EVEN GROUND| JASON

Her? A party girl? He was flabbergasted. Meeting someone like her and having her say that, in her past, she was more like his half brother...? He couldn't comprehend it. He would watch her with furrowed brows as she finished the first part of her story. She seemed lost in the water. He sat up slowly, watching her as she gazed out over the water. He would let his eyes move from her face to the surface and cast out a hand. The water shook under the sound, almost like a drum, before pulling a man made of water from the surface. He grinned, watching his strange, shimmering human.

"I've been practicing."

He would slowly start to make the man dance a little, doing the robot from the surface before he would let the guy drop with a splash. His eyes would turn back to Mel, bumping her with his shoulder gently. He saw that she was fading into a darker mood, and didn't want her to drift from the good he had taken her to. That was just a little distraction for her, so she could come back without sailing too deep into memories, to a place he'd lose her in.

"Your getting better with it. We should definitely train sometime, even if my archnemesis has already been vanquished." That son of Oceanus had got what he deserved, even if it had taken some dirty tricks to do it. Mel wasn't quite worried about the how, just the why.

"We may even grab my baby brother some time if we think about it. Necromancy is a hard gift to control, much harder than shadows or water. A little bit of guided practice would do him some good now that Daddy Dearest has decided to let him come home." She would never forgive Hades for playing with her emotions like that. Ever.

Jason smiled, looking back over the water.

"I get the feeling that your brothers would rather hang me out to dry than train with me. Do I smell badly or something that caused them not to like me? Because they all seem very different from you."

He hadn't forgotten the tale- but he wanted to distract her for a few, to get her mind off things. He would spin things back in a few moments. He hooked his arms around his knees, watching her,

"The older two that you met, Aimery and Ethan, are just over protective. They don't enjoy my profession and for someone who isn't my superior to walk in that kind of irritated...well, they don't take kindly to it." Ethan wouldn't have done anything, but Aimery might have if it had continued. Zane and Alex? Who knew. Zane probably would've just left it alone in the first place.

"Alex on the other hand...he's just confused. He's only been around for a few days and he doesn't know what's going on. The last time he saw me, I was a different person. Not much makes sense to him right now, especially when it comes to things like that." She had no doubt that if Alex had actually felt Jason was a threat, he wouldn't have left that room. There were too many bodies laying around right now, and Alex was too keyed up to stay calm for long.

He glanced away.

"Well...I half expected you to attack me. It's why I asked for water. You are very protective...I admire that. I guess I can see where you get it from."

He smiled, bringing a hand up and running it through his hair, his feet still in the water and a little wet. He would clear his throat.

"You were ah...talking about party life. What happened after that? Did most of it step from losing the Colonels sister, or...?"

He wondered how deep the tragedy went.

Melanie shook her head, trying to focus on her words rather than what they actually meant. "No. At first it wasn't about her at all. It took me a year to believe that she was gone, that I couldn't find her some day." Even after the case had closed, it took months for her to finally give up and move on.

"The night of the attack, I came back later in the evening to find that Aimery wasn't in the cabin. I had been out with the Aphrodite kids messing around that night, but I came back sooner that I usually did because of the training I had done earlier that day with Braxton and Octavia. I was sore and tired, but I went out looking for him anyways. It was unlike Aimery to wander off without Damien, the one who goes by Alex now." A small smile graced her lips as she thought about the way her brothers had been before everything changed.

"I found him by the beach, doing who knows what. I never got around to asking him. Within a few minutes, the screaming started. We ran back towards the camp, but by then some of the cabins were already on fire. Kids were laying on the ground, just gone. It was just another night. So few of us were armed, or ready." Barely suppressing a shudder at the thought of friends, with their eyes wide open, she decided to finish before letting him speak again.

"Our cabin wasn't on fire though. It was flooded, completely. The bastard who did it stood on the porch and laughed at the hydrokinetic that tried to take him down, disappearing before we could do anything. It might have been Ember Lynn, but I don't remember. I hadn't even thought about Damien not leaving the cabin when everyone else started running, not until I went inside for the last time. They had drowned him, left him in the middle of the floor. I tried to carry him with me, but he was so heavy and the water made him hard to grasp. We left him there. I don't remember getting out of camp. Someone said Braxton or one of the others must have found us, but I don't honestly know."

"When I finally came to again a few days later, I couldn't breathe anymore. Large, open spaces scared me, but the tiny apartment they threw Aimery and I in to felt like a cage. I had to do something, anything. That's when they admitted that Tavie was missing and that the Garrison had formed a special ops team in their new intelligence department to look for our MIA's. I joined and then never looked back." She paused for a moment, not sure how to explain the thoughts running through her head.

"That party girl though...she died back at camp with her brother. She was weak and stupid. There isn't a place for her in this world anymore. So she faded away, in fire and water and blood. So much blood." Shaking her head again, she pulled herself out of her own thoughts long enough to smile reassuringly in Jason's direction. "I know it sounds like I should be half crazy by now, but it's made me better. Stronger in ways that it shouldn't have, softer in the ways I should've been. It's a hard process, that trial by fire, but some day the pain fades and the wounds heal and you move on with life again."

Jason listened intently, and wouldn't try to interrupt. She was running through the story at this point, and he didn't want to make her lose her train of thought. Before he had gotten here he never would have been able to imagine what it was like for her at the battle. What everyone here had experienced and gone through together. After the battle, he knew what haunted her and the rest. Wide eyes, blood and guts everywhere....soldiers screaming, painted red with their own blood or the blood of their enemies. He had to swallow and, through sheer force of will, push those thoughts down.

If it had been a sibling he had found like that...he would have been changed too. He reached out to put a hand on her back and rub gently there.

"Even so...I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's one reason I've come to envy humankind. They don't have to deal with these hellish lives most of us grow up with. Back at camp, and here....I missed a lot of what you guys went through and part of me wishes I would have been grabbed earlier. I feel like I'd have that much more of a connection with the people here."

He would let his hand on her back drop before hooking his arms back around his knees, trying not to seem like the angry, spoiled person he much have looked like when he first came to her at the house, earlier. The kind of trials she and the others had gone through, and he was sitting there almost pointing a finger, making blame on her.

No wonder she got so pissed.

"It would've helped, that's for sure. Most of us were at Camp and claimed by twelve. You would've had three years of training by then instead of a couple of months." Now, did she think she would be a higher up by now? Probably not. The war children were very good at what they did, that's why the top three belonged to that caste. It was literally in their blood to handle these things.

"And you are right. Camp forged a lot of the bonds we have here today, whether we're talking about Camp Half-blood or Camp Jupiter. Finley's friendship with my brother, the other former Praetor of Camp Jupiter is part of the reason we work together so well. First Captain Tyrell of Minotaur was one of my best friends, so I know he has my back. Colonel Wyatt may have hated me, but he wouldn't let me die. Hurt yes, dead, not so much. Knowing that those bonds exist and how deep they go is part of the politics of the Garrison." Which is what they were here to talk about, after all.

"Ah...politics. I have to admit I never was any good on that front. I tend to either piss people off or make myself unnoticeable. Neither of which are good for political needs. My sister wanted me to be a Magister for her... I threw up in my mouth a little at the thought."

He would look to her, scanning her face a moment.

"I have you though....to bring me up to speed. What sort of politics do the Garrison deal with?"

The sooner he learned, the better. Especially if he wanted First Captain.

"Like I said, personal relationships factor in quite a bit. It's not necessarily bias, but you have to understand that along with the island, this military system is no where near ordinary." Melanie explained, drawing lines in the sand as she spoke. "There's also the power play between the Godly parents. Who is fit to make command decisions and who isn't? Your third aspect would be the actual politics themselves. Who is in charge of who, who does what, and where does everything start and stop."

Jason listened patiently, taking in her words. While remaining an asset, he should get close to his commanding officers, really dig in there and becoming indispensable. On that same note, he had to develop a rapport with them, where they felt comfortable talking to him outside a business location. He would nod a little at the end.

"Got it. Now...where are you in the pecking order? Are you a stand-alone commander on par with a colonel or...?"

He had to get a feel for where she was and how much pull she had, after all.

"No. I'm only a step above you at this point. My rank is captain equivalent. Now, it depends on the situation as to how much real pull I have. I can't necessarily order some people around, such as the first captains and colonels, but there are things I'm allowed to withhold, orders I don't have to take. It's a complex system, but my people know their place." That, and she was good about playing the system, but she wouldn't tell him that right off. A girl had to keep a few secrets, after all.

"However, if you take personal relations in to account, I have more pull than most when it comes to your brigade. Fin would probably let me get away with murder, much less bossing him around a bit if I didn't cross a line. I don't, but I could. He and I have open enough of a communication line that I don't have to." The smirk that escaped her lips was small, but genuine. At least she could count on Fin. "Not to mention, I'm a big three kid, one of hades' older children of you exclude the Pluto boys...well, one now. Zane didn't make it through the battle. Either way, people look to us to be leaders. Pillars of our area. It's part of the reason why I was chosen over some of the older agents." She didn't like it, but it was the truth.

Jason chuckled.

"So what you're saying is, I made a good choice in picking my friends."

He grinned, joking but also totally not joking. He liked Mel, and with the secrets they divulged tonight, they could become close friends if he would stop mucking it up. But he was also glad he knew someone who had some clout, who could stick up for him and vice versa. Not that he was looking for special treatment but he was looking to move up. Having someone who was there to hang out with and work with that he enjoyed was a big plus.

"I'll have to make sure to play my cards carefully too, especially if I want First Captain."

He didn't mind divulging his plans to her- they had shown each other trust so far, and he would show he was investing in it.

Melanie laughed and shook her head, more out of amusement than to tell him his plan was off. She had no doubt that he would succeed, and probably in the near future. "It sounds like you've got it all figured out. I have to admit though, first captains and I don't really get along right now." Her voice was light and teasing, but her hand subconsciously rested on her side where one of her wounds still laid. It wasn't as bad anymore, with one of the healers having helped it along, but that battle had taken its toll.