𝑲𝑰𝑵𝑫𝑹𝑬𝑫 • 𝑃𝐸𝑅𝐶𝑌 𝐽𝐴𝐶𝐾𝑆𝑂𝑁 [2]

III

When Elaine wakes, she's greeted by a pandemonium of half her siblings scrambling for armor.

She's confused, because it's a known fact that children of Apollo tend to rise and fall with the sun, which was definitely long gone.

In the bed across from hers, Will is sitting up, watching in confusion as Lee slings a quiver over his shoulder.

"What's going on?" She shouted.

"Aethiopian drakon at the border! Armor up and get out there!" He yelled over the commotion.

She and Will shared a contemplative look before they both stumbled out of bed.

Elaine removed Nightshade and her quiver of golden arrows from the hook on the wall near her bed, and opened the wall locker next to the cabin door to reveal a row of breast plates on hangers.

The last time she put one on, she felt ridiculous, but this time she felt more sure of herself, like she was slipping on a pair of weathered shoes.

Everyone who could manage to force themselves out of bed at three A.M followed Lee and Michael Yew into the woods.

Elaine wasn't sure what she was expecting when Lee said a drakon was at the border, but the monster before them was not it.

She was familiar with the camp's guardian dragon at the base of Thalia's tree. But this was much larger, and much more ancient. Its scales were a sickly green and its eyes ... Elaine tried not to look at them.

"Archers! Form a five by two formation." Lee instructed.

Elaine found herself standing in the front row with a frightened Will. She wanted to reassure him, but didn't think she'd sound convincing.

"Notch. Aim. Fire!" Lee called.

Elaine let a golden arrow fly into the drakon's shoulder, but their arrows seemed to do very little to the monster.

The magical boundaries had kept the monster out, but it prowled the hills, looking for weak spots in their defenses. Apollo cabin followed, keeping up with the drakon as it tried to get in, all the while killing any monsters in the woods that roamed too close to the group.

Elaine appreciated that her new quiver seemed to have an ability to remain full no matter how many arrows she'd fired. She would have to remember to thank her father the next chance she got.

An hour and a couple dozen arrows later, it got the message and withdrew.

It was a faux victory.

Elaine knew they didn't really defeat the monster, but after Lee dismissed them, she was too tired to argue.

***

"Rise and shine" was meant to be a figure of speech, but for Elaine and the rest of her siblings, (or at least those who hadn't developed the skill of ignoring the sun in the morning), it meant joining the camp in the dining pavilion just mere hours after the ordeal with the drakon in the woods.