Where You Go ― Jason Grace

xxix. the camp half-blood war council

THE CAMP HALF-BLOOD war council meeting wasn't anything like Ophelia was expecting. For one, it was held in the Big House's rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and a satyr was serving nachos and soda. Someone had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage.

Piper was sitting next to her, looking much happier than she had been when her father's life was in mortal danger. She was smiling, and her glow had nothing to do with her mother. 

Leo sat on Piper's other side, tinkering with something made of metal and wires that Ophelia could never hope to understand. 

Across the table, Travis was holding a lighter up under a Ping-Pong ball, which was one of the milder antics she'd seen her half-siblings get up to since waking up that morning.

It was hard to remember everyone else's names, but Ophelia tried her best. There was Clarisse, the Ares cabin counselor, with her boots on the table, though no one seemed brave enough to mind. Clovis from the Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner as Butch from the Iris cabin tried to see how many pencils he could fit in Clovis's nostrils. Will from the Apollo cabin—who Jason pointed out as the healer who'd stitched up her wound the night before—absently wrapped and unwrapped an Ace bandage around his wrist.

Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing a uniform for some kind of boarding school, and she looked relatively relaxed.

Annabeth, on the other hand, looked stressed out of her mind. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"Let's come to order," Chiron said. "Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you'd extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostrils. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Ophelia, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully... more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in."

They all looked to Jason, who cleared his throat and began the story. His quest-mates chimed in from time to time, filling in details he forgot. He ended by telling them about Hera visiting his cabin right before the meeting.

"So Hera was here," Annabeth said. "Talking to you."

Jason nodded. "Look, I'm not saying I trust her—"

"That's smart," Annabeth said.

"—but she isn't making this up about another group of demigods. That's where Ophelia and I came from."

"Romans." Clarisse tossed Seymour a Snausage. "You expect us to believe there's another camp with demigods, but they follow the Roman forms of the gods. And we've never heard of them."

"The gods have kept us separate," Ophelia explained. "Every time the two groups have seen each other, they try to kill each other."

"I can respect that," Clarisse said. "Still, why haven't we ever run across each other on quests?"

"Oh, yes," Chiron said sadly. "You have, many times. It's always a tragedy, and always the gods do their best to wipe clean the memories of those involved.

"The rivalry goes back all the way to the Trojan War, Clarisse," the centaur continued. "The Greeks invaded Troy and burned it to the Ground. The Trojan hero Aeneas escaped, and eventually made his way to Italy, where he founded a race that would someday become Rome. The Romans grew more and more powerful, worshiping the same gods but under different names, and with slightly different personalities."