ᝰ.ᐟ PROLOGUE:
Bullseye!
20 April, Day One at Camp Half-Blood
I WATCHED AS Sunniva Campbell, a daughter of Apollo, pulled the string of the bow backwards. We had just made it to the archery range after I was toured around Camp Half-Blood.
Grover Underwood was showing me around the camp. First, he took me to this den thing where we watched a boring orientation movie to Camp Half-Blood. The only good thing about it was that I got to watch a PG-13 film.
The film told me all about Camp Half-Blood. The cabins, the 'claiming', how the gods and goddesses from my dad's stories were actually real, along with the other creatures and heroes. How crazy is that?
Soon, we ended up at the archery range while many kids of Apollo practiced. Although there was a line of demigods shooting arrows all at different targets, my eyes were on Sunniva. Grover explained to me that she was the cabin councelor for the Apollo cabin, and that she was crazy good at every skill an Apollo kid might have.
She was amazing with medicine in the infirmary and handling wounds, her voice was amazing, she could play almost any instrument, her poetry was perfectly insightful (I didn't know what that word meant yet), and her archery was so accurate that no one doubted she could hit a fly in one shot. And it was all because of her determination (I also didn't know what that word meant) to get things right.
Sunniva let go of the string as it flung forward, shooting the arrow straight into the middle of the target. It was a perfect bullsye, Grover had said.
She set the bow down, along with the rest of the arrows. Grover waved at her and she walked over. "Hey, Grover. Who's this?" she asked, looking down at me.
"Sunniva, this is Valerie. She's new to camp," he replied.
Sunniva knelt down. "Hey, Valerie. How are you?" I shrugged in reply and Sunniva laughed lightly. Her laugh reminded me of the sun, if that even made sense.
"You laugh like the sun," I whispered with a small smile.
"Thank you so much, Valerie," she said. "How do you like Camp Half-Blood? Find anything you're interested in yet?"
I glanced at the bow and arrow Sunniva had laid down earlier. She followed my gaze.
"Archery? Hmm," she hummed, looking up at Grover with a sceptical look. He just shrugged. Standing up, Sunniva grabbed my hand and brought me over to the weapon rack full of bows.
She took a smaller bow and a couple arrows and dragged me to one of the smaller targets. She gave me the weapon, adjusting my grip as she taught me how to hold it.
Sunniva helped me slip an arrow onto the arrow shelf on the bow, clicking the end of it on the string. I followed all her instructions. I pulled the string back to my cheek and placed my other hand on the arched part of the bow, the arrow resting above my pointer finger. I closed one eye as I lined the end of the arrow up with the target.
And finally, when Sunniva said 'go', I released the string from my grip. The feathers of the arrow brushed my cheek lightly as it launched forward.
"Holy shit."
Right in the centre of the target, a perfect bullseye, was the arrow I had just shot.
I turned to Sunniva and Grover as they stared above my head. That's when I noticed there was a golden glow reflecting off their faces.
I looked around me, and the same golden glow reflected off of many surfaces in the range. Looking up, I saw an emblem above me, shining like the sun. In fact, the symbol looked like a sun. It was a golden circle, with twenty-something rays of light made of arrows.
"What does that mean?" I said to Sunniva. She tilted her head, smiling.
"It means you, my sister, are a daughter of Apollo."
ᝰ.ᐟ AUTHOR'S NOTE:
And hence the title.
I'm really excited to get into this book, and I'm even more excited for the show to come out. I tried to find a gif of, like, 8yr old Olivia but I couldn't, so that one at the top will have to do.
I know my writing isn't the best, but practice makes perfect, I guess.
This book isn't really set in a certain time, but I'm imagining it as 2023, and the styles and clothing choices and all that will be modernly based, even though the first book came out in 2005.
Also, the acts will be based on each season, which I am assuming will be based on each book, e.g., act one = season one = book one.
So yeah, this book is based on the show and not the book. So there may be some things in this book that did not happen that were in the original book, but what can you do? Anyways...
Thanks so much for choosing to read this book, it means a lot. Chapter one will hopefully be out the same day as the show, if not, the day after.
P.S., the last name Adlao is a Filipino originating name (at least thats what google told me) and I chose that for two reasons. 1. Olivia is half Filipino so I wanted to add something from that culture into the book, and 2. It means sun/day which I think is perfect for a daughter of Apollo.
For every name I've added in this book, they will usually have something to do with their godly parent. For example, Aspen Brooks, the daughter of Demeter. Aspen is a type of tree, and Brooks means "residing near a stream or brook."
So yeah. Anyways, don't forget to vote on chapters and comment a lot, I would greatly appreciate it.