𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

── decision making

          𝕬urora had surprised herself with how mature she had the potential to be. She had put her foot down with Luke and told him that both of them needed time away from each other to process what had happened, all of the emotions that had been said and what was to come if they did decide to continue this.

Aruna would be very happy to know that Aurora did actually listen to her advice at points.

Then, Aurora had gone back to her home in New York, seen her friends, did some recording, listened to what critics stated about her album and done some interviews. She'd had a productive week or so, got everything she needed to done and now, she was back at camp once more.

She'd gotten back late last night, sneaking into the Apollo cabin whilst her siblings slept and this morning, she'd been woken up by an overexcited Lee, dragging her out of her bed and getting her to the pavilion for breakfast.

"Thought you'd be gone longer." Aruna shrugged, sipping on her apple juice as Aurora finished clearing her plate of food. "Two or three weeks at least."

"I got everything done pretty quick." Aurora explained as Aruna hummed and lowered her voice.

"You never told me what happened, you know, with Luke." Aruna pointed out, as they began to be herded out to archery, which was their morning activity. "You just kind of came back in a weird mood."

"Weird?"

"Yeah, you were thinking." Aruna sighed. "It was quite scary."

Aurora rolled her eyes at her older sister, who wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into her side.

"Tell your favourite big sister what's going on." Aruna grinned, flipping her black hair over her shoulder.

"I can't have favourites." Aurora pointed out.

"Bullshit." 

"You're my favourite older sister who's name starts with an A?"

"Do I mean nothing to you?" Alice appeared on Aurora's other side, shaking her head with sadness, another of Aurora's older siblings. She looked the most like Apollo out of all of the Apollo kids, with blonde hair and golden brown eyes, a slight smirk on her face as she watched the pair. Aruna was laughing at Aurora's annoyance.

"Why did dad have so many kids with A names?" Aurora groaned in annoyance as she recalled that there were a lot of A names in their family. Alice and Aruna were her only older sisters, the rest were all younger than her. "Aurora, Aruna, Alice, Anna, Aiden. Gods, it's confusing. We need nicknames."

"Cause he's got an A name himself and he's a touch narcissistic?" Alice shrugged, before laughing. "No issue. What you two gossiping about?"

"What Luke and her were talking about." Aruna explained as Aurora looked between them.

"Aruna! Don't some things need to stay a secret."

"We're Apollo's kids." Aruna pointed out, all of us stopping to pick up our bows and arm guards. "Nothing stays secret in this cabin. Our dad is the king of gossip."

"You're so right." Alice agreed. "I bet Luke was confessing his feelings."

"Yeah, kind of." Aurora agreed. 

"And?" Aruna nudged.

"I turned him down?" Aurora grinned at her older sisters, who both shared a look, before turning back to her.

"You what?"

"I told him to wait. That it wasn't fair he broke up with Millie because of me and that I didn't think I was emotionally mature enough."

"By the gods, I never thought I'd see the day." Aruna muttered, before pretending to cry as she threw herself onto Alice and Lee, who looked a little confused. He'd only walked over to put everyone into teams. "She's become mature. My hard work paid off."

Aurora groaned in annoyance as all of her siblings laughed.

"I hate all of you. Dad needs to stop having kids." Aurora hissed, before pushing past her cackling older siblings to her group as they got ready for archery.

∘☽༓☾∘

"Hey." Luke had come to find her two days after she returned to camp. Aurora watched him as he approached her hammock by the shore of the lake. "How was home?"

"Alright. Busy, lots of work but it was good." Aurora explained, sitting further upright as she pulled her legs in. Luke sank down into her hammock, opposite her as he folded his legs beneath him. "You been alright?"

"Just here. Doing nothing." Luke sighed, the pair descending into slightly awkward silence. "I thought about what we talked about."

"Yeah?" Aurora closed her laptop, saving her work as she put her entire focus onto Luke. 

"I guess you were right." Luke shook his head. "We both royally fucked this up, huh?"

"I wouldn't say completely." Aurora watched him. "We just misunderstood each other, crossed over at different times, like a dissonant harmony."

"I'm not great at music analogies." Luke chuckled.

"We clashed." Aurora explained.

"Oh."

"But that's not a bad thing." Aurora pointed out, quick to correct herself at the put out look on Luke's face. "Sometimes dissonance is great, and it makes your hair stand on end and it feels incredible. I think, I don't know, I just think we made some mistakes but I don't want that to be what our relationship comes down to, making mistakes and not speaking to each other and saying the wrong things. If we dated and that happened, then we'd just continuously lose each other and then we'd lose a friend as well."

"You did a lot of thinking in your week away."

"I talked to a friend who wasn't in camp, who doesn't know you but has known me for a while. That helped." Aurora explained, as she watched Luke run his hands through his dark curls. "I don't know about you, but I just think if we can't work out how to clash in a good way, then I don't want to get into a relationship where I know that I can lose you as a friend and as someone I care about deeply."

"I know, and I get what you're trying to say, I think." Luke nodded, fiddling with his fingers as he thought about what he was going to say. "But if we don't try then how will we ever know?"

Aurora hummed, scrunching her nose up as she thought.

"We made mistakes, but we can learn from them and clash better?" Luke wasn't quite sure about the music bit of the analogy that Aurora had said. He thought he was saying the right thing, but he wasn't completely sure. "We might as well give it a shot and then see how things go without worrying about other things like past mistakes."

Aurora's eyebrows furrowed now too as she thought it over.

"It doesn't hurt and you know, third times a charm." Luke pointed out with a grin as Aurora watched him with a cocked eyebrow before laughing. He began to grin, lips cocking upwards as he watched her with softer eyes.

∘☽༓☾∘

"So, what did you say?" Aruna watched her little sister, who was adding some final touches to a sculpture. "Aurora, focus. Come on. Help your big sister out."

"Told him to ask me out properly and I'd consider it." Aurora turned as Aruna sent a prayer skyward.

"My life's purpose has been completed. My younger sister, mature, and finally about to date the boy she likes." Aruna brushed a tear away as Aurora rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you should consider theatre at college with all that dramatics."

"You don't get to talk about dramatics you little shit head. You know how much stress you've given me for the past three months." Aruna pointed at her little sister, who only grinned and winked.

"I've become more mature. That was a different person."

"That's a lie." Lee shouted. "I remember you running away at the sight of him! You gonna do that when he asks you out?"

"Shut up Lee!" Aurora shouted back. "I wouldn't!"

That set the entire Apollo cabin off into hysterics as Aurora cursed all of them quietly, putting her sculpture into one of the lockers and closing it easily.

"You're all horrible. I make good decisions and you bully me."

"Yeah, cause you made bad decisions for months and we had to put up with it." Aruna called back, nudging the smaller girl out of the way as she put her artwork away. "Do you know how many depressing songs I had to listen to because you were depressed?"

"If I was depressed, shouldn't you be being nicer to me?"

"No." Aruna shook her head. "I'm your sister."

"That's all the more reason to be nice to me." Aurora scowled. "I just told you great news, and this is how you react?"

"Yes." Aruna nodded. "I've got grey hairs from you and considering my hair is black, it's not doing wonders for me. Lee's gonna have to start dying my hair."

"You've got too much hair, it would take me hours. No." Lee shot back. "I hate dying hair."

"Isn't your mom a hairdresser?" Aurora pointed out.

"Do I look like my mother?" Lee shot back. Aurora and Aruna pulled a face because Lee did actually look like his mother.

"I could get an appointment with your mom, she does love me." Aruna mused as Lee's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean my mom loves you? Have you been talking to her? Aruna! Stop trying to get with my mom." Lee lunged for Aruna. as Aurora hurried away, not wanting to be around them anymore. This was the perfect opportunity for her to escape.

"Yeah, definitely time to go." Kai agreed, the remainder of the Apollo cabin running for the door.

∘☽༓☾∘

Hiya,

Just a lot of chaos in this chapter really. Aruna is so much fun and I love her, I also just love the Apollo cabin because they're all certified idiots but it's funny though. Luke and Aurora are being mature, which is a first, but war is over and they've finally come to their senses. Did take a while though. Next chapter will be fun.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx