Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that last chapter, I know I took a long time to post again, but I am back now. I would really appreciate some feedback and please go check out my other story, The Wolf Pack. Hope you enjoy, adios!
I was the first to the top of the hill, expecting to see an army of monsters or something. Instead, I'm greeted with something a little less... extreme. I saw a demigod being chased up the hill by a couple of hellhounds. I take my bow off my back quickly and shoot the beasts, allowing for the guy to take a break for a second.
When the boy reached the top of the hill where I was standing, I greeted him sternly, saying, "Hey, I'm David Hunt, Son of Apollo." I told him, extending my hand to shake.
"Robby Swift. What is this place?" he introduced himself as he shook my hand and looked around.
"This, Speedy, is Camp Half Blood, one of the two safe places for demigods." I told him dramatically, waving my hand over the camp as if to emphasize my point. He nodded numbly for a moment.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked blankly. I sighed and paused before replying.
"Welcome to the hell that is every demigods' life." I told him dejectedly. He looked at me oddly before shrugging halfheartedly.
I took a moment to size the guy up. He was in good shape, obviously built for speed, with somewhat broad shoulders, about 5'8" in height, about five inches shorter than me (AU: I know that 6'1" sounds super freakin tall for a 14 year old, but I was about 6' tall when I was 14).He had a bow and quiver on his back and a hunting knife hidden in his left sleeve. He had short dirty blond hair, brown eyes, and high cheek bones. He looked a bit like me, but there were some obvious differences, like eye color, jaw size, nose size, etc.
"Here, let me take you to Chiron, I'll get someone to give you a tour afterwards." I told him, to which he nodded and we headed for the Big House. We made small talk on the way, like how he got here, where he was from, and his parentage. I told him that he was likely a child of Hermes, and that he shouldn't get his hopes up about being claimed that day.
"Chiron, got a new guy here. Probably a son of Hermes." I told Chiron I my deep, rough voice as we walked up the stairs of the BH (AU:Yes I did just make up an abbreviation for Big House).
"Ah, yes David, bring him here." he replied happily as ever. I sent Robby up the stairs and walked off. It wasn't my business what they talked about.
I looked around quickly to make sure no one was looking and ran to my cabin to put away my weapons. I kept my hunting knives on me though, just in case. When I exited my cabin, I made sure no one was looking, and I took off into the woods, heading towards the beach. It was my favorite place, the place where the sun always shines brightest and I can be near one of my favorite elements, water. I know it's surprising, with me being a grandson of Zeus, Poseidon's biggest rival, but I felt that Poseidon had nothing against me, seeing as I had been in the ocean many many times.
When I arrived at the beach, I was greeted with a beautiful sight... no one else was there. I immediately stripped to my Compression shorts and jumped into the ocean. It was cool, it felt perfect on my skin. I swam down into the water a little, being sure not to over stay my welcome in my great uncle's domain, but wanting to explore for a bit. I was under for about a minute before I had to come up for air. When I came up, I was met by a surprising sight... a man, about 6'6" was standing a little further ashore, with his raven black beard billowing slightly in the wind. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaii shirt.
I knew immediately that this was the Sea God. The blood drained from my face and I knew I was done. I immediately swam towards the shore, bowing deeply as soon as I could stand, but to my surprise, the Sea God just waved me off and smiled. I gave him a questioning look and he chuckled.
"Lord Poseidon, it is an honor." I told him respectfully, not wanting to risk it, even with his kind smile.
"Oh, stop with the formalities already! It's not like you use them with anyone else." he demanded with that smile still playing on his lips.
"To what do I owe the honor of your presence?" I asked him, still using the formalities just in case.
"Well, I noticed how you take a liking to my domain and I see that you have become friends with my son, so I wanted to finally, formally, meet you." he told me as if he were talking to his dear nephew. I was kind of taken aback by his kindness, but knew not to test him.
"Well, it is nice to meet you, Lord." I told him, to which he laughed heartily. I was kind of surprised at how lighthearted he was. I was beginning to think that this was some kind of joke.
"It is nice to meet you too, Mr. Hunt." he said laughing. I was seriously wandering what was going on. I didn't quite like being called 'Mr. Hunt'. It was too formal for my tas-... I got the joke mid thought. He was being serious when he said to stop with the formalities. He was making me see how he feels with them. I immediately started chuckling with him, then that turned into both of us cracking up.
"Well then, Uncle P, how's the Sea?" I asked through the laughter, rhyming on purpose, of course. He started laughing even harder at that. When we finally stopped laughing, he said, "Well, my boy, it was nice to meet you and get a good laugh in, but I must be going now. Remember, you may enter my domain whenever you feel like it. And good luck with that girl." he told me, causing me to blush at the end there.
"Adios, Uncle P. Take care." I replied, and with that, he evaporated in a sea mist. I chuckled to myself quietly, wandering how I managed to attract so much attention to myself. I got out of the water and lay on the sand, soaking up all the sun I could. I lay there for a couple of hours, enjoying the peace and quiet, before I was rudely interrupted... by Her.
"Do you ever wear shirts?" she asked me sarcastically. I sighed in exasperation and sat up.
"I feel as though you try to run into as often as possible... especially when I'm not wearing a shirt." I told her stoically, then gaining a small grin at her red face. "So you must have been looking for me, because I doubt that you could have found this place by accident." I observed quickly.
"Yea, it's almost dinner time and the new kid got claimed... he's one of my brothers." she explained. I was kind of shocked at how quickly he got claimed. Sure, I had gotten claimed before I began my adventure towards camp, but that was different. Perhaps this kid is special too, I thought to myself as I began getting dressed.
We walked back to camp with somewhat heavy conversation. We talked about our pasts a little, my time with the hunt, how I got some of the scars (especially the one on my face), and how long she had been at camp/how many quests she's been on.
"Shoot, I don't really wanna go on any quests." I told her in exasperation. She had been on four of them, all dangerous, but not impossible for a trained demigod by any stretch of the imagination.
"Why not? They're kinda fun. Plus you get to leave camp." she told me, trying to convince me of how 'fun' quests are.
"I have been running, literally, for the past year. I'm getting awful tired of the mortal world. I mean, I have an aunt and uncle and a couple cousins in NYC, but they're from my late step-father's side of the family." I told her timidly. I had a hard time discussing my family with other people... it brought up too many good memories that I tried to push down.
"How old are your cousins?" she asked me wearily, not wanting to go too far into my personal life.
"28 and 27. the older one, Kaitlin, is married. She got married the June before I found out I was a demigod. The other one, Catherine, is in a serious relationship with this guy. He looks kinda like superman, not quite as bulky though." I told her with a small smile gracing my lips. We were walking slowly, so we hadn't reached the edge of the forest yet.
"Were you at the wedding?" she asked me curiously.
"At the wedding?! Are you kidding!? I was one of the flower girls!" I told her jokingly, to which she burst out laughing.
"Oh my gods! I didn't know that you had a sense of humor!" she exclaimed excitedly, to which I chuckled.
"So how about you and 'Black Adam'? How'd you guys meet?" I asked her seriously. She chuckled one last time before she answered.
"I got to camp when I was 12. I made a few friends pretty quick, and all of them were always talking about how 'into me' Adam was. He was one of the most popular guys around, besides Percy Jackson, of course. All of my friends were really happy for me to have the most popular guy have a crush on me. I didn't like him at the time, though. I thought he was a nice guy, but he didn't really have much of a personality, ya know? He just went with how everyone else was acting."
"Well, after about a month, he started trying to just befriend me, trying to get close to me. We became good friends, but I always felt kind of weird, knowing that he really liked me. Well, the third month of me being at camp, we became just about best friends. He had finally sprouted something of a personality, and I was beginning to develop a crush on him. During the sixth month of me being at camp, he finally asked me to go on a date with him. I, of course, said... no, the first time. But, then he started almost begging me. Eventually, I relented, and I had a really good time. We have now been dating for about two years." she told me. She was just giving me ways to get her to like me.
We exited the forest a little quicker, her walking towards the dining pavilion and me towards my cabin. "I'll see ya later, Laura. I gotta get something from my cabin." I told her, walking away. She smiled and waved. I walked to my cabin to get my bow and quiver. I headed to the woods again to go hunting, something that I hadn't done in a while that I missed.
They're were quite a few animals in the forest, but I wanted to find a trophy buck. I had to go pretty deep into the woods to find any big bucks, but when I found them, I found them. There were about five big bucks, each a 12 pointer or more. I looked for the biggest one, finding a 24 pointer (AU:Logically, since no one hunts in the forest, the dear would tend to grow pretty huge there), and firing. My arrow flew straight and true, piercing its lung. It ran for about five feet before dropping straight down.
The other deer fled after hearing the twang of my bow. I jumped from the tree and walked to the deer. I had an arrow knocked and pointed at it just in case it popped up, because my HUD was showing a slow, dying heartbeat from the deer. I saw its eyes look towards me and he got a fearful look in his eye. I let the string go slack, but kept the arrow on it. I put my hand out towards it in a calming fashion, trying to keep it from freaking out.
It lied there, not moving a muscle, though the heavy rise and fall of his chest made it pretty obvious that he was alive. When I reached him, I knelt beside him and pulled the arrow out slowly. It grunted slightly, but made no move to get up. I set the arrow down and slowly took out one of my hunting knives. I stabbed it in the heart quickly, praying the Artemis for a quick and painless death for the gigantic buck. As soon as I stabbed it, it went completely slack.
After I gutted the dear and loaded the meat up in a garbage bag that I always carry with me for times like these, I summoned a small rain cloud and made it rain heavily above me, in order to get the blood off of my body. After I did that, I picked up the meat and headed back to camp with the buck's rack in hand. That was one of the biggest dear I had ever killed.
When I walked back into the camp grounds, people were just leaving the dining pavilion, which meant that I had spent about an hour in the woods. It had started getting darker after I gutted the deer, so I knew I wouldn't make dinner anyways. People looked at me funny, like I had just done something that no one does (which I did). I saw one of my brothers, Cole, walking back to our cabin. Cole was about 13, so he was a year younger than me, but he was about 5'10", rather tall for his age. He had bright blue eyes and short blond hair, in a crew cut.
Showed him the rack and he looked at me in amazement for a second before congratulating me and continuing his walk. I decided to take the meat to the nymphs for them to cook for our meals. When I got to the dining pavilion, I sacrificed one of the shoulder roasts to Artemis, for providing a quick death to the deer. The nymphs were just finished cleaning up from dinner when I finished sacrificing.
"Excuse me, miss." I said to the nearest nymph. She looked about 16 in appearance, though I knew she was older. "I have this deer meat from a dear I just killed. I was wandering if you would like the meat, so that you could cook it for meals." I told her with a kind smile. She smiled back at me.
"Why yes, that would be wonderful. Have you already gutted it?" she asked me sweetly. I nodded in response.
"Where would you like me to put it?" I asked.
"Just set it on the ground for now. I will deal with it in a moment." she told me.
"I can carry it for you, it's no big deal." I told her.
"No, No. I can get just fine." she responded. I was about to argue, but decided against it. I smiled one last time, nodded to her in respect, and walked out. I walked back to my cabin and put the antlers on the wall next to my bed. I went to sleep peacefully... or so I had hoped.
Thank you guys so much for reading. I really hope that you enjoyed and please be sure to let me know what you think. Sorry it took so long for that last chapter, I just wasn't feelin it and I was super busy. Thanks for reading.
Your Loyal Author,
-TheSonOfApollo
