Ara

Ara didn’t see Erin again until dinner when she sat across from her at the tackle labeled “newcomers”.

“Did you hear about capture the flag tonight?” Ara asked, Kayla had agreed to be her buddy if she decided to join in.

“Yeah I did, it sounds fun.” Erin smiled at her. 

Chiron entered the pavilion and stone tall and intimidating in front of them all.

“Hello,” said Chiron in a booming voice, “before we feast, a lot of you have heard about the game of capture the flag tonight, if you wish to compete, meet back here by sundown.” With that he sat down and dryads started serving food. Ara was starving having missed breakfast and lunch, but Erin didn’t touch a thing, she tended to just snack during the day. They chatted about things they learned that day. Ara found out that Nico was in the Hades cabin which was weird considering he was currently sitting with Kayla at the Apollo table. Ara would just ask her about it after dinner. She was excited to be claimed but honestly Ara didn’t know where she would be going. She didn’t want to leave Erin but she had a pretty good feeling they weren’t sisters. 

Erin snapped in her face, “dude, what are you doing?”

Ara looked at her plate and realized she had picked everything off her pizza. 

“Sorry I zoned out for a second.” She took what was left of her pizza and through it into the fire, Kayla had told her about sacrifices to the gods earlier. When she turned around Erin was gone.  It  wasn’t unusual, she tended to disappear, so she went to find Kayla for capture the flag.

By the time the sun was setting Kayla had gotten herself ready, Helped find Ara armor, get her a weapon (Ara has chosen a thin silver sword, she liked the feel of it) and told Ara all the rules and strategies for a game like this. Erin was already waiting in the pavilion when she arrived. The first thing she realized was Erin didn’t have a helmet. The one Ara held had blue hair that streamed down the middle of it. The second thing she noticed is that Erin actually fit into her armor.

“What team are you?” She asked, sitting by Erin and Nico. 

“Red.” She said slowly taking in the helmet Ara had. Ara smirked, this was going to be fun. 

Their team captain ended up being some ares kid she couldn’t remember the name of. He was going to put her on defense but after having 3 Aphrodite kids, an Athena boy and all of the Hermes cabin volunteering to be defense, That only left her and 4 other kids to be offense so he changed his mind. Ara was nervous sure but more than that she was excited. She couldn’t wait to see how this played out. As soon as she heard the horn blow she ran in the direction her captain had directed her to, straight through the stream. She was confident in her team's hiding place, something called zeus fist, though it looked nothing like the name. Ara sprinted around trees until she finally reached the water. Taking a break she splashed some of it on her face and looked around for anything. When she saw no sign of the other teams flag she stood and started walking up stream. She heard a noise behind her and turned just in time to be tackled into the water. 

Whoever had ambushed her was strong. Ara hadn’t had enough time to draw her sword so when she hit the water she was powerless. Her head hit something, probably a rock, and her too big helmet fell uselessly off her head. She struggled and kicked but the person still held her tightly as they fought, slashing in the water. The person managed to grab her arms and pushed until she hit the ground again. They kneeled on her legs in the shallow water. She held her breath until she felt like she would pass out, then the weight was just gone and she sat up quickly. Coughing and taking in big gulps of air she looked for who had pulled the other person off of her. All she saw was someone in a red helmet soaked, lieing yards away from the stream. Another kid in blue ran from the woods she had come from, and two in red from the otherside. They all looked at her and she realized she was still sitting in the water. She looked at the other kids still looking at her and asked them why they were staring. 

“How is that possible?” One of them mumbled and she looked up to see an emblem floating above her head.