madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-magic mood necklace, I mean fire-

Finally the song ended with a lot of rowdy applause. Will had been leading the grandmas armour song with his cabin, and Teqi's ears were bleeding. Chiron came just in time to save her hearing from being permanently damaged. He brandished a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. "Very nice! And a special welcome to our new, and old, arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I'm happy you have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached" Chiron glanced at a few kids in casts. "In a moment, I promise we'll get to the s'mores, but first—"

"What about capture the flag?" Zwaard yelled, Teqi hated the guy since he broke her ankle during capture the flag, she was great at it, but sometimes when she was using lots of magic it stopped randomly, leaving her in nasty situations to clean up. Grumbling broke out among Clarrise's cabin, there boar head flag looked newly painted, she just wasn't sure what the red substance was. That's putting it nicely, she knew exactly what it was, she just didn't want to think about it.

"Yes," the centaur said. "I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games."

"And kill people!" a new kid shouted, He was shot back down by a "you've never even killed a monster, tough guy!" From Brandon, who was sitting on her left. Ginny was sitting behind her and seemed to be braiding bits of Teqi's long dark hair, now algae free.

"However," Chiron said, "until the dragon is brought under control, that won't be possible. Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?"

He turned to Leo's group. Leo looked up from whatever he had been making, making eye contact with Teqi, who wasn't sure if Leo was still angry at her for whatever reason he had. Nyssa stood up grudgingly, she wore an army jacket a lot like Leo's, with her hair covered in a red bandanna. "We're working on it."

More grumbling from everyone this time. Like they could fix a whole ass dragon. Especially one Beck had built. Assholes.
"How, Nyssa?" a Tyche kid demanded.
"Really hard," The girl spat back.
Nyssa sat down to a lot of yelling and complaining, which caused the fire to sputter chaotically. Chiron stamped his hoof against the fire pit stones—bang, bang, bang—and the campers fell silent.

"We will have to be patient," Chiron said. "In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss."

"Percy?" someone asked. Chiron gestured to Annabeth. She took a deep breath, collecting herself, and stood.

"I didn't find Percy," she announced. Her voice caught a little when she said his name, they were so in love it was unbearable sometimes. "He wasn't at the Grand Canyon like I thought. But we're not giving up. We've got teams everywhere. Grover, Tyson, Nico, the Hunters of Artemis —everyone's out looking. We will find him. Chiron's talking about something different. A new quest." Teqi looked up at the mention of Nico and the Hunters, but she wasn't really paying attention to the rest.

"It's the Great Prophecy, isn't it?" a girl called out.

Everyone turned. The voice had come from a group in back, sitting under a rose-coloured banner with a dove emblem. They'd been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew. Teqi's teeth clenched and her hands balled up. A grape vine curled around the Purple Flag above them, pushing through bricks in the amphitheatre. Brandon put his hand on her knee, mostly to stop her jumping up.

Everyone else looked surprised. Apparently, Drew didn't address the crowd very often. "Drew?" Annabeth said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, come on." Drew spread her hands like the truth was obvious to everyone. "Olympus is closed. Percy's disappeared. Hera sends you a vision and you come back with three new demigods in one day, and some dead chic. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?" Everyone turned to Racheal expectantly, I mean of course they would, she was the oracle. Teqi liked Racheal, they hung out sometimes in the cave. They liked to paint together. and Racheal would tell Teqi about what was happening in the outside world. She also snuck in an old iPod with a few playlists downloaded for her.