Tales of Camp Half Blood

Tale 3. The Unexpected Bonding

January 31st 1998

KATHERINE WAS ANGRY! She was not a baby, and only her friends could call her Kath. And not some stupid nickname like Baby Kathy! She survived on the streets when she was at the tender age of 6! Just because she was one of the youngest at camp didn't mean that they had a right to treat her like she couldn't keep up with the rest of them. Technically she was older than them all!

It was always, 'Katherine why don't you go play' when everyone else went to training. Or when her siblings would shove her in the safest and most out of the way spot during capture the flag so that she never saw any action whatsoever. She's faced more monsters than half the kids at camp, they should give her a little more credit.

Not even Amber stood up for her, everytime she complained to her she just told her, 'maybe it's good for you to just be a normal kid for once'. But she wasn't a normal kid, she was literally doomed to be stuck in this camp for the rest of her life. The least they could do was let her train instead of pretending she was a normal six year old girl who didn't have to worry about imminent death if she stepped foot outside the camp boundaries.

Usually she grit her teeth and dealt with the babying, especially since most of it came from her siblings and she didn't want to fight with them. It was nice to have a family around her for once, she didn't want to ruin it and make them hate her because she was a brat.

But for some reason, one cloudy day a month after she'd arrived at camp, she snapped back. Her siblings had sword training, and all the other times they went they told Kath to go play with the other little kids because sword training was too advanced for a kid her age. She didn't expect any different of an answer this time, but it still made her mad.

She had stomped her foot and demanded to come, her big brother, Jordyn, had looked a little bewildered but had doubled down on his refusal for her to join. He was head counselor and the oldest of them, so none of her other siblings went against his word to side with her.

Kath felt tears at the corner of her eyes, feeling like a child throwing a tantrum even though this was a very legitimate thing to be upset over.

One of her sisters, Lilliana, tried to step forward with a sad look on her face, "Look Katherine there's not any swords that are small enough for kids as young as you. Maybe next year we can start-"

She'd heard enough, Katherine pushed past her older siblings and ran off towards the forest. She heard them shout behind her, but ignored them. Katherine hated being treated like a child, she hated feeling so useless when only a month ago she had to realise she was no longer in the 1900s and now was in the future, especially after watching a friend of hers die!

Katherine only slowed once she was deep enough in the forest so that she couldn't see the cabins anymore. She didn't dare go any further, not even she was foolish enough to go to the deeper parts full of monsters by herself.

Maybe ten minutes passed of her trying to stifle her sniffles and banish her tears before there was a faint rustling from up ahead, "Go away Jordyn! I thought you wanted me out of the way, I'm just doing what you asked!"

To her surprise, it wasn't her big brother that walked out of the brush. It was the curly haired boy that had arrived only a week after her. Connor? No that was the younger one's name, she remembered because he was the only kid at camp younger than her at four years old. This was the older kid, Travis. If she was remembering correctly he was only a year older than her.

"Uh, not Jordyn," he stated the obvious, hands clenched in front of him nervously, "you're Katherine right?"

She quickly wiped her tears away, not wanting him to see her like this and nodded to answer his question, "and you're the new Hermes kid.. right?"

He nodded as well. Katherine knew her heritage already but just stuck around with the Athena kids because she was a legacy of Athena. But Travis and his brother had been unaware of their parentage until a day after their arrival when they'd been claimed by Hermes in the dining pavilion.

"I saw you run into the forest by yourself and wanted to make sure you were ok," he explained after the silence grew between them

Katherine felt a flush rise to her cheeks, "well I'm fine," she said, a little more harshly than she meant to.

The boy didn't back down though, he sat down a couple yards away from her showing he wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon, "Well I think you're lying."

"I'm not!" Kath denied petulantly, shocked at this boy's audacity, "and even if I was it's none of your business!"

Travis crossed his arms over his chest with a huff, "yes it is! Harley Drew says that everyone at camp is family and we gotta look out for each other," if Kath remembered correctly, Harley Drew was the name of the Hermes head counselor, "and you're the only other person at camp right now close to my age. So I think we should look out for each other."

"I don't need someone looking out for me, I need to train," Katherine Grumbled in annoyance.

Travis scoffed, "good luck with that. Apparently we're too young to start weapons training yet, Harley says it's cause we're too small for the weapons," he told her as if she didn't already know all of that, "she says we can start training when we turn nine, I think that's stupid though, why can't they just make smaller weapons."

"Finally someone who gets it," Kath Exclaimed, happy that someone else shared her plight, "they act like we're babies when we face the same amount of danger they do!"

Travis nodded along with her, "Yeah! We're just as tough as they are, and then they'll tell us 'to go play' as if there's anything else to do around here!"

Ok, maybe Kath had been a little hasty to get upset with Travis. It seemed they were stuck in the same situation, he wasn't so awful after all.

"Connor is usually who I play with- he's my little brother. But he's only six so he's taking a nap in the cabin right now," he told her, a bored expression on his face.

"I guess we can hang out if you want," Katherine offered hesitantly, "the two of us can come up with more things to do than either of us could on our own."

Travis brightened immediately, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, "Yeah! That gives me an idea- wanna get a little revenge on our older siblings for underestimating us?"

Katherine blinked at him in confusion, "they aren't my siblings. and revenge? What do you mean?"

"Oh my sweet, innocent new friend," Travis trilled, "have you never considered pulling a few pranks whenever one of your relatives annoyed you?"

"Um, no," Kath replied curiously, "what do you have in mind?"

Travis practically beamed, jumping to his feet and offering her a hand, "oh there is a world of possibilities! Come on, we gotta plan while they're all out of the cabins for training!"

She only hesitated for a moment before accepting the offered hand and letting Travis pull her back towards the cabins. A small smile crossed her face, and the two of them were dissolving into giggles of giddy anticipation by the time they made their way to the Hermes cabin to plan their scheme.

Maybe it wasn't so awful to be babied if she had people like Travis who understood the struggle and were willing to help cheer her up when her siblings were annoying.