Chapter 2: A Beauty Queen and a Pretty Lady
Rhode P.O.V.
Rhode didn't think her day could get any worse.
She followed Piper around silently as the kaleidoscope eyed girl toured her around. She showed her the Big House, the cabins, the woods, but the best parts were the Pegasus Stables and the lake, the latter of which they visited first. Rhode made sure to stay wet when she came out of the lake instead of being automatically dry like she usually was.
But at the stables, when she saw the majestic creatures, she automatically grinned with relief. At least there was someone here she could talk too.
Holy Hephaestus, it's a mini-boss! A black one whinnied and Rhode cocked her head in confusion.
"Huh?" She asked and walked up to his stall. Piper watched in bewilderment.
He stuck his head over the railing and sniffed her, whinnying again happily. You smell exactly like the boss! Will you get me donuts?
Rhode stuck her hand out and stroked his nose, "Sweetheart, I think you have a fever," she teased.
He snorted in protest and stomped his hoof. Hey! Blackjack. Needs. Donuts!
"Your name is Blackjack? That's a nice name." Rhode said.
Thanks mini-boss!
"Wait, you can talk to horses? And how did you know his name?" Piper suddenly said. Rhode almost jumped ten feet into the air in fright.
She scrambled for an excuse. "Uh, no I just...like to pretend I can! And his name is on the stall." Rhode explained frantically and pointed to the nameplate on the stall, laughing nervously.
Piper nodded unsurely, with a look like, Okay, crazy, we're going to ship you back to Poseidon's Palace tomorrow morning, where you'll be locked up again for another seventy years until the new prophecy comes to formission.
Piper opened her mouth to say something, when someone blew a conch shell in the distance. She sighed, "Time for dinner."
Rhode nodded slowly and stepped out of the stable, calling out, "I'll bring you donuts tomorrow, Blackjack!"
Then she turned to Piper, and asked, "What are donuts?"
Piper laughed. "My gods, Rhode."
"What?"
She shook her head, wiping away a stray tear. "Nothing. I just think we're going to be good friends."
We walked up the hill to the dining pavilion. A couple hundred or so campers sat amongst the nymphs and satyrs. A large bronze brazier burned in the center, and marble columns were decorated with torches. The tables and benches didn't have the same amount of campers, and Rhode immediately identified the purpose. Herme's table was the most full, but there weren't just twelve tables for the twelve main gods. The pavilion seemed to have been extended, probably very recently, for minor gods and goddesses.
At the front stood a centaur, the famous hero trainer Chiron, she guessed, and judging by the smell of wine, it was probably Dionysus. Rhode saw Annabeth whisper into the centaur, and his gaze turned to her. Piper noticed this and said, "You should probably go up there, he needs to introduce you. You might even get claimed."
Rhode nodded nervously. Piper walked pass the Zeus table, kissed her boyfriend on the cheek, and then went over to the Aphrodite table. She certainly didn't fit in with all the makeup obsessed barbies, but she was certainly gorgeous enough to be the goddess of beauty's daughter.
Rhode noted earlier Piper introducing Jason as her boyfriend, and not a single party, and knew immediately that she was an Aphrodite. But she knew she was nice too, she was just purely and proudly in love, not trying to be rude and shove their relationship in her face. Rhode liked that. A girl that knows what she wants and can speak up about it. Rhode wished she could have courage like that.
Annabeth started walking towards her, and Rhode met her in the middle. "Chiron wants to see you. He couldn't earlier because he was busy with some work."
Rhode nodded. "Yeah, Piper told me as much. They've got to introduce me or something?"
"Yup." Annabeth said, and gave her a gentle shove. "You'll be fine. I could definitely see you as a daughter of Athena." She said, but Rhode could see in her eyes that Annabeth knew that not to be true."Uh, thanks. I'll see you later…" she trailed off and walked up to the front, where Chiron was waiting. The moment the white centaur got a good look at her, it seemed as though he had turned into a ghost.
"You, you should not exist." He whispered.
She laughed nervously. "What do you mean, sir?" She asked, even though she already knew the answer.
"Rhode Elizabeth Léon, where have you been for the past seventy years? Last i saw you, you looked exactly as you do now! And that's far impossible, my dear." Chiron said, stroking his beard anxiously.
"Trapped in a timeless room in the palace until the Great prophecy was fulfilled so I wouldn't be the one to have to kill Kronos." Rhode replied tiredly. The last seventy years weighed back down on her, and she suddenly wanted to curl up and go to sleep forever.
"I see. Your father is usually not that ignorant-" thunder boomed in the distance, and Rhode rolled her eyes. Chiron continued unfazed. "-but I can understand that in his desperation he would have performed as such. And then while looking for Percy, Tyson found you, since you smell like him, almost a year overdue to be released, and took you back here against your will."
Rhode nodded. "Thank you, for wrapping up the past seventy years," she replied sarcastically. She had only learned the speaking style from the guards who got annoyed with her constant pestering.
Chiron smirked down at her. "I see you've acquired a nice sense of humor." Then his smile fell, and he seemed ten years older. "Now we just have to figure out-"
"Can we start dinner already?" A husky voice called out from the Ares table. Many yells of agreement echoed through the pavilion.
Chiron sighed. "Of course, just one moment!" he called back. Then he turned to her and whispered, "After dinner, I will speak to you again at the cabin counselor's meeting. Without Percy here, you are senior officer."
Rhode frowned at that name. Percy. It was all over the place here, but who was he? Suddenly a pit formed in her stomach. Her dad wouldn't break the oath, would he? She gulped.
"Sir, who's Percy?" She asked, but Chiron wasn't listening anymore, now announcing the schedule of tomorrow and progress on the Argo II, whatever that was, and Capture the Flag and blah blah blah.
Rhode tuned it out until she heard, "...And we have a new camper joining us, Rhode Léon." He gestured to her. She stepped to the front and waved shyly. The pavilion was silent except for whispers, that she could only catch snippets of.
"Do you think that she…"
"Look at her eyes…"
"What if she's the…"
"She looks exactly like Percy…"
Chiron cleared his throat and the murmurs disappeared. "Now Rhode has already been claimed, long ago-"
"Wait, is she Roman like Jason? Last time you started telling who's godly parent they have like that, we got a Roman." A voice called out. People glanced back at the blonde, who was shifting nervously in his seat. Tension filled the air as if they were suddenly on a battle ground. Shivers went up Rhode's spine, and she clasped her bracelet to stay grounded.
"No, Rhode is not Roman, but even if she were, it wouldn't matter for we are allying with them now, yes?" The centaur said.
Muttered yeses sounded in the room and Rhode's eyes widened. She tugged on Chiron's tweed jacket sleeve panickedly. "What? They know about the Romans? And now we're allying with them?" She waited for an answer but he ignored her. She sighed in irritation.
"But, anyways, she was claimed long ago. Rhode, give them a demonstration."
Rhode stepped forward nervously. All eyes were on her. Her stomach churned. She had no idea what to do. She was about to run off the stage when Jason waved at her. He probably knew exactly what she was going through.
"You got this!" He mouthed. Rhode smiles and suddenly knew what to do.
She closed her eyes and placed her hand in front of her, imagining all the water in the room to swirl into a sphere above the pavilion. There was a familiar tug in her gut and everyone gasped. Rhode opened her eyes and grinned at the sight. The giant bubble hovered and spun slowly like a lazy globe. Seventy years of nothing to do but train gave her a lot of experience. She then clapped her hands together and the bauble exploded into mist which fell on the campers. Sunset light shown through the mist and created a rainbow which quickly dissolved into nothingness.
Silence, except for a few giggling toddlers.
The room filled with more whispers:
"Holy Hephaestus!"
"I knew it!"
"Poseidon broke the oath twice?"
"What if she's the…"
Rhode frowned. What if she's the what? That was the second time she'd heard that phrase.
Chiron clapped quietly. "Uh, very nice. Rhode, please go sit down at Table Three. Someone will show you your cabin after the meeting. And now dinner may commence!"
She walked to the empty table, ignoring the sudden explosion of noise and laughter. A nymph floated by and handed her a plate and goblet. Rhode sighed and got what she normally had at the palace, Zuppa Toscana, an Italian soup that was slightly spicy but creamy too. Plain water was her drink. She poured a bit of the soup into the fire. "To Poseidon." She said monotonously. Even though you completely forgot about me and left me rotting in a never ending Hades in your palace for seventy years, she added in her head angrily.
A water goblet exploded behind her in her irritation. The kid who was drinking from it now soaked, glared at her. "Sorry…" she apologized weakly and darted back to her seat.
She ate in silence, but it would be weird if she was talking, the table was empty except for her.
Dinner seemed to last forever, but finally it did. She walked alone to the Big House until three sets of footsteps dashed up to her.
"Hello," Leo said, waggling his eyebrows and draping his arm over her shoulder. "Wanna come to my secret hideout after the meeting?" She ducked from underneath his arm and laughed. "In your dreams, Mr. Bad Boy Supreme."
He grinned and they kept talking. The entire conversation was full of cheesy pickup lines and jokes, and she loved it.
Piper and Jason lagged behind, whispering to each other and holding hands. Rhode good heartedly rolled her eyes at the lovebirds.
They reached the Big House. When they entered the room, everything was in chaos. Annabeth was trying to Iris message some Hades boy, Rhode slightly remembered Nico, but a freckled Hermes kid was in the middle of pranking her. The Apollo counselor was pretending a mechanical pencil was a syringe on the Hypnos kid who was passed out on the table. A Demeter kid was planting seeds in a Hecate girl's hair whilst she was trying to curse them into a chicken. The ARes boy was about to punch Dionysus's kid, but unbeknownst to him, vines were growing around his ankles.
Rhode looked around astonished, and kind of scared, but the other three just sat down around the ping pong table like it was nothing. She followed suit and sat in between Piper and Leo. Before she knew it, Leo had caught his corner of the table on fire, which no one seemed to mind, and Piper was trying to charmspeak a Iris boy into punching himself in the face, while Jason watched with mild interest.
So Rhode shrugged, and made an apple-sized sphere of water out of the air's moisture, and spun it around on her finger absentmindedly. It felt like five minutes, but when Chiron walked in, the room was in worse shape than before.
But unfazed as always he simply said, "Annabeth, please, take that call outside. Connor, you stay in here, no pranks until this meeting is over." The freckled boy groaned but took a seat and Annabeth left with the I.M.. "Will, please throw away that pencil and wake up Clovis. Lou Ellen, turn Miranda back into a human and pull those saplings from your hair. Sherman and Pollux, please stop wrestling and making out on the floor over there." Everyone let out a snicker and the two boys blushed and jumped up in their seats. Chiron continued. "Piper, stop making Butch punch himself, and Jason, hold her back next time. And lastly, Rhode, please use your water sphere to put out Leo's fire."
Rhode lazily flicked the ball of water onto the table, extinguishing the fire that had climbed to the ping pong net. Everything was silent, and somehow, all the ADHD kids were paying attention. Chiron looked around, satisfied. "Thank you. Now, first of all,"
"Any sign of Percy?" A girl called out, laurels in her hair. Rhode sunk into her seat. Here we go again, she thought.
Chiron sighed. "Unfortunately, no. You all know we still have search parties all over the place, which brings me to my next point." He took a breath as if to prepare for the camper's responses. "I believe Rhode may be the eighth half-blood.
The room erupted into chaos.
"Are you crazy?"
"Where's the proof?"
"She's brand new! She won't be able to handle it!"
"Quiet!" Dionysus, or Mr. D, as she had learned they call him, yelled from the other room, immediately silencing them.
Chiron rubbed his eyes. "Many years ago, even before the first Great Prophecy, the oracle revealed to me that the eighth member would be the next half-blood found."
"What was the prophecy?" Annabeth asked in a steely tone from the doorway. She had taken her honey blonde hair out of it's ponytail, and it was mussed up, like she'd run her hands through it a million times.
The centaur recited it by heart.
Seventy years, the girl shall wait
Trapped beneath a watery gate
Until the prophecy is fulfilled
She will become impossibly skilled
Tis' then the Eighth member will be ready
To finish the set and make it steady
For an oath to keep with a final breath
Will be the one that delivers her death
A/N: Any feedback is much appreciated! Next chapter will probably come out by Thursday. (Not that anyone cares lol.) Peace. -Captain