Recent Posts

“Not to my cabin.” She said as she led him on towards the woods. “I had to hide them of course. I’m sure you understand why since there are so many people who would take them.” Stopping for a moment as she reached a big mossy weeping willow tree Maddie turned back on Lucas with a sudden spin. “We are close now but you have to close your eyes. I don’t want you to know my hiding place. I will go get some and bring them back to this spot for you but only if you close your eyes and promise not to peek.” The young Eris girl watch Lucas with some interest waiting for his response. If he obeyed like she suspected he would then Maddie thought the boy would be pleasantly surprised with what she brought back but first he had to be patient and follow instructions.

Lucas was a tantrum thrower of that there was no doubt. Maddie watched as he scrunched up his face, worked up the fake tears and began to scream. It was an interesting reaction. Normally she had to work much harder to make people scream but all this one needed was to just be told no. Oh she wasn’t that worried about Chiron. The horsey man was used to hearing about her torturing people and she thought that he would be very interested in hearing about how this one was basically taking prisoners on the beach. However if the boy left that meant that she would have to go right back to not having a playmate and that wasn’t acceptable. She had to act fast.

“Oh fine.” She said with a wry smirk. “I have some skittles hidden near here. I won’t make you play with me but you do have to at least come with me to get them otherwise how do you know I'll bring them back.” Hopefully she would get through to the raging boy. She wanted to keep him here but she couldn’t do that unless he was at least willing to go with her to the place of her choosing. “Of course if you want to go tell on yourself then that’s okay too. It would make Chiron’s job easy not having to find the boy who was capturing people on the beach and hurting innocent little girls' feelings.”

The boy seemed agreeable enough at first until Maddie mentioned playing. That was unfortunate because clearly he didn’t know the answer he was supposed to give to her offer. What Lucas didn’t realize was that he was already her playmate and that when she asked to play the best option was to agree. He would learn but for now Maddie decided to give him a second chance.

“No.” She said simply. “If you don’t play with me you don’t get any skittles. Also, I will have to tell Chiron that you are being mean and not sharing the beach. Then you would be in trouble, Chiron would take away your sword and never let you have skittles again. He would probably still make you play with me too just to teach you a lesson. You know how Chiron likes to teach lessons don’t you? All because you didn’t play with me. Such a shame.”

G.I Lucas? This boy had quite the imagination. He also seemed, what was the word…’Dramatic’? Yes that was it. Very dramatic. It was a very interesting combination and tickled Maddie’s morbid sense of curiosity. She watched him for a moment while he shouted at her and while he waved his lightsaber around in the air threateningly and smiled. Maddie definitely had her new playmate and this looked like it was going to be fun.

“I can get you skittles.” She said with a wolfish smile. “But they aren’t here. I would have to go get them and to do that you would have to let me go but I do have a solution.” Maddie watched the boy curiously. He didn’t know it yet but she didn’t have any skittles to give him. What she did have was much better, at least for her, and Lucas was about to find that out. “I will go get them for you, you can even come with me, but you have to agree to one thing. You must agree to play with me. We can play hostage if you like. In fact, that sounds like a very fun game don’t you think?”

Something was amiss at camp. For days now there had been lots of coming and goings from the Zeus cabin. Campers had been bringing things in, moving things around and in general preparing for something. Maddie knew this not because she had been told, the horse man rarely told anyone anything if you didn’t need to know it, but rather because she had learned very early on that if you wanted to find out secrets you simply had to watch, listen and find yourself in the right places and the right times.

So Maddie did just that. She paid attention and by doing so she learned interesting things like how a new Zeus camper was coming for a visit and how Chiron was trying to get things ready for him. That being the case she was not surprised when rumors started to be whispered that someone new had arrived and after that it didn’t take her long to find him.

Her first thought upon seeing the camper was that he was very old. That in itself was surprising as old demigods had a habit of meeting their end in one way or another. Still, the fact that he was so old was intriguing and even more than that he had a puppy dog with him as well. It was furry and big and Maddie was sure that the dog's hair would make for some excellent potions if she ever got her hand on some. Yes, this new arrival was very interesting and as he drifted around camp looking here and there like he was seeing ghosts she followed him because maybe seeing ghosts was exactly what he was doing and wouldn’t that be fun?

He came to a stop at the Zeus cabin and went inside and for most that would have meant an end to the snooping. Maddie however, was no normal snooper and being faced with the potential loss of her query she slipped around back and squeezed her tiny frame between a loose board that she often used as a secret entrance here because for some reason the Zeus campers thought that she shouldn’t be coming into their cabin late at night and locked their door. They were a silly bunch.

Inside the cabin Maddie could hear both man and beast moving around. Curious she crept around a corner and there they were looking around like they were still seeing ghosts. It was then that Maddie decided to say what she had been meaning to say since she first saw the man and his dog. “You're really old of a camper.”

Maddie was bored. Her siblings hadn’t enjoyed their voodoo dolls at all, she couldn’t play with the harpies anymore after she plucked one, all the satyrs were scared of her riding them around like goats and Chiron wouldn’t allow her to go into the deep dark woods or whatever the folks at camp called it to find new herbs because apparently it was too dangerous. It was all very rude in Maddie’s opinion and didn’t make for much fun at all. Everything thing she did was apparently breaking the rules somehow and now she had no one to hang out with.

What was a girl to do if she wasn’t allowed to have any fun? Maddie had wandered out to the beach to think about that very thing as it was apparently one of the few places she was still allowed to go. So here she sat in a huff wishing someone would wander by.

If only she could find some friends that wouldn’t tell on her or wouldn’t run screaming after she got done playing with them. That would be ideal, that was what she wanted but with her options limited she was going to have to find some new friends herself. She just didn’t know where to look.

That got a reaction out of Rileigh which was curious because Maddie had only been telling the truth. Admittedly she had yelled the truth very loudly so that the rest of the world could hear but considering how much Rileigh screamed herself everyone probably already knew it. Still, Mads hadn't expected her sister to flip the table between them and come lunging at her. It caught her off guard and that moment of surprise was all the older girl needed.

Maddie felt the hands close around her neck, gave a strangled little squeak and then suddenly she couldn't breathe. It was an interesting sensation. She had never been strangled before and would probably have enjoyed the experience from a student's perspective but for some reason she didn't think Releigh was trying to help her broaden her horizons. That being the case Maddie reacted instinctively by turning her head to the side and biting down on one of the exposed wrists as hard as she could wondering if this was how the alligators in the Louisiana bayou felt when someone tried to wrestle them. If so Maddie knew that alligators tasted good. She guessed now she would be getting to find out how Rileigh's tasted.