Here's the first chapter :)

Enjoy...

"So I told him, 'Be quiet before your teddy bear isn't the only one with its head cut off,'" Reyna grinned. "That shut him right up."

The other girls laughed. They didn't have anything to do, so Annabeth, Reyna, Piper, and Hazel had decided to take the day off and go on picnic. It was a beautiful summer day; the clouds drifted lazily overhead, the wind blew over the grass, making it ripple like a pebble dropped onto the still surface of a pond; and the sun shone brightly, warming Hazel's face when she tilted it up towards the pale blue sky. In her opinion, it was a perfect day to be with her best friends.

"Oh! Oh! Annabeth!" Piper jumped up and down. "Remember the time you, Rachel, and I drew on Leo's face with that marker?"

Annabeth nodded vigorously and smiled, her blonde hair bobbing up and down with her head. "That was the best."

"Okay, so what happened was..." Piper explained how they had found Leo asleep by the docks and how she thought it was the appropriate time to try out her new enchanted marker. "The catch was that everyone else could see the marker on his face except for himself!"

This brought on another round of giggling. If any mortal were to see them, it would appear as if they were just a group of girls gossiping, which in fact, they girls had been sharing some stories about what they had done back at camp before the whole problem with Gaea.

Hazel swung their picnic basket by her side happily. She was glad that all of the girls were bonding with one another, and was even more excited to be right along with them. Back before she died, Hazel's only real friend was Sammy since everyone believed that her mother was a witch. Now, Hazel had plenty of people to cover her back.

She paused by a boulder that she recognized as a piece schist; if any karpoi decided to attack them, they would have that rock as protection.

The other girls stopped with her. "I think this is a good place to have our picnic," she announced, shyly. She still wasn't quite used all of these new friendships, despite having known everyone for some time now.

Annabeth, Reyna, and Piper nodded in agreement. Reyna took out the light blue blanket they would sit on and held it up, letting the breeze make it billow and wave, shook it, and finally settled it onto the grass. Hazel gentle placed their straw picnic basket on top of the blanket, causing the remaining air underneath to escape into the wind.

Hazel sat down with her legs crossed next to Annabeth and Piper. Reyna sat across from her; the four girls formed a miniature ring around the basket. Piper took the liberty of moving the top of the basket to the side, and dramatically took out... Her conveniently placed cornucopia that spewed food from its inside.

"Let's eat!" she cried out, tilted the horn up to the sky, and the cornucopia shot food from its center up high in the air, landing around the other screaming girls. A shower of fresh fruits and vegetables, warm bread, baked goods, and even more delicacies rained down around them. Hazel saw a bowl of shrimp gumbo fly out of the horn, disappear for a second among the rest of the food defying gravity temporarily, and gently touch down right in front of her lap. A spoon was already in the bowl.

Hazel sat, dumbfounded, and stared at the gumbo that had magically appeared from only a cornucopia. Even after knowing about gods and goddesses for years, Hazel still couldn't believe some of the fascinating events that unfolded right before her eyes.

She was about to ask Piper about her cornucopia, but Piper was too busy trying to stuff it into the picnic basket while food still shot out of its rim. It seemed like she still had some trouble controlling the horn at times. Piper must have seen Hazel looking at her oddly because she just grinned and said, "I got this, Hazel. Don't worry," and continued to wrestle with it.

Hazel smiled and shook at her head. Her attention was diverted to the delicious looking bowl of steaming shrimp gumbo tempting her. She took one last look around at the others and saw they were all indulged in their meals; shrugging, she gave in to her rumbling stomach and ate.

[Please excuse the interruption: this is where I would describe how Hazel's gumbo tasted, but personally, I do not like gumbo and forget what it tastes like. I am just going to skip over that part.]

Hazel glanced up from her half-finished gumbo, spoon raised for another mouthful, but something made her slowly place it back into her bowl with a soft clatter. She thought she had seen another shadow on the ground right next to their blanket... Hazel shook her head, her curly hair bouncing around her shoulders, as if the motion would convince her that she was just seeing things.

"Is something wrong, Hazel?" she heard Reyna ask her. Hazel was a bit surprised to hear her old praetor speaking to her so casually. Normally Reyna was yelling at Octavian, and during the rare moments when Reyna and Hazel interacted, Reyna was directing her to go somewhere to help someone.

"Oh- oh, it's nothing. I just thought I saw a shadow. It's fine-" Reyna was already on her feet, scouting out the area.

Piper and Annabeth both looked up from their food with puzzled expressions. "What's going on?" Annabeth questioned.

Hazel opened her mouth to reply, but Reyna called out from behind the boulder. "Hey, guys! You might want to come and check this out!"

Annabeth gave Hazel a confused look, but she just shrugged and frowned at the ground. The rest of the girls followed Reyna to the other side of the schist.

There was a small path winding into a creepy looking forest that definitely wasn't there a minute ago. Large bushes covered in poisonous-looking berries stood on either side of the entrance and dead trees swayed and cracked in the light breeze. Hazel could see a couple of shadows moving swiftly and silently around on the forest floor.

The four girls looked at each other and, at the slightest nod from Annabeth, plunged into the dark thicket.

End of the first chapter! WOOOOOO (No, I'm seriously happy because I actually had the time to type it.) I'll try to post another chapter in a couple of days since I'm on winter break currently. Comment if you would like; I take any sort of criticism!

~HuntresssOfTheNight888