We Both Walk Among the Dead: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Part 5

           Days passed, but I didn’t really notice the change in time. When you’re locked underground for 366 days, every day tends to seem exactly like the one that just passed.

          The only difference is that I now had a goal – something to keep me busy, so I wasn’t bored to death in this stupid camp. I had seen what the campers got to do all day: stupid exercises that wouldn’t help in a real bloody battle, and other useless activities that didn’t even relate to war. Honestly, it seemed like the only decent people here were the children of Ares, always studying battle techniques and fighting with a slightly more bloodthirsty style than the rest of the pathetic campers. You’d think that since they have to fight their way through monsters whenever they left the camp, they would take their fighting training more seriously.

           I grumbled to myself and rubbed my shoulder. It was taking its time to heal, and I had to be careful not to crack the scab every time I fought. I looked down from my position in the treetops, hidden but able to see everything that went on. I caught sight of the familiar shaggy head I had been keeping watch over for the past few days, and scowled at it. The boy below me flinched, and spun around to look for the person who was glaring at him. Of course, he couldn’t see me at all, but I felt his eyes rake over the area I was sitting in a few times before he turned back to his idiotic friends, laughing at some joke the son of Zeus had said moments before.

           Their laughter rose up into my canopy, annoying the hell out of me, especially the tingling bell-like one of the daughter of Aphrodite. It seemed that she was in a close relationship with the son of Zeus, always hanging off him and dragging him into dark places that I could see perfectly in. Of course, that didn’t mean that I wanted to see their disgusting make out sessions, but my eyes were used to seeing in dark after my prison days.

             I snapped back to reality as Caleb left his group of friends, muttering to himself angrily and stalking up the path to the sword fighting arena. I sighed myself, realizing that it was now time for our daily lesson.

           My ‘goal’, as I now thought of it, was to try and get Caleb to the fighting level that he needed to be before his quest presented itself. I reckoned that we’d only have a few days, maybe a week, before the prophecy girl Rachel spit out the quest, so I’d decided to get him up to date as quickly as possible. I picked out his flaws, and was trying to strengthen them, while recognizing his strengths, and getting him to not rely on them all the time. When I die for him, he’s going to have to be able to hold his own against anything that’s thrown at him, so I’d had to consider all possibilities of attack. I was pretty proud of my teaching methods, I admit, since he was finally starting to round-out into an accomplished fighter, though he still needed to work on his guard. He was always too relaxed here, fooled into thinking that this place was safe, when it was possibly one of the most dangerous. I could feel the presence of the centaur Chiron, or the god Dionysus every time we fought. They knew that they couldn’t step in and interrupt my teaching, but every time Caleb was hurt (which happened often, it’s not my fault the kid’s an idiot) they rushed him off to the infirmary, feeding him the food of the gods and pretty much babying him.

             I ground my teeth together, and jumped down from the top of the tree. Upon my landing, I rolled quickly, so that not all of the pressure was on my legs. I got up silently, and surveyed the group of ‘friends’ that Caleb was usually found with. They hadn’t noticed my movement, so I kept to the shadows of the forest, and walked quickly to the arena. Today, I was thinking of working on Caleb’s strategic planning, setting up a battlefield for him and seeing how well he could get through it. Call it a practice quest or whatever, but I needed to make sure he was smart enough to know when a risk was a chance, or just a waste of time and effort.