i'mㅤyourㅤman .

open to all

Where: Any location

"If you're here to help, I could use a snack," Izzy spoke up without looking at who had come closer, his eyes staring down at the many scattered books and noted. Information haphazardly sprawled before him like a cascade of drifting words. "M'just seeing who could be behind all of this, and somehow I've landed on a few possibilities, even if they are far fetched," he yawned, signs of exhaustion peppered his features as the hours had gone by.

The goddess of discord was a figure that would've reveled with delight at the sheer chaos running rampant across camp. The thinning of the mist, the gods in disarray, only a goddess like her would laugh at how the things Zeus built crumbled beneath him. He thought of other minor gods and even began to explore the idea of other pantheons, if all the stories were true, why not every mythos out there? Still, there was nothing Izzy loathed more than not having answers.

"I've also been working on team tactics, and it's sad to say but a rag tag team of demigods no matter how powerful are doomed to fail unless we learn everything there is to know about each other." he mused. "Our abilities, weapons of choice, things we like, and dislike...Maybe I'm just sounding crazy."

phia doesn't usually indulge in practical questions. her inquiries are more of the metaphysical sort, steeped in existentialism and epistemology. she hadn't given much thought to the mist's thinning beyond fretting about what seemed to be expected of them in fixing it. where were the olympians? where was zeus, king of the gods, while hecate was missing? why was the safety of their children not taking precedent for the olympians? what did their inaction mean for the value of their existence? she ignores their preliminary request, bypassing it. " i feel like i know more than enough about everyone already. " and phia knew very little. in fact, she preferred to give her fellow demigods backstories and motivations of her own. it was better that way. easier to navigate some semblance of understanding when they did things that made little sense to her without explanation. " maybe there isn't really much to know in the first place. "

THEIR SURROUNDINGS ARE SEEMINGLY ON REPEAT, a cycle of green, of swamp, of identical hanging branches that snag like a thief's fingers on their clothes as they pass. salt-crusted shirt sticks uncomfortably to skin, the humidity pressing in from all sides wearing away at the edge of his elation at being out of camp. the group lapses into uneasy silence.

phia wishes that she could use scotty's resurrection as an explanation for the way she has retreated into herself. in truth, she feels out of place. who is she in the middle of florida? who is she outside of elk falls, kansas? who is she if she steps even one foot out of line on the the path from the sunflower state to camp half - blood and back again? who was she when piper was not near enough that phia could act her foil? she was a girl standing in half a foot of mud, crusted in sea salt with the sun beating down on her head. ezra's nearing presence brings relief, both at the distraction and at the fact that he does not bring with him the imminence of death, that little - experienced perk of her paternity that phia has been hyper vigilant about encountering since they'd left camp. she musters a thin smile on the wings of said relief. " yeah, " she affirms simply, squinting upwards towards the sun. ezra, in all his familiarity, has had thirteen years to learn the art of seeing straight through her — invisibility aside. " i doubt we'll make it out of the swamp before dark, though. " her voice is tainted with uncertainty, with a nervousness characteristic of a child who had not been allowed grace in responsibility and had since grown into a neurotic adult.

eoin  finnegan  emerges  from  the  tombstone  chic  confines  of  cabin  one  looking  as  rested  as  a  live  wire.  exhaustion,  however,  is  a  privilege  reserved  for  the  perishable  goods  called  people  and  the  uniformed  guns  called  the  police.  look  alive,  soldier.  no  home  other  than  this  one  to  fight  for.  no  cannon  fodder  other  than  the  cracking  voices  consonant  with  campfire  songs  from  the  fields  of  punishment  to  keep  from  wandering  into  the  woods  and  turning  up  spouting  theories  about  the  comeback  of  ulster  paramilitarism  as  ignited  by  a  coalition  of  squirrels  to  die  for.  he  sighs  loudly  enough  to  send  a  hurricane  spinning  towards  south  africa  and  descends  to  find  a  trustworthy  source  of  fashion  advice.

in  one  hand,  you  see:  an  oversized  reefer  jacket  handcrafted  by  only  the  most  arthritis-having  artisans  in  the  world.  there  are  splotches  of  navy  blue  reminiscent  of  the  great  brine  and  its  unknowable  depths  next  to  splotches  of  russet  brown  reminiscent  of  dog  poop.  not  even  daedalus  could  divine  the  structural  destruction  that  is  the  conga  line  of  mismatched  buttons.  wool  lining  houses  little  over  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  half-blood  hill’s  rodent  population  for  incredible  prices.

in  the  other  hand,  you  must  know:  the  exact  same  fucking  jacket.  with  the  exact  same  fucking  stains.

it  takes  all  of  five  seconds  for  him  to  find  someone  worthy  of  stroking  his  ego.  he  taps  them  on  the  shoulder.  tap  is  a  generous  term  for  the  action  that  demonstrates  his  generosity  with  lethal  force.  he  preemptively  decides  to  deny  indemnification,  which  is  more  thinking  than  what’s  been  put  in  this  encounter.  trust  him,  most  honourable  person in a  powdered  wig since orpheus or george onslow or whomstever it was in that overpriced painting on the overpriced postcard,  he  was  just  helping  them  out  of  lyre  tuning  duty.  that’ll  do  it.

“help.”  a  demand,  not  a  suggestion.  the  rollicking,  maverick  charisma  of  his  monotone  voice  holds  their  attention  hostage,  he  assumes.  even  now  his  eyes  scan,  as  though  staring  hard  enough  will  attune  them  to  the  frequency  at  which  sirens  slice  through  the  sound  barrier.  the  ugly  kind,  that  is.  “which  should  i  wear  when  they  come  back?”  the  musty,  misshapen  lumps  of  linen  nightmares  are  presented  with  a  flourish.  after  a  moment,  he  clarifies:  “to  avoid  arrest.”

phia always knows when the son of zeus approaches, because she swears she can feel the air thicken. a characteristic calling card for the son of storms, she thinks it a neither a hop, skip, nor jump away from impossible that she could be imagining it. the alternative is that his presence begets anxiety — shortness of breath. an outcome just as likely. people with personalities like characters on the silver screen existed in a realm beyond phia's, and when he speaks, its as if she's hearing him from behind a pane of glass. the blows to her shoulder are absorbed some by her relative fuzziness — she grew less and less solid as the day went on. evenings, in terms of her poltergiestliness, were hit or miss. despite her loose grip on her tendency towards invisibility, phia solemnly vows to disappear completely if the impending conversation turns down a road she doesn't wish to traverse. she swears it to jesus. if there were truly a first time for everything, surely this would be the moment she snapped in and out of visibility on a dime. " um — " she exhales in a small, quiet huff, wishing it was a death rattle, wishing her father would suck her down into the underworld so she could avoid the next few moments of her life. the sweaters are the same, and phia concludes that he's making fun of her. she'd only spent five years in public school in kansas, but she knew this tactic well — the way they circled, laughing like hyenas, waiting for you to make a fool of yourself and making it all but impossible not to. say something ridiculous that debases you in the eyes of the peers that already think you freakish. say it, or nothing. the latter was a fate worse than death. phia would know. " they'd probably both get you arrested in the right circles. " yeah, by the fashion police — something she imagines her sister would say. instead, she commits to her non - answer, shoulders bobbing up and down once, dark eyes trained on the grass below his extended hands.

"Me, either," Homer agreed. At least not here, and as of late. His past didn't matter much, and he was on a strict budget to stress the sudden promise he seemed to have made to keep it true. Then again, Camp Half Blood was probably the longest and cheapest trip he'd ever taken if he didn't count some of the psychological trauma inherited as a demigod. "Terrible for you. Who needs Lucy in the sky with a diamond when we know it's a guy with horses on fire?"

For a moment, he wondered if he had shared with the wrong person. Then again, any complaint about reefer was surely not at the top of their list of priorities. The smell of it, of course, could have only helped sell the lie that they were all here as a means of peace, harmony, and whatever else was scripted for their endeavors secluded from the mortals.

the clouds above the horizon over homer's shoulder look like mountains. phia wrinkles her nose, gaze still averted, but homer's earnestness coaxes a smile on her face at last. it inches its way there reluctantly — a sore loser. " nobody, i guess, " she agrees, though without much gumption. it was how she did most things. she knew what the tin contained, she just didn't know what category of drug marijuana slotted into. the fear kicked up by the 1930s film reefer madness had long - since subsided, and phia imagined weed was probably the young people of today's drug of choice. however, they were an ingroup that phia technically, but not truly belonged to. she exhales quietly through her nose, leaning back onto the railing, weight on her palms. " don't worry, " phia shakes her head with sincerity, and piece of dark hair escapes her characteristically neat, single braid. " your secret's safe with me. " the sentence is so scripted, one that she's been waiting what feels like eons to be given the chance to utter. but she's glad to have said it, a small smile still ghosting at her features.

IN THE HUSHED AFTERMATH of the camp's tumultuous restoration, rosalynn seeks refuge in the archery range. her desire for familiarity guides each arrow's release, a rhythmic heartbeat synced with the target’s absorption rate of her unspoken thoughts. time blurs, seamlessly transitioning from daylight to moonlight during her ceaseless practice.

at some point during her ritualistic movements, a subtle rustle disrupts her concentration. she reacts instinctively, bowstring frozen in mid-draw, an arrow pointed with silent precision towards the disturbance.

her senses, finely attuned through years of training, dissect the surroundings without a need for visual confirmation. the archery range harbors an unexpected visitor, a presence that does not yet seem ready to reveal itself.

after a moment, rosie eases the tension on her bowstring, lowering the arrow but not the wariness in her gaze. ❛ either you've got a death wish, or a compelling reason to be lurking in the shadows of my solitude. ❜

her voice, measured and cool, breaks the silence like a crack in the stillness of the night.

phia is used to maintaining a phantom - like silence. at home in kansas, she haunted the dusty rooms of the house she and mother shared — more a gaping wound than a home. but she should have known better than to assume that someone who had been twenty - five years old for nearly twenty - five years would not have experience with ghosts of her own. " there are worse fates than death. " she speaks monotonously, for rosalynn has already torn open the night's silence like a greatly anticipated birthday gift. happy twenty - fifth . . . again! " i think if you wanted to send an arrow through my head, you would have already. " phia confronts the hunter, holding her most recent journal in front of her hips with both hands, weighty with the recently - recorded word of dostoevsky. she waits, bathed in moonlight, the june heatwave's mugginess making her hair stick to the back of her neck despite the sun's retreat. or maybe it's the adrenaline, the way their conversation thins the veil between this life and the underworld, if only minutely.

he recognized the back of her head from a distance, weaving in and out of campers between his cabin and her spot on the hermes cabin porch. his hands fidget with the tiny celestial bronze leaf that was once intended to be an applique for a project that was recently discarded, certain that it would find a better home with her than lost among the multiple piles of scraps scattered throughout the forge.

" i was looking for you. " he comes around in front of her, shy smile painted on his face. phia isn't a new person to camp, she's been there longer than him. but she's always existed just outside of his periphery. their paths, their lines of trajectory, hardly ever crossing for any sort of real reason. " forge still feels weird even though everything was put back, and i can't find my hammer. " the comment is breezy, despite the thread of tension that the mortal's visit has woven into it, that's still settled somewhere in against his back, just between his shoulders. calloused fingers turn the leaf, index finger pulling the curved bend while the point and stem are held fast between his thumb and middle. his boot sets right next to hers as he takes a seat opposing her, his eyes search her face, find her there. the corners of his lips tug further upwards in a teasing smile, " you think someone inside took it? "

most of phia's nights were spent waiting for the sun to rise, marvelling over its unwillingness to rush. eight hours felt like a lifetime when she could not get her thoughts to quiet, and so sat on her bunk, listening to the sound of oc's steady breathing (if she was there), and anticipated the light's emergence from under the cabin door. the previous night had been of that variety, but her fatigue felt suspiciously like peace. the heaviness of her eyelids were a comforting weight —  her weary mind had not the capacity to worry as it did in waking moments. she sits, pen raised over paper, but nothing begs to be written. madden and phia were acquaintances, linked only by the demigodhood that tethered everyone at camp. what sets him apart is how he looks at her. like something to be picked out of the background, rather than something that was actively blending into it. phia wonders at what his mother must be like, to have raised a son so courteous — most likely a good christian like her own mother. she shuts her journal on a finger, though the page remains blank. its openness is frightening regardless, like the words she'd written might fly out into the open without warning. he was looking for her. she doesn't dare ask for the reason why. " well, i didn't, " she insists, absolving herself of any potential misplaced guilt. " but i can keep an eye open. i know most of their hiding spots. " she offers a wry smile, suggesting that the discovery of her cabinmates' stashes had not come without labour.

each time phia arrived at camp half - blood, she began an arc towards self - confidence that was cut short with the arrival of september and her return to elk falls. the finality of the moment was akin to a period's closing off of a sentence. back home, phia would not dream of asking one of her neighbours for anything. most wouldn't allow her a cup of sugar — not with her strangeness, nor her darkness. but for tonight, she is still on the upward slope, the night breeze is in her auburn hair, and ga eun is terribly sweet. she offers a wide smile, one that perhaps signals a bit more relief than phia would like to show. " no, i think it was borrowed, " the emphasis on the last word is more answer than the sentence itself. perusing the box's contents, phia feels a wave of pressure to make the right choice, whatever that choice may be. she plucks out a tube that most closely resembles the one she'd lost, clutching it in both hands girlishly. " me and my last lip balm were fairly inseparable, " she jests, " like orpheus and eurydice, sort of. "