Alacrity

III.

iii. Shaving Cream and Stink Bombs

Over the next few days, Lyra had tried to figure out who Percy's parent might be. She sometimes spent time with Annabeth teaching him Ancient Greek, but got too bored too quickly and often left with some lame excuse ("Yeah, I gotta go... my... Connor swallowed my keys... and I'm... waiting for them to come out, yep, I'm sticking with that, bye!"). Later, Lyra would teach Percy Greek myths, the one sit-down activity she actually enjoyed. But he wasn't good at archery, nor metal-work, nor intellectual activities, nor plant-work. Luke had suggested that he might be a child of Hermes, sort of a jack-of-all-trades, but he wasn't good enough at most activities to qualify for that. All children of Hermes were pretty good at everything, and usually excelled in one thin. Besides, he didn't share the Hermes-children characteristics of upturned brows and sharp noses.

On Thursday, Percy joined the Hermes Cabin for sword-fighting. Lyra and the rest of her cabin-mates gathered in the arena and were instructed by Luke. The group practiced basic stabbing and smashing using straw-dummies fixed with Greek armor. Lyra was quite good at sword-fighting, having been trained by Luke, but she was nowhere as good as her older brother.

After thirty or so minutes, Luke announced that they would be battling in pairs. Normally Luke and Lyra were partners, but he announced that this time, Percy would be his partner because it was his first time.

"Sorry, Ly," Luke apologized. "You can spar with Chris."

Lyra snorted and agreed. As she passed Percy she whispered, "Good luck. Luke's the best swordsman in... a long time, like two-hundred or three-hundred years." Percy turned pale and his hands shook slightly.

Lyra stepped in front of Chris and grabbed her pocket-knife from her pocket. She flipped up the blade portion of it, and the instant the small knife flipped upwards, it morphed into a two-foot long Celestial Bronze sword. Chris grabbed his sword and the two were still. Chris attacked first, swiping sideways. Lyra deflected and blocked, and the two parried and thrusted, neither overpowering the other. That is, until Lyra brought her sword arcing to Chris's left and brought her shield arcing to his right; it left her completely defensless, which is why she hesitated to use the move, but Chris had to pick one to block lest he get his by both a sword and a shield. He blocked her sword and Lyra's shield slammed into his right side, sending him stumbling. Chris lost his grip on his sword and Lyra held hers to her neck, smugly declaring her win.

When Luke called a break, everyone swarmed the drinks cooler. Lyra eagerly drank the ice water, instantly feeling more refreshed. She dumped some over her head to relieve herself of her sticky, sweaty hair that was bothering her, much preferring it to be soaking wet than sweaty.

"Okay, everybody, circle up!" Luke called to the Hermes cabin-residents. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo." Lyra suppressed a smile as her siblings, her cabin-mates and she formed a circle. She stood between the Stoll brothers, something she did often because she was 'their favorite sister', and chuckled as Connor whispered, "He's totally dead."

"Totally?" Lyra mocked, snickering to her self.

"Totally," Connor confirmed.

"Alright, everyone, I'm going to demonstrate a disarming technique: twisting the enemy's blade with the flat of your sword so he has no choice but to drop his sword."

Lyra hummed: that was going to be a good skill to learn.

"This is difficult," Luke said, making eye contact with each and every person in the circle. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."