Summer afternoon (private)

I was chilling on guard duty when this dog walked up to me.

A labrador retriever, with glossy black fur. She made a great circle around Peleus to come sniff my ankles, which made me chuckle. "What are you doing here, hm?" I asked as I stabbed my spear into the ground to pet her. She licked my hands.

My human's at the grocery store down the road. I smelled you, miss.

"..Ah."

I had been at camp for six months, I had been on a Quest and a few combat missions (including being catapulted to Delphi by Apollo in person to kill the Python with Ben, son of Hades), but it still weirded me out to talk to a dog for some reason.
The retriever tried to put its paws on my legs, so I petted her some more before picking up a nearby branch and throwing it down the hill for her to fetch.

I had had a pretty nice day up till now. After breakfast, the Hecate and Demeter cabin had canoed together across the lake, then we had paired up with the Nike kids for a session of sparring. They were really the most competitive people I had ever met, they just never gave up and fought like the world was watching. (I had sparred against Darren, one of the best swordsmen at camp, and my muscles were still sore.) For lunch, I had a picnic with Ben near the fields, then Lou Ellen assigned me to guard duty for the next hour -- cheers, sis. At least it gave me an excuse to relax before wrestling.
Despite the hot weather, I was still in military pants and combat boots, my brown hair up in a ponytail. I had my orange camp shirt as well, my sword at my hip and my torch in my back pocket, you never knew.
The retriever brought me the branch back, the bark half gnawed off, and dropped it at my feet expectabtly. Smiling, I grabbed a part of it that wasn't covered in saliva and threw it to the other side of the hill -- she immediately turned tail and raced after it.

A few nights ago, a new guy joined the ranks of the Hecate cabin: Josh, who was about my age. The dude had serious scars but I hadn't asked why -- after all, I wasn't here to pry. It was nice, though, to have a new person in our pavilion. We were only six right now: Lou, Salem, Andy, Eve, Jason and me. I wondered how Josh would turn out to be, he seemed very introverted...

I was walking up the hill, I set out an hour ago to explore the camp a little. Martan wanted to tag along with me, at least now I would have some company walking around. As I was about half way up the hill, I saw a stick flying down the hill with a dog in hot pursuit. I jumped to the side to avoid getting hit by the stick and the dog.
Unfortunately, the labardor retriever lost interest in the stick and came bounding towards me.

"Hey, what you doing here?" I asked the black furred Labrador, crouching and petting it.

I smelled a woman up there

the Labrador pointed up the hill with its mussel.
I blinked in surprise, I wasn't expecting the dog to actually reply back. I looked over at Martan who was chewing on the Labrador's stick, how come he never replied to me? The Labrador ran around me and stole it's stick from Martan and back ran up the hill with Martan close behind.
"Martan!" I shouted running up the hill after my husky.

When I reached the top I accidentally tackled a girl and knocked over her spear. I scrambled off her and ran my hands through my hair in frustration.
"Oh, god I'm so sorry!" I said holding my hand out to help her up.

I was a little lost in thought when my retriever suddenly raced up the hill with a husky close behind. What? Another dog? They raced past me and while I was watching them, something knocked me off my feet and I fell flat on my back.

"Hey!" I growled, before realizing the person who had knocked me over and was now struggling to his feet was none other than Josh. Speak of the devil.

Crouching up, I dusted myself and restrapped my arm greaves. "It's fine, mate, don't worry about it," I smiled, then took my helmet off to reveal my face. The summer climate of camp had made me quite tan; I had a pale sword scar on my cheek but I was smiling brightly. It was actually so hot that the Stygian iron of my armour and weapons gave wisps of eerie white fog, like smoke.

I jerked my chin at the husky. "Is that your dog?"

"Yeah, that's my dog, Martan." I said a little embarrassed for tackling her, she look a little mysterious with the white fog coming off her armor and weapons, though her smile was nice and welcoming at least she wasn't extremely irritated that would be bad.
I saw a scar on her cheek I wondered where it came from but I wasn't here to pry, I would never pry into other people's business. I started fiddling with the collar on my shirt exposing more of a long scar that was just under my collar bone.
"I'm Josh, uhh, what's your name?" I said alittle awkwardly, but I smiled regardless. To be honest I saw her around the cabin sometimes, if I wasn't writing in my small notebook, which I had in my back pocket with a pencil. Martan came over behind me and some how nugged my note book out of my pocket, I bent over to pick it up while petting Martan.

I didn't resent him for not knowing my name, it took me weeks myself to remember who everyone was.

"I'm Morgan, lieutenant of the Hecates," I smiled, and extended my hand for a shake. As he touched his collar, I saw the edge of a deep-looking scar -- monster? Wow, it was quite nasty. The kid was probably tougher than he looked. "So, where are you from?" I asked, casually leaning on my spear.

I took Morgan's extended hand and shook it. Lieutenant of the Hecate's Cabin, I sorta expected that.

"I'm from Idaho, pretty much every house I went to there had at least one gun and a bag of potatoes!" I said laughing slightly on how close the Idahoin stereotype was close to the real thing. "How about you where are you from?" I asked.
I noticed that Morgan had seen the scar, I woundered when she would ask about it.

Chuckling at his joke, my gaze briefly traveled back to his scar before snapping back up. "Technically, I'm Greek," I told him. "My family story is really messed up though, so long story short, I lived most of my life in Germany with a different family and met my real father only a few months ago."

Sh!t, he caught me looking. Guess I had to own up to it now.

"If you don't mind me asking," I gestured at his neck, "what happened there? A dracaena?"

"Uh, a dracaena and a harpy, a harpy picked me up and tried to fly away with me but I hooked my legs under a bench to hole my self there, then dracaena stabbed me, not deep enough to kill me, but it was still kinda deep, then she dragged the blade from my shoulder to just under the middle of my collar bone." I said pulling down my shirt to show the rest of the scar. The scar was shaped like a crescent, you could tell it started at my shoulder it ended in the middle of my chest just under the collar bone.
A cool wind started to pick up goose bumps appeared on my arms I shivered a bit.
"Then James hit the harpy and the dracaena in the back of the head with a slab of cement covered in vines. And that all happened in Denver, and all I wanted was a hot dog." Forcing a laugh at the last part.
That specific memory wasn't very pleasant, not only because of the pain, also of what the dracaena said during that experience.

I screwed my face up. "Ouch." That sounded rather painful indeed, he was lucky to still be alive. I figured James was his satyr protector -- if it was James Hawkley, the blonde guy, then I knew him. He was rather chill but had some wicked nature spells, spoken as a daughter of Hecate.

"So you're from Denver then?"

"It was rather painful. No, as I said earlier I am from Idaho, I was passing through Denver, on my way here I accidentally got on a bus to Denver." I said sadly, the whole experience could have been avoided.

I grabbed a nearby stick and started writing in Ancient Greek in the ground, I didn't know what I was writing I just did it, I did this a couple times back in Idaho the evidence was in my notebook.

I dropped the stick. "Though, not all the scars were from monsters." I muttered quitely under my breath.

"Oh, I meant that as in, do you have family in Denver," I quickly explained. "Sorry, language barrier."

I wasn't that good at USA geography but I still did my best to picture the route. That was quite a trip. Picking up the stick the lab had dropped at my feet, I threw it the other way again, both dogs racing off.

Peering at the ground, I read what Josh was writing in Ancient Greek before frowning. "What did you say?" I thought I heard him mutter something under his breath

"I don't think I have family from Denver." I said.

I looked up from the ground and looked at the bridge of her nose, a little tricked I learned you can look some where near someones eyes they sometimes think you are looking them in the eye, but it doesn't always work.

"I didn't say anything important." I said a smile played at the corners of my mouth, a tale tale sign that I am lying hopefully she didn't know that.

"Umm, sorry to ask you this but can you read this, I don't really know how to read Ancient Greek." I asked shyly while gesturing to the ground, I was a little embarrassed about asking that.

OOC: the sentence in ancient Greek should read "Some people need some of their secrets revealed, so they can move on."

I wasn't convinced by his smile but decided not to push. Peering closer, I looked at what he had written: τινες ἀνθρωποι δει κλεπτεται τινας ἀποκρυφους αὐτους, ἰνα οἱ ποιουσιν προσβαινειν. Tilting my head, I glanced at him and scratched the back of my head. "It says: some people," I started, "need some of their secrets to be uncovered, so that they can move on." I didn't quite know what to think of that. "How come you can write Ancient Greek, but not understand it?"

I shrugged, "I don't really know, I did this sometimes back in Idaho, I wrote them in my journal." I took out my leather bound journal out of my back pocket, and flipped through the pages, my back to the sun so I could look at the pages without being blinded by the light reflecting off the pages.

I stopped at a group of four pages, the front of the pages were covered in Ancient Greek writing, the back of the pages in English.

I held the journal out to her. "I went to the library where I used to live and got a a Greek to English dictionary, I did my best at translating them at the time. They appear to be instructions for potions or something. Maybe you could do something with them." I said relaxing a bit, she definitely didn't seem to be the person I thought she was.

Potions? Hades yeah! Accepting the notebook, I skimmed through his notes, studied the sketches and retraced some of the diagrams with my finger. "This one's a sleeping potion," I said. "Without a doubt. You got asphodel in it. This one..." I squinted in the sunlight, my gaze going from line to line. "This one heals." I kept browsing his notebook, telling him for each potion what it did, whether it was written on top or not, I recognized the ingredients.

I nodded, watched, and listened to her. She seemed to know a lot about potions, but then again she was the lieutenant of the Hecate cabin then I remembered something.
"I think, I wrote something like spells in here too." I said kinda excited I was definitely going to make a couple of these potions later.
I looked up at the sky, it appeared we had like a hour until wrestling, honestly I'm kinda nervous about that.

"Oh, show me, show me," I said, eager to help him. The spells were a bit more difficult to explain as there was some theory around them, but I still managed to tell him how they worked.

"That's so interesting," I said, handing him the notebook back. "You write those things without even knowing what they're about. You must be quite powerful."

"Powerful? I can't even catch a football in gym class without bruiseing myself!? I said exasperated, I wasn't very strong but I am pretty fast, I also have a naturally strong voice. Most people who wanted edvice came too me and I was usually able to help them too, but nothing really powerful.

But you're the best in your botany class

Martan barked in my mind. I hopped Morgan didn't hear that, but I was pretty sure she did. I curse that dogs senses.

I sighed and scratched the back of my head. I was never really good at social situations, but this one so far was going fairly well, even by my standards. Then Martan pushed me down facefirst and started licking my ear, my orange shirt folded up a little bit reviling the small of my back and a couple of small pale scars, from the rose bush down the hill.

"I didn't mean that kind of powerful," I chuckled. "You can be great at spellcasting and still be sh!t at sports."

When the husky pushed him over and licked his ear, I chuckled a bit more -- too bad I only understood she-dogs, I'd love to know what Martan was thinking right now. I turned to my lab and scratched her behind the ears before telling her to go back to her human, who must be worried as hell by now. When I leaned back up, I couldn't help but notice the scars on his back. They weren't as deep as the ones on his shoulder. "What happened there?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow.

I got back up and dusted my jeans off, it took me a moment to process the question I immediately started heating up with embarrassment.

"I, uhhh... Had an unfortunate accident, with a rose bush down the hill." I said quitely, pointing to the rose bush, by now I was practically a human radiator about now.

I nodded, smirking gently. "Nymphs gave you a rough time, huh," I said. "Don't worry about it too much. They tend not to like us underworld heroes." The nymphs didn't need to appear in their humanoid forms to mess with you: I once had an argument with the meliad who lived in the apple tree outside the Demeter cabin and a day later, she dropped two unripe apples on my head as I was walking past. (Yes, it really hurt.) The nymph who lived in the rose bush down there could perfectly have sensed Josh was from the Underworld and decided to make her thorns extra sharp just to be mean. They could be quite judgemental.

"You might wanna drink a little ambrosia though and heal a couple of those wounds before wrestling class," I advised. "We're training with the Ares cabin and trust me, they don't joke around."

I quietly sighed in relief when she told me it probably was a nymph, they seem kinda judgmental, back in Idaho I had a small garden full of herbs and fruits.

After I had got the gash from the dracaena, I had a part of a square of ambrosia the best much could do was leave me with a scar, I wouldn't eat anymore of it, I didn't want to risk it considering the consequences. right now the only amount of nectar and ambrosia I was willing to take, is probably a couple of ounces.

"I guess I could have a little." I admitted, scratching the back of my head. But i wasn't going to consume any right now.

Rummaging in my pockets, I found a little pack of crumpled ambrosia squares and tossed it to him. I had tons of those in our  cabin from when I work in the infirmary.

"Here you go, have a little bite," I told him. "Careful though."

I knew too well how the Ares people liked to haze and pick on new kids, and I didn't want Josh to become their new chewtoy. A tiny bit of godly food couldn't hurt.

I caught the pack of ambrosia squares, they were a little crumbled but it didn't really matter, I broke off a corner and popped it into my mouth. it tasted like cookie dough mixed with chocolate. I felt a warm sensation spread through my body, I cloud feel all of my cuts and bruises close up and heal the selves. After a couple seconds the warm sensation left me.

"Do you want these back," I asked holding the ambrosia out to Morgan. "And what cabin are we wrestling against?"

"Cabin 5," I repeated. "Ares. And you can keep the bag, I got tons."

Checking my phone, I saw we had approximately forty minutes left before the class. That meant I needed to leave my post at five to, give or take, so I had time to go back to the cabin's courtyard, take off my armour, and change clothes.

"What did it taste like?" I asked, curious. Ambrosia tasted differently to everyone. One of my Demeter friends said it tasted like green beans. To another one, it was like bacon.