The Daughter of the Sky // Wattys 2016

Chapter 14

    I was officially the worst demigod on the face of the earth. A defective demigod, if you will.

    Every morning, Danny would tutor me in Greek literature but it always took me nearly ten minutes before I could translate a normal sentence into English, whereas every ten year old in the room had no problem reading Homer. 

After that, I tried going to an arts and crafts class taught by a pudgy, bitter old satyr who kind of reminded me of Mr. D, but his name was Mr. Hedge. Our assignment was to create a simple clay vase with one of those spinning devices that mold clay. What did they call it...? A pottery wheel.

    Let's just say Mr. Hedge received an accidental five star clay mask facial from yours truly. It was safe to say I was officially banned from arts and crafts at Camp Half-Blood.

     My only shot at making a name for myself at camp was through training.

     That afternoon I had one on one battle training with Percy again, but since I had now been determined by my father, he was going to try to focus on me controlling my powers so I wouldn't sneeze lighting bolts and hurricanes.

Literally.

    However, no matter what Percy tried, I couldn't channel my powers like I had in the pavilion the day before.

    "Okay, just breathe in calmly. Focus on whatever element it is you want to control, and just try to bend it to your will. It's kind of like molding something out of mud or clay; you have to manipulate it. Ready?" Percy made manipulating the elements sound so easy, and he even made it look easy. I heard a group of water nymphs gasp as Percy bent water out of their coolers, levitating it in thin air effortlessly. Percy wasn't even flinching.

    "Now you try, Orion."

    Sure, yeah. I could do that. I was the daughter of Zeus, for crying out loud. This was supposed to be in my blood. I took a deep breath, rubbed my hands together and focused on the sky above me. It was the bluest I had ever seen during my time at camp and not a single cloud was in sight. The shimmering sun felt warm on my face, and I thought about my parents. How I couldn't see them, how they had dumped me off at some camp for freaks. I felt sad, abandoned and most of all, lonely.

    "That's it," Percy encouraged softly, "channel all of that emotion."

    I tried with everything inside of me to channel my sadness into the sky, but I couldn't even create a simple teeny, tiny storm cloud. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed of my tireless efforts. Everyone at camp seemed to have such an easy time controlling and using their powers.

 Off to my left, I saw a boy I immediately recognized from the Apollo cabin, tending to a camper with a sprained ankle. I watched his hands turn gold and glow with energy. The boy from the Apollo cabin was hovering his hands over the sprained ankle, almost trying to heal it. Moments later, the wounded camper stood up again as if nothing had happened. I felt pathetic.

    Percy was really nice about the whole thing at first, and even tried to comfort me by telling me it took a while for him to learn how to control or manipulate water like he could now. His words of encouragement eased my nerves a little, but they also didn't make me feel like any less of a chump.

    "You know what...I have an idea," Percy snapped his fingers, "stay right here. I'll be right back."

    I shrugged, watching campers in front of me slash at straw filled dummies and fire their arrows at red and white targets. Something inside of me couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't like them; being a Demi-god didn't come natural to me at all.