Chapter Text
The air at Camp Half-Blood was thick with the scent of strawberries and woodsmoke, but for Sherman Yang, it smelled mostly like failure and desperate sweat.
He stood behind a thicket of laurels near the strawberry fields, clutching a crumpled piece of parchment like it was a live grenade. Sherman wasn’t a man of words; he was a man of high-impact collisions. Usually, if he wanted something, he hit it until it became his, or it broke. But you couldn’t hit Miranda Gardiner. Not only would she likely wrap you in thorny vines before you could blink, but the very thought of her green eyes made Sherman’s internal compass spin like a broken gyroscope.
“Just tell her a fun fact,” Mark had whispered earlier in the Ares armory, sharpening a spear with a terrifying glint in his eye. “Chicks love facts. Show her you’ve been paying attention to her… uh, plant stuff.”
“But make sure they’re cool facts,” Ellis Wakefield had added, punching a training dummy for emphasis. “Don’t be a wimp. If it doesn’t involve a struggle for survival, it isn’t a fact worth knowing.”
Sherman had briefly considered walking over to Cabin 10. He’d stood ten feet from the Aphrodite Cabin, staring at the pink lace curtains and the smell of expensive perfume, and felt a physical wave of revulsion. He’d rather take a bath in Greek Fire than ask a daughter of Aphrodite for dating tips. They’d probably make him wear glitter. Then there was the option of praying to his father, Ares. He’d closed his eyes for a second, imagining the response: “A son of mine asking for help with a girl? Stop being a sissy or I’m telling Aphrodite so she can laugh at you.”
So, here he was. Armored in his usual combat gear, smelling of CLP gun oil and determination, watching Miranda Gardiner prune a rosebush.
“Gardiner!” he barked, stepping out from the laurels.
Miranda jumped, her shears snicking together with a sharp clack. She turned, wiping a smudge of dirt from her forehead. “Sherman? Gods, you scared me. Is there a monster? An invasion? Why are you screaming?”
Sherman marched forward until he was well within her personal space, then realized he was too close and took a jerky step back. He looked at the parchment in his hand, then shoved it into his pocket.
“I’ve been thinking,” he started, his voice a low growl that he intended to be casual. “About plants. They’re… metal.”
Miranda blinked, her green eyes—the color of new foliage, as the sun hit them—widening in confusion. “Metal? You mean like… heavy metal? Or the material?”
“No. I mean they’re violent,” Sherman said, his chest puffing out. This was his turf now. Aggression. Conflict. Biology. “You ever hear of the Dionaea muscipula? The Venus Flytrap? It waits. It lures its enemies in with sweet nectar, and then—BAM—it crushes them in a cage of teeth and dissolves their internal organs with acid while they’re still alive. It’s basically the Ares Cabin of the bog.”
Miranda stared at him. A slow, uncertain smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Did you come all the way over here to tell me that plants eat bugs, Sherman? I’m a daughter of Demeter. I’m aware.”
“That’s just the amateur stuff,” Sherman countered, feeling the adrenaline of a successful opening gambit. He stepped closer, gesturing wildly at the surrounding greenery. “What about the Gympie-Gympie tree? In Australia? If you touch it, it’s covered in tiny silica needles that inject a neurotoxin. It’s so painful people have been known to kill themselves just to make it stop. It’s a biological landmine, Gardiner. It’s beautiful.”
Miranda’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline. She leaned back against the porch railing of the Big House, crossing her arms. “A biological landmine. That’s… a very Sherman way of putting it.”
“And the Sandbox Tree!” Sherman continued, his voice rising with genuine excitement. He’d spent three hours in the camp library for this—the most painful three hours of his life. “The fruit is basically a biological frag grenade. When they’re ripe, they explode. They launch seeds at one hundred and sixty miles per hour. They can kill a cow, Miranda. They have spikes on the trunk so nothing can climb them. It’s like a fortified bunker that shoots back.”
Miranda let out a short, startled laugh. It wasn’t a mocking laugh; it was the sound of someone genuinely surprised. “You’re telling me that you stayed up late researching trees that explode and neurotoxins?”
Sherman felt his face heat up, a deep, angry red that matched his cabin’s paint job. “I’m just saying. People think Demeter is all about… I don’t know, cereal and flower crowns. But your mom is hardcore. She’s got an arsenal. I respect that.”
He shifted his weight, looking down at his combat boots. The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant sounds of campers at the climbing wall. He felt like he’d failed. Mark and Ellis were idiots. He should have just challenged her to a duel; at least then he’d know where he stood.
“You know,” Miranda said softly, stepping away from the railing. She walked over to a nearby flower bed and knelt. “Most guys try to talk to me about daisies or how pretty the strawberries look. It’s boring.”
She reached out and touched a particularly vibrant red snapdragon. “Since you like violence, did you know that the word 'Snapdragon' comes from the flower’s perceived resemblance to the face of a dragon? And when they die, the seed pods dry out and look like tiny, screaming human skulls?”
Sherman leaned in, his eyes widening. “No way. Skulls?”
“Total skulls,” Miranda confirmed, looking up at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “And the Oleander? It’s one of the most poisonous commonly grown plants in the world. Digestion, heart, nerves—it takes it all down. It’s a silent assassin. It looks like a gift, but it’s a death sentence.”
Sherman felt a strange, fluttering sensation in his chest that definitely wasn’t a heart arrhythmia caused by a curse. He grinned, his zigzag scar crinkling. “A silent assassin. I like that. It’s like the covert ops of the garden.”
“Exactly,” Miranda said. She stood up, brushing the dirt from her knees. She looked at Sherman—really looked at him—and didn't see the meathead bully the rest of the camp complained about. She saw a guy who had spent hours reading boring books just to find a way to speak her language, even if he had to translate it into war first.
“So,” Sherman said, his bravado returning now that he wasn't crashing and burning. “I was thinking. The dining pavillion is serving that weird brisket tonight. But I happen to know where the stash of MREs is kept in the Ares bunker. They’ve got the chili mac. It’s basically a war crime in a pouch, but it tastes better than the brisket.”
Miranda laughed again, a clear, bright sound. “Are you asking me to have a picnic of 'war crime' pasta with you, Sherman Yang?”
“Only if you bring some of those skull seeds,” Sherman said, his voice dropping an octave. “I want to see if I can use them to decorate my helmet.”
Miranda tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her face flushing a light pink that had nothing to do with Aphrodite’s influence. “I think I can manage that. Meet you by the canoe lake at six? I’ll bring some Oleander… just to keep you on your toes.”
“It’s a date,” Sherman blurted out, then immediately wanted to punch himself in the throat for using the word.
But Miranda didn't seem to mind. She just smiled, picked up her shears, and went back to her roses. Sherman turned and marched away, his head held high. As soon as he was back behind the laurels, he pumped a fist into the air.
He didn't need Aphrodite. He didn't need a sissy prayer. He had exploding fruit and screaming skulls.
In the Ares Cabin, victory was the only thing that mattered. And as Sherman headed back to get the chili mac, he felt like he’d just won the greatest battle of his life.