Okay, guys, here's the chiz: I'm not going to be updating for the next two days. Possibly three, depending on how much writing I get done. I don't want to do it, but I'm getting really behind on writing and there are other things going on that are really stressing me out. I need a break so I can calm down and get my writing up to quality again. But I promise I'll for sure be back updating on Monday-three days from now, for me. I might update on Sunday, but don't count on it.
On a happier note, I'm only 120 reviews away from my goal-remember, that's by May 3, in just over a week, so get reviewing!
Leoiscool: The next Piper chapter is after this one, but you'll have to wait for a few days, because, like I said, I'm not updating for a bit.
smkershner326: Awww, thanks! You're the first one who's mentioned the PJO references at the end, and I'm glad you like them-and my story!
Random Person (guest): I'm not sure if he's going to yet, but it's a possibility, although if it does happen, it's not going to anytime soon. Not too soon, at least. I'm glad you laughed; I thought that part was particularly perfect.
Aliana (guest): Thanks! And I'm glad you've started reviewing, I love getting new reviewers.
drinkingthestarswithbob: I'm not entirely sure they had cameras either, and I thought about that when I wrote that part, but I just figured, hey, Hades is a god, it didn't matter if there were cameras or not. He can do awesome stuff like creating a photo based off a memory or something.
Blackberry Explosion: Aw, hey, Smile! I'm glad you got an account, and I like your name, it's great. Frank's POV isn't coming up yet, but be patient, his next chapter has epicness planned for it.
Carrot Seven (guest): Thanks for reviewing, and I'm glad you like it so much! Although it's probably a bad thing that you read it when you're not supposed too...Still, keep right on reading and reviewing!
Nobilist: I would share, but I don't have enough for everyone. :) And this is part of the meeting, but just the very beginning-I love teasing everyone. And it's back to the Argo II next, so you're pretty much right. Am I that predictable? Oh, and I think the blushing thing is adorable. Boys should blush more often. :)
Chapter LXII
Reyna
Reyna spends twenty of her thirty minutes in the shower, standing appreciatively under the hot water, just blissfully basking in the feeling of being clean. Of course, it's nothing compared to a Roman bath, but after a week of no baths or showers, it's bliss.
She'd found all the sopas she'd needed in the cabinet under the sink, just like Nico said-shampoo, conditioner, face wash, body wash, everything. There are dozens of bottles in the cabinet, with different scents, different brands, hydrating, volumizing, every type of soap imaginable. If Reyna had to guess, she'd say a daughter of Venus had been put incharge of supplying the bathroom.
Finally, reluctantly, she turns off the water and steps out of the shower, wrapping the purple towel she'd found around herself and looking at the clothes a girl had brought her just before she'd gotten in the shower-Lacy, Reyna thinks she said her name was.
The clothes are simple-dark denim shorts and a tight-fitting black tank top. The girl had been thoughtful enough to bring more intimate items as well, and Reyna was especially grateful for that.
She towels off and dresses quickly, surprised and happy to find that all of the clothes fit perfectly-maybe it's some sort of magic.
She grabs the blue plastic hairbrush-another thing found in the cabient-and runs it through her hair before deftly twisting her hair into a tight braid.
Lastly, she pulls on the clean pair of socks-that girl Lacy had really thought of everything-and shoves her feet back into her combat boots, heading out the door with minutes to spare.
She strides briskly down the hall, making sure as she walks that her sword is belted firmly to her waist-and that she has all her knives. She always keeps two in her boots, and usually has some strapped to her upper arms-she has those strapped to her thighs instead, and she quickly double-checks that that they're hidden completely by her shorts. She'd learned a long time ago that it's always good to keep a few tricks hidden up your sleeve-and if your enemy can't see your weapons, they tend not to expect you to have any.
Before walking into the meeting room, she pauses to put her mask into place-hiding all of her emotions, worries, and fears and projecting an image of calm bravery as she walks through the doorway.
As she suspected, Chiron is already there waiting for her, although Nico isn't anywhere to be seen.
"Nico has not yet come back from his cabin, but I expect he will be here shortly. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable." He waves his hand at the empty chiars, gesturing for her to sit.
Reyna chooses a seat towards the middle of the Ping-Pong table, next to where the net is. After sitting down, she just stares quietly down at her hands, and the slighty awkward silence stretches longer.
"I expected you to ask more questions." She finally says, glancing over at Chiron.
He smiles, but it's without amusement. "I would be, except that I expect the counselors to want to know the answers themselves-and I'm sure you'd much rather not have to repeat yourself."
Reyna nods once in agreement, but doesn't say anything else, and the silence stretches between them again.
As she waits, she absentmindedly pulls out one of her knives and starts twirling it through her fingers, staring unseeingly at the wall, her thoughts a million miles away-she's busy worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong. The biggest problem with that is knowing the fact that most of her worries are well-founded-and a lot are likely to happen.
Finally, Nico bursts into the room, out of breath. "Sorry," he says after he regains his breath. "I got sidetracked. Some of the others saw me when I was on my way back, and of course they wanted to know everything. It took a while to get away from them."
"We still have fifteen minutes before the counselors are due to arrive; I'm sure that's plenty of time for whatever you and Reyna would like to discuss before they get here." Chiron replies calmly.
Nico nods, and then stands there for a few seconds, looking around. "All right." He says finally. "We'd better get started."
He hesitates uncertainly before sitting in the chair to Reyna's left. "Um." He starts. "Let's see."
"Perhaps you'd like to tell her a bit about how things are different here, or give her some background information on a few of the counselors." Chiron suggests.
Nico sighs in relief. Apparently he'd been having difficulty remembering what he wanted to talk about. "Yeah, that works."
Reyna sets her knife down on the table, listening intently. Any information she can get is extremely welcome-she already feels so unprepared.
"Clarisse is probably the most important counselor. She's the one that leads the camp in battle whenever Percy's gone, and even though a lot of people don't like her very much, they follow her without complaint, because she's one of our best fighters. She's a daughter of Ares, and she has a bad temper, but most of what she says is just for show-she doesn't like showing weakness." Nico explains.
Reyna briefly wonders how children of Mars/Ares can be so...mean, for lack of a better word, when Frank is so caring and gentle. A complete klutz, too, but his heart has always been in the right place.
"Then there's Butch, he's head of the Iris cabin, and our best equestrian. He's probably the one that took care of Bellator, either this morning or last night. And he has some influence over the campers, but not as much as some."
A son of the rainbow goddess named Butch? Okay then...
"And, as much as I hate to admit it, Travis and Connor are pretty influential. They're good at causing trouble; not just with pranks, but with enemies too. And they're funny, likeable-even though they're irritating, most people like them. They're good at keeping the mood light in bad situations, too, like this one."
Reyna wrinkles her nose. She's not particularly liking the fact that she's going to have to make an effort to be nice to the Stolls.
"And lastly, there's Will, from the Apollo cabin, and Malcolm from the Athena cabin. Both of them fought in the Titan War. Will's more popular with the campers as a friend than Malcolm is, especially with the younger kids, but Malcolm's more active in the war effort, probably because his favorite sister is one of the Seven-"
Reyna wonders how hard it must be for him, knowing his sister is on her way to battle Gaea-a fight she may not return from.
"-and he's also our best strategist." Nico finishes. "I think that's it. Oh, wait! Drew is the head of the Aphrodite cabin while Piper's gone. She was before Piper got here, too, but Piper challenged her after she got back from her quest with Jason and took over. Anyway, she's a complete tyrant, and she isn't nice to anyone unless she wants something from them. No one really likes her very much, but she can charmspeak-she's nowhere near as powerful as Piper, but she can still make people do what she wants-so most people try to stay out of her way. And just a heads up: she gets really mad when she doesn't get what she wants."
"Noted." Reyna says. I'll have to keep her away from the other Romans...one of the things they hated most was finding out about Piper's charmspeak; they definitely did not like the idea that they could be convinced to do things they didn't want to do.
She's startled out of her thoughts by the rather loud entrance of Travis and Connor, who are jokingly arguing about something or other while taking turns shoving each other. They stop when they see Reyna, quieting immediately. Travis grins broadly, but Connor's expression looks more like he just swallowed a frog, and Reyna has to suppress a smile when she sees it.
"Hi, Reyna." Travis greets her cheerfully. Connor glances angrily at his brother, but Travis doesn't seem to notice. "Nice to see you again."
Reyna inclines her head to him, choosing not to answer him out loud.
"Travis, Connor, I trust you can find your seats?" Chiron asks, surprising Reyna a little; she'd forgotten he was there.
"'Course, Chiron." Travis replies. "We'd just rather not."
"And why is that?" Chiron asks calmly.
"Well, because it puts us within easier distance of Reyna's knife, for one, and my brother knows firsthand that's not something you'd like to be close to-" Connor makes a choking noise in the back of his throat, looking anywhere but at Reyna's face. Unconsciously, almost, he reaches up to rub his throat.
If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already. Reyna wants to say, but she holds her tongue, knowing that it probably wouldn't help the situation.
"Just sit down." Nico orders them, with a commanding tone in his voice that implies an 'Or else' at the end. He glares so fiercely at the Stolls that, surprisingly, they actually listen, and Travis even wipes the grin off his face-for about five seconds.
After that, the rest of the counselors start arriving, and the meeting room quickly fills up with a very loud, very ADHD crowd of demigods. A boy named Clovis stumblies in and introduces himself to Reyna as a son of Hypnos-Somnus, to Reyna-before falling promptly asleep in a corner, where another boy that Nico tells her is Butch soon joins him and starts drawing on Clovis' face with sharpies of various colors. A girl Reyna guesses is Drew flounces in and claims a seat at the head of a table, glaring at the boy already sitting there until he moves. Then she mostly just sits there and looks haughtily around at everyone else-which really just makes her look as if someone stuck a dead fish under her nose.
Soon after she sits down, a young girl Reyna recognizes as Lacy, the girl who brought her extra clothes to change into, tiptoes cautiously through the door, watching Drew warily. When Drew isn't looking, she scurries quickly across the room and takes a seat by the wall, out of Drew's line of vision, where she catches Reyna watching her and smiles sheepishly, blushing.
Still more people continues to flow through the door, and although Nico tries to whisper their names in Reyna's ear, she only catches about half a dozen of them, leaving half of the teenagers in the room unnamed.
Finally, the room is full, and no one else comes through the door. Chiron straightens in his wheelchair, and Reyna does the same in her own seat, raising her chin and summoning her confidence.
"Butch, if you would kindly stop drawing rainbows on Clovis' face and join us, it'd be much appreciated; Miranda, I think growing poison ivy in Lou Ellen's clothes is a little much, don't you? And Nyssa, please deactivate the berserk bug killer so we can get started." Chiron says, and his orders are instantly followed. Miranda apologizes to a girl who's skin is an angry, irritated red that must be Lou Ellen; Butch stashes the sharpies in his back pocket and leans against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the proceedings attentively; and a girl with a red bandana and strong, muscular arms snatches a flying mechanical centaur out of the air and dissembles it in two seconds, while its victims pluck gold arrows out of their skin and clothes.
"Thank you. Now, as you can see, Nico is here, along with Reyna, and they have returned the Athena Parthenos, as I'm sure you might have noticed. I'll let Reyna fill you in on their journey, and her reasons for being here." Chiron tells everyone.
Eyes all over the room turn to Reyna, but she's used to having an audience-public speaking was a necessary part of being praetor. She takes a deep breath to calm herself and starts talking, beginning with Rachel and Grover's visit and going on from there. She's not as detailed in her story as she was with Chiron, but she doubts they want to know very much about her-they're more interested in how things are going with the Seven.
Besides, Reyna wants to start discussing the peace treaty as soon as possible.
As she talks, Reyna starts to feel more at ease-if she tries hard enough, she can almost imagine she's back at Camp Jupiter, talking to the senators. And even if she was alone there, Camp Jupiter was still her home-and is, as long as she can find a way to work things out with Octavian and the other senators who want to destroy the Greeks.
Thinking of her home fills Reyna with determination, and she hears her voice grow stronger, more confident. No matter what it takes, she is going to find a way to keep the peace-even if it costs her everything.
And on that happy note, goodbye for the next two days! And yes, I know that was a terrible ending. You don't have to tell me.
I love you, keep being awesome, beware Chihuahuas with rhinestone collars, and try not to make your math teachers mad-they might be a Fury in disguise!