Chapter Text
Shane has seen a lot of things during his time at Camp Half Blood. He’s been here longer than most: every summer since he was maybe eight or nine years old spent in the lush forest and high rolling fields of Camp. His father drops him off here every July 1st, without fail.
He’s seen godly claimings, grizzly capture-the-flags, centaur migrations, every solstice, prank, attempted invasion by cyclopes and harpies. He saw campers leave on quests, and saw less of them return. Saw the Oracle give more prophecies than he could count, and saw how Chiron’s beard slowly got grayer and grayer.
He’s fifteen and he’s pretty sure he’s seen it all.
That is, of course, until Ilya Rozanov falls out of the sky.
He’s just finished his morning run when he sees a crowd gathering — a shock of orange shirts — around the high climbing walls on the edge of the forest clearing. Shane, realising that the group is mainly younger campers, breaks away from his well-worn cool-down path and jogs down the slope towards them.
“What’s everyone looking at?” he calls, and the crowd swivel to look at him. They part wordlessly to let Shane through.
“Some kid just fell from the sky,” pipes one girl.
“Was he tree climbing?” Shane frowns.
She shakes her head.
“Get Chiron,” he instructs, and she takes off in a sprint back towards the cabins.
Shane finally makes it through and looks down at the body on the ground. An Apollo kid crouches beside him, and checks his pulse-point and limbs for breaks. He looks like a star, Shane notes. He’s pale with a nest of brilliant golden curls. A narrow arrowhead face, broad back, long lean limbs. Darkly washed blue jeans and a black shirt.
His eyes are revealed as glacial blue when the Apollo kid tries to pry open his lids to shine a flashlight in them, illuminating them paler than the sky.
He groans, and the whole group jumps back, spooked.
It is a soft sound, more breath than voice, but it cuts through the murmuring crowd like a snapped bowstring.
“He’s alive,” someone says unnecessarily.
Shane exhales, slow and measured, the way Chiron taught them to when panic was useless. He crouches as well, planting his weight on the balls of his feet, eyes scanning clues. There doesn’t appear to be any: just dust on denim, grass crushed flat beneath him, and the unsettling fact that no one should be able to fall from the sky and look this intact.
The boy’s eyes flutter. Shane crouches beside him and gives his cheek a daring pat. “Hey, hey, you. You okay?”
That’s when the fallen star boy’s hand snaps out. He grabs hold of Shane’s wrist with startling speed, and grips so hard that the fine bones in Shane’s wrist grind together uncomfortably. The star boy’s eyes open to slits, irises seen through pale lashes.
“Don’t touch,” he says, lilting over the syllables and flattening the vowels in an unmistakable slavic accent. Russian, maybe.
Shane twists his arm out of the hold and studies him, even as his eyes slip closed again.
“He has a head injury,” the Apollo kid — Shane thinks his name is Carter — announces, his voice clinical despite the flicker of nervousness in his eyes. “Possible concussion. Don’t let him sleep yet.”
But the boy seems determined to do the opposite. His eyelids are heavy, the brilliant blue of his irises now just a sliver beneath pale gold lashes. The grip on Shane’s wrist is gone, but the ghost of the pressure remains, a phantom bracelet of force.
“Don’t… touch,” Ilya slurs again, the accent thickening the words, but they’re rendered completely unthreatening by the abject state of him. His hand, now limp on the grass, twitches.
“Yeah, got it. No touching,” Shane mutters, though he doesn’t move from his crouch. His mind is racing, slotting this new variable into the known catalogue of Camp Half-Blood weirdness. No wings. No broken chariot wheel. No shimmer of godly teleportation. Just… a boy and gravity.
The distant, rhythmic thud of hooves on packed earth signals Chiron’s arrival. The centaur’s form parts the crowd of campers, his expression one of deep concern that doesn’t quite mask a profound curiosity. He takes in the scene with a single, sweeping glance: the anxious campers, Carter with his medical kit, Shane crouching like a sentinel, and the golden-haired boy lying in the crushed grass as if he’d been placed there by a careless god.
“A fall from the sky, you say?” Chiron’s voice is calm, a bedrock for their frayed nerves.
“Straight down,” says another girl, “like a meteor.”
Chiron kneels, a complex and graceful maneuver of his equine body, and places a gentle hand on the star boy’s forehead. He doesn’t flinch this time; he seems to be sinking deeper into himself. “His temperature is normal. No sign of divine fever.” He looks at Carter. “Help me get him to the infirmary. Gently.”
As Chiron and Carter maneuver the star boy onto a makeshift stretcher formed from two spears and a camp banner, Shane finally stands, his knees popping. He watches the strange boy’s head loll to the side, those golden curls stark against the orange fabric.
The next time that Shane sees the fallen star boy at Camp, he’s awake.
He’s tall, taller than most at their age, and not in the gangly, long-limbed and sharp-elbowed way that Shane is tall after his growth spurt. He’s stockier, packed with muscle down lean arms. He’s standing with Chiron at the end of the pavilion, arms crossed and eyes mullish as he seems to take in the scene.
Chiron has his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Everyone, if I could have your attention, please,” his voice is a low base, as patient and tempered as ever. It seems the room’s rowdy chatter dies down quicker than usual, Shane notes. They’re all interested in the sky boy, it seems.
“I’m sure by now you’re all aware of the incident that took place at the training grounds this morning. I’d like to shed some light on that incident now, to avoid unnecessarily worrying any of you. This young man,” Chiron clapped the boy gently on the shoulder, “is Ilya Rozanov. Ilya will be staying here with us at camp, so please do your best to welcome him and show him the ropes. He’s one of us now.”
Shane, leaning against a stone pillar with his breakfast plate, studies the new boy with a practiced eye. In the harsh light of the pavilion, Ilya looks less like a fallen star and more like a cornered animal. The mullish set of his jaw is at odds with the faint, shadowed circles under his eyes. He’s wearing standard-issue camp clothes—an orange t-shirt that strains slightly across his shoulders and jeans that are a little too short — but he wears them like a costume, uncomfortable and foreign. His arms are still crossed, a defensive barricade against the dozens of curious stares.
Hayden, the head counsellor of the Hermes cabin, pipes up, “you want him to stay with us, Chiron?”
Chiron’s smile strained, his eyes flickered down to the boy next to him. Shane, who may have been watching the boy a little too closely, noticed the suddenly rigid set to his shoulders. The defiant tilt of his chin. The lick of fire in his blue eyes.
Chiron shuffles, hooves scratching against the bamboo lacquered flooring. “Well, that’s a good question, Mr Pike. As it turns out, Ilya has somewhat of a, a rather unique—”
“I know who my dad is,” Ilya interrupts Chiron boldly. He still has that accent, melodic and drawling. Definitely Russian. “Met him. He brought me here.”
Dropped him from the sky, Shane corrects. He immediately starts running through all the possible male gods. It is unlike them to have such a starkly involved decision in their children’s lives. An immediate claiming is one thing — a private escort to Camp Half-Blood is another entirely.
“Hold on,” Svetlana stands from the Aphrodite table, a hand planted on her hip, wolfish eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You met him? Your godly parent?”
Ilya doesn’t bristle, doesn’t even blink. “Yes.”
“And we’re just supposed to take your word for it, then?”
“You do not have to take my word,” Ilya said, his voice cutting through the quiet. His accent made the statement sound like a fact of physics, immutable and unarguable. “I know what is true.”
“Yeah, well, truth’s got a funny way of working around here,” Hayden called from the Hermes table, a smirk playing on his lips. “Lots of kids think they know. Until a flaming hammer or a glowing lyre shows up over their head. That’s how it works.”
“It is how it works for you,” Ilya shoots back, his eyes narrowing. “Not for me.”
A few campers gasped at the audacity. Shane felt a strange twinge of sympathy, quickly buried under a wave of pragmatic suspicion. The kid had guts, he’d give him that. But guts didn’t make you a son of a god.
Chiron raised a placating hand. “Now, now. Ilya’s situation is—”
“Who is he, then?” Svetlana interrupted, ignoring Chiron’s frown. She takes a step forward, her Aphrodite cabin siblings watching with keen interest, buzzing around her as though feeding on the energy from the conflict. “If you’re so sure, name him. Let’s see if the camp agrees.”
All eyes swing back to Ilya. He stands perfectly still in the storm of their attention. For a moment, Shane thinks he saw a flicker of something else — not uncertainty, but a deep, weary frustration, as if he’s tired of having to prove the sky was blue.
Ilya takes a slow breath, not looking at Svetlana, nor at the sneering Hayden, but at the open sky beyond the pavilion’s roof, as if seeking confirmation, or perhaps strength. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he mutters, and then descends into the crowd. With the introduction quickly and abruptly ended, Chiron tries to get the Campers to return to breakfast, but is difficult. Everyone keeps sending wayward glances to him as he finds an isolated spot at the end of the Apollo table and keeps his head low.
Shane turns back to the long stretch of table and whistles. “Well.”
Rose stares back at him from across the table, stirring a glass of orange juice with a straw — a thoughtful pinch to her eyes. “He’s either completely irrelevant or the child of the big three.”
Shane casts another glance at him, the rigid hunch of his shoulders. “You think?”
One of her Athenian siblings leans over and makes a snarky comment, to chatter down the table. Shane studies his eggs-on-toast. He sits with the Athenians for meals because Rose is his best friend, and since he’s the only child of his mother, he doesn’t really feel like sitting by himself.
Shane chews, swallows, and finally says, “If he’s irrelevant, he doesn't need to fall out of the sky.”
Rose snorts quietly. “Fair.”
Across the pavilion, Ilya sits alone like a landmine no one wants to step on. A child of Demeter tries — briefly — to offer him a roll. Ilya stares at it as if it might explode, then shakes his head once without saying anything. The kid tactfully retreats but at least he tries.
“You’re staring,” Rose says without looking up.
“Observing,” Shane corrects. “There’s a difference.”
She gives him a sideways look. “You’re terrible at not being obvious.”
Maybe. But Shane can’t help it. He’s been around long enough to know patterns. Unclaimed kids hover, hopeful. Claimed kids glow — sometimes literally — on the day it happens. This is something else. There’s an aura about Ilya that threatens trouble, static in the air like the threat of lightning in gathering stormclouds.
Shane should’ve known better than to think that would be the end of things. That night he sits around the campfire and watches the flames. He’s still caked with dust from hand-to-hand wrestling earlier but he doesn’t much mind — not when the drinks (all both sugar and alcohol free, of course) are flowing and someone’s trying to wrangle toasted marshmallows over the open flame.
The fire flickers, its tips like golden fingers reaching into the sky, where the night spins clear and frosty overhead, visible through the overhanging canopy.
At some point Hayden pushes a ginger ale into his hand and then goes to cheer on an Ares-kid arm wrestle, which ends with Scott’s opponent on the ground. The usual. Shane smiles into the glass rim of his bottle.
A roar of cheers go up as Scott preens, followed by a set of diverted groans as Svetlana’s marshmallow goes up in smoke.
“Move.”
Shane looks up and backwards at the figure standing over him. Mr. D stands behind them, constantly-full glass of cola and-something-else in one hand, the other gesturing vaguely at the log Shane is sitting on. His expression suggests he has already lost patience with everyone present, including himself.
“Make room,” he says again. “Stormcloud. Sit.” He points to Shane’s right, where Ilya stands just beyond the logs, half in shadow, half caught in the firelight. He hasn’t joined the circle. His arms are folded tight across his chest, posture rigid, like he’s bracing against an impact that’s not coming. The light skims over him and fractures, throwing sharp-edged shadows that don’t quite line up with his movements.
Ilya stiffens. “I’m fine standing.”
Mr D shoots him an unimpressed glare. Ilya rolls his eyes but slinks reluctantly forwards until he’s perched on the moss-covered edge of the log Shane occupies. Shane dutifully shuffles over to make room and Ilya stares at him like he’s grown another head as he creeps further onto the log like a wild animal tempted in with food.
“See?” Mr. D says, satisfied. “Solved.” He wanders off toward the drinks table, muttering something about babysitting Olympian messes.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
Shane takes another sip of his ginger ale. Up close, Ilya smells faintly like ozone and pine sap, like he’s been outside too long. He’s sitting rigidly, hands clasped between his knees, eyes fixed on the fire with the intensity of someone afraid it might judge him. The fire casts a harsh light over the grim line of his jaw, the jut of his nose.
“So…” Shane begins, because someone has to. “How’s the Hermes cabin?”
Ilya sniffs disdainfully. “Noisy.”
“That tracks.” He tips his bottle back again, eyes on the fire so he doesn’t look like he’s interrogating him. The flames spit and settle. Someone further down the log whoops as a marshmallow goes up in flames.
“They mean well,” Shane adds after a moment. “Mostly. The Hermes kids, I mean. They’re just kind of… like that.”
“I noticed,” Ilya says. His shoulders remain stiff, but his grip on his own hands loosens by a fraction. “They tried to make me play cards. For money I don’t have.”
Shane snorts. “Did you win?”
Ilya hums agreement.
Another beat of silence. It’s a cautious kind of quiet, teetering on the verge of uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to stay long,” Shane reminds him gently. “Once your dad claims you, you can move out.”
“I’m well aware.”
“It’s not all that, moving out.” Shane says breezily, ignoring the snark in Ilya’s tone. “Cabin’s all well and good, but if you’re by yourself, it can get a bit draughty. Cold at night with less bodies.”
Ilya finally glances sideways at him. The look is sharp, appraising, but there’s less edge to it now. “You have no siblings?” he probes.
Shane offers him a lazy smile, and sticks out his hand. “Shane Hollander,” he says, because he never actually introduced himself. “Son of Nike. Victory, endurance, athletics. But I don’t have any siblings, so I can’t participate in a lot of the Camp Games.” He smiles sheepishly. “I tend to throw the matches, anyway. Quite unfair for everyone else.”
“Nike is a Charioteer,” notes Ilya. “You cannot even race the chariots?”
“Need two people for a chariot,” says Shane, rueful.
Ilya crosses his arms. “That is dumb.”
Shane lets out a genuine laugh, a short, surprised sound that seems to startle them both. "Yeah," he agrees, the admission feeling lighter somehow. "It is kind of dumb. But rules are rules. Chiron says it's about teamwork. And well," he shrugs, quirks his lips, "no team."
Ilya studies him, that intense, analytical focus returning. He looks from Shane to the distant outline of the chariot shed, just visible past the pegasus stables. "So you watch. Every time."
"Mostly, yeah." Shane tries to keep his tone casual, but the truth of it sits between them. Seven summers of cheering from the sidelines, of being the veteran who couldn't compete in the event his own mother was literally the goddess of. “I look after the pegasi, though.”
That gets Ilya’s attention. “You do?” he keeps his tone deceptively light, but Shane knows he’s peeked his interest.
“You want to see them?” Ilya doesn’t reply; he just shoots him a long, deliberate look. Shane grins. “Tomorrow, after lunch. You can meet them.”
The large, low wing of the stables runs along the east side of the great yard where the gladiators rehearse. The smell of horse and straw is powerful, especially in the heat of the summer sun, but Shane does not mind it so much.
Shane passes stall after stall where pegasi doze or eat or defecate or whatever else pegasi do in their free time. They have room for two dozen pegasi here, although not all the stalls are now filled. They’re beautiful creatures — gleaming coats that ripple, and braided mains, and huge folded wings that need near-constant grooming.
His favourite pegasus, Bronte, looks up as he approaches. There is a window at the end of the hall that lets in the hot sun, where she pokes out her head and nickers at him. It is that bright sunlight that sparkles on her gleaming snowy coat, catches on their brilliant oak-coloured forelocks and manes. They do not actually shine like the blessed pegasi that pull Heloi’s chariot, but they get pretty damn close in Shane’s eyes.
Bronte’s great velvet nose presses against his hand and nickers a greeting, then presses her massive, regal head against his cheek in pleasure. She is a massive creature, dwarfing him even more so than regular horses. Still, she is gentle. She would pull his chariot so marvelously.
Shane fills her feedbag with oats and then fishes an apple from the stack and holds it for her. She takes it very gently with clever lips.
“Does it have name?” asks a voice from behind him. Shane draws his hand back and finds Ilya standing a few yards away, regarding Shane with wary calm, like a rabbit prepared to flee should the predator come too near. Like he’s expecting Shane to chase him away.
Shane straightens, one hand still resting against Bronte’s warm neck.
“Yeah,” he says easily. “Bronte.” The pegasus flicks an ear toward Ilya, assessing. Her wings rustle, a low, papery sound that fills the stall for a moment before she settles again. Shane scratches the soft hollow just behind her jaw, where she likes it best.
“She doesn’t bite,” he adds, glancing over his shoulder. “Unless you’re rude.”
Ilya’s gaze tracks the movement of Bronte’s wings with open fascination he doesn’t quite bother to hide. Up close, the wary stillness remains, but curiosity is winning ground.
“She’s… enormous,” he says, as if that requires commentary.
“Yeah,” Shane agrees fondly. “She knows.” Bronte lifts her head, apple finished, and snorts like she’s been complimented.
Ilya edges a fraction closer, stopping just outside the stall. “She lets you touch her.”
Shane shrugs. “Most animals do. I don’t push.”
He fishes another apple from the stack and rolls it once between his palms.
“You can give her this,” he says, holding it out — not to Bronte, but to Ilya. “Flat hand. Let her come to you.”
Ilya hesitates. The rabbit-poised-to-flee look sharpens, instinct overriding curiosity. Then, carefully, he steps forward and takes the apple. Their fingers brush. Shane notices the faint static, the hum under the skin — but he doesn’t comment.
Ilya holds his hand out, palm flat, stiff as a board.
Bronte leans forward, nostrils flaring. Her breath ghosts over Ilya’s knuckles. He freezes.
“She’s not judging you,” Shane murmurs. “She’s just checking.” Bronte takes the apple, gentle as ever, crunches it wetly.
Ilya exhales, surprised, and something unknots in his shoulders. He looks strangely pleased with himself as he pets her, and gets slobber all over his hand.
“…You have shown me a good thing,” he says quietly.
Shane glances at him, then back at Bronte. “This place isn’t exactly a secret,” he says. “And Bronte likes company.”
As if on cue, the pegasus gives a low, contented nicker and leans her massive head toward Ilya again. He doesn’t step away this time, reaching to carefully run his fingers along the side of her jaw, careful to choreograph his motions. It is far softer than Shane had seen from him before. And that's that.