In which, Adira Lancaster falls in love with her rival, Percy Jackson
OR
he falls in love with her first, unknowingly.
She only seemed to think about a rivalry. Nothing else. Zilch. Nada. Zip.
-disclaimer- I do not own the Percy Jackson Books, or an...
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We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest. According to the camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths on our heads to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.
Artemis's shroud was so beautiful—green mixed with silver silk, making it look like tie-dye, but more professional, with embroidered deer standing in the silhouette of the moon.
"It's pretty," Percy said. "We should bury you in it," he chuckled.
I punched him and told him to shut up. "Ok, I'm sorry," he said, holding his shoulder. He blushed as I laughed at him.
Being the son of Poseidon, he didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.
It was fun for him to burn.
As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along, as I played my guitar my dad had sent, much to my dismay, while they passed out s'mores. I was surrounded by my family, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."
Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen anyone's spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."
A week or two later, on the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine, Hephaestus's cabin. Not just that, but me and Brett's birthday. We helped around, along with Carlos and Asher treating us like babies and saying stuff like; "I can't believe you're so old. My little baby's all grown up." I wanted to punch them so badly, but I decided not to. Percy and I spent the entire day together, running through the woods and laughing.
"C'mon, Jackson," I said, jumping over fallen branches. Meanwhile, he was behind me, heaving for air. "This is your thing, not mine, princess," he mocked.
"Well, I don't wanna go swimming, Seaweed Brain."
I looked at the sunset, which was beginning to fall. "We're gonna miss it," I said, climbing the nearest tree. "Miss what?" Percy asked. "Just the best sunset of the year," I was already on the fifth branch, while Percy was staring at me from the bottom. "Just get up here, Perseus."
"Back to full names, I see," he said.
"Just get up here," I repeated, lowering my hand down to him, hanging from the biggest branch I could find. He grabbed it, pulling himself up. We began climbing up together. "So..." he began, "You do this often?" he asked.
