<div align="center"><em>The Birds</em></div><hr/><br/>The forest was forbidden for a reason. Mr. D liked the challenge. He had no love for the half-blood heroes. He found them impulsive and brash. That was why the Sky Lord had punished him to serve as camp director here. It, along with not being able to drink wine, was the ultimate punishment for him. In return, he did very little to keep the campers from being killed. He knew many of them couldn't stand the idea of monsters being so close by and not being able to kill them at will. He felt that they'd want to 'prove' themselves by doing something stupid. Sometimes he was right and those campers were usually found, in pieces, during the morning check of the forest. Sometimes the harpies would throw the bodies campers caught after curfew into the forest so the monsters would have food. Sometimes they threw them in here alive so watch the run screaming from a Nemean Lion cub.<br/><br/>The scent of a half-blood walking so willingly into the forest stirred the creatures within it. Rosetta's scent was very strong from being among her own kind and from eating food cooked by the harpies.<br/><br/>The leaves of the trees around her moved, but not from the wind. The weight of so many Stymphalian birds rustled the leaves and made the branches groan.The man-eating birds clicked their Celestial bronze beaks and eyed her. They were sizing her up. Watching her to see if she had any weapons. Also waiting to see if she would travel further in. With their great numbers, they could over come most if not all enemies. Their metallic feathers were in need of oiling and creaked slightly whenever one of them moved.<br/><br/>To the untrained eye, it would appear as if a murder of crows were simply watching Rosetta.