orange_boy (orange_boy) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2017-06-08 20:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2017 june, ~25 points, ~~ian gallagher (orange_boy), ~~~reyna ramirez-arellano |
Who: Reyna and Ian
What: Training
When: Wednesday morning
Warnings: Low, mention of death and suicide
Status: Closed, Complete
Although Percy had left, Reyna still tried to go on with the rest of her life. She'd never be one of those girls who pined over a boy, no matter how much she might miss him.
Getting on with the rest of her life meant keeping up with her training, which she did with Nico and Jason and Kira. And when Nico brought someone with him to training one day, Reyna just mentally shrugged and trained him too.
Afterwards, she went up to him.
“Ave, Ian. You did well for your first time.”
***
Ian had jumped at the chance to train with Nico and Reyna. He'd been doing his usual running, pushups, situps, and pullups every morning, but that got old. It was exciting to do some actual combat training, and even moreso because it was different than any type of combat he'd seen before. And he hadn't been disappointed. Reyna had really put him through the wringer.
“Ah, bullshit.” He said with a friendly grin. “You guys totally kicked my ass. Even Nico.” It stung slightly to lose to a boy so much younger and smaller, but Ian didn't let it bother him too much. He knew Nico and Reyna weren't entirely human and that he was at a disadvantage, just as he had been in the race with Malia.
“It was really fun, though, and they say the best way to get stronger is to challenge yourself against someone better than you. So thanks for letting me tag along.”
******
His frank assessment of his skills made Reyna smiled slightly. It was nice to deal with people who had a realistic impression of their own capabilities. They were easier and more pleasant to work with. Reyna wasn't looking for more people to train, but she was enjoying training Magnus and Kenny. She wouldn't mind taking on another if he wanted.
“As I said, it's not bad for your first time.” She grinned at him. “I would've expected more if you'd had real training. But you stuck it through, and that's not easy. You've obviously done conditioning before though.”
***
Ian nodded. “I work out and run every day, but that’s not the only training I’ve done. I’m in ROTC. I do drill and target shooting and I used to take karate.” Back home Ian was kind of a badass for a high school kid, but he was still only human. “I want to be a soldier, and back home, what I’ve done is considered real training, or as close as someone my age is allowed to get.” He knew what he got in ROTC was nothing compared to the training he would get once he actually joined up.
“It just obviously isn’t comparable to what you guys do.” He explained, hoping it wouldn’t make her think less of him that he wasn’t a total beginner and still got his ass kicked. “So how did you learn to do what you do at your age? And why do you guys train so hard?”
***
“Most mortal programs aren't,” Reyna said bluntly. It wasn't a judgement, but a statement of fact. Truth was, demigods - Romans especially - trained hard. As for why…
“We fight monsters,” she explained. “All the monsters you've heard about in the myths, they're real to us, and they're always looking for ways to bring down us and the gods. We train to protect ourselves, and we train to fulfill the will of the gods.”
***
“Wow, you fight actual monsters?” Ian raised his eyebrows and his eyes went wide, but he didn't freak out. He'd seen enough weird things since arriving that he'd started to accept them. Not that he totally accepted them as real, but he accepted them as real for here. He'd kind of decided that this whole town wasn't quite real and he was just enjoying a much needed break from reality. Eventually he would wake up or go home or whatever. But for now it was nice to not have to deal with the heartbreak, chaos, and grinding poverty that he'd left behind.
“Do you think a mortal like me could benefit from your kind of training, or is it just for demigods?” Ian wasn't going to be fighting monsters, but maybe he could also learn something that would benefit him when he was fighting in Afghanistan or wherever.
***
Reyna shook her head. “Our training is hard, but it's useful to anyone who wants to learn,” she said with conviction.
“Aside from the physical conditioning you get, you'll also learn combat skills. This place isn't entirely safe. Has anyone told you about the dinosaurs and vampires that've invaded?”
***
“Uh, no. No one mentioned anything about dinosaurs or vampires.” He said without much surprise. It figured that there would be. After all, there were werewolves and aliens, how was this any different? This town was like every action movie rolled into one. Except that is was also a boring small town in Indiana. It was weird like that.
“So would you mind if i joined you guys for training sometimes?” He asked, trying not to appear too eager. He really wanted to train with them, but didn’t want to impose if he would be in the way. “It would be pretty cool to learn your way of fighting.”
***
“There were,” was Reyna’s laconic confirmation. Because why not? There had already been vampires here.
“You should come when I'm training Magnus and Kenny,” she suggested. “They're just starting too. That'll be easier than trying to keep up with me and Nico.”
***
“Sure, that would be cool.” He said with a smile. “Are Magnus and Kenny regular human like me, or are they like you guys?” Ian didn’t mind either way. He just wanted to know what he was getting into.
***
“Neither of them are mortal, but they’re just starting their training,” Reyna explained. She liked the questions he was asking. They showed that he was listening.
“They'll have more innate physical attributes than you, but skill wise you're further ahead. Where did you do your training?”
Because it was clear he'd had some, even though it wasn't as intensive as the demigods’.
***
Ian nodded. That made sense to him, and it sounded like they could be good practice partners.
“Mostly in Junior ROTC,” he said. Then it occurred to him that he didn’t know how much she knew about the mortal world and she might not know what ROTC was. “That’s like training for kids who want to be soldiers in the mortal world when they grow up. They offered it as a class in my high school, and I’ve been taking it for three and a half years. I was Cadet Colonel.” He said with pride.
***
Reyna felt her expression freeze. She took a deep breath, trying to relax, trying to remind herself that not all soldiers came back from wars broken and in the grips of PTSD. She herself had survived two wars, and although she was forever changed by them, she hadn't come home thinking everyone was the enemy and eventually locking up and torturing her daughters. She wasn't her father, and there was nothing to say Ian’s future experience, should he continue on this path, would lead him to the same destiny as her father had.
“Congratulations,” she said, carefully neutral. “My father fought in Iraq. He was a Corporal.”
***
“Your father fought in Iraq...so he was mortal?” That shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. He knew demigods had one human parent, but he'd made a sexist assumption that it was generally male gods taking advantage of mortal women.
Despite her neutral expression Ian could tell that something was wrong. Then he caught on that they were using the past tense. “Did he...did he get killed there?” He asked in a soft voice.
***
Reyna nodded. “My mother is Bellona, the goddess of war,” she explained, seeing his confusion. “My father…”
She trailed off, then caught herself. “It was PTSD.”
Yes, she was still talking about him in past tense. No, she wasn't going to admit that she'd killed him to protect her sister. No one but Nico knew that.
***
PTSD wasn’t really an explanation for why they were talking about Reyna’s father in the past tense, but Ian was smart enough to put two and two together and realize that it must have led to some tragedy after he had come home. There was a guy in the neighborhood back home who had shot himself after coming home from Iraq. He also remembered his mother’s suicide attempt at Thanksgiving last year, and wondered if it had been something like that. He could still see her bleeding out on the kitchen floor while he stood there in helpless shock with his arms around Fiona.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “That must have been rough.”
***
Reyna inclined her head in acknowledgement and thanks for his words. Having gotten as personal as she was willing to go at this point, she changed the subject back.
“Next practice is on Friday,” she said. “6 am here.”
***
“I’ll be here!” Ian said, then saluted her before he turned to go.