A/N: Hello! Yes, this is my first fanfic ever, so please don't be too harsh on me (it's also one of my very first writing attempts, if you are wondering). I have employed the wonderful help of Sheva Das, my beta reader, so I expect that you will not find my OC Mary-Sueish (she strongly cautioned me against that). So, read, relish, and review!

Chapter 1

The acidic taste of rain on my tongue rudely awakened me to the bitter chill of the wind whistling all around me. I groaned and sat up, and reached for my tattered knapsack. At least I had something to cover myself with.

I found I had no more breath left for grumbling, and so I picked myself up and trudged through the rain—and under the rain, and away from the rain—in a halfhearted attempt to find dry, warm shelter. Well, maybe not warm, but at least dry.

Within three hours, the rain had begun to truly lash out at me, and it was only then that I found what I sought. There was a small grove of pines (perhaps more than ten years old as far as I could tell) that latched their branches together to form a kind of makeshift roof. Sighing in relief, I stumbled in and collapsed with an oof on the soft bed of moss inside. Then I bunched up my dirty straw gold hair in my hand and wrung it out on the grass beside me.

As I dug into my knapsack, I caught sight of the old, half-broken hairbrush I'd always had with me since my days with my foster family. It used to be silver, but now it was hopelessly scratched and smudged, and I could only hope to use the back of it as a mirror when I wanted to. I was never really in the mood for flattering myself by actually using it as a mirror, because I'd never really been pretty. My dirty blonde hair was too straight and always unevenly cut (because I always cut it myself, seeing that my foster mom never bothered to take me to a salon), and my nose was too long and sharp, emphasizing my angular face too much. But worst of all, my piercing green eyes were too large in my gaunt face and made me look like an alien from Neptune.

But as I rummaged through the remains of my scanty supplies, I arbitrarily picked up the brush and caught sight of my image in it. Suddenly, as I glanced carelessly at what I expected to be the usual wanderer's tangled look, I saw instead a boy's face much like my own, with wavy jet black hair unkempt and flapping in the wind. I gasped when I saw he had my own green eyes.

Then it faded away again.

--------------------------------------------------

I must have been sleeping for nearly twelve hours. When my eyes flew open with a start again a long while later, the sun was already high in the sky: it must have been just past noon. Hastily I bundled up my meagre supplies again and stepped out of the alcove of pine trees to find that the rain had stopped, and in its place the sun was now beating down mercilessly on my back instead. Heaving a deep sigh, I shouldered my knapsack again and glanced to my left. I was surprised to find that there was a sharply sloping hill covered with lush grass just a few feet away, giving me the unearthly feeling that there was something warm and hidden behind it. I shrugged and decided I had nothing left to lose by exploring, and so I rolled up my grimy sleeves and jogged halfway up the hill until I came to a similar pine tree. Except that this particular tree was standing all alone.

I took another timid step forward, but instead found that I couldn't move in that direction anymore. It was like something was blocking me, holding me off—like an invisible wall.

"What the hell?" I whispered angrily.

Suddenly a loud clink behind me made me jump. A clink like polished metal links. I whirled. It was a tall dark-haired girl my age or slightly older, with bright blue eyes, dressed in what I could not believe it was—a full suit of ancient Greek armor (complete with a sword).

The girl nodded her head gravely in my direction. "Are you a half-blood?"

I stared at her with an idiotic expression on my haggard face.

"I guess you don't know about it, then," she continued. "You're looking for a place to stay, right?"

I nodded my head dumbly.

She beckoned with a twitch of her head toward the other side of the hill. "Get up, then. I'll get you across. It's hard to explain, but I need to sort of give you my permission for you to pass the borders."

I hardly took in any of what she was saying in my fatigue. She turned and muttered something to the pine tree, and then she took my hand and pulled me across the top and down the slope on the other side.

Just ahead was a huge grassy area, full with a semicircle of small cabins to one side and something like a track and field on the other. Behind what I assumed to be an outdoor sports complex was a continuation of the dark forest of pine trees I'd come out of earlier. Right ahead in the centre of this large area was a big white house with a long porch that went all around the house to the back.

The girl tugged me toward the house. "This way."

The door creaked in a complaining way as she kicked it open with a sneakered foot and then ploughed straight through the parlour and into an adjoining room that looked suspiciously like a kitchen.

"Here we go now," she announced cheerily. Then she called in the direction of precisely nowhere, "Chi-ron! There's a visitor!"

Then she turned and flounced away without further warning.

An ancient-looking man wheeled himself into the kitchen on a sturdy wheelchair and situated himself firmly in front of the stove, directly across from me. Then he rolled closer towards me. "Hello," he said warmly. Immediately I fell in love with the sound of his thick, rich voice. "Who are you? Do you know why you are here?"

"I—I'm Emerald Thistle," I managed to stammer out. Behind my back, I could hear the faint giggling of the dark-haired girl as she peeped around the doorway again and then disappeared for good.

"I apologize for Flora's behaviour," said the grey-haired man. "She's a daughter of our Lady Aphrodite, and so she still shares some common traits of immaturity with her siblings."

I blinked. "Aphrodite? Who?"

The man suddenly jumped, as if he'd just realized he'd said a little too much ahead of time. "Do let's talk about it afterwards, shall we?" he said amiably. "Come, I'll lay out some food for you. You certainly do look like you need it."

I nodded and sank into a chair at the small table, needing no further invitation.

After a few moments of silence (broken only by busy munchings and slurpings mainly on my part), the man who called himself Chiron cleared his throat again. "I noted that you have…an accent."

"I'm from Britain," I explained shortly. "I ran away."

"Ah," he said. It sounded more like "Aha."

"Where are your parents?" asked Chiron.

I shrugged nonchalantly, but I suppose my brow must have darkened momentarily with anger. "In the cemetery. My foster parents ought to be there instead, in my opinion."

"Oh," he said. This time it sounded more like "Oooh."

"Would you mind if I ask what your foster parents did to you that made you wish ill of them?" Chiron ventured.

"My foster mom's a stuck-up, snooty, snotty self-declared artist," I began. "My adoptive brothers—all three of them—beat me up whenever they found an excuse to. And that—that vile serpent of a foster father was always trying to take advantage of me."

"I see," said Chiron finally after a (very) long moment's pause. "Well, you do have a certain look about you…"

"What look?" I said sharply.

"Nothing, nothing," he said innocently. "But I must say, you are rather comely for your age, you know…even with all that grime hiding your face."

I frowned. "You were saying you were going to tell me something about this place. First of all, where am I, anyway?"

"You're in what we call Camp Half-Blood, on Half-Blood Hill, Long Island," Chiron informed me.

"What the hell is a half-blood?" I demanded.

"Let's just say another word for half-blood is demigod," he replied.

I dropped my sandwich. "You can't be serious."

He raised one eyebrow. "I almost never joke, Emerald. I see you know what a demigod is."

"A—a hero," I stuttered. "A descendant of the gods. A fighter."

"Precisely, a descendant of the Greek gods," Chiron corrected me gently. "Though Virgil did claim celestial ancestry to many of his heroes."

"So what the hell does a demigod have to do with me?" I yelled, slipping into my dirty habit of cursing when I was in a bad temper.

Chiron looked uncertainly at me. "I'm sorry it has to come to you so suddenly and all, but I'm afraid, from that aura I feel about you, that you just might be a demigod too."

A/N: It's probably not such a good springboard…you know, I'm rubbish at beginnings. But don't worry, I'm much better at endings.

Please R,R&R!

Thanks,

~Vicky