To Disturb the Harmony~Chapter 4

Chapter 4~A Monsterless Forest
“Alright, everyone pay attention,” Chiron announced as we got off the bus. “We have a few hours left until the camp fire. Please drop off any and all belongings you may have at your respective cabins. The rest of the day until the camp fire will be a free period. Enjoy it now before Mr. D returns tomorrow.”

There was a roll of thunder across the sky and Chiron just chuckled at the expense of his pinochle partner.

“Excuse me,” Chiron said as he approached the three of us as we got off our bus. “You two run along, I must speak with Kimi about housing arrangements. Most unclaimed children go in with Hermes, but I fear she is much too delicate for that crowd. Not to mention that little accident with the whoopee cushion has left them one wall short of a normal cabin.”

“True, but it was fun,” one of the Hermes campers said as he ran between us and headed off.

“Regardless, we must find you a temporary place to stay until you are claimed,” Chiron said as placed an arm around her and led her to the Big House.

I watched them as they started talking, but they soon were out of range of my ears and I started walking back to my cabin, only to be assaulted from behind.

“So, what do you want to do until the camp fire?” Aisling asked me in a hyper tone I was starting to become familiar with.

“Well, I was planning on going back to my cabin and maybe sleep for a bit,” I replied. While I would never admit it, I was actually pretty excited to get to go to Olympus. Normally I’m not here during the winter season, but a freak snow storm allowed my school to go on vacation early. Sure, we’d have to make all those days up by adding them to the end of the school year in summer, but I could live with it if it meant getting to see Olympus. I was so excited, that I didn’t really get a lot of sleep last night and saw this as a chance to make it up. Too bad I had managed to make friends with someone that seemed to have an unlimited amount of energy.

“That’s boring!” she said, then used the most powerful weapon she had on me. She used her puppy dog eyes on me and I felt bad for wanting to sleep.

“Well, we could explore the forest and fight any monsters we find,” I said sarcastically. Aisling apparently didn’t know what sarcasm was because she grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the woods.

“Hey wait, I was just joking,” I tried to protest.

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud, it’ll be fun,” she said and before I knew it we were in the forest, walking around aimlessly looking for monsters. Monsters in the forest were rare as they only ever appeared during games arranged by the counselors. However, the forest seemed peaceful as the wind blew through the branches of the tree and I figured I could relax now while Aisling searched hopelessly for a monster to fight.

“This is boring,” she said as she swatted at a small shrub on the ground with a stick.

“We’ve only been looking for about ten minutes,” I countered. I mean I knew we wouldn’t run into a monster, but to give up after ten minutes had to be a record of some kind. She at one point became so frustrated that she hit a tree with her stick, causing it to split in two and I had to duck out of the way as half the stick went flying at my head.

“Sorry about that,” she said as she gave me a concerned look.

“As you should be,” came the angry voice from the forest. I wood nymph appeared out of the tree with a very angry face that matched the tone. “Hitting poor defenseless trees, how could you?”

“I didn’t mean to, and I wouldn’t call a tree defenseless. I mean look at that bark you have,” Aisling said, most likely to try to calm her down. However, she could just as easily be trying to start a fight.

“Are you calling me fat?!” the nymph yelled and I saw this conversation going downhill really fast.

“No, but if you fell on me, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even get a scratch,” Aisling yelled back at her.

“Maybe you two should calm down,” I tried to interrupt the growing argument.

“Stay out of this!” they both shouted in unison, continuing their fight. However, before it could escalate any further, the ground beneath my feet started to shake for only a moment. Aisling and I looked more confused by the strange earthquake as New York wasn’t known for having them. The nymph however looked very alarmed and cut off anything else she was going to say.

“Just make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said before retreating into her tree. The shaking stopped just as soon as it started and Aisling went back, punching the tree to try and get the nymph to come out, only to scratch her hand on some tree bark.

“See, told you you weren’t defenseless!” she shouted, but the tree stood still except for the wind that was blowing through its leaves.

“Come one, let’s head back and see if anyone else felt that shaking,” I said, and she nodded a bit disappointingly. As we reached the edge of the forest, we found ourselves in the open field of the Capture the Flag game just south of Zeus’ Fist. I looked out over the field and saw the sun starting to set and knew the camp fire would start soon. “We better hurry up if we want to be on time.”

“Hurry is my middle name,” Aisling said. “I’ll race you…GO!”

She ran off a second later after the word go, but I just lazily started walking back to camp. I knew I wouldn’t catch her, but I wanted to see how far she would get before noticing. I never found out however as I lost sight of her over the hill.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive