Outsider (Story about Camp Halfblood)

Chapter 31

Clarisse and I missed dinner and walking in during the middle of Chiron giving important information, gave her and I kitchen duty. Great. The information wasn't really that important to me, it was just an update on the Argo II, which the rest of camp was pretty excited about. And of course everyone was pretty interested in where Clarisse and I were at. I saw the Stolls smirking, but they stopped pretty quick with the look of death I gave them.

So Clarisse gave an answer, we were in the woods looking for something to fight, got lost and ran into a manticore. Chiron scratched his beard as she told the story, leaving out me making the beast go catatonic and then force it to kill itself with its tail. And obviously she left out the part where we buried the scroll that was written in Latin. Because then we'd have to explain where we found it and why we were looking for it. It would just dig our hole deeper.

Now we were in the kitchen along side the harpies washes dishes in freaking lava! I pretty sure dish soap works just as well! We don't need the "extra shine." The gods themselves aren't dinning from them. But whatever makes them happy, I guess.

"This sucks. My eyebrows are going to burn off. I can barely reach over the sink for the spray bottle." I complained under my breath so only Clarisse could hear me. I didn't trust the harpies. They could report back to Chiron that I was being ungrateful or something.

"Just suck it up, we only have a few more plates left." Clarisse grumbled, her gloves sliding down her arms. They didn't fit like they were suppose to. The gloves were meant to reach above your elbows, but hers barely made it past mid-arm. Mine was too big and went up to my armpits, but hey, I had no worries about burning my arms, so that was one good thing about this. Were there others? Nope!

"I just can't believe we got kitchen duty! He knows we are hiding something." I said scrubbing a plate.

"I just hope he doesn't ask about it. I'll reveal what we know when the time is right, or when we have enough information. Until then, I don't want anybody else knowing." Clarisse pushed up her glove and rinsed the plates I handed her.

"Everything is connected." I said softly, thinking over Clarisse's dream, what we had found, and what was going on with the Romans.

"What?" Clarisse asked, looking up from her work.

"Everything. Your dream, the scrolls and books, this thing with the Romans! Somehow it's connected, but how, I'm not really sure." I shook my head, pausing with my scrubbing.

"That's what we need to figure out before that battle in my dream happens." Clarisse said with such certainty, you had to believe her. And I wondered if she had anymore dreams about it.

"Have, um, had anymore dreams?" I asked.

Clarisse sighed. "Not really. I've had the same occurring dream, the one I've told you about already. But now I can see some faces. Percy's, mine, Jason's, and others that I recognized. And others I don't recognize at all. And they don't strike me as Greek, either."

"So they're Roman." and Clarisse confirmed it with a slight nod and a grim smile.

"Some blonde scrawny kid that I thought was Luke--"

"Who's that?" I interrupted.

"A guy who use to go to camp. He killed himself to kill Kronos."

"Is he the guy who Kronos used?" I asked.

"Yes. But it wasn't him. Luke's voice doesn't screech."

"You heard them talking?" I asked.

"Yes and no. I heard them talking and shouting, but what they said, I have no clue." Clarisse said putting the last plate away. "We're done, let's go."