Percy Jackson
Jiliu watched Percy fighting with one of the kids from Cabin Five, swords swinging wildly. The girl's lynx dæmon is prowling around the two fighter, occasionally passing Jiliu. The sea lion just watches him out of the corner of her eyes, waiting for him to grow tired of watching and jump her. Cabin Five dæmons are predicable in their movement and Jiliu just needs to wait this one out.
Percy steps forward, nicking the girl's shoulder. The lynx snarls, twisting and turning back towards Jiliu. Percy jumps forward, knocking the sword out of the girl's left hand. She scrambles to dodge his next attack, rolling on the ground and picking up her sword, just as her dæmon move. Both fighters ignore him as he races past, teeth bared and ready to pounce. Jiliu moves out of the way of the first attack, merely rolling sideways. The lynx jumps again, several times, and each time the sea lion just moves, rolling her eyes slightly. She's used to other dæmons thinking, because she isn't a predator, they can jump her easily and take her down. She used to being underestimated.
The lynx scrambles to his feet, snarling at Jiliu. Rather than pouncing, having finally learnt, the dæmon charges, eyes narrowed. Jiliu waits until the last minute before turning, mouth open and teeth bared.
The girl freezes, shouting at Percy to stop. They both turn, looking at their dæmons. The lynx is struggling, trapped beneath the sea lion's neck.
'What?' Jiliu says, smirking.
Ailtire looks down at the battle plans, inspecting the paper from his perch on Annabeth's shoulder. The bearded dragon tilts his head as his human scrawls on the paper, drawing arrows from their territory to enemy lands. She draws different symbols around their territory, marking where each of their units will be, how many of each, which Cabin is where.
'We'll need to set up a border control.' He mutters, crawling down her arm to reach the table. They have people protecting their base but no one watching the outer lines. 'Here, here and here.'
He taps three spots with his tail and she circles them with a pen. He looks over all her notes, scrawled in ancient Greek and written in several different directions. If any enemy scouts looked at it, they would need a good ten, twenty minutes to decipher it. By then, Annabeth and her siblings would be back and Ailtire would have a claw on their dæmon's throat, no matter what the size. The dæmon might be small but that doesn't mean he is not lethal.
'What do you think about the archers?' Annabeth says, placing a hand on his back and leaning onto her other elbow.
'Place them around the south border. There will be to many people near the river.'
Annabeth smirks. 'Let's hope Clarisse and her siblings go there then, otherwise this whole thing will be ruined.'
Ailtire laughs. 'Please, they'll be too focused on Jackson to think about the flag.'
Annabeth grins.
Grover sighed as he looked up at the tree on top of the hill. Thalia's tree or, more accurately, Thalia herself. His head bows slightly and Ricerca rolls about in his lap. The small kitten dæmon, light brown with darker markings, looks up at him, eyes wide and worried.
'You're not feeling guilty again, are you?'
Grover pats her head, calming himself as well as her. 'You know I am. It's four years since the biggest mistake of my life.'
Ricerca butts her small head against his chest, whining shrilly. 'It wasn't our fault. Thalia-'
'Shouldn't have had to make that decision.' Grover moans, turning his face to the training grounds. Annabeth is fighting with Luke, laughing every time she manages to get a hit on him. 'I should have been able to save all three of them, especially her.'
The kitten jumps up, pressing her paws to his shoulders. 'It was an impossible mission, and our first one anyway. Half of Olympus had a grudge against Thalia.'
'I know, I know.' He sighs, thinking of the army that had followed them up the hill. 'But it was still my job. Dad could have done it, or Uncle Ferdinand or anyone but me.'
Ricerca sighs, nudging her nose against her chin. 'You don't know that. Besides, we just have to try again.'
Grover pushes her down lightly, standing up. 'Let's go, Chiron's managed to get us a new assignment.'
'You never know.' Ricerca smiles. 'This one could go much better.'
Occhia looks at the small kitten sat with the other 'monster'. Grover leans past Tyson to grab the salt and Occhia's cyclops has to hold back a sneeze, grabbing hold of his small puppy dæmon's tail for comfort. Jiliu glances at the spaniel but she shakes her head, nudging Tyson until he excuses himself from the table, claiming to be full. Percy raises an eyebrow at this; Tyson is never full.
'Well done, I think they bought it.' Occhia smiles as they get away. She does honestly believe they believed it.
Tyson nods, smiling to himself as they reach Cabin 3. 'Well, if I didn't say something, Percy might worry.'
They both frown at the idea of upsetting Percy. They both try very hard to impress people and get them to like them but no one more than Percy and Jiliu.
'Maybe if we make Percy some more weapons, he'll be even happier with us.'
Occhia laughs at Tyson's idea, already thinking of the look of Jiliu's face. 'We'll go tomorrow, should have it finished real soon.'
Tyson smiles, forgetting the quest Annabeth invited them on. For now, they are just happy to forget, happy to not think of anything but forges. 'We can decorate them loads, maybe even make some for everyone in camp.'
Occhia laughs, jumping into his arms and planning different designs for each cabin. He knows Percy has friends in Cabins 1 and 8 so he'll make stuff for them as well. This would be fun.
Pauris flies forward, pinning the other dæmon to the ground. The bobcat snarls up at the gyrfalcon but he just presses his claws further down, beak snapping down just in front of the other dæmon's eye. Thalia looks at the bobcat's human, raising an eyebrow in challenge. The girl huffs, slumping off with her dæmon running after her.
'Very good, Thalia.' The Lieutenant of Artemis turns, seeing a wolf dæmon with his head tilted. Thalia immediately bows, recognising him as her mistress' dæmon. 'I thought I'd have to step in.'
Pauris spirals back to Thalia's shoulder. He bows to the dæmon as he runs away into the woods. Pauris sighs, leaning against Thalia's ear briefly. 'I hate disciplining others. The idiots make me look bad when they do stuff and I look bad if I have to resort to violence.'
Thalia shakes her head, scratching his feathers and walking back to camp. 'You don't look bad. Lunus said we did good.'
'He said you did good.' Pauris frowns, sounding like a child. 'There's a difference.'
'Oh, get over yourself.' She smirks. 'We're about to go to war against the Titans and you're worried if Lunus like you or not. Artemis wouldn't have put us in charge if they didn't trust us.'
The gyrfalcon flies off her shoulder, circling her as they near the tents. Thalia smiles when camp comes into view. She straightens her back and grabs her bow, ready to be Artemis' Lieutenant and lead the hunters to war.
'Do you ever wonder if I settled too early?'
Nico looks up at Spettra, resting on the branches of the pomegranate tree above him. Spirits, wandering aimlessly through Asphodel, glance at them every so often, heads bowing when they do so. Even thoughtless beings have enough basic instincts for respect.
'How do you mean?'
The crow flies down to rest on Nico's knee, head tilting slightly. 'You know what I mean. I settled because of Bianca but now we're not...you're not...'
The dæmon caws in frustration, causing all the nearby spirits to jump, turning away from them. Spettra glances at them, sighing.
Nico leans forward, placing his hand on her wing. 'I know. We're different but I think most people are. Don't get worked up.'
Her wings flutter and the spirits nearby turn curiously to look at her, having long since lost their own dæmons. Nico glares at them until they leave, giving him a wide berth from now on. He strokes her neck soothingly but she still takes time to calm herself.
She shakes herself out, looking around. 'I don't like it here. It's no place for dæmons, not even Ghost King dæmons.'
Nico smiles, letting her hop onto his hand and standing up. 'Well, we better go somewhere else thn.'
Spettra twists her body to look at him. 'Where?'
He shrugs, smirking as he begins to shadow travel. 'I hear Camp Jupiter is a great place to terrorise this time of year.'
Spettra laughs and they disappear.
Perduta tries to shy away from the golden coffin but Luke presses a hand to her back, keeping her still. The ferret begins to struggle but her man, barely moving his eyes from the coffin or stopping in his speech, digs his fingers into her side, freezing her in place. Once Kronos has stopped speaking, Luke bows, picking Perduta up and leaving the rest of the leaders to their discussion.
'You're being embarrassing.' He mutters as he walks back to his room, still holding her in a vice like grip.
She shudders involuntarily, thinking of the aura the coffin gave out. 'I don't like that thing. If gives me the creeps.'
They walk into the room and Luke throws her onto the bed, scowling. 'I don't car if you don't like it. We've just got to soldier on.'
'Why?' Perduta frowns, thinking about Kronos' plan, the...thing...he is going to do to her man. 'So we can soldier on to death.'
Luke turns, grabbing a knife and pointing it at her. Perduta stares, eyes defiant and Luke scowls. 'It's a honour to be chosen. You knew what we might have to do, from the moment we joined.'
'I didn't know this.' The ferret cries, her ears beginning to droop, beginning to worry. 'I didn't know you'd die.'
He freezes. 'What's going to happen to me, Luke?' She asks, voice breaking.
He puts down the weapon, picking her up and holding her close. His own voice breaks. 'I don't know.'
'Clarisse, very good.' Chiron smiles, walking along the line of archers, checking each of their progress. 'Pollux, that's not...thank you, Will, if you could help hi.'
Vecchia flies over to him, landing on his flank and looking around at the campers. Cabins 3 and thirteen are also meant to be there but neither Percy nor Nico have decided to turn up. The owl sighs as her man twists to look at him, eyebrow raised. 'I couldn't find them anywhere, nor Annabeth and Grover.'
Chiron rolls his eyes slightly. Since the end of the war, the four of them have been disappearing all the time, doing Zeus knows what. 'As long as they're not killing each other, I don't want to know.'
Vecchia grins, lifting off and flying back down the line, swerving to stop Travis and Conner before they fire explosive arrows. Chiron trots the other way, grabbing Chris' arm before he looses a dud arrow. That would not have been pretty if it had hit the target. Vecchia swoops over his head and he grins, seeing her barrel towards the three returning demigods and satyr. She knocks Spettra right off Nico's shoulder and clips Ailtire with her wing. Jiliu and Ricerca instantly try to explain things but Vecchia just glares at them until the centaur trots up to them.
'So now.' Chiron smirks, looking down at them with his patented teacher gaze. 'Who would like to tell me where you've been?'
All four gulp, glancing at each other.