Chapter 8: Koralee

During those hours while I was sleeping, I was woken up. It was Chiron, the centaur who helped me heal. Now that I think of it, after the shower, I feel completely fine. No soreness or anything. But Chiron just came to ask me a question.

"Kora, right?" He asked, and I nodded.

"Would you mind telling me your full name?" How did he know that Kora was a nick name?

" Um, its Koralee Crow," I said.

"Ahh, so 'Kora' is just a nickname then." I nodded. He just smiled, and told me to get some more sleep so I could heal faster. And I did, waiting for the next time I would be woken up.

Annabeth and Piper led me towards the dining pavilion, which wasn't really a pavilion at all. There were no walls, or roof. Does it rain here? There were many tables, and at each table sat similar-looking people. Like at what I assumed was the Athena table, because they all had the striking grey eyes. And the Aphrodite table, you could hear from a mile away, plus you will never not succeed in identifying the Aphrodite table. All of the loud, boisterous beauty queens sit there, periodically checking their make up in pocket sized mirrors. I sensed Piper was one of them. She was unnaturally pretty, but you could tell she didn't like the extra attention, and demoted her appearance by chopping her hair off, and wearing typically un-Aphrodite things. I searched the Aphrodite table for Drew, but she wasn't there. She probably hadn't shown up yet.

Piper walked off, just as I had suspected, to Ve... Aphrodite's table. Annabeth walked me over to the most crowded table in the whole pavilion. There seemed to be a lot of brown haired boys with mischievous grins and elfish ears and noses, and the first word that popped into my mind was thieves, so I immediately assumed that they were the sons of Hermes, the god of thieves and travelers. When I was little, the first thing I did once I had reached New York, was go visit the Natural History Museum. I acted as if I was a school kid, and just waltzed right in, following the other kids. There, I learned about the Greek and Roman gods. Only until a day ago did I realize just how real they are.

The first thing everyone did when I arrived near the table with Annabeth was stop talking. The whole entire table stopped talking. Most of the table was made up of boys, only a couple of girls scattered in between. One of the boys, He looked exactly alike to another boy at the table, stood up. I recognized him as one of the people who gave me a disgusted look.

He said," I'm sorry, but I haven't seen you around the camp before. What is your name?" He seemed nice, but obviously doesn't recognize me from before.

Annabeth answered for me, "This is Kora. She's undetermined, so she'll be at cabin eleven until proven otherwise."

The boy smiled. In fact, most of the boys at the table were smiling now.

"Well we appreciate a fresh face now and again, but yours we won't mind," he said, bowing. Others at the table groaned.

"My name is Connor Stoll. This is my brother, Travis..." He gestured towards an exact replica of himself, then went on reciting names that I would never remember for each person in each seat. I gave a shy smile. Connor shooed Annabeth away, and pushed a couple of other campers on the bench across from where he was sitting to the right, and gestured for me to sit in the newly formed place. I awkwardly sat down, nodding to a girl who was sitting next to me.

"Welcome to the Hermes table," Travis said with a mischievous grin.

"Thank you."

Suddenly, a whole wave of campers came in and filled up the remaining tables. Chiron, the centaur stood to the side of a table where a pudgy man in a tiger-striped shirt sat. He had a cute baby face, but his eyes showed that he can be a whole different kind of crazy. I can tell. I've grown up around hobos. Sitting beside the man were guys who varied in size and shape. One was plump, another was really wiry. But they all had one thing in common, they had hooves and horns. I was about to ask about them when someone shouted FOOD! And the whole pavilion got excited. Then, girls, what i assume to be girls, came in with trays of food. They seemed like gusts of wind, but in a form of a little girl, maybe my age. The trays were filled with plenty of things, like green beans, various meats, fruits, and more vegetables. I only realized how hungry I was when those trays came out. Man, did they smell good.

The girls came around, and people started to pick off of the trays what ever they wanted. I have never eaten this way before. To be honest I probably have never had what was on more than half of these trays. And I was starving. I grabbed some slices of meat, then some green beans, just because I had never tried hot, fresh ones before, I grabbed some corn, it wasn't the type of corn I was used to, speckled with red and brown, but it still looked delicious. I grabbed some blueberries and strawberries and decided I had enough for tonight. Eating too much after eating too little isn't good for you.

Then I noticed others getting up. I hesitantly got up, and followed them to a fire pit as big as my granny's washtub. I saw others pushing the good part of their meal into the fire.

"Why do you do that?" I asked a large girl who was about two heads taller than me, with stringy brown hair and a leather jacket.

" Its for the gods, punk," She muttered something about smoke, before pushing me out of her way. I regained my balance before I could fall over and make a mess of myself.

I glanced hesitantly into the flames and scraped some slices of meat into the fire, and in my head asked to be, what did Annabeth say? Oh, right. Determined. I walked back to the place Connor Stoll had saved for me, and sat down, digging in to the best meal I have ever had in my life.

During my meal, I felt thirsty, so I picked the cup that was provided to me up, and did a three-sixty of the pavilion, looking for where people got their drinks from.

The girl beside me noticed, and said, "You have to speak into the cup and tell it what you want, and it will give it to you."

I looked at her. She had resumed eating, so I did what she said. I'd never really gotten my hands on anything but water in my life so I whispered into my cup, "Surprise me."

And to my surprise, clear, orange liquid, like a filled my cup. I then whispered," Yellow surprise." And the orange liquid turned into a clear yellow, my favorite color. I looked at it strangely, and decided it looked too much like pee, so I turned it to blue instead, my second favorite color. I took a sip, and it was delicious.

Once everyone was done with dinner, the man with the Tiger striped shirt stood up, and I could hear a clopping noise like a hoof. That got everyone's attention.

The man in the tiger-print shirt spoke," Hello, and welcome to Camp Half-Blood and all that, blah blah blah, I'm Mr. D and we have a new camper today!" He said feigning happiness.

"Her name is Carefree Stowe-" Chiron looked annoyed, and whispered something into his ear," Koralee Crow, and I hope you all will treat her well, blah blah blah. You know the drill, Thursday nights are amphitheater sing along night, so shove off!"

Travis gave me a hesitant smile across the table, "Koralee, huh?"

I nodded, "Yes, but you, and everyone else can call me Kora."

He nodded.

Connor murmured something about a sleeping bag, and walked off into the direction of the big house.

Travis stood up, walked over to the other side of the table and gave me an elfish grin. I smiled back. "The amphitheater is this way," He said while motioning for me to follow him.

Everyone basically ended up singing songs about the gods, and talking amongst each other until it was time to go back to the cabins. I loved it. No one came up to me or bothered me. I initially followed the Hermes cabin back to a worn- down old cabin, with at least a dozen sleeping bags on the floor, and a couple of bunk beds.

Connor waved me over to a sleeping bag in the corner of the room, next to a bottom bunk.

"This is your sleeping accommodations as for right now, so please feel right at home. I'll be right beside you if you need anything. Literally, he slept in the bottom bunk next to my sleeping bag. I crawled right in. I was used to sleeping on hard surfaces anyway.

As I drifted off, bad dreams came to me as if I were a lamp in the darkness, and the moths were attracted to the light.

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