Watching the firelights -Zelly-

Camp was okay, really. Once you got past the tree-people (what were they called, Driads, or something? Or were they the water ones...?), it was actually pretty fun. You know, the rock wall was hard... But, Matua found, if he thought hard enough about the rocks, sometimes the smaller ones would dodge him. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it was handy at least. The lava, of course, still came, leaving fourteen year-old with a sizable burn on his left forearm.

And now there were fireworks... it was pretty cool. And definitely not 'normal' fireworks -- unless you counted full animated films made of pyrotechnics as normal. You might if you lived in some kind of fairyland ancient China. Maybe. Still, it was pretty amazing. The fireworks were coming from a pontoon, about two hundred metres or so from the shore. There was a Hephaestus kid in a small canoe, floating away from where the fireworks were bursting out, probably making sure everything went smoothly. But, from what Matua could tell of the Hephaestus kids and their creations, it was a pretty rare event when anything went anything but smoothly.

From what Matua could tell, the beach he was walking onto was facing North, pointing towards the Arctic circle, somewhere far away. He didn't know why that thought struck him; Long Island wasn't that close to the Arctic. Sure, it was colder than his home, but it was Arctic. He wandered down to the bottom of the dunes, his bare feet digging into the sand. Somewhere beneath he felt the roots of the grasses that faced the water, somehow keeping hold, while the sea winds kept on pounding towards them. He noticed a girl -- woah, a Satyr, sitting on her own. A Satyr... they were kind of freaky, goat legs and all, but his father was Captain Freaky. He had no excuse not to say hi... They were still human beings, kind of.

He walked over to her awkwardly, and said, "Hi."