What are you talking about?

It's been too long. So thought Thomas Kirtley, as he walked down the street. He was currently in Manhattan, walking through the streets as he walked towards Camp Half-Blood. It's been too long since he had been at his old Camp. Too long since he had been with his friends. It felt like an eternity and a half had passed for the child of Strife since he had been here. Now, at long last, he was returning. The boy was dressed in his usual clothing; black t-shirt, black jeans, a black denim jacket with the sleeves cut off, revealing his lean arms, black socks, and black shoes. This outfit usually best expressed his chaotic mood, but it wasn't always enough. So he also used makeup. None of that blush and glitter stuff. Just corpse paint. Any visible skin was painted chalk white, and then usually marked with black. The skin around his eyes were painted black, with a line trailing down from the corners of his eyes, giving the appearance of tears going down his face. From the side of his mouth, he drew a line, with several smaller, perpendicular lines looking like stitches. On his neck, and on his arms, there were sets of four thick, black lines, as if Thomas just stuck his fingers in a jar of black body paint and dragged it across his skin. In addition to this, he wore black leather, fingerless gloves, and his Chaos Whistle that he got from his mother, Eris. He looked like a BVB Army dropout really.

So, Thomas was walking, when he bumped into a younger girl. It was partially his fault. She was in his blind spot. His hair covered up his left eye, which drew people's attention from the scar that was there, even though he barely managed to keep his sight from the knife barely missing. He didn't like the scar, though, and thought it disfiguring, so he hid it underneath a lock of his somewhat long, black hair. Thomas grabbed the girl's arm, trying to keep her from falling, and only succeeded in falling down with her. Great gods of Olympus, you're a fool, he thought. “Um, sorry about that,” he said aloud. Thomas knew it would look awkward, but as he was on his back, he kicked his legs up, propped his arms under his back, and then kicked his legs downward, the momentum bringing him to a crouch with his arms outstretched for balance. Thomas gently took the girl's hand, intending to pull her up, but a tingle stopped him. By touch, he knew she was a half-blood. All of a sudden he wished his sword was with him. Well, at least he had Pinger. You wouldn't catch him dead without it. Thomas pulled her up, and then started talking quickly, yet quietly, like a handgun with a silencer. That wasn't what worried him. He had started radiating. It was a problem all Eris kids got from their... unstable mother. It's not like the goddess of Strife was a bad mother, or abusive, or evil, or whatever. Eris was the goddess of Chaos and Discord, so it just wasn't her nature for things to be peaceful. As one of her children, Thomas tended to radiate chaos, especially when he got nervous, agitated, scared, mad... any negative emotion caused him to radiate slightly. The higher the emotional levels, the higher his radiation levels. Some kids tended to tease him about how he's a nuclear reactor that way. All that did was cause him to radiate just a little, and say how they'd better pray that this reactor doesn't have a meltdown. The joke died there.

“Hey, are you ok? My name is Thomas. I'm a half-blood. I'm not going to hurt you. You're going to have to trust me.” Thomas stopped talking briefly to look at her directly. “What's your name. Do you know your parentage? Do...” He stopped entirely, looking at the confused demigoddess.


“Can you even understand me?”