Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

019, brat winter lowk

CHAPTER NINETEEN

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

The rest of the day Sylvie was preoccupied with preparing Cedar for the impending game against the Hunters—since apparently she was in charge now. The whole ordeal took longer than you might think, because either Sylvie, Miranda, or Cedar kept getting fed up, bored, or distracted. In that order.

Miranda was stringently set on restoring all the dead flowers that the winter air had killed. Sylvie just wished she did it elsewhere, because it made Cedar eager to learn how to do that instead. Sylvie couldn't stop him either, because she couldn't blame him. Who would want capture the flag lessons from Sylvie? She had historically captured her own flag, fallen off of Zeus's fist while guarding, and gotten lost in the woods mid-game. On top of that, Cedar was insistent he didn't ever want a weapon for fighting.

Basically, they were screwed tonight.

She hadn't seen Percy since this morning, as he'd disappeared ever after. Sylvie knew she'd left first, but she'd gone back to meadow to continue talking with her friends, and Percy and Grover were gone. She sort of wished Percy was here with her now—he was so much better at everything that maybe he would've been able to train Cedar.

"Cedar, please," Sylvie begged half-heartedly. "At least learn how to put the armor on."

"Why do we need to be so violent all the time? I don't want to fight."

Sylvie snorted before she could stop herself. He said that now, but let's see what happened to that mindset when this cruel lifestyle aged him. It wasn't that Sylvie found it funny—it was actually incredibly sad and unfortunately too real—but she just found herself entertained by most things Cedar said/did.

"Okay, pacifist," Sylvie threw her arms up tiredly. "I give up."

It's not like she was actually the Demeter cabin's leader—it was only temporary until Eurydice came back. Sylvie was always a follower, so she was really struggling with having to parent her younger siblings. The thought of being in charge of other people made Sylvie anxious; she could barely keep an account of her own life.

But she did, in fact, lie. Sylvie didn't give up, and instead actually kept trying to keep Miranda and Cedar in line.

By the time the sun went down, Sylvie could proudly say she made some success. She got Miranda to stop distracting Cedar, and she taught Cedar how to properly put on armor. This part was a little bit harder, but she managed to put a shield and sword in his hands, too. He still declared he wouldn't be using the weapon, but him holding it was progress enough for Sylvie.

Even if she wanted to give him sword-fighting lessons (she didn't), she wouldn't have had the time to. The conch horn was blown to signal it was dinner time, so she, Miranda, and Cedar got a move on.

After dinner, Sylvie was now 74% sure she and her siblings wouldn't get killed—which was much better than earlier's 48%. She knew that was low bar, but with capture the flag, Sylvie never got her hopes high.