☾ The Child of Artemis ☾

12. Yet ANOTHER Quest to Go On

          After brekkie, as always, we have cabin inspections. A camper named Katie Gardener from the Demeter cabin was leading inspections. Ya know, I can't wait to one day lead cabin inspections. I could have some fun leading inspections, you never know. "Ew, your room is messy," Katie commented. "Do you ever clean it up?"

          "No," I acknowledged, "but I like my cabin the way it is. It's a nice cabin."

          "Do you think Artemis would be happy about you trashing her cabin?" Katie demanded of me.

          "You don't know my mum. What if she likes messes?"

          "Nicovlad, I bet your mother hates messy things."

          "Hey, you don't have permission to call me that!"

          "Nigel gave me permission. That is all the permission I need. That's what he told everyone."

          "You have my permission, as his older brother, to call him Nigathaniel."

          "Okay, Nicovlad!"

          I growled at Katie and she skipped away. When I do cabin inspections, I will call Nigel by his full name in front of his cabin-mates. Then he will be more embarrassed about being called his full name in front of others than me being called my  full name in front of no one. Ancient Greek was the next thing to do. I was getting good at remembering all of these Greek names. After Ancient Greek, I was assigned lunch preparation. Next was my favorite subject, archery. I was the G.O.A.T. as people call it, of archery. I started off with filling in the bullseyes. I worked on filling the whole target, like I did a few weeks ago.

          I hit a new record, 25 and a fourth of a second. Everyone stared in shock. "What? I'm the son of Artemis. I can fill in the whole target in less than a minute."

          They rolled their eyes at me. I grumped. At Greek Mythology, I read some Greek stories about my mum. She asked her father, Zeus, to be an eternal maiden when she wasn't even 24 hours old. (Zeus broke his promise. I'm all the proof you need.) He also swore on a river of sticks. Another story is a bloody freaky one. A dude named Sipriotes caught my mum bathing, and since no male was allowed to see that or else they were dead, Mum gave him the option to be a girl. So he did just that and joined the Hunters of Artemis. (I would have chosen to be dead.)

          Another story is on the constellation, Ursa Major. There once was a Hunter of Artemis, Kallisto, who was really pulchritudinous. Zeus liked her and one day Kallisto became pregnant. (Not her choice.) When Mum found out, she turned Kallisto into a bear and Zeus felt bad and turned her into a constellation or whatever. Ya know, these are boring stories. They won't do us any good.

         I want to skip to the real gnarly part. At lunch, I was assigned a quest. "You'll have to tell Artemis that you exist, one day or another." Chiron told me.

          Faith perked up from the Poseidon table. "Ooh! Can I come?"

          I laughed. "Of course ya can, mate!"

          "Yeet!"

          "I sense that this will be a long quest," Chiron said, "you should choose another camper. Three is a good quest group number."

          "Why don't you choose?" I suggested.

          "Hunter," she replied immediately.

          "What?! But — but Hunter is — he isn't going to be nice to me..."

          "He'll keep us safe," she promised.

          I frowned. "No."

          "Um... I'm actually not so sure about going either," he muttered.

          "I've heard that Hunter is very sorry about everything he's said to you," Faith told me.

          "Fine."

          "I really am not sure about this," Hunter worried.

          "I'll make you a good deal. You will go on the quest, but you can choose to leave anytime you want. Nico di Angelo can shadow travel you back to camp. All he has to do now is agree."

          "Sure, I agree," di Angelo shrugged.

          "He's not very nice to me either," I said to Faith.

          "I shall ensure that he will respect you, Hunter, and I both physically and verbally. I will respect you, Hunter, and Nico di Angelo. You will respect me, Hunter, and Nico di Angelo. Hunter will respect you, me, and Nico di Angelo."

          She sounded so sure, so I guess I could reckon. Just once. "Okay," I agreed very reluctantly.

          "It is decided," Chiron declared, "that Nico McAngelico, Faith Ford, Hunter McAngelico, and Nico di Angelo will go on a quest to find Artemis."

          "I know just where to go," Faith already decided. "Let's go to the airport. We're goin' on a little trip to Las Vegas, Nevada."