Shadows Over Camp Darkness

Magic Hour

Despite the unreported attack on Gideon and the attempt on Intake 5’s door, life at Camp Darkenss had to proceed smoothly. Or at least as close to smoothly as a Camp full of teenaged delinquents with supernatural heritages can manage.

True to her usual style, Gideon was going to teach her Intake 1 kids the six rules she held to in life. They weren’t overly profound or all that hard to remember, but surprisingly hard to adhere to in reality. 1- do not lie to yourself. 2- don’t get caught. 3- do not bluff (this one was always one of the toughest ones for the kids, they all lie like politicians) 4- there is always a choice 5- keep your word 6- be your own hero. It might be a little heavy for a lot of these beautiful beasties, they didn’t want the responsibility of consequences but it would be the best gift she could ever give them. In this first week though, she’d try to ease them into the rules by sticking with rule one and getting that in through their thick skulls.

Part of her approach to that would be to go a little harsh on them. From here on out she was not going to use their names, she was just going to refer to them by either their species type or their disorder. She’s start with their nature for now, but if they really needed the point driven home she’d get more specific to issue. It was cruel sounding but the first step in dealing with their problems was to get them to recognize that what they were doing was in fact a problem to begin with.

In the mornings, the kids were fed and proselytized by the Senior Councillors or the Doctor. But in the afternoons the kids were given over to their House Councillor. Each House had a different approach to helping the kids out, and Gideon’s methods were odd but effective. She liked to use that time to teach some useful survival skills and subtly bash their brains in with knowledge. It was a good system. If they got up to too much trouble or gave too much lip, she’d show them the difference between the good Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Run and Hide. Before any of that could happen though, she had to wake the slumbering lambikins up. They’d only fallen back to sleep an hour or so ago, so this was going to be quite the display of surliness Gideon suspected. Wonder if I’ll get anything thrown at me today? The thought brought a slightly sadistic smile to her face as she set the music player down. Like she had every year while being a Councillor, Gids blared music at precisely 6 am. A rather irritating piece of music known as Banana Phone. She’s seen actual acrobatics not pull off such spectacular leaps as these kids managed, but the solid sounding thumps that followed were rather less glorious. Maybe it was little mean after they’d already been jolted awake earlier in the night, but Gidster just mentally shrugged that thought off. It was time for business.

“Good morning Intake One!” Gideon bellowed, infusing as much psychotically cheerfulness into her voice as possible. She’d gotten even less sleep than they all had, typical because she’s an insomniac, and she was stiff and sore from the night time attack but she ignored all that to be peppy because no one likes a painfully chirpy morning person.

There were grumbles and curses lobbed at her like spit balls at a substitute teacher. Eventually the Nephilim shuffled over to kill the music, shooting her an amused look.  “We really don’t like mornings. You’re a cruel woman.” His voice was rough and the use of ‘we’ let Gideon know it was the demonside in charge at the moment.

If he survives long enough to mature, he’s going to be a heart breaker. That smile was dangerous. Gideon’s inner Fury mused.

Thank you for THAT unwanted mental image. Gids groused back at herself and ploughed on with her game plan.

“I wake you guys up this early so you can get ready and get to breakfast while the food’s still hot. Not go forth and feed my pretties. I’ll see you this afternoon for day one of how not to die when you’re forced to take care of yourself.” Gideon shooed them all off and then sauntered away while they whined and complained. There is only so much ‘woe is me’ that she can handle before her own breakfast.