Some of us just like to read [Bean]

Quell had finally rid himself of Liv. That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t fond of his twin, it was that since the zombies had dissipated, Livia hung on to Quell like a magnet. He understood this of course, as it was not easy to think that the person whom you shared a womb with for 9 months was gone, only to realize that he wasn’t, but Livia got in his way a lot of the time. Normally, Quell would have to extract himself from the presence of his twin sister to read because even when she was quiet her feet were always kicking around and making this annoying thumping noise that Quell couldn’t stand and often caused him to scream in annoyance. But after the events that had taken place in the last couple of days, Livia was quiet and reserved. She barely made any noise unless it was to talk, and her voice was always very small, as if she were afraid of speaking any louder. Strangely enough, this terrified Quell even more than Livia’s normal habits annoyed him.

While Livia had immersed herself in a conversation with Faye about one thing or another (Quell suspected that it had something to do with books. Normally it would have been fighting related, but Liv had not touched a blade in weeks, and ran away whenever she saw one.), Quell escaped to the library. Hopefully no one would follow him. Quell had had enough of his siblings for a whole lifetime, let alone a day.

He watched curiously as some of his siblings pushed away a quiet looking girl. Perhaps this was because she was dressed in such a way that Athena children did not have the ability to. He could hear their voices, loud and strong over the quiet hum of the library. He rolled his eyes. His sister (he thought her name was Nalia) was one of the most loud Athena campers. She annoyed the heck out of everyone she knew, especially because she was several years younger, but tried to act as if she were better than everyone else in camp.

Quell watched the girls over the top of his book curiously. The new girl was obviously upset, and Quell wasn’t really listening to what they were saying until she said, ”I thought Athena kids were supposed to be nice.” Quell knew then that he had to make things right. Part of it was because he wanted to uphold the pride of Athena’s cabin, and the other part of it was because he thought the girl needed a friend.

Quell waited a couple of minutes before putting a bookmark in his book and slowly headed over to where the girl was sitting. She was sitting on one of two chairs that filled in the wall at the end of the narrow shelving area. Quell took a seat next to her. ”Sorry about my siblings.” He said. He felt like he needed to apologise, but he didn’t have a really good reason for doing so. It wasn’t like he was responsible for the actions for everyone in the entire camp. ”They can be really mean sometimes.” He smiled apologetically.
”I’m Quell by the way.”

Quell gave a small smile as the girl gave a comment about an Ares kid, the first time since the zombies had made their lives destitute. Bleary most of the time, Quell was glad to have a laugh for a change. He loved his siblings and he wanted to help them as much as he could (Faye and Livia in particular), but Quell often felt his mood being dragged down by the dank mood of the Athena Cabin. Their built in library, which was normally full with his siblings and other campers who were too lazy to actually walk all the way to the large building in which Quell now resided, was an eerie quiet and Quell could not stand to enter it. ”Most Ares kids are dogs.” Quell had a lot of judgemental feelings about the children of Ares. He viewed them as untactical and very reckless. Quell was a little bit of a hypocrite in that sense, but he viewed his jumping into dumb situations justified, as he was a lot smarter than the children of the other war god. Quell did make some exceptions however. There was James, and no matter how much Quell couldn’t stand being in the presence of the arrogant boy, he knew that Faye would give her life for the son of Ares, and Quell had to respect that.

Quell returned the girl’s handshake as she introduced herself as Mackenzie. She laughed quietly at herself, probably at a thought that Quell would not have found funny, especially since the decimation of his sister’s soul had put a stop on most of the things he used to find hysterical. Quell enjoyed a bad pun, especially grammar puns (these would make Livia groan and head desk on the nearest surface). ”I’ve been here for a while. Like three years.” Quell was definitely not lacking in demigod training.