I don't care what you think

as long as it's about me

The best of us

can find happiness in misery.

~I don't care~

~Fall Out Boy~

SMACK! And her head hit the floor repeatedly as she spun around on the floor, before finally coming to a halt lying on her back. She groaned, and spat out blood and sat up and looked around, because here the darkness was complete, yet Kaia could still see acutely. Here. Here? She needed to get away, to relax and it sent her here? Camp "half-blood", if she remembered correctly, which she always did. Photographic memory and all. She looks around the place, deserted for after curfew hours, and not as magical as it had once seemed to her when last she came here with her father. Her father. She spat on the ground as the thought passed through her brain and sliced through her heart, but she must keep going, because nothing else kept her from fading away into nothingness.

"No, I swear on Zeus, I'm not kidding-I heard something!-I did. Come on! Over here!" Hushed whispers carried to Kaia through the blackness and she rubbed her head, stood up and brushed off her knees. Didn't want those kids to think she was up to anything suspicious.

"I swear to the gods, Annabeth, if you're wrong, I'm not gonna let you win for a week." Another female voice whispered, and she sounded pissed.

"It's after curfew and you know Mr D. will kill us if we're caught out again."

"Clarisse! Why can't you be all high and mighty when it'll do us some good? Now hurry up, or the harpies will see us." A few minutes, Kaia reckoned, and they'd be here. Her hearing ranged much further than demi-gods, and further still then mortals, but it gave her more acute hearing instead of ranged, which had saved her in the past more times than she could count on both hands.

"And, anyway when in Hades do you let me win? Ha! Remember that time y-oh, my gods! Look!" The voices cut away and Kaia could clearly make out two girls, both with blonde hair, one slightly bigger than the other but both clad in browns from head to foot, even though it was mid June. She sized them up, and decided against knocking them out, for now. If it came to a fight, she would win with no doubt. And besides, she didn't want to get on Chiron's bad side just yet. Chiron, her old friend. What would he say to her sudden appearance? It didn't matter-she was here, now-she would stay until Hades burned beneath her feet.

"Who are you? Speak, child! This is our camp, an-"

"Oh, calm it down, would you? I just ported here from Ixia-Ixia! Do you know how big a headache that gives you? And child? Ouch. I'm eighteen, if you wanted to know. And damn, porting adds years, take it from me." Kaia cut her off, and proceeded to rub her head where a long cut ran down the side of her temple. Damn. More cuts and bruises to add to the collection.

"Wh-who are you?" the slightly bigger one spoke, with an air of dignity, and her sword already drawn and aimed.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Kaia said, spitting out blood and wiping her mouth with an already torn hoody. Her mottled grey and black pants were in reasonably good condition, but she scrapped her jacket, leaving her in only her pants which wrapped tightly around her leg from below the knee downwards, and a black vest.

"Okay," she groaned, putting her hands in her pockets and slouching to show that she wasn't going to hurt them, "take me to your leader." The girls looked her up and down, clearly unsure whether she was being serious or not, and whether she was a threat.

"We'll take you to Mr D., then, but no funny business, I'm warning you! I'm the daughter Ares, and you don't want to be on the other end of my sword, mortal." Wrong again, Kaia thought at the girl-Clarisse, if her hearing served her correctly-but she let it drop and wandered in front of them and straight down to the camp. If the girls thought it strange that she already knew the way to Dionysus' cabin, then they said nothing of it, and kept their swords unsheathed and at her back. They three or so hundred meters away fro his cabin, when a light flickered on in a cabin a hundred meter back, and the girls-Annabeth and Clarisse-jumped a foot in the air. The porch was facing away from them, to the way they had just come, but the boy that cam out of the double doors hopped the railing and dropped to the grass, padding up along side them when he saw that Clarisse and Annabeth had already turned and continued eyeing me up and walking.

"Hey-hey. What are you doin up after hours, I don't remember last time to be such a success." Kaia kept on walking in front of them, but she could still hear the smirk in his voice.

"That was, as you well know, not my fault Luke!" Annabeth whispered, but something else had caught Clarisse's attention.

"Do you want to get us all caught? Why don't you just shout out your cabin-and why did you have to turn the light on? Why aren't the rest of the Hermes kids up and causing trouble?"

"Oh, trust me, they have. They're on scout duty for it right now, as it happens. Me, being the responsible one, didn't do anything and stayed out of it." Luke chuckled and Kaia could feel his eyes burning into her back with intrigue.

"You mean you just didn't get caught doing anything." Clarisse grumbled, and Luke laughed, obviously not interested in the issue in discussion.

"Yes, well, you know me, can't keep out of a good tousle. But enough about me-who the hell is that? And don't you think you should be being a little less hostile? Oh, wait, I forgot it was you, Clarisse, my bad." Clarisse ignored his last comment, but Annabeth was the one to speak about Kaia.

"Well, I think it sure is lucky that we were out in the first place, because she just appeared out of thin air and caused a hell of a noise. If it weren't for us, well, she could be doing anything. She's eighteen, apparently, and claims to be able to teleport." She said dubiously, and I could hear that Luke hadn't yet drawn his sword, nor did he have one on him, which was a start.

"That's not accurately what I said," Kaia put in lazily, "I said I had ported here, not that I could teleport."

"So what's the difference, wise-ass?" Annabeth asked.

"Oh, nothing really. You're right, I can teleport. I was just saying." Kaia replied, and Annabeth hissed in frustration.

"I'm the daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, do you know what that means?" Annabeth asked.

"I'm sure I don't."

"It means don't backchat me! You'd be wise to get on my good side, girl, trust me, I would know." She whispered, obviously not wanting anyone else to wander out of their cabins and claim her find.

"Was that a joke? Wow, nice one." Kaia could tell she'd be getting along with this bunch. If she didn't rip their heads off in the process.