"Smoke?" Dakota asked. He hadn't been to Camp Half-Blood much while he had been alive, and when he had visited, he was never really around during mealtimes.
Pollux explained, "We burn our food as offerings to the gods."
"Oh." The son of Bacchus frowned, "We don't do that in New Rome."
"No, we don't." Reyna frowned slightly. She had always been wondering whether the gods preferred the Greeks over the Romans, since they got ambrosia and nectar, which seems much better than the unicorn draught, but it seemed like the Greeks did tend to give the gods more respect. The Romans, while they worshipped the gods, were a lot more independent, and they didn't exactly make things better by giving the gods Roman forms, and stripping away their powers and domains.
While some gods like Mars did like the respect that the Romans gave him, Athena had definitely not been happy when she had been downgraded from a wisdom goddess with battle tactics to merely the goddess of crafts, and not being able to do anything while part of her domain had been given over to Bellona.
The Greek did also had a god at their camp, though to be fair, they did have Terminus as well, and Reyna was pretty sure she preferred the statue over the wine god who got everybody's name wrong.
Hestia smiled at the mention of the burnt offerings to the gods, and continued reading.
Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately.
"GOSSIP!" Travis and Connor grinned.
Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water.
"Well, yeah." Silena nodded, "They were all like "Hey, that's the kid that blasted the Ares Cabin with water" and all kinds of comments like that."
Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.
"More like they went hand in hand." Chris stated, "Someone would talk about the toilet incident, and someone would point out Annabeth as an unfortunate victim. Or people would ask why Annabeth was wet, and the explanation was the toilets."
She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords),
Beckendorf turned to Leo, "Have you tried doing that before?"
"Not really." Leo frowned slightly, "I left on my first quest before I really knew what was going on, and when I returned, my cabin was busy building a kick-ass ship! I did visit this so-called "metal shop" -"
Everyone snickered, as Percy pouted, "I didn't know what it was, okay?"
"- but really only to get supplies."
Beckendorf whistled, "Sounds busy. But after you returned from the ship? From what I've garnered from Jason when he arrived in Elysium, you've had at least half a year from the war to... whatever time it is off Olympus."
Jason grimaced as Leo waved his hand, "Oh, I died and came back to life -"
Beckendorf and Silena choked at the bluntness of his words.
"- and then we had to help Mr Lester over there with some stuff." Leo grinned at Apollo, "And Calypso and I found a nice safe place outside of camp."
Zeus coughed, "I'd like to continue the book please, so we can be done with this sooner rather than later."
"Brother, I'm sure you're just jealous we're going to read about how great my son is." Poseidon smirked at the God of the Sky.
Amphitrite and Triton grinned. They might not be too sure about Percy just yet, but that fact that it was a child with their blood, the blood of the sea, being the main character in the book was good enough for them to want to rub it in Zeus' face.
the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),
"Ahh... Pan..." Hermes shook his head wistfully at the mention of his dead son.
Grover, Percy, Rachel and Annabeth nodded sadly; watching Pan die had been really sad and depressing, and they hadn't even met the god for a couple of minutes before he faded into nothingness.
and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.
"We really need to try that sometime." Hazel turned to Frank, "Especially now, without the... you know..."
"Yeah." Frank nodded, "But maybe replace the lava with water. We have experience with all the water cannons."
"We'll help." Annabeth grinned, "I think the blueprints are still around... somewhere..."
"I love the climbing wall!" Leo raised his head, "I have a bunch of awesome ideas I can use to update the climbing wall!"
Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.
"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."
"You think I could have eaten before the allocated dinner time. I'm always hungry." Percy grumbled, "And the dryads' cooking is pretty good."
"I'm sure the dryads would be more than happy to accommodate you. They especially like it if you compliment their cooking." Chiron replied with an amused glint in his eyes, "Just make sure that Mr D doesn't catch you."
"As if I'd care if Parsley would go and eat something when he's hungry." Dionysus rolled his eyes.
"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."
Travis snickered, "That was hilarious! I wish I'd seen it in person!"
"Whatever."
"Rude much?" Zoe raised an eyebrow at Annabeth. Percy might be the only male that she tolerated, but still, it was pretty rude given that Percy was trying to apologize to her, for something that really had been Clarisse's fault.
Annabeth turned slightly red, but Percy just gave her a small kiss.
"It's alright. I'd be pretty upset if someone just doused me with water and I had to walk around in a wet shirt all day." Percy tried to comfort her, completely missing the looks from all the Camp Half-Blood campers wondering if they were the ones who ate magic mushrooms.
Zoe, of all people, was standing up for Percy?! Zoe? The same Zoe that didn't as much as flinch when some of the hunters decided to set fire to their cabins? The very same Zoe who let the hunters pretty much pummel most of their campers into the ground during Capture the Flag because they were male?! The exact same Zoe that man-hated pretty much as all the other hunters combined?!
Somehow, they couldn't wrap their heads around that.
But then again, it was Percy Jackson, the boy who pretty much insulted every single god in existence and somehow hadn't been smited. The boy who was so charismatic that literally everyone wanted to be his friend, and that everyone apparently included man-hating hunters of a god who was well known for hating males.
"It wasn't my fault."
"It kind of was." Artemis shot Percy a playful smile, "Though I'm going to be fair and say that it wasn't totally your fault that you were trying to defend yourself."
"This has got to be some kind of dream, right?" Travis gasped, and turned to Connor, "Pinch me."
Connor grinned, and pinched Travis painfully on the arm, watching in delight and amusement as his older brother screeched in pain.
"Okay, okay, I'm awake, this isn't a dream..." Travis gaped at Percy, "How in Tartarus did you get a man-hating goddess to like you!?"
All the demigods froze, and Travis raised his hands, "Sorry, sorry, bad wording, slip of the tongue. Oh gods, I'm so sorry -"
"It's fine." Percy smiled weakly, his sea green eyes dulling slightly, and Annabeth looked close to crying.
The gods all shifted awkwardly in their seats. They knew that the Doors of Death had been in Tartarus, giving the monsters a direct out into the mortal world. They knew that some demigods had to have gotten into Tartarus, somehow, and made their way out, sacrificing someone in order to close the Doors and press the elevator button in order to seal the Doors off properly.
The gods all glanced at each other warily. They didn't know who had fallen into Tartarus, though they could narrow it down to the Seven, seeing as most of the other demigods had been preparing for war against the other Pantheon, and there was no way they were going to be stumbling upon an entrance to Tartarus from camp.
The gods with children onboard the Argo II wanted to keep an eye on them, but weren't able to, since most of the gods had been incapacitated from the Greek and Roman conflict, and really, hadn't been able to do much of anything other than getting splitting headaches that made them feel like dying, let alone keeping track of the quest of the Seven.
The ones who hadn't been affected much was Poseidon, but even he was constantly forced to switch to his Neptune form as the Romans prayed for him to sink the "traitors", AKA Leo who had been possessed. It didn't hurt much, but he was much, much weaker, less powerful, and he had to deal with the multitude of sea monsters and water gods and goddesses who had decided to join Gaea.
Apollo and Artemis were fine as well, but only because they fled to Delos, and they wouldn't have kept an eye on the Seven anyways since Apollo would be more preoccupied with his Roman and Greek children, and Artemis would have been much more wary of Orion, who had been hunting down Amazons and Hunters alike.
And after the war, they had a few issues, like Apollo's banishment, and Triumvirate Holdings, as they slowly realized that they had been backing both wars.
The gods shared a knowing look. They didn't even think they wanted to know if their child had been the one to fall into the pit, or worst, left behind, for that knowledge would probably kill them inside, knowing what their child had to go through.
Hestia broke off the silence, and continued.
She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.
Everyone burst into laughter, as the tension from Travis' slip up faded away, though it still lingered at the back of their minds.
"Percy, I love your brain." Hermes chuckled, and Percy grinned, "Thanks! I love my brain too!"
"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.
"Who?"
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."
"She was creepy, no offence, Lord Apollo." Rachel wrinkled her nose, "But I'm sure she was pretty in her prime."
"None taken. And enough with the Lord. You know me well enough that we can drop the formalities." Apollo turned to the demigods, "Same goes for you guys. Just Apollo is fine. Or Lester."
The sun god turned to Hades, "I somewhat understand what happened to my old Oracle, and I'm not going to hold you to that, as long as you agree to not blame the result of prophecies on my Oracles ever again. It's not their fault at all."
"I know." Hades sighed, slightly annoyed that he was being lectured by his nephew, but also understanding that Apollo treasured his Oracles dearly, and didn't like harm coming to them, "I won't do that ever again. I swear on the Styx."
He noticed a look from Percy, "And no loopholes."
I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.
"I'm sorry, child." Chiron sighed, "I should have let you watch the orientation video."
"It's fine. I watched it anyways." Percy shuddered, "The orientation video was mentally scarring, to say the least. I'm glad we did away with it."
"What? But it was some of my best work!" Apollo looked slightly confused, and Will sighed, used to the antics of his father, "It wasn't that bad. But the orientation video is pretty long, especially with all the poetry, and it's hard for demigods to sit still and watch the entire thing. Add in ADHD, and we just get a disaster on our hands."
"Ah, understood." Apollo smiled, "I can make a better version."
"It's easier for us to just explain things to campers." Pollux tried to reason with the god, "And it's more efficient for them to ask us questions immediately instead of sitting through the video with tens of questions swirling around in their heads."
I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about five metres below.
"Ah, naiads?" Triton asked, and Percy nodded.
They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.
"That's because you pretty much are, dear." Amphitrite smiled, "Anyone with the blood of the sea is a friend."
I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.
"That is very nice of you. They like making new friends." Triton admitted, "Most demigods ignore them, since you children have started some rumour that they flirts. Worse still, after they find out, they try to flirt with them. Then again, you were twelve, so I suppose that wouldn't be entirely appropriate."
"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."
"Ohhhh! Someone is jealous!" Aphrodite cooed, and Annabeth turned to Triton, "I'm sorry, Lord Triton."
Triton scowled, but accepted the apology from the Daughter of Athena as Poseidon glowered at him, "You didn't make the rumour up, and you didn't know any better."
"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."
"You lost it because of naiads?!" Clarisse laughed, "You're hilarious, Prissy!"
"I lost my mom, fought a bull-man in underwear, realized that my favorite teacher is fifty percent horse and my best friend is half goat, there was a god that played card games, and people are telling me that I can eat tasty food, but too much would kill me." Percy retorted, "Then someone tried to shove my head into a toilet bowl."
"Fair enough." Clarisse admitted; that was a lot to take in for a demigod, let alone one who had barely been up for a few hours and wasn't getting any answers from anyone.
Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."
"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"
"Dang." Will whistled, "If we're mentally disturbed, then Percy's like... I don't know... insane."
"I thought we established already that he is insane." Nico corrected.
"Aw crap." Connor groaned sarcastically, "We're mentally disturbed! Oh no!"
"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."
"Half-human and half-what?"
"I think you know."
"Half horse." Rachel offered, "Or half goat. He's seen those two before."
Grover shuddered, "Percy would be a terrible satyr. Satyrs are supposed to get demigods out of trouble, but Percy just jumps into trouble like he would a pool of water."
Percy froze slightly. In the past, he probably would just jump into any old body of water, as long as it was clean, but now... he hesitated. He looked like he was considering the temperature of the water, or if there might be any marine creatures, and never paused long enough to throw his friends off.
He considered it ironic; Thalia was scared of heights, Nico was scared of fading into shadows (Will had privately filled him in, only because Percy had accidentally walked in on an argument when Nico wanted to go somewhere and the son of Apollo had been screaming his head off and threatening Nico to never shadow travel without his approval), and he was scared of drowning.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.
"God," I said. "Half-god."
"You knew. You could tell." Katie nodded, "It's in your blood. You just didn't want to accept it."
Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."
"Or, you know. Minor gods and goddesses." Silena added, "Could be one of them."
"That's… crazy."
"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories?
"Uh... cursing people and turning them into monsters that would come to bit their kids in the butt?" Percy offered, and glared at Athena. Athena didn't respond, but she didn't glare back either, knowing that it was the truth; she created Arachne, and spiders have hunted down her children ever since.
Poseidon shot Percy a look, and the demigod sighed, not wanting to upset his father, and turned his attention back to Hestia.
They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them.
"That too." Hera scowled at all the gods, goddesses, and demigods.
Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"
"But those are just—" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth.
"Well, he didn't have to wait long." Jason joked, "Only took you like... four of five years."
Percy looked at Jason, confused, "I'm a myth?"
"Pretty much." Connor grinned, "You've gone on the most quests, and people talk about them. Then you went missing, and Annabeth was like, angry at everyone -"
He dodged a pillow Annabeth threw at him, "Okay, not just Annabeth. We were all wondering where the heck you disappeared off to, cause you'd usually tell Annabeth, or Chiron, or your mom. So all the newbies are like, "Percy Jackson? Who's that? Is he that important?" And we're just like "Of course Percy's important! He's a really powerful and awesome dude!" And ya know, some kids are just overly proud of themselves, and they're like "He can't be that good" and sometimes Annabeth overhears them and -"
"Oh, shut up!" Annabeth groaned, but Thalia grinned, "Oh! I heard about that! Whenever Annie over there hears someone insulting you, she gets so angry, and she just stomps up to them and asks, "Have you fought this? Have you killed that?!" and it just goes on and on forever until we distract her. And the newbies are so confused so we had to explain your exploits to them. And then, you know, you came back, and then left for college, and with the Romans and Greeks mingling now, we get more stories."
Percy frowned, "There can't be that many stories. I didn't even do much."
The demigods all facepalmed and groaned, and Leo grinned, "Okay, man. I'm going to take a water balloon, label it as "Percy's Ego", inflate it, and stuff it down your throat. Because you're clearly lacking one."
"But if all the kids here are half-gods—"
"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."
"That still sounds offensive." Piper wrinkled her nose.
"Then who's your dad?"
Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.
"Yes. Yes you did." Thalia nodded grimly.
"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."
"He's human."
"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"
"Not very sexist, actually." Persephone pointed out, "You were the one that talked about old stories, and I'm pretty sure most of the demigods in those stories were born from male gods."
"Who's your mom, then?"
"Cabin Six."
Thalia facepalmed, "Okay, that's dumb, even for you."
"Agreed." Annabeth sighed, "And even the "you didn't want the orientation film" is a lame excuse."
"Meaning?"
Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."
Okay, I thought. Why not?
"Excuse me? Why not?!" Athena glared at Percy, offended, but the son of the Sea God defended himself, "Well, she was reading a Greek book on architecture. It would make sense for you to be her mom."
"And my dad?"
"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."
"Yeah. Nobody." Clarisse joked, but much to her surprise, instead of laughing like Percy and Annabeth usually did at their obscure quest references, the duo shared an almost... haunted look, as if the memory had been eating away at their souls for months.
Clarisse didn't press the matter, and tried to change her joke, "I'm pretty sure your father is sitting around somewhere... I don't know... maybe he's in this room..."
Several demigods chuckled, Percy shot her a grateful smile at the topic change.
"Except my mother. She knew."
"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."
"My dad would have. He loved her."
Amphitrite sighed. She might have been mad that Poseidon had taken fancy to a mortal, but knowing a bit more information about Sally... Amphitrite decided that for once, Poseidon had good taste.
Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."
"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"
The gods all looked away, remembering the times where they didn't claim their kids.
Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always… Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."
"We don't ignore you. There are just... rules." Aphrodite sighed, sounding a little hurt, and all the gods in the room glared at Zeus, "We do try our best to contact you kids."
"We know." The demigods nodded. They might have used to think that the gods ignored them, but now, they knew that the gods had tried to find loopholes to get around that rule, and along with that promise Percy made them swear on the Styx? Everything was great now!
"Plus, at the time, it really wasn't a good time to go down to the mortal realm." Aphrodite added weakly, and Poseidon nodded, "We were lucky that it was only Ares who spent enough time in your mortal realm to be... affected... per say. If it were someone like, Athena, or Zeus... it would have been much more problematic."
"You calling me weak!?" Ares growled, but Annabeth remembered what Ares had done on Percy's first quest, and shook her head, "I get that... I guess there really was no good courses of action to take. At least we made things better."
I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.
"Yes. We should." Hermes gritted his teeth. Now, the gods were behaving better, but at the cost of his son, as well as other demigods who had been involved in the war.
Was it worth it?
Definitely not.
And then Zeus decided that his new title was going to be the King of Ignoring Ancient Threats, and shut down Olympus. Thank goodness that Zeus still allowed them to claim their kids, because if he hadn't, Hermes was pretty sure he would strangle his father since he literally had nothing better to do.
"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"
"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.
The two goddesses looked offended, but Percy interjected, "Your kids can be powerful, it's just that most of them pretty peaceful, and don't like fighting. Plus, it's easier for them to hide in your domains, with all the beauty shops and nature and stuff."
"Yeah." Grover added, "It's true. Satyrs always have hard times sniffing out Lady Aphrodite's children, and there's usually enough trees and grass and potted plants around the mortal world to hide Lady Demeter's children effectively. But a lightning storm, the ocean, or the underworld, up on the surface on a clear sunny day? They stand out like a sore thumb."
The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters.
"Especially if you're Percy." Thalia laughed, "Then you attract monsters like electricity to a metal rod."
They sense us. They come to challenge us.
"No, they come to kill us." Reyna corrected, and Frank grumbled, "Or eat us."
Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off.
Everyone shuddered at the thought that most demigods lifespans were only a couple of years.
A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."
"Well, we have New Rome. And it's open to you guys as well." Hazel smiled, and Chiron nodded, "I should visit sometime, perhaps when university let's the older campers out, so there's someone to keep an eye on the children. And perhaps we can construct something similar within Camp Half-Blood, on the off-chance the demigods prefer to remain in our camp instead of going to yours."
"So monsters can't get in here?"
Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."
The older Greek demigods scowled at that.
"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"
"Practice fights. Practical jokes."
"Practical jokes?"
"We don't do that anymore." Clarisse grumbled.
"But still, practical jokes?" Piper squeaked, and Chiron frowned, having not been aware of that.
"Yeah." Travis sighed, "Usually a weak monster, something that can be easily killed. We also alert the Ares and Athena cabins, just in case the monster runs away or something, and there's always someone keeping an eye on the monster during the prank, up until it is killed and turns to dust."
Chiron nodded, somewhat satisfied. He wasn't happy that the kids were inviting monsters into camp for fun, but at the very least, they were smart about it, and took the necessary precautions.
"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."
"So…you're a year-rounder?"
Annabeth smiled, "Used to be one."
Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.
"Wait, you were seven when you entered Camp? Isn't that a little young?" Artemis frowned, and Annabeth nodded, "It's a long story, but I should explain it in the book."
"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."
"That's pretty depressing, honestly." Malcolm admitted.
"Why did you come so young?"
She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."
"Rude." Thalia snickered, "You were the one that brought the topic up."
"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So… I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"
"Did you actually want to?" Poseidon asked uneasily, and Percy scratched his cheek, "Maybe. Maybe not. Honestly, there was so much going through my brain at that point in time, I don't even know what I was thinking."
"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless…"
"Unless?"
"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time…"
Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.
"Yep." Chris sighed, remembering how bitter and upset Luke had been when he had returned, with a fresh scar on his face.
"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"
"Ambrosia."
"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."
Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"
"Well… no.
"Ah. That's perfectly normal." Thalia snickered.
Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"
Grover and Chiron grimaced at the fact that Percy had eavesdropped on them, and neither of them had realized it until Percy had admitted it to Grover.
She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."
"You've been to Olympus?"
"Yep. In fact, we're in there right now!" Leo grinned, "Welcome to Olympus, gods, goddesses, half-gods, mortals, tree people, and non-gods-who-are-half-animal!"
"I'm not sure if I should be offended at being called a half-animal." Grover grumbled, as Juniper raised her eyebrow at the phrase "tree people".
"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others— we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."
"You had a field trip? To Olympus?" Reyna asked, and Chiron sighed, "A lot of children were getting sick of staying at camp for so long, and we couldn't bring a horde of demigods around the mortal world."
"But… how did you get there?"
"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"
Before anyone could comment, Annabeth sighed, "The Orientation video would have covered it. And I was twelve. And I was soaked."
"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.
"What would happen if you did?" Dakota asked.
Percy thought about it for a second, before replying, "She'd probably glare at me like I was stupid or something, mutter "Whatever", maybe something about the Mist, before continuing."
"Yeah." Annabeth admitted, "I probably would have done that at the time."
"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen.
Zeus grumbled under his breath at the mention of his stolen bolt.
And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping… I mean—Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares.
"Of course. Our domains overlap." Athena pointed out, but Frank asked, "But don't you need like... both battle strategy and battle strength in order to win?"
"Yes, we do." Aphrodite smiled sweetly, "That's why they hate each other even more. They can cooperate if it's necessary, but neither of them are happy that they have to work with the other."
"And then I got stripped of my battle strategy." Athena glowered at the Romans, but Hestia sighed, "Athena, please. That was a long time ago, and the Romans who are currently here had nothing to do with it. They even returned your statue. Please don't blame them for something that they had no part in doing."
Athena sighed. It was hard to remain mad, especially when Hestia says something like that.
And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together.
"And now you two are dating." Silena laughed, "Talk about irony."
I thought you might know something."
I shook my head. I wished I could help her,
"Seriously? You wanted to help her?" Jason asked incredulously, "After she spent a better half of the day insulting you and pretty much calling you stupid?"
Percy scratched the back of his head, "Well, it's not her fault. People have bad days sometimes."
but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.
"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem…"
"Really, Annabeth?" Thalia raised an eyebrow.
"That was my hubris talking." Annabeth shook her head, "I couldn't have solved that problem. It was beyond my abilities to do so, especially with the forces at play."
I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl.
"Yes. Yes I did." Annabeth laugh, "I'm pretty sure the Naiads could hear it too."
She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.
"You really are observant." Malcolm commented, "We Athena kids do have the habit of doing that."
Back at Cabin Eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles.
Hermes, Chris, Travis and Connor smiled.
They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.
"Definitely." Travis grinned, "With all the pranks we pull! We're awesome!"
Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my Minotaur horn.
The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too.
Travis and Connor looked slightly offended, but they didn't disagree.
It 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."
"Did he actually steal it?" Frank asked, "I thought camp would provided stuff like that for you."
"Definitely." Chris nodded, "We "steal" supplies for new kids all the time, and Chiron knows it. But it's fair game as long as no one get's caught."
I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.
"We don't kid around about stealing stuff." Connor beamed.
I said, "Thanks."
"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"
"Definitely." Annabeth grimaced, "Sorry. Even if you had watched the orientation film, it's still a lot to take it."
"It's alright, Wise Girl." Percy gave Annabeth a kiss on the cheek.
"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."
"Well, now you do!" Apollo laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."
The bitterness in his voice surprised me,
The three sons of Hermes looked surprised, and Travis asked, "You could tell even then?"
"You couldn't? I thought it was pretty obvious." Percy replied, and Connor shook his head, "Nope. He sounded relatively normal. He's apparently pretty good at hiding his emotions."
"You're very observant, even by demigod standards." Chiron noted.
because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.
"That's what we all thought to." Chris sighed.
"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.
He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me,
Everyone winced, and Katie asked, "Really? Luke might be upset, but I doubt he would have taken it out on you."
"Not the first time someone had pulled a switchblade on me." Percy grumbled, and the demigods frowned.
"Ex-stepfather?" Leo asked, but Percy shook his head, "Nah. Bullies in school. But my ADHD kind of got me out that skirmish."
but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."
"The wing-footed messenger guy."
Apollo nearly fell out of his chair; he was laughing so hard, "Wing... footed... messenger guy?! Percy, you're hilarious! I love you!"
The Stoll brothers were also cackling, as Hermes raised his eyebrow incredulously at Percy, "Really? At least Caduceus Guy would have been more reasonable!"
"Well, excuse me, just a few seconds ago, I thought I was going to die." Percy shook his head.
"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying Cabin Eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."
I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.
"He probably meant to call you a nobody." Michael sighed, "Luke was... tricky like that. He's always been a little hard to read."
"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.
"Once."
I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't.
"Gee, I wonder why." Thalia asked sarcastically. She hadn't even been in the house when Luke met his father, but the sounds and the eerie green lights had been enough to freak her out.
I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.
"No." Hermes looked sad, and his children tried to comfort him.
Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."
"That's fresh, coming from you." Katie growled, "It always sounds better when Percy is the one saying it."
"Maybe because Percy actually means it." Will grumbled, still angry at how many friends he had lost due to Luke's actions, even if it was somewhat justifiable in a twisted, warped way.
He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me.
"Er... Percy?" Grover spoke up, "I'm not sure about other schools, but in Yancy, you weren't uncool. You'd actually have a lot more friends if you didn't decide to hang out with me."
Percy grinned cheekily, and pointed to his friends, "The only mental-case kids I want to be friends with are these!"
"Aww!" The demigods chorused, until they realized what exactly Percy had said, "Hey!"
Percy snickered under his breath as Annabeth smacked him lightly.
But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.
"Honestly, yeah. That's really depressing to think about." Annabeth sighed, before realizing that Luke's betrayal had hit Percy much harder than she had thought.
Luke had been the first, heck, only person in Camp Half-Blood to welcome him with open arms, no questions asked, and then he nearly killed him with poison, and a mere year later, tried to skewer him twice onboard his cruise ship. No wonder he was so angry whenever she talked about how him.
I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material.
"Not joking." Clarisse grinned, "Actual Big Three material."
"Aww, I didn't know you cared!" Percy grinned, but Clarisse scowled at him, with an amused glint in her eyes, "Don't be silly, Prissy, or I'd run you through with my spear!"
Then Annabeth… twice, she said I might be 'the one.'
Aphrodite wiggled her eyebrows at Annabeth, and Piper mimed gagging, much to Silena's amusemnet.
She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"
Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."
"We all do." The demigods grumbled. They had two prophecies that determined the fate of the world, and while most of them had only been minorly involved in both wars, Jason, Percy and Annabeth had taken the brunt of both prophecies.
Jason and Piper both cringed; one of them had been fated to die through a prophecy, and they still hated that.
Apollo nodded sympathetically.
"Aren't you the God of Prophecies? How can you hate prophecies?" Artemis raised an eyebrow questioningly; Apollo loved to boast about how he defeated Python (at least, the first time). The second time had been mentally scaring for all of them.
"Hey! How would you feel if you got turned into a powerless mortal, and then you have to work through about half a dozen prophecies?" Apollo shot back, "All in the span of six months!"
"Man, that sucks, dude." Percy whistled, "We only had like... one or two... or three prophecies a year, maximum."
"What do you mean?"
His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests.
Hermes sighed. He just wanted Luke to go on an easy quest so that he would be safe from harm. He really hadn't expected Luke to get so upset.
Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle.
"And you told her... why?" Athena asked.
Chiron sighed, "How would you feel if an eleven year old came to you several times a day asking to go on a quest?"
Annabeth turned red, "I was really annoying, wasn't I?"
"No, you weren't." Chiron stated kindly, "Anyone would get tired of staying at camp all the time, especially a child of the Goddess of Strategy and Warfare."
He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until…somebody special came to the camp."
"Somebody special?"
Aphrodite squealed, and Zeus' eyebrow ticked.
"Put a sock in it." Athena grumbled, "You don't have to screech like that all the time!"
"I have duct tape! If anyone wants it?" Leo offered, but no one took him up on his offer of duct taping the Goddess of Love's mouth shut, but demigods were on the verge of laughing, remembering how they were told that Nike had been gagged and shoved into the stables.
"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for.
"Honestly, if I were told that, I would too." Piper admitted, "Not the most patient kid in the world."
Now, come on, it's dinnertime."
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.
"I never understood that." Percy stated, and Triton rolled his eyes, "The shell came from the sea. Anyone with the blood of the sea would instinctively know these things."
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.
Artemis smiled at the mention of her cabin.
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.
"Dryads." Juniper smiled, thinking about her sisters, before she turned to Percy, "I don't think I noticed you on your first day."
I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.
In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.
Reyna frowned, "That little?"
"Yeah. But at the point in time, a hundred campers was considered a lot." Chris sighed, "But we have a lot more campers now."
They knew that their numbers had expanded, if Jason, Piper, and Leo's words were correct, but still, the Romans found it hard to imagine that at one point, the Greeks maxed out at half the Romans, and suddenly, Reyna felt bad that she thought the gods favored the Greeks.
The Greeks might get better equipment, but that was because there were just so few of them that they needed everything they got so their numbers didn't just drop like flies.
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.
"That sounds very nice." Hermes commented.
Four of the tables were empty, but Cabin Eleven's was way overcrowded.
Hermes immediately frowned, "Except for that. Really, the cabins are one thing, but tables!?"
Apollo reached over to pat his friend on the back, "It's alright. All the kids are getting claimed, so your kids get more space."
As an added bonus, Apollo winked, "I've been there, after all."
I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.
The demigods all looked upset at the memory of the Hermes cabin being so full with unclaimed kids that they had nowhere to sleep properly, and nowhere to sit comfortably during meal times. Thank the gods for Percy and his selflessness.
I saw Grover sitting at table Twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr D.
Pollux started tearing up at the mention of he and his twin brother, and Aphrodite was nice enough to conjure up a tissue box for him.
"Thank you, Lady Aphrodite." Pollux's lip trembled, wiping his tears away, "I'm fine... I'm fine..."
He sniffled, and Dionysus pulled him in closer, while Dakota reached over to comfort his half-brother.
Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.
Hephaestus frowned, "Well, that's not right. Perhaps we can make one that's more suited for you."
"No, it's alright." Chiron tried to argue, but Jake turned to Chiron, "Nope. We're making a centaur-sized table, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
Annabeth sat at table Six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.
"You know, I've always wondered." Malcolm asked, "Mother has black hair, so why do we all get blonde hair?"
"I never really thought about that before." Annabeth admitted, and all the demigods turned to Athena for an answer.
"I believe I was hoping that if you looked slightly different from me, the spiders might leave you alone." Athena sighed, "Not that it really helped."
Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.
"You just had to remind us." Clarisse grumbled, and Percy grinned at her, "You're welcome!"
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!"
"To us!" Apollo and Hermes conjured up two cups of nectar, and raised them, before they started snickering like idiots.
Artemis shook her head in exasperation, while the demigods all snickered at the two childish gods.
Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue!
"Someone's hungry." Connor laughed, "But really, the barbecue is awesome!"
Travis nodded, "As much as I get to eat junk food outside of camp, I really miss eating in the dining pavilion with you guys!"
"So sentimental." Chris jeered playfully, and Annabeth laughed, "Well, once university lets out, we can all go back to Camp for a reunion."
My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—non-alcoholic, of course."
Dionysus huffed, eliciting snickers from the demigods and other gods.
I said, "Cherry Coke."
The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.
Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."
Aphrodite cooed, and Hera smiled at Percy.
The boy just shrunk into his bean bag, uncomfortable with the fact that one of his least favorite goddesses was smiling at him.
"Mama's boy." Thalia laughed, cheering Percy up immediately, "Well, she pretty much mothers over all of you as well! Don't single me out!"
The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.
I took a cautious sip. Perfect.
I drank a toast to my mother.
"Why toast?" Leo asked, "Toast is bread, but you're talking about a drink."
"English is weird." Clarisse sighed and rolled her eyes, "Don't think about it too much, or your head would explode."
She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday…
"Then someday, you'd be visiting my realm more times than you should." Hades grumbled good-naturedly, and Poseidon paled at the thought of Percy being in the Underworld more than once.
"We really should get you a fast pass or something." Nico joked, and Percy nodded, "Sure."
"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.
I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.
"Okay, really? Dessert before we've even started the meal?" Annabeth looked confused, and Percy shrugged, "Well, considering everything else, I'd think that's pretty normal."
"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.
Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."
"I still can't wrap my head around that." Percy frowned, "I like good smelling stuff as much as anybody else... but you guys are like... immortal, all-powerful beings... that likes the smell of burning food."
The demigods all snickered; when he put it like that... it did sound absolutely ridiculous.
"You're kidding."
"Not kidding." Apollo grinned.
His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.
The demigods laughed at how similar their Percy was to his twelve year old self. Even after two wars, it seems like he hadn't changed all that much.
Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."
I was next.
I wished I knew what god's name to say.
Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.
Amphitrite frowned, "You did tell him, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did." Poseidon looked at her, confused, "You thought I wouldn't claim him?"
"No, but I thought you'd claim him the second he entered camp. What are you waiting for?"
"So Percy could make some friends and be more comfortable in camp before he was moved out into my cabin?" Poseidon replied.
I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.
When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.
"Why would you?" Aphrodite asked.
It smelled nothing like burning food.
"Oh."
It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did.
"Weird taste, but I approve." Jason grinned, and the Son of Jupiter and the Son of Poseidon gave each other air-fist bumps.
I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.
"Someone had tried before." Artemis looked pointedly at Apollo, who just shrugged, "Hey, it was worth a try! I needed to know!"
When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.
"You really should stop doing that." Triton turned to Chiron, "It's bad for your hooves. You have a conch shell. Use that instead during meal times."
Mr D 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."
Ares cheered, "Yeah! My kids are the best!"
A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.
"You really should expand your vocabulary." Chris stated, sparing a glance at Clarisse, "I think all your descriptions that involved the Ares Cabin contained the word "ugly" in it."
The Stoll brothers and Leo snickered.
"Personally," Mr D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."
"Really? It's his first day, at least get his name right so the others know what to call him." Demeter rolled her eyes, "You need more cereal in your diet."
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."
"The campfire and sing-alongs aren't silly." Apollo frowned at Dionysus, offended, but the wine god waved him off, "You stay at their camp, and see how you like it."
Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along.
"Do other cabins take turns?" Reyna asked, and Will shrugged, "Usually, no. The Apollo campers like it, but if too many of us are busy in the infirmary or something, the Aphrodite kids or Hermes kids would come and help us."
We sang camp songs about the gods and ate marshmallows and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.
"Probably because Prissy was so small and scrawny, and no one could see him in the dark." Clarisse said snarkily, "Plus, he was unimportant."
Percy glared at her, but there was no heat behind his gaze. Clarisse grinned back at him toothily.
Poseidon sighed. He was about to punish Clarisse for calling his son "unimportant", but seeing his son's reaction, he could tell that they were just joking around for fun.
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.
"First day is always overwhelming. You see everything, and don't realize how tired you are because you just have no idea what's going on." Katie sighed.
My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.
"That's adorable!" Aphrodite cooed, and Athena groaned.
"Mother! He was twelve, leave him be!" Piper spoke up, and Aphrodite smiled, "Of course I know that! But it's adorable! His love for his mother!"
Piper sighed, and nearly facepalmed.
When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.
That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.
I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.
"Sounds ominous." Triton commented dryly, as the demigods and gods shared a look. They knew what was coming up: Percy's quest to retrieve Zeus' master bolt, and getting Hade's Helm of Darkness back from Ares, though very few people knew about that aspect of the quest.
"So... who would like to read next?" Hestia asked, and Hades sighed, "I will, sister."
He was probably going to get annoyed at all the interruptions, but the smile on his sister's face was more than enough to make up for it; she was always telling him that he should try to interact more with his family.
Hades teleported the book into the palm of his hand, and flipped it open.
