A Little Bad Luck [OPEN]

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A small girl was being escorted down from the road, her head hung down and shoulder slumped forward. She had made this walk before, when she first attempted to leave to explore the mortal world outside the allowed boundaries. Her plan had been going well at first, the distraction plan went smoothly and her small stature was easily overlooked when there was a fire. It was simply bad luck that a brand new leather strap on someone shield broke and it rolled over to Lyndis' feet. Just bad luck, Fotuna, her own mother had thwarted her plans to leave and boldly go where no one had gone before.

She had been excited to go, and been looking forward to roaming around the city. Sure there was a little to been seen, on her way from the Wolf House to Camp Jupiter there was plenty of new and interesting things. Lyndis had been far too preoccupied with keeping an eye out for creatures, and getting to her new home. Home had been a relative term, and was in fact nothing that Lyndis had in mind for where she was going to be, perhaps she should have listened to Lupa better. Lyndis had been told many times that her attention needed to be one people when they were talking, but sometimes it was just boring. She never told Lupa that.

Lyndis was given a more than a speech on discipline this time, and found roman disciplinary structures to not be in her favor. The physical pain ached in her muscles as she barely had the ability to stand anymore. It was obviously created to detour actions, and would have worked very well. The stiffness she was sure to feel tomorrow would have been a stern reminder of what one was not supposed to do around Camp Jupiter. It was unfortunate for them, and probably more so for Lyndis herself that she was hard headed and did not give up.

The Principia building lay behind her as she trudged forward, finally away from guards and superiors that had nothing more to say about her actions. They repeated themselves a lot, Lyndis could almost still hear the preaching she got up and down the walls. She liked the forced exercises she was mad to do much more than those boring voices saying the same things over again.

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Charlie had spent time in Remus's office, going through some files, but mostly making sure that her brother was getting food and drinking plenty of water. After attempting to force her brother to eat something, well attempting to at any rate, Charlie heard someone giving a lecture. She spied around the corner to see what was going down. Of course it was behind a locked door and Charlie couldn't see much of anything that was going on. But she hung out along the inside of the door way after replacing files that she had taken off the shelves regarding some of her soldiers. Being in the First Cohort was an amazing achievement, unless you were Edmund. That little forge monkey didn't appreciate that little fact. But none the less, Charlie had some centurion duties to attend to. Ramses, the Roman Cane Corso puppy that Mercury had given her, was waiting patiently at her feet for her to finish what she was doing. But it was the centurion that had come around the corner after a small child had disappeared down the hallway. Charlie exchanged a few words with the centurion before heading out after the little kid. Sure, on top of all of the responsibility that she had with being the First Cohort, she had decided that she wanted to take the responsibility of this kids bit of punishment. This should be lots of fun. Charlie gave a huff and rolled her eyes as she tapped the hilt of Lo'Gosh on the back of her shield and Ramses leapt up, tagging along behind her as she crossed the threshold of Principia.


"Hey!" Charlie shouted as she watched the little dark head of hair bounce down the road. "Hey! Hey!" Charlie continued to try to get the little girl's attention as she and Ramses jogged down the road, trying to catch up. The moment that she actually caught up with the girl, Charlie instantly recognized her. It was Lyn. Well she had seen her around the common areas, occasionally in the dining hall, and in training. But other then the occasional conversation, Charlie found the young camper quite adorable and loveable. Charlie didn't have much experience in the way of cute and adorable, Children of Mars didn't do cuddly or cute, they were all doom, gloom, death and blood. They also had a bit of the wonderful sadism that came along with the territory of being a child of war. "Hey Lyn, hold up already! If I have to chase you around the barracks I don't have a problem with that." Charlie said as she skidded to a stop, her longsword and circular shield bouncing on her back against her breastplate. She pretty much had the afternoon off to work on what she was doing. So technically she didn't exactly have the afternoon off. "So you get to be my lacky for the next few days. Or at least I get to be in charge of your punishment." Normally she would have a bit of fun and in the rather sadistic way. You know doing hop squats and deep knee bends in full armor would put the fear of the gods in any sort of little camper.


"So...so what sort of punishment should I give you." Charlie said in a joking manner. Most campers that had been caught doing things that they would rather die at the hands of the giants or the basilisks before letting Charlie take control of their punishments on top of them getting a lecture. But Lyn was new and Charlie liked her fairly well, so Charlie didn't feel the need to bust out the kind of scary punishments that made Lord Pluto's deepest cells look like Apollo's happy place. "I dunno you might just have to suffer doing personal training with me for the next few days. Though most people would scream to Mors and beg for death at that thought, but it's not going to be too harsh. I promise." Charlie broke a grin that would make most people run to the hills. The thought of any child of Mars happy was unsettling and meant a fair amount of dismemberment.

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It took her a moment but Lyndis realized someone was calling for her, though it was a very generic way. She looked around to make sure they had not been calling someone else, before turning to see a large puppy and one of the first cohort centurions. She recognized almost all of the centurions by now, the chain of command seemed to be rather important to these people. She didn't know how exactly to feel, she liked talking to people and meeting new people but they might have been sent to punish her more. Then there was a large puppy, he was definitely going to be a huge dog.

She knew Charlie, and had not found her to be in the least bit disagreeable. That was hard to do in the first place since Lyn did not find anyone she believed to be disagreeable yet. Even the people who had spent the day telling her about the dangers of leaving camp, and how she was not allowed to leave for far too long, where not people she disliked. She mostly set aside a face special for when people where disciplining someone. The same would probably be said about Charlie, and with any luck Lyndis wouldn't let the tough love affect her feelings for anyone in the legion. Lyndis smiled up at the woman glad to have someone ready to deal out something simple physical labor. It could always be made into a game, while being yelled at couldn't. The smile she received in return on the other hand was not something that made little Lyndis excited.

“Well, I don't know. I've been told I have a lot of energy so anything should be fine, run around the barracks, polish armor, fire a number or arrows, all feasible punishments.” Lyndis suggested when asked, and quite possibly the only person who would actually give suggestions on her own punishments. She had almost no problem with any kind of discipline, sure she was sore from the happy chairs and holding a sword out in front of her while being lectured but the best remedy was to keep moving. “Oh that sounds good, I'll need to fight well when ever I'm on the outside right?”

She was ready to try and leave camp as soon as possibly again, the only real thing she learned from the whole experience was to try and plan better when escaping. The structure of lecturing and physical discipline would have been great if only Lyndis hadn't taken everything as a challenge to do better in all the wrong area's.

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It seemed like Charlie had been chasing Lyn forever. Or at least running after her for a good five minutes before the little girl’s attention was finally caught by Charlie’s generic yelling of ‘hey’ at her. Charlie never liked the whole lecturing thing, she was pretty sure that Lyn had enough of that already and Charlie wasn’t about to start lecturing. She was generally the one to give the lecture on the subject of the ‘talk’ but other then that, Charlie felt discipline was better off given through a form of physical punishment. Charlie always preferred the physical punishment, get it done and over with instead of having to listen to someone else go on and on and on about the wrongs that had been committed against the legion and against Rome and whatever. Even writing lines and conjugating verbs was something that Charlie found torturous. Give her a stay in an iron maiden over doing menial written work any day, she would rather die of blood poisoning or an infection then doing stupid stuff that was meant for the academics. It wasn’t meant for soldiers, that much was for sure. It was for those hack jobs that couldn’t cut it in the legion.

“So Lyn, if you get caught, just tell them I’m the one in charge of your punishments from now on.” Charlie decided after regarding the smaller camper in front of her. Normally Charlie hated the little campers. She wanted to roll them over and squish them under her boots. There was something different about Lyn and her hyperactivity. Charlie gave Lyn a half smile as she started to rattle off a bunch of punishments. Yup, know Charlie knew for sure what it was; Lyn was a good deal like Charlie was at that age. Minus the sneaking out, Charlie had done her own fair share of mischief. She could guarantee there was a good bit of campers that had done some stupid stuff when they were younger. Charlie gave an inner sigh; they were all still young in comparison to the gods. There was still plenty of time to make mistakes and to learn from them. “Just try to not get caught. I’m not condoning leaving the camp, but try to ask one of the Mercury kids to help you out alright? Or Felicity, she helped me a few weeks back.” Charlie commented as she kicked at the cobbled street upon which they stood.

“hmm… I’m starting to think you need some form of an outlet for all that energy you have.” Charlie tapped her finger against the bottom side of her chin. “I got the perfect thing, while I need a sparring partner; I know I will teach you Kung fu. Ever heard of it?” Charlie asked as she got that mars like glee twinkling in her eyes. Many times that wasn’t the best idea but for now it wouldn’t be too bad. It’s not like Charlie was going to force Lyn into a 72 hour drill. No those were only reserved for the first cohort when they pissed her off.

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Lyndis' ear perked at the sound of a new plan to escape and explore. She had not been around camp long, and wasn't sure how people and their powers worked. The whole child of a god thing was sill a little weird to her, and especially when they started teaching the history of the gods and the family ties. She learned them quick, and yet they continued to go over what seemed to be the same subject over and over again. That was Lyndis' reason for skipping so many classes, but she hoped no one really paid attention to that. She had just got here, so maybe they would just forget about her. Classes were interesting for learning new things, but only when it was new.

Lyndis was a bit concerned, did people normally get assigned someone to deal their punishments? Again it was nothing to be sure of, however having her own personal trainer might be a bit interesting. Her dad had always trained her and dealt her punishments before. “Okay then, Miss Charlie shall be my....what was that terent officer? Turrent officer?” Lyndis looked that the ground trying to remember the word she needed, it wasn't coming to her so she simple looked up and smiled. Charlie would probably get what she meant. “I'll make sure to try harder next time to not get caught, but bad luck can happen at anytime. I look forward to getting to know you more!” she had not meant it as she was going to get into more trouble, however it did sound almost like a challenge. Lyndis liked talking to anyone and everyone, she wanted to be friends with everyone in camp. It was a lot easier in the small home group she had, there were so many more people here.

“Did you know you can have a terrifying look in your eyes?” Lyndis said with a smile, she wasn't scared of Charlie, but that look in her eyes did make her uneasy at times. “Kung fu is hand to hand stuff right? That's cool, super cool. I'd love to learn that. No one in my home group was good at hand to hand fighting, just swords and bows, possibly an occasional axe. Axe throwing is cool too, I can't throw things. Especially axes. I tried...it didn't turn out well. You think I can learn how to throw things better here? They made my stop at home because....damages and all.....”

Lyndis was excited about learning kung fu, and couldn't stand still. She paced, or walked a circle around Charlie depending on what she could do based on Charlies speed. There were a few time she even tried to walk backwards, nearly leading to a rather tragic end. Anyone watching the girl would wonder how she managed to live as long as she did. The was a klutz, air was substance enough for her to trip over. The weapons that people sometimes carried were deadly to her, and yet by some miracle she always avoided getting hurt.