Life's Punching Bag | Audrey

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom laid into the large punching bag with a flurry of blows that set is swinging furiously from its suspending chain. The daughter of Heracles stood, face set in a grim look of determination as she merciless pounded on the swinging bag heedless of the other around her on the training field, some of whom were watching her with a degree of quiet fear.

The girl didn’t care. She was focused far too intently on what she was doing to really notice anyone else. Free had learned long ago that there were very few things in life that were as gratifying as really pounding away at a punching bag and for someone like Free, who didn’t really have many happy thing in her life, you took what you could get.

Something was different today though. Unlike most days when she could sit around doing this forever just working out her fears and aggressions today the training wasn’t doing anything for her. Instead of enjoying this she had gotten thinking about how sometimes she felt like this punching bag. Beaten down, unable to fight back and whenever she started feeling like that her mind often turned to how helpless and alone she really was. It wasn’t a happy feeling and it took all the enjoyment out of what she was doing.

Freedom gave a sigh. She could just as easily be sulking back in her cabin right now instead of wasting her time out here with everyone staring at her. That idea was good enough to make her decide and with one more strong punch Free’s fist nearly ripped the bag in half. As sand began pouring from the hole that her punch had left the daughter of Heracles huffed and turned to head back to the cabins. Several gawking campers jumped out of her way as she began walking off but Freedom didn’t care. None of them understood her anyways and she just wanted to get somewhere she could be alone.

[Audrey Appleby]

Audrey was in the arena working on her throwing knives. She was pretty focused on aiming her knives at this one particular dummy and getting it around where its heart would be, but Audrey couldn't help but notice that people were staring and it was not at her. She was used to the attention she commanded in the arena. She paused in her training to turn around and see what the commotion was about. It was a girl and a punching bag. It was nothing too amazing and Audrey almost turned away, but she noticed something about the girl. Maybe it was the way she looked or the amount of effort she put into her punches, but there was something that piqued Audrey's interest.

She couldn't help but stare. It was almost like she was transfixed, but this girl. But she was forced back into reality when she realized that the girl was walking away and sand was spilling out of the punching bag. Audrey had to move quickly. She left her knives in the dummy, which was such an odd thing for her to do, but she knew the others knew that if they touched them, they would die by her hands. Not like they knew someone already died by her hands.

But Audrey jogged after the girl and only slowed down to a walk when she was right next to her. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen someone split open punching bag with their bare hands before and I've been in camp a long time." She looked over at the girl with a slight smile. "That was quite impressive."

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom hadn’t expected anyone to follow her and had already turned her mind away from the scene with the punching bag. This being the case when she did hear the voice beside her she almost jumped in surprise. Free glanced over to find a girl she hadn’t met before walking along beside her and apparently complimenting her for destroying some of the camp’s training equipment.

“I…uh…don’t know my own strength sometimes.” She said a little reluctantly as she was still trying to recover from the surprise of being talked to at all. Free turned her gaze to look back at the path in front of her but she didn’t try to walk off and leave the other girl behind. Instead, she just gave a little shrug at the girl’s comment and then continued. “Anyways it’s not that big of a deal. I mean I’m sure someone else could do it if they tried.”

Free wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do next. In her experience people generally didn’t go to the effort of complimenting you unless they had ulterior motives. Maybe that was a little unfair but it didn’t pay to be idealistic. Still, she felt like it would have been rude to just leave it at that so she spoke up again. “You have a vendetta against punching bags or something?” It was meant to be more of a joke despite the deadpan tone she used to deliver it and as if to prove this she gave the girl beside her a little sideways smirk.

[Audrey Appleby]

Once Audrey got close enough to the girl, she took a moment to study her. She was... she was very attractive in Audrey's book. She hadn't seen her around camp before and Audrey had the slight hope that this girl didn't belong to the Ares cabin. That would make this day go sour, since she couldn't think of a sibling like that. But she still had that twinge of hope.

Audrey raised her eyebrows as she looked at the girl. She was being modest and Audrey couldn't help but smile slightly at it. It was kind of cute. She knew this girl was powerful, but she wasn't going to boast about it. That was something... admirable to Audrey. She chuckled a bit before saying, "I don't know. I've been here for ten years and I've never seen anyone split it open with their bare hands. And I know those things are tough."

She chuckled to herself again as the girl asked her a question. She knew it was supposed to be a joke, even if that's not how the girl delivered it. "Not against punching bags," Audrey said with a bit of a smirk as she glanced over at the girl. "I do have it out for the training dummies. I know Chiron has had to replace quite a few of them because of me. Well.. maybe than just a few." She gave a short laugh before she looked over at the girl. "I'm Audrey, by the way."

[Freedom Blakely]

The girl seemed sincere enough and Freedom guessed that meant she could let down her defenses a little. Plus, not only did she seem genuinely impressed by Free’s show of strength but she was being nice. Freedom wasn’t really used to that and it kind of threw her off guard. “Well if you stick around me for a while you’ll probably see more of it. People tell me I have a habit of breaking things.” It was true. Freedom could be a bull in a china shop if she wasn’t careful but that was mostly a product of her strength. Now days she had learned how to keep from overdoing it when she didn’t want to.

The girl had taken Free’s teasing well and that was good. At times she wasn’t always sure that people got her dry sense of humor. This one apparently did. “I’m Freedom and it sounds like we’ve both done our fair share of damage to the training equipment around here. Hopefully no one is keeping tabs.” She still wasn’t sure why Audrey was so interested in her but for the moment at least it was nice to have someone to talk to. “So...what’s your particular method of destruction since you’ve seen mine?”

[Audrey Appleby]

Audrey chuckled to herself as she kept walking alongside the girl. "What kind of things? Are we talking broken bones or worse like broken hearts?" She was completely different than her last girlfriend. Her ex, Princess, was completely insecure and unsure of herself. Hades, Audrey had to murder Pri's ex in order to get the girl some level of sanity, but it was all for nothing. Audrey told her to leave camp before things got worse. Thank gods she listened for once. But this girl right next to her... Freedom was her name... a very pretty name... she was different than her ex. This was a refreshing change.

"Oh, I know that Chiron must be keeping tabs somewhere," she said with a brief laugh. "And I'm pretty sure the Hermes cabin have a gambling pool going on with how long it'll take for me to destroy the next dummy." She smiled as she looked over at Freedom. "I prefer knives," Audrey said with a bit of a shrug. "Usually throwing and stabbing, but I prefer the stabbing. It seems to get the job done quicker and faster."

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom blinked. She really hadn’t expected anything like this at all. Audrey was flirting with her and that certainly changed things. Free glanced over at the girl again. She hadn’t really spent too much time looking before but this time she did and she liked what she saw. If Audrey really was interested her for those kinds of reasons then Freedom wouldn’t mind. “Oh just normal things. Doors, walls, monsters…I’m not really in heart breaking business.”

Free smiled at Audrey again. It had been a while since she had gotten this kind of attention and it was nice to be pursued for once. “I’m sure they have one on me too then. Idiots…” She grumbled this last under her breath but her feelings about her fellow campers was pretty plain. She didn’t like many of them and they probably didn't like her. Audrey though was turning out to be a rare exception. “To each their own I guess. Hitting things generally works pretty well for me but that’s kind of my dad’s thing too. I’m a daughter of Heracles.”

[Audrey Appleby]

Audrey smirked when Freedom said she wasn't in the heartbreaking business. That was a good sign. A very good sign, especially since she was flirting back and not turning her down. And it helped that the girl was very cute. "Well," Audrey chuckled a bit. "I'm glad you're breaking those monsters. Someone has to do it. And I don't know if they're doing books on you. They might as well with how you punched it to death."

I'm a daughter of Heracles. That lifted a big worry off of Audrey's shoulders. She wasn't flirting with a sibling. Heracles. Funny that Audrey would be attracted to one. "I'm a daughter of Ares, but I gave my vows to Artemis about ten years ago." She shrugged a bit. "So I should be good at archery, but I rather use my knives since it's more familiar."

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom gave another shrug. Beating up on monsters wasn’t that big of a deal. Actually she usually got a kick out of it because they were the only thing that she ever got a real fight out of around here. Everything else, all these little toys in the arena, the climbing wall, even fighting the other campers in sparring practice, it was all training and not for real. It wasn’t like there were many big challenges around here that she could enjoy. “It’s a nice change of pace from being around here all the time. It’s nice to fight something that fights back every now and then you know?”

Free listened as Audrey told her a little about herself. The fact that she was a daughter of Ares was interesting. That explained why she had taken notice of Freedom’s incident in the arena at least but she wasn’t sure what to make about the fact she was one of the hunters. She supposed that might have explained Audrey’s interest in her as well but as far as Free knew they usually only approached you when they wanted you to join their group. Was this all some kind of elaborate sells pitch? She guessed only time would tell.

“You’ve got to use what you know. Nothing wrong with that.” Free said as Audrey finished talking. Secretly she wondered if this was where Audrey would pitch the idea on her. ’Hey the hunters could really use your skills.’ she might say or ’Come tour the world with the hunters. We could really use you and there are lots of cute girls.’ Freedom had no doubt that this was true but she didn’t think the hunters were exactly her style. Still, the pitch didn’t come yet. This being the case the daughter of Heracles decided to probe a little deeper. “So you’re a hunter huh? How’s that going for you?”

[Audrey Appleby]

"Yeah," Audrey said as she slowly nodded her head. "I completely understand that. It puts everything on the line instead of doing it for practice." Maybe that's why the fight with Gideon gave her the biggest rush of her life. And she wanted more, but she had to be careful now. She couldn't have campers missing left and right. People would grow suspicious. So she had to wait, but if she had someone like Freedom with her during her wait, things might not be so bad.

She looked over at Freedom and smiled. Yeah, waiting with her around wouldn't be so hard. Or at least she hoped not. But then Freedom asked about the Hunters. Audrey raised her eyebrows at the girl. Was she really thinking about joining their sisterhood? That would ruin a lot of things for her. So she decided to be honest and maybe that would deter Freedom away from it. She shrugged before saying, "It's alright. I mean, the immortal until death in battle thing is kinda nice, but it beats growing old, plus I get to kill a lot monsters."

[Freedom Blakely]

Audrey didn’t seem too interested in getting Freedom to join the hunters and that was good. The last thing the daughter of Heracles was looking for was to be recruited. It felt too much like someone was trying to force her into their idea of what she should be and Free had been through enough of that in her lifetime. Even the whole idea of being young and living forever seemed kind of extreme because in her opinion there was nothing worth dealing with all the crap life threw at you for thousands or even hundreds of years.

It did bring up an interesting question though. Audrey might look close to Free’s age but if she had been a hunter for very long then there really was no telling and while Free wasn’t one to mind attention from older guys or girls she thought it might feel a little weird to be hit on by some eighty or ninety year old even if they did look like a teenager. In any case it was something worth investigating.

“That’s good I guess.” Free said not really wanting to sound too interested in the hunters. “Eternal youth doesn’t really sound all that appealing to me but if you like it…” She gave another shrug to show that was fine with her. “How long have you been with them anyways? I’ve heard of some hunters who are hundreds of years old. I guess it would get kind of hard to keep track after a while.”

[Audrey Appleby]

Eternal youth doesn't really sound all that appealing to me but if you like it... Audrey let out another sigh of relief. So Freedom wasn't interested in joining the hunters. That was so very good. It seemed like a very close call for Audrey, but now things were looking good. Maybe if things were looking up like they were now, Audrey wouldn't have to be alone for long.

Audrey let out a laugh at Freedom's question before she shook her head. "Nah, I'm not that old. Not quite yet. I only joined the hunters about teh years ago. So I think that puts me around... twenty-six now? I don't remember. I've stopped remembering how old I should be after a couple of years. For all I care, every year is my sixteenth birthday. Too bad I haven't gotten a car or something similar on my birthdays to celebrate it."

[Freedom Blakely]

Interesting. Very, very interesting. So Audrey actually was older than she looked. In the end it really didn’t matter all that much to Freedom. She supposed that if you looked like you were sixteen and you didn’t really keep track of it any more personally then your age was just a number. Still, she had to admit that it was pretty cool to learn how the hunters handled that eternal youth thing or at least how this hunter did anyways.

“It sounds like you’re pretty experienced for a hunter then.” Freedom said letting her voice take on a more playful tone this time. "Hopefully that doesn’t take up too much of your time though." She paused for a moment letting her words sink in. Audrey seemed pretty bright and Free was content to let her read into that what was wanted. "It would be a shame if your duties as a hunter kept you too busy to enjoy other activities. Everyone needs a break now and then right?"

[Audrey Appleby]

"Oh, I am pretty experienced alright," she chuckled as she smirked a bit. She glanced over at Freedom and gave her a half smirk, half smile. She didn't believe in love at first sight, but maybe this was crush at first sight? Whatever it was, she really liked it. She had to really smile. She was seeing a completely different side of Freedom in the short time of knowing her and she really liked it.

"Oh, they don't keep me too busy," she said with a bit of a chuckle. "I definitely enjoy other activities, but I haven't found anything to keep me free time, ya know?" She sighed as she shook her head. "I do enjoy my breaks, but I like to keep occupied too, ya know?"

[Freedom Blakely]

Talking to Audrey was definitely a nice change of pace. Considering Free had already given this day up to being pretty sucky having someone like this good looking hunter around certainly helped to take her mind off things. Granted if things continued as they were she didn’t think she would mind seeing more of Audrey. Maybe she could be a little more than a brief distraction. She certainly didn’t mind flirting it up after all and that had to count for something.

“That’s good.” Freedom said still playing along. “It’s always good to keep your eyes open. You never know when you might find something to take up that free time.” Free hadn’t had too many positive experiences with relationships making her think there was something wrong on her end. Audrey didn’t seem to think so though, at least not yet, and that left Free wondering where this would all go. Only time would tell but one thing was for sure: Audrey was leaving an impression. “Me, I don’t really have much to take up my Free time either. Which is bad since this place can be pretty boring.”