"He got electrocuted!" Triton yelled at his Pater, waving his hands. "Pater, you cannot let this insult go unpunished!"

Poseidon merely sighed, rubbing his temples. "We are on the brink of war, Triton, please. We don't have the means necessary to make the first attack, and it is best to still attempt to stop this war before it begins."

"When Polyphemus was attacked by Odysseus, right after the Trojan War and when we were still recovering, and you still rained death and destruction on him!" He growled right back, "Percy is a child!"

Poseidon snapped, standing up and hitting his trident on the floor. "I know!"

"Then why aren't you doing anything about it?" He hissed through clenched teeth. "Let me retrieve him, hide him in the Sea- Gasilieus will never know."

His Pater looked hurt, "We are trapped by these circumstances. You think I don't want to? If we do, my brother will take that as an admission of guilt! We may have the allies, but you remember what happened with Pearl Harbour. There will be too many deaths."

"But Percy won't be dead!" He shouted back, and his Pater froze. "Many will die, but Percy won't." He said, far calmer, yet still deadly furious.

"Alright, that is enough!" Amphitrite snapped, and both males remembered that they weren't the only ones in the room.

Rhode was staring at them both, silent at her Meter's side. Triton ran his tongue over his fangs nervously, a slight guilt at arguing with his father in front of his sisters.

"Triton, I cannot believe I have to say this to you, but keep your fatal flaw in check. We cannot start a war that will kill millions just to protect one child." His Meter told him sternly, and he had to bite his cheek to stop from protesting. "And you, Poseidon," She turned angrily on her husband, "Triton is right. Perseus is your son, the 'Ais of the Sea, and you have to stop hiding him. You will be claiming him, and you will be invoking the Plea of Innocents for him. He is a child and your brother went too far- he will be in sanctuary here with us and we can send another hero to appease Olympus."

Poseidon began to open his mouth, but Rhode beat him to it, coming up to stand beside Triton. "Pater. We understand that you love your brothers and that you want to avoid war as much as possible, but Perseus-ais is in danger. Most Olympians are on our side, they will vote to protect Perseus, especially with Apollo and Artemis given the power of vetoing the Gasilieus. First you protect your children, then your brothers."

It's times like these when Triton truly appreciated his little sister. Rhode may be the smallest of their siblings- not standing very tall and looking more like a tired meter than the 'Anass of the Sea most of the time- and it was very easy to overlook her. But she was fierce; she was the wife of Helios for a long time and mother to a dozen strong children, and she was more than capable to rule the Sea, able to be compassionate and merciful and ruthless and strong. He is grateful that she will one day rule beside him as 'Bassa.

Poseidon slumped, sitting back down on his throne. "I don't understand what happened. Everything was fine and then-" He trailed off, tired.

His sisters traded glances, knowing full well that their Meter was too angry at their Pater to help soothe him, but it was their youngest sister, Herophile, who stepped up to comfort their Pater.

Kneeling at his throne, hands on his tail, she looked up at him with big seal eyes. "It'll be… four letters, synonym to fine."

Their Pater smiled weakly at her, patting her cheek. "Thank you, hyisi mou."

"Herophile is right, Pater." Rhode said smoothly, "You can claim him tomorrow. Day after, you invoke the Plea of Innocents, and it will be just a three day council meeting until he is safe. He'll be safe and in Atlantis before you know it, and we can continue planning a way around this war."

Meter nodded, putting a hand on Pater's shoulder.

The knot in Triton's chest loosened just a little.

oOoOo

"Are you sure I look good?" Apollon whined, adjusting his lavender-and-baby-blue veil to let his blond curls frame his face better.

Hermes was a bit nervous, and Apollo's nerves on top of his as well weren't helping. "Yeah Phoebus."

Pol looked ready to snap up an outfit change again, "You called me Phoebus. I don't, do I? Is it the skirt? I'm changing to pants."

Before he could protest, Apollo's jean skirt turned into lilac corduroy flare pants. "Is this better? Less feminine but still androgynous."

"You're beautiful, Apollo, I'm just nervous." He replied, still just standing outside Sally's door.

"You? Nervous?" Apollo scoffed, "I'm the one being introduced to your new mom, if anyone should be nervous, it should be me!"

Hermes gave him a shaky smile, and both startled to have the door swing open on them.

"Are you two going to be standing out here all day?" Sally smiled up (or down in Hermes' case) at them. "I've got tea ready. Come in."

Apollo blinked, but trailed in after her obediently.

The apartment was unassuming at first glance but to Apollo's godly eyes, he saw what everyone would overlook. Hermes' things were scattered everywhere, making it truly seem like he lived here; his shoes by the door, paperwork on the coffee table, and … is that his hoodie that went missing last month? Damn it, Hermes, stop stealing his stuff! His hoodies don't even fit Hermes- it's like they're wearing a dress- but seeing his sleepy smile when he wore them was worth it. Not that he was ever going to tell Hermes that.

He blinked, and a cup of warm camomile tea was pressed into his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Apollon."

"Just 'Pollo if you please," He replied automatically. "It's nice to meet you too."

She smiled warmly. "Do you two want cookies? I can get some in the oven real quick if you want."

"Oh that's not necessary!" He quickly protested, "It's just a quick visit."

She turned to Hermes, raising a single eyebrow, and Hermes crumbled. "Yeah, I think we can stay a few hours."

Sally turned and began towards the kitchen, "I'll put them in the oven!"

Hermes glanced nervously at Apollo, who gave him an encouraging smile. "Uh, Sally?"

She reappeared around the corner. "If this is about the trip to Camp, then you better wipe that guilty look off your face. I am well aware you couldn't help, dear."

"But-"

"No," She said firmly. "None of that. You have limits too, and we had to make that journey to Camp by ourselves. Look; I'm fine, Percy's fine, and even Percy's friend got there safely. We're fine."

Hermes just looked at her, lost, as she enveloped him in a hug.

Apollo closed his eyes at the scene, satisfied. His boyfriend finally has someone who doesn't expect too much for him.

Sally pulled away, smiling softly. "Now, you're going to properly introduce me to your Apollo, okay?"

Hermes laughed, the sound music to Apollo's ears.

oOoOoOo

Dionysus doesn't know what to do with the newest camper.

It's rare that Camp Half-Blood ends up with a demigod that's more aware of the godly world, and they don't usually stay very long.

Camp Half-Blood, to be very honest, is more of a last resort. It was made so that children that either had no mortal guardians or were unable to live in the mortal world had a place to go and train, and after they received a quest they could find a place or a job they fit in as a reward.

But when the heart of the west shifted to America, they had a problem.

Europe was big, spread out, and with enough room so their children could wander freely. Their little pockets and communities were old, safe, and easily found everywhere. But America? The New World. There were already gods and people here when they arrived in 1776, but thrust headfirst into a war against Britain meant that many of their children needed that last resort to train as much as they could, especially in this new terrain.

And here's the thing about several generations being sent to one place and told to do things like they do. They don't understand that they have to return to their old ways, to their roots.

It was only after the Civil War that America calmed down enough that it wasn't necessary for most demigods to go to Camp, but the demigods don't remember a time before they had to fight for their lives and stay in that one safe place, so they don't. The few godly pockets in America are mostly created and maintained by the gods, like the Library of Hephaestion in Connecticut and the Library of Alexandria in the Library of Congress, or the Maidens and Hunters, or even Dionysus' own cult who have to move underground nowadays. The demigods don't have that old Greek way of exploring and settling anymore, and Camp isn't helping to encourage it.

Especially with Chiron in charge.

Not that Dionysus has anything against Chiron, he never had any disagreements with him, but, well, the way he teaches isn't relevant anymore.

Training- just training- over and over in more extreme ways as if in preparation for fighting for their lives everyday? His insistent integration with the modern world to the point where there's no teaching of the traditions? The way he focused so very much on demigods getting quests and imprinting on them that the only thing that makes them worthy is a quest? It's not the old days where Chiron was only a teacher to demigods like Herakles and Achilles, making them improve their strength and powers for a quest, but he seemed to have forgotten that.

Dionysus himself seemed to have forgotten that.

Being at Camp, constantly surrounded by these kids' perceptions of him, of his domains, makes him far more susceptible to changing with the beliefs. And the too-vague rules of his punishment that Chiron has taken to enforcing for him? He's tired. He's far too tired for the youngest of the Olympians, but he is.

So when those demigods that have somehow grown up connected with their roots and culture show up, he treasures them. The little he can interact with his children, he directs them to the hellenic ones, hoping they can learn their roots from them. He favors the hellenic ones because they remind him that Camp isn't the whole world, and he'll be home on Olympus soon.

But never has a hellenic one ever clashed with Chiron like this before.

Percy was very determined to call Chiron out on all his mistakes, and the old centaur's pride kept him blind and defensive. Dionysus longed to help Percy more, to encourage him in his desire to change Camp, but he couldn't. Not with war on the horizon.

So he was stuck, watching from the distance, half slipping away into the haze, as disaster barrels towards them all again.

At least Ariadne is on Olympus and safe from all the fallout.

oOoOoOo

Venus watched her granddaughter welcome her adopted son and his lover into her home with a critical eye.

Venus was worshipped not only as a goddess of love, but also the mother of Rome, ancestress to every Caesar who are all descended from her beloved son, Aeneas. So, unlike her counterparts in other pantheons, when she had a child, she carefully watched them grow.

Sally Jackson was the daughter of her daughter, her darling Estelle, who refused the traditional Roman life in America to live carefree with her husband, Robierto, in Colombia. Until while she was on her second honeymoon her plane went down, and Venus had to carefully guide sweet Sally out of the foster system and into Estelle's half-brother's care, where she took his last name and stayed faithfully by his side as he died.

Venus could not comfort her granddaughter herself, and when she stepped merely a year away to help her other son find and train in Camp Jupiter, she found herself now a great-grandmother to a Greek demigod named Perseus.

She rained Tartarus on Poseidon for a year, furious that he had made her granddaughter's already hard life, harder.

But now she sees her great-grandson, older yet still a young child, and how he honors her, and she is grateful she never took him away from Sally to protect her. The boy will go far, and will bring glory not only to his Greek side, but to Rome.

She cannot protect him, but she can guide him and give him allies from a distance.

All he has to do is survive.

oOoOo

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

Luke, came over. He looks so much like Hermes, all of his siblings have that resemblance in the upturned nose and mischievous smile, though all of them were quite tall (other than one poor boy named Chris who was barely much taller than me). The effect was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," He said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I knew he wasn't kidding about the stealing part. "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

I snorted, tired. "I don't belong here." We are of the Sea, no matter how much we love the land.

"Oh, come on, don't say that. Everyone believes they don't belong in the beginning, especially here in the reject cabin," Luke was smiling, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

My fingers had sought out Hermione all on their own, and my eyes became firmly fixed on the way my pearl bracelet twisted and shook around my wrist. "Sure."

I could hear his silence, the way he was probably pursing his lips to try and figure me out. I don't want to be figured out, I want to go home.

"You'll get used to it eventually, kid." He sighed, and I could hear the tiredness in his voice. "Now, come on, it's time for dinner."

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last.

Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down. We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

A chuckle nearly bubbled out of my mouth, but I swallowed it down. I wish everyone had the cheerful deposition of nymphs, they're all so energetic. I remember when my weaving circle was just naiads and okeanids- we never got any weaving done.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench that was threatening to push me off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with a few satyrs and a pair of identical blond boys who looked just like Dionysus.

Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table at the top of the pavillain being way too small for a centaur, and Dionysus sat on the other, purple eyes sharper than they were this morning scanning the tables below.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey blonde hair. Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over her confusion at my words earlier, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!" "An offering to the nymph, Pallas, and her father, Triton," A timid voice spoke once.

It was the first time seeing any sort of respect for the gods at Camp, and it startled me for a moment, making my toast ring out a few seconds after everyone else's.

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and barbecue. My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."

I squinted at it, but spoke. "Saltwater Sugar kelp tea."

Taking a sip of the liquid that appeared, I wasn't too surprised at the salty-sweet flavor. "Huh, surprised that worked." I muttered.

"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

"Uh, Luke?" I spoke up nervously, "I have dietary restrictions- for cultural and religious reasons- what do I…?"

He blinked, surprised. "Oh, uh, we don't usually have that happen. Is it pork or beef or something else? I'll bring it up with Chiron and inform the cooking team."

"Uh, restrictions change every few weeks because of holidays and everything, and it's sort of intricate for people not used to it, but currently I cannot eat venison until after this full moon, and then I can't have pork for the next two months-ish."

Luke looked obviously confused, but nodded along. "Sure kid. Any allergies too?"

"I don't think so," I told him.

I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if there were more foods or something. They wouldn't have sacrifices in this backwards camp, would they?

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll. Oh. The camp did do offerings.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"I know," I whispered back, only to receive a weird look from Luke.

"How would you?" He asked.

"I knew to make offerings before I came to Camp," I half fibbed. It also felt good to be offered to, the so very few times I did get honored.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

Scraping half of my brisket into the fire, my prayer was calm and practised.

Dionysus; thank you for protecting the camp. Hestia; thank you for accepting me at your hearth. Hermes; thank you for letting me sleep in your cabin. Athena; thank you for the war you are helping to avoid. Triton; I miss you, aidipa. Pater; please help me go home soon.

oOoOo

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Dionysus got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels." Is it like when Athena dared me to steal the Atlantian flag off the palace flagpole?

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Dionysus continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson." He made eye contact with me, bright purple met sea green for a quick second.

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

I wonder why Dionysus got my name wrong now when he didn't before. Did I insult him with my offering?

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a singalong. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt almost like I was home.

I slipped Hestia my s'more in thanks for that warm feeling the campfire gave.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

Curling up under the wool blanket I pulled from my bag- the one Athena gave me at my last birthday- I chewed thoughtfully on Hermione.

Today was… a lot. Waking up and Camp and finding it to be so much worse than I expected was one thing but… Pallas.

I don't know what to do about Pallas.

I'm Pallas. I'm the reincarnation of the nymph that haunts Triton and Athena. They're still trying to move on from her death, and if I just come to them, saying how I'm her, it could break them. Hells, knowing I'm the girl that I've spent so long being compared to is breaking me.

I want mom and Hermes, they'd know what to do about this. I want to go home.

I was so tired that when I blinked and closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

Heyo, I'm back! It's been a busy two weeks, with the midterm exams I did last week (oof my wrist, kids, never pick just English subjects) and now yesterday I got accepted into my preferred university! This chapter had a lot more worldbuilding and exposition in it than I thought it would, but hopefully it works! You can kinda see more of how Percy's 1st POV is an unreliable narrator, especially with Dionysus' pov (though his is also unreliable) and yeah! Oh! My girlfriend keeps making these amazing memes for this story, they're all up on discord if you guys wanna see them! ...Maybe I should do a meme competition?

Lore/Translations:

Pater= Father
Meter= Mother
Aidipa= Brother
Hyisi= Sister
Gasilieus= High King God
'Anass= Heir Princess
'Bassa= Queen
The Libraries= The Librarians are a group of Greek demigods who are working to remake the Library of Alexandria. Founded in 1349 by Athena and Apollo in an effort to preserve all the Knowledge and Wisdom that was being destroyed, wiped out, and faded into mystery because their Information Keepers died of the Black Death before they could pass down the information. The Library of Alexandria is located in DC. There are multiple smaller locations where you may find the Librarians.

I also have a PJO discord server for this fanfic (and my other fics) that anyone can join! (Just remove the spaces) : / / discord . gg/ hfXGUeraTg