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Sophia has been at camp long enough to know most of the cabins’ traditions.
She’s always been social, and the constant rotation of new campers through the Hermes cabin has only widened her circle. As a result, her friendships now stretch across nearly every cabin, leaving her well acquainted with each group of siblings’ customs and idiosyncrasies.
The Hermes cabin’s tradition has always struck her as a particularly fun one, if she’s being honest. Hermes is a god of many things — including thieves — so she and her siblings follow a more flexible route of passage: at some point within the first year of being claimed, Hermes campers must steal a meaningful item from another cabin, without being caught. The word “meaningful” is subjective, of course, and endlessly debated. Sophia herself stole a lyre from the Apollo cabin, which to this day is still propped up in a far corner of the Hermes cabin attic, and its image is on a poster of missing items outside the Apollo cabin that other campers can claim a 50 drachma reward for finding.
On the other hand, Athena kids are required to master at least one strategy board game and play at least one, regardless of whether they win or lose, against Chiron (no one has ever won, and the tradition is there more to keep the brightest minds at camp humble). Ares campers are assigned a more senior camper to fight — usually an older sibling — and must be the first to draw blood, regardless of their ultimate victory or loss of the spar, to complete the tradition — the newcomers almost always lose anyway, but landing the first “deadly” hit is all that’s needed. Apollo kids have to perform a song at the campfire, solo and without background music; even the ones that seem more blessed with archery than singing have to do it. Hephaestus campers are handed a chunk of metal — picked by their older siblings, naturally — and challenged to build something functional within 24 hours. Dionysus campers are subjected to multiple rounds of champagne-and-shackles–style drinking games, but given the choice of their own beverages.
Some cabins have traditions that are stranger, riskier, or far more secretive — Sophia's still trying to figure out what the hell the Aphrodite cabin tradition is, and she's still yet to get a source to confirm if Iris campers are supposed to make rainbows or something as a part of their cabin tradition — but for the most part, the traditions themselves have been around for so long that they’ve become an accepted part of camp life. Sophia knows most of them, though, and can probably count the ones that she doesn’t know in just one hand: Hecates, Demeter, Iris, Aphrodite… maybe also the Big Three, since there’s usually never enough people for a tradition to actually get passed down. Regardless, for these traditions, sometimes older campers will escalate them into something more challenging, but generally, they’re all pretty harmless — mere nominal rites of passage more than anything else.
Sophia’s supposed to be meeting Manon to watch Megan go through her Ares cabin tradition. It’s a big deal, this event in particular: Megan arrived at camp nearly half a year ago, with nothing but the clothes on her back, a jade bracelet, and the upper half of a spear — supposedly, the spear of Leonidas of Sparta — in her right hand, with the heavy red of the blessing of Ares surrounding her. And supposedly, she had nearly single-handedly bested one of the senior Ares campers at the border of camp, whom she had mistaken for an empousai, before an Apollo archer had shot her with a sedative that caused her to pass out.
Anyway, the point is this: Megan was a big deal and a bit of a mystery to all of camp. It’d been a while since someone held the blessing of Ares, especially a new, unclaimed, seemingly volatile camper as they arrived, and after the spectacle that Megan had made at the border of camp, everyone was now invested in seeing what this new girl could do.
On that specific morning, Sophia recalls, she arrives at the sparring area with her siblings, a bit late, because she was busy finding a nametag for herself, as Chiron had told her to show around some new camper, and to her surprise, there is already a large crowd there. She and her siblings have to split up and squeeze into cracks between cabins to find their friends, and that’s how she finds herself stuck in between a group of Aphrodite campers, just to be next to Manon.
Sophia loves Manon, really. Manon’s so sweet and always trying her best, but, like, Manon is also really freaking distracting sometimes — not necessarily in a bad way or anything, it’s really just the sweet floral perfume that is always catching Sophia a little off guard, and her braids are really long and somehow perfectly pulled into a ponytail, and when Sophia accidentally bumps into Manon as she tries to take a step to the left for one of the younger campers to squeeze forward, Manon looks looks over with those pretty eyes, before Sophia musters a small “oops, sorry” and Manon turns her beautiful face away again to observe the spar in front of them.
Wait… Pretty eyes? Beautiful face?
What the hell? Sophia thinks to herself as she shakes her head and somehow manages to focus her attention on the scene in front of her, watching both curiously and carefully as Megan stretches and adopts several times a strange stance, one that Sophia would have only ever taken if she had a shield in one hand and a weapon in the other. Megan, however, has two weapons in her hand – a short dagger in her left hand, and the spear of Leonidas in her right, and she stretches with slow side lungs as Sophia waits, watching for who the assigned senior Ares cabin member will be.
To her surprise, however, the person who walks onto the field does not wear armor with the blood red lining of the Ares cabin — instead, they’re wearing celestial bronze with painted gold and white accents, chest armor engraved with a winged design on the back, the distinct symbol of Nike.
The person that Megan’s been paired with for the traditional Ares spar is… Dani?
Sophia blinks and shakes her head for a moment, just to make sure she’s not mistaking the person on the field for someone else. But no — really, it’s Dani, who’s most definitely not an Ares kid and is instead a Nike kid.
This was also new; it’s been a few years since the challenged fighter was not an Ares sibling. In fact, Sophia thinks the last time she saw something like this had been during her second year at camp, when she was still just eight or so — some arrogant son of Ares had initiated a challenge to a daughter of Athena, supposedly out of misogynistic spite, and it hadn’t ended all that well for the challenger.
Everyone seems to be chattering about it, and the crowd’s excitement seems to bleed into Dani’s energy — which makes sense, considering, you know, Nike kids. Sophia watches as Dani bounces on the balls of her feet, dual swords flashing in the sun — a parrying blade in her left hand, a cutlass in her right. She makes a couple of whirling slashes, and Sophia has known the girl long enough to recognize that she’s probably planning on fighting unpredictably and unconventionally, like a pirate, with that cutlass.
Dani looks great, though; she looks confident and energized, and Sophia has always loved watching her fight. There is something magnetic about it, something that pulls the eye whether you want it to or not, and Sophia often finds herself forgetting to blink when Dani starts moving like this. Despite the usual unruliness of that pirate fighting style, Dani somehow moves with an effortless grace, and each slash flows seamlessly into the next until the motions stop looking like combat at all and start to resemble art more than martial skill. And even then, Sophia knows how devastatingly deceiving the arts part of this is — those hits still hurt like a bitch when they land.
Megan, in contrast, looks almost a little bored. She finishes her stretches with deliberate slowness, then settles back into that strange, asymmetrical stance Sophia noticed earlier, this time, weight favoring her left side. A few words are exchanged between them with an older Ares camper, Adéla, who seems to be mediating the fight. Sophia doesn’t catch any of the conversation; the crowds are too loud. It doesn’t matter anyway.
Dani explodes forward the moment they’re told to begin. She fights like she always does: quickly, aggressively, and unpredictably, blades whistling in tight arcs meant to overwhelm almost any structured defense. Sophia knows how much Dani’s put into mastering that technique — the first time Sophia sparred with that girl, she genuinely thought she was going to either lose a limb or get knocked out on the spot. Despite the flurry of movement, however, Megan meets the charge with her two blades, each of her movements economical and precise and seemingly held just right.
The steel of Dani’s swords rings against the bronze of Megan’s blades. Dani presses hard, forcing Megan back step by step, her twin blades slashing and hacking, and to Sophia’s surprise, Dani easily disarms the dagger in Megan’s left hand as Megan continues to stay on the defensive.
Sophia frowns. After all the hype, she had expected something flashier. Megan pivots, redirects, lets Dani’s momentum work against her, but she isn’t advancing, or even looking like she’s even pushing back at all. Her dagger’s also been flung quite far away, and Sophia has a feeling there’s no way she’s going to be able to pick that back up in the middle of this fight again. Megan seems to rely heavily on her right side, the half-spear spinning and snapping in quick, creative motions, but also somehow places a lot of weight on her left side, always returning to a stance Sophia only sees with shielded infantry fights — except Megan just has a half of a spear and is using it to hook onto Dani’s blades, jam strikes, and fight close instead of retreating.
Still, Sophia thinks that the loss feels inevitable now; defense only lasts so long.
The space between them closes more. Dani feints left, then sweeps low in one smooth motion. Megan’s legs are knocked out from under her, and before she can fully recover, Dani twists her parrying blade away from Megan, disarming the other girl’s weapon with seemingly no effort. The half-spear skids across the dirt to the right of them.
To Sophia’s disappointment, and likely many others’ as well, Dani moves in for the final strike, the one that will determine that Megan’s not yet proved her worth to the Ares cabin, and she’s moving fast — too fast. Her cutlass arcs down, straight toward Megan’s raised left arm as Megan throws it up instinctively, swinging outward like she’s bracing for impact. Sophia’s already bracing herself too, heart leaping into her throat. She can practically hear the Apollo kids scrambling, already preparing for what looks like a brutal upper extremity injury. The blade is going to land, and some of the younger campers are surely going to be traumatized — except it doesn’t, and the cutlass completely ricochets.
There’s a sharp, ringing clang as if Dani has struck solid metal, and the force snaps the weapon clean out of her hand, like she hadn’t expected it at all. The cutlass spins away, skittering across the ground. Gasps ripple through the onlookers, and Sophia’s among them. Dani is frozen, visibly startled; she half-stumbles back a step, but the moment of shock is more than enough time for what Megan needs.
Megan is back on her feet in less than a second, closing the distance. Her left arm sweeps outward again — and Dani is hit, her right shoulder jerking violently back as if she’s been slammed into by an invisible wall. Before Sophia can even begin to process what she’s seeing, Megan’s leg comes up, and it’s perhaps the most beautiful Spartan kick Sophia’s ever seen, powerful and perpendicular and precise, and Dani is knocked flat onto her back, at least five or six feet back, her parrying blade flying out of her left hand from the impact. Sophia winces, and she mentally creates a reminder to check on how Dani’s doing after, because that looks like it’s got to have been a hard landing. Dust billows, and for a moment, the entire crowd seems to still, while Megan advances.
Sophia can see Megan’s face from this angle, and Megan looks quite bored. In time, Sophia will come to learn that Megan is normally quite expressive, loaded with quirky humor and risque jokes, but for now, Megan’s expression is blank, and she looks just downright intimidating as she retrieves her half-spear from the ground on her right, kicks Dani’s cutlass away with her boot, and advances quickly. The tables are turned now, and Dani’s still on the ground, as if still caught in the shock of things.
That’s when Sophia sees it.
The faint outline at first — pale green light and familiar bronze flickering in and out of focus around Megan’s left arm. It’s a full, circular shield – Spartan in design, based on the V-shape front design. The shield’s edges shimmer with a dull green, and its bronze surface phases in and out of visibility as Megan stalks forward — but where did —
Sophia’s not even able to think up the entire question when the girls are about to clash again, as Megan lunges, spear angled down, blade inches from meeting Dani’s chest armor – and then she… stops?
“I passed,” Megan says, stepping back, no longer sporting a bored look, but instead, a wide, triumphant smile.
“What?” Dani blinks, confused and scowling slightly.
Megan points with the tip of her spear. “There.”
Blood streaks Dani’s forearm, tracing up to a series of shallow scratches that Sophia can even see from where she stands. It’s probably from where the girl had hit the ground after the kick. Adéla agrees that it’s been done, and Megan offers a hand to help Dani up, but her wide smile dims noticeably as Dani scowls instead, completely ignoring her and getting to her feet by herself. She seems to mutter something to Megan that makes Megan’s smile dim a bit more and makes her expression turn closer to confusion than anything else. Still, now that it’s over, Megan relaxes, and the shield flickers once more… and vanishes entirely. Nothing remains on her left arm except a simple jade bracelet resting against her wrist.
Sophia stares.
Oh.
It’s the bracelet, a voice says with wonder. For a moment, Sophia thinks it’s just that voice in her mind, but to her surprise, it’s Manon who’s actually saying her thoughts aloud. Manon’s tone shifts quickly, though.
“I still can’t believe the Ares tradition is just people trying to injure each other,” she sighs. “You think we’d want to preserve our already-shortened demigod lifespans.”
“Yeah… but you have to admit, that was so cool. I feel like they're pretty useful, with both showcasing talent and building community, you know?” Sophia says, and she has a feeling her voice is filled with a similar type of wonder, because Manon turns to look at her, directly facing her now, and for a moment, Sophia loses her words, because gods, Manon looks so good, with the sun shining on her — Sophia can’t tell if she’s being blinded by beauty, or if it’s the light ricocheting off of Manon’s earrings, or if —
“Whoa,” Manon raises an eyebrow, “you good there?” Manon meets Sophia's eyes curiously, but then looks down at Sophia’s shirt, and suddenly, Sophia is very conscious of how she had accidentally spilled some orange juice on herself at breakfast this morning.
Thankfully, however, the girl doesn’t seem to focus all that much on Sophia’s shirt stains. Instead, her expression brightens a little as she says, “Oh, did one of the kids write that?”
Oh, Sophia thinks. What?
It takes her a second to wrap her head around the image of Manon smile, which makes her want to melt a little, and the other girl casually saying something about a name tag, and it takes her another second to realize that Manon’s actually staring at her name tag, which one of Sophia’s younger Hermes siblings made in the morning, and not whatever stains she might have on her shirt –
“Oh, yeah,” Sophia says, with a nervous laugh. Wait, why was she nervous? “Oreo made it for me, I was showing around a new camper today. We just found a whole drawer of art supplies the other day in our basement, and I’m not really sure what to do with it, though. We just did some arts and crafts this morning before lunch.”
“Hm… maybe you could host more arts and crafts workshops,” Manon says thoughtfully. “You should tell Oreo to keep making you name tags. I like the sparkles — they’re very… you.”
“Thanks,” Sophia says, because really, what else is she supposed to say? “I’ll let him know.”
Manon is still smiling faintly when one of her siblings taps her on the shoulder, and when she looks away from Sophia, Sophia swears it feels like the sun just dimmed a bit in brightness. The crowd begins to break apart slowly, and conversations bloom in pockets, buzzing and speculative, and for a moment, Sophia is still staring dumbly at Manon when the other girl turns back and speaks again.
“I have to go, sorry,” Manon says, with a sigh. “We have a cabin thing.”
Oh, of course. The Aphrodite cabin always has a cabin thing.
“Oh, yes, no worries,” Sophia says, so very eloquently, “of course.”
“I’ll see you later?” Manon’s eyes soften slightly. “How about another trio dinner, if you get a chance to grab Dani when she’s not raging over losing?”
Sophia blinks. “Of course,” she says, a little too quickly again. “Yes, let’s do it. Six?”
“Six sounds good.” Manon smiles easily, and then she’s gone, pulled into a sweep of pink and gold and floral perfume, and it’s ridiculous, honestly, how noticeable the absence is.
It’s like someone shut a window; Sophia just stands there for half a second too long, staring at the space where Manon had been, and something inside her chest feels oddly… light and hollow at the same time.
What the hell?
Sophia shakes her head sharply, as if to dislodge the feeling, and then remembers — oh, yeah. Dani. She was going to check on Dani, yes.
She pivots and makes her way toward the sparring part of the arena, where a small cluster has formed around Megan. Dani’s backed out of the crowd, and the Apollo kids are already there, checking her shoulder and forearm as she sits on a wooden bench and speaks with Adela, who’s standing in front of her with crossed arms. There’s a faint bruise beginning to bloom along her right side where she’d been thrown and a shallow cut streaking across her left forearm, but Dani looks unbothered as she shoos the Apollo campers away. They all have slight scowls on their faces, but they leave nonetheless.
Dani looks furious. Which is also impressive, considering she also looks — well, how else to put it? — really freaking good.
Sophia notes that Dani’s forearm gear is scuffed, and their gold paint is scratched along the edges. There is dust smeared along the other girl’s jawline and collarbone, and her hair has partially come loose from its tie, dark strands sticking to her forehead. Her skin is flushed from exertion, heat rising high across her cheeks and down her neck, and there is a faint sheen of sweat catching the sunlight at her neck. She smells a bit like deodorant and sweat, and it’s nothing like soft floral perfume or gold-lit warmth, but it feels real and refreshing, and Sophia hates that the comparison even forms in her mind; she still cannot seem to stop herself from noticing the difference.
Dani’s stripped off her chestplate already and Sophia can seen the faint outline of arms against the white compression shirt that the other girl wears. Dani’s arms are slightly flexed as she gestures sharply at Adéla, clearly mid-argument. Sophia tells herself she is only assessing damage, only making sure Dani is fine, but she cannot seem to look away from the hint of the V-line that appears where Dani’s shirt has ridden up slightly.
“— That was a trick,” Dani is saying. “That was a… a summoned weapon, like, that should totally be banned —”
“We don’t have any rules,” Adéla says lightly, as if completely unbothered by the fuming person in front of her. “Tricks or summons, the only rule is drawing blood.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to make some better rules.”
“Regardless, Megan drew blood first.”
“That was from the fall —”
“Nope, still counts, since she kicked you to make that happen. Come on, Dani. Don’t be a sore loser, now. Megan did well, and I think she caught all of us off guard when she was fighting us at the camp border with that shield.”
“You’re telling me you guys knew about this? And you still threw me in blind?”
“I mean, why else would the entire cabin choose to sit out this fight? Plus, you volunteered so… come on, Dani, lighten up. It’s not that deep, and Megan was really excited to spar with you. She had a lot of fun, and I bet it was still a refreshing fight for you, too. You already know not many of us can keep up with you, and now you finally have some good competition.” Adéla shrugs and moves on into the crowd, and Sophia approaches as she watches the older Ares camper congratulate Megan.
Dani, on the other hand, makes a frustrated sound that is dangerously close to a curse, and Sophia steps in before Dani can escalate into challenging Adéla to a fight.
“Hey,” she says, lightly nudging Dani’s shoulder. “Are you still alive?”
Dani shoots her a glare that would have flattened a lesser demigod. “I should’ve won.”
“Mhm…” Sophia raises an eyebrow. “You also did get knocked back like six feet and landed on your ass quite hard.”
“Well, I was winning before that. The scratch on my arm shouldn’t have counted. And it was, like, four feet, not six. Ugh, I should’ve won, this is so — argh!”
Sophia bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, trying not to laugh.
Gods. Only Dani would be this mad over a spar.
“You know, no one was really counting,” Sophia says as she plops herself down on the bench next to Dani. “Plus, it’s a tradition, not a competition. Megan’s passing it, not winning it — you’re not supposed to treat it like a competition.”
Dani turns slowly. “It is absolutely a competition.”
Sophia snorts. “Of course you’d think that.”
“No, seriously, it was a public spar,” Dani insists, gesturing sharply. “There were, like, sixty people watching. That makes it a competition.”
“Ehh, probably more like forty,” Sophia corrects automatically. “And at least ten of them were Aphrodite campers who were thirsting over Megan.”
“That’s not helping. Why weren’t they thirsting over me? Ugh. You're telling me I’m losing on both the visual and sparring fronts? Ugh.”
“Oh, I’m sure some people were thirsting over you, too,” Sophia hums lightly, then reaches out without really thinking and brushes a streak of dust off Dani’s cheek. "You did great. Very inspiring."
Dani seems to freeze, and Sophia suddenly registers that her palm is on Dani’s warm cheek, and she herself pauses too, thumb hovering for half a second before she commits and wipes the rest of it away.
“There,” Sophia says casually. “You had some of the ground on your face.”
“I was thrown on it,” Dani mutters. “It’s the crusty-ass ground.”
“Yes, of course. Wait, there’s also — ”
Sophia leans closer, squinting slightly at Dani’s neck. There’s another faint smear of dust there, and she smooths it away with the side of her hand.
“It’s okay, I’m just gonna shower later,” Dani says with a sigh. “You’re fussing.”
“I am not.”
“You are. You’re, like, mother hen-ing.”
“I’m just assessing damages. You shooed away the Apollo kids earlier.”
“Bruh. I didn't need — ow, what the heck!” Dani yelps as Sophia presses lightly on a newly formed bruise on her forearm. “That was so unnecessary.”
Sophia smiles faintly. “Was it? You should go get your arm checked out.”
Dani exhales, some of the fire bleeding out of her shoulders. “Fine.”
“Wait, dinner at six?” Sophia suddenly recalls as Dani moves to get up. “With Manon?”
“What?”
“Well,” Sophia begins, trying to sound offhand. “It’s been a while since we’ve done a trio meal. Manon's been busy with all the Aphrodite cabin traditions or whatever they're hiding, and plus, I’m gonna try to get her to summon fufu for us. And I heard we got a bigger bowl for shareable soups now, too... Thoughts?”
Dani raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you care about soup bowl sizes?”
“I don’t,” Sophia says quickly. “I mean, it does mean more sinigang in one serving, but, like, I care about you not sulking through dinner.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“You stormed off to the edge of the arena and tried to get Adéla to change the Ares cabin tradition.”
“That’s not sulking! I was being... proactive.”
Sophia laughs.
“Come to dinner,” she says. “And then we can just chill. We can grab food and go sit by the lake for a bit. It’s supposed to be clear tonight. Maybe we’ll see Manon fighting with the naiads again, like that last time when we talked about bird species.”
Dani’s mouth twitches faintly.
“They were not fighting,” she says automatically. “They were debating.”
“They were absolutely fighting.”
“They were debating. Manon doesn’t fight like that. Remember that time we were talking about abortion? Now that was fighting.”
“Fine,” Sophia relents. “We’ll go to the lake to chill. If we’re lucky, we get to watch Manon debate with the naiads. And if we’re super duper lucky, we’ll see them fight over American abortion policies.”
Dani huffs, but the edge of it is gone now.
“Is there anything else happening at the lake tonight?” she asks, quieter. "I kind of still feel humiliated from that fight, and really don't want to deal with my siblings giving me lectures on the 200 different ways I should've gone about that fight."
“No, nothing is going on, at least, not that I know of," Sophia reassures her. "No siblings, no lectures, no thoughts about that spar. Just you, me, Manon. And maybe the naiads.”
Dani studies her for a second longer than necessary, and Sophia suddenly becomes very aware of how close they are, even though Dani’s standing up. Dani’s still near, her leg still almost brushing hers. Sophia can feel the warmth radiating off the other girl’s skin, which is also still flushed from the fight.
“Okay,” Dani says finally, with a light chuckle. “Yeah, let's do it. It’s been a while since we’ve caught up with the naiads. This could be fun.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Great,” Sophia can’t help the smile that comes. “I'll meet you outside your cabin? I’ll get Manon on the way over.”
“Yeah,” Dani echoes. “Sounds good.” There’s a beat of silence as Dani picks up her swords and sighs. “You’re the best, you know that?”
Sophia blinks. “Huh?”
“I mean it,” Dani continues, nudging her lightly. “You always know what to say, how to cheer me up. Thanks for being a... a good friend, you know?”
The word friend lands easily, and Sophia nods like her chest did not just tighten — why did it do that? She’s not sure, so she ignores it.
“Yeah,” she says instead, with a small shrug. “That’s kind of my thing.” The words feel like they get stuck between her teeth for a moment. “A good... friend. Yeah, it’s the least I can do.”
I could do more, totally, if you wanted — if you were just — or, if I was into — if we were —
“And thanks for always doing what you do.” Dani smiles, and Sophia is jerked out of her thoughts once more.
“Okay, okay, go let the Apollo kids look at your arm,” Sophia says, as she tries to remember what line of reasoning she was trying to form with her earlier thoughts. If we were… what? “I’d hate for you to have to miss activities because of an infected scratch that came from getting kicked six feet back.”
“It was four feet.”
“Please, I’m sure it was at least five.”
Dani rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling now as she turns and walks back toward the cluster of campers anyway. Sophia loves seeing Dani smile. If Manon’s smile feels like an early spring sun shining on her, Dani’s feels like toasting a marshmallow near the campfire on a chilly autumn evening; it’s all warmth and sparks and the kind of heat that makes Sophia want to lean in even when she knows she’s already sitting way too close to the fire.
“Six, right?” Dani calls over her shoulder.
“Six,” Sophia confirms. “See you!”
Dani glances back once more before disappearing into the scolding of the Apollo campers. Sophia, on the other hand, remains on the bench for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the place where Dani had been standing. It takes her a second to realize that she is smiling.
She quickly smooths her expression and shakes her head at herself.
Dinner at six and the lake after.
The lake at sunset is always something to look forward to, Sophia thinks to herself. It’s always fun when Dani gets to let loose, and Manon always has the wittiest comebacks for arguments with the naiads. It’s the excitement to spend time with two of her best friends, away from the mess of the younger campers and the drama of the older ones, that settles in her chest, she’s sure. That must be why there’s a lightness sitting just beneath her ribs, a quiet buzz that feels suspiciously warm and makes her want to grin widely.
She stands and heads out of the arena, weaving through the remaining campers as they spill into the pathways. She brushes past a pair of Nike kids arguing about whether the shield counted as divine intervention or just good timing, and she gently redirects two younger campers who are about to collide at full speed.
Sophia still has things to do.
There are swim lessons by the canoe docks, where she has promised to help teach three of the newer campers how not to panic when the naiads tug at their ankles. She has a sparring session later with Yoonchae in the afternoon, because Yoonchae really needs to work on her footwork and also desperately needs to stop overcommitting on her woldo spear swings. There is also a short check-in meeting with the Raj sisters about Apollo healers' dynamics, because apparently, two of the preteen siblings are no longer speaking to each other over something involving a misplaced quiver, though Lara's feeling quite certain that they're actually just trying to go after the same Ares boy that was in the infirmary last week.
Sophia moves through it all easily. She demonstrates a clean dive into the lake and resurfaces laughing when one of the younger campers splashes her. She corrects Yoonchae’s stance with patient hands and steady instructions. She listens to Lara vent and then proceeds to offer three practical solutions before lunch.
The entire time, she’s smiling. Sophia can’t help it; her expressions just come out too easily sometimes, but thankfully, she’s known to have a bright, bubbly personality anyway, so no one really lingers on it for too long.
Lara comments on her constant smiling briefly, but other than that, no one seems to notice that her smile is staying a little too long, that it softens her tone, that it follows her from task to task like a quiet and unshakable undercurrent. Sophia does try to remember that she's probably smiling like a maniac and tries to tone it down just a little, but she kind of forgets about trying to school her expression quite quickly.
It was a lost cause anyway. She’s far too busy counting down the hours until six.
Plus, when she thinks of smiles, it’s always Manon’s and Dani’s that come to mind first.