Buzz around Camp Jupiter hasn't been this loud for years. There's word going around that their friends in Camp Half Blood are going to attack. A few skirmishes have already taken place on the outskirts of the Camp Jupiter territory, and the legionnaires are beginning to worry. Some are confused, some are angry, some are outright scared. The peace between the two camps has been going on for decades. So no one can understand… Why would Camp Half Blood ruin it? It doesn't make sense. Especially to one legacy in particular.
Samantha Zhang can't believe what she's hearing around camp. She knows it has to be a rumor. Her friends on the other side of the country would never hurt her camp. They couldn't. They wouldn't. But as much as Samantha wants to believe that Camp Half Blood won't attack them, the sheer amount of stories she's heard makes it difficult to believe. She needs to know for herself, from a trusted person at Camp Half Blood.
In her cabin, she searches everywhere for her stash of drachmas. She eventually finds one with her socks, and remembers hiding them there from Nicole, adopted daughter of Will and Nico di Angelo and one of her best friends. Samantha thinks about the person she wants to contact as she tries to create a rainbow. She hasn't seen him in person since she started camp in California, but they send Iris messages during the summer to keep in contact.
"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering." She throws the drachma into the rainbow. When it disappears, she lets out a breath of relief. "Ethan Jackson, Camp Half Blood."
The image shimmers as Iris connects to Ethan, and it finally settles on the image of her best friend. Though he looks slightly shocked at seeing her after so much time, pleasant surprise arranges itself on Ethan's face.
"Sam, how are you doing? How's camp over in beautiful Cali?" Ethan greets with a smile on his face.
She's always heard everyone say how much he looks like his father. How similar their features were. But Ethan had a few differences from his father, and Sam could pick them out easily. The first was obvious, that his eyes were light gray, like his mother's. Though still a master of swordplay and games his father loves to compete in, he's really smart, which his father is always proud of. And finally, everyone says that he's just as short as his mother, but he doesn't care too much. There is nothing wrong with be just shy of five eight, according him.
Sam smiles, always happy to talk to Ethan again. "I'm doing alright. It's been too long! Things have been going on at camp, recently, though and I wanted to talk to you about it."
Ethan's smile fades just a little bit, and his eyebrows crease together, which Sam recognizes as his telltale sign of concern.
"Really? There's something going on over there too?" He asks her.
"Too? Well, there's rumors, and I hope they're just rumors, that Camp Half Blood is planning to attack Camp Jupiter," she tells him, her voice carrying her wariness. "Is that true?"
"No. But there's rumors over here saying that Camp Jupiter is going to attack us."
A look of shock crosses Sam's face as she tries to understand what must be going on between the camps.
"It's probably nothing." Ethan says, trying to get her to calm down. "There's probably some campers pulling a prank or something. A bad prank, but a prank. Our camps wouldn't go to war after decades of peace." His words sound almost like he's reassuring himself as much as he's reassuring her, but Sam takes the help where she can get it.
"Maybe," she says. "But isn't it a little weird that we both are hearing about attacks from each other's camps? There are campers here who swear on the River Styx that they've seen half-bloods in orange t-shirts crossing the borders."
"What? Impossible," Ethan tells her. "Everyone has been here, training. And it's not capture the flag day, so no one from Camp Half Blood should be there."
"I'm just relaying what people saw. Whether or not they're true is a different story."
The connection between them begins to fade.
"Find out more information. I'll do the same over here," Ethan quickly tells her, knowing their time is getting cut short. "We'll talk again tomorrow."
"Okay. I'll talk to you then."
"Bye S-"
The rainbow disappears along with the image of Ethan. Samantha sighs as the connection ends, wishing it hadn't. She loves talking to Ethan and... being across the country, it sucked. They're best friends, besides him and Oliver Grace, since they were in diapers. Sam couldn't imagine her life without him or the rest of her friend group, Nicole Solace di Angelo and Chase Valdez. Having all of her friends at Camp Half Blood made seeing them more fun and more special. But now, with the camps on the brink of war, she's on her own.
She needs to find out what's going on at camp, by herself. Sometimes she hates being the only Roman legacy out of everyone.