𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐑, luke castellan

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

It was a beautiful Friday August morning. 

Just like every day, Keira found herself in the sword-fighting arena with Luke, in their usual training session. They were practicing defense, which was the most challenging for Luke, and despite making progress, there was still a long way to go.

"For Zeus' sake, focus," Keira said after disarming him for the fourth time that morning.

"I'm tired," Luke excused himself. "Can we take a short break?"

"Monsters don't wait for breaks, kiddo."

"Why do you always talk like I've never faced a monster? I lived on the streets for years, while you—"

He stopped, truthfully knowing nothing about the girl's life before she arrived at the camp. Once again, he was baffled by the mystery that surrounded her. Keira looked at him with a hint of amusement, noticing that he didn't know exactly what to say, so she encouraged him to continue.

"Me what?" she said, with a smile on her face, while uncapping her water bottle.

Luke copied her, partly because the training had made him thirsty and partly to buy time to think of something to say. Keira spared him the trouble.

"I was thinking," she slowly let out, "that I want you on my Capture the Flag team this afternoon."

He looked at her incredulously, frowning.

"Are you kidding me, aren't you?" he asked after a few seconds.

"Oh, kiddo, I wouldn't dare," she teased. "But if you want to stay at Fred's team, I won't stop you."

Luke honestly didn't understand the reason behind the invitation, and apparently, Keira knew this because she looked at him with an amused smile. During training sessions, she challenged him and corrected his mistakes with arrogance. In addition to that, her competitive spirit wouldn't let her choose a camper with just a few weeks in the camp who clearly didn't have much experience in the game. Why did she want him on her team now? Surely, there couldn't be a reason, and she had probably only suggested it to put him in this exact situation: him, wordless, wondering what was going through that completely unpredictable mind of hers. Fuck her and her mind games.

But, on the other hand, the truth was that Luke and Hermes' cabin had played only on Fred's team until then. Fred, the head counselor of the Ares cabin, was particularly bad at choosing strategies, so Luke didn't mind trying his luck on another team.

"Sure, I'm in. Your team, your desperate invitation," Luke said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, emphasizing the word "invitation" to imply that she was the one who had asked him.

"Great, kiddo," she said, still smirking. It bothered Luke tremendously that her mocking expression hadn't changed after his attempt at banter. Clearly, he couldn't match her in the realm of irony. "You gonna chill all morning, or should we hit the striking practice?" she urged, heading back to the center of the arena.

＊＊＊

The afternoon had finally arrived, and both teams were gearing up for the showdown. The Red team, consisting of children of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, and Hermes, took their position in the western part of the forest. Meanwhile, the Blue team, made up of offspring of Demeter, Aphrodite, Ares, and Hephaestus, occupied the eastern side.

Keira gathered her followers to outline the strategy: the flag would be hidden near the Ant Hill, with Luke and Sonia from the Apollo cabin assigned as guardians. Jon and two Apollo campers were tasked with creating a distraction to the north, allowing Keira, along with a Dionysus camper and another from the Athena cabin, to infiltrate enemy territory and discover the location of the opposing team's flag. The rest of the team would patrol the area and give warnings if they spotted anything suspicious.