As before, I'm merely a respectful demigod trying to bring more tales of Camp Half-Blood to the general public. I don't own the Percy Jackson series, Camp Half-Blood, Delphi Strawberry Service (although I doubt Mr. D. wants it much), Star Wars, any of the works of Jimmy Buffett or the Bee Gees, or indeed anything but the---um---obviously fictitious plot and characters. And now, on with the chapter:
Chapter 3: We are Orientated
So, to recap, Flint was a goat (or, at least, 2/3 goat), Argus had eyes all over his body, and the Greek gods were real. And I thought last Friday was crazy.
Still, since we'd entered the borders of Camp Half-Blood, an odd change had come over me. My mind had cleared immensely—I felt like I'd gotten ten hours of sleep—and somehow I felt more intelligent, don't ask me how, like my brain was working a bit more quickly. Along with that came an increasingly strong feeling that Flint was telling the truth—improbable as it seemed, I was becoming more and more convinced that the Greek myths were true, just as he'd told me.
We extricated ourselves from the van, which had parked at the base of a hill seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with some difficulty. Flint waved to Argus, who waved back, the eyes on his palm regarding us cheerfully, and threw the van into gear, after which it rambled out of sight over the hill. "Well, come on, then!" said Flint bracingly. "We're almost there!"
He led us over the top of the hill and paused as we straggled up to join him. Then, with a grandiose sweep of his arm, he said with the air of a master of ceremonies, "Well, here we are!"
My eyes followed his gesture, and my knees nearly buckled again as I caught sight of the amazing vista spread out before us in the valley. An invisible Greek chorus seemed to ring in my ears (and probably did, if I was to believe everything Flint had told me) as I drank in the sight.
It looked like a Greek island had somehow drifted over from the Mediterranean and attached itself to New York. Sun-drenched olive trees grew throughout the valley, smoke rose peacefully from pristine, white Parthenon-style buildings, and sparkling, clear blue rivers wound its way between it all, tumbling into waterfalls and rapids as they made their way toward Long Island Sound. I noticed a few other things that didn't seem quite so classical, as well – an official-looking house painted red and white that had to be three or four stories tall sat to our right near what appeared to be a volleyball court with a game in progress. A few yards downhill of our current position was a huge strawberry field, which explained the van we'd come in (why the Greek gods would want to run a strawberry farm in the middle of a training ground for heroes, exactly, I had no idea.) There even seemed to be a few minor mountains lining the valley, which seemed a bit out of place on the East Coast. One of the tallest hills had a single tree on it, a supercolossal deep green pine that appeared to have a dragon wrapped around its trunk. I rolled my eyes in disbelief.
A warm breeze whipped through my hair, bringing the delicious scent of sun-baked strawberries with it. The sound glittered, gentle waves endlessly rolling onto the beach. Flint looked at the valley and grinned, his cheerful, jesting tone fully recovered as he said grandly, "Allow me to officially welcome you to Camp Half-Blood!"
"…'Keeping young heroes safe (mostly) for over three millennia,'" Biagio read off of the brochure. He raised an eyebrow at that, but was clearly just as enchanted by the view as I was. "My goodness, this place is just paradise!" he added, sounding incongruously like a snowbird reaching Florida.
I felt the same way, I had to admit – Camp Half-Blood felt like another world, but seemed like home at the same time. The sense of déjà vu I'd had all day felt overwhelmingly strong here. I grinned as well – as crazy as the whole idea sounded, maybe I was a demigod after all.
Flint kicked off his sneakers, going into goat mode again (it was still just totally bizarre to see him with hooves) and rummaged in one of his many pockets, eventually coming up with a set of reed Pan-pipes. He blew a few notes that sounded oddly like the beginning of "Stayin' Alive," finishing with a wild flourish, then returned the pipes to his pocket and turned back to Biagio and me, who were still gazing rapturously down at the Camp. "That was to summon Grover Underwood, the number-one satyr around here," he explained. "He's gonna be stoked when he hears that two more campers have turned up, not even chewed on by the Nemean Lion or anything." I looked at him askance, as usual unsure whether he was joking or not, but he was staring off into the forest and didn't notice. "Ah, good. Here he comes now."
Sure enough, within a few seconds a taller satyr manifested himself a few feet away from us, I couldn't tell exactly, and walked over to Flint to shake his hand. "Hey, Flint! You found some more?"
He turned and regarded us appraisingly. Grover seemed to be a year or two older than Flint. He was taller and thinner, and had a perpetually nervous look in his eyes, the same look Flint had gotten when we were attacked by the Fury. He looked more like I pictured satyrs than Flint did – his curly horns, shaggy legs and hooves made him look vaguely wild, and he had a short beard and sideburns. He was wearing what looked like an official Camp T-shirt – it was fluorescent orange with CAMP HALF-BLOOD and a Pegasus logo in black – and Bermuda shorts, which didn't go well with the goat feet. He gave us another once-over, raising an eyebrow at Biagio's getup, and nodded. "Well, welcome to camp, you two. Your journey was okay? Not too many ravenous monsters?"
We looked at each other, honestly not sure how to answer that one, but he pressed on. "My meeting just got out, so I'd be happy to give you guys the grand tour. Flint, you're going to report the new arrivals to Mr. D? I saw a few more coming in about twenty minutes ago."
Flint sighed. "Whatever you say, G-man. I don't know why we bother, though—it'll just give him more time to think of new ways to get their names wrong." He rolled his eyes, gave us a parting wave and ran off into the valley, heading towards the farmhouse. We set off as well, following Grover down into the valley at a brisk pace. "So this Mr. D is, like, the head of camp or something?" I asked him. I had so many questions it was hard to know exactly where to start, but that seemed as good a place as any.
He nodded. "The director, yeah. Chiron—that's our activities director—does a lot more of the work, though—running the camp and training the heroes and so on. Mr. D isn't really your ambitious type, and he hates his job. Zeus sent him here as a punishment, and he's not happy about that, so he mainly stays in the Big House"—he pointed to the red-and-white farmhouse into which Flint had just disappeared—"drinking Diet Coke and griping. Do not tell him I said that, though," he added hastily with a noticeable wince, from which I inferred that however passive he might be, this Mr. D was still someone to watch out for. "You're going to be meeting him at the orientation meeting this evening with the other half-bloods who turned up today. Be respectful."
"What does the D stand for?" Biagio inquired, which was precisely what I'd made a point to avoid asking.
Grover inhaled nervously. "I'd better let him tell you that."
Meanwhile, my brain was still buzzing with questions. Zeus had sent Mr. D to camp? Zeus, as in the immortal king of the gods, the guy with the lightning bolts? I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that the Greek gods were real. A voice in the back of my head kept insisting, yeah, but it can't really be true, can it? On the other hand, though, I certainly couldn't think of any other explanation for what I'd seen that day. My gut lurched as I realized that if Flint was serious about Biagio and I being demigods that must mean that my mom— who I could never remember seeing— had been a goddess. There was nothing more unbelievable that anyone else could have told me.
By this point, we had reached the beginnings of a gravel trail that seemed to connect all the major buildings in the valley. Our feet crunching rhythmically along the path, we walked past the Big House, which was even more impressive up close—one of the biggest, sturdiest houses I'd ever seen.
"The Big House is the center of all operations here at Camp Half-Blood," Grover explained. "The staff lives there, of course, and it's where we hold all of our quest meetings, war councils, and pinochle games."
"Pinochle?!?" Biagio spluttered, doing an impressive double take. I began to wonder if either of us would say anything that wasn't an interrogative sentence for the next few days.
"It's a favorite of Mr. D and Chiron," Grover said, with an oddly serious air. "You can both expect to get roped into a game sooner or later."
Luckily, I reflected, I actually knew how to play. My grandmother had taught me three or four years ago during a lethargic summer afternoon, and we'd whiled away several enjoyable hours on her back porch in Virginia, drinking tall, icy glasses of lemonade and obsessively keeping track of the score. Camp Half-Blood was the last place I would have expected the card game to turn up in my life again, but I was quickly learning not to take anything for granted. I relaxed, enjoying the feel of the late afternoon sun on my face, and reminded myself that camp counselors with a fondness for pinochle were hardly the weirdest things I'd run into all day.
We continued along the gravel trail, beginning to move up a gentle incline. As we turned a corner, we ran into a huge, heavyset, scruffy-looking kid about six and a half feet tall—he looked like a member of our undefeated varsity football team back home—sweeping the path industriously with a tree branch. Grover's breath sped up abruptly and he started looking nervous again—that is, more nervous than usual. "Oh hey, Tyson. How's it going?"
"Hello, goat boy," said Tyson amiably, in a voice that sounded like it had been hooked up to a subwoofer. He turned to us with interest. "You two are new?" We both nodded.
"Yes!" he said enthusiastically, making us both jump at the unexpected noise. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. You will have fun!"
He moved on, humming a tune that sounded like a moderate avalanche in progress. Grover shuddered, but gave him a half wave.
"That's Tyson the Cyclops, a son of Poseidon," he explained. "He turned up a few years ago—he's Percy's half-brother—and he helps out around camp, making weapons and so on. He's proven himself as a hero, too, no doubt about that. Satyrs and Cyclopes just don't…get along so well…"
"CYCLOPS?" said Biagio and I in shocked unison, one of our rare moments of agreement. Suddenly I realized that Tyson had, indeed, only had one eye, which somehow hadn't registered with me until then.
Grover looked surprised at our reaction. "Well, yeah. Is that really so hard to believe after seeing Argus?"
Neither of us responded, realizing that he had a point. We kept walking in silence for a few moments. I couldn't help wondering what my life at camp would be like with heroes, satyrs, and monsters for cabin mates. It was never easy adjusting to a new environment, I reflected, but this time had to take the cake.
We stumbled over the top of the rise and found ourselves looking down at a group of smaller buildings painted in a wild variety of colors, arranged in a rough rectangle around a central commons. About half of these buildings were a bit smaller than the others, and seemed to be in the process of being constructed. I wasn't sure why some of them were still being built, but I guessed that I was looking at the cabins.
"Well, welcome to our own little pantheon, right here on Long Island! There's one cabin for the kids of each Olympian god," said Grover, proving my suspicions correct. "Plus one for Hades, and those ones under construction down at the other end are going to be for the minor gods. See how many of them you can guess."
We walked into the commons area between the cabins, and I got to take a closer look at the strange collection of buildings. The two nearest to us were also the largest, two huge marble buildings with golden doors. The first, with a one over the door, had lightning bolts engraved around the windows. "Zeus, right?" I guessed.
"Right, cabin one. It's empty right now, but a daughter of Zeus named Thalia stays there occasionally. The one next to it is Hera, cabin two. 'Course the goddess of marriage can't go having affairs with mortals like all the rest, but she's never liked heroes to begin with—too many sons of Zeus for her taste—so we're careful to keep her cabin nice anyway."
The rest of the cabins formed two lines moving away from One and Two. The first on the left was blue-gray, and upon closer inspection proved to be covered in seashells. "Poseidon?" I surmised.
Flint nodded, and I moved on. The next cabin had a thatched roof and an impressive flowerbed out front, so I guessed that was Demeter. The one after that was made of red brick and its many chimneys were smoking, like a factory, and I could hear the sounds of ringing metal and good-natured joking coming from within. Hephaestus. Next to that was a low building of an ugly red, with a boar's head over the door and Green Day blasting out of the windows. Ouch, definitely Ares. The one after that was a beautifully-styled marble building with a fancy glass sculpture out front, a motto in Latin over the door, and a carving of an owl above that. It was obviously Athena's, and it looked awesome. I bet they had a great library in there, what with Athena being the goddess of wisdom and all. Then an odd thought occurred to me.
"Wait a minute—wasn't Athena one of those sworn virgins? Parthenos and all that?"
"Technically, you're right, but there're still a lot of Athena kids here," said Grover. "You remember she had that crush on Odysseus or whatever way back when, and how she was born from Zeus' head?"
"Ouch," I said automatically, as I did whenever I thought of that particular episode.
"Well, I don't know exactly how it works, but apparently her children are born from thoughts more or less the same way, with the other parent being mortals she admires intellectually. Annabeth Chase is the head counselor for Athena, and she's the most experienced camper here. I suppose…ah, it's nothing. Never mind."
I wondered what he'd been about to say, but I moved on, and was about to look at the next cabin when I heard a strangled yell coming from Biagio. I glanced worriedly over at him to see him shielding his face with a tuxedo-sleeved arm, and when I saw cabin seven I understood why. It was made of pure gold, and the sun glinted off of it something fierce. I quickly glanced away to avoid being blinded.
"Apollo?" said Biagio ruefully. Flint nodded. The next cabin didn't appear to have any distinguishing features, so I stood near it in confusion for a few moments, running down the list of gods I hadn't named yet.
"That's Artemis," said Grover, coming to my rescue. "It doesn't look like much now, but it glows all silvery in the moonlight. Of course, she doesn't have any kids."
The next cabin was a boxy building with large shutters, painted an…interesting shade of pink. A strong scent of perfume wafted from the windows.
"Aphrodite cabin?" I asked. Grover nodded.
Biagio sniffed the air appraisingly. "Alluring Elements 2002, morning rose, nicely aged," he said thoughtfully. "That line gets a great warmth and richness after a few years if it matures right, and it seems like they've let it breathe just the right amount…it's developed this sharp, clear tang to counterbalance the sweeter floral tones."
Grover looked at him askance, but for my part his speech only confirmed the popular school rumor that he owned more than 200 kinds of cologne.
"Um……yeah," said Grover after a few moments of silence. "Shall we move on, then?" I don't want to be petty or anything, but I have to say it was nice to see someone else at a loss for words for once. I had the feeling that demigod or no, Biagio was going to throw a few surprises into the Camp Half-Blood mix.
Cabin Eleven was a rough-hewn wooden building that looked like it had been through a lot over the years. The boards were bleached, buckled, and generally looked about ready to collapse. However, some scaffolding had gone up in one corner, so it seemed that the beleaguered cabin was about to undergo a facelift. Looking more closely, I spotted one of those medical-symbol things—the staff with the snakes wrapped around it—emblazoned above the doorway. "So that's, what, the infirmary or something?" I guessed.
Grover shook his head. "Nope, Hermes cabin. The caduceus is his symbol originally, and it's been adapted for medical stuff because he's the god of doctors. The cabin's so beat up because if we aren't sure who a demigod's godly parent is, they stay there—god of travelers, you know. You two will be sleeping there tonight if you aren't claimed by then. I actually have a pretty fair idea who both of your godly parents are, but we'll wait for them to make it official."
"So who…" said Biagio and I excitedly and in unison, as well I believe you would if you'd just learned your mother was a goddess but didn't yet know which one. And if you're reading this, the odds are good that you could be in that situation someday. Whatever the case, Grover waved a hand airily to cut us off.
"Now, now, I don't want to be the one to spoil the surprise! C'mon, let's see the rest of the cabins."
The final Olympian cabin—Dionysus—looked like a villa straight out of Tuscany, with a sun-baked terracotta roof and vines curling around the windows. The heady smell of aging merlot emanated from the building with a vengeance, and what sounded like an old disco hit floated out with it. Biagio nodded approvingly.
It couldn't have been more different from Cabin Thirteen, an imposing building of grimy black stone with a huge skull-and-spears design over the door. Just standing near it made the air feel ten degrees colder, despite (or was it because of?) the torches burning with a greenish flame set on either side of the doorway. All in all, it looked like a place that would make even our school's respectable crop of Goth kids a little nervous.
"Let me guess. Hades cabin," said Biagio after a moment's silence, his breath making a frosty cloud in the air. In April.
That's just ridiculous, I thought, then nearly suffered a heart attack as someone moved within the open doorway of the cabin. A short, dark-haired kid who looked a few years younger than I was sauntered nonchalantly out into the open and waved to us.
"Oh, hi Nico," said Grover, who I'd noticed had jumped a bit as well. "Guys, this is Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades. Nico—this is Jason and, um,"…
"Biagio," he supplied, looking a little insulted (though hardly anyone ever got his name right on the first try).
"And Biagio, two new guys Flint found this morning. I'm showing 'em around the cabins."
Nico nodded and waved at us with a friendly smile. I'd expected him to be one of those surly, death-obsessed kids because of the Hades connection, but he seemed like a good guy. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, you guys! I know you must be pretty confused about everything right now, but don't worry, if I can fit in here"—his face took on an ironic cast that hinted at a more complex interior character than he'd evidenced at first—"believe me, so can you two. Um, nice suit" (this directed at Biagio, of course, who nodded in a manner that seemed nonchalant but betrayed his hidden flattered-ness). "Grover, you shown them the arena and Arts and Crafts and all that?"
Grover glanced at the sky—an incredible sunset was in progression, reflecting off of the distant sound and making the camp look even more beautiful, if that was possible--like he was looking at a watch and nodded thoughtfully. "I was about to, but it's getting close to six now. Their orientation meeting should be—ah."
He was cut off by the blowing of a horn in the distance—it sounded like a conch shell or ram's horn; it had that oddly echoey quality—followed instantly by a voice that must have been magically magnified, an impatient, slightly slurred baritone that boomed out over the valley:
"Well, hurry up then! I don't have all day! Inconsiderate heroes. We're generous enough to bring you here, rescue you from monsters, and all that, and all you do is sit around and ignore us!"
The voice cut off with a snort, echoes still rebounding into the forest. I turned quizzically to Grover, who was looking nervous again. He gulped, then set off the way we'd come, beckoning for us to follow.
"It's time for you to meet the director."
Well, that concludes my latest chapter, and Jason and Biagio have arrived at Camp Half-Blood! I hope I portrayed camp to your satisfaction, as in my opinion it's one of the greatest parts of the Riordan originals. Let me know how I did!
An apology is in order to my Pokѐtopia readers. I didn't realize I was going to split this into two chapters, so I just kept working on it rather than getting back to Gathering of the Heroes. I'm getting right on it, don't worry!
Well, feel free to review as always, and welcome back to my story! More is forthcoming, including the introduction of several important characters, including of course Mr. D, and both Jason and Biagio getting claimed, all in the next chapter! The tension mounts…
Till we meet again!
--Μαησηνας