Chapter Text
Piper’s still not entirely sure how she got here. Her last week of school she’d gotten a call from her dad’s personal assistant saying he’d arranged for her to attend a survival camp for summer.
Survival camp is definitely her sort of thing, but she’d been hoping to spend some time with her dad. The new PA was useless, couldn’t even send her a brochure or something.
A car picked her up from school, the driver was… not normal. Sometimes he looks like a huge bodyguard in a sleek black suit, the sort that followed her dad around movie premieres. Other times she could swear he was in jeans and a t-shirt with something sticking out of his curly hair. No. No way does the guy have horns. She’s seeing things. He tries to talk to her but the not-horns are getting to her, so she ignores him. He eventually gives up and makes a few phone calls but otherwise the car is dead silent.
When they reach Long Island the car pulls off and parks outside a bus station. The bodyguard (nope, not horns, didn’t see that) tells her to stay in the car and he walks off. He comes back a few minutes later with a latino kid. Looks kinda like a fae or an elf, all little and mischievous. Kid is definitely the sort to play jokes that drive you to tears and then just stands there laughing at you while you cry.
The car pulls back out and the new kid will not stop talking. Something about foster homes, new placement, hopes it’s not Juvie… He probably told her his name, but she’s already forgotten it.
When they finally arrive she finds out that ‘survival camp’ is a strawberry farm. Are they using kids as slave labour or something?
Not-horns guy looks even weirder as they walk towards a sky blue house. Kinda walks oddly, bit bouncily? Then she realised he had hooves where his shoes should be. Yeah. No. Totally didn’t see that.
The other kid is vibrating with excitement, like he’s seconds from just exploding out of his skin. She swears she caught a flicker of… fire? what? out of the corner of her eye, but it’s not there when she turns to look.
When they reach the house, two people are waiting for them. An older guy, like, in his twenties? He’s built like a tank and called Beckendorf apparently. His arms are HUGE! Like, Hercules huge. The girl, a couple years older than Piper, is dressed like Elle Woods headed to a party. Her name is Drew. She even sounds like a stereotype!
Apparently, someone called Percy had seen their arrival and assigned Piper to Drew and the other kid to Beckendorf, (“Call me Beck!”).
They told them to just watch the video first and then they’d explain further. The video was… a lot. They are demigods, children of gods and mortals, Olympus is on the Empire State Building, monsters want to eat them, welcome to survival camp, try not to die, have fun and learn lots!
She blinks, and then turns to the welcoming committee. “So, you know who my mum is?”
Drew shrugs, “Yes, and no. Technically, we won’t officially know who your parents are until they claim you, but Percy says to put you in Cabin Ten and the other kid in Cabin Nine. Percy’s always right about this stuff, and so far, other than Cabin Six, the gods haven’t made a peep about it. Much better than just stuffing all the unclaimed kids in one cabin like we used to!”
Piper blinks. They aren’t big on actually explaining are they?
“Was that supposed to answer my question?”
Drew huffs, looking annoyed. “If Percy says you’re in Cabin Ten, which bee tee dub, is my cabin, then Aphrodite is your mum. Cabin Nine is Hephaestus, so that’s probably his dad,” She waves a manicured hand at the excited kid, “Beck’s Cabin Head at the moment, so he’ll look after you, Leo. Piper’ll be with me. But first, we have one more briefing to get through.”
Piper stopped listening after she said Aphrodite. The love goddess. Seriously? Wait, did the pink princess say they had the same mother? Yeah. No.
“Who’s Percy? None of this sounds right. Why does this Percy get to decide who our parent is?”
Drew stares at her, like she was a bug on the windshield, “Percy’s a prophet. He sees the future. It’s like a whole thing. He saw you coming. Saw your auras. Told us where to put you. He didn’t decide where you go, your godly parent decides that. Percy said Cabin Ten. Which means, Aphrodite. What aren’t you getting?”
“Like, all of it? A prophet? Like the bible? Some random old dude with a beard just what… does a tarot reading? Really? That’s how you run things?”
Drew throws her hands up, turns to Beck. “Dude, I just, I can’t! Where is your girlfriend? This is her job!”
Beck is laughing at Drew, “Silena’s busy, that’s why she asked you to take over as Cabin Head.”
He turns back to Piper and the other kid, Leo? “Percy is twelve. He has lived at camp since he was little. I know it’s weird just coming into all of this, but the kid actually does have the sight. He’s a divinely ordained prophet, under the protection of Lord Apollo, and uh, I would not recommend testing him. Apollo is kind of intensely protective of Percy.”
Twelve. A twelve year old decides who their godly parent is. Yeah. Nope. Piper’s out. Even she’s older than this ‘prophet’ of theirs.
Drew is watching Piper, like she’s dissecting her outfit and finding every single blemish, Piper is so over girls like that.
“Uh, Beck, I think we may need to do the full ‘How not to break the prophet rules’, Lee is still kinda twitchy after that whole thing with the creepy fish. I really don’t want him yelling at me in my first week as Cabin Head. Because if that happens, I am going to hunt down your girlfriend and kill her. Very very slowly.”
Leo finally has something to say, “Is this like, a skit? Y’all put on a show for new campers? Coz, five stars man. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in ages. But, also. Hephaestus, God of Making Really Cool Stuff? He’s my dad? Do you all have a workshop or something?”
“Percy says you’re in Cabin Nine. He’s not allowed to directly tell us who your parent is, it’d interfere with some sort of godly rule about the claiming, but Apollo gave the okay for him to tell us which cabin to assign to new campers. Basically achieves the same outcome. So. Percy did not tell us, but since he did say Cabin Nine, I’m gonna assume Hephaestus is your dad. There is a workshop and lots besides, but that needs to wait till we finish the orientation. Drew’s right, we should cover Lee’s rules before we go.”
Drew has pulled out a sheet of paper which is written in something that is not English. Greek? Piper’s not great with other languages.
“So. These are Lee’s Rules. Also known as ‘How to not break a prophet, so Apollo doesn’t wreak vengeance on the entire camp.’ Mr D calls it ‘How to avoid all the complaints he’ll have to deal with if the sea gods drown the entire camp’ but, same diff.”
This place is insane. They are all insane.
The rules are… unique. Some are odd but liveable. Others. Not so much.
1. Don’t ask Percy to see the future, this includes any and all predictions, no matter how harmless. Prophecy is sacred and Apollo gets really butt hurt when people harass Percy about it.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, look inside any of Percy’s sketchbooks. Lee and the camp are not responsible for any impact such an action will have on a person’s psyche. If you do look, be aware that any people you talk to about what you saw will also be punished, should Apollo discover what you have done. But seriously, those drawings are not things you ever want to see. Like ever. Just don’t.
3. Do not make physical contact with Percy. Not even if you are wearing gloves. Maintain a clear distance. While there are some people he permits closer to him, it is solely at his discretion. Any attempts to make physical contact with him will result in harsh punishment, up to and including banishment from the camp and/or incineration.
4. If you come across Percy standing still and kind of not entirely present, just leave him be. If you are worried you can go to Lee, or grab one of his friends. Under no circumstances should you try and snap Percy out of it. And maybe don’t mention it to him later. It freaks him out, and upsets Lee.
5. If a god turns up looking for Percy just give them directions and get out of the way. The gods are a lot less patient with the rest of the campers. Be polite and respectful and leave as soon as you can. Some gods will transform campers into animals if they get too annoyed, and sometimes it takes a while before Percy can convince them to transform you back.
6. If Percy tells you he knows something is going to happen, he is telling the truth. For the love of the gods, listen to him! If he tells you to do something and says it’s a prophet thing, even if it sounds nuts, just do it. Things will go so much better if you do what he says the first time. While Percy loves pranks, he will never use the sight for that. He treats it as seriously as Apollo does, no matter how casually he acts.
7. Unless you’ve been given permission from Poseidon, do not enter Cabin Three for any reason, especially not for pranks, but even if you’re just dropping something off, leave it outside the front door. Do not enter.
“Wait, so Percy’s dad is Poseidon? I thought it was Apollo?”
Drew shrugs, “We don’t know, kid’s unclaimed. If he knows, he hasn’t said. Poseidon opened his cabin to any children of the sea and apparently Percy’s a sea kid, but there are like thousands of sea gods. Georgie’s a daughter of Galene and she stays there too. The Big Three gods don’t have kids, it’s a whole thing.”
The rules go on and on and end with number whatever, that the creepy fish is off limits. Do not involve it in pranks. Do not feed it. Do not joke about it. Best to pretend it does not exist.
“The creepy fish?”
“Percy says the fish told him that it’s a demigod who’s been cursed by Circe. No one’s actually sure if he’s telling the truth or not. Lee won’t say either way, says it’s for him to know and us to find out, but the fish looks majorly creepy. It’s got this whole moustache and beard thing. It’s weird. It lives in Cabin Seven during the year and Cabin Three during the summer. Someone tried to sell it to a pet shop last month, Percy freaked out and Lee got upset and it was all super tense. I would like to not go through that again.”
Okay. This is a camp full of crazy people who are all being manipulated by a spoiled twelve year old kid. Cool. Can Piper go home yet?
“Wait, the orientation video said we were being trained in combat, and there were mandatory camp wide full contact games. Doesn’t that give this kid, like, an unfair advantage? If he can touch us but we can’t touch him?”
Drew rolls her eyes, Piper really cannot understand how anyone could think they were related. There’s no way Piper is the daughter of a love goddess. Jeez.
Besides the kid they claim is a prophet doesn’t know who his own parent is. Seems kinda obvious he’s just making it all up? No?
“Percy does individual training with an outside tutor. He doesn’t join in the general combat classes. In Capture the Flag he will be participating this summer but is never involved in the melee fighting. You’re not going to accidentally hit him unless you go hunting for him.”
“And seriously, just don’t. Years ago there was this whole thing where a group of kids started going after him, five of them were banished from the camp, no one knows what happened to them.”
“Seriously? What, we’re doing ghost stories now?”
Beck’s leaning against the wall all casually, just waiting for the briefing to end.
“Me and Drew were here when it happened. It was… memorable. And terrifying. You can still see the path burned into the ground from Apollo. Five campers were banished, three more were punished but allowed to remain. There’s still one of ‘em here, in Athena cabin. Plus Lee saw the whole thing up close, with one of the Ares kids and some from Hermes. It’s not a ghost story. It happened.”
“Lee is the… Camp Director?”
Beck’s all casual and laconic, “Unofficially. Mr D’s the official Director. He’s kinda a god? But Lee’s the oldest here, started as a camper and stayed on. Then Apollo brought Percy and gave ‘im to Lee to look after. Lee’s got some official title too, from Apollo, but yeah, mostly he just manages the camp. Makes everything a bit safer. Adds a bit of common sense to the normal insanity.”
Drew gives them all a bright smile, “So, ready to head to your new cabins now? Get the whole camp tour thing underway?”
“I really don’t think I’m meant to be in Cabin Ten, can I request to be like, reassigned?”
Drew just rolls her eyes, “I can’t say I’m that fond of you either, sweetheart, but that’s where you’ll be sleeping. I doubt Hermes cabin will be willing to make room for you. Not when you have a nice comfy bed waiting for you and they already have kids sleeping on mattresses on the floor.”
Leo raises his hand, “I’m very happy to go to Hephaestus’ Cabin, he sounds awesome. I have nothing to do with her, I like my room assignment!”
Drew laughs, “Don’t worry Leo, Beck’s got you all set up in his cabin already. He’s been looking forward to a new brother!”
She crooks her fingers at Piper, “C’mon princess, let’s go do a tour. If you’re that set on avoiding Mum, I’ll introduce you to Travis and Connor, the heads of Cabin Eleven. If you can convince them to give you a patch of floor, you can stay there ‘til Mum claims you. Bet you they don’t have room to spare, though. Pity, I wouldn’t mind being rid of you so quick!”
________________________
Summer! Finally! It’s the best part of the year as far as Percy’s concerned. No more morning lessons, extra activities, tonnes of free time to visit the pegasi, campfires every night, extra training with Triton and twice the number of kids to prank!
Plus, after his first summer of Lee hovering over him like a neurotic mother hen, Percy had made Lee promise that during the summer he’d treat Percy like all the other campers. It’s just embarrassing to be the only one with a hovering parent! Well, Castor and Pollux also have Mr D, but he never hovers over them, at least not when anyone can see.
So now, every summer, Percy moves into Cabin Three with Georgie, Lee stays at the Big House and Percy gets to be just another camper.
Well. Mostly. He does actually know about the mortifying briefing they give new campers, the one about how to be nice to Percy. Because Lee is an overprotective mother hen. It’s been five years! Nothing’s happened. It’s fine!
Percy had tried to put a stop to the briefings, but Lee had very pointedly asked if Percy would like to live in a temple full time, like he’s actually meant to, with Lee as his High Priest (gaoler).
Percy’s a teensy bit worried Lee might one day make good on that threat. He likes camp, and all the kids. He has no interest in being shoved in some stuffy temple somewhere and only ever talking to the gods.
Percy might have a bit more reverence for the gods if he saw them a little less. As it is, he sees one or another of them practically weekly. Like, Mr D is fine, he’s literally stuck at camp until Zeus gives up on the whole punishment thing. But the others…
Percy’s even insisted that they stop visiting in summer. It’s just too awkward, especially with all the campers he doesn’t really know that well. The year rounders are used to it and while the new ones are weirded out for awhile, the others just treat it as one more aspect of being a demigod. But the summer campers really don’t handle it well.
As far as Percy’s concerned, the only acceptable reason for a god to visit in summer (besides Triton collecting him for training) is if they are just using Percy as an excuse to visit their kids. Apollo has agreed that it’s okay to help the gods see their kids more, but only so long as their questions are harmless. He’s even more overprotective than Lee. It’s annoying.
Apollo had already been getting worse before the whole thing happened last winter. Normally, demigods come into their powers around twelve or thirteen. Percy’s started when he was a baby. Apollo’s kinda panicking about what him turning thirteen means for his abilities.
Until Percy is claimed, they can’t start properly training Percy to use his prophetic abilities. Percy calls it the knowing, Apollo insists it’s called the sight, they compromised on ‘prophetic ability’. It’s a whole thing.
There are reasons Percy doesn’t know who his godly parent is. Reasons Percy knows but does not know. Basically, it keeps Percy safe. But at some point he needs to learn to function without the shield charms he wears. Charms, as in many, because Apollo is an overprotective neurotic drama queen who makes Percy wear multiple charms. Just in case one breaks. It was one time! When he was seven!
He’s been wearing a shielding charm on an unbreakable forged-in-Atlantis metal cord ever since. He also has a bracelet. And an anklet.
Sometimes, Percy is surprised the god hasn’t injected him with a tracking chip too.
Especially with the winter thing. That’s… going to be a problem. Eventually. Percy still isn’t clear on exactly what happened. But when they came up to Winter Solstice he was absolutely certain he needed to not be here. He never joins the field trips to Olympus. If a camp of demigod auras can get overwhelming, he has no interest in watching a Council of the Olympian Gods. At least in person, he dreams about them plenty.
Anyway, for Winter Solstice Triton came and took him off to Atlantis and Percy spent some time with Amphitrite at the palace! Percy is well aware that most people at camp believe either Triton or Amphy is his godly parent. It’s safer that they believe that.
But it also means things are going to be… not so great for a while. Something was stolen and Zeus is majorly cranky about it. The knowing says there’s more to it, but until it becomes Percy’s problem, he’s ignoring it.
For now, he’s getting settled back into Cabin Three. With it just being him and Georgie, they both have an extra large bedroom each. Percy figures one day they’ll be converted back to dorms. For now they each have a bed, an additional huge day bed covered in cushions that’s kind of like a couch, and a big desk. All in their own private bedrooms. They each even effectively have their own bathrooms!
Percy keeps a lot of his stuff in Cabin Three year round. It’s kind of embarrassing he still hangs onto the old sea horse, the blanket and the little kiddie water bottle he got the day he came to camp. So Percy keeps them in his room in Cabin Three where no-one will see them.
Plus there are the sketchbooks. They kind of overflow from the book shelf in his room and are just crammed in wherever there’s room. All part of being a prophet. He has to have a way to get the things he sees out of his head or he’d go completely nuts. Good thing Apollo is a god, he doubts Lee could afford to keep him in art supplies at the rate Percy runs through them.
The sitting room is awesome, all done in blues with an ocean theme. Huge comfy couches and armchairs scattered around. It’s way too big for two people. The first summer he stayed in the cabin someone had a huge tank added to one end of the sitting room. Just for James! During the year James has a six foot tank in Apollo cabin, but the tank in Cabin Three is enormous, big enough for a shark even!
Percy kinda wishes he could have kept James in his room so he could talk to him at night, but everyone still gets super weirded out at the idea of James watching him sleep.
James is a goldfish. He’s mostly orange, with a black moustache and beard and a black patch on top of his head, like he has hair. He used to be a demigod, but a sorceress called Circe cursed him and turned him into a pig over a hundred years ago. The only reason James is still alive is because of the curse. So he can’t ever be turned back into a demigod.
James isn’t really sure on the timeline, but at some point he turned into a goldfish. He says it’s because his mother was a naiad? Anyway, when Percy was little he kept dreaming about this fish that talked weirdly. Lee ended up going and buying James for Percy.
Percy knows Lee would never have bought James if Percy had told him he was a cursed demigod. But once he’d actually brought James back to camp, he kind of just accepted him? Though, Lee still only ever calls James ‘the creepy fish’.
But still, last month when one of the Hermes kids stole James and took him to a pet store, Lee drove straight there and got him back as soon as he found out. James likes Lee, especially now he’s saved him for a second time.
Lee was super furious at the Hermes kid. So were Travis and Connor. Some of the Hermes campers are still upset at Percy over everything that happened to Luke and Chris and the others, especially when Lou Ellen and Jeremy left like a month later. Percy thinks it’s kind of stupid. He was a little kid and he didn’t actually do anything. But if he admitted Clarisse is the one that actually told, they’d go after her instead.
Travis and Connor have always been fine with Percy. Or at least, they are constantly getting into prank wars with Percy, Castor and Pollux. Percy figures it’s just their love language.
Travis and Connor know James is off limits. They might put silly ornaments in his tank, but they’d never hurt him or try and sell him. It’s why they are allowed in Cabin Three, they know how far they can take the jokes, and they don’t cross that line. It makes Percy feel a little more normal that they can prank him without gods getting cranky.
This summer is going to be the best yet. Eventually, anyway. There’s some less than fun stuff coming up, but after that, it’s going to be awesome!
There are new campers arriving today. Percy wants to be elsewhere when they start their tour. The boy, Leo, seems like he could be fun, but the girl, she’s gonna be angry. Best to delay that confrontation as long as possible.
He finds Clarisse in the arena going over sword drills. It really isn’t fair that she is still so much taller than him. They are pretty evenly matched when they spar but Clarisse is all heavy muscle and half a head taller than Percy.
Percy’s more about speed and rapid movement than brute strength. It’s good though, means they both get a workout when they fight.
But they can’t spar right now, too many kids around. It’s one of the less fun things about summer. Unless they sneak off into the woods, the only time he and Clarisse can really go full out is at one of the underwater training grounds, and they can only do that if Triton’s around. Percy’s still not allowed out of camp without a godly escort.
“Yo, War Drum! Ready for a break?”
She rolls her eyes at him, she gave up complaining about the nickname years ago. Which is good. As far as Percy is concerned she’s War Drum, has been from the day they met.
“You hiding from the newbies?”
One of the Aphrodite kids must have got to her because her dark honey blonde hair’s french-braided and some sort of spiky ribbon thing is woven through the braid. Looks super pretty, definitely gonna hurt if someone’s stupid enough to grab it. The brown shade of the ribbon even matches her eyes. Percy knows better than to tell her it looks nice.
“You know it, new girl’s got a chip on her shoulder, don’t wanna deal with it. S’what Hot Air’s for.”
“Uh huh, and where is Lee?”
Percy shrugs, “Not here? Honestly, no idea. But a ragingly angry daughter of the Love Goddess is incoming in, oh, ten minutes? So I’m gonna bounce, you coming or not?”
“Thought you weren’t allowed to name the parents directly?”
“Maybe I meant Bright Eyes?”
Clarisse just shakes her head at him, “C’mon Prissy, let’s go see what Wise Girl’s up to.”
Percy sighs. That’s really not what he meant. But, still better than sticking around for the incoming explosion.
His relationship with Annabeth is… not wonderful. At least from his side of it. Things were really bad for the first few months, to the point that she’s the only one left of the eight campers that Mr D and Apollo freaked out on. He figures she mostly stuck around because she was so little when it happened, and she’s been trying to be friends ever since.
Annabeth can be great fun to be around and from Percy’s perspective, people who don’t think like him are super interesting. If people can accept him and roll with the weird, then there isn’t much he won’t roll with in return. It used to be better with her, but this past year it’s been… yeah. Maybe just her teenager instincts kicking in a bit early?
He wouldn’t mind it if being friends with Annabeth was like being friends with Clarisse, or Castor and Pollux, or even Georgie or Drew. But Annabeth is the sort of person who needs to know things. She needs to know everything, all the time.
Percy is a person with a natural ability to know things. If he wanted, he definitely could know everything. It’s kind of the whole being a prophet schtick. But he also knows there are things he shouldn’t know.
And he’s been attempting to explain this to Annabeth for five years now. He thought he’d gotten through to her, even had a few good years where things were great. He’d been so sure they were past all this.
And yet…
Annabeth starts up almost as soon as they come across her, sitting on her bed surrounded by books. Unlike Clarisse, she has not been near Cabin Ten, her blonde hair hasn’t been brushed in quite a while. It makes his hands itch. Even Clarisse lets him play with her hair! With lots of complaints, but she still lets him!
“So, Percy, have you started training with the Sun God yet?”
He blinks. “Hi Percy! Good to see you, how have you been? I’ve been great, thanks for asking.”
She just stares at him confused. “Wise Girl, it’s polite to greet someone you haven’t seen since winter. Not just start right in with the questions. How’d things go with your dad?”
Her answer is clipped. “It was fine. It’s good to see you. Have you started training?”
This is fun. Angry new girl might have been the better option.
“No. I haven’t started training. I won’t be starting training until certain things happen. They have not happened yet. So. No training.”
“What things?”
Clarisse butts in, “You literally had this conversation with him the last time you saw him, can’t you just drop it? We came to say hi? Summer camp is starting? Super fun? Capture the Flag game on Monday and Prissy’s joining in!”
Annabeth turns back to Percy, “Which side are you on?”
He shrugs, “Dunno, depends on who Sea Sister picks. I haven’t seen her yet, though her stuff’s in the cabin so she must be around somewhere.”
Annabeth looks confused, “Why would Georgie pick?”
“Because she’s my Cabin Head in summer? Has been for years now? But this is the first year Hot Air’s letting me participate in the games. Still gotta be non contact but at least I can play.”
Clarisse manages to jump in and defuse things before Annabeth starts with another round of questions. Eventually conversation starts flowing more smoothly as Annabeth shows them a bunch of new blueprints and things she’s designing.
Percy tries not to notice these are clearly blueprints for a temple. The sort Apollo used to stick his prophets in. Annabeth means well, she really does, and she wants to be friends with him, she’s just… gotten really bad at it.
Unfortunately all his avoidance proves useless, as soon as they leave Cabin Six, angry new girl is right in his face.
Ow.
This girl is armour settling on shoulders, straps buckled, ready for battle, teeth bared, sharp eyes, intense anger, love, passion, all burning in a fierce ball of fire. She is blood red roses, hissing swans and sharp-edged sea shells.
Someone got the full force of Aphrodite Areia and barely any of the love aspect.
Silena has the war aspect, but it’s nothing to the volume of the new kid’s aura. This one’s gonna be powerful.
Also. Ow.
She’s up in his face, nose to nose, almost touching and she’s yelling about… spoiled rich kids?
Awesome. Percy drifted. Lost a few minutes. If Apollo finds out it was involuntary and caused by the girl’s very loud aura, Percy’s going to lose the little bit of freedom he has.
In a strained voice, not moving a muscle he goes, “Ah, War Drum? Little help? Just drifted. Need her to back up before you know who notices.”
Clarisse has always just accepted the weirdness that comes with being friends with Percy. So long as she’s allowed to regularly beat him up she doesn’t care at all about the prophet stuff.
But. The first time they met he named her War Drum with a Shield, and that is very much who she still is.
She yanks the new girl back, completely unbothered as the new kid goes crashing to the ground. Behind her Percy can see Drew racing towards them.
“Shit! Sorry Perce, I turned my back for like a second and she was gone. You okay?”
“Yeah, didn’t last long. She didn’t touch me, she’s just super loud. Aura got me by surprise.”
New girl’s back up off the ground, and even more pissed, Clarisse shoves herself in front of Percy and forces the girl back before she can grab him. Percy sighs. This sort of drama really does not help things. Makes it easy for people to assume he needs other people to fight his battles for him.
He’s given up attempting to explain that his friends step in because if they grab him and something happens, Apollo will very literally incinerate them. Percy does not want anyone to die.
Also. Even if they don’t set Percy off, Percy is going to end up learning far more about them then they want him to know. He’d really rather people get to know him and decide for themselves whether they are okay with Percy learning their most deeply guarded secrets. Because it will happen. It’s not something he can actually prevent if he makes physical contact with someone.
If Percy knows a person’s aura well, then he’s all for a no holds barred fight. Clarisse had understood the risks before they started sparring together. She trusts Percy to never mention what he knows and he is happy to pretend he doesn’t know any of it either. It works for them. Plus they get to regularly beat the shit out of each other. It’s fun.
Castor and Pollux are the same. Georgie too, though that was a touch less voluntary. Triton started them sparring against each other and well, that would be when they first discovered how much Percy just knew after sparring with her.
Triton is very careful to never touch Percy. Unfortunately Percy already knows the grief he carries.
He and Annabeth keep very clear boundaries. Something to do with whatever happened when he was seven. Lee made it clear at the time that they could be friends, but distance was required or it would trigger… something. Annabeth seemed to know what he meant, and that worked for Percy. The knowing, or his ‘prophetic ability’ said it’s best he not know. The trigger issue had been dealt with ages ago, but Lee wouldn’t let him tell Wise Girl.
New girl’s still hissing at him. Huh, sounds just like her aura, but also… Yikes. He needs to give someone a heads up. That is some intense charmspeak.
She tells Clarisse to let her go. Clarisse lets her go, looking dazed.
New girl starts telling Percy to admit he’s wrong about her cabin.
Yeah. Nope. Not doing that.
“Stop! Now! You don’t just charmspeak someone like that, it’s basically mind control. Emergencies only!”
New girl is looking at him like he’s lost his mind.
Drew’s looking dazed too, shit. How strong is the new kid?
“Percy, what do you mean? What happened?”
“New girl just charmspoke the whole lot of you. It’s stronger than yours, Bright Eyes, and she’s a lot more deliberate with it than you ever were.”
New girl informs him her name is Piper not new girl. Cool.
“Hey! Perfect name, ‘cause you’ve got a real set of pipes on you! With that voice and all. But seriously, don’t do that. Also. Won’t work on me. But you do it to the wrong camper and things won’t be pretty. Ask Bright Eyes, she’s got some great stories from when she was learning.”
Piper is very very pissed at Percy. He’s talented like that. He can see Clarisse getting ready to grab her if she lunges again.
He interrupts her latest rant about the cabin and how a love goddess isn’t her mother.
‘Dite likes him, she’s totally listening in. But just in case.
“Not sure if you know, but charmspeak is specifically an Aphrodite thing. Also, based on your aura you inherited the Aphrodite Areia aspect, strongest I’ve ever seen. Just so’s you know, she’s a war goddess.”
And right on time…
“Also, you might wanna look up? Your mum’s calling.”
A pretty (and extremely fluorescent) pink peace dove is floating above Piper’s head. Aphrodite must be feeling cranky, her claiming sign isn’t usually quite so… eye-smartingly pink? And she’s given the girl her whole makeover blessing thing. The one where it feels more like a curse because you end up stuck in elaborate evening wear. New girl is even angrier.
Percy leaves as soon as she’s distracted. Not his problem. This is going to make his gossip sessions in Cabin Ten super awkward. He likes visiting Drew and Silena. But angry girl is not his problem.
“War goddess, huh?”
He rolls his eyes at Clarisse as she catches up to him, “You can’t talk, little miss ‘I inherited Dad’s shield instead of his sword’. It does happen!”
Clarisse offers in a conversational tone, “You do realise if you ever tell anyone else about the shield stuff, I’ll cut off your tongue and feed it to you?”
“Yeah, yeah. S’been five years and I’m still standing. You don’t scare me. Besides calling you Shield doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as War Drum does.”
Clarisse is silent, it’s only as they reach the stables that she asks much more quietly, “New girl really used charmspeak on me?”
Percy gives her a sympathetic look, “Yeah, sorry, but only to make you let her go. Not sure what would’ve happened if I hadn’t stopped her though. She’s way too comfortable with it.”
“You gonna tell Lee?”
“Nah, the shielding charms stop that sort of thing affecting me, so it’s officially not Hot Air’s problem. I know Sea Foam’s handed over Cabin Head, but if Bright Eyes doesn’t tell her I’ll talk to her. She’s better with the whole uncontrolled charmspeak thing. They can deal with her and loop Chiron in. None of it has anything to do with me. I missed most of her rant, but I did catch the ‘spoiled little rich kid’ part. Which is kinda hilarious actually.” He adds thoughtfully.
Clarisse pokes him, “Oi, if you have gossip, give.”
“Nuh uh, you’ll find out when everyone else does. Gonna be awesome though.”
________________________
After the kid, Percy, leaves, with the big aggressive girl at his back, Drew turns on Piper.
“So, this is your one and only warning. You try and use charmspeak on Apollo’s Prophet again and no one is going to step in when Apollo finds out.”
Piper is just so done.
“I. Don’t. Know. What. Charmspeak. Is. I did not use it. I have no idea what just happened or why the kid was accusing me of mind control or why that awful girl threw me on the ground. I don’t know even know why I’m dressed like this!”
Piper is mortified to realise she is about to burst into tears. Just, what is happening?
Drew sighed, “Look, just come back to the cabin. Let me and Silena explain it all to you. We would have already, except you came out here and attacked him!”
“I didn’t touch him!”
Drew just blinks at her. “Seriously? You didn’t notice him go all vacant and not present? You got close enough that he got your aura full force. Apparently you’ve got a big aura. Probably means you’ll be powerful. But this is the entire reason we told you to keep your distance from him!”
Drew drags a hand over her face, looking frustrated. “Look, just come back to the cabin. We can sort it out there. We’ve kind of got an audience?”
A blonde girl with sharp grey eyes interjects, she at least looks like she’s at survival camp. A bit rougher, ready for action. Knife strapped to her hip, hair in a no-nonsense ponytail, and there’s not a speck of makeup. Nothing like princess barbie, or all the fashion models the camp is apparently filled with.
“Do you want me to come with you? I can help explain?”
Drew frowns, “Annabeth, I’m really not sure that’d be all that helpful, charmspeak is an Aphrodite thing-”
Piper cuts her off, “Yes, please, you look like you might be able to explain this total madhouse. Let’s go to your cabin, The pink princess is just making it worse.”
Drew throws her hands up, “Fine! But!” She points at Annabeth, “You’ve got thirty minutes and you better keep her in your cabin till I get back. I need to go and find Silena, this is so far above my pay grade right now. If she goes after Percy again, I’m not gonna bother the Sun God, I’m going to tell the Sea Prince, got it?”
Piper has no clue what she’s talking about, but apparently it means something to Annabeth, she looks kind of anxious. “Yep, of course Drew.” She smiles at Piper, “I live here, Cabin Six, there should be a couple free seats in the common room.”
As they go in, Piper can’t help but say, “Seriously, I have no idea what that girl’s deal is. She seems majorly stuck up. What’s with her threatening you with a prince?”
Annabeth winces, “Uh, we tend to nickname the gods, names have power so it’s best to only say their actual names when you want their attention. The Sea Prince is Percy’s… tutor? Or at least that’s what they say. He is not fond of Athena kids, kinda aggressive.”
“You sound like you don’t believe he’s a tutor?”
Annabeth shrugs, “He and Percy look super alike, plus Percy doesn’t fight and he’s not really an intellectual. He’s my best friend, but he’s kind of a total goofball. He’s not the type to be dedicated to his lessons. The rumour is that the Sea Prince is his dad.”
Piper still has no idea which god is meant to be the Sea Prince. She knows a fair amount about the Olympian gods because of her dad’s work, but he’s never mentioned a Sea Prince?
“He’s your best friend but he hasn’t told you if the rumour’s true or not? What is with this kid? It’s like all I’ve heard since I got here is that this twelve year old kid has the entire camp wrapped around his finger. He just sounds so spoiled, and ugh, I knew kids like him back home. I can’t stand them!”
Annabeth stares at her. “Uh, I’m really not sure how you came to that conclusion? Before he got to camp, Percy’s life was pretty terrible. He virtually lived on the streets. The guy he lived with was majorly abusive and his mother was not really around.”
Piper blinks. This is not the story she’s heard. “Drew and the other guy, Beck, gave us this whole lecture on how we needed to be nice to him and that the gods would, like, incinerate us if he got hurt?”
Annabeth shrugs, “Well, yes. I, uh, when I was little, I lived here year round. There was a group of kids who kind of… went after Percy. They convinced me to go along with them. It was… bad. I’m lucky they let me stay after.”
“Wait, are you the Athena kid, the one who was punished?”
Annabeth winces, “Yeah, that’d be me. I was just a little kid, and being really stupid. But, it’s fine now! He’s my best friend! All in the past.”
Piper is really not sure if Annabeth believes that or is trying to convince herself it’s true. “So the whole incineration threat? You look pretty unburned?”
Annabeth shrugs a shoulder, looking uncomfortable, “Uh, I was definitely actually burned. Blisters and all. The Sun God kind of… blazes with the light of the sun when he’s angry? I don’t remember a lot of it. I was mostly just terrified. The burns would have taken a lot longer to heal and probably left a tonne of scarring, except someone, Percy or Lee, got the Sun God to ease up on the punishment thing and let them give us nectar and ambrosia and use a healer.”
“Uh. That sounds. Not ideal. This is a camp for kids?”
“We broke the divine laws. They actually were within their rights to just kill us. Us living was them being lenient.”
“Divine laws? What divine laws?”
“Touching a prophet. There’s a bunch of reasons why it’s an ancient law. It’s… complicated. But physical touch, or even just getting a bit too close to him. It hurts Percy, it’s physically painful. It can do something to his mind too. To us he looks like he’s kind of absent, but for him he’s seeing something else entirely. Sometimes just auras, sometimes your future, sometimes your past. He can see everything and he can’t actually prevent it happening if you get too close. The people he is close with, they have to accept that he’ll know everything about them. The good and the bad.”
“Like their worst memories and all that?”
“Yeah.” Annabeth gives her a kind of grimace, “I… wasn’t okay with that. So we’re careful never to touch. Clarisse decided she was okay with it, and there’s a couple of others. Some would be fine with it but their auras are still too strong for him, like Castor and Pollux. He really needs to actually go and do the training the Sun God wants him to do, but he keeps dodging it. I’ve been trying to convince him, but no luck.”
This just keeps sounding worse to Piper. “So, because he’s lazy and won’t get training, the rest of us have to worry about him knowing our secrets?”
A new voice comes from the door, “Percy isn’t lazy, he’s a prophet. If he says something needs to happen before he can train, then something needs to happen. It isn’t an excuse, he’s not dodging anything.”
Annabeth just rolled her eyes, “Silena, that’s not a prophecy, it’s too vague. He’s just avoiding it, just like he always skipped lessons.”
Silena’s a tall slender woman, in her early twenties, with long black hair and brown eyes. Perfect makeup. Piper’s definitely going to get a complex with how many of the girls look like they just stepped out of a photoshoot.
“He skipped lessons because he couldn’t read. Because he had never had the opportunity to learn. You haven’t been year round since Percy finally got his schooling back on track. It’s different now. And no way would Sun God let Percy skip out on training if he thought it was necessary. The guy’s like, obsessive over making sure Percy knows as much as possible.”
Annabeth just kind of huffs, but doesn’t argue back, Piper figures she may as well ask, “He seems to be kind of a favourite around here? The way people talk, he’s pretty popular?”
Silena shrugs, leaning against the doorframe. “Sort of. Part of it is just that he’s been at camp so long, and with Lee adopting him Percy’s just always around. And well, the prophet thing is less than fun for Percy. Prophets don’t normally come into their abilities until their late teens, early twenties. Sun God first became aware of Perce when he was three, but he thinks the visions started even earlier.”
Okay. That definitely sounds kind of horrible.
“He never got a chance at anything normal. And as it is, at some point he’s going to end up having to be a full time prophet to the gods in a temple somewhere. So, we did what we could for him, tried to give him a chance to be a kid.”
Never mind. Sounds to Piper like it’s basically the kid had a shit life and they spoiled him too much and now he’s just another rich kid. Yeah, she has no interest in talking about him further.
“Okay, so. I still don’t know what charmspeak is or why the kid accused me of mind control? Also, why am I dressed like this?”
She’d been trying very hard to ignore the fact she was wearing a slinky pink evening gown and high heels. She had not been wearing them when she confronted the kid. Then there was that pink dove thing above her head and suddenly she was dressed like this.
Silena kind of huffs a laugh, looking way too amused, before she smoothes her expression out. “Uh, well, the clothes are… from Mum? Technically it’s called the blessing of Aphrodite, but at some point she realised most of us see the insta-makeover thing as pretty invasive and more of a curse. So now she does it when she’s annoyed at us. Like a reverse time out?”
“I have never met her, how could I have annoyed her?”
“You got into Percy’s face, and didn’t back off when you were told to. And tried to charmspeak him.”
Piper just stares at her. Why does the love goddess care about this kid?
“Mum likes Percy, there’s this rule that the gods can’t have direct contact with their kids outside of specific situations. Percy lets her use him as a loophole. She comes to camp and asks him a yes/no question about the weather. Then, since she’s here already, she drops by the cabin to say hi to us. It makes her a little… protective of him. She hated not being able to see us except for quests and stuff. Now we get to see her pretty regularly.”
Piper is just so sick of everything. “That seems super counter intuitive? And why does Percy have any say in it?”
Piper is sick of hearing about him.
Silena sighs, “Look, Drew said you were having trouble with all this. I know it’s a lot. We tend to inherit different aspects from our godly parent. Drew has the whole seeing beauty everywhere and building genuine connections, but she hasn’t got any Aphrodite Areia. I’ve got both, and from the sounds of, you’re all Areia.”
What? She knows about the stupid love goddess, But she’s never heard that name before.
“Areia?”
“Mum’s war aspect. Less relationship, more fighting, protection and defence. It all comes from the same place, but just shows up differently. And we really need to talk about the charmspeak.”
Piper huffs in irritation, “I still don’t know what that is.”
Annabeth jumps in, “It’s when people just do what you tell them to, like they are hypnotised. Earlier, you charmspoke Clarisse to let you go, and she just did it.”
Piper frowned, “Didn’t she let me go because I asked her to?”
“If you hadn’t used charmspeak, I guarantee you she’d have kept you restrained till Percy was out of reach.”
Huh. Now Piper’s thinking about it, this sort of thing had happened before. She just figured it was because of who her dad was, people didn’t want to upset his daughter.
Silena’s watching her, “You really didn’t know you were doing it?”
“No?”
Silena was weirdly happy about this, “Oh, this should be interesting! We definitely have to find a way to get you and Drew talking. Poor Drew just could not get control of her charmspeak for so long, she ended up practically tethered to me for nearly two years before we got that sorted out. It’s finally her turn!”
“Can’t I stay here? Annabeth is cool, I bet they have a spare bed?”
Annabeth smiles at her, “Not how it works unfortunately. You’ve been claimed, you’re in Cabin Ten. Some kids never get claimed, and others don’t have an Olympian for a parent so they end up stuck in Cabin Eleven, it’s so overcrowded. But, things’ll get better, at least meet the rest of your siblings?”
Piper gives up and follows Silena to the quaint farm cottage looking cabin. She wished she could have stayed with Annabeth. War goddess or not, Aphrodite was a love goddess first and foremost, and Piper did not belong.