𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 7

7 | A game of capture the flag

The next few days Percy and I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that we were getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

Each morning we took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

The rest of the day we'd rotate with physical activities. Chiron tried teaching us how to use the bow and arrow. But Percy was certainly not at the good side of the ability. I discovered that when he shot an arrow at Chiron's tail. Chiron didn't complain at all about it.

I on the other hand, seemed like a nat-ural–Chiron's words. I could actually shoot at the target with a good accuracy and nice posture.

On foot racing Percy was also no good. He always lost to the wood-nymph instructors. They told him not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

I was definitely better than him on the speed matter, but the nymphs would still beat me by a considerable amount of distance between us.

Wrestling was obviously the activity both of us were horrible at. Everytime either of us entered the mat, Clarisse would pulverize us.

"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.

The only thing Percy seemed to do well was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

The senior campers and counselors were avaliating my skills on whatever I did. They seemed to have decided that I was an obvious child of Apollo, taking in account my natural ability with bow and arrow. I don't know how I actually did it, I never touched a bow in my entire life before Chiron told me to give it a try.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morn-ing fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connec-tion to my parent, but I didn't have any success on that.

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Every-body from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

I couldn't use the wristbands I earned from Zaak–I learned that the swords weren't actually swords. Chiron told me they were just large combat knives.

I had to use a sword, but none could actually fit me. They were too large, too heavy, or too light. Not a single blade could fit into my grip right. They always felt like a whole different object in my hands.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced Percy would be my partner, since this was our first time.

While we swung our blades, Like told us how to attack with precision: "Keep your guard up, Percy." I lifted my right hand and turned the blade sideways to block a slash to my chest. Clang! "Lunge, (y/n)!" I gave a small twirl on my feet and swung my blade at Percy. "No, not that far up, Percy!" Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. I was quick to drown a full bottle of water and throw myself into the ground under shadow of a tree. After I did, my muscles felt so much better. I wasn't that much tired anymore.