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Every demigod, depending on who their parent was, often had a stereotype associated with them. It often didn't matter who you were or what your personality was like before you were claimed, once that defining symbol shone above your head, it was taken as an indicator of who you were.
Demeter children are often seen as docile and quiet, even though they should logically be the most feared ones given who their mother was. Athena kids also had a tendency to be cold and calculated despite the other qualities derived from their genius that often go ignored.
Ares kids were pegged as aggressive, nemesis and Hades as evil and the Hermes kids as criminals. In the camp, it was often a habit of everyone to make judgements based on parents first rather than the child's actual character.
Will knew that all too well, he'd done it a few times too. He first came to camp at eleven, with his bright blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, before he was even claimed he had been put into the Apollo cabin. He didn't seem to mind all that much, he was used to people's assumptions. Travelling all over the country with his mom he had learned to push away whatever he felt from how others saw him and keep himself together.
Apollo children also had a tendency to be seen as bright happy, and carefree. Though for the most part, he fell into the first two categories, he was anything but the latter. Like a curse from the god himself, something always seemed to be plaguing his mind. Ever since he stepped onto the hill that he learned to call his home, he was afraid that if he didn't fall into place something would go wrong and he'd get kicked out. All it took was one wrong thing that he'd say or do and will would get thrown to the curb. The thought of breaking the mould of what he was expected to be like scared him, anyone who had the confidence to do so had his utmost respect.
That's what the girl had gained when she appeared months after Will had first arrived. Unlike him, who had come quietly with a dazzling smile that reflected the sun, she had come kicking and screaming. And, gods, was she loud.
Will hadn't seen it himself, cause it had been late in the afternoon when he was learning to relocate a dislocated arm with his siblings in the infirmary. A monster- he forgot what kind- had chased her to the barrier. She hadn't known the barrier was there and screamed so loud that the whole camp heard her ear-splitting voice. By the time the patrolling campers found her, she was alone with nothing a pile of golden dust at her feet.
Unlike Will, who had been placed immediately when the campers saw what he looked like, they didn't know where to put her. At first, like everyone else, they tried to put her in the Hermes cabin while they waited for her to get claimed. That was, until, she had gotten into a nasty fight with ten-year-old Cecil, beating him badly enough to warrant him a dislocated arm for trying to steal one of her things. Will had to give her props for allowing her to try what he had learned earlier about the boy, whom he had become friends with from the incident. He felt it right, Apollo kids were often friends with everyone, people would say around him.
After that incident she had been moved to the Ares cabin under the piercing eye of Clarisse, Travis saying that it was probably where she was going eventually anyway.
It was to everyone's shock, and probably Mr. D's amusement, when Drew Tanaka had been claimed a few weeks after as a child of Aphrodite.
Other than the stereotype at face value, Drew was nothing like people thought someone like her should behave. She was beautiful, sure, but at twelve she picked fights with everyone and anyone, nobody was spared from the wrath.
Everywhere she walked, the whispers of others would follow her.
What kind of defect is that?
Are you sure she wasn't claimed wrong?
They should send her back to Ares cabin, she's better off there.
But Drew didn't seem to care, walking with her head high while Will watched on with astonishment. How could she not hate the way people talk about her?
Will mustered up the courage to ask her one day, and with a scowl she responded:
"Who are you?"
Somehow, they had become friends after that. Will doesn't even remember how exactly, perhaps that one conversation was enough to prove himself enough for her to spend her time with. Almost every day, she would barge into the Apollo cabin, the infirmary, and even Will's activities to hang out. Nothing much would happen, the older girl would talk about anything and everything, her naturally loud voice commanding the attention of everyone around her. Will would just smile in response, like Apollo kids do, and speak a word or two in response to his friend who was rough around the edges.
Unfortunately for Drew, the Head counsellor of the aphrodite cabin loved a challenge. Silena had no problem with her younger sister deviating from the traditional way people expected aphrodite children to be she encouraged it. Her qualms had lied more with the way she tended to fight with her fists, no matter how much her partner Clarisse had egged her on.
The alternative she had presented in most's opinion had arguably been much worse. Instead of fighting physically, the older girl had taught drew to use her words instead. And that's how, to everyone's horror, it was discovered that Drew possessed charmspeak.
Unless it was in combat, Drew never beat someone down after that. She used her words, to which the campers learned quickly that it hurt much more than being hit.
The snide comments about her behaviour stopped almost immediately, and if they didn't she still didn't seem to care. As always, she would come by at random points of the day to talk to Will regardless.
Will liked the company, and he didn't feel the need to have to pretend all the time when he was with her. Just like his siblings, Aphrodite kids tended to be expected to sugarcoat their words to hide the truth. Drew never did that, she said what was on her mind, and the younger boy appreciated that.
Drew didn't care what others thought of her, Will did, and they worked well together that way.
That changed after the Second Titan War.
Will had been thirteen when the Battle of Manhattan happened. He had blocked half of his memories out, but he could still remember bits and pieces of what happened leading up to it.
The labyrinth crumbled the previous year, campers deviated to join the rebels. Whispers about a traitor in the camp being among them, and even more whispers about Drew being the traitor because of her charmspeak.
The fight between the Apollo and Ares kids over the chariot had been especially bad. Will wasn't quite sure why the chariot was so important, and when he asked Clarisse she just ruffled his hair and told him to go away.
All he knew was that it escalated to the point that when the war began, the entire Ares cabin stayed behind, refusing to fight. Before they left, he'd even tried to talk to them, hoping that maybe they would listen to the words of a kid they currently hated and join them in the battle. Instead, he hid behind the russet cabin's five-door frame as he silently watched the aphrodite cabin counsellor shout at her friend for the stupid decision she was making. Before Drew had found him and dragged him away to collect more armour, his eyes met with Silena's, a silent shake of the head as if she was saying sorry.
He hadn't known what to expect when they had gotten to Manhattan. Not as talented in close combat, or even long-range targets like his brother Micheal, they had put him in the emergency medical team to help out the best he could. Drew, on the other hand, for the first time in years had been allowed to roam free among the streets with her ruthless skill, both her words and strength causing damage to those around her.
Will didn't mind that he wasn't fighting like the others, he liked to help and it seemed to be the only thing he was good at. The thirteen-year-old didn't flinch or wince at any injury he was given to fix. Not even when the camp strategist had been stabbed, right after finding out his older brother had been buried beneath the rubble of a fragmented bridge, he simply grit his teeth and did the best he could.
Never did he think that out of all the people who would be hurt as gruesome as they did, who he couldn't get to in time, would be his closest friend's sister.
In the haze of chaos, will had not once stopped to look around at the damage until that moment. That moment was when he fully took notice of the amount of bloodshed evident in the city's elements. On the streets, his clothes and his hands. No other colour but grey and red stood out, painting his vision into a scene that may be imprinted into his mind forever.
Everything had come to a slow as he took notice of the crowd forming around a single figure. Unable to see, he tried to push through in case anyone had gotten hurt to help them, but nobody moved, nobody spoke and he didn't understand why.
It wasn't until the shocked silence had been broken by the carefully trained feather steps turned into a clear pattering of brand sneakers pounding against the concrete, the whispers being drowned out by a scream that left the Ares counsellor who held the far too-gone girl in her arms that Will realised what happened.
Fearfully turning to the source of the footsteps, Will looked to his friend who skidded to a stop beside him. Her rings of curls were no longer perfectly set into place, strands of hair threatening to spill from the loose ponytail the girl had put them in. No longer gleaming, her amour looked worse for wear, dented in some areas as the metal rose and sunk from her trying to catch her breath. Other than love, Drew's mother was a war goddess, as long as Will had known her she always seemed prepared for anything.
Looking into the girl's almond-coloured eyes, he knew she hadn't been prepared for that.
They both changed after that. Immediately after the battle, and perhaps even before it had completely ended, both teens were thrown into a position of leadership without asking for it. With their previous counsellors forever dead and gone, they had no choice but to navigate the path themselves without any help.
Will thought Drew had it worse than him. A vast majority of his family had died, but not only did his friend's sibling die, but their reputation did as well. Despite being named a hero, Silena being found out as a traitor wasn't forgotten easily, and the aphrodite cabin was left to bear the damage.
Whispers resurfaced, following them wherever they went. Questioning whether or not the rest were also traitors, or even if they should be kicked out of camp for good measure. Being a counsellor forced Will to speak up more, and he used it often to shut down those rumours, but it wasn't enough to silence everyone.
Throughout all of it, in the beginning, Drew was silent. She was never silent before.
If it was even possible, she had gotten meaner. Burying himself to work night and day in the infirmary, will often hear from Mitchell about how she would force them to do what she said with her charm speak, not knowing how to explain that it was her way to make sure that they never tried to be a traitor again, suspecting that it wouldn't fix how they felt anyway.
Days passed, then weeks. Most campers seemed to be doing better, but Will could barely handle it. Every time he stopped for a moment he would see the streets of grey and red, and that would be enough for him to throw himself back into his work. Drew barely came by anymore, not talking to him for weeks at a time, and oftentimes he barely noticed.
Will wasn't quite sure what triggered it. Perhaps it was because it was the first time the aphrodite kids along with their new counsellor were allowed to play as an entire cabin without exclusions since she had arrived at camp and been banned. Or because the other campers had clearly forgotten why the aphrodite cabin had been banned from playing as a cabin in the first place.
Either way, that night the infirmary was flooded with injured campers. Ranging from minor sprains to severe fractures, some too many people needed his help.
The voices and calls for him rang in his head, and Will didn't feel like he was even in the infirmary anymore. All he saw was that same grey and red that plagued him, the number of people paling in comparison to the sea of injured back then.
He couldn't do this, he had to steel himself and get to work. He was the Apollo counsellor, Micheal and Lee wouldn't be like this. Apollo kids were happy, Apollo kids were good healers, they couldn't-
"Shut up."
Blinking away the two-toned view, in its place was a figure of orange and pink. Just like back then, Drew's hair was pulled back into a ponytail- albeit much neater this time. Her arms crossed, she glared at him with her piercing stare as she stepped beside him.
"I didn't say anything," Will responded, struggling to speak due to her command. Regaining his senses slowly, he reached for his clipboard, before the older girl grabbed it and flipped through the attached pages.
"You were thinking it, so I'm telling you to shut up" She looked up at him "I'll look through these and give them to Kayla. she's the girl with the green hair who came last month right?"
"You don't-" he caught her stare "Fine, she's by the medicine rack over there."
Standing tall, and she had grown taller in the last few months, she strode over towards the counter where his sister was busy organising a group of particularly battered campers. Stopping suddenly, her head turned, curls swaying as her frown deepened.
"You need to establish yourself more, or else you're just gonna be a loser."
The comments brought out a small smile from Will. Her voice had been level, but compared to two years ago she was much quieter than before. They both had changed considerably in a way he wished they didn't have to. But they did, and they just had to live with the fractures.
Even if they didn't quite fit the general perceptions that were expected of them, who they were should surely be enough.