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Who: Dean, and other participants in the competition
What: marksmanship competition!
Where: the archery range
When: backdated to March 8
Warnings: violence against innocent targets?

There are targets all set up at different intervals, and more waiting by the sidelines. It's come to Dean's attention that certain parties may end up being a little on the destructive side for this competition, so he wants to be prepared. Not to mention there are apparently going to be some other showboats coming out this afternoon.

Dean would like them all to bring it.

This being his own competition, he steps up to the plate first, gun in hand. There are very few misses, and most of his shots are tightly clustered on the targets. Beat that, Apollo cabin.

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Well, okay. Not exactly what he was hoping for, but at least it's an answer. He takes a breath, looking around at the goings-on around them. Natalie can play it as nonchalant as she likes, but he's come to know that when she acts that way? Something is definitely bothering her.

"Do you, um," he begins hesitantly, finally looking back at her, "want to talk about it? Somewhere else, or... later, even?" Or not at all? he adds silently. He's not the person to come to about your personal troubles, but... she's his girlfriend. If he can't be there for her, what good is he? And besides, they kind of made a pact to talk about things anyway, right?

She lowers her head, tucking hair behind both ears so it doesn't curtain her face.

"Not in, like, incredible detail," comes a mumble, "I just talked to my dad after you left, just checking in with him. I thought things were okay, but ...." Everyone here has family problems. They're mostly demigods - that's bound to happen. And here, Natalie is agonizing over someone who isn't been her real mother. Rubbing under her eye, she sniffs and looks away.

"Oh," he says softly, nodding. Her dad - her parents - her mom. Natalie has told him before that there's... things going on with her mortal mom. Something must have gone wrong there.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Leo assures her, touching her arm lightly. It's a sensitive subject, he knows. He just wishes he'd been here when it happened, though part of him is a little glad that he wasn't. Hearing people here talk about their families... it makes his stomach clench sometimes, especially after meeting Melinoe, though he'll never admit to it. It's not like he's the only one who's lost a parent around camp.

Natalie tugs at the necklace he made for her for Christmas, not enough to pull the weapon out, just fiddling with it before she looks to him again. She feels immensely guilty even talking about her family around him, so it takes her a moment to find the right phrasing for all of this.

"My mom's getting this really shitty treatment that's supposed to screw with her brain and causes some memory loss," she mumbles, making sure no one else hears her. "No magic necessary. Apparently she agreed to it, so like ... I'm kind of at a loss, being all the way across the country and dad keeps saying, like, yeah it's for the best, but I don't really know. I -- don't." It takes a great deal of effort to finish that small spiel and she slides her shaking hands into her jacket to hide them and keep them still.

He listens silently, unsure of how to reply. It's not a problem he's ever been faced with before - never will be - nor has anyone he's known until now gone through it. What is he even supposed to say?

"Well, hey, if she agreed to it, it can't be all bad, right? Maybe she thinks it'll do some good. Not - Not the memory loss," Leo adds quickly. "But I mean, like, overall, I guess? Maybe screwing with her brain is what she needs? That always fixes the automatons. Not that she's a machine or anything! But it sounds like they're trying to hit her reset button or something."

...He's just making this worse, isn't he.

Nah, she was worse off before he said anything. She does feel some relief, spilling this to him.

Her jaw does tighten at his comments, but she tries not to hold it against him. Like she has no idea how Annie Cresta's situation is, he can only imagine how it must be from her end of the deal and so on. Talking about family in general is something she doesn't like to do that often around Leo in the first place and she doesn't want to extend the conversation any more than she has to.

"Let's hope it's not a factory reset," she mumbles, sighing tiredly.

Edited 2014-03-31 06:07 (UTC)

"We don't get a factory reset," he answers matter-of-factly. It's a thing that's always irritated him on a level; it would be more than a little useful if humans could do that once in a while, and not just machines. They'd be a lot easier to fix if that were the case.

Of course, losing all of the previous data and memory... He sort of gets where Natalie is coming from on that end, at least. If they had to reset Sky like that, and she lost everything... yeah, that wouldn't be easy to deal with.

"I know."

Her lips sit in a tight line on her face. "I do a lot of stupid shit to get my mind off things, but the last thing I'd want to do is forget anything. Forget you," she says plainly. What she'd like is a more numbing sensation but that involves more chemicals than she's willing to take.

Hearing that sends a wave of something like relief through him, because there are plenty of times where Leo wonders just how bad he is as a boyfriend, or a friend, or a person in general. When he feels that way, though, he tries his hardest to mask it, and it's usually not as hard as one might think, as long as he has a project to work on.

For now, he replies, "Well, good, because that would suck major monster butt. And I like to think I'm pretty memorable." He flashes her a smile. It's a sorry attempt, maybe, but he's trying to cheer her up, at least a little.

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