Welcome

Angel was in a mood to skip-yes actual skippage- as she made her way down to the volleyball court. She had a fresh new volleyball under her arm. After meeting Matvey in the infirmary, she had found him and asked if he wanted to hang out sometime. She didn't know if he would, because he never said anything about it, but she hoped that he would accept her invite to come play volleyball with her today. Honestly, she didn't even know if Matvey knew how to play volleyball, but if he didn't, she wouldn't mind teaching him. Either way there would be a lot of fun. For some reason, Angel was determined to make the Hephaestus boy smile today. Maybe it was because he hardly smiled, and Matvey had a nice smile. It looked good on him. Yes, that was it.

Angel smiled as she spotted the sand court, her flip flips slapping as she jogged down to it. The dark haired demigod thought that she was pretty good at volleyball, she had played quite a bit when she wasn't surfing or working or something. Volleyball was a regular beach time activity, so naturally she had learned to plat at a young age. Plus, Willow needed someone to practice her killer spike on. Her friend was the best spiker on the volleyball team at home, and Angel had the bruises to prove it. or she used to, before she learned how to keep the ball off the ground and not hurt herself.

Either way, she was already at the court. Demeter's daughter pulled her hair back in a ponytail high on her head, letting it swing for a moment. She slipped off her shoes and stepped into the sand. It was amazingly hot, nearly burning her feet. She dug her toes in to kick up some of the cooler stuff so it wouldn't feel so uncomfortable to run around. The girl tossed the ball up and caught it a few times, looking around for a sign of the familiar face. She still had no clue if Matvey would even come, but she prayed he would. Angel would look pretty stupid if she was here by herself and no one showed up. That would be pretty pathetic.

Angel noticed she probably looked like easy prey, anxious and nervous and awkward. So she turned her back to the cabin circle and practiced bumping the ball to herself. She was still anxiously waiting, but at least she was sort of distracted. Her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she zeroed in with concentration. Who cared if she looked stupid?

Matvey was pretty happy today. Angel actually wanted to see him again! He hummed happily to himself, and truth be told, Matvey was not a hummer unless he was extremley happy. Which he was. So today was an exception. He sat against a tree by the lake, drawing and shading a picture of the lake, because that was what he was doing to avoid totally freaking out and trying to prep himself beyond recognition. He had tossed on one of his nicer shirts with some pants that he had never really worn before and some not-too-terribly-chewed-by-a-cat flip flops.

He doodled a little bit more when he realized, if he didn't head towards the volleyball court RIGHT NOW, then he might be late. And if he was late, then Angel might think he's not showing, and she would leave before he could get there and then their date get-together would be ruined and then she would never want to hang out with him again. Okay. He needed to go. Now. He found the tree where he had found a spot where he could hide his art stuff, and packed his stuff away, and sprinted towards the voleyball court. WAIT- If he ran in, out of breath, he would look eager, and he didn't want to come across desperate. So whenever he was not too far away, he slowed into a walk, breathing heavily. Matvey was no runner, no matter how short the distance.

Still panting, he walked onto the court. "Hey, Angel," he said in a blunt, fake-is voice. He could play volleyball. Even if he had no idea how to. Matvey could do this. He was Matvey, talentless, stupid, and pessimistic. Okay. Maybe he couldn't do this. He could try, though, right? And look absolutley pathetic, and then she could join up with her other pretty friends who had secretley videoed him looking completley stupid and post it on the internet for the world to see. Doh! Yeah, that's why she wanted to hang out with him more. To publicly humiliate him. That must be it.

Angel turned around at the sudden interruption her practice session, starting so violently she nearly bit off her own tongue. That would so ruin her day. She ignored the ball as it hit the ground and rolled a few feet away. Turning to see who had startled her, she smiled as she recognized Matvey as he came from the direction from the lake. The dark haired girl waved and ignored the fact that he had obviously run a while. It was great to see that he was eager to see her, she was too. Though, probably not eager enough to run all the way here from the lake or somewhere by it... still, she was happy to see him.

"Hey Matvey! she called back before looking around for the ball. Spotting it, she leaned over and snatched it up, popping it in the air and bumping it once before catching it and tucking it under her arm. The girl had thought about sending it to her friend (had they known each other long enough for her to call him a friend?), but decided against it. If he didn't know how to play... well that would have just ended up as quite the disaster, so she kept the ball to herself. Best not to risk hurting him.

The dark haired demigod tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, her pony tail swaying as she walked. Feeling the random urge to do so, she gave him a quick one armed hug. It was shy and if he blinked he would have missed it, but it happened. Wow, it seemed that Angel was doing a lot of unexpected and slightly stupid things. Like... well, now was not the time to think about Justin. Now was her time to focus on something she liked doing, and that was volleyball.

"Hey! I nearly forgot to ask, do you know how to play? If you can't I could teach you if you wanted me to..." she said. Why the hell was she being so forward today? Internally, she kicked herself and hoped that Matvey wouldn't think her pushy. Still ,she hid it with a smile. Maybe if she smiled, the french boy would? Angel knew she didn't have an infectious smile, but it was worth a shot. Doubting it would work, she waited for his reply with a hand on her hip and tossed the ball in the air, catching it. No matter what, she was determined to have a good time today.

Either she really did want to see Matvey again, or she was an amazing actor. Angel was from California, she probably had some big-time actor father or mother, and she took after them and could really act really well. She probably could. That was probably it. Yup. She was trying to mess with him. Because nothing in his life was perfect and he was absolutley horrible and everything would never go his way. He had a flashback to his elementary school years. Yell... Fist... Running... And pain... Matvey quickly pushed it out of his mind, shaking his head. No time for reflecting.

Angel had asked him if he could play volleyball. "I... no," Matvey had almost said he could. It would be proven he was lying as soon as the ball had gotten on his side. Really, though, he was the guy, shouldn't he be the one playing and teaching her how to play? No, because he was really stupid. And he also wasn't some sports guy. He really didn't like sports, no matter how agile he was. Which, Matvey was quite agile. He would be good at sports, if he could simply have a motive... Which he did have a motive for volleyball, he guessed. Angel. His friend, his only friend. That was a good enough motive, right?

Matvey stood there akwardly, waiting for her to start teaching, hoping he could act at least a little smooth...

"I... no,"

Angel giggled a bit. Yes, this was going to be lots of fun. She loved loved loved teaching people things. Surfing was something she had the most fun with, but it would be awfully hard to teach anyone that with no waves, and as they were non existent here, it was quite the impossibility. However, teaching Matvey how to play volleyball would be just as fun, she was absolutely sure of it.

"That's alright. I'll teach you how. It's not that bad, really." she told him. "So I guess the first thing we could cover would be bumping the ball. Bumping is usually how people pass the ball and keep it in play." At this, she tossed the ball up in the air and quickly got under it. She made a fist with one hand and curling the other hand around it, her thumbs side by side with her forearms turned upward. As the ball began to descend, Angel brought her arms up to meet it and when they collided, the ball soared skyward again. The demigoddess caught it again and set it on the ground. "So, that form is pretty simple, if you do it right. I'll show you how to do it real quick."

The daughter of Demeter sidled over so that she was standing next to Matvey. "First, you want to make a sort of fist, like this, with your dominant hand." she said, making her own hand into a fist to show him. "Next, you take your other hand and curl it around your fist." she said, again doing so and letting her friend see. "Lastly, you want to turn your elbows a bit, so your forearms make a flat surface." she told him. "And when the ball comes, you'll want to try and bump it with the top of your forearms, closer to your elbows. If you hit it with your wrists, it hurts a lot and you have less control." She smiled and waited to see if he would too. "You wanna try?" she asked? Angelica was confident that Matvey could do it.

Matvey frowned at the giggle. She definetley thought he was lame. This was a bad idea. He was lame. This amazing Angel girl could never want him as a friend. But no cameras jumped out at him, no laughing girls, no popular guys that would make fun of him. Maybe...no. No. They were just waiting. Wait, she would teach him how? They must really want some sort of funny video. He was so going to fail at this. And then it would be plastered all over the internet. This was bad. He looked around. Where was the camera, anyway? Did one of these friends have the power to turn invisible? They must be able to turn invisible.

Bumping. Okay. He watched as Angel deftly bumped the ball. Woah. He tried to form his arms in the same way, but couldn't. And then she caught the ball. Matvey probably couldn't catch the ball, much less bump it. He had to try. He listened carefully, taking in every word of her instructions, as if life depended on it, which it didn't, but his nonexistent social life might be. Sigh. Dominaint fist curled. Not like many people, Matvey was left-handed. He found it added some uniqeness to his art, and he quite liked being left handed. He curled his left hand into a fist, as told, and curled his right hand over it. He turned his arms in the way indicated, mimicking his friend. She gave him a few tips before she aked him it was her turn.

Wait, he already had to try? He couldn't turn it down, that would be wimpy or something, right? He just had to push through it. "S-sure," Matvey stuttered. Er. Okay. He took the ball and tossed it up in the air, quickly fumbled into what he hoped was the right position, and tried to hit the ball. He hit it feebley, and it just kind of fell over on the sand, instead of spectauclarly launching back in the air. Okay. Well. He picked up the ball, and went back to Angel."H-how was that?"