Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 10

And they had six months at most to get the ship ready because they had to set sail by the summer solstice when the gods' powers were strongest. And they had to avoid ground travel with the rise of Gaia. Chiron said that they must only travel by sea and by air.

Air travel was no sweat with Jason but Chiron had trailed off when he got to sea travel...Percy. They'd need Percy.

Which meant that she would have to wait for six months before they could venture to wherever the hell he was and then go to Greece. And that killed her a little bit on the inside.

Before they started dating, she never went longer than a few days without contact from Percy, be it letters or Iris message. And after they started dating, he never went a day without talking to her, Cressida even used the landline at camp to call his mother's phone a few times. She couldn't even pretend that it was the usual deal where he was just back at school and she'd get to hug him when summer came. She wasn't even completely sure that the Roman camp was where he was until Jason got his memories back and confirmed it. Which is what she was hoping he'd do today at the head counsellor's meeting because all this waiting and not knowing was killing her slowly.

And everyone that knew her, knew that as she sat around the ping-pong table in the rec room, resting her head on Pollux's shoulder as they shared a soda and picked on the serving of nachos in front of them.

Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counsellor would toss him a Snausage. The leopard would also whine every once in a while, somehow able to sense Cressida's pain before she blew fire on him to calm him down.

Leo and Piper were sitting next to Jason - it being their first meeting as senior counsellors. Leo's cabin had nominated him after the Bunker Nine revelation, and Piper had challenged Drew, not being able to take her dictatorship anymore.

Jason hadn't understood why Cressida was there when her brother was counsellor at first, but she was the Camp Leader and in the prophecy and it was her boyfriend that was missing and she was probably the most powerful demigod in camp, so it seemed necessary to have her there.

Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. And while she also seemed like to punch someone by way of greeting, she surprised the trio by hugging Cressida when they came in, the two seeming like good friends.

Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis's nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counsellor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen, was playing "got-your-nose" with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda's nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back.

Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She'd promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason.

Annabeth didn't look so relaxed. She wore armour over her camp clothes, her knife at her side and blonde hair in a ponytail as she sat next to Cressida, their hands linked together as next to them sat an empty seat, likely for the missing counsellor of the Poseidon cabin.

"Let's come to order," Chiron said. "Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you'd kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, Leo and Cressida have returned successfully... more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in."