Fetch Me a Friend | Atalanta

[Royce Reynolds]

A warm sensation woke Royce up from her mid-day nap, as well as what felt like the weight of an elephant on her chest. Opening her eyes and giggling, she found a pair of warm chocolate eyes looking back at her, of which belonged to her best bud, Rio. The german shepherd was no longer a puppy, that was for sure. He was wagging his tail so hard at the sight of Royce waking up, he sent fur flying all around the cabin. The girl wrestled him off her bed so she could get up and get dressed. Royce ran out of the cabin with nothing but a bikini on and a tennis ball in hand, with Rio in hot pursuit, and dove into the water of the lake. Having a body of water only a hundred feet from her cabin door only made her slightly enjoy being stuck at Camp Half Blood.

Rio watched the ball in Royce's hand with a ready stance. She flung the tennis ball about 50 feet into the lake, and Rio plunged into the cool blue water. Royce swam ashore, sitting in the sand and watched her dog swim happily after his toy. It definitely took some getting used to to come out of the water completely dry, being a daughter of Poseidon and all. The girl sighed in relief. She could possibly get used to this new life. Relaxing with Rio, battle training, and living detached from the world of technology. Her bad days of sadness grew farther apart, and she was having more days where she didn't question her purpose of being here. Rio was on his way back to shore, snorting the water out of his tennis ball-filled mouth, and Royce immediately beamed. Her father's gift of the pup certainly helped her spirits.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

❝

Come, surf the clouds, Race the dark, It feeds from the runs undone, Meet me where the cliff greets the sea Do you think you can keep up?

❞

Atalanta had finally gotten around getting one of Camp's orange T-shirts, only it was a tank top instead. One pocket of her cargo pants held Lycaon's leash, another had a waterbottle and a chocolate bar, while several dog treats rested in her back pockets. Today she planned on training Lycaon, since they hadn't had a proper training session in a month to say the least. If she wanted Lycaon to grow up to be obedient and help her out when it boiled down to fighting,
she needed to start now. Figuring out the Lake could provide a good space for them, away from the most crowded areas,
she headed there.

It was a good plan. Until Lycaon bolted ahead of her, barking excitedly and wagging his tail like a maddog. "Oh boy..." Atalanta sighed as she noticed the larger german shepherd that was just getting out of the lake with a tennis ball in its mouth. The black pup was quick to attempt a play date with the larger dog and Atalanta looked around to see a girl in bikini a couple of steps away from the two dogs. "Hey is that dog yours?" She asked.
Atalanta

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[Royce Reynolds]

Royce stood up and crouched to slap her thighes, motioning Rio to come to her with the tennis ball. When she first arrived at camp, she didn’t know anyone, and didn’t really car to, honestly, so she focused all of her attention on her growing pup who needed proper training. Thus, the giant shepherd was now very obedient, except when she tried to call off his advances of him trying to protect Royce. Certainly this wasn’t a bad thing, but one could mistake the dog for a police dog with his sense of protection.

Rio came trotting out of the water and dropped the ball in his owner’s hands. Royce patted her good boy and wound up to throw the tennis ball again, however a streak of black coming at Rio caught her eye. Rio stood tall and cautiously wagged his tail at the black Shepherd. Royce smiled and bent down to the two dogs. ”Easy Rio, he’s ok.” Her dog relaxed a bit and sniffed out the black dog.

“Hey is that dog yours?” Standing up, Royce assumed who was the owner of the puppy was coming towards the group. Smiling, Royce said back as the girl got closer, “Yes he is. I’m guessing this one’s yours? Rio seems to like the company.” Laughing, the girl looked back down at the dogs. German Shepherds were her favorite dogs, so in her mind, the more the merrier at Camp Half Blood.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

❝

Come, surf the clouds, Race the dark, It feeds from the runs undone, Meet me where the cliff greets the sea Do you think you can keep up?

❞

Seeing the girl laughing and the newly introduced Rio relaxing,helped ease Atalanta's mind. Lycaon had no sense of danger at his age and he was barking and whinning as he tried to get the bigger dog into a game of tag. "Yup! His name is Lycaon and he is three months old. I was planning to train him today, but apparently this is going to turn into a playdate as long as Rio or you are alright with it." She had an apologetic smile as she took her water bottle out and had a quick gulp. "I'm Atalanta. Sorry if we interrupted your dive." She introduced herself with a smile as she capped the bottle and slid it in her cargo pocket again.

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[Royce Reynolds]

Sensing Lycaon wanted to play, Rio quickly shook the water out of his fur and gave in to the puppy. He leaned back on his front legs and stuck his rear in the air, wagging his tail the entire time. Rio may have been big, but he was still very young and playful. Royce nodded to the girl, put her hands on her hips and replied, "Yeah, it's definitely important to train them early on. That's what I did when I got here with Rio. He's only about a year old but he's massive now." Seeing the two getting along, Royce didn't see any reason why they shouldn't just let their dogs play. "A playdate is fine by me! I don't think Rio has a problem either." The larger dog back up into the water and was romping around, splashing water everywhere. It didn't take much for him to act like a puppy again, apparently.

"I'm Royce, and don't worry, this is more fun anyway." Royce was beginning to enjoy meeting new people around camp. If she was going to be here instead of school, she might as well make friends while she was at it.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

❝

Come, surf the clouds, Race the dark, It feeds from the runs undone, Meet me where the cliff greets the sea Do you think you can keep up?

❞

Atalanta laughed as Rio splashed her with the water from his fur and Lycaon was quick to join the game and splash about as well. "Nice to meet ya." She said as she kept half an eye to the two dogs' play. "Yeah, I planned on training him sooner since he was meant to be a Search-n-rescue dog, but then shit hit the fan and we had to live on the run. The conditions were less than ideal for training sessions. So, for now, once Lycaon finds a friend to play with it's impossible to get him to concentrate on anything but fun."

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[Royce Reynolds]

Seeing the dogs happily playing, Royce fixed her attention to Atalanta. "Oh, so you're new here too? I haven't been here long either. It's tough getting here later in life than most of the kids here, ya know." Royce had gotten here when she was 19, a semester in through her first year of college. She had plans for her entire life, but they had all been completely ruined now. The girl would never fulfill her dreams. Out there, she would never be safe from the monsters.

Royce nodded, feeling Atalanta's struggles. "Yeah, I had to leave my life behind me too. But hey, if you ever need tips, I've trained Rio here like a police dog would have been trained while at camp. With weapons instead of guns, of course. He could help me out if I were ever in a tough spot now." She looked back at Rio with pride for her dog. Royce loved him with all her heart, and couldn't imagine how she ever lived without him. "Well I'm glad they each have a playmate now, anyway!" She laughed, watching the energetic black pup bounce around Rio.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

Atalanta chuckled, but it was a sad one. "I'm extremely new. Been at Camp for about a month now. Before that, I lived on the streets in order to keep the monsters off my tracks for about a month." She might've made it sound more lighthearted than it should be, but Atalanta didn't wish to go back to that month. One of her worst nightmares had always been being chased by a monster, an enemy that no matter what she did she just couldn't escape or kill. That month had been exactly that for her. But it was in the past now. When she had first arrived at Camp she had been eternally thankful for the comforts of an actual bed and shower.

"I still can't really believe this whole... demigod thing is real. My mom used to read me the myths instead of a bedtime story when I was a kid, but it was always just that. Stories. Now I am apparently the daughter of Ares and if I use the internet to get tips on dog training I will be live bait." She laughed at that last part. "So all advice and techniques are more than welcome." She concluded.

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[Royce Reynolds]

Listening to Atalanta, Royce's eyes widened. "I've been here for about six. Man, that's rough... I'm so sorry that happened." The girl didn't want to put a damper on the conversation though, as Atalanta seemed to make her situation seem better than it was. "But hey, at least you're here and well at camp. It's the safest place for us... apparently." Royce still wasn't convinced she was completely safe here. She had heard that Camp Half Blood was thinking about waging war on this 'Camp Jupiter', and she didn't know how she felt about it. Risking her life for a place she just barley knew?

Royce nodded enthusiastically. "I can't either, sometimes it still feels like a dream. I used to learn about the sea gods back at school in a mythology class just to come to find out that the king of them all is my father..." Looking up at Atalanta, she sympathized with her completely. Normally the demigod wasn't this social with someone she had just met, but she just had a feeling her and the other demigod would get along quite well. Nodding, Royce added, "then I'd be happy to help anytime. I didn't know about the whole technology thing until I tried to GPS my way to camp. Didn't end well..." Shrugging, Royce remembered her trip to camp with her satyr and their monster scare. It definitely wasn't one of Royce's fond memories about camp.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

Atalanta snorted at the mention of GPS in order to find a way to Camp. "Well at least you knew you had a safe haven you could reach. From what I hear around, all of us had at least one near-death experience. I was just running around like a headless chicken, trying to kill monsters that could only be killed by a weapon I knew not existed. As you should probably be able to tell, not being able to kill things or at least have the proper weapons to kill them is extremely frustrating for Ares' kids."

Finally, curiosity taking the best of her Atalanta tilted her head slightly to the side. "How did you know? And what's it like to be the kid of one of the Big Three? Jeez what does that even make you? My aunt or something?" Arms crossed over her chest, Atalanta was genuinely mind blown. She remembered all the myths her mother had taught her and honestly? She kind of wished she was a daughter of Athena instead of Ares. Going blindly into battle out of sheer bloodthirst was not something she could be proud of and she had always loved Athena and Artemis out of all the gods and goddesses when she still believed myths to be nothing but stories.

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[Royce Reynolds]

Almost forgetting about Rio, he crept up on Royce and nudged her legs. The girl giggled, and sat back down in the sand and ran her fingers through the dog's wet fur. Royce nodded, "Yeah, that's generally what prompts us to go here. I can't think of anyone who voluntarily left their life to come." Royce hadn't caught that Atalanta was a Ares kid before. Idly she thought of how they could possibly spar against each other. Royce assumed the girl must be athletically fit, so maybe the two could workout sometime. Royce was always up for another friend here, and it sounded like Atalanta wouldn't mind one either.

Confused Royce questioned, "How did I know what?" She understood Atalanta's following questions, however. "I guess it feels like any of the rest of the Gods? I'm not sure, but I've heard it's a bit more dangerous for us to live outside of here. The monsters seem to target us more. But other than that, being able to manipulate water to my needs, it's incredible. I just wish I could meet my father someday..." Royce trailed off, trying to absorb everything all over again. It had been a while since she talked to someone about her powers and being a daughter of Poseidon. "If I'm honest, I'd say being a kid of one of the Big Three comes with a lot of pressure. People seem to expect us to be better than everyone else." The girl shrugged, unable to see how her comment might have come off as insensitive. But really, there was no other way to put it.

[Atalanta Nikolaou]

Rio was not the only dog that went up to Royce. As soon as the daughter of Poseidon sat down and began petting the older dog, Lycaon bounced towards the two, wet fur sprinkling water everywhere, paws covered in sand and ears flopping up and down as the pup jumped around excitedly demanding attention as well. Atalanta rolled her eyes with a smirk at the black dog's antics.

She snapped her fingers twice to get the dog's attention and sat crosslegged, ready to catch the oncoming puppy on her lap. She listened to Royce carefully as she tried to calm the excited puppy down. "I'm not sure I want to meet mine. I have a bone to pick with him now that I know who and what he is." She trailed off, thinking on what she would say or what she would do if she ever came face to face with Ares. But she didn't dwell long on it. "You're kinda like the kids with VIP parents. It has it's ups and downs. On one hand you get cool powers, on the other you have to put up with the parental shadow and extra risks." She chuckled as Lycaon whined to get her attention. She briefly looked down to see the puppy lying belly up, eager to receive some well-deserved -in his opinion- belly rubs. "What I meant before though is how did you know you were a demigod? How did you know Camp existed in the first place?" She explained indulging the puppy.

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