Hopeful - Luke Castellan [1]

8 ~ We Capture A Flag, And I Nearly Die Again

The sword felt heavy in my hand and I knew that the balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I tried the disarming move. My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang. Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest. The other campers were silent. I lowered my sword breathing heavily. "Um, sorry."

Luke was too stunned to speak. "Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Addy, why are you sorry? Show me that
again!" 

We set up again and again it came naturally to me almost like time had slowed down. His sword clanged to the ground again and Luke gaped at me. I couldn't resist the sarcastic remark "I guess the best swordsman isn't the best after all." Luke chuckled and flipped me off as his siblings snorted. 

************

Friday afternoon, I sat with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. 

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D. His face turned a sickly shade of yellow. "Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously like he didn't know what to tell me. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask. "He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course, I'd want you along!" I could think of one more person that I would want along if I went on a quest but I didn't say it out loud. 

Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill." I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

I nodded as I remembered that about Artemis but I also didn't particularly like her for a specific reason. We'll get into that later though. Her brother, however, my cousin Apollo, I didn't particularly mind. Actually, he was my favorite other than Poseidon.  I shook my head to clear my thoughts, "yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."