(Anemoi Cabin) Per Chance [Erik, Blake, Annabeth]

[nathan]

It was about an hour before dinner time and the Anemi cabin was, more or less, in chaos. Well, at least part of it was; a full half would have been if Zack hadn't been off with his newest friend (gods new he seemed to be gaining them fast enough), so the job of making everything entirely crazy was left to Nathan, the second oldest Aileron brother and son of the South Wind, Notos. It was a job he rather enjoyed and certainly excelled at.

His current method of attack at the task was simple: stand on his bed, a pencil in his hand as a prop microphone, and sing one of his favorite songs from his absolute favorite music artists, Weird Al Yankovic, at the top of his voice. It wasn't the most flattering of songs. Then again, if it was, Nathan wouldn’t be singing it. That just wouldn’t be right. He finished shouting the chorus and, just when there seemed hope of quiet, broke into the instrument solo on an overly-dramatic air guitar, complete with high-volume sound effects of the worst kind. Taking a leap off his bed and stumbling a bit as he tried to stick the landing, he righted himself into what he deemed as a worthy pose and sang the last note before once more going back into the lyrics.

[erik]

Erik had been in a perfectly good mood, especially after archery lessons. There was nothing he loved more than archery. Okay, so maybe the pegasi were really cool too. And both of those made for a pretty close tie with just about anything that could fly. That was the thinking of the average Aileron for you, after all. But that was beside the point. He had been in a great mood…until about five minutes ago. Because five minutes ago was when Nathan, his annoying younger brother, had decided it was too quiet. When Nathan decided it was too quiet, all possibilities of ‘quiet’ had a way of vanishing completely. Along with Erik’s patience.

He got up from his bed, his good mood having swiftly turned to anger as it had a way of doing if he wasn’t careful. With one quick movement, he seized at Nathan’s wrist, making to stop his bothersome brother. “Will you can it, you loud-mouthed, over-grown bouncy ball!? I’ve had it up to Olympus with you! I swear I’m going to duct tape your mouth shut if you don’t learn to shut it yourself! You’re fourteen for crying out loud! Act like it!” His glare was more than enough to show he was not going to take any further horseplay from his brother sitting down, and with him in particular that tended to be a bad thing indeed. The way his temper tended to flare unexpectedly, he’d been the first to find that the wind actually responded to him. Take now, for instance…

[blake]

Blake sat on his bed, a book on his lap and several papers set out on the blankets in front of him, each covered in his untidy scrawl. Without even looking up, he reached out a hand and held down the papers as the breeze in the small cabin picked up. Erik’s mood swings could really wreck things if you weren’t right there to stop them. Or didn’t have freaky powers of your own, of course. He let out a long sigh and the breeze died almost immediately. Once he was sure his papers were safe, he brushed his bangs out of his face, not bothering much when they fell right back where they had been, and looked up at his brothers’ spat calmly.“Really now, you two. Nathan, I’m sure there must be something else you can do to get rid of your energy. Gods know we don’t need another food fight at dinner tonight. Erik, just calm down. No need to threaten anyone.”

That having been said, Blake returned his attention to his book. He, unlike Erik and Zack, was not so easily deterred and, unlike Nathan (and Zack as well, to some degree), was not so easily bored or hyperactive either. It was one of the things his brothers usually found so bothersome about him: even despite his ADHD, he was almost always so frustratingly level-headed. It was one of the benefits of being a son of Boreas, North Wind and God of Winter: like during winter, things just didn’t change in a hurry. But when he wasn’t so easy-tempered… well, it was a good time to be far away. Now, however, Blake simply contented himself with reading calmly and pausing every now and again to scratch something down on one of the sheets of paper.

[Annabeth Chase]

Annabeth was heading back to cabin six, the Athena Cabin, to maybe work on a little drafting or reading or the like before dinner, when something quite loud and quite obnoxious stopped her in her tracks. Someone was singing - or at least is vaguely resembled singing - in the cabin just ahead along the ever-growing line. Heaving a sigh, she started toward the cabin; did they have no respect at all for the cabins around them? The gold compass engraving above the door of the cabin gave away its identity as the Anemoi Cabin. It was an odd cabin in its own respect as it actually housed the children of the four separate gods of the winds, among other things: Boreas, Euros, Notos, and Zephyr. And thus far, it had but four inhabitants, a son of each wind, two of which she could see right off the bat through the open doorway.

The singing had stopped abruptly and two of the boys seemed to be engaged in the beginnings of a fight. Or, at least, one seemed to be attempted to rip the younger’s hand off. She could feel the wind picking up as it started to blow out the doorway. This didn’t look good. First off, fighting in general, when it involved angry demigods, was nearly always a mess. Second, when unique powers got involved too, it could be dangerous for a lot more than just the ones fighting. Where was their counselor?

Annabeth hurried towards the door, determined to try and stop things before they got too out of hand. She opened her mouth to say something when, out of nowhere, the wind died and the voice of another person she hadn’t seen from the courtyard spoke calmly like nothing had happened at all. She stopped short halfway up the stairs. Tell me that's not their counselor, she thought to herself. The third voice, he hadn't even seemed to care much that the other two were still trying to rip eachother apart. Or about the whole wind thing. Some of these new campers didn't seem to understand much just how powerful they were. She shook her head slightly and took the last few steps to the door. She knocked on the doorframe out of simple courtesy. "Hey, calm down with the blowing-cabins-apart thing, okay guys? Want to keep structural damage to a minimum if we can." If they wanted to beat each other up, though, it really wasn't her place to tell them off for that. She'd seen her own step-brothers fight enough times to know not to get involved.

[nathan]

Pain. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain! Ooh, when Erik got mad like this it was really, really unpleasant! Insults, he could live with that! But wrenching his hand off… well, he was rather fond of his hand and wanted to keep it, thank you very much! And losing it kind of hurt. Then again, having his mouth duct taped closed didn’t sound too fun either, since he knew at some point one would have to take the duct tape off. “Okay, okay!” Now if only he could break free of his brother’s iron grasp maybe he could make a run for it, escape any duct tape, and fill Erik’s bed with sand to teach him for making his wrist smart so bad! Oh, or duct tape him! Or, or-! But his plotting was cut off by Blake.

He collapsed on his back on the floor dramatically, and for the effect of making it as hard as possible for Erik to hold on to him, and rolled his eyes. “What, you don’t like my singing?” It was rhetorical of course; who didn’t love his singing? Actually, if someone enjoyed his singing, anyone at all, he probably would never sing again. Well, okay, maybe not never. But anyway. Do something else? They’d probably say he could go practice or something boring like that. Though come to think of it, the Ares cabin could to with a fresh coat of big pink hearts all over the exterior. That would be something else to do.

And once again, his plotting was sadly cut short, this time but a newcomer. He lolled his head around so that he could see the door. Oh, for pity’s sake! Was she following him or something? He couldn’t even be annoying in his own cabin? Then again, she was talking about the windy trick thing, and that all Erik (and Blake, a bit, but more Erik). Nathan grinned and looked up at Erik. “Yeah, Erik. Listen to the nice police officer. No destroying buildings anymore, Breezy Boy.”

[erik]

Erik wasn’t hugely fond of it, but he knew he had to listen to Blake. As the oldest, Blake was automatically the Anemoi Cabin counselor. Which meant he was in charge. Well, that is to say, more so than their mom had entrusted him already back home. But still. Nathan was an annoying brat; surely a little duct tape would have done him some good. “Why are you blaming me? I wasn’t the one singing Spice Girls at the top of my lungs.” He heard Nathan make to argue, most likely that he had certainly not been singing some girl band music - which was, of course, why Erik had suggested it - so he twisted his wrist just slightly. Nathan seemed to decide there were better things to worry about than arguing. That wouldn’t be the last of that battle, though, he was sure.

Luckily, or not-so-luckily, he was spared for a later time, but one of the senior counselors coming to see why the wind patterns in this part of the cabin area had changed significantly. And, of course, Nathan took advantage of not being in trouble and pinned it on Erik. Dropping his brother’s now red wrist, he added a little kick in the knee for good measure and muttered, “Stow it, stupid.” He looked up to the girl in the doorway. He recognized her from around camp, one of the Athena campers, though he didn’t know her name. He was horrible with names. Then again, his father was Euros, not only the East Wind but also the Lord of Autumn; things changed fast in Autumn, so perhaps it was understandable he wasn’t so good at remembering constant things like names. "Um, sorry about that."

[blake]

Blake was just fine with ignoring his brothers. That’s what he normally did, really. They fought all the time, and usually it ended with one of them, usually Erik, causing the other, usually Nathan, considerable pain until a temporary truce was reached. It wasn’t the most pacifistic means of settling debates, true, but it worked. Quite well, too, as Nathan usually wasn’t apt to pick any more battles with Erik so long as his wrist or whatever body part it was that particular time was still aching. So it wasn’t that Blake didn’t care, just that this was simply how things usually went. Zack was the one who normally tried to stop the fights, truth be told, as he was the one of the three that could put up with them least. But Zack wasn’t here, so the mini war waged on. Nathan pulled his usual technique of sarcasm-to-gain-favor, but, also as usual, it affected neither Erik not himself. Blake just stayed where he was and held back the urge to roll his eyes. He wondered which of Nathan’s usual retaliations would follow later tonight for this.

Then there was something not-so-usual: another party entered the fray. Blake looked up, casting a side glance at Nathan and Erik as the two finished their scuffle at the unexpected interruption. “Little more respect, you two.” He looked back to the newcomer and, though it didn’t show much on his face, was a bit surprised. Sure, he’d seen the senior Athena camper around, but it was always from a decent distance. Now she was right there in their doorway, he was surprised to find she didn’t look any older than he was. “Sorry about that-… Annabeth, right?” He was pretty sure that was right. He’d heard all about the big battle in Manhattan two years ago against the titan Kronos and her name had come up a lot. If he remembered correctly, it was her and Percy Jackson - another senior camper that, thanks to his shyness, he hadn’t met - from Poseidon Cabin that had faced Kronos themselves right in the Olympian throne room. He could hardly imagine; there was so much he wanted to ask, but he had the feeling from what he’d heard that he’d be wiser to ask Jackson if anybody.

Blake shoved his thoughts aside for another time and, uncharacteristic and unplanned, scooped his papers up and folded them neatly into his book, shifting further to the end of his bed. “Do you want to come in?”

[Annabeth Chase]

Annabeth held back a laugh and shook her head slightly, watching the small battle break up. “It’s alright, just don’t want you to have an unplanned view of the stars tonight, you know?” She turned her attention to the oldest boy, the counselor, and felt horrible that he knew her name right off the bat and she had no idea what his was. She silently cursed herself. With so many campers these days, she had to work really hard to keep up, and it had ended up that the ones who tended to make the most noise tended to stick in her head the best, or ones with understandably noticeable positions, like Percy’s half-sister. But this guy was so quiet all the time, she had no idea anything about him except that he was indeed in this cabin. A name? Forget it. “Yeah… um, sorry, but I don’t really know your name…” Ah, she felt so awful admitting it! And talk about awkward!

Of course, that awkward held nothing to when he out of the blue made room for her right next to him and invited her in. He did know she was with Percy, right? No, she must be overanalyzing things. Yeah, that had to be it. Still it was a little… uncomfortable. “Oh, thanks…” She didn’t want to seem rude, so she stepped inside, but decided against sitting down. Something caught her eye on the shelf behind him: airplane models. It was like being back home in her dad’s study. One in particular though… “Is that a Horten 229? On the shelf behind you, I mean.” She remembered her dad telling her all about the old German plane: it had been one of the first ever stealth aircraft and would have seriously done some damage in WWII and shortly following if the U.S. hadn’t captured it before it had gone into service. She realized how much of a nerd she probably sounded, pointing out random aircraft by name, but then again, she was allowed some leeway on that, given her family (both mortal and immortal), right?