nostalgia [private]

Iris' head bobbed along to the beat of the music, her attention full on the cutie performing the song. It was a fast pop rock style song that made her shuffle her feet slightly and wish she was in a mosh pit. Iris hadn't been to a punk rock concert since Warped Tour 2011 when she was barely fourteen. She loved Warped Tour and wanted to go back more than anything... it was just difficult to get out of this stupid camp. Especially when you were constantly being watched.

Iris lifted her red cup to her lips and drank some of ice tea. With her tongue, she plucked out the lemon and sucked on it gingerly. Despite the careful way she extracted the flavor from the fruit, she found that the taste was already making her scrunch up all her features. She squeezed her eyes shut and spat out the lemon back into the cup. "Ugh," she mumbled, wiping her lips on the shoulder of her shirt. "Lemons are stupid," she muttered angrily. She turned her attention back to the cute singer and found that his eyes were on her and he was watching her with a bemused little smile.

A red blush spread across the daughter of Hades' face along with a shy smile and she turned away her face away, her body following for a mysterious get away. She would've made it if she hadn't felt the hand on her shoulder. "Oh!" She exclaimed, scared out of her knickers. Her dark eyes scanned the boy's face. He was incredibly handsome and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he was very interested in her. She reddened again and said, "Hey." When he explained his story, Iris gazed at him again.

"It's like I've seen you somewhere," she said softly. "I agree, you're incredibly familiar. We must've met before," Iris insisted. She couldn't shake the familiar feeling that she got, just by looking at his face. "I'm Iris," she said. Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight and a playful grin danced on her lips.

Iris swayed along with the beat of the music, finding the rhythm and the beat and the pace of the song easy to keep up and lovely to have a conversation to. Iris could tell that Gus was slightly nervous. She was picking up that he was usually smooth with girls and that he was good at smooth talking. Well... so was she. At one point in her life, she'd come to terms with being known as a destroyer of feelings. At another point, she had convinced herself that she felt nothing for other people and that they were only good as toys for her. When she got bored, she'd rid herself of them. She had always blatantly disregarded others' feelings.

As she stood there in front of Gus, she couldn't decided whether or not to play around. Usually it was a knee jerk reaction to someone flirting with her. But the way Gus outright called her beautiful totally out of no where took her by complete surprise, almost stopping her in her tracks. "Th-thank you," she managed to get out, pushing a lock of dark brown hair behind her ear. So far she was sounding like a complete loser. "I really doubt we went to school together, Gus. I didn't go to school," she said with a playful smile. Some kids did day care and kindergarten. Iris played dress up in her mom's Manhattan apartment.

"It's alright. It's better to be douchey than to not know how to talk at all, I suppose." Iris flashed him another brief, white smile. "You know, I bet we met in a past life," she joked in an easy tone. But as she said that, she felt a wave of unease roll through her stomach. She swallowed, trying to clear the sudden lump in her throat. What the hell was that? That lump in her throat? She only got those when she was crying... Out of instinct, Iris reached up and ran her fingertips over her cheekbones. When she pulled away, her fingers were wet. "Allergies," she said immediately. What else could it be?

The daughter of Hades nodded again and gave Gus a small, innocent smile. She turned her to the stage, unsure of what to say next. "So you like this band?" She asked, throwing a glance back in Gus' general direction. This was on of the first times she'd ever been stumped when it came to talking to guys. She usually knew exactly what to say and how to say it. This was entirely new territory to her. It was weird, too. Gus seemed incredibly familiar and she felt like she could say anything to him.  

"Uh, yeah, I didn't go to school," Iris said, feeling obliged to answer and explain that one. "My uncle was a demigod and didn't want me to go through the same ordeal that he did when he was younger. Mostly I did all the learning on my own," she shrugged. It wasn't that big a deal, really. She didn't want to sound smug or anything, but she said it anyway, trusting Gus to not think of her as arrogant, "I taught myself how to read and write." She was immensely proud of that. It'd taken quite a while too. She'd accidentally taught herself Greek, though, as she found out one day while taking a walk in the park. She found she couldn't read signs because they weren't written in ancient Greek.

She wasn't going to tell that to Gus, though.

Even though never having to attend school sounded glorious, Iris would have liked to go to school just to make friends. She was always told that she was too good for the other kids an that she was better than them but she didn't buy that. She wanted to be normal. Right from the get go, she was told who and what she was. That made it both harder and easier to grow up.