Chapter 7: A Cave Girl Predicts My Future: Sam's POV

I have never in my life felt so special. I thought that after middle school, I would have to drop out of high school to work and help my dad pay the rent. He's a gardener, so I guess this whole thing with Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, being my mother made sense.

I don't really have any friends. Well, except flowers. I love flowers. I dreamed of being a botanist when I grew up. But now I'm a demigod, so things are different.

The tour was nice, and I got to meet my half sister, Katie. She seemed really sweet and outgoing.

After the tour, Annabeth and Katie went with Ashton to talk to Chiron, leaving me with Val and Cinder. Those two are like a pair of Siamese twins, except they're not connected (which kind of defeats the purpose of that metaphor). I thought they would just walk away and ignore me like everyone else seems to do, but they didn't.

"So Sam," Val said with the 'it's-really-awkward-so-I'm-trying-to-make-it-a-little-less' voice, "Do you want to come with us to the weapons shack?"

"Huh?" I asked, not believing that they give me the time of day, let alone ask me to look at deadly objects with them. "Uh, sure."

When we got there, it was sundown. We saw Colin talking to Percy about something, but we couldn't hear them. It looked serious though; Percy was listening to Colin with a grim expression on his face. Then Percy got up, patted Colin on the back, said something, and then they both left.

"Hm, I wonder what that was about," Cinder wondered out loud.

"Ah, Cinder, you're just interested because you have a huge crush on Colin." Val snickered.

"What? Do not! What would make you think that?"

I opened the door to the weapons shack, and what seemed like a hundred swords came out. Just when I started sifting, I heard two gasps behind me. I turned around to see Cinder and Val starring above my head.

There was a symbol, golden glowing wheat, above my head. All of a sudden, I heard panting. I looked to my left to see Katie running down the hill.

"H-h-h" she panted when she finally got to us, "Hail Samona Ripalang, daughter of Demeter, even thought we already knew that. Thanks mom." She saluted towards the sky.

She stood straight and cleared her throat, "I came down to help you choose weapons, and when I saw that you were being claimed, I ran as fast as I could."

"So, I'm officially a daughter of Demeter…" I muttered.

"All right!" Katie clasped her hands, "Now let's choose weapons!"

After a while of searching, I had found a small sickle. Katie said it had belonged to another daughter of Demeter, and it was called 'The Farmer's Plow'. I gave it a few swings and liked the feel of it. Katie grabbed a holster for me to put it in.

"Huh," I heard Val say, "Katie, can I take these knives?"

The two knives were identical. The blades were narrow and sharp and curve very slightly at the end.

"Well, knives are special. You have to be the quickest fighter to use a knife, let alone two. That particular pair is known as Dídymes Lepídes."

"Twin Blades…" Val whispered, "Whoa, how did I know that?"

"Don't worry about it," Katie smiled, "It's one of those, this thing happens and means you're destined for this thing things."

"So… I get the blades?"

"Yes."

"Sweet!"

"Alright, Cinder, it's just about time for dinner so we won't be able to pick out a weapon for you until tomorrow. Annabeth should be at the cabins. Go find her. Sam, you come with me."

Val and Cinder walked away, gazing at Val's new weapons. Katie took us a different route.

"There's someone I want you to meet first." She said.

"Why?" I asked with a bit of a whimper.

"It's obvious to me that you are extremely shy. Demigods need to be brave and courageous… and… well… I'm just not getting that vibe from you."

"Okay… Who are we meeting?" I was trying hard not to cry. I'm really sensitive, so the slightest thing could set me off. I would've started bawling at that comment Nemesis made about me at Garcia's, but I was too in shock to do anything but run.

"The oracle. Her name is Rachel. She lives in a cave."

I expected Rachel to be some primitive person after hearing she lives in a cave. But when I saw that the cave was completely decked out, I had second thoughts.

The cave was basically like an apartment, but in cave form. Along with a big T.V., there was an easel in the corner with around eighty paintings near by (it was a big cave). It seemed like a weird crash pad for an artist with too much time on his or her hands.

Katie walked us over to the bright purple couch where there was a girl taking a nap. She had bright, curly, red hair that went down to her shoulders, and she wore a big neon green shirt with a neon purple tank top under it. She had black jeans on, but they had paint all over them. Her white Converse had tons of little marker drawings on them.

"Hey Rachel!" Katie yelled.

"WAAHH!" she screamed and fell off of the couch and onto the cave floor. "Geesh! Katie, didn't you see the 'Do Not Disturb' sign at the front of the cave?"

"Sorry, this is important," Katie helped Rachel up, "Did you hear about the six new demigods?"

"Of course I did! I gave out a prophecy earlier that they would come!"

"What?" Katie jumped back.

"Yeah, I take it she's one of them?" She said, pointing to me.

"Yes, but, what prophecy?" Katie said with her eyes wide as can be.

"Grover and Juniper visited me earlier about the wedding, since I'm Juniper's matron of honor." She turned to me, "As oracle, I can't date anyone. I'm forever alone…"

Katie grabbed Rachel by the shoulders. "WHAT WAS THE PROPHECY?"

"Okay! Okay! Chill out! Grover wrote it down and gave it to me…" She searched in her pocket and found a note, "Ahem, 'Six halfbloods will set out from home. A safe haven, they will roam. A war of revenge, a goddess will create. One half blood has an unfortunate fate. A traitor fights for revenge. The world will be at risk again'."

It was silent for a while.

"Well, on the bright side, that's pretty straight forward for a prophecy! Doesn't rhyme as well, but it's still pretty nice!" Rachel tried to say to cheer Katie up.

"One of them is going to die and another is a traitor! You think this is good?" Katie yelled at Rachel.

They argued for a while, so I slipped outside of the cave and walked to the dinner pavilion. I thought about Rachel's prophecy for a while. Someone was going to die, and someone else was going to betray the rest of us.

'If we're lucky,' I thought, 'the traitor will be the one who dies.' I suddenly gasped and covered my mouth with my hands. I never thought like that. I never thought I would. I was disgusted with myself.

I finally got to the dinner pavilion. I found the table with the Demeter kids (I had remembered their faces from when we saw them on the tour) and sat with them. They were all outgoing like Katie, and that worried me. Even as a demigod, I was still different from the rest of them. I almost cried again, but I didn't. I was Sam the demigod now. I had to toughen up.