The Princess of the Ocean

3. Kidnapping Seems to Pay a Lot These Days

Hey guys!
So, as promised, here's a new chapter!
Well, I hope you guys like it and...
Happy Reading!

3. Bunking with the Thieves

The Mist, gods and goddesses, pegasi, monsters, and magical powers?

It was way too much to process.

I had been sitting in that same chair for over an hour and I was starting to wish it was more comfortable.

"So..." I said after Chiron and Hazel stopped talking. "I still cant believe any of this. I mean, I get it, but..."

Hazel almost looked sorry for me. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it?"

I laughed. "Just a bit."

Chiron shook his head, as if to wake up. "Well Hazel, I think you'd better get to your activities. I'll find someone else to finish up the tour."

Hazel nodded and smiled at me. "It was nice to meet you, Lila."

I gave her a little salute. "Thanks again."

She left the house, which apparently everybody called the Big House. (I wonder who came up with that.)

I turned to Chiron. "So, you said there were twenty cabins. Where do I go?"

"No worries, Lila. I have a little assistant here that helps me with newcomers. And there she is! Hello, Sadie."

As he said this, a girl with dirty blonde hair and icy blue eyes walked in and studied me. Her choppy hair looked like it had been cut with safety scissors.

She nodded, seeming satisfied. She grinned at the old instructor. "Hey, Chiron. We got a newbie?"

He nodded and gestured to me. "This is Lila Hernandez. Lila, this is Sadie Newsome. She will be your guide for a couple of days, until you are determined."

I gave her a quick smile and stood up, stretching like a cat. "Well, let's go, then! It was lovely to meet you, sir."

"Please, call me Chiron." He rolled his wheelchair to the door and turned to Sadie. "I'll be instructing archery in about ten minutes if you need me." He winked and left.

Sadie suddenly clapped her hands together, startling me. "So! You ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

When we walked back outside, the beauty of the camp took me by full force. White Greek columns and small arenas shone bright in the afternoon sunlight, washing everything in a warm glow. Some capers were picking strawberries in the huge field. Something that looked like a golden bathmat fluttered on the branch of a large pine tree, which had an actual dragon curled up sleepily around it. Camp Half-Blood was a gorgeous place, I couldn't deny that.

Campers were coming in and out of the cabins constantly. All the cabins looked so bizarre, each one decorated completely different from its neighbor.

We headed over to the biggest one first, a blindingly white marble building that looked a bit like a mausoleum. Heavy columns stood on either side of the large bronze doors that seemed to flash like lightning whenever you passed them.

Sadie stopped in front of the bronze doors and spread her arms. "This is Cabin One, where Zeus's kids chill."

"Well, it's a bit obvious," I muttered.

"You're familiar with the myths!" Sadie sounded delighted, which surprised me. She didn't seem like the type that would care.

I nodded. I'd always been interested in Greek myths, especially since most of the heroes had horribly bad luck. It made my bad luck seem tame in comparison.

"Well," Sadie continued, "There are only two children of Zeus that we know of. Thalia and Jason Grace. But you won't be seeing to much of them. At least, not now. Thalia is a Hunter of Artemis, so she travels all over with Artemis and her other followers. She doesn't come here a lot."

"Jason is over at Camp Jupiter." I opened my mouth, about to ask what that was, but she put her hand up. "I'll explain later. Basically the same as us, but they're Roman. Very classy. Nice baths."

The next cabin over was in a similar style to Zeus's cabin, but seemed more feminine. The doors and walls had peacocks and pomegranates carved into them.

"Hera's cabin," Sadie explained. "She's the goddess of marriage, so she only had children with Zeus. No kids here. It's basically honorary."

She leaned in closer and whispered, "She'd throw a fit if we didn't make her one, so we kinda had to."

This was how Sadie showed me all the cabins, introducing the god and then a weird quirk about their kids. I distinctly gagged when we passed by Aphrodite's cabin, the smell of dozens of perfumes mixing together into a fairly horrible sent.

When Sadie finished giving me the 'grand tour of excellency'(she insisted on calling it that), we made our way back to the Hermes cabin, which had originally surprised me. It was fuller than the other cabins and looked more like a normal summer cabin, with weathered wood and paint peeling endearingly.

"Hey, Chris!" Sadie yelled as we went inside. There were bunk beds pushed up against all the walls. Many sleeping bags were piled up over the wooden floor. There were easily more than twenty people in the cabin. Some looked calculating and others hopeful when they saw me. Others were grinning mischievously. I had the craziest urge to keep my hands on my pockets.

A guy who looked about sixteen grinned when he saw Sadie. He had messy brown hair and a smatter of freckles on his nose.

He clapped Sadie on her back. "Hey, Blondie! Haven't seen you in a while."

He had the slightest southern accent.

Sadie laughed. "Sorry. Haven't had the time. I'm too busy wrangling up the newcomers, as you can see." As she said this, she grabbed my arm and pulled me forward.

"This is Lila. She'll be staying 'till she's determined. Her mom's mortal, so we're waiting for one of the manly gods to claim her."

Chris grinned again. "Her mom's mortal? That's weird, I would've pegged her to be Aphrodite's girl." He winked at me.

Sadie laughed and nodded her head to me. "Take care. I'll check on you later."

Then she left, leaving me alone again. Chris had slipped away to check a girl on my right, who had managed to get her fingers stick in a Chinese finger trap.

I looked around the cabin and saw all these people bustling around, laughing, talking, joking. In all that I had seen this past day, this looked the most normal to me. I had been worried that I wouldn't find a shred of normalcy after arriving here. But even children of gods were people, too. 

Sorry! I haven't updated in forever!
I'll be describing our mystery girl Lila here in the next chapter!
Here's a tip: she has light caramel colored skin.
What would you expect, she's Puerto Rican!
Well, I'm gonna stop surprising you with facts about my special girl
In your demigodishness and all that,
Peace Out!