The first thing I remember about my second day was freezing cold water splashing onto my face.
"WELL NOW WE NOW THAT SHE'S NOT A POSEIDON KID!!" I heard a boy's hysteric voice in my ear.
"What are you nincompoops doing?!" I heard Travis's voice and then movement as the boys who dumped water on me scurried back to their beds. I lay there shivering, thinking "What did I do to deserve this?!"
"Hey, Saffron." Travis shook my shoulder. "You okay?" I nodded lightly. "Chiron brought your stuff after you fell asleep last night." He handed me my duffel bag that I used back in New York. "I'll show you to the bathrooms so you can change."
I didn't have any trouble besides the water incident until Capture The Flag.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Okay!" Connor shouted as we walked toward the woods. "You all know the drill for capture the flag!" He started calling off names and people walked over to the blue team and started putting on.... ARMOR?!
When Connor was done, he started to walked over. "You wanna go pick a weapon?"
Awkward pause. "Sure." I replied, not very cheerily. He led me over to a little tool shack. Inside was a countless assortment of weapons. Bows and arrows, knives, daggers, swords, javelins, and every single weapon you could think of.
"Just choose whatever feels--" His palm hit his forehead. "OH! I forgot! Chiron has a special.... Well, just follow me." He started jogging to the Big House. We were there within a couple minutes.
"Chiron!" Connor yelled as he opened the creaky wooden door. "I need Saffron's bow!" So Chiron picked a bow for me? Not surprising, considering the..... you know, the whole Dodds dilemma.
Chiron responded, "It's on the table!"
Connor grabbed a golden bow off of the coffee table near the couch and yelled back to Chiron, "Thanks!"
We left and jogged back to the woods. Almost everyone was in their armor.
"Saffron, you'd better hurry up!" Connor handed me what felt like 50 pounds of armor. I just slapped it on, not even caring whether I got it right. A knot was forming in my stomach.
"Saffron, you're going to the Blue Team." I sighed. Relief washed over me as I looked at who the Blue Team consisted of. I noticed A group of campers huddled together, talking strategy and battle plans. There was also the Red Team. Not nearly as strategic and, well, civilized. They looked savage and battle-hungry. There was one girl, with black hair and evil-looking eyes. In her hand was an electric javelin, which only made the knot in my stomach grow larger and tighter.
"That's Clarisse." I jumped as I heard a voice behind me. I turned around to see a girl about my age with sandy brown hair behind me, giving me a crooked smile. She held out her hand. "I'm Levine. You must be Saffron."
"Nice to meet you Levine." I shook her hand. "How do you know my name?"
"Oh. We don't get many new campers."
"Well. Have you been claimed yet?" I asked. I hadn't seen her in the Hermes cabin. Actually, I didn't really see anyone. It was loud and crowded.
Under the armor,Levine was wearing black skinny jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt (which apparently meant the blue team), and a black vest with a chain necklace. Very much my style.
"Well.... Ares." She said sheepishly. "The god of battle... Clarisse is Ares too. To be honest, it's not easy to share a cabin with a bunch of battle-crazed idiots." She chuckled.
I giggled back. "How did you get on the Blue Team?" I asked.
"Shh!" She hissed. "Nobody needs to know! I think it was just a little error that slipped through."
"BLUE TEAM! GATHER AROUND!" Annabeth's voice rang through the clearing. Clarisse's voice followed, saying the same thing for the red team.
We all huddled into a group.
"Okay, so..." Annabeth listed off orders to each person. Levine was border defense with me and some other campers. My stomach was churning and my knees were shaky as I walked to the border between the red team and blue team. My bow was warm and firm in my hand, just as it had been on that cold day in a New York alley.
A horn interrupted my thoughts. I assumed that meant the game had begun.
Several minutes later, I stopped dead as I realized that I forgot the vital essence of my bow. The arrows.
I tried to calm myself down. Instead of totally running around and screaming like an idiot, I calmed myself and practiced shooting as if I did have an arrow.
"MERRRH!" I gasped as a pure bronze arrow appeared in my fingers. The campers at my sides gave me a "ummm.... weirdo" look. The arrow flew out of my hands and landed thunk in a nearby oak tree.
"Hey! What was that?" I heard a gruff voice through the trees and nearly fainted when I realized that the voice belonged to Clarisse.
I gave Levine a panicked look and she returned it with comforting words.
"It's gonna be okay. Everyone has their weapons ready. She might not even notice us." She whispered in my ear. A feeling of calm washed over me.
I drew my bow and aimed it to where I had heard Clarisse's voice, ready to fire. An arrow appeared again and surprised me, but I didn't loosen my hold.
"What do we have here?" My stomach dropped and the blood ran out of my face, yet anger filled my heart as I spun around to see Clarisse standing several feet away, javelin in hand. Crowded around her were all of the Ares campers. To be honest, they looked like a punk rock band. A very dangerous punk rock band. With very pointy objects.
Clarisse stared me down. I still had my bow ready, and wanted to hit her right in the heart, but I resisted. I was sure that it was against the rules.
"Oh, so it's the noobie? On border defense? Annabeth should be smarter than that!" She snickered evilly to her gang. "I bet she barely knows how to use a knife."
That made my anger bubble over. I aimed and shot Clarisse in the foot. To be honest, it was a nice feeling
"What the- OW!! FREAKING .... DAHHH! YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR THAT!" Clarisse started charging at me with her javelin crackling with electricity.
Levine pointed her sword at Clarisse and stepped in front of me.
"You better watch where you're pointing that thing, wimp!" Clarisse snarled. "You don't wanna HURT anybody!" She pushed levine out of the way and continued trudging toward me.
A boy in the Ares gang stepped up. "Clarisse," He said calmly. She turned to look at him. While she was turning, the boy motioned for me to run. Who was this kid and why was he trying to tell me to run?
I obeyed him anyway and ran through the forest, deeper into the blue team territory. As soon as I ran out of breath, I hid in a little bush, shaking. I tried to gather my thoughts. All I could think about was the boy who had distracted Clarisse. He had an odd look in his eyes, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
After several minutes crouching uncomfortably in the bush, I decided that the coast was clear. I stood up, stretching my stiff legs. Taking in my surroundings, I gasped as I realized that the bush I had hidden in was next to the blue team flag.
I told myself not to totally flip out, but I didn't think it worked. I started breathing heavily and pacing back and forth, not really trying to calm down at all.
My instinct told me to stand my ground. A gruff voice (not belonging to me) told me that I've survived alone in New York, so I could handle a bunch of people in armor, right? The voice kinda creeped me out, but at the same time, made random anger boil up inside of me. It reminded me of what I did to people around me. For some reason, I always made people
angry.
A twig cracking interrupted my thoughts. My heart started racing as I turned around to see Annabeth run towards the flag, toting a red flag.
"Move!" She lightly shoved me out of the way, and collapsed behind me, panting. I was shocked to realize that she had the winning token in our hand. A large group of other campers came following her, almost running me over. They were all cheering and laughing, discussing the game's events.
Levine found me and started talking to me, but I ignored her. I had a lot of thoughts on my mind.
"Saffron?" She waved a hand in front of my face and I snapped back to reality.
"Huh...?" I asked.
Levine giggled. "We won."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We all settled back into our cabins for the night after my team's victory. Levine was carried off to the Ares' cabin, and I was separated to the Hermes' cabin.
To be honest, I was just glad that the day was over.
