Home|| Leo Valdez

45

The council was nothing like Alex had imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought a leopard head in and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counsellor would toss him a Snausage.

Alex looked around the room and tried to remember everyone's name. Thankfully, Leo, Jason and Piper were sitting next to her-it was their first meeting as senior counsellors. She still found it unbelievable that all four of them were senior counsellors.

Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis's nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counsellor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing "got-your-nose" with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda's nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back.

Though there was only one person that Alex had never met. A girl about her own age with platinum blonde hair so blonde it was almost white  and striking violet eyes. She had two black twin blades in her hands, one of which she impaled in Travis' ping pong ball. Stoll gave her an unimpressed smile to which she stuck her tongue out. 

"Pollux finally got a quest so... guess who's the senior councellor" She grinned at Annabeth and Rachel who gave her small smiles back.

Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Alex.

Annabeth didn't look so relaxed. She wore armour over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond 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 kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. And Violet, don't play with your daggers in here"

Violet, the girl Alex hadn't recognised began to protest but stopped when Annabeth raised an eyebrow. 

Chiron continued "Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper,  Alex 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." 

Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper, Alex and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot.

It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching them. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Alex knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. Jason ended with Hera's visit 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 and Alex snorted.

"-but she isn't making this up about another group of demigods . That's where 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 even heard of them."

Piper sat forward. "The gods have kept the two groups apart, because every time they see 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?"