Percy POV
I looked at the girl sitting beneath the tree, her pine-green eyes fading to a beautiful stormy blue.
"I'm Percy. You're safe now."
"I had the strangest dream… I was dying." She said.
"Hey, you're safe and alive. You're okay. What's your name?" I inquired.
"I am Thalia, Daughter of Zeus. What's it to you?"
"Thalia. Hey Annabeth, Thalia's your old friend, right?" I asked
"Annabeth's here? Is Luke?" Thalia asked.
The campers seemed to go quiet.
"Luke betrayed Olympus, thalia. He's working for…" Annabeth began. Thalia looked long and hard at Annabeth.
"Annabeth, is that you?" Thalia asks incredulously. "You look… Older."
"It's been 6 years, Thals." Annabeth said. I extended a hand to Thalia. She smacked it away and stood up.
"So, this is the camp Grover brought us too? It's… is that lava?" She asked, looking at the rock wall.
"Thalia Grace, come with me." Chiron's voice rang out. Thalia followed him.
Later, I began my trek to the dinner pavilion from my cabin. Tyson had left just a day ago. How could it be that I had just gotten used to him and he has to go.
"Percy, wait up!" A voice, one I had only heard speak fully earlier today, called.
I turned around. "Thalia, what do you need?" I asked.
"I mean to apologize." She said, bitterly.
"Chiron is making you?" I took a guess
"NO! I mean, no. I'm doing this of my own volition." She replied.
I sighed. Her sense of pride was very obvious.
"I'd like to apologize for treating you so harshly. You were very welcoming." She said.
I chuckled. "Ok, so do you know the rules of the dinner pavilion?" I asked.
"No, not really."
"Unless otherwise stated, you sit with your cabin. No one else. At the beginning of your meal, you sacrifice the best of your meal, and scrape it into the fire in the Brazier. The gods like the smell. That's basically it."
"Ok. So, basically, I sit alone and waste the best of my food?" She said.
"First note, they practically always listen. Don't insult them or they could turn you into a dolphin or something." I warned her.
"What?"
"It's a threat Mr. D gave me once."
At dinner, things seemed to be going normal. Tonight's meal was grilled cheese. When the time came, I scraped the cheesiest slice of my sandwich into the brazier. I saw Thalia doing the same.
I finished my food, and was about to walk to my cabin when a shock coursed through my body.
"OW!" I turned around to see Clarisse pointing her newly repaired Electric spear at me.
"Why'd you do that?" I asked.
"I challenge you, Jackson!" She replied.
Then she was struck by lightning.
I'm not even kidding. She crumpled, burnt, with her hair standing on end.
Did lamer- I mean maimer- malfunction or something?
"MS. GRACE! THAT WAS BETWEEN MS. LA RUE AND MR. JACKSON!" I heard Chiron yell.
"AND I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO WATCHING THAT!" Mr. D said.
I turned to look at Thalia.
"TIA GAZPACHO, BIG HOUSE NOW!" Mr. D yelled.
"Percy, Clarisse, come with me." Chiron said. We followed him to the campfire.
"Why do you fight? I get that you haven't gotten along since you met, but at least try." Chiron said.
"He hogged my quest!" Clarisse said.
"Oh, like you could do it yourself. I helped!" I said in retort.
"Barely!" She said.
"Calm down. Percy, I must admit I noticed you restrained yourself from fighting?" Chiron questioned.
"Yeah, because I'm saving my energy for the next Capture The Flag." I said. He nodded.
"Well I hope you weren't intending on facing Ms. La Rue in Capture The Flag," he said.
"Wait, are we kicked out of the next one?" I asked. He shook his head.
"No. Just Clarisse is. She instigated it, you did nothing wrong." She seemed to get upset but surprisingly she knew not to say any of her snarky remarks to Chiron right now. We were then dismissed and I headed to my cabin.
Sitting on the steps was a man I recognized.
"Hey, Hermes. Weren't you here just a few days ago?" I asked.
"Yeah, but now I have a message for you from Olympus."
He held out an envelope. I grabbed it. Inside was a note written on a sheet of pinkish metal.
"Hello, Perseus. If you couldn't guess, this letter is from me, Aphrodite. First off, good job beating my husband in combat a year ago. That is quite the feat. Second of all, don't make dumb choices. A fork in the road is coming. Make sure you take the right path.
Sincerely, the goddess of Love."
"The heck does this mean?" I look to Hermes, but he's gone.
Ok. That's weird. I thought as I walked into my cabin and slipped into my bed.
Thalia POV
"-and i swear if you EVER stop a fight like that again I'll turn you into a crow and have the campers shoot you down." Mr. D finished his rant.
"Yessir." I said.
"Go on. Back to your cabin."
As I walked to my cabin, I pondered if Percy was as alone as I felt.
Wait, why is Percy the one I think of? I must be tired. On the steps to Cabin 1, I saw a man with dark hair and a jogger outfit.
"The heck are you?" I asked.
"Hermes is my name." He said, seemingly upset about something.
"Okay, and why are you here?" I asked, which seemed to upset him more.
"I am the messenger god, am I not?" He said, and he pulled a phone out of his pocket and it morphed into a metal staff with two snakes coiled around it. One of the snakes puked something out. It was a box. On top of it, in curly cursive handwriting, are the words "To answer your questions."
I looked up to ask Hermes a question but he was just… gone. I stepped into the cabin and opened the box. Inside was a ton of images of Percy in combat. One showed him riding a wave in which a boar was drowning. Another showed him at the helm of a pirate ship. A third showed him decapitating something that was blurred out. A fourth showed him and Annabeth in the water. Annabeth seemed entranced by something and he seemed to be holding her back.
Why the heck would someone send me these?
