A new age of Divinity: Theomachy

Finally some silence

The day after her final duel with Estevan, Beth woke up with a strange sense of ease. Now her primary threat, at least for this stage in her life, was gone. Estevan had left, but she wanted to know why Nate left mid celebration. She put on some jeans and a t-shirt, and her usual combat boots and leg mounted dagger, and left her cabin. She looked up at the sun to figure out how early it was to try and narrow in on where he would be. She noticed that it was about eight o'clock, so he could likely be getting breakfast. She walked toward the Breakfast Stand, but when she scanned the line, she could see he wasn't there. Now that there was only one place left to find him, she walked to the Mess Hall to find him. As she expected from her best friend, he was sitting there with a gigantic stack of pancakes. She came up to him while he was eating like Marc and sat down next to him.
"Tasty?"
"Hey, Estevan's gone, so why not celebrate?" Nate replied.
"We did, but you left midway through."
"Oh right, yeah... I wanted to get an answer to a question I've been meaning to ask him."
"And you got your answer?"
"Yeah, he's a petty child. Put him out of your mind and...     honestly just focus on living your best life. Didn't Orpheus tell you the plan going forward?"
"What plan?"
"Oh, so basically when we're at the age of adulthood for our cultures, so I'm fine because I'm seventeen, but you've gotta wait a few more years 'til you're twenty, we get to come and go as we please. He hasn't told the rest of the camp this, we were just talking, and it slipped out. He asked me not to tell anyone and I told him not to hold me to that."
He took another bite out of his pancake and she asked "Wait, so why have you not left more often?"
"Never felt like it," He replied "Hayden's gonna be kicked out in a few years, though. Remember, once he's twenty five, he's out of here. Although, by that point, you'll be allowed to come and go as much as you want, so yeah, have fun with that."
"Hm... wait, hold on. I thought sixteen was the age of adulthood in Greek culture."
"Age of consent. Norse is also sixteen. Yeah, don't question Mikayla and I, we chose our own way of life, you did the same."
"And that is supposed to mean...?"
"You're dating a guy who's four years older than you, dummy."
"Oh, and I'm gonna guess you will marry a Valkyrie or something," Beth retorted. "And yeah it is fine cause in Greek culture we're both adults."
"Heh, maybe... maybe. Wait, why haven't you ordered any food yet? Come on, get some, it's good shit."
After they ate, Beth decided to just go for a walk around the camp as it had been growing as of late. She could see that the camo had many new buildings and stations. What she appreciated the most was the combat arena that was being built. A new bookshop was being built with different types of books from outside the camp. There were novel series, manga, gigantic books, and even books on religions that she had never heard of. When she scrolled through the bookstore, she found different tales of monsters. She found a story about the Sirens, a creature she knew everything about, but she still found it fascinating. The more she found out about them, the more the ocean began to freak her out. It seemed like the most dangerous and scary creatures tended to live there. Some of the monsters that freaked her out the most were Carybtis, Jormungandr, Kraken, and Scylla.
"Okay, maybe I should put this down," Beth said to herself as she put the sea monster book away.
She went out and since she didn't have a class that day, she decided to go on a walk outside of the camp for once. The forest felt very familiar, but she couldn't remember why. She remembered Nate doing something with Kenneth out in the forest, but for the life of her, she could not think of it. It was possibly because of all the concussions she had suffered affecting her memory, but she also assumed Mikayla or Nate had done something to her memory. She could hear something moving behind her, but every time she looked back, there was nothing. Once in a while she would see a bird or a deer, but nothing super alarming. The deeper she got into the forest, the more she smelled something horrid. The scent was like pure death, which only made her more curious as to where the smell was coming from. She saw a burnt part of the forest and decided to walk further in to see what that was. The smell was still potent, but the scent of the burnt trees helped make it more bearable. The sound of something following her kept up, but she could see absolutely nothing around that would cause the sound.
"Okay, seriously. What is that sound?" She asked herself while walking through the scorched forest, and then she came across a grizzly sight "Oh! I remember now!" She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose to make sure she didn't throw up "Oh, Gods, this is vile!"
"Well, if it does you any mind service, you only killed like one or two people." Beth jumped as Nate spoke behind her.
"What the, how did you-?"
"I'm sneakier than I look. Remember, we did sneak up on your whole group before your dumbass ended up setting half the forest ablaze."
"Hey, that was an accident."
"Still charred half a forest," Nate replied while he leaned against the rubble of the house they had burned down. "You know, the funny thing is, you still did more damage to Dreama than you've ever physically done to Estevan, but that makes some level of sense."
"Why?"
"Different physiques means different levels of damage. You punch me in the ribs, you may break one. Punch Marc's fatass in the ribs and he'll probably just giggle because you tickled him. Literally, that self proclaimed chunky boy..." Nate had to stop and giggle at that for a moment. "Is really hard to spar hand to hand with because he's more ticklish than Mikayla, don't ask how I know either of those."
"Not my problem. Should we head back?"
"Uh, yeah probably... hey, how long's it been since your mom's threat?"
"Uh... about half a year. There is no way she is still obsessed with the idea that I will lead the Athenian Warriors... right?"
"Uh, probably not. To be honest, I'd be surprised if she wasn't just like hey let's get another one of my God damn daughters. However, I'm not sure I'm right, so keep on your guard for a while, 'kay?"
Beth nodded and the two walked back to camp with Hayden, still a little suspicious of the amount of time the two spend together. He stopped her at the entrance of camp and asked her about it, but Beth assured him that nothing was wrong. Nate seemed almost incapable of feeling any kind of crush or romantic attraction to others, which made Hayden think back on all their interactions. As Beth walked off, Hayden just stood at the gate and thought. Whenever he had seen Nate talking to anyone, all he usually saw was the son of Heimdallr's usual smartass, sarcastic tone. The more he thought back, even when he spoke to Beth or Mikaya, or even Eden, there was never anything that indicated a crush in his body language or voice. It made him curious as to why, but he didn't want to pry into Nate's life as Nate never did that to him despite his mind reading ability.