Your Loyalty to Me

Total Déjà Vu

Apollo's POV

"So... You ready?" I asked her. I was sitting on her bed while she made her hair by the mirror in the far corner of her room.
She turned around, her hands still working on the intricate design of her hairstyle and threw me a look.

"No sunshine. I can't seem to get this freaking plait right!" She whined. I pursed my lips.
"You should leave your hair down," I suggested. "Your hair looks pretty when it's down. The curls seem to bounce up and down as you walk which kinda reflects on how energetic you are."

She stared at me for a good few seconds and I stared right back. Soon it turned into a staring contest.
Me, with a fierce, competitive look in my eyes and her, with her head turned half to the side but an intense expression on her face. Her hair midway between a coherent hairstyle and a fluffy mess with her hands entangled in some complex braid.
It was hard not to laugh as her position.

"Fine," she sighed after a while and let loose her hair and proceeded to comb it.
It was another few minutes before she breathed deeply and announced that she was ready, even though her body language screamed "NOT READY AT ALL!!"

She wore a simple pair of white jeans and a pink top and runners but still managed to pull it off brilliantly. Her dark hair hung loosely over hair shoulder, her curls bouncing as she moved.
She had a calm expression on her face but her eyes were swirling with emotions. Nervousness. Fear. Uncertainty.
Trust me, three thousand years is long enough to know everything about someone. Well, two thousand because she was in the EF for a thousand of them.

I got up from her bed and walked over to her. She tensed when I got closer.

"You are obviously not ready."
"Obviously."

I sighed. "You'll be fine Aria, you're really good at making friends. Don't worry, everyone will love you. Well, as long as you don't show them your serving skills... Because they're truly terrible."

She breathed out a laugh and averted her gaze. "I guess I'm just a little bit jumpy. Last time I left it was for the Eternal Forest and that was horrible. I know it won't be that bad but still..." She trailed off.

"And you have every right to be," I assured. "What you went through was what no human being deserved. No god either. Actually it would've been concerning if you were excited about leaving. But you'll be fine. Chiron is really nice and everything will go smoothly."

"Yeah, I guess," she replied, still not looking too sure. But before I could say anything else, she flashed me a brilliant smile and took my hand and conjured her wand with the other. With a wave of her wand we disapperated into thin air.

Two seconds later we were standing in the middle of the woods of Camp Half Blood. We turned to each other.

"This is kind of like a déjà vu kind of a thing," Aria commented.
I smiled.

"Yeah, totally. Except this time you're not venturing to your death. Trust me you'll have the time of your life. See that tree over there? That's Thalia's tree. She was Zeus's daughter. I don't remember the whole story but she was going to die so Zeus turned her into a tree. Her tree puts a protective cover around the Camp so that no monsters can get in,"  I explained. "You'll be perfectly safe and be making friends in no time!"

We hugged for a few seconds before she turned around and disappeared into the woods.

Yep. Total déjà vu.