Fast & Furious {Open}

Livia was sitting on a fold up camping chair in the corner of the infirmary, pretending to be doing something while she read a book. Faye had sent her here to do something useful, since Livia ‘already knew all that basic sword crap’, but there was no one but sleeping campers who didn’t seem to stir and Livia resigned to doing nothing in a different location. She glanced up from her book as the sound of the door opening penetrated her ears, but it was nothing but the wind gently slamming the screen door back and forth. While her eyes were averted from her book, Livia looked around the infirmary just to check that there was nothing to do. Her eyes briefly glazed over the sleeping campers, but they were still.
She went back to her book.
After what would have seemed like an eternity to someone watching, Livia set down her book as the gasping of a camper interrupted the silence.
“Are you ok?” She called out to the boy who had tried to get up. He crouched on the bed, obviously hurt, so Livia curiously got up from her chair and walked over to his bed.

“I suppose I meant ‘ok’ as in ‘can I go back to my book now” Livia glanced back at the red and black cover of her book lying on the chair. The boy sat up and inspected himself and Livia noticed that his clothes were burnt. “Do you need new clothes?”
Livia watched the boy. Around two years her senior, he was covered in bruises and scrapes, and judging by his questioning face, a newbie.
Livia’s assumptions were confirmed when he asked the question that all new campers ask, ‘where am I?’ “No problem. 41 degrees latitude and -71 degrees longitude.” Livia responded confidently.

"Why thank you. I pride myself in being as helpful as possible." Livia's words were laced with sarcasm to the point of it not being funny anymore.
The boy seemed to figure out that CHB was a camp, but then he asked for someone of whom Livia had never heard. “Ethan who?” She asked, a genuine look of surprise on her face.
“Well, since you are so intent on insulting great pieces of literature, you couldn't be in that much pain.” Livia said, pleased to have come up with such a good rebuttal.

"Oh yeah, and from that description, I'll just call around camp and we'll be sure to find him." Livia looked annoyed from the boy's lack of understanding. “I've never seen him.” Livia smiled when the boy asked about her book. That was one of her favorite topics.
“12 Angry Men. It's a play. That's one of my dad's favorite books.” Livia's father was exactly the kind of person who would like a book like that. Livia loved it, even though she wasn't as much like her father as Quell was. The characters were clever and smart and Livia respected that.
"It'll only take me about 15 more minutes to finish, so if you could just writhe around for a little bit longer, I'll be done."

"I dunno. He could be here or he couldn’t. Only half-bloods are allowed in, so you’d have to ask Chiron." Livia responded, forgetting that she didn’t explain what camp was, or what half-bloods were. “It’s a good play, isn’t it?” Livia paused for a second, confused. “Wait, your mom AND dad?” Livia felt so strange, like she was intruding on a life that she had never had. Surely the boy had to be a half-blood. So surely one of his parents wasn’t really his parents.
Livia was pulled off her train of thought when the boy started wincing.
"Oh, toughen up. You’re just faking it." Livia had faked being sick enough times to know when someone was pretending.

Livia decided that talking more about camp unless the boy asked was a bad idea. She also decided that she would have to watch her mouth more often. After all, she could have been talking to a random stranger from the street.

Livia listened closely to the boy’s comments about his father. So perhaps his real parent was a male god. It was really obvious to Livia that her father was her biological father as soon as she found out that she was 50% god. Livia looked almost exactly like her father, except for her blonde hair and grey eyes. She decided that it would be wisest not to reply.

“Do you have any broken bones?” Livia asked the boy. She scanned his figure. He was sitting up, so the worst injury he could have gotten would probably be a sprained ankle. “Then no.”

The boy didn’t seem to be in that much pain, but even so, Livia walked to the back of the infirmary and grabbed a canteen of nectar. She poured it into a glass and handed it to him.

“Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” She instructed him.

Livia started to reply to the boy, but he drank the ambrosia anyway. After the boy had finished the ambrosia, Livia promptly took the glass away from him and set it down on the table at the end of the bed.

The boy inspected himself for broken bones. If he had one, it was probably better by then.
“Don’t drink too much of it.” Livia said. She bit her lip as the boy asked what she knew he would. “It’s ambrosia.”

Livia paused for a second and sighed and then continued. “Do you know anything about mythology? Greek mythology in general?” She asked him.

Livia noted that the boy was slightly spoiled. She didn’t blame him for wanting more, every time she drank ambrosia she wanted more, but it seemed to Livia that he expected to get it because he wanted it. She decided to explain things first before she got too into details.

There was the sound of thunder as the boy said Zeus’ name, and Livia knew she would have to be careful. She was his granddaughter, but normally, godly relations only extended so far as to immediate siblings and children. Even so, if Livia got killed by a thunderbolt, her mother would punish Zeus for Livia’s death, she was sure of it. The only problem was the boy. He would have to be careful.

Livia thought about it for a moment. She then realized that Zeus would not be considerate enough to think ahead far enough to prevent himself from killing her and came to the exact same conclusion that she had moments before: that she should be careful too. You never knew where you stood with a god.
“Careful with names. They are powerful things. You shouldn’t just throw them around. Livia said, choosing her words carefully. When the boy said that the gods were fake, thunder rumbled again, despite it being a sunny day to the point of getting a sunburn even under a roof.
“They are real. Mythology is real. The gods are real.” Livia said finally, after several seconds of silence in which she had contemplated exactly what to say next.

“My mom is Athena, the goddess of Wisdom. This is a special camp called Camp Half Blood. It’s for half-bloods like us. Half god, half humans.” Livia spoke rapidly. “You don’t know who your father -or mother- is yet, so you are unclaimed. You’ll be staying in the Hermes cabin tonight probably, because Hermes is the god of travelers.”

Livia could see that the boy was getting upset.
“Your mom might have fallen in love with a god before she fell in love with your dad. Gods have to leave after a while. Maybe your dad - your real dad- had to leave and your mom fell in love with someone else.”
Livia said gently. She understood. It wasn’t as hard for her because it had always been just her and her father and siblings, but Livia still understood. Waking up one day and finding out that one of your parents was just a lie must be pretty horrible.

“How do you know I’m not lying?” Livia repeated, raising her eyebrows.  “Well, we could go meet a god right now.” She said, then leaned in and whispered, “I don’t think you’ll like him all that much. He’s a little, what is the word? - oh right, impervious.”

Livia listened to the boy as he expressed his interest in playing tricks on little children. Perhaps he was a Hermes kid. Livia couldn’t be sure though, and she thought it best not to mention anything to the boy. Maybe Chiron would have an answer for her.
“Yeah he is. But I wouldn’t be too confident in front of the Hermes campers. They have some tricks of their own.” Livia smiled, remembering some of her Hermes friends.

Livia could see the boy cracking. Quickly. Livia decided to change the topic before the boy was in tears on the floor. It didn’t seem to take that much more to break a child who just found out their childhood was a fake.
“Okay whatever.” Livia responded to the boy. She wasn’t big on being all uptight about promises. Livia kept her promises and Livia assumed that everyone else would do the same.
Livia didn’t try to hide her laughter as the boy thought that he could scare the Hermes kids. “You have no idea what you’re up against. The Hermes Cabin is almost completely boobietrapped.”

Livia rolled her eyes, but she shook his hand anyway. “Malcolm. Liv Malcolm.” She said. “We’d better get going then.”