Claiming:Camp/Taevya Bystro

Name: Taevya Svetlana Bystro

Gender: Female

Current Age: Seventeen

Godly Parent: (1) Hermes (2) Poseidon (3) Hypnos

Mortel Parent: Johanna Bystro

Appearance: Sierra McCormick

Personality: Due to her rather shadowy past, Taevya is very cold to anyone she doesn't know quite well; answering kind and innocent questions rudely and bluntly. She is like an ice cube almost always rigid and cold. She is very impatient and very stubborn, often going to extreme means to get her way. She is also quite pessimistic and impulsive, and is almost always unsocial, hiding in the shadows and seemingly brooding. She has a short temper, and can flare up at any time; lashing out at any near enough to hear.

Taevya is also shy and quiet, fleeing from a conversation, even a shallow one, rather than engaging in one. She is actually quite thoughtful, although she doesn't' look it. When she talks, it will be something, in her point of view, worth saying. If it isn't worth saying, then she doesn't say it at all. She doesn't have very good social skills, and when she gets nervous, she stutters or mumbles instead of speaking up. Once you get her out of her ice cube, it will start to melt, and she is much more open and kind -- more receptive to people who reach out to her. Also, if you know her well enough, you will find her bossy and snappish. As much as she doesn't like to talk, she likes to prank -- which is a lot. If you know her well enough, watch out: you may find yourself pranked.

History: My mother, Johanna Bystro, well ... let's just say she wasn't the most upstanding citizen of Russia. In fact, she was a pickpocket, and a very successful one at that. See, Johanna had been orphaned at the age of fourteen, and instead of going to an orphanage, she lived on the streets, making a living (as meager as it was) as a pickpocket and beggar. She did odd jobs for random wealthier citizens, but she never had enough to settle down and move into a house. But let's get on to how I was born.

My mother had picked a target to snatch a wallet, or perhaps a sack of groceries from when he was putting them in his car. The target had been, well, Hermes. You don't just steal a wallet from the god of thieves. Anyway, my mother was caught, of course, and she was afraid he'd take her to the police, who I'm sure wanted her thrown into the Russian jail. Johanna, afraid of the man and what he would do to her (namely turn her in to the Russian police, even if she did think he was rather nice-looking). My mother was young at the time, barely twenty, and she tried to sly-talk him out of what she thought he would do.

Hermes was very amused and quieted her, then invited her out for a drink. Obviously, he found her attractive, though she was merely a thief and a beggar. Johanna accepted cautiously, extremely suspicious at first, but she gradually warmed up to him as her judgement slowly drained away. They both drank enough vodka for ten people, and when they decided they'd had enough, Hermes invited her to his home. Johanna, her judgement addled by the amount of vodka she drank, agreed and happily accompanied Hermes to his home. In Johanna's eyes, his house was like a mansion, and she was amazed that he had taken interest to her. She spent the night with him, and the next morning, a bit embarrassed of what she'd done with someone who was practically stranger, slipped away, never to see the handsome man again.

She was rather angry with Hermes when she found out she was pregnant, not only because she was, but because she had nothing to take care of me with when I was born, and no experience what so ever. So, as soon as I was born, she dumped me in a Russian orphanage and fled, leaving in a place I would soon know as my only home.

Well, that orphanage pretty much sucked for me during the early years of my life. There was filth everywhere, misbehaving children strapped to their beds when they acted up, and babies screaming -- something I could not escape. I was strapped to my bed a few times when I misbehaved, mostly for the times my short temper got the best of me, and I lashed at those who taunted me. It was no different from the other children, they were all teased just as much, but they knew how to contain their tempers, and it took me a long time to learn how to do that. I would have run away, but there was nothing for me out there on the streets, in Zelenograd, Russia. I was too young to be hired as a servant or a baby-sitter, and too sullen and quiet to be adopted by any who came. I pretty much kept to myself the whole time I was there; I didn't want friends, and i believed i didn't need them.

Well, by the time I was twelve, I was determined that I could live alone in the streets without too much trouble, and I ran away from the orphanage (to tell you the truth, it wasn't very hard). A small gang of beggars and pickpockets, consisting of about two girls and three boys, all about one to four years older than me, immediately confronted me and tried to get me to give them money, which I didn't have. When they were getting a little bold, searching me and asking questions, I, in a fit of what I thought was self-preservation at the time, told them I wanted to join their little group, and I would make them money. In return, they would provide a roof over my head and relative protection. They reluctantly assented to this suggestion, and I lived as a beggar and pickpocket for a while.

I learned all the tricks of the beggar's trade from my group, and since I was a child of Hermes, the god of thieves, I made a pretty good pickpocket, lifting an innocent passerby's (who had been carefully chosen by our group before hand) wallet without being caught. Sometimes, when we decided to beg, which mostly happened on bad days, I was useful because I was small for my age, and could pretend to look helpless and pitiful - something I refined over my time with the small huddle of kids I stayed with.

When I turned thirteen; that's when all the trouble started. I'd been walking back to our hidey-hole after a successful day, my pockets filled with trinkets and a few coins, when two giant scorpions thundered toward me. I didn't know what monsters were, at the time, and I would have been killed, if it weren't for three people who saved me. Even so, I got bruised up pretty badly. One of the men introduced himself as Leon Petrovich, and he told me to come with him, unless I wanted to be killed by monsters like and worse than the ones he and his two friends had just killed.

I was then kidnapped from the streets and forced to work for Petrovich at his dacha. I was basically his janitor and food taster; the man was so paranoid that he had people taste his food before he ate it himself. Escape was impossible -- he had lasers surrounding the place -- and when I tried to escape the second time, creepy lycanthropes found me and almost killed me before Petrovich's men, who had been tracking me down, caught up and killed the monsters.

I slaved for Leon Petrovich two years; then, when I turned fifteen, everything changed. Two Americans were invited for the first time to Petrovich's dacha, and they were compassionate toward s, for they had never seen Russian slaves before. They helped me, and all the others working there escape, and I lived in freedom for about a day -- until I was attacked again in the streets of Moscow, this time by a Cyclops. This time, the rich Americans stepped in, saying they heard my screams. I was injured, but they took me in and let me stay with them, all whilst telling me about demigods, monsters, and gods. They offered to adopt me, and take me to a place that would keep me safe from monsters. I was suspicious and reluctant at first, but eventually I decided to go. Then came the long adoption process.

The Americans, who I now knew were demigods, were high up in the government, or it wouldn't have happened so quickly; the adoption process took about a year and a half. During this time, they taught me more English, some basic school skills, and even a little weapon training. They gave me twin swords and a shield to use, and I kept them. By the time we were on our way to America, I was seventeen years old. We were headed toward this Camp, walking through some thick woods, when three empousa attacked, immediately enticing and murdering the male American demigod. The woman and I fought bravely, but we were overpowered, and the woman sacrificed herself to get me safely to Camp. I ran the rest of the way I was to go, directed by my adopted mother's last words, and made it through the barrier as the empousa were killed outside the barrier by the campers' arrows.

Weapons: Twin swords and a shield