A Hare-y Situation (Theo&&Saphron&&Hailey)

[Hailey Nichols]

Hailey was getting desperate.

That boy couldn't help her. Chiron couldn't help her. Her boyfriend up and left her. And here she was still a jackalope a year later. She could barely remember what being a human was like and that was scaring her. She needed to get rid of this curse and fast. She knew where she needed to go, but couldn't go there directly. Hopping in the shadows was her best bet, otherwise she ran into smaller campers that were completely fascinated by this "deer-bunny" running around camp.

So it took her longer than she wanted, but she finally hopped onto the porch of the Hecate cabin after the campers should've been in their cabins for the night. She hopped closer to the door and tried to knock on the door with her antlers, hoping someone would hear her plea.

[Theo Dean]

Another quiet night at camp. Theo sat reclined on his bunk reading. He had forgotten the last time he had been able to just relax like this but here he was and honestly the quiet camp life wasn’t so bad. Granted things didn't tend to stay quiet around here for long and such was the case tonight as a tapping began at the door.

At first the sound was so soft Theo tried to ignore it. Who would be coming to the Hecate cabin this late at night? Theo didn't know nor did he care but as the taping continued and the sound began to interrupt his reading it became obvious that he wasn't going to be able to concentrate until it stopped.

"You hear that Saph?" He said as he slipped a bookmark to hold his place and sat the book aside. If his sister was listening she had given no sign so Theo decided to take care of this himself. He had a clear view of the door from his bunk and frankly he didn't feel like getting up so instead he gave a sharp snap of his fingers calling up a minor spell and watched as the door slowly began to open.

"Whoever you are this better be..." His voice trailed off as Theo eyes noticed the creature that was standing in the doorway right where a person should have been. He paused a moment in consideration of the humorous little jack rabbit hybrid but as the moment passed a smile slowly began to spread across his face. This was just too good not to comment on. "Well now that's something you don't see every day. Hey Saph, come look at this."

[Saphron Yates]

Saphron didn't hear the faint tapping on the door over the sound of her screamo music. She had her headphones in and was headbanging along to the song and way too busy to notice her brother talking to her and trying to get her attention. Only when she noticed he left his bed and walked over to the door, she paused her music and took off her headphones. "Is someone bringing us Girl Scout cookies?" she asked as she put her headphones on her bed and got up. "I thought Chiron didn't allow them over here because it interferes with strawberry sales."

She walked over to the door just as Theo opened it and managed to peek over his shoulder as she kept walking. "I see no one..." she said as she let her sentence trail off as her eyes drifted towards the ground. "Oh my goodness!" she squealed as she saw the little bunny on the porch. She pushed past her brother as she stood in front of it. "Look at it! It's so tiny and it's so..." Her eyebrows narrowed once she realized what made this bunny so different. "Horny? Theo, why do we have a jackalope on our porch?" She turned to look at her brother. "Aren't those not supposed to exist unless someone pissed off a god?"

[Theo Dean]

“I wish…I love Girl Scout cookies.” Theo said distractedly as he hunkered down to examine the jackalope. He had never seen one first hand but if this was what the gods did when they were mad he had to admit that they at least had a sense of humor. He couldn’t think of many other ways to humiliate someone who had angered you than by turning them into a tiny, horned bunny. Granted the person transformed probably had other ideas but then again that was kind of the point.

By that time Saphron had noticed the rabbit thing and practically pushed him out of the way. Theo chuckled at her description of the jackalope and got to his feet. “That’s definitely one way to describe it but I guess if there is one benefit at least it has a nice rack.” He said adding to Saphron’s border line racy comment with one of his own. “Can’t say why it would be here though. Obviously it came to find us so it must want somebody who can do some magic and whoever it is they’ve definitely had a pretty serious curse put on them.” Hunkering down again Theo got a closer look while making sure to avoid those antlers just in case it wasn’t friendly. “So what about it little guy? You looking for some help or something?”

[Saphron Yates]

Saphron knitted her eyebrows together as she looked down at the jackalope. Wasn't there a rumor a while back about a huntress breaking her oath? Saphron didn't keep up with the latest camp gossip, so she didn't know if that was true or something that she just fabricated in her head. But getting a closer look at the animal, she noticed one thing about it.

"Aww..." she said as she reached down to scoop up the jackalope and held it close. The jackalope stayed still in her arms, even though its eyes were wide and its noses was twitching like crazy. "The little fella is scared. We should do something Theo." She turned to her brother with concern in her eyes. "I think it's looking for help and came to us. I think it was a human at one point. Or the child of a one night stand gone wrong. We need to help it."

[Theo Dean]

Theo watched as Saphron scooped up the bunny thing. His sister had obviously taken a liking to whatever or whoever it was but he wasn’t too sure himself if they should just automatically welcome strange cursed creatures into their cabin. After all they had no clue who this was or even why they had been turned into what they were. If they weren’t careful here they might be stepping in a bigger mess than either of them realized. Still, it certainly seemed harmless at the moment.

“That does seem to be the case.” He said in a sort off handed way. He was thinking and when he got to thinking he sometimes overthought the situation. ”Might be good if we do a little research first. I mean we don’t even know who this is. What if we find a way to reverse this magic only to discover that the gods had a legitimate reason for doing this.” He waved his hand at the jackalope which had seemed to make itself at home in Saphron’s arms and then continued. ”Don’t think there’s anything wrong with keeping it here until we figure it out though. Surely it won’t try anything funny while we are trying to help.”

[Saphron Yates]

Saphron hugged the animal closer to herself as it started to squirm in her arms. "See?" she said as she held it tighter. "It's just excited for us to try and help it. Can we keep it Theo? Please please?" Finally, the squirming got too much for Saphron as she had to set it down. The jackalope looked nervously around the cabin before it decided to hide underneath a bed for safety. Saphron pouted a bit before she straightened up to look at her brother.

"Right... research..." She muttered as she knitted her eyebrows together. "You can look up what jackalopes are used for and I'll try to see if anyone has been cursed lately." She looked over at her bed and all the various items scattered around it that she used in her ceremonies for her mother. "I'll see if Mom has some insight to any of this or at least point us in the right direction."

[Theo Dean]

Theo watched the jackalope scurry away under his bed. Not exactly a safe place considering he tended to shove all his stuff up under there when he didn’t have the time or the patience to find a proper place for it. There was no telling what was down there but he supposed as long as the bunny came out eventually they would be okay. The last thing he wanted was to spend his night jackalope hunting.

“What they’re used for huh? They probably make a good jackalope stew.” Theo said teasingly. Eating a cursed human wasn’t really his idea of a good time but he could see how much of a liking Saphron had taken to the creature and couldn’t resist. “Yeah if we could find out who we’re dealing with here we might get some insight into what kind of curse we’re going to be undoing. Maybe we can find some way to communicate with our fury friend if it ever comes back out here or maybe it’s too far gone at this point. Who knows? In any case I think I’ve got a few books on polymorph spells that might help. I’ll start looking through those.”

[Hailey Nichols]

Hailey was not excited for them to get started. Nervous. Anxious. Those were better words to describe how she was feeling. Her little furry body just squirmed in the girl's arm, since she felt like she was being squished to death. Once she was finally put down, Hailey hopped towards the nearest bed for shelter. And that was immediately a mistake. She must of went under the boy's bed considering how much stuff that was under there. Hailey wrinkled her nose in disgust as she navigated her way around trash and dirty laundry.

She managed to find a spot that was a good distance away from the Hecate kids, but she could see their feet and hear what they were saying. As she watched their feet, she wished she could scream to them the answers they were looking for. My name is Hailey, she would scream to them. I'm a daughter of Hephaestus and was once a hunter! Artemis did this to me once I found love and broke my oath! Please help me reverse the spell!

[Saphron Yates]

"Don't say that Theo," Saphron scolded her brother as she gathered up her ritual supplies. "It might hear you and get all scared and run off before we can give it proper help."

Once she had everything in her arms, she went to the back of the cabin where there was a space cleared out specifically for her rituals. She lined her candles up in a circle before taking two sticks and crossed them to symbolize the crossroads. Saphron put on her cape and lit the candles before she sat down in front of the crossed sits. She closed her eyes before she sang some old Greek chant dedicated to Hecate.

"Oh Hecate," she hummed once she finished her chant, "Goddess of Magic and Crossroads, please hear your daughter's plea. Please help us help this poor jackalope and help us find out how to cure it. Help us, all powerful Hecate." Once she finished her request, she felt the room go cold and she shivered. "An... Anything?" she asked Theo as her teeth chattered.

[Theo Dean]

Theo chuckled at Saphron’s response. He did know how to get under his sisters skin but wasn’t really that worried about the jackalope running off. If he had been a jackalope he would have been willing to do whatever it took to get turned back. Even if it meant taking some good old fashioned ribbing from one of his Hecate brothers or sisters.

Turning his attention to the task at hand Theo began to search through a collection of spell scrolls that were on a shelf by his bed. He hadn’t looked into polymorphing spells that much yet, no one had annoyed him to the point of needing to use one so far, but he did remember stumbling across something that might be worth checking out on his last venture into the broader world.

“Ah here it is…” He mumbled to himself as he pulled out an ancient looking parchment and began to unroll it. His eyes skimmed over the collection of Greek letters with practiced ease and as he read silently to himself he took note of the magical incantations and spell components they would need. It wasn’t exactly a spell for turning a jackalope into a human but with a few tweaks he thought that he could get it to work for them. Hopefully.

All of a sudden Theo heard Saphron calling to him and he was immediately brought back out of his studying. He hadn’t noticed but his sister had already gathered some things at their little ritual circle and begun a divining spell. As he glanced up he noticed that the area immediately around the girl had been covered in a light mist. “Well there’s certainly something.” He said as he walked over for a look with the spell scroll in hand.

“I don’t know what you were trying to do but…” Theo stopped short as he looked down at the floor where Saphron was sitting. “Oh my.” He said with a little chuckle. “This is rich. This is very rich.” His eyes filled with barely contained laughter as he read the name that was formed in the mist. “Yeah I think we’ve figured out who cursed our furry friend and that tell us all we needed to know about what she’s been up to.” He said calling the jackalope by a definite pronoun for the first time. He wasn’t sure but if the name he saw was any indication then he was probably right because spelled out clearly in misty, shimmery letters on the floor was the name ‘Artemis’.

[Saphron Yates]

Saphron was too busy shivering to notice that something appeared on the ground right next to hear. She wrapped her arms around herself as she rubbed her arms to stay warm. She looked at her brother before she followed his gaze down to the floor. "Artemis?" she whispered before she gasped and looked up at her brother. "Theo, do you know what this means? This is huge."

Her eyes drifted over to underneath Theo's bed where the jackalope was hiding. "She must of been a hunter, but she probably fell in love and Artemis cursed her." She gasped again as she made a connection. "What if she's that one that was cursed a year ago? The one the rumors were about? I think that's the one. Oh we got to help her Theo. We need to make her a human again so she can find her true love."

[Theo Dean]

Theo chuckled again. He knew exactly how huge this was and he was loving it. There was no way to be sure right now of course but Artemis didn’t generally get involved in the lives of many here at camp and if her magic was at work that could only mean one thing: That one of Artemis’ faithful hunters had been not quite as faithful with her vows as the goddess would have liked.

Personally Theo had never been a big fan of the hunters and he was sure the same could be said about many of the guys around camp. The hunters were too close-minded for his liking and Artemis imposed so many rules on them that most weren’t any fun. Not to mention the fact that he thought the goddess used her power to keep them in line. Case in point the poor girl that had dared try and think for herself instead of sticking with the program. That girl, whoever she might be, was now a furry little beasty hiding under his bed all because she had discovered there was more to life than hunting. In a way it was all kind of sad.

Of course the situation was pretty humorous too when you thought about it and that dark humor sure didn’t escape Theo who was now wondering just who their furry little friend might be. Breaking your vows to a goddess was a pretty gutsy move in any situation no matter the reasons and he would very much like to meet the girl who was willing to throw it all away for love. ‘Oh yes’ He thought. ‘This is going to be fun.’

“Well I guess that answers at least one of our questions Saph. It looks like we’ve got one naughty Hunter of Artemis on our hands.” Theo wasn’t so sure he believed all his sister’s mumbo jumbo about true love and what not. Chances were this gal’s love life had gone downhill pretty quick after being turned into an animal. Besides, if this person she had loved had been such a standup guy where was he now? That would be another interesting question but unfortunately not one that would help the two Hecate siblings out.

“I guess the only thing we need to find out now is how to get her back into her human form which might be easier said than done. I found a spell a while back that should do what we want provided we make a few adjustments but it will take some time to prepare.” Theo took the scroll that he had found and held it out to his sister. “Take a look. It won’t be easy to cast but it should be plenty of fun to try. Until then I think our cabin has a new official mascot.”

[Saphron Yates]

"Oh, oh," Saphron said as she closed her eyes and scrunched up her face in concentration. "What was that girl's name? I think it started with an H. Or was it a Q? Oh wait was it..." She looked down at the candles as her mind ran through different names. "Harper... no she ran away... Quin? No... Harvey? No, that's a guy... Umm..." She glanced up at her brother for help before looking underneath his bed where the jackalope was still hiding. "Quinto? Hannah?" Her eyes widened at the last name. "It's Hailey! It's Hailey! Oh Theo, the jackalope is named Hailey. She's the one the rumors were about. The ones were Artemis barged in after admitting her true love and turned her into a jackalope."

She looked under the bed with a sad face. "Poor Hailey. It's been at least a year since that must've happened. It must be rough being a jackalope and having those horns." She reached up to mimic horns by placing her hands on her head. "Those horns though. How would you live with them? They must get in the way of everything, especially if you're a little bunny hopping around." She lowered her hands as she looked up at her brother. "Do you think that spell you find might help her? Like, it won't kill her or anything if it goes wrong, will it?"

[Theo Dean]

Theo was glad that Saphron at least had some idea of who the jackalope might be. If this whole series of events had gone down as long ago as his sister seemed to think then very likely he missed out on it entirely. As frequently as he was gone it was no wonder he didn’t know what was going on. "Yeah I guess I was more out of the loop than I thought." He said more to himself than anyone else and then turned his attention back to Saphron as she finally got the name.

"It's really been a year though? That's got to be pretty rough. Too bad she never came to us before." Theo wondered if this Hailey girl even remembered what it was like being human. Were there any negative effect, aside from being a funky looking bunny that is? He supposed that would be a good question to ask when they got Artemis' magic reversed.

"Well if our history proves anything the spell will definitely do something." He said trying to sound confident. In truth he didn't know how this would go but it was sure to be a blast finding out, well, as long as they didn't end up with a dead hunter in their cabin. "I'm sure she'll be fine. I mean what kind of Hecate kids would we be if we couldn't figure out how to get her back into her normal shape? We've got this."