Tales of Camp Half Blood

Tale 12: The Winter Solstice

KATHERINE AND EMBER were happy. Winter was coming around and despite her name being ember, ember loves the winter. She is a Khione child after all. Cecil rushed in. "Are you guys ready?" He asked.

"Duh we are!" The two girls grinned and they all ran out.

On the morning before the winter solstice, around thirty kids piled into the Camp vans and drove into the heart of New York City. For his part, Cecil could barely contain his excitement. It had only been a few weeks since he'd come to camp and learned he was the son of some Greek god, and now he was about to actually step foot on Mount Olympus. He couldn't understand why some of the kids had chosen to stay back at camp instead of tagging along. Even if they were unclaimed it didn't change the fact that getting to see the home place of the gods would be cool, that's what he thought at least. But all the other unclaimed kids in cabin eleven were resentful of the fact they hadn't been given a sign from their parents yet and had outright refused to come on the field trip.

Cecil thought that whole sentiment was kind of dumb, it's not as if sulking at camp would be any kind of payback to their parents. They were the only ones losing in this whole situation. Which is why he was quite happy to tag along on the trip despite the fact one of those twelve gods they were about to see still had yet to claim him. Plus, he'd never been to New York City before, so seeing all the huge buildings fly past as they drove was another bonus.

The Hermes cabin had taken up an entire van themselves, so Cecil was crammed between Connor, Kath and Ember for the duration of the trip. Some people had told him that being stuck in an enclosed space with Hermes kids was a sure way to get robbed of anything in your pockets, but it's not like Cecil had anything other than a few drachmas in them. Plus, he had gotten really good at spotting whenever some of his cabin mates tried to steal from him after the first week staying in cabin eleven.

"Do you think we'll get to speak to Hermes?" Ember asked giddily, practically bouncing in her seat as the Camp vans pulled up outside the Empire State Building.

All her siblings seemed equally as excited, but Luke gave her a tight smile that Cecil thought was a little too forced to seem genuine, "I don't know Ember, maybe? Don't get your hopes too high in case we don't."

"Why am I here?" Katherine sighed.

"Why not!"

His warning did nothing to curb the growing excitement building among the kids in their van, an energy that only increased once they met up with the rest of the campers outside.

Chiron stood at the back of the group herding them all inside quickly with some cautious glances around the street as he did. Cecil ended up sticking mostly by Connor's side, since he was the person at camp Cecil knew best. He wished that Lou Ellen would have come, but her older brother Alabaster refused to go to Olympus and she always just did whatever he did. But Connor was still great too. Usually hanging out with Connor also meant hanging out with Will because the two of them were, like, best friends . But most of the sibling groups were sticking together as they made their way to the elevators, so Will was among the other Apollo kids.

The doorman didn't even ask them where they were going, he merely nodded to Chiron in acknowledgment and looked the other way as about fifteen of them piled into the elevator. The Hermes cabin was not lucky enough to go up with the first group, so they had to wait an extra five minutes until the elevator came back down and allowed all the remaining demigods to clamber inside.

Once they made it to Olympus, Cecil couldn't help the way he openly gaped. To think this was just sitting above New York and none of the mortals noticed?

"Ok young heroes, listen up," Chiron called, gathering them into a crowd around him. Sometime while Cecil's group had been riding the elevator up, he had ditched his wheelchair to stand in his equestrian form, "you must all be on your best behavior while we're on Olympus," he told them firmly. Cecil didn't miss the way his eyes drifted purposefully to the Hermes kids after saying that, nor how Connor barely hid his snickering behind his hand.