Edward's Return

Mathieu Renard had had an absolutely crap day. It started with him waking up late enough to miss breakfast, and having to wait until lunch to find sustenance. And, not only that, but during lunch people had the nerve to pick on him. Needless to say, Mat ended up in a sort of 'time-out' suspension in Chiron's office, while his adversaries spent a bit of time in the infirmary. Around the afternoon, Mat was released, and steam was just about rising from his head in angry swirly clouds of smoke. He was headed home, wanting nothing more than the relief and peace that only his books might bring. He wanted nothing more than to lock himself in his room and read.

On his way, he had his head down, watching only his feet as he traversed the grass from the Big House towards his cabin. Suddenly, he rammed right into someone. A large someone, as he observed, when he looked up. Larger than even he, by a good two or three inches. Matt stumbled backward after running into the boy. The stranger was large and broadly built, with a little bit of a rugged look to him. If Matt were functioning well, he would have immediately analyzed the boy as someone equal to or above his own strength, and wouldn't have messed with him. However, he was not in his right mind. He was angry and deprived of food, and he could think of nothing else but to lash out.

"Watch where you are going" he snapped, harshly. His hands balled into fists like they did in the Mess Hall before he sent those demigods to the infirmary. He gritted his teeth together, looking up at the boy fearlessly. A fearlessness which, unfortunately, could get himself beaten up.

Mat was tacken aback, to say the least, when this complete stranger identified him by name. He raised his right brow and gave him a questioning look. He knew very few people who could identify him by name. Probably just those who feared him, and his siblings. Yet here this man was...

"Remember you?" Mat repeated. His brain was scrambled by now with confusion. As the boy produced details, the son of Aphrodite essayed desperately to piece them together to create an image. Suddenly, something clicked. But.. it wasn't very likely. The boy Mathieu remembered was a scraggly boy with long hair and pale skin, who had disappeared from camp for a while. This man couldn't be him. The difference was all too great. However, something poked at his sub-conscience that it could be plausible. This could be the very boy, back from whatever long voyage he had been on.

"Wait... Are you that boy who went and stole a cooler of soda from the kitchens just because I told you to?" Mat asked. He remembered one occasion on which he had deliberately used his powers to bend the boy's, who's named was then Edward, will to fetch him a drink. He remembered Edward telling him about all the things he could create if he had the right tools using his plans. "You.. you can't really be Edward, can you?"

Mat watched the boy carefully. It was near impossible to believe that this was the same man as the one in his memory. His skin was much more tanned, his height much much taller, and his muscles much larger and defined. It was like over the course of time that he'd disappeared, he had become an entirely different person. Mat didn't know what to think of this new person, nor what to do about it. He simply stood in a bit of awe as the boy spoke, not completely listening to his words, though he did absently glance at the mutt at the boy's feet. Mathieu didn't particularly like dogs, and he guessed the feeling was mutual.

"What?" Mat said, realizing he had been asked a question. He had been staring with a fixed confusion look upon his face the whole time, and he wagged his head slightly to snap out of it. "Nothing has really happened here. There are rumors about some sort of Kronos thing, but I hardly believe them. I doubt you missed much. But obviously a lot more has been going on wherever you were," Matt observed, in reference to the boy's drastic change in both demeanor and appearance.

"Right, you are probably tired..." Mat muttered. His sudden change in mood was astonishing. Only moments ago he was ready to sock a complete stranger in the nose and take off, and now he was actually a little bit intrigued by the man and interested to know a little bit more about him. Mat was drawn to power, and it was his guess that this guy had a lot of it. He chose his company wisely based on their abilities, and something told him that this guy wouldn't be too bad to get on the right side of.

"Anyway, at least let me walk you to your cabin," he persisted, not quite done examining the boy as if he were one of the world's leading interesting specimen. His eyes were squinted ever so slightly through the dimly light afternoon air. A cold chill was beginning to fall over the camp, one that only mid-January could bring to it. Mat observed the boy's tight shirt and bet that he was probably chilly, and was quite grateful to be huddled up well in his own rather warm jacket. "I guess you probably know where they are, but we'd still better make sure they have a bunk for you," Mat said. He'd never been in the Hephaestus cabin, as it seemed all too hot and stuffy for his liking. He didn't really know the layout within, but he was sure there had to be an extra bunk somewhere.

Matt nodded to him and beckoned for him to follow. He contorted his face a little in an expression of confusion at being called 'Mr. Dreamboat', but he ultimately decided it must have been his pheromones. Not bothered by it, he continued walking, leading the way away from Half Blood hill and towards the Cabin Courtyard, an area in which the cabins were all arranged in an upside-down U shape. The Aphrodite cabin wasn't exactly close to the Hephaestus cabin, but it wasn't like he was going too far out of his way. He wouldn't really do that for anyone, anyway. It was basically on the way, and a small detour for the purpose of information couldn't hurt.

"The forges?" Mat repeated. To be quite frank, he couldn't remember the last time he'd visited the forges. Mathieu didn't do that much fighting these days. His physical workouts usually consisted of ab-training, pull ups, push-ups, and running. He never really had a purpose to go into the forges to get a weapon and train that way. He couldn't give a well-informed answer to the question, and gave a slight shrug. "It seems that people are getting on fine with their weapons, so it must be up and running fairly well. But that's just a hypothesis, I've never actually visited it very recently," he admitted.

It was Mathieu's turn to pose questions. For a moment, the thought up something. There were a variety of things to ask. For example, when did he get so buff? Why did he return? The most basic and important question seemed like it should be the foundation, though, so that Mat could first have something to go off of.

"So... where exactly did you go?" Mat asked, throwing a sideways glance at the man walking beside him. He still had trouble calling him Edward. "Like, you went on a mission, I know that... but you never came back? Forgive me, but most of everyone here thought that you had died. It wasn't that much of an impossibility, because, well, you weren't exactly the most physical of the Hephaestus kids."

Mat listened intently to his tale with fascination and captivation. It was quite the curious adventure and very much peaked the boy's interest. He had done little with his life in the way of adventure, especially after he'd moved to the United States. The tale told was so foreign as if something from a fantasy book, and would capture just about any audience who might turn their ear towards Edward. He did feel bad for the boy, of course. It sounded very brutal to have to life such a meager existence during his fugitive stage, before he was put to work in the forges. And even then, Matt wouldn't exactly call the work there enjoyable. But it didn't seem to him that Edward really minded the forges. He recalled the story with not much of sadness in his speech, and the vivid recollection made Mat think it was kind of engraved in his memory as something that had happened but was in the past. Being a history geek himself, Mat enjoyed the past, but he could see that this boy's was painful, and would rather move forward.

By the end of the story, the two boys had left the Half Blood Hill far behind and now stood practically on the porch of the Hephaestus quarters. Mathieu could feel a bit of hot wind flowing out from the cabin and into the colder night air, and found himself almost wishing to be beside a nice fire. Many rather well-muscled campers were shifting around within, doing their nightly routines before going to bed.

"Well, here we are," Mat informed, glancing quickly at the ground. Then, his brain reprimanded him like a strict school-teacher might and his head snapped back up. Head bent was not a very good posture, and Mat took pride in his posture. He felt that it kept him above heads and an assertive form could always influence someone. Rather than looking at the ground and avoiding eye contact as his introverted self demanded, his head tilted up with dignity and he eyed Edward carefully. "I'm sure you can find what you need inside, am I correct?" He asked, his thick french accent oh so prevalent.