Stoll Her Heart: Tratie's Story

12. A Light in the Garden

Chapter 12

Third person pov...

The following morning, camp duties occur and everyone goes about their business, slightly more fatigued than usual because of Capture the Flag. Armor is again stacked up, swords placed glinting in sheaths, and shields sit waiting for the next opportunity to protect a willing camper from all that comes their way.
Katie also goes about her day as normal. Except in her mind, all that happens is a replay of the previous night. It seems as though it was a dream for Katie, something she would never predicted.
Travis feels similarly, wondering how anything had ever happened after their team won. He, too, was wondering:  Was it a dream?

~~~

Katie exits her cabin and walks the familiar path towards the Demeter Gardens. She starts her day here most every morning, it's different than other gardens in camp. It's personally owned and maintained by the Demeter kids, they're the only ones who ever enjoy it. For this reason, it is nicer and more rejuvenating than the common plots around Half Blood Hill. Butter colored daffodils, royal purple irises, pure white daisies spotted with one ray of yellow, blood red roses, periwinkle hydrangeas, and many more types of flowers blossom all year round thanks to the Demeter skills and the climate control quite like homeostasis. Sometimes, by accident, new breeds and colors of flowers appear, and they attribute these as a gift from Demeter herself, exclusive to their square only.
This Demeter Garden specifically is more traditionally maintained, with a row of steel-colored watering cans lined against the worn, weather beaten side exterior of the cabin. Duties for watering are alternated between all the Demeter campers. Even when she doesn't have to water for the day, Katie still makes her way through the tight circling path that winds around the medium sized garden surrounded by a white picket fence. Especially on a day like today, with a clear blue sky only lined with subtle white clouds and lightened by an outstanding sun, the garden is enjoyable. It's a way to make the Demeter cabin personally proud of the work they do for the beauty of the camp. Katie held no doubt in her mind that the other cabins would have a harder time getting going and flourishing without them... Especially if the Ares cabin had anything to do with it.
After her time in the Garden, Katie heads to the breakfast pavilion. An odd feeling consumes her consciousness, one that she is not particularly used to. An anxiousness, or maybe a hopefulness, that Travis will be there, occupies her mind and is a constant kick in the back of her mind. At the same time, Katie fears seeing the mischievous Hermes co-head counselor for the first time after last night.
After they had gotten over the deep part of their discussion, they had remembered that it was getting late, and, Katie thought this was becoming tradition, Travis had challenged her to a race back to the campfire. He had won, but Katie had claimed it was because he got a head start, which of course he DID! (In reality, the Stolls are among the quickest and undeniably swiftest runners in the camp, but Katie still did not want to get into that).
Surviving breakfast through without any event, Katie moved on to the strawberry fields with Miranda and Collin. This work gets somewhat monotonous after weeks and weeks of it, but it's still better than doing some other job, like bathroom or kitchen duty. Plus, it's not like burdensome mortal work, they use powers to eliminate weeds, expel insects, and, with the help of satyr reed pipes, to help the field's fruits grow faster and better.
Time passes, the sun travels across the sky and seemingly soon, the sun is in the west, nearly set. Either Apollo is speeding or Katie hadn't been noticing the minutes and hours ticking by.
The same topic keeps swimming to the surface of her thoughts- Travis and some prior events which hadn't been mentioned at all to a soul since.
Something interrupts her thoughts though. The sun is pretty much down, so darkness is arising. Over towards the hill, the Big House was just visible. It could be seen even better now, because it was lit up like a red, pink, and green beacon.

~~~~~

(Back to that same morning again)

When Travis woke up that day, he headed right to breakfast and then back to the Hermes cabin. He is only acutely aware that he is acting somewhat different than usual, thinking of last night and what will happen now.
Connor is the only one who picked up on his odd-ish behavior, but took it the wrong way. Thinking that Travis was again pondering on his brother's choice to wipe his memory, Connor plots a prank for he and his brother to do that day.
Not thinking as big as the snow storm, but still planning on a wintery theme, Connor plans to decorate the Big House like its a mashup of Christmas and Valentines a Day, two holidays that take place in the snowy winter.
Travis is too in on this plan and is fully on board since it has nothing negative going for the Demeter cabin, or any cabin really for that matter. Besides, the Stolls had always liked winter themed things for some reason. Not so much Valentines Day, though... Christmas always brought all good things, new things that could be used in some future joke or other.
The two drafted two of their friends to help them on this, since it would take a lot to put lights up and everything. They'd done operations like this before, so they had a whole plan out for how to get it done by dark, when the lights could be noticed but not the physical process behind it.
The two they had gotten in on it were important. First there was a veteran Hermes camper named Jake, who was tall and could be a third set of hands in getting the lights and décor up in time. Second is yet another veteran camper, but this girl would have a job of her own. She could quickly plan out where each light set would go and where it would be plugged in to a power source. This is an imperative job, the Stolls knew, because if it wasn't done, there would be a crisis-mode happening just before sunset and they'd be scrambling to find another extension chord or outlet. Kassidie would be the one doing this, a smart and fast-working prankster.
At the time all four gathered supplies, they plotted how to get over to the Big House and do the work so no one would necessarily notice. This included methodically doing one side at one time a day, pausing, doing two facing sides, and then, when it was nearly dark, getting the front, camp facing, front finished. They had done this before flawlessly, to the Ares cabin on the last Fourth of July. That had been a lot harder though, since the sun sets later in that time of summertime.
They causally carried boxes of supplies that looked nondescript over to the Big House. Kassidie began instructing the three boys to plug in this here, that there. Travis' only concern was that Chiron would see. It wasn't too much of a worry though, it had happened before and the kindly centaur had just pretended not to notice for the sake of fun. As for Mr. D... Lets just say if he saw a flash mob of satyrs and dryads doing the tango, he would just blink and face the other way, caring nothing for anything that didn't concern him.
They finished the first side at about two o'clock. They decided to head right into the next side that was slightly more visible. They had strings of red and green alternating lights and some with pink lights. They also had some regular white lights to fill it up. Draping them from the edge of the shingled roof and lining them so they striped the walls was an operation they had nearly no problem tackling.
Third side, done. On the first three they added small decorations, like little sleighs, Santas, hearts, or cupids, though the Cupid unsettled Travis a bit, after he heard a vague yet strange description of the guy from Jason Grace about a month ago.
Finally it was dark enough to quickly do the front side. This had to be the most magnificent because it would be the side most campers would really see. They added special patterns and adornments to make it pop and Kassidie mapped out the style options since Jake and the Stolls were a little less talented on that aspect.
When they were finished, it was about 6:45... Even some time to spare. Not much though, for as soon as they approved of it, Connor said it was dark enough to spring it on. The foursome slipped over to the switches. It just worked out that there were four of them, so each of them held a switch and counted down.
"Five...Four...Three...Two..." Connor chanted quietly.
"One!" They said together. The campers of Hermes always did the last call together, it was some teamwork tradition they just never question at all.
At the sound of all four voices, they flip their switch and the lights practically blind them with their brightness. Red, pink, green, white... It lights up the sky and illuminates the strawberry fields for what seems like miles.

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Soooo sorry I took forever to update, but here is chapter 12, I hope you like it!!!
I added some valentine day special stuff and tried to make it happier because I felt like we needed a little bit of fun after depressing convos.