Rachael's POV: I love switching it up, and I hope everyone else does as well. I just think it explains the story better, being inside all the characters' heads!

Chapter 8

My Dream Hero Who Has Nightmares

All my life, I'd always been a bit of a dreamer. It seemed as if my childhood and preteen days passed in a cereal blur with me being neither quick enough nor aware enough to keep up with its fast, efficient pace. One wealthy school to the next, a cotillion here and there, and a trust fund were all tools in ensuring my future at the end of the Yellow Brick Road. That future was undoubtedly a master's degree (which would become worthless once I was an appropriately married woman), a rich husband named Ward, and two point five kids, the youngest of which dubbed The Beaver. I was always like a puppet, and everyone around me seemed to control the strings. My parents in particular.

Almost as if it were in defiance, I managed to put a few dents into their carefully planned, perfect-daughter mold without even trying. I was grotesque at tennis, money and shopping did not appeal, and I insisted upon wearing my worst but most comfortable jeans and my father's alma mater sweatshirt. And, armed with theses clothes -the only real choice I'd ever made concerning my life- I wandered off again and again into worlds of books and of my own fashioning. My mother had always said I would one day lose myself in that imagination of mine, and I could never get why she thought it was a bad thing.

But I knew that all the things happening to me, though incredible, were real. I could feel the realness of it. As a little girl, I'd once cried my heart out to a small frog, demanding to know why some magic hero didn't come and sweep me away to a better place than where I was. Reality was always painful and lonely, and I became so in love with the idea of a better, unexplainable world of fantastic people and creatures -none unfeeling and indifferent like most human beings- that to this day I refuse to believe that that little frog couldn't somehow magically understand what that sad little girl was saying.

Just as I felt the mysticism of fantasy, I also felt the harsh sting of reality. I felt it every day of my life, including the day I met Percy, but meeting him cut a few of the strings tethering my spirit. I began to feel hope again. Those feelings of hope were strengthened when I crossed paths with a beautiful woman who believed in the magic of love charms. And when Percy and I met for the second time, albeit under dire circumstances, I knew that the final ties of my imprisonment -so like the silver, netted strands crisscrossing over my arm- had been unraveled. Here was a person who would take me away to a place where I could be free from petty mind games and the trivial pursuits of the rich. Here was the hero to take me somewhere even I could not on my own imagine. I didn't even care if the place was filled with evil, as long as I could leave behind my life which was filled with nothingness.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((O))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

As she slapped down the cards, each time with seemingly more frustration and force than the last, I began to see that Annabeth Chase was torn between liking me and wishing I was gone. It seemed appropriate that we were playing War.

I had a strong feeling that her anger had something to do with Percy. She'd tensed when I'd expressed my gratitude to him for bringing me to Chiron, though Percy didn't seem to notice. A boy wouldn't notice a thing like that, normally.

He'd left with his brother, a Cyclops (not a whole lot of family resemblance), to send an Iris-Message (whatever that was) and eventually track down Chiron again to talk (most likely about me). That left me alone with a girl whom I didn't know anything about other than her name. I figured it was time I partook in my greatest talent: asking awkward questions. I got the essentials out of the way first.

"Thank you," I said.

"What?" she said, looking up, surprised. She must have been in her own little world. Funny, she hadn't really struck me as the type to daydream.

"Thank you," I repeated. "For saving my life." And I meant it. I was genuinely grateful. It must have showed on my face, for she looked much more self-assured and pleased with life. Something told me that Annabeth had deadly pride, and I mean deadly.

"You're welcome," she said, letting the cards alone for a moment. She'd been beating me savagely. I was suddenly intimidated by this girl who could strategically dominate me in a game of chance.

"How long have you been coming here?" I asked, gesturing around.

"Since I was seven."

"And here is…?"

"Camp Halfblood."

"And halfbloods are the same as demigods," I stated, remembering the conversation in the freaky, smoke taxi.

She nodded. "It's a place where halfbloods are trained to fight the monsters that seek us. It's a place where we can live safely and peacefully."

"Who is your parent?" I asked, becoming more fascinated by the second. I didn't need to specify: she knew which parent I meant.

She seemed to sit up a little straighter. "Athena, Goddess of Wisdom."

"And Percy's?"

"Poseidon, God of the Sea and Earthquakes." She stated matter-of-fact, as if I were asking what their parents did for a living. In a way, I suppose I was. I was amazed by it all: a Goddess of wisdom definitely explained Annabeth's intelligence and constant conservativeness. And Percy, being the son of a Sea God? It was almost impossible to comprehend and yet, it fit. Even to someone he had spent a few hours time with, he seemed mercurial by nature, and all his actions and reactions were constantly in a rush. Nothing could've been worse for him than being as still and transparent as water in a crystal glass; as long as he kept moving, he had purpose.

"Can he really make Earthquakes?" I asked.

"Not often. Sometimes, when he's having a nightmare, there's enough of a tremor throughout the whole camp to knock over a few tables and get the dust off the ceiling. It's never serious: the Ares cabin hasn't woken up once, and he has to be either very angry or an emotional wreck. Our friend Thalia, a former camper, used to do similar things with electricity and static when she came out of a coma that lasted five years. It's because they are the only ones with destructive manifestations of power." I gave her a curious look, so she explained.

"Most of our cabins represent their heritage through specific talents and personality traits. Very few, like kids of Demeter, actually have any literal influence on their environment. Zeus and Poseidon are by far the most powerful and dangerous of the cabins: not only can they control things like the atmosphere and water, but they can use them as tools for destruction when upset. More than once, a kid of those cabins has caused their own demise."

I digested this logically.

"It seems like, with all these problems, that Zeus and Poseidon wouldn't have any more children," I said. Annabeth nodded, very grave.

"You're right. Thalia and Percy aren't supposed to exist."

And I became ever more deeply drawn into a story of Gods, Wars, and oaths as the Sun climbed higher and higher into the sky.

It completely slipped my mind that the first question I'd meant to ask Annabeth was whether or not she and Percy had feelings for each other.