Daughter of Demeter

Three

I jolted awake as the nightmare ended, but when Lyre asked me if something was wrong I lied and said no.

I laid back down again but didn't go to sleep as I was too afraid of another nightmare. When the sun rose and everyone got woken up Lyre checked up on me, read the paperwork Daphne had written about me, and decided I could go. My limp was entirely gone.

"Rihanne doesn't seem nice," I said, a little bit too loud. Rihanne heard it and gave me a death glare.

"Watch out, kid," she said.

"Don't do that," Lyre said to Rihanne. "She's young, she doesn't have a filter yet."

"Well she better get one soon," Rihanne hissed. "It could get her on a lot of wrong sides of certain people." Lyre rolled his eyes and smiled at me again.

"Don't listen to her," he said. "You'll be fine." Lyre then let me go out of the infirmary and to the Hermes cabin, where he introduced me to its counselor: Celer.

"It's Latin for fast. Hermes was in a funny mood, I guess," Celer said. "A lot of us have names here referring to their godly parents. Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter. Lux, son of Apollo. His name means light in Latin. Igneus, son of Hephaestus. It means something like 'fiery', or 'of fire'," Celer continued to speak. I listen to it with interest.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Anathea," I said.

"Interesting," he said, after that staying silent for a while. He then seemed to snap up from his thoughts. "Let's get you set up, shall we?"

The rest of the day was spent going to the camp store, getting a camp shirt (I insisted on getting one with long sleeves), and claiming a spot on the Hermes cabin floor. All the bunks were occupied so I had to do it with a sleeping bag, but I didn't mind. The crowdedness would be a problem for later, I could now just go outside to be away from people. As we did all of that Celer introduced me to the info about camp. How the system works, the claiming system, some general mythology I should hopefully remember, the capture the flag games, Chiron the centaur, Mr. D the god, and all of that.

Then Celer said there was a counselor meeting he had to attend, and he made the great decision to trust me and leave me alone to wander around. Others would've called it the stupidest thing ever, I couldn't be happier.

I explored camp. In the late afternoon, I had enough of my adventure and went to the silentest spot I could remember: The strawberry fields. I saw only one person strolling around but I didn't mind. It was just one person.

I found a nice spot where the forest and the strawberry fields met, and sat down there, watching the sky and the clouds and the girl strolling around. At some point, she noticed me and started walking towards me. I felt busted but was also aware of the fact I couldn't do something about it so I just braced myself for yet another interaction with a stranger.

To my surprise, the girl only seemed about 9 years old; just 2 years older than I was.

"Hello there!" the girl said. "I'm Katie, daughter of Demeter. And you?" she asked.

"Anathea. Unclaimed," I said.

"Oh," Katie said. "That's okay!" She added. "Why do you have long sleeves? It's mid-summer!"

"Uhh.." I started, unsure of what to say. The extrovertness Katie was talking with was quite a bit overwhelming. Katie seemed to notice it and changed her demeanor.

"Leave that," She said, a lot more calmer. "Shall we go back to the cabin square? If you're unclaimed I suppose Celer should be looking after you. Dinner's about to start, and I wouldn't want to miss that. And I think you wouldn't as well." I nodded. Dinner sounded great.

"Alright," I said, getting up from the floor. I followed Katie back to the inhabited parts of camp, where I saw Celer immediately running towards me as Katie walked off to the Demeter table.

"Where the Underworld have you been?" He immediately asked. "I was worrying to death when I couldn't find you!"

I flinched. Celer froze.

"Wait, no no no no, I didn't mean it like that, Anathea," He said. He crouched down to my level. "Where were you?" He asked with a soft voice.

"Strawberry fields," I said.

Celer smiled. "You like empty places, don't you?" He asked teasingly. I just nod.

"A lot of people freak me out," I said.

"That's alright," Celer said. "Everyone has their fears." He took my hand and led me to the Hermes Table. Being the counselor he made everyone scoot up, making sure I could sit at the edge of the bench without being almost pushed off of it.

I looked in confusion at the empty plates and cups.

"They're magic," Celer explained after seeing my facial expression. "You can just wish for something to appear, and it'll appear, even if it doesn't exist. Like... blue Coca-Cola, for example, although I wouldn't know why anyone would do that," He adds with a small laugh.

After understanding that I summoned myself a simple meal. Everyone then stood up with their plates. I didn't know what was going on, but I followed them. "Sacrificing food for the gods. They don't need it, but they like the smell," Celer told me.

I scraped a bit off my food in the fire, and the smell that hit my nostrils confirmed Celer's words. The gods would definitely like the smell. "You can say a small prayer if you want to," Celer said. "There's 0 guarantee they'll actually answer, but a sacrifice is usually paired with a prayer."

I didn't know what to say.

Mom.. please claim me. I don't like the crowdiness of the Hermes Cabin, I said in my head.

That was all I could come up with. I hoped that that was enough, that that was good enough.

"Come, let's go sit at the table," Celer said. I followed him back to the table. As we ate, Celer spoke up. "You haven't said a single word yet," he said.

I shrugged. "I don't really talk a lot," I just said. Celer looked at me.

"That's alright," he said.

"At least she won't talk us to death," a random guy said. I frowned upon it. I didn't like that comment. 'Hey, chill, it's just a joke," the son of Hermes added. "No need for aggression. Toddlers," he scoffed.

"That's enough," Celer said. "No need to get rude on her first day."

I ate the rest of my meal in silence. After dinner, we went back to the Hermes cabin. The next day I'd start a real day in Camp Half-blood, with all the training and stuff, Celer told me. Today was Monday. Friday there'd be a game of Capture the Flag. I was looking out for it.