I discovered at meal times you had to make an offering to the gods before you could eat. Luke stuck by me as he explained things, talking about the camp activities and the kind of things I might end up doing. I liked his optimism and cheeriness well enough, but I think he seriously overestimated my capabilities if he thought I would ever be able to swing a sword or climb a rock wall before I was covered in lava. However I also learned that Luke was kind of a big deal around this place, because when some girl or other tried to trip me up when I was following Luke to the Hermes table, he'd turned and saw what she was about to do whilst I was none the wiser. Since I was off in my own world, I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings and missed the fact that there was an obstacle in my path, but before I could trip over the girl's foot Luke had suddenly grabbed hold of my shoulder and made me stop, causing me to jolt violently and almost drop my plate of food. "Not cool, Clarisse. Try something like that again and we're going to have problems." Recovering from being startled, I nudged my foot forwards until I felt the leg that had almost tripped me as the girl gave a derisive snort.

"Someone sounds defensive. Is this your new pet or just a pity project?" Whoever this girl was, she sounded mean and huge. Not a great combination, but I was not in the mood to be messed with right now. My pulse quickened with anger and although I was grateful that Luke was looking out for me, I didn't want to be viewed as completely helpless and a walking target. "What's a blind kid gonna be able to do? She'll be skewered like a pig in seconds if she ever tries to fight. Even a baby monster will be able to chew her up and spit her back out." Clarisse sniggered as Luke's hand tensed around my arm, I think out of anger on my behalf and that kind of made me calm down a little, considering that he was just trying to help me out and that it was nice to have someone watching my back. So I let my initial irritation go and instead, turned my face in the direction I had heard that girl's voice, allowing my blank eyes to stare right at her so that she fell silent and tensed up. "What you looking at, creepy?"

"Nothing much. But boy am I glad to be blind, because at least I don't have to look at your ugly face every day." With that I lifted my foot and stomped it down as hard as I could into Clarisse's. Not having expected me to attack, she was completely unprepared and when she felt my heel drive down onto her toes, she howled and jolted to her feet as I smoothly pulled back and turned, sensing her hand shoot out towards me so I neatly avoided it in one uninterrupted movement, then stuck out my leg so that as she stumbled forwards having missed grabbing me, she tripped and fell flat on her face in front of everyone present who immediately burst into fits of laughter. Even Luke laughed, and I flushed warmly with pride as I then walked away from Clarisse, aiming for where I could hear several voices from the Hermes cabin amidst the laughter until they called to me, helping to guide me to them.

Judging from the scuffling sounds that followed Clarisse must have launched herself towards me but Luke held her back, wrestling her into submission and warning her off me. That's when I became clued in about how strong Luke's position in this camp was, one of his demigod siblings whispering to me that Luke was the best swordsman the camp had had in a very long time, three centuries at least, and he was one of the campers who'd been around the longest so no one really messed with him. Pleased that I had unwittingly found myself such a powerful ally, I even managed to smile as Luke slid into the space next to me. "Nice moves there, I can't remember the last time Clarisse was given a taste of her own medicine."

"She's not the worst I've ever met, and probably won't be the last." Shrugging it off coolly like it was nothing, I said little else and instead just focused on eating because I was ravenous. I wanted to go to Percy after the meal, but I was told that I had to attend to my activities. I thought this was stupid, but considering I couldn't just sneak away by myself I had no choice but to follow along with what I was told, until at least I could figure out where the sick bay was so that I could go visit my brother in secret. Luke assured me that there would be free time before dinner, so he'd take me to see Percy then and it pacified me enough that I allowed myself to be taken to the archery field, since that was apparently going to be my first lesson. As expected, I was terrible. Chiron was patient, telling me how to hold the bow correctly and telling me how to improve my stance, but seeing as I couldn't actually see what I was shooting at, I very rarely hit the target. So long as someone lined me up I was decent enough after some practice, and Chiron said that I naturally had very good form, but after I almost accidentally shot another camper with a wild arrow, it was decided that perhaps archery wasn't such a good idea after all. The same went for javelin throwing and the climbing wall, because it moved too fast for me to figure out where the ledges and grips were, and considering the fact that you would get doused with lava if you didn't move fast enough, it just wasn't going to work for me. I also refused to go anywhere near the lake because I hated the water and the rapids were a definite no-go, so that activity was out of the question, though the naiads seemed to be rather sad about the fact as they had repeatedly tried to call me over to them, making Luke grin beside me as he'd somewhat appointed himself as my guide and guardian for the time being. I assume he grinned, he sounded like he was grinning, and whenever I tried to picture him in my head he was always grinning. "Seems to me they like you Lily. How about that?"

"No idea why. I hate the water. I'm not going anywhere near it." I told him firmly, already recoiling just from the sensation of being near such a massive lake. Apparently it was pretty, one of the Aphrodite girls who had talked to me for a while had kindly described my surroundings for me so that I got a better idea of what the place was like. Now she knew how to describe things, way better than my brother anyway and she'd described the lake as a mirror of perfect azure that shone brightly in the sunlight with such clearness you could see the bottom of the lake just by standing on the pier. "So archery, javelin, wall climbing, swimming, canoeing and white water rafting are out. What else is there?" Humming in thought, I listened as Luke wrote on a piece of paper which was to be my schedule for the week, crossing things out, writing things in and generally trying to help arrange a schedule where I could at least do something practical to try and learn how to defend myself, because apparently demigod children needed to know how to fight so that if ever they run across a monster, they can either kill them or run away as necessary.

"Well, there is pegasus and horse riding, do you think you could handle that?"

"And how will I be able to guide the horse? I'd probably gallop the thing straight into a tree. I won't be able to feel things as clearly if I'm riding or worse flying, my feet need to be on the ground if I have any hope of sensing were things are." I explained to him which seemed to intrigue Luke as he straightened and asked me if I could actually see things. "Not exactly. My sight is basically this dark grey blur that sometimes turns to static, you know, like on an old TV? However when I'm walking I can use the vibrations people make when they walk over the ground to judge where they are, though that's about as much as I can do. So no to the horse riding. Pegasus. You know what I mean."

"Okay, we'll scratch that then." He went back to the drawing board but now I found myself growing curious about Luke. He seemed like a nice guy, and of course he'd already saved my life so he's already got brownie points for that in my book, but I really wanted to know what he looked like. I had all kinds of images in my head. One look was him being dark haired and brown eyed, with some cool tribal tattoos or something on one arm. Another was him being light haired and green eyed, with strong features and a prominent nose. "Something on your mind?" Hearing Luke question me since I had clearly been staring, I found myself answering him before I had even considered what it was I was saying, responding almost naturally to him.

"What do you look like?"

"Me? Well…I'm tall, I guess. I have light hair, it's kind of sandy coloured, blue eyes, oh and I have a scar on the right side of my face." This surprised me and I lifted my head a little, all the more curious. I fiddled with my bracelet, tempted to ask him if he would let me touch his face to map out his features a little, but I knew this would probably creep him out. I stopped asking when I was about seven years old because it unsettled other kids when I was at school. It became a rather fun game, making up appearances for people I met, and sometimes I'd end up being pretty accurate. For example I imagined Clarisse to be a giant kid with meaty arms and legs, lank, mousey hair and a mean sneer almost permanently glued to her face. Percy would later tell me I was pretty bang on the mark. "I'm nineteen years old, born in Westport Connecticut, I've lived at Camp Half-Blood for five years all year round, and I like Kool-Aid, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and of course, chocolate chip cookies." Now I just frowned at him. "What? I figured we could at least share some facts about each other now that we're becoming friends."

"Are you like this with all the campers here?"

"Not really, only the special ones." To this I scowled at him, which only made him laugh. "You make faces a lot, it's funny you know." Out of habit I wanted to scowl further but I stopped myself, rubbing my face in order to smooth out the lines and instead just took a deep breath. "So come on, anything you want to share with me?"

"I like music. It helps me to drown out the outside and ignore people. I also like to read books." There wasn't really much else to say about myself, so I left it at that and Luke seemed satisfied as he didn't pester any further. I wanted to ask him how he got his scar but I had a distinct feeling that this would have been a touchy subject and not something Luke would want to talk about with a random girl that had suddenly wandered into camp without a prior invitation. So instead we turned back to the task at hand but grew increasingly dismayed as we found very little for me to do. About the safest activity for me was arts and crafts, but I had no talent for anything like that, and even trying to make something out of clay ended in a disaster. All of the training was dangerous, but at the very least Chiron had insisted that I learn how to handle a sword so I was put down for sword practice, though how he expected me to fight I had no idea. Anyway. I couldn't climb, I couldn't shoot, I couldn't create or sing or build, so pretty much all I could do was sit and learn which I didn't exactly look forward to.

After a rather disappointing day Luke kept his promise and took me back to the infirmary where Percy was still sleeping and I memorised the way from the cabins so that I could sneak out later and come back. Annabeth told me that Percy had woken up briefly around lunch time when she had been feeding him, but hadn't gotten anything out of him and he hadn't stirred since. She then talked to Luke a little and I noted how her voice changed when she did, how it became lighter and almost squeaky, and I couldn't help but imagine a rosy blush on her cheeks as I sat down beside Percy and took hold of his hand. It didn't dawn on me at first how odd it was that someone like Annabeth would be taking care of Percy, but after a while of listening to her reading a book but barely ever turning the pages, the soft rustling sound giving her away, I began to wonder what her interest in my brother was. She seemed invested in his care, but I felt there was more to it. Anyone could look after Percy whilst he was currently living like a vegetable, not really doing much other than sleeping, but as far as I was aware, no one else came to take over from Annabeth so that she could carry on with her own activities.

Then there was the fact that she had started to ask me questions. They were innocuous at first and I thought nothing of them, but then they started to grow strange. She asked me what I knew about the summer solstice, or if Percy had ever told me anything about it, and that the deadline was coming soon and if I had any idea why it was so important. "I have no idea what you're on about, Annabeth. Do you need to go lie down or something? You're not making any sense, so you must be tired or something." I thought maybe taking care of my brother had just taken it out of her a little, but she assured me that she was fine and flipped another page of her book to indicate that she had nothing more she wanted to ask. Deciding to ignore it, I just continued to sit with Percy and talked to him whilst he slept, telling him all about the camp and how he was probably going to love it. I had no idea whether or not he could hear me, but he sometimes moved or groaned sleepily so I rationalised he was probably fine and probably dreaming. I just hope they weren't nightmares. I stayed with him until the conch sounded to signal that it was time to eat dinner, and Annabeth walked with me to the mess hall as we'd already fed Percy. This time she was a better guide, though I didn't really need her help all that much. Once I was in the right direction, I just followed the sounds of kids gathering together for food. I said goodbye to Annabeth who went to her own cabin's table and I managed to locate the Hermes group, sitting down where Luke then joined me until it was time to go get our food. It was good, but it wasn't mom's cooking, and so everything felt and tasted like cardboard in my mouth.

I ate little and left a lot, not having the appetite to eat anything much and Luke seemed to notice as he nudged me. "Hey, you sure you don't want some more? If you want something different I can get it for you. You didn't eat much at lunch either."

"Don't feel like eating much." I mumbled before putting my headphones on and turned up the volume, signalling I didn't want to talk right now. Thankfully Luke took the message and didn't bother me or nag me to eat more, just left me to my own devices. After dinner there was a sing-along around a campfire apparently led by the Apollo cabin, and though Luke did his best to get me to join in, I preferred to sit alone in a quieter space where I could wallow and think about my mom, missing her more than I would miss my own limbs. Despite the cheer and heartiness around me I felt miserable, and completely alone. I blame dad for this, whichever godly asshole that he was. If he had never gotten mixed up with mom, she could have been leading a better life right now, or at the very least he could have protected her better. Why couldn't he have just swooped down and rescued her from the minotaur even if he left Percy and me behind? Mom had always been adamant that our dad had loved her, so if that was true, why didn't he love her enough to use even a smidgen of his power and might to rescue her? Hiding my face in my folded arms I felt tears start to rise again so I hid them from sight and did my best not to shake from the wracking sobs that took hold as I wallowed deeper and deeper into my own wretched blackness.