my sandcastle is b-e-a-u-tiful ( charlie )

[*nike*]

The last time that the Camp had been this grumpy and out-of-whack was right before the last war with the Titans. Nike didn’t take that as a good sign, but currently, as she saw it, that wasn’t really her problem to worry about. Personally she liked most of the Olympians, and she didn’t have much of a problem with the ones that she wasn’t all buddy-buddy with (…except Aphrodite, that stuck-up brat pissed her off). But the thing was, just because she was friends with them didn’t mean she had to keep an eye on things all the time for them. Which was why she wasn’t going to mention anything about the gloomy, dreary attitude wafting around the demidork shelter camp. Instead she was going to ignore it as best she could, because she was feeling careless enough right now to not give a damn.

So with an Adidas sports bag in one hand (clearly she felt no loyalty to the Nike sports brand even though it was named after her), and her flip-flops in the other hand, she was headed down towards the lake. She had almost opted to go to the Mediterranean Sea instead, but she wasn’t feeling very favorable to the salty, fishy smell at the moment, plus this was closer (not that that really mattered to her of course). And this lake was completely devoid of people too, which was just perfect for her. Nike didn’t really want to have to deal with any of those grumps right now, not when her mood was in high, chipper spirits.

Loosening the Adidas bag, the goddess overturned it causing a collection of colorful plastics to fall to the sandy ground. If anyone cared to look closer, it was obvious what the colorful objects were. Instruments developed for the purpose of constructing aesthetically pleasing buildings composed of sand, or at least that was how Athena might have described them. To the more simple-minded people, they were just sandcastle building toys. Sifting through the bulk of them, Nike picked out one or two that she wanted specifically to build the base with.

Throwing her hair back into a ponytail to get it out of her face, the childish goddess set to work on building her soon-to-be-lovely sandcastle. It only took fifteen minutes to build a sturdy base that met her high sandcastle expectations. Which may have seemed like a long time to actual little kids, but working with Athena the Fun-sucking Perfectionist for centuries had increased Nike's levels of expectations on a lot of things. And she really hated that...she would have given almost anything to get back her slacker, unobservant, procrastinating self.

"My sandcastle is a bronze sandcastle, a big sandcastle, a b-e-a-u-tiful sandcastle…” Nike sang to herself, wearing a silly grin on her face as she made up the lyrics to her own little song. She was no songwriter, but singing about a sandcastle seemed fitting and entertaining at the time (and she had to figure her song was better than some of those obnoxious ones that actually got professionally released).

tag ;; charlie
word count ;; 536
notes ;; ...yea...nike sings songs about sandcastles, got a problem with that? o.o

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[charlie]

Charlie was, well, it was hard to explain. He always called it ‘in between’. He wasn’t hyper, he wasn’t sad, he wasn’t feeling particularly shy. He was in between. Which in itself was a rather good thing. After all, depressed Charlie was rather depressing, hyper Charlie got on people’s nerves, and shy Charlie tended to lead quickly into depressed Charlie. So in between Charlie was a very good Charlie really. Plus it tended to lead to less magical accidents. He was getting better at containing those though.

At this point in time he was taking a large rock for a walk, for lack of something else to do. He’d somehow managed to get his wrist sprained at archery of all things and was excused from the remainder of the lesson. So now he was levitating a rock at least twice the size of his head that he’d found in the woods ahead of him as he walked. After all, even with a wrapped-up wrist he could still do magic. That was when something else caught his attention. Luckily he was pretty good at this spell or his rock would have gone for a dive. He stared over at the lake, where someone had a massive amount of colorful things next to them and seemed up to something.

He couldn’t deny his curiosity, so he wandered over, rock and all. Letting the rock down gently when he was a little closer, he walked until he was a few yards from her. His song made it apparent what she was doing, and also raised his interest. “I’ve never heard that song before. And how can your sandcastle be bronze if it’s made of sand? Bronze is a metal.” And last time he checked… sand was not metal. Then again, he wasn’t really sure what sand was. It was just… sand. Did that even count?

Word Count: 312… wow, that’s sad.
Tag: NIKE

[*nike*]

At the sight of a dark shadowy outline on the sandy beach, Nike glanced up from her building project. She had half a mind to tell whoever was about to bother her to just turn the hell around and take a hike, because she didn’t want anyone raining on her castle-making parade. But she was very rarely that rude, especially not to really little kids. Fifteen and up was when she deemed it acceptable to be a little grumpy towards the demigods, but any age below that and yelling or being mean was off-limits. Because those little kids, they cried like no other when they felt insulted or scared, and plus, how could anyone be mean to cute little kids (and yes she realized that the other gods could be mean to them without a second thought, but it was different for her)?

“Oh it’s not an actual song, that was all me.” Nike smiled over at him as she evened out a layer of sand on the base of her castle. It wasn’t very complex or even very original, but she still moderately proud of her little jingle. If only because she was excited that she was actually in a good enough mood to even make up a little song. Brushing off her jeans, she rose to her feet, wiggling her bare tones in the warm, soft sand. Kneeling down she had just about reached his height, but now standing, she appeared considerably taller than him (not surprising since he was, what, ten?).

"Well, um, the sand is kind of sparkly and I guess if you look at it just right then it sort of looks bronze?" The goddess explained, though honestly she wasn't even sure if her explanation made sense. Well, wait, yes it did. Or at least it did a little to her. She found that if she tilted her head just right, and the sun caught the sand right, then some flecks looked bronze(ish). "Well okay fine, I was just looking for words starting with 'B'..and for colors I could only think bronze or black or brown. And it's more bronze than black or brown, I'd say." She tilted her head to the left as she examined her little start to a castle. "Don't you think?" Nike glanced to her right, looking down at the little kid for some input.

Now most people wouldn't care about a kid's opinion, but Nike had come to find that sometimes they could be quite helpful. Kids looked at the world a different way than adults and sometimes that was a good thing. Plus it seemed that kids liked it when someone actually listened to them and cared about what they said instead of just waving it off like it was nothing. And well Nike was all for making anyone a little bit happy in these less-than-cheerful times at Camp.

tag ;; charlie
word count ;; 495

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[charlie]

Charlie watched her smooth the sand castle base with a slight smile. “I like it,” he said, referring to her song. “Do you always sing when you make sandcastles? It seems like fun. Can I play?” He took a step back as she stood up and giggled when he noticed her wiggling her toes. It did look like fun to do that too and he was half tempted to take his shoes off so he could follow her example. When she started talking about sparkly sand, he tilted his head a little and looked at the sand. Now that she mentioned it… “Hmm, maybe your right. Bronze or maybe a little gold. Oh, but that piece looks silver there.” He looked back up at her “Yeah, definitely not brown or black. Well, bits of it look brownish, but definitely not black.”

That was when the idea struck him. “Wait a minute! I know!” He knelt down and scooped up a big handful of sand plenty far from Nike’s creation so as not to disturb it, then straightened up. This was one thing he was good at and he knew it. So there were a lot more little pieces this time. It was still a simple spell. He concentrated on the pile and, as though liquid was running over it, every piece turned into a bright, glittering little bronze speck. He grinned up at the woman. “There! Bronze! It’s not the metal, but it still looks like it.” Now the woman’s song made perfect sense!

He grinned and threw the glittering bronze sand into the air. Possibly not his best idea as it got everywhere, including on him, but it was still fun. Like shiny rain minus getting wet! As it fell, he released the spell and the pieces all individually shifted back to their original color. He spat out a couple grains of sand that made it into his widely-smiling mouth, but it didn’t stop him from smiling anyway. He turned his attention back to the woman. “I’m Charlie. What’s your name? Can I build a sand castle too?” Unrelated questions? Of course. Did it matter to an energetic young son of Hecate? Of course not. That was half the fun! In his head it made sense. Then again, so had the strange mixture of Coca-cola and Sprite he had asked for at lunch.

Word Count: 397
Tag: Nike!! ^-^
Note: Now I actually kind of want to try that Coke and Spite mix…
Song: Aunt Marge’s Waltz from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban