The Nature of a Demigod

Cruising

[Y/N's POV]

The first thing I felt was a stinging sensation across my face, and then it was my body tumbling off of the tree I was sleeping in.

Turns out, Tantalus wasn't fond of having a demigod live in the Big House, so I got evicted from my room. I was supposed to end up at the Hermes cabin, but instead chose to take refuge in the forest for as long as needed. Hopefully Chiron would be back soon.

Anyway. Once I smacked into the ground,  and detangled my body from the blanket that was burying me, I stood up, pulling out the new sword Beckendorf made me.

There wasn't a whole lot around right now, so I kept surveying the surrounding woods until I swiveled and spotted that mischievous face. I'd seen Hermes once before, when he was one of the gods at the council where I was begging for answers.

"Hi." he said, suddenly zipping out of sight. The world turned to a blur as I felt his hands on my back. Now, the location was different. We were on the edge of the woods, closer to camp, and I had a fully packed bag beside me. I massaged my neck, feeling slight effects of whiplash. Hermes looked at me and shook his head. I heard a pair of voices in my head, Not those voices from lately. Different ones.

'Is the lad alright? He looks pained.' The female voice said. 'See, lord, I told you. Hold the back of the head when you run like that. It hurts them.' a male voice said. Hermes slapped down on his pocket and both voices cried out. 'OW!'

"Stop that, George, Martha. Not the time." he turned to me, with the appearance of a sly fox, about to steal something. "Hello, Y/N. Been a while hasn't it?" I blinked, now feeling a pounding headache, and noticing Percy's voice calling out for help. "Yes, lord Hermes. It's not been long enough. Do you need something?"

He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. "Yes and no. Your friend needs you at the moment more than me, but you wouldn't wake up to just the cries for help, so I chose to take matters into my own hands."

I rubbed the side of my face. "More like hand. That hurt. You couldn't have done something else?" He breathed out a laugh. "No. Well. Get a move on then." He started to push me toward the beach.

"Wait wait hang on why?" I dug my heels into the dirt, stopping the god from ushering me away. "What's going on here exactly?" He sighed and walked beside me, looking out at the water of Long Island Sound.

"You and my son. You were friends once, right?" he asked. I thought for a moment, of the years I'd been here and the amount of sons of Hermes I've met. But it was pretty clear that this conversation was only about one person. "Luke, right?" I muttered.

Hermes nodded. "We used to be. Then he tried to kill me. And I may not be good at the whole friends thing, but I'm pretty sure that's as good a reason as any to break off a friendship."

"Yeah. Yeah I heard about that. Sorry." he said, pulling out his caduceus and tapping it on his leg. "You don't need to apologize. Not like it was entirely your fault. Luke's being manipulated. Sure, he's also insane, but there's more behind it than just your terrible parenting." Suddenly I was whacked in the back of the head with the caduceus.

George and Martha laughed as Hermes glared daggers through me. "Watch it kid. I'm trying to do you a favor. Listen."

He grabbed me by the shoulder. "You're going to run into Luke soon enough. And when you do, I want you to try and talk him out of this. And if you can, I'll put in a good word with your mom. I know you two don't exactly see eye to eye. And with Luke doing all this, some of the olympians wanted to make sure that the demigods who had some clear problems with us had a better-"