I didn't tell anyone about my dream.
Really, it wasn't because I was scared or something like that. It was more of, I didn't want to be the weirdo of a place again.
Didn't want to risk being an outsider again.
I wasn't completely stupid, I had figured out that Hades was disliked by pretty much everyone. Heck, he didn't even have a cabin here at camp halfblood even though he must've had kids at one point, if he had been forced to align to the pact rules. Emphasis on had. He might've be the only one to actually abide by the pact rules.
But even so, I wouldn't risk the hatred from my new peers. I didn't know how long me and Kai would have to stay here before we left again, and I'd much rather stay here under friendly pretenses than be singled out already.
Apart from that dream, my sleep was rather good (which was unexpected as I assumed it'd be fitful), but as always, good things have to be taken away.
I was awoken by a fog horn.
Connor and Travis Stoll stood above me, large grins on their face as they prepared to blow it again.
I whacked it out of their hands and turned over.
One of them laughed, "Not a morning person, I see." Maybe if I ignored them enough, they'd leave me alone and I'd fall back asleep.
It didn't work, as a moment later I was awoken again with the same fog horn. I got up to yell at them when the door had burst open.
A buff, oily (there was literally oil on him) guy was standing at the door, looking severely disgruntled, "Shut. The. Fuck. Up," he hissed, looking more angry than anyone else at the Camp so far.
Travis stuffed the horn under his shirt and squinted at the boy, "Sorry man, I dunno what you're talking about."
The other boy narrowed his eyebrows, glaring at them for a period of time, before slamming the door with a bang.
Connor turned to me, "Well, at least you're awake now! Me and Trav were debating putting a snake in your bed."
Travis continued where Connor had left off, "Then we realised we haven't used the horn yet, which was truly a shame. And what better way to test it than the new kid."
"After breakfast is cabin inspection, so stuff your mess under your bed unless you want to be cleaning pegasi shit for the rest of the month."
"Pegasi shit?" I repeated, "Why can't we just use powers or something for that? Magic it away, y'know." Connor paused and frowned as if this hadn't even occurred to him when a new voice interrupted.
"My sister says that shit is a bad word." Nico called from his bed, still fiddling with a tin man. I hadn't even noticed he was here.
Travis and Connor made eye-contact and smirked, before crouching near Nico, "Yeah? What other words did she say was bad?"
"I don't think I should say." He replied, looking at the twins distrustfully.
"Don't worry kid, we're your friends. We won't tell a soul."
"Um, well she said that 'fuck' is a bad word. And 'motherfucker' but then she said that word one time when she was talking about Tyler."
"Motherfucker isn't a bad word, kid. It's actually Latin and means pretty flower," Nico made a sound and Connor grinned, ruffling his hair, "actually, you know what, kid? Later when you see Chiron, you should call him a motherfucker. He will love you if you do that."
"Really?" Nico asked, his voice unsure.
"Mhm."
I should intervene. A part of me found this absolutely hilarious but the other part remembered Nico was ten.
The part of me that found this hilarious won.
I turned away from the boys and stuffed my hand into my rucksack, bringing out a change of clothes. The necklace fell out too.
I stared at it a moment, the myriad of emotions all coming to the surface to haunt me.
It was a silver chain with a gold flat pendant that had an intricate design. A small asphodel flower, branded into the gold stamp.
My mama used to wear it everyday, and I couldn't remember a time she didn't reach up to play with it, looping it through her fingers. I was young and would look up at her with big eyes, awed by the swiftness of her fingers, and how effortlessly she spun the pendant round.
When my mother died, my mama gave it to me.
The death of my mother hit us hard. We were both there that day. We both saw her run into the burning building, in a attempt to be the hero and save the survivors she knew were still inside. No one made it back out. They didn't even find her body.
I was five.
Sometimes, I still fall asleep hearing my mama's yells of grief alongside the wail of the sirens.
Less than a year later, she drove herself mad with heartbreak, and soon there were visitors from a local asylum knocking on our door.
A month after that, I was put in my Uncle's care and he passed me from school to school, as I got expelled from each one. Then we got to Westover and things seemed to be looking up.
I stuffed the necklace deep inside my bag.
Speaking of my uncle, I really needed to contact him soon and tell him I was safe.
Breakfast was okay. Not anything special, really. At the end of breakfast, Chiron called me and Kai over and handed me us a timetable.
I think that was what snapped my realisation into place. This was really, truly happening. And I could be a part of it. This could be my new life now, if I let it. I'd belong here with people that were like me, with dyslexia and ADHD and shitty backstories.
The timetable itself was not like anything I had seen before and didn't have a single academic subject on it.
Rather, it (for today) looked like this:
-BREAKFAST AND CABIN INSPECTION
-ANCIENT GREEK
-POLISHING ARMOUR
-SWORD SKILLS
-GREEK MYTHOLOGY
-LUNCH
-VOLLEYBALL
-FREE TIME
-DINNER
-CAPTURE THE FLAG
It started off well enough. I was paired with a boy named Malcolm from the Athena cabin.
He taught me the names of all the Greek letters, and explained how all demigods were naturally hardwired to understand Ancient Greek. He told me more about how it was linked to dyslexia and why I may have struggled in school.
I wasn't sure how to feel about it. On one hand, it felt satisfying to know that there wasn't actually anything wrong with me.
There was a reason I was naturally behind everyone else and had to work twice as hard to catch up in school. It also made me kinda bitter. So far, I hadn't seen a single thing demigods had that actually helped them. It was just another thing, that all demigods were given that made their life harder.
Malcolm was nice though. A bit awkward at times, but overall he seemed he really cool and eager to teach.
After that, I had to go polish armour with some other kids. I met a girl named Silena who was from Aphrodite and was really sweet. She also taught me how to put the armour on, for later that night at capture the flag. She told me about the argument she had had with a hunter earlier that morning and all the horrific things the hunter had said about love and her mom.
Who was Aphrodite. And who, apparently, passed all her good genes down to her kids. Silena was stunning.
She ended saying she would "pulverise" them tonight and they'd regret everything. I mentally remembered to never get on her bad side.
After that, I had my first swordfighting lesson.
At first, I was paired with an Ares girl named Lillith who was surprisingly quite affable. I had been warned by Lee to stay away from the Ares kids but she was quite nice, if only a little proud and hot-headed.
But everyone at this camp was.
She taught me disarming techniques and offence and defence moves, even going as far as to tell me that I was almost as good as her. I figured from her, that must've been a compliment. We spent hours there, which meant I missed my Greek Mythology lesson, but it was so worth it.
She even explained to me the general roles and hierarchy at camp. How Percy, Annabeth and Grover were like superstars, and you either hated or loved them. Ares kids hated them out of solidarity for Clarisse, their cabin leader who was missing.
She told me how her best friend was from the Aphrodite cabin, and everyone secretly looked down on their friendship but she didn't care.
She told me about Thalia, and her recent untreement and the weird rift between Percy and her. Lillith told me it was an unspoken power struggle.
Later, she even taught me how to throw javelins and spears which I was surprisingly kinda accurate with. She told me that tomorrow, I should try with daggers as she sensed some 'hidden talent'. It took me the whole of lunch to stop grinning like a fool about it.
After lunch, I met up with Kai where we teamed up together for Volleyball.
I won't lie to you. I was crap at Volleyball. Kai carried our team, and we ended up winning against two Ares kids. Then the hunters came and well, they won 25 - 4.
Free time, and me and Kai were sitting on a hill, watching a field where two satyrs were continuously chasing a nymph into a tree.
"I think I'm in a dream," he told me, "I just can't believe this is all real." I hummed in agreement.
"How's Hermes cabin?" He asked.
"I don't know. I guess, like, it's okay because Hermes kids are pretty cool and Nico with the Stolls makes me laugh but.. I just. Feel like until I'm claimed, I don't belong. And I won't either. But at the same time, I don't know if I want to be claimed by a God or Goddess either. And it's not like I can go to my mom about it and ask for obvious reasons." Kai hummed before offering me a daisy from the ground. I took it slowly.
Daisy's represented new beginnings and innocence. And motherhood. It was like the universe was mocking me. And the daisy was laughing at my struggle.
" What if - listen, maybe it's linked. If you talk about all this godly and greek stuff with her, maybe she'll get an old part of her life back? Maybe she'll remember and she'll-"
"No." I interrupted his speech, which was increasingly getting more hopeful. I didn't mean to put him down, but he didn't understand.
When we first met and he asked about my mom, I told him she had some kind of amnesia. I had lied to him. It was one of the only things I had ever lied to him about. She wouldn't suddenly remember anything, because it wasn't her memory that was wrong with her. It was everything else.
"Sorry." I inputted, after seeing his face fall. "I'm not gonna go and see her - I don't.. It's just wouldn't work out. What about you then? How's your new cabin?"
It was obvious he wanted to say more, but he didn't. "Yeah. Well, I won't lie it's awesome. The kids there, they are like the brothers and sisters that I never had. Literally. And turns out because of Apollo, I get some pretty cool abilities too. I shot a moving target. And got bullseye." He told me, a large grin stretching across his face. "Only downfall is the cabin blinds me. Tomorrow I'm going to start working in the infirmary. I'm getting tutored by an eleven year old."
His voice turned a little sour and I grinned helplessly.
"Is the Apollo cabin the only people you've been spending time with?" I probed, pretending to be focused on the grass strands I was pulling out of the earth.
"Well there was this girl from the Demete-"
"Someone else?"
"This Ares ki-"
"Maybe someone from Hermes... perhaps?"
Kai snuck me an annoyed glance. I saw right through it though. His ears were red, "Well, I guess Connor and Travis were around."
"You guess?"
He cleared his throat, "What exactly are trying to get at here?"
I grinned and winked at him. He groaned, flailing back onto the grass dramatically. I joined him, looking up at the sky.
"He's totally your type! Curly hair, annoying, likes to joke around. Cute smile. A bit of a flirt." I said, listing everything I could recall.
"Look, he's cool. Okay?" Kai interrupted. "And he's cute too, and he obviously likes me for some reason-"
"Well, obviously, you're like so hot and charismatic and cool and pretty with amazing cheekbones and legendary pranks it's a wonder-"
"But!" He interrupted, giving me a look, "I didn't come here for matchmaking. I don't know if you've changed your mind about it, but I still want to travel the world and see and experience everything and this camp - it's awesome, yeah, but it puts a stopper in my tracks. Having a guy on top of that is just out of the question."
"So what, do you wanna run away?"
He glanced at me, "Maybe. I don't know. There's a war coming to these people. Like a proper war and people are gonna die and be hurt and I don't want to die. I don't want to see you die either. Is this camp worth that risk?" His voice dropped at the end, his worry and desperateness coming through a little.
I wasn't sure how to reply. Instead, I picked a different daisy from the ground and gave it to him. He smiled and took it, twirling it with his fingers. But there were still brief frown lines on his forehead.
I looked up at the murky sky. The magical border meant that no rain could come in. It was a shame. I rather enjoyed rain.
I reached over and squeezed Kai's hand once before letting go, "It'll be fine. We'll figure it out!"
He puffed out his cheeks. "Right. That's what we do."