I want you to be happier

It had been a good party that had happened the other night. Lily had been focused on cleaning up after it all and making sure everything returned to normal. You could find red solo cups everywhere, but luckily those were all picked up by this point, Lily just liked to make sure the plants were fine and being taken care. The Apollo cabin leader had walked around with some other Apollo kids and some of the Demeter kids to water and freshen up the plants in the courtyard. It needed to be a lively place like it always was.

In the midst of looking around at the plants, she noticed one of the new campers in her cabin was out in the courtyard. It took some time to adjust especially for a thirteen year old boy. Lily had walked up to him and sat down next to him. She had heard some things from the Demeter kids who had spoken with Fauna Reacher.

"Hey Timmy, how are you doing these days?" She asked with a warm smile. Timmy was her half brother and she would do anything to help him feel like he had a place in the cabin, she could still remember the first time she came to camp and the mess that she was in at the time.

Lily could see that Timothy was having a bad day, but she wanted to turn that around for him in whatever way that she could. When he said he was doing better that made her feel a little better, but she knew the 'but' was coming. The daughter of Apollo gave a sympathetic smile as he mentioned he missed home, it was common to miss home.

"That's a normal feeling Timothy." She said placing a hand on his shoulder, "What about home is it that you're missing?" She asked him hoping maybe it was something they could try and do here for him to help him that much more. Lily knew she felt comfort in the sunshine and a good bowl of homemade mac and cheese. Mac and cheese was something she had a lot when she lived with her mom. "What things made it feel like home?"

She watched as he tried to list the things that he missed from home and as per usual when she'd ask the homesick campers what it was they missed, they'd come to realize they really weren't missing much besides the people. It was all normal and it was just incredibly hard to do at the age of thirteen. Moving out from your family was hard at any age, but she knew as well as most campers did.

"Yeah, its a crazy life to take in. One day you're just living your life as any normal day. Learning something in class, spending time with your friends. Sometimes staying out later than you're supposed to. Then your life turns into this whole mess with half goat half human people. You meet other people who apparently have gods for parents. It can just feel like a lot." Lily said trying to remembering her first thoughts when she came to the camp at the age of twelve.

"You get used to it eventually. I think the key thing is to try and make friends here. If you make friends then you have people here you can go to like you do back home. You'll always have me as your friend and sibling here. Speaking of siblings, we got far more than a few here." She said with a bit of a laugh.

"Well at least you're still here." Lily said with a sympathetic smile when he mentioned he got attacked by a harpy and was brought to camp after that. Her story was a little different than most people who attended camp, she didn't get attacked, but she ended up running into a satyr and she's been thankful ever since.

"I would disagree with you, Timothy." The cabin counselor started speaking looking back over to him. "Satyr's are good at what they do, and they have a good success rate at getting campers here safely. You're more likely to believe someone who looks out of the ordinary too." Lily continued to speak about satyrs and their importance. "Without a satyr I wouldn't be here today."

"Well funny thing about gods, even though they're all related we are only related directly to our god parent and our half siblings. Our blood doesn't go passed that, so we don't really have cousins here. Everyone is still like a big family here though. "

"I think that's a good idea. Not getting eaten by a harpy." Lily said confirming with TImothy as she let a little bit of a laugh out. She listened to the rest of what he had to say before she'd chime in with her responses that she had for him.

"I don't think they really have a class for this kind of thing. I could be wrong. I've just asked Chiron a ton of questions. We take after more of our mortal parents bloodline. The healer god guy, he's not our sibling. Like I know technically he's supposed to be, but our bloodlines don't carry with the gods for whatever reason." She said with a bit of a shrug.

"Hmm." Lily said as Tim went into explaining that he wasn't too good at combat. "Well, you aren't going to be a world class fighter on your first day or even your first year. You will pick up on skills though and it'll begin to feel more natural." Lily explained to the concerned boy. "If you keep attending training and capture the flag games, you will get better. It's a little bit harder in training, but you need to build up the skills. Then when you're out there it'll all be instinct."

It was hard to wrap your mind around new information, Lily knew this. She knew it was even harder to develop fighting skills, and it was easier to just give up, but you had to at least try. "Timothy, you don't have to stay here if you don't want to. you are not forced to be here. You can leave whenever you want. My suggestion is to do training so you can at least protect yourself. There is another option though." Lily said with a bit of a smile and then continued to speak. "I know it's not home, but if you wanted to continue to live in safety, there's another camp. Camp Jupiter. They have a city filled with demigods like you and I. Its a very safe place and I know it's not home, but it is a safe place where you wouldn't have to live in fear."

"Just because you don't like fighting or you don't want to fight it doesn't mean you're a coward. It just means your morals are set in place a certain way. Training isn't even really fighting, you aren't doing it to kill, you're just doing it to practice what you need to be able to do in case you need to protect yourself or anyone around you." Lily summed up. She knew if he really didn't want to fight he didn't have to, but it was a big reason of why they had this camp in place. Usually when you got older it wasn't normal that you'd stay here and you'd be out on your own. She only wanted to try and guide Timothy in the best direction for himself.

"Eh hate to break it to you Timmy, but you live across the Atlantic. So not across the planet. The earth is a sphere, so we're not too far from Europe here on the east coast of America." Lily said with a cheeky grin. She couldn't help it she really enjoyed geography.

"With that attitude you'll always be stuck here. You can go home any time. Nothing is keeping you here, not even the distance. But your success rate is very low if you left now. Listen, I'll always listen to what you have to say, but there will come a day where I wont be here. In a couple years I might move over to the Roman city."

"Never said it was around the corner. But if you need the means to return home, we can always try and figure that out too. It's not a hopeless cause, I promise you that." Lily wasn't about to get into the whole aspect of how she lived quite a bit away from home too, but Lily didn't like to talk about her family life and for the most part nobody knew much about her life before camp. Just that she had a mom and was partially home schooled. Lily didn't really lead people to think there was more than that, for her that was just the life she would portray to have.

"Good, I'm your favourite sibling, keep it that way." Lily said with a bit of a wink and a laugh. She loved talking to any of her siblings, but she was fine if she wasn't the favourite sibling out there, but she sure didn't mind hearing it either. "You'll find your place in this world, I promise, Timmy."

"Sounds good to me, if you ever need help, let me know." Lily said with a smile on her face when she watched his own smile grow on his face. She could tell that it seemed rather genuine. She was glad and hoped her could make this place his home.

"I better get back to helping them clean up the mess, but feel free to come talk anytime, Timmy."