Chapter 7: Hunters Arrive
{20 days later}
{Camp Half-Blood, August 6th 1996}
The days went on by, we all trained, learnt Greek and mythos. As I was drawing my bow I slowly carefully, the string putting pressure onto my fingers and my shoulder I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. The arrow flew quickly and punctured the center of the range target.
"10 to 10, Clark, it seems you can't beat me anymore and this will end in a tie, huh." I said with a conniving smirk.
"Don't be so sure, Ozzy." Clark drew a new arrow and started fiddling with the fletching, he then went behind me and said "Watch this."
He let the arrow fly and instead of going straight and hitting me the arrow started to curve in a way I didn't think was possible, the arrow continued its trajectory and finally hit one of the targets.
After the sudden thump of the arrow Clark said with laughter in his voice "While you lose a lot of power doing that, it does give points for style."
He approached me and placed his hand on my head, which I didn't notice still fascinated by his skill with the bow, since while that move wasn't useful in an actual fight against a monster because of the loss of power the sheer mastery to be able to do so was incredible.
While still in awe of Clark's technique a sudden noise interrupted all activities around camp, a horn. It seems someone had come to the camp and if the loudness of the horn was any indication they were really important. Clark, me and the rest of the Apollo kids started going back to the cabins following the protocol we were given.
As all demigods from all cabins started gathering, I saw a group of shadows huddled together behind my dad with bows and daggers strapped to them, they all seemed to be women if their outline and hair suggested anything, and all of them seemed to have an intense orange aura around them, one seemed to be more orange than shadow in fact something I had never 'seen' before.
"Koff, koff, Hello everyone as you can probably see we have a few new guests with us today. Our guests have come because they have begun a hunt quite close to here. So they will be staying with us a week or two." My dad said
After the introduction the group of shadowy guests didn't say anything else and swiftly left to unpack their things in the Artemis cabin. It felt a bit weird having the hunters of Artemis staying with us, but I guess it isn't that out of the ordinary since they did come at least once a decade.
The day went on as normal,I caught a few glimpses of the archers which were the only people who still had orange auras in camp. As evening settled in, I returned to the Big House, my body weary and craving my comfy bed. Weary, I ascended the porch stairs and mumbled, 'Goodnight, Mr. D,' stifling a yawn.
"I ain't Dionysus kiddo. Though I can see how you could make that mistake." A lovely somewhat young voice said.
Reacting on instinct I quickly put my hands up and dashed at the owner of the voice throwing a punch with my fastest speed, but it flew straight through. I stayed alert opening my ears trying to listen to wherever the owner of the voice was since I couldn't see it.
"You are pretty fast for a 5 year old, but you really shouldn't attack someone who tutored your father." The feminine voice said.
I lowered my fists and almost hit my head with my palm at being so dumb and not figuring out that this person was, not being able to see it, the hunters arriving today it was obviously, Artemis, but I still had one question.
"What are you doing here, Artemis, shouldn't you be with your hunters? Just wondering." I questioned.
"My hunters can defend themselves if necessary and I like the quietness of the Big House more." Artemis replied, I guess that makes sense I thought.
"Artemis, I have a few more questions?" I said while scratching the back of my head. "Lay them on me kid." She replied, "Well, my first question would probably be what was dad like when he was younger?" I asked a little nervously.
"Your dad, huh, Chiron was exemplary if anything else, though I would say that Apollo taught him more than me, we both could see he would be great when he was older and he obviously was. I mainly tutored him in archery and while he is now praised for being one of the best archers in history you should have seen him when he first started, his hand coordination was awful and he never knew when to release the arrow." Artemis said with a slight laugh in her voice.
"Really was there anything else he was bad at?" I asked excitedly wanting to get more dirt of when dad wasn't as good as he was.
"Well nothing truly came easily to him, he just practiced a lot and had some talent in a lot of different fields, if I could describe him he was first a jack of all trades and then a master of all." Artemis said with some reminiscence in her voice.
We both continued talking a lot more, mainly about my dad's younger days and his awkward phases, I finally bid goodbye to Artemis and went to sleep.