her feet.

Well, she was jumping around now -- and then had noticed Stella's face, which was good because that meant she wasn't such a ditz after all.

"Oh no, I'm perfectly fine. But are you really excited to get shoved off out of sight into the woods and, you know... get rejected from everything else?" And there Ferro would go, to have her apparently endless happiness crushed by the weight of all those damned idiots lurking around camp, lurking and saying that the Titans were gone and that it was the era of the gods, that the gods would make sure the demititans stayed in check and that said demigods had little to fear. Their heroes would save them in the end from any Titan's wrath, so it was meaningless for the demititans to actually try to prove themselves because they were just gonna get smacked down like their parents. "S'that really what you want? Because let me tell you something, kid: the demigods don't respect us, and they make up most of camp. You have to fight to get respect -- or be something to be feared. You up for that?"

Stella would almost relish seeing the way she'd react to such pressures. Being the child of a very powerful parent was one thing -- it was another to be the child of a very powerful, but overthrown and/or humiliated one. The children of the gods liked to believe the Titans wouldn't come back -- but then they forgot that the demititans existed and were vastly more powerful than any of the demigods.

Ferro's face fell at her words. Maybe this wasn't such a great thing after all. What if this didn't mean anything, maybe even made her lack of acceptance worse? Could it be true? Perhaps this would only make things harder for her, but there was very little she could do about that. She might not even be accepted among the other demititans. If Stella was anything to go off of, Ferro had to admit, she wasn't very much like her. She could be just as she was before, except, instead of just being ignored, she could just be a target for hate.

"I...I don't really fight. I don't do violence or anything like that," She'd seen one dead body before in her life, and that was enough to keep her from ever seeing another injury again. After all, there were so many ways one small wound could kill you, and just that idea scared her so much she didn't even want to spend more than two seconds on it. She didn't want anyone getting hurt, she didn't want to see any blood, and she especially didn't want to be the one to cause others pain.

"I don't suppose I'll mind the loneliness that much, though. I've had my fair share. It can't be that horrible, right?" She assured herself aloud, and she knew it was true. The loneliness would be so common for her, there would hardly be any change. She'd be on her own again, definitely, no way to go around it. It wouldn't be that bad. The only reason it hurt at all was because her unrealistic expectations had come crashing down. She'd had her mansion snatched out from under her, and left with the same house which was still just as spectacular and just as familiar.

"Maybe you should learn, then, or find some other way to get respect. The very title of demititan should be enough to frighten other kids." Stella could have laughed at her now, but she didn't -- only for the fact that she would have to deal with Ferro much more in the future and use her if she could to get any advantage possible for her goals for the camp. The other demititans, perhaps they'd care about her: David and Aeron would certainly not want Stella to get to her, and Chris wouldn't care. Stella would have to get in good with her now to mold her easier later, because who else was gonna help her when she tore down this musty old waste of wood?

The daughter of Ouranos would make sure the other campers feared her: they saw the extent of her cabinmates' powers and hers and, despite this, went on thinking that they could still possibly beat them. Strategy versus brawn, they said. But they had no idea what they could do, especially not what Stella was planning to do to them. If she could drag Ferro with her along that path, that would do wonders for her -- any slight advantage would be one step closer to eradicating those pests.

Stella half-smiled at the daughter of Mnemosyne, slightly artifically because of her naivete but who cared anymore? "Oh, sure, you don't like fighting. But you're not gonna be alone anymore 'cause you're with the Titan cabin now and we'll, ah, help you with that. You just gotta learn how to play your cards right and you'll fit in quite... nicely. In the long run, anyway."

"Really?" She asked, a bit of hope returning to her voice. Maybe she would actually be able to fit in somewhere. That would be nice. At least, for the time being, it seemed as if Stella had accepted her. Maybe she actually had a chance.

It was so odd that she actually seemed to apply to a group now. She couldn't think of when that had happened in...ever. The closest things she'd had so far had been her father and her, and the labs in Boston. The first one was hard to think about, and the second wasn't exactly very pleasant, either. This group probably would end in flames and involve a ton of awkward pain and drama, just like the others, but Ferro, knowing herself, would almost certainly take it all with a smile.

"Thank you," She half-whispered, looking down at her feet before returning her gaze back to Stella. "I guess I'd better go move my things," She added on, louder this time, with her usual smile returning to her face.

"Oh yeah. You should go do that." The thought hadn't really occurred to Stella, but whatever. The simple things like that didn't matter much, in comparison to what could happen in the near future. She'd use Ferro, maybe figure out how to get her to train her powers -- she definitely had them, if that mental intrusion from a minute before was anything to go by -- and then she would wittle down her personality and get it to the nitty-gritty parts, cynical and arrogant and cruel just like her....

But that would take time. Stella wasn't sure she could be so patient to wait for a full-fledged partner to attain his or her powers, so in the mean time she'd be alone. She still had training to do, too, in order to get ready for what she wanted to do and to become an actual threat in camp. Time -- would they really have it? She had a good grasp of some of the more basic concepts of her powers, but still, there had to be more complex things -- and Ferro would have to find out for herself how to delve deeper for herself, because all of the other demititans weren't related to her mother's territory at all.

"Would you need help?"

It probably didn't mean much to anyone else, probably never would, but those four words brought back what little cheer Ferro still hadn't regained. "Thank you, but I think I can handle it myself," She responded, mainly out of habit. She wouldn't want to take off anymore of Stella's time, after all.

She gave her a final smile and a short wave, "See you around, then," She said, walking back a few steps before turning on her heel and picking up her pace, transitioning into a skip as she headed back towards the cabins to gather her things.

Stella frowned at Ferro's back as she left, before turning away and walking off towards the forest path from the lake. An interesting girl, but she didn't think she would give her much trouble in the future. She'd know where to find the cabin in the woods, anyway, it wasn't too far in and had a footpath winding through the forest straight to it.

If only she could disappear and get there (which she was sure Ferro couldn't do). Teleportation was definitely a difficult concept to master.

[ooc: Should we go for a present-time RP now?]

OOC: Yeah, I'm cool with that. Where should we do it? And who should start? I can if, you want.

ooc: We could do it at the old Titan cabin for reminiscing and all -- and yeah, you can start.