ATN: THE ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY

THE RECEIVING CEREMONY PART-1

Yeah, what is that? Ever since we came to Atlantis, we were only hearing about this. May it be the goddess of rainbows and portals, or the leader of demigods herself. Anyway, after breakfast, we were sent back to our rooms to prepare for the ceremony. I asked Tina about it. She said, "Wear something formal." Now, the catch was, since formal wasn't in our trip plan, I had no formal clothes. But, you must have seen those older brothers who say, "I got you bro!" I had one of that sort. Dadai was obsessed with wearing formals. He would pack formals literally everywhere, and not one. At least, three. We three brothers shared the three formals. We got dressed in white shirts, tucked inside black pants. Abhro's shirt was a little loose. We still wore our sports shoes, though. Our sisters came out soon after we met in the corridor. Riya wore a blue gown, while Hiya, our little angel, looked so pretty in the white gown, that I went and pressed her cheeks. "Iris lent us these. We did not have a formal wear." Riya said, "And, she also said that we would not need formals after today. Its only for the ceremony." Whatever it was, I was excited to see what happened in the receiving ceremony. And I knew that my cousins were too.

A servant boy came to us, and asked, "Eres nuevo demigods?" My cousins looked at him bluntly. They hadn't understood a word he said. But me, I had studied Spanish for three months once ( I was an FC Barcelona fan). So, I smiled and replied, "Si, nosotros somos nuevo demigods." He sighed, and told us to go to the throne room. After he left, Dadai patted me on the back. "Nice!" he said.

"Was it Spanish?" Abhro asked.

"Si." I said. 

We reached the throne room and found a little different scenario than we saw last night. Everyone was gathered around the fireplace. And by everyone, I mean everyone I had met here, except for the servant boy. The Queen, Iris, Tina, the rest of the demigods, all. "Come towards the hearth." the Queen ordered. We bowed to her, and walked closer to the hearth. 'Hearth', meaning home fire, that keeps a home going. Hestia's domain. We all came closer to the fireplace. "Tina, start." the Queen ordered, again. Tina took a step forward, and started speaking.

"Brethren, by the graces of Olympus, we have a new group of demigods among us. They are just like us, but are quite different. You must have never seen anyone like them before. I certainly hadn't. And I wish that they be safe here, for its their new home. They'll stay, learn, train, have fun just like us. They are from my homeland too, fortunately. Please, welcome the Chatterjees, our new friends." 

There were a few nods, some smiles in that demigod group. And, there was a lot of applause. I liked that. I felt a little weird, as I was never clapped at before. But, I liked that. Then, Iris took a step forward, and Tina took one back. It was the goddess who was supposed to speak now.

"Avik Chatterjee, son of Aphrodite. Step up." Iris said. Dadai looked at us, then looked at Iris, and walked towards her. There were murmurs, like, "Aphrodite!", "Oh, the lucky guy.", or "Get where he gets his good looks from?". I smiled at the last one. Anyway, Iris created another rainbow on her hand like she had done last night, and said, "Now, every demigod must have a weapon. The weapon chooses the demigod. Whatever the weapon is, you learn using it from Tina. She's trained in all of them. This is the first ritual of the ceremony."

"There are more?" Abhro asked from behind me. 

"Oh yes!" Iris smiled, "There are two more. Anyway, Avik, put your hand inside like you did last night, and pull out your weapon."

Dadai did, and after a couple of seconds, pulled out a shiny silver sword with a wooden hilt. "Ooh! A silver sword." He said. 

"That ain't silver." One of the demigods in the group said, "That's Atlantium. The strongest metal on Earth."

"Like Vibranium?" I asked.

"Now, now." Iris said, "We all know Captain America's shield is made up of Vibranium, but its not real. Atlantium is. It was discovered by Lord Poseidon himself when he lived in Atlantis. Lord Hephaestus tested it and found out that its stronger than any metal on Earth."