love and war | p.j & a.c¹

1.03

Tyson froze. "Pony!" he cried in total rapture.

Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"

Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not ... leaving?" Her voice was shaky. I felt bad for her, even though she had made her distaste for me very apparent.

Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. "Hello, child. And Percy, my goodness. You've grown over the year!"

Percy swallowed. "Clarisse said you were ... you were ..."

"Fired." Chiron's eyes glinted with dark humor. "Ah, well, someone had to take the blame. Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."

"Besides himself, you mean," Percy growled in a very un-Percy like way.

"But this is crazy!" Annabeth cried. "Chiron, you couldn't have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia's tree!"

"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."

"What circumstances?" Percy asked.

Chiron's face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boombox.

If i'm being completely honest, I pretty much tuned out the rest of their conversation. They talked about Kronos being Chiron's father (which I remembered from the myths) and how the camp was dying. None of it really made much sense to me, well... Nothing of the demigod life made much sense to me.

I did feel bad for him though, I knew what it was like to be falsely accused of things. Plus I felt bad for Annabeth (even though she dislikes me). I have a knack for reading emotions, and I could tell Chiron was a paternal figure for her, so I genuinely felt sorry for her.

As we reached the dining pavilion, the sun was beginning to set. It splashed out over the sky in a dazzling array of orange and pink hues.

Annabeth still seemed shaken but she went off to sit with her siblings. Percy leant close to my ear, "Go sit with Cabin Eleven, try to keep a low profile, okay? Stay safe."

I nodded and he smiled as he walked over to sit by himself. I walked towards the table that was filled with people and tried to seem like I was meant to be there. It worked, luckily for me, but not for Tyson.

The guy i sat next to looked down at me and whispered, "Hey, I'm Connor, Cabin Eleven's co counsellor with my brother. Are you undetermined or a child of Hermes?"

He was tall and skinny with a mop of curly brown hair that hung in his blue eyes. He also had elfish, upturned features and a wicked gleam in his eyes that said he was about to pickpocket me, but he didn't. He smiled warmly at me.

"Uh, undetermined," I whispered back, not listening to the commotion surrounding Tyson.

He nodded, "Well, welcome to Cabin Eleven for now, you'll be here until you're claimed. We'll find you a bu-"

He was cut off as a sea green light cast over the dining pavilion. Above Tyson's head there was a glowing green trident, flickering and spinning in the light. Percy looked mortified.

Everyone was laughing, including the new activities director Tantalus. He doubled over in pure joy and slapped Percy on the back, "Why! I can see the family resemblance!"

That's when it hit me. Percy had a cyclops for a brother.

☽☾

THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS WERE... INTERESTING TO SAY THE LEAST.

I was introduced for everything about demigod life. Percy seemed happy to get away from Tyson, which broke my heart. Even though he was a cyclops, still, we were all he had. I made an effort to spend time with him whenever I could.