Chapter Text
Altan never asked to go to Camp Castle Green. To be sent away from Speer, the only home he’d ever known, just to sing obnoxiously around a campfire and run around like a mad toddler. He’d had greater plans for his summer; exploring the island, going to coves with his cousin, Rin- she was only 8, but classified easily as the best and only friend he’d ever known.
They’d been raised as siblings by his Auntie Hanelai and Uncle Ziya, ever since he was little, and his parents had passed.
Hanelai was strict, but never mean. Even when he and Rin got into fights growing up, she never took Rin’s side automatically as Altan feared, but instead sat them down to hear the full story. It was usually stupid stuff, like she’d stolen his action figures or he’d thrown mud at her when they were playing in the garden. And Hanelai would respond by telling them both off for being ridiculous and juvenile, telling them to sort out their differences or she’d ground them both. Strict, yes, but she was a retired general, after all.
And she was never unreasonable.
Until now, of course. Altan stared down at his old trainers in the back of the car while Hanelai drove in the front, staring straight ahead with an expression that read don’t even try to argue with this more than you already have. He’d tried everything on her to avoid this; it was a misunderstanding, or the boy deserved it, or it was only self defence, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it. Just kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge his presence in the car.
Altan wanted to scream when they arrived. It was worse than he’d thought. He could barely believe his eyes, in fact, when he saw the sign marking ‘2 miles to Camp Castle Green’.
Because he’d at least been expecting it would be somewhere fun. Maybe near a city, one of those big Nikaran ones all of the kids on Speed talked about after holidays with their families. Like Sinegard, or Khurdlian, or literally anywhere but this.
But here they were, in the middle of nowhere driving through some forest in complete silence. This sucked.
Altan was just stewing on all the ways he was going to reap vengeance on the boy he’d fought to get sent here when it showed up on the horizon- a castle. Except it wasn’t a castle. Altan had been picturing some depressing Hesperian towers, symbolizing colonization, depression and despair to the highest degree. He’d pictured them more times than he could count, watching him like a pair of eerie, pale eyes his entire time at camp.
Instead, Altan saw a temple.
It was perched high on a cliff, seemingly held completely out of human touch. Everything about the building, from its swooping roof, deeply coloured tile and intricate designs which Altan could see, even at such a distance, was imposing and thrilling at the same time. He was so mesmerized, even, that he forgot to put on his petulant face when the camp itself came into view.
In the valley stretched below the shimmering temple, Altan spotted about a dozen golden roofs glowing in the light of the sunny day. The forest cover seemed to be thinner down there, and from where their car was on the rim of the valley, he could spot several large openings where grassy fields had been laid out to replace forest. The entire camp seemed to sparkle in the afternoon light, in a wag that made it extremely difficult for Altan to stay furious that he would be locked up here like a prisoner for the entire summer.
Extremely difficult. But not impossible.
As they pulled into the empty car park (Altan had missed initiation day, on account of the fact he’d been signed up furiously by Hanelai at the last minute), Altan moodily shuffled out of the car and cast a look around. From here, there was no gorgeous temple visible on a cliff, or vibrant green fields shimmering in the sun. Just trees. Trees, trees, trees, and even more trees. Altan’s indignant rage at being here hit him again at full force, just as Hanelai finally bent down to look him in the eye. It’s about time.
“Listen closely, Trengsin, I don’t like to repeat myself.” She grabbed him by the chin to force him to meet her sharp gaze. “I had to lie like hell to get you in here, and pulled more favours than I can count. I don’t care why you fought with that boy-“
”But-“
”I don’t care.” Her gaze softened, slightly, and she gripped his shoulders. “Just try to enjoy yourself, eh? This isn’t just meant to be a punishment. It’s meant to be good for you, chicky.”
”Don’t call me that.” Altan hated his childhood nickname. He’d been told so many times it was what his father called him, more times than he could count, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “And I’m notgoing to enjoy myself.”
Hanelai just let out a weathered sigh, and turned away, just as they both seemed to notice another person approaching.
“Welcome to Camp Castle Green! I’m one of the senior counsel lets here at camp, name’s Raban. I’ve been put in charge of getting you settled in here at the best place on Earth!” He laughed jovially, and dint seem to care that he was met with only silence. This dude was weirdly enthusiastic. Was this some sort of a cult? “Any final goodbyes?”
Hanelai turned to him as if to say something, but before she could, Altan stormed off, past Raban, and towards the forest.
***
“And this is the mess hall, where you’ll eat every morning and evening. Breakfast is at 7.00, don’t be late or you get no food, and dinner’s at 5.30. Again, don’t miss it please. You will pack your own lunch every morning to bring with you to your activity each day, and you’ll eat with your group around 12.30 ish. Ok, next!”
This had been dragging on for what felt like an hour, but was probably only 20 minutes. Camp was much bigger than Alta had expected, and it didn’t seem that the were even halfway through the tour, which made him want to lash out and kick something. Which seemed to be an impulse he had a lot recently, but still.
It didn’t help that he was having to lug around his massive ruksak everywhere he walked. His legs were burning, his shoulders were sore, and his head hurt, and his feet hurt. By the time they finally arrived at the cabins, Altan felt like he’d ran to camp from Speer, which was saying something, because this place must’ve been at least 500 miles from Speer.
“Here are the cabins! Now, your cabin mates won’t necessarily be your group mates for activities, which will change bi-weekly. However, everybody here stays in the same cabin their entire time at Camo Castle Green, so you better hope you like your cabin mates. And if not, there’s always the isolation cabin, though you don’t really want that.”
They had walked onto wide, well-trodden path next to a glimmering lake, around which Altan could see a number of small cabins stationed around. Each was made of honey coloured-oak, and looked just long enough to fit at least 5 people but not so big that it wouldn’t surely be claustrophobic inside.
Raban lead him down the pathway, passing each cabin as they went. They were all decorated with colourful banners out front, which Raban read out as he passed, naming the cabins.
“That one’s Sky Castle as you can see on their banner. Each new group of cabin mates which occupy a cabin get to design their own banner to last for the entire time they’re here. The names of each cabin don’t change, though. That one’s Sun Castle-“
They continued until They’d made their way 3/4 of the way around the lake, where the last cabin was nestled. It was the most surrounded by forest cover, one which Altan hadn’t been able to see from the other side of the lake, considering it was half covered in shadow, and tucked away at an odd angle so it faced the cabin 20 metres before it instead of the lake like the rest.
“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is your cabin.” Raban wriggled his fingers spookily. “The Night Castle.”
The Night Castle had no banner, probably because the group in it were never the new ones joining camp. Altan had seen a couple of others while walking, but at least they had had flowers growing outside of fairy lights strung. The Night Castle had nothing except mould growing in one corner and a smell of rot the others didn’t.
“The Night Castle is our campsite most- er- historic cabin-“
”He means that somebody got murdered here once.”
Another boy, about Altan’s age, but with slightly paler skin and scruffy hair, hopped out of the cabin.
“You must be the new kid. Well, at least we’ll be stuck in here together, mate.”
”All right, all tight. There was no murder in the night castle. It’s just old is all-“
”I believe the word was historic.” Altan clipped in reply, which earned a snort from scruffy boy.
“I like you. Whazz your name?”
Oh well, he may as well not make the situation even worse by ignoring his cabin mates. “Altan. Yours?”
”Baji.” The boy crossed his arms proudly, and leaned forward as if to examine Altan. Unconsciously, he leaned back in response. “I’m from Rooster. You?”
Before Altan could say it was none of his business, Raban interrupted with an annoyingly cheery clap. “Perfect! Friends already. Baji, can you introduce Altan to your cabin mates and help him unpack? I’ll pick y’all up when it’s time for dinner.”
“Yessir!” Baji replied in response, with a kick salute to Raban’s retreating figure. He waited until he was out of earshot before turning back to Altan. “That dude’s friggin annoying, sorry you were stuck with him.”
Altan shrugged as a response, but it seemed to be enough for Baji. “C’mon. I’ll introduce you to the crew, eh?”
***
‘The Crew’ was three other pre-pubescent tweens, who were all unpacking their own stuff in the cabin. One boy was tall, with big, broad shoulders and a buzz cut that made him look like an aspiring gangster. The second was running around the room like he’d had several highly caffeinated energy drinks, so that Altan could barely make out what he looked like, but he did take note of a very obvious eyepatch on his face. Altan didn’t notice the third boy at first, until he heard sniffling from the corner, and saw a skinny little boy with a mop of dark hair twice his size and distinctly fox-like features curled up on a bunk.
“Altan, meet everybody, everybody, meet Altan!” Baji announced grandly, just as all three boys turned towards Altan at the same time.
“Hey! Good to meet you, I’m Ramsa.” Theo boy with the eyepatch came buzzing over and shook Altan’s hand so hard he feared it might fall off. “That’s Suni,” he jabbed a thumb at the big guy, who Altan now noticed had a surprisingly shy look on his face, and waved awkwardly. “And that’s Unegen,” he pointed at the boy in the corner, who only sniffled in response.
“Ignore him, he has allergies and hates being away from home.” Baji announced, before taking Altan’s bag off his shoulders with surprising strength and throwing it onto the only bunk left- a lower one, squeezed into the corner.
“Oohoo- you have to share with Chaghan. Poor fella.” Ramsa placed a sympathetic hand on Altan’s arm.
“Why, what’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Chaghan, these guys are just mean.” Suni finally spoke up, and shot a pointed look at Ramsa, which reminded Altan eerily of his teachers back home. “He’s just- erm- antisocial, is all-“
Baji seemed to completely ignore Suni’s wise teachings, and instead turned to Altan. “He has this twin sister, and they’re real creepy. Like those shining ones- y’know- with the blue dresses?” He seemed to get an idea, and turned towards Ramsa proudly, with a hand outstretched. “I bet that he’s secretly in love with that sister of his. You set the price.”
“I’m not taking that bet, you’d win!”
“Guys!” Everybody turned to Unegen at once, who seemed to shrink in on himself at receiving so much attention. “It’s 5.10. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not missing diner. I’m starved.”
The five of them started the trek down to the mess hall. It sucked, Altan thought, because they were the farthest cabin around the lake, so they had the longest distance to walk for food. Baji pointed out that it also meant that they were the furthest away from the ‘Big House’, which was where the activities director and other staff slept, and was found next to the first cabin on the other side of the lake. He seemed to have all these big ideas about sneaking out in the middle of the night, going exploring in the woods, which was something Altan definitely did not want to do but also didn’t want to seem uncool by disagreeing with.
He’d never properly hung out with anybody his age, and usually didn’t care. A lot of people thought he was weird, and he preferred to keep to himself anyway; he’d always found that he was easily frustrated, and with a temper like his, it was best to stay away from others and out of trouble.
But the Night Castle boys were friendly, and he had nothing against friendly people, did he? They didn’t treat him like a weirdo, like most kids his age did (for no particular reason except that he was quiet, and didn’t want to join in their conversations about video games and boobs. They were 12, for the Gods’ sakes). And, Altan thought, if he was going to stay in this muddy hellhole, he may as well learn to get along with others his age.
They managed to get to the ‘mess hall’ before dinner- of course, it wasn’t actually a mess hall. That’d be like calling a pillow a blanket. But it’s what everybody called it.
In reality, it was more a massive paved area dotted with circular tables. On the edge, Altan could see a long, buffet-style counter, where campers had started to line up with plates to scoop some sloppy food onto their plate. It was some sort of rice congee, except the rice was damp and soft and barely even rice anymore, so it was actually just porridge.
Once they were all sat down, Raban came to find them again. “Hey boys! All settled in? Great! So, it’s the first campfire of the summer tonight.” Fantastic. Just what Altan wanted. Fire was important on Speer, regal, but here on Nikan it was just another toy for these people to play with. “Make sure you’re there at 6.30. Oh! And also, come straight to the plaza after breakfast tomorrow to be sorted into activity groups. See ya!”
Altan turned back to ‘the crew’. “I thought I was late- why don’t we have activity groups yet?”
“We all arrived yesterday. They told us we could have today to explore, settle in, all that stuff. We just spent it in the cabin, to be honest.” Suni explained as he picked at the grey-ish globs on his plate.
“Hey.” Ramsa suddenly spoke, eyes lighting up like he had an idea. “How are the groups picked?”
“Err, I think they’re pull names from a hat or something. Why?”
“What if- and hear me out- we rig the system.” He cast his eyes around wildly, like he’d just made some ingenious idea and now expected them all to clap. Instead, he was met with silence. “Come on! Hear me out! None of us want to be stuck in groups with randos, and we’re all friends here, right?”
Friends. None of the kids on Speer were Altan’s friends, and that was how he liked it. He had the social battery of a mean cat, and preferred to just spend time alone or with Rin. And here these people were- he’d known them for half an hour, and they saw him, Altan, as a friend.
This whole thing was getting to be too much, and he’d only just started his dinner.
“Wait- dude- you might be onto something. If we make all the names our names, then it has to be only us that are picked for the first group, right?” Baji was gesturing so wildly now that he hit Suni in the face. “Woops, sorry dude.”
“Okay,” Suni reasoned, “but how do we replace the basket when it’s time for the next group to be called?”
Ramsa looked stumped for a second, while Baji just slicked back. “He’s right, y’know.”
“Unless…” It looked like a spark had been lit behind Ramsa’s eyes, a fuse which was about to blow. “We cause a distraction?”
***
“You know how to make bombs? Bombs?”
“What can I say Unegen, I’m full of surprises.”
They were whispering, hidden behind the food counter with some sort of strange brown ball that Ramsa had mottled together, complete with a singular candle wick sticking out of the top as a fuse. It looked like shit, but it would do.
Last night, they’d stayed up planning until their eyes were falling shut, making enough papers with their names on to drown a small elephant. The mysterious sixth boy who lived in their cabin had never appeared, and they didn’t mention it, except for Baji muttering vaguely about a white haired wierdo now and again. Oh well.
Altan was getting by. He’d only been here for 1 night, and the cabin was already a mess. It reeked of body odour, and he could barely walk from one end of the cabin to the other without tumbling over insane volumes of dirty clothes (‘how have you guys even worn this much already? You’ve been here 2 days!’) Although, what could he expect, living with 5 other pre-teen boys?
“Here we go. All ready?” Ramsa was throwing the makeshift ‘bomb’ up in the air and catching it in a way that made Altan’s heart leap every time it plummeted towards the ground.
“What are you guys doing?”
Altan whipped around so fast that he almost hit his head on the back of the food stall. Suni fell into Baji, Ramsa almost dropped his bomb, and Unegen made a loud yelping noise that caused Altan to wince and immediately check that no one had heard them. Thankfully, the buzz of excitement from all the other campers had been enough to cover the noise.
It was only when Altan turned back around that he took in the person who had caught them. Gods above. He didn’t look real.
His facial structure was like that of a bird’s- delicate, and hollowed out. Altan was pinned down by large eyes which were much too big for his face, and short hair which was some of the strangest Altan had ever seen- it was bone-white, a shade which was unsettlingly close to his skin. The overall effect was slightly eerie; a thin boy, seeming to float just above the world of the physical. He wasn’t like anything Altan had ever seen before- suddenly, he was reminded of a story his auntie used to tell him after his parents died, and he felt as out of place in her family and his own life as a ghost wondering amongst humans. It was of a snow leopard which was forced to roam the Earth as a mere mortal- everything about the boy, the white hair, the sharp eyes, reminded Altan of that.
“Stop gaping at me.” The boy snapped, and it took Altan a second to realize he was speaking to him. “What are you all doing?”
“None of your business.” Baji seemed to regain his composure after being knocked over by Suni. “And I would shut up if I were you. It’s starting.”
Just as he said it, all of the boys turned around to see as the Camp director, Tyr, pulled the first name from the hat.
“Group 1!” His voice was deep and gravelly, silencing the noise of the campers. “When your name is called, gather to my left. That will be the group you’re staying in for the next 2 weeks for activities. Ok, first name-“ Altan rolled his eyes as the man cleared his throat dramatically. “Baji!”
“What? Now who would’ve thought!”
Altan couldn’t help but grin, gripping the actual basket more tightly. After their group had been made, they would set off an explosion to cause a distraction, and discretely switch the baskets to cover any trace of their plan. Foolproof, right? Except for one thing-
“And our second member- drumroll please- is-“ Tyr paused. “Baji again?”
Fuck.
Tyr reached in and plucked another name. “And again?”
They’d put so many of each of their names in that Tyr had been bound to pick the same one at least twice! What had they been thinking?
Altan heard somebody stand behind him, and looked up just as the white-haired boy stood with a smug, knowing grin on his face.
“Sir, I think I know what’s happened-“
“Oh, no you don’t.”
Altan knew he had a bit of a temper. It was something he was, well- dealing with. But if this dickhead was going to pull that, then Altan knew exactly what he would do.
Standing up to match the boy’s hight, Altan reached forward to the desert table on the end of the food counter. There, sat a massive, home decorated cake, among all the other inconspicuous puddings. It was some camper’s birthday that day, and that girl’s cabin had been invited to decorate a cake together in celebration. It now was displayed for all the campers to see their messy icing work on the desert table. Of course, it was about to get a lot messier.
Without stopping to think, Altan grabbed the cake and threw it into Chaghan’s face.
With a satisfying squelch, the cake hit him square in the nose.
Everybody watched as the base slowly slid down Chaghan’s face, until it was revealed the mess that Altan had made. The entire camp gasped dramatically like they were living in a court drama. Ramsa covered his mouth like it was his birthday.
Chaghan’s pale face had been covered in chunks of cake and white frosting, coating him as if they were in a cartoon. Slowly, a pale hand came up to swipe away a chunk of the cake and swing it menacingly onto the floor, revealing part of Chatham’s nose and one eye. Absurdly, Altan felt an insane impulse to laugh at that moment, despite the fact every other person in the camp was dead silent. It was just so ridiculous.
Altan held back laughter and watched as Chaghan slowly opened his eyes. And continued to watch, almost in slow motion, as he lunged toward him.
But before Chaghan could land a punch. A thud echoed from a few metres behind them both, followed by a suspicious hissing noise. Both of the boys turned, just in time to see Ramsa’s mystery bob rolling around on the floor, the makeshift fuse lit.
It was at that moment that Altan spotted Ramsa, in his peripheral vision, with his nose pinched between two fingers. Dread pooled in his stomach.
When the fuse ran out, the explosion that followed released such a horrible stench that Altan’s eyes watered, and a migraine immediately started brewing at the front of his brain. It was almost comical, the chaos that ensued, as campers started running around, swatting at the air with their lunch trays as if they could bat the stench away.
But it would only get worse. One of the counsellers realized it first, what that smell really was, and called out: “Is that- is that shit?”
Screams immediately followed, and campers immediately went crazy, beginning to sprint away from the mess hall like they were being chased by bees. One girl burst into tears on the spot; the birthday girl, Altan figured, he had ruined her cake. Tyr tried desperately to organize the campers, but seemed to have turned a horrible shade of green himself. Meanwhile, Altan took off, followed closely by Suni and Unegen, running like they were on fire to get the forest. A distance behind them they could hear Ramsa, as he raved about how epic that had been.
And yet, through all of the chaos, the white-haired was nowhere to be seen; evaporated into the evening air like the spirit he seemed to be.