Luminesence (Slow Updates)

002

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Campers pointed at Percy and began to murmur something about toilet water. Annabeth and Phaedra are still pretty much dripping wet. Phaedra began thinking about how embarrassing it is to walk out of the bathroom, drenched in toilet water.

That was embarrassing. Lee is totally going to make fun of me now. And now I have to get the smell of the toilet out of my hair. Do you know how hard it is to take care of curly hair? Especially when it has a smell to it?

The girls show percy a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shake very violently, drops boulders, sprays lava, and clashes together if you don't get to the top fast enough. Finally they return to the canoeing lake, where the trail leads back to the cabins.

"Phaedra will agree that we've got training to do," Annabeth says flatly.

"Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall." Phaedra says

"Annabeth, Phaedra, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever." Annabeth says

"It's fine I guess..." Phaedra adds

"It wasn't my fault."

The girls looked at him skeptically.

How the heck wasn't it his fault? The Gods know that the rest of us didn't do that. He made water shoot out of the bathroom. This is totally his fault. But at least it gives me an idea as to who his dad is.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Phaedra tells him, and Annabeth's gaze snaps to her

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron." she told him

Percy started to stare into the lake. The girls roll their eyes when they see the naiads grinning and waving at the boy. Annabeth rolled his eyes while Phaedra gave him a disgruntled look as Percy was waving back with a small grin.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warns him. "Naiads are terrible flirts." Phaedra adds

"Naiads," Percy repeated. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Annabeth frowns at him. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

What the fuck?

"Ok, that was kind of hurtful. That's not what she means, Jackson. She meant not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human." Phaedra told him

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

"God," he said after a moment of silence. "Half-god."

Annabeth nods. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the
Olympians."

"That's...crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around fucking humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?" Phaedra says flatly

"But those are just-" he stopped himself. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"

"Demigods," Annabeth says. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

Annabeth's hands tighten around the pier railing. Annabeth's dad was a touchy subject for her. "My dad is a professor at West Point," she says. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."