Delphic: Chapter One

I: Tuesday's Wednesday
Wednesday, 8:50pm.

Everyone is here, from all walks of life and all parts of Camp. Not just because its mandatory, but because this is tonight's "special activity".

I sit on a squared wood bench at the end of the field, clenching a simply crafted wooden bow in my hands. A slight breeze runs across my face, ruffling stray hair from my ponytail and forcing me to open my eyes. There are campers of all ages gripping the fence, fingers lacing through the wide links, cheering and talking amongst themselves. Further down the line, a girl from the Tyche cabin is collecting bets, something that would normally be unacceptable here in Camp Half Blood.

There's only three of us now inside the range. The last of this round is Paul, a slack-jawed boy from Ares who got by simply on knowing how to nock an arrow.

There were thirty or so of us to start with. Everyone and anyone is allowed to participate, but unsurprisingly the matches usually end with either an Apollo or Ares child as a winner.

I focus back on Paul, nocking his arrow. The target has been pulled back several yards and is now barely in sight from the bench where I sit. The cluster of children from Ares are smashed against the fence, faces protruding from the links, yelling.

"Go, go, Paulie!"

"Don't let those girls get the best of ya'!"

"If you lose you're sleepin' outside!"

Paul takes a breath and shakes his head clear before raising the bow. His left eye closes and I can see his muscles tense. The girl from the Tyche cabin has her arms crossed, bits of paper slipping through her clenched fists.

I swear I can see a bead of sweat roll down from his forehead, and he releases the arrow.

Ares' cabin is shouting, the betters are shouting, the girl from Tyche has her arms crossed. Next to me on the bench, my sister watches with slatted eyes. A small smile forms on her lips.

"155!" Far down the line of observers, someone shouts a number. The mph of the arrow, a necessary stat that nearly every Ares participant asks for. It's well below average for my sister and I. And she knows that.

".....iiiiit's a digger!" The crowd roars after the announcement by the same statistical voice. The counselor of the Ares cabin bangs on the fence, and one of his sibling's lets out a slew of profanities before correcting himself. Paul drops his bow and throws his hands in the air in agony.

Then he begins jogging down the line, encouraged by a forest of 'boo!'s on the way to retrieve his arrow, a digger, which means it hit the dirt and dug itself into the ground. The girl from Tyche is laughing as a few people drop their bets into her clutch purse - a few drachmas, some regular mortal money, I even notice a can of Coke, the good kind from outside of camp, disappear into the silver pouch.

A few minutes later the screaming hasn't died down, but I see Paul regrouping with his siblings at the edge of the field, just outside the fence. Rather, I see them smash his face into the links of the fence and use their bodies to hold him steady there, laughing and mussing his hair. As mean as the Ares kids seem to be, they're really.......nice? No, tolerant maybe, of their siblings.

I don't even notice that my half-sister has stood up until someone pats me on the shoulder and gestures.

My half sister is everything I want to be. She's the same height as me, with long legs and pale features. She has curled blonde hair that somehow fits her, and her left eye is usually covered by a few twisted locks of hair. She isn't like the rest of us, she hates singing, her musical talents have gone wasted, and her Greek skills are only basic. But there is one thing she can do.

Archery.

The way she strides to grab her bow, the twirl of the arrow between her fingers as she works to nock it. It's mesmerizing, and already the Tyche girl has new bets on her.

Meri never loses on Wednesday.

"The time is 8:53pm, folks. Seven minutes left in this sister vs. sister showdown between returning champion Meredith Bramley and newcomer...." The camper at the far end of the field, I don't know much about him except he's a member of the Hermes cabin, pauses.

"....T-Tuesday.....Argy....Argee.....Argyris? Am I saying that right?"

The crowd laughs and even I let my lips curl into a sour smile. You'd think a camp of Greek scholars would be able to prononce a Greek last name, right?

I notice Meri is getting more agitated, her arm pumping the arrow back and forth, testing the tautness of the bow. She hates being held up from her livelyhood, I;ve seen that same look during the nightly Sing-a-Long and throughout regular combat training - she needs a bow to be free.

It's sort of beautiful.

Another pat on the shoulder wakes me from my sister-related trance. My face falls from the smile and immediately a wave of aggression pumps through my veins.

The owner of the hand was another one of my siblings. He looked very similar to Meri - athletic, blonde, untamed hair. But his eyes were a light shade of blue and smiled at me despite my boiling rage, which I continued to calm in his presence.

"Scared?" He asked monotonously, plopping down next to me on the bench.

"You aren't supposed to be in here." I mumbled just loud enough for him to hear me over the crowd.

"I'm just trying to cheer up my sister before her time in the limelight." He grinned mischievously and I clutched my bow tighter to my chest.

Irwin was only a few months older than me. Light-hearted, nice to a fault, easily the most likeable guy at camp. He wears his hair pulled back, jutting out from his head like spikes, sometimes wearing his girlfriend's headband to hold and back and garner a few laughs. He's an excellent singer, archer, brother, and he's never been off once with a sports prediction no matter the odds.

He's Dad's favorite son and everyone knows it. It drives us crazy, us Apollo kids. From our 8 year old brother to our former counselor from last year, everybody is jealous of him. You can even see it when Meri watches him shoot - she knows she's better, but she lacks everywhere else.

His only downfall is his Latin/Greek translating and speaking, but in this kind of world what does it matter? He's a born winner anyway.

"Thanks, I guess. But I don't think it'll do much." I look out to where Meri pulls the strick back, arrow deadly and poised at the target, her eyes squinted nearly shut. "Meri's the best."

"I think you have talent, Tues. Don't sike yourself out." A sharp crackle pierced the air and before I could trn fast enough the arrow was gone, speeding down the range with accuracy I didn't think was possible for a demigod.

So fast, in fact, I could hear the dull thunk as the arrow pierced the stump at the end of the course. The entire crowd was in a stunned silence.

"....Bullseye!" The cheering was deafening this time, almost like a professional sports match. Except that we were a bunch of kids with super powers. That was a little different.

"As we all know,a Bullseye is the perfect shot." The announcer's voice was peppy and excited as usual. "There is only ONE way it can be countered: the split shot."

My heart drummed to a halt in my chest. Meri turned around, a broad smile on her face until she met my eyes, at which point she dropped the smile in an attempt to remain cool and aloof.

Meri loved Wednesday.

She was not a fan of Tuesday, apparently.

"Shoot straight." Irwin gave me a rough slap on the shoulder blade and disappeared behind mme to reach the door. I stood up, stretching my shaking arms and legs out before meeting Meri on the shooting point.

She hung her bow on the rack and met my eyes ferociously. I could feel tension between us, as sibling rivalries tend to make. It was weird - she knew she was better, so why did she even bother with the glaring and challenging.....?

We locked gazes for a moment longer, enough time for her to nod encouragingly, before she hurried back to her seat on the bench.

I hated being in front of the crowd. All eyes were on me - could I, a technical first-year camper, even stack up against my far more serious sibling?

I'd have to try.

I brushed some stray hair out of my face again, a dark brown that contrasted neatly with my two siblings, and reached for an arrow. With shaking fingers I nocked it into the bow, plucked it a few times for good luck, and looked out across the range.

Now I was really self conscious. The sheen of the Meri's arrow, lodged neatly into the center of the target, gleamed with a light restricted for the arrows of Apollo campers. Mine was a glossy gold too but......not the same. There wasn't a confident air around me, and in turn my bow arrowhead became stale and unoriginal.

A little like me, in fact. So normal looking I probably wouldn't recognize myself, especially among my more talented siblings. I used to think I was quite pretty, and I still do, but I was sewage compared to my family who ebbed confidence with every breath.

Shoot straight. Irwin's voice echoed in my head and I realized the announcer was calling something.

"....One minute, Tuesday! Hurry it up!"

Shoot straight.

I raised my bow, aiming the arrowhead directly in line with the brightly shining one. My eyes narrowed and zeroed in on the target, a clear portrait of my victory. I could do this, I was a child of Apollo.

"....Thirty seconds!"

I pulled the string further back until the tension shook my arm. The girl from Tyche was switching between inspecting her loot and watching me curiously. I could hear Paul's siblings grunting me to 'speed it up, runt'. I saw Meri's smiling face as she shot the arrow, and Irwin on that first day at the archery range, guiding my hand.

"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Fi-!"

The arrow sped from the bow, possibly faster than Meri's. I heard her jump from her bench in bewilderment, the crowd stopped yammering, it was just me and my arrow. It burned brighter than the exterior of our cabin, lighting the ground as it whizzed down the track.

"Oh, man! It's off by three inches!"

The bow fell from my hands and as I made my run of shame, I saw the arrow gently curved away from Meri's, around the 7/8 border.

"That ends this week's Archery Knock-Out! Third place, Paul Faustain from Cabin #5! Second place, Tuesday Argyris from Cabin #7! And our reigning champion, Meredith Bramley, also from Cabin #7!"

In the blink of an eye some of the heftier kids, mostly Hephaestus, began disassembling the fences for tomorrow's open archery practice. The Hermes boy began shouting directions for everyone else to head to the bonfire except for the top three, who would recieve commendations. As I began shuffling shamefully to the source of the voice, I heard one of the kids disassembling the field.

"Guess Wednesday ain't Tues' lucky day, huh?"