I can't take this anymore. Everybody has been acting weird since the 'beach incident', as I called it. They gave me a wide berth as I walk by, they don't speak to me unless necessary, they don't even look at me. Personally, I like my new found voodoo over water.

When it had happened, it had taken me quite a while to grasp on what had been going on, even longer to figure out that it had been my doing. A concerned Chiron had trotted to see what the fuss was about. One look at the drenched boys and the newbie in water, he immediately ordered the Apollo kids to attend to the sons of Ares and Hecate less they catch some kind of flu to spread around camp, before walking forward to ask me to follow him to his office, all the while looking like he was suppressing a grin.

I was internally scolding myself for getting into so much trouble when it had not been three weeks since I arrived in Camp Half-Blood, and that surely I'm facing some sort of expulsion they might give to troublesome campers. I was extremely surprised when I was lead, not to the office as Chiron had initially said, but to the ping pong slash meeting room. I had gotten a lot more nervous when the door opened to reveal the bunch of senior campers who had been staying during their summer break and had chosen to sit out of the game to do some much needed catching up.

They all looked up when Chiron and I came in, and immediately after, all their eyes turned to me. I recognized the Stoll twins, Percy, Annabeth and Thalia. But the rest of them were only mere flashes in my blurred memory of first introductions during the first week.

"Would you mind telling them what has happened at the beach?" Chiron asked in a gentle voice, no doubt sensing my nerves and dread. I looked back with confused eyes. Since when did we need a panel of judges for dealing with insignificant troubles? At least, it seemed to be a small problem to me.

"Well," I started, now focused on the perplexing situation that had just occurred, and it flashed by in my head like something out of a movie. "I had been patrolling the edges of our territory, and I heard a commotion going on by the creek due north of my position. Not a few seconds later, about ten or so campers ran through the forest and out onto the beach where I was patrolling. I recognized that they were all boys and that they were of Ares and Hecate from their armor, and I rushed to get out of their way by backing up into the sea. That was kind of where everything went slightly…bizarre!" I said and exclaimed, engrossed and totally curious about the mysterious situation I'd found myself in.

"What happened next?" Percy urged softly, green eyes intense as they stare back in mine, as if he was expecting a certain reply.

"I got defensive when I realized that they were aiming at me with their weapons. When I opened my eyes again, I was somehow further into the sea than I previously was, and the weird and funny thing was, the boys were all covered in seaweed!" my tone held a hint of hysterics towards the end, believing that they would have brush it off as an active imagination as I did myself.

What I didn't expect were serious eyes looking back, and the sudden side glances sent furiously to Percy. The minute I noticed those actions, I caught on.

"Oh no, no, guys, I'm not directly related to the gods," and now they were all staring at me incredulously, silently asking for another explanation for the 'beach incident'. "Calm down, no need to go running off to piss off some god," I laughed lightly, "I was told by my aunt when I came here that you guys was supposed to put me in the second generation area," I explained, "so I'm definitely not a spawn of that old – uh, I mean, Poseidon. Yeah, I'm not a daughter of Poseidon," I stumbled over my nickname for the sea god, so used to my habit of calling insults whenever the situation allows.

"Who is this aunt you keep speaking about?" Chiron questioned.

"My father's sister," I didn't hesitate to answer, fearing that I would raise too many suspicions. Hera's warning rang in my mind, and I wondered if my mere human status being exposed would lead to these horrible consequences she mentioned as well.

"And how did she know you should be placed into the second generation?" Chiron retorted back, challenging my nonplussed reply. Aren't things getting ugly.

"She knew my parents before they passed, and she relayed whatever information they wished me to have. She was only a messenger," I tried to dissuade attention on my apparently too knowing aunt.

"Wait, so your parents are dead?" a tall and brutish looking girl vaguely resembling Tina said.

"Both of them, yes," I replied calmly.

"So either one or both of them have to a demigod for you to be a second generation," a quaint looking girl with what looks like garden gloves on her hand deduced.

"But you can't be a second generation," Percy retorted, stating it very factually, "your aura is too strong." He seemed to be struggling with his thoughts while Annabeth only stared very intensely at me by Percy's side while the rest of the meeting council thought on, and the familiarity of her stare was making me trying hard not to squirm. It was then that she spoke for the first time since Chiron and I had entered the room, "Would everyone please leave the room?"

All the senior campers looked at their, for all intents and purposes, leader, warily as they made their way out the door. Percy hesitated, then left too at Annabeth reassuring yet insistent glance.

Annabeth gave a tired sigh, then straightened herself, as if bracing for unpleasant surprises. She turned those stormy grey eyes towards me, "Tell me, what do you feel when you are near water?"

I raise a brow at that question, "Nothing special, if that's what you're fishing for. Honestly I don't know what happened myself. All I felt was fear and the need to protect myself and it just happened, you know?" I put up my hands in surrender. "Why do you send them all away anyway?" indicating to the now vacant seats strewn haphazardly around the ping pong table, a little intimidated by the one on one appointment we were having.

However, I obviously don't know Annabeth very well, because she was persistent. "How about salt water, specifically?"

"I already told you guys, I'm not –" I faltered slightly, her question registering in my mind. i thought of all those times when salt water had been surprisingly a calming presence to me. "Actually," I glanced up furtively at those grey eyes, "I think I might have some connections?" my voice went up at the end of the sentence, unsure whether I should continue in that presumption, fearing that it might bring some unwanted information to light.

Annabeth stared a little harder. "Can you look at me, Ambrosia?" Annabeth asked, her voice softer, with a slight tremor of what, I don't know.

"Rose, " I answered automatically, "Just call me Rose," I said again, giving her a small smile as I raised my eyes up to meet hers.

She stared at me hard for a few seconds, minutes, I'm not so sure anymore. But when she broke our gaze, she turned away from me; "You may leave now," her voice muffled somehow, released me from the meeting room.

"One more thing," Annabeth said, causing me to face her turned back. "Be careful of who you choose as friends, alright?"

I frowned, remembering the show of alarm when Xav was mentioned in our last conversation. I could only give her a meek "yeah, sure" before turning the door knob and walking out of the Big House.

I remembered how Percy had worriedly rushed back in to the room after I walked out, and how the others had followed, but with lingering, curious eyes glancing my way before flitting back to worried glances. I remembered how that they all seemed to have that look that Connor had had that very first day when he got a good look at me and how odd Xav acted now compared to his carefree behavior, slightly cheeky too, before.

That night when I returned to bed, my nightmare was the last thing on my mind. And curious enough, it left me alone this time, as if sensing I desperately needed some resting time before pumping up again to play demigod; though my 'demigod' life seemed to be much hectic and dramatic than others. And that was how I awaken to the 'stay-away-from-Rose' effect. As I had learned from my short stay in Camp Half-Blood, news travels fast, and everybody now knew that I am some water controlling she-demon that would attack you if you look at her wrongly.

I heard from whispers during breakfast in the dining pavilion that the bunch of boys who had tried to attack me, and got seaweed dumped on them in the process, had been taken into Chiron's office earlier today, and that they had no recollection whatsoever about the event. Now that I thought about it, they did have a weird gleam in their eyes during the 'beach incident'.

By the end of the night, a very skittish Xav waved a brief goodnight and retreated to his own corner in the Hermes cabin, while I was, once again, left absolutely alone to my own devices. Dawn came, and this time, instead of running to avoid the still elusive nightmare, I decided to just go relax by the beach. Something Annabeth said had been bothering me these past few days. I knew there was no way I'd be a daughter of the sea, but how does that explain the calm that being close to the sea brings me? I tried recalling how Poseidon had looked like in the few times I had met him during my childhood, and I could see some resemblance, but they were too vague to prove anything.

I sighed, and then looked out towards the push and pull of the crashing waves. They were surprisingly gentle today. I looked down towards my hands, and then looked at the waves curiously. Maybe…

I pushed my right hand outwards slightly, and I squinted at the waves, trying to see if there had been any movements. Nothing. Alright.

i repeated the motion, again and again. By the third push, I was done being gentle. I brought out two hands at once and pushed forward, bringing forth all the emotions that I had to keep inside out and into the action, as if trying to will them away.

Nothing.

I pushed myself back up from where I had made a dent in the otherwise smooth beach sand. Brushing away at my pants, I walked back towards the shower stalls, prepared for another day of side glances and whispers. And as the sun rose, and the heat warmed my back, I had no way of knowing what consequences my experimental actions would bring towards the haven of heroes.

Percy scanned his eyes at the new batch of demigods being brought into camp. There were a few that matched the description in his memory, but none struck him as immediately as it did when he saw her.

Every year, Percy held the hope that his daughter would one day return from wherever Hera had hidden her so that he would be able to see her face again. Annabeth, being the fiercer and more pro-active partner of the couple, took him up to Olympus to search for her a few days after her birthday, which was when their loss hit the hardest at the yearly reminder of their faults.

It had been hard to go back to his 'real-world' job – a teacher – when the ache of losing a child plague him so, but life does not wait for anybody, even for demigods, and he had to continue living if he were to see his daughter again. But every single summer, they would return to Camp Half-Blood under the guise of wanting to monitor the coming and goings of that side of the world. What they had secretly hoped to accomplished was to collect their daughter from Hera, as per agreed thirteen years ago.

Now, it had been nearly a week since the start of June, and still no sign of a raven haired, grey eyed girl. Annabeth had grown impossibly impatient, and Percy had been beside himself with restlessness that he didn't even resume his usual inspection of new comers. While Percy and Annabeth worried on, a son of Hermes was interacting with the missing person in question, having no idea who he was speaking to and its enormity, for Percy and Annabeth never told anyone besides Chiron about their stolen daughter. At first, it had been merely too hard to even speak about it, but they had realized that there was a chance Hera was playing out her deal in her own, incomprehensible way, and it was best if they continue to keep their silence.

Connor had looked at young Rose's face, trying to guess who her godly parent could be, lest he lost his money in the running bet. What he found was not the indicator he would have liked to have found, but was tingling sensation of familiar authority and power. He tried to control the shiver as he thought about it again on his way to meet the others. When he greeted Percy and Annabeth, the feeling came over him unexpectedly, stronger than before. He cocked his head to the side as the feeling ebbed away, looking inquisitively at the couple. Did they seem to be more restless than before?

"What," Percy said with a light chuckle in response to his stare. Connor could only shake his head of those foolish thoughts as they all moved to lounge in the ping pong room. 'I mean, how could they have a daughter and not tell the rest of us right?' he thought. No, they couldn't have.

And as Hera looked down upon Half-Blood Hill to check on Ambrosia, not that she would ever admit to doing that, she resigned herself that her involvement would have to be revealed should things be progressed as she would prefer. She looked down on the girl's winning smile as she observed the things around her and tried new activities, her resolve strengthen to cross over this hurdle with as little causalities as possible, and she would do as much in her power as she could to ensure that her ideals would come to light.