Ivy Abernathy's POV
So after traveling hundreds of miles on Gary, unwillingly kidnapping various people, and following a grouchy old man with goat legs, that image is still seared into my brain, we've finally arrived at our mysterious destination. Where there is a ginormous dragon wrapped around a tree and guards who were wearing an ancient style of armor. At first, I was just hoping it was some sort of reenactment camp with really cool special effects. But, then a glowing red symbol appeared right over Lydia's head, two crossed spears and the head of a boar, which was brown and much more wild looking than Gary, I knew that this place was as strange and unexplainable as Marie.
A few more guards rushed over to Lydia's collapsed body and carried her away, much to Rebekah's hysteria. She almost tackled one of the guards holding Lydia's feet, but Cameron, thankfully held her back. One guard, a girl who looked slightly older than me with short blonde hair and a strong build, approached us and motioned for us to follow her. She led us to this large blue house, on the porch was a man riding a horse, at least that's what I thought until I got closer. From waist up he was a bearded, middle aged man wearing a dress shirt and a twead jacket with patches on the elbow, but from the waist down here was the body of a magnificent white stallion. He was a centaur, and I began to wonder if Marie was secretly sneaking something into our meals because now I was officially hallucinating.
"Hello, my name is Chiron, normally I do not show my full form to newcomers, but seeing the type of creature that followed you here, I believe I am not the strangest thing you seen during your trip. Come inside, and don't worry about your friend, she is sleeping in the infirmary under the care of our medics." We followed the centaur inside and sat down on the available couch and chairs.
"Seeing that none of you have been claimed yet, to my knowledge, tell me your names, ages, and who your parent is." I blanched. How did he know Ian and I only had one parent?
Cameron, who looked around seeing that no one else was eager to go first, spoke up, "Well, my name is Cameron Valparaiso. I do have a single parent, my mom, Helen Valparaiso. She's a defense lawyer in Portland, Oregon where I'm also from obviously." Chiron nodded at him and, of course, gestured for me to go next,"My name is Ivrene Abernathy, but you better call me Ivy, and this is my brother, Ian," Ian mouthed 'thank you' to me, "Our dad is a law professor at Harvard. What a coincidence? His name is Richard Abernathy, but he prefers Rick." I concluded, feeling rather uncomfortable.
Chills sprinted up my spine when I heard Marie start talking, "My name is Maria Billows, but I'm better known as Marie. My mother is Soulle and my step-father is Gregory James. I have two little brothers, Matthew, who's four, and Nathan, who's one. Oh, and if I'm correct, I should have a sister in around two years. For the past year or so, I've been living with my grandma and step-grandpa, Jose and Cassandra Ramirez."
She always finds new ways to disturb me. How does she do it?
I looked over at Rebekah, but she seemed more interested in the floor than introducing herself. But then, Cameron nudged her and with a great sigh, she began, "I'm Rebekah Ben-Yosef. If that is too much of a mouthful, Bekah will do just fine. I have two loving parents, David and Anna. I have two older siblings, Joshua and Sarah, and three younger, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Rachel. My whole family is Jewish... I don't live with them though anymore, they sort of kicked me out when I converted to Christianity two years ago." We were all silent and just looked at her. Bekah saw our discomfort and quickly added, "Don't worry. I've been living with Lydia since then and things have been great."
"So, why exactly are we all here?" Ian demanded. That had been his favorite question all day. Chiron cleared his throat and stated bluntly,
"I believe you all deserve the plain truth. You're demigods."
Bekah paled, Marie muttered, "I thought so.", Cameron gave Chiron a look of pure confusion, Ian tensed as if he had just been tazered, and I personally didn't want to know what my facial expressions were because at this point, I didn't know what to believe.
"Isn't that what the old goat called us?" Cameron asked. This caused Chiron to smirk.
"Ah yes, Tumnus. He has quite the personality. Takes a lot to warm up to him. Most never do though. You see, demigods are half mortal and half god." Bekah abruptly stood up at this, interrupting Chiron,
"I'm going to go check on Lydia." Then, she sprinted out of the house. Cameron and I stood up to go follow her, but Chiron motioned for us to sit back down.
"It's okay. I figured she wouldn't take the news well especially since she said she's a Christian and being Jewish doesn't help her case either. Just give her some space. Anyway, from what you four have told me, you all have one biological parent and you've probably always wondered who your other parent was, am I correct in saying this?" We all shrugged and nodded. Chiron continued, "I have already been given the news that... Lydia Dollen, was it? Has been claimed by Ares and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before you're claimed also. For now, I will have Travis and Conner Stoll show you to the Hermes cabin where you will stay until you are determined. They can answer any further questions you have. When you find Rebekah, she'll need to go there too unless she is claimed beforehand."
Then, two tall, brown haired guys entered the room, they both almost looked like twins. But, something told me that wasn't the case. Being a twin myself, I could normally tell.
"Look, I'd love to see our new cabin, but I feel we should go find Bekah. She's obviously not handling the news well." I reasoned.
"Where do you think she went?" Travis questioned.
"Didn't she say she was going to find Lydia in the infirmary?" Cameron asked. I nodded.
Conner clapped his hands together and announced, "Okay then. To the infirmary it is. Good luck trying to get past Will Solace though. He's quite protective of his patients." So, we all headed towards the infirmary and Conner was right. What we found was quite the sight to see. Bekah seemed to be on the verge of strangling a blonde haired boy who must've been Will Solace. He was making quite the effort to be an efficient blockade of the entrance, but that wasn't slowing Bekah down. Strangely enough, there was also a pale, skinny boy with raven black hair and an aviator's jacket on, who was trying to pull Bekah off of the unlucky healer.
"Bekah! Stop! Heel!" I exclaimed. Bekah was so shocked by my blatant remarks that she actually obeyed. Will and the other boy gave a sigh of relief. Bekah stalked over to me and growled,
"They won't let me see Lydia."
"I don't think that gives you the right to harass them." Ian remarked.
"Says the person who kidnapped us." Bekah muttered under her breath. Ian coldly glared in her direction. Low blow.
"Bekah? Did you ask the nice boys kindly if you could see your best friend?" Cameron inquired.
"I was friendly enough." Bekah grumbled. Will approached them scratching the back of his head timidly before saying,
"If by nicely you mean, marched up to me and demanded to see her friend or else, well, then she was as friendly as could be."
Cameron met Bekah's eyes and stated, "Shame on you." This caused us all to smirk. All except for Bekah and the other boy. Suddenly, Marie spoke, "Oh. So you're Nico." We had all forgotten she was there. The boy, who I assume was Nico, jumped at this statement. I don't blame him.
"How do you know that?" Nico questioned cautiously.
"She can see the future." I answered.
"My theory is that," then Cameron started to sing very off tune,
"She sees you when you're sleeping,
She knows when your awake,
She knows when you've been bad or..."
"It's not Christmas! Please stop!" Ian proclaimed in exasperation. It was a good theory though.
"Rude." Cameron retorted. Then, Marie put a hand on Cameron's shoulder saying,
"Christmas happens to be my favorite holiday." Cameron looked like he was beginning to regret his theory.
"Bekah," Connor Stoll began awkwardly, "I know you want to see your friend, but you should probably have a proper tour of the camp first. Lydia's in safe hands, but if you're really worried about her, I can stay here with Will and Nico until she wakes up." I notice Conner and Travis share a knowing glance before Conner added, "So that Lydia is not alone when I give her the tour, I need Ian to stay here also and I'm not giving you the option not to." Ian and Bekah both looked as if they were ready to explode.
"Why does the world hate me?" Ian exclaims.
"He gets to stay and not me?" Bekah shouted.
But Conner seemed set on his decision, I could tell there's something going on that they were not telling us about, but after we listened to another five minutes of Bekah ranting and Ian complaining, we set off on our separate ways. Following Travis to a large cluster of cabins, we eventually made our way to the most normal looking out of them."Welcome to the Hermes cabin. This is where you'll be staying until you are claimed. Now, onto business. Bekah, the reason why we didn't allow you to stay with your friend is because we wanted you to be in on our next legendary prank. The reason why we had Ian stay behind is because he is our lucky contestant!" Travis explained with great enthusiasm.
Looking around at everyone's reactions to this revelation, I quickly observed that everyone was grinning widely. This was just the thing to lift our spirits."Now, do we have any ideas from the group?" Travis asked. Marie raised her hand and we all turned our surprised attention to her,
"Like my grandpa always said, you can never go wrong with honey and feathers. It's a classic."
"Well, I know how Ian loves classics." I commented. From the glint in Travis' eye, we could tell he loved the plan. Before we knew it, everything was set up, now all we had left to do was wait for our prey.
Fifteen minutes later, we looked out the cabin window and saw Ian approaching the cabin with a look of impatience marked clearly on his face, with Conner and Lydia trailing behind him. Conner seemed to be taking his time, slowing down Lydia in the process. The moment Ian reached the door, our intake of breath was synchronized. The bucket full of honey seemed to fall in slow motion, with a pillow case filled with multi-colored feathers following in suit. Ian was soon the prettiest hen in the coop.
"You know, Ian. It's a good look on you." Bekah remarked. After that, we doubled over in laughter. Tears were streaming down our faces, I noticed Ian cracking a smile as well. After the day we had, we all needed a good laugh.
Lydia and Conner finally made it to the cabin and Lydia stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Ian's condition. With an expression of the purest glee, she whispered with awe, "Is it my birthday? Because this is too good to be true." Ian turned to Lydia in all his feathery glory and stated, "Actually, it happens to be my birthday." It was still our birthday? It was in that moment when the exhaustion from this very long day seemed to catch up with me.
"Well, I know that people go through phases when they get older, but this seems to be a bit extreme, doesn't it?" Lydia responded rhetorically.
Travis went up to Ian and said, "Well, you better get cleaned up because we've got to head over to Capture the Flag in ten minutes. Bathrooms are over here. Hurry, hurry. Hermes and Ares are on one team."
"Oh and that reminds me, you were claimed by Ares, Lydia. So, you better go find Clarisse. She'll find some nice way to initiate you. Come with me." Conner informed Lydia, who looked quite shocked and confused, but she followed him out of the cabin, shooting on last worried look to Bekah before exiting.
Ian somehow washed off his new style in record time. Then, Travis led us down to a forested area where the game must be located. Capture the Flag was one of my favorite games, so I was fairly excited. It usually required some strategy, which was more Ian's strong suit, but it'd be a fun challenge.
I assumed everything was going to be normal, it was just a fun camp game, right?
But, that was until they handed me a sword...