Mina whispers into the breeze, eyelids fluttering close as she tries to take in nature through any senses other than sight. The wind blows gently against her petite body and maybe, maybe she would just dissipate into nothingness, alas, it was not meant to be. Dipping her feet into the cold water, Mina feels the hardwood imprinting marks on her legs, a little pain seeping into her system as she does so. And Mina feels a little thankful, somehow Mina knows she desperately needs it to remind herself that she’s still a little sane and this isn’t all a dream.. or Nightmare? Mina doesn’t know which one it is but she now knows the meaning and why people say ignorance is bliss. Maybe allowing herself to sleep just now wasn’t the brightest idea, the reflecting dark sparkling water seems to be taunting her inability to sleep at this moment and she can’t help but feel a little frustrated at how her body have caved into the soft mattresses so easily.

‘Hey, can’t sleep?’

Whipping her head around, Mina is greeted by a grinning girl who had a presumably dyed dirty blonde hair. Maybe it was magic or some that exist in the world, but Mina is pretty sure the girl is illuminating in the midst of the darkness.

‘Oh.. Erm, yeah…. Momo… right? Hirai Momo?’

‘Yup! You can just call me Momo actually. Really sorry about just now, I really wanted to wake you up for dinner just now but you looked like you needed the rest so I…..’

Left me alone on your bed til the night has fallen

‘I had to sort out some duties but I swear I tried to come back as fast as possible. And um, I kind of snuck some food out for you, I’m not sure if you’re hungry but.. It’s food’

Reaching into the pockets of her jacket, Momo pulls out cling-wrapped chicken mayo sandwiches and hands them over to Mina who takes it gratefully. It was the first meal of the entire day after all.

‘Thanks for the food Momo’

‘No problem’

And silence took over once again, not that Mina minded anyways. As Mina takes a bite into the sandwich, a fleeting thought of maybe, just maybe, that the food was good enough to try to pull through this summer.

(Mina later hears from a complaining Dahyun, also a daughter of Apollo, about how Momo had gotten sandwiches for dinner (she remembers the outraged Dahyun asking ‘WHO THE HELL EATS SANDWICHES FOR DINNER’), and had apparently sat through dinner not touching any of them. And to quote Dahyun, Momo was going to rot in hell for sacrificing a slice of sandwiches to a very displeased Apollo.)

…

It’s been 3 days since Mina had cross that pine tree, 3 days where she entered a completely foreign world, 2 days since she entered the Hermes cabin, and 2 days too many. So when Mina wakes up to dishevelled faces and a pungent smell, she prays that her mum (unless her dad was gay), would just take notice of her unimportant soul and claim her already. Mina swears that she’s about to combust and everything about the Hermes cabin is a catalyst to the process of that reaction.

But a certain blonde had made it a lot more bearable, but she didn’t need to know that. Mina is just extremely thankful when the older girl invites her over to the Apollo table during meal times. (Mina knows she gets weird stares and Momo had explained to her that most newcomer stays at the Hermes table and it’s a silent rule that nobody goes to any other table except their own. But it’s alright, since she’s still unclaimed.)

Maybe staying unclaimed is good, Mina thinks, because this means she gets to seat at the Apollo table, and she gets to follow them around for training before the evaluation of her skills tomorrow. Mina is definite that her Dad is not gay, thus, Apollo was definitely not her other dad, which means once Mina is claimed, her schedules wouldn’t be the same as the girl named Hirai Momo, otherwise known as the girl that led her around camp, the girl that introduced her to all the armouries and weapons, and the only girl that made her genuinely (almost) comfortable in this new, fast-paced lifestyle.

…

Mina tosses in her bed for the umpteenth time, falling asleep has never been harder. Falling asleep to the aroma of perfumes has been her entire life. The home lab of her dad's has been where creations of so many smells took place that sometimes gave a headache to Mina, but it was comforting, it was home to her for 17 years of her life. Now she has to call the place that stinks of socks her second home.

This is impossible.

Getting up from her bed, she surveys her half-assed tidied up cabin. It looks so terribly messy she doesn’t understand how people who are actually the children of Hermes are actually and surviving well.

Okay, looking at how the Head counsellor of Hermes cabin, Ye Eun, is, they probably can.

Slipping on her slippers (technically Momo’s old pair), she walks out and towards the camp fire that lies at the heart of the 12 cabins, it will hopefully be able to provide the warmth that she craves so much right now.

As Mina walks closer, she sees this figure sitting on a bench, tending to the fire, flames dangerously close to the face of the figure that surprisingly doesn’t seem to be bothered by the heat.