Hawk & Stri

Rue was close to the place she was going to be staying, they said, for a while.
She didn’t really believe them. Not because she thought they were lying (they rarely did and then she could tell) but because staying anywhere for long was not something she did.
Running was.
Running from people. Running from other things. Sometimes she ran for no reason, because it felt natural and because when you ran you didn’t think about anything except the cold air In your lungs and the feelings of the dirt against your feet. It was the closest she could get to flying, except maybe for skydiving, but she hadn’t tried that yet.
“Maybe when I get kicked out, I’ll steal an airplane.” She muttered to herself, because who else would she tell? No one else could hear her.
She was here. At the entrance, it was harder to move forward than it had been before, and she found she was shivering slightly. Cold, not scared, she told herself, even though she knew it was actually a combination of both at once.
It’s not like she had anywhere else to go, though, she she breathed in and held her breath, then took her very first step into Camp Half-blood.

Rue froze, hands raised to protect her face and neck, as someone walked out from behind a tree nearby.
Which didn’t actually make sense, because why would he be standing behind a tree? Had he been waiting for someone to come along just so he could jump out and scare them? Looking at his expression, the demigod didn’t think so, mostly because he hadn’t actually jumped out. Also because he didn’t look like the sort of person who had just pulled a prank on the new kid.
Usually those people laughed, or at least looked pleased with themselves. He looked...almost like she felt, which made her wonder briefly whether he was actually another new kid.
Until he spoke.
She eyes his hand, but didn’t take it. “Yeah. Thanks...I’m Rue. Just Rue.” She answered, folding her arms to give them something to do as she took him in. Probably older than her, but not by much, one or two years maybe. He looked shy, like he didn’t want to be on “welcoming duty” something she understood on a spiritual level. People were fine, until they weren’t, and when did you see that coming?
“I know what it is.” She continued, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. “It’s kind of a summer camp for problems, right? Kids who need somewhere to stay out of trouble. Um...not that you’re a problem.” She added too late. Way to make friends on day one, Rue.

Rue knew she was being rude by not taking the hand, but she couldn’t help it. For her, it was basic self preservation that said “keep physical contact to a bare minimum”, and that definitely included handshakes with complete strangers.
“Pleasure’s all mine.” She muttered, in a way that suggested it really wasn’t. Then she shut her mouth, determined not to let any other snarky comments slip out if she could help it. It was her first day, she was not going to blow this just because she didn’t think it would work, that’s what the guy had specifically warned her about doing and he wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t a pessimist, but the world seemed to have been built by one.
She almost scowled as she noticed Nico’s mouth twitch, as though her answer was so far off the mark it was funny. She managed to smooth it out into something closer to a grimace though, because for all she understood at this point, she probably was actually completely wrong.
“Right. Yeah. Don’t call cabin five a problem. That means they definitely are problems though, if we’re being honest, right?” She asked, genuinely curious this time. Usually it was the accurate accusations that made people the most angry, so if anyone was likely to be an issue, cabin five seemed like a solid assumption. Then again, she had no idea what that meant, so maybe she should stop jumping to conclusions.
She blinked as he went on, forgetting even to look tough and unconcerned. Wait...no. No, he couldn’t mean….
“Monsters don’t exist.” She stated flatly, but her tone betrayed her. She looked away. “I mean, people are monsters sometimes, yeah. But like, not monster monsters. I mean monster monsters aren’t real. Obviously.”

Rue narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t that she exactly disliked this boy - in fact, so far, he’d respected her personal space and allowed rudeness a lot more than most people older than her did, which was nice - but she didn’t trust him. If he was being nice to her, he probably had a reason to be, and until she knew what that was she wasn’t going to let her guard down even for a second.
“Can’t beat me if they can’t catch me.” She pointed out, and one eyebrow quirked up almost playfully, in a challenging sort of way. She wasn’t being overly confident either; escaping was probably what she’d end up putting on her resume whenever she was forced to make one.
Hopefully it wouldn’t even come to that. She made a mental note to check whether a person was from cabin five before annoying them.
She stiffened as he went on and looked away. He wasn’t supposed to know that. Dammit, he’d promised he wouldn’t say anything, the jerk...she almost turned and left then and there, but the thought of going back was unbearable. Home was no longer something she could come and go from as she pleased, so she forced her feet to stay put and dragged her dark eyes up to meet Nico’s.
“You’re crazy.” She told him without emotion. “I don’t know who told you that, but they were screwing around with both of us, okay? Monsters aren’t real. And if my mom was a god, she was a pretty lousy one for getting killed in a random car crash.”
Probably some emotion had leaked into her tone in the final sentence, but she didn’t care. Instead she pushed past him and stormed towards the center of camp, not looking to see whether he’d follow.

If Rue had been told anything, anything at all, about the place she was headed to, the first conversation she had with Nico would have been much different.
For example: she probably would have had more questions, instead of accusations. She also probably wouldn’t have tried defending her sanity so hotly, because her life before the moment had required she did. How could she know Nico wasn’t just some kid, who’d heard she hallucinated monsters and decided it would be funny to play a prank on her.
It wouldn’t be the first time. She very much doubted it would be the last.
Sometimes, she thought about what life would have been like with a mother. Everyone else she knew had two parents, and though she’d come to terms with the fact that her father had to be enough, it was still hard sometimes. He’d told her about her mom, of course - never her name - and he’d told her about the accident, and sometimes he told her it was his fault and sometimes it was hers, but the story didn’t change much other than that.
It was no good wondering about that now, though. Nico was stirring up old thoughts she’d forced down for a very good reason, and it made her want to run away from him and lock herself in the nearest empty building, until the uncomfortable feeling in her throat went away and she was in control again.
She got part of what she wanted. When Nico appeared out of thin air in front of her all other thoughts bled away instantly and she screamed and fell over backwards, barely catching herself on her hands.
She stared up at him. She had to be hallucinating, she had to be...but how did he know what she’d just seen? He had to be tricking her somehow, but she didn’t see how, and that scared her even more, somehow.
The look in his eye made her stay quiet and listen to every word, she felt almost mesmerized by how insane and how true it all felt. She could understand him, she could see monsters, she’d never been able to get through a lecture in class without feeling like she was being submerged in acid, letters flipped themselves in the most annoying way….how. How could he possibly know all this?
She didn’t know whether it was him or what he was saying that scared her more. Maybe it was both of them together, his tone and his words blending together into a dangerous weapon aimed at her heart, and his eyes the hand that held it.
Her mother was a goddess.
She inhaled at those words, but still she didn’t speak, even after he was finished. The silence stretched between them as she tried to pile her thoughts together into something tangible, instead of the too-wet sand it felt like now. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, then dropped her eyes and got to her feet.
She didn’t try to walk away again.
“Are you saying I’m not crazy?”
It was a whisper, and she couldn’t look at him as she said it. He was going to reveal the magic trick, tell her she was stupid and crazy and everything else. He was going to laugh at her and tell his friends all about it. She knew he was, and at the same time she knew he wasn’t, and she didn’t know how to begin to sew those two facts together.

Rue’s own life had never been one of certainty.
Whenever she tried to think of a time when she’d been completely confident about something, she came up empty and frustrated. Even the things that seemed obvious to others, she had to question, because if she saw things that no one else did how did she know even she was real? She had tried again and again to tell herself that she was just crazy, that it was just her head telling her there was a monster staring at her across the street and eating an orange, but she always ran home anyway, so maybe she didn’t believe it as much as she tried to.
Did she want it to be real? Of course not. If it was real, she had to deal with the fact that the world she’d been told about was a lie. That all the nightmares were real.
And that her mom was still alive, and apparently just didn’t care enough to come say “hi” on the holidays.
But she wasn’t crazy. And as much as she wished it wasn’t important to her, it was.
“I know enough.” She said quietly. What she meant was that she used to stay up all night reading myths to herself with a flashlight. But she didn’t say that, because what did it matter now, if all the stories were really true and she was talking to the son of Hades?
If she was the daughter of a goddess, which one? Maybe Athena...or Artemis. No, Artemis wouldn’t have any children, she knew that much.
Her head was starting to hurt. But she couldn’t keep pretending Nico didn’t know what he was talking about, so instead she just...listened.
“Hermes doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, as far as gods go.” She said it tentatively partly because it meant admitting she knew something about Greek myths and partly because it sounded a lot like she believed him. And partly because, we’ll, she kind of did believe him, a little. At least they’d made it so she wouldn’t have to wait too long to be claimed, since she was thirteen already. She had to wonder what had sparked that promise, because the way Nico said it sounded like it hadn’t been the god’s idea. Maybe they’d had a lot of unclaimed kids...she could imagine how that must have felt very well. Stupid gods.
“Training for survival?” She guessed. Monster fighting, probably, if all the horrors she’d seen were real. What else would you train for as the child of a god? She couldn’t even begin to guess.
As he went on, she went quiet again, hearing how honest he was being with her. He wasn’t just saying this to scare her; she guessed he’d been in a...prophecy...before, and knew better than to want it again. It wasn’t that hard to guess why it might not be as much fun as it sounded, but it was hard to ignore the beat of excitement in her chest at the idea.
“Got it.” She said, pushing the feeling away for another time. Maybe never. “The world wants me dead. Prophecies are bad. Um...how come the monsters I see always seem to be looking right at me?”

Rue considered the question carefully. It was hard, because what was normal to someone who tended to see things that didn’t exist? She’d gotten used to the idea that she couldn’t trust herself, and the idea that she could, that everything was real...that was terrifying.
What was even more terrifying was the shock of realizing that she might have been the cause of some of those strange occurrences. Daughter of a god, was she even human? She had to be some kind of hybrid, something neither here nor there.
“I have a green thumb.” She blurted out, mostly to stop the whirlwind of thoughts flying through her brain. She flushed, embarrassed at how small and unimportant it sounded out of her head, then pushed on. “I mean...sort of. Plants tend to grow well when I take care of them, that’s all. And I can sing.”
Shut up, Rue. She told herself fiercely, because she had a feeling that wasn’t at all what he was talking about. She was too overwhelmed, that was the problem. Her brain felt like it was going way too fast, like a mouse wheel someone had just decided to spin out of control. She shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think any...sorry, I don’t think I’ve done anything godlike.” She offered apologetically.
She listened as he went on about the gods. They sounded...well, they sounded a lot like people, actually. She almost snorted at the idea that human parents cared either, but she managed to stop herself, because she wasn’t willing to get into that with someone she’d just met.
Actually, she wasn’t willing to get into it, period.
At least Hermes sounded okay, if not a bit overwhelmed with the amount of kids he had. Which if everyone who didn’t belong elsewhere went there, that wasn’t surprising, it was probably really crowded in there.
As he talked about his dad, Hades, she glanced away, instinctively giving him a the best illusion of privacy she could, because it’s what she would want from someone else. He, too, sounded very human in the way he cared about his son. Because she could hear the bitterness, and even though it wasn’t much, she could tell there was history there she didn’t know.
“Great. My mom doesn’t want me to die.” She muttered, then winced, because talking about her mom still felt wrong somehow. She didn’t know how to separate “mother” from “fiery death by automobile” and now she really wished she did, because she had a feeling her mother was now more relevant to her life than her father ever had been.
“Titans?” The girl looked up at that, her eyes wide with the fact that she’d read enough myths to know what he was talking about. She immediately felt a stab of guilt about her bitter thoughts towards the gods, then pushed it away, because resenting them didn’t mean she wanted them all dead, right? She just wanted them to care, like they should have done the minute they realized they had kids.
She kept walking, breaking into a trot for a second to catch up to his longer strides. “I hope my mom is really weak.” She offered as he stopped talking. “But the monsters seemed to think she was decent, because there are a lot of them. I can’t believe they’ve been real this whole time. I mean, I knew I wasn’t crazy, but no one thinks they’re crazy, so I figured I was just so crazy I didn’t even realize it. But...wow. I’m really not crazy. There are really, actually monsters. This...kind of really sucks, actually.”
There were more people around inside the camp, and Rue was instinctively avoiding all of them, sticking to the shadows and even using Nico as a human shield. She wasn’t antisocial; she was careful. “How many gods are there?”

Rue yelped, almost crashing into Nico’s he stopped. She veered to the side and just barely avoiding contact, which would have been uncomfortable for both of them, and raised her eyebrows at him in a question mark.
Was it the singing or the green thumb comment that had gotten such a strong reaction? She wasn’t sure, and discomfort fluttered in her stomach at the thought that maybe that was exactly the information he’d been looking for, after all. Also, the thought that she already knew about her powers and just didn’t know they were powers, because that was...weird.
What was also weird was the faint edge of regret in his dark eyes, it was almost like she’d already disappointed him somehow, though she couldn’t figure out how she’d managed to do that in the first hour of meeting him.
Then again, she was pretty good at disappointing people.
She couldn’t help it; she straightened up, a smile twitching uncertainly at her features at the idea that her mother was proud of her. “How could that be bad news? She asked, but then he answered, and it was her turn to stop.
Oh.
Oh.
“There are biases between the cabins.” She said softly. It wasn’t a question, because she knew the answer, because of course there were. If the gods were like humans, demigods would get the tendency to fight for no reason from both sides of the family. Of course they randomly didn’t like each other.
She shook her head, suddenly angry with herself for being surprised. It wasn’t that she had come with any expectation of this being different than the myriad of boarding schools and summer camps she’d already been to, right?
Or maybe she’d been stupid enough to believe that man when he said; This one will be different?
She shook her head again and kept walking. It was going to take a while to untangle all this in her head, and now wasn’t the time. Now, she just had to roll with the punches until they stopped coming. “Don’t worry, I have lots of things to talk to her about before she’s getting anything from me.” She assured him, her tone suggesting a confidence she failed to feel, because deep down?
Deep down, she didn’t think she could help loving her mother, now that she knew she was alive and well. Especially if Nico was right and she was even proud of her daughter….
“Why eighteen?” It was better not to think about her mom too much right now, so she moved on, forcing herself to keep up and sound a lot more bright and unconcerned than she was managing to feel. “Do monsters not like legal adults or something? Because that’s weird. And I have no idea what a normal life would even be like, because what does that even mean? Wait a minute.”
There were more camps? She knew about the Roman gods, of course, having been something of a history nerd, but it hadn’t crossed her mind yet that they might be around here too. With their own demigods, and their own camp, and the ability to not be on good terms with Camp Half-blood. The way Nico said it sounded like there was a lot of history there, and she was suddenly burning with the desire to found a book that covered everything she didn’t know yet and just read it front or back, and not be in the dark anymore. Being in the dark sucked, especially when it turned out even the stuff you thought you knew was all a lie, too.
“How do you know I’m not from a Roman god?” She asked suddenly. “I mean, they’re like, different versions of the same god I guess, but how do you know I’m Greek? Oh never mind, I’m stupid, you spoke Greek to me, didn’t you? Sorry.”
She was rambling. She knew she did that when she was nervous, but she was nervous, and that made it hard to stop doing it. She let out a short, frustrated sigh and swung her arms to expel some energy. The truth was, Nico’s cold energy felt a lot safer than the warmth of the other people and the loud laughter and the talking. It was unfamiliar, and she didn’t like what she was familiar with. Plus, she got the feeling he wasn’t putting on a show for her, just telling it like he saw it, and she was grateful to him for not treating her like a little kid.
“So….what happens now?” She asked tentatively, glancing up at him with wide, round eyes. “I mean, I’m here. Is there anyone I need to see or anything? And is there anything I should know? So I don’t get kicked out on my first day, I mean?”

Rue wasn’t sure whether to ask who her mom was or let it wait until she was claimed. She wanted to ask, of course, but would Nico answer? Could she even trust his answer? She still didn’t trust him...he could be anyone. She didn’t know who is was or what he’d done, and her sticking close to him was because she didn’t know anyone else, either. Plus, he felt more honest than most people, and that attracted her more than anything else did, really.
She nodded slowly, keeping up with him and continuing to use him as a bit of a block between her and everyone else. “Biases. I get it.” She said seriously, because she thought she knew what he was talking about, or at least the jist of it. He was talking about when parents were mad at someone else and you were the natural one to take it out on. When kids on a playground didn’t like your owlish eyes and made you go down the slide face first because of it. She never took these things personally, simply because they weren’t personal. They had nothing to do with her.
And they didn’t matter now.
She caught his glance and frowned. He didn’t look like he was convinced by her bravado at all, which was disconcerting because normally people fell for it immediately. It wasn’t even a lie, not exactly, because she wanted to mean it, she really did. She should mean it, right? Her mom didn’t deserve anything from her, not her love and not her respect, unless she earned it...right?
She knew that wasn’t how it worked. She didn’t know that no matter who it turned out to be, she would flinch if ever her mom was in pain and come running when she called, but she thought she would. Her mom was alive. What else could she have asked for?
“I could see the monsters for as long as I can remember.” She began slowly, because she wasn’t sure if he wanted to listen to her. But she wanted to tell someone, and who else was there? “They didn’t scare me until I was a little older, and then I started to notice that no one else knew they were there. That was what scared me.”
Her voice dropped. “So yeah, don’t worry. I’m used to being in danger. I’ve been thinking I was about to die since I knew what that meant.”
She gave a forced laugh, because how dark was that? She didn’t want to be grim and morose on her first day here, she wanted to be strong and defiant and unbroken, so she lifted her chin and met his eye, and smiled, and meant it.
She laughed as he spoke Latin, and this time it wasn’t quite as fake. “Okay then. I’m half Greek. Good to know.” She joked, then blinked. “Wait. The what? You guys had someone scouting me? You guys had a satyr scouting me? How did I not notice that? I mean, I get that for some reason only demigods can see the monsters and that probably goes for the cool monsters too, but why couldn’t I see them? Are you telling me you have mythological super spies here, too?”
She shook her head, that line of thought getting much too complicated for her liking. And if he was right, and getting kicked out was almost not even an option….
What would get her thrown out? It would have to be pretty bad. She wasn’t planning on stabbing anyone, but what if it was self defense? Would she get thrown out then? Maybe you had to be the attacker. Or maybe she was thinking about this all wrong and needed to stop.
This time when she laughed, it was almost musical and not at all forced, and when she looked at Nico she didn’t have to pretend to smile, because he was smiling, too. It made his whole face change into something a little brighter and open, and she was suddenly glad he’d been the one to meet her. “I get a weapon? Awesome.” She answered, then paused, her smile slipping a little.
He wasn’t giving her the tour?
But that meant she’d need to meet a whole knew person. She’d already done that once today, she didn’t think she had the mental energy to do it again so soon. Of course, she was living in a place where she was going to have to talk to people sometimes but…
Today had been a lot already. Even before the long walk here, today had tired her out in more ways then one, and she found she really, really didn’t want the most familiar thing she currently had to leave her alone.
“Cool.” She said, instead of everything that had flashed through her head, because she didn’t think she could say all that and be fine afterwards. “Um...do I have to do the tour today, though? I mean...never mind.”

Rue watched his expression carefully, looking for anything about him she might have missed before.
He seemed...observant, in the quiet way that made it hard to detect. She suspected most people thought he was ignoring the world when really he was noticing more than a lot of people did.
It came down to the face that everyone was focused inward. Even people like her, who knew better than to ignore her surroundings and was always, always watching for anything that could become something dangerous. Even people like her, who were always afraid of something, were usually too distracted by themselves to notice everything going on around them.
But people like her, and she suspected like Nico, tended to train themselves to be less that way, for one reason or another. Sometimes it was because the world had made itself impossible to ignore, screaming until it drowned out anything inside you might have been listening to. For Rue, it was because ignoring the world had consequences, and she didn’t like them.
She wanted to think it would be different here. Everything was different now, right? Her mom was a freaking goddess for one thing, and she was Greek and she probably had some sort of powers, if Nico was any indication. She was willing to guess it had something to do with either song or plants, judging by Nico’s reaction to her mentioning those things. If the myths were real, if her life until now had been built on a lie, then why couldn’t the world turn out to be fair? Was that really any more impossible?
She shook her head, fading back into herself a little. She knew better than this. She knew better than to be optimistic in the face of the unknown.
“Bad luck kills people even without monsters. I’m not too worried about that.” She answered with a shrug, glancing away to scan the camp again. There were so many people, it was hard to make sure no one was coming up behind her, but she checked anyway. “I did notice that there were a ton of them for awhile, and recently there haven’t been as many, but I just assumed I got worse and then I was finally starting to get better. It didn’t understand why.”
She fell silent for a few minutes, as if sensing her guide’s darkening mood. She could tell there were things he wasn’t telling her, but she was neither surprised nor hurt by this, because there were things she wasn’t telling him either. They’d just met. They might never meet again, for all she knew. Secrets were secrets were secrets.
So she let him shift to another subject, relieved that it didn’t fall to her to break the silence, as she liked silence generally and sucked at breaking it, as a rule. “Oh.” She said suddenly, surprise flashing through her as she made the connection. “Birch. They were so nice to me, and they never wore anything but sweat pants and baggy jeans, even in the summer when everyone else was in shorts. And they used to chew their pencil until in snapped in half. Birch was a satyr and I had no idea.”
She supposed she probably hadn’t been in enough danger to be extracted, which was probably why one day, Birch had simply disappeared. She’d missed them for a while, but the monsters had been worse after that and between that and trying not to call attention to herself, and (for some reason) actually trying to get a decent grade, she hadn’t had as much time to think about it as she’d wanted to. She felt bad about that now, though.
She didn’t think about telling him her story. It wasn’t that she would have said no if he’d asked - maybe she would have - but it honestly hadn’t occurred to her as an option. It was a foregn concept, having someone who wanted to hear her talk.
She pulled herself back in, realizing what she’d done after the laugh was long gone. She cursed herself for opening up, even just a crack, to someone she didn’t know and probably never would. No harm done it seemed - he didn’t act any looser towards her at least, which was what she’d been afraid of - so slowly she let herself fall back into the relaxed form of guarded she’d adopted since she’d realized no one was currently trying to hurt her.
“Yeah, mom doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry, does she?” She said lightly, and sped up a little as they neared the building, excitement coming to life in her despite her best efforts to squash it down. “Yeah, I can take the tour, it’s fine. I’m just...yeah. It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”
And she hated to admit it, but she liked him. First impressions were important, right? So far, he was the only one here she even slightly knew, and she found she really would rather be given an exhausting tour by someone she liked on her first meeting than by someone she hadn’t, in fact, met yet.
The armory did a very good job of distracting her from those thoughts though, and her mouth fell open at the weapons upon weapons that covered the place like a deadly blanket. Swords and knives, tridents and spears and bows with arrows and things she didn’t even know the name of, all shining with the careful care they’d been given. She moved forward slowly until she was in the middle of the room, and her eyes kept getting bigger with every step until they were like two dark moons.
She turned back to Nico as he spoke. “...drawn to?” She repeated faintly, and looked around again, this time looking for something she was drawn to. A beautiful set of bow and arrows caught her eye, as did a bright, deadly looking dagger on the wall.
Okay, and that sword looked pretty cool. And that axe. No, she was definitely more drawn to the bow and arrows. She pointed tentatively at it. “Um...that one maybe? But I don’t know how to use it.”

Rue nodded, turning away (hopefully) before he could see her small smile at the words. Because she really wasn’t crazy. After all this time...she really, actually wasn’t. It was like a drink of icy water after working in the sun too long, and she relished it. What else was there in this camp that turned her world upside down? She couldn’t help thinking that not all of it could be this good, there had to be a catch. Right?
Unless having absent gods for parents counted as a drawback, which it did in her mind. It wasn’t as though she’d had a mom to lose in the first place, but knowing she was actually alive and had just been ignoring her daughter, for thirteen years...that hurt more than she let herself show.
She didn’t see his smile, but she didn’t need it. His words were enough. “Yeah. Thanks.” She murmured, so quietly she wondered whether he’d even heard her. “And Birch was a good friend. I always wondered what happened to them...there isn’t any way I can find that out here, is there?”
Now she turned, the thought making her search Nico’s dark eyes for the chance to learn what had happened to the satyr. “I mean, they’re probably fine, it just wasn’t like them at all to disappear with no warning like that. And now I know they were protecting me...what if they got hurt fighting a monster?”
Or killed.
But she didn’t say that, because saying it was a lot more permanent than an unwelcome thought she could bury and ignore. And besides, it wasn’t likely, right? Satyrs could probably take care of themselves much better than she could imagine, and besides, Birch had probably had a lot more to do than babysit some random demigod. Nico probably couldn’t even check anyway.
She turned her thoughts back to the weapons. All of them were beautiful, but the bow was the thing that her eyes kept moving back to, and when Nico took it from the wall her eyes widened. She hadn’t really expected to just be given anything. And yet here he was, adjusting the beautiful bow to her small size and even adding in some arrows, as though proving that it wasn’t just for looks. She reminded herself that it couldn’t hurt mortals with a bit of relief, then realized that most people in this camp didn’t count as mortals. She didn’t count as mortal. Probably, if she aimed wrong, she could end up impaling someone.
“Good.” She said fervently, her eyes still on the bow. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck only knowing how to use one thing in a fight, I mean I could always just punch people or run away, but that doesn’t work if they’re monsters. It probably doesn’t work if they have swords, either, actually.” She added as a sort of afterthought.
It looked like she was going to be doing the tour after all. She held back a sigh; she knew she would have to meet other people eventually, she just didn’t want to do it tonight. After everything else and more. It was probably for the best to just get it over with, anyway.
She startled and backed up quickly as someone knocked, and only relaxed very slightly when an unfamiliar girl - Katie - entered. Nico’s body language told her this was neither a friend nor an enemy, which didn’t mean much practically but could mean a lot.
Katie herself seemed...nice, on first glance, but in a different way than Nico was. She was friendlier, obviously, but that didn’t mean a Rue trusted her more. Usually, the least trustworthy people were the friendly ones.
Calm down. She ordered herself firmly, and nodded stiffly as more heads began to peek inside. She felt like something in a zoo, with a whole field trip school group watching her and waiting for her to do something. She really, really hoped the whole summer wasn’t going to be like this.
She didn’t return the handshake, just eyed Katie’s hand like it might bite her if she wasn’t careful. Any glimmer of the Rue who had laughed earlier had vanished, leaving a cold exterior that was so convincing it was like she was a different person completely. She looked unapproachable, and it wasn’t unintentional.
Nico was uncomfortable, she could tell even without looking at him. He probably wanted her to just go with them and melt into yet another random face, having a tour that had nothing to do with him, but it was more than that she didn’t want to do that. She wasn’t completely sure she could handle being smothered in a group of strangers and forced to interact with them without either collapsing in on herself or breaking something later. Usually, it was both at once.
Panic bloomed in her chest like a huge flower and her heart raced, her eyes widening as it happened. The only person she had met here was leaving. It didn’t matter, she knew it didn’t matter, she didn’t even know him but…
But she knew him a little. And that was apparently enough.
“Nico was just about to take me for a tour.” She blurted out suddenly, her voice significantly higher than it had been moments earlier. She instantly regretted it, It was a mean thing to do and she knew it. Nico didn’t want to give her the tour. Why would she want to force him.
Her eyes slid to his, silently begging him to understand that she hadn’t meant to throw him under the bus, she just...couldn’t deal with a crowd of strangers. Not right now. Not after the day she’d had.

Rue nodded, grateful that there was something she could do to search for her friend, even if it wasn’t much. She guessed that Grover was another satyr, probably one with connections to most of the others or at least good relations with the camp. Maybe both, now that she thought about it. Nico seemed to know him well enough, anyway, and she supposed that counted for something, although she didn’t know him well enough herself to know exactly what it counted as. She wished she knew more about the camp in general, but she was still almost as clueless as she’d been when she got there, just with fewer completely wrong assumptions now. It felt like she had to clear out everything she thought she knew to make room for everything she didn’t, and there was so much more that fell into the latter category.
She did, at least, know Pan from her Greek myths. He’d been missing? From the way Nico said it, it sounded like it had been the sort of “missing” that tends to turn into “presumed dead” at some point, which probably explained why it had been so hard to find him.
There were...a lot of people now.
Rue backed away, trying to give herself some room, as Nico turned. She couldn’t quite read his expression but she didn’t think he looked angry...at least, not very angry. His wide eyes reflected her own, and for a moment she thought maybe he was even pleased, but no. No, she was imagining that. He was just surprised, and no wonder, now that she saw the way the other campers seemed to shy subtly away from him like a cold window on a winter night. Again it was clear there was history here, and again she didn’t ask, especially now that the crowd seemed bent on pushing itself further and further into the tent. Couldn’t they wait outside?
Her eyes flicked to Katie as the girl spoke. She didn’t sound like she meant to be hurtful, but the words still felt a bit like the curved dagger on the wall behind her, regardless of the intent. “That’s okay. I don’t mind.” She answered coolly, not aggressively but still far from friendly. Her face was a mask, and it wasn’t a gentle one. What good did weakness do? It put you in danger, turned you into an easy target for even generally nice people to take advantage of. Katie seemed like she’d been through plenty in her life, but she still didn’t seem to understand that Rue couldn’t just fit in. Rue couldn’t just decide that she was among friends here and choose to trust them, any more than she could decide to shake Katie’s hand or decide not to have nightmares anymore. Her brain didn’t work that way, and maybe that was why she felt safer with Nico, because she didn’t think his did anymore, either. She felt just a little less pressured to pretend when she could simply be understood and they could all move on.
She looked up quickly as the blond boy appeared behind Nico and tensed, but there was no need as the other boy relaxed, clearly recognizing the stranger as...probably the closest she’d seen to a friend so far. She almost wanted to offer him a grateful smile as he backed her up, but there was still too much noise and too many people and just...too much, and the expression refused to come, so instead she settled with a simple nod in his direction and even in Katie’s as the situation eased back into neutral territory and she moved away, back towards her group of friends. Rue found she could breathe again, and as Nico began to move away, she was quick to follow him through the crowd, taking full advantage of the slight gap he seemed to create so easily. She always seemed invisible whenever there was more than one person around, which she didn’t mind until she was being squished and no one seemed to notice.
“You’re not as scary as you think you are.” She answered, her features smoothing gradually back into the wary, but not panicked, mask they had been before. It was easier when it was just one person she was talking to, and though she was still very conscious of all the other eyes on her, they were no longer interfering. She was grateful for that much, at least. “Also, Yeah. Thanks. I think I’ve met plenty of people for today, and I could probably go without talking for...a while.” As if to prove her point, she fell silent for a few minutes, taking in the rest of the camp again with the new experience of meeting people from it to add to it. There were still many, many people she didn’t know, and she guessed there always would be, but at least she’d gotten her tour with Nico and not Katie. Katie seemed nice in a way Nico didn’t, but Nico understood things Katie didn’t even seem to imagine. There was a difference between nice people and comfortable people. She nodded at the boy’s words, understanding what he meant. “She seemed okay, I just...I’m not great with people. I’m sure you noticed.” She added with something that could have grown into a smile curved at the edges of her mouth. “And...thank you. For agreeing to the tour with me. I know it’s not what you wanted.” What she didn’t say was that she was sorry for dragging him into it, because somehow she couldn’t make herself say that part. Maybe it was because it sounded much too vulnerable...or maybe she just didn’t know him well enough to apologize to him yet.

Rue didn’t see him smile, and it didn’t occur to her that her words might have made him happy. It was hard to tell whether or not he was trying to come off as intimidating; she could tell that, in some ways, he simply was an intimidating person. She just didn’t find him as scary as everyone else did. Was it because she didn’t know him well enough yet? She thought it might be, but without getting to know him, how would she find out? Besides, if he was trying to be scary, he had to have a reason and in spite of her best efforts not to care, she wanted to know what that reason was.
Besides, he didn’t know her, either. He didn’t know how desperately she could cling onto someone if she let herself open up even a crack, or how alone she felt sometimes. He had no way of knowing that when she pushed everyone away and made them leave, she was doing it because she desperately wanted someone to push back and say No. I won’t leave you. I won’t let you make me leave
Because, of course, no one knew. And who’s fault was that. She couldn’t expect the world to read her mind, and she didn’t, but sometimes...sometimes she couldn’t help but wish it would.
She probably would never tell Nico any of it, she mused ruefully as she followed him, basking in the friendly silence neither of them hurried to fill. She could imagine doing it: telling him her secrets, the things she’d done to end up so alone. She could imagine spilling all of her secrets the way she might to a tree or a bird, when the words were too much and she felt like she might explode it she couldn’t get them out, but she didn’t try.
She had never told anyone before, why start now?
As he answered her comment, she nodded, relieved to not be told that she “just needed to meet these specific people to become as social as anyone else! There are no outcasts here!” As adults usually said. Nico wasn’t an adult, though. She glanced at him, but she couldn’t tell whether or not he was older than she was, which was an odd feeling for someone who’d only really interacted with adults and much younger children. Maybe he was her age. “I hope you’re right.” She said honestly, because she really did. The nicer the people here were, the easier it would be to get them to leave her alone, right? Unless they were the wrong kind of nice...she shuddered a little at that thought.
“Tomorrow, I’ll try to be nicer to your friends, I promise. I don’t mean to keep upsetting them, I’m just...I’m just really tired.” She went on, quieter now. It felt like admitting to something you’d said you didn’t do: she was admitting that she didn’t want to come across as harsh and standoffish as she knew she did, even though she’d purposefully given the impression that she was aiming to be as intimidating as she could be. She wasn’t sure why she’d admitted it, and she shot him another quick glance, as if to make sure he hadn’t reacted to the comment too much.
She couldn’t help it; she smiled as he went on. “Off-putting and cynical? Someone’s called you that before, haven’t they?” The girl could recognize a learned phrase when she heard one. “It’s fine, really. I’d rather look around with someone cynical than with someone too optimistic. That way, if there are any surprises later, there’s a good chance they’ll be good surprises and not bad ones, right? I always go for bad news first.”
She blinked as he told her his cabin number. That was...unexpected. She’d assumed he wanted to get rid of her as fast as he could, but….no, it was too hard to tell. Maybe he’d just felt sorry for her. She bit her lip a little at that thought and pushed it away, nodding more at the feeling he described than the information he’d given, because how many times had she felt trapped in the desire to be alone without being alone? How was that even a possible emotion? It didn’t sound possible, and it didn’t really feel that possible either, but there it was.
Her dark eyes moved to each place as he pointed it out, and they lit up as she realized that all the things she’d seen briefly earlier...the beautiful forest included...was for the. Well, more specifically, for all the kids here, but the idea of just running in and climbing a tree and hiding in the thickest spot was so appealing she almost gave in, and might have, had Nico not mentioned harpies. “Seriously? He cares about the students, but he lets harpies eat them sometimes?” She repeating, a trace of horror making it into her small voice. “Also: harpies. I know I should be getting used to this by now, but still. Harpies life in the forest and sometimes eat the students if they piss off the wrong guy? That’s...new.”
She edged, morosely, away from the beautiful trees and tore her gaze away, first to the dining hall, then the Big House. “Chiron...you mentioned him before. He’s kind of the one in charge here, isn’t he?” At least, she thought he had more authority than Mr. D, although she couldn’t say what had given her that impression other than maybe the thought that no one would let a teacher who allowed students to get eaten sometimes run a summer camp. Maybe they would, though. She hadn’t pretended to understand the human race before, and she certainly didn’t now. “Got it. Meet the teachers tomorrow. Are they going to ask me questions or anything? Oh…”
She broke off as he began to walk backwards, and her eyes widened a little. Not with surprise this time, but with both the fact that he’d both noticed she could use a warning before being buried in loud people, and the fact that he’d taken the time and effort to actually do it. She was struck, suddenly, by how so much of what made him seem intimidating was just words. Every single thing he’d actually done so far had been kind and gentle, more thoughtful than she could boast of being. She wanted, even more now, to know why he felt he needed to be scary.
“Thanks.” She said, stuffing as much of herself into the single word as she could, in the hope that he would hear how much it meant to her. He probably couldn’t, but what else could she say?”
A moment later, just as he’d predicted, they were stopped by a girl with bright red hair, green eyes, and many, many freckles. She was kind of cute, Rue realized, then shook the thought away and focused on not hiding behind Nico, as was her first instinct. “Oracle, huh? That must be….”
She trailed off. The look in Rachel’s eye had changed. She didn’t want to look away, and opened her mouth to say something, when Rachel - no - the Oracle spoke.
……
She was silent. She didn’t want to look at Nico, didn’t want to see if there was the same expression in his eyes as there was in Rachel’s. Because that had been a prophecy, hadn’t it?
And it was about her, wasn’t it?

Rue could feel Nico beside her, tense and ready to fight.
Fight what? The Oracle? Rachel? There was nothing they could fight, no one they could shout at to take it back, and she knew it.
It just...wasn’t fair, was all. The prophecy stuck in her head, playing over itself as she scrambled to try and decode it, but she didn’t even know who it was talking about. Herself, obviously. Was Nico a part of this? She still didn’t look at him, didn’t want to see whatever it was in his eyes, whether that was anger or fear or even just confusion. If he had been given a prophecy, after he’d just warned her that they were bad news…
Her hand clenched into a fist, and she didn’t look at Rachel as she spoke, her voice quiet. “I’m sorry you have to be the Oracle. It must be really hard to have to give people prophecies without any control over it, or even knowing what they mean.”
Finally, she made herself look at Nico as he spoke, and tried to quiet her mind enough to take it in. “Yeah, I gathered that.” She muttered in response to his first remark, tensing at the thought of all the eyes that were bound to be on her. It had been bad enough when she was just new, what would it be like when she was new and had a prophecy? She was suddenly, unpleasantly reminded of an incident in kindergarten when the teacher had called on her, and she hadn’t been paying attention.
Only this time she had been paying attention just fine, so the gods really had no business picking on her. As far as she could tell, Nico felt the same, and she felt a rush of sympathy because how many times had he been forced through this? Enough to know better than to be excited, obviously.
She blinked. There, deep under all the dread...she was just a little bit excited herself for her first quest. Why? What did she expect to accomplish? She hated attention, hated being picked on and observed, and that was all this was, right? Why was she looking forward to it, just a tiny bit?
“Yeah, I’ll take you.” She said softly, looking back at the ground. She didn’t know anyone else. Maybe someone Nico would be more comfortable around….she’d need to think about that later. Maybe she could use it to distract herself when everyone was staring at her tonight.
“But I haven’t been claimed yet.” She blurted out suddenly, and looked up at Rachel, anxiety bright in her eyes as though she couldn’t suppress it any longer. Not that she didn’t do her best. “How can the gods pick me for a prophecy without even telling me who my mom is?”