I forgot to mention—this story is as if the "Heroes of Olympus" series was never there. It's a sad thought.
Three years after Percy left, I was on a quest—well, I was "helping" Connor with his. Helping meant carry the bags, cook the food, tell him he was doing great, and kiss him. I never kissed him, which is probably why he chose me so many times—he liked a challenge. We were in a small forest preserve in Maine. Connor was of hunting some monster, and I was cooking some hot dogs. Suddenly, a twig snapped. Then another. I was so bored—Connor hadn't let me bring Daudalus's laptop—so I decided to check it out. Knife in hand, I crept into the forest. A few paces in, I saw a guy with his hood up so I couldn't see his face. It was dark out, so he probably couldn't see my face, either. He raised his sword in my face, so I held up my knife in defense. I stepped forward into a beam of moonlight, and the guy dropped his sword. The hilt fell on his foot, and he swore—in Ancient Greek. I was instantly on guard.
"Who are you? Where did you learn Ancient Greek? And where did you get a Celestial Bronze sword?" I demanded.
"I didn't speak Ancient Greek!" Gods, why did he sound familiar? But I relaxed. He was probably a demigod, and had picked it up somewhere.
"Yes, you did, now answer my other questions!"
"I stole this sword from some kind of monster." He seemed unwilling to tell me his name.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
"Pe-Peter. Peter Johnson."
"I'm Annabeth. Come to my campfire. I'll explain who you are—who we are."
After he ate nine hot dogs, I told him about being a demigod. He took it really well. He told me he was nineteen, so I assumed he was the child of a minor god, to have survived this long. He never took his hood off, which I thought was odd. He was nice, and funny. I felt at ease talking to him—well, actually, I felt more than that, something I hadn't felt since Percy.
After a while, Connor returned. He wasn't happy to see Peter, but I convinced him to take Peter to camp with us.
When we returned to camp, I introduced Peter to Chiron. Afterward, Peter was asking me questions, like is his diet human or horse, and if he was embarrassed to not have any pants on. I ignored the questions, since I could tell he was teasing me. He kept asking questions until I told him to shove some more hot dogs in it.
"Frosty, are we? Fine. But don't expect me to—oh, wow." We had reached the sword fighting arena. We practiced, and I was surprised. Peter was really good. I had to drag him away to continue the tour. He met a lot of people who gave him weird looks because of his hood. Grover was gone, which sucked, partly because I told Peter about him and was getting more questions, and partly because I thought he and Peter would be good friends.
Soon, it was time to eat. The rule that forced everyone to eat by cabin had been revoked, so I sat by Peter and watched him eat a whole pizza by himself, plus an apple. I had no idea where it went. He had a really good figure… not that I looked.
That night we had unarmed combat, during which Clarisse pulverized anyone stuping enough to try. Peter and I sat by the sidelines and I told him about my favorite monuments. I couldn't tell if he was listening because of his hood. Oh, well.
At campfire, there was an air of expectation. Peter had been the only half-bloon arrival in a while, so everyone was expecting him to be claimed. Personally, I thought he would be a child of Demeter or Dionysus, because they represent some kind of food, but he wasn't claimed. Everyone went to bed disappointed.