backyardbbq | Open smut post

[He's not sure what's got her so upset.]

It's fine. It's not like it was our only one. I just don't get why you won't tell me. I won't report you to Will. Or to Chiron for that matter.

[Well. That was unexpected.]

Thank you, but why?

Because you're hiding your reason for it. I figure that means there's a good reason you don't want to tell anyone.

[At least that's been the case with himself. Maybe she had some weird power or something.]

[She falls silent there. While she is happy that Leo isn't going to be pursuing this any further, she doesn't really like the fact that he can see through her so well. Most people take her words at face value, so finding someone who doesn't is a little unsettling.

And intriguing at the same time, actually. But she will satisfy her curiosity about Leo another day.]

Can I go?

Not yet. This is gonna bug me forever not knowing why.

[While there's demigods with special powers, they're not all that common. He's able to do some things that the other Hephaestus kids can't, so maybe that's the case with Nanaki. Things had been different since she arrived, though he'd never thought too much about it before now. He holds out his hand in front of them. ]

I want to show you something, don't get scared. I want you to know you can trust me enough to tell me what your reason was.

[He creates a small flame in the center of his palm and lets it burn there while he waits for her reaction.]

[Nanaki's eyes go wide and she backs up a bit from Leo, half-expecting to get burned by the fire. But when the fire doesn't burn her, she goes from scared to curious, with a bit of suspicion mixed in. She glances around at the other campers, trying to gauge their reactions to it, before turning her attention to Leo again.]

It's...fire.

[There's not much else to say about it. She does wonder why he's showing her this, though.]

Can't others make fire too?

[Leo shakes his head.]

Nope. I'm the only one. It's been a couple centuries since anyone has had the ability.

[The fire is still burning in his hand, but after a few moments he extinguishes it with as little flourish as he'd started it.]

You're lucky, then.

[Being able to control fire like that is a very useful power, and Nanaki imagines that many people would love to have it.

Unlike her power. While she is alright with using it as much as she can, she can't imagine anyone wanting the power she has.]

I guess. Kind of thought it was a curse for a long time.

[He wasn't going to go into why he'd felt that way. He'd known Piper for several months before he wound up telling her and Jason, and even then it was only because they'd witnessed him survive a kerosene fueled fire without a burn. And he didn't tell them right away either.]

[That strikes a chord within Nanaki. Everyone here seemed to love who they were and what they could do, and she had never thought that someone else here would feel their powers were a curse. It makes her consider Leo a little differently now, at the very least.]

What do you think of it now?

It's not so bad. But sometimes I feel like the other campers are afraid of me even if they don't show it. The worst fires in history have been caused by demigods with the same power I have.

[It's a concern he hasn't voiced before, despite thinking of it often.]

[That's something she can understand, at least. And since Leo opened up to her like that, she'll give him some friendly advice.]

Don't let what they think bother you. If they don't understand, then that is their problem, not yours.

Yeah, I know.

[The fact that it's their problem doesn't make it any less his problem. But he's not going to argue with her.]

So, let me try to understand what you were doing disposing of that drill?

No.

[Sorry Leo. Even though you seem like a cool guy, she's not opening up to anyone that easily. Give her time, though, and soon enough she will.]

I have my reasons for what I do. That's all anyone needs to know.

Suit yourself.

[He shrugs.]

But if you ever want to tell me, I'm here.

[Nanaki is all too happy to leave it at that, and she leaves Leo sitting there without another word. In fact, she doesn't talk to him for several days after that, choosing instead to avoid the Hephaestus cabin in general and focus on other things.

But as much as she tries to avoid it, what Leo said to her keeps sticking in her mind, and she finds herself more and more interested in the boy.

Okay, maybe 'interested' isn't the best word for that. She's definitely curious about him, but not so much that she approaches him about it. Not right away, at least. She watches from afar, seeing how he interacts with others, and it picks at her curiosity even more.

Eventually her curiosity gets the better of her, and she finally gives in. About a week after the previous incident, Nanaki finally approaches him, though she tries to do it without drawing too much attention to herself. She doesn't want anyone else in camp listening in on their conversation.

She chooses to approach him after dinner, when everyone is done eating and going back to their own things but before Leo gets too far away.]

Got a moment?

[Leo hasn't been oblivious to the way Nanaki's gaze kept falling on him over the last week. He'd catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye here and there, but he'd always bide his time waiting for her to approach. He was worried if he looked directly at her whenever he caught her staring that she'd run away. But she seemed to do that anyway because a moment or two later he'd look up and she'd be gone.

So when she calls out to him a week later after dinner, he's a little surprised. He smiles as he greets her.]

Yeah, if you don't mind walking down to Bunker 9 with me.

[She is a cautious one, that's all. She's been chased out of towns for her powers, she doesn't want to get chased out of camp too.]

Alright, let's walk.

[She waits until they're walking to speak again.]

You're different from the other campers.

[He raises an eyebrow at the comment.]

What do you mean? Because of my fire thing?

That too, but I meant in how you act. You're not...

[Give her a moment she needs to think of the right word for it.]

...judgmental? You listen to people.

Well... I get judged a lot, so I try not to do it to others...

[He doesn't add that he judges himself more than anyone else probably did/does/]

Which is why you're different. You don't make hasty judgments, so you are more willing to listen and find the truth.

[Which is how she's justifying this to herself. Long she promised to herself that she would never tell anyone about her visions, which was eventually amended to 'never tell anyone except for other people with future-sight about her visions'. But Leo doesn't have future-sight, and she's still not completely sure that he will even listen to her. Leo may be the type to look beyond the surface of a situation, but she doesn't know how he will react to hearing about impending death.

So she looks out towards the forests surrounding camp, takes a deep breath, and speaks again.]

Two days from now, during a game of capture the flag, a camper from Hephaestus cabin will slip and fall off of a rocky outcropping. He will fall into a narrow gap between two large boulders, and he will die of his injuries long before he is found.

[She has an oddly neutral voice as she says all of this, like she is stating normal facts rather than giving a prediction of someone's death.]

[He listens to what Nanaki says. It's not at all what he expected to hear. And to be honest, it's scary. Not that she's scary, he's got no problem at all with her ability. But the idea that he or one of his cabinmates could wind up dead later this week was scary. He didn't say anything for awhile as he went through all the ways that this sort of thing could be prevented. The easiest way would be to keep his cabin from participating in the capture the flag game this week. But that would require a lot of explanation that he wasn't sure would get through to them or to the other campers.

Eventually he speaks.]

Is that why you threw the drill into the lake? It was going to hurt someone?

[If that's true, then maybe she has a suggestion for how to keep this new prediction from coming true.]

[Nanaki nods in response.]

Your cabinmates use power tools every day. I've never touched one in my entire life. Do you think they would have listened to me if I had said 'Don't use that drill, the casing is cracked and the drill bit is going to go right through someone's skull'?

[Which is the crux of Nanaki's troubles regarding her predictions: nobody believes her. She can't even warn people, because they usually won't listen to her. All of those weird things she does in camp are efforts to prevent accidents from happening without anyone realizing what's going on.]

They probably wouldn't have, but I would have. Even without knowing this about you. If I'd been lucky enough to be the one to pick it up next, I would have been able to repair it.

[He would have noticed something like that being off and stopped to examine it instead of blindly using it.]

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