Heads up: This chapter contains swears.

Brenna knew it was a dumb idea, of course she did, Hollywood was absolutely full of lies, but damn it she wanted to know if it would work. She wasn't upset that it didn't, but she was pissed that Drew had tattled on her to Chiron.

Out of all the things she'd done at camp, splashing water on an unconscious person was probably the least likely to get her in trouble. Will had even shrugged and said it was worth a shot. The girl had been out for over a day. Plenty of time for whatever medicine Chiron had given her to work.

But no, because Drew was apparently more trustworthy than both her and Will fucking Solace, she was stuck on infirmary duty until the kid woke up. The infirmary was the absolute worst. Nothing ever happened in there, well, nothing she was allowed to help with, anyways. At least kitchen duty involved lava!

For what had to be the fiftieth time that hour, Brenna checked the clock. Two… or five? Damn, what number was that? Whose idea was it to put a digital clock in a place where pretty much everyone who'd look at it was dyslexic? Probably Mr. D.'s, now that she thought about it.

She'd seen the posters at least a billion times, but Brenna found herself staring at them anyways. She'd braided and unbraided her hair at least twenty times that day, finally just sticking it in a high ponytail to keep it away from her hands. Being stuck in one room was driving her crazy!

It wasn't like she had nothing better to do; with Travis, Connor, and the new head counselor of the Hephaestus cabin out looking for leftover traps from the Titan War (there'd already been three incidents with mortals discovering them), she was the acting head counselor of the Hermes cabin.

Okay, she really didn't want to be head counselor. Any sane person would've made Chris Rodriguez the backup instead. He was actually kind of responsible, at least, for a Hermes kid, even if he had been working for Kronos at one point. But nope, Brenna had the most years so she got to be in charge. Yay. If the rest of the camp thought her cabin was bad normally, they were in for a surprise.

Not that she didn't try to keep it under control, but now that she was stuck in the infirmary for gods-knew-how-long, she could only imagine what kind of chaos was going down. Maybe someone had started a prank war with the Aphrodite cabin! Actually, if no one had, Brenna was sure as hell gonna do it when she was free. Drew really needed to be taken down a peg; you know you're a sucky counselor when not even your own cabin can tolerate you.

As she was trying to figure out a way to turn Drew's hair puke green that the bitch wouldn't be able to undo instantly, the door to the infirmary opened. Finally, something was happening. "Will? Is that you?" she called.

"Nope, sorry." A nymph, probably a cloud nymph from the looks of her, walked through the door. "I came to check on Arianna. Is she awake yet?" she asked. Oh, so that was the girl's name. Brenna probably should've known that. Will must've mentioned it at some point. Why would a nymph be checking in on a demigod? Usually the nymphs just did their own thing… unless she was a protector.

The camp was kinda short on those at the moment. The satyrs had a ton of casualties from the war, and the gods swore on the Styx to get their kids to camp and claim them by age thirteen. So for the first time since… gods, what had Chiron said? World War II? The other nature spirits were helping out, mostly nebulae and aurae since they didn't have to just be by trees or water all the time.

"Hello?" Oh, Brenna hadn't actually answered her question.

"No, not yet." The nymph's face fell. "Sorry. Believe me, I've been waiting too." Mostly because she wanted to get off infirmary duty already, but this Arianna person would be joining her in the Hermes cabin until she was claimed. Or maybe she was a daughter of Hermes. Either way, it would probably be a good idea to find out what she was like. "Were you her protector, um…?"

"Skye," the nymph supplied. "And yeah, but… well, it didn't go the best."

Fuck. No good response to that. But Brenna was gonna try anyways, because damn it, her own protector had been one of her best friends. "I'm sure you did everything you could." Oh gods, of all the things she could've said… she could picture the exact look that Rory would've given her.

"Of course I did! But if I'd just gone and washed off the needles in the sink, none of this would've happened! It's all my fault!" Skye cried.

"Look, shit happens," Brenna snapped. Probably not the best idea. "She's alive, so you succeeded. I know satyrs that would give their right hoof to be in your position right now."

There was awkward silence, but eventually Skye broke it. "I… I guess I needed to hear that," she muttered. "Thanks, I guess."

Brenna stopped planning her escape. That had gone over way better than she'd thought it would. "You're welcome?"

Skye walked over to Arianna's bed, the only one that was currently occupied. Which was rare for the infirmary. "She's better than the last time I saw her, anyways. Do you know if she'll – er, has the poison worn off?"

"Chiron said it should be gone, and she responded well to nectar," Brenna replied, staring at the bandage on Skye's leg. Seven (six if you went by her necklace) years at camp had taught her not to ask about stuff like that. It may have taken her five years and several broken bones to get the message, but it stuck. "She'll be up and walking around in no time."

"Oh, good," Skye sighed, sounding relieved. "Will said after she passed out that there's a chance that she could be paralyzed for life. Thank Iris that didn't happen. I'd never be able to forgive myself!"

Huh. Brenna hadn't known about that. Would've been nice of Will to mention it while he was telling her what to expect. Well, okay, he probably had, but she probably wasn't paying attention. He had definitely told her that Arianna would be able to walk, though, so whatever the problem was Chiron must've fixed it.

"Um…" she began, stalling because she didn't know how to respond to that. Wait, was that movement? Brenna stared at the bed for a few moments. There were definitely signs of life. "I think she's waking up!"

"Really? That's great!" Skye exclaimed. "Is there something we need to do?"

"I'll go get an Apollo kid!" Brenna volunteered, hauling ass out of the infirmary. Will was usually at the archery range. She'd check there first.

Then again, the Apollo cabin was closer. Might as well see if anyone was home. "Hey! The new girl's awake!" she yelled as loudly as she could while knocking on the golden door. They always had some kind of music playing in there; if anyone was inside they probably wouldn't be able to hear her.

The door unexpectedly opened, revealing a boy with cornrows holding a saxophone. He couldn't have been older than twelve. "You trying to make someone deaf?" the boy (she was pretty sure his name was Austin) complained. "What's going on?"

Brenna explained the situation as quickly as she could. "I know this is usually Will's kind of thing, but I just need someone more qualified than me," she finished. "Are you up for it?"

Austin sighed and set his saxophone on an instrument stand. "You won't leave me alone unless I go with you anyways. But this better not be a trick. I'm still finding hellhound fur in my quiver."

Oh, that was who Chris had been guarding the flag with. Travis and Connor had planned to prank him and Clarisse… that sure didn't work out. "Thanks! It shouldn't take that long. Let's go!" Brenna said, running back towards the infirmary. Gods, it felt good to be able to run again after being stuck in that place. She saw that Austin was following her at a slower pace.

Arianna was sitting up and conversing with Skye when they made it back to the infirmary. "No, seriously, it's Wednesday," Brenna heard Skye say. Arianna groaned and slid back under the covers.

"Man, I gotta call Dad… oh! Uh, hi?" she replied, apparently noticing the two new people.

"Hey," Austin greeted. Brenna waved awkwardly. Now that the younger girl was awake, she could tell she wasn't a daughter of Athena like some of her half-siblings had been speculating. Though Arianna's hair was blonde, her eyes were clearly brown. She didn't have the upturned facial features of the Hermes kids, either.

A hand was moving back and forth in front of Brenna's face. Oops. Someone had said something. "Sorry, what are we talking about?"

"This is Brenna," Austin continued as if she hadn't spoken. "She'll show you the camp later, when you're ready. You might wanna steer clear of the bathrooms, though."

Damn it, Austin, that tradition was the best part of giving tours! And way to just volunteer her, although it would get her out of whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing. "Nice to meetcha," Arianna said with a noticeable Midwestern accent.

"You too," Brenna responded, suddenly realizing that she'd probably been staring. Oh well, that happened. "Do you know anything about Camp?"

"Nope… except it's apparently called Camp Half-Blood," she replied.

Skye broke in, "How much do you remember from Monday?" Oh gods, had she not already given Arianna the "hey you're a demigod" talk? Really?

"Our teacher turned into a snake monster and we almost freaking died. Wait…" Arianna trailed off, as if she'd suddenly thought of something. "I can move everything! How -?"

"Later," Skye promised. "Do you remember anything else?"

"Um… pain. Mostly that. And Elijah showing up, and you killing the monster, and some stuff from before bio," came the response.

"Okay. So nothing after that?" Skye prompted. Arianna shook her head. "I guess the… stuff… really was messing with your mind. Which explains a lot."

Arianna just looked confused. At least she didn't have amnesia. One time (pretty recently, now that she thought about it), Brenna managed to piss off Clovis from the Hypnos cabin and he screwed with her memories. According to Diego, she ended up in the infirmary for three days, mostly because Travis and Connor convinced her that she could fly. Clovis "agreed" to reverse the damage after that.

Brenna had a feeling that Diego had something to do with that. Her best friend could be pretty intimidating when he wanted to be. Or all the time, really; being a fucking giant (compared to most of the campers, anyways), ripped, and a member of the Ares cabin tended to help with that. Considering all the people (and gods, and monsters) she'd pissed off in her lifetime, he was probably the main reason she was still alive.

Gods, she hadn't seen him in two days. It felt like forever. She wondered if he'd found Mark's attempt at a prank yet. Like, seriously, putting googly eyes on a backpack and drawing on a mouth with sharpie? How lame can you get?

"Wait, I'm a what?" Arianna exclaimed, reminding Brenna that there was still a conversation going on around her. To be fair, it wasn't like she'd really been involved in it for a while.

"A demigod," Brenna supplied so it would look like she'd been paying attention. "Or half-blood, whatever. It means –"

"I know what it means! It's just… that's impossible. The Greek gods –"

"Are absolutely real," Skye finished. "Before you ask, no, I have no idea if there is a God or not. That's kind of a complicated thing. As for how they're still around," she continued, pre-emptively interrupting a question, "they move with Western civilization. Rome, Britain, America, name any major superpower and they've probably lived there."

Brenna had been hoping that she'd tuned that part of the conversation out. It had been bad enough explaining all that stuff to Diego, and Rory had done most of the work there. "I know it's kinda weird to think about, but it's true. I'm a daughter of Hermes. Austin's a son of Apollo. Eventually, you'll be claimed by your godly parent."

Thank the gods that Percy had made Zeus swear on the Styx that the gods would claim all their fucking kids. The Hermes cabin was still crowded as fuck, but at least there was floor space now. If Arianna wasn't claimed by the end of the day, it wouldn't be too hard to find a sleeping space for her. Hell, there might even be an actual bed open for all Brenna knew.

"Okay… so let's say my mom is a goddess," Arianna began. "I guess it'd explain why no one in town knows her name. But why wouldn't Dad say something? Does he know?"

"Oh yeah," Skye answered. "He knows. He was going to tell you on Monday, but then the dracaena attacked and everything kind of went out the window. I called him afterwards so he'd know you're alive. You should probably talk to him about it."

"Whoa! Don't get up yet!" Austin cautioned as Arianna pushed the sheets away from her. "Hospital gown, remember?"

She blushed. "Oh yeah. Right."

Brenna felt like she'd missed an interesting discussion. "I'll go find her something, be right back!" Before anyone could argue, she was sprinting towards the camp store. Okay, she probably could've found something in her cabin, but this was way more fun. And her siblings protected their stuff way better.

As long as it was a camper behind the counter, she'd be okay. If she got caught, she could just tell the truth and they'd let her go. Clothing damage was really common, especially for newcomers. She could see Pollux standing by the register through the window, looking bored out of his skull. Good.

Brenna took a moment to catch her breath and figure out what sizes she needed to st- borrow. Probably should've asked, but whatever. A medium t-shirt would probably be fine. Pants… oh gods, pants were the absolute worst. The size selection was terrible. She'd just grab something with a drawstring and hope for the best. She had no idea what to do about underwear, but who really needed that anyways?

Carefully, Brenna crept back around to the front. The door was wide open. All she had to do was wait until Pollux was looking somewhere else, get what she came for, and haul ass back to the infirmary before someone saw her.

Within minutes, she made it. Fortunately, Pollux hadn't noticed a thing, but really even if he had he probably wouldn't have cared. "Here," she panted, throwing the orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and athletic shorts she'd found in Arianna's general direction. "Austin, you can go do… whatever you were doing. Thanks."

"If you need drum lessons, you know where to find me," Austin said as he waved goodbye. Once he was gone, Brenna and Skye turned away from the bed to give Arianna some privacy as she changed.

"What'd I miss?" Brenna whispered.

"A rant about trumpets always getting all the good parts," Skye replied. "He asked if she played any instruments. It went downhill from there."

Huh. Maybe she'd end up in Cabin 7. "Okay, done," Arianna said a minute later.

"Eh, it mostly fits," Skye commented. "Your dad can send some of your stuff up later."

Brenna turned around. Arianna was leaning heavily on the bed, but she was standing nonetheless. Shorts had definitely been the right choice. Any pants the store had would've been way too long for her.

"So, ready to go?" Brenna asked, bouncing up and down impatiently. Then she noticed the clock again. "Hey, what time is it?"

"Can –"

Skye quickly interrupted, "Two forty-five." She then added, in a whisper she probably thought Brenna wouldn't be able to hear, "No, she probably can't."

"Yeah, dyslexia's a real bitch," Brenna chimed in loudly.

Arianna elbowed Skye, who muttered an apology. Brenna held up her hand in acknowledgement, then continued, "Oh yeah, if you've got any questions, ask away. There's not too much that'll offend me." Gods, why did she say that? New campers always had like a billion questions. They didn't need encouragement.

"Okay, so how does this whole cabin thing work? And claiming? And Austin mentioned Chiron – like, the Chiron from Greek mythology? Why's there a camp?" Yep, rapid-fire questions. At least they were easy.

"You live in your godly parent's cabin, but my dad kinda takes in anyone until claiming happens. You'll definitely know when it happens. There'll be like a symbol above your head or something. Um…" Brenna paused as she tried to remember the other questions. "Um… yeah, Chiron's kind of immortal. You'll probably meet him later. And the camp's here because the monsters can't kill the gods so they take everything out on us. It's protected, so they can't get in unless someone lets them in."

"Why would anyone let monsters in?" Arianna wondered, letting go of the bed. She wobbled, but managed to stay on her feet.

Brenna shrugged. "Training, playing pranks on other people…" Trying to flat-out murder other people because they know too much about your evil plans… Damn it, of all the things to remember about Luke. Hopefully she hadn't said that last one out loud.

"Yeah, that couldn't backfire at all," Arianna muttered. Oh, right, first monster attack. Probably no fighting experience either. Still, she wasn't exactly wrong. That hellhound prank had backfired majorly for Travis and Connor.

"You'd be surprised what some people do."

"As much as I'd love to stay here," Skye began, moving towards the door, "I need to go help set up for tonight. I'll see you guys later!"

Brenna waved. Arianna practically knocked the nymph over with a hug. "See ya! Thanks for everything!" Well, if she felt good enough to do that, they could probably get on with the tour.

"So, ready to get out of here?" Please, please say yes…

"I should probably talk to my dad…" Arianna replied. She was staring at the door.

"Okay, we can do that," Brenna agreed, mostly because she was pretty sure that if she didn't, the kid would just keep bringing it up. "We're gonna have to make a rainbow first. The Iris cabin's good for that. And... aha!" She held up a gold coin. "I've got a drachma, so we're good to go."

It was always fun to see new campers' reactions to Iris messaging, and Arianna did not disappoint. "Wait, what? A rainbow. Why a rainbow? How does that work? Isn't there a – I dunno, phone or something?" she exclaimed, gesturing with her hands as she talked.

"Phones… aren't a good idea. They attract monsters, y'know. I'll get you set up, and then I should probably let Chris and Sean know they're on their own for a while," Brenna said, then reconsidered. "Or not. Sean hid all of my sports bras last week. They can have fun doing tracking skills with the Poseidon cabin."

Wait – yeah, it was Wednesday, that's what her cabin was in the middle of. Good thing she was ditching, then. Percy was super hard to teach. To be fair, so was she, but damn. And then there was the whole issue with Kieran. If they'd hurry up and finish his cabin already, it'd be a lot easier to avoid him.

"So… we're going to the Iris cabin?" Arianna prompted.

"Yep, just follow me!" The two girls made their way out of the Big House, Brenna pointing out all the blindingly obvious things they passed. Not the cabins; she wanted to cover those later. The lake, climbing wall, and sports areas were all fair game, though. "Aaaand we're here. Cabin Fourteen. Let's show you how Iris-messaging works."

One of the walls of the cabin was covered in a reflective surface that acted like a prism. That usually worked pretty well. Butch didn't like it when people used it without permission… during free time. He couldn't care less about what people did while they were ditching. The punishment for that was harsh enough already.

Still, just to be safe, Brenna knocked on the door. No one was home. Handing her drachma to Arianna, she instructed, "Throw this into the rainbow, and say 'O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering.' Then you just say show me the name of whoever you're calling and the place they'll probably be. Easy."

"Okay, if you say so…" Arianna responded, staring at the rainbow. She threw the coin, repeating the incantation. "Show me Ben Parker at… his farm?"

Well, she'd managed not to screw that up, so Brenna figured it'd be okay to leave her alone for ten minutes or so while she walked over to Cabin 11. No one ever bothered to repair or repaint it, but considering all the crap that went down there it would probably be a waste of time anyways, unless Cecil fucking used Greek fire indoors again.

Within a few seconds of opening the door, Brenna confirmed that no one else was ditching tracking skills. Great. Only the year-rounders were living there currently, but that barely put a dent in the cabin's population. It would be nice if Hermes stopped fucking everything that moved.

Side-stepping a few poorly-made booby traps and everyone's dirty laundry (no wonder people kept losing all their shit), she made her way to the back wall of the cabin, looking for an open bunk. Travis and Conner would be back soon, so theirs was out… and it was definitely booby-trapped.

Sean had taken Jess's old spot under Brenna's bed, so that was out too. Why he wanted to sleep there when that just made it easier for her to get back at him for stealing her crap was beyond her. He still hadn't managed to find his pillow, she noted with satisfaction.

After a few more minutes of searching, she managed to find an open bottom bunk up against the back wall. Cecil slept above it, judging from all the sleeping bags that were still out. Well, that, or her half-siblings were just super lazy. Probably the latter. Either way, it'd be fine for a couple nights.

With that out of the way, Brenna threw one of her blankets at the bed and made her way back to the Iris cabin. Arianna was still talking to her dad. "…okay, well, thanks for telling me. How'd that work? We don't even have internet!"

"Just be glad the school's stopped asking questions. I know a few kids've ended up on the news because they moved out there year-round. You'll be back for Christmas, right?"

"I'll try my best," Arianna replied. She turned around suddenly and noticed Brenna standing there. "I've gotta go, Dad. Love you!"

"Love you too, Ri." The image dissolved. Brenna knew she hadn't told Arianna how to do that. Apparently, her dad had some experience with Iris messages.

"So, um, your dad's a farmer?" Brenna asked as she led Arianna towards the strawberry fields. The Aphrodite and Athena cabins were tending them, and no one looked too happy about it.

Arianna seemed surprised by the question. "Yeah, he kind of inherited it– what's going on over there?" She was pointing at a girl who was ridiculously well-dressed for anything but a catwalk who was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Oh, Drew's just being a little bitch because Malcolm won't let her use her charmspeak to get out of working. You'll notice that everyone's wearing earplugs," Brenna explained, rolling her eyes. "Let's move on," she added to hopefully cut off any questions about charmspeaking.

They walked past the forge and the pegasus stables. "Pegasus riding sounds really dangerous," Arianna commented, "but really awesome, too."

"It's not that hard, once you get used to it. But you've probably ridden a horse before," Brenna replied, staring up at the sky. Someone was definitely up there, but she couldn't tell who. "Now over to your left – aw, shit."

"What is it?"

Brenna glared at the woods, trying to make out who was in there through the trees, even though she knew full well who it would be. "My cabin. We can't let them see us!" Okay, she couldn't let Kieran see her. If she ever found out who convinced Aiden to shoot her with one of their dad's stupid fucking love arrows, that person was going to die slowly and painfully.

Oh wait, she knew who did that, it was Drew. Because of the thing with the shoes, which was so not worth that kind of revenge prank.

At least Aiden hadn't made her fall in "love" with Clarisse. Not even Diego would've been able to help her out of that one. "We could go check out that building," Arianna suggested, pointing at the armory.

"Sure," Brenna said. "We'll be there later, but I'll show you the outside. C'mon!"

"Not so fast!"

Author's Note: Yep, we've got POV changes going on every two chapters. I probably should've mentioned that sooner. I don't have a lot to say about this chapter, but again, feel free to ask me any questions you may have.