Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter twenty-eight

A/N: None Japanese words spoken will be written in italics until the bolder word switch shows up. From that point afterwards, until said otherwise, anything spoken in a language other than English will be the italics.

Chuuya POV

We reached the crest of the hill, the unmistakable smell of summer strawberries greeting us as the far away sounds of metal crashing and children playing filled our ears. The bandaged teen pushed ahead a little bit, his longer legs letting him easily gain distance as he stopped next to a pine tree, Thaila's tree if I had to guess. The other teen turned, leaning against the wood and watching me as I made my way the rest of the way up what he called Half-Blood Hill. I don't know what he was looking at or waiting for, but whatever it was, the girl that Dazai fought earlier was not interested in it. The female demigod simply scoffed and brushed past the green eyed boy, continuing to the other side of the hill. When I saw where she was heading, I couldn't help the small gasp.

There were twelve cabins setup in a U shape, each with their own special design. Blond kids fired away relentlessly at targets in a large archery range not far from the full sized battle arena. The campfire burned brightly despite it being close to lunch by now. There was a large main house and a smaller lake connected to the seashore that served as a border for the camp, sparkling in the midday sun. The camp itself was nestled neatly in a clearing surrounded by woods where there wasn't hills.

Turning to Dazai, I found him still watching me, his gaze heavy with an emotion that I've never seen on the other's face before.

"I know that you told me about this place, but I didn't expect it to be this..." I heard my voice trail off, not really knowing what word to use.

We didn't have scenes like this back in Yokohama, not with the Sheep or the Port Mafia. Everything there had a dark almost classical feel to it, but here... the colors came alive in a way that I didn't know that they could. It looked like a place that someone would want to call home instead of only doing so by circumstance.

The corner of the bastard's lips twitched into what could've been a true smile in another life. "Beautiful?" He supplied, finishing my thought for me.

It wasn't really a word that I thought that the other teen would use, but it is one that seemed appropriate. Dazai let me soak in the image for another moment or two before following the girl down the other side of the smaller hill.

—-

Dazai POV

Clarisse was waiting for us at the other side of Half-Blood Hill, twirling her spear boredly as she stood there. The girl looked annoyed as the spinning got faster the longer that she waited on us.

"Finally," she all but snarled, reminding me of the way that she acted when we were twelve and she tried to dunk my head in the camp toilets. She slammed the spear down onto the ground like some kind of mage when we stopped in front of her. "I thought I was going to have to drag you down here myself."

The scary thing is that she would.

I rolled my eyes at the other demigod's antics, as unsavory as I remembered them to be.

"Where's Chiron?" I asked, glancing around the camp. Normally at this time, from what I can remember, the centaur would be instructing the archers, but he wasn't there.

The girl sighed as if the thought of the half horse creature drained any energy that she'd managed to gather during the past few minutes, drawing atten to the eyebags painting the demigod's face. Something twisted in my mind at the state that the daughter of Ares was in. It set a sense of foreboding running through my body.