Angel Voices [Sam]

Sam was accused of a lot of things. Not all of them false. Biased. Old-fashioned. Foolish. But there was one thing she definitely was: devoted. Back when she was with the Hunters, she was one of Diana’s most trusted. When she was kicked out, she had taken a nasty turn for a while, true, but when she got to the Wolfhouse, it didn’t take a lot – in her opinion at least – to get through the trials. And her time with the legion had been… dare she say, fun? To be in active service again, to be needed again. And the war, while that wasn’t so much fun, it was a practical use of her talents. She liked to think that the archery line was better off with an ex-Hunter among their ranks. Okay, so she did have a bit of high self esteem sometimes. But life had a way of stamping out people who got too high an opinion of themselves.

So she had ended up here, the last place she would ever have seen herself. Teaching the youth. Spending her evenings picking out how best to teach letters of the alphabet. And odd assortment for her, but rewarding nonetheless. It was so good to see young minds alight and joyful. It was what she lived for these days. Just about all she lived for. That moment earlier today when Jonathan had presented her with the drawing he had made for her. Or last week when Melissa had answered a question in a way that made even Sam have to stop and marvel. Young children were so precious. She loved every one of them as though they were her own.

Which brought her to the forum this chilly day. She’d bundled up against the cool air and come out to see some of her students dressed up in their little costumes singing their hearts out in the forum. While she hated the cold, it was worth it to see the joy on their little faces, how much fun they were having. This was what the season was about. Maybe not as much celebration of the gods, as she herself felt rather betrayed by one of them in particular. Thankfully not enough to hate the rest, or even hate Diana, but enough to breed a smidge of resentment. No, not the gods, but joy in itself. She sighed and smiled and was about to turn and leave for the sake of getting warm again when she saw bright red over the crowd not that far from her. She smirked. “Well, well, you don’t stand out at all,” she muttered. She pondered for a second if she should talk to him. The last time they’d spoken hadn’t gone as well as she would like to admit. Maybe that was all the more reason to speak with him.

So Sam set off to catch up with him, a smirk on her face. She was terrible at proper introductions. So she decided just not to use one. “You know, you would make a terrible son of Mercury. Never get away with a thing with that ginger lantern on your head.” Her tone indicated she was only joking, though. At least, she hoped it did.But without hardly stopping for breath, she launched into the real meat of why she was talking to him without giving him too much room to respond. “Look, I owe you one. Robin, right? Or something like that? Just last time we met, the way I acted wasn’t right. And I stink at legitimate apologies, so how about I buy you a hot drink to stave off the cold and we call it even?”

Sam paused when he offered his arm. She really wasn’t used to talking to gentlemen, just little kids and their parents. So she took a second to think about it before almost cautiously taking it. “Thanks,” she muttered. Both to the offered arm and to his forgiving her slight attitude problem. She knew she had one, always had. And especially now since she’d come to Camp Jupiter. Well, really since she’d left the Hunters, but that was a story for a different day. She looked back to the Forum before turning back to Robin. “Yeah, four or five of them. I like to be there to support them even if they don’t know I’m there. Gives a person a sense of necessity, you know what I mean?” She still had nightmares about the time she was told to leave the Hunters by Diana herself. The hardest moment of her life, which was saying something as it had been a very long life thus far. But since that day she had been fighting to find her place, sometimes literally. She still wasn’t sure she had it, but she had something close enough to settle with for the time being.

She pulled herself from her thoughts when he spoke again. “I have several students who would be very impressed that I know Batman’s sidekick personally. They’d probably insist you come in to meet them all.” She laughed. “But personally, I prefer the bird. So then, Robin, what brought you to the Forum today yourself? Come to see the festivities? Or just happened upon them?” After all, he was probably New Rome’s most renowned therapist, which wasn’t really a profession she would have linked to coming to see children’s groups. Unless he knew one or more of them himself. The idea of a little kid needing therapy was a little depressing, but she didn’t put it out of the realm of possibilities. Which was a sad circumstance really, but that was how the modern world worked, how any age of world worked. Just because you were young did not mean you were free of the burdens of life. Not in any way. She had a student who had just lost a parent to illness hardly a year ago. It had been a hard time for the little boy. He’d been teary-eyed for a solid two months and didn’t talk to the other kids nearly as much as he used to. She’d tried to reach out to him herself, but eventually he’d moved up a grade and she never saw him again. Maybe she’d have to check in with his mother sometime, see how they were all doing.