Not super important author's note:
I don't speak Greek. I don't speak any languages other than English, but in an attempt to replicate the way demigods are portrayed as swearing at Camp Half-Blood in the books I literally googled "Greek equivilent of damn" and "Greek equivilent of ass-crack" and then copied and pasted the first result.I know this is likley breaking so many gramatical rules and is definitely not how someone who actually speaks both Greek and English would ever talk, but hey, we can pretend like I know how (not actually)Ancient Greek censoring of English swearing would work.And don't worry, we'll get into real curse words as the characters get older and more exposure to the world outside of camp.
Somewhere close to a year since I'd taken my first step down the hill, I'd finally begun to feel that I could call camp home.
Despite being surrounded by half-gods and magical creatures from ancient mythology, my life had peace. Peace I didn't have time to enjoy, as unannounced to us, all Tarturus was preparing to break loose to ruin the new life I had become so grateful to have.
I woke up that morning to what I liked to call my "internal clock." In reality, it was the feeling of my head slamming into the ground.
I'd developed a new habit recently; I was having nightmares for the first time. Dreams that distressed me so much that I'd violently jerk my head around in my sleep until I finally missed the pillow and woke myself up with a good knock to the head. Which resulted in me waking up feeling I'd been beaten by a baseball bat all night while the phantom of paralyzing fear lingered in the back of my mind.
With a groan, I opened my eyes. I was lying with the upper half of my body completely out of my sleeping bag as I stared at the blue of one of my neighbor's bags and was once again reminded that this was my reality.
Despite the pain in the side of my head, I was already drifting back to sleep, the trap of closing my eyes for "just a second" only being more tempting when blinked. I repositioned my head back onto my pillow and lay in my sleeping bag for a minute to savor the warmth while staring at the dusty, wooden ceiling of Cabin 11, eyes half-lidded as I fought to wake up.
The sun had already begun to rise, its golden rays streaming through the window and illuminating the different colored sleeping bags, scattered around the cabin floor like spilled jelly beans.
I honestly wanted nothing more than to roll over in my sleeping bag and slip back into unconsciousness; maybe this time I'd just see complete blackness instead of whatever nightmare I'd woken up from. But unfortunately, I knew I didn't have the luxury to go back to sleep.
In Cabin 11, using the bathroom before breakfast was a privilege left for those who woke up at the butt-crack of dawn, and the line already had six people standing by the door.
So begrudgingly, I got up. Grabbing my toiletries from my backpack and stepping over half-asleep kids.
Cabin 11 was the cabin for the demigod children, or half-bloods, of the Greek god Hermes. But Hermes was the God of Travelers and he wasn't as picky about who could stay in his cabin, unlike some of the other gods. That's why Cabin 11 was where the unclaimed half-bloods went until they could be claimed.
Unless you were like me and most of the other kids in Cabin 11. We were the kids who hadn't been claimed weeks after coming to camp. I'd been here almost a year without being claimed.
When I arrived at the bottom of the hill on my first day, I just wandered aimlessly around the camp, staring at the climbing wall and flying horses until a camper approached me. He thought I was a mortal, what we call non-demigods, who had somehow gotten into the camp.
After a short explanation, they took me to a blue farmhouse I'd seen from the hill and dumped me to be someone else's problem. That's how I met the activities director, a centaur named Chiron who had told me that my Good-Christian-God-Fearing upbringing had been only been right about the god-fearing part; and that the ancient Greek beliefs were right all along and everything in their mythology was real. Yay.
I also met Mr. D, one of the twelve Olympians, though you wouldn't guess looking at him.
When we met, he basically said something like:
"Oh yeah, your dead mom? She's not dead! Unless you mean she's a deadbeat, har har har! Cuz she left your dad when you were a baby! Ha! Also, she's a god which makes you some kinda a half-god abomination.
"Also, that half-god blood is why those monsters chased you out of your home and continued to chase you across the country for months afterward! She's ruined your life in every way without even being part of it!"
... that was mostly paraphrasing, but Mr. D sure didn't sugarcoat the news either. Turns out, the gods disappearing before meeting their kids is a pretty common occurrence.
It was probably for the same reason there were tons of us unclaimed kids here at Cabin 11. All hoping that someday we'd have a symbol of an owl or a bow or something appear above our heads. A bright, dramatic sign that showed our godly parent gave enough of a gamóto to publicly declare us their children and allow us to move into a less crowded cabin with our half-siblings.
Being claimed could take anywhere from the moment you step foot in camp to a few weeks. But for many residents of Cabin 11, that day didn't come. After the fifth or sixth week, your chances seemed to dwindle more and more, until you were forced to accept that you'd be a permanent resident of Cabin 11.
Not that Cabin 11 was a terrible place to live. At least, your cabinmates weren't usually kólos-holes. But with all the unclaimed kids crammed in with the actual Hermes kids Cabin 11 was the most overcrowded, noisy, and suffocating cabin at camp.
Most of us slept on the floor in sleeping bags. Anyone comfortable enough shared their bag or bed with someone else in an attempt to save space.
There was one younger kid, Andy, who'd made himself a hammock suspended from the ceiling with this impressive pulley system. At night he'd climb in and ascend to the ceiling, leaving space for either the brave or the desperate to sleep underneath him.
Everyone suspected he was a son of Hephaestus because of the hammock and other inventive feats he'd pulled off, but he couldn't be put in Cabin 9 unless he was officially claimed.
The line had moved now and it was finally my turn to use the bathroom. I walked in and started my normal routine of doing all the essentials as fast as possible so that I wouldn't make the line outside longer than necessary.
Despite my rush, catching a look at my reflection still served as a reminder of how I looked nothing like my parents. Or well, looked nothing like my dad and whatever shape my mom had taken to seduce him.
My dad knew my mom for a year and they were married for just over nine months before she gave birth to me and "died." I'd learned since coming to camp that in reality my mother had to return to her godly duties and faked her death to get out of my and dad's lives.
Not over dramatic at all. A completely reasonable way to end things.
Despite not ever meeting her, I'd seen photos. Even though her face was almost entirely covered by something she was standing far away from the camera, increasing the already bad quality of the old film cameras.
Still, I knew some vague details from the pictures, and the rest was filled in by my dad's family and friends who attended the wedding.
I know she had fairly tanned skin and black, curly hair that was cut at her shoulders. Everyone who described her always brought up her glare. They said she had this aura around her that just commanded respect, and her default expression was this aristocratic expression like she was patient but dangerous at the same time. What else would you expect from a god, I guess.
Growing up, plenty of people had asked if I was adopted when looking at my family and seeing their tanned skin, dark eyes, and black hair contrasting my pinkish-pale skin, green eyes, and reddish-blond hair. This always prompted the awkward conversation of,
"No, Stephan is my real dad but Sonja is my step-mother."
Quickly followed by a,
"No, my actual mother wasn't Irish, or blonde. No, she didn't have green eyes either. Yes, I'm sure she wasn't cheating on my dad either."
I hated talking to people like that, but honestly, I couldn't blame them for having questions. When we went on vacation to sunnier places, I often looked like a little Irish girl who'd wandered into another family's pictures.
Despite the obvious differences, my dad had always insisted that I had my mother's eyes. Which didn't make any sense. I often tried to argue with him when he brought it up. Reminding him that everyone, himself included had told me her eyes were a very striking blue.
"Those people never got to look at her the way I did," he'd say with a smile that I'd always mistaken for teasing. "I got to see the green rings around her irises. You've got them inverted."
No one else had ever mentioned the rings, and I was inclined to believe that he might have imagined them as he slowly forgot what she looked like. Or maybe he'd made it up to make me feel more connected to her.
As I rinsed the soap off my face, my fingers lingered over the smooth, pinkish-purple scar tissue on my nose. After almost a year, the scar had barely faded. The little lines around the edges of the main wound that came from digging the glass out with my knife were turning white now, but the entry point of the glass was still clearly visible, as well as the deeper wounds that had almost taken my nose off caused by it slicing deeper to the sides as I attempted to extract it.
I absentmindedly wondered if my nose bridge was noticeably scratched under my skin. Maybe hundreds of years from now, they'd find my skeleton and say, "Woah, τι διάολο happened to this sucker?"
My thoughts about my nose continued to wander until I reached the same train of thought I had every time I let it wander: My mother.
Staring at my disfigured nose, I remembered that it was another way my dad claimed I shared my mother's likeness. Apparently, even other people had agreed that I shared her nose. Some part of me thought that maybe my parents would be sad to see it ruined, but another part of me argued that only my dad would care.
'It's obvious my mother didn't want a connection anyway. She's the one who still hasn't claimed me,' I thought.
'Why would she,' another part whispered in the back of my head.
I splashed more water on my face and rubbed it into my eyes in an attempt to wash my insecurities out of my head. I looked at myself in the mirror while dragging my hands down on my face, watching as all but the tough scar tissue stretched and I looked like someone else, before letting the skin snap back into place.
"Shut up, chazos," I quietly responded to... myself.
'The gods are just like that,' I continued in my head, looking down at the water draining from the basin. 'They're a bunch of deadbeat trantágmata. What does it matter if I'm "worthy" enough for one of them to claim me?
'It's not like I'm inconveniencing anyone at camp. Except for taking up space in the cabin, but that's not my fault either! That's why I help out. I'm a helper. That's fine.' I looked back at the mirror, 'You're a helper around camp, that's all you have to be to make up for the space.'
I brushed my teeth and turned to leave the bathroom, taking one last glance in the mirror with a mix of pride and loathing.
I sighed and opened the door.
Some people in Cabin 11, mostly the newer kids, changed in the bathroom, but most of us changed in our sleeping bags. The supposed lack of privacy was awkward during my first month, but I'd gotten used to it pretty quickly. No one cared about getting changed in their bags once they realized that changing in the bathroom would result in constant banging on the door from kids who needed it more urgently.
I pulled on a pair of jeans under the cover of my sleeping bag and didn't bother too much about my cabinmates seeing my sports bra while I put on my orange camp shirt. My whistle was hanging around my neck from a chain I'd snagged from the misc pile in arts and crafts, and next to it hung my camp necklace.
After coming to camp and learning that it was traditional for half-bloods to name their personal weapons, especially when they were gifts. I named it Copper because it was a police whistle and I mistakenly thought its color meant it was made of copper. Turns out its actually made of this special metal called celestial bronze that allows it to vaporize monsters. I kept the name Copper though, I still thought it was funny.
I also learned that the specific type of curved end Copper had in sword form classified it as a harpe sword. Which was apparently a harvesting tool and not an actual weapon, but I wasn't about to trade Copper for a proper sword just because it was technically a tool. Copper did its job of monster slaying just fine.
The camp necklaces were leather strings that held the painted clay beads a camper received every August at the end of the summer. The image painted on the bead was decided by the most important event of that summer. I had two beads: a boat on fire and a centaur in a prom dress. Unfortunately, I'd arrived at camp after the events of the flaming boat incident, but I found camp just in time for the bead ceremony, so I got the bead anyway. I was, however, there to bear witness to the bizarre series of events that led up to Chiron wearing a prom dress.
I walked out to the cabin's porch when I was done changing and found my brother Wings already out there waiting for me. We usually hung out in front of the cabin and talked in the mornings until the breakfast horn blew.
Wings was a Hermes kid and Cabin Counselor. We weren't blood-related, but he'd been the first person at camp to help me get situated and comfortable. He was like that for everyone, but at the time it had been really touching to me and because of that, I'd started following him around and trying to help in any way I could.
Small stuff, like offering to help carry things, running around camp delivering messages, or bringing snacks and drinks for everyone during counselor meetings. After a while, we'd grown pretty close. He was like an older brother to me, and I was like a little sister to him.
Technically, we were cousins. Technically everyone at camp was realated in some way since most of the gods were siblings. But godly blood is weird.
The gods themselves were too complicated and magical to actually be related to one another the same way mortals were. Especially when you thought about the implications of them shapeshifting all the time and how it affected the DNA we inherited as their children. The only consistency they seemed to have was that most half-bloods born to the same god commonly shared a specific trait or two, so the rule of thumb was that cabinmates were real half-siblings, but the other campers weren't actually blood-related.
"Wren, you're zoning out again," Wings poked my shoulder.
"Sorry," I snapped back to the present, "been thinking too much since I woke up."
Wings and I had both given each other nicknames a while back; I called him Wings because he had these winged shoes that his dad gave him, and he called me Wren. He said that matching the avian theme made us a pair...
He also said it's because I'm tiny and talk too much, but that's not important.
Wings's influence around camp was undeniable; when he started calling me Wren the name had spread like wildfire. Everyone called me that now. But I was still the only person whom he let call him Wings.
He was 19, ancient by demigod standards, with sandy hair and mischievous blue eyes. He'd cut off the sleeves of all his camp shirts because he thought it was cool, and I'd occasionally catch him flexing his arms when certain people were looking. I'd called him a show off but he told me I'd get it when I was older. Whatever that means.
He had a scar too, running horizontally below his right eye down to his chin. It was still healing when I met him, but it had faded more in the last few months.
Wings had probably the coolest backstory of a scar could have. He got it from fighting a dragon! Yeah, fighting a real, actual dragon! That's the coolest way anyone could get a scar. Like, how many people fight dragons and survive to tell the tale.
We were in the middle of another conversation about the gods not taking responsibility for their kids and leaving them here in the Hermes Cabin when the meal horn blew, cutting Wings off mid-word.
"Eleven, fall in!" Wings ordered.
We marched in a line until we got to the mess hall pavilion. Then I said bye to Wings and broke off from the line, heading over to the Ares table.
It's kinda forbidden to sit at a table that wasn't dedicated to your parent, but I had argued that as an undetermined camper, no one could be certain that I wasn't allowed at the Ares table. Not only that, but I was on good terms with most of the counselors because of the drinks and snacks I brought. So most of them were willing to turn a blind eye as long as no one at the table objected.
And who would? After all, no one was crazy enough to complain about me taking up one extra seat next to my best friend, who also happened to be the scariest counselor in camp; Clarisse La Rue.
There were probably a million words I could use to describe Clarisse, but if I had to do it in as few words as possible, I could get the point across with one: big.
Honestly though, big is an understatement.
Clarisse was a huge girl with a stocky build. Seriously, it was well-known she wore an XXXL camp shirt. Usually, she wore her favorite camouflage jacket over that, and if not, she had a pair of camo pants to keep the theme. And of course, the look wouldn't be complete without a pair of combat boots. Seriously, I'd actually never seen her without them.
She had a mean glare that she shot through the strands of light-brown hair that managed to escape the red bandana tied around her head. Many kids thought she was the paragon of an Ares kid.
After Wings, Clarisse had been the second person to "welcome" me to camp. In her own way, I guess...
She and her cabinmates had cornered me on my first day and showed me the bathrooms. In retrospect, getting a swirly is a fairly unusual way to meet your best friend but I'd given up on conventionally "normal" life long ago.
We hated each other at first. On my second day at camp, I called her out for relying on her cabinmates to gang up on me instead of doing it herself. That obviously pissed her off. So when I challenged her to a duel, she agreed without hesitation.
I have no idea why I thought challenging her to a duel was a good idea. I'd never fought another person in actual combat before, let alone another demigod. Not to mention I was even shorted back then, and she was nearly two feet taller than me.
The only fights I'd ever had up to that point were with monsters, and even then, a lot of the time I'd survived by running when I got the chance.
So, after twenty minutes of rushed combat training with Wings, it was time for Clarisse and me to enter the ring.
For a full five minutes, I scrambled around the arena doing my best to dodge and weave around her spear without looking like I was running away. Eventually, by some miracle, I'd managed to catch Clarisse's spear on Copper's cross guard and pull a move Wings had taught me earlier that day. The move was meant to disarm your opponent, and the moment I did it, I thought I had a chance.
I frantically swung our weapons to the side as I took a step towards Clarisse knocking her spear out of her hand and preparing to strike.
The problem was that, in my excitement, I let go of Copper. Both of our weapons flew off a few feet to the side.
Clarisse had been more than ready to start giving me a beat down with her bare hands but I was already exhausted and beginning to realize that I was an idiot to think that I couldn't beat another camper who'd already received training; let alone one of the strongest fighters in camp.
The realization of what I had done had caused me to start a laughing fit right there, which was when my legs gave out. I just lay there laughing on the ground at myself in front of Clarisse, no longer having the will to get back up.
Surprisingly, that got Clarisse to laugh a bit too. Though, I think she was laughing more at me than with me. We both just stayed there laughing for a while, before calming down and then making eye contact and laughing again.
Unfortunately for me, Clarisse wouldn't accept a tie, and disarming her didn't count as a win since I'd lost my weapon at the same time. So after a short break to let me collect myself, she did end up kicking my kólos in hand-to-hand combat.
I didn't care about losing though, my perception of her had changed. I hadn't expected her to laugh with me like that. And I definitely wasn't expecting her to give me a break before we continued.
We'd made a weird, passive-aggressive connection that day; Clarisse no longer saw me as just some shrimp camper with a big mouth and I realized she was more than just some insecure bully.
After that, I kept seeing her around at counselor meetings, and during activities and games where we had to cooperate with the Ares Cabin. Over time our friendship developed, and I got to learn how the toilet tradition started. It was weird but surprisingly sentimental.
Every time a new camper arrived, it was an Ares Cabin's tradition to dunk their heads in the toilet. It had existed for nearly a century already after a previous councilor had started doing it as a light-hearted hazing ritual. After he was killed by monsters on a quest in typical demigod fashion, the Ares Cabin counselor and a few Ares kids would find a newbie on their first day and give 'em the dunk in his honor.
After breakfast, I said goodbye to Clarisse and joined up with Cabin 11 again for our assigned activities. The day continued like usual, but there was chatter about a new camper who'd arrived last night.
The main gossip around camp was that he'd killed the Minotaur on Half-Blood Hill. If it was true it'd be a pretty impressive feat, but that wasn't even the boldest claim people were making about this kid.
Apparently, Chiron was back as well, and people were saying that this new camper was the kid Chiron had personally gone to look after. He Chiron had never left camp for one half-blood. That was the keepers' job. So people were speculating that there was something special about this new kid, that he might be a child of The Big Three.
"The Big Three" was a line from this big prophecy that was believed to reference Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. The prophecy basically said that one of their children was either going to save or destroy Olympus, so if this new kid was one of their children it was a pretty big deal.
We had an hour of free time before dinner, so I went back to Cabin 11 to read a copy of "Genetics for Dummies" Chiron had brought me after I'd asked Mr D too many questions about reproduction and how human and god DNA mixed.
While it didn't cover anything mythical, it at least helped me understand how inheritance and whatnot were supposed to work for mortals and animals, so it gave me enough information to speculate on my own or ask Chiron about only the god-related questions.
I hadn't been reading for long when the sound of hooves on wood caught my attention. I turned around on my sleeping bag and Chiron standing at the door. I quickly stood up and bowed to him in greeting.
From the waist up, Chiron was an average-looking middle-aged man with thick eyebrows and kind but stern eyes. From the waist down, he had the body of a stallion with shiny white hair and a neatly brushed tail. His demeanor made it obvious he was a man of manners and commanded respect, but it didn't take long to meet the caring part of his nature that reminded me of my dad.
Standing next to Chiron was Annabeth, a blonde girl with the signature cloudy grey eyes sported by all children of Athena. She was a few months older than me, and I considered her to be a bit of a friend through Wings. But we didn't hang out that often.
There was another kid with brown hair standing next to her who I'd never seen before. His camp shirt was a bright and clean new orange and he was clutching a broken bull's horn in his hands. I put two and two together and figured this was the new kid that the whole camp was chatting about.
"Well then. Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner," Chiron declared before he trotted off and left the poor kid in the hands of Annabeth and Cabin 11.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway as everyone stared at him expectantly. I knew the feeling of being the new kid in Cabin 11. The Cabin had a somewhat hostile air once everyone took note of the new kid. Forgive us, but we were never exactly thrilled to have a new camper take up space. Even if it might be temporary.
"Well? Go on." Annabeth broke the tension that had been building silence since Chiron had left.
The kid barely took two steps in the door when he tripped. A few people snickered and the rest watched with humorless expressions.
Annabeth ignored his first impression and decided to introduce us.
"Percy Jackson, meet Cabin 11."
"Regular or undetermined?" I asked loud enough for everyone to hear. The sooner we knew the sooner everyone would stop staring the kid down.
"Undetermined," Annabeth answered for him.
The cabin let out a collective groan. It wasn't personal and we knew wasn't his fault, but we were all dreading a new cabinmate. It always stung to know another kid was waiting around to be claimed; maybe he wouldn't be at all.
Even if he had been a Hermes kid, at least then there'd be one less person who might be stuck waiting on a sign that'd never come.
Wings stepped forward with the same song and dance he usually had for new kids.
"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor right over there." Wings was using what I called his "mama" voice as he motioned over to the space near my sleeping bag while I made my way over to greet my new cabinmate.
"This is Luke," Annabeth said with a higher inflection in her voice that paired with the bright blush that had appeared on her cheeks. I knew about her crush on Wings and I'm fairly sure he did too, but I hadn't talked to either of them about it.
She probably remembered that if Wings was there, I was never far behind, because she peeked over his shoulder to see me approaching them.
"And of course his little assistant, Wren." She added, throwing a teasing smile my way.
I gave her a playful glare when I stopped next to Luke. "That's 'little assistant counselor,' to you, Chase," I growled, but I didn't attempt to hide my grin.
I glanced at Percy who was uncomfortably looking between us.
"We're kidding," I clarified, not wanting to confuse the new guy. "There's no such thing as assistant counselors... At least, not officially. Wing- Luke will be your counselor for now. Welcome to Cabin 11."
After the introductions, Wings continued to answer Percy's questions and I figured he had it handled. Since I had already put my book down, I decided that I was done reading for now.
I was walking down the steps of the porch when I heard Percy ask how long it would take to be claimed. The last thing I heard from the cabin was mean laughter that I had become familiar with in Cabin 11. It was the only way the unclaimed kids knew how to express the anger and uncertainty that was eating us alive.
"Oh, hey Clarisse." My head was completely lost in the clouds and I had almost walked right into her. I was glad to see her until I noticed that she had a group of camo-clad half-siblings walking a step behind her.
"What're you guys up to?" My smile had faded. "Heading to the Mess Hall early?" Their intentions were obvious due to their numbers and the direction they were going but still feigned ignorance.
"No," Clarisse stated bluntly, "but I think you already know that. You also know where the new kid is." She gave me a knowing smirk.
I knew that lying to her would be useless, but I could still mess with her and stall the inevitable. The worst Clarisse would do was put me in a headlock, which she did all the time anyway.
"The new kid?" I said slowly and raised my hand to my chin, stroking my imaginary goatee. "Hmm, I don't think I saw him."
"Wren, was he at your cabin?" Clarisse asked, watching my reaction rather than listening to my answer.
"Hmm... I'm not sure." I shrugged, grinning at her. Clarisse looked ready to put me in a headlock but her eyes suddenly locked onto something behind me.
Walking right past me, she yelled, "Well! A newbie!"
I looked behind me and saw Percy with Annabeth. I sighed, dreading what was about to happen for Percy's sake. I followed after the camouflage crew, already thinking of ways to minimize the harm they were about to cause.
Clarisse and Annabeth threw various insults and curses at each other but I ignored them in favor of approaching Percy.
"Hey Percy," I smiled awkwardly, "You wouldn't happen to be a fan of toilet water, would you?" I didn't really know how else to start the conversation.
"What?" He seemed more shocked by that question than anything else he'd heard today.
Just then Clarisse turned her attention to Percy, "Who's this little runt?"
"Percy Jackson, meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."
"Like... the war god?" Percy blinked at her over my head.
"You got a problem with that?" Clarisse sneered, she didn't like it when people dissed her dad. Which happened a lot, unsurprisingly. He's a huge psolí.
"No," Percy replied.
Percy must have been smarter than I thought if–
"It explains the bad smell."
"Pfft-" I snorted.
Clarisse shot me a glare. "Sorry, sorry. I wasn't expecting him to say that." I raised my hands defensively.
She turned back to Percy and growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."
"Percy." He corrected.
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you." Clarisse took a menacing step towards him.
"Clarisse-" Annabeth tried to intervene but I put my hand on her shoulder.
"He'll be fine, Annabeth," I reassured. She looked pained but decided to listen to me.
Percy handed her the horn he'd been carrying around, widened his stance, and brought up his arms for a fight. Instead of doing the same, Clarisse immediately grabbed him by the neck and started dragging him toward the bathrooms.
I followed the pair to the entrance but stopped there. The poor kid didn't need another witness.
"Think of it like baptizing or something! And remember to hold your breath! Don't panic!" And with those words, I lost sight of everyone. Including Annabeth, to my surprise. I wasn't expecting her to try and stop Clarisse and her siblings but I thought she'd at least leave them alone if she wasn't going to stop them.
Thinking of ways I could make the aftermath a little better for Percy, I went down to the canoe lake shed to grab a towel. On my way back I stopped by the camp store for a water bottle.
As I walked back to the bathrooms I heard what sounded like running water hitting the bathroom tiles. At first, I thought that they were done and Percy was taking a shower, but it was way too loud to be the camp showers.
When I reached the bathrooms, Clarisse and her cabinmates were lying on the ground outside the bathroom. They were soaking wet and surrounded by a huge, muddy puddle.
Percy and Annabeth were standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Annabeth was also dripping with water, but Percy didn't have a drop of water on him.
I opened my mouth to ask what had happened, but Clarisse was on her feet and yelling curses at the duo in the doorway.
I walked through the dirty puddle and handed Carisse the towel. She paused her string of curses to wipe the mud off her face, then glared at Percy and said, "You're dead, new boy. You are totally dead."
"You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth," Percy replied.
The other four Ares kids and I had to hold Clarisse after that remark, the mud making it harder than normal since she kept slipping out of our grasp.
Clarisse was totally tsantisménos and we were past the point of calming her down with reason. I didn't want to see the Ares kids get hurt trying to hold her back or see Toilet Guy die on his first day, harbinger of the apocalypse or not. So I valiantly decided to take one for the team.
"Hey, Clarisse," she didn't acknowledge my voice but I knew she could hear me. "What happened while I was gone? You take what he said about smelling to heart?"
Clarisse was too far gone at this point to realize what I was doing, and she turned to me with a dangerous look. I nodded at the Ares kids to let her go and took off as fast as I could.
"COME BACK HERE! I'M GONNA GIVE YOU THE GAÏDAROS WOOPING OF A LIFETIME!" Clarisse screamed as she chased after me.
"YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO CATCH ME FIRST, ITTIMENOS!!" I cackled.
I came back to look over this chapter and realized that Wattpad says it takes approximately half an hour to read. I wanted to ask if anyone thinks that it'd be better to cut the chapter somewhere and make it two chapters instead of one?
Thanks for reading! Have a meme!