for we cannot tarry here
“Fitz, will you please move your nasty pile of socks out of the center of the cabin?”
He pushes himself up from where he’d been dozing, listening to the cabin’s constant mechanical hum and his siblings’ chatter, looking over his shoulder at where Anne is standing in the doorway and then down at the pile of socks on the floor where he drops them every night when he goes to sleep. Fitz doesn’t like sleeping in socks, but he always forgets to take them off before getting into bed. Shifting over, he leans down and pushes the pile underneath his bed, turning back to Anne with a smile. She glances at Bailey, the only other girl in the cabin, and the two share an exasperated look that Fitz and their other brothers can understand pretty clearly: Boys.
“Why are you making us clean up anyway?” Donnie asks, pushing his own pile of stuff under his bed and earning a glare of his own from his sisters.
“Because, while normally I am content to let you guys wallow in a state of semi-squalor, Chiron says we’ve got visitors coming. So, it’s time to tidy up, at least a little.”
“Who’s coming?”
Anne shrugs. “He didn’t say specifically.”
After a few minutes, she deems the cabin “as good as it’s going to get,” and the six of them head over to the arena, where the campers are congregating. Fitz slips to the back to stand near Jemma and Skye, Trip and Ward joining them a few minutes later, just as Chiron and Mr. D enter. The wine god, as usual, looks bored and unhappy to have to deal with the campers, and Chiron looks almost apprehensive, which is slightly unsettling.
“Good morning, everyone. As your cabin leaders have told you all, the camp is expecting visitors, who should be here any minute now,” Chiron announces, and, even as he speaks, a hunting horn rings out. Campers tense, glancing around, but everyone’s attention is soon drawn to the group of girls who suddenly sprint into the arena, impossibly graceful, clad in silver coats and jeans.
“Here they are now,” says Chiron, as the girls settle into a neat line next to him. None of them can be any older than Fitz, and they all have bows and full quivers of silver arrows. One of the girls stands slightly in front of the others, a bright red streak standing out against her dark hair.
Trip mutters several Greek curses next to Fitz, and when he turns to check what’s wrong with him, he sees Ward, pressing his hands against his eyes like he’s suddenly developed a migraine. Most of the other older campers seem to be having similar reactions, though they’re working hard to not make their distress too obvious.
“What?” he asks, and Trip sighs, rolling his head to the side to look at him.
“Hunters.” Before he can ask for clarification, Chiron clears his throat, raising his eyebrows at the gathered campers. The girls look quite pleased at the campers’ reactions.
“May I present the Hunters of Artemis. Some of you have already made their acquaintance, on quests or during their visits to camp in the past. They will be staying with us for the next few days, so those of you who have not met them before will get a chance. I expect you all to treat our guests with respect and kindness while they are with us.”
“When are we-?” Garrett starts, but Chiron holds up a hand to stop him, smiling.
“Tonight we will play the usual Capture the Flag game between the campers and the Hunters. Cabin heads, I advise that you get together and make a plan,” he says, and a murmur of excitement runs through the crowd. Chiron’s smile widens and he turns to the girl with the red streak , who Fitz figures is the leader of the dozen or so girls standing in line behind her. “Ms. Hand, you know where your cabin is.”
She nods, and the group of girls departs just as swiftly as they’d arrived, moving seamlessly as one, silver jackets and quivers flashing. A lot of the campers noticeably sigh with relief when they’re gone, small groups setting off towards the dining pavilion and breakfast or back to their cabins for a little more sleep before their first session of the day; the cabin leaders come together near the center of the arena floor, heads bending together in discussion.
“Food?” Trip asks, and Fitz responds, “Always,” before anyone else can so much as nod, making the rest of them laugh and shake their heads at him as they head towards breakfast.
“So who are these people?” Skye asks, once they’ve settled with their food.
“The Hunters of Artemis,” Trip says, continuing when she gives him a look, “They’re a group of girl demigods who pledge allegiance to the goddess Artemis and eternal maidenhood in exchange for immortality, basically.”
“Basically?”
“They don’t age, but they can be killed in a fight. You know how all of them look about fifteen? Some of them have been fifteen for a long time,” Ward says, and Trip scoffs.
“You’re all huffy,” Skye says, “Since when are you huffier than Ward about anything?”
“I’m not huffy,” Ward defends himself, but Skye just waves her hand at him.
“Apollo and Artemis are pretty much the king and queen of sibling rivalry. When the Hunters visit, they generally go out of their way to score some points for their mistress at the expense of my cabin.”
“What are they doing here anyway? They weren’t here last summer, were they?” Jemma asks, and Ward shakes his head.
“No, they usually only stop by every couple of years, if they need help or they want to recruit new members. Also, Hand likes to beat us at Capture the Flag every few years, just to remind us she can.”
“Hand?”
“Victoria Hand, the girl with the red streak in her hair. She’s been the top Hunter for as long as anybody here can remember.”
“Speaking of huffy, how long do you think until Garrett’s head explodes? He hates her.”
“He doesn’t hate her. He hates losing Capture the Flag, and it’s not like she’s what any of us would call a gracious winner.”
“I still think he hates her,” Trip says, and Ward shakes his head but drops the matter.
Fitz doesn’t really notice much difference throughout the day, except for the small groups of silver clad girls who wander around camp. He and Jemma train in the arena with May, then Skye drags them to the climbing wall with Trip and Ward. At lunch, the Apollo table is upside down, and Trip helps his siblings right it before sitting down with his food, grumbling curses under his breath. After that, they all spend most of the afternoon playing sand volleyball against with the satyrs, mixing up the teams every few games.
Finally, once everyone has finished dinner, before Chiron dismisses them, he invites anyone interested to stay around for the Capture the Flag game against the Hunters. About twenty campers end up milling around the dining pavilion, with the fifteen Hunters sitting at their table, apparently unbothered by their disadvantage in numbers.
Garrett and Ward take the lead for the campers pretty quickly, the older boy carrying their flag, bright orange with a black pegasus in the middle, like the camp shirts. Anne’s not there, but Donnie is, standing between Callie and Seth while Garrett starts to issue instructions to different groups. There’s a handful of Trip’s siblings and a surprising number of Aphrodite kids, including Raina, who has never shown much interest in Capture the Flag to Fitz’s knowledge.
“Apparently, the Hunters of Artemis are big fans of calling us useless,” Skye explains when he asks her about it, and the angry looks her siblings keep casting over at their opponents suddenly make more sense.
They end up near the place where Ares cabin’s team had hidden the flag during the game when Fitz and Anne had claimed it for Hephaestus, which is probably as good a place as any, especially with so many Apollo kids. Red plumed campers start to disappear into the trees to take up their assigned positions, and Garrett calls Fitz over.
“We’re a little short on numbers, think you can cover the creek straight ahead of the flag by yourself?”
“Fitz can handle it,” Ward says, and Fitz ducks his head at the vote of confidence, nodding.
Jogging towards the boundary line and picking up speed when the conch horn sounds, he arrives at the creek in a few minutes. He can see another camper off to his left, but they’re a pretty long way down the creek, and his immediate right is totally uncovered as far as he can tell.
Fitz doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention in the strategy class that Chiron teaches, as it’s not really his area of interest, but he’s absorbed enough to know that the outnumbered Hunters will probably attack the sides of their defense, rather than going straight up the middle. He assumes Garrett planned for that, and catches occasional glimpses of orange t-shirts and silver jackets pursuing each other through the trees.
After about ten minutes, he leans back against one of the big rocks along the edge of the creek, idly spinning Pyrrhos in one hand. The camper who had been off to his left has disappeared, either in pursuit of a Hunter or off to try to grab the silver flag they’d hidden somewhere across the boundary line.
Pure reaction keeps him from taking an arrow to the helmet. The silver flashes in the sun and he sweeps his hand in an arc before he can even think, incinerating the arrow with a puff. He knocks the next two down pretty easily before the shooter, a tall African-American girl with a dark patch over one eye, emerges from her hiding space among the trees across the creek. She shoulders her bow and pulls a knife from her belt, leaping nimbly across the creek and moving towards him. Fitz makes sure the rock isn’t at his back so he has room to move, lifting Pyrrhos to receive an attack.
He’s thankful for all the time he’s spent sparring Jemma in the past year; the Hunter is quicker than she is, but only has one knife against her two, and for the most part Fitz is able to use the length of his sword to his advantage to keep her out of striking distance. When she does manage to duck close, he ignites the grass at her feet, causing her to dance back and leaving small black circles along the ground in their wake.
Fitz can hear cheering erupt behind him, but can’t turn to look until the Hunter drops her fighting stance with a smile. Glancing over his shoulder, he groans when he sees Victoria Hand waving the orange camp flag above her head, the other Hunters gathering around her and cheering. Turning back, he’s surprised to see a hand extended towards him.
“Your skills are admirable, for a boy,” the Hunter says, “I’m Akela.”
“Fitz,” he says, shaking her hand, and she nods once before she goes to join her team in celebrating. Fitz turns when someone claps a hand down on his shoulder, finds Trip smiling at him.
“That sucks.”
Trip shrugs, “We haven’t beat the Hunters since Steve Rogers was at camp. The first time. Let’s go drown our sorrows in video games, ping pong and s’mores, as men do.”
They find Jemma, Skye and Ward, who says he’ll do pretty much anything if it means avoiding Garrett and the mood he’s sure to be in after that, and then retreat to the basement of the big house. Ward and Trip start a game of Madden, which Fitz doesn’t have much interest in. He’s just settled in, slouched down in the corner of the couch with Jemma curled up next to him, when Skye tilts her head back from her spot on the ground, smiling at him.
“I was promised s’mores.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“Doesn’t matter, the answer is no.”
“Someone has to go get the s’more stuff.”
“That someone could very easily be you, especially since I’m going to be the one doing most of the work to make the s’mores.”
“Please don’t try to convince me that the tiny little flame you use to toast the marshmallows requires any effort from you at all. I’ve seen you do much more complicated things without even thinking about it.”
“I’ll go,” Jemma sighs, sitting up.
“I’ll come. You might need help carrying stuff,” Fitz says, pushing himself up and offering her a hand.
“Oh, sure, now that Jemma wants to go,” Skye mutters, and he glares at her as he follows Jemma up the stairs.
There’s a group of Hunters talking to a couple of campers on the porch, and Fitz remembers seeing a few of them near the volleyball court when they’d been playing this afternoon, talking to the girls and completely ignoring the boys except to occasionally send withering looks at them.
“Some of the Hunters talked to you?” he asks Jemma, and she nods.
“Yes. Not for long though, since they knew I spent the whole day with you.”
“What?”
“They don’t like boys, and I spent the whole day with you. I think they could tell our priorities didn’t exactly line up.”
“Oh.”
“You’re a boy, Fitz.”
“I know! I just- thanks, I guess. For, um, liking boys.”
Jemma laughs, “You’re welcome. Any time.” Even with the joke, he’s pretty sure she knows what he means, so he doesn’t bother clarifying.
They walk the rest of the way to the amphitheater and back in silence. The group of girls who had been on the porch earlier have left, but he can hear someone talking around the corner. Peering around the side of the house, he sees Hand and Chiron seated at the table where the centaur usually plays pinochle with Mr. D; he’s folded himself down into the wheelchair he uses when he leaves camp and has to appear more human.
“Monster activity is on the rise, and some of the girls have started to have dreams, especially the ones who have been around longer. Just like last time.”
“Last time meaning-?”
“Kronos. The girls who were there for that say the dreams are even similar. What’s going on? Lady Artemis won’t tell us anything.”
“It’s certainly not my place to override the goddess, if that’s what you are suggesting.”
“I’m just trying to keep my Hunters safe.”
“I know, Victoria. I’m trying to do the same for my campers,” Chiron says with a sigh, and Fitz feels Jemma tugging on the back of his shirt.
“Finally!” Skye shouts when they make their way back down to the basement, scrambling up to take the s’more supplies from them, spreading them out on the coffee table and beginning to assemble one for herself. Trip and Ward, who have abandoned the Xbox in favor of the ping pong table, both laugh.
“I’ve got winner,” Fitz says, reclaiming his seat in the corner of the couch.
“Sure you won’t be too tired from helping all of us make s’mores?” Trip asks, grinning even as he stretches to return Ward’s serve.
“I’ll be all right. Like Skye said, this is easy,” he answers, reaching his hand forward so that Skye can hold her marshmallow out over the little flame cupped in his palm.
—————
“Fitz! Fitz, you have to get up.”
He blinks up at Skye, trying to figure out why she’s waking him up this early and why she looks so worried. Last night, the Apollo cabin had played ‘Children of the Sun’ for more than an hour straight as revenge for the minor pranks the Hunters had been playing on them all day, and he assumes Trip and his siblings now need help dealing with whatever the fallout of that was. Glancing around the cabin, he can see his siblings, minus Anne, trying to wake themselves up and figure out what’s happening.
“Come on,” Skye says, tugging on his arm when he reaches for his jeans, “No, just come on.”
“Skye, I’m in my pajamas,” he protests before realizing the same could be said for her. She pulls on his arm again and he follows her outside.
Fitz is surprised to see what looks like most of the camp milling around on the green in front of the cabins, pretty much everyone in their pajamas like they’d been woken up in a hurry. There’s a wide path in the crowd through which Chiron had obviously galloped, and he spots the camp leader, kneeling down in front of the silver Artemis cabin. Victoria Hand is lying on the ground next to him, a huge tear and an even larger bloodstain marring the front of her coat, her knife catching the sunlight and glinting a few feet away from her outstretched hand.
Immortality, basically.
They don’t age, but they can be killed in a fight.
“Oh gods,” he whispers, and the closest heads turn towards him as soon as he speaks, even though he can hear other people making similar exclamations throughout the crowd. Like they’d been waiting for him, easily able to pick out his accent among the other voices. Fitz doesn’t understand why until Skye tugs on the back of his shirt and points behind him, at the side of Hephaestus cabin. Splashed across the side in gold paint that almost seems to glow in the sunlight, the letters jagged and sloppy but clearly readable, is the prophecy he’d heard from the mummy in the attic of the Big House.
The forge god’s child holding flame, comes with dark-eyed wisdom’s daughter.
A titanic escape the gold one makes, the forged trust breaks.
A hero’s sixteenth birthday dawns, the father of the sun moves his pawns.
Five stand by the fire’s chosen one, by whose sword and heart battles lost or won.
Underneath the familiar words, the phrase HYPERION RISES is painted in large, blocky capital letters.
Fitz feels his knees go weak, and someone wraps their hand around his tightly. He turns to see Jemma standing next to him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. Skye stands close enough that he can feel her shoulder pressing against his back. Coulson, May and Anne are standing in front of the message, and Coulson steps towards him with his mouth open, like he knows he should say something but has no idea what.
“I think it would be best if everyone would return to their cabins and stay there until told differently. Cabin leaders should make sure their siblings are present, then report to the Big House for an emergency council,” Chiron says, turning from Hand’s body to study the prophecy painted on the side of the Hephaestus cabin before he sighs. “Fitz, Jemma, you had better come as well.”
Council meetings are held in the rec room around the ping pong table, and Fitz and Jemma sit on the porch, watch the cabin leaders filter into the Big House one by one. Skye had wanted to come too, but Coulson had sent her back to the Aphrodite cabin and Chiron had backed him up. Jemma hasn’t let go of his hand since she’d taken it while they were standing on the green.
“Hyperion is the Sun Titan,” she says, and of course she knows that off the top of her head, “The father of Helios, Selene and Eos with the Titaness Theia. They call him ‘The Golden One’ because he wears golden armor.” That last bit clicks in Fitz’s head.
“I’ve seen him in my dreams, chained up.”
“Coulson was telling me one time that some of the other Titans escaped Tartarus to fight with Kronos, but that Hyperion wasn’t one of them. Maybe he couldn’t escape his prison in time to help.”
“Or maybe he was biding his time to make his own run without Kronos getting in his way. Or he wanted a shot at me instead of the Avengers.”
The volume of the discussion downstairs increases, audible through the open front door of the Big House. Jemma is still holding his hand. He thinks about gold paint glowing in the sun, blood on a silver jacket, the fire’s chosen one. Eventually, the cabin leaders come back up the stairs, Coulson and May in the lead.
“And where in Hades are Garrett and Raina?” Coulson asks, scooping his shield up from where he’d left it on the porch.
“Garrett’s gone.”
The campers gathered on the porch turn at Ward’s voice. He’s standing at the bottom of stairs, holding a piece of paper out to Coulson. His hand is shaking and he’s pale, and Fitz doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ward like this. Coulson glances at the note, then turns back towards the doorway.
“Get Chiron.”
“I’m here,” the centaur says, the cabin leaders parting to let him through. He takes the note and Fitz catches just enough of a glimpse of it to see what it says. It’s on a much smaller scale, but still clearly recognizable as the handiwork of the person who had painted on the Hephaestus cabin.
HYPERION RISES.
“May, will you please go check if Raina is at the Aphrodite cabin. It’s possible that she misunderstood my directions to the cabin leaders.” May takes off at a run and Chiron turns to Ward. “Your cabin should elect a new head camper as soon as possible.”
“Garrett’s, what, defected?” Anne asks, “To Hyperion? What are we supposed to tell our siblings about that?”
Chiron sighs, “You should continue to tell them the truth.”
“And if there’s other kids who are missing all of the sudden?”
Another sigh, “Keep an eye on each other. That’s what we can do right now. Speaking of your siblings, you should all return to your cabins, explain to them as best you can.” The cabin leaders disperse as May jogs back up to the porch. She shakes her head when Coulson and Chiron turn to her.
“Fitz, Jemma, I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted everyone else to find out.”
Fitz wonders what he was planning on doing. Making an announcement in the dining pavilion after dinner like it was Capture the Flag or the chore rotation for the week?
“Perhaps it would be best if the two of you went back to your cabins,” he says, and Fitz nods numbly, standing. They’re halfway to the cabins before Fitz stops suddenly, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong?” Jemma asks, stepping in closer when he just keeps shaking his head, eyes downcast.
“I can’t- I can’t go sit in the cabin and have everybody stare at me,” he manages finally, voice shaking, and Jemma nods.
They wander for a while, no real destination in mind, until Fitz spots a figure wearing a silver coat sitting up in the arena’s bleachers. He heads that way without thinking about it, taking the stairs slowly, realizes that it’s the girl he’d fought near the creek during Capture the Flag, Akela. She looks the same as she did last night, except now she’s got a silver circlet glinting in her hair. It only takes him a few seconds to figure out what it’s for.
“You’re the new leader?” Fitz asks, settling next to her, Jemma on his other side.
“Fairly elected by my peers. After Victoria, I’ve been with the Hunters the longest. Plus, no one else wanted the job.”
“It must be a hard one,” Jemma says, and Akela nods.
“It’s about to get harder,” she replies, and they’re silent for a few minutes before she speaks again, “You’re who the prophecy was talking about, right? ‘The fire’s chosen one?’ That’s you?”
He starts to say something like that’s what a lot of people think, but it sticks in his throat and instead he just nods.
Akela sighs, “I should go. There are arrangements to be made. I just needed- I needed a few minutes to think.”
“Akela!” Fitz calls when she’s a few rows down, “I know it doesn’t mean much coming from a guy, but I think the Hunters made the right choice.”
“I do, too,” Jemma says, and Akela smiles, just slightly.
“Thank you both. Good luck, to both of you.”
Once she disappears out of the arena, Jemma stands, tugging on his hand. Fitz doesn’t protest, just follows her wordlessly. They spend the rest of the day like that, walking around camp, skirting areas where there might be a lot of people, the motion helping in a way he can’t explain. Skye and Trip find them with food for lunch and again at dinner, and Anne checks up on them a few times, all of them bringing updates.
Ward has officially been elected the new head camper for Ares by his siblings, and they’ve all been holed up in their cabin since this morning, reeling from Garrett’s betrayal. As far as anyone knows, Raina has completely disappeared as well, though she didn’t leave a note and they’re not sure if she went voluntarily or was forced. They’re waiting a couple days to hold their election for a new cabin leader, since they didn’t have as clear of an heir apparent as Ares had in Ward. Nobody else has left camp yet, but that doesn’t mean nobody will.
At sunset, he ends up in the strawberry fields, Jemma still next to him. After a few minutes, Trip and Skye emerge from the darkness, glancing around and dashing from shadow to shadow.
“Gods, whatever deal you’ve got going with the harpies where they don’t bug you when you’re out after curfew is a good one,” Skye says, “I’ve got to get in on that.”
“Ward would have come too, but some of his kids are pretty shaken up, and he has to be all responsible and everything now,” Trip explains.
“Because Ward has been known for being extremely irresponsible up to this point,” Jemma says.
“You guys don’t have to- You can go back to your cabins if you want,” Fitz says, but Skye is shaking her head before he even finishes talking.
“Remember, on your birthday? I told you that we were on your side, whenever you told us what was up. And well, you didn’t really get a chance to tell us, but-”
“You’re stuck with us,” Trip says and Skye nods. Jemma just smiles at him, and Fitz ducks his head, hoping the darkness will hide his eyes.
“Fine. Just, um, don’t sleep on any of the strawberry plants. Demeter cabin will get mad.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks for the advice. We’re new,” Skye says, stretching out on his left with Trip on her other side. Jemma curls up next to him, wraps her hand around his again.
She drifts off pretty quickly, while Trip and Skye whisper back and forth for a little while before falling asleep. Fitz forces himself to take deep breaths, keep his eyes closed. He knows what’s coming.
The dream is darker than it usually is, lit only by the faint golden glow given off by the giant man’s armor. He’s not screaming or laughing or tugging at his chains this time, just standing perfectly still.
“Leopold Fitz,” Hyperion says in a voice that sounds like the lack of oxygen around a big fire, and something in Fitz’s gut freezes, “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”