Four Powers of Camp Half-Blood, chapter 3

CHAPTER 3: HICCUP

The Viking had been frowning helplessly the past ten minutes. “Merida ditched me…” he muttered again. She was the one who made it into a contest in the first place, and she didn’t even bother to show up. He really needed her this time too; there’s so many spots on his back he can’t reach without dislocating his arm first. He didn’t really blame here though, he wasn’t the most amusing person around.

He pouted on his way to her cabin, ready to confront her. She couldn’t just let a friend down like that, problems with Helen or not. Most of the sticky black stuff was gone after a quick scrub, but he still had lots of it in his hair like grease that made it stand out and twist in odd directions.

He passed several cabins on his way, including the Aphrodite cabin where Merida’s old friend Ivor Macintosh sat on the small porch, admiring his reflection. He had such “lovely flowing locks”, a strong jawline and a smug smile as he checked himself out. Hiccup swore he would be the new Narcissus someday, no doubt about it. It was very uncommon that demigods knew each other from before the came to camp, but it seemed like some years ago, the Greek gods took a linking in Scotland, seeing as Merida have three old friends here. Though, she won’t completely admit that she knows them, sort of like she’s embarrassed, but except from Ivor, he didn’t catch what was so bad about them.

Our hero stepped into the Apollo cabin, glanced over the many posters he couldn’t care less about at the moment, and whispered, “Merida? Are you here?” the sun was about to set soon and the cabin cold and hard in the disappearing sunlight. HE turned to leave, she was probably with Willow anyway, but caught an odd glow gleaming and growing stronger under the door frame. Despite being the skinniest and defiantly the clumsiest demigod in the history, he managed to sneak up somewhat quiet and sharpened his ears. A girl voice sang something about her belongings and designing sunshine, with a smooth yet clear voice. Another girl, Merida from the sound of it, yelped and he heard a tump of someone falling to the ground.

Hiccup had been in such situations himself where an Aphrodite kid had charmspeaked him into embarrassing himself several times in front of everyone. Though, Merida had always been there to violently snap him out of it… but there was no one to help her now - except him.

He should have bashed in (ripping the door of the hooks preferably) in a heroic manner and stopped whoever threated his friend. Instead, he silently cracked the door open, but the moment he spotted what was glowing, he froze on spot - eyes widening more and more as he stared at the stranger.

“Save what has been lost,
bring back what once was mine-“

Hiccup didn’t know how, or how to properly explain it, but there was a blonde girl in the Apollo bathroom with shining hair… It was like another sun - it glowed with life and warmth and kindness. But although the hair had caught his attention, when he focused on her face and her posture, the hair was nothing compared to the girl herself. She expressed such softness, gentleness, and happiness which, when focused on, seemed so much more powerful than glowing hair. She was definitely not an Aphrodite girl.

She had wrapped the end of her hair around her awfully injured leg, but as she sang, Hiccup watched the large cut stop bleeding and started healing in a way that wasn’t humanly possible. The edges of the cut closed together; at least it seemed like that way from what he could see through her hair.

“What once was mine.”

Merida was indeed on the floor, with an expression of shock and awe as she stared at the blonde before her.

The light started fading after the song ended, and the room went dark. The stranger let out a sudden exhale and brought a hand to the bathtub to support her. She had turned pale and her upper body was shaking slightly.

“The longer my hair is, the more energy it drains from me,” she panted and stared at her feet. “Both when I use it and when I’m not. That’s why I constantly cut it short, Merida. But I can’t heal fatal injuries with short hair either, it needs more power and I - Oh. Hello.” Hiccup didn’t realize she had spotted him standing in the door way before Merida looked up at as well and seemed somewhat disappointed.

“Hiccup, what are you doing here?”

Then he remembered why he wanted to find her in the first place. He looked down her and sighed helplessly, like a mom that couldn’t control her hyperactive kid. “You didn’t show up so I came here to give you a mouthful about ditching your friends, but I kinda heard you bump to the ground in here and a strange light so I opened the door and saw this girl doing some magic.” He gestured towards the blonde. “That was some show, but the way! What’s your name?”

She fiddled with a few strands of hair and peeked uneasy at Merida, as if to assure that it was okay to tell him.

Merida nodded at her and stuck her thumb at our hero. “This fishbone over here is Hiccup, my friend who can’t scrub his own back by himself. It’s okay to tell him, I’d trust him with my life any time.”

The last comment made up for the fishbone thing. It was okay when he joked about himself like that, but if it was anyone else than Merida, he would get sad instead of annoyed.
“I’m Rapunzel. Nice to meet you, Hiccup.” She gave him a gentle smile and held out her hand. He took it with a foolish grin.

An idea came to mind. “Hey Rapunzel -“

“Just call her Punzie,” Merida interrupted and got up from the floor.

“-I could cut your hair. We don’t want you fainting from exhaustion.”

Merida chuckled. “You? Did you forget last year when you tried to cut mine?”

Hiccup snorted. “At least I didn’t burn parts of your head while doing so, huh, Merida?”

She pouted stubbornly and crossed her arms, but let him win this one. Rapunzel smiled nervously. “That would’ve been nice of you, Hiccup.”

He started searching for a scissor just as the dinner bell rang. “Gee, I would have to do it quick. You can probably get an Aphrodite kid to do it nicer afterwards.”

He found an old rusty one and heard Rapunzel question Merida what an Aphrodite was, who said she would get to know it later. He stepped up behind her and took all her golden hair in his hand and cut it clean off in one smooth motion.

“Oh, and Hiccup, I should probably-“

But it was too late. He yelped as a chocolate brown colour rushed through her hair like wild fire and left it brown and somewhat less powerful. Merida took the hair from him, studying it. The rest of her hair remained golden though, cut sloppy and uneven above her shoulders, but still gleamed a little in the weak sunlight.

“We should go to dinner before they start without us,” Hiccup said and looked out the bathroom door to check that campers were still in their way to the pavilion. Rapunzel jumped to her feet, boosted with excitement and eager to meet new people like herself. Well, almost like herself. She helped Merida clean up her hair before they went out, deciding to give the hair to a cancer supporting organisation.



Hiccup scooped a healthy amount of food into the fire, mumbling “Hephaestus” and went to sit by his table. Then he heard Merida, in a rush that is, throw a bunch of food into the fire behind him, yelling “APOLLO!” and hooked him up from his cabin table, only to drag him away from his siblings and towards the north part of the dining pavilion. She ran through crowds of campers, dodging them like an eel, with Hiccup tagging along behind her like a loose rope trying to balance a plate of food.

They approached the back table, the table addressed to the campers who had yet to be claimed. Rapunzel sat there jumping in her seat as her green eyes wandered all around the place, looking at people, their actions, and different personalities at every table. Her hair had already grown beneath her armpits, something he wouldn’t have noticed if she still had insanely long hair.

Beside her sat Jack Frost, staring at the newcomer weirdly. He looked between her and them with a questioning expression, as if saying, “I asked for a dog and you give me a freaking bunny?”

Jack Frost; cheeky, prankster, a thief of the girls’ hearts. The only reason he sat by the unclaimed table was because Hermes didn’t bother to claim him. Yeah, we all knew he was a Hermes kid, his whole being screamed Hermes. But he technically couldn’t move into their cabin before his godly parent had approved of him, and for the time being, he seemed cool with that. The other Hermes kids didn’t want anything to do with Jack, because they, too, knew he had to be one of them, but since their father hadn’t approved of him yet, they didn’t neither.

Merida dragged him down beside her on the bench opposite of Jack and Rapunzel. His fellow cabin mates shot him warning glares. It wasn’t actually allowed to sit by another table than the one belonging to your parent, but seeing this one wasn’t dedicated to a Greek god, it couldn’t be all that bad, right? And despite his expectations, the Apollo kids did seem to care about their sister being absent as they stared at her worryingly, glancing around from time to time to look for the sun god himself. It was just too bad Merida missed to see them caring for her like that; it would probably get her to rethink her feelings towards her siblings.

“Quit looking over, Hiccup. It’ll just make things worse,” said highlander grumbled into her drink of… was that root beer? Oh right, no alcohol.

“This is so exciting!” Punzie squealed. “Ohh- I should have brought a pie, you know, as a conversation starter - oh dear, I have no idea how to talk to these people –“

“Punzie,” Merida interrupted. “You’ll get to know everything later, but you’re so skinny I’m sure you’ve been on the run for days without eating - EAT, wee lamb!”

Rapunzel looked down on her bronze plate. “Alright, but how does it work?”

Jack tapped her plate with his index. “It’ll fill up with whatever you want; pick your favourite.” Jack was ironically explaining this with his mouth full of ice cream. Merida always ate something sweet and Hiccup used to glance over at her plate and wish for the same - hey, he was from Berk, and tasty food wasn’t a priority there.

Rapunzel stared at her plate, narrowing her brows in concentration and confusion. Nothing happened.

“Maybe you should say it aloud, it might help,” Hiccup advised. Though, it had never been a problem before.

Rapunzel shook her head lightly. “No that’s not it.” She brought a fist to her head. “I don’t know if I have a favourite.”

Jack raised a brow at her with scepticism. “You don’t have one? Man, if you haven’t tasted enough food to know fried steak streams are the best stuff in the world then I feel sorry for you, Goldie.”

The Viking nodded towards the Hermes kid’s plate. “Then why are you going for vanilla ice cream?”

“He felt like getting a brain freeze,” Merida teased smugly in between mouthfuls of cinnamon rolls.

Hiccup strangled his laughter and Jack stared at Merida like she was dishes he had to clean. Merida made frost jokes on daily basis whenever she bumped into him,-

“Just control your temper; I don’t want my ice cream melting.”

-and he backfired with jokes just as lame about fire. It was their endless quarrel, but it could have been worse; they could have hated each other. At least Merida is smart enough to not joke about how he’s still unclaimed.

“Oh, and I’m Jack Frost.” He turned away from Merida to shake the newcomer’s hand.

This time she didn’t look to Merida for approval, she seemed to trust Jack already. “Rapunzel Nightflower,” she replied and smiled sweetly at him.

“Scoop over, Blondie. Reserved for Rider,” a tall brunette stated with a cheeky smile and eyes fixed on Rapunzel. Flynn Rider – original founder of the smoulder, senior camper, leader of the Hermes cabin against his will. Is he really going to try and pick up Punzie on her first day here? Merida won’t let that go easily.

Flynn seated next to Rapunzel, and Astrid suddenly appeared and pushed Hiccup closer to Merida so that she could sit on the edge. His heart caught up and he had to stop himself from gasping. He’d had a little more than friendly feelings towards her the past year. She the reason why he didn’t fear the Ares cabin, mostly because he hoped that there were other people like her there.

Jack gave Sandy a quick “Sup?” as Astrid started to talk to Rapunzel, bumping into Hiccup at times, but he didn’t mind at all. Sandy seated next to Merida, across from Jack. As far as Hiccup knowledge goes, Sandy’s godly parent is Hypnos. So, let’s see, for the time being we have two possible Hermes boys, one fearless Apollo archer, a way too pretty daughter of Ares, one sleepy son of Hypnos, one unclaimed, and a Hephaestus kid with too much Viking-ness stored up to function properly.

The redhead dumped a few five cinnamon rolls onto the Rapunzel empty plate. “Gods, Punzie, if your plate needs service then have some of my food. Those limps need protein!”

“Um Merida, I don’t think-“ our hero tried.

“Doesn’t matter, young Viking! Now,” she said in a proper voice. His friend rose from the table and gripped her glass of root beer. ‘She’s not gonna…? Damn, did she forget about her stage fear?!’

“I… I w-will propose…-“

“WHO’S THE LUCKY GIRL, FIRE?” one ass of a human being from the Aphrodite table teased.

Merida ignored them and kept trying to hold a toast for something, but they won’t shut up.

“YEAH, DUNBROCH, SPEAK UP!”

She gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes at the ground. Hiccup knew she hated this. She used to get shit like this back in her homeland, but it was one catch they didn’t want to trig… Back in Scotland, if things got too heated, they would solve it with violence. Not just a small exchange of fists; a bloody pool of death if needed. Merida wasn’t that violent though, but she still had it in her to defend herself and -

“I thought Hiccup was a boy, but now I’m not so sure anymore,” some Aphrodite girl giggled.

The daughter of Apollo’s expression turned horrified and she shot Hiccup a glance. He held his arms in front of her to say he didn’t care about it all that much, but she turned around too fast.

“Who said that?!” Merida barked at the crowd.

Situations like this are the only time where the bad mannered cabins joined forces against one victim. The rest of the camp hated that. It’s not enough that they acted like they were better than them; they had to pick fights to prove it as well. And if they managed to light the Fire, Merida would be blamed for it.