Chapter 10:

I woke up to the sound of thunder rumbling off in the distance. Soon after I awoke, Percy got up and switched the light on.

"Ugh, Percy it's not time to get up already, is it?" I groaned tiredly.

"Yeah, sorry Payton. We have Ancient Greek first, then one-on-one sword fighting, then crafts, then finally archery. Today's kind of jam packed with stuff." Percy explained, and then went into the bathroom to get changed.

After breakfast we went to Ancient Greek, which was extremely easy for me because that's what I often spoke at home. Percy, on the other hand, was another case. He was okay at it but had a lot of trouble. I had to whisper him a lot of the answers which didn't really help him much. He and I then had one-on-one sword fighting. Surprisingly he didn't kick my butt in that either. Although maybe that's not so surprising considering I was trained under only the best swordfighters. Percy taught me a lot, though, because while he didn't have the training I had, he had a lot more real-world experience. Then after lunch we had crafts and archery. Arts and crafts was fun because I got to build stuff with metal. Archery with Chiron was a lot of fun too. Luckily, I kicked Percy's butt in archery because I learned from Uncle Apollo, and even as a daughter of Poseidon, archery was always a strength of mine. Sort of interesting, but I was cool with it.

I think my favorite activity was probably sword fighting, mostly because I got to spend time with Percy. It was funny, because we are really well matched skill-level wise because of our being twins. It was like we could sense our every move even before it was performed, so we were both extremely skilled in defense.

After archery, we had an hour of free time. I got to hang out with Thalia and talk with her.

"So, how'd your first day go?" She asked me, when I was done putting away my archery equipment.

"It was good. The only thing Percy's slightly better at me in is sword fighting, and that's only because of experience. Otherwise I pretty much kick butt." I sort of jokingly bragged.

"Wow. That's great. Of course, you haven't done all the activities, but that's still good for the first day." Thalia commented

"True. I still have wrestling, rock climbing, foot racing, canoeing, and swimming." I said, looking at my schedule.

"Yeah. You and I get to do rock climbing together!" Thalia said excitedly.

"Awesome! I'll bet Grover's going to cream us though. Being half-goat and all." I replied

"True. But that's okay. You don't have to be the best at everything you know." Thalia said

"I know. But I just feel like I have to prove myself, and I'll be disappointed if I don't do well, so I push myself a lot harder than I probably need to." I explained as we walked down towards the canoe lake.

"Yeah, I guess I can understand that. Just do the best you can, but don't go over your limit." She advised

I sighed. "I'll try."

"So, what do you think you're favorite activity was?" She asked

"I'd say sword fighting, because Percy and I got to spend time with each other and we were really well matched. It was almost like we could read each other's thoughts and block all of our moves because we knew what the other person was going to do." I explained

"It's the twin thing." Thalia said

"The only bad thing about it was that I kept on thinking about Luke, since he was the one who taught me how to fight." I said softly.

"Oh." Thalia said, voice trailing off

"It's just, I don't know. I'm so confused sometimes. It's so frustrating. Because of Luke, I now have such a hard time trusting people. I mean, I can trust you, obviously. But when I meet other people I always think of betrayal and it just hurts." I tried to explain

"I can understand that. I have a similar problem. But for me, I don't really have a problem trusting people. It's just, when the earn my trust, I tend to keep them at bay so they can't get close enough to me to break my trust." Thalia commented

"I do know this about you." I replied

"Really?" She asked

"Yeah. Thalia, I know you really really well. I think I know you better than anybody. Maybe even myself." I admitted

"I feel the same way about you. I can always read your emotions and sense what you're feeling." Thalia said

"I know what you mean." I sighed again

We walked in silence for a while, just thinking. That was one of the great things about our friendship. We could go a long time and not say anything and it wouldn't be awkward. That's a true friendship.

All of a sudden, a big shape formed in the sky. As it grew closer, I could see it was Blackjack, Percy's Pegasus.

"Hey, do you know where Percy is?" he asked me

"Not really sure. Probably with Annabeth. Wait, how did you know I could understand you?" I asked him out loud.

"You've got the Poseidon sense. Plus, I've heard about you." He replied

"Oh. So, what do you need Percy for? Anything I can do?" I asked

"Oh. Actually, maybe you can help…and the daughter of Zeus" he said, looking at Thalia.

"What do you want us to do?" I asked

"It's about the new Seer. I think she's in some kind of trouble. She had a prophecy a little while ago, but I think it reached the wrong ears or something." Blackjack explained.

Thalia looked at me questioningly. "What does he want?" She asked

"He says it's about some new Seer. He thinks she's in some kind of trouble after a prophecy she had. He said he thinks it reached the wrong ears or something.

Thalia's eyes grew worried. "Ask him if Rachel was acting funny or different after she delivered the prophecy. Also, ask him what he means by "reached the wrong ears"

"Don't worry, I heard her." Blackjack said, as I opened my mouth to repeat Thalia's questions "I saw Rachel looking very scared, and she was muttering to herself. Then she went into her cave, but didn't come out. I'm afraid a monster might have gotten to her. We might want to also call Lord Apollo. He could help, for Rachel is his responsibility. Or whatever." Blackjack explained

"Thanks." I replied to Blackjack, and then repeated what Blackjack had said to Thalia.

Thalia's mouth turned into a frown and she looked worried. She thought hard for a while.

Meanwhile, I took out my cell phone and opened it to get the Drachma.

"What are you doing? Don't you know how dangerous cell phones are?" Thalia screeched, and grabbed it from my hands.

"Yes, I do, but it's a magic item from Uncle Apollo. I was going to press the button to get a Drachma to IM Apollo so he could help us." I explained, while trying to grab the cell phone out of Thalia's grasp.

Thalia said "Oh. Sorry.", and returned the cell phone to me. I sighed impatiently and opened it again, this time pressing the number two. Out popped a gold Drachma. I took it, and said "Oh Iris, goddess of messages, please take this offering." and threw it into a little pond that was by the lake. (A/N: I don't know if there actually is a pond by the lake, but I just put one there for convenience.)

All of a sudden, a vision appeared, and I saw my Uncle Apollo in Olympus.

"Uncle Apollo!" I called. He turned his head and his eyes widened in surprise, happiness, and finally concern.

"Hey kiddo. How's it going? Hope everything's okay." He said, sitting down on a bench.

"We're okay. I love camp. There's just been a bit of trouble with your new Seer." I explained

"Rachel?" Apollo asked, eyes narrowing in concern.

"Yeah." I said, and explained the whole scene that Blackjack had seen to him

"That can't be good. Meet me at Rachel's cave. Hopefully we can sort things out." He said.

"Okay. See you then." I replied, and the image disappeared

A/N: Wow! Another really long chapter. Hope you liked it. At first I wasn't going to include the whole Seer thing, but then I thought it made things a little more interesting. But you guys are the judges of that. So please, REVIEW so I know how I did.