must be something in the water | theocritus

[Acacia Cassidy]

It had been one of the strangest mornings Acacia had experienced since she had started at Camp Half-Blood. She had actually spent the morning with some of her sisters, rather than hiding away and trying to ignore the fact that everyone in the camp had raging hormones and crazy weird emotions flying from one cabin to the next. She wondered how people would react to know that one of the Hermes boys was only throwing water balloons at the Venus girls so that their clothes would be see through. The lust was running rampant across the court yard and almost made Acacia sick to her stomach. But there she was...trying anyway.

One of her older sisters, a blonde with blue eyes that looked like they could ice over hell if she was angry enough, scooted close to Acacia and elbowed her, giggling. She was saying something, but it was hard for Acacia to even decipher her words through all the emotions she was pulling from. Something about only being here a week and already getting asked out on hot beach dates by the Roman kids. She was supposed to meet someone where? Acacia was feeling dizzy and smiled liked she understood what the girl was saying even though, in reality, she had no clue. It wasn't long before the tall blond was tugging Acacia back into the cabin to "freshen up" before the so called date.

When it came to fashion and beauty, it was really amazing what the Aphrodite girls could accomplish. She hadn't even been in their hands for five minutes before they had her hair falling in delicate waves that bounced cheerfully every time she moved. Half an hour later she looked like an actress of Baywatch or something. It as impressive how they made her look drop dead gorgeous while still maintaining the air that Acacia hadn't bothered to try at all. It was almost like she had just rolled out of bed looking like a super model or something.

Between giggles Acacia heard more specific information about her meeting. A boy from the Mars group had asked to meet her at the beach. Apparently he was older and her sisters kept saying how jealous they were, which meant he was good looking. It was hard for Acacia to even picture trying to go on a date. In fact, as they pushed her out the door and waved her off, she seriously considered ducking into a woods and hiding for a while. But curiosity got the best of her and, smoothing out her denim shorts, Acacia headed for the beach.

By the time she had gotten there, Acacia had considered the possibility that all of this was some prank set up by the Hermes boys again. This theory was further supported by the painfully empty beach she came to when she finally felt the sand between her toes. She kicked off her flip flops and pulled her white tank top over her head revealing a little blue bikini that showed off her tan skin perfectly. If she wasn't actually going to have a date, at least she would enjoy the sun.

tag: Theocritus Locke

[Theocritus Locke]

The beats of the drum rang through the watery halls of the sea, the war-beat echoing across, the pounding harder and faster. The Vanguard, a Quinquereme, the largest  type of warship of the joint Greco-Roman Fleet. The gargantuan ship  pounded it's oars across the ground, their crimson banner, with an eagle image plowed through the seas like it was the Queen, followed by the Greek Triremes and the other Roman Quadrimes following  it by the flanks.  Vanguard's ram cut through the green sea, towards the smaller ship in front of the Demigod's Fleet, a small ship with the banner of black, with a white skull grinning.   On the Vanguard was her Captain, the Iron Centurion. 


The man stood there, raven hair cascading across his broad, muscular shoulders.  His pale, blue eyes were set on the long-ship.  "Andrew!" His voice rang out, loud, unlike the voice he shown when spoken to outside battle. The man besides him, wearing bronze chain, saluted at his him, "Centurio!"  Theo  did not even look at him, and instead continued to speak, "Tell the Graecus to maneuver their triremes to our left flank,  and harass those damn galleys!"  Andrew removed his salute,  and rigidly walked from his side back to the hull, barking out his own command.  It was evident as to why the Greeks would take orders from the Roman, he looked every inch the warrior.

He wore his armor of hammered steel, Latin Runes embalmed across the chest plate and the braces.  From the  aged,  steel plate were the outlines and engraved Imperial Gold, around the edges and sides of the armor.He wore a yellow cloak, that seemed to have been  skinned directly from a Lion's Pelt, held by a clap of two gold lioness' head, on his collarbone.  On his right hand, he  held his cruel, looking curved Imperial-Gold Axe.  Curved and crescent, with the Ash-Wood Handle.  It looked heavy,  as the shaft was four feet long, yet he wielded it with one  hand, on his left was his triangular, oak shield, gold, with the image of a pouncing lion. 

His eyes scanned his own ship, seeing his Legionnaires stand with such discipline and order, their front-liners wore their shirt of black scales, while the men behind wore purple SPQR Shirts.  yet, the man looked disapprovingly at them. These are not Romans yet, He thought, They still fear death and drowning.


As their ship made their way towards the fleeing ship, he watched as his order came to view,  the triremes moving swiftly from their left, dashing across the sea floor to smash right into the  fleeing ships.. As the heavier trireme sliced right through the smaller galleys,  the other ships were driven into confusion, causing them to head right back, away from the missile of ships ramming.  and yet, the triremes kept on sailing, before forming a semi-circle in front of the remaining ships, blocking their way to flee, between the Greek Triremes, and the approaching Roman Ships.  As the ships started to wobble around while his trap closed itself,  Andrew returned, besides him, this time, he held a golden helm, shaped like a Lion's head.  He gave him a firm nod, kneeling down, as the boy placed the helm on his head, strapping it around safely. He couldn't believe he invited an Aphrodite Girl to see the blood shed he was going to cause now.


As he rose from his kneeling position, he rasped his axe against his shield, the beat aiding their war-drums. He turned to the men behind him, and smiled. Now, they were going to be true Legionnaires.  He would forge them into true steel. His voice boomed out again, "Remember, Romans!" He started,  looking at them, before continuing, "What is dead may never die!" He started, and the hordes of Romans joined with him in then ext phrase, "But rises again, harder and stronger!"  With that battle cry, he watched as his great ship rasped the side of one of the fleeing ships so hard, her oars snapped  like small twigs.  Sweet music to Theo's ears, he hoped that the Aphrodite girl felt the rousing of the men, then he would know how to aid her.

He vaulted over the gunwale, landing on the deck below with his golden cloak billowing behind him. The monsters,  emaciated ghouls all of them, drew back, as men  and beast always did at the sight of Theocritus Locke armed and armored, his face hidden behind his lion helm. They were clutching swords and spears and axes, but nine of every ten wore no armor, and the tenth had only a shirt of sewn scales. He could not help but smile at the pathetic display of the ghouls from the depths of the seas, and then, one of them found their voice.

“Get him!” one monster shouted. “He’s alone!” He turned to the beast, who was shaking as well, “COME!” he roared back. “Come kill me, if you can.”

From all sides the undead warriors converged, with stygian iron in their hands and terror behind their eyes. Their fear was so ripe Theocritus could taste it. Left and right he laid about, hewing off the first monster’s arm at the elbow,  watching as he started to dissolve to dust cleaving through the shoulder of the second. The third buried his own axehead in the soft pine of Theo’s shield. He slammed it into the fool’s face, knocked him off his feet, and slew him when he tried to rise again. As he was struggling to free his axe from the floor of the dusty ship, a spear jabbed him between the shoulder blades. It felt as though someone had slapped him on the back. Theo spun and slammed his axe down onto the spearman’s head, feeling the impact in his arm as the steel went crunching through helm and hair and skull. The man swayed for half a heartbeat, till the Legionnaire wrenched the gold  free and sent his corpse staggering loose-limbed across the deck, slowly dissolving to ashes. 

By then his legionnaires had followed him down onto the deck of the broken longship. He heard Andrew let out a howl as he went to work, glimpsed Robert in his rusted mail, saw Nick send a throwing axe spinning through the air to catch a man in the chest.  He slew another monster, and another. He would have killed a third, but Robert cut him down first. “Well struck,” He bellowed at him. When he turned to find the next victim for his axe, he spied the other captain across the deck. His black surcoat was spotted with blood and gore, but Theo  could make out the arms upon his breast, the white, grinning skull within its black escutcheon. The man bore the same device upon his shield, on a white field with a red embattled border. “You!” the iron legionnaire  called across the carnage. "Be you the leader of these men?"  The other raised his visor to show a beardless face."The one and only, Roman! Leo of Tripoli, Sacker of Thessaly, and Pirate Extraordinaire, who might you be, Lion?"  He called out.  

“Your death.” He bulled toward him.

Leo leapt to meet him. His longsword was stygian iron, and the young knight made it sing. His first cut was low, and Theo deflected it off his axe. His second caught the iron captain on the helm before he got his shield up. Theo answered with a sidearm blow of his axe. Leo’s shield got in the way. Wooden splinters flew, and the white skull split lengthwise with a sweet sharp crack. The ghoul's longsword hammered at his thigh, once, twice, thrice, screaming against the steel. This beast is quick, the legionnaire realized. He smashed his shield in Leo’s face and sent him staggering back against the gunwale. He raised his axe and put all his weight behind his cut, to open the beast  from neck to groin, and let ashes spill out, but Leo spun away. The axehead crashed through the rail, sending splinters flying, and lodged there when he tried to pull it free. The deck moved under his feet, and he stumbled to one knee. Leo cast away his broken shield and slashed down with his longsword. Theo’s own shield had twisted half around when he stumbled. He caught Leo’s blade in an iron fist. Lobstered steel crunched, and a stab of pain made him grunt, yet Theocritus held on. “I am quick as well, beast,” he said as he ripped the sword from the pirate’s hand and flung it into the sea.

Leo of Tripoli’s eyes went wide. “My sword...”

Theo caught the monster about the throat with a bloody fist. “Go and get it,” he said, forcing him backwards over the side into the bloodstained waters. Watching as the ashes  dissolved around the water.

That won him a respite to pull his axe loose. The white skulls were falling back before the iron tide. Some tried to flee belowdecks, as others cried for quarter. Theo could feel warm blood trickling down his fingers beneath the mail and leather and lobstered plate, but that was nothing. Around the mast a thick knot of foemen fought on, standing shoulder to shoulder in a ring. These few are monsters, at least. They would sooner die than yield. He  would grant some of them that wish. He beat his axe against his shield and charged them.


They hacked at him from front and back, but their swords might have been willow switches for all the harm they did him. No blade could cut through Theocritus’s heavy plate, nor did he give his foes the time to find the weak points at the joints, where only mail and leather warded him. Let three men or beast assail him, or four, or five; it made no matter. He slew them one at a time, trusting in his steel to protect him from the others. As each foe fell he turned his wroth upon the next. 

The last man to face him must have been a smith back when he still pirateered; he had shoulders like a bull, and one much more muscular than the other. His armor was a studded brigandine and a cap of boiled leather. The only blow he landed completed the ruin of Theo’s shield, but the cut the captain dealt in answer split his head in two. When he jerked his axehead free again, the smith’s skull seemed to burst in ashes. Ashes and dust went everywhere,

By then the deck was slick beneath his feet because of the golden dust, and the dust and ashes  lay in heaps on every side. He threw his shield away and sucked in air. “Lord Centurio,” he heard Andrew say beside him, “the day is ours.” All around the sea was full of ships. Some were burning, some were sinking, some had been smashed to splinters. Between the hulls the water was thick as stew, full of monster remains and broken oars.  "Yup," Theo said, offering him a smile, and patting him behind his back, despite his hand bloody. "And we seemed to have reached the Beach, as well. "  The Romans laughed as they dismounted the ship.


He was walking across the sand, a dozen of his legionnaires falling behind him. There, he found his subject. He hoped the dozens of different emotions of fright and angered haven't fried her head open/ "Aphrodite, kid, yeah? Acacia?"  He offered his bloody hand/ "Name's Theocritus. Theo for short. Son of Mars,"  He smiled. "I heard that I could aid you with something...?" he inquired. 

[Acacia Cassidy]

The sun was beating down on Acacia with little hope of yielding. Of course, the daughter of the Love Goddess didn't mind all that much. She had spent a good portion of the last two weeks laying in this sand and appreciating the solitude it generally brought to her. It had a calming effect on her mind and, honestly, was the only true quiet she ever got.

Unfortunately, this was short lived. Even with her eyes closed, the sweet wind turn sour and her breathe suddenly become hard and labored. She tied to sit up but almost couldn't under the weight of the emotions that seemed to waft over her like the waves beat against the dry sand of the fireworks beach. Rage. He could feel the rage most of all. With undertones of terror and pain, she could feel the rage overpowering them.

When she finally pulled herself into a sitting position, Acacia had started sweating. It was almost like she was feeling real, physical pain. The was when she first noticed the ships. More of them then she had ever imagined could belong to the joined Camps. It was like a scene out of a movie. Smears of red and puffs of golden ash almost taking over her vision. Her head started to spin. Not literally, of course, but the colors of the sand and the water and the blood were all beginning to mix together and, despite her best efforts to block it out, she knew she wouldn't be able to.

She clenched her hands into fists full of sand. She could smell death on the wind, not that she was even aware before this moment that fresh bodies had a scent. It was like the ultimate reminder that she was not human. She was, in fact, a demi-god, and that this sort of scene was more common than most would like to admit. The life of demi-gods was not all capture the flag and good food. This camp was a lie. A dream thought up to trick the young into thinking life is better then it actually is. Acacia could hear her blood rushed in her ears.

She tried to pushed herself off the ground to run, but the sand gave out from under her and she kept slipping back to the ground. It was like there was so much emotion coming off the water that she couldn't even control her own actions. And it was getting closer. The yelling was getting louder. Her vision was blurring. And then it settled. She wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but she could clearly see a large vessel dangerously close to the beach, now.

A boy, or rather, man, had climbed off the ship and was talking to a group of people that surrounded him. Romans. That was all Acacia could think in between the remnants of rage that seemed to lace all of her thoughts. It took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. What did he say? He could help her with something? Acacia seriously doubted that. It wasn't like she had a hit list or something, and all she could see from this man was that he had a taste for blood. When he offered her his hand, she reached up and smacked it away without thinking.

It was like the sounded of her fingers grazing his hand brought her back to reality. For some reason, she was suddenly flooded with guilty, "Oh!" She stood up and looked desperately from his hand back to his face, "I'm so sorry!" She frowned and tried to focus her eyes on his, finding that she was still having a hard time seeing through the emotions that had basically exhausted her, "I..." She didn't know what to say, exactly. Acacia didn't know what he meant to help her with and, to be perfectly frank, she was once against distracted. This time, though, it wasn't by the emotions of the people around her, although they were still eating at the back of her mind like an annoying little brother. She couldn't keep her eyes from wandering, admiring his body, his face, and hair. It didn't even matter that he was covered in blood. In fact, all that did was make him so much more attractive. She couldn't help but wonder if this sudden urge to bat her eye lashes was actually an inherited quality from her mother, who was rumored to constantly have affairs with the God of War.

[Theocritus Locke]

He gave the girl an impassive look. It was obvious something bothered her. Perhaps, it was her power. She sensed every emotion that filled the battle fields, from the glory felt by the seasoned veterans, to the fright experienced by the men's first taste in their battles.  He  dare not think what it would be like if she experienced such a multitude of emotions  coursing through her ,and he'd rather not find out, despite wanting to help the poor girl in coping with this power of hers. He wondered why the Graecus let a fellow member of their kind to suffer like this, it would surely hinder their progress as Demigods, yet, he questioned not their ways in dealing with their dilemmas, after all, the Romans were not much better than these foreigners, and they offered their hospitality to them.

"Calm down, girl."  He stated through arched eyebrows.  Something else was bothering this girl. The blood on his hand, perhaps? But the way she looked at him named it differently. His eyes scanned the girl, as if trying to get some sort of diagnosis. Well, she was a pretty girl. Very pretty, perhaps. But she was just that, a little girl. He found no attraction to girls, as he preferred women. Women who held their own.


He raised his hand to move it from her reach. "You what?" He inquired once more,  and he found no more reason to beat around the bush, he never minced his words. "Ah, why not spare the pleasantries, no? I invited you here for a reason, Acacia." He admitted,  sheathing his waraxe on the hanging sheath by his hip.  He gave her one, last look over, his cold  gray eyes seemingly hovering over her, as if prodding her for more information about herself. 


"So,"  He started and pointed at the wreckage of the bloody battle. " I heard that you have..."   He  crossed his arms, and gave her an impassive sigh, as if it gave him trouble to remember her powers. "Hyper-sensitive empathy," He finally remembered,

"It's...a rare power, for sure. I care little as to why you got the powers, however, why an Aphrodite Spawn would get it is beyond my knowledge, I need only to know more about your..." He motioned towards the sea,  "Feelings,"  Theo moved their distance off, pointing at the wreckage. "When you were here, far from the battle, did you seemingly hear the battle? Or maybe, felt it? The wounds? The battle cries? did you feel the anger, the glory, the war-cries? The pleads for mercies?"


 He made his first point, tilting his head towards her once more, staring at her.  "Could you have differed the emotions you felt? Or where they like a storm? Chaotic and Unpleasant?  Mixed and  spinning, like...a kaleidoscope of different feelings all together?"  Now, he knew not much of such powers, but he knew enough to be able to perhaps aid the girl in the way he could, with his help, maybe she could prove an asset.  "Answer these questions the best way you could, Acacia. Maybe I could help you better once you do," 

[Acacia Cassidy]

Anything she had previously thought was good about him quickly disintegrated into his questions. What was this? Acacia glared at him, not even realizing that the rage was completely her own, "I don't even know who you are!" She stepped away from him and looked at his group of followers, "And you think you can just get me to meet you out here and harass me with more questions than a job interview?"

Acacia spun around and was about to start the upward trek to camp when he said he could help her with her power. She would be lying if she claimed that didn't intrigue her. How could she turn away from someone who might be able to push her back into the real world? It would mean the world if she could pick and chose who emotions she was privy to.

After pausing a moment to think about his offer, she turned so her brown eyes could look him over, "Maybe start by telling me about yourself. I don't even know your name or your godly parent." Acacia bit her lip and crossed her arms, trying to look more imposing than she knew she did, "Just because you know everything about me doesn't mean I am just going to trust you."

That got Acacia thinking, how did he know all this stuff? Was he psychic? Acacia hadn't heard of any godly parent giving a child that power but, then again, those Zeus kids could be scary and he had that black hair that most of them seemed to sport. Maybe he was a stalker. That thought made Acacia take a step back from him. Was he dangerous? Her thoughts were running rampant with these ideas and, all the while, she could feel the emotions running off the group and her head started to spin. Suddenly she was seeing double and fell to her knees. Her hand went to her forehead as if blocking them from her view would make it stop.