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Post by Ella Arima on Mar 4, 2010 15:29:20 GMT -5
It was break time at the camp, and in the arena there were a lot of arrows misfired quite a good distance away from where the targets are lined up, stuck in various trees and in the grass yards away. Yet Ella strung up another arrow onto the new bronze bow she'd made (admittedly with a fair amount of help) in Arts and Crafts and brought it up as if to fire another one. She hadn't hit the targets at all yet, but she was getting the hang of it! It'd felt nice when she'd dreamed last night of her hitting the center of the target, so Ella knew it'd feel good when she really did hit it! Closing an eye, she bit her lip as she pulled the string of the bow and the arrow back, tried to aim the arrow's point for the target...and let go! The arrow was flung at the target...only to hit the frame of it at an angle, which knocks it away so that it was flung into a tree to the right of the end target.
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Post by Cynthia Wood on Mar 5, 2010 23:57:27 GMT -5
It wasn’t that Cynthia hated archery. Honestly, she had gotten quite a lot of practice at hating things by now, and she generally knew what she did or did not hate. And she supposed it went with the territory of being a daughter of Ares that she needed to use all sorts of weapons. It was difficult to take any of his children seriously if they, say, couldn’t hold a mace up long enough to swing it around or had to use two hands on a rapier or smallsword. But Cynthia knew that there was something unholy about replacing all the dummies in the arena with... archery targets.
She shuddered slightly. Cynthia always avoided the arena during archery lessons, and they had ended less than half an hour before. She couldn’t expect all the material to suddenly disappear just because it was sacrilegious to have people aiming at little colored circles instead of humanoid cloth bags. It sent the wrong message to children. Targets created the belief that children should oppress and abuse circles, instead of focusing on hurting their fellow man.
She scanned the alien materials that cluttered up her arena, her scornful gaze landing on a little girl who was grasping an unsteady bow. ”That was very unimpressive,” Cynthia remarked loudly. It did well for people to keep a realistic hold on the situation if they wanted to improve. Cynthia didn’t believe she was bad with children. She thought that she was excellent with children, but they just never wanted to hear the blunt truths that she would offer.
Cynthia took a small step back, examining the girl. She couldn’t fight the need to tell people what they were doing wrong when it came to handling weapons. Even with a bow and arrow, about which Cynthia knew as little as most Aphrodite campers knew about anything, she still had to give it a shot. ”Sure you don’t want just a lighter bow? Don’t most people get started out on wooden bows and whatnot?” Cynthia had even told Chiron that she started swordfighting students out on wooden swords, although the only wooden sword that she had in her possession was specifically splintered so that she could passively aggressively punish annoying pupils.
Some nymphs were going to be horribly annoyed when they figured out a little girl had been “accidentally” shooting arrows into their trees. ”Why don’t we just do this instead?” Cynthia produced a knife from one of Joe’s Marc Jacobs tote bags, which now looked like it had been in a slasher film. A better teacher might have started the first class by warning students that putting a dagger without any sort of case inside a bag may have bad ramifications, but Cynthia assumed she was man enough to handle them. ”Hold fire or... you know, whatever you guys do. That may only be guns.” Cynthia held up a hand to stop Ella, darting quickly up to the target. She scratched an eyes clumsily on the outer circle, with a nose on the bullseye, and a mouth underneath. ”Okay, see this face? Aim for the nose. When it’s hand-on-hand fighting you can just try to push it back into the skull, but we won’t go that in depth yet.” Cynthia stepped out of the way. ”Go on. Do it.”
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Post by Ella Arima on Mar 6, 2010 0:18:20 GMT -5
Ella was surprised by the voice behind her, and turned around, startled, to look at the dark-haired teenager that was Cynthia.
"A-ah, um...well, I'm not very good yet...but I made this bow myself, so I thought it'd be good if I could use it! So I could get used to using it..."
At the drawing of the face on the target, though, the little girl grew visibly uncomfortable. Why would it help to hit something in the face? She'd never want to hit a person, especially not with something sharp like an arrow!
"...P-push it back in the skull? B-but...we're not supposed to be shooting at anybody's faces, are we? This is just for self-defense, right?"
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Post by Cynthia Wood on Mar 6, 2010 0:45:55 GMT -5
Cynthia grinned. ”It’s usually standard procedure to get used to using a bow at all, and then you get used to using your own bow afterwards, but go ahead. It’ll probably help you build up muscle anyway to carry that thing around.” It wasn’t hard to make Cynthia change her mind. She was stubborn, but she really did tend to avoid all confrontation that she didn’t initiate herself. Cyn wasn’t afraid of little Ella, but if she went around lording over the younger campers, they would all grow up to be quivering bundles of fear, and that wouldn’t help anyone in the war. She always thought it was the best idea to back off when a coward decided to stand up for herself. It put the right message in their heads: if you’re brave and confrontational, you’ll get everything you want in life. Who said Cynthia didn’t care about children?
She widened her eyes. ”Oh! No! You don’t want to go around shooting people in the face!” Cynthia looked absolutely horrified, staring at Ella as if she couldn’t understand why anyone would suggest such a thing. It was such a clichéd dramatic build-up, that it was no surprise Cynthia didn’t stop right there. ”... The face is too hard and bony for arrows. You want to aim for the stomach, or preferably, the throat. Save the face for close-contact fighting.”
To tell the truth, Cynthia never could understand why people who insisted that they only learned to fight for self-defense were more unwilling than people like, well, Cynthia, to attack something with a face. Chances were that whatever you were defending yourself against would have a face. ”You know what they say. Best defense is always a strong offense, right? You’ll never even need to defend yourself if everything is too scared to attack you- or better yet, if there’s nothing around to attack you.” It was a theory that Cynthia believed would work unbelievably well if she could just manage to pull it off. Why were things so much easier to say than to do?
”I’m Cynthia Wood, Ares Cabin.” She nodded slightly at Ella. ”You’re probably new, right?” Cynthia could have been a master sleuth, being able to notice that Ella was both young and just beginning to learn how to handle a bow. It took a lot to put information like that together.
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Post by Ella Arima on Mar 6, 2010 13:14:55 GMT -5
The little Apollo camper smiled a bit.
"Normally I would, but...I've never really made anything by myself before."
She glanced down at her bow and then back up at Cynthia.
"And my dad used to say that if you can grow to trust something, then you get better with them! He used to like to sail sometimes, so..."
Ella felt immediately better at the thought she wouldn't be shooting anyone in the face...but the idea of shooting anyone in the throat wasn't much better, and her face grew a bit more uncomfortable. Still, it did seem to her like the older girl was trying to help...so she offered politely,
"...I think I like the idea of there being nothing around better. I wouldn't really want to scare anybody..."
At the question, Ella gave a quick nod.
"Yeah! My name's Ella...I'm from the Apollo cabin."
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Post by Cynthia Wood on Mar 6, 2010 20:42:10 GMT -5
She grimaced at Ella’s mention of her cabin. Were all the new campers Apollo’s children? Jesus. It was like he lost one daughter and a billion more sprang up in her place. Cynthia didn’t need to feel guilty just because there were family resemblances among all the Apollo children. And she didn’t feel guilty – definitely not. Ella hadn’t even known who Dani was. Even if there was blame that Cynthia wouldn’t readily accept, there was no way Ella could force it on her.
“By your dad, do you mean Apollo?” Cynthia supposed the question sounded innocent enough, although it was always the kind of thing that new campers hated to hear. Every little kid would prefer to go around thinking they had two fathers (not at all caught up in how that was possible) than to admit they had been raised all their life by a stranger. ”He never seemed like the sailing type...”
Cynthia took it as her job to get campers ready to fight in the war, even though it was a job that no one gave her nor wanted her to have. Other demigods assumed that they should take the blow for their younger siblings, but being an Ares child, Cynthia’s younger siblings had about the size and density of a mountain. She had no fear that the little Ares campers could take care of themselves.
In a mistaken way, Cynthia almost wanted to help Ella and the rest of the camp. She tried to train people so that the Olympians could have a shot. There was no use in protecting younger campers when the Olympians wouldn’t even protect their children, but teaching them how to fight was an even more effective form of protection. Yes, Cynthia wanted to do this by taking away their childhood and replacing it with pure bloodlust, but the motives were just as good. ”When you get to the point where you need to use violence as a last resort, it’s probably going to be too late. Best to always be prepared than to be thrown off by thinking you’ll never have to come to the point of attack.”
She frowned at Ella speculatively. ”Tell you what. I’ll teach you how to use your bow, and I won’t demand that you bring me real human appendages as your homework, as long as you, well, learn how to fight.” It sounded like Cynthia was doing this purely to help Ella, but learning how to fight would really benefit Cynthia and the rest of the camp much more than little Ella. A knife never benefits from being forged. ”You’ll need a teacher eventually, right? And I could help you with other things... like swords and stuff. That’s never Apollo campers’ strong suit. I could fix that.”
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Post by Ella Arima on Mar 7, 2010 0:12:10 GMT -5
Ella realized her mistake at the mention of Apollo and her father, and she rushed to explain herself.
"A-ah, no, I mean...my other dad. My mom's husband. I'd love to meet my real dad someday if I can, but...my dad is still my dad to me...even though he's gone now."
At the offer, the little girl blinked. Though she didn't like the idea of fighting and thought it would just be best to not use force if she had to...she had to admit that Cynthia was probably right, that she should be prepared. If she encountered Cephissus again, for one... Her mouth spread out into a big, innocent smile.
"...Oh...th-thank you! That'd be great! Since I guess you probably know a lot about fighting..."
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Post by Cynthia Wood on Mar 7, 2010 10:03:34 GMT -5
”He’s... gone now?” Cynthia repeated blankly, scrunching her eyebrows together. She was the sort of person who completely missed all uses of euphemisms, whether innuendo or... well, this. ”Do you- Oh. Wait.” Her arms dangled uselessly at her side. Some hidden, normal instinct inside of her was saying that she should probably give Ella a hug right now. But the overpowering, intelligent instinct reminded Cynthia that contact was just as unpleasant for the other person as it was for her. ”Then don’t try to meet Apollo. It’s a lot easier when you don’t have anything to compare the gods to.” Unless maybe it’s an abusive drunk or something like that, Cynthia added in her mind. She definitely didn’t come from a troubled family, living on the upper east side with two parents who wanted each other and half-siblings, but Cynthia was just the kind of person who was willing to forget all about mortal life when she arrived at camp. ”Do you... want a hug or anything?” Please say no. Please say no. Why did Cynthia even make the offer?
Cynthia smiled widely. She loved to teach kids how to fight. It wasn’t just that Cynthia loved to scare them, she really wanted to help the war, and it was fun to help them improve. That was why being demoted from counselor status had actually upset her. And Cynthia couldn’t boss kids around anymore, but that was a more superficial worry. She still did, anyway.
It probably wouldn’t help Ella’s confidence if Cynthia admitted that she had turned down archery challenges because it would hurt her rep to fail. She knew what you were supposed to do. The only problems would arise if Ella asked for a demonstration. ”Great. We’ll start now. You can use a sight until you... well, learn how to hit the target. And afterwards, if you really want, but it won’t make you a better archer.”
She searched the arena. Somewhere among all the random targets, there had to be a box of materials. ”Okay. Yeah. Over there.” Cynthia pointed in the direction of a beaten, scorched, scratched wooden box. ”Go get the thing that looks like a see-through compass an a- you know- a clipy thing.” Cynthia made vague clipping gestures with her hands. Well, she knew what she was doing, even if she didn’t know how to look professional about it.
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