I woke up the next morning to see that Sophia wasn't in her bedroll.
Leaning up on my elbow and looking around, I saw that she was propped up on a log, scrolling on an iPhone 5. Nico sat nearby, sharpening his blade while humming a strangely familiar tune under his breath. Leo was poking at the fire. Ren chewed at tin cans next to Nico. Percy was staring at the fire and Phillip was still asleep. Typical.
I crawled out of my bedroll and sat next to Sophia, staring at what she was scrolling on. Facebook.
"I thought we weren't supposed to use electronics," I reminded her, arching an eyebrow.
"No one has to know," she responded simply.
"You're gonna get us attacked," I insisted. "When the police investigate the survivors, I'll be like 'it was all because of Sophi's iPhone."
"Oh, hush," she replied, 'liking' a status from a Hunger Games fan page about the opening day of Catching Fire.
"You like the Hunger Games?" I mused, looking down her News Feed that was, indeed, full of it. And with a few selfies. She nodded simply in response, 'liking' a selfie that Leo posted.
That perked Leo up. He looked toward us, with a smirk. "You mean that fandom with the girl on fire? Katniss? This girl is on fireeeee.." He sang, willing a flame to dance around his fingertips.
"You got it," Sophia replied, 'liking' a photo of Gale. I moved on over to a different log after that, pulling out my own iPhone and sending her a friend request on my own Facebook.
"Accept. Accept. ACCEPT."
"Calm down, I'm accepting."
"Yus." I cheered to myself as I received the notification, smirking. "Hashtag selfie, anyone?" I announced.
"I will!" Leo replied, leaping to his feet with a grin.
"Then POSE." I demanded as we took a random selfie for Facebook.
I pulled up the 'Post Photo,' Leo and I exchanging smirks.
"Hashtag air!"
"Hashtag leaves!"
"Hashtag Leo!"
"Hashtag brbquest!"
"Hashtag extrememakeoveralert!"
"Hashtag SELFIE!"
"Hashtag sophialoves-"
The phone was knocked out of my hands, and Leo and I looked around to see Sophia glaring at us rather hard. "We shouldn't be using electronics, anyway," she muttered, scrolling on her phone again.
"Oh, sure," I smirked, fetching my phone and posting the selfie. "Sophia, you like Hunger Games. Do you know how to speak Muttation yet?" I grinned.
Sophia spun around, smirking. "It comes natural."
"Ooh, na vedui," I teased, imitating a damsel in distress and falling back, Leo catching me.
"You speak Elvish?" Nico said suddenly, looking up from sharpening his blade, his dark eyes trained on me.
I acted as surprised as my acting skills could get me. "Pedig edhellen?"
"Pedin edhellen." Nico stood, and we stared at each other for a long while, until we started to slowly approach each other dramatically.
"Gwestog?" I mused, looking directly into his eyes.
"Aye," he replied.
"Hir vuin.. tolo anin naur."
We both sat by the fire on the same log, one next to Sophia's, to which she made a noise of disgust and scooted away. Percy did not look like he was appreciating the situation.
"Peditham hi sui vellyn?" I mused. I had decided that our act was going awesome.
"Aye."
"Gwestog?"
Nico nodded.
"Ni lassui." I replied, with a nod.
"Na vedui," he responded.
"Mae g'ovannen, hir vuin."
"Gi melin."
At that reply from him, we both turned away with shocked expressions. Had he really just - ? Wow.
It was quiet for about a minute, before clapping came from Leo. "Bra. Freaking. Vo. Encore! C'mon, clap with me, Sophia."
Sophia grudgingly applauded, followed by Phillip and Ren. Percy was the only one who wasn't. He muttered something under his breath and stood up. "Anyone here like Finding Nemo?"
It was rather silent, until Ren said, "I do."
Percy's eyes lit up. "P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney." He recited, and they huddled in the corner to fanboy.
I absent-mindedly traced Elven runes on my log. Nico was doing the same. He'd formed a tension between us.
"Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey.. stuff." Phillip announced, which I then realized he was up. Sophia and Leo completely freaked. "WHOVIAN?!"
Things like 'bowties are cool' and 'keep calm and don't blink' came from those three. Before I knew it, we basically had a whole ComicCon going on.
Sophia, Leo and Phillip ran around making Tardis noises while Ren and Percy shouted 'just keep swimming' as loud as possible while Nico and I still had our backs turned to each other. After he'd said 'gi melin' it made it awkward for the both of us. Like, whoa.
For a second there, he had seemed kind of joyful. I mean, we shared fandoms. But after we stopped talking, he went back to his usual, sharpening his blade and humming that tune with the uncharming frown.
When I looked up, I instantly came to the conclusion that we were going to die.
Literally everyone was scrolling on their phones. Phillip, Leo and Sophia were looking up photos of stone angels and testing how long they couldn't blink. Ren and Percy were googling clownfish photos and giggling maniacally.
"Alright. Phones up." I announced, standing from where I sat. Even though my blessing of Aphrodite was slowly wearing off, I still held the temporary charmspeak.
"Okay," Percy replied, looking up, then shook himself off. "But-"
"Nope. Our using electronics this hard is gonna get us all killed, just you wait and see. I'll bet something dangerous is triggering us at this moment."
"Oh, don't be a bum, Amath," Sophia responded, keeping her eyes fixed on her phone screen. "No one has to know."
"Oh, someone will end up knowing," I assured, putting on my best serious face.
"You sassing me?" Percy looked up from his phone, with a look that read 'try me.'
I gave him the 'oh no you didn't' look. "Maybe."
His 'try me' broke into a grin. "I'm proud. Sassy runs in the Poseidon Blood. Together, we are the Prince and Princess of Sass."
Sophia finally looked up from her phone. "No, she's more like the Princess of Oh-my-gosh-I'm-so-sorry-are-you-hurt-I-didn't-mean-to-please-don't-kill-me."
I stifled a growl. But she had a point.
"Poor thing needs to harden up." Sophia grinned, as if proud of herself.
"Oh, please," Percy propped his arm on my shoulder. "She's already that. Aren't you, Amath?"
I shrugged.
Sophia protested. "Nah. Throw one insult at her and she flips."
"She'll get the proper training," Percy patted me on the head, then sat back down by Ren.
"Proper training," I muttered. "Whatever."
Sophia found it the oppurtunity to test me. "Amath. You're a Poseidon kid. That makes you an idiot."
I'll admit, I was a bit hurt. I dropped my gaze, then stood up straight again, but didn't reply.
"See?" Sophia turned to Percy. "She's got that bottom lip a'trembling." She faced me again. "I was kidding, I swear."
I looked down to see that my lip wasn't trembling. I made a snorting noise at her.
Sophia giggled lightly, and returned to her log beside Phillip and Leo. "Yes, she'll get the proper training."
I decided that we'd best get going. We didn't have very much time, maybe a week or so at the least.
"Well, let's keep going," I stated. "Don't wanna sit and wait here. There's no telling how long we have until Enceladus - "
"What about Enceladus?" Leo looked up.
"Enceladus?" Sophia mused.
I decided it was about time that I told them of my dream. "Well, I, uh, had a dream.."
No surprise there. We demigods usually have very vivid dreams.
"And Enceladus was there. The giant. And he, uh, had my mom. She was gagged and stuff. He was on a mountain. And he told me to hurry up before he fried her or something."
"That's the same one that kidnapped Piper's dad," Leo said. I remembered what I had been told - he, Piper, Jason, and Coach Hedge had been on that quest. Something rescuing Tristan McLean and freeing Hera, 'Goddess of Demigod Annoyance,' as Sophia and Annabeth descibed her.
It was rather quiet again, and I let an awkward feeling settle over me.
Percy finally broke it. "Well? What are we waiting for? Get packin'."
END NOTE: Here's the translation of Nico and Amath's Elvish conversation.
"You speak Elvish?"
"I speak Elvish."
"Do you promise?"
"Aye."
"My lord.. come near the fire."
"May we speak as friends now?"
"Aye."
"Do you promise?"
"Thank you."
"At last."
"Well met, my lord."
.. and the last line you must find out for yourself.
-cue dramatic music-