Splashing Around (Adonia)

[Isaac Winters]

It was a hot day at camp, the sun beating down upon the camp somehow seeming far hotter than usual. It had been a miserable day for some activities, like battle practice or archery. Isaac had spent most of the time in his activities thinking about jumping into the lake to cool off. He'd hardly been able to focus in battle practice, though he blamed that on the fact that all demi-gods had ADHD because of their battle reflexes. About the only thing that had kept him alert was that his sparring partner was from Ares Cabin, and he hadn't been given Isaac many chances to let his mind wander.

Now that he had free time, he could finally get the chance to act on those thoughts. He'd gone back to Cabin Six and changed into his swimsuit and grab a towel, then he'd come down here. He stood on the shore, next to the dock. There he took off his caution orange camp t-shirt, slipped off his shoes - which he'd worn without socks on his way here - and set them down on the grass along with his towel. After that, he turned toward the far end of the dock. Then, with a running start, he launched himself out into the lake. He plunged under, bubbles swirling around him for a moment. Then he started kicking and before too long reached the surface.

He smiled, shaking his head to get his wet bangs out of his eyes. The water temperature was a huge difference to what the rest of the camp felt like. That wasn't really a surprise, but it was nice. He lay back and just floated on the water, enjoying the fact that for the first time today he didn't feel like he was in an oven. "This is nice," he said quietly. "Pity I can't just stay out here."

Word Count: 322

[adonia]

Adonia wanted to go by the lake, maybe read a nice book? Listen to music and sunbathe? Or maybe just sit there and relax… hmm… maybe take a good book and read. Adonia got up out of her bed, she was just taking a nap. These days had seemed so long since it was pretty hot outside. For the past week, Adonia had practiced on nothing but her music. The piano and then the guitar. That was basically her life. Also, in some of the spare time, she would do some healing and watch people do some battle combat. Sooner or later, she would need to actually learn how to use a sword. She tired it one, but she didn’t know that Ryan was in the arena. He helped her a little bit. It was a lot of fun.

Grabbing her book with a beach towel blanket, Adonia made her way to the lake. Walking down, she was thinking about the book she was reading. It was called Awakened by PC Cast and her daughter… Adonia kept kind of forgetting her name, but it was ok. She thought it was pretty cool that a mother and a daughter would write a book series together. Yes, it was a series and Awakened is the eighth book in the installment of the House of Night series. It was such a good series. Vampyres, but not the normal ones people are used to reading. It was vampyres that had to be Marked to be claimed as a vampyre. You start out with a small crescent moon, which is sapphire, in the middle of your forehead. Then you need to go through the Change. Some vamps would die during this Change, but some would go through it within three to four years.

Arriving to the lake, Adonia laid down her towel and took a seat. The sun was a little warm for her, she was wondering now if she would have had rather gone swimming. Oh well. Then, she heard a noise from the lake. Looking around, she had seen a boy in the lake. It was Isaac, a son of Athena. Xavier’s half-brother… some days, Adonia missed Xavier, but she knew that she would need to get over him. He left. There nothing she could do about it. Xavier had introduced Adonia to Isaac before, but she had never really talked to Isaac. Getting up, Adonia put down the book. ”How’s the water?” She asked with a smile.

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[Isaac Winters]

Isaac had closed his eyes against he bright sunlight, just floating and letting the time drift by. That was when he heard someone talk, asking him how the water was. He opened his eyes and righted himself, which of course meant that he now needed to tread water to stay afloat, but that wasn't a huge issue. Glancing around for the source of the voice, he spotted Adonia on the shore. He remembered being introduced to her by Xavier, one of his half-siblings through Athena. Xavier had left since then. Isaac found that sad because it had only been his first year at camp. He'd never had never really gotten a chance to get close to Xavier.

Isaac pushed those thoughts aside, never really enjoying dwelling on could haves and should haves. You couldn't change the past. You just had to learn from it and keep moving forward. "Hi, Adonia," he said, smiling back at her. "The water is great. It's a lot cooler than it was at the arena today."

He paddled back toward the dock some, grabbing onto it to keep himself above the water. "I've been wanting to do this all day, because most of the places around camp feel like the inside of an oven." It was all kind of small talk, but that wasn't a bad thing. Small talk was easy for Isaac. You didn't have to be too open with someone to hold conversations like this. Small talk didn't involved showing someone the dark corners of your past, it didn't require trusting them with anything important. It was nice just to hold a conversation like this. Eventually he might get to know Adonia well enough to trust her and be open with her, but it didn't matter right now that he wasn't at that point.

"What are you up to?" he asked her. He tried to see what she had on the shore with her. He could see a beach blanket and what looked like a book. "Doing some reading?" He couldn't tell what the book was about - if that was actually what it was - from his position. He did like reading though, so he certainly wouldn't mind if she decided to share about the book.

[adonia]

Adonia walked down on the dock. She loved the lake, so peaceful and so nice. It was definitely a great day to go swimming. Hearing Isaac say that its better than the arena, Adonia laughed, ”Anything is better than that arena. Its always hot and sweaty in there. Maybe cause there was a lot of people in there.” Which there usually was. Campers running around everywhere. Some of them fighting dummies and there was some of them that were fighting against each other. Adonia would go the arena and just sit there and watch them all practice. It looked interesting.

As she got to the end of the dock, Adonia took off her shoes and sat down, letting her feet hit the water as she watch Isaac paddle to the dock. ”Well you picked the perfect place to do that in. she said laughing. There was only really the lake, there was a beach too, but the lake seemed a lot better. That ocean would be a little too cold for Adonia but she didn’t know how the other campers felt about it at all. She swirled her feet around as she heard Isaac ask about what she was up to and then about the reading.

Adonia looked back and saw her towel and book, then looked back to Isaac nodding her head, ”Yeah, thought I could read instead of studying the healing and then take a little break from the music stuff. With a shrug added into it, ”Just something different I guess.” Saying with a small smile. Reading was always fun. Gets lost in a imaginary place. But she was having a nice small talk with this son of Athena. ”How is the combat going? Doing good?” Asking Isaac if it wasn’t really too personal or such.

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[Isaac Winters]

Isaac couldn't help agreeing with Adonia. The arena was always hot, and today's temperatures hadn't made it any better. There were always people in there practicing, even during free time. Some people just loved practicing hand-to-hand combat. Isaac didn't mind practicing it, and he certainly wasn't too shabby at it being that Athena was his mom, but he didn't like being in there all the time. Sometimes he'd go in there during free time, but today definitely was not the day for that.

She nodded when he asked her about reading. "Yeah. I guess you practicing healing and music would be like me studying Greek and mythology. I love knowledge, because Athena's my mom, but I can't do it all the time. Sometimes you need to do something different." Variety was the spice of life, as cliché as that sounded. It was a cliché because it was true. You needed to do something different now and then to make life fun. Otherwise it just got boring.

He smiled when she asked if he was doing any good at the combat. "The combat is going well, especially the hand-to-hand stuff. But I get that from my mom, along with being good with strategy, being wise, and all that fun stuff." Archery, on the other hand... "Archery I'm not as good at, but I'm getting better." Besides, he couldn't imagine himself any other way to be honest. Being a child of Athena had always been a part of who he was, even before he'd known he was a demi-god. Admittedly it had it's ups and downs, like how he was overly logical in his thinking sometimes, but he took all that in stride.

"So, what is the book about? That is if you don't mind me asking." He pulled himself up on the dock, careful to try and not get her wet. Water was good, but it got tiring to tread water and talk to someone. As long as he was staying near the dock for a while, he might as well get out.

[adonia]

Changing things up in a life is really good for one’s health, so she thinks. Cause if you think about it, doing the same thing everyday, your life would be basically boring and you wouldn’t really open up your life to new opportunities, to more things you could do. You would be able to never know which hidden talents that await for you out in this big open world.

Archery was something that Adonia didn’t really try. She did once and wasn’t that bad at it… well, Apollo was her father. ”Well that’s great that you are getting better. Maybe once you learn well enough, you can teach me. I haven’t really tried it much myself, which is a shocker, I know.” She said with a giggle, ”Everyone expects you to be just like your godparent. But I don’t think so.” Adonia shrugged her shoulders. Oh well, she knew she was a little different from her family. Isaac of course was smart in the combat stuff, his mother is Athena after all.

Adonia watched Isaac get up, sitting on the dock, she didn’t care if she got wet, it was hot as Hades anyways outside. ”Oh my book? Its called ‘Awakened’. It’s the eighth book in a series I am reading called House of Night series. Its about vampyres, but its not like your normal vampyres. These vamps get Marked with an outline of a blue crescent moon on their foreheads and they must immediately go to their local House of Night to be around Adult Vampyres in order to live. Now, they take classes. Third formers up to their I believe fifth or sixth former year. Right around their last years, they would be Changed into an Adult vampyre where their moon will be filled in with tattoos along their face, basically kind of like what their personality is. But the sad thing is, not all vampyres go through the Change. Some of them will die. But its about a girl name Zoey, who has the affinity of all of the elements; air, water, fire, earth and spirit. Something bad goes to happen at the House of Night and it is up to Zoey and her friend to save them. It is a really good book actually. Adonia totally sounded like a nerd and she was afraid that she had talked a lot, but she really did love her books and Isaac did ask what she was reading.

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[Isaac Winters]

Isaac listened to her talk, and he had to agree with Adonia in one respect. Everyone looked at the traits you'd gotten from your immortal parent like they defined who you were. But there was more to him than the traits he'd gotten from Athena. They were just as much a part of who he was, maybe even more. The kids of any one god or goddess were just as varied a group as comparing a normal group of siblings. They all had their little unique quirks and traits that made them different.

He listened to her talk about her book, and he couldn't help but smile a little. She seemed like she was really enjoying it, and, as nerdy as that might have seemed to some people, Isaac thought it was kind of funny and maybe a little cute. It seemed like people didn't tend to get really excited about books that much at camp. Maybe they thought they'd look nerdy, or maybe they just really didn't like reading. Isaac knew it could be frustrating to try and understand a book around the dyslexia that was because of their brains being wired for ancient Greek. He didn't let it stop him, but some demi-gods probably would.

"Sounds like you're really enjoying it. I'm glad to hear there's someone outside of Athena cabin who actually likes reading despite the whole demi-god dyslexia stuff." He still had a grin on his face that maybe looked a little goofy. "Definitely sounds interesting. Different from some of the other vampire books I've heard of. Then again, it seems like there's no real strict pattern to follow for things like vampires, so everyone tries to find a way to do it that no one has done before." The only time that ever bothered Isaac was when it was a mythological creature that actually existed due to mythology being real. That was when he nitpicked about the things the author had gotten wrong. But with vampires, he had yet to find any of those that actually existed.

[adonia]

Nodding her head, Adonia did like to read. Yes, sometimes her dyslexia did get in the way of it, but hey, there was nothing that was going to stop her from reading a good book. A book was the one way she could lose herself into a story and to picture it as into a movie, making her own characters up to play the roles. Also, reading was really good if she had a hard day either at school or at camp. A getaway place really. Smiling back at Isaac, ”Yes, it is a wonderful book. It is full of drama and jaw dropping moments. Also it makes you want to cry every once in a while.” With every good book, there was usually a death that goes along with it, even some of her favorite characters were killed. Adonia didn’t like that part at all.

Nodding again, every author has something different to write about vampires and different creatures. Heck, they even wrote it differently too. Like regular vampires were spelled vampires, but the one in the series she was writing was spelled, vampyres. So she didn’t really know what was different. Maybe it was because they walked in the sun, it only would bother their eyes. ”Yes, it is really different. I think it would be something you would like, but of course, maybe not since it seems more like a chick book.” She said with a laugh.

Looking out into the lake, it had seemed like the sun got hotter, Adonia looked up, Father, why does the sun have to be so hot today. Adonia thought to herself, then she looked back at Isaac. ”Such a hot day. Ugh. Its horrible.” Looking back at the lake, Adonia decided to do something crazy. She jumped into the water. Clothes, shoes and all. Emerging to the top, she looked at Isaac and laughed, ”Now that is a lot better.” Adonia said with a small laugh and swam with a backstroke.

[/blockquote]

[Isaac Winters]

Issac laughed a little when Adonia said that he might not like the book she was reading because it was sort of a chick book. He certainly could keep that in mind, but he found that often times you had to really form your own opinion about something. The opinions of those around you were not always going to agree, and the only way you could know how you really felt about something was to try it yourself. Admittedly, though, there were some lines you didn't cross. There were some books that were just meant for people of a certain gender because of the way it was written and the view it was written from. Of course, this one didn't sound as blatantly feminine as something like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants did. It might be worth a look, even if his opinion did end up matching Adonia's of it being too girly for him.

Adonia glanced up at the sky, complaining about how hot it was. Then she surprised him by jumping in to the lake completely clothed. She started swimming around, and with a mischievous smile he shouted, "Cannonball!" After which he proceeded to jump into the lake. He probably splashed Adonia with his landing, because he literally had pulled his legs up to his chest and cannonballed into the lake.

When he surfaced again, he shook his head so that his bangs were out of his face. He laughed. "Sometimes I don't know what we'd do at this camp without having a lake," He said. "I mean, it's so hot out today that I really have to wonder why we're the only ones here. You'd think the lake would be crawling with demi-gods wanting to cool off." Then again, the cabins were relatively cool if you covered the windows so that they were completely shaded inside. Some campers would be in their cabins. He knew some of his siblings would be, trying to read or work on plans for buildings. Isaac wouldn't have been able to focus though. If he were in his cabin, his best bet would have been sleeping, and this was much more enjoyable.

[adonia]

Paddeling around, Adonia knew that this was the best idea. Who cares if she had gotten everything wet, it was worth it. Watching Isaac, she smiled. He had done a cannonball into the lake. Sure, he did splash her and then little waves were crashing into her face, but Adonia was all smiles and she was laughing, ”Well, maybe its better that they all didn’t come out at once, otherwise, it would be harder having this conversation.” Smiling to him as she splashed a little bit of water his way. ”Plus, I don’t like to swim around people much. I hate it when it gets too crowded.” Like the other day, Adonia wanted to come out for a little dip… but when she arrived, she swore there was like twenty five kids in the lake. So Adonia turned back and went to the cabin, only later coming out towards the end of the day and cooling off.

Floating on her back, Adonia did a backwards stroke around Isaac. ”Look, Im a whale.” Collecting some of the water in her mouth, Adonia spit it in the air. Sure, it was kind of gross putting the water in her mouth, but hey, she wanted to have fun and they were already swimming in it. Giggling a little bit, Adonia held her breath and swam under the water, putting her hands on her head, acting like a shark now. She was acting such like a little kid at the moment, but the water was really nice… maybe the heat got to her head and it had lingered there a little longer, not fully cooled down by the lake. Emerging again, Adonia whipped her hair to the back of her and smiled to Isaac, ”Let me know if I am acting a little too childish. Then I shall stop.” Saying with a grin and smile, splashing at him again with the water.

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[Isaac Winters]

Adonia had a few points there. Number one, it would have been far too loud to really have a conversation if everyone had decided to go swimming. Number two, it was always less fun to swim in a crowded lake or pool. You didn't have as much personal space. Also, the other people became obstacles when you tried to swim for very long in one direction. This was better because of that, because it was just the two of them. Besides which, if there had been more people here they probably would have just spent time with the people they already knew instead of getting to know each other.

"Yeah, too many people would have made this less enjoyable. I suppose I should enjoy this time while it lasts." Who knew how long it would be until someone else joined them. Adonia started goofing around, first swimming on her back and spitting water into the air, imitating a whale. Isaac couldn't help laughing at it, as childish as it was. It was fun to just goof off and forget for a while that sometimes their life was a lot more serious. Certainly it had been during the war with the Titans. Isaac could have never felt this free and happy during the battle of Manhattan. It was good to enjoy the good times while you had them, because who knew when things would be more serious again.

Next Adonia dove under and put her hands on her head like a shark fin, circling him. Had it been a real shark he might have been scared, but in this case he just laughed. When she finally told him to just let her know if she was being too childish he said, "Nah. Why would you be behaving too childishly? I mean, it's not like we get that much time to have fun. I think we're allowed to be a little childish and squirrelly during the free time we do get." At that gave her a smirk and dove under the water. He stayed there for a moment, letting her possibly wonder what happened to him. Then he grabbed her legs and pulled her under. If she'd thought she was being childish.... well, two could play that game.

[adonia]

Adonia swam more and smiled at Isaac. He was really nice. Why didn’t they talk more? Maybe it was because they were both busy with their lives and such. Watching Isaac go underwater, Adonia swam around… it had been a little bit that he didn’t resurface. Looking around, she wandered where he went to. Suddenly, there was a hand on her ankle and something pulling her down. Taking a deep breath, Adonia was submerged into the water.

Opening her eyes underwater, she had seen that it was Isaac. Paddling up, breaking the top of the water, Adonia laughed, ”Hey!” Splashing Isaac with water. He was acting childish too. Thank goodness. She remembered what he had said about having not much time being childish. It was true. They were always doing stuff that was so serious all the time like sword fighting, archery, healing, battle strategies and such… so much things they need to concentrate on and learn. So being able to do this was great.

Adonia thought when Isaac popped up out of the water she was going to push him back down once he got a breath of air of course. She didn’t want him to get water in his lungs. Nasty business. Reminded Adonia what happened when she was nine at the pool. One girl pushed her back under the water… as Adonia was taking a big breath of water and it went right to her lungs. For at least five minutes, she was coughing up water. Not very pretty. Watching Isaac finally pop up out of the water and take a couple of good breaths, Adonia laughed and pushed down on Isaac’s shoulders, sinking him underneath. Hurrying up, Adonia swam underwater so that he wouldn’t find her… Hopes he doesn’t take long to emerge back up. Thinking as she was swimming underwater.