Hello readers, I've got the next 11 weeks free to do whatever so I'm writing. I'm starting this because it's been in the works for SO long. I've had this idea since MARCH, it's insane I haven't done anything about it yet. Also, a quick warning about coarse language, like all my fics (or 90% of them) cursing is included. But whatever, I'm here and writing it now. So with further adieu, ON WITH THE FANFIC!!
Percy Pov (1st pov)
I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food. I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.
When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"
I managed to croak, "What?"
She looked around, as if afraid someone would over-hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."
Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding. The next time I woke up, the girl was gone. A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.
When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest.
My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt. On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.
"Careful," a familiar voice said.
Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, not the goat boy.
So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And…
"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... Well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."
Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap. Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.
"The Minotaur," I said.
"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"
"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."
Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"
"My mom. Is she really …" I trailed off.
He looked down.
I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight. My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.
"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world." He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.
"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.
Thunder rolled across the clear sky. As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.
But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light. I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something. Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.
I said, "It wasn't your fault."
"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you." He sniffled.
"Did my mother ask you to protect me?" I asked.
"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."
"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swim-ming.
"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips. I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy.
My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay. Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.
"Was it good?" Grover asked.
I nodded.
"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.
"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste it."
His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."
"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home-made."
He sighed. "And how do you feel?"
"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."
"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."
"What do you mean?"
He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."
The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse. My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go. As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath. We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance.
Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture-an open-air pavilion, an amphitheatre, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. I noticed a guy who looked slightly older than me make his way toward the house. He had bleached blonde hair with black roots and sun-kissed skin that quite literally sparkled in the sun, he also had this crazy looking scar running from his left cheekbone down his face, neck and finally trailing down his collar. In addition he wore the same orange attire as the others.
Some more kids shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings. Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavoured pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them, she waved at the platinum haired kid that continued his trek towards the big house, only nodding back.
The man facing me at the table was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.
"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody, except for Deiros that is. And you already know Chiron..." He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.
First, I realised he was sitting in a wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.
"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.
The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."
"I call bullshit." A strangely accented voice call from behind me, I turned and saw the blonde boy from before, getting a closer look I saw he was tall, like 6 feet tall, with maroon eyes, and he was what I guessed girls called handsome with a strong jawline, high cheekbones, and sharp features. And man did that scar look wicked!
"Language, Hector!" Mr Brunner called. But as he called it, the guy flickered, like he was a hologram or something then he just disintegrated. Someone screamed, I'm pretty sure it was
me and I, panic stricken, turned back to Mr Brunner who just shook his head and nodded towards one of the previously empty seats where the blonde guy sat shuffling a pack of cards as though he hadn't just turned to smoke.
"Sorry Mr C, I'm still working on retaining them for longer. Anyway, best be off soon, Eth wants to race me on the climbing wall. Or at least that's what I got from, "Get your Australian ass to the climbing wall in 20 minutes or else we'll be used as human targets in sword skills later!" Eth's words not mine!" He quickly finished at the sight of Mr Brunner's glare, before he added, "But I can stick around long enough to introduce myself to the new kid."
This guy, Hector guess his name is, turned to me, smiling.
"I'm Hector Medeiros, but you can call me Deiros. Welcome to camp Half-Blood. I'm from the Hermes cabin, I'm kinda the head counsellor for the unclaimed and minor patron kids, nice to meet you. If you have any questions about camp, hit me up, and if you have any dreams and or nightmares you want to chat about, I'm your guy, son of Phobetor, you know, it's kinda my thing." He said, doing what I assumed was his version of an introduction to camp.
"Phoblatsa? Who's that?" I asked, I think his accent was making it even harder to understand. Surprisingly I saw anger and annoyance flash across his features before I blinked and his ruggedly charming grin had returned.
"Ah, yeah, I guess my accent kinda stuffed it up for you, hey?" He rubbed his neck sheepishly but I had the feeling it might have been fake, "Yeah no issues man, Phebator, I won't spell it out for you but I can do it phonetically, F-aw-v-EE-t-aw-r. Yeah, weird, I know. But yeah I'm the son of the Lord of Nightmares, and Fear. I'm also a legacy of Ares, first generation. So I'm technically, 75% god." He finished.
Hector Pov (1st pov)
Wow, this kid knows NOTHING, well at least Annabeth will have all summer to beat it into him. I thought, laughing internally at the thought of the blonde daughter of Athena hitting the kid in the back of the head with a book yelling, "It's not that hard! Urgh! Seriously! Again! There are 12 Olympians! Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes and Dionysus!".
"Well, I must be off. Cabin 11 is still with cabin 6 for CTF on Friday, right?" I asked Annabeth. She faced me and nodded before saying,
"Yeah, you better be ready this time though, not delaying the game complaining, "I didn't have time to sharpen my sword, give me ten minutes!" Seriously, we can't have that, it was so embarrassing!" I smirked and turned away before replying,
"Of course, we wouldn't want to embarrass you and your cabin aka stressing you all out right before a match so there are multiple flaws in your plan, meaning cabin 11 has multiple opportunities to get the flag ourselves, I mean what kind of sociopath would do that!?" Annabeth froze, clearly trying to process the sarcastically stated betrayal. Key word, trying.
With that I quickly turned and sprinted towards the climbing wall. As I reached the wall I heard a familiar scream of rage and someone yelling, "HECTOR" In the distance, I truly wondered who that could be?
"Come on Eth! Surely you can be better than that!"
"It's pretty hard to do that when you're somehow faster than half of Hermes' kids. Gods, I don't even know how you do that." He called back.
"Why don't you both get your asses down here so the rest of us can have a go!?"
"How about get fucked?! Nah, nah, sorry, no one would want to do that, I'm not going to force a random lady, or gent to do that. How about, fuck off then?"
"How about I climb up there, kick your asses and drag you both down here!?"
"If you can catch me!"
"Hey, hey! I'm not a part of this, I just lost, I'm getting down!"
"You betrayed me, Eth!? How could you!"
"I didn't betray you! I'm just keeping the balance!"
"You and your fucking balance, seriously."
Honestly not the best line to end a chapter on but in my defence, this chapter was originally about 3 times longer. I split it up because I felt like I needed to make it short enough so that I could slowly increase chapter lengths. I don't want my first chapter to be 7000 words and my second only 3000 if you know what I mean. At some point I will be writing about 10k words a chapter but it depends how well the fanfic does. Anyway, I hope this was enjoyable. Cya next time.