Undecided

Fancies of the Heart

Breakfast couldn't have tasted better. Chiron made sure the three of us got something to eat, even though all of the other campers had eaten and cleaned up an hour ago. The three of us sat at the same table, as there was nobody at any of our respective tables, and it was no use sitting alone. I had a stack of pancakes in front of me, Erik had a plate of bacon, and John had a mountain of eggs.

"Don't forget to make an offering to your godly parent." John reminded me. I stopped dead, with my fork halfway to my mouth. 

"Oh, that's right. You guys do that, don't you?" I said. I put the fork down, lifted up my plate, and took it to the fire. I felt kind of awkward as I remembered I didn't know which godly parent was mine. I scraped off some of my pancake anyway.

"Whoever you are, please claim me soon. I'm waiting." I whispered to the flames. I watched as John and Erik followed suit behind me, offering up their sacrifices to their godly parents in turn. We sat back down at the table and began to munch on our breakfast. Both Erik and John were done within two minutes, so they sat around bickering while I took my time with the pancakes.

"No, it's a serious question. If there was a potion that was supposed to give you an hour of superior fighting, drinking only half of it would reduce the time to only half an hour. There wouldn't be a change in the amount of strength it had," I heard John yell.

"That's ridiculous. it would give you a full hour with half the increase in fighting expertise." Erik argued. 

I couldn't help but smirk as the two continued their argument. It got increasingly more heated until it was interrupted by a welcome stranger.

"Hey there," Luke said as he walked over. I was slightly transfixed by his hair as it blew in the slight breeze. The guy could be a model if he wanted to. I realized after about ten seconds that I had been staring blankly at him while he had been saying something.

"Oh, what was that?" I asked. "I kind of zoned out." Luke laughed. I looked around. John was staring at Luke with what looked like contempt, and Erik had his eyebrows raised, as if he found the whole situation amusing. 

"I was wondering if you would like to go for a walk in the strawberry fields. You know, get to know the camp better. I know it can be kind of intimidating, and I wanted to kind of help you ease into this new life. It should be relatively fun. It's about time to harvest the berries so we could probably grab a few while we're out there."

"Actually," John cut in, "I was going to train her at the archery courses today. You know, after we finished breakfast. It should take a while."

"You never said anything about that." I turned to John, not sure how to approach this new situation.

"Well, I was gonna wait until after you finished eating. You eat really slow." I raised my eyebrows, not sure if the statement was meant to be insulting. John seemed a little ticked off.

"Well, if you're busy, I understand that. Maybe this evening then? When it starts to cool off. Around sunset. I'll finish showing you around camp, and then we can go for that walk," Luke said.

"Yeah, that would be nice," I said. Luke smiled and turned to leave. I could almost see the holes John's eyes were burning in the back of Luke's neck. Once he was out of earshot, I confronted John.

"What the heck was that?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" He asked. I crossed my arms.

"If I didn't know much better, I'd say you were jealous," I said with a bit of satisfaction. Maybe this was what it would take to get the stupid guy to notice me a bit. I had a strange feeling we might be mutually crushing on each other, and I figured this would be a good way to get him to make the first move.

"I'm not jealous. It's just, it sounded strangely like a date. I mean, you just met the kid, what, yesterday morning? He's already practically proposed to you."

"Okay, first off, asking me if I want to walk around camp with him is not proposing. In fact, I'm not entirely sure you could call it a date, and why are you so worried?"

"He's kind of an interesting case is all. You haven't been here for very long. You don't know him. He's cunning. He goes about planning out relationships like they're some sort of battle. He doesn't have the greatest history with girls."

"So now, you're worried about me?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"I'm just trying to look out for you. I mean, you're my best friend, Mira." Erik gasped dramatically.

"Have my ears deceived me? Did I just hear you call her your best friend?" Erik put his hand dramatically across his forehead. "Oh, woe is me. I have lost the title I held for so long."

"Chill, Erik. I mean she's my best friend from outside of camp. You're still number one, bro." I laughed. I hand't known Erik for very long, but he seemed like a pretty cool guy, even though he could be slightly dramatic.

"I don't think I've ever heard you use the word 'bro' before." I smirked.

"Well, you obviously haven't hung around me often enough. I don't think I've even seen you since school got out. Up until your journey to camp, that is."

"Yeah, I guess. Wait, don't try to change the subject. What do you have against Luke?" I asked.

"It's something stupid," John said. I raised my eyebrows. He tried to avoid my gaze, but failed in the end. "Fine. He has kind of been the target of my sisters for a while. They have taken it in turns to date him, and each one has kind of been dumped. Well, it was a mutual dumping, but he's just a bad guy for relationships, as we found out the hard way."

"Wait, we?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"I'm kind of the one who bet my sisters they couldn't all date the same guy, no matter who our mother was."

"Those Aphrodite campers, they never back off in matters of love and relationships," Erik said with a cheeky smile.

"So, they're like the love experts then?" I asked. 

"The girls are all fashionistas and love experts, yeah. The guys, well, we just kind of have a bad rep for being players with solid abs, but I have to say, we know quite a bit about the fancies of the heart as well. That's kind of what the cabin is all about. Our mom is the goddess of love and beauty, so we're kind of painted as the love kids with the makeup tips."

"I kind of see what's going on here," I said. I paused for a few moments. There was a short span of awkward silence. "Actually, I'm still kind of lost. You're mad at Luke or something? This isn't anything to do with jealousy?"

"Oh, don't get him wrong. He is jealous," Erik said.

"Shut up, man." John grumbled. Erik let out a hearty laugh. 

"I'll tell you what, M, don't let your mind dwell on it. This idiot is still trying to wrap his head around all these matters of the heart, even though he claims to be an expert. He's just a confused little puppy." Erik patted John on the head in a kind of brotherly way. "This whole conversation has been a little hard to follow, so I say we get some archery practice in, and come back to it later."

"Yeah, let's head down to the range. I think we all need to clear our heads," John said. He stood up quickly. Erik and I followed suit, and we all walked down to the range together.