AN: Nothing to say except, I'm sorry.
So long story short, nothing helped me to understand what Hestia told me. I had burnt offerings to Hestia, Hecate and Apollo at every meal since the talk, and have gotten nowhere. I hadn't told anyone what I was thinking about when they asked, how does one explain that they had a conversation with a goddess while they should've been in mythology class?
"Attention campers, as you know tonight is Capture the Flag. I have received word that the Hunters of Artemis will be staying at camp later this month, so think of these next few weeks as practice. I'd like to see the Hunters lose this century." Chiron stated.
"Who're the Hunters?" I asked Liam.
"Not important right now, listen to directions," he shot back at me.
I turned back to Chiron and saw him glance at me while not hesitating in his words. "The creek is the boundary. The Red Team shall place their flag somewhere north of the creek, while the Blue Team will put their flag somewhere on the Southern Side."
"This week sees the Athena Cabin captaining the Red team, they have sided with Apollo, Aphrodite, Demeter, Dionysus and Hypnos cabins. The Hermes Cabin has the flag for the blue team, they have allied with Ares, Hephaestus, Iris, Nike, and Hecate. Magical items are allowed as always. Any maiming will result in loss of dessert for two weeks, and placement on kitchen duty for that same time period. The game will be finished when one team capture's the other teams, or if I call it for any reason."
"Teams head out into the forest, and wait for the conch to signal the start of the game."
With that, everyone grabbed a red or blue plumed helmet and we marched off into the forest.
Liam had tried to stick me on flag defense, but I kind of wanted to explore the forest, so he eventually agreed to let me be a hybrid defender role. Which meant that I was to be on defense, but if I saw an opening I could go for the opponent's flag.
The first thirty minutes of the game were relatively quiet on the defensive front, which is to say that absolutely nothing happened. But at the thirty-first minute, things got weird. A small group, about five or six campers wearing red-plumed helmets rushed in, attacked, and then ran away. Three minutes later, the same thing happened.
"Come on, let's chase them back across the creek," shouted DJ, a son of Ares.
"Don't do that." I shot back.
"Why not?"
"They're trying to draw our defense away from the flag so that it's easier to get it. By doing those short attacks with the smaller forces, they want us to get annoyed and try to drive them back. And once we do, a bigger force will come in and take the flag from whoever is left guarding it."
To say I got some weird stares would be an understatement. I had never met the campers in charge of the Red team's strategy, but it just made sense. Even DJ, a son of the personification of war, looked surprised.
As I was getting kind of uncomfortable due to the stares and silence, DJ managed to break it.
"So what should we do instead?"
I thought about it for a second, and a plan came to me.
"Send three or four runners out to tell the offensive team what's happening. The other team's plan hinges on some of us leaving to chase their diversions, and their remaining forces being able to overwhelm whoever is left. By minimizing the number of people who leave, we're giving ourselves a better chance to withstand the assault."
DJ thought about, and then responded, "Let the person who taught you tactics know that I want a lesson from them. It's a solid plan, so Cecil, Avery, Mitch, and Kyle, you guys will be the runners. Get across the creek as fast as you can and tell them to charge the flag."
"Let me go too. I don't think I'm good enough with a sword to be that much of a help when the assault happens, but I know I can run."
"Go for it, but if you get hurt… That's on you man."
That's how I ended up running through the woods like a maniac trying to get to the creek and warn the rest of the blue team. At some point on my way, I heard what sounded like Sweet Caroline being sung by someone in distress. It didn't make any sense, but I had to check and make sure that it wasn't someone in danger.
I followed the sound of singing, and it brought me past some geysers and to what looks like a massive ant hill. Want to know what lives in massive ant hills? Massive ants.
I immediately stopped running, and turned to try and get away. There was an ant blocking my path.
"Great. First Capture the Flag game, and I am about to get eaten by giant ants."
The ants began to corral me into what I'd call their lair. We continued through the random tunnels, until we got to what might be the largest ant in the world. I'd assume that this ant was their Queen, but you know what they say about assuming.
I bowed my head, hoping that some form of respect would be carried over to the Queen Ant herself. A few moments passed before the ant behind me pushed my legs and I was corralled further through the lair.
We exited the ant hill and I was left next to what looked to be an entrance to a secluded orchard or tree grove. The ants looked at me expectantly, almost as if they wanted me to enter the grove. Not wanting to become ant food, I went in.
The grove was nothing like I had seen or heard before. There were whispers that made no sense to me, something about a happy dragon? But I kept going through the grove until I got to what had to be the largest tree in there. It had a set of windchimes hanging from one of its branches.
All the noise in the grove stopped, almost as if it was alive and expecting something from me. I thought back to my conversation with Hestia, she said something about great hardship on my part. In my adrenaline muddled, confused head, I thought, "Why not ask the seemingly magic trees?"
"Who are my godly ancestors?"
The grove remained quiet, and I thought that the question was too much for the grove. Then with the force of a cannon, the grove responded.
"The sun and crossroads adopted
Powers unknown to be delivered
Join forces with a follower of moon and leader of Rome
Defeat the former sun and sea
Learn the truth of what is home"
The grove was silent before a large gust of wind blew and circled me with leaves. When the wind died down and the leaves fell, I was in the dining pavilion. Liam and Chiron were arguing about going back into the forest to find me.
Chiron was the first to notice, "My dear boy, where did you go?"
"Well I got corralled through a massive ant hill, got to a weird grove of trees, and then asked a question."
"Do you mean to say you just got a prophecy from the Grove of Dodona?"
"... Maybe." Then the events from earlier hit me, apparently getting a prophecy takes a lot out of you. I promptly passed out in front of both Liam and Chiron. What a great first week in camp.
AN: So yeah, I wanted to give consistent updates and then don't update for like a year. I realize that my audience probably isn't that large but I'm so sorry to anyone that is following this story. Let me know what you guys think. I can't make any promises about updates, but let's hope the next one doesn't take as long. Leave Reviews, PMs, whatever else. I want to hear you thoughts and ideas on where this story is going to go.