It was still weird to wake up in an actual bed on dry land.

That was the first thing Kieran thought when the alarm clock went off. The second was, I shouldn't be here.

The influx of new campers after the Titan War had been… extreme. The Hermes cabin became so overcrowded that people would sneak off to sleep pretty much anywhere else. Unfinished cabins, the woods, the bottom of the ocean… okay, that was just him.

As soon as he'd been claimed by Triton, god of having the worst timing ever (seriously, knowing he could breathe underwater would've been way useful), Kieran had taken to sleeping underwater. He could breathe just fine in the Sound, the fish were perfectly willing to warn him about monster attacks, and there were so many people that no one would even notice he was gone.

At least, that's what he'd thought. When Travis and Connor used "there's literally a kid that would rather sleep in the ocean than our cabin" as part of their argument for enlarging the Hermes cabin, Chiron took action.

If a camper's godly parent was closely related to an Olympian, they would be moved into that cabin temporarily. Zeus's cabin housed all the Hebe kids until their cabin was finished (because everyone was too scared to enter Hera's). The Eros kids moved into the Aphrodite cabin. That one Phobos kid moved into the Ares cabin. And Kieran moved in with Percy freaking Jackson.

Percy was a great guy and all, but he wasn't a year-rounder. As soon as he went back to school, Kieran went back to the Sound.

He didn't belong in the Poseidon cabin. He always felt like an intruder, especially if he was alone. But since Percy's winter break had started… suspiciously early… he had to stay there. To avoid all the questions.

"Ugh… five more minutes," Percy groaned, turning the alarm off.

"Go for it, but we literally haven't even started cleaning yet," Kieran responded, yawning halfway through. He decided to get up. He was already awake, might as well be useful. It took him like three minutes to get ready (only that long because he couldn't find his beanie); then he got to work putting his stuff away and sweeping the floor. Percy eventually joined him, and they finished cleaning just before breakfast. It was Clarisse's turn to do cabin checks and they couldn't afford another week on KP.

Mr. D. still wasn't back from wherever he'd gone. It had been a few days since anyone had seen him. Aside from that, breakfast was normal. Kieran tried to find Brenna before Ancient Greek, but no dice. She hadn't talked to him since that incident with the "love" arrow, and it was getting frustrating.

The morning passed slowly. Ancient Greek was boring without Annabeth there to teach it. Malcolm tried his best, but he just didn't seem as interested. Greek Mythology wasn't much better. Pegasus riding was with the Hermes cabin, so that was more exciting by default, even if Brenna was still avoiding him. Thank the gods that Percy was leading it. He was explaining defensive flying maneuvers to the more experienced riders.

Kieran was supposed to go through the basics of flying with the inexperienced riders. "Gosh, at least buy me dinner first," Sean teased after the fifth attempt at helping him mount his pegasus ended with him falling into Kieran's arms, knocking both of them onto the ground. This happened so often it was almost like he did it on purpose.

"Stop fooling around, Sean," Arianna chided. Now if she'd needed help mounting, Kieran would've understood; she wasn't that tall (for that matter, neither was Sean), and it was literally her first time. She'd said she didn't really know what to do next, but at least she could get up by herself.

"Yeah, Sean," Cecil, who was also perfectly capable of mounting on his own, added. "Yeesh, and people say I screw things up… you'd think after two years –"

"Shut up," he replied, dusting himself off. He was grinning from ear to ear, like there was some secret joke that no one else understood. "Julie and Alice needed help too."

Kieran picked himself up off the ground. "Yeah, but they're what, ten?" They were actually with the advanced group, like most of their cabin, despite being relatively new to camp.

"You know, I have no idea," Sean answered. "Sixth time's the charm?"

In the end it took nine tries to get him to stay on. "I guess we'll just take a lap around camp, guys," Kieran said as he mounted Guido (the pegasus that seemed to tolerate him the most), "since everyone else is still talking. Cecil, you and Sean go first. I'll bring up the rear with Arianna."

"Okay, whatever you say, bro," Cecil responded. Sean twisted around and winked at him. What the heck was that about?

They took off, leaving Kieran to explain the basics of pegasus riding. "Is this anything like horseback riding?" Arianna asked nervously.

"People say it is," he answered. He'd never actually ridden a normal horse. "Just trust Don. He knows where he's going. Ready to take off?"

"As I'll ever be," she muttered. "How do we do that?"

"Like this." Kieran nudged Guido's side slightly with his foot to let him know it was time. Arianna followed suit, and in no time, they were in the air. "Let's try catching up with those two," he called, pointing to the distant figures of Porkpie, Zoot, and their riders. Don and Guido started flying faster without prompting. Once they got closer, it was clear that Porkpie and Zoot were descending.

"What's going on?" Arianna asked. So she'd noticed too. It surprised him, a little – she hadn't come across as particularly observant any of the other times they'd interacted. But then, he'd literally met her at the campfire like two nights ago so it was kind of early to judge.

He tried to figure out where the pegasi could possibly be heading. The camp entrance? "Whatever it is, Guido doesn't want anything to do with it," he noted. The pegasus had suddenly slowed down; he probably would've hovered if pegasi were built for that. "I hope they're not in trouble."

"Should we go find out?" It sounded like she meant it more like "I'm gonna get down there and see what's up."

"Yeah, we'd better. You should probably get back on the ground, I'll see if I can help Sean and Cecil," he replied. He quickly gave her a run-through on how to make it back down safely (and watched to make sure she did so), then urged Guido a little further ahead. Soon he could see why the pegasus hadn't wanted to continue.

It was utter chaos; Travis, Connor, and Jake were back. Most of the Hermes kids (and Percy) had mobbed them. Kieran hung back. He didn't have to understand their thoughts to know that the pegasi were freaking out.

"Whoa, guys, cógelo con take it easy!" he exclaimed. Guido calmed down, sort of, and he was able to get back to the ground and dismount.

"What does that even mean? Is it an actual sentence?" Sean wondered, somehow getting down without hurting himself.

Whoops. Kieran had gotten a lot better about not using random Miami/Cuban slang, but sometimes it just slipped out. He'd lived with Todd for twelve years, it wasn't going away anytime soon. "Uh, 'relax'. And yeah, I guess it is." Not according to Diego, but they didn't speak the same kind of Spanish (if Kieran's random words and phrases even counted as speaking the language), as he'd been reminded several times.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm fine, thanks for asking," Cecil muttered, jogging up to them. "Who's – oh, thank the gods!"

"Someone was worried," Sean teased. "What, our half-brothers can't handle being a few miles from camp?"

"No, but if anything –" Cecil immediately cut off his reply, glancing at Kieran like he didn't want to offend him. "You know, they're really good counselors, and…"

"We'd be stuck with Brenna, and no one wants that," Sean finished. "I like her and all, but she should never be in charge of anything."

Cecil sighed. "I was trying not to say that, but yeah."

Kieran laughed. "I'm not gonna punch you or anything, yeesh, c- uh, relax." He really didn't feel like explaining that phrase again. "Who do you guys think I am, anyways?"

"Trust me, Shmoopie, there's no way we could ever forget who you are." Okay, maybe he would punch Sean.

Arianna finally caught up with them, Don the pegasus following a ways behind her, mercifully saving him from continuing that conversation. "Why's everyone so happy?"

"You don't – oh, right, newbie, I forgot. Our actual head counselors finally finished disarming all those booby traps they forgot were still set up all over Manhattan, so now things are finally going back to normal!" Sean explained, apparently also forgetting that she would have no idea what he was talking about.

"Gotta admit, I missed the tomatoes hitting the window every morning," Cecil added, like he was trying to make things more confusing. "C'mon, guys, let's go join the welcoming committee!"

Kieran shrugged. "What the heck, it's not like we –" The other two guys took off before he could finish his sentence. "Figures. Oh well, maybe Brenna will accidentally start talking to me again."

"You guys aren't speaking?" Arianna asked. "Are you usually pretty close?" Oh crap, he'd said that out loud?

Seconds later, he decided that he didn't care. This had been going on long enough, and he was tired of how freaking awkward everything had become. He could use some input from a (hopefully unbiased) third party.

He hadn't really done anything except wait around for her to get over herself so far. And this problem… wasn't something he could ask most of his friends about. Sean was useless with any emotional issues, Cecil just kept saying not to worry about it, he was only sort of friends with Jasmine, and Diego had already chosen his side, no matter how often he said he was "staying out of it". Kieran didn't have any other options. "Yeah…"

He launched into the story. Brenna had pissed off Drew… again... so Drew dug a few of Eros's arrows out of the attic (they were popular quest trophies) and struck a deal with one of his kids: if they used one on Brenna, they could do whatever they wanted to with the rest and she wouldn't turn them in.

The kid accepted; they ended up getting caught by Lou Ellen, but the damage was done. One minute, everything was normal; the next, Brenna was flirting with him like crazy and he was really confused, because she didn't like him, or anyone, that way. He thought it was some kind of joke, and then she tried to kiss him… and succeeded, he was too surprised to stop her, and it happened at campfire, so of course the whole camp saw. Naturally, he booked it out of there the first chance he got.

"I get that it was probably really embarrassing for her; it was bad for me too, I have so many nicknames from that that I'll never be able to get rid of. But it's literally been a week. I have other friends at camp, not many, but still, and most of them are acting like it'll all blow over, but it hasn't and people keep tiptoeing around the–"

"Wow. Okay. That's... actually, that explains a lot. I'll talk to her, if you want me to. It sounds like you guys have some things to work through," Arianna interrupted.

"Understatement of the century. But yeah, maybe that'd help. I'd talk to her myself, but, well, she won't come anywhere near me."

They stood in silence for a few seconds as Kieran steeled himself to join the mob. "We should go meet your counselors now," he blurted out.

"Yeah… wait, what were their names again? I've met so many people over the past couple days, it's getting hard to keep track."

"Travis and Connor Stoll," he supplied. "They're brothers." He left out that they'd made it their personal goal to prank everyone at camp. She'd figure that out for herself soon enough. "And I hear you on the not being able to keep track of names thing, there's so many people here. That part doesn't get much easier, even after a year."

"How does Chiron do it?" she wondered. "And wait, Stoll as in…"

"Yeah, like 'stole'; Connor appreciates jokes about it, Travis doesn't."

She nodded. "Do the gods just really like puns or something?"

"I hadn't really thought about it," he replied as they added to the growing crowd. Though she was kinda right… there were a lot of names like that. Miranda Gardiner, Jake Mason, Lia Son, Ben Dunn, Winnie Day…

Now that they were closer, he could see that Jake seemed to have kept most of the traps (probably why he agreed to go on a quest with those two in the first place). Travis and Connor were bouncing around from person to person, enjoying the attention and probably looking for something to steal.

News spread quickly around camp; the entire Hephaestus cabin had shown up to welcome their counselor, along with a few campers who'd been picking strawberries (though notably none of the three children of Demeter had shown up). Chiron was making his way over as well; he seemed stressed about something, but he was always stressed so that wasn't weird. Mr. D. was nowhere to be seen, for the fourth day in a row.

Eventually, Travis and Connor got to them. "Hey, K-ran, how's ocean life treating you?" Connor greeted. Kieran still wasn't sure how he felt about that nickname, but it was a heck of a lot better than the things he'd been called for the last week.

"Still better than the Hermes cabin," he replied. Travis was introducing himself to Arianna; it was a good thing she still didn't have anything worth stealing with her. "How was the quest?"

"Freaking awesome! I think we got everything. We got ambushed by a lot of monsters – there's this really mean sphinx on 72nd street, we were lucky we got away in one piece – but all those booby traps came in handy. There was this one snake thing that got hit with so much of that Celestial bronze paint stuff we accidentally created a new street art installation!

"But enough about that – I hear some interesting things went on back at camp."

He'd been really hoping that wouldn't come up. "You… could say that…" He could feel the blood rushing to his face.

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think it'd work. You're too mature for her," Connor said in a tone that made it impossible for Kieran to tell if he was joking or not. "Anyways, have you been by the Big House in the past couple of days?"

He hadn't. "What's up with it?"

"Apparently there's grape vines everywhere, and Pollux swore he didn't do it… so either Miranda's finally starting to take my amazing prank advice or Mr. D. just violated his 'probation'."

Kieran knew he wasn't the most well-informed camper around, but to not know about something like that… "Mr. D.'s gone, man. Nobody's seen him since Monday."

"I know, but… oh no, we're not getting a replacement camp director, are we?" Connor's voice went up half an octave by the time he finished his sentence.

"Oh, gods, we'd better not be," Percy interjected. Kieran hadn't even seen him walk over. "Tantalus was bad enough, imagine putting someone like that in charge…"

Tantalus… Kieran hadn't been at camp yet that summer, just running around the East Coast and trying not to get himself killed. All he really knew about Tantalus was his story from Greek Mythology class (thought he could get away with serving the gods human flesh and killed his children) and that he'd somehow been the assistant camp director for most of a summer despite being dead because something something Luke poisoned Thalia's Tree and somehow people thought Chiron did it.

There was one other thing… literally no one had liked Tantalus, but for some reason Brenna desperately tried to change the subject whenever his name came up. Kieran had asked her about it once, but all she'd said was, "You know the two things I don't talk about? That's number one."

He'd left it at that, mostly because they had discussed Thing Number Two… and if she'd rather talk about her mother than Tantalus, whatever'd happened had to be pretty bad. Granted, they'd discussed their mortal parents mostly because he'd accidentally mentioned his mom, and compared to her, Brenna's mother looked like an absolute saint… but still.

"Maybe Chiron will make an announcement at lunch? He's gotta know what's going on," Kieran suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," Connor agreed. He didn't seem too convinced.

"Speaking of lunch," Percy interjected, "we should probably head over to the dining hall. I dunno about you, but I'm starving."

Kieran really wanted food, but the pegasi needed to go back to the stables. Even though Percy said that Blackjack would make sure everyone went back, he volunteered to go with them just in case. It made him a little bit late for lunch, but that was all right.

Lunch time was always kind of awkward with just him and Percy. It was better when Grover joined them at the Poseidon table, but he hadn't been able to for a while with all his new duties on that satyr council. Kieran just ate his food quickly and tried to remember what they had after lunch. After staring off into space for a solid minute he realized he could just ask.

"Uh… I think we've got strength and conditioning," was Percy's response. "With… one of the 'A' cabins? That sounds right. And then after that we're cleaning the stables but Chiron said no flooding them this time so I dunno how we're gonna get that done in half an hour."

"Oh man," Kieran groaned. "And that's just us, right?"

"Yup."

"Fun."

"But hey, at least we've got enough people for Capture the Flag tonight," Percy said.

Oh, right, it was Friday. "True. Which team are we on?" Kieran still wasn't used to playing Capture the Flag, or any of the night games, really. He'd arrived at camp a couple weeks before the Battle of the Labyrinth and everyone was busy with war preparations after that happened.

"Blue. Hermes cabin has the flag, and we're also with the Ares cabin, so we'll have the numbers advantage for sure."

"That's good. Anyone else?"

"I, uh, didn't ask," Percy admitted. "I just took the laundry day trade I was offered."

Kieran nodded and the conversation kinda died after that. He was just happy he'd managed to start one. Lunch ended and there was no announcement from Chiron, at least, not about Mr. D., so he tried to find Brenna again but she must've already left for whatever the Hermes cabin was doing next.

He and Percy had an incredibly fun afternoon of strength and conditioning (with the Apollo cabin), stable-cleaning (which actually wasn't as bad as they thought it'd be), test-sailing one of Camp Half-Blood's ancient-but-maybe-safe-because-at-least-it-still-kinda-floated triremes (Kieran suspected that was because neither of them was likely to drown), and practicing weapon skills.

Had Percy purposely signed them up to work with the Iris cabin? …Probably. It was just Butch and Jasmine currently so they'd be evenly matched numbers-wise. But both of them used swords and Percy was without a doubt the best swordsman at camp. Which meant that they spent a lot of time training with a weapon that Kieran would never, ever use in actual combat.

He realized that he really needed the practice, and everyone at camp was expected to at least kinda know how to use a sword, but he still didn't like them. You had to get too close to your opponent. If his hand-eye coordination wasn't terrible, he definitely would've been an archer… but not even Chiron thought it was a good idea to hand him a bow. He still did make Kieran show up to archery practice, but he was heavily supervised the whole time.

It had actually been Chiron's idea to train him with the trident, because he'd had the tendency to duck away from any kind of confrontation and never actually attack his opponent when sparring. Apparently that was actually a good strategy with a trident, and the distance helped Kieran actually muster the courage to strike back… as long as he had room to run away immediately afterwards. So he went from being a terrible swordsman to a somewhat-okay retiarius (well, okay, he didn't actually use a net most of the time, but he could if he had one available!). It helped that his trident was long enough that he couldn't accidentally impale himself if he tripped while carrying it… in theory.

"Kieran, watch out!" Jasmine called. Oh, oh no, he was supposed to be sparring against her, wasn't he? Probably. Percy and Butch had already started working on some maneuver that Kieran would never be able to pull off. And he'd almost walked into them. He stopped himself (hopefully) before they noticed and turned back.

"Sorry… I got distracted." And that was when he noticed that there were other cabins using the arena too… because duh, there were so many people around this year, of course other cabins had Friday afternoon weapon skills slots.

Jasmine handed him a wooden sword, unimpressed by his lame excuse. "I know, believe me, I'd way rather be at arts and crafts right now, but this stuff is important!"

Easy for her to say. She'd shown up to camp after the war. But she was right and he knew it so he just took the sword and struggled through warm-ups. Percy came over to check on them a couple times, and to show them that they were both screwing up some disarming thing "and that's a great way to end up with a broken wrist."

"Okay, but like, for Capture the Flag? Isn't it better to do it 'wrong' because everyone's learned the same stuff?" Jasmine muttered after he left.

"Uh… no, not really," Kieran replied. "You could break your wrist."

"Thanks, Percy just said that, but no, I mean, like… how else are newer campers supposed to stand a chance if everyone else knows everything already?" She'd stopped half-heartedly jabbing her sword at him. He hadn't stopped "parrying" and almost fell over because of the momentum.

This was absolutely a question for Diego, or Percy, or Chiron. All Kieran could think of to say was, "I've been here at least…" How did he say more than twice was it like triple? Threece? He decided to play it safe. "…twice as long as you have. Do I look like I know this stuff?"

"Fair enough." They spent the rest of their hour and a half of hell just going through the motions of what they'd been shown, and then it was finally free time so he could continue his pointless...

"Hey, Honeybuns!" Sean, gods, why?

"You're lucky I like you," Kieran grumbled as several heads turned in their direction. More people were walking past the Arena than he'd thought. "What's up?"

Sean had the stupidest grin on his face, so something was absolutely up. "So, Cecil and I had this idea for a prank… we've got the night shower slot this week, right? Can you help me find, like, a really gross spider or something to hide in there before you-know-who takes her turn?"

"Brenna's not scared of spiders, dude." He was absolutely sure he knew where this was going and getting involved would be a great way to make everything even worse.

"Oh. Then, uh… look, just come with me?"

"Sean, I –"

"Dude. I'm gonna level with you: you're not the only person I asked for help with a 'prank'." He winked and suddenly everything clicked.

The only question was who'd told Sean. Probably Cecil. "So you mean…"

"Yep, my favorite half-brother and I actually did have a great prank idea, and we're gonna lock you guys in the bathrooms until you settle your differences, if you get what I'm saying."

Well, at least he'd been given a heads up. "Okay, so what makes you think she's gonna go along with that? Y'know, since the war…"

"…her paranoia's even worse somehow, I know, but it's totally gonna work! I said we'd prank Drew, she won't question it!"

"Okay, that might work then," Kieran admitted. "I-I guess I'm in."

Sean's grin went from "stupid" to "evil" in less than a second. "Excellent."

Within five minutes, Kieran was hiding in a bathroom stall, regretting all the life choices that brought him to that point. He waited there for… a while, he didn't have a watch or anything, and then he heard someone coming.

"Next time, maybe don't try something like this with the bathrooms. Try someplace with an outside door that actually has a lock." That was absolutely Brenna's voice. "Look, you're just lucky someone else got to me first, kid, or we would not be having this conversation… no, you can't come in! Look, I'll see you at dinner, okay?"

He'd literally been trying to find her for the past week, but all he wanted to do right then was run away… but he was standing in a bathroom stall. He couldn't run. Or… get out… what the heck did Sean do to that door? Oh well, he could always crawl under it. He took a deep breath. "Brenna, is that you?"

"It's me," she confirmed. "I… uh… gods, this is not a good place to talk, I don't know what Sean was thinking. Wanna go for a walk?"

"Can you get this door open?"

Apparently she could; it was open within seconds. "Are you mad at me for the… thing… last week?" she asked.

"It's not like you shot yourself with that arrow," Kieran replied. That sounded like something he would do. "But really? The silent treatment?"

"I fucked up," she admitted. "I thought… I thought you'd hate me, 'cause I dunno about you, but that was probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever been a part of, and coming from me that's saying a lot."

"Well…" As horrible as the last week had been, he probably would've actually left camp and taken his chances with the monsters if he'd been on her side of the incident. "I don't hate you. I've been trying to tell you that all week, but –"

" – I'm really good at not being found if I don't wanna be. That used to annoy the shit out of Rory. Anyways, I – I really am sorry."

How was he supposed to respond to that? He really wanted to just accept the apology and be done with it, but everything about the situation was just… weird. It wasn't normal for her to avoid anyone. Not even Drew, and they hated each other. "Just… why?"

She looked confused. "I just told you? I was really embarrassed and I thought you'd hate me? Oh, and I was on infirmary duty for, like, two days, but, like –"

"Brenna. Would you have done the same thing if it was Diego? Or Jess?" He hadn't meant to interrupt, or ask that question, but he just… he had to know.

"You know we're still standing in the bathroom, right?"

Kieran started walking towards the door. "Not for long. Will you answer my question?"

"Yeah, just not here. No one should be in the woods right now."

So he probably wouldn't like her answer, then. Or she just wanted to get out of the men's room in case anyone got stuck with the 5 o'clock shower slot. Either way, their walk to the forest was way too quiet. They stuck close to the edge, because you never knew when a dryad might materialize out of nowhere.

"Okay. I'm just gonna come out and say it, that's not a fair question; neither of them would've ran away. Like, how was I supposed to know you weren't mad when you did that? But fine, let's say I saw Diego first and let's say I could actually somehow reach his face. I wouldn't avoid him because we've dealt with those rumors before. Worse with Jess, actually. And I just didn't think you'd handle those well since, again, you left."

She finally stopped to breathe, and it… he'd been half-expecting that she'd say something like that, but it still hurt. "What, because I haven't known you as long, that makes it okay?"

"I didn't say that!"

"The rumors lasted about a day, but the nicknames… you know what you said, right?"

"Now that it's over and people told me, yeah, and I'm sorry!"

Kieran wondered who she'd asked, like he even had to guess. But he just didn't want to keep this argument going. Of course she liked other people more than she liked him, that shouldn't surprise or bother him, but it did. On the plus side, they were speaking again, so that was good. He really had missed her. "It's fine," he said, even though it wasn't.

"That's a relief. I honestly had no idea you were even trying to find me until Arianna told me after lunch – she got claimed, by the way – and I swear I would've talked to you if I knew."

Okay, he needed to change the subject to literally anything else; fortunately, Brenna had given him a perfect opportunity. "She got claimed? By who?"

"Demeter."

Ah, that made sense. Kieran made a mental note to congratulate her the next time he saw her. "When did that happen?"

"Right after she finished lecturing me," Brenna said, "so Miranda and I got to skip part of science class to get her moved in. Her dad sent some stuff up to camp express, so it actually took more than five minutes."

"Huh. Well, cool."

"We could go find her, but I think Miranda's getting her armor for Capture the Flag so… yeah. How much time do we have left before supper?"

Like he knew? "I literally don't own a watch."

"Me neither… ah well, we're probably good on time. Wanna do something?"

"Is it legal?"

"Yeah, probably, I think… I have a valid driver's license, we'll be fine."

Oh, no. Kieran had never ridden in a car with her before, but he'd heard stories. "Uh, please tell me you're just gonna help me with behind-the-wheel hours?"

"…yeah, we can do that instead," she replied casually. "Camp doesn't care if I'm twenty-one or not as long as we stay on the course."

So that was how they spent their last half hour. It went surprisingly well. Kieran was getting better at actually getting up to speed instead of going like ten under. They went to supper, where Chiron announced that they would indeed be playing Capture the Flag that night as well as Arianna's claiming. She didn't look comfortable with the attention.

Then, finally, it was time for Capture the Flag to start. Neither Kieran nor Percy had actually worn armor to supper (not that Percy even needed it aside from the helmet to show what team he was on) so they ran back to the Poseidon cabin to get that. It was time to meet up with the rest of the blue team to talk strategy.

…and since the Hermes cabin had their flag, they came up with the game plan. Which meant their strategy could literally be anything. This should be fun.

Author's Note: That's right, we've got Capture the Flag coming. But wait, you may ask, you said this was right before The Lost Hero, and they weren't able to play it then?

And to that I say, I know :)

Anyways, this is why I mentioned Kieran's existence in the disclaimer. I've been in this fandom for a while, and I remember the ire directed at any OCs even slightly related to Percy (current stance: just write what makes you happy, y'all). When this fic was originally conceived... nine years ago... it was set multiple years after the Heroes of Olympus series concluded. There was an actual Triton cabin and Kieran wasn't alone in it; I could've just had it exist still despite the timeline change I guess but the other characters contributed nothing and I think the cast is big enough already. So I went with the situation presented in this chapter because it allowed me to explain away a couple other things with other cabins.