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“She's new, you know?" my brother whispered to me like it was a secret that may only be shared on the front steps of the cabin of Zeus, under the lightning ornaments.
“Her parents – her mother and stepfather, that is – are rich or something. They didn’t want her coming here. But they knew, I heard. That’s why they could do that.”
I wasn’t listening. Not because I didn’t care or didn’t believe him. It simply was that all I could think was that she was nothing like the other Hephaestus lot; a thought I’d rather not share with anyone.
Her gentle smile as she showed off her creations, as if she was embarrassed about her skills, about her natural talents she must have spent most of her life carefully honing, and the way her raven hair caught the sunlight sharper than the blade in her hands… I'd have put her with the daughters of Athena or Aphrodite before associating her with the usually stoic and unmoving children of the Forgemaster.
Next to me, Denki snickered.
“Keep your head in the clouds, Hebiko, and our father might just take notice of his children again. Is it time to dedicate tonight’s sacrifice to Aphrodite already? I didn’t think she’d get to my own sister this quick!”
I stopped watching the new girl, suddenly feeling too hot under the collar and told myself I had sat in the sun for too long, listening to my brother’s ridiculous musings.
“As if you haven’t been frequenting sacrifices to her yourself,” I retorted instead of letting him get to me. “Maybe that is why our father doesn’t visit anymore - the way you look at the son of his own wife.”
Now it was his turn to go bright red under the unrelenting rays from above. I could only imagine how much Apollo would approve of this amusement.
“I don’t know what you could mean!”
“Please, the only one more oblivious to it than you are is Hitoshi himself. You should finally talk, it’s getting so, so tiring to listen to the both of you.”
I rolled my eyes at the following stammers of denial and ‘So he does talk about me?’, which were as close to acceptance as I could currently hope for him; I was only praying I wouldn’t ever act remotely this way, even when I lost the black ponytail in the crowd of demigods.
She was magnificent.
Not only did she know how to forge an expert blade, she knew how to wield it equally as expertly. Eijirou, of the Ares children, had volunteered to test her mettle and her skill. He was a gifted fighter, even if his speciality was in hand-to-hand, yet armed with spears, she wasn't giving him a single inch in the drawn circle.
They must have been going for a long time now, sweat causing her shirt to cling to her back and glinting in the sun when she turned, flying off her brow and framing her like diamonds. A streak of soot at her ear smudged more and more and faded into her hair.
Someone stabbed a sword in front of my feet and blocked the sun shining into my face.
“She’s good, but she’s not that good,” Katsuki said and left the sword sticking in the dirt.
It was a peculiar statement. He had stopped bashing people about two years after first attending the Camp. So, I asked, “What are you talking about?”
He shrugged and shifted his gaze from her to me. “She’s good But not good enough to stand and stare like she’s Nike herself fighting the titans.”
I wished he'd move so I could blame the wave of heat on the weather again. I regarded his grin with the best impression of a calm person I could muster.
“Plenty of people are watching.” I hope I didn’t sound as defensive as I thought I did. I was right, after all. “She’s new, it’s interesting.”
“Oh, definitely.” He nodded and it felt condescending. “As I said, she’s good. But you never watch. You look, and then you leave. I'd know, since you never even watched me, and I'm the best. Thought you'd been hit by lightning when I saw you here."
“Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”
I stopped looking at him and saw her wipe her neck with a towel and wanted to offer her a bottle of water even though I didn’t bring one either.
“Sure. I bet that’s it.” He sounded sure that that was not it at all. “Why don’t you go a round or two against her, since you’re here with a sword already.”
“I don’t have a swor- “
He clapped me on the back so I almost fell over the sword stuck in the dirt right in front of me, his other arm raised to catch the attention of his brother.
“Oh, you son of a- “
“Hebiko! So cool that you join us! She doesn’t spar that much, you see.”
I gave Katsuki a glare with all the venom I could find under the sudden wave of panic rolling up through my chest. Then, I pulled out the sword and trudged over to Eijirou… and the new girl.
Her eyes were as black as her hair and looked just as simultaneously sharp and soft. Perhaps she wouldn’t need a blade to pierce through me, if she just kept looking at me-
“-so take it easy, okay?”
I felt another clap on my back and drew in a breath.
“Uh…”
“It’s fine, really.”
Perhaps I would just stab myself if she kept smiling at me, too.
“I’m here to learn, so go all out!”
I nodded meekly at her enthusiasm and saw she had picked up a sword herself. It didn’t look like any of the training swords the camp kept around.
Since I clearly couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to say and genuinely felt as if I was going to pass out if I didn’t do anything either, I raised my sword and stepped back into a ready position. I watched her take a long breath before doing the same.
Our blades met and something about her changed, suddenly she was all sharp edges and glinting steel and it felt like that time I fell off a Pegasus – the moment I hit the ground just like hitting its back as it dove to catch me.
It took me a full second to register I was lying in the dirt, knocked flat on my back. I thought I heard someone cackle in the background.
“Oh dear, are you okay?”
She leaned into my field of vision and Apollo really must be watching, why else would the sun halo her as if to mock me.
I nodded, too quickly, and took the hand she offered me. When she pulled me up, she might as well have knocked me down again.
“I, uh, I… I got blinded,” I somehow pressed out even without having any breath in me. She furrowed her brows and stepped back to inspect her blade, and I felt hot and sweaty.
“Did I polish it too much..?”
“No! No, I mean-“
Maybe Katsuki was right. Maybe I had been hit by lightning.
“That’s good! Very… effective. Evidently. I- I forgot I need to be somewhere!" I blurted out and stormed off before I could make even more of a fool of myself. The sword I tossed somewhere in the general direction I had heard the cackle before.
"It's sooo pathetic," I whined to Hitoshi as we were taking a walk through the woods. He was quietly eating a popsicle while mine melted down my hand as I told him all about my sudden incompetence all over the Camp just because I had a crush.
Because that’s what it was. And it's okay to have a crush, it's fine! She was pretty, she was smart, she was a skilled weaponsmith and a skilled fighter, and she was kind and fierce and gentle and-
I tossed the empty wooden stick aside.
“I won’t ever be able to step into a ring again!”
“You know,” he spoke up for the first time, after carefully cleaning his stick and also dropping it. “She asked about you.”
I stopped in the middle of cleaning my hand to ask “She asked about me?”, directly followed by “You two talk?” just to convince myself I didn’t sound like Denki.
"Yeah, she saw me sitting alone and I guess she also doesn't feel like she really fits in yet. So we sat together," he explains perfectly calmly as if I wasn't tearing my tissue into pieces next to him.
“S-So uh…,” I tried to inquire when he didn’t bloody continue, “What did she want to know?”
“Mostly whether you always talk so little.”
I knew he was giving me the side eye. I continued rubbing the tissue into dust on my sticky fingers.
“What did you say?”
“I wasn’t sure what would be worse; making it seem like you’re always half an inch from passing out or just especially sickly around her,” he hummed and a lazy, yet reassuring smile spread on his face. “So I said that you… ‘have your moments’. Make it seem like a bad day. Or week. …Or month.”
I punched him in the arm, breathing a sigh of relief. At least one of my friends wasn’t a complete backstabber. He laughed.
“Honestly, this is incredibly good news for everyone else. If Hebiko can have a crush this debilitating, no one else has to be ashamed anymore.”
I punched him again.
“I’m not debilitated.”
“But you do have a crush?”
“Nothing wrong with that! Crushes pass, anyways.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to disagree, and I thought I knew why.
We came upon the clearing that was especially mossy and by the fallen oak trunk sat a small group of people. Mina, a daughter of Aphrodite, and Tooru, a nymph, had their hands on either of Denki’s shoulders, whispering to him.
Hitoshi stopped walking to stare and knowing exactly how this was going to go, I hooked my arm in his and physically dragged him into the clearing before we could be mistaken for loitering satyrs.
“Hey all.”
Denki seemed positively electrified, seconds away from discharging when he noticed us. Mina gave him a jab between the ribs.
“Uh. Hebiko! Hitoshi…”
Said one didn’t even say anything, just lifted his hand. Utterly devastating that I supposedly acted equally pathetic.
"Hey Denki, you were just leaving, right? Why don't you and Hitoshi walk back to camp together?" Mina suggested, her smile barely veiling mischief. Both boys looked from her to me in alarm and really not wanting to be in between those two, I opened my mouth.
“I needed to talk to Tooru about something anyways.”
Hitoshi looked doubtful as I extracted my arm from his, Denki obviously thinking less when he asked, “Like what?”
“…Girl stuff.”
That shut him up and with some manual pushing from Mina, my brother and friend slowly shambled off.
“So what was that all about?,” I asked when they were out of sight, turning to the nymph. She put a finger to her lips and winked.
“That’s private,” Mina sing-sang and sat down just as Tooru took my hand and pulled me into the spot Denki had just been seconds before.
“But what is that we hear about you, O daughter of Zeus?”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
"I'd really rather not talk about it."
It took hours to pull free from Mina and Tooru and their dangerously sweet whispers and I spent at least another one wandering through the forest just to clear my head and come back down to earth. I wasn’t going to fall for their little love magic, it was just a stupid crush. I was going to be fine once I was back at school, among normal teens.
It had started raining sometimes on my walk and I decided – after listening to the pitter patter for someone walking up to me, like a father visiting his kid, just in case – that it was time to head back to Camp before it was lights out.
I was watching the ground, since even though the rain didn't soak me – one of dad's graces – puddles still did, so I didn't notice anyone until I heard a sigh near me.
I looked up and saw her, standing under the maple tree, the last big one before the woods made way for the fields. She was looking at the rain that the tree shielded her from, with only a few thick drops painted on her shoulders. Worry creased her soft brows and maybe it was some lingering effect of whatever Mina had done, or perhaps it was simple human decency that had me walk up to her.
"Is everything alright?" I asked her through fluttering lungs and I must have sounded like a regular person because she looked surprised.
“Oh, it’s you…”
I attempted a smile, but it felt bitter with embarrassment.
She noticed.
Her brows shot up and she wrung her hands.
“No, I mean- That’s- Hi! Hebiko, right?”
I nodded.
“It’s okay,” I added, “I’ve been… kind of rude. I get it.”
We stood in silence, her looking between the rain and my dry clothes.
“So…” I tried unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I was thirsty. “Is… everything alright?”
“Oh, yes! I mean-“ She sighed again and rubbed her forehead. “I mean no. I don’t know why I said that… I left my tools at the forge and now it’s raining, and I don’t know if I should still get them? Or… or wait, or- I don’t know.”
I blinked at her. I didn’t know that would be such an issue, yet she was clearly worked up about it. Then again, I knew nothing about forging tools or… about her. She sighed again, looking defeated in a way that made an alarm bell in my head ring out like I hadn’t heard before.
“It’s silly, I know…”
“No! No, not at all!” I blurted out and wished the rain could cool my ears. She looked surprised and it kept the bell ringing; I felt defiant. I had to prove that she wasn’t being silly. Why would she think that? Who made her feel silly about her tools before?
“No, I- I’ll walk you? To the forge. And then to the cabin. Look- “
I stepped out into the rain and held my hand above my head. In a circle around me, the rain stopped falling.
“You can do that?” She looked at the circle as if I had just moved Mount Olympus. I don’t know if it was thunder rolling or just my heart beating in my ears.
“’S a neat little feature.”
She joined me, walking right next to me as we headed for the forge. At first, she just watched the rain fall around her, later she stuck her fingers outside the circle, smiling when they got wet. I almost ran into a lamppost.
I knew where the forge was, but inside, I was completely lost, so I waited by the entrance while she collected her tools. When she emerged, I offered to carry some of the impressive and very confusing pile of gadgets, but she held it all a tad closer.
"It's fine, really," she said and I left it at that, to which she smiled a tad more. A streak of soot ran from her ears over her cheek. I didn't have it in me to tell her.
When we reached the Hephaestus cabin, the thunder was louder and she shifted back down the steps she was climbing.
“Thank you,” she said and then, with more force, “Really.”
I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t need to, I think.
“Do you want to go pegasus riding with me tomorrow?”
There was no context leading up to it, it simply suddenly burnt on my tongue as if I had been waiting to ask it for weeks. Her smile was as bright as the sun I remembered haloing her.
“I’d love to!”
When I reached the Zeus cabin at lights out, Denki wasn’t there.
Denki got into trouble.
Nothing all too surprising about that, but Hitoshi also got into trouble. They thought hiding out at the Hera cabin would be smart, since Hitoshi was alone in it this year, forgetting that that would make it all the more glaringly obvious that another person was inside.
They’d be fine, of course. And I wouldn’t want to have to listen to both of them, one after the other, retell everything that happened last night.
It also meant, however, that I couldn’t tell them anything about my last night either, meaning I couldn’t get any kind of advice or reassurance for what was possibly a date? Unless I wanted to track down Tooru, who I wanted to blame for this mess, or Katsuki, who would laugh in my face, and then find some way to embarrass me further.
No, I was on my own. I got myself into this, I could get myself through it.
While I kind of, accidentally, invited her, I didn’t know how to actually initiate this. Should I pick her up? At the cabin? The forge? Where would she be by now?
When people started to look at me standing in the middle of the path, I opted to just head directly to the stables. Maybe we wouldn’t even be able to take off today, which would be awfully convenient.
But the sky was clear except for a light mist from the rain. The air smelled fresh and tasted clean and as the day went on, it would become hot and humid, but for now, it was only refreshing. I had goosebumps.
Like most days, Shouto was holding down the fort.
As a son of Poseidon, he had a hand for the pegasi without really ever flying himself. I didn’t always get him, but I knew he wasn’t one for gossip or backstabbing. Unlike everyone else this past month.
I walked up and he assured me the pegasi were in prime condition and the weather favourable and cocked his head to the side when I let out a long sigh.
Firebolt, as he was creatively named, was the Pegasus that almost ended, and then saved my life years ago. I knew him the best and he was big and strong. He could easily pull a carriage or carry two people. Just in case.
"Be nice, okay?" I murmured to him and Shouto gave me an odd look from where he was preparing another, calmer Pegasus for flying.
"Is that the girl you mentioned?" he asked and unashamedly pointed towards the side just off the stables.
"It's rude to point at pe-," I reminded him and promptly lost my voice when I saw Momo Yaoyorozu standing there. She gave me a small wave and I cleared my throat. "Do you, uh, mind?" I left Firebolt with Shouto.
Momo was looking around when I jogged up to her, her hair in the same feathery ponytail as always. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes to look at me, catching the light.
“Hey,” I managed with shaky breath, and she smiled.
“Hi. It’s... It looks really nice here.”
“Oh yes, it’s great. If you like horses, I guess.”
I was staring, wasn’t I?
“Do you like horses?”
I gestured back to the two pegasi and started walking, immediately stumbling over a loose stone. Who the heck was responsible for the upkeep here? Sloppy.
She laughed quietly. Oh gods, she was laughing at me.
“My mother has horses,” she told me and I remembered what Denki had said about them being rich. “I took riding classes when I was younger, but I…” I noticed her watching Firebolt with wide eyes. “I never dared to switch from pony to horse. They’re so big…”
Oh.
We stopped a few steps away and Momo and the Pegasus regarded each other. Thankfully, she didn’t seem scared, just… in awe. Shouto had moved behind the other pegasus as if that was going to give us any privacy.
"Well, uhm. This here is Firebolt," I introduced them, and she snorted, which Firebolt mimicked.
“Really?” She grinned at me as I pet his amber fur.
“Don’t ask. I have no idea.”
I thought that eased the situation more and I reached into my pocket while the pegasus was distracted.
“He’s got kind of a thick skull, but he’s nice.”
He snorted again, raising his head as if insulted, and I passed her what I had fished from my pocket. She raised her brows at me.
“The only real difference is that they have wings. Go on.”
I saw Shouto shooting me a disapproving look, successfully ignored him, and instead watched as she carefully approached Firebolt with a handful of sugar cubes.
He sniffed at her outstretched fingers before greedily swiping all the cubed off in one go and then continued searching her hand for any more. Her grin widened and she giggled, and I thought I could melt.
“It tickles! And is so soft- Oh!”
Firebolt had lowered his head to search her pockets for more treats and wasn’t above pushing her off balance. I firmly pulled his head back before she would fall.
“Be nice! No more snacks until after.”
He shook his mane, but I had put my foot down and we have had this conversation before. He very happily pushed his nose back into her hand, though, and how could I blame him.
“You are… quite the pair,” she remarked and it was so gentle, I rather combed my fingers through Firebolt’s mane than think about what my stomach was doing.
“So… DO you… want to give it a try?,” I asked what I invited her for. “Flying, I mean.”
She looked to me, to Firebolt, to the sky, back to me.
“I never… I don’t… know?”
"You can ride on Firebolt together," Shouto remarked, emerging from behind the other Pegasus and scaring the crap out of me. I forgot he was here. "If it’s your first time flying. He can handle it.”
“If… If you’re sure…”
With Shouto and Firebolt clearly on board with the idea and me out of commission with half a heart attack, Momo was quickly convinced this was as brilliant as the invention of the wheel or something equally life-changing. I was sitting on Firebolt and watching Shouto help her up without even being asked.
“Hold on to Hebiko if you feel unsafe, she has a lot of experience,” he advised her as she settled behind me and I had been so very wrong about him.
I shot him a glare that he didn’t react to before steering Firebolt into the open space used for take-offs and landings.
“This could get… bumpy, so,” I grit my teeth, trying not to mimic Shouto, “hold on, yeah? …It’s okay,” I added when she hesitated and her arms wrapped around my middle. Totally okay.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No backing down now. I gently tapped my heels on Firebolt's sides and he – thankfully – took my words to his horse heart and sped up slowly. He fell into a gallop and Momo seemed well enough until he spread his wings.
I was well adjusted to the swoop in my stomach that followed the one, two, three flaps of wings, but my laugh caught in my throat when she clung to me tightly, letting out a yelp. I could feel her head pressed against my shoulder and I felt as dazed as I hadn’t since my first flight.
Soon, we levelled put high above the forest and the mist that hung above it hit my face in tiny frozen crystals. I turned my head and looked at Momo, curled up against my back.
“You can open your eyes now,” I said and grinned when she shook her head. “No, really. Trust me.”
She did.
Blinking against the sun, she looked up, around, and her face lit up with wonder as if she was the full moon. Firebolt flapped his wings and we ascended higher, until we skimmed a layer of feather-light mist, soon to join the clouds.
Like the night before in the rain, she reached out to let it wash over her fingers.
“We’re flying- We’re really flying!”
She spread her arms with a cheer and looking back at her, perhaps, if I fell this time, I could simply sprout my own wings.
But we landed safely and even though her legs were shaking when we climbed off, and her face was red, she took my hands between hers.
“Thank you,” she said, eyes like stars.
At dinner, we sat with Hitoshi and Denki and she told me all about what she was working on. Most of it I didn’t understand, and the others weren’t listening, busy playing some game under the table with their feet, but I wanted to hear it all. She was glowing when she talked, and it was great.
She was great.
If I whispered a prayer to Aphrodite as well as Zeus as I dropped some of my food in the embers, that was entirely between me and her and the smoke rising to the sky.
Like every summer, Camp had to end eventually.
We had been left by everyone else at the beach, off to do things they feared they wouldn't get another chance to do before going back home. I didn’t mind. This was exactly the thing I feared I wouldn’t get another chance to do before going back home; the quiet moments where Momo truly got to glow.
A gentle breeze ruffled her hair when she held a piece of paper out to me.
"It's my phone number," she said and I wondered if the pink hue on her face was from the sunset. "In case you'd like to… talk? Until next summer."
“I love talking,” I said dumbly and could kick myself if her smile wasn’t so brilliant. I took the paper, but before I could read it, a stiff wind tore it from between my fingers and carried it out over the waves. With everything else, this must be my breaking point.
“Gods- dammit!”
I kicked the sand with as much force as I could, alarming Momo.
“It’s okay! I’ll write it down again, I have some paper with me!,” she tried to assure me and I let out a sigh, finally truly defeated.
“No, that’s not… it. I just…”
I plopped down in the sand and held my head. I heard her sitting down next to me. For a while, neither of us said anything.
"I'm so sorry," I eventually said, not looking at her. "For messing up so much ever since we met. I swear I've never been so clumsy, or, or, tongue-tied before! I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine!,” she said again and I thought I heard her laugh. “It’s… It’s cute, you know?”
Yes, my heart skipped at that, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth. I forced a humourless smile.
“Cute, huh?” Cute, clumsy, silly little Hebiko.
“I think you’re cute.”
She was quieter now and the sand churned when she shuffled closer. “I also think you’re really cool. You know how to ride pegasi and fight really well and… You’re cool. And you’re cute. You can be both. And I… think you’re both.”
The bitter taste disappeared and I felt both dizzy and full of drive to do… something. Like hug her. I turned to her and she was so close, with her back eyes. Somehow I felt like it was now or never.
“I… think you’re both, too.”
I breathed it in the space between us and my heart thundered in my ears.
“Good,” she whispered, eyes determined. “Because I really want you to like me.”
I could have laughed if I didn’t also feel like crying, and still like hugging her.
“I really like you,” I said, and then, with more force, “I really, really like you.”
When she put her lips to mine I thought I had been hit by lightning too.
We watched the sunset all the way, with her head on my shoulder and arms around mine. And I couldn't help but grin at it. Apollo better has enjoyed this play.