Indigo Eyes

Chapter 1

"Now, where were we? Ah, yes, I was about to incinerate this young upstart," Mr D announced as his eyes landed on the new boy and the girl's eyes lit up.

"Oh, can I practice with him first? I still have no idea how to piece people back together and he looks like a promising test subject," she said as her eyes ran him up and down, her gaze cold and calculating but there was something enticing about it. As for her words, Percy found it just like the rest of the conversation, he had no idea what was happening.

"Ah, an excellent idea, Jewel," Mr D exclaimed as he looked up at his daughter, his nickname for her somewhat of an irony. Her name meant gold in the Greek language, a name given to her by her father and yet her father was the one that gave her the nickname Jewel. A demigod daughter of Dionysus was rare, she was rare, and when her brothers got to know her, they saw her as their little gem of a sister, one they'd do anything to protect. And one who'd do anything to protect her brothers. A rare, shining jewel.

Not that this young upstart, as her father had called him, would've had any clue.

Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

The boy's jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up as the mystery girl gave Mr D an admonishing look. "Papa," she scolded.

"Mr D," Chiron warned, "Your restrictions."

Mr D looked at the wine and feigned surprise. "Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game, the girl occasionally stealing sips here and there.

"Mr D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits," Chiron explained to the new boy. 

"Yes," Mr D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha. Absolutely unfair."

"So, then I take it that Castor, Pollux and I are to find a new fourth member for Pinochle tomorrow night?" the girl asked her father teasingly and his expression was blank as he looked up at her as purple fire blazed in his eyes.

"Whoever dares takes my place will be sent straight down to the depths of the Underworld. Hades still owes me one."

The girl only beamed brighter as she pulled a card from her father's hand and tossed it on the table, playing a trick as the boy just looked even more confused, and he was definitely wondering how such a whiny-sounding man could have a daughter like her, even if she was even more intimidating than the other blonde girl he'd met.

"And..." Percy stammered, "Your father is..."

"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."

You could see the gears in his mind turning as he tried to put the pieces together of her father's identity.

"You're Dionysus," he said finally. "The god of wine."