A New Bottle of Sunshine in Town {Open}

[adonia]

Adonia had stopped in front of her cabin. Number seven, the Apollo cabin. The cabin looked beautiful to her. The architecture was incredible. And the outside of it was just specatular, like she noticed when the sun hit it, it looked like gold. Just absolutely breath taking. But now, Adonia was getting really nervous cause she didn’t know who would be in the cabin. Would she have brothers or sisters? Or will she be the only Apollo girl? She didn’t know until she went to open the door. [maroon]Ok, Adonia, go ahead and open the door. Don’t be scared.[/maroon] Adonia chuckled and whispered to herself, [maroon]Like that’s hard to do.[/maroon] She inhaled deeply, trying to get the nerves out of her system, picked up her bags, and opened the door.

Inside the cabin, there was tons of beds. No one was in here, which was good because that gave Adonia a minute to shake the nerves out. She took a couple of steps in and saw that the middle bed looked like it wasn’t being occupied by anyone, so she went and flopped her bags on the bed. Now it was official, she was now a camp member at Camp Half-Blood. [maroon]This will be a fun place to be, that’s for sure.[/maroon] Adonia opened up her bag, she put her clothes in the dresser that was next to her bed. Lots of shorts and cute tee shirts. There was a couple of dresses in there too, just incase there was an event where you had to dress nice. Then she pulled out some jewelry. Mostly earrings, studs and some cute hang down ones. Adonia loved to wear earrings, also she loved to wear bracelets and necklaces. She placed that in the top drawer so she knew that they wouldn’t get lost on the floor or under anyone’s shoe later on. Now, for the next bag was with shoes, her favorite books and also a picture of her and her mother, another one with Adonia and her step-sister, Gracie, then the last photo was a family portrait with her step-father in it also. Adonia sighed and put the pictures on top of the dresser. Sure, she loved her step-father and all, but he sometimes got on Adonia’s nerves. He thought she was too perfect. How could someone be too perfect? But she listened to him talk about it with her mother, saying she was pretty, talented, and too nice, which bothered him. He was boring really. So Adonia didn’t really care for him much.

Adonia threw her bags under her bed and then flopped herself now on the bed. She was tired from the rides of the car and the plane. It had always made her sleepy. But she had talked to Rion on top of the hill when she got there. He was a nice guy to talk to. But right now, she just wanted to go to sleep. So Adonia made herself comfortable, trying to close her eyes. But they weren’t closing, so she grabbed a book from under her bed and began to read.

[Harper Marowski]

All in all, it had been one of Harper's better days.

This morning, she'd beaten one of the other campers at an archery match, and being constantly teased about being the worst archer in her cabin, the moment was filled with sweet victory. The day had only gotten better, with an excellent lunch and then an afternoon at the infirmary where she'd managed to completely heal someone with a broken leg they'd sustained from climbing the rock wall. Harper had always carried a soft spot for people with broken legs, considering as she had managed to break both of hers climbing the dangerous rock wall only a year or two before. Now, she was a little tired but not nearly enough to just collapse once she reached her cabin. There would be a bonfire and dinner later on tonight, and she would much rather eat and go to sleep than just collapse and miss out on what would hopefully be an excellent meal.

However, there would be one more thing to add on to Harper's day that she wasn't entirely aware about. New campers arrived every day - that was a known fact. But a new brother or sister for Harper, that was much rarer. So when Harper walked into the cabin that had been her home for three years and found a new girl lying on one of the beds reading a book, her chocolate brown eyes lit up with joy and excitement.

"You know, most new campers are out looking around," Harper said as she approached her own bunk and tossed her bow and quiver of arrows onto it. She rummaged through her dresser that held her belongings and pulled out her beloved blue notebook that she wrote in every day. She tossed that onto her bed too, rather wanting to talk to her new sister first as opposed to ignoring her and writing. After all, Harper was a cheerful socialite by nature. "But then again, everything around here is pretty hard to take in. I guess you need a bit of normalcy when you first get here. Trust me, you'll grow out of it in about a week."

Harper then just realized that she'd said absolutely nothing about herself. The girl could be terrified for all she knew. Smiling in a friendly manner, she ran a hand through her hair and said, "I'm Harper, by the way. I've been here for three years. Since it looks like we're probably going to be seeing a lot of each other, mind telling me your name too?" Harper maintained her smile throughout her talking, and it was a sincere one of welcoming.

[adonia]

Adonia was getting to a good part in her book, she was reading ‘The Reader’ by Bernhard Schlink. She had read the book about three times, but the book was so interesting. It was about a young boy, 15 years old, who was sick one day, he stopped on the side of the road. Then an older woman, probably in her late 20’s came out and helped him and such. Well then from that day forth, he wanted to see her more and more….. that’s all she is thinking cause she doesn’t want to give away the rest of the book just incase no one has read it.

But then she heard the door open, Adonia put down her book and saw a girl with brown hair and brown eyes walk into the door, holding a bow and arrows. [maroon]She must be my sister![/maroon] Adonia smiled and put down her book. She would have been looking around, but she was tired. Probably have a look around tomorrow, but also tonight when dinner was going to be served. She had heard that her sister’s name was Harper. Adonia thought that was a really pretty name. She sat up in her bed and looked at Harper. [maroon]Well, my name is Adonia Theodosia.[/maroon] She said with a big smile. Adonia was just so happy to have a sister, an actual sister that has the same blood flowing through her, her father’s blood. [maroon]Wow, three years? Must be fun being here for that long. Do you stay here year around or do you go home for school and such?[/maroon] Adonia smiled, but she didn’t mean to pry, she just wanted to get to know her sister.

[Harper Marowski]

The new girl, Harper's new sister, introduced herself as Adonia, and Harper smiled. New campers were always so much fun, but it had been so long since there was a new Apollo camper that she could hardly believe that one was sitting before her right now. Harper climbed onto her bed, and crawled towards her dresser, looking for some fresh clothes so she could change. It had been a long day at the infirmary, and Harper had been tired out and she was pretty sure she smelled after having practiced archery on top of everything else.

"It's great to meet you, Adonia," Harper said sincerely as she pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a purple camisole. She shut the drawer and sat down on her bed. Adonia had asked a rather personal question, and even though they were sisters, Harper still felt a little shy about talking about matters like this with almost complete strangers. But Harper was a very honest person, and so she just said in reply, "I'm mostly here year round. Sometimes I'm not. It just depends. School's never been an issue." She shrugged, trying to make it sound casual and nonchalant. She didn't really want to be asked any more questions about it. But she smiled at the thought of camp being fun. "But I have had a lot of fun. You'll love it here, trust me. Dinner will be in a little while, if you want to come along. There's a bonfire afterwards too, that we sing at. It's a great way to get to know the campers." Harper smiled in a friendly manner.

[adonia]

Adonia smiled when she heard that Harper got to stay all year around at the camp. She wished she could do that, but her mom had made her a promise. If she went to camp, then she had to come home in the fall and go to school. Adonia didn’t want to agree to it, but she knew the only way to at least come to camp was to agree. She didn’t like her school much. ”Prep School always looks good on a college application.” As her mom would always tell her. Not to mention the girls in that school were so snobby and very impolite. But there was a few of them who weren’t like that at all, so she made friends with them. Adonia laid back a little bit, [maroon]You are lucky that you get sometimes stay here year around. It must be really fun, as you described it. Get to learn fighting, which I don’t like very much, but the one thing that I am really eager to learn is the healing.[/maroon] Adonia said with a big smile on her face

Healing was her specialty. Some of the kids back at her old school would mostly sometimes go to her when they were hurt. They all didn’t like the school nurse very well cause she was very mean indeed. One time, a kid pulled a prank on her. The nurse is very much afraid of snakes and rats. Well, the kid somehow got into her locked room and set fake snakes and rats into the cabinets. So when she came in and opened her cabinets, you could swear that you heard her scream throughout the whole town. Adonia did feel bad for the lady. No matter how mean someone is, there should be no reason to make another human-being scared. That was Adonia’s philosophy.

Adonia’s fingers were tapping her legs lightly. Nothing too loud though, she didn’t want to annoy Harper. She didn’t really know what to say next. Meeting someone new was sometimes difficult cause what would you say? Adonia really wanted to ask if she had seen their father, but Adonia didn’t want to ask such a personal question. But she was really curious for sure. The last time she had seen him was when she claimed Adonia. See, Adonia never really believed her mom that she was the daughter of Apollo, until one day, in her bedroom, he came unsuspected, scaring her and when he told her she was his daughter, from that point on, Adonia was a firm believer of all the Greek Mythology stories.

Now the tapping had stopped. Adonia took a deep breath, [maroon]Well one of us will ask it sooner or later.[/maroon] She was afraid, so maybe she should explain before asking. Yeah, lets try that. [maroon]Harper, I know I just only met you and all, and I know this question is going to be a bit personal and I’m sorry if it hurts you, but I just got to know. Have you seen our dad lately?[/maroon] Adonia’s hear was racing now, she was afraid that this question would hurt Harper very much. If she answered, Adonia would owe Harper big time, that’s for sure.

[Harper Marowski]

When Adonia gushed about how much fun it must be, Harper just smiled and shrugged. While it was great, training and all of that here at camp all the time, she still missed her mother greatly. It had been about a year since she had last seen her mother, and about a month since she'd received a letter. Harper sent one almost every week, but since her mother traveled so much it was more often than not that her letter was sent back unopened because her mother had already moved to the next city. "It's all a matter of perspective. It reallly depends on what your life is like outside of camp, if you love it here or not," was the response Harper came up with.

Ever since she had come to camp, Harper had seen campers come and go. Some loved it here - they never left. It was those campers that Harper was most acquainted with, but she was only one of a few Apollo campers who stayed year-round most of the time. With her naturally bubbly and bright personality, she got along great with most of the other kids. But that was just the thing. She only got along with them. She didn't have any really good friends, ones that would keep her rooted here if everything else went wrong. Harper had been here for three years, and even then she still didn't have a solid group of friends. She often got swept up in gossip and camp politics. So many kner who she was, but yet, not many actually knew her.

Seeing a chance to find someone who might be a good friend to Harper, her eyes brightened, even despite the question Adonia had just asked. She sorted out some things on her bed, rearranging a few pictures of her and her mom as she spoke. "It's okay, I honestly don't mind. I've seen our dad a few times. He likes checking up on me and my mom... but since I've come to camp, I've only seen him once." Harper didn't want to mention the main reason he visited her so often was because she was one of his favorites. Or, at least, that's what he'd said. Before, she'd been angry with Apollo. But now... she'd come to accept him. "And besides, if we're sisters, you're supposed to be able to ask anything. Do you have any other questions, or something like that? I don't want you to feel like you can't ask me something about camp." Harper smiled sincerely.

[adonia]

Adonia nodded her head and thought about what she loved outside of home. Well, she knew it was music and healing but not much of fighting because she wasn’t the fighting type. With the swords and the shields, it made it hard for her to carry all of it at once. [maroon]Well, I know I love to play my guitar and piano and also the healing thing, which isn’t a big surprise. But the thing I really want to learn is the bow and arrows. I hate swords and shields and stuff, but the bow and arrow seems to be really easy.[/maroon] Adonia said with a big smile on her face. She thought to herself, how hard could a bow and arrow be? All you have to do is hold it, pull back the arrow and shoot. That should be a piece of cake.

She was a bit sadden that Harper had seen Apollo a couple of times. Adonia has only seen him once and that was about maybe a year ago, only to claim her. But now that she is at camp, maybe she will have a chance to meet Apollo again and maybe he will be proud of her, but she didn’t know. [maroon]At least you got to see him a couple times, for me it was only once. And he hasn’t really came to see my mom. Maybe its because she got married again.[/maroon] Adonia rolled her eyes at the thought of her stepfather.

He was a nice guy and all, but he was such a stick in the mud. Very snobbish, thinking he was better than everyone else, thinking he had the better life than everyone else. And he didn’t like Adonia very much cause he had told her mother that she was too perfect. Like she was always filled with sunshine. Well news flash, she is the daughter of Apollo. But her mother told him that Adonia was a parent of a Greek Mythology god. He would think she was weird or something. So they just kept it a secret and said that her father had left them before her mother while she was pregnant.

Adonia moved to the edge of the bed and let her feet dangle off the side of the bed. She had to stop thinking of the negative and move to the positive. She didn’t want to be a Debbie-Downer that’s for sure. So Adonia slightly shook her head and looked at Harper. [maroon]Sorry. I don’t mean to be down or anything. That aint usually like me unless I talk about Dad or my step-dad.[/maroon] She did a chuckle and looked at Harper with a small smile.

[Harper Marowski]

As Adonia started talking about the things she loved to do, Harper nodded. While she didn't play the guitar or the piano, she was a very gifted singer. Had she been travelling with her mother, she probably would be helping her by singing. But, as it was, life had been getting almost a little too edgy to stay with her mother. Monsters were beginning to catch her trail, and it had initially been her father to tell her mom that Harper needed to go to Camp Half-Blood before anything terrible happened to either of them. Sometimes there was a bit of proof that Apollo really did love her and her mother, and Harper had seen him in more than just dreams - he'd even come to visit her at camp once.

But, she knew that not all sons and daughters of Apollo had the same experience as she did. So Harper kept her mouth shut about that. "Yeah, Dad never really seemed like the type to burst in on someone else with your mother. Too awkward for him, I'd imagine. Trust me, you're lucky. Having him come see your mom is not an experience you want to see," she amended with a joking grin. Granted, she hadn't seen the meeting between her mother and father, and to be honest she didn't really want to. For the longest time, her mother had been so convinced that Harper had another little brother or sister on the way. But, it simply didn't happen and when Harper found out that her mother thought she might be expecting, she didn't even want to think about what had happened between her mother and Apollo.

Harper then grinned Adonia's way when she said that being down wasn't her style. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. So many people I've been dealing with lately are downers all the time. I'm glad you showed up, or I might have gone absolutely insane." Ryan and Gavin, for example. Both of those boys were full of negative energy. For a while, Harper'd been afraid it would rub off on her. "Trust me. Being all doom and gloom isn't my style either, so looks like we're going to get along just fine. Hey, have you eaten yet? Dinner might be starting up soon and I don't want to miss a good meal. And you can learn just how awesome camp can be." Harper's grin grew at the thought, and she winked in her new sister's direction.

[adonia]

Adonia smiled. Maybe she was lucky not to have Apollo there with her mother. It was hard for her when she was growing up. She remembered traveling to Greece for the second time for her job, Adonia was ten years old. Selene would take her to the different temples and the last one they always saw was the temple of Apollo. Seeing the hurt on her mother’s face killed Adonia to see. So ever since her mother got married, it was good to see not the hurt on her mother’s face anymore. But Adonia knew sometimes, that she was still somewhat in love with Apollo, even though she knew that she needed to move on. The only way Adonia could tell that she was somewhat still in love with Apollo cause every other year, they would take that trip to Greece for three days. Just her and Adonia.

Being around people who were all gloomy and depressed kind of makes Adonia feel like she needed to cheer them up, even if they didn’t want to be cheered up. So it was kind of hard for Adonia to feel bad and such. But she was so glad that Harper wasn’t like that at all. That made her smile, [maroon]Oh good! I feel like that too sometimes. People who are downers, kind of ruin your day, you know? They are always sad and when you try to talk to them, they make it sound so depressing and such. But I try at least help them cheer up. About 75% of the time it works, but the other percent, I just give up and leave after an hour.[/maroon] Adonia shrugged and sighed. [maroon]No use of trying anymore if they still are full of doom and gloom right?[/maroon] She said with a small chuckle and a smile.

Adonia knows she hasn’t ate any dinner yet. And from what Harper was saying, the food seemed to be really good. Adonia loves good food, well, so does everyone else I guess. She smiled at her thought and also at Harper when she smiled. Smiles are always so contagious. But, they both were very similar. They both loved to smile and be around happy people. This sisterhood was going to be a great one indeed. [maroon]No, I haven’t ate anything yet. I know that I am really hungry now.[/maroon] Adonia said with a smile. She got up from her bed and stretched her arms in the air. There was definitely some stiffness in her back from sitting for a while. But it was all good when she stretched it, feeling a pop or two. [maroon]So how does the dining area work? Can we sit anywhere we want?[/maroon] Cause if they could sit anywhere they wanted to, then Adonia was thinking of maybe sitting next to the kid she met earlier, Rion. He seemed like a nice guy and wanted to talk to him more.

[Harper Marowski]

Gods damn it all. As soon as Harper had thought of Gavin, she couldn't get the image of him out of her head. And as Adonia spoke of always wanting to help those people, those strange feelings she felt for Gavin popped up again. She wanted to help him so much - make him see that not all was horrible in the world and things like that. She nodded in response to Adonia's comment, but there was something about what she said that Harper didn't entirely agree with. Although, then again, she'd met Gavin. And she'd been around him long enough to be convinced that he was pretty doom and gloom almost all the time.

"I'm not one to give up that easily," Harper said with a chuckle, fiddling with the bottom of her shirt. She looked back up at her new sister with a sheepish expression. "Not that I'm saying you're a quitter or anything like that, it's just... Lately I've been thinking about keeping on trying to make those people less doom and gloom, you know?

And the thought of dinner made Harper's stomach grumble, and she patted her stomach accordingly. Her chocolate brown eyes were alight with cheerfulness just at the thought of filling her empty belly with the delicious food she knew came from Camp Half-Blood. When Adonia said that she was indeed hungry, Harper instantly got up from her bed and a grin lit up her entire face. "Thank the gods. I was going to walk with somebody else to dinner, but they didn't show up and I think I would much rather walk with you anyway. It's nice to have a girl to talk to every once in a while." The smile that replaced the grin was completely genuine, and Harper listened to Adonia's question with an intent expression.

"You can't sit wherever you want, exactly," she explained with a small shrug, the smile remaining on her face. "You have to sit at tables according to who your god parent is. All of Apollo's children, like you and I, sit together. You can sit wherever at that specific table, but you have to sit with us. You'll fit in perfectly, I can tell." Harper was honestly glad to have another sister, because it meant that she could have another friend. And lately, good and happy friends were becoming harder and harder to find. She seemed to draw negative energy to herself, and Adonia was definitely a breath of fresh air. "So you could sit next to me if you want. But feel free to mingle with some of our other siblings, because you'll see them around a lot."

[adonia]

With a shake of her head, Adonia understood what Harper had said about her not giving up lately on the doom and gloom. And Adonia knew that Harper wasn’t calling her a quitter at all. It just seemed like that if after a period of time, they still feel like a doom and gloom kind of case, then Adonia would have felt she had made no progress in them getting better at all, that’s it. But Harper, she seemed like the girl who would hardly give up, but Adonia didn’t know her all that well yet. But it was nice talking to her right now, she was such a nice girl, glad to be called her sister for sure.

Now thinking of it, Adonia was getting hungry as they were talking about dinner. Wondering if there was going to be good food, not like the ones where you saw on TV at the schools and the other camps where the food looked really runny or smelled so awful, it just made you want to upchuck that’s for sure. But Adonia didn’t know till she got the hall and ate dinner. Adonia smiled when she said she would rather walk with her. It made Adonia feel accepted in this new life at camp.

Listening to Harper’s answer about sitting with only their Apollo cabin, that made Adonia feel a bit down, but also pretty good cause she could sit and talk with her family and get to know them since during the day, everyone was doing their own thing around camp and such. Adonia nodded and smiled, [maroon]Yeah, I will probably sit next to you since I haven’t really met them all yet. So maybe you could introduce them to me. I like to socialize, but meeting more family is kind of overwhelming to me is all.[/maroon] Adonia said with a smile and taking a deep breath. Meeting new family was overwhelming to her because it was her brothers and sisters she would be meeting for the first time ever.