Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Unfortunately… No, I don't own it. Sorry.

I stood in a swamp, with the sounds of a battle surrounding me. But Sybelle and I seemed oddly unaffected by it; again she looked different than I knew she should. She should have looked just like me, but she didn't and I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong…

"What are they fighting over?" I asked her, realizing that despite the fact that we were both dressed for battle I had no idea what the fight was about, or indeed even who was fighting. Sybelle shook her head.

"It doesn't matter… Why did you stay Cassie?" She asked.

"Of course it matters…" I replied, looking around. I couldn't see the battle but somehow I knew our siblings were out there fighting. "We should be helping them…"

"You can't help if you don't know the answer Cassie." Sybelle pressed, "Why didn't you come with me when I left camp? Why did you fight for them?"

"I- I don't-" Everything changed then, Sybelle faded out and I was in the throne room again waiting for the gods to decide my fate.

I heard their muttering but kept my gaze on my feet. I heard Hermes say something along the lines that I was innocent since I was tricked, Dionysus agreed with him, saying that I had tried to correct the matter as best I could and that I'd had no way to know what would happen when I answered a few questions. I might have been surprised at this if I weren't so confused overall.

Athena and Ares agreed on something for once, saying that I should have seen the questions as odd and realized that I might have been dealing with a spy. I wondered what questions they were talking about.

"Silence!" Zeus thundered, putting an end to the arguing. I gulped but the fear was only there for a few moments before a comforting numbness seeped through me… I risked a glance up at Dionysus, who flicked a quick, pity filled glance at me before looking back at his father. For the first time I wondered what it must be like for him at camp, being so close to us day and night, and having to watch each of us die… How could he stand it?

"Cassandra McNova, do you have anything to say in your own defense?" He asked, his voice compelling me to look up at him. His face was a mask of cold rage.

"No Lord Zeus…" I said softly, lowering my gaze again. Any defense would anger him further, even if there was one that could be made. I closed my eyes, but opened them again when he called for the vote. Seven who thought I should die, Poseidon, Hermes and Dionysus were abstaining. When a fiercely frowning Zeus called for the vote for my life, there were two who thought I should be allowed to live. Poseidon was still abstaining.

Zeus didn't seem quite satisfied, but I guess he realized that even without his brother's vote there was still a definite majority. "The council has spoken." I closed my eyes again, "You, Cassandra McNova, have been sentenced to death." Even with my eyes closed the flash was blinding, and the blessing from Dionysus didn't stop me from feeling this.

I spent the time between our cabin wakeup call and breakfast trapped in the cabin while Leslie played with my hair. I think Will put her up to it cause as soon as the boys left to work in some early morning archery practice Leslie and Carol started talking about dreams. It was an absolutely transparent ploy to get me to tell them what was bothering me, in hindsight I probably should have told them. I'm not sure what good it would have done but then at least someone would have known what was wrong.

But I just sat there while Leslie put my hair up in a simple French braid, the end trailing low on my back. I never did figure out why I let her do that but it seemed to make her happy. I didn't say anything about my own dreams though I did tease Carol about her killer rice crispies dream. But to be fair, that dream was weird even by our standards. The girl has some serious cereal issues.

When we were finally ready, we were just (barely) in time for breakfast, Leslie took forever to get dressed and fix her own hair after she finished mine. I saw Justin and Harold with their arms slung around Ben's shoulders. I was just close enough to hear what they were saying.

"You break her heart," Harold started

"We break your face." Justin finished, neither of my brothers lost their smile in the exchange, though Ben looked more than a little nervous. Understandably, they weren't exactly expressing a comforting sentiment. He should have been flattered, or maybe I should have been, we don't often let people outside of the cabin know how violent we can be unless it's very important.

"Oh cut it out you two, he's probably our brother." I snapped, brushing by them on my way to meet the rest of our siblings at the dining pavilion. I caught Ben's insulted look out of the corner of my eye but didn't really pay any attention to it. I probably should have, but then again, I'd have probably attributed it to the boys threatening him.

That day didn't even start out normal, not that any day at camp is exactly normal… But there is a certain routine to it. It's easy to follow the routine once you figure out what it is that year, which usually took me about two weeks. This year, Hermes almost always showed up just after lunch to complain that his kids weren't sleeping in his cabin anymore. Not that Dionysus could do much about it either, I was pretty sure Hermes just did it to make sure his kids knew he was on their side. Rumor was that the whole Luke thing had kind of traumatized him. I was sure he'd get over it soon.

But that day was different; not only did he show up at breakfast, he wasn't there to yell at Mr. D. Turns out Hera and Zeus were getting tired of all the prayers about getting the cabin situation dealt with and had called an emergency meeting of all gods and goddesses. Also known as, we won… Sort of. It was a start anyway. I guess you should never under estimate the power of nearly three-hundred kids all asking the same people for the same thing. We had pretty much the whole camp in on it by the time that announcement was made, and fully intended to keep it up until they actually found a solution. It probably got very annoying for them, which was kind of the plan: to overwhelm them with respectful begging.

Table eleven was especially happy to hear the news; they even gave it a standing ovation. Or maybe it just looked like it because most of the cabin was standing already… They'd swelled to just over a hundred kids by this point. It made me really grateful that Apollo had claimed me after only a couple days at camp, rather the weeks, months, or years some of the other campers had suffered.

Of course, with no godly supervision, and the hunters coming for the duration since Artemis was required to go to the meeting too for some odd reason; the camp was chaos for the next several days and there were no real signs of anyone calming down. It kind of answered the question as to why Zeus put a god in charge of the camp to begin with. About four nights in I decided to go for a walk sometime around midnight, I wasn't worried about the cleaning harpies since some of the Ares campers had dusted them a couple nights before. Like I said, without Mr. D there to scare us into obedience, it was complete chaos.

I actually wasn't out doing anything that was, strictly speaking, against the rules; other than being out at all. I was pretty much just avoiding going to bed. I thought I saw the Stolls, along with a couple of their siblings and maybe one or two of mine, breaking into the forge... But that was the Hephaestus cabin's problem; I didn't have anything in there. In fact, the only thing I'd ever had forged were the twin daggers disguised as hair pins I wore in my braid. I couldn't actually use both daggers at once, but I figured if I had two, I was covered for when I lost the first one. I suck at close combat, so it invariably happened. No matter who I was paired up with, I always lost the first dagger, usually the second too right before losing the fight.

I quickly lost interest in watching the petty larceny and continued on my walk, eventually working my way towards the big house with half an idea of turning them in to get back at them for stealing my jewelry box the day before… Sure, I got it back after a little bribery, but it was the principle of the thing. That plan was ruined when Chiron galloped off towards the, now flaming, canoe lake. Well, the lake wasn't on fire, but the canoes were. And judging by the noise, the would-be burglars got caught by the Hephaestus cabin anyway. My revenge would just have to wait.

While I tried to figure out another way to get revenge I noticed some strange movement near the big house. After looking around and realizing that everyone else was either causing trouble or fiercely defending their possessions, some were somehow managing to do both, I realized I was the only one that noticed so I would have to check it out on my own. I didn't really mind, I figured it was probably Rachel escaping the big house to join the fun. That wasn't really the best idea she could have had, but she'd never struck me as being that bright. Hey, I have to be respectful to her because she works for my dad, I don't have to like her.

Moving as quietly as possible now, I turned my back to the lake and unstrapped my bow from my quiver. I nocked an arrow as I moved towards the movement, just because she was dad's oracle didn't mean I couldn't pull a small prank to teach her a lesson about sneaking around camp. She had to know by then how paranoid most of us were, and if she didn't then what I was planning technically be counted as a life-saving lesson. I kept the arrow pointed at the ground while I walked, it wouldn't do to really shoot her. His kid or not, Apollo would kill me for that.

I gasped when I saw three people, two girls and a guy, the guy carrying an unconscious oracle. My first thought was that some campers were planning on playing a prank on her, which, as a daughter of Apollo, I couldn't allow. Not one that required moving her while she was unconscious anyway, pretty much anything up to that point probably would have been fine. But that thought went out the proverbial window anyway when the two girls pulled daggers and stepped towards me. Thankfully, my ADHD came in handy at times like that. I had one arrow ready, three of them, and one oracle I couldn't risk hitting… The three of them were not campers but were obviously half-bloods since they got past the border… And most of camp was awake which meant more campers ready for battle, but also a lot more noise to get in the way of calling for help…

Great, a completely useless assessment of the situation… I'd been spending way too much time with Ben. That boy wondered about the weirdest things… And I'm talking weird even for a half-blood. Who cares about the top speed of a centaur?

I took the chance and shouted for my cabin mates as I fired the arrow at the first girl to run at me, it hit her in the shoulder. Her yell added to mine should have attracted some attention, even with all that noise, right? I could only hope. I reached for more arrows, but before my fingers could close around the shafts someone came up behind me and my vision exploded with stars…

Author's Note: Yay! Another chapter done! I know the dreams are rather long, and I'm trying to make sure that the 'real' portions of the chapters are just as long or longer in at least most of the chapters. Which means long chapters! (Yay?)