Thanks to all my reviewers, and favouriters. Please review more! I really appreciate you guys, and thank you for giving me an incentive to write on. I hope this is good.
This chapter is a little floppy :( but important.
Thanks to:
Wendi :], Nicobeth Annico (by the way, the penname is an awesome fanfic idea), Sally J, Paul/ Rick's Minion, daughterofartemis, Sticks., bluewaffles621, filmyfurry, europ92, paintsellers and Godess of Beauty!! latter: you are Aphrodite. lol!! Haha!! I love these reviewers!!
have fun reading :)
At dinner, Grover sat with me at the table, and we munched happily on our Russian subs. Chiron and Anthony were chatting animatedly with each other, and Annabeth was conversing with Malcolm on the other side. All the tables were humming with chatter and fear both. This was one of the first nights where we were actually having fun.
The Apollo cabin once again led the sing-along by the fire, and this time, even I wanted to join in. Maybe it was because of my newfound connection with my mother, and all her heart's secrets pouring into mine that I wanted to sing too. I persuaded Annabeth to join in, and even she felt like it. Grover looked shifty, but he too wanted to sing along with Apollo, for the first time ever.
Apollo cabin today decided that the same old Greek songs were very old and repeated. Anthony and his fellow cousins were singing some Greek nightingale half-heartedly, even stopping with boredom halfway through it.
There were giggles coming from the Athena cabin, and a few of the girls started to hum some songs to themselves, together, one of which I realized was very familiar….
"Greenday?" asked a voice behind me.
I turned around to see Thalia perched on a log nearby, to my left, and she was staring at the Athenians with round eyes.
"You like the band, right." I posed the question to her tentatively. For the past week, she and I were too shy to talk to each other. She nodded her head.
Thalia screaming "Greenday" out and the girls humming the tune caught everybody's attention.
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams?" Chiron ejaculated. "I love that song!!"
We looked at each other. Annabeth was tapping her toe. Apollo and Athena started to sing together, remembering the words to the popular song....
"I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone"
I remembered the same song from long back, which my mom used to play in the car. Greenday used to be here favourite in those days, and she used to hum American Idiot quite nicely. I chuckled at the memory, and I joined in with the, singing the best I could, surprisingly finding Grover and Annabeth to keep me company with humming:
"I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams…."
I jumped at the sound of a gruffly pleasant voice melodiously singing along, and my eyes flitted to Thalia's figure. Her lips were upturned in a smile and she was tapping her foot, and singing along.
Soon enough, the whole camp started to sing, because everyone new the words to Greenday.
"Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk a...
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah"
We laughed at that bit because that sing-along had been so much fun. Even Thalia was giggling, and people were glancing at her; she was usually moody and bossy and mean, and seeing her smile and have fun was like seeing Clarisse cry; it was so unexpected, yet pleasant.
The song ended, and everyone clapped; the three of us joined in. There was much chatter and people were talking about Greenday all over.
Calming down after a while, we found that us campers had a lot of music in common – everyone joined in together to sing with great fervour. Anthony played the lyre as we sang Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's, which was such a perfect camp song. To many giggles, a nearby male dryad started to sing Kumbaya, and we all laughed at that random selection. Some Aries kid started Alfie by Lily Allen and we sang to that.
Before the night was up, we had sung Yellow by Coldplay, Irreplaceable by Beyonce, Back in Black by ACDC (that was a terrible one), Cry Me A River by Justin Timberlake, Far Away by Nickelback (by this time, I was looking dreamily at Annabeth), Love etc by Pet Shop Boys and then we made up some songs – a girl from the Apollo cabin called Katy Perry, 16, who dressed really weirdly in colourful and animated clothes made up this cool song called "Hot n Cold" by the campfire, with amusing lyrics so funny that we all sang and laughed with her.
Lying by myself in the cabin, I listened to the sound of silence, punctuated by owl screeches or the bubbling of the water fountain in my cabin. I breathed and deciding that it was too lonesome and boring, I put on the lamplight and took out my father's diary.
Page after page I flipped, yet no name "Sally" popped out. I saw some of his appointments with mortals and his opinions on them, yet it was until the middle that I found something of interest.
It was a loose piece of paper, and it was crumpled up slightly. It caught my attention because it was written in brilliant writing, and it seemed really beautiful. The paper started to tingle my fingers, and before I new it, the words were imprinted in my eyes, as if they were hurtling into my brain, being absorbed, determined to show me the message….
My eyes blinked, and when I opened them, the room swayed, whirled around in abstract, and then positioned itself right in another scene.
Out of the window, the view of the earth made my stomach churn; we were terribly high up. Planes flying at their highest looked so tiny from here, and I turned around, at the sound that echoes behind me.
Poseidon was pacing the area, his Greek sandals making soft sounds on contact with the floor. He was pacing around a door and he seemed about to knock on it, when it opened right before his fist touched it.
At the door, standing like a supermodel or an actress posing, was someone so beautiful, she dazzled my eyes.
I didn't know what to say.
Her eyes were like a pool of fresh mountain water, bubbling cheerfully, and her scent was of lavender and rose. Her skin was pale and well toned, contrasting with the long waterfall of dark hair that slid down her face, framing it, onto her shoulders, and to her hips. Her lips were round and red, and upturned in a smile. Her neck was feminine and it met the strapless collar of a long, blue dress, which shaped around her bust, and it tightened at the waist, then flared out with fashion. Her long arms were carefully balanced on her hips and she was looking at my dad with a hungry look in her eyes.
Yet her form looked very temporary, as if the next time anybody would see her, they would have forgotten they had ever met her, their memory would be blank from their meeting with her.
But my dad didn't step back at the intensity with which the purest beauty was staring at him.
The woman moved flat, and allowed him inside.
I entered too, to see what was on.
"Poseidon," she alleged, her voice velvety at overflowing with beauty.
"Aphrodite," my father nodded to her. "It has been long."
"Very long," she agreed. "The last time we met was at the fiftieth Olympian Winter Solstice of the West."
"Good times," my father grinned shiftily.
"What bring thee here, my dear God of the Sea?"
Poseidon flinched.
"I have been searching long for true love, and it seems like an endless quest. I thought that thy prediction would have come true, yet my time has not come."
"Thou have been very impatient, dear Poseidon," she smiled, sitting gently on the couch. "Might I remind you that even great Ouranos' quest for love was one of great time, and thou has to be patient to have thy time come."
"Do not compare me to my grandfather!" Poseidon tensed.
"Thou should control thy anger, dear God."
Poseidon stopped, and then turned to her shamefaced.
"I don't know what to do. There is a great prophecy I have heard, of a son of the Big Three, born through labour, who will be the symbol of the gods thousands of years from now! I need to know the woman with who I shall fall in love with so madly that she and I will give her a child of true seed, one that will be born how normal mortal children are. I need to know that woman for he shall be the queen of my heart, and the result of true love! I cannot wait!" He seemed so frustrated!!
"Calm, dear god." Aphrodite soothed him. "Even Apollo is not sure of his Oracle's prediction. He cannot be sure. And thou has sealed a pact to not have anymore children, yet you still seek it? Shame, Poseidon, shame!"
Poseidon sat down. "I want the child of the prophecy to be mine. I want him to prove himself to me. The disappointment shall not stay within my 55 child litter, but I shall have one child to prove the Lord of the Sea something. I want that prophetic child to be mine, because it has been a long wait – and I shall prove to my rising father, who I was the least favourite of, how to trust a son, and how to raise him and how prove a well-raised son can make you – I will prove to him that his least favourite's boy will teach him a lesson he will never forget!!"
Aphrodite's face hardened, and her eyes grew wider in curiosity.
"Thy fire is well fuelled. Very well, Poseidon, must I warn thee, that if thou should break thy treaty, thou will be treading amongst treacherous waters from which thy brothers may never forgive thee. In fact, it could be that if thou finds thy true love, and gets thee a child, it will by the breaking of the treaty that could even start the war betwixt the Titans and Gods once more. And the person to start this war….will be thy child, Poseidon. How does that make thee feel?"
Poseidon looked into her eyes and frowned.
"Thou has sense."
"The Goddess of Love believes in reason, dear sea lord."
"But love? Years I have pined, searched, looked everywhere for true love! And I can't find a trace of it in this barren planet which I know every nook and cranny of!"
Aphrodite smiled. "Thou believe in love only a little less than me. What a compliment to thee it is, dear lord."
"I require thy assistance, Aphrodite, goddess of love. If thou can help me, do."
"I will tell thee this, dear lord," she said, smiling. "Thou have been one of my favourite of the three – and I will not make thy love life easy. See, I love a good tragedy, and I will never tell thee how or where thou will meet the woman who's labour child will be the prophetic one, but I will tell thee that thou will find her in the time of two hundred at seventy nine years from now, and she will be in love with thee too."
"But do not rest," she continued. "Do not rest Lord Poseidon, God of sea, for only by search will thou find her, your true love."
"How do I know she is so? My true love? For all the women I have indulged in, how do I know if she is any better?"
Aphrodite caressed Poseidon's cheek, and held his chin. She looked at his crumpled face full fledged; the hungry look was back in her eyes.
"Listen to thy heart, and it shall tell thee when thy time will come…
Her voice faded away, and the scene misted over; it took me by surprise, and I tried to take one last glance of the gorgeous Aphrodite and my father…..
The scene was fogging over completely. The white mist trailed in and covered the whole scene, and all I heard was the echo of her last quote, slowly fading away into the misty din, as one last reminder, I felt a jolt; Aphrodite had closed her eyes…..I could feel it….thou I couldn't see anything but white….and as she had closed her eyes, Poseidon had seen the same fog, the same mist, and a misty white outline, slightly coloured; it was a picture, a picture of a ragged girl with a blurred face, blurred body, her mousy brown hair tumbling gracefully from her face down….
I snapped back, and the darkness filled me again/ I had been sitting up for god knows how long on my bunk; my back was stiff and sore from sitting up straight, and I was staring right at the bunks on the other side, enveloped by darkness.
I heaved a great breath; had that been a trance? A memory? What had it been?
I looked down at the paper in the lamplight, and I stared at it.
There was written word to word what had happened, in startling black gel pen ink, and as soon as I had touched the paper, it had somehow sunk its words into me, and I had a vision of what had happened when he had written that letter.
I breathed more, conscious of every cell in my body. I new there was something new about this paper…
Then it ticked. I remember my mom writing something of this sort a long while back, when I was little; I remember her accidentally writing out the poem she had written for me in it, and I had picked it up, only to have the writing do a similar thing to my eyes. I remember the poem coming alive, literally, in my sight and how it had danced in my vision, the scenes so perfectly captured and projected....
I hugged the piece of paper, lost in my father's pleas for true love. How weird it was, I mean I was a normal kid teenage boy, and I was reading…love stories??
Yet this time, the knot in my stomach told me that it wasn't just any love story; it was a fantastical tale.
If any morning could come faster, it was this one. The light just materialized as soon as my head had hit the pillow. I groaned as Grover came to drag me out of bed by one leg. Surprisingly, I found myself completely awake, not even tired, as if that trance during the night had supplied me with rest and sleep too.
The day didn't offer many chances to read the diary, even though Grover, surprisingly, was doing all to clear our schedule. Instead, we had duty with Beckendorf with his technological advancement, so I helped him polishing and assembling various instruments. I knew that I was pretty hopeless with all this brilliant stuff Hephaestus' cabin built, but Beckendorf's power supply was hydroelectric, to fuel the furnaces and etc. He got a huge thrill, as he produced twice as much in the same time period as usual, because I was turning the turbines with my water supply. Annabeth was out with her fellow cabin mates with Chiron planning on defensive strategies, and designing more war moves.
Grover, finding nothing to do with Beckendorf, wandered off with the other satyrs, who were today making a new reed pipe song: the one of momentary dazedness.
I loved playing with the water; it was home turf and I felt so strong using it. I also could feel a connection to my father that way…
Knowing my father wanted me to be the child of the prophecy was very controversial. What would I do? Why me? Why me to do all these things?
I knew I had to make him proud. I knew that somehow, I had to win.
And I hardly stood a chance.
*********O****************
The evening brought us an unexpected surprise.
We were all having dinner at the tables, as per usual. Today, we crunched on pizza-bagels and apple crumble. It was delicious, as per usual, and I sat at my own table, eating in silence, and I watched Thalia do the same on her table.
She sat like a punk, comfortably, eating gracefully but scarily. Her charcoaled eyes scanned the area, and whenever she looked at her pine tree, she grimaced even more. She was over the Greenday show now, and was attacking her apple crumble unappreciatedly.
There was an arm wrestling contest underway at the Hephaestus table, and by the sound of the cheers, Beckendorf was pulverizing everyone.
My thoughts settled around where Clarisse had disappeared off to. Then I saw Annabeth immersed in conversation at her table. My eyes flitted to the Hermes one, where pretty much everyone was bored.
All of a sudden, a burbling sound started to be heard, and it grew, and all conversation simmered to hear it.
The burbling sound was one of a stream, underway a huge rapids course.
We looked around, particularly me, and I spotted the creek's water starting to froth and bubble and grow treacherous. Then, my head turned to the sea, and I spotted the waves grow higher and higher, as if preparing to launch on the camp like a tsunami. They frothed and creamed, and they towered above the scared beach animal. The pegasi were whinnying like crazy, and they were kicking the wooden doors.
The waters around had gone crazy, and it wasn't my fault.
From across, I saw Thalia get out and draw a huge, scary spear, and crouch, pointing it towards the dragon that guarded her pine tree, and then the woods, and then the Big House. Her eyes flit everywhere, looking. Hephaestus' children readied their retractable swords in response, as they too had heard something.
Later, I saw a figure materialize right next to that pine tree, and the dragon roared.
"Aghhhhh!!" yelled the visitor. "Get him off me! Offa me!!"
The voice was too familiar.
"Dad!" a kid at the Hermes cabin said.
"Raphael…heel! I'm coming!"
"Heel, dear dragon, heel!" commanded Chiron, galloping to Hermes and staring at the dragon with a stern eye. The dragon immediately bent, and went back to rest.
Hermes and Chiron walked up the hill, both panting, and Hermes was stricken.
"Father!" One of the older boys went to him.
"Leonardo," Hermes hugged his son, and sat down on a long.
"Oh dearie me, I don't know where to start – you see, the seas have gone wild."
"Yes, we just found out. Tell us why Hermes." The owner of the voice walked into the mumbo jumbo; it was a pot bellied Dionysus, with his usual drawl and his glass of wine.
"The Lord of the Seas has spiked a new rage, and the water churns as a part of his body. You see, a possession of his has been stolen."
Everyone breathed in, and I could feel eyes on me.
"Was it important?" Chiron asked.
"Heck it was important!" Dionysus rolled his eyes. "If our dear god decides to churn up the seas everywhere then of course it must be important!"
"What is it?" asked Annabeth, her voice quavering with a little guilt.
"I cannot say," Hermes shook his head. "It is a treasured file of his, and even he is no able to disclose whatever it was. Yet today, of all days, he seemed to have need of it, so he went to fetch it and came back empty handed."
"He caused quite a tantrum," Hermes continued. "He was angry to see it go. All he asked for was a blue book with his name on it."
"A blue book?" squeaked Grover. All eyes fell on him.
"Why? You make something of it, satyr?" Dionysus eyed the paling satyr.
"N-No sir, n-not at all. H-Haven't seen it."
Dionysus eyed him, and Grover just whitened, like a sheet. Trust him to ruin the moment,
"So what happens now?" I asked Hermes.
He eyed me significantly.
"He will calm down, considering Zeus would not want the seas to cause deaths. He will probably put posters in Olympus for a very loaded reward should someone find it…." His eyes glinted at the thought, and for a moment, the Hermes in his eyes disappeared, and then returned.
"At least we know the cause of this upheaval," Chiron gazed at the unsteady sea. "It must be that important to him, this blue book that its disappearance has caused the Sea Lord to become tempered."
Hermes sighed. "Until it is found," he glanced at me. "We must hope that we should never cross Poseidon's path for the time period his anger lasts."
We all nodded, and then Hermes turned around to disappear.
Before going, he halted, and then faced me.
"Oh and Percy," he said, my heart jolting. "Your father sends his regards. Do what is right."
Then he just vaporized in a wisp of smoke.
--.--.--.--.--.--.--.--.--.--.--
The camp was burbling with talk that night, and we all headed back to the cabins.
I lay in my lonesome bed, and hummed to myself.
I felt sorry for myself, and it felt nice knowing that dad still cared for his diary – which was in my hands.
Calm down, dad, I thought, I have it, and as soon as I know who you are, I will give it back.
Thanks again!! Hope you liked it!! Review~!