Calling all Demigods! discussion

"Oh, we're somewhat easy to recognize once close-up. Arthur's the tallest, Anthony's shyer than the rest, and I'm the only one who carries a weapon at all times," he added at the end.

"I'll try to remember that," she said, taking a moment to try and memorize it, though it was difficult. Why did their names all have to start with 'A'?

"Is it your bow that you always carry around? I imagine something else would be heavy, unless it could transform."

"Ummm, I have a dagger. Slightly longer, but not very heavy. I just left it at the cabin--needed to practice my archery for a bit. Ironically so," he added.

"Practice is always good. Plus you've got Apollo on your side, so it probably doesn't take much. I, on the other hand," she said, nocking the arrow. Gillian lifted her arms and pointed at the target, narrowing her eyes in focus, and let go.

The arrow flew just inches over the top of the target, embedding itself in the ground. "Need a lot of practice."

"It's not as hard as it looks. You just have to, apart from taking good aim, resist just when you let it go."

"Right."

Gillian plucked another arrow from her quiver and returned to her aiming position. She tried doing what Andrew advised, but let go of string to early. The arrow made a pitiful landing in front of the target.

"It's a matter of practice, too" he added reassuringly. "I'm afraid I'm not a good teacher in the least--maybe my brother Anthony might be better, or not even him. It's just that I'm not good" with teachers, girls, foster parents, gods, nymphs, satyrs centaurs like Chiron, monsters "at teaching."

"Don't sweat it. I'm not either," Gillian said, her grin slightly sheepish. "I can be a bit of a hothead sometimes, and yelling isn't really a good way of getting someone to understand. I learned that the first, and last, day I tried tutoring."

"You tried tutoring? You're that mcuh of an optimist?" he joked lightly, raising he bow and taking an arrow out of his shaft, notching it solemnly.

"I thought it would be fun," she retorted, a bit defensively. Gillian knew that sometimes she could get carried away by her optimism, and got teased about it by her friends and father.

"I was joking," he protested with a smile. "Anyway, you're the daughter of the goddess of victory. How hard could it be to get one more?"

"About that," she began, letting an arrow loose. It just barely hit the edge of the target, but it was a start. "Mom kinda skimped on the victory genes," Gillian said in a low voice; she didn't want to get cursed by her own mother. "I got the speed and some of the strength."

"Not the only," he added before he could stop himself. "I may be an archer, but, I don't know, I'm not poetic, a bad musician to boot," and a thief and a failed ladiesman to top it off.

"C'mon, don't beat yourself up like that." She lowered her bow and gave Andrew a sympathetic sort of look. It must've been hard, she guessed, to get the short end of the stick. "You don't have to be your dad, Andrew. After all, he is a god," she added, mouth twitching in a smile in an attempt of light-heartedness.

"Good point," he admitted, and laughed. "It's just that I get used to comparisons. in a pathetic way."

"I get it. I remember finding out that Nike was my mom, and I was expecting to win at everything when I had. It was really hard to accept that there's always someone better," she admitted with a shrug. "But you learn to get over it."

"Well, you can't expect to win at everything just because of ancestry--if not, I'd probably have, I don't know, somewhere to stay besides camp or something."

"Try telling that to nine year-old me," Gillian said, shooting another arrow. Missed again. She paused before nocking another arrow, Andrew's last comment caught her curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I live at camp. Well, my mother died and the house was taken by the bank. I spent a long time on the road before I came here," he said, at first dismissive then a little quietly.

Gillian nodded. She had been at Camp Half-Blood long enough to know that apologizing and giving her condolences wasn't going to help.

"You and your brothers? I'm impressed you survived on your own that long before coming here."

"Yes, but we had a lot of help. A pegasus, for one," he added with a smile.

"Oh, cool," she said, perking up. Gillian loved pegasi; they were fast creatures that were built to feel the wind in their manes, the way she felt when she ran. "Is it here at camp?"

"Yes, but we had to give him away," he admitted. "And he's in good hands. It's a girl in camp my brother Arthur met."

"What's his name?" she asked. "I'd love to see him. I'm going down to the stables later, anyway, with some people from my cabin."

"Vegas. He's a palomino pegasus who will probably will be the one trying to escape--he's actually claustrophobic, according to a Poseidon cabin guy I met once."

"Aw, cute name," Gillian remarked with a little laugh. "It's so cool how they can communicate with them, the children of Poseidon. The only communication between my pegasus and me is when I get there with a snack, she knows I'm her friend."

Jill shoots an arrow and misses the whole target. "Well, i guess I'm never going to be able to to archery...unless i could find someone to help me..?"

Brendan wrote: "Brendan walks up to Jill and says, "That person is not me, but I would go look for someone from Apollo or Artemis.""

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