Raven climbed the steps of the big house. Argus stood beside the door and gestured for her to come inside. She was unsure but entered the big house. Inside the big house it was warm and well lit. The air smelled like strawberries and she took a step or two inside. She looked around to find it empty.
"Hello?" She asked. To her surprise there was a groan from the other room. She poked her head in. Sitting in a chair in the other room was a small pot bellied man with a reddish nose and curly black hair. He was wearing a tiger striped Hawaiian shirt and immediately Raven knew this was Mr.D or Dionysus the wine god. Not exactly her favorite god in the series but it was important to get on this guys good side. Behind her stood a girl cleaning up coke cans around the room with curly blonde hair but she didn't have much time to pay attention cause he quickly bowed when Mr.D looked over at her.
"L-lord Dionysus!" She said awkwardly, looking up from her bow. "My name is Raven Blouse, Daughter of Nemesis. It's an honor!"
She introduced herself quickly hoping this whole flatter trick worked. He seemed to buy it because he sort of smirked like he was pleased with himself. "Glad to see some people still respects the gods." He muttered. Raven dared take a few more steps into the room.
"I've just come to inform you of my arrival. I'm new here." She was nervous. She'd never talked to a god before. Last night she thought they didn't exist. Now…well anyway she had to keep it together, be cool. She smiled shyly; she didn't know what she was doing.
"You said you were daughter of Nemesis?" Mr.D said curiously.
"Yes, sir." She nodded.
"Weird, minor gods don't usually claim their kids." He said, "I guess you can just stay in the Hermes Cabin. Annie bell can you show her?" He waved his hand at the girl behind him.
"Annabeth," The girl corrected. Raven's heart nearly stopped. The girl was Annabeth Chase. She was Raven's hero. She was so wise and clever, and strong. Raven had to stop herself from completely flipping out. "Come on Raven."
Raven nodded and turned to Dionysus before following Annabeth outside calling, "Thank you my lord! Goodbye," She smiled. Maybe she was overplaying this whole flattery thing but Dionysus didn't seem to notice or if he did he didn't care. She followed Annabeth across the valley. She was glad she was staying in the Hermes cabin, she could talk to Luke.
"So you're the daughter of Nemesis?" Annabeth asked, "Goddess of Revenge."
"That's' right and you're the daughter of Athena" Raven said without thinking. Crap she had to get a handle on this. She couldn't let people know she knew everything.
"How did you know that?" Annabeth raised her eyebrow suspiciously.
"Just a hunch," Raven said quickly, "You give off that air of intelligence all Athena kids do."
'Oh," Annabeth beamed, "I guess I do."
"Yea, you must be super smart being daughter of Athena, huh?" Raven said, she really wanted to be Annabeth's friend if she could.
"I guess." Annabeth said, she gestured at the building we'd stopped in from of, "This is the Hermes cabin."
Raven looked in; even though it was the school year it was still crowded. She and Annabeth stepped inside. She set her bag down in the corner. Her head turning from side to side, kids wandered around not giving her a second thought. A few kids looked at her for a minute before going back to whatever they were doing. There were two kids who looked very similar who she assumed were the Stoll brother.
"Luke?" Annabeth called and a blond boy with a scar down the side of his face made his way to the front. He beamed at Annabeth and she seemed to blush. Raven had to keep from rolling her eyes. She could only picture Annabeth with Percy. End of story.
"Hey Annabeth," He said before turning to Raven, "Who's your friend?"
"This is Raven," Annabeth explained, "She's a daughter of Nemesis. Find a place for her?"
"Sure leave it to me!" Luke smiled and Raven found it hard to believe this kid was going to betray all his friends to join Kronus. He seemed so nice. And that's how it would stay if she could help it. Annabeth turned and disappeared. Raven watched her jog to the Athena cabin and disappear.
"So you can just put your stuff here," He gestured to the bunk next to him, "It is the school year so we do have a few open bunks…"
"Luke," Raven said, He looked at her, "Let's talk."
Raven had grabbed her leather bond book and she and Luke walked until she was sure they were out of earshot over everyone. Luke looked confused, and a little on guard like he was ready to be attacked. They stopped next to Thalia's tree. Raven sat down among the tree's roots.
"Luke," She said looking up at the blond boy, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Uh, sure. Shot,"
"You came here with Annabeth and Thalia, didn't you?"
"Yea, how-"
"You consider them family don't you?" Raven looked him in the eyes. She was deathly serious. She only got one shot at this. "Wouldn't you give up your life for them?"
"Sure I would," Luke said. He seemed so sure of it, "Thalia saved me so many times and Annabeth is like my little sister."
"Good," Raven said, her black hair whipping around her face.
"Is that it?" Luke asked his face concerned. Raven could tell he didn't like being questioned like this. She just looked him in the eyes and shook her head and patted the patch of grass next to her. He frowned and sat down next to her. She was silent for a moment.
"Luke, I know who's been talking to you," Luke looked surprised, he reached to his belt for his sword but Raven put up a hand, "I'm not going to tell on you, or try and stop you Luke."
That seemed to surprise him even more.
"Luke you need to be smart. I know you're angry at your dad. You feel like you've been used by the gods, but the gods are not your family. Just because they are our parents doesn't mean they're family. Your family is here. Annabeth is your family. You promised her family," Raven said looking at Luke dead in the eyes, "She won't follow you. She won't betray the gods. And Kronus will take away your family."
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Luke argued, but Raven raised a hand to silent him.
"I do know what I'm talking about Luke," She said firmly, "Do you want to know what will happen if you follow on this path Luke? If you give into what the titan lord is telling you?"
"How could you possible know that?" Raven pulled out her book of prophecies.
"Apollo and I have an agreement," She lied, "I know what's going to happen. Luke is so blinded by his rage he raises an army of monsters, bathes in the river Styx and allows Kronus himself to possess him. You prey on Annabeth's love for you and force her to hold up the sky, you almost kill her on multiple accessions. Only when Annabeth is screaming at you that you're supposed to be family do you come to your senses and kill yourself to stop Kronus from rising. You die in her arms."
Luke looked at her like she was the insane one. "That's crazy!"
"It's what you end up doing if you follow Kronus' instructions." Raven growled, "I'm not going to stop you Luke. If this is the path you want to go on then I can't stop you. I just want to save you. For Annabeth."
With that Raven stood up. Luke caught her arm.
"I don't want to hurt Annabeth…" Luke said.
Raven smiled and helped the older boy up. Mission success she hoped. Time would tell. The only thing she wondered was who the other sap Kronus would take hold of was. But she'd find out in time. She wasn't sure if Luke would remember what she'd said but she hoped that knowing what would happen would help him.
They ended up back at the cabin. Raven emptied her bag and was surprised to find her glowing bronze dagger, which she'd decided to name Artemis after her favorite goddess, and Percy Jackson books weren't the only things in her bag. Now there was an orange Camp Half-Blood tee shirt and a night gown made of pure purple silk. Clothes. Cool. She was about to walk away when she noticed something else tumble from her bag. A Silver circlet with writing etched into it: Bringer of Hope. Immediately she knew it read: Bringer of Hope. She smiled a little to herself and slipped it onto her head.
Weeks turned into months as Raven spent her time training at Camp Half Blood. Luke had insisted on one on one swordplay lessons with Raven. She had been total trash before he took her under his wing. Now she was a natural. Luke and her often spared and practiced for hours, teaching her different sword techniques. Annabeth and Raven had ended up getting along naturally. They both shared a deep passion for reading and a passionate fear of spiders. Before long they were pretty much best friends.
Annabeth also taught Raven what she knew about fighting with daggers. Close range combat was harder to get a handle on but she got used to it after Annabeth taught her. The Apollo kids taught her how to use a bow and arrow after she discovered Artemis could become a bow. The arrow thing took a long time to figure out but she finally discovered all she had to do was pull back on the string and the arrow would appear. She certainly had one hell of a weapon. She thanked the god who gave it to her.
Silena from the Aphrodite cabin taught her to fly Pegasus. That was easy because Raven had already done horseback pre-wish, she guessed adding wings wasn't so different. She mastered that quickly. She liked Silena, and made a mental note to save her. Although she wondered if she needed to with Luke being saved who would force her to become a spy?
There were things Raven sucked at too of course, like blacksmithing. One time she almost burnt down the forge, the Hephaestus kids hadn't allowed her back in since. Also capture the flag. She was trash at it so mostly she did defense, no one seemed to mind though. And it was still fun even if she was bad at it. But even though she was bad at Capture the Flag, the Stolls Brothers had given her a clever idea as to how to get better. Something about her technically being her own one woman cabin and switching sides. It was complicated, and she was working the details out, but she had to admit, the idea was so clever only the Stolls Brothers could have come up with it.
During the winter her Annabeth Luke and the rest of the camp celebrated Christmas. Even if it wasn't a Greek thing everyone still exchanged gifts and stuff. Of course it was all homemade things or things from the camp gift shop but it was still fun. She got a homemade necklace from Luke and a blank journal from Annabeth. In exchange, Raven had given Annabeth a pair of owl earrings that had reminded her of her best friend when she'd seen at the camp shop a few days before. To Luke, she'd given him a jet black dagger, made completely of Obsidian. She figured that since Luke would never get receive his evil sword, Backbiter, from Kronus, the least she could do was give him some sort of special blade. Even if it didn't kill monsters it looked pretty wicked.
When they went on the field trip to Olympus for the winter solstice Raven kept one eye on Luke at all times. Luke was great but she still didn't trust he'd changed. Kronus' hold was strong. Luckily he tried nothing. Raven was next to him the whole time. Unfortunately she didn't see if anyone else snuck off to snatch the lightning bolt because of that.
Finally the day Percy was to arrive came. She didn't know for sure but she just got a feeling. Raven got up early that morning. She had had to move to the floor after the summer campers arrived, but she didn't mind. She changed out of her Purple night gown and into her normal shorts knee socks, tee and sweatshirt. The morning air was thick and heavy and clung to her. She stretched. She imagined the fight that was about to go down that day at half blood hill. How Annabeth was finally going to get her quest after so long. She knew all this because her prediction was right. Someone else had stolen the lightning bolt.
She had learned this from Annabeth who'd told only her and Luke. She was half relieved and half unsteady. She had no idea who had done it and in this world she wasn't used to not knowing. She was happy Percy would finally show up though, She made her way to the Athena cabin and poked her head in silently. Annabeth wasn't in her bunk. She must have gotten up early as well.
Raven made her way up to half blood hill. That's where Annabeth always went when she needed to think. Sure enough Annabeth sat next to Thalia's tree staring off into the distance. Raven almost felt bad disturbing her. When she was up there she looked like she must be having some kind of conversation with Thalia.
"She'll come back you know," Raven said and Annabeth jumped.
"Huh?" Annabeth looked confused which was always strange on Annabeth because she was almost never confused.
"Thalia," Raven knew it was dangerous to just throw around information on the future but Annabeth looked so sad whenever she looked at the tree. So did Luke. She wanted to reassure her things would be fine. That's what she was here to do.
"That's all I can say on the matter but you'll get to see the daughter of Zeus again," Raven smiled reassuringly. Annabeth looked unsure about whether to believe Raven or not but she nodded. "Something big is happening today."
"What?" Annabeth looked curious; her gray eyes were so intense.
"Someone very important to you will show up." Raven grinned a bit.
"Who? Who shows up that's important to me?" Annabeth pressed for Answers. Raven just smirked.
"He drools in his sleep."
