halfbloodhill_logs | HALLOWEEN PARTY

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HALLOWEEN PARTY

Who: The entire camp!
What: Mr. D has moved up his festival of Apokries to coincide with Halloween! It's time to party! Where: All around the camp!
When: Thursday, October 31st
Why: Because, why not?

It was decided earlier in the month that to coincide with the holiday of Halloween, and to give campers a bit of fun after all this nonsense, that Mr. D would be holding his festival of Apokries early! As such the entire camp has been decked out in all sorts of spoooooky decorations.

It's as though a carnival has been set up over night, with music and food all around. There are satyrs and nymphs handing out candy at cabins (smarties for Athena, warheads for Ares, ect.) for any people wanting to trick or treat, and campers running around in costumes.

The ampitheatre has once again become a designated dancing spot, and Apollo might have returned to DJ, the arena miiiight have been transformed into a bit of a Haunted House (with special thanks to Hecate), and Demeter has set up a corn maze for campers to navigate through!

It's time to have some fun!

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[Percy Jackson has been dressed by his girlfriend, it's pretty obvious - he never would've been Aquaman if he'd had any choice in the matter ~~okay maybe he would've been if they'd been able to get a large superhero group together but he still thinks the costume is pretty stupid~~. At least he looks good in orange, and he is carrying the trident, though he didn't bother to dye his hair. Seemed like kind of a lost cause seeing how extreme the color change would have been.]

[But he can be found making the rounds of the cabins - over and over again, for as long as the nymphs, satyrs, and Jehan will let him, because why? Free food. His ability to put away ridiculous quantities of food is semi-legendary at camp, and it's a trait that's only gotten worse since he has the Curse of Achilles to fuel as well. But not only that, it reminds him of when his mom used to work at the candy store and she would bring him back a bagful of "free samples." Even if those were the days with Gabe, memories of his mother are always good.]

Hey, Jackson, nice legs!

[ Natalie yells from where she sits on the stone bench outside the Hecate cabin with a bag of candy in her lap. She's currently popping Skittle after Skittle into her mouth, thankful she went with the literary footie pajamas instead of something that required her to actually suck in her stomach or something. Hey, her house has Milky Way bars so she won't be leaving for some time. ]

Where's your better half?

Nice little-kid outfit, Nat. [Hey, she's not immune from the teasing at all. That's definitely a smirk on his face as he makes his way over to the Hecate cabin to sit (carefully) next to her on the bench. Don't wanna make anything explode, after all.] So what're you supposed to be, a five-year-old James Austin or something?

[Yes, he means Jane Austen. Literature is not Percy's strong suit.]

Normally I'd gracefully accept your comeback but that was the worst lit reference I've ever heard. There were no monsters in Jane Austen. Where the Wild Things Are isn't even in the same genre and I'm totally surprised no one ever read it to you as a kid.

[ She sticks her tongue out at him. ]

Where the Wild Things Are? I thought you were a cow! [...He's serious about that. Percy, one day, you're gonna get smacked.] Where's the- oh, uhh, there's the crown.

[ Oh my gods, Percy, why is she even friends with you. ]

Good job. [ She says flatly, adjusting said crown. ] How have you not been banned from making rounds yet?

[Because when he's not being an idiot he's surprisingly smart and endearing? Not to mention loyal even when he is being an idiot.]

I sneak up at the busy times. [See this, Nat? This is a long string of blue saltwater taffy that he's stuffing in his mouth, while grinning.] They'll probably catch on soon, but until then, I'm saving drachma at the camp store.

[Nico is actually at his cabin by the time Percy makes his second or third round. He's giving a Hershey's special dark chocolate bar an unreadable look while he sits against the door. He glances up when he hears someone approach and can't help a smile of genuine, wicked amusement.]

Aquaman. The most useless superhero. Are you trying to go for irony this year?

Hey, don't diss the fish-powers. I'll have you know Aquaman beat up Cthulu at one point. [It's kind of true. Sort of.] Besides, Annabeth picked it out. She really wanted to do the whole superhero thing, but we should've gotten a bigger group together to do it really big.

And you say I'm going for irony - ghost pumpkin king? Predictable, man.

Name nine more important people he's beaten up and I'll consider him to not be a completely useless hero. He'll just be bumped up to mostly useless.

[He rolls his eyes and tosses Percy the dark chocolate.]

Please. This wasn't even my idea. A nymph and a satyr convinced me. I don't remember their names.

[And he'll catch that chocolate and peg it back at Nico's head.] Ass. He beat up Superman. And Batman.

[Okay now he's sort of making shit up, though he does know Aquaman and Superman have fought in the past. For all he wanted to be into comics, they never really had enough money growing up for him to really dive into it.]

Seriously? You didn't wanna walk around dressed like a skeleton? 'Cause you kind of have a theme going on anyway.

[He just dodges the projectile candy. Since it's a Hershey's chocolate bar, he's not at all sorry to see it go.] Takes one to know one, Percy.

[Nico gives him a Look.]

Just like you have a Little Mermaid theme?

If I've got any kind of theme, it's a blue theme. You're the one who invokes a skeleton theme. Trying to be all big bad and scary, shorty?

[Still, he'll go join Nico sitting on the steps to the door, so he can pull out a few various pieces of candy and start in on them - quickly. He's not quite a messy eater, but it really looks like he should be with as quickly as he can put away food. And yet somehow he stays in really good shape, so unfair.]

So does your dad do anything for today or does he just let us mortals make idiots of ourselves and laugh?

[The moment Percy calls him "shorty" is the moment Nico deems the question and all previous statements as unworthy of comment. He takes another piece of dark chocolate and eats that before answering his second question.]

You say that like he doesn't do that any other day. To answer your question, though, no, not really. It gets a bit busier this time of year because it's a little easier for spirits to find themselves in the mortal world. Or escape. Granted, that's not counting the spirits bound to the mortal plane anyway.

[Live with it, Nico, you're still pretty tiny. He's got half a foot on you or so, though in theory you'll grow some more as you hit that second growth spurt in your late teens.]

[That gets an eyeroll.] Duh, your dad's grumpy as hell most of the time. He has a reason to be, mostly, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. I just meant is this kind of more his time than any other, but I guess not.

[Three more packs of candy disappear in about 1.7 seconds.] So can they get out because they just can, or because people believe they can more than other times of the year?

Halloween wouldn't be his time. It might have been at one point, but definitely not now. Día de Muertos would be it, though.

[Seriously, Percy, where the hell do you put all that food?]

It's a combination of both. All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween, had roots in the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but when all of that combined into one day over the centuries, you got this as a result.

[He gestures to the rest of the campers.]

Belief can do a lot to subtly change the rules. So, today is now kind of like how the Winter and Summer Solstices work, but much more neutral. The dead have a little more sway during this time of the year.

[His stomach connects to Hammerspace, what else.] Día de Muertos, is that Spanish or Mexican? Or both? I can barely keep our stuff straight, I can't remember most non-Greek things.

[Another candy bar is gone, but this time he goes more slowly with it, contemplating something.] You know... maybe that's why the gods don't seem to change. When belief in them died out, they got locked into what the last people who did believe in them thought about them. They've still got us, but maybe we're not enough to give them a boost in one direction or another.

Both. It's also Brazilian.

[Really, the only reason Nico knows is because he likes making that his "business."]

Someone's getting philosophical in his old age.

[He couldn't resist.]

Still, as far as that goes...I think you're right. We're way too few for our beliefs to get very far when it comes to changing them, especially compared to the billions of people who live all over the world. Maybe we can help them change in some ways, but it's hard to change a lake back into a river.

[And that, of course, gets all the candy wrappers thrown at Nico. He is literally pelting the younger demigod with it.]

You know what I mean. You saw it last year - how when I asked for them to take responsibility for their children, most of them didn't want to listen to what I said. Some saw it was for the best, they're all doing it, but they don't really seem to be changing in any other way. Apollo's still doing his stupid haiku and Ares is still a rampaging idiot. And I saw Hermes after we all left the throne room, and he told me the gods weren't great at keeping oaths, even Styx-based ones. He said they'd forget after awhile, just go back to the way things were. That seems... kind of sad.

Percy, you're gonna be the one cleaning this up, I hope you know.

[Nico nods. He remembers quite clearly, but he looks more thoughtful than worried.]

I think that's why heroes like you are born. You create new stories out of the bits and pieces of the old ones. These new, big stories then get immortalized in our history, and echoes of it spread into the mortal's history. It's a slow, subtle shift in a new direction. The gods never forget the great heroes, even after thousands of years pass.

[He shakes his head.]

Of course, the problem with that is that great heroes don't come along everyday. They go back to an old pattern because it's all they know, until someone who can make a difference is born. Still, I don't think your promise will be forgotten. You were pretty audacious about it.

[And with an absent wave of his hand, the son of Poseidon takes advantage of the puddle of spilled drink near the cabin - the liquid surges up in a little wave, running across the ground and picking up the candy wrappers along the way. Laziest use of demigod powers ever.]

[And Percy snorts at that.] They want to forget me. Even Dad was kind of annoyed with me for that stunt, and since then most of them have just gotten worse. About the only ones that haven't are Hestia and Aphrodite.

[hello, KitKat. Goodbye, KitKat.]

I don't regret turning them down, but sometimes I've gotta wonder if it might've been better for me to say yes, just so I could keep an eye on them better. But they wouldn't've let me have two rewards.

[And he knows he picked the right one. They wouldn't have a cabin to sit outside of right now if he hadn't.]

[Nico shakes his head, but makes no comment. He's pretty sure Percy is fully aware of his laziness.]

They never will, though. Someone like you will turn up again in the future and cause another big change.

[Another shake of the head.]

If you had, we still wouldn't have an Oracle, not to mention all these other cabins. Besides, I think you'd be too bored with an immortal life.

[It's Halloween, he's allowed to be lazy. Not that he's any great hand at cleaning anyway, as his results on cabin inspections show.]

We would've ha- Huh, no, you're right. Hades did say until he and his children were accepted, right? [Momentary lapse of memory; so much had gone on that day that it's not surprising that some stuff's a jumble.] But you're probably right that I'd've been bored. I mean, the gods haven't grown up in two thousand years - you're not allowed to make a crack about me "fitting right in." But you saw Ares, and you've seen Mr. D, even Zeus some - I couldn't deal with that day in and day out forever.

[He has a really low tolerance for idiocy, and unfortunately the gods aren't the best at keeping their idiocy contained. Nico's seen first-hand how dealing with the gods can piss him off, even if he does actually like some of them. But they're in the minority.]

Maybe if I could really change things... but I think I did the best I could for that anyway.

[Nico doesn't answer the question. Accepted yes, but that doesn't mean he feels like there's any acceptance or a sense of belonging. His expression darkens at the mention of Zeus.]

I've seen enough of Zeus.

[He doesn't hold a grudge against the god, not like Hades had, but thinking about the incident with his mom does leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Nico's pretty sure it'll fade given time, though.]

It has gotten better, but it'll take some time for it to really sink in. You can only change so much all at once.

[Be fair, Nico, a large part of that is because you haven't tried. Will it be difficult? Yes. But you built your cabin and pretty much just ran away from camp, so almost no one knows you but Percy and somewhat Annabeth. Give it a chance - stick around. It won't happen right away, but it'll happen.]

Same, but I can't get away from him. I don't know how Annabeth managed to go up there almost every day to rebuilt Olympus and have to deal with the gods day in and day out. She's got some wild stories about how big their temples had to be and how their homes all had to be better than everyone else's.

[And, amazingly, Percy seems to have consumed enough candy for the time being, as he drops his bag next to his feet without pulling any more out.] Yeah - but I'm a stupid mortal, you know. I wanted it to change faster than that.

HALLOWEEN PARTY

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