Chapter Text
Jordan blinked open her eyes, still tired. She checked the watch beside her pillow and found the time to be ten till seven on the dot. She blinked twice, surprised she had gotten a full four hours of sleep.
She sat up in her bottom bunk, her short brown hair messed up from her pillow as she raked through it with her fingers. She quietly stood up from her bottom bunk, careful not to jostle the eight year old sleeping on the top. He’d just gotten to camp a week ago, and the poor guy hadn’t adjusted yet.
Jordan stepped lightly in her socked feet, passing all of her half-siblings slumbering peacefully, and into the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror, her chocolate brown eyes faded with exhaustion, and her caucasian skin made her eyebags even more noticeable. Jordan sighed as she turned the tap on and splashed some water on her face to wake herself up. She really had to start getting to bed earlier. Her hair was still tangled in spots and she let out a yawn as she got ready for the day.
Jordan changed into her day clothes, the logo faded on the older camp shirt and the jean shorts worn thin. She’d had the same shirt since she’d gotten to camp a few years back and refused to get a new one. It was a tad small, as she’d gotten taller and more muscular at camp because of regular meals and training. She owned a few pairs of shorts, but her jean shorts were her favorite, so they were worn down quite a bit.
She heads back to her bunk in the quiet cabin, leaning down and pulling her favorite lace-up boots out from under the bed. She also pulls out her old knapsack, which lay under the bed hidden. Her knapsack was from her days on the run, and that’s why she hid it. Most of her cabinmates thought that she only came for the summer and went home every fall, the year-rounders knew that was a lie but they just thought she stayed because she wanted to.
The truth was, Jordan didn’t have anywhere else to go. In the mortal world, she had no one, and no home. Jordan sighs again as she laces up her boots tightly and opens up the knapsack. Inside were the remnants of who she was before camp, an old crinkled book she must have read hundreds of times, a few photos like the ones on the wall by her bunk, and her childhood favorite stuffed animal. They were the only things she had time to grab when that monster had attacked and she now regrets not taking more.
She closes the knapsack again and stuffs it far under her bunk, before standing up and shaking herself out of her thoughts. She didn’t have any time to get lost in memories too far gone today. She grabs her dagger and sheath from underneath her pillow, before attaching it to her waist. Jordan pulls her hair into its iconic ponytail and forces a smile onto her face for the day, before walking to the front of the cabin and flipping the light switch on.
“Rise and shine everybody!” She yelled in a cheery voice. “It’s seven o’clock, and breakfast is served in half an hour!” She stood against the wall near the door frame as the Athena cabin came to life.
A few of the kids just slightly younger than her grumbled, then reluctantly climbed out of bed. Some of the youngest campers threw their pillows over their heads in a bad attempt to block out the light. She went back up to her bunk, where the little eight year old, named Lucas, had burrowed under his covers, only his squinted eyes peeking out. “Come on bud.” She says softly. “You don’t wanna miss breakfast, do ya?”
The gray eyes moved side to side as his blonde-haired head popped up from under the covers. “Guess not.” He said frowning, climbing down from his bunk after her. She watched as the cabin got ready, making sure no one forgot or misplaced their belongings, then shuffled everyone out the door at seven twenty.
As the last camper closed the door behind them, Jordan shut her eyes and heaved a giant sigh, falling against the wall. She was exhausted from getting about three hours of sleep a night, but her siblings couldn’t know that. She walked over to her bunk and picked up one of the photos pinned to her wall.
The old tattered photo crinkled in her hands, sun-bleached from her time on her own, but she knew what it looked like as she did the back of her hand. The photo showed a caucasian man in his early forties, holding hands and walking along with a toddler. His brown hair was messy in the picture, but he didn’t look like he cared. The man wore a large smile and had brown eyes that shone warm like the sun. On the back of the photo was a message in handwriting she’d memorized at this point. You’ll go far, my little star. She carefully tucked the photo back into its plastic protector hanging on the wall, among the others, which depicted the same man and child in various stages of life, all the way up until about the child’s tenth birthday, before taking a deep breath and walking out of the cabin, a huge grin on her face, ready to face the day.
She passed loads of kids laughing and talking about the day and what they were going to fill it with. It was a beautiful sunny day, the flowers stretching up to bask in its rays. Campers she knew waved at her and she waved back, the forced smile on her face not evident to anyone but her. She rubbed the bleariness and exhaustion out of her eyes as she came up on the dining pavilion and the chatter of hundreds of people reached her ears.
She ate breakfast tiredly, her smile not ever fading as she played along with the games the younger kids came up with, like eye spy, twenty questions, and their personal favorite, rock paper scissors. After losing to Lucas four times in row, Jordan quietly excused herself and headed to the sword fighting area, which was always quiet at this time of the morning and the rest of the day, as many kids didn’t feel the need to practice. They thought that danger was past. In reality, danger always lurked around every corner, and Jordan vowed to always be ready after what happened to her father.
When she gets to the arena, she unsheathed Sophos, her dagger, and was about to start when she noticed weapons laying off to the side. A nicked and scratched golden dagger sat on the closest ledge to the arena, glinting in the sunlight. Leaning up against one of the training dummies was a xiphos, its handle made of painted leaves. Jordan looked at them for a moment, because they seemed important, but eventually she shrugged it off and began practicing.