aeipaths:
“That doesn’t sound very fair.” It was clear there was some alienation between Virgil and the cabin he spoke of, though River couldn’t yet tell if it was born of insecurity or outright animosity. It all seemed a bit trivial, the strict sorting by parent as opposed to skill— not that he would defend the system of cohorts, but at least they didn’t expect him to count on his siblings alone. This sense of exclusion wasn’t exactly deeply hidden, and he wanted to further get his hands around it, to better understand Virgil. In his experience, those who had few to attach to were often more desperate to find someone to give their trust. “Are you going to their table? I’ll just sit with you. The devil you know, and all that, right?” He grinned along the last sentence, all teasing, as if already familiar— while he didn’t trust the others an inch, Virgil seemed far from monstrous.
Following his lead, River collected a bit of food and looked up to meet the stares of the nymphs, smiling to them like he didn’t recognize their wariness. Going noticed wasn’t unusual, though typically it didn’t come with such caution. The Greeks had a built-in antagonism towards the Romans that burned in his chest, bitter underneath the interactions he’d had ; he hated that they probably already figured they knew him, that he’d have to work all that harder to get them to think of him the way he wanted. None of this would be betrayed in his demeanor then, though, shrugging casually at Virgil’s question. “Sort of. I mean, we don’t divide up by cabins like this, but we have cohorts. Five of them, basically best to worst, that we get placed into. It’s all about rank, so that’s kind of got power struggle written right into it, huh?”
No, it wasn’t. Virgil agreed that fairness was never in the Olympian dictionary, but he couldn’t say it outright. Not in front of the people he’d learned to room with for years on end, no less a Roman saying it for him. He just laughed it off and gave him a smile wide enough to believe, as he showed him to the table, the people giving them space that it almost felt like he was Moses parting the Red Sea. Talk about demigod solidarity. At least no one was chucking food their way. “Got a few years of Catholic school up in my brain, but I don’t think anyone’s going to accuse you of being a devil. You’re Roman, and hardly the biggest danger in the Camp.”
At the thought of cohorts, of demigods paired up with others based on skill, Virgil gave a wistful sigh at that. It seemed like a lovely thing, Camp Jupiter—the things he’d heard about New Rome, the fact that they didn’t have to bunk with their siblings, the order of it all felt like a sheer dream that Virgil was cheated out of. “So which one are you in? Second?” The thought of another camp almost felt exciting, like a field trip or an exchange program that looked available. “I mean you’ve got the whole beautiful yet intimidating thing going, and you look like you know how to handle yourself in a situation, more or less. Is that like, a Venus thing in Rome or just a you thing?”
