Sorry for not updating, it's been a crazy month. I've had three midterms, five quizzes, four assignments, three essays, four seminars and two discussion classes. Meaning, a whole hell of a lot of homework. Plus, I wrote an 80k word novel for National Novel Writing Month. It's been rough, but finals are coming up, which means that I should have a lot more time to write. I've got a scrapbook project to finish over the weekend, but I'm going to get a chapter up for both stories.

Thanks for reading.

I collapse onto my bed a week later, nursing sore muscles and wounded pride. After climbing the lava wall nineteen times, with each success resulting in it being changed to a harder setting, and nearly dying several times, Sam dragged me off to the archery range to practice until my fingers nearly started to bleed. It's been six days of torture, and those two idiots have been too busy making scary faces at each other to realize that Sam has been torturing me half to death.

The door to the cabin opens and I groan as I pull my covers over my head. "Dad, go away! I don't want to practice anymore."

I get no response, but a heavy weight presses into my bed, and a hand rests on my side, barely pressing through the blanket. "Hey Ciara, I heard about your tough week."

That's not Dad! I whip the blankets off my head and sit up to see Nico sitting on my bed, smiling wryly. "Nico!"

He grins at me. "Good to see you too. I heard that you've been practicing hard. Three runs of the lava wall each day, two hours of archery before lunch, and two after supper? Sounds like a serious regime they've got you on."

I groan and hide my face. "You have no idea. I don't know if it's Dad's idea, Mom's, or just Sam, but it's going to kill me. I swear that all of this training is going to kill me."

"Well I sure hope not. The last thing I want is to have to escort my own goddaughter to the Underworld." Nico's laugh is a bit too light for his dark sense of humor. Not that I should expect anything different from a son of Hades. Dark humor seems to be their thing.

I pull my head back up to look at him. "Yeah, well it's no thanks to your brother. If he cared at all, then he would save me from Sam. But all he and that Will have been doing is snarling at each other for the past week. Never in front of me, not after I threatened to turn them into hedgehogs. But still, it makes me so mad."

Nico pats my head gently, ruffling my hair. "Well, then how about you take a break from all of that climbing and archery, and come spar with me. I could show you a few things that your dad would never teach you."

My face scrunches at the thought of going out for training again, but it can't possibly be worse than the training I've done with Sam, so I nod and get out of bed. But first, I pay a visit to the bathroom, and I run water over my hands, watching carefully as the blisters become soft skin again, and all of the scratches and burns and bruises I've gained over the last week heal before my eyes.

Once I'm feeling less sore, I turn off the taps and walk to my bed, pulling my special box out, and sliding on the bracelets, necklace, earrings and anklets that make up my armor and weapons. "Alright, I'm ready for anything you can throw at me." I grin at Nico eagerly. "And please, if Sam drags me off for archery practice again, come rescue me. I would rather practice with a sword than with a bow. I'm already fine with a bow. It's my swordplay that needs the most work."

Nico chuckles and rises from my bed. "I'll take that under consideration. I'm usually out of the camp, looking for half-blood kids across the country, but I'll see what I can do about getting you out of archery practice while I'm in camp."

"Thank you." I grab Nico's hand and head for the door. "Now let's go. I want to be gone by the time Sam comes here to look for me."

"Alright, alright…" He follows along behind me, smiling with amusement. "Do you at least know what kind of skills you want to learn first?"

"Hmm…" It takes me a minute to think about it. "Something that will help me beat Kai the next time I duel him. He went easy on me last time. And next time, I want to fight without using any special abilities. No cracks in the ground, and no tsunamis in the arena."

"Fair enough. You'll win more respect that way. And the more the others respect you, the less likely they'll be to pull a stunt like last week again." Nico shakes his head with a sigh. "I really don't want to see a repeat of that."

That sure shuts me up pretty good. I don't want to see a repeat of that either. Kai could have died if I hadn't helped him. But it's my fault that he got involved in the first place. He should never have been involved. That was supposed to be my fight, not his. "I need to be stronger if I'm going to stop that from happening ever again. I need to prove that I don't need to depend on others to fight my battles for me."

Another light chuckle escapes Nico. "Well, I don't know about that. That pillar of water after the fight was pretty impressive. I don't think anyone will be underestimating you again in the near future. Especially not after the look I saw on Percy's face. He almost looked angry enough to kill." He soon grows a little solemn. "It's been a long time since I've seen a look like that on his face."

I'm not sure if I want to know the story behind the last time that Nico saw a look like that coming from Dad. But one thing is for certain, at least in my eyes. "I can't rely on Dad's reputation to protect me. I have to be able to protect myself. Even if the campers stop messing with me, that doesn't mean that others won't try. And if all those myths I've heard about are real, then I doubt that a hydra or a cyclops will care who Dad is. They'll just try even harder to kill me if they know."

"You've heard the stories?" Nico's voice gets a little tight as we approach the arena. "Just remember that Percy is held up on a pedestal. The stories about him are going to be exaggerated and fanciful. If you try to live up to them, then you'll find yourself resenting him. It's something all too common here. Especially since we're the children of gods."

I stop right in front of the arena gates, and I release Nico's hand. "That's why I have to be stronger. I don't want to be compared to Dad. I know that I will be, I'm not stupid, I can see it in the others. They're always talking about what their parents, or their older siblings have done. They talk about it around the campfire, and in the dining pavilion, and all around the Big House. I've even heard about the trophies that are all gathering dust up there. But I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be compared to them. I just want to be myself, is that too much to ask?"

Nico pats my shoulder with a smile. "No, it's reasonable that you would want something like that, many of us do. It's just a fate that's hard to escape. They key is to make yourself different. But don't do it by not being yourself, do it by being true to your heart, by making decisions that you can be proud of. Only then will you feel like you're the one who accomplished something. Look only at the past to avoid the mistakes that others have made, and look to the future to decide the path that you will take. That's all the advice I can offer you on that." He puts his hand on the handle of his pure black sword. "But, in there, there's a whole new kind of advice that I can give you. And I promise that you'll like it."

Excitement wells up inside me as anticipation for practice builds. "Then let's do this. I want to learn how to beat Kai. That's my first objective. After that, it's beating Will."

Nico draws his sword and twirls it around, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Will? You mean Will McGrant? Why would you want to duel him?"

My laugh comes out more like a growl. "Maybe because he annoys me? Things were going just fine, and Kai was finally talking to me. But then Will showed up and made a mess of everything. Here I thought that I was finally making another friend, and this guy just shows up out of the blue. And he seems to think that I need protection. Well, I'm going to prove him wrong. And the best way to do that, to prove it to all three of them, is to get good enough to beat them." I touch my wrists together, and the bracelets expand, growing to dozens of times their original size as leather and steel armor covers my body. "So, I'm going to get stronger, and I'm going to prove that I'm stronger than they think I am."

Nico levels his sword and points it at me. "Good, then you've got the motivation you need. Now, we'll see how long you can keep up. Remember, I'm one of Percy's sparring partners, I can go toe to toe with your dad. I'll go easy on you, but that doesn't mean that these sessions are going to be easy. Are you prepared for that?"

I grin and shake with excitement. "Definitely. Bring it on, Nico!"

A smirk curls his lips as he makes the first swing of his sword, marking the beginning of my pseudo-apprenticeship with the older son of Hades.