Loralai

As we marched towards the Mess Hall, I had about a bazillion thoughts goin through my head, and none of them were good. What had happened with Damien... I couldn't put into words just how awful I felt. I seriously thought that he was gonna leave camp and go try to fend for himself out in the mortal world - which for halfbloods pretty much equates to my mistake sentencing him to death. By some miracle, he cooled off and decided to stay, which literally made me about pass out with relief. But he made it pretty clear that just because he was stayin on the team, didn't mean that he and I were anywhere near ok. Even after he decided to stay, Damien still wouldn't even look me in the eyes. And honestly, could I blame him? I don't exactly think they make a Hallmark card for something like; "Hey, sorry I brought your worst nightmares to life... forgive me?". I felt like there was no chance for us to have any kind of working relationship; and I wasn't sure how effective a team could be when two of the members were constantly ignorin one another. Just when my thoughts were about to drag me into a pit of depression, around came our very own personal ray of sunshine, JB.

"Why so sad, Loralai?" He asked, walking besides me. I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding, lookin over at him with my best attempt at a smile.

"It's nothin; just thinkin." I admitted. JB nodded in understanding, glancing ahead.

"About what happened with Damien." He stated. I chuckled bitterly, stuffin my hands into my pockets.

"That obvious, huh?" I asked, glancing forwards at Damien hesitantly. His back was to us, so there was no way he knew I was lookin at him, but I still felt a wee bit guilty even glancin at the guy. For a few moments, JB didn't say anything, but after a few seconds he finally broke the silence.

"Honestly, Loralai, its a tough situation; I can't say I know exactly how to deal with it. But what I can tell you is that even in the short amount of time we've been friends, I've learned you are a very caring person; and if you give him time, I'm sure Damien will see that too. Just be you, and let your actions speak for themselves. When he's ready, I'm sure he'll let you know somehow. And who knows; it could be soon." He suggested. I actually laughed a little bit, shakin my head in disbelief.

"I thought you said you didn't know what to do?" I asked, JB simply shrugging.

"Hey, I'm just spitballing here." He admitted, before snappin his fingers.

"Oh yeah! Hey, I had this super crazy dream last night... I saw this list of stuff I didn't really understand. I wrote it all down here when I woke up; figured maybe you might know what it means?" He asked, holding out what appeared to be a napkin. Honestly, I was just happy to have any excuse yo stop thinkin about how badly I'd screwed up. I took it slowly, flipping it over and readin it quickly. I looked up at JB, raisin an eyebrow at him blankly.

"Give to witch girl?" I asked, JB smirkin and scratchin the back of his neck.

"Well, I was tired and kinda out of it." He admitted. I rolled my eyes, actually takin the time to process what I was readin. It was definitely a list of ingredients, but it wasn't for any spell I'd ever seen. However, given the rarity of some of the components, I could only assume that is was quite the potent spell. The incantation at the bottom read "faber semita", which loosely translated to "the path of the architect", probably meaning "track the architect's path" I shook my head, lookin up at a curious JB.

"I honestly don't know off the top of my head; but if you let me keep this, I'll look into it for you. I have a ton of my books back at the cabin. I'm sure one of them has somethin about this spell." I promised, JB nodding happily.

"Totally! You're the expert. Hopefully it's not just my brain being all crazy." He laughed. I couldn't be certain, but somethin in my gut told me that this spell wasn't some crazy dream. The ingredients and the incantation were both way too spot on to be just somethin dreamed up, especially by someone who had little to no trainin or experience in magic. Before I could even try to guess at its true meaning, we had made it to the Mess Hall, a whole bunch of campers flooding in for breakfast. We all stopped for a second; I guess we were all feelin the same nervous tug in our gut. I mean, everyone would definitely want to see the 'New Heroes' for themselves; I know I would. JB looked over at Mary, smirking slightly and gesturing forwards.

"Well, Anastasia; you're our leader. So lead." He chuckled nervously. She smiled a tiny bit before her expression turned blank as she walked ahead, the rest of us following.

"Anastasia?" Damien asked before I could. JB nodded slowly, falling in step behind her.

"Yeah, that's her real name. She's decided to use it again." He whispered as we entered the Hall. As soon as we stepped foot in the place, it felt like half the room turned and stared. I felt like a zoo exhibit as we followed Anastasia to our table. I couldn't stop my heart from feeling like it was beating a thousand miles an hour, and it especially didn't help that the table we were given happened to be right behind the Ares table. A little bit of history for those of ya who aren't children of Hecate; the Ares cabin hates us. I mean, the Ares cabin hates everyone, but they especially hate Hecate. Ares kids are all about down-and-dirty, backyard brawling style of combat. Hecate's kids on the other hand use long-range magic spells to fight. Now, there haven't been many Cabin 20ers at camp half blood, on account that were actually quite the rare bunch. In fact, this entire dispute with the Ares cabin started when the last Hecate camper was here at camp,... in 1920. Yep, you heard me right; I'm on the receiving end of a 99 year old grudge. Still, that didn't make the Ares kids hate me any less as they glared daggers at me as our team all got breakfast. Regardless of what had happened this morning, all of us were starving; I know I felt like I hadn't eaten in years. Our whole group got up and loaded down our plates with eggs, bacon, pancakes; all of the essential breakfast foods. I was just about to grab some honey for my waffles, when lo and behold, one of the Ares boys stepped up in front of me, purposely and quite blatantly shoving his elbow out and into my shoulder. I would have plum fallen over had it not been for a certain icey-cold, blue eyed boy who caught me from behind.

"Watch where you're goin, witch." The Ares camper sneered. I honestly was totally shocked when Damien stepped right in front of me, right into the boy's face.

"You'd be wise to back off, meathead; you keep running that mouth and someone might get hurt." Damien threatened. The boy, who I recalled was named Devin, didn't seem too keen on backing down, glancing over at me murderously.

"So, looks like the witch got herself an attack dog. It's so cute how you protect her like that... her knight in shining armor." He cooed. Devin had barely finished his little retort when Damien punched him straight in the nose, sending the boy staggering backwards as he clutched his bleeding nose.

"If I catch you or any of your smelly, sweaty siblings messing with her again, it'll be more than your nose that's broken." He growled, grabbing a handful of napkins and chucking them at Devin.

"Clean yourself up and take a seat, chump." Damien stated firmly, grabbing my wrist and basically dragging me over to our table just as Chiron came trotting over to Devin, obviously having missed the whole skirmish. Words can't explain how confused and shocked I was as we sat down, the rest of the group still standing in line to get their breakfast. For a few seconds, I honestly didn't know what to say.

"Damien I... why did ya-"

"Look, I'm not gonna lie; I'm still not very happy with you. Messing with my head like you did... not ok." He interjected, making my heart feel like it was in my stomach. Damien never pulled any punches, that's for sure.

"But I also wasn't exactly a stellar friend when I overreacted like I did. It was childish and stupid to threaten to leave over an accident, and I'm... I'm sorry about that. No matter how I feel about you at the moment, or what I've said about leaving the team, at the end of the day Annabeth was right; this team... it's my responsibility to protect it, as best I can. I guess I just lost sight of that because I was too angry." He explained. This felt like a totally different Damien from the one that was packing his bags and threatening to leave; almost as if he had had some kind of... supernatural change of heart. Regardless, I couldn't explain the weight I felt lifted off of my shoulders, JB's words and bright smile coming to mind;

'When he's ready, he'll let you know'

"So, does this mean that we're still... still friends?" I asked hopefully. At first, I felt like I had been totally shot down as Damien stared at me blankly, but that was flipped completely on its head when he smirked a little bit, shrugging ever so slightly.

"I suppose. So long as you won't be poking around in my head again." He added. I couldn't contain my excitement as I leaned over and grabbed Damien in a hug, so relieved that I hadn't completely screwed everything up.

"I swear it!" I exclaimed, quickly breaking off the hug before going back to my meal. Devin was already being escorted to the medics, he and his posse glaring daggers at Damien and me. I glanced over at Damien nervously, then back at Devin.

"Ya know, ya sure did a good job gettin on their bad side. You know their gonna try and get back at ya." I warned, but he seemed unfazed by the news.

"They can try. I'm stronger then any of those posers." He insisted, and for a moment we were both silent. I looked back at the line; JB and Ma- Anastasia - were still a ways back from gettin their meals. There was somethin I had wanted to ask Damien since the incident, but never ever thought I would get an opportunity to.

"Uh, hey."

"Yeah?"

"Can uh... can I ask ya somethin; and you don't have to answer if you don't wanna." I assured, but the look on his face said all I needed to know; Damien knew exactly what I was gettin at, suddenly extremely interested in his plate.

"You want to know what it is I saw when you brought out my nightmares." He stated. It felt a lot more intrusive when he said it out loud, and I was about to take it back, when he suddenly spoke up.

"It was my father." He barely whispered. I leaned forwards in my seat involuntarily, my heart pounding as I waited for him to continue. He took in a shaky breath, still refusin to even look up.

"My father was... well, he was a horrible person. I suppose he wasn't always so bad, but after my mother left him, he... changed. He got angry at everything; his family, his job... me. Especially me. To him, I was the reason that Khione left him. He, uh..." Damien stopped, rolling up his sleeve ever so slightly. Even just halfway to his elbow, I could see about half a dozen deep, white scars zig-zagging along his arm. I could feel my heart break as he quickly rolled down his sleeve, covering it back up.

"He took it out on me. I guess his liver wasn't built to take all the alcohol he drank; he died when I was 12. Wasn't long after that I came here." He finished. The poor boy still wouldn't even look at me, choosin instead to glare at his plate. I really couldn't even imagine what that must have been like; sure, my dad had sent me to camp when mam left, but he'd never... hurt me. My pain was emotional... not anything like what happened to Damien. I wasn't even thinkin when I reached out and grabbed his hand, shocking both of us.

"Damien... that's what I-what I did to you?" I whispered, tryin desperately to hold back tears. One thing I didn't ever do was cry. Just never was my thing. But knowin that I had brought back such horrid memories... that I had used my magic to do somethin like that... intentional or not that just tore me up. He was lookin at me like I was speakin some foreign language, takin me by surprise when he squeezed my hand ever so slightly.

"Hey... calm down, Gingey; I'm fine." He stated firmly, his goofy nickname actually really helpin me to keep from blubberin.

"Hey, you don't get to tell me what to do, Frosty Tips." I laughed, swipin at my eyes quickly and takin a deep breath, slowly slidin my hand off of his, and just in time as JB and Anastasia sat down, both of them glancing between us.

"You two... good?" JB asked, Damien scoffing and rollin his eyes.

"Of course we are; why wouldn't we be?" Damien insisted, makin all 3 of us smile. Breakfast was actually really nice as we were able to ignore the pryin eyes and whispers of the other campers and talk about our day so far. That good mood came to an abrupt halt when Chiron clomped his hoof, silencing the entire hall.

"Campers! As you know, tonight is capture the flag." He called, earning a huge cheer from the crowd. He stomped again, silence filling the halls once more.

"Normally, we split the camp into two even groups; but there has been a slight change in plans. Instead, we will be splitting into campers... and New Heroes." He finished, looking over at our table. We all looked like we were about to launch our breakfast all over the place; Chiron had to be plum out of his bloody mind. Percy and Annabeth snuck over to our table; the looks on their faces were completely stone-cold

"We'd better get back to work. Because tonight, it's you," Percy gestured out to the rest of the camp, the Ares kids especially looking hungry for blood. Each one of them had been hopin to be a part of Percy's team, and each one had been passed up for one of us. It wasn't goin to be a friendly competition; it was gonna be a slaughter.

"Versus them."