Sumner Rei

The son of Hades stared at his ceiling fan as it rotated, it just barely pushed the frigid air around the room. It was the middle of December, and Sumner wasn’t sure whether to be excited about it being cold outside compared to the hot summer all the demigods face. After a few more moments of staring at the fan, he decided it was time to roll out of bed. The mattress crinkled beneath him as he went, only pausing to glance at his bedroom door. No movement yet- his children must still be sleeping, success. As he stood to face his window, he debated pulling the curtains back to check out the fresh powder now covering the landscape of Camp Half-blood. Instinct won over and soon, his dimly lit room was flooded with natural lighting.

The outside appeared the same as it always did when it snowed, Sumner was less than impressed, but he knew his kids would all want to go outside and frolik in the cool air. He sighed and turned back to the warm embrace of his bed, it looked so inviting, but the sudden rumble of feet on the cabin’s wooden flooring let him know his kids were now awake. Letting out a yawn as he positioned himself at the foot of his bed, already gearing up to brace for the impact of his kids body slamming him. Out of instinct, he closed his eyes once his bedroom door had opened, but nothing happened and he relaxed slightly. Big mistake. His son and daughter were expecting that from him and all of a sudden, he was laying sprawled out on his bed with Koda and Clover both sitting on his chest and abdomen. The air had long since left his lungs at the slightest contact with both of them.

When he could finally breathe again, he tried shifting them off, but they were adamant about squishing him. He could hear one of his older teens standing by the door laughing and taking pictures with their polaroid cameras. “Well good morning to you too… would you little eggheads mind moving off me so I can breathe?” he faked gasping for breath as he managed to slip out from underneath both of them. “Who’s ready to go outside? I see you already have your coats on… Koda, what in the gods’ name are you wearing?” Sumner paused as his eyes ran over his son while taking in their appearances, Koda was wearing his blue winter coat over his bunny costume!

His son stood up on the bed and jumped around, trying to mimic a hopping bunny rabbit. The older man did think this was a priceless moment and wanted to capture it on camera, but he also had to go find his boy’s snow pants. He didn’t need to worry about his son getting sick with his toddler aged twins also running amuck in the cabin. “I wanna be like the bunnies!” Koda had somehow managed to entangle himself around one of Sumner’s legs, the most compelling puppy dog eyes trained on him. Goddess, when Sumner ever got those eyes, he couldn’t say no, but in this instance… he was going to say no. Trying to sike yourself up to say no to your child was probably the most difficult thing for Sumner to do, but it had to be done.

After many back and forths of one sided deals only Sumner would hold up on his end, he finally managed to get his son dressed in the proper winter clothes and get himself dressed as well surprisingly. He felt accomplished for the morning and was ready to crawl back under the covers and get some more sleep, but he knew the day had only just begun. After getting his toddlers all bundled up in their own winter gear, he hefted the twins outside into the crisp December air. The powdery ground was still fresh and fluffy as it crunched beneath his snow boots. He made sure all his older children were dressed appropriately for the outside weather and sent them all off on their way as he was walking out of the door.

The twins would squirm in Sumner’s arms, trying to flee him and explore the new terrain, but he just held on a little tighter, he wanted to make sure the snowy hill was safe before letting them loose into the wild. Thinking back to earlier, he thought about how unimpressive the snow was to him. It was the same old thing every year, each snowfall slightly colder than the last, but he did enjoy doing one thing in the snow. It was something only he and his uncle Julian would do together, one of the few things they rarely ever did together in all honesty… making snow angels. As childish as it seems, Sumner could never get enough of just lying in the snow and swishing his arms and legs side to side and up and down to create his crude attempts at snow angels.

As a father, this was something he wanted to pass down to his children to enjoy, share a little bit of his past self with them. Besides, who didn’t like making a few dozen snow angels just for the hell of it? As he dug out a little hole in the snow with the toe of his boot, he carefully set Lukas down in it first, making sure he wouldn’t be able to just roll himself out if he tried, before scooping a few more handfuls out to add Ophelia with him. Clover and Koda had brought a shield out to use as a makeshift sled to sail down the hill, and Sumner admittedly thought it was a sight to behold watching two short legacies try to haul the shield up the steep incline. Turning his attention back to the twins, he noticed Ophelia had already begun her escape attempt. “Ah ah ah, not today Ophi, sneaky little devil. You, Lukas and I are going to make snow angels for a little bit.” Granted he knew the twins wouldn’t make any snow angels but decided to just roll with it and make one himself, setting the twins on either side of his snow angel.