rhea of the valley - percy jackson

⚚ chapter one ⚚

"here comes the sun (doo doo doo)" - the beatles

Rhea thought she was about to die.

It was a completely reasonable thought, really. It was the middle of the night, and the curfew allowed a rare moment of complete stillness to Camp Half Blood. Rhea was in a deep sleep, a rare enjoyment for any demigod.

That was ruined promptly by Annabeth.

"Gah!" Rhea squealed, tiredly waving at Annabeth in a half-hearted attempt at a slap. "Away monster!"

The monster, who Rhea was now recognising to have curly blonde hair, tan skin, and grey eyes alight with some new batshit crazy idea, snorted. "Away monster? That's all you've got?"

Rhea groaned. "What the hell?"

Annabeth grinned maniacally. "We've got a new guy. I think he could be the one."

"You think every new kid could be the one, now sod off and let me sleep."

"This one is different."

Rhea didn't respond. She knew Annabeth wanted her to take the bait and ask why, but Rhea was now tired in addition to her normal petty so she just shut her eyes as if Annabeth would dissapear.

"Do you know why he's different?" Annabeth whispered excitedly, getting bored of Rhea's disinterest. "He killed the freaking Minotaur!"

Rhea shot up at that. "What? The bull guy from the labyrinth? Isn't he like jacked?"

"Exactly!"

"Okay, that is pretty big." Rhea conceded. "But why the hell are you waking me up for that?"

"Because Chiron wants us to take care of him! He's like half dead!" Annabeth said it like it was the most exciting thing in the entire world.

"Us? Why the hell can't he get Lee to do it? You know, the actual qualified healer."

Annabeth shrugged. "Who cares? Do you realise what a great opportunity this is?"

"I care! I need to sleep!"

Annabeth rolled her eyes, grabbing Rhea's hand and lifting her up. Rhea slacked her body to dead weight, snickering when Annabeth groaned at the added weight.

"Come on!" Annabeth pouted. "He might be dead by now and I would've lost my opportunity to go on a quest!"

"Yeah, because that's the only bad thing about this new kid dying." Rhea asked incredulously.

Annabeth blinked. "Yes."

That's Annabeth Chase for you. Despite her blase attitude towards the apparent death of a new camper, Rhea liked Annabeth. She hadn't at first, she had found the blonde girl rather snobby, especially because she held so much pride over being a daughter of Athena and Rhea was some unclaimed nobody. But overtime, they had both sought comfort and counsel in Luke, Rhea's not technically brother, but a brother in all the ways that mattered. He was the counsellor for Rhea's cabin, cabin 11, where both children of Hermes and unclaimed kids stayed. Not to mention the target of Annabeth's massive crush. Rhea and Annabeth would stick by him like flies and had been forced to put their squabbling aside for the sake of Luke's sanity. It wasn't like Rhea was taking a knife for Annabeth, but they were friendly. Annabeth was familiar and if she had any opinions about Rhea's unclaimed status, she didn't vocalise them, which was enough for Rhea.

Rhea did on some level understand Annabeth's insane desire to leave the one place they were truly safe to become a Cyclops kebab. It wasn't like she wanted to lead armies, but a part of Rhea, the part she'd never admit, wanted kleos, or glory. She wanted her name to go down history as one of the most powerful, cleverest, most brilliant demigods. She wanted that glory for her brothers and sisters and cabin, because the most the Hermes cabin got was the brunt of the chore work. She wanted to show campers like Clarisse who looked at that unclaimed status and saw her as nothing but an extra camper that she was something. Rhea didn't know what she wanted to be, but she knew didn't want to be nothing. Anything but nothing.