Mayday, Mayday!

005. Burnt Altars

  Frank and Hazel slept peacefully throughout the encounter, but Percy was still visibly shook (doing his best to hide it, of course) when they arrived at the strawberry fields. Aella-Mae was snoring loudly, her hand in a mostly-empty bag of Cheetos. He poked her in the elbow. "Wake up, Maesie."

  She spilled the remaining Cheetos on him. Opening her eyes, she didn't see much ahead of them. "It's just strawberries and a forest. Why the heck are we here?" the girl asked accusingly.

  "No, look. It's Camp Half-Blood." Percy insisted.

  Aella-Mae blinked, and the darkness cleared away in an instance. A blonde, impossibly tan kid and some goth was running up to them. She stumbled out of the car, yawned, and resisted the urge to lick her Cheeto-stained fingers because appearances. Sticking her head back inside the car, she wiped them on a piece of tissue, then popped out again. Hazel and Frank were studying their surroundings with a sort of awestruck gaze.

  Blonde Boy ran up to them and hugged Percy. "You're back! Finally, it's still kind of sparsely populated in the winter. Not as many campers as there are during the summer, anyway." He had a slow, easy drawl. The kind more commonly found near the West Coast, Aella-Mae thought.

  Catching sight of the others, Blonde Boy grinned at Hazel and Frank, stepping to the side to let the smaller, paler boy forwards. Hazel embraced the other boy (Gods, couldn't they just introduce themselves?) and ruffled his hair affectionately.

  As if he'd heard her thoughts, Blonde Boy held out a hand for Aella-Mae to shake. "Will Solace. Cabin 7. That's Nico di Angelo. Son of Hades."

  Goth boy — right, Nico — looked unnerved at the sight of her. She politely shook Will's hand and said, "Aella-Mae Wang."

  She took her luggage from Frank and began following them uphill. Will was good at small talk. Nico . . . not so much. But he and Percy were pretty invested in the pack of playing cards Percy'd handed him, their expressions animated. 

  Aella-Mae followed them, trying to look somewhat interested. The weather was much nicer, she thought, despite it not making any sense scientifically. There were probably magical properties in play. She herself, of course, had never been much for the illogical. A pretty peculiar mindset, one would argue, for a girl who opened her eyes for the first time as a child left on the doorstep of the Jupiter barracks. 

  They were lead into an office, where a college professor-looking-man wheeled himself towards them, arms spread open. "Why, Percy, haven't you grown." Looking approvingly at Hazel at Frank, he offered them some snacks. They declined politely.

  She caught sight of the leopard, who seemed to be looking right back at her.

  "Do you want to feed him?" Chiron offered her the snacks, again.

  "Oh, I don't think—" Aella-Mae began, before Chiron placed a sausage in her hand.

  He made a throwing motion. "Don't be shy, he can't bite." The implication of can't versus won't didn't help soothe her nerves all that much, but she appreciated his effort.

  Mimicking his movements, Aella-Mae aimed the sausage at the leopard's bared teeth, bracing herself for something, at the very least.