Watching the Chaos (Open)

[Axel The Bunny]

Axel was lounging in a tree, the pleasant afternoon air giving him a slight sense of peace. Of course he knew that wouldn't last, which was fine with him. Axel looked at the bag slung over the side of the tree. The bag was nothing special, just a duffle bag he had found at the camp store. Of course the fact it contained over a dozen stolen items from the Apollo and Athena cabins did give it some significance.

Axel knew that he hadn't been seen stealing them earlier in the day. The members of the two cabins would most likely realizing the thefts any moment now. Of course there was nothing that would tie him to the theft. Still he expected them to come after him that was half the fun of it. The lake was calm, aside from a few gossiping dryads it was a quiet afternoon out here. It wasn't long before the Apollo and Athena kids finally seemed to return to they're cabins. Axel watched when several of them walked out with irritated looks on their faces, and many stormed directly towards the Hermes cabin. Though some seemed to go looking elsewhere, probably figuring out that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to go to his cabin of all places.

[Ephen]

Lottie was walking towards the lake quickly, despite having been at camp for several months she had still not been there and was determined to get it out of the way so she could go back to her plants in the strawberry fields and get on with her work. Her cargo pants and trainers were dirtier than usual from her earlier work with the plants but her white tank had managed to escape with only a mud stain towards her right thigh.She was just passing a group of trees when she stopped, almost certain that she heard something. She looked up at the tree branches, thinking that there might be something or someone up there.

She tucked her hair behind her left ear and gritted her teeth as she recognised the spiky hair that belonged to the irritatingly tall Axel, just slung over the same tree was a bag that -knowing Axel- most likely had a load of stolen objects in there, which also explained why he was hiding in a tree. She considered going over there and shouting at him about how stealing is a crime and wrong, but, as she realised when they met, Axel had been told this by many different people and it was hardly like a little insignificant demigod like her was going to make a difference. So she elected to walk up to his tree, and said wearily, "You should probably give that stuff back, you know." She realised it was most likely a bad idea for her to start a conversation with Axel, as she wasn't entirely sure she was going to get through this without him annoying her or her starting another lecture about stealing, but the damage had already been done.

[Axel The Bunny]

Axel looked downward to the black haired girl, he had seen her coming, from this spot he could see anyone who approached the lake, it was why he had picked it in the first place. Axel gave a cocky grin in response to her suggestion, surprised she would even bother lecturing somebody like himself about morals. All he was doing was teaching people to keep their valuables close, and making things more interesting around camp. After all it didn't get more exciting than having an angry mob of trained monster fighters looking for you. Besides if they didn't want him taking the stuff, they wouldn't have made it so easy to do so.

Axel assessed the girl's position, wondering if she would try to reclaim the stolen loot by force. From what he had seen of Lottie so far, that didn't seem likely, the fact he had a strategic position didn't hurt either. Axel decided that even if she did try it, he really didn't have too much to worry about, and if she ended up surprising him then that would just make things more interesting.

"Where's the fun in that?" Axel responded, speaking in a rather bored tone.

[Ephen]

Lottie gritted her teeth at Axel's tone. It really irked her that the older boy cared so little about what others thought of him taking whatever he wanted, she guessed that after being told off for years about stealing had made clearly not changed Axel's ways at all. She knew that whatever she did she wasn't going to change his mind, she kept trying to let his habits slide but everything he did annoyed her and the way he talked to her was not helping her mood. Yet she did her absolute best not to start shouting at him, she didn't want to give Axel the satisfaction of seeing that he had angered another camper that he barely knew with his apparently unchangeable ways.

Despite this decision she let her hands ball into fists, and once she realised that she had done this she quickly opened them up again and instead dug her hands deep into her cargo pants pockets, causing them to brush against her old garden trowel. She didn't trust herself not to aim a punch at Axel's smirking little meerkat face and if she tried to she was almost certain that he would easily disarm her immediately, the way he acted convinced her that he had been at camp for years and she was not a great fighter, no matter how much he tried to provoke her she had to stay calm. It irritated her more when she noticed that he wasn't even trying to agitate her yet and figured out that she should pretend to let it go, even though every little thing that he did made it seem like a really really good idea to punch him right on his scar. She felt her hands ball into fists again and once again forced them to open, although she let her trembling left hand close around her trowel for support. She had to get her emotions under control or she would easily end up with a knife in her back.

She sighed at him in exasperation, "But what's the fun of stealing them in the first place?" she asked, slightly shocked that she even had to ask such a question, but then again, this was Axel.

[Axel The Bunny]

"Now what would be the fun of just telling you?" Axel said with his normal Devil-May-Care attitude. In truth the question was much more complicated than it seemed. Having grown up in foster care he had never had any semblance of control over his life. No say in if he was moved or not, nor any say in who he was forced to share a room with. Stealing had always put him in control of something. That wasn't the only reason he stole things of course, but it was definitely one of the main ones.

Axel looked out, the campers from Athena and Apollo had already searched his cabin by now, and he knew they probably had figured out who the culprit was too. He looked back down to Lottie, who was obviously at least slightly irritated. Her body language suggested as much, and to think he hadn't even been trying yet. "They find me, they'll probably assume your an accomplice, wouldn't that be interesting." Axel taunted, trying to get a reaction from her.

[Estelle]

((Time to get Essy’s laptop back to her.))
Estelle was growing frustrated without her laptop. That morning, forgetting about her loss, she had reached inside her backpack, only to find an empty place where the laptop had once been. Not to mention that she had so much to do that was set back because of this thievery. Well, it wasn’t exactly a “thievery”, since she already knew the culprit behind it.

“Axel,” The ravenette muttered as she watched her cabinmates try to find their belongings. Naturally they had gone to her, the cabin counselor, for help. So now she had to go to the robber and get everything back. Sighing, she had asked Acacia to find where Axel was, so that she didn’t have to walk all over camp for the boy. Axel. Axel Stone. She would love to hurt him, just a little.

A small hoot shook her from her thoughts, and Estelle absentmindedly followed Acacia to the Canoe Lake. Shading her eyes with one hand, she tugged on the hem of her shirt. A tree, eh? She walked up to the big trunk and noticed another girl standing there. She nodded to her once in acknowledgement, then started climbing the tree without warning. She was a quick climber, and the tree wasn’t too hard to climb. “Bit obvious hiding place, don’t you think?” Estelle peeked up, smiling a little. She swung herself up to a branch right next to Axel’s. Acacia settled in comfortably, her great owl eyes twinkling amusedly. “So. Let’s see what you’ve stolen.”

[Catryn Greyling]

Cat trudged out of the woods and into the open, bow in hand. She enjoyed hiking on the forest trails, though she knew that she'd have to give it a rest when winter really set in. And she had to be careful about how far she went - far enough so she could be immersed in nature and couldn't see the camp (it was nice to pretend she wasn't in a group of crazy half-gods), but not too deep, where an abundance of monsters would be hiding. She'd had to shoot a couple before, from a distance - no less than ten yards away. She had to wonder how she would've done if they had gotten any closer.

     The lake was just a few yards to the right, so she began heading over. She noticed a group of people already there: two sitting in a tree - three if you counted the silver bird - and one standing on the ground.
     The ones in the tree she recognized immediately - there was the first daughter of Athena she had met at camp, Estelle, and her partner in crime, the owl Acacia. Beside her was Cat's least favorite child of Hermes, Axel, who had a bulging duffel bag at his side. That's not suspicious, she thought dryly.
     As she walked over, she noticed with faint surprise and approval that the kid looking up at the other two, with her back turned to Cat, was wearing cargo pants, just like her. That was cool. Coming up to stand beside her, she nodded to the girl in greeting before looking up at Estelle and Axel.
     "So," Estelle was saying. "Let's see what you've stolen."
     She smiled at the dark-haired daughter of Athena and nodded to her as well, locking eyes with Acacia for a brief moment, then turned a critical gaze on Axel.
     "Axel? Stealing? Gee, who would've guessed," she said sarcastically. "I was kinda hoping there'd be cake in that duffel."

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