The Nature of a Demigod

Learning the Ropes

[Percy's POV]

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, half gods, and a centaur.

Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia.

Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

A couple of the Hermes campers had managed to teach me how to swear in Greek, so that was their contribution.

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at.

Chiron tried to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quickly I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He only complained when I almost shot someone in the foot.

After that, Chiron had assigned Y/N to give me trials in the activities.

Foot racing? No good. He left me in the dust. The nymphs told me not to worry about it. I didn't, honestly. He was really fast, even for a demigod.

Losing to them wasn't as bearable. They tried to comfort me. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods the nymphs said. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower on foot than a tree.

And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, I would get pulverized by everyone. Luke, Clarisse, Y/N. Heck, even Annabeth made me tap out.

"There's more where that came from, punk," Clarisse would mumble in my ear when she made me submit. I think she had a little bit of a grudge.

I'd seen her lose before. Twice. Luke managed to pin her, and Y/N had won by knockout. In wrestling. He threw her a little too hard onto the mat and was disqualified. I can assure you, he wasn't very happy about that. Annabeth tried to beat her, but she just wasn't strong or quick enough to beat the ares kid. Her wit only got her so far.

The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metal work or gods forbid, Dionysus's way with vine plants.

Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack of all trades, master of none. But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better.

He really didn't know what to make of me either.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some kind of connection to my real dad.

Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...

I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?