Archived:Colette "Cole" Meyers

Personality
Enthusiastic, quirky, and somewhat of a tomboy, Cole is full of energy and light. She comes across as a friendly person who gets along with just about anyone, and has a passion to entertain. It wasn’t a rare sight to see her doing some unusual antic to amuse the campers around her, and she certainly doesn’t mind being the centre of attention, even if it is an embarrassing situation. She doesn’t really care about her image or physical appearance, but thankfully she is the kind of person who could make even a branch in your hair look good. Cole is the life of the party, and knows exactly how to lighten up a situation. Being raised by a free-spirited mother, she loves to run around and perform athletics, whether it is to please herself or others, and has trouble following rules sometimes. Cole is self-taught, and can virtually learn to play anything she gets her hands on. She is the type to lose herself in the things that she does, and is content with life as long as she has a pick and a guitar to strum on.

Unfortunately, she does not like violence, and will only resort to fighting if there is no other choice. Her true forte is healing, and will function better as a healer than a fighter, though she can hold her own with a bow and arrow; the only weapon she felt comfortable using. Unfortunately, Cole isn’t the kind of person you can entrust with a secret. She is a blabber-mouth and will immediately blurt every secret she was asked to keep. Therefore, this makes her quite an open book, and very straightforward. She means what she says and she says what she means, promises are to be kept, and what not. As long as you don’t tell her things you don’t want anyone else to know. Loyal and humble, Cole is a fun person to be around. Even though she can come off as naïve sometimes, she is quite clever in her own right. She may not give the best advice, but she does know how to cheer someone up. She is one to jump at the opportunity to try something new, and as long as you’re good to her, she’ll be the best person to have as a friend.

History
Anna Meyers was on her way to becoming a top pianist in the East Coast. With flowing auburn locks and sparkling green eyes, she was not only a muse to the eyes, but a muse to the ears as well. People knew her to be kind, and loveable, yet occasionally undisciplined. Her rose red lips were always curved into a smile, and her fingers were said to move on the ivory keys with the grace of a dancer. This word reached the ears of the god of music; Apollo. One fateful night, he came to one of her recitals in New York and was blown away by her skill and passion. By the end of her recital, Apollo had disguised himself as an ordinary fan, and humbly asked her out on a date. After dinner and a rousing night in a decent hotel, Apollo revealed his true form to her and explained that he will not be able to stay with her for any longer. However, he asks that she take care of the two things he will entrust to her; a gold necklace with a sun pendant and his child, along with explaining the dangers that came with the task. He leaves shortly after. Several weeks late, Anna finds herself pregnant.

She welcomes this idea with an open heart, and is overjoyed to be bearing a demigod child. She’d always loved the extraordinary, and what was more extraordinary than a child of a god? Despite this, Anna resumed pursuing her dreams of becoming the best pianist in the US. Nine months later, a baby girl with the laugh of wind chimes was born. She then bestowed the sun necklace to her. Knowing the dangers that the child would be exposed to, eight months after Cole’s birth, Anna joined an orchestra so that they would travel often in hopes that this would throw monsters off of her child’s scent. Therefore, Cole grew up travelling and surrounded by music. Anna always brought her to see her concerts, and to each musician gathering. Being the sweet and playful child she was, each of the musicians in each orchestra ensembles fell head over heels for her, and enjoyed spending their pastime playing music to amuse her. Anna began home-schooling Cole around the age of 3, the same time she first went up to a piano. The child could play a melody that her mother used to hum her to sleep. Since then, Cole was brought into the art of performance.

It started with simple music competitions, but as the years passed, she’d played in concert halls as an opener of her mother’s orchestra. Not only was she a hit with the musicians, she was also a huge with the audience, and brought in more of them each city the orchestra visited. Anna and Cole would usually stay in the city they last performed in for several weeks before returning to their apartment in New York (mostly due to limited funds, and Anna would take up several gigs in cafes and restaurants to save up more money for spare), and there would always be one or two demigods who would spot the sun necklace she wore, and would instantly know of her heritage. They’d merely come over and pat her on the head, commenting how adorable she was. At the age of 5, Cole had gotten her hands on one of the orchestra member’s guitar, and just like the piano, astonished everyone by proving her ability to play it. This sparked the other band member’s interest, and they all began teaching her their respective instruments. Thus, more and more of Anna’s savings were spent on a variety of musical instruments. Despite being the friendly girl she was, Cole never was able to make permanent friends, as she never stayed in a town longer than a several weeks.

Therefore, Cole had always made it a personal task to explore every nook and cranny of the stops they take on their way to a concert or the town she and Anna stayed in. Anna tries her best to go with Cole and keep watch of her, but this merely caused the little girl to treat it like a game of tag meets hide and seek. It was around these times that she developed her athleticism in terms of agility. At the age of 8, after managing to save up the money she had, Anna gave her daughter a toy bow and arrows to practice her archery talent with. She says this to Cole, but frankly knew that a little girl carrying a bow and arrow was easier to find than just a little girl. However, Cole took this to heart, and practiced with her bow at every stop they made. Her main targets were mostly birds, squirrels, and shop signs, which got her in a lot of grounding time. (But in her defence, it was her mother’s idea to give her, the daughter of the god of archery, a toy like that anyway) The worst punishments were when she wouldn’t let her perform or play any of musical instruments. She loved her mother dearly, thus, she dared not disobey. So, no, she didn’t play any musical instruments. Instead, she played with pots and pans and mostly everything that made a sound instead.

However, during her 11th birthday, while serving her grounding time alone at the motel in Austin, Texas, there was suddenly a knock on her room window. Her mother was out performing, and so were the other musicians that fully booked the rooms. The show started just a few hours before dusk, and now night had fallen. Curious, Cole drew the curtains back to find a wounded woman in need of help. Being the naïve girl she was; Cole quickly went outside to help the woman and her bleeding arm. She had a first aid kit in her arms, but only from touching the woman’s wound, she could immediately heal the gash. This left Cole pleasantly surprised, however, it only lasted a moment. The woman suddenly began to sprout feathers; her arms turning into wings, and feet into talons. This scared the young girl immensely, causing her to scream. Her scream, however, was extremely high pitched; causing windows and glass to shudder, and left the harpy momentarily stunned and deaf. However, it also attracted the attention of a demigod on her way to see the orchestra’s show. Quickly, Cole ran back inside the bus and locked the door. She barricaded the door with a chair, but the harpy instead tried to get in through the window. The night stand light was on, and her fear caused the bulb to shine brightly for a moment. Surprised, an idea came into Cole’s head. She tried to repeat what she did and manipulated the light bulb to flash brightly and blinded the harpy from getting in.

However, just as the bulb overloaded and popped, the demigod who’d heard Cole’s scream appeared and slayed it. Grateful, she went up to the demigod, who was named Marge, and hugged her tightly. Seeing the sun necklace on Cole’s neck, Marge began to explain the divine heritage they shared, and gave her a guitar pick that would turn into a real bow and celestial bronze arrows (since she heard from a friend that one of the performers of the orchestra was a demigod and had planned to give it to her anyway). Marge stayed with her until Anna returned with the rest of the musicians and told her that she needed to get Cole to Camp Half-Blood as soon as she could. Cole herself was thrilled at the idea of going to a camp full of other people like her. Anna agreed with this idea, and once again began working towards collecting money for a plane ticket back to New York. Thus, to help her mother, the first thing Cole did was sell her toy bow and arrows.

Two weeks later, the money was saved up. However, as they were going to purchase the ticket at the airport, they came across a crippled beggar at an empty lot. Being the kind woman she was, Anna went over to donate to him, when he suddenly struck her down and instead charged towards Cole. He began to transform into a giant scorpion, and attacked Cole with its pincer. The young demigod managed to dodge and let out a sonic scream before running to her mother and pulling her away. She dropped her purse, however, but that went unnoticed by them as they hobbled away. Cole managed to squeeze herself and Anna through a chain fence that led to an abandoned parking lot. The scorpion tore the fence down with ease and launched its stinger at them. Anna barely managed to push Cole and herself away. However, the stinger instead managed to strike her across her face leaving her face destroyed. Thinking quickly, Cole flashed a bright light to disorientate the scorpion before hiding Anna behind a crate and some boxes. She pulled out the guitar pick Marge gave her and summoned the celestial bronze bow and arrows. She tried shooting directly at its exoskeleton at first, but one miss-fired arrow managed to it its leg and severed it from its body. She continued until four of its legs were gone, and finally noticed the soft spot on its underbelly. Taking a deep breath and aiming, Cole let her arrow fly and hit it directly on its weak spot. With two more shots, and just as her arrows ran out, killed the scorpion.

Anna was hospitalized after Cole heaved her to the nearest hospital. The doctors had to perform reconstruction surgery, but Anna was left permanently blind. Cole then remembered that her mother had dropped her purse, but by the time she got back to the lot, all that was left was an empty wallet. All of Anna’s cards, IDs, and money were gone. Without their main income of playing in the orchestra, Cole was left to do what her mother did; finding odd jobs to fulfil their daily needs, save up for a plane ticket home, pay off her mother’s debt to the hospital, and pay off their apartment’s monthly rent in New York. They had gotten the cards cancelled at a bank, but by the time they did, only a measely amount remained in Anna's accounts.

Luckily, they had saved Marge’s contacts, and she agreed to take them in until they could pay everything off. Despite living with Marge, Anna insisted that they pay for their own needs, mainly groceries. This proved to be an ideal situation, as Cole was then able to receive training on her demigod powers from Marge. However, on normal days, Cole worked odd jobs, and Anna helped Marge with daily chores (which also became another small income for the Meyers). Most of Cole’s work consisted of delivering fruit or eggs to local vendors, washing dishes at cafes, and her favourites; playing at gigs and on the streets. She would always have something different to play every day, and people would purposely stop by her special corner just to hear her play. And every night she would come home and tell her mother everything she did that day.

Despite everything that happened, Cole never lost her happiness.

By the age of 13, about half of the debt had been paid off, and a quarter of the money needed for the ticket. While walking home from a gig one night, a woman claiming to be her biggest fan took her aside to ask for a photograph. She didn’t know why they’d gone in an alley, but before she could complain, the woman had grown a snake body that replaced her legs, and was wrapped up in it in no time. The scythian dracanae’s trunk crushed the guitar in the guitar case she had strapped on her back, but allowed the guitar pick to fall from its pocket. She managed to grab hold of it and summon it, pulling an arrow from its case and stabbing it into the snake woman’s trunk. She plunged it deeper and deeper until she was released, not taking a moment to catch her breath, she strung up an arrow and shot it through the scythian dracanae’s neck. However, it managed one more lunge at Cole, pinning her down. Yet the demigod didn’t need to do anything, as the snake woman died out on her own. Seeing the death she caused, Cole puked up her dinner.

Unfortunately, after this event Cole had to use the money she had saved up for the ticket to buy a new guitar, as she needed it to perform, thus setting her back several months. It took another 3 years for Cole to completely pay off the debt, and save up enough money to buy the ticket (keeping in mind the money she spends on groceries, clothes, and their apartment’s rent). Marge escorted them as far as the airport, and explained that there will be a friend of her’s in New York who will take Cole to camp. True to her word, another demigod awaited them at their apartment door. He explains that his name is Jack, and confirms that Marge had sent him. However, upon unlocking the door, Anna and Cole finds that their apartment is covered in dust and cobwebs, however Anna insists that she will be fine on her own, and that her daughter must leave immediately. After a tender farewell, Cole leaves with Jack to Long Island, where they were ambushed by a group of myrmekes. Jack did most of the close combat, while Cole stayed back and supported him with her arrows. The myrmekes were defeated in no time, and Cole arrived in Camp Half-Blood safe and sound.