Chapter 2: Ambrose
I was eight when the Satyr found me, sitting in the corner of the Boston Orphanage, alone. None of the other children wanted to be around me, because trouble always came.
It wasn't my fault I was ADHD, or that monsters followed me. I didn't ask for it. When you are an orphan, there are no parents to run and cry to when monsters come. That's how we orphans develop a stiff upper lip.
But the other children were scared when there were no monsters. It was like they were scared of me too. Like I was a monster.
They would let it slip to perspective parents that I was frightening and when I met the parents myself, they would immediately ask for another child.
I didn't care. Everyone was entitled to the perfect family. They were anything but my perfect family, every single one of them. The wife's hair would be too thin, or the husband smelled like cigars. None of them were quality family.
The Satyr was just the same. He was awkward, appeared rich and solemn. He came as a single man looking to raise a girl who was past the years of childhood. Normally, the adoption coordinator would have kicked him out and told him to come back hitched, but she was desperate to get rid of me. Everyone was.
I didn't like the man, or so I thought he was then. All that mattered to anyone was that he liked me. I had no choice and in five minutes after his arrival, we were exiting the orphanage.
We walked two blocks and got on a train to Manhattan. He pointed out every object we passed that had to do with the Greek gods. I assumed he was just a historian and nodded in silence.
He never talked directly to me until we were sitting in a van labeled "Delphi Strawberry Company". I gave up trying to figure out what the man did for a living. He told me I was different, and he didn't adopt me to raise me, I would be living at a camp. I was special and that's when I became Ambrose.
I became free of monsters that day, free of the bonds of never being sure of my identity, who I was. I was Ambrose the Demigod.
However, I soon learned that I wasn't fully aware of who I was. No god claimed me. I lived in the Hermes cabin, unwanted. But Hera did want me eventually, and for that I am all the more special.
***
My own room. I never had that privilege in my life. Most half bloods didn't get a cabin alone, but I wasn't to be put down in status by noisy siblings running a muck. I was Hera's only child.
People scorned me for it. The illicit daughter of the Goddess of Marriage. I was most likely a child that would anger the gods, but Hera's husband had a worse record.
I leaned against the wall next to my bunk and glanced around the cabin, my cabin. It was beautiful, not one detail overlooked.
The door opened slowly and a tall woman entered. Her hair was softly woven on the top her head, the brown locks intertwined with golden ribbon. She adorned a soft white dress that rippled like water. She filled every image of the perfect mother I use to dream up.
"Hera." I just knew it was her, the way a glow of motherhood gleamed from her skin and her soft gaze. She sat down on the foot of my bunk and her face lit up as I said her name.
"Ambrose, my dear," She wrapped me in a hug and I didn't move. It was peaceful there. "I am not your mother." I pulled back quickly and turned my face towards the window, trying to not show the disappointment I knew was slipping onto my face.
"I'll move back to Hermes. I am sorry." I started to stand but she held me down.
"I may not be your mother but I still claimed you as mine!" She laughed and pulled me into another soft hug.
"Why?" I didn't understand what she was telling me, I didn't understand how I could not be her daughter yet she still acted as though I was.
"I saw you appear here and your name caught my attention. Ambrose- immortal. That is a very brave name to claim, even for a half blood. I felt pulled towards you and glanced into your past, saw your constant want for the perfect family."
"But you aren't my real mother," I didn't see how having a fake was anything close to perfect. "What if another god or goddess wanted to claim me?"
Hera sighed and grabbed one of my hands, clasping it in both of hers. "Ambrose, when you were not claimed by the third night I went to each god, forced him or her to confirm that you were not theirs. I wanted to make you parent claim you; keep you from the pain of being unwanted. I gave them five days to make a move yet no one did, so I stepped forward. I claimed you as mine in front of our council. I claimed you before everyone of them."
"But what if they lied? What if they know I am their child and they do not want me?" I wasn't going to give up. I would have my life perfect.
"Zeus didn't want me to claim you, he believed it would give off the wrong impression about our marriage, even though there was that wretched Thalia a few decades ago. He made them all swear you didn't belong to them. My guess is you are the child of a minor god that does not like to be seen. I was only able to clarify with the few who wanted cabins here." I looked at the goddess trying to think of something to say. "Ambrose, do you have any questions about what this means for you?"
"The other cabins," I looked at her in the eyes for the first time. "Are their any rivalries between them and me? Like gods you don't get along with? I've noticed that's why some cabins don't like others."
She laughed and brushed a strand of hair from my face. "That's a smart question my dear. Only be wary of one camper, the one who switches cabins. I do not particularly enjoy her mother's presence, or her father's to be honest."
"Switches cabins? But why would someone switch cabins?" Hera opened her mouth to respond but a large boom of thunder shook the cabin.
"Zeus wills me home. I must go my dear." She rose and was quickly beside the door. "Do not take this truth as a feeling of unwant from your real parent. Take it as a pride to your heart that out of every unclaimed child I have ever seen, I choose to claim you as mine." She disappeared in a flash of light as I adverted my eyes and I took her words to my heart for the rest of my life.
***
And so I became Hera's daughter, the daughter of the Queen of Gods.
There's the second introduction chapter done!! Please please review!