I do not own ANYTHING! all credit goes to Rick Riordan.
Rachel's POV
Allow me to start off by saying that I am not a demigod, though I do live part time at Camp. I'm a mortal girl who happens to have the gift of Sight. My first encounter with this world happened when my head was nearly sliced off by some rando at the Hoover Dam, after that, I was involved with countless other quests involving monsters, titans, and one very old robot. Now, I hold the Oracle of Delphi inside of me. It's strange, but useful. It's really strange when one minute you're eating a bowl of lucky charms in your cave (yes I live in cave, it's nicer than it sounds) and the next minute you're on the ground while green smoke is pouring out of your mouth and you're spewing some prophecy about how the world is going to end and one of your friends is going to die.
Today started as a normal day. I ate breakfast at the head table, went to the arts and crafts station to teach the younger campers how to make greek statues, at lunch by myself in my cave, and then painted for a bit. Things got stranger when a certain scrawny, blonde haired, roman walked into my cave. "Oracle." he said as he stood in the entrance.
"Octavian I told you to call me Rachel."
"Rachel," he said like he was unworthy to speak my name. "Under normal circumstances I would not have made the long distance from California to New York but, seeing as it is almost the summer solstice and the celebration lasts almost the entire month, I figured I would come to see the Camp in the summer."
"You can come in." I said as he was hovering in the doorway.
"Thank you." he said as he made his way into the cave. "I brought you something, I realized that I never gave you a christmas present and i figured that I probably should, you know, Oracle to Oracle." I had forgotten that he was the roman oracle. He handed me a stuffed teddy bear with a red bow around its neck. I hesitantly took the bear.
"Thanks, um, you're not expecting me to cut it open and sacrifice it to the gods are you?"
He laughed. "No, I really want you to have it."
"Wow, thanks, Octavian." I set the bear down on my bed. " you can sit down you know."
He sat down awkwardly on top ove one of the sheets i used to cover my canvases.
There was about five minutes of awkward silence until the both of us broke the silence at the same time
"How are things in the Greek world?" he said.
"How are things in the Roman world?" I said. "Oh, I'm sorry, you can go."
"How are things like, school and stuff?" he asked.
I had to think for a minute. I had spent the school year at Clarion Ladies Academy. That school literally sucks ass. The entire education is based around teaching young girls how to be clueless socialites. I had other plans.
"Ummm, school is you know, it sucks."
"What's wrong with it?"
"What isn't wrong with it!" i said as i threw my hands up into the air. "The uniform is so stupid, the rules against abstract art are so infuriating that I actually had to start an underground paint club! And oh my gods we have an entire class on how to properly sip and spill tea!"
"What does 'spilling tea' mean?"
"Basically it's when people tell other people all the secrets they know about you."
He looked down. "Oh, well then i guess people have definitely 'spilled the tea' about me." he said in a small voice. "Anyway, what else is wrong with your school?"
I wondered why this roman, who three years ago had literally told me that I wasn't good enough to be Apollo's oracle, cared so much about me or my school. " why do you care about my school so much?" I took out a brush and started to paint on a canvas. My visions usually came out while i was painting. The image was of the ocean, but the ocean was on fire. What did this mean?
"I don't really care about your school, I care about you." Octavian had said with a shaky voice. I stopped my painting.
"Octavian-"
"I like you, and I don't know when exactly this started but I know that i definitely like you."
"Is that why you gave me the bear?" I asked, shocked that he actually had feelings for me, let alone had feelings at all.
"Yes. and I heard that the stars here are beautiful at night,"
"Octavian what are you-?"
"Miss Rachel Elizabeth Dare, will you go out with me tonight?"
I didn't know what to say. Even though I was the oracle and all, I had no idea that Octavian felt this way. My first instinct was to say 'no', because that whole roman invasion thing. But part of my brain whispered in my ear: what if? What if you went on a date with him and things turned out great?
"You know what? I think I feel another prophecy coming on!" i faked my prophecy fit.
"What do you see?" Octavian asked as he rushed over to me to make sure that I was ok.
"The Oracle of Apollo and the Roman shall follow
The stars in the sky where one lucky guy
Shall earn what he desires,
And a night that ends in fire." I 100% made that up, I had a plan to remember all that and end the night with a bonfire.
"What was that?" octavian asked.
"That was a Prophecy!" I faked. "I think i'm destined to go out with you.'
That night we did exactly as i 'foretold'. We walked along the beach, following the stars, and at the end of the walk, a bonfire, made by leo, was waiting. "A night that ends in fire." octavian said softly. He walked me back to my cave after that with a satisfied look on his face. "Can I maybe come back tomorrow?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes I think so."
He came back the next day around early afternoon. We sat on the floor and discussed roman art and poetry. We laughed at Apollo's haikus. "Rachel my I try something?" Octavian asked
I thought for a moment about all the things he could possibly want to try. He might want to try human sacrifice, he might want to try burning down the big house, he might want to try some weird 'sleep' thing. Then again, he might just want to kiss me… even if it is some weird thing, annabeth taught me how to judo-flip someone.
"Sure, go ahead." he leaned in and kissed me. I must admit it was nice. When we pulled away he looked at me.
"That was… wow." he said quietly. I leaned in this time and kissed him. It was a nice moment until I heard a cough from my cave opening. Jason Grace, the Pontifex and son of Jupiter was standing there with a look of pure uncomfortableness and awkwardness on his face. He looked like one of those memes that look like : | but like 10x more awkward.
"Uuummm," he said. "Right, well you're obviously busy so I'll just come back later…"
"It's fine, Jason what is it."
"There's a girl who arrived at camp last night. Her hair is sea green and her eyes-"
He paused and I got a vision. A girl just as jason had described was making the water at a beach explode. I saw her eyes. They were-
"Just like percy's." i finished. "I'll get right to it."
"Yeah you should… finish up." he looked at us sitting awkwardly. "Octavian, you be good to the oracle now." he left before i could strangle him.
"What new halfblood?" octavian asked. "Is she Greek or Roman?"
"Greek, and things just got a whole more crazy."
"What do you mean?"
"The next Great Prophecy… It's all gonna start with her arrival at camp."
"You spoke the next Prophecy?" he asked with awe.
I shook my head. "Just glimpses. An ocean on fire, the whole world in turmoil, a horrible monster destroying everything… it's been giving me nightmares for months."
Octavian hugged me. "It'll be ok."
