Moonlighting | Zachary

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom couldn’t sleep. She would like to say that nightmares were the problem but nightmares at least went away when you woke up. Her nightmares, usually stirred on by her own trouble thoughts, rarely seemed to go away. Whether they were fears of her powers, memories of the things she had done or feelings of her own inadequacies once she got to thinking about them they nagged at her, stripped her down and made her feel like and empty shell. Because of this she often found herself out wandering the camp at night, it wasn’t like she had anything to be afraid of after all, and because she wandered she had ended up here on the beach.

She was dressed in a simple tank top that showed off a pair of black feathered wings tattooed on her shoulder blades and dark colored pajama pants that she hadn’t bothered changing out of when she left her cabin. To complete the look she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest looking out over the water and taking occasional drags from a cigarette as the surf rolled in gently around her. She knew that she shouldn’t be out here and especially not smoking but she didn’t really care. Everyone had their escapes and this was Freedom’s for tonight. She needed to get her mind to stop working for a while and currently this was one of the few ways she could actually relax. She just hoped that it worked for tonight.

@zachary

[Deleted]

Zachary left the Nyx cabin as he did every night; quietly, trying not to disturb his siblings sleep because he knew that it had to be hard for all of them, to fall asleep at night. Seemed legit, as their mother was the goddess of the night and they just weren't made to sleep at night. No matter how much he disliked that, he had to at least accept the fact that he would never be able to sleep at night, especially not in the last few years. Shadowtravel came in handy, when it was about leaving the cabin as the door would always creak when  it was opened. Outside, he breathed in the cool night air and looked up at the night sky. Plugging in his ear buds, he turned on his MP3 and started to mindlessly wander around Camp. There was no particular place where he wanted to go.

Eventually he ended up on the Beach by the Lake, staring out at the water. He didn't know how long he was standing there as his thought drifted away. Then he smelled the smoke of a cigarette and froze for a second before he frowned slightly and turned to find the source of the smell. He'd pretty much kicked smoking because Chiron had told him that he'd had to or he would force him to join some kind of a support group and he really didn't want to sink any lower. Slowly walking closer to where the smoke came from, Zach finally found the source; a girl, maybe about his age, maybe a bit older, he wasn't sure. He didn't even have to think if he'd seen her around because the other Campers he knew where limited to his siblings and those he'd been forced to train with. "Chiron's gonna rip your head off, if he finds you smoking around Camp", he stated simply and sad down in the sand, a couple of feet away from her. "But no worries, I have no intention to rat on anyone any time soon."

[Freedom Blakely]

The sound of a voice behind her made Free start more out of surprise that the silence was broken than fear that she had been caught. Lost in her thoughts as she had been she hadn't even heard anyone approaching her on the beach. She supposed that might be a bad thing under other circumstances but as she glanced up and saw a boy coming towards her she relaxed and flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette apparently unconcerned with his warning.

Free gave the boy a shrug as he set down and resumed looking out over the waves. "He's welcome to try." She said thinking that such a fight might actually be a good one. "Doesn't mean I'm going to stop." Comparatively speaking smoking was a relatively minor matter and Chiron knew it. She had done worse and would likely do so again at some point because that's just how she was. If Chiron tried to 'fix' her as he had on many occasions she would find a way to get around him like she always did.

Freedom wondered briefly if her dad had this much trouble when Chiron was teaching him. Certainly they had their disagreements and she knew that Heracles had given Chiron a pretty nasty injury at one point so maybe this was some kind of payback. Free really didn't know but as long as this guy kept his mouth shut she at least thought Chiron wouldn't find out about this latest instance of rule breaking.

"Not like you're doing any better being out so late." She said as she took another long drag, held the smoke for a moment and then blew it out slowly letting it relax her even further and calm her nerves. It was more of an observation than a threat and clearly Free wasn't the type to rat on people either. "What's your excuse?"

[Deleted]

Even though Zachary liked to think of himself as insensitive - unfortunatly he wasn't - he noticed that something was up with this girl. Not that he'd do anything about it.. That was far beyond his social skills. He eyed her as she talked and tried to fit her into one of the cabins. Somehow she could just as well be one of his half-sisters, at least lookwise but she wasn't, he knew his siblings. "Didn't tell you to stop, did I?", he said with a slight shrug and his glance followed the smoke coming from her mouth. He realised that he was staring and turned his head to look out on the lake again. "It's none of my bussiness anyway."

He'd said that so often, when it came to Camp matters, he'd even told it himself a couple times when he stopped himself from getting involved in anything. Somehow the words had a bitter taste, if that was even possible. His expression went gloomy as he stared out on the lake, but didn't really look at it. Somehow he knew that his eye colour had shifted again but he shoved that thought aside. He couldn't do anything about it anyway.

"Touché. Though, I'm just out, I'm not in the forest getting myself killed or something and I'm not smoking", Zachary shrugged and looked at her again for a moment, when she asked him about his excuse. What was he supposed to say now? He went silent, thinking about it. "Well..." He paused again. The sentence was in his head but he hated to say it. Clearing his throat, he raised his voice again. "My mother is Nyx, the goddess of the night, so I'm pretty much just living up to my parents expectations", he finally said and managed to make the words roll off his tongue as if it was easy for him to say that. He crossed his legs and propped his chin on his hands.

[Freedom Blakely]

Freedom sighed. She had to run into someone else tonight didn’t she? Most of the time she could sneak off by herself and no one would be the wiser but apparently not tonight. Maybe she hadn’t gone far enough out or maybe this was just her lucky night but in any case here they both were whether she wanted company or not. She guessed there were worse fates. After all it could be Chiron or one of the more annoying campers that had found her. This one at least didn’t seem to be too chaty.

Personally Free didn’t really care why this guy was out. If he was here then she assumed he had a good enough reason to make him risk being caught. The punishment for breaking curfew might not be as severe as the one for smoking but it was a risk nonetheless. Whoever he was he wasn’t out here for her and that was all that mattered to Freedom. She didn’t expect him to explain himself and that’s why she was a little surprised when he did.

“Yeah I guess that makes sense. Staying awake at night should come natural to you guys.” Freedom knew a little something about living up to expectations. As a daughter of Heracles most people expected her to be some legendary hero like her dad, ancient Greece’s golden boy. Free didn’t see herself ever achieving a status like that, probably wouldn’t even come close and yet still people got disappointed when she messed up as if super demi-god genes were somehow hereditary. “Heracles is my dad so I hear you. Talk about some big shoes to fill.”