- Nadia Miller. Aphrodite's pride and joy. And the nosiest girl at camp. Her two hobbies consist of gossiping to her siblings and looking at herself in the mirror. Everyone knew her and she knew everyone. Gaining her knowledge to all of the rumors. Considering she knew all of the camp drama, she definitely had heard about the new kid who killed a Minotaur.
~ 🎀 ~
It was way too early in the morning for anyone to be up. Except Nadia. The morning was her favorite time. "Grover! Groverrr!!" She whisper yelled at him through his cabin window, trying not to wake the others. "What!" He whispered back in a more sassy tone.
"Your the new kids satyr protector?"
"Yes? Why are you asking me this? Go back to sleep." The satyr ordered, rolling onto his other side to try and stop the conversation from continuing.
"Can you show me him?" Nadia whispered in a softer manner. She of all people had a way of getting someone to do what she wanted. Grover stayed silent trying to pretend he was asleep but that act lasted for all of 40 seconds before he gave in to her asking. He groaned and slowly sat up letting his feet touch the ground. "Yay! Thank you Grover!"
~ 🎀 ~
Grover led Nadia to the infirmary and quickly returned to his bed. She walked inside to find Annabeth standing watching over the new kid. Nadia walked to her side placing her hand on Annabeth's shoulder. Despite their mothers rivalry, Nadia and Annabeth were practically inseparable.
"Is he still asleep?" Nadia questioned. But as she said this the boy seemed to have been waking up.
"Where am I?" The blonde inquired.
"You drool when you sleep." Annabeth said, almost ignoring his question.
"Huh?" The boy hummed.
"C'mon Annabeth let's let him rest." She says, pulling Annabeth out of the room.
~ 🎀 ~
The next day during training Luke and the new kid aproached Nadia. They found her in a field with targets lined up in the distance.
Percy couldn't help but stare. She was the most gorgeous girl he's ever seen. She had black hair and Green eyes that he could swim in. Her style was surprising for a child of Aphrodite. Most of the girls wore pastel colors and bows and skirts but Nadia was more edgy. She mostly presented herself in dark colors and baggy clothes.
"This is Nadia, the head of Aphrodite's cabin. She's practically the demigod version of Cupid." Luke said directed towards the blonde boy. "Nadia's the best long range fighter at camp, so if you want to know how to fight it's best to learn from her. Nadia, this is Percy. He's-" before Luke can finish speaking she cut him off.
"Your the one who killed the Minotaur. So Luke tells me you want to earn glory?" She says. Percy's too taken by her beauty to respond so she takes his silence as a yes. "Here, let's start with this." She says handing him a bow and arrow.
"I want to be very clear about this. I've never done anything like this before, and it looks super dangerous." Percy announces with a hint of nervousness in his voice.
"And you never killed a Minotaur either, till you did." Luke reminds him.
Hearing this Percy pulls back the string getting ready to shoot. Percy obviously misses the target and the arrow goes straight to a crowd of people knocking him and them all over. "Should I try again?" Percy questions.
The crowd screams "No!!" in return.
Nadia laughs at his clumsiness and helps him up. Percy grabbed onto her hand and stood. His heart was racing. Her hands were soft and smooth and he wanted to hold them forever. Percy froze staring at her as she spoke. Not to sound conceited or anything but Percy's behavior didn't faze her. She was definitely used to it.
"Maybe I should take this from you..." Nadia snickered, grabbing the bow from his hand.
~ 🎀 ~
The sun was about to set, which means you could find Nadia sitting on a nice pallet infront of the river. Most of the time she was curled up in a blanket watching the sky, by her lonesome. But every once and a while someone joined her. This was one of those evenings.
Her best friend, Annabeth, had found her and decided to join.
"Hello!" Nadia smiled, she was more than happy to see Annabeth.
Before Annabeth could speak Nadia immediately started telling her about her day. Nadia was definitely the talking type.
"So today Luke brought me a new kid to train. He is SO bad at shooting. He knocked over the whole group of people at axe throwing. Oh! You know him! The kid from the infirmary."
She went on and on. Till it was dark out.
"As much as I love listening to you talk all night long, I think it's time for the bonfire. C'mon." Annabeth pulled Nadia up from the ground and walked with her to the woods.
~ 🎀 ~
Tonight was the first bonfire since Percy arrived at camp. At the bonfire the different cabins sat in different sections all creating a big circle.
As Percy and Luke walked past cabin 10's section they could hear them all whispering to each other in a different language. Including the girl Percy had met earlier at training. "C'est lui." One girl whispered. "Celui qui a tué le Minotaure." All the campers knew that the children of Aphrodite were the camps biggest gossipers.
"What are they saying?" Percy asks Luke, assuming he knows everything. "No clue. All of Aphrodite's kids know how to speak French. Most of the time they're just spreading rumors."
~ 🎀 ~
After burnt offerings Clarisse and her minions, all kids of Ares, catch Percy. They've been torturing him since he got here all because Clarisse doesn't believe Percy killed the Minotaur.
Clarisse signals for the other two people with her to grab Percy and drag him into the bathroom. "Every new kid shows up here and thinks they're special. Do you think your special?" Clarisse taunts.
"No."
As he says this the same two people that drug him into the bathroom pick him up.
"Tell me you made it all up about the Minotaur, and I'll let you go."
"I didn't make anything up." Percy says, struggling to get out of the bullies' grasps. Though saying this made Clarisse even more mad. The two people holding Percy up forced him into a stall and shoved his head almost fully into the toilet.
When suddenly the toilet flushes on its own. Seeing as though none of the people in the room flushed this toilet they all take a step back. The toilet gurgles before water comes rushing out. The stream of water missed Percy's head but hit the three bullies directly.
When Percy looked back he saw the three of them drenched in water. Clarisse said nothing and instead ran out of the room along with the other two.
The boy gets up and looks around seeing what damage the toilet caused. He turns to see Annabeth and Nadia standing in the doorway.
"I can explain." Percy exclaims, trying to come up with an excuse as to what happened.
"No you can't." Annabeth shook her head.
"What are you two even doing here?" The blonde asks.
"Well we've been waiting to see if something like this would happen. So we'd know that you could help us." Nadia chimed in.
"Help you do what?" Percy squinted his eyes.
"Win capture the flag."
~ 🎀 ~
The next day was, finally, capture the flag, which everyone had been waiting for. All the campers were in the training fields preparing for the game later. Luke and Percy had fallen into a conversation about last night in the bathroom.
"Nadia and Annabeth were there too. They said they had been waiting for it to happen." Percy informed Luke.
"You should cut them a break."
"Whos side are you on anyway?" Percy clapped back.
"Oh, theirs always. Theyre my little sisters." Luke saying this made Percy tilt his head up showing how confused he was. "Maybe I should back up."
Luke sat at a table with Percy and explained to him the situation. "Before camp I was on the road. Me, Nadia, and the forbidden kid I met along the way. Her name was Thalia." Luke explained.
"And what does that mean, forbidden?" The blonde boy inquired.
"The three 'big' gods of Olympus agreed their demigod children were becoming too powerful. So, they made a pact. A pact to stop fathering anymore children. Until Zeus broke that pact. Until Thalia."
Luke's explanation cleared a lot of things up for Percy so he switched topics. "The girls have been watching me since I got here. Why?"
"Annabeth and Nadia are always trying to please their mothers. They've been begging Chiron to send them on a quest to prove themselves."
"And what does this have to do with me?"
"Chiron's been promising them that one day, a demigod would arrive who was fated to go on a quest. And when that happened then they could join it. Every new arival the girls watch, looking for a sign that they're the one. Usually they both give up after a day or two but they're still watching you."
"Can you ask them to knock it off?" Percy asked annoyed.
"I can try, but what if they're right?" A horn blew cutting Luke off.
~ 🎀 ~
The teams gather around a river in the woods. Chiron goes over the rules before letting the two teams know that "The games may now begin!"
Annabeth approaches Luke and Nadia reminding them of the 'plan.' "Today feel like a winning type of day to you?"
Annabeth leads Percy to his waiting spot then puts her cap on and disappears. Percy waits for what feels like forever for something to happen. Even though he didn't know exactly what.
Rustling coming from further back in the woods startled him. He gripped his sword in preparation, although he wouldn't need it for now.
Percy tried his best to make out who the people fighting in the woods were. He managed to see a familiar face, which belonged to the girl he met earlier. Nadia.
Back in the woods Nadia was struggling to ward off the opposing team. But the group of people she was warding off weren't focused on finding the flag.
Ares kids.
Nadia threw a rusted, pink, dagger toward her opponents. A gift from her mother. The special thing about this dagger was the way it automatically came back to her after she threw it.
She had scared the first two people that came after her off, leaving Clarisse the only one who wasn't afraid of getting cut by her dagger. Ares kids and Aphrodite's kids tended to get along well, but Clarisse got along with nobody.
"You tired of running yet?" Clarisse taunted. "Make sure not to sweat all that makeup off if you want to look pretty for your mommy"
Her comment caught Nadia off guard causing her to trip over the tree root that stuck up from behind her. Her fall gave Clarisse the perfect opportunity to run towards her getting close enough to do some damage.
She was able to slice Nadia's face right under her eye. This made Nadia mad enough to push Clarisse right off of her. She quickly reached her hand up to her face. But before Nadia could check, a drop of blood dripped from her cheek. Clarisse was right. Nadia does need to 'stay pretty' for her mother. So messing up her face was a one way ticket to the underworld.
Nadia forced Clarisse's back to a tree and held her dagger as close to Clarisse's neck as possible. But before she could do any damage, both of their heads turned to a noise coming from through the trees. Then they both realized it was Percy watching the two of them.
While Nadia was unfocused on her, Clarisse sprinted toward her siblings.
Nadia threw her hands up by her side yelling loud enough for Percy to hear "Thanks for the help, new kid." thinking he could have at least helped her fight off the other Ares kids.
"You looked like you had it." Percy called back sarcastically.
Clarisse managed to gather her minions and make her way to Percy.
"The flags that way. It's not here." He declared, anxiously.
"We know." The bully retorted. "Yeah glory's fine. But revenge is more fun." Clarisse announced before slamming her spear on the ground causing the tip of it to glow orange. Percy scrambled to grab his gear.
"No maiming. It's like the one rule."
Although, this didn't matter to Clarisse and her gang. And it showed. "Yeah, I guess I'll lose dessert privileges for a while... I'll live."
Clarisse swings at Percy nicking him in the arm multiple times. She knocks him over the tree log he was previously sitting on. "I'm actually not interested in maiming or killing you, believe it or not. I just want you to admit your a fraud. It'd make me feel better" Clarisse snarked. "Are you feeling up to that yet?"
~ 🎀 ~
Percy took advantage of the distance between him and Clarisse's crew and booked it. He ran all the way to the lake which also happened to be his teams 'base'. Lucky for Percy, the lake was way closer to camp. Although, once Percy made it to the lake there was no where else for him to run, so Clarisse started attacking again.
In some weird maneuver, Percy had caught Clarisse's spear in his shield and accidentally snapped it in half. Throughout the whole camp you could hear Clarisse's shriek.
But before Clarisse could do anything to him, Percy's team came rushing back to the base with the opposing teams flag. The team cheered due to their victory.
Percy could hear a familiar voice but no person to match it. "Not bad hero." Annabeth said taking off the cap that turned her invisible. Nadia caught sight of Annabeth and rushed over to her.
"You were here the whole time and you didn't help?" Percy panted. Annabeth didnt respond but instead reached out a hand to help the boy up.
"Now you know how it feels." Nadia smirks before shoving Percy into the water behind him.
"What is wrong with you!" He hollers, causing the attention of the two teams to shift to the three of them.
She didn't do this without a purpose though. Her and annabeth had a certain suspicion about him.
Percy lifts him self up realizing that the water is making its way around his body. Reaching every cut and making them disappear.
"I don't understand." Percy announces. He turns his head upwards, noticing the glowing trident above his head.
"Your dads calling." Annabeth informs him.
~ 🔱 ~
"You have been claimed by Poseidon, earthshaker, stormbringer. Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."
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