Chapter 6: Time For Dinner!
"Character Speech"
'Character Thought'
"Monsters/Summon/Jutsu /Deity Speech"
'Monsters/Summon/Jutsu /Deity Thought'
Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Naruto or Percy Jackson.
So far these are the people that have been voted to pair with Naruko:
Percy – 39
Artemis – 21
Luke - 14
Apollo – 11
Hermes - 9
Connor - 4
Clarisse – 4
Annabeth – 3
Zoe – 3
Silena – 3
Thaila – 3
Piper – 3
Kate – 3
Travis – 3
Clarisse & Artemis – 2
Harem's
Harem with Percy, Luke, Connor, Travis, Apollo, and Hermes – 38
Naruko with Annabeth, Zoe, Artemis, Silena, Thaila, Piper, Reyna, Clarisse, Calypso and Katie – 28
Percy, Apollo and Luke – 22
Chapter 6: Time For Dinner!
Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever they went, campers pointed at the Percy and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet. She showed Percy and Naruko a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts and crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.
Finally they returned to the canoeing lake, where the trailed back to the cabins.
"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."
"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."
"Whatever."
"It wasn't my fault."
She looked at Percy sceptically, as Naruko raised a eyebrow at him, hand on hip watching his face for any sign of intelligence, she knew Percy was smart, he just , made himself sound so stupid... Finally Naruko found what she was looking for when Percy slowly started to realize it was his fault. He'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. He may not have understood how, but it was a start. The toilets had responded to him. He had become one with the plumbing.
And thinking back to that, it was kinda sad, becoming one, with plumbing.
"You need to talk to the Oracle, " Annabeth coming to a decision.
"Who?" Percy and Naruko asked.
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."
Percy stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give him a straight answer for once as Naruko rested her head on his shoulder. Looking down into the water Percy wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at him from the bottom, so his heart skipped a beat when he noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue skinny jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.
He didn't know what else to do. He waved back. Earning a smack to the head from Naruko. "Ow, what was that for" he pouted.
"You see two teen girls sitting twenty feet under water, who are strangers to you, and you wave, you don't even know what they are, I don't even know what they are!" she hissed.
"There fine, just don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."
"Naiads," Percy repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."
Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."
"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"
"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."
"Half-human and half-what?"
"Sheep Percy, half Sheep" Naruko replied rolling her eyes at his obliviousness, making him scowl at her, It reminded her of herself when she was last thirteen. She just wasn't this...Percy-ish... "You should know Percy, work it out"
Percy didn't want to admit it, but he was afraid he did. He felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation he sometimes felt when his mother talked about his dad. "God," he said. "Half-god."
Naruko and Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians." Annabeth stated.
"That's ... Crazy."
"Life's crazy" commented Naruko.
"Is it?" Annabeth asked.
"Yes, it is" said Naruko curtly.
"Not completely anyway" Annabeth defended.
"If you say so" Naruko shrugged.
"What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"
"But those are just-" Percy almost said myths again. Then he remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, he himself might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"
"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."
"Then who's your dad?"
"Or Mother" Naruko added.
Annabeth's hands tightened around the pier railing. Percy got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.
"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."
"He's human."
"Nah, he's a Transformer" Muttered Naruko in the background.
"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"
"Very" commented Naruko.
"Who's your mom, then?" Percy corrected.
"Cabin six."
"Meaning?"
"Athena" Naruko pointed out "She's the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and battle." Annabeth nodded.
"And my dad?"
"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."
"Except my mother. She knew."
"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities. "
"My dad would have. He loved her. "
"It's true Annabeth, you'd have to meet her to believe it, this woman was so sweet I think I got a cavity, corny; I know, but it's true, she seemed like someone you could easily love and trust." Percy gave Naruko a sad smile which Naruko returned, before grabbing Percy's had intertwining their fingers.
Annabeth gave them a cautious look. Like she didn't want to burst their bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."
"You mean sometimes it doesn't?" Naruko asked raising her unseen eyebrow before turning to look at Percy, who looked worried then back at Annabeth.
Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Naruko, Percy. They ignore us. "
Naruko's mind drifted back to those kids she saw in the Hermes cabin, and how they'd reacted to the fact she was Undecided. There were Teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. Percy and Naruko had known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.
"So I'm stuck here," Percy said. "That's it? For the rest of my life? And what about Naruko?"
"What about me?" asked Naruko.
"You have it worse than me, your an orphan"
"Yes but I have a legal guardian and shinobi training to keep me safe."
"Well really, It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."
"So monsters can't get in here?"
Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."
"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"
"Training" Naruko muttered, as Percy turned to give her a Are-You-Crazy look as she simply shrugged.
"Or Practice fights and Practical jokes. " Annabeth continued. Naruko gave Percy a 'I-Told-You-Soo' look which he ignored, making her pout.
"Practical jokes?" Percy asked his voice clear with disbelief. As Naruko did a double take at the words 'Practical jokes'"
"Did you say Practical jokes" Naruko asked giggling darkly as Percy paled. He remember the first year of school after he came to Yancy, there was a Prank set up every other day, and from what Percy remember, they were all set up by one person. Naruko. Although none of the teachers knew.
"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm. "
"So... You're a year-rounder?" wondered Percy
Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colours. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.
"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counsellors, and they're all in college."
"Why did you come so young?" Percy questioned.
"Some people don't have a choice Percy" Naruko answered staring at the lake in front of her sadly.
Annabeth twisted the ring on her necklace. "Yeah... And that's none of your business."
"Oh." Percy stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"
"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless..."
"Unless-?" Naruko asked.
"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time..." Annabeth trailed off with the thought. The pair could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.
"Back in the sick room, " Percy said, "When you were feeding me that stuff-"
"You mean the Ambrosia?" Naruko asked.
"Yea that, you asked me something about the summer solstice."
Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"
"Well... No. Back at my old school, we overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"
She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."
"You've been to Olympus?"
"Some of us year-rounders like Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."
"But... How did you get there?"
"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor. " She looked at them like she was sure they must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"
"Don't even look in my direction, I wasn't born here, or in this dimension, but I swear there are only one hundred and two floors? Maybe hidden by some illusion..." Naruko muttered as Percy stared at them like they were crazy.
Annabeth nodded."Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "The weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping... I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."
Percy shook his head. He wished he could help her, but he felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.
"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem..."
"Don't rush into things" Naruko said wisely. "Everything happens for a reason, you'll have your time."
Suddenly the smell of barbecue smoke surrounded them coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard Percy's stomach growl. Because She told them to go on, and that she'd catch them later. They left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.
Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, Percy noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Naruko let go of Percy's hand making him miss the warmth as she was suddenly pulled into a group hug by many girls, and was welcomed by the smiling face of Rose, or as Naruko liked to call her, female Luke. "We thought the boys had kidnapped you!" she shouted before glaring to the boys side.
"No, I just woke up early and decided to take a shower before meeting Chiron" she laughed.
"Oh" replied Rose "Well your lucky this time boys" she glared.
Nobody paid much attention to Percy as he walked over to his spot on the floor and plopped down with his minotaur horn. That's when The counsellor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact. "Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."
Percy couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part. "Thanks." He replied.
"No prob." Luke sat next to Percy, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"
"I don't belong here," Percy said. "I don't even believe in gods."
"Yeah," muttered Luke. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier." The bitterness in his voice surprised Percy, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.
"So your dad is Hermes?" Percy asked.
He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second Percy thought he was going to gut him, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes. The wing-footed messenger guy. That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travellers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."
Percy figured Luke didn't mean to call him a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.
"You ever meet your dad?" Percy asked as Naruko flopped down onto Luke's lap.
"Ow, Naruko you're heavy and yea, Once."
Percy waited, thinking that if Luke wanted to tell him, he'd tell him. Apparently, he didn't. Percy wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.
Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other." looking down at the hooded girl he patted her head making her pout, a ghostly smile lingering on her face.
Percy decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me and Naruko being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth... Twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"
Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."
"What do you mean?"
His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... Somebody special came to the camp."
"Somebody special?"
"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, its dinnertime."
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, Percy knew it was a conch shell, even though he'd never heard one before.
Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" causing Naruko to slap him around his head muttering something about 'Nearly bursting her ear drum'
The whole cabin, about twenty of them, filed into the commons yard. They lined up in order of seniority, so of course Percy was dead last with Naruko a few people before him. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.
They marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined them from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. Naruko saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill, which made Naruko stifle giggle.
In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.
At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. Percy had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half his butt hanging off were as for Naruko, everyone was fighting on who's lap she would sit on due to there being no more space.
They saw Grover sitting at table twelve with a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.
Naruko jolted up remembering Mr.D, excusing herself she ran into the direction of the big house.
Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey- blond hair.
Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.
Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"
Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"
Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! Percy's glass was empty, but then Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want. Non-alcoholic, of course."
"Cherry Coke. " Percy said. The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid. Then Percy had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke." The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt. He took a cautious sip. Perfect. He drank a toast to my mother. 'She's not gone', Percy told myself. 'Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...'
"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing him a platter of smoked brisket.
Percy loaded his plate and was about to take a big bite when he noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the centre of the pavilion. Percy wondered if they were going for dessert or something.
"Come on," Luke told me.
Ashe got closer, he saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberrys, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.
Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."
"You're kidding."
"He's not" Naruko said appearing.
Luke's look warned Percy not to take this lightly, but Percy couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.
Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."
Percy was next. He wished I knew what god's name to say. Finally, he decided to made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.
He scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.
When I caught a whiff of the smoke, he didn't gag.
It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.
Naruko was next, "To father, whoever you are, you better not take long claiming me as your daughter or I'm going tell mother and you're going to get it." She hissed at the fire. Before scrapping in her barbeque chicken. The fire flared brightly turning black making Naruko raise her eyebrows at it. "Excuse me. Did you not hear what I said" she mused. The fire dimed a little before turning back to its original colour. This certainly didn't go unnoticed as Campers stared at Naruko in awe as she went to sit back down.
When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention. The new handsome face of Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."
The campers looked confused before one yelled out "Who are you"
"He's Mr.D" Naruko shouted out. "Like what I've done to him" The girls stared at him a trance nodding were as the guys looked at Naruko in shock.
Suddenly there were people cheering loudly from the Ares table.
"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a two new campers today. Peter Johnson, and as you already know Naruko Uzumaki Namikaze "
"Don't say my whole name!" Naruko wined earning a few chuckles.
Chiron murmured something.
"Er, Percy Jackson, " Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on. "
Everybody cheered. As they all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing- along. They sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, Percy didn't feel that anyone was staring at him anymore. He felt that he was home. Looking to his left he saw Naruko leaning on Kurama, Percy stared before turning away sighing.
Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and they all filed back to their cabins. Kurama carrying a sleeping Naruko. Percy didn't realize how exhausted he was until he collapsed on his borrowed sleeping bag. His fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. He thought about his mom, but he had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read him when he was a kid, the way she would tell him not to let the bedbugs bite. When he closed my eyes, he fell asleep instantly.
Naruko stirred in her sleep before settling down as she smiled slightly in her sleep. She was beginning to like Camp-Half Blood.
And Cut!
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