Raging Seas [pjo au] || 1

τρία

In the suffocating darkness, a gravely voice hissed out, "You will never save them."

Kali woke up with a choked gasp.

+++

Kali was tired. Part of it was physically; the nightmare woke her up in the middle of the night, and she had been unable to go back to sleep afterwards. She had accidentally flooded her cabin in her sleep because of the amount of distress it gave her. Two or three inches of water covered the entire floor, so she had to figure out how to make it go away all by herself. It took a few hours. It hadn't been fun at all, and the use of her powers drained her even more.

Another part of it was mentally and emotionally, again because of the nightmare. Seeing her best friend fall again put a toll on her, even if it hadn't been real and different from what actually happened. She thought she was getting better, moving past it, because she hadn't dreamed or had a nightmare about it in over a year. Apparently she was wrong.

And the Kindly One turning into Ralph? While she was too stuck to do anything? It terrified her the more she thought about it.

She did her best not to as the day went on, and it worked for the most part. It helped that apparently a new kid stumbled into camp last night with one of the satyrs – Grover, she overheard someone say. The camp was filled with excitement and even a few rumors went around. Something about the Minotaur and the new kid killing it. Kali didn't know whether she believed it or not. If it was true though, it was insanely impressive.

The flat of someone's sword gently whacking her bicep caused her to jump in surprise, and she looked up to see Beckendorf standing there. He couldn't be any older than 14, but he was a large and imposing kid. Being Hephaestus' son, he spent a lot of time with machines rather than people and was generally quiet, but he had taken up the offer to help Kali train in sword fighting last summer when Luke couldn't. The two rotated the job quite a lot, actually. Both of them were good teachers, even though Beckendorf wasn't as good as Luke. No one ever seemed to be as good as him.

"Focus, Kali," Beckendorf said. "Capture the Flag is coming up. Your swordsmanship is rusty and you need to get familiar with a sword again by then."

"My swordsmanship is terrible and I suck at it," she whined. "It's not like I don't have my dagger! I can use it during the game." Kali lifted her right foot. There her dagger was in a holster made to fit her lower calf and ankle. She wiggled it for emphasis.

"That's why you need to practice," Beckendorf said. "But Kali, not even Annabeth relies only on her dagger. She's focusing on hand-to-hand, too. It's smart for you to do something similar."

She frowned a little. He had a point.

Beckendorf must have read something on her face, because he went on to say, "How about this: you practice with a sword for half the summer, and if you don't show any signs of getting better, or if you end up absolutely hate fighting with one, we'll figure something else out during the second half. Sound good? I'm sure Luke would agree with that deal."

Kali thought about it for a second, and then nodded. "Okay," she agreed. That didn't sound too bad. Plus, she didn't want to let down either Beckendorf or Luke, or even somehow fail in some way. Agreeing seemed like a smart choice. When Beckendorf sent her a proud grin for it, she felt a bit better about it.

The rest of the hour and a half, Beckendorf took things slow with sword training. Both to help her memorize them and to accommodate her obvious tiredness. It went move by move, step by step, until she didn't fumble through every single thing. Near the end, they weren't going at a tortoise's pace anymore, but rather a steady rhythm where Kali almost felt okay wielding the long weapon. Though she still fumbled and dropped the sword and made mistakes, by the end of it she didn't feel too bad about herself.